//------------------------------// // Castration Anxiety // Story: A Mark Of Appeal // by Estee //------------------------------// 'Somepony has to tell me when I'm being stupid.' It was a crucial task. One of the most crucial, and the same could be said when that unenviable labor was applied in Luna's direction. There always had to be somepony around who felt free to tell them when they were wrong, at least for those occasions when they actually were. But such ponies were hard to come by, and the scarcity of those who would treat the siblings normally was just one of the many reasons they needed to stand watch over each other. Luna had to tell Celestia when she was being stupid, generally just before idiocy could actually occur. And typically, it would only be her -- -- which was just one reason why it came as a surprise to find they had a rather sudden, decidedly strident fresh volunteer for the task. "NO!" The thin stallion's forehooves slammed down onto the inn's low-set conference table, or at least did something which would have been a slam if it had been produced by a larger body. As it was, the two closest water mugs vibrated somewhat (or at least their contents did), and a notepad saw its partially-draping quill go slightly out of alignment. "You're assuming!" Vanilla went on, not having wasted any time on checking his own results, at least not beyond the facial: the shock had already been banished from Celestia's features -- but it had been there long enough to register. "We don't know if a second exposure would do anything! It could intensify her condition right on the spot, or accelerate its progress, or -- you don't know, Princess, and you can't send --" The soft words broke through it all, even with the little force they still possessed after pushing through the charcoal filters. "-- I'm right here, Doctor Bear." He stopped. Four ponies and a single minotaur stared at the eyes which were all that could truly be made out of the beautiful features. "It was my decision," Joyous quietly said. "Not hers. It's... always been my decision. To look for help. To trust in the treatments you offer me. To --" more softly, just for a moment "-- keep going at all. I don't know if it could make things worse. I just know I'm the only pony who can do it. Who should. I won't ask anypony else to risk themselves for me. It's my disease, my condition, my life. It's my life, all the way to the end. I'm going to harvest the flowers." Chocolate's deeper voice was just as soft. "It could kill you." "You don't know that it will," Joyous replied, her voice oddly steady. "You can't." "You don't know that it won't," he countered. And it was followed by a statement: "The minotaurs who had this in their system -- when the intensity of their magic became more than their bodies could handle, they died. Ponies can die from magical overexertion. From committing too much of themselves. If your talent continued to strengthen at what we think is the current rate, you'd have time, Joyous: time for everypony to find something. But if it accelerated or jumped --" "My parents were out there twice," she quietly cut him off. "At least. Are they twice as bad as I am? More?" "We can't compare." Vanilla again, fury resumed, and Luna wondered just how much of that came from mists -- then saw his eyes, and realized nearly all of it had been produced by fear. A doctor's terror at potentially losing a patient who had decided not to be saved. "Two different kinds of talents. We know one exposure leaves red-tinge in the body, and now we know the Poison Joke cure doesn't scrub it off." Joyous had wrapped up her second bath an hour before the emergency Moon-lit conference, soaked wall sponges and all, with a line of summoned Guards watching the sisters all the way through it -- by royal order. "You couldn't stop producing pheromones after you finished: I didn't even need the filter spell to tell me that. You've had one exposure, and we don't know what a second one does." Bluntness, propped up by desperation. "Joyous -- you can't turn your talent off: that's been most of the problem all along. Talents are magic, magic takes energy, and that energy is produced normally: food and drink, calories and rest. Right now, even at your current strength, you're running at a level which your body can keep up with, at least when it comes to the energy demands, thaums and calories both. Your parents could always be confined: we could force them not to survey just by blocking them off from any chance at it. But you produce pheromones constantly. Even when there's nopony around. You have what we think is a base setting, something which would -- get attention. That can intensify. And --" he took a breath, swallowed most of it, visibly decided his only way through was forward "-- when you're among other ponies, the production steps up... Princess Luna proposed that there would be risk in exposing you to a crowd, if your body was trying to compensate for too many sapients being near you at once. That it could drain you into unconsciousness, or death. Your talent may not have a limit, but your body does, and -- a second exposure..." He stopped. Partially because he'd run out of strength, at least until his next breath. Mostly because the words hadn't done anything but get Joyous to quietly change the direction of her panel-covered gaze, which was now focused on Luna. She managed a breath. It seemed to take far more effort than it should have. "The concept," Luna said, "did not arise until after