• Published 8th Feb 2012
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My Little Denarians - Chengar Qordath



Harry Dresden must go to Equestria to stop an evil plot by the Order of the Blackened Denarius

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Taking Earth Back

“Oops, my bad.”

“Geez Harry,” Rainbow Dash grumbled at me, rubbing the side of her head. “Why don’t ya just watch where you’re...” She trailed off, staring at my face in confusion. “Hey, what’s up with your eyes? They’re all ... crooked and stuff.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” Turns out there were one or two side-effects of sharing a soul gaze with Derpy. I’d never even known that kind of thing could happen. Hopefully my eyes would go back to normal before too much longer, because I was having just a little trouble seeing clearly right now.

Not that it was all bad news. At least my range of vision had gotten dramatically better. Depth perception, not so much. Thus, the occasional issues that had been cropping up ever since.

Someone tapped my shoulder, and with my eyes out of whack I had to crane my neck a little farther than normal to see who wanted my attention. Apparently, it was the Invisible Man (Invisible Mare? Invisible Mane?); no one was there. I felt a tap on my other shoulder, and again turned to see empty space. A sudden brush of something against my stomach made me gasp, bringing back some unpleasant memories from times I had to go to the Undertown beneath Chicago. I snapped my head down, only to knock my horn against the rather solid floor.

Stupid lack of depth perception.

I finally figured out what was going on when I spotted a certain pegasus with a prankster streak rolling on the floor and laughing her ass off at me. I guess I should’ve known that I was just too tempting of a target for her to pass up.

I was vaguely tempted to extract some kind of retribution on the pegasus, seeing as she was a bit too preoccupied with the aforementioned rolling on the ground laughing her ass off at me to maintain proper situational awareness. Sadly, we were interrupted before I could come up with a suitable form of vengeance.

“Hey Rainbow Dash.” Scootaloo cried out with the same enthusiasm she always showed for her idol. “That was an amazing prank!”

“Well yeah, it was one of my pranks.” Rainbow grinned as she soaked up the praise of her number one fan. “Of course it was gonna be awesome. Could’ve been a little bit cooler and let’s not mention the radicalness levels, but I was improvising. Now, if I’d had time to plan it all out...”

“It would’ve been twice as cool!” Scootaloo finished enthusiastically.

“Yeah, at the very least.” Rainbow buffed a hoof against her chest. “So, what’s up squirt? There a reason you’re here, or did you just wanna bask in my awesomeness?”

Scootaloo actually hesitated for a bit before she answered. “Well, it’s just that I heard you and your friends and Dinky’s mom were all about to go on this really dangerous mission and...”

Well, that’s my cue to leave. Rainbow and Scootaloo had some stuff to talk about, and I didn’t want to be a third wheel intruding on their private conversation. I trotted off to go find something else to do while I waited for my eyes to return to normal and all the other ponies to get ready to head for Earth.

I had more luck with first part of that plan than the second. My eyes gradually unscrewed themselves until everything was back to normal, but even after my eyes fixed themselves the ponies weren't ready to go. Apparently word had gotten out that we were all heading for Earth, and Scootaloo wasn’t the only one who wanted a quick goodbye before we left. Derpy was busy talking with Dinky and another unicorn that looked to be in her teens, Applejack and Rarity were chatting with their little sisters, Pinkie Pie was talking to the Cakes, and Twilight was chatting with a pair of ponies who I was reasonably certain were her parents.

I did my best to suppress any hints of aggravation at how long all the goodbyes were taking. I mean, I get it; things are about to get hazardous, and giving the ponies a couple minutes with their family was only reasonable. The problem is, we’re working on a schedule here. I have no idea how long we’ve got before Discord hits us again, not to mention whatever he and Nicky were up to back on Earth. I didn’t want to be a jerk about yanking them away from their friends and family, but the only way to protect their family and mine was to get moving.

I was about to reluctantly start breaking up family time when Fluttershy interrupted my train of thought. “Um, I was just wondering–if you don’t mind me asking, that is...” The pegasus nervously pawed at the ground a bit before she finally worked up the courage to ask her question. “Well–it’s just that I realized that while everypony else is talking to their family you don’t have anypony here.”

“Yeah, last I checked there weren’t any equines in the Dresden family tree.” Well, unless the horses on my grandfather’s farm counted.

“Oh, well–yes, of course.” Fluttershy bashfully looked away as she added. “I–I was just curious about whether you had anypony. Um–well, not anypony I suppose. Anyhuman? I–I just didn’t know if you had a family or not. Well, obviously you must’ve had some family but–um, I’ll just be quiet now.”

Well, there’s a question with no easy answer. The thing is, in my line of work having family can be a little hazardous. If you’ve ever read any comic books or seen the movies, you know that bad guys just love to get their hands on family members. That’s why I’d left my daughter in the care of a retired paladin whose home has literal guardian angels keeping an eye on it. It’s also why only a few people whom I trust implicitly actually know that she’s my daughter.

It was the opposite problem when it came to my grandfather. Being one of the guys running the White Council–and also secretly being the Council’s black-ops guy for more than a century–had left him with a huge collection of enemies. I’d like to think I’m reasonably badass, but from what I’ve seen of my grandfather in action he could still take me to school. Anything that could go a couple rounds with him and survive was probably more than capable of ruining my day unless I got lucky trying something crazy.

That’s not mentioning my half-brother, the vampire. At least in his case we didn’t have to keep our family ties secret for fear of getting the bad guys after us. With Thomas it was just politics–the White Court vamps had an uneasy sort of detente with the White Council, and there would still be a lot of nasty complications if it ever got out that we were related. I had more than my fair share of enemies on the Council who would just love to use the fact that there was a vampire in my family tree to undercut me.

There are times when I almost miss being an orphan. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade away the family I’ve found for anything, but with the way my life has always gone those family ties can really complicate the hell out of things.

With all the potential hazards that come with having a family, I was in the habit of keeping that information under wraps. The fewer people there were who knew about my family, the lower the odds were that the information would leak out.

On the other hand, the odds of Fluttershy leaking that information weren’t all that high. Besides, she and all the others were my friends. After everything we’d gone through together, she deserved the truth. “Yeah, I’ve got some family.” Fluttershy smiled at me as I continued. “No parents, but I’ve got a grandfather, a half-brother, and a daughter.”

“You have a filly? Oh how wonderful!” Fluttershy gushed.

