"Why are you still talking that way?"
"It gave him comfort."
"He's dead."
"Perhaps it still gives him comfort."
Celestia hunched her body low in the embassy's main bathing pool, which was large enough for her: a number of ponies still regarded baths as social occasions, and so most Equestrian buildings made sure their facilities could host a gathering, which usually meant a few minutes of arguing over the best temperature. In her case, she'd wanted boiling, and the option for lava was still on the tally sheet. Luna had gone to the proper device and pushed the settings to their limits, then used a few old methods of firestarting and arranged the results around the sunken pool. It wasn't enough. The lava wouldn't have been enough. After time spent merged with Sun, nothing would have sufficed except that which she had just barely managed to escape -- through the efforts of the one who had pulled her back.
It was psychological, she knew. For a few hours, she had been a thing of heat and had then been pulled down into to a cold world. She would recover: typically, a night's sleep was generally sufficient to mostly renew her, and most of her capabilities would have returned by the following morning. But it had been two hundred and seventy years since the last time somepony had pulled her back. That much time since she'd heard Sun's voice so clearly.
That voice was stronger now. Perhaps not as strong as it could have been: she didn't know if Discord's temporary seizure of control had done any real degree of new damage. But stronger than she'd ever heard it, so much closer to healed --
-- and as Sun became stronger, it took more and more to pull her back.
Perhaps it would be strong enough to fully reach down one day. To yank.
Celestia shivered in the water, and no amount of heat ever would have been enough to stop it.
We try not to think about how fragile things truly are...
Softly, the words of her anchor weighted with memory, "It's not helping, is it?"
She sighed, looked up at her sibling, who had been quietly keeping guard, sitting at the edge of the pool. "It's all in my head, Luna. We both know that. And... it'll be out again after I sleep, as much as it ever is. The water is just for... I guess it's closer to a drug than anything else. Not so much coming down slowly as trying to recapture a little of... you know. And... trying to feel the world again."
The younger slowly nodded. "I know. It is not -- it's -- I..." The left forehoof came up, touched her head just below the horn. With pain which was entirely internal, "I am -- out of practice, sister. For this if nothing else, I have not -- I'm trying, but --"
Celestia's smile stopped her. "It's okay, Luna. It's enough that you're trying."
Trying for me.
Luna's speech patterns had been set in something far stronger than stone for... a long time. Even with some of her vocabulary updated for the modern day, her words still tended to be far too formal, to the point where a minor palace joke (which the staff mistakenly believed neither of them knew about) consisted of taking any standard sentence and "translating" it into Lunaspeak, which they all seemed to feel meant tripling the verbiage. Oh, it was possible to get an unintentional contraction out of Luna, and those times generally came during moments of high emotion: when her sister was particularly upset, distracted, or pleased with herself, a few shortcuts of language could sneak in. But to speak in a casual manner with deliberate intent... there was only one possible reason for that.
Luna was trying to speak more normally, if only for a little while, because she believed it would give Celestia comfort.
Celestia thought about that, and it warmed her.
"Take your time," Luna said. "Please. We don't have to start the next stage until you're ready --"
"-- no, I'm up to it," Celestia told her. "Nose that atlas over to the edge." Luna nodded, pushed the book they'd retrieved from the embassy's library closer to the water, and Celestia swam over to meet it. "I have to do this now, before any of the perceptions I managed to bring back fade." It was hard, seeing things from Sun's viewpoint. Using its sensorium. It was something like the first time she'd ever been able to access pegasus sight, except that the latter had eventually become natural and looking out through Sun -- she knew it saw more than light, heat, humidity, and ion charges, and during merger, she did as well. But she couldn't retain those levels of the visions: her mind possessed nothing suitable for processing them -- and receiving those impressions tended to confuse the things she was capable of comprehending.
Sun seemed to understand, at least on some level, and the times she'd tried to work with and through it had let both learn some degree of filtering. It always took some time to reorient after she was pulled back, and much of that was used for sorting through what she'd brought with her, turning the images into something a pony could work with -- but at the same time, her mind was trying to shield her from the stranger things, that which neither had learned to block, and it meant those perceptions would fade.
(On a much lesser level, it was taking her own height issues and multiplying them by several thousand. A top-down view of the entire world wasn't particularly easy to work with.)
They began to turn pages, with Luna doing most of the work: Celestia didn't want to try using her field just yet, and her snout was somewhat wet. It took them eighteen minutes to find it.
"Right there," Celestia finally decided. "Sun went over that hill just before I saw the flowers: I recognize the little crater at the summit."
Luna took a closer look. "Isolated, as expected. I see a town about a quarter-gallop away, but it doesn't seem to be a particularly large one. A few approach roads for the settlement -- but no farmland, no worked areas anywhere other than the town. That would provide most of their protection."
"There's a new road," Celestia told her.
"Where?"
"Here --" and her hard-learned instincts betrayed her. She had subconsciously intended to ignite her corona at the partial level, let her field indicate the path with a winding trail of glow. Instead, her eyes simply slammed shut as the pain hit. "-- Tartarus chain it!"
Instantly, "What did you attempt?"
"Just basic light," Celestia groaned. "I forgot... well, it's our copy, and it's not as if Twilight's ever going to see this..." She forced herself to look at the room again, winced as the light stabbed her eyes, and then carefully lowered her horn. Water dripped a dark trail onto the page. "More or less like that. Only not so wide."
"Or saturated," Luna dryly observed. "Leading to the main route, if your aim was true."
Celestia nodded. "You can just get hints of it from above. They tried to leave most of the trees in place, but they're using some kind of vehicle, and the most natural path goes near a few more open areas. I got enough pieces to connect them. At a guess, the exit onto the main road is fairly well-concealed, and they probably have lookouts there. But when you see the sheer size of their crop area... well, it's not all flowers: that's just one small section. Like the Referee suggested, it can't be their central selling item. But there's a lot of other things being grown. I recognized sienna root, just for starters: you can't miss that level of tangle. And there's some buildings: processing, living quarters, cart storage, at the very least. Put it all together and they've got a lot of border to defend, with nothing but wild zone on the other side. That gives us a lot of potential approach routes. I think we can find a way in."
"Where are the flowers?"
"Towards the northwest edge of the property: I can't show you anything in more detail than that on this map. I can try to sketch it out..."