the parade. I would not have risked even the most momentary suit breach had I believed --" "-- I'm glad you didn't think of it," Joyous softly broke in. "Not until after. But it doesn't matter, Princess. None of it matters. Somepony has to gather the flowers. You can't go in there. Nopony should. My mom and dam... don't understand the risks, because they're not the ones thinking about them, and the disease can't think at all. I do understand. I understand that..." Joyous took a slow breath of her own, and her wings rustled against the interior of the suit. "...there are minotaurs dying. There could be other ponies, and maybe they'll reach the point where they're dying too. There's my parents, and... it could be so much worse than that, if this keeps spreading. I understand that somepony has to take a chance. Somepony who... doesn't have a lot to lose. Doctors, you told me about how the patient-physician relationship works. You can propose anything -- but as long as I can still think for myself, I'm the one who has to decide whether to let you do it. It's always been my decision, to look for help, to try and get better. When it was just me, it was my decision: nopony else's. And now... there's others involved, and... it's still my decision." Just barely audible, and all the more forceful for it. "I'm going in." Ten seconds passed, and no one could speak. Twenty found no words waiting within. Thirty... Torque's snort was an exceptionally low-powered specimen: a simple notice of words about to emerge. "You lived in Mazein for about eight moons, Joyous. Right?" She blinked, then nodded. "Not long enough to call you a citizen, then," he sighed. "Too bad, because you'd fit right in. You sure picked up the native stubbornness..." The movement within the fabric covering her snout almost suggested a smile. "As your doctor --" Vanilla started, making one last try. "-- drop it," Chocolate cut him off as the brown eyes closed. "She's right. It's her call in the end. It always was." "She could die." The final protest of a physician who saw it as the greatest offense in the world. "She could live," Chocolate said, still refusing to look at his partner. "It's her chance. Let her take it." Vanilla pulled back from the table, hooves skidding across the wood, and dropped onto the floor. His body scooted a few hoofwidths to the left. Away from Chocolate. Luna allowed the silence to continue until she was personally fed up with it, then kicked it out of the room. "We can at least be assured," she dryly told the gathering, "that this raid will not suffer from overplanning. Shall we finalize our intentions, at least for what can exist before reality naturally forces us to adjust?" Celestia managed a nod, and it was a sign of just how much the night had worn on the elder that the effort was visible. "We'll hit them at sunset, or as close to it as we can manage. That allows me to be fairly strong and Princess Luna to be relatively fresh, even if she has to be up a few hours early to prepare. It's also the point of a natural shift change: if we're lucky, we can catch them while they're switching up. I'd prefer dawn, but -- let's take the extra hours. As long as some of them are tired and the new group isn't quite attuned to their duties yet, it'll suffice." The first part had gotten Torque's attention. "About that 'we' --" Luna sighed. "We will not go among the flowers," she told the big bull. "We will be in our own suits, and we will stay well back. Additionally, there are other precautions we can take before the suits are donned. But they are custom-fitted, Ambassador. There are no pegasi among the Guards who exactly match Joyous' dimensions: we can check for an acceptable degree of variance, but we cannot ask anypony to use her spares while being assured of protection. I am certain that none of the unicorns have a build which matches either of the doctors. There are only four who could watch her from afar. The risk is hers, yes. But she should not have to face it alone." It drew an instant protest from Joyous. "You can't! If anything happens --" "-- if anything happens to you," Luna countered, "somepony has to be there. It will be you among the flowers, Joyous: my sister and I will not venture that far. But you will know we are close. And if our precautions hold..." "And what," Torque challenged as his eyes started to phase towards orange, "kind of precautions are we talking about?" Luna glanced at Celestia, who nodded. "Some of them are what we were discussing during our earlier meetings," the elder said. "We came up with a few others while Joyous was --" the wince could not be fully hidden, and the restored mane slowed its flow "-- trying the potion bath again. Torque, I know you're worried. I understand why. But it's what Luna said: there are four ponies who could follow her. We're two of them. We won't get close enough to be affected." "That you know of." The snorts were starting to come faster now, and the big hands were beginning to clench. "We are in Mazein," Luna shot back, "and the flowers are close. Your weather is not managed in any way other than moderating or eliminating emergencies, Ambassador. Has your natural breeze blown across their crop areas tonight before moving towards the inn? Are we breathing? If you wish for us to cover every possible scenario, then let us include the one where it is already too late, for why should we favor only those probabilities which do not end the world? The most likely causes of infection remain pollen and