//------------------------------// // Epilogue // Story: Freeport Venture: Blood and Iron // by Chengar Qordath //------------------------------// Our adventure ended the way most of my crazier enterprises did: with everyone in the hospital getting patched up and checked out. We’d gotten some basic first aid back in the village, but that was no substitute for proper medical care. Once the best doctors Puzzle could buy were done poking and prodding at me, I was more than ready to get a little fresh air. I trotted out onto a nice little balcony, only to be reminded that Freeport’s idea of fresh air was a lovely combination of wet fishy stink from the sea mixed with all the usual smells of a tightly-packed city. At least the hospital Puzzle had us at was in one of the better parts of the city; poor areas like Sandy Shores tended to smell far worse on account of all the locals dumping their trash into the water. Strumming was already stretched out on one of the benches, munching away on a bag of chips. She greeted with a casual wing-wave. “Hey, Bacon-mane, how you holding up? “Three bruised ribs and twenty four stitches.” I answered. I didn’t bother with all the lesser injuries—if I listed out every little cut and bruise I’d be there all day. “You?” “Sprained wing and ankle,” Strumming answered, which sounded like she’d gotten off pretty lightly to me. “I also lost a couple too many pinions, so I have to stay on the ground until they grow back in.” I was tempted to growl at her about how she was probably the least injured out of all of us, but restrained the urge. It wasn’t like she’d failed to pull her weight, and honestly I was too tired and sore to be mad at anyone right now. “Any idea how Puzzle’s doing?” “Yeah, I saw him poking around the hospital gift shop on my way out here.” She smirked and winked at me. “I think he’s buying me something nice, so I pretended not to see him.” “I saved his buggy butt, so he better buy me something too.” Okay, technically Puzzle and I had done some mutual life-saving, but that was beside the point. I stretched out, wincing when I pulled a bit too far on my bad side; even the best painkillers money could buy only did so much. “Might as well see how he's doing.” “Yeah,” Strumming agreed. “I was gonna wait and let him surprise me, but I’ve never been good about letting anyone do that. I was one of those kids who spent every Hearthwarming finding all the hiding places for my presents and sneakily working out what was hidden inside the boxes.” Sure enough, Puzzle was in the hospital’s shop, picking up a few things. Most notably flowers, which were probably for Strumming. I didn’t see anything for me. One of his legs was wrapped up and he had several smaller bandages all over his body, but he seemed to be and moving around reasonably well. I trotted on in. “Hey, bug boy.” Strumming poked me, thankfully on the side that didn’t have three bruised ribs. “You can’t call him that. That’s my name for him.” Puzzle grinned at both of us. “This one hopes you two won’t start fighting over it. That would be slightly undignified. Though it supposes that if such a battle must happen, then at least a hospital is a good place for it. You can get any new wounds treated immediately.” Strumming chuckled and trotted over, giving Puzzle a peck on the cheek. “Relax, just teasing. I’ve been known to do that.” “This one has noticed such tendencies,” Puzzle agreed dryly. I scoffed and rolled my eyes at them getting all couple-y again. Seriously, did they have to do that right in front of me? I decided to change the subject before things got out of hoof. “Looks like you survived more-or-less intact.” Puzzle took a moment to pass the flowers over to Strumming, who promptly went after them with her usual enthusiasm for anything edible. Then he turned to me. “For being set on fire and batted around like a toy, this one feels it is doing remarkably well. It must remember to thank its talismonger for such excellent work.” “I bet you’ll thank him with some repeat business.” I’d seen what was left of Puzzle’s protective talismans after taking a couple hits from Rising. The results weren’t pretty, but better to have that happen to a couple bits of enchanted gear than Puzzle himself. “This one does have quite a few protections to replace,” Puzzle agreed. “Considering the quality of the work, it sees no reason not to be a repeat customer. Though the best talismans do not come cheaply—the Shimmer-mare is a very expensive pony to be around.” Puzzle turned and grinned at Strumming. “Between the Shimmer-mare’s habit of dragging this one into expensive danger and Strumming’s snack budget, this one fears it will soon be bankrupt.” I snorted skeptically. “I'm sure your contract with the Council covers medical expenses and lost equipment. Though when it comes to feeding Strumming ... yeah, you’re on your own.” Strumming took a