For a moment I was tempted to make some kind of smartassed comment about how my daughter was not a filly, but I think we could just chalk that up to language differences. Then again, Maggie was about at the age where she might dream about about being a pony; she was in the cartoon’s target demographic, after all. She would be so jealous of the dad she doesn't know she has if she knew who he was adventuring with right now.

Fluttershy was continuing to babble happily about the fact that I was a father. All seemed to be going well until the uncharacteristically chatty pony suddenly trailed off with a confused frown. After a few seconds of nervously shuffling her wings, she finally gave voice to her concerns. “Um, this might be a personal question, but there was something I was curious about. It’s just that you said you had a daughter, but you never said anything about a wife...”

Oh. In hindsight, I should’ve seen that obvious question coming. Derpy was proof that single parents existed in the land of cartoon ponies, but last I checked most cartoons aimed at kids still assumed that the old-fashioned nuclear family was the norm.

I couldn’t tell the ponies what had actually happened to Susan. It would be hard to explain that I’d sacrificed her as part of a blood ritual without making myself sound like a complete monster. I’d been stuck in a no-win scenario, and that was the only way out. If I hadn’t done anything I and all the friends that had come with me–including Susan–would’ve died anyway. Then the Red Court would’ve murdered my daughter to fuel their blood ritual.

Susan and I had a lot of things that never got settled about my daughter, but if there was one thing we both agreed on, it was that we were prepared to do whatever it took to save our little girl. In the end, that’s what we had done. As far as I’d been able to tell, hijacking the Red Court’s blood rite and using Susan in it had destroyed the Red Court. We had stopped a war, destroyed monsters that had been preying on innocents for thousands of years, and most importantly of all, we’d saved our daughter. All I had to do to pull it off was cut the throat of the woman I loved.

It’s not the kind of decision you can really explain to someone who wasn’t there. Especially not one of the ponies who–despite everything they’d gone through recently–was still relatively innocent. A pony as gentle-natured as Fluttershy would never be able to accept what I’d done, not without giving up some part of that basic goodness that made her who she was.

Still, I didn’t want to lie to her. That didn’t mean I couldn’t spare her the unpleasant details. I seemed to be making a habit of that with the ponies. “She died. About a year ago.”

Fluttershy gasped and put her hooves over her mouth. It took nearly half a minute before she recovered from her mortification and spoke once more. “Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry! I never meant to bring up such awful memories.” After several more seconds of awkward silence, she spoke once more. “If–if you don’t mind answering, I was just a little curious. What happened to her? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to...”

I stuck to my policy of giving her the truth, but leaving out the unpleasant details. “Our daughter was kidnapped. Susan gave her life to save our little girl.”

“Oh. My.” Fluttershy hesitantly put a reassuring hoof on my shoulder. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened, Harry. I’m sure you did everything you possibly could do to save her.” Ouch. Fluttershy was really twisting the knife, and the worst part was she didn’t even know it. She gave me a small, tenuous little smile. “I’ve seen how far you were willing to go to save me and my friends. With everything you’ve done to help ponies you hardly even knew, I can only imagine how hard you must have tried to save Susan.”

I didn’t say anything to her reassurances. I don’t know if I could bring myself to say anything. Instead, I just nodded silently. Hopefully Fluttershy would take my reaction as one of grief rather than guilt.

I’m not sure if I let something slip or if she was just sharp enough to read me anyway, but Fluttershy was staring at me with a concerned little frown. “Harry? Is something bothering you?” She didn’t even have to add that she was willing to listen while I told her about it, I already knew that.

I’ll admit, I was halfway tempted to take her up on the offer. I’ve never really had a chance to sit down and just talk about what happened. It didn’t help that most of my friends had been mixed up in the mess, and that things had gone pretty crazy on us in the couple days I did get with them while I was running around as a ghost. The Winter Court isn’t exactly full of the kind of beings you can discuss your psychological traumas with.

If I’d been back on Earth, I probably would’ve gone to Michael about the whole thing. When it came to any kind of moral crisis, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better man to talk to about your problems. There were two problems with that though: I wasn’t back on Earth, and just like the rest of my friends Michael might be a bit too close to it all. I’d put his eldest daughter, a young woman he had entrusted to my care, through hell in the process of saving mine. Michael was a good man, but like any father he might forget that for a few seconds when his children got hurt.

Fluttershy was nicely objective, though. If I needed someone to talk to about all my problems, about everything that had happened to Susan, then I could certainly do worse than to ask the pegasus to hear me out. The only problem with that idea was the trauma I would end up inflicting on Fluttershy. That’s ... kind of a deal-breaker for me. I’d already put the ponies through enough as it was; the last thing I needed to do was to start shoving my personal problems on them as well.

That didn’t leave me any choice but to be just a bit dishonest with her. “It's ... neither of us really knew our daughter until the day Maggie thought we both died. Susan and I both have enemies who would go after her in a heartbeat if they knew she was our daughter, the only way to keep her safe was to keep her far away from us. I’ve only ever seen her once, and even then I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. Not really.”

Next thing I knew, a pair of pony legs were wrapped around my neck. “Oh Harry, I’m so sorry that happened.” I have to say, the hug felt a lot nicer than I’d expected. It was just so ... genuine. After holding onto the hug for a few seconds, Fluttershy spoke once more. “You've been such a good friend to all of us, Harry. If there’s something else that’s bothering you, then you can feel free to tell me about it. And if you don’t want to, then I’m sure you have a very good reason.”

Damn, guess I hadn’t done such a good job of playing this one close to my chest. I guess I should’ve expected to become a target of Fluttershy’s nurturing instincts; she’d probably gotten a good enough look at my soul to know I was damaged goods. Fluttershy being who she was, she’d want to try to fix me. I didn’t have much choice but to tell her something that would hopefully sate her need to comfort me. “She thinks I’m dead. I'll never see her again, so her thinking I'm dead is the kindest thing for it. Maggie is with the best family I could have ever hoped for her to have. Michael is one of my best friends; I know he’ll take good care of her. Still, it hurts knowing I'll never be able to be there for her.”

I’m not sure if Fluttershy accepted that never seeing Maggie was all that was bothering me, or if she just decided to respect my privacy. Either way, she didn’t ask any more questions. It took nearly a minute before she stopped hugging me though. “I'm so sorry that happened, Harry. Is there anything I can do? If–if you would be alright with that, of course.”

