//------------------------------//
// Train Conspiracy Theorist 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
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Be it past or present, Corsica had never been a morning pony. She couldn't remember a time she had ever enjoyed being woken up before she was ready: the best it got was when someone was there to pamper her, and that was more of a consolation prize than a fair trade. And a rare one, at that.

But what she could remember, and was fairly certain she had forgotten about over the last two and a half years, was how nice it felt to wake up at her own pace.

Corsica yawned luxuriously, testing out her battered body. She felt... marginally better than yesterday. Not enough to ditch the roller, but getting out and about had done her some good. Time for another day of more of the same.

Gently, she applied her shoes and ear ornaments with her telekinesis, noting the two identical sets in her dresser. Apparently, she hadn't been wearing any when she cast her final wish, but then manifested a set upon rewinding. Had she woken up in these last time, too? Most of what she remembered about her state back then involved needing a bath, but she couldn't say she didn't remember it.

Why had a hospital let her keep wearing these during a coma? And how come they didn't get knocked off during the avalanche? The only explanation was that someone had put them back on her while she was unconscious, and since it wouldn't have been Graygarden or the hospital staff...

Nah. No reason to ruin a perfectly good afternoon by thinking about Halcyon. Not yet, at least.

Corsica rolled out towards the engine room, just limber enough to get onto her roller by herself without breaking anything. Once again, the door was open, Starlight sitting inside, surrounded by magical texts and reading to the backdrop of the engine's buzz.

"Hey," Corsica said, getting Starlight's attention. "Any news? I'm gonna go explore the town if there's nothing urgent to do."

Starlight shook her head and looked up, not putting down her book. "I still think I can find a way to fix this, and still no estimate on when. If you want to do someone a favor, ask Seigetsu if you see her. I asked her to look into a matter for me, and if you brought the results on your way back, it would save her a trip."

"Works for me." Corsica shrugged. "Mind, uh... helping me with the stairs...?"





The sun was just low enough in the sky to reflect off the eastern harbor as Corsica disembarked, pausing on the docks to stare back the way they had flown in. A hefty ship was on the horizon, steadily drawing closer without any visible form of propulsion, its hull fat with cargo.

What had she heard last time she was here, that trade arrived from the west by rail, then boarded ships here to sail further to the east? She couldn't remember why they did that instead of taking the train all the way around the coast, thanks to Equestria's silly instant teleportation rail system. Odds were, there had been a reason, but it hadn't been good enough for her old, apathetic self to remember.

The ship inched forward, a tugboat dispatching to help it into the more industrial sector of the harbor to the south, closer to the trainyard. A ship like that, Corsica wagered, was the kind Lord Terutomo would have put them up on if their negotiations for passage hadn't been derailed by Halcyon's paranoia and inability to share basic information. Hadn't he said that trip would take a full month, one way?

If those plans had gone through, she would have been arriving at the Catantan Peninsula right about now, a place Starlight's airship had flown her to and back from again in the same amount of time, or maybe less. They would have found no Starlight waiting for them. Would never have met Twilight and the Elements, never seen the crystalline Macrothesis, never fixed the Kindness flame... Halcyon might never have left, and Corsica would never have wished her special talent away.

Her life would have remained in stasis, devoid of ambition, agenda and ability to appreciate the present. That, Corsica thought, reveling in the sensation of the sea breeze against the fur on her cheeks, was decidedly a worse future than the one she had now.

Isolated clouds guarded the horizon to the south, shaped like scoops of vanilla ice cream that had been dropped on the floor and left to melt. On both sides of the water, cleared land bordered the beach for as far as Snowport's domain extended, giving way to heavily coniferous forests that carpeted the Aldenfold's foothills. She could see the Aldenfold itself far in the distance, a great, grey shadow looming over the lands.

The stone pier stood solid beneath her hooves, a rugged surface held in place by sculpted walls that felt like it had once been liquid, poured and sculpted in place and left with an uneven texture that provided excellent traction. White marble, the top duller than the sides. The farther north she looked, the smaller and more artistic the piers became, offering space to local fishing vessels accessible from the residential part of town, droves of sparkly blue dragons lounging or carrying cargo in the distance. The sun caught their scales just like it did the wavecaps, blinding her whenever it struck that magic angle.