moment to finish chewing, then halfheartedly glared at both of us. “I’d fight back, but I’m too busy eating right now.” She chomped down on another one of the roses, which pretty much just proved our point. Puzzle decided he’d had enough fun for the moment, and answered me instead. “This one is experienced enough to make sure operating expenses are part of any contract it signs. Otherwise this one’s fees would have to be high enough to account for the risk of such expenses, and any of the Shimmer-mare’s heroic impulses would be prohibitively expensive.” “And I do give you a nice chunk of my pay to make sure everything stays profitable.” Come to think of it, I probably should be keeping a closer eye on my own money instead of trusting Puzzle to handle all of it. Though really, he’d probably done a far better job of managing my accounts than I could’ve. Though that brought another issue to mind. “Gonna guess Starlight's medical bills aren't part of of your contract, are they?” “This one didn’t think to add a potential enemy to the list of individuals to be covered by the contract, no,” Puzzle conceded. “However, this one would not be overly concerned on that account. The Glimmer-mare does have a wealthy father, and this one did inform the Council of her injuries and arrange a temporary suspension of her banishment. It only seemed decent to allow her access to proper medical care.” I frowned, a bit surprised to find I actually cared a little bit. I still didn’t like her, but Starlight did help me out during the fight against Rising and its minions. That counted for something. “How bad off is she?” Puzzle sighed and shook his head. “She was very severely injured during the fight. Broken bones, sprains, cuts, the works. Happens when a revenant pummels you and then you suffer a fall like the one she did. Not to mention a bit of damage from whatever concoction Strumming used to get her back on her hooves for a while.” “The stuff I used on her comes with a long list of fun side effects, not to mention it’s a little addictive and semi-illegal,” Strumming agreed. “But under the circumstances, I figured getting her body a bit more messed up was the lesser of two evils. Rising certainly would’ve done a lot worse to her.” “That does seem likely,” Puzzle conceded. “As it stands, Starlight should make a full recovery barring any unknown complications.” I nodded and headed back out to the balcony, the others following behind me. Once I was out there I did a quick check to make sure nobody else was around, then tossed up a privacy spell just to be safe. “I've been thinking about Rising. That whole crazy story about time travel and...” I trailed off, shaking my head. “It was pretty nuts,” Strumming agreed, flopping down on a bench and slowly stretching out her wounded wing, wincing a bit when it went too far. “A dimension-hopping, time-traveling lich-thing was not what I was expecting to find when we went to the commune. Honestly, I was expecting it all to be some elaborate revenge scheme by Starlight. You know, stir up some trouble to lure you there, then wham!” “The thought had occurred to this one as well,” Puzzle agreed, frowning thoughtfully. “This one can imagine a great many upsetting things about Rising, so what precisely was it about the lich that bothered you?” I sighed and shook my head. “The story Rising gave me was totally nuts and violates one of the fundamental rules of temporal mechanics ... but the alternative is that there was a crazy, ridiculously powerful lich who knew a bunch of highly advanced magic and nobody heard about it until we ran into it. I’m the first pony in more than a century to master Sunbeam’s evocation style, and that teleportation spell is one that Celestia has taught even fewer ponies. I mean, the only other explanation I could see for Rising is something like Sunbeam Sparkle being a lich, going into a coma for centuries, and then waking up completely insane with elaborate delusions and an obsession with a random unicorn.” “Compared to that, this one thinks time travel might actually be more plausible.” Puzzle shrugged helplessly. “At the very least, Rising seemed convinced that it was speaking the truth. And who knows, maybe it did accomplish what it said it did. Unless this one has heard wrong, isn’t even researching time magic illegal in Equestria?” I nodded. “The rules are a little more complicated than a flat-out ban, but most of the exceptions are for magi who have special permission to do carefully controlled and supervised research in very narrow fields. So yeah, it’s illegal unless you have a royal dispensation.” I sighed and shook my head. “I'm not saying I believe Rising, but maybe we should warn Starlight not to screw around with time travel.” Strumming shrugged. “Better safe than sorry and all that rot. I’d really prefer not to get into another slugout with Rising, let alone going