It triggered a small smile. "Tia attempting art -- or at least cartography, which often comes close enough to suit. This truly is a special occasion. A moment, please: I'll be back shortly..." Three minutes, and the dark field bubble lowered a tray bearing paper, ink, and quill to the driest portion of the pool's border. "Proceed."
Celestia took the quill up between her teeth. Something not even remotely resembling sketching ensued, and they both examined the initial results.
"They're actually pretty isolated -- the flowers, I mean," Celestia noted. "They're well away from all the other crops. I could see the buffer zone. But there were sapients tending them. And..." She frowned. "This is where it gets hard. I know I saw minotaurs: I could make out the horns. Just two in that exact area, maybe fourteen out on the property itself, at least in the open. But the colors for the ones among the flowers were... off. I don't know if that's just because I haven't tried to figure out Sun's visions in so long, but I've never seen minotaurs with that fur shade. Even their horns were the wrong hue. The same hue."
"Does it matter?"
"It might. I think some of the others had that hue too, but... it's hard to remember, Luna. It's hard to even describe. It's like the first time we tried to remember what color heat was. The more I try to remember it, the harder it is to even interpret. All I know is that it wasn't a normal minotaur color."
Luna thought it over. "Covering the horns as well? They may have their own protection, sister. Something to keep the flowers from affecting them."
It made sense -- and then it triggered anger. "If I find out that the Hoovmat factory has been supplying drug dealers..."
"He cannot help the identity of his customers," Luna pointed out. "Or he would have turned us away. However, neither of us saw any patterns for minotaur forms, and the search was rather thorough. Barring a secondary manufacturing site which he completely managed to keep out of his true ledgers, they may be creating such things on their own. Or... it may simply be trying to reconcile Sun's visions."
Celestia went with the more cautious option. "Let's assume they have some protection of their own." And softly sighed. "Which takes out one of our better hopes."
"That they had found immunity or cure for themselves," Luna nodded, "and had simply chosen not to share it. Which, given the otherwise fatal nature of their product, is a rather poor marketing strategy -- but few ever said that sentience had to mean sanity. Continue your efforts, sister: I know how small the post-recovery window is..."
Celestia drew (or attempted to do the same) for a while. Luna watched, occasionally questioned, mostly resisted the urge to critique. And then they reached the hardest part.
"How do you want to explain this?" Celestia asked, and waited.
"A plant-finding spell would be our normal first resort," Luna considered. "Torque knows something of magic -- and to know only something of it is often to believe it can do anything. The others will see alicorns first and foremost and for many, that explains all. But we cannot show them the map. Such a spell would have only found the plants, with our sensory impressions compared to the atlas after the casting. The finer -- well, in the broadest sense of the word -- details of what you have drawn... we cannot account for that."
"Everything's written down somewhere," Celestia dryly said. "More than a few parties suspected what we were doing in the first days, and it's pretty easy to guess that most of it got passed on: I've heard the rumors resurface every so often. But I'm not ready to directly confirm solar and lunar scrying, not even for this. Torque's been more than cooperative so far -- but if he knows Equestria has the potential to spy on Mazein from above, I don't think he's going to take it very well."
"We will have to scout in a more standard manner, regardless," Luna told her. "And..." The pause went on for a while. "...depending on when we decide to make our attempt, it may be necessary to... I..."
Instantly and automatically, "No."
"Tia, we have a fraction of the information we require. You indicated what seem to be guard postings for the day, and only a tiny fraction of it at that. We do not know how they defend themselves at night."
"No. You'd get the same amount of time I did." As with the eclipse, Sun and Moon could be accelerated or braked -- something which required a significant amount of effort. But with the eclipse, the siblings had alerted every nation in the world as to what was happening. In the Discordian Era, a steady long-term progression of either orb through the sky would have seemed unusual. In the modern day, to look up and notice either had effectively paused in its path tended to attract a certain amount of additional attention -- and, if held too long, a guaranteed degree of worldwide panic. "We'd only have a fraction of their night postings to work with. And they might be on high alert at night, expecting that no one would try to come in during daylight. It might actually be easier under Sun. And they can't stay out there forever: there's only so much time they would be tending the crops during the day, especially if they have earth ponies working for them. So maybe if we move close to dawn --"
That left forehoof came up again. "-- wait. Did you see ponies?"
"No," Celestia admitted. "But we have to consider the possibility. We don't know what we'll be facing for defenses other than the minotaurs themselves -- but magic is always an option."
Luna's eyes closed.
"Let us hope it never was."
And the pained words were something other than the protest of a tactician attempting to plan an attack on the enemy fortress.
"...Luna?"
"Tia... think about it..."
It came up again the next day, at the group meeting just before leaving Polis.
"All right," Torque said. "A plant detection spell." The words didn't seem to be skeptical. "Wish it was something you could teach the unicorns we've got on the police... And we can't go charging in because sending a bunch of minotaurs or ponies or anything across the crop area is basically begging for a group infection."
Celestia nodded. "Without knowing a cure, we can't casually approach the area. For all we know, they're --" the thought was dark, and thus had to be expressed "-- just working with a crew of those who were already exposed." Which would require a certain degree of rotation. Find a few naive souls, set them to work for what was promised to be exceptionally good pay for the hours and degree of labor, then wait until the effects truly began to show, and... well, then there would be a need for a few new naive souls, while the experienced employers headed off to their own labor, bringing both shovels and bodies along.
"Or they've got protection," Torque considered.
"As we do," Luna grimly smiled.
It got Vanilla's attention. "We can't be sure," he quickly pointed out. "The suits might be enough --"
"-- they are enough for your current theories," Luna interrupted. "True?"
Chocolate reluctantly nodded. "We're thinking either pollen or oils. Inhaled or skin contact, and the Hoovmat suits would shield us from either one. But those are just the most likely possibilities, Princess. It's hard to completely eliminate anything when magic is involved, not when you don't know exactly what kind of magic you're dealing with."
"Diseases which phase into the body are an interesting theory," Celestia decided, "but not one with a great deal of backing. For the sake of our collective sanity, let's assume it's something physical. We can use the suits --"
"-- who's 'we'?" And that had come from Torque, with the words followed by a hard snort.
They all stared at him for a few seconds.