Everything felt so real and present and alive, from the shadows cast on the dock by the harmony comet rigging of the Immortal Dream to the draconic chatter carrying across the water to a bit of spray that splashed up and caught her forehoof as the wake from the cargo ship made landfall. Up until now, Corsica's memories of the world felt like listening to someone read from her life like a book, at least her memories since getting her special talent and leaving Icereach. And her memories before that... She had wanted to leave Icereach for a reason. This was the real world she always knew was out there.

"Can you see this, dummy?" Corsica whispered to the wind. "Wherever you are, you'd better put your plans and your paranoia to bed for a day and just appreciate what we were looking for."

"I hope I'm not imposing," said a voice behind her.

Corsica turned to see Seigetsu. "Nope! Uh, literally just admiring the scenery. Nice view you got here."

"It is a rather impressive visage," Seigetsu acknowledged. "Moreso from the castle towers as the sun is rising. Would Starlight Glimmer happen to be here? I have a non-urgent matter I would like to discuss."

Corsica raised an eyebrow. "Any chance it involves something she asked you to look into?"

"It does." Seigetsu nodded.

Corsica gave her a feeble grin. "Any chance you wanna give me the lowdown so I can pass it onto her and make it look like I was helpful by saving you a trip out to here?"

Seigetsu looked amused. "It is not a trip I mind taking. Though all of this is a matter of public record, so I have no qualms with your curiosity."

She then stepped past Corsica onto the boat. Apparently, that was an invitation to follow and listen.





"Allow me to get to the point," Seigetsu said, seated in the Immortal Dream's library between Corsica and Starlight. "I searched our records, and we have indeed seen a northern traveler named Maple in Snowport."

Starlight tried to keep a stoic expression. "When? And where was she going?"

"About sixteen years ago," Seigetsu said. "Shortly before this city came under my family's control. It seems she was afforded some manner of attention here on account of her Writ of Harmonic Sanction, and I was able to find an official interview in which she described crossing the mountains from Ironridge in search of her missing daughter. She entered the city from the north along with a trade caravan, and professed her intent to take a train south to Canterlot."

"And did she?" Starlight asked, shifting closer to the edge of her seat.

"Next, I searched our shipping records," Seigetsu said. "We keep meticulous archives on every train and ship entering the city, along with passenger lists and cargo manifests. I determined that Maple lawfully obtained a ticket for a train to central Equestria. However, the train in question was unable to complete its journey and returned to Snowport due to its enchantment failing."

"The one that only works if nobody on board knows the true distance it's traveling?" Corsica asked. "You think Maple couldn't take the trains because she had seen too much of the world?"

Seigetsu nodded. "I could not find hard confirmation, but that seems like a reasonable guess. Unfortunately, I could find no further records of her travels. That is where the trail ends."

"So she came back to Snowport, and you didn't see her leave again," Starlight said.

"Correct." Seigetsu folded her arms behind her back. "Or rather, she would have left in a manner that we would not record. This rules out the possibility that she would have taken a ship to the east, but not that she would have turned around and retraced her steps to the north. As I was able to find no records indicating she remained in the city for an extended period of time, I think that is the most likely course of events."

"She couldn't have gone to the Crystal Empire?" Corsica asked. "Then tried again from there? That's basically within walking distance, if you're not in a hurry."

Seigetsu frowned. "The Crystal Empire only recently returned from wherever it was sealed. In the year this Maple was present, Snowport had only blizzards to the west."

Starlight's brow creased. "So there's nothing suggesting she stayed here for a while, made multiple attempts at the trains, anything? I can't imagine she would have given up and turned back..."

Seigetsu shook her head. "My search was thorough. If there were any records I overlooked, they would have to be stored in different archives not maintained by the city. It is not out of the question that some citizens might remember her in person, but I'm afraid I have not much further speculation to offer."

