//------------------------------// // Climax // Story: A Mark Of Appeal // by Estee //------------------------------// The occupants of the carriage weren't really watching the scenery, and it was a pity. There were species, both plant and animal, which would only be found outside Mazein if somepony ventured into the most comprehensive of botanical gardens and zoos. A simple glance out the window, even in the diminishing light of fast-approaching sunset, would have found blooms of all kinds, living colors in combinations hardly ever seen by Equestrian eyes, and -- that was just one of the reasons the elder wasn't gazing across the landscape. Celestia had seen enough of flowers for a while. But the younger had a different reason for not sightseeing, and it was a much more demanding one. Celestia sighed to herself, took another glance at the internal clock, and then looked across the space to where her sleeping sister was curled up on the oversized cushions. She should have woken up by now. It wasn't illness: nothing conventional, and certainly not red-tinge. It was simple exhaustion. Many things had been disrupted by the problem, and Luna's hours had been among the most constant. No matter what some of the stupidest rumors might continue to insist, it did not harm her sister to be under Sun, any more than it hurt Celestia to be awake beneath Moon. But too much time spent within the gaze of the wrong celestial body... that served as an increasing irritant. Eventually, they had to return to their natural hours, just to keep themselves from becoming explosives in search of a place to go off. Attempting to help Joyous over the last few weeks had forced Luna to spend more short-stretch time awake under Sun than she'd put in since the last war which had been fought prior to abeyance and there, the situation had given the younger something to take it out on. But during their mutual quest to solve the problem -- Luna would not snap at Joyous, and she had generally done her best to be patient with the doctors right up until sampling got involved. The tour was, in some ways, a diplomatic mission, and so Luna had held her tongue there as well. But all of it required daylight hours, what was starting to feel like an endless stream of them, with that irritation increasing all the while, and... In some ways, a fight had been inevitable. A few more cycles of disruption might have seen it start from Celestia's end: she might have been greeting Moon with somewhat less frequency, but the difference wasn't all that great. At least it had broken out in a way that had brought some degree of what might eventually turn into benefit. But for now... not quite. Celestia was willing to try and remember -- but most of her efforts, conducted in the quiet hours while her exhausted sibling slept, had only brought back her to those red eyes. Another check of the clock. Was Luna this tired? It wasn't as if the weariness was entirely physical. They'd both just been through a major emotional struggle, and that took its price by draining anything that might have once had strength to offer. The ongoing, steadily increasing worries about the problem extracted a toll from their mental reserves. And then there had been the police station. They'd gone to the police station before leaving the last minotaur settled zone, and the officers, in conjunction and chorus with the future prosecutor, had told them exactly what they'd done. There would be criminal charges. But the dealer's lawyer was challenging a huge number of those indictments, because of the way things had happened. The dealer had spent very little time in his cell: most of it was used in consulting with the attorney. And while the police were forbidden from listening in on such things, they wondered if the hours were leading the two towards a path out... And all the while, the news was still making its way back towards Polis. Towards the door of the Referee's office, or possibly the temporary curtain. It was a lot to think about. Every last tenth-bit of it collected a share of drain. And then when you added that to the worries about whether Joyous' condition might still accelerate... Joyous was in a separate carriage, once again wearing her suit. There would be two Guards with her at the minimum, for that had been the order: at least two ponies with her at all times, and Celestia was starting to worry about the dangers in allowing the pegasus the privacy of a bedroom at night. No matter what anypony said, no matter who that pony was, she still seemed to have taken all of the blame for Chocolate's exposure onto herself. To look through the clear front panel of the suit was often to catch moisture coating the eyes, and no number of glances taken since the raid had ever found the smallest shred of hope. Suicide had been a final option for Joyous from the start. She'd said as much. Even with the cause of the problem found, with the Doctors Bear at work on the source... Chocolate's potential fate had cost her, and so there were always at least two Guards with her at all times. But even that felt futile, for if a pony truly decided it was time for their death, only complete immobilization combined with neutralization of their magic could