"Not you, Torque," Celestia quickly pointed out. "We don't have anything for a minotaur body, and even if we take a trip back to Equestria, it'll take a few days to have something made and tested. We can't go charging in, but there's only so long we can stall, especially with red-tinge cases in your hospitals --"
"-- right," he cut her off. "You've got suits for Joyous, which includes the backups in case her main one gets damaged. The docs have suits, so they could try to work with whatever we found. You two got them made for yourselves, just in case. And as far as we know, they'll protect you against pollen or oils. But that doesn't include all the things we don't know. You two put yourselves in that area, and you're risking infection. If you get infected -- how much goes with you?"
Silence.
'Knowing how -- fragile things truly are...'
"Torque," Celestia finally made herself begin, "I appreciate your concern. But if we send in a small force, it has to be a capable one. The odds of having the flowers work on us through the suits... they're almost zero. And --"
"-- capable?" The snort nearly shattered the air. "How long have I been posted to Equestria? How many Mazein ponies were around when I was growing up? Let's say the suits protect you from the flowers. Do you know what else they do? They make you helpless!"
And neither sibling could look at him. Because that was, in fact, part of the problem.
The suits had to cover every portion of their bodies and, as with the one Joyous wore, allowing wing movement would have compromised the protection in that area. No wing movement meant no flight, with pegasus techniques that much harder to create -- assuming their fields would conduct through the material at all. Their horns would be under the strange fabric, and while it was hardly the thick metal of a restraint, it still represented a degree of barrier to the projection of unicorn workings. There had been a caster in their lives who could consistently work through a hat -- and thus had worn one just so everypony would know it. But the majority of unicorns would be unable to do anything, and even the siblings would be fighting through interference. And they would still be able to defend themselves physically, their strength would be retained -- but the more of it they exerted, every time they moved at a speed no other pony could achieve, they chanced rending the suit. Be too careful with their own efforts, and fail to block an opponent whose attack created the smallest rip...
It was why Luna had wished for no ponies to have placed magical protections around the crops. It wasn't just about having less defenses to get past. It was because anypony who had created those protections would have been exposed. How many ponies would it have taken? How many were the dealers willing to hire? And if they had been allowed to return to public life... There could easily be a dozen or more new cases in Mazein, all roughly around the stage Joyous' parents had been at following a year of exposure. And depending on just who had found the flowers and when, plus how much time it had truly taken to set up the area, it could be so much worse than that...
"We know," Celestia softly said. "We're trying to figure out a way around it. I'm not thinking about a full-scale assault, Torque. Not until we can protect your law enforcement officials, and know that if that protection is breached, we can help them. Right now, our plan is to get in and out, unseen. Gather enough samples for the Doctors Bear to work with, and let them proceed from there. When it's time for a full raid, if we find out the minotaurs working the crops are wearing protective suits, we get Hoovmat to make them in minotaur dimensions, or find out where that supply is coming from if the dealers aren't doing that job themselves. If they're out in the open, then we have to assume that they either have some other kind of protection, a cure, or -- disposable workers. And that last means we won't go in unprotected no matter what -- but eventually, we have to go in for more than a quick raid. And I'm not risking minotaur lives."
"Risk your own," Torque softly pointed out, "and you risk everyone."
"We... are aware," Luna quietly replied. "There are many reasons we seldom act directly, Ambassador, and you clearly understand the most fundamental among them. For now, we are simply planning -- or attempting same. We have yet to commit to any full course of action. But we need the flowers, and -- this is where they are. Perhaps the only place they are, at least in Mazein: my sister's working detected no others. We cannot teleport a piece of land to us. We cannot work from above, even if we disregard any air defenses: we cannot fly in the suits, and self-levitation... Let us all think. We have some time yet."
Celestia's horn ignited, and her field carefully shuffled a few maps. "We're officially on tour, which means we have the freedom to go wherever we want. We'll route the path towards the crucial area. If we come up with something quickly, we'll accelerate a little. But for now... we plan. Everyone plans, and everypony. Anything you can come up with -- tell us. We're not the only ones capable of creating solutions. I don't care who the right answer comes from: I just want to hear it."
The final presence in the meeting room sat quietly, shivering slightly within her Hoovmat suit. Brilliant yellow eyes stared at the maps.
"Joyous?" It came from the siblings and doctors -- but not Torque, at least not in time for a perfect chorus. For it had been weeks since that first meeting, with all subsequent ones conducted with a fabric barrier between them. And as the physicians had predicted, the effect was not permanent. He still wanted to help her, he was doing everything he could to make it work -- but for the moment, his motivations were the least clouded by mists.
"I'm thinking," the pegasus softly told them. "Just... thinking." And no matter how long they waited, it was all she would say.
There was something they did not wish to think of, and so with deliberate intent, no one thought of it.
"All right," Celestia finally said. "Before we collect the Guards and start preparing for the next phase, does anyone have something else to add?" And much to her surprise, both doctors flashed their coronas. She quickly nodded to the surgeon.
"Before we leave," Chocolate began, "I'm going to hit every pharmacy, apothecary, and herbalist shop I can find. And that may not be enough."
"Your intent?" Luna inquired.
He took a deep breath. "This flower," he said, "reminds me of Poison Joke, at least in that we have a flower which affects ponies through magic. It's possible that the species are related. And Poison Joke doesn't wear off on its own, because a pony touching its petals picks up the oils. They bond to the skin, and once the effects begin, we think the pony's own magic is tapped to keep the effect going. The ingredients in the cure dissolve that bond and negate the oil. And then there's nothing forcing the magic to keep working that way, so the pony reverts to normal. So if Joyous is willing to permit it, I want to take a chance. I'll mix the cure, once all the ingredients are together, and she'll take a bath." Quickly, before any hopes could begin to surge. "I'm not saying this is going to work. I'm following up on a guess and using the only solution available for that guess. It's a chance, but it's not necessarily a good one. But if it doesn't work, it's also harmless." A direct look at his patient. "Joyous?"
"I'll try," she told him. "I'll... always try."
There was hope in her eyes again, and none of them could stand to look at it for long.
Luna turned to the second physician. "Doctor Vanilla Bear?"
The thinner stallion took the deepest breath he could manage.
"I," he reluctantly told them, "need a pet store."