"...I see." Starlight nodded. "Well, thanks for looking into it. I wish this engine could take care of itself so I could be out there looking..." She sighed. "Returning to the north is going to sting even more if one of my friends is still looking for me in Equestria. Not to burden you with my troubles, though. I'll figure something out."

"I could help," Corsica offered. "Not like I've got much better to do."

Starlight gave her a sideways look. "You think you know the first thing about how this ship's engine works, let alone how to get that mess safely out of it?"

Corsica stuck out her tongue. "I was talking about asking around town."

Starlight glanced at Corsica's roller. "Aren't you pretty much immobile?"

"Excuse me." Seigetsu rose to her feet, preparing to take her leave. "I have other duties to attend to now that I have given my report. The castle guards will be happy to assist you if you need to find me again, or are looking for anything else. I wish you the best of luck on your endeavors."

Corsica watched Seigetsu's retreating form with a mischievous smile, turning it on Starlight when she was done. "Wow. That was so offensive you even scared away a special inquisitor."

Instead of bristling, Starlight wilted. "It... I mean, sorry..."

"Woah!" Corsica blinked, trying to signal her lack of actual offense with a hoof and wincing as her body protested. "Not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just the most mobile I've been all year. Better a body that can't climb stairs than a brain that can't see a reason to try to climb them. If you need some dragons pestered about your missing mom, I'm all game." She hesitated. "Not that I didn't live with that special talent for a year or two. The one that's gumming up the engine? I might not be an expert, but you could find people who know less about it than me."

Starlight appeared mollified, if slightly curious. "You really have changed," she remarked.

"For the better." Corsica winked. "So whaddya need? Free help from a bored invalid, going once..."

Starlight shrugged, got up and beckoned for Corsica to follow, walking into the engine room.





Corsica squinted at the confluence in the middle of the cloud of rails, her old special talent floating inside a dark halo of midnight blue storm clouds, all encased in a sphere of protective fiery energy. Lightning bolts occasionally arced along the rails, making her fur stand on end.

It was her special talent, true. The object that had both ruined and saved her life many times over across the past few years, and protected her friends to boot. Friends who were all gone now... One friend more than others. Giving it up was a brain-dead obvious move.

Unfortunately, all that history brought no magical flash of insight to mind. The once-familiar feeling of her thoughts stumbling serendipitously onto the right track, spurred on by a wish for knowledge, was nowhere to be found. This puzzle would take work to solve, and it felt like she was looking at a completed jigsaw frame while holding a single piece that fit somewhere in the middle.

"Alright," she apologized. "I may have overestimated how helpful I'd be just a little."

Starlight nodded, looking more thoughtful than bothered.

"I could at least be a sounding board," Corsica offered. "If you wanna see if your theories hold weight when spoken aloud."

"You're probably thinking that because you used to have this cutie mark, you have some connection to it that will help you solve this," Starlight said absently.

"Way to call me out." The back of Corsica's neck itched, and she didn't dare try to reach around to rub it. Maybe with telekinesis...? No, it wasn't the same.

"I've been thinking the same," Starlight said. "Not about you, but about me. This used to be my cutie mark as well, after all."

Corsica blinked. Right, hadn't that been why she came to Equestria to seek out Starlight in the first place? For advice on living with such a cursed talent?

"I only wore it for a short time," Starlight explained. "As a foal, my horn was broken. I could use extremely powerful magic, but it had poor stamina and would leave me with crippling migraines that lasted for weeks when I overused it. One time, when I pushed it too far, I lost the ability to use my horn altogether, and went blind as a side effect."

Corsica rocked the wheels on her roller back and forth, listening.

"I accepted this cutie mark during a time when I was desperate, and willing to do anything for power," Starlight went on. "It changed the drawback of my magic. Instead of physical pain and dizziness, overusing my horn brought on supernatural despair and panic attacks while I wore it, sometimes powerful enough to send me into a coma. Because I was accustomed to living life by giving more than I had to give at every opportunity, I had no strength to fight it with. It seems odd that an avatar of elemental hope would be brought down rather than empowered by an artifact that supposedly turns our hopes and dreams into physical power. But watching your experiences, the way it works seems to be very consistent."