stop them. Unicorns had been known to silently bring their coronas to the full triple, then swing their horns into the nearest wall: the backlash did the rest. Earth ponies asked one last question, and received what would be their final answer. Pegasi... went up. Locked their wings against their sides. Came back down. So there was that now. There had always been that, really: it just seemed closer than ever. And then there were the doctors, freshly returned to Equestria just a few hours ago, the last thing Luna had done before collapsing into sleep. Chocolate, who was outwardly dealing with his infection in a way Celestia never would have expected in the acceptance of it -- but as Vanilla had said, one of the things about being a doctor was that you got exposed to a lot of horse apples. So in a way, Chocolate had been ready for it, recognizing the possibility that any disease might claim him from the day his mark first appeared. It wasn't facing the unknown: it was dealing with a fate that had been offered at the moment of manifest. He would fight it. They both would. But if there was no cure, Chocolate was ready. Vanilla, however... they were a little bit married, and marriage required love. Diagnostician and surgeon were brothers on their worst days, something more during the best. Each was the only partner the other had, and Vanilla, while he might have been just as accepting of his own possible death... was a pony who tried crazy things. Chocolate knew it, and that the flower was a form of insanity which Discord might have admired, because what resulted from it could best be described as heart-rending, family-destroying, life-ending chaos. 'Watch him.' She could try. But as with suicide, should the white stallion decide to commit to the course, there was very little which could be done. She looked at Luna, noticed the twitching, the little shifts of hooves and tail to go with the movement behind the eyelids. Lost in the one nightscape she could never hope to control. Perhaps even trapped in a much lesser category of nightmare. It might even be something on a level well beneath the one they were currently living through -- -- but the movements slowed, stopped. Breathing steadied. And at five minutes before Sun-lowering, Luna opened her eyes. "How are you feeling?" Celestia quietly asked. "Somewhat restored," Luna replied, stretching out as best she could within the confines of the carriage. "In some ways. How much time until we stop for the night?" "Just about as soon as you bring Moon up," Celestia decided. "We're not going to reach the next settled zone tonight." The police station had a way of siphoning hours. "I'd rather camp here than push on with everypony tired. I'll give the orders to pull over in a few minutes, and then I'll start on defenses." Luna nodded as she spread and arced her wings, trying to loosen those muscles. The carriage walls presented a counterargument. "Very well. And since I am relatively fresh, and the doctors have had a few hours to ignore all chances for refreshing themselves as well, I believe I will go and see how they have chosen to begin their investigations. Given the circumstances --" her eyes briefly closed "-- I am guessing they did not decide to simply collapse into their own beds for a time. They will likely work through the night. And the day. And until we find one or both in an alley, desperately attempting to acquire a supply of Exam Crystal for repeated personal use." It'll be Vanilla first. And that might be the least of the places where the stallion would go. "All right. Memorize our current location before you leave --" "-- I am familiar with the procedure, sister." But there was a smile in it. The carriage rolled on for a while. Sun was lowered. Moon was raised. "What were you dreaming about?" Luna sighed. "For the most part, the thing you are posting Guards in an effort to prevent. The base has been... recurring for some days now. But this one had changed somewhat. There were... three this time." Celestia moved as best she could within the carriage, quietly nuzzled. "I thought of going to Joyous," Luna said. "Simply to breathe in her scent, in the hopes of returning to those dreams. But... it was a foolish thought. I knew it for such as it was formally announcing itself. And yet, compared to being within my throne room in the nightscape yet again, stepping into the blood as it flowed across the marble..." Another, deeper sigh. "I did not speak to you of my Open Palace session, did I? Not of anything other than Joyous." Celestia blinked at the change of subject. (Luna's close-tucked head wasn't in a position to see it.) "No." "I resented you somewhat at the end," Luna told her. "For not mentioning the arbitrations." That got a wince. "...oh. Right. Those. I just thought that if I told you about what usually trotted in, you would never --" Rather pointedly, "-- and you would have been right." "But there are good meetings," Celestia rushed on. "Three years ago, I had this one musician who was just working up the courage to play in public for the first time, he chose me as his initial audience because he thought if he could play with me there, he could do it for anypony, and his last album sold --" "-- arbitrations," Luna cut her off. "I had arbitrations. Petty, pointless disputes which anypony could have solved for themselves if each had only cared to speak with the other, or risk the effort of thought. The last of the night was about leaves. Leaves falling on gourmet grass. I hardly could have asked for stupider and did not wish to risk doing so, for the world would have provided. Instead, I found myself upon my throne, with the session closed early because I could both bear no more and had just been reminded that coating one's sources of frustration in ice is not always the best course. Trying to recover from the presence of so much idiocy, and feeling that... I had not accomplished anything real." The younger took a deep, slow breath. "The world waits for such thoughts," Luna said. "And laughs. Joyous is certainly something real, is she not? All of this, all of what she has been through, what we have dealt since since meeting her, what others have been through for us... fully real in every way. Their lives, their dreams, their pain..." She huddled closer, and Celestia let the carriage roll on for a while. "We're not beaten," the elder said. "Not yet." "No," Luna admitted. "But it was a reminder. Not just that some problems are truly crucial: that even those petty conflicts are real to those going through them, even if they arguably should be something less than the focus of their existence. That those involved in the little arguments, even though I may only know them for a mere seven minutes of their lives, are real. Every number in the census is a citizen, and every citizen is a pony -- or a minotaur, griffon, dragon, zebra, buffalo... there is a Diamond Dog I met a short time ago, her name is Yapper, she no longer feels as if she has a warren she can call home and... she formally entered Canterlot, two days before we left for Mazein. Our first Diamond Dog, Tia, in more than a thousand years, who wished to start on the path towards citizenship. She is real. Joyous, her parents, the doctors... eventually, even should all work out for the best, they will pass from our lives. But they had their own lives before meeting us, and I hope they have them beyond us, and... they are real. It is something every ruler should remember. Something far too many forget." It took a while before Celestia managed to slow her blinking back to a normal rate. "A Diamond Dog." "Yes." "We've got a Diamond Dog. As an immigrant. In Canterlot." "Crossing Guard processed her paperwork. I translated her symbols for his benefit." "You didn't tell me --" Dryly, "-- we have been somewhat busy. And she was still settling in when we departed. Regretfully, I missed her first day of work." "...where is she working?" A plain statement. "The palace." "...what?" "She is rather adept at fresco repair. We have frescos. Which are in need of repair." Openly teasing, "Do you have any other questions?" There was only one which could apply. "Do you do these things on purpose?" "Do you purposely fail to mention arbitrations until two minutes prior to the start of my session? Stop the carriage, please: I wish to get off." There was a time zone difference between Mazein and Equestria, enough that finding teleport-disrupted ponies awake under a Sun which would have been around for a while might have been a difficult proposition. But Luna correctly suspected Vanilla would be getting almost nothing in the way of sleep for some time, right up until the moment his body insisted -- which just might lead to a fine example of Exam Crystals, or at least as fine as the back alleys of Canterlot's oldest district could offer. The Tangle generally provided, although it took some courage to ask about what. But it hadn't reached that stage just yet. For now, she simply trotted out of the recently-emptied room which the physicians had set aside for the sisters' arrivals, and followed the smell of wake-up juice. Chocolate's field, no longer so thin at the edges, was carrying a cage, and the squeaks within told everypony how frustrated the occupants were about being confined away from the food. Vanilla's hues were once again coating the glass through which they had once watched a dying stallion. Both glanced back at the sound of hoofsteps. "Princess." Vanilla forced a smile. "You're just in time for the first test, if you want to stick around for it. But we'll understand if you don't. This could..." He reluctantly looked at the cage. "...well, it may not be something anypony would want to watch." "The first test is at this hour?" Luna inquired, coming forward. "Even for myself, that would be something of an interesting schedule. What delayed you?" "We had to set things up," Chocolate said. "Safely." And nodded at the flowers. Luna stared through the glass. The floor of the room had been covered in soil, and the potted specimens had been replanted, at least as well as unicorns were generally capable of the act. The blooms rested quietly in their new home. Innocently. Completely free of awareness. And with that lack came a total absence of caring. "It was tricky," Vanilla said. "We had to close off every single way air could get out of that room. Chocolate installed a double gateway going in, which we can control