Vanilla Bear had actively tried to discourage naming of the two grabbers: one male, one female, and both unreasonably cute, with twitching purple noses forever in search of the next food source. It hadn't worked. The little animals happily stayed close to the Guards, sisters, and anything they saw as a supplier of treats, especially when a simple rearing up on their hind legs and widening of the black eyes was generally enough to extract at least a minimum of three grapes -- for creatures which Torque insisted had a maximum capacity of one vineyard, per hour. (He was the only one who refused to feed them, at least while he thought anypony was looking.) Anything begging for that much food generally acquired a name to go with the laugh that came when it was kicked towards them, and the entire Guard complement had somehow silently agreed on what those names would be -- so Trial and Error joined the group, and let their stomachs make the most of it.
The diagnostician had grumbled about it. "We can't get attached to them, Princess," he'd tried to tell Luna. Reluctantly, "They... may have to give up more than blood and fur samples to the tests. They're the only species we know of which might be able to go among the flowers without being affected. And that means they're test subjects. Once we have the blooms, we've got to put T and E together with the specimens and see what happens."
"Or," Luna had noted, "it may simply be that they are affected in a way we have yet to see."
"Either way," the doctor pointed out, "it has to be done."
"To T and E."
"...yes."
"Whom you just named as T and E."
She'd left long before the echo of the too-hard facehoofing did.
Everypony seemed to be dealing with some level of frustration. Chocolate Bear had assembled most of the Poison Joke cure: a process which had required galloping around just about all of Polis. There were still two ingredients missing, with neither casually available in Equestria, at least outside of a certain hut -- but that didn't even matter, because they could be found growing wild in Mazein: they just weren't kept in the shops due to a total lack of local demand. And what he had assembled included an herb which needed to stew, spending a certain number of hours at a given temperature and pressure in order to become effective. Once prepared, it would keep -- but it needed to be prepared, and the surgeon spent most of his hours on the road trying to maintain temperature (without starting a fire inside the carriage) as the carriage bounced along. Celestia did her best to help there, at least right up until Chocolate asked if she could use the plant-finding spell to locate the last two ingredients, and she'd wound up lying about needing initial samples to work with before getting out of the area as quickly as possible, just before Chocolate could inquire as to how she'd talked her way into seeing the lone flower which was in the possession of Mazein's police.
The siblings were dealing with the tour itself. Luna supposed that there were many circumstances under which it might have been enjoyable: there were sporting events to attend, some of which had been assembled for their pleasure, and it would have normally been rather easy to get caught up in the crowd's excitement. They visited farms, and the custodians tried to teach her about the mysterious science of agronomy, which was apparently what you did to get food when you didn't have enough earth ponies around. There had been a certain degree of initial confusion regarding crop rotation, and Luna still wasn't completely sure someone wasn't just twisting the corn stalks while she wasn't looking.
Schools. Businesses. Citizens whom she just had to meet -- although nearly all of those turned out to be citizens: one of the little benefits to Mazein's form of government was that professional politicians were hard to come by. But it wore on her, and there were times when she could see the same weariness on her sibling's face, generally after they'd mutually slipped out of sight. They were keeping up appearances -- but they wanted to deal with the problem, and their cover story meant there was no way to work on it full-time.
The hours they did snatch away didn't seem to be doing much good. Torque was able to provide more detailed maps -- older ones, which could hardly be expected to include the crop area and at their best, were still showing the minimal representation which usually went into displaying a largely unexplored wild zone. There were only so many spells they could claim to know without being asked why they weren't casting them again and again to get more information, and so they were both left in the frustrating position of keeping their allies in the dark until such time as they could find some way of pretending they'd scouted -- something Torque was firmly against, and Luna knew several of the Guards would try to block any attempt they might learn of.
She wanted to act. There were ways in which they could do so much... and others where the realities of their existence seemed to insist that they isolate themselves. Remove any and all potential forms of harm from their immediate environment, then close the world out and wait through the eternal nothing which would be left. Both knew the risk they took when they acted. Each had thought about shutting themselves away. Early in their after, they had gone through a long talk -- three cycles' worth of debates, and not just between themselves -- about the possible necessity of it. And neither had been able to go through with it, because to become a living automation, subsisting solely so the cycle could continue, would be to invite so many forms of death, and every last one would have been self-inflicted. Being forced to close oneself off from the world... Joyous had done that, and it had led her to a place where she was willing to do anything in order to be normal again. Anything at all.
Luna knew that place. Frustration was the least of it. Desperation came closer. And then, if you continued delving towards the heart of that shadowed land, you might meet the Nightmare which dwelled within.
And Joyous... was waiting. She had hope: Luna could see that. But her hope was in the flowers, in the doctors and the sisters and perhaps two little animals who wanted nothing more from her than food. The Poison Joke cure working on a second condition? Possible -- but for the most part, she seemed to be waiting for their gathering attempt, and whatever might come from that.
Luna didn't know what might come from that. She still didn't know how they were going to accomplish that. And if they gathered the flowers, the doctors did everything they could, and there was no cure to be found, would never be one...
Would Joyous be willing to live in the suit? See the world only through the clear front panel, never touch it again, constantly on guard against rips, tears, oversaturated filters, and anything else which might set a crowd on her within a minute? Exist in the world without ever truly being a part of it? Or might she retreat to a private apartment which had frequently-changed charcoal filters within the vents, giving up all hope of existence under Sun and Moon -- and normalcy -- forever?
Her magic might continue to intensify. It could become something the suit could no longer contain. It might simply reach the point where it would drain her into death, the disease choosing that fate for her -- unless Joyous chose it for herself.
'As long as there's a chance.'
They could watch over her. They could guard her. But they would not be the ones who decided when that chance had run out.
Luna, unable to control her own nightscape, had dreams about that. About the reflections from metallic fur on a marble floor, and the pool of blood catching the light.
The disaster began with a triumph.
"Stop the carriage!"
Everything shifted: the passengers, books, snacks (not many), two currently-hosted grabbers who seized the opportunity to make not many into almost nothing, and the stewpot which Celestia just kept stabilized within her field. (She'd risked aiding Chocolate with the process again, as it was close to completion and if nothing else, it gave her a chance to practice the lies.) "What's wrong?"
"Absolutely nothing!" he grinned, bright teeth flashing, and clambered out of the carriage. It was less than a minute before he scrambled back in, field bubble carrying a large bundle of five-petaled purple flowers.