"Oh yeah?" Corsica raised an eyebrow.

"We haven't known each other for long, but I watched you get worn down," Starlight said. "Regardless of how you might have felt while doing it, you had the initiative in the Crystal Empire to get Twilight invested in Ironridge's cause. I don't know the full details about what was going on between you and Halcyon, but it's been obvious that something wasn't right there. And it was only after she left for good that you collapsed and couldn't get back up."

Corsica shrugged. "If you say so. I don't remember doing a whole lot that was worthwhile since getting that thing myself, but I can't say none of that didn't happen. Where are you going with this?"

"Operating under the hypothesis that our old cutie mark is playing a role in what's currently happening, and this phenomenon wouldn't be possible with just any old mark..." Starlight walked back to the rail cloud. "I'm trying to correlate our experiences to understand exactly what Luna's Artifice does."

"Didn't you just explain that the other day?" Corsica asked. "The whole energy moving backward through time thing?"

"That's how it works, not what it does." Starlight shook her head. "The underlying mechanism, not the overarching effects. I have the beginnings of an idea where I could somehow use my real cutie mark as a substitute to keep the system stable while I make changes, sort of like how in Daring Do books she swaps out treasures with a carefully weighted bag of sand to avoid activating pressure plates."

Corsica nodded along. "Remind me how this thing relates to your current cutie mark, again?"

Starlight took a deep breath. "Yakyakistani church virtues like hope and love. They correspond to the varying Flames of Harmony, several of which you met at Laughter's palace? Usually they're actually flames, but sometimes they have physical bodies instead, like Convergence... and me. With me so far?"

Corsica nodded again.

"Twilight and the other element-bearers have cutie marks attuned to their elements," Starlight explained. "My current cutie mark, I don't fully understand whether to classify it as a part of myself, or a part of my flame, or a bridge between the two, or... It's hard enough for philosophers to decide how to define a pony when they aren't a piece of the world's soul that isn't supposed to have a body, but does. Either way, it's like a keystone. Ever since I got it, my magic has worked right, and it's closely related to my identity as a Flame of Harmony."

"Is it too much of an oversimplification to say that Flames of Harmony straight up are cutie marks?" Corsica asked.

"Probably," Starlight said. "But the world's three modern goddesses - Princesses Celestia and Luna, and Garsheeva - have wielded their flames' power as cutie marks, and Twilight and her friends have cutie marks binding them to their elements as well. I think the more accurate way to put it is that these powers are capable of interacting with ponies using the same magic that cutie marks do, and can attach to us by the same mechanism."

"Got it."

"Anyway..." Starlight pointed again at the engine. "That thing is one of Luna's Artifices, a set of three cutie marks that were essentially created as fake, watered-down copies of the real powers of Hope, Love and Knowledge. They use different, slightly less divine but still powerful mechanics to achieve similar and still supernatural effects in the veins of the originals. So I initially had an imitation cutie mark of the virtue of hope, and later traded it out for the real thing."

Corsica swiveled her ears in understanding. "So that's why you're hoping they're sort of interchangeable. Because they're intended to do the same thing."

Starlight smiled wryly. "Another way to think of it would be to try making money by supplying fool's gold to a cheap jewler, except without telling them, you give them real gold because you're all out of fake stuff."

Corsica whistled.

"Well, there are no guaranteed this will work," Starlight said, turning back to the engine. "That's just the best working idea I've been able to come up with. It still needs more workshopping before I'm willing to take any action."

"Well, I guess I can tell you about what using it was like," Corsica offered. "There's not much to say, though. Make a wish, get what you wish for, pay the price. Lotta regrets involved. Except for that last wish where I got rid of it."

"How did you do that?" Starlight asked. "What was going through your mind? Did you simply wish it wasn't on your flank anymore?"