from levers out here. Like what the minotaurs had, including the ability to wash anything coming out. And after this test... we're going to wind up cleaning the whole thing out at some point, making it safe -- or just assigning a room we haven't used yet. Something we can cut a hole in the roof for, install a clear panel so Sun can get through. We'll need more flowers as the tests proceed, Princess, and we have to keep them alive. But just closing off the air vents... they're small and it'll take a long time, but eventually, they'll suffocate in their own oxygen. We need to get some properly-sized charcoal filters set up, but -- right now, this gives us enough for the first major test." Trial and Error squeaked with the outrage of creatures who hadn't been fed. Deliberately. "A live test," Chocolate quietly said. "You may not want to watch, Princess." She looked at the grabbers. Then at the flowers. Back to the twitching purple noses. "What is your intent, Doctors?" Neutral. Steady. After all, it wasn't as if she'd fed them. Or let them race across her. More than a few times. "Joyous remembers them being among the flowers," Vanilla reminded her. "The Ambassador pointed out that their magic seems to be for consumption. We were watching them on the road, and we read some of what the local biologists had written. The theory is that they store energy. Something like hibernation, but to a degree we've never seen in Equestria before. They eat as much as they can just in case there's nothing to eat later. And their metabolism is incredibly efficient at breaking down everything they consume, so they don't excrete anywhere near the amount they should for what they're taking in." "But we know it's the pollen now," Chocolate said. "Their stomach acids might be special, but they're not breaking things down before any effect can take place, because it's not caused by consumption. They breathe that pollen in, when they're among the flowers. We checked their nostrils and lungs with the best spells and magnifiers we had: we couldn't spot any filtration system, and even that would need some way of getting the stuff out of the body. I may have to do surgery later to check more closely --" Luna watched him. There had been no special emphasis on 'surgery', nor had any glint appeared in brown eyes. Not yet. "-- but for now... we're hoping they're immune," the surgeon continued. "And that the immunity is something we can study, find a way to pass on to ponies and minotaurs. I'm really hoping it's not something exclusive to omnivores. But we don't know. They just might be affected in a way we haven't seen before. And the only way to start finding out -- is to put them among the flowers and see what happens." "We haven't fed them for a while," Vanilla quietly finished. "Two whole hours. They're ready." Luna looked at the little grabbers again. The bright eyes. The gazes which didn't understand. "I recognize," she said, "that the time may come when you need to dissect them, in the name of saving the lives of sapients. Please understand that when you reach that stage, I will not care to watch." They nodded. "Let them go in." Chocolate quietly trotted out of sight, field carrying the trailing cage. "We have extra flowers," Vanilla said. "We didn't use everything we have for this test: we've seen how they eat, and... well, we all saw how they eat. But we may wind up needing to grow the flowers deliberately, Princess. In Equestria. We can't rely on going back to the farm: you and Princess Celestia are the only ponies who could get us there, and shipping the blooms across so much distance, even with protective and preservative spells... one slip..." He swallowed. "But it leaves us growing them in Equestria, and..." She could see it, nearly every last potential for disaster, and knew the first new nightmare would come from the possibility she had missed. "We will hope to avoid it. But if it is necessary, Doctor, we will do what we can." "It just leaves us open to..." His eyes closed. "...it's bad enough already, Princess." Hoofsteps, coming back. "And," Vanilla quietly finished, "I know he's watching me." A tiny snort, which accidentally matched the timing of Luna's blink. "I'm not stupid, Princess. I know what I said during that meeting, and I know everypony remembers it." "And your intent?" She hadn't meant for her words to be that soft. "Chocolate," the stallion who was a little bit married said, "isn't the only one who gets to make decisions." "It will hurt him." The only four words she had in the face of horror. The statement was both steady and soft, which almost left it drowned out by his partner's approach. "No, it won't." Quickly "You cannot --" "-- I've decided not to use them," Vanilla said. "Because that will hurt him. And -- it's bad enough already." There was just enough time for one last sentence. "Are you lying to me, Doctor?" He opened his eyes, looked up at her, said nothing -- and Chocolate came back. "They're in the..." The surgeon frowned. "It needs a name." "The door system?" Vanilla quickly asked. "Yeah, it kind of does! The minotaurs didn't put anything in those notebooks! Typical: so busy looking for new drugs that they completely overlooked the one