“No, I can handle it.” Knowing Fluttershy, anything I even casually suggested would be pounced upon in a frenzy of niceness. Much as I appreciated her kindness, I didn’t want to burden her with problems that I really needed to deal with myself.

That’s when a rather interesting thought occurred to me. I wonder if Maggie watches the cartoon? Considering that it was Michael who first told me about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a regular fixture of Saturday mornings in the Carpenter household. “Actually, there might be one thing...” I was a little hesitant to bring it up since the non-Pinkie Pie ponies had only recently learned that they were cartoon characters–after I figured out that Discord and Nicky had taken over management of the show, I kinda had to spill the beans while I was soulifying them. Still, the ponies had taken the news remarkably well. I suspect it was just a case of them being a bit burned out when it came to shocking revelations. Still, there was no harm in asking. “I’m not sure, but she might be a fan of your show.”

Fluttershy’s eyes brightened up in excitement, and for a second I could’ve sworn I was dealing with Pinkie Pie instead. “Perhaps my friends and I could visit her sometime then? I would just love to have a chance to meet your daughter. I’m sure the others would too. We could talk to her and play games, and sing songs, and...” Fluttershy’s sudden burst of excited energy faded away as she trailed off and self-consciously adjusted her mane before very timidly adding. “Um–if it’s not too much trouble for whoever she’s staying with, that is.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” Stars and stones, Michael had been almost as excited as his girls when Pinkie Pie first popped up in my basement. “I think she’d like a chance to meet some of her favorite cartoon characters, and it certainly sounds like you would like to meet her.” I doubt I’ll ever win a father of the year award, but giving my daughter a chance to meet some real cartoon characters should at least earn me a couple dad points.

I wonder what Mouse would make of the ponies? He was generally a pretty friendly and easygoing dogosaurus, and he’d gotten along well enough with Pinkie when she invaded my apartment. The fact that she let him clean up all the baking dishes she used probably did a lot to earn his good graces. With dogs, food almost always helps to make a good first impression.

Fluttershy looked like she was on cloud nine. “Oh, I can’t wait to meet your daughter. I’m sure she’s going to be a wonderful little filly.” I once again restrained my inner smartass when it came to her choice of terminology for Maggie. If I was talking to one of the other ponies I might have gotten snarky about it, but I don’t think Fluttershy would understand that I was just joking around. Part of being a responsible smartass is recognizing that some people (and ponies) just aren’t equipped to put up with all of my sarcasm.

I gave her a friendly pat on the back, taking appropriate care to make sure it wasn’t too hard or startling. “Hey, thanks Fluttershy. I owe you one.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” she assured me with a gentle smile.


The trip back to Earth went surprisingly smooth, considering the nature of the Outside and all. Journeying through anti-reality was never exactly a boring experience, but I’d done it enough times that I was starting to get just a bit jaded about the whole process. It probably says a lot about just how crazy my life is that going through a place that ignores everything logical and sane doesn’t even bother me anymore.

I commented to Pinkie about how surprisingly safe travelling in the Outside was, and the pony immediately looked at me like I was completely insane. When even Pinkie Pie thinks you’re crazy... “Harry, I’ve had to dodge, like a hundred grumpfles, a dozen mynarns, and a really nasty snarkle in the just the last minute or so.”

“Wait, a what, a what, and a what?” I swear, those names sounded like the kind of thing Pinkie Pie must’ve made up herself. “There’s ... things out here?”

“Oh yeah, bunches of ‘em,” Pinkie chirped at me enthusiastically. “You didn’t know about ‘em. Sheesh, I’ve got no idea how you got to Skyrim without dying Harry.”

Wonderful. More things trying to kill me, and I hadn’t even known about them. “I was following your trail.”

“Oh, that explains it.” Pinkie grinned at me over her shoulder. “Good thing too, a little orange and you would have hit a–” the next thing that came out of Pinkie’s mouth wasn’t even a word at all, just some kind of vocalization. Just hearing it made my ears hurt.

My curiosity got the better of my common sense. “Pinkie Pie, what is a ... that?”

Pinkie narrowed her eyes and frowned at me. “Trust me, you don't wanna know.” A second later she was all smiles again. “Besides, aren't you already gonna be in hot water with your Council for knowing silly willy things you silly willy shouldn't?”

She had two damn good points there. “Yeah, guess you’re right. Never mind.”

Did the completely insane pink party pony use logic just then? Maybe that whole soul thing was doing more weird things to the ponies then I cared to think about. Or it was just a case of a broken clock being right twice a day? Who knew with Pinkie?

What had gone wrong with my life when I was becoming concerned that a talking pink pony was using logic?

Pinkie already knew the way to Earth, but I was still doing navigation duty. Apparently there was more than one way to get back to dear old terra firma, and taking the wrong route would get us popping back up on the wrong side of the world. It was a lucky thing Lash and I had a handy-dandy magical connection to exploit for easy tracking. As far as starting points go, Lash was probably going to be somewhere I needed to be. It certainly beat just popping up at random. Knowing my luck we’d end up right in the middle of more trouble than we could afford to deal with right now.

We popped back into reality in the middle of a city. I had no idea where we were, except that it was cold, the signs were in English, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t Chicago. The mountains I could see off in the distance proved that rather conclusively. It briefly occurred to me that, for a wizard who could use the Nevernever to reach just about any point on the globe in a matter of minutes, I was woefully uninformed when it came to little details like geography. That, and the fact that the only languages I spoke were English and bad Latin didn’t exactly qualify me for much world-travelling. I should probably do something about that some day.

The skyline might’ve helped me identify where we were, if not for the fact that most of the buildings were upside-down. Between that and the pink clouds pouring down brown rain, I could take a reasonable guess that we’d found the right place. Still, it was a pity there was nobody in the streets I could stop and ask for information. I guess that figured though; when bad juju starts going down, most ordinary people have the sense to go home, lock their doors, and wait for the storm to blow over.

At least I was back to being human. It bothered me that I needed a couple seconds to get used being bipedal again. I suppose that made sense, though; I’d spent a good chunk of time stuck in pony form. Enough to start getting a little used to dealing with pony anatomy, and to not freak every morning when I woke up and realized that I was still a horse. At least re-adapting only took me a short little bit, compared to how long it had taken me to get used to being a horse.