"Uhhhh..." Corsica reddened faintly as she recalled her desperate state of mind, and its accompanying public breakdown.

"I offered to remove it for you," Starlight pointed out. "When we first met. It wasn't a tradeoff you were willing to take at the time, since it offered significant power to go with the drawbacks. But I don't think what I could have done would have rewound your body like this."

Corsica slicked back her ears. "I was thinking that it wasn't worth it. I wished I could go back."

"That shouldn't be possible..." Starlight frowned. "Says me, professional doer of the impossible, to you, someone who also appears to have broken hard and fast rules about what can and can't be done. I can't help feeling like there's some fundamental aspect about what happened here that we don't understand yet..."

"Well, I'm not complaining," Corsica volunteered. "Once I get healed up and then whip myself back into shape, at least. And hopefully get your boat fixed. Though, no offense, but I haven't been feeling selfish enough to value myself over a boat in a long time. And I don't really wanna stop."

That's rude, said the strange voice in Corsica's head.

Corsica frowned. Did Starlight not hear...?

"I can't really blame you," Starlight said. "Whenever you have a chance to rest and recover, you take it. Whenever you're not feeling ground down beneath life's hooves, you enjoy it. That's how you survive, as ponies with situations like ours."

"Hey," Corsica interrupted. "Apropos of nothing, but this could be important: do you ever have a voice in your head? Around here, over the last few days, and so on?"

Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Only when there's a reason for it, which hasn't been recently..."

"Huh." Corsica shrugged. "Guess I'm going insane, then."

"Are you hearing something?" Starlight asked. "When, and what does it say?"

Corsica tried to think back to anything more profound the voice might have said. "Hello, goodbye, simple stuff like that. Usually when I'm entering or leaving the ship. Only started since I rewound. Not much of a chatterbox."

Starlight mumbled something under her breath, then tightened her focus, standing still for a moment with an expression of tension and concentration on her face. Then she shook her head. "Well, it's nothing my powers can detect. I'd pay attention if I were you, though. That was a big event, and it almost certainly had consequences none of us know about yet."

"Will do, I guess," Corsica said, not entirely sure how to go about empirically investigating her mystery friend. "And I'll let you know if I have any magical brain waves about how this thing is working, though it sounds like you already know way more than I do..."

"Going out to enjoy your new freedom?" Starlight guessed.

"Nope. Gonna go interview some dragons about your mom," Corsica called back over her shoulder, rolling away... and quickly regretting it as her back twinged from the motion. "You mind helping me with, uh, the stairs? Like, again...?"





Another embarrassing ascent later, and Corsica was on the docks, rolling her way towards Snowport proper.

Part of her wanted to think about how to find Starlight's mom. Another part of her wanted to keep thinking about that voice. A third part of her wanted to pray and wait for divine inspiration about the ship's engine, and a final part as big as the other three combined wanted to laze around, enjoy the weather and slack off.

She settled for meandering to the south, in the direction of the rail yards. It was a coin flip whether she would find more information about Maple there, where the train that supposedly got diverted would have been, or the north, where most of the residential area was and where Maple would have come in if she was traveling from the north. Even if she didn't have any productive thoughts along the way, she would at least be going in a potentially useful direction.

The rail yards and the shipyard were unsurprisingly connected, and a convoy of dragons was hard at work lugging cargo from the ship she had watched docking earlier into a warehouse next to the trains. Most of the cargo was in large wooden crates, labeled with singular glyphs that looked like special talents. From the dragons' postures, it would have been back-breaking work for a pony or even a lesser dragon, and even these muscle mongers were too busy to stop and show off for the creatures watching from the docks, like her.

It gladdened her that she wasn't alone in coming this far south to watch the trade flow. Two stallions, a griffon and even a family of dragons with several young children had set up spots on the southmost public dock, watching the cargo ship unload.

"Is this an event you come watch regularly?" Corsica asked the dragon mom, who happened to be the closest.

She shook her head, smiling down at her little ones. "They just love big transportation. It beats keeping them entertained at home. Probably going to grow up to become train engineers or logistics coordinators... Hopefully by then, it won't all be for the war."