through all that crazy stuff the lich talked about.” Puzzle tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Taking precautions would seem prudent, unless telling the Glimmer-mare that she caused some kind of disaster with time travel ends up making her research time travel to try and fix it, and she ends up causing the problem in the first place. This one can recall no shortage of fictional stories where somepony tries to change the future, only to bring about the very catastrophe they were hoping to prevent.” I grunted and nodded. “Yeah, good old self-fulfilling prophecies and predestination paradoxes.” Sure, that sort of thing was confined to fiction, but until recently I’d believed much the same about time travel being able to change history. “Let’s ... just keep an eye on her for now. If she starts messing around with any sort of time travel on her own, then we’ll deal with it.” I thought it over for a moment, then added. “Oh, and see if you can find out anything about somepony named Twinkle Sparkle. Rising said she was Starlight’s accomplice.” I grimaced and shook my head. “Not saying I believe Rising, but let's check anyway just to be safe.” “This one was already planning on doing both of those things,” Puzzle agreed. “Though it feels that it should point out that the name Rising provided was Twilight, not Twinkle.” “Whatever.” I grinned and nudged him in the chest. “Always thinking one step ahead.” “It is what keeps this one ahead of the competition,” Puzzle shot back with a smirk. “That's what you say.” I paused, one last issue nagging at my mind. “Any idea who Rising was? I mean, if we assume the story’s true. There aren't many ponies who could match that spell list.” Puzzle and Strumming exchanged a cryptic look before he answered me. “This one cannot think of many ponies that could manage it, assuming Rising’s time was relatively similar to our own before the war she spoke of began. With Equestria being dragged into a long, desperate conflict with a dangerous foe who can say what might have changed? The war had clearly left some marks on Rising, even before we account for the destruction of her world.” I frowned at the sudden shift in pronouns. Maybe Puzzle knew more than he was telling me? Or maybe he just didn’t want to come out and say what he suspected. It wasn’t all that hard to guess what his theory must have been; I was the only living pony who could both copy Sunbeam’s style and use Celestia’s teleportation spells. I didn’t like where that train of thought lead, so it’s no surprise Puzzle didn’t want to come out and say it. I sighed and ran a hoof through my mane. “Not to mention Rising said time was getting weird towards the end. Makes it even harder to nail down who it could’ve been.” Puzzle nodded along. “For all we know, the lich had centuries to perfect any number of skills. And considering how driven by revenge it was, it might have been killing Glimmer-mares across multiple timelines.” I frowned skeptically. “Multiverse theory? That's supposed to be impossible according to the fifth law of...” I trailed off, throwing up my hooves in frustration. “Never mind! This whole conversation assumes Star Swirl’s rules of temporal mechanics are bunk, so citing them is pointless.” “If we accept Rising’s story as true, it would mean accepting that our current knowledge of time travel is inaccurate.” Puzzle agreed. “Either we accept that she was speaking the truth, or we dismiss her claims and assume she was utterly insane and trying to kill the Glimmer-mare for reasons that were entirely in her head.” “I think I’ll stick with believing the crazy pony story for now,” I grumbled. The alternative was just way too scary to even consider. I was much happier living in a world where nobody could screw with the timeline. “At least we got the lich.” “Hope it sticks,” Strumming murmured. “Necromancers are kinda famous for cheating death.” Puzzle frowned, staring out over the city. “This one suspects that if Rising did somehow survive, we will be hearing from it again. Or at the very least, the Glimmer-mare will. If Rising lives, it is only a matter of time before it seeks out its target once more.” “Time.” I dropped the privacy spell, since we’d pretty well covered everything worth keeping secret. “I really don't want to think about time for a while. Or much of anything related to this mess. I dunno about you two, but I think we’ve earned a break.” “Definitely taking a couple vacation days,” Strumming agreed. “Oh, and heads up, Bacon-mane. You might wanna do something to protect your ribs.” I was about to ask what she meant when I spotted a little black blur headed my way. “Shimmer-mare!” Kukri called out. “This one came as soon as it heard you were hurt!” The little changeling leapt up and hugged me. Right around my injured ribs. “I warned you...” Strumming murmured as I tried very hard not to whimper.