It took a few seconds for the name to come forward. "That's soapwort, isn't it?"
He smiled. "Our last ingredient." He nodded towards the pot's lid, and Celestia helpfully receded her field from that area, allowing a secondary bubble from his own horn to lift it. The blooms were quickly slipped inside, and the carriage began to move again. "It'll be ready by the time we reach the inn."
"Do you really think it'll work?" It was a private question: the carriage assignments had begun to rotate on the second day, and they currently had the interior of this one to themselves, with the Guards riding on top. Luna was currently with Vanilla Bear, and had taken up the habit of saying things to him just to see which ones would bring on a head tilt, following by reporting on what he'd blurted when he came out of it. An evening game of guessing just what was behind the stranger non-sequiturs was quickly developing its own rulebook, with Rule #1 being to make sure the diagnostician never found out what they were doing -- or that his partner had taught them the basics of the game.
The smile faded. "Honestly? No. There's a chance, Princess, but it may not be oils -- and if it is, this may not break the bond. I want to believe it'll work -- but I have to be ready when it doesn't. So I'm not putting all my hopes into this. And I've spoken to Joyous, and she understands it's one more thing we're trying. She knows about... trying crazy things. When she was out there on her own, she..." The bright brown eyes were now half-lidded. "She tried..."
He shuddered, and Celestia knew.
"Physical removal of the mark," she softly finished. "Yes. She didn't know, Doctor Bear. She was desperate, and... she didn't finish her schooling. It's..."
And that was when it truly started.
She was tired. Physically, from long nights spent huddled with Luna, trying to create plans which refused to fully come together, especially as there was an element they both continued to exclude. Mentally, from trying to deal with the problem and... everything else. Emotionally, at a point of near exhaustion: constantly on guard, forever monitoring every thought until the moment she slipped into the nightscape and found everything she'd pushed aside waiting to greet her.
It left her in a place where she had to force the visions away. That was sadly normal. But it also put her in one where the words came.
"... it's not the first time that assumption's been made. There was a war where... in the end, we got most of the prisoners back, and they healed. As much as they could."
The countryside silently, peacefully passed by, knowing nothing of the images moving through both minds.
Finally, "That -- really happened? I was never much for history, but -- that happened? Someone was cutting off the marks of war prisoners because they thought it would stop the magic?"
"It was war," Celestia told him, and somehow kept her voice steady. "We were new to them, for the most part, and they... it was war, Doctor, and the only rule for war was to try and survive it."
"Who... who were we at war with?"
She tried to make the words gentle. "It doesn't matter."
His volume was starting to rise. "They -- they cut marks off ponies, and you're saying that doesn't matter --"
"-- they're dead, Doctor Bear." Slowly, watching his face, "And their children are dead, and the children of their children, and beyond. The ones who did it, and the ones it was done to. How many generations do you feel need to pass before the living can stop taking responsibility for the dead? They will never do it again... and that's enough."
He just watched her for a while. Steam bubbled out from under the pot's lid.
"Just tell me." The voice of a pony who could barely speak. "Was it minotaurs?"
"No. We've never had a war with Mazein, Doctor. I would hope you'd remember that much of your school's history books." Not that all of history had truly been written down, including the part they'd been discussing. "For all intents and purposes, they were our allies on the first day Equestria was founded. They've never left us."
"Then was it --"
"-- it was no one you would ever guess. And no one I will ever say." Purple eyes locked on brown. "Let it go."
He stopped talking, and the carriage rolled along in silence, at least for the sounds outside Celestia's memory.
She thought about war. About the dead. Atrocities committed upon the living. The ones who hadn't been saved. Those whose healing had only been physical, and all the echoes across more than a thousand years of life.
A life with a thousand years spent alone.
You want someone to blame, Doctor. You feel the anger and you wish for someone to direct it against, even for a second. Just to stare at someone and loathe them for what those turned to dust over a thousand years ago did, knowing only that they cut away marks, unaware of the ways they stopped magic through removal of what they knew channeled it.
Would you like to look in a mirror?
Wheels turned. The carriage moved under Sun and blue sky. A Sun and blue sky which she had to make sure were still there. Every day. Every day...
I'm tired.
She often felt that way.
I'm tired of the burden. The responsibility. The duty.
That too.
But the next thought... that hardly ever came, not in the way it was currently meant. For the words could have completely different intentions and so during abeyance, she'd often had it regarding Luna, sometimes in ways which almost felt continuous. But it wasn't how she meant it now. The thought came in a way she hadn't truly allowed herself to feel for a very long time, not for more than a few seconds before she kicked it into what she was forever hoping would be oblivion. This time, it hit the internal wall, found a perfect target at the exact center of the cracks which had been spreading for weeks, breached her defenses and let the emotions dammed up behind them flood out, carrying all reason away.
When the thought came in the more recent way, when everything kicked her at once... it was the thought which created seneschals. She would consider all those around her, everypony she knew in that generation, and hope there would be one whom she could ask to see her. With Luna having Returned, it would have been a thought which sent Celestia in search of her sister. But she did not review the ranks of those on the tour. She made no effort to seek out the younger.
She remained still, quiet. She didn't curl up inside the carriage. No tears were shed, none which could be seen. But the thought would not leave. It ripped through her, displayed memories she could hardly bear to see, and there were so many memories offered up to a pony who should have been dead so long ago, along with her children, and her children's children, and all those who would have come from the foals she'd never borne.
It was an old thought, which came in an old way, with the newest of dreams cloaked in ancient pain and her mind clouded by mists.
And so she made a mistake.
Sun had been lowered. Moon had been raised. The inn had been completely rented out.
It was the easiest way. There were Guards to host, of course, and the doctors needed their beds, plus Torque wanted to bunk down for the night -- but the simplest way to accommodate Joyous in something other than the carriage was to simply buy out every room. This hadn't been completely possible: there were a few guests on the ground floor who'd already had advance bookings and nopony was going to try displacing them -- but it had been possible to completely secure the uppermost levels. The carriages had stopped, Luna had coated Joyous in illusion and maintained it long enough to get her out of their hosts' sight...