"That's where all this stuff is going?" Corsica asked.

"It's as safe a guess as any," the dragon mom said.

Corsica stared at the ship again. For all everyone talked about war - Yakyakistan and Ironridge, Cernial and Abyssinia, Nanzanaya's own plans regarding the tower at Aptann's border - she had never actually seen one up close. And with Equestria's signature restrictions of information, odds were she wasn't alone.

Was it the norm to just pretend it didn't exist, maybe? Probably not. The dragon mom had mentioned it first, after all. It must have been on her mind. But still, that was the explicit purpose for the information restrictions, according to Seigetsu. Keeping regional troubles localized and preventing them from spreading.

What a silly system. It got in the way of Maple's efforts to find Starlight, and it didn't even work.

Corsica migrated further along to the train yards, which were split between public areas for passengers and merchants, and private areas that were mostly off-limits so anyone untrained didn't get hurt. From the demeanor of the guards, Corsica guessed that she actually could get through on Seigetsu's authority if she wanted, but gravel beds really weren't good for wheels and she could easily imagine her roller getting stuck in the middle of a train track.

No fewer than four trains were waiting in the holding yard, with another at the passenger terminal she remembered boarding at on her first trip to the Crystal Empire. The dragons had constructed a series of raised walkways for safe navigation of the rail yard for their employees, plus a maze of paths on the ground below that were marked out with brightly painted lines to guide cargo around, like the bipedal dragon who was hauling a sack on a trolley to the passenger train that looked like it was full of letters. Being temporarily allergic to stairs, Corsica had to settle for the ground paths, which weren't quite off-limits even though it didn't feel like civilians were encouraged to congregate here.

She moved slowly, eyeing up all the creatures as they came and went. Who here looked like they might know how the trains really worked? She wanted to ask about trains that had been turned back, find out a little more about the consequences of breaking their rules by knowing how far away your destination really was, but didn't want to inconvenience the train operators by rendering them unable to do their jobs without a brainwashing.

Maybe this was a dumb idea. Anyone who did know how the trains worked wouldn't be in the rail yards, because there was no point in being here if you couldn't use the trains. But where else would someone knowledgeable on trains be found? She didn't just want someone who knew how they worked, she wanted someone who had pushed the limits and could tell her what Maple might have experienced. After all, retracing someone's steps was the surest way to find them.

"I wish I'd randomly run into someone who knows about this," Corsica muttered, reveling at the lack of a weight in her mind and also slightly annoyed that her wish wouldn't just come true.

"Knows about what?" said a nerdy-looking, four-legged dragon with an extremely flat build, save for a sail-like spine along his back.

Corsica blinked, checking to ensure she hadn't somehow had a wish come true after all... but no, there was no feeling of impending heaviness, no onset of supernatural fatigue. She felt fine.

"Trains," she said with a stiff shrug, remembering that the dragon had asked a question. "Don't have many where I'm from. I just think they're cool."

The dragon chuckled deviously. "Oh, you said it. I used to work here, you know! But I got fired for spending too much time looking at the trains when the bosses had other plans. So now I look at the trains from here. Do you want to hear a train fact?"

"Sure," Corsica said, placing a mental bet that this dragon was about to tell her exactly what she needed to know, without even a wish to prod him along.

The dragon looked from side to side, then dropped his voice to a whisper. "They say," he breathed, "that the trains are intelligent. That each train is loyal to a particular operator, and can come find them from anywhere in the world when they call!"

Corsica blinked. That actually sounded familiar, but she couldn't remember from where.

"That's a pretty good train fact," she agreed, wanting to keep him talking. "Gimmie another?"

The dragon gave a wide, toothy grin. "Alright, here's another great one: did you know that nobody knows for sure where trains come from? They say they're made by Princess Celestia, but have you ever seen her make one? You definitely haven't seen any dragons make one, I'll tell you that much. There was a hobbyist in town who replicated one perfectly a few years back, down to the last screw and drop of oil. And it wouldn't move an inch. So they sold it to a museum."