I was gonna miss the unicorn telekinesis though. Well, unless I found a way to replicate it. Technically speaking, all I really needed was some basic force or wind magic supplemented with a lot of very fine control. I’d pulled plenty of neat little telekinesis-like tricks in the past, like pulling up a gust of wind to bring me my staff from across the room. Figuring out how to do it with more precision or using multiple objects at once was just a matter of control and concentration. Those are things any wizard can get better at if they’re willing to put in enough effort. After seeing some of the tricks Twilight and Rarity could pull with their precision telekinesis, I was willing to try.

Hell’s bells, if we all made it out of this in one piece I might see about getting Twilight to explain her teleportation to me as well. That would be a neat new trick to add to my arsenal.

A quick once-over confirmed that all the ponies were alright, and they still had their five necklaces, one tiara, and a saddlebag full of muffins. It would’ve been very bad if we’d lost one of those travelling through the Outside, or just plain forget and left the things we needed back in Equestria. Especially the muffins. There was one thing missing that I’d rather been expecting to see once we arrived Earthside though. “Pinkie, I thought we were homing in on Lash. Any idea why she’s not here?”

The answer to my question didn’t come from Pinkie Pie. Well, unless her voice suddenly changed from its usual high-pitched energetic chirp to a smooth and resonant male voice with an accent halfway between British and Middle Eastern. Since this was Pinkie Pie, I couldn’t entirely rule that out. “After the first Outsider struck, I took appropriate measures to prevent any further intrusion from beyond the Gates.”

I broke out into a cold sweat. Much as I would have liked to think it was Pinkie being random, I doubt she could pull off such a perfect imitation of the Gatekeeper. I turned around, and saw the all too familiar hooded figure that bore more than a passing resemblance to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The Gatekeeper was a big fan of the whole face-concealing robe of mystery look. “Greetings, Harry Dresden. I see rumors of your demise were, in fact, greatly exaggerated.”

“Yeah, turns out it was just a mild case of death. Kinda like the flu, except death-ier.” I always get smartassed when I’m scared shitless. In the past, running into the Gatekeeper would’ve been a relief. While it was hard to be sure with how habitually cryptic he was, I’d gotten the general sense that he was on my side. He’d gone out of his way to lend me a helping hand a couple times, and backed me up when I needed support from the Senior Council.

Thing was, in the past I hadn’t been flagrantly violating the Seventh Law of Magic. The Gatekeeper has that title because he’s in charge of keeping an eye on the Outer Gates; in layman's terms, it’s his job to make sure people don’t do exactly what I’d spent the last couple weeks doing. Odds were he knew that, too. Knowing things was part of the whole ancient and mysterious wizard package.

Not that he needed any cryptic old wizard power when I was standing in plain view with seven Outsiders. He’d pretty much caught me red-handed. Sure, I could argue that I deserved a pass on breaking the Seventh Law because it was necessary to stop Discord and Nicodemus, but the Council’s not big on making exceptions. Aside from the Blackstaff, nobody gets to break the rules, no matter how good their reasons are.

That goes double where the Seventh Law is concerned. Most of the other laws would only get you your head cut off for actually going out and doing something. Knowing how to perform necromancy was fine, as long as you didn’t go out and start building up your own zombie apocalypse. However, when it came to the Seventh Law just knowing too much could get you killed. Actually going out and actively consorting with Outsiders, like I’d been doing was a couple steps beyond that.

On a whim I tried to pull in a bit of magic just in case I needed to defend myself, but I got absolutely nothing. I guess it figures that if he could redirect my arrival from the Outside, he would drop me into some kind of magical trap. Oh well, fighting my way past a member of the Senior Council had probably never been a realistic option anyway.

My eyes fell on the ponies, who were all looking between me and the Gatekeeper with varying degrees of confusion and worry. Maybe fighting wouldn’t be completely hopeless after all. The ponies were surprisingly good fighters for a bunch of cartoon equines. Still, if there was anyone in the Council who was prepared for the crazy stunts they could pull, it would be the Gatekeeper. Besides, even if I could win the fight, taking on the Gatekeeper would mean burning my bridges with the White Council. I didn’t want to do that unless I absolutely had to.

I guess there was nothing for it but to face the music and hope I could talk my way out of this. I've pulled it off once with the Gatekeeper when I was in hot water with him. “Heya Rashiid, how's tricks?”

I caught a flash of teeth and vague impression of a smile from within the hood. “Quite well, thank you for asking.” Well, at least he was going to be polite about my potential impending death. “Or at least, as well as one can be whilst fending off a major Outsider incursion.”

“That does tend to put a bit of a damper on one’s day,” I deadpanned.

“Yes, and I was so looking forward to spending the day relaxing at home and reading a good book.” The Gatekeeper is way better than I am at keeping a straight face while delivering his smartassery. “I suppose we should do something about that. However, there was one matter I hoped you might assist me with first. Tell me, do you remember the Seventh Law of Magic?”

“Thou shalt not seek beyond the Outer Gates,” I dutifully quoted. Now that I had a bit more experience with it all, I could tell why that law was in place. Most people wouldn’t think that bringing a bunch of pastel ponies to Earth was all that bad, but the Outer Gates are what separates reality from not-reality. Wearing down that barrier too much could easily lead to Very Bad Things. Not everything in the Outside was cute little cartoon characters.

So that makes two of the Laws of Magic I’ve broken, not to mention the ones I’d skirted around. Sure, a zombie T-Rex technically didn’t violate the laws against necromancy since T-Rex’s weren’t intelligent beings, but the Council doesn’t look kindly on abusing loopholes in the law. I wonder if being dead resets the penalties? It was too bad Morgan wasn't still around, I'm sure he'd love enforcing the Doom of Damocles all over again.

“Just so.” The old wizard nodded sagely. “It would seem then, that you have not forgotten about the Seventh Law. I am curious then, to learn what your reasons are for knowingly violating it.”

Well, that didn’t sound ominous at all. In point of fact he still sounded very polite and casual about the whole thing. It was almost enough to make me think he wouldn’t kill me without batting an eye if he thought I was a threat. I scrambled to come up with a very convincing explanation. “I had to do it. It was the only way to stop Nicodemus and Discord.”

“A conclusion you came to on the basis of your extensive knowledge regarding the workings of the Outside and its denizens, no doubt.” I was ninety nine percent sure that was sarcasm, but the Gatekeeper is kinda hard to read.