real innovation they created just to deal with the risks! You know, if that had been me..." His head tilted up, and slightly to the right. Chocolate sighed, rolled his eyes, and finished it off with a smile. They waited. Forty seconds later, "...you're never going to let me use 'shizzle station,' are you?" "Not if it means having to hear you say it," Chocolate grinned. "Got anything else?" "Fine," Vanilla snorted. "Airlock. That's just boring enough for journal work. Doctor Bear, please open the airlock on the flower side and let T and E in." The surgeon's horn ignited, and green surrounded a newly-installed lever in the wall. "The flowers," Luna considered, trying not to look towards where the animals would be coming in just yet. "Have you granted those a name as well?" "No," Chocolate immediately told her. The directness surprised Luna. "Why? If nothing else, they require classification, and should warning notices be sent out, something will need to be written on them." "Oh, I know they'll need naming eventually," Chocolate replied. "But right now? They don't deserve it." And his field pulled the lever down. The inner door opened. Two twitching purple noses immediately scented the offered bounty. Three ponies watched the curved backs as the little animals ventured forth. There seemed to be an odd hesitation in those movements, especially for creatures which could close in on a fallen crumb in well under ten seconds. "They appear -- reluctant," Luna observed, wondering how much of the worry she'd kept out of her tones. "Joyous' memories suggest somewhat more enthusiasm. We certainly never saw this degree of trepidation when they were attempting to consume the leftovers from our own meals." Vanilla winced. "We... may have made a mistake, Princess. They came from a pet store, and they were bred to be pets. We don't have wild grabbers. This is their first experience with the flowers. All they have are their instincts, and right now, their instincts are telling them they're somewhere new, with something they haven't seen before..." "If it's just the wild ones who wound up with immunity in their blood, we can go back," Chocolate pointed out. "There's got to be live grabber traps for the minotaurs who just want them out of the garden. Give them time, Vanilla." Trial and Error made their way across the dirt-covered floor, glancing at each other several times as they advanced. Squeaking. Error reared up on her hind legs, sniffed the air -- -- the little eyes widened. The squeaking became louder, more urgent. And the female grabber dropped, ran for the flowers, reared up again and began chewing on the seafoam petals. Trial immediately decided that anything his companion was eating needed to be something he was eating. That advancement picked up its pace -- right up until they saw his nostrils flare, and then it became a dash. They were both eating now. Quickly. As rapidly as Luna had ever seen them eat anything, and that was with creatures who had been able to make most of a road lunch's leavings vanish with the efficiency of a teleport. And then they accelerated. Luna swallowed, partially just to be the only one doing so at a normal rate. "Doctors," she forced herself to say, "I have watched them make short work of everypony's refuse. They do not eat that fast." "They're affected!" Vanilla's voice was starting to rise, tones escalating into the sounds of panic. "Joyous said they ate so quickly, it was funny -- they're being affected immediately, faster than anything we've seen, they're not immune --" Half the blooms were gone now, and it seemed most of those had vanished in the time required for the sentence. "But they didn't eat Mazein!" Chocolate desperately protested. "We're seeing what their amplification does! They would have --" The grabbers stopped. They turned away from the blooms, for only a few shreds of petals were left. They stared at each other, eyes wide and bright. Thin lips pulled back from sharp teeth. "-- they are omnivores," Luna breathed, and it felt far too close to a scream. "Doctors, they are going to --" -- claws scrabbled at the soil. Squeaks became something all too close to growls. And Luna was starting to delve within herself, but Star Swirl's trick had only ever allowed the projection of a field past some horn-covering barriers, it had never gone through an object after the corona had been ignited, she could not reach through the glass to separate them -- The doctors were frozen. None of them could move, for movement would not help. Only one could enter the room, and he would not be able to clear the airlock in time. All the physicians could do was watch, and Luna... ...she couldn't do anything. Anything at all. Nothing real. The little claws scrabbled at the soil, claws which only tickled when they ran across fur, claws which suddenly looked so sharp. Scrabbled harder, faster... Teeth flashed. Bit. And then there was silence. The silence that existed in the gap between the final breath and the shadowlands. "...what are they doing?" Vanilla softly asked the world. The answer was there before them. It simply required Chocolate to voice it. "They're... eating the root..." Growling slowed. Squeaking took over. The little grabbers