oils. We can stop both." "We can stall," Torque volleyed. "We'll get more suits. We can have some made for minotaurs. We don't have to do this right now. There's still time to --" "-- nineteen," Celestia said, and it was almost enough. The bull's breathing slowed. But his hands did not relax, and his gaze only paused in its march towards red. "Nineteen what?" "Nineteen red-tinge cases in your hospitals," Celestia told him. "And you know that, Torque, because you were there when Referee Moonsault sent copies of those files to the embassy, just before we left Polis. Nineteen that Mazein knows of at all, just the ones which reached the visible stage. Four of those will be dead in less than a moon. How much time would you like us to stall?" More slowly still, but with the yellow slowly returning to his eyes, "If it's the four of them versus the two of you... I know which ones the world needs more." "Ambassador, will you trust us not to be stupid?" Luna's words were measured. "To be aware of the risks, and to have planned for them? It is not our first raid. I admit that it is our first in some time, but we have a rather good idea of what to do, even in those cases where we cannot directly participate in the final stages. And as I had already said --" this with a slow smile "-- your weather? Is not managed. There are certain things which a pony would question simply because it broke the schedule. In Mazein -- why, anything could happen..." The big hands opened. "Not your first raid," Torque said. They shook their heads. Celestia's version of the movement carried a light tinge of lingering embarrassment. "You've had interesting lives," the ambassador noted. Luna took a moment to silently bask in the understatement. Celestia simply said "At the most, we could come back this way at the end of the tour -- but given the time required to make and test new suit patterns, all the extra days might create is more cases. There's enough time left in this night for us to plan, tell the Guards that we're going through with this, wait for them to yell themselves out, then get some sleep. We can finalize details on the way. We're doing this tomorrow. Ideally, Joyous goes in, gathers the specimens, and gets out without being seen. We retreat to where the doctors can start their testing, and come back with a full force once we can protect everyone involved." "And if it gets more complicated than that?" Torque quietly asked. "It likely will," Luna told him. "It was among our earliest lessons in warfare, Ambassador." And in that next sentence, her voice was not entirely her own. "'The world neither cares about nor feels obligated to cooperate with your plans.' All we need to do is show the world that when it comes to its desires, we care and cooperate even less..." But the last word belonged to Joyous. "Promise me something." Looking from younger to elder in turn. They waited for her. The voice was young in many ways, even with those scant years weighed down by so much. There were others in which it was weary, and at least one where some hope could still be found. But it was impossible to listen and not hear maturity. "If anything happens," Joyous told them, "if there's any chance your suits might be breached, if there's any risk to you at all -- you get out. Even if you have to leave me there. I'm... not that important. And you are. So... please. If you're coming -- then tell me that if you have to -- you'll just... go." They promised, nearly in chorus, almost with one voice. And as soon as the pegasus looked away, Luna glanced at her sibling, wondering if the elder had been lying. It would have been such an easy lie. But Celestia would not meet her eyes, and Luna didn't know if it was from shame, self-hatred about the necessity of that promise -- -- or because she hadn't wanted to look at Luna. Just in case there was a lie looking back. Five ponies moved through the forest of the wild zone. They skirted the edge of the new road: staying close enough to keep it in some level of sight, far enough away that their forms would be difficult to make out at best, and at worst... well, they had taken certain precautions there. Celestia stepped carefully over the wet ground, trying not to overreact at the sound of every squelch or tiny crack produced by movement over natural mulch and fallen twigs. Every so often, she would raise a forehoof and examine the new shading of the Hoovmat suit -- or rather, the enforced stains. Dark greens, moderate browns, hints of a more natural yellow. The fresh dappled pattern covered everything but the clear panel over her eyes, and she had stained the fur of both lids and lashes. Camouflage colors. It had, in fact, been a very long time -- long enough that both siblings had required supervision in their painting from a few of the Guards, who had... not been happy about it. Their job was to keep the sisters from encountering potentially fatal risks. Their duty was to ignore the orders which told them to allow both Solar and Lunar Princesses to trot towards danger without them. But there were no suits available for use: Joyous' spares had been tried and rejected by the two pegasi who came close enough, and as for the spares of the Doctors Bear -- one was too thin, the other too fit: none of the unicorns on staff had been able to manage. So it was four of them in Hoovmat suits, painted to match what they'd hoped would be the dominant colors of the wild zone. And there was Joyous, whose fur had simply been dyed. The reflection natural to