“Well ... uh ...” The Gatekeeper had no chance against my silver tongue.

The Gatekeeper leaned in towards me, and a hint of iron entered his voice. “It never occurred to you that perhaps the appropriate response might be to contact the wizard responsible for watching over the Outer Gates, instead of simply following the demons’ path?”

Well when he put it like that, I sounded like an idiot. “Uh, well I was kind of trying to handle the problem on my own.”

“And you clearly have the situation well in hand.” When did the Gatekeeper get so sarcastic? Well, he’d always had a bit of a mischievous streak to him... “I am curious to know; when facing the threat of an entity whose very essence is antithetical to existence, what makes bringing even more such beings to our world a viable solution?”

“Oh, come on.” I reached down and scooped up Derpy, then held her up in front of the Gatekeeper’s face. “Does she really look like a threat to Earth’s safety?”

Derpy gave the most innocent and harmless smile I’d ever seen to emphasize my point. “Hi, I’m Derpy Hooves! Harry told me he was gonna give me muffins! Do you have the muffins?”

I swear I caught an amused little chuckle from the Gatekeeper, but when he answered he was all business. “Regardless of whether their intent is hostile or harmless, the very nature of their existence is hostile to the laws of our universe.”

That got an upset frown from Derpy, and a single flap of her wings removed her from my loose grasp. “So ... no muffins?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any on me.” How the Gatekeeper could jump so smoothly from chewing me out because I’d seriously jeopardized the safety of the entire universe to consoling a cute cartoon pony, I will never know. Maybe dealing with this kind of crazy was just a regular part of the job of being the Gatekeeper.

“Oh well,” Derpy’s ears drooped, but a moment later they perked right back up. “Well if you don’t have any muffins, I’ll give you one of mine!” The pegasus opened up her saddlebag and deposited the baked good into the Gatekeeper’s hands.

The Gatekeeper gave the muffin a critical once-over, and then bit into it. I took advantage of the time he spent eating to ponder my options. I guess I could always try appealing to his pragmatism. Once he finished the muffin, I spoke. “Look, I get that I’ve kinda been running roughshod over the Seventh Law, but I’m still working for the good guys. Can we at least hold off on putting me on trial and chopping my head off until after we deal with the much bigger threat?” I pointed over at whirling maw of chaos to emphasize my point.

Before the Gatekeeper had any time to consider my suggestion Rainbow Dash barged into the conversation with all her usual subtlety. “Whoa! Hang on a minute! Are you really gonna try to cut Harry’s head off, just because he broke some stupid law?” She set her hooves onto the ground and glared up at the Gatekeeper. “Not. Gonna. Happen.” The rest of the ponies were quick to voice their agreement on that point. I admit, the way they all immediately leapt to my defense warmed the cockles of my heart a bit.

The Gatekeeper held up a single hand to forestall the tide of pony protests. “I have no intention of killing Dresden. The Merlin would take it very badly if I sparked a war between the Council and the Winter Court.”

Something about the way he said that made a rather unpleasant realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I’d gotten into this whole mess because I’d been following Mab’s orders. Orders that including flagrantly violating one of the Council’s laws. As long as I was the Winter Knight the Council couldn’t move against me, but the instant I stopped being Mab’s loyal little servant...

Damn. I should’ve known Mab was working on a way to keep me stuck in her service. That was a problem to deal with later though; keeping the bad guys from wreaking havoc was higher priority than getting myself out of the Winter Knight gig.

“Alright, now that we’re done with all the talk about how the Council might decide to lop off my head once it’s politically convenient, how about getting back to saving the world?” That got a nod from the Gatekeeper, and a second later I felt that circle or whatever he’d been using to lock up my magic fade. I guess that meant I was officially off the hook, at least for the moment. “First things first, I’ve been busy running around in the Outside, so what’s been going on back on good old terra firma? So far all I know is that The Order of the Blackened Denarius is working with an Outsider named Discord, though they might have gotten around to backstabbing each other by now. I’ve also got a reasonably solid guess that they’ve taken over an animation studio.”

“It would seem then, that you hardly need me to explain anything at all.” If the Gatekeeper was going back to being a smartass, that was probably a good sign. “The Outsider and his Denarian allies have indeed kidnapped the production staff responsible for creating the entities you’ve brought with you. I met with the Nephelim who seems to have aligned herself with your cause, and she said they have some artifact that should be capable of containing this Discord? I assume you’ve acquired it?”

“Yeah, that’s the necklaces and the tiara. They get close enough to Mr. Big Bad, they can blast him. I’m sure you can guess what my plan is.”

“Charge straight in, find Discord, and blast him?” The whole face-concealing hood made it hard to tell, but I’m pretty sure he was smirking at me. “That would fit your normal way of addressing this sort of situation.”

“What can I say? I’m consistent.” To be fair, there would be a bit more sophistication to the final battle plan than charging in screaming, but I couldn’t hammer out all the details just yet. “What kind of minion-power are we up against? Discord and Nicodemus aren’t going to be doing all the heavy lifting themselves. What are we gonna have to get through to reach him? More of his crazy tongueless cultists? Some of those helldogs of his?”

“Oh, oh! What about very large and angry bees?” Pinkie chimed in. “Or maybe even helldogs with bees in their mouths, so when they bark they shoot bees at us?”

“I don’t believe he has any of the last two,” The Gatekeeper reassured us. “However ... Dresden, how much do you know about how Earth interact with the portion of the Outside where your new companions hail from?”

“I’ve put together a fair bit.” I answered neutrally. “Why? It’s not like you could fill in any gaps within my knowledge without running afoul of the Seventh Law.”

The Gatekeeper went silent for a long moment before he finally answered. “If you will forgive the terrible choice of words in present company, I can’t help but recall an old saying about closing the barn door after the horse has already escaped. Foolish as your actions might have been, it is too late to reverse course.” The Gatekeeper’s hooded gaze quickly swept over the ponies before returning to me. “Fictional characters such as these do not have true free will. If your enemies control the resources to produce new episodes of the cartoon they originate in then, they can essentially control your allies. There are certain limits to how quickly they can be changed since a reasonable portion of the audience must accept any alterations, but–”

I cut him off. “Oh yeah, I took care of that before I came here.”