glanced at each other, then mutually, briefly regarded the remains of the blooms before deciding there was nothing left worth their attention. Purple noses twitched. Trial and Error wandered around the testing room, looking for food, because they were grabbers and there always had to be more food somewhere. And three ponies stared through the enchanted glass. "Princess," Chocolate finally said, "we're going to need about fourteen hours. Five of those will be for sleeping, I swear. And then... we may need you back here. Possibly with Joyous. I don't want to get her hopes up too much, but you said that the two of you could only make a pair of trips each per day, and if I tell you what we've got and then one of you has to go back for her..." His eyes were bright now. Bright with something as far removed from madness as it was possible to be. "Fourteen hours," Vanilla confirmed through slow-flowing tears. "If she asks, if she looks like she needs... tell her we're checking something. That there's something to check. But... give us that time. Please." Luna nodded, and her corona flared as she went into the between -- but she did not emerge in Mazein. Instead, she arrived in the castle gardens and simply trotted for a while, staring up at Moon, taking a moment for herself. She would go back. She would tell her sister about what had happened. But she would not allow anypony to see the agony of her hope. There was a large clump of thin brown strands on the table. The dirt had been cleaned away -- mostly. There was a chance that the dirt helped, and so a little had been left clinging to the roots. "We used up most of our flowers in the repeat tests," Chocolate quietly told the sisters. "Even waiting a couple of hours between them and putting out less blooms each time... well, grabbers eat what they can. And getting them in and out, cleaning any pollen out of their fur, checking their vitals... we needed those hours, Princesses. But this is what we know. They breathe the pollen. Their appetite increases. And then they eat the root, and... as far as we can tell, they're normal." "The dealers found one effect," Vanilla said, and they could hear the fury lurking under the syllables. "And then stopped, every time. Once they knew what the pollen did, that was enough. Their leader didn't care about learning more. He didn't have the patience for more, and he had bodies to toss on the compost heap. One effect. One. And if this works as we're hoping it does -- then it would be a binary drug. The pollen sets it off. The root neutralizes the pollen." "We think it's a magical defense mechanism," Chocolate added. "To keep the species from being eaten into extinction. Grabbers eat everything. So instead of creating a stink they won't approach, or effects they can't get through, thorns they won't try to push past -- the flowers sacrifice a few of themselves, so the rest will survive. The grabbers reach the root -- and then they're just Trial and Error again." "But," Vanilla finished, "there's a reason we asked you not to put too much faith in this. It's possible that the root just makes grabbers lose interest for a while, and only grabbers. But... if their magic was being intensified, and then returned to normal -- that might also affect them and nothing else. We don't know. There's only one way of finding out if it would affect a pony." "And that's why we asked you," Chocolate concluded, "to bring Joyous here." Brilliant yellow eyes stared at the brown strands on the table, the little white nodules dotting their length. The regard of Sun in the first moments of dawn. "We have four known pony cases," Vanilla reminded them. "One is... new. Too new. I ran the full group of tests on Chocolate, and I couldn't find any biological signs that he'd been affected, the same way I never found anything in the blood for Joyous and her parents. He's not showing any magical signs yet, and might not do so for moons." "I'm willing to be the test subject," Chocolate told the three mares. "To take the risk -- because just eating something nopony's ever consumed before comes with a lot of risks. But for me -- it means stalling, and not because of those risks. Remember, I'd be proof that unicorns can be affected. We wouldn't be sure of that until it happened. If I tried eating that right now, even if it cured me, there wouldn't be any signs. The changes aren't strong enough to pick up on a reversion." Celestia slowly nodded. "Which leaves three pony cases. And even if the families of the affected minotaurs give us permission to take the chance, it doesn't tell us whether it'll help the Releases." "Right," Vanilla said. "We'll need minotaur testing soon, but... Joyous?" She looked at him, through the panel of the Hoovmat suit. Quiet. Waiting. "We could try other animals," Vanilla said. "We could spend moons, years in seeing how the blooms affect different creatures, and if the root returns them all to normal. Of looking for long-term after-effects. But it's years of running risks. That somepony could mismanage the flowers, of having some pollen get out. Of having somepony or someone deliberately bring this into Equestria, or Protocera, or Pundamilia Makazi, and I don't want to think about what this