a metallic had been lost under multiple layers of soakings and self-applied touch-ups with a long-handled flexible brush (for neither sister had been willing to allow themselves to be so close). She was brown and green and yellow and... trotting. Slowly, quietly trotting, keeping pace with the others as they moved through damp grass, following the altered direction of the wind. It had been part of the precautionary measures. Mazein knew about weather magic and as Luna had noted on the previous night, outside of a crisis, they generally wanted no part of it, for minotaurs were strong enough to take on a little weather. So outside of disasters (plus those sporting events and special occasions that needed clear skies), the nation allowed the air to do whatever it wanted. There was no weather schedule: simply a guessing game of what any day might bring, assisted by barometers, anemometers, and occasionally raising a saliva-dampened finger into the wind. With a pony settlement, any breaking of the schedule would draw questions. In Mazein, there was no schedule, and so the pegasi among the Guards had followed the only instructions anypony had been even remotely happy with. A small storm had been sent across the wild zone earlier in the day, wetting down the ground and quieting movement. It would have moved over the flowers, and so pollen would be weighed down with water, unlikely to be caught by the wind -- a wind which had still been ordered to shift, with every breeze now gusting towards the buildings, away from the edge of the growers' territory. Away from where siblings and physicians would be watching. Currently, the sky was heavily overcast. Celestia had been taught many things about weather, including how it could play a psychological role in warfare. In her youth, a heavily overcast sky... well, there were many reasons to watch for danger from above, and the shift of hues could indicate just what kind of danger was coming, along with how little chance anypony had to survive it. But in the modern day, heavily overcast could weigh on one's thoughts. A gloomy sky might inspire a degree of the same in those below it. It slowed reflexes. It could have a little portion of the mind wondering about any deluge to come, which initially left that much less focus for everything else. And for those who had lived through the Discordian Era, it meant that somewhere, there just might be incoming pegasi raiders who'd sent their ammunition up ahead. The minotaurs who ran the crop area... probably weren't thinking that way. Oh, there was likely some degree of alertness which was triggered by a sky filled with the potential for storms, because there were ponies among Mazein's police and sending your ammunition ahead had never really gone out of style. But to them, 'extremely cloudy' would not represent 'sixty percent chance of rain, with a fifteen percent chance of electrical death.' At most, it was a reason to watch the sky. And they weren't coming from the air, so getting those on the ground to look up only helped. They'd been making their way through the wild zone for nearly two hours. Their excuses had been made earlier in the day. Once everyone was asleep (or at least in their bedrooms), time had been claimed for the lie of a high-altitude, cloud-shrouded night overflight, far too high up for anything to reach or see them (along with being at too great an altitude for any attempt at harvesting flowers), and that had finally allowed them to bring out their map. Everyone had been -- less than thrilled about it, even when assured that no one had spotted them. Which had been only a partial truth: everyone tended to spot Sun. Torque hadn't been happy. No one had been, and nopony. The doctors had almost broken out a new round of tests on the spot. But in the end, the phantom scouting trip had been accepted as reality, and so they had their guide: the main road they could follow towards the local minotaur settlement, along with the place where five slipped away from the carriages and began making their way down the new, shrouded highway -- while initially cloaked by a pair of Luna's illusions. Ponies made of imagination occupied those abandoned carriages until the vehicles were out of sight, and a patch of dreamed-up air covered those who were on their way. Luna couldn't render ponies invisible, not truly. Invisibility was... complicated, especially in the way a concealed pony interacted with their environment. But she could drape multiple bodies in a form of camouflage which no dyes could match, at least for a little while -- -- but then they'd gone off the main road. And Luna had already had an illusion running for some time, since the painting had finished in mid-afternoon. She had replaced dye-created hues with their natural ones just in case anyone had a chance to peer past the shifting curtains of the carriage, occasionally (and irritably) asking everypony to just stop moving. She'd finally dropped everything -- and then the suits had been donned, along with the few pieces of equipment they'd brought with them. For the flowers they knew of were in a single crop area. Those they potentially weren't aware of -- was, outside of the exposure chance, actually the best-case scenario: to find a few wild blooms long before reaching the growers. It hadn't happened. They were moving through the wild zone, approaching the border of the growers' camp. Protected and, simultaneously, something far too close to helpless. There had been some time and so the sisters