The inn often accommodated ponies: not only did a few Equestrians occasionally decide to see what the rest of the world had to offer (which didn't include those whose marks drove them into a career of exploration), but the nation's own native pony population tended to indulge. It meant just enough of the beds were the right size (at least for the non-alicorns), located behind doors which worked by hoof-pushed lever instead of hand-gripped knob. And it provided a bath at pony temperature and depth and privacy, along with enough space for those who still considered such things to be social occasions and had no idea that the custom had begun among those who had lived in the Discordian Era and recognized when they would be at their most vulnerable, then made sure to gather in numbers so that there was always somepony who could be on lookout.
Just about everypony had used that bath, soaked among thick wooden walls and well-smoothed stone. And then Joyous had gone in. Alone, with everypony else cleared to another floor, out of range from the mists. It wasn't as if she could bathe with the Hoovmat suit on, and there was a chance waiting to be taken.
Was she reluctant to remove the suit, the only thing which let her exist among others with any degree of safety? Was she starting to resent it on some level, feeling the eyes of those around her travel across the fabric, seeing the problem instead of the pony? Was there relief at being free of confinement, that beautiful fur touched by the air again, her snout able to take in the comforting scent of the potential cure instead of the near-sterile, charcoal-tinged sameness which was all the filters would allow through?
There was no way to know, for when the door opened, the suit was already off.
"Princess?" A little surprise. Fear... well, perhaps there might have been some of that, but it had diminished, hadn't it? In fact, if it were to be quantified, the most appropriate digit to represent the current amount just had to be zero. Joyous knew her, knew she would never do anything to hurt her. Knew she was... safe.
"I thought somepony should supervise," Celestia gently said as she came all the way into the room, her right hind leg carefully kicking the door shut behind her.
"I'm..." Nervous? Of course Joyous was nervous. She was about to take a chance. "I'm just going to wash..."
"I know," Celestia smiled. "And if it works -- you'll need somepony who can tell you. Immediately. You don't exactly affect yourself, Joyous. The only way to prove a cure is to be in the presence of another, somepony who can honestly tell you if they're being affected or not. So I'm just here as your test subject. And -- I hope -- somepony to celebrate with, or... talk to, if it doesn't work, and I hope it does, I hope... But we're close to the flowers now, Joyous. We'll be in that area tomorrow. So if this doesn't work... give us a little more time."
Those brilliant yellow eyes looked at her for a moment. All of her. Celestia wondered how she felt about what she was seeing.
"I -- okay."
Celestia nodded, sat. Joyous' head tilted down and her nimble mouth took the lid off the pot, then lowered again for the grip. She carefully poured most of the contents into the pool.
"I... just get in, right?"
"Yes," Celestia told her. "But give it some time. I don't know what the Doctors Bear told you about Poison Joke, but... even if this works, it may need a while to truly soak in. Any oils which were bonded to you have been there for a very long time. You may need to stay in the water for more than a simple dunk. In fact, I'd recommend several minutes."
Joyous carefully nodded. Her left foreleg carefully reached out, dipped a hoof in the water past the ankle. Testing temperature, as the bath began to foam.
"It smells nice," Joyous softly observed.
"Zebras generally respect all the senses," Celestia smiled. "Even when treating illness. They're the only species I know of which can almost make medicine taste neutral. Go ahead, Joyous."
Slowly, the pegasus slipped into the bath, moving down the foam-concealed mini-ramp. The shade of the fur changed as the liquid soaked in, and Celestia noted the way the little reflections altered with it.
Time passed. Joyous with her body low in the water, not really looking at anything other than the curved walls of the pool. Celestia watching.
Steam filled the room, bringing a little of the mixture's scent to Celestia, along with a hint of its hue. It was something very much like a violet mist.
"Do you..." Joyous swallowed. "Do you feel any different? About... me?"
Celestia sighed, and even to her own ears, it had a matronly sound. She hated that.
Patiently, "Joyous."
"...Princess?"
Keeping her words gentle, "Your head. Your spine. You need either complete immersion or a thorough scrubbing."
"...I know," the beautiful pegasus eventually said. "I just have trouble staying under for that long. Plus when I get my eyes close to the water, they start to sting a little. And really washing up... there's no showerhead here, and it would just rinse everything away..."
Celestia smiled. "Do you know the other reason ponies generally bathe in groups?"
A long pause, part of which was probably being used for desperate attempts to remember any primary reason. "No..."
"We are horrible at scrubbing behind our own ears."
Joyous giggled. It was quick, instinctive, stopped quickly -- but it had been a giggle.
"Anatomy," Celestia ruefully shrugged. "What can we do? Even unicorns have trouble using their fields on any part of their body they can't directly see. The invention of the shower came because having somepony dump a bucket of water over your head to rinse created the opportunity for too many pranks. But you need a complete scrubbing, Joyous, and on a level you really can't do yourself. To make sure every tenth-bit of possible oils has been removed."
Joyous nodded, and that too might have been instinctive --
-- but that was when Celestia stood up.
"Move over a little?"
"...Princess?"
"I'm going to wash your back," Celestia gently told her, taking that first step forward. "And your mane. Your face, of course: it's a little awkward to do your own face without a sponge to rub against, and we both forgot to soak the ones mounted on the wall. So move forward a little, Joyous. I'm coming in."
And Joyous moved.
To another pony, a neutral witness, one with a mind untouched by mist, it might have seemed that she moved a little too quickly. That she, in fact, was scrambling to get as far away from Celestia as possible, was searching for any possible exit -- but there was but one ramp, and one door. Celestia was approaching the first, could easily block the second.
"Princess -- Princess, I don't think --"
Celestia's eyes closed.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," she whispered.
"Princess?"
"And there it is again." Equally soft.
"I... I don't understand --"
"-- you say it as if it's my name. So many ponies do that. 'Princess' this, 'Princess' that. As if it's the only way they can address me..." Pained now, "I hate most of our formal terms of address, did I ever tell you that? 'Fillies.' 'Gentlecolts.' We remove years from adults when we greet them, and... I wonder if that started with me, somehow. Because nopony ever truly felt like an adult if I was there, not with their seeing me as so old. Even for those who don't just see the title, who don't even respect that title, they see the age and..."
There were no words for a few seconds. Just steam, and mists, and a pony huddled against the far edge of the pool.
"...I wasn't that old," Celestia said. "Sometimes, I want to think I'm still not that old, not in my head. And then I remember... everything, and everypony, and..."