would do with a zebra any more than I want to consider dragons. And none of it will ever tell us what it would do to a pony until the moment a pony tries it." "Normally, we... wouldn't move this fast," Chocolate told them. "It's not good medical practice. But the rules are a little different when a patient is..." And couldn't finish. "Dying," Joyous softly said. "The rules are a little different when somepony's dying." "You're not," Vanilla reminded them. "Not if we keep things controlled. We think it's possible for this to -- be fatal: that crowd scenario. We can keep you away from that --" "-- it's a risk," the young adult told the group. "Everything is a risk, isn't it? My talent could reach the point where it's strong enough to overwhelm the filters in seconds. And then if the wind is blowing the wrong way, the crowd could come to me." Nopony could say anything. "There's another factor," Chocolate told her. "Trial and Error ate the root within a minute of breathing the pollen. You've had this in your body for years, you and your parents both. That bundle on the table... we took our best estimate for the amount of root they were consuming in each test, then multiplied for the weight of an adult pegasus. But in the end, it's all a guess. The root may only be good within one minute -- or one moon -- or any amount of time which stops short of what you've been through. It may not be enough to do anything. It may be an overdose, because body weight might not be a factor." Long years of professional experience kept his words steady, at least for now. "It could kill whoever takes it." "What we do know," Vanilla carefully added, "is that everypony and everyone with this is getting worse over time. And the longer we wait, the more of a chance there is that this might become something which can't be cured at all." Celestia caught Luna looking at the bundle of roots. Back to Joyous. The roots. "What are you asking me, Doctors?" Joyous softly inquired. "You keep going around it. Just -- say it. Please..." The partners took a deep, mutual breath. "We could wait," Chocolate said. "I told you that. It's your decision as to whether you want to wait for me to show signs, and then I'll be the test subject. But you know what the risks are in waiting." "Or..." The smaller stallion visibly gathered strength, and most of it came from the unicorn standing next to him. "Your parents can't give consent. Not with the pollen thinking for them. You're their only family. Legally, with them unable to truly think for themselves -- you can give us permission to try this on one of them. Knowing we could... lose her." "Or I take it," Joyous finished. "That's been it all along, isn't it? You might die, Doctor Bear -- or they might -- or I could." Neither stallion could look at her, and so she looked to the sisters -- -- no. She looked to Luna. The younger slowly, carefully knelt down. It left her looking up at Joyous, if only slightly. "I have," Luna quietly began, "sent ponies to their deaths. It is a consequence of war, knowing that when one directs forces into battle, that force is composed of living beings -- and that some of them will not be coming back. But those ponies knew why they were fighting, Joyous. They were willing to risk death so that others might live, and thus they followed my orders. You understand what you would be fighting for. But you are a citizen of Equestria. You are not a Guard, nor are you part of our military. There are orders I cannot give you. I would never force this choice upon you: the world has done that. And I..." The dark eyes closed, the head dipped. "...cannot make it for you." "What would you do?" The question had been soft. Sincere. Patient. "I have," Luna said, and nothing could have kept the tinge of irony out of the words, much less the taint of self-hatred, "a certain obligation to live. Everypony recently seems to have felt the need to remind me of that. Repeatedly. And to that degree, my life is -- not my own." Somehow, the lack of volume made the insistence all the more powerful. "If you were me? Exactly like me?" A long moment of thought, for the younger owed her no less. "My parents are dead," Luna said. "My father... died from what could be called disease, the incurable infection of madness. My mother from sorrow and neglect, that last coming partially from others thinking her mad in the last days of her life, when she only knew a truth that nopony else would believe. And I... went into chaos with my sister, to try and make a world where such pointless deaths could no longer occur. In the name of a dream, I risked myself. I would eat the root." The fabric-covered head tilted down. Front knees bent forward. Luna's eyes shot open. Stared at the snout nuzzling against her face. "I'm sorry," Joyous softly said. "I know... it doesn't mean anything real, not after this much time. But I'm sorry. And I think I understand." Luna -- scooted backwards without getting up, barrel sliding across the floor as she moved on one kind of instinct, getting out of range before a second instinct could fully react. And Joyous giggled. "Sorry..." the pegasus said, and they watched the fabric around her mouth crinkle from the underlying smile. "But maybe