Even with the whole face-concealing hood, I could tell from the way his stance stiffened that I’d caught the Gatekeeper by surprise. And let me tell you, catching the one guy in the White Council who was allow to look into the future by surprise had a certain amount of satisfaction. “And how, pray tell, did you manage such a thing?”

“I gave them souls,” I answered as casually as I could manage.

I could swear I saw the Gatekeeper’s jaw drop. He needed to upgrade his hood a bit, because I was starting to find a way to get a read on his facial expressions. After a period of what I was reasonably sure was shocked silence, he asked. “You gave Outsiders souls?”

I kept my answer short and to the point. “Eeyup.”

“Dresden,” the Gatekeeper sounded far more serious than I’d ever heard from him before, even on the one or two occasions when he’d mentioned possibly killing me. “Do you have any idea what the consequences of that could be?”

“Well, I know one thing. It keeps Discord from controlling them. Aside from that, I have no idea.” I paused in thought for a moment, and amended. “Well, I’m reasonably certain that it didn’t make the universe explode. At least, not yet.”

The Gatekeeper didn’t seem to find that answer very reassuring. “When Oppenheimer split the atom, he could not have fathomed the screams to come from Japan, nor the hushed terror held by the world since. Do you know what the consequences of your actions might be? I do not, but I fear that what you have done might shake the very foundations of our existence.”

Before I could start getting too panicked over the fact that not even the White Council’s expert on the Outside knew what the effects of my crazy solution would be, Pinkie Pie cut in with another one of her random exclamations. “You done goofed Harry! Consequences will never be the same!”

I think I liked Pinkie's analysis better. It filled me with the urge to laugh instead of stewing in quiet terror. The Gatekeeper had a damn good point, I’d meddled in things that probably shouldn’t be meddled with. That could end all kinds of badly. Having free will was one of the few advantages to being human in a world where very scary things go bump in the night. Handing that advantage to the supernatural nasties could land the human race in some really hot water down the road.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Gatekeeper.” Not much more I could say to that. Whatever nasty side effects might be coming my way were already in motion. It’s not like I could just turn back the clock and change my actions. If I could, that would save me a lot of grief. Soulifying the ponies wouldn’t be one of the things I would change, though. If I wanted to save the world, I needed my candy colored equines to not suddenly go Hannibal Lecter on me and try and turn me into cupcakes. “If anything does go wrong because of my actions, I’ll do whatever I can to fix it.”

“If that should come to pass, let us hope that what you can do will be enough.” Gee Gatekeeper, that didn’t sound ominous at all.

Well, I could worry about the long-term fallout of my actions after I survived the next couple of hours. “So anyway, back to business. Nicky’s got his footsoldiers, and probably a couple more ‘tardbeast Nickelheads to throw at us too. Any other nasty surprises?’

“Not that I know of,” The Gatekeeper answered. “But if I knew of it, then it would be a rather poorly executed nasty surprise, now wouldn’t it?” While that was a fair point, it was still an aggravating bit of wordplay.

I guess I’d just have to think on my feet when it came to dealing with the unexpected. I had plenty of experience when it came to doing that. “Right, expect the unexpected. So what do we have to work with? Did the Council send a decent supply of Wardens? What about ... well, everyone else with a vested interest in not letting the bad guys ruin our planet?”

“Sadly, it seems that most of the supernatural world has decided that–for the moment–the matter is somebody else’s problem.” As aggravating as it was to learn we were on our own, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Discord was bad enough news that taking him down would tax the resources of whoever went after him. All the big movers and shakers were probably hoping that someone else would be the one to pay the butcher’s bill for taking out Discord.

I had a bad feeling the Council would be following the same policy, especially with how thin-stretched their resources were. You would think that me putting an end to the war with the Red Court would’ve helped there, but instead it just meant the Council had to deal with all the things they’d let slip while focusing on the war. Not to mention all the other nasties like the Fomor that were busy taking advantage of the power vacuum left behind by the destruction of the Red Court.

I gave a resigned sigh. “Lemme guess, the Council’s not giving us anything to work with either, are they?”

“I’m afraid not,” The Gatekeeper confirmed. “The Council has asked me to contain the situation while they evaluate their options and form a plan of attack.”

I was a bit surprised when Twilight inserted herself into the conversation. “But now that we’re here surely we can explain to this council that–”

“No, we can’t.” I felt a nasty twinge of guilt at Twilight's surprised little flinch. I hadn’t meant to snap at her, but I was just so tired of the Council’s habitual inability to find its own ass with a flashlight and a map. “Sorry, it’s just that the White Council’s not gonna like any plan of attack that’s relies upon using Outsiders to deal with Discord. If we tried meeting with them, we’d be lucky to make it out of there without a fight, let alone actually getting any help out of them.”

“But the Elements of Harmony are the only way to stop Discord!” Twilight shot right back with a frustrated glower.“Why would they try to stop us? If they want to stop Discord too, then they should be helping us!”

“Look, Twilight, the thing you need to understand about the White Council is...” I trailed off as I tried to come up with a pony-friendly way of explaining the problem.

“Frequently dominated by short-sighted egotistical fools and cynical power-hungry politicians who know how to manipulate said fools?” The Gatekeeper helpfully suggested.

“Yeah, that about covers it.”

“But– I don’t understand. I thought the White Council were supposed to be protectors of this realm?” Twilight stared at me with aggravated incomprehension. “If the Council is really that bad, then why do you put up with it?”

To be honest I’d asked myself that question more than once in the past, put some hard life experience had taught me otherwise. “Don’t get me wrong, the Council is a long way from perfect, but it beats the hell out of the alternative.”

“Still sounds like a dumb way of running things,” Rainbow Dash opined. “You guys oughta just put a Princess in charge of things like we do.”

“Sorry, last I checked Earth doesn’t have any immortal Goddess-Princesses.” Which was almost a pity, since having some nigh-omnipotent and omnibenevolent being that wasn’t afraid to help out directly when people needed it would be nice. Sure, God and the angels did what they could to help out, but they had a lot of rules constraining just what they could accomplish. The closest things we had in comparison were beings like Mab, Queen of Air, Darkness and Female Villain Archetypes.

A second later my cynicism kicked back in. Spending too much time in cartoon land might have infected me with a bit of their happy optimism. “Besides, even if we did have someone like your princesses, they probably wouldn’t be nearly as nice about it as Celestia. Humans have a saying about how power corrupts for a reason. And even when the person uses their power the right way, no single ruler will ever be infallible.”