She heard the confusion, and chose to interpret it as the tone of a pony who heard her pain, who wanted to help, and perhaps there was something of that. But no part of her acknowledged the terror. "...Princess?"
Her eyes opened, and her gaze was not angry. Simply... weary. Burdened. Old. And a few of her next words had been said before, during those times over the centuries when everything had kicked her at once. They were the words which made seneschals. The words of trust. But now...
"My name," she quietly told Joyous, "is Celestia Invictus." She could barely see the bathroom now. The steam billowed, shifted, formed pony bodies in the mists which dissipated far too quickly. "I was the third of seven children. Luna is the fifth. We're roughly two years apart: I know that much, but... not what our birthdays are, because in our time, Sun and Moon and seasons... it was hard to keep rough time for any kind of calendar. I don't know what day I was born, because we didn't have names for days or moons, only a few places understood real seasons, and then only until He decided to take that away. The days ponies mark on the calendar as our birthdays are actually the dates of major events in the fight against Discord. I don't know how they were picked, or changed. Just that... suddenly, the herd had decided it was my birthday, and..."
She lived a lie. She celebrated lies.
Only one weak word came back. "...seven?" A desperate attempt to find a place Joyous could plant her hooves in a world overturned.
"Five fillies, two colts. But we were the only ones who lived long enough to... think about having children of our own. You didn't have to be very old for that in the Discordian Era, Joyous. Mares were expected to produce as many foals as they could because... so many foals died. My youngest sister was stillborn, and my parents never even named her. I hated that, I hated them for that. She came into the world without life, and there were times when I thought she had been the lucky one. But to leave without a name... I think of her as Imbri, and... I buried her, while my mother cried, because she was one of the few who still cried at all. My father wouldn't even bother with that. He didn't come to the funeral -- we still had them, because we had to have something: even if we didn't believe in it any more, we still went through the motions, some of us. But he didn't come, and maybe that was the first sign that he was... slipping. I should have..."
Was Joyous frozen with shock, listening to the words so few had ever heard? Was there compassion in her eyes, hearing the pain which had never truly faded? What did Celestia want to be happening?
"I had a mother," the oldest mare in the world somehow made herself continue. "I had a father. And he died, just before everything truly began. The last thing that happened before... everything else -- was his funeral. And then somepony crashed into my life, crashed right in front of me, Luna and I left the barricade point, because we had to, and we only saw our mother again once, long after she was already dead. I went into chaos because I was tired, because I hated our world, the way we all had to live from day to day while we were really just waiting to die, and... all we had was now --"
She saw Joyous then, or at least her shape.
"-- he was a pegasus."
"...he?" The only word to remain.
"He tried to make me... appreciate now," Celestia went on as the tears began to fall. "Because it was all we had. And there were times when he did it, at least for a few minutes. But I didn't listen most of the time, because I was fighting for tomorrow. And when Discord fell... I got what I wanted. Tomorrow. And it's all I won, Joyous. That there would be a tomorrow -- and a tomorrow, and a tomorrow, for as long as I kept them coming. That tomorrow depended on me, on us, and it was too... it was just the two of us, after a while, and then it was just me, and it was too late for now..."
Sobbing, nearly lost in the steam. She didn't know whose it had been.
"My name is Celestia Invictus," she said. "There were no windigos absorbing love in a cave. There certainly wasn't a seashell, or three ponies experiencing a single rather unique event. I had a mother, and a father, and sisters and brothers and friends and companions and I carry their shadows with me in every moment of my life. Virtually everypony I've ever known is dead. I eat and breathe and feel and hurt in every second somepony screams in agony about the prayers I never answered, prayers I can't even hear. I'm a pony, Joyous. It's all I've ever been, all I ever will be. And right now, I am a pony who's going to wash your mane."
She took another step forward.
"Prin --" Quickly, cutting herself off, "-- Ce -- Celestia? Please, please listen to me, you have to --"
"-- it has to be done," Celestia interrupted. Smiling through the tears, "But we'll make it fair, like the old days. You can wash mine."
Joyous blinked. Because there was fear (which Celestia couldn't see) and there was confusion (which was only to be expected), but that still left room for a moment of absolute bewilderment.
"...wash your -- how is that even -- I don't..."
Celestia giggled, and to her, the sound was young.
"Oh, right!" she laughed. "Give me a moment..."
She concentrated, and the semi-tangible collapsed into the real.
Joyous blinked again, which mostly served to repress the inadvertent, fully unintended snort.
"Well, there you go," Celestia ruefully declared, adding a small, regretful shrug to the very end. "One of Equestria's greatest secrets."
Her hair fell about her head, with just enough of it in front of her left eye to regrettably see. It was manure-brown (and multiple horrible shades of it), a color which would forever seem filth-encrusted even when perfectly clean, tangled and twisted and slightly more prone to natural knots than a certain weather coordinator was to naps.
Joyous stared -- and then she giggled. For the hideousness of that mane and tail (or at least what Celestia would always see as such) had wrought a miracle. It had brought about a moment of normalcy.
"That... kind of needs some combing," the pegasus giggled.
"It eats combs," Celestia told her, face completely straight.
Almost laughing now, "...really?"
"Don't ask what it does to brushes. I always hated my mane, Joyous, always. I couldn't do anything with it for more than a few seconds at a time before it would rebel, and it always won. There weren't many times when I wanted to do something -- but whenever I went to war with it, I got creamed. There's new treatments now, I know: straighteners and shampoos which we didn't have, but I haven't exactly gone to a groomer and asked for a professional makeover because everypony just knows the flow, and... well... I'd kind of have to show them this... you can see how that might be a little embarrassing..."
They were both giggling.
The curiosity was only natural, and Celestia was glad to hear it in Joyous' voice, for it meant the pegasus was talking to her -- normally. "Your -- usual mane and tail. Are they illusions?"
Celestia shook her head. "I'm -- well, the way I ultimately wound up thinking of it most of the time is that I'm carrying more magic than anypony's really meant to, and that's just how it expresses itself. But when I try to be a little more truthful with myself, I do wonder if it was something under the surface. Wish fulfillment. That because there was magic, and I hated my mane and tail so much, that's where the magic went. Luna's natural color is light blue: a lot of Ponyville residents saw it after she Returned, before she recovered any strength. And she's never liked it very much, even though her hair has consistency instead of chaos. After a while, she had -- what you see now. Admittedly, the stars and constellations within are a little on the dramatic side, but that's just Luna..." A deliberate pause. "Drama Princess." And then a wink.