I do understand. It's not your life, is it? Not completely. It's everypony's lives -- no, everyone's. You both risked so much, trying to help me. You risked... everything. I'm not worth that. I never was." And before anypony could say anything. "But with me, it's my life. I can't say if Doctor Bear gets to live or die. I can't say that for my parents. I don't have that right. But it is my life. The flower tried to take that from me, from everyone who's been near it. And it's still my life --" Her head tossed: left, right, left, with a little half-rotation on each. The suit locks slid free, and invisible mists filled the air as the helmet slammed into the wall. They all gasped. They all breathed. "Joyous!" For some, there were words beyond that. Vanilla was starting to say something about staged doses, trying a tiny amount of root now and then increasing the consumption later. Chocolate got caught in the middle of talking about additional testing. Celestia, however, simply ignited her horn -- and then looked down to see Luna's foreleg stretched out, pressing the weakest of barriers against her. A barrier which still lasted for just long enough. Joyous scooped up the roots, chewed twice, and swallowed. The metallic fur bounced sterile-seeming light into their eyes as her face screwed up into a grimace. "This tastes horrible," she said. And then the convulsions began. She was on the floor in an instant, her legs kicking out in random directions, back arced to the point where it seemed as if her spine had to break, wings desperately pushing against the fabric of the suit with enough force to break bones. Doctors, sisters, everypony dropped down and Chocolate's horn ignited with his field quickly, precisely cutting at the yellow, freeing those limbs just before the first wingtip could fracture, but she was writhing, eyes rolling wildly, the convulsions forced one of the rips to move down her flanks and Celestia saw the mark, the froth which was beginning to coat it as the pegasus body broke out in a full-body coat of something so much more dangerous than sweat. None of it was enough to hide the sudden flare of light. Two metallic pegasus mares rested in their beds. They usually slept together, or at least their bodies did. What had been left of them no longer remembered any reason why sharing a bed had started in the first place, and nothing was ever done in the beds which temporarily hosted them in various places across the world, nothing other than sleep, as doing anything else was no part of resting so that more surveying could be done. But on this day... separate beds, and the sleep was not a natural one. In some ways, it was barely sleep at all. A single pony quietly entered the room, looked from red to green. Waited. In time, when Sun had fully stretched across the room to drape the entirety of her bed in warmth, the eyes of the green slowly opened. Then they shut again, almost immediately, and the wince spread from face to body. "I have," Rapture told whatever part of the world might care to listen, "the worst headache. Of my life. And my joints ache. All of them. I don't even think some of these aches are joints." A soft groan answered her from the other bed. "Oh, Sun and Moon, keep it down... Rapture, what did we do last night...?" "Drunk," Rapture told her spouse. "Drunk off our hooves. So drunk that I don't even remember drinking." Pleasant frowned, eyes still squeezed shut. "I don't remember much of anything... but we don't drink like that any more. We had our last end-of-survey party on the night before we decided to file the application for the Most Special Spell. We couldn't drink like that any more..." She sighed. "I'm thirsty," Pleasant said, fighting to get her head up as the last of the sedatives slowly wore off. "Is there any water?" "I have water," the pegasus standing between the beds said. "Mom... Dam... I brought you water..." They opened their eyes, both mares, looked towards a voice both familiar and not. And it could be said that the first thing they saw were the years, every day they had missed gathered together and rammed into them with a force that nearly knocked both out of their hospital beds. Saw puberty and the start of adulthood and the pain that came from not having been there for any of it. The shock tried to set in then, and became all the worse when they truly spotted each other, saw each other and the toll forgotten years had taken. There would be shock, later. There would be talking, and some of it would turn into screams of rage at everything which had happened, the things they had been unable to prevent combined with all which had been lost. There would be blame, all of it directed inward, and it would take long hours to bring them even partially away from it, with frequent efforts required to temporarily stave off relapse. But in that moment, there was no time for any of it. There was only their daughter in the center of the room, standing between the beds, crying. So they went to her. And the sisters watched through the new room's one-way glass for only a moment before each tapped a physician with a forehoof and gently led them away. For some pain needed to be private... ...and the same could be said for joy.