“Yes...” Twilight responded very slowly. “Princess Celestia hasn’t always been perfect.” I felt like kicking myself in the head–considering what Twilight had gone through, it would probably be best to avoid any discussion of the relative merits of Princess Celestia's rule for a while.

Time for a change of subject. Lucky for us, the continuing threat to my homeworld made for a great distraction from Twilight Sparkle’s personal issues. “So, it’s just me, you and the ponies?” Well, I could try calling up some of my old friends. But that would mean convincing them all that I was alive again, and getting them all to wherever the hell we were. Speaking of that, “By the way, Gatekeeper, where are we?”

“In Canada. Vancouver, to be precise.” Yeah, that confirmed it. Even if I could get word my former allies and convince them that this wasn’t all some elaborate ruse, getting them from Chicago to Canada would complicate things. Well, unless I used a shortcut through the Nevernever, but that was gonna be a really hard sell. The Nevernever is a dangerous place on a good day, and really dangerous if you don’t know your way around. I wasn’t going to convince anyone that I was really me beyond all shadow of any doubt; I’d had a hard enough time convincing everyone that I was a ghost. After the appearance of my ghost had indisputably confirmed my death in their eyes, getting them to believe that I was alive after all would take time. I didn’t know what Discord and Nicky were up to, but odds were giving them time would be a bad idea.

Especially since, considering I was pretty sure Nicky had thoroughly studied the Evil Overlord List, he probably had some of his pet cultists keeping an eye on my known associates. Right now, we quite possibly had the element of surprise on our side. The bad guys were probably still busy messing around with Equestria. If they figured out that I was back on Earth, I’d start getting their full attention. Nicodemus and Discord were not going to just let me run around freely to gather allies and build up some kind of coalition to take them down.

“I do have some good news,” the Gatekeeper announced. “The situation is not quite as lonely as you might believe. The city does have a Warden; Warden Jenkins is rather young and impetuous, but a Warden is a Warden.”

“Wait, his name is Jenkins?” Pinkie cut in with her usual level of enthusiasm. “Is his first name Leeroy? Please, please tell me it’s Leeroy!”

The Gatekeeper fixed Pinkie with a mystified stare for several seconds before finally answering. “No. His first name is Richard.”

“Aw poopie,” Pinkie’s ears drooped in disappointment. “It would’ve been so much funnier if his name was Leeroy.” Her ears perked back up and hint of hopeful optimism returned to her voice. “Do you think maybe he could change it?”

“That would be something you should ask him about.” Now that he had artfully dodged Pinkie’s latest odd little obsession, the Gatekeeper returned his attention to me. “Your nephilim companion also chose to accompany me. I suspect she will be pleased to see you again.”

“Nephi-what now?”Applejack cut in.

“He mean Lash,” Rainbow explained. “She’s a nephi-thing, right?”

“Yes, and it’s nephilim.” I’m pretty sure Lash would get a little aggravated if I let the ponies keep calling her a nephi-thing. She tended to get a little picky when it came to getting minor details like what species she was right.

“Well, now that I am reasonably certain you are not an immediate threat to the safety of Earth, I believe it is past time you were reunited with her.” The Gatekeeper pointed down the street, and ponies immediately took off running (or in Rainbow’s case, flying) towards Lash. I was about to join them at my much slower bipedal pace when the Gatekeeper put a single hand on my shoulder. The touch itself was light enough, but I froze as if he had an iron grip. “It would be wise for you to not make a habit of violating the Seventh Law.” The Gatekeeper kept his voice light and conversational, but I was still starting to feel just a tiny bit of very justified nervousness. “Your association with Mab provides you with a certain degree of insulation, but if certain lines are crossed you may find that the protection of the Winter Court is far from an absolute guarantee of safety.”

You wouldn’t think the Gatekeeper could be so pants-crappingly terrifying. He wasn’t a very physically imposing fellow, and he didn’t pull any of the usual tactics that go along with intimidation. He was just very calmly informing me of the facts. Such as the fact that if I pissed on the Council’s Laws again, not even the Winter Queen could save my sorry ass. Despite the lack of the usual accoutrements that accompany scare tactics, I was feeling very intimidated.

After narrowly avoiding the need to change my pants, I followed the ponies until I found the seven of them clustered around Lash and chatting animatedly. Judging by the fact that Lash was currently munching on a muffin, it was a safe bet that Derpy had already taken care of properly introducing herself.

“Lash, good to see you again.” The nephilim shifted her muffin to her left hand so she could give me a quick handshake. I gave her a quick once-over, and couldn’t stop myself from smirking. “I see you’re still taking fashion sense cues from me.”

Lash gave me a similar once over, and raised a single eyebrow before offered a slightly disdainful sniff. “Fashion might be an overstatement,” she snarked right back, earning a nod of agreement from Rarity. “There is a certain practicality to your wardrobe though. That, and it’s impossible to find find a single clothing retailer that stocks a decent selection of tunics and stolas.”

“Sorry, Roman fashions kinda went out of style about fifteen hundred years ago.” I guess that’s just one of the hazards of being an immortal. “Assuming we make it out of this alive, you could always try to bring the look back.”

“I shall bear that in mind,” Lash commented dryly. “But for now, I believe that the simple shirt, jeans, and duster combination shall suffice. Perhaps it is for the best; Roman fashion wasn’t really made with late November Canada in mind, even if being near the coast takes a bit of the sting out of the cold.”

She had a point there. Not only was my duster nicely practical for layering on the defensive enchantments, it was also pretty good at keeping the cold out. Then again, being the Winter Knight had done a lot to make ordinary winter weather less of an issue for me. It was a bit annoying that Lash managed to make the look work so much better than I did, though. I guess that was inevitable–I was tall, awkward, and scruffy-looking on a good day. She was a strawberry blond with the sort of classical beauty that never goes out of style.

Sometimes life just really isn’t fair to me.

I took a look over what I had to work with, and I wasn’t feeling all that optimistic. The ponies should be able to smack Discord around with the good old friendship explosion, but first we had to get past all the minions Nicky and Discord had between us and them. That wasn’t going to be easy, especially since me and Lash would both need to follow the First Law of Magic when it came to Nicky’s cultists. Fanatical lunatics without automatic weapons could still cause plenty of trouble for a wizard, especially in large numbers. The ponies might not be bound by our laws, but I don’t think I could really expect them to be alright with racking up a body count either. We might be stuck holding off until Luna could mobilize the ponies or I could get some of my old allies in position to help out. I didn’t like the idea of sitting back and waiting while the bad guys made their move.