Joyous laughed.
She was truly laughing. She was happy, if only for that suddenly-precious now. And in Celestia's mist-clouded eyes, that could mean only one thing: it had worked. They'd connected. Joyous was seeing her as a pony...
And so Celestia, smiling, began to move forward again.
Joyous froze.
"So let's wash up," Celestia told her. "I'll take care of you... and then you'll take care of me... and we'll... take care of each other..."
I'm tired.
She often felt that way.
Her forehooves slipped into the water.
"Prin -- Celestia, please, you have to listen to me, you have to listen, you're --"
I'm tired of the burden. The responsibility. The duty.
That too.
Her hind legs were wet now.
"...I know, I take up a lot of room, but I didn't always, Joyous. I was always on the tall side, but I remember what it was like to be on your scale, and I know how to be careful. I even made diagrams, just in case I -- well, they're pretty easy to memorize..."
"-- you have to think, please, Sun and Moon, please, you need to think --"
And the next thought came in the old way.
I'm tired of being alone.
She lowered her body into the little cloud of bubbles which had been raised by the shivering. Gently arced her head forward, eyes half-closed. Seeing only what she wanted to see.
"...it's okay, Joyous. As long as we always watch out for each other, we'll always be okay --"
"NO!"
Celestia pulled back.
Not by much. A quarter-hoofstep at best. But her body pulled back, and her neck went up, her ears flattened in confusion, she looked down at Joyous, too far down, and there was a moment when she saw --
-- the last moment before the door, kicked open with a force which would have taken a minotaur on red-tinge to equal, broke in half.
"And here you are!" Luna snarled. The dark body stalked into the steam, into the mists, quickly closing in, anger negating focus. "I was wondering why I had not found you, when we still need time to plan with the flowers so close, and so I wandered this facility until I finally heard Joyous, perhaps just in time. I did not presume that you would dare to do this, sister, and that was my mistake, to think that you would not attempt to share a bath with her...!"
Celestia's wings flared, splashed the walls as they got her out of the water. "She needed help with the washing! She had to be scrubbed --"
"-- you need help with your lies!"
The elder landed on the edge of the pool. Her horn ignited, matching the full single corona being displayed by Luna, right down to the spikes of rage. "She was listening to me! To me, Luna! I told her about -- look at me! Look at my mane! I showed her -- because I wanted to, and she understood, she understood me and we were going to --"
"-- we guard each other," Luna hissed, "and it would seem that one needs more guarding than the other. At the moment you could only see my tail, as soon as you felt you could betray --"
Twin rumbles of thunder. Heat stalking the borders, cold rotating in concert, moving around the edges of the pool, in direct, mobile facing to each other. In eternal opposition.
"You don't understand --"
"-- I know all too well --"
"-- then maybe I should teach you --"
" -- as if you could ever win -- "
-- and the water hit them in their faces.
One vaporized most of it. The other had the majority fall away as hailstones. But for both, just enough got into their eyes to sting, they had to blink away the pain, and it left them free to see the pegasus whose wings had just sluiced across the pool's surface, breathing too heavily for the oxygen to do any real good. Body covered in water, potion, steam, and the froth of fear.
"DON'T FIGHT! NOT OVER ME! NOT EVER! DON'T -- DON'T FIGHT! YOU CAN'T EVER FIGHT...!"
Her wings flared, and before either could finish orienting themselves, a flash of metallic blue fled into the hall.
The sisters stared at each other, for what felt like more than a thousand years.
"...Luna?" the eldest managed.
"What -- what are we doing?" the younger breathed.
"It was me," Celestia just barely got out: half gulp, half gasp. "I was thinking about... it was... Luna, I was trying, I was --"
Luna's left forehoof came up, far too quickly. "You are rational? You recognize your own thoughts? You have control?"
"...yes. But --" pleading now "-- watch me. Make sure. Sun and Moon, I think -- you were just trying to stop me --"
"-- it was more than that --"
" -- but I was... I wanted her to understand me, to see me, to..."
...was I trying to seduce her? Through understanding? Through pity?
"Sister!" The word got the elder to refocus. "She has fled! Our priority is to find her! If she escapes into Mazein, retreats to another wild zone, or gives up on us --"
There might have been more words, but those were enough to put Celestia on the gallop. Luna caught up a moment later, matching pace, mutually following the trail of water spots across the carpet, both desperately hoping it didn't lead to a window.
A young endurance flier. They could each move faster than Joyous in the air, but a pegasus had just about every direction available to move in. Alert all the pegasi among the guards, fan out, cover everything possible, try to feel for the signature of her flight -- a residue of magic which would typically fade within seconds of her passage. Joyous could become lost in the night no matter what anypony did, shortly followed by becoming lost to the living --
-- but the trail stopped at a door. The one which led to Joyous' assigned room. And both heard the weeping within.
The siblings quietly looked at each other, and the only thing which prevented the moment from being the most awkward silence of their lives was the sheer volume of what had come before.
Finally, Celestia raised her right forehoof to knock -- then lowered it. With a timidity unfelt for years, "Joyous...?"
More crying, along with sounds of movement.
The words were too weak. Words almost always were. "...I'm sorry. I'm... I'm thinking, I promise, I'm thinking, and Princess Luna is right here with me, supervising. It's... I... I made a mistake, and... I'm sorry..."
The crying now seemed to be somewhat more muffled.
"...Joyous?"
Near-silence. A few last sniffs. And then the door opened.
Joyous, completely covered by the Hoovmat suit, stared up at them, eyes wet behind the panel.
"We'll be near the flowers tomorrow," she said.
They nodded, for neither knew what else they could do.
"The bath didn't work," she continued. "The magic should have come apart a little, right? Even without... scrubbing. I'll -- go back in." That triggered a shudder. "When I can, before we leave tomorrow. But -- I don't think it works. So we'll be near the flowers tomorrow, and..."
She took a deep breath. The exhale was forced through the filters.
"...it's like my mom and dam. I can't be affected, because... I'm already sick."
They hadn't wanted to think about it, and so both had carefully not done so. It hadn't stopped Joyous. Perhaps nothing would.
"I'm going in to harvest them. Alone."