Corsica raised an eyebrow. "You sound less like a train enthusiast than a train conspiracy theorist."

"One's just a derogatory term for the other," the dragon said with a sly smile. "You wanna hear another?"

"Knock yourself out," Corsica goaded.

"Well, there are rumors," the dragon hissed, "that if you're born on a train, you're guaranteed to grow up to become a train conductor. It's a profession you need to be chosen for, see, because if you don't have a train, you're not much of a conductor. But you can game the system if you've got a properly-enlightened mama."

Corsica nodded along. "Oh yeah? Keep 'em coming."

The dragon grew an in-the-know smile. "Conversely, they even say that if you die on a train... That's where new trains come from."

This was starting to get ridiculous. "I thought you said nobody knew where new trains come from."

"Nobody's scientifically proven it," the dragon corrected. "And those conductors are a frustratingly tight-lipped bunch. But that doesn't stop train enthusiasts like myself from picking up on the threads of truth. So, I bet you wanna hear more, don't you?"

At this point, Corsica was starting to wonder if he actually knew as much as he thought he did, but there was no harm in listening if he could jog her train of thought. "When have I ever said no?"

"That's the spirit," the dragon encouraged. "But, see, we're in public, and there are certain precautions I'm not at liberty to go without, here..."

Corsica raised an eyebrow. Did he know about the train magic, then? That was definitely something it wouldn't be safe to discuss in public-

"Also," the dragon continued, "there's a, like, small membership fee? It's refundable after you've been a member of the 'fan club' for three months, just to weed out the lesser intellects with only a passing level of commitment. Much less than I've spent in my own pursuit of the truth, just saying."

"Oh, so it's a hustle." Corsica turned away. "Not really interested in joining a cult today. Sorry. It's free samples or bust."

The dragon didn't look at all discouraged. "Sure, sure! You don't think you need to know. But do you know for a fact where you were born?" He glanced conspicuously at Corsica's blank flank. "Or have you merely heard about it from your parents? Budding train enthusiast like you, hasn't discovered her cutie mark yet... I'm just saying, the system can be gamed with the right friends."

Strictly speaking, Corsica had no idea where she was born, or even whether it was still true that she was adopted now that she had rewound herself to a point before she started making wishes. But that was irrelevant. "Why would I want to be a train conductor?" she asked, frowning. "It's not like I'd be able to go anywhere, since-"

She bit her tongue. It would be pretty funny if this guy actually didn't know about the train magic and learned about it from her, but she didn't want to make extra work for the dragons.

"Siiince?" The dragon raised a very flat eyebrow.

"Can't tell you. It's classified," Corsica stoically said, giggling internally. "Government secret. Though, I suppose you could bribe me to spill the beans..."

The dragon blinked in realization, then stormed away, muttering something about lesser intellects and the complacent masses.

Corsica laughed. Hopefully he was actually insane and not someone she'd have to mend bridges with later. But the odds of him being an important source of information were way down, because the tail end of their conversation had spurred her to remember something critical: there was a train conductor who couldn't go anywhere in town. In fact, this conductor had flown with them all the way from Our Town, on account of having no other way to leave: Wheelcakes, the conductor from Starlight's village.

Of course, it was possible Wheelcakes had moved on to other towns now that she was away from the geographic area she was most familiar with, and the magic only prevented her from going to and from the Catantan Peninsula. Fifty-fifty odds between that and being stuck here too, Corsica guessed. And even if she wasn't stuck, maybe she would still be here, and not have left yet. And if she had left, maybe another conductor here would know how to contact her.

Being too late sure would be awkward, considering how much time Corsica had spent not even remembering she existed on the flight to Snowport. But a train operator who had repeatedly rammed her head against the enchantment was far and away the best source she could wish for to reconstruct what Maple might have experienced and done.

Hooves crossed that she hadn't just asked the dragons to brainwash her so she could go anywhere again, assuming they still could after their shadow cleric guy went rogue. But Corsica had a lead, and it was time to chase it.