“It would be nice if we had a bit more backup.” I grumbled under my breath.

A second after I said that a large, semi-muscular black man carrying an AK-47 and a saber walked around the corner. “There is old saying,” the man declared in a thick Russian accent. “Ask, and you shall receive.”

Even if I hadn’t recognized him right off the bat, black guys with Russian accents weren’t all that common. “Sanya?”

I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised that the only current Knight of the Cross was here. Showing up at the right time seemed to be one of the perks of paladinhood, and the Knights usually put in an appearance whenever the Denarians were up to no good. Still, it was damn good to see him.

“Harry.” The black russian grasped my hand hard enough to make in impression of fingerprints on my bones. “I am glad to see you again. It is good that you are not dead. I am curious how you are alive, and with so many bright and colorful ponies.”

“I got better.” The long explanation could wait for later. I was a little surprised he hadn’t gotten the whole story from Lash, but I guess things might be just a tad awkward between the ex-fallen nephilim and the agnostic holy warrior.

I’ve always found it rather strange that receiving a divinely blessed sword from an archangel wasn’t enough to shake him out of his ambivalence about the possible existence of the divine. Maybe it was one of those weird Russian things. Whatever the case, his lack of belief didn’t seem to have any negative impact on his ability to make with the holy smiting when it came time to do so.

Sanya was one hell of an asset to have on our side. However, he was still just one Knight of the Cross; there were supposed to be three of them. Two of the swords were in between wielders last I’d heard, but I had been out of the loop while Mab was whipping me back into shape. “I don’t suppose any new Knights of the Cross showed up while I was busy being dead?”

Sanya gave a sad shake of his head. “No. It would be nice if I did not have to do everything by myself, but until the swords choose new wielders...” he trailed off with sigh, shrugged, and muttered. “Nichevo.” I don’t speak a lick of Russian, but from the context I could take a guess that it was something fatalistic. It was always a safe bet that a Russian was being fatalistic.

Fatalism did pretty much sum up the situation. Until the other two Swords picked wielders, there wasn’t much I could do to change the fact that Sanya was in it alone. The Swords of the Cross have some very exacting requirements for their wielders, and out of the few people qualified to use one of them not everyone is willing. Taking up one of those swords is a lifetime commitment–Fidelacchius’ wielder wound up dying on the job, while my old friend Michael only got to retire after Tessa emptied an AK-47 into him. Michael survived, but he took enough damage that his demon-hunting days were over.

It was a pity, we could sure use two more Knights right about now. I was once more halfway tempted to float the idea of trying to give the ponies the other two swords. The ponies presumably didn’t qualify as Knights, but anyone who was appropriately virtuous could tap into at least some of the Swords’ power. However, there was still the same problem that came up with the Lightsabers; ponies just can’t use a sword that’s designed with the human hand in mind, and at the end of the day I always picked practicality over style. Most of the time.

I was beginning to understand just why Lyra had that bizarre interest in replacing her hooves with hands. If her anatomy were a bit more accommodating I would bet Rainbow Dash could do just fine with Fidelacchius, and considering the nature of the cartoon any of the ponies could probably do alright with Amoracchius.

“We’ll just have to manage with what we have.” I have to say, as far as reassurances go that wasn’t my best one.

“We usually do.” Sanya gave a tight grin. “But then, we usually have more than we do right now.” He let out a grim chuckle at his own joke, and after a moment I joined in.

“There is one thing I am curious about, Harry.” The Russian gave me a hearty slap on the back, and I was relieved when he didn’t hit me quite hard enough to make me stagger. Maybe he’d learned to tone it down a bit, or maybe all the perks of being the Winter Knight were paying a few dividends. “Why is it that you are reading private pony diaries? That is very rude.”

“Huh?” It took me a second to recall how he must have figured that out. I never had gotten around to getting rid of the writing Twilight's little trap spell had slapped onto my forehead. I guess I got distracted by trans-dimensional travel and the threat of a potential global apocalypse. Perhaps that was part of why the Gatekeeper and Lash seemed so amused when they first met me. Now that I was back in my old stomping grounds, I knew how to handle this particular little problem.

One quick chalk circle later, I was writing free. Pinkie and Rainbow looked slightly disappointed that I’d taken away one of their sources of teasing material, while Sanya was frowning at me. “You are not answering question Harry, just covering up evidence.”

“Yeah, next thing you know I’ll be airbrushing Trotsky out of all the photos.” That was a bit of a low blow, but I only had so much to work with when it came to Sanya. “Anyway, there’s a long story that includes a perfectly good explanation about why I read Twilight’s diary without asking her first, and that’s all that needs to be said on the matter.”

“You may say so, but still.” Sanya waved a chiding finger at me. “Reading private pony diary. Shame.”

“I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to live with the guilt,” I confessed. “I think I might have to retire to a monastery after this is all over and spend the rest of my life in penance.”

“I think that would be best,” Sanya agreed. He turned to Lash and grinned. “I am wondering how you were able to manage for so long within his mind. It must have been a very strange and frustrating place.”

Whoa. So Sanya knew what Lash was, and he didn’t have a problem with it? That was a pair of surprises. Maybe he got a message from some of those Angels he didn’t believe in about her? Or perhaps ... wait. I had asked her to check in on Maggie. Michael would know about Lash, and he probably had some way to get in touch with Sanya and clue him in. With Sanya’s history as an ex-Denarian, he probably would be rather sympathetic to Lash’s position.

“It had its ups and downs.” Lash shot a smirk my way. “At the very least, I had plenty of room to accommodate myself.” Oh, nice burn Lash. I’d have to get her back for that one later.

“It’s not as bad as you would think, though,” she continued. “I expected to deal with a horrendous barrage of terrible ice and winter-related puns after he began service as the Winter Knight, but so far he’s been remarkably restrained in that regard. In fact...” Lash trailed off and her face slowly transformed into an expression of mounting dread as she saw me grinning like a kid in candy store. “I think mentioning the lack of terrible puns might have been grave error on my part.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it Lash.” I smiled and threw an arm over her shoulders. “You need to stop getting so bothered about every little thing. Just chill out.”