had experimented, finding out what the limits of their magic were when confined in the suits. The results had not been promising. For pegasus magic, their fields conducted poorly, and the limits placed on the movement of their wings further restricted what they were able to manage. With unicorn workings... the covering of their horns created interference. They could fight through it, but the results were not ideal: for starters, neither had been able to hide their field. Every projection was fully visible, most of them gave off some degree of sparks, and the one way they each had of potentially eliminating all resistance while remaining within the suits was -- something Celestia had thought about, seen Luna doing the same, and neither had discussed it with the other. Celestia had already been desperate enough to send herself into Sun in search of the flowers: a level of desperation she hadn't experienced in two hundred and seventy years. As it turned out, there was a place beyond that. A location both siblings knew by heart, and one where neither wanted to go. They had sworn -- Still... there were things they could do without resorting to that. And the suits restricted their magic -- but the garments did not confine their senses. "Stop," Celestia whispered. The group froze. "Move left." "What is it this time?" Vanilla, just barely audible. "Another metal spring-clamp, or...?" "A pit," Celestia softly replied. "With spikes at the bottom." He stared ahead at the leaves which covered the forest floor. "A pit?" "Three times my height," Celestia told him. "You don't want to know how tall the spikes are, Doctor. Move left." He looked at her for a moment. "That metal-detection spell?" She knew one. She had been casting it repeatedly (if only when she was sure no one would see the sparks: the interference was also hurting the duration of her workings). Knowing about the pit had been no part of it. "Yes. To the left, please. Carefully." Slowly, the group shifted sideways until Celestia nodded, then began going forward again. "How about that plant detection spell?" Chocolate asked for the tenth time. Luna's irritation was perfectly audible to the group, but went no further. "And why is this being brought up again?" "It could tell us if we're on track if we lose the road for a while," Chocolate tried, also for the tenth time. "How close we are, or if there's anything wild in the area, so we don't have to get close at all --" "-- it is useless," Luna insisted with the exasperation of somepony who knew the ideal number of times to tell a lie was one. "How can it be useless?" Chocolate continued in false valiance. "It finds plants! We're looking for --" "-- if I could recognize the sound of a lyre," Luna told him, tone slowly dropping into danger, "in open air, every time one was played, then I could tell you exactly which direction the musician could be found in. However, in the center of a concert hall, with a hundred or more instruments playing at the same time, I might have some difficulty rotating my ears to a precise angle." The dark eyes glared through the clear panel, and no amount of shielding could have kept the unicorn from being driven back half a hoofstep by the sheer force. "When I tell you that a spell is currently useless, Doctor Bear, please trust me that it. is. useless. We are on the right path, facing in the proper direction, and we will reach our destination by the set time. Given the progress we have made thus far, we may even need to stall somewhat before we make our move." "Does anypony know what time it is?" Vanilla wondered, mostly as a means of changing the subject. "Forty-one minutes until Sun-lowering," Celestia automatically replied. He stared at her. "You just know that." She nodded, and the fabric around her mouth crinkled from the underlying smile. They advanced a few more hoofsteps. The sisters checked the area around them, and then they all risked a few more. "Still no magic," Celestia softly stated. "Be thankful," Luna replied. "The mundane has been bad enough. The tripwires are well past the point of infestation, and if it was not for your having spotted that one net..." She nodded. "It doesn't mean we won't find any when we get closer," Celestia reminded them. "Just that they didn't use any this far out. Don't make any assumptions. If anything's going to kill --" she spotted the triggered expression crossing Vanilla's face just a little too late -- "get us, it's going to be telling ourselves we know something when we don't. We'll keep checking all the way in." Luna's left forehoof carefully pointed out the next tripwire, which itself had been draped in greenery -- unintentionally: it looked as if the vine had simply grown along it. The group shifted again. "Not camouflage," the younger observed. "Neglect. We have been on the alert for patrols -- but I am wondering if they even know where to patrol. Not only have we seen little sign that the defenses are being monitored, but I have yet to spot any blazes or symbols which would tell anyone where it was safe to step. Simply memorizing all that we have seen..." "They may be new at this," Celestia considered. It took a certain amount of ego to treat traps as self-maintaining, and more than a little delusion to believe that you'd personally be able to remember where you put them all. Lack of experience could figure into that. "Still... it's an assumption. Keep it in mind, but don't commit." The next part was directed towards the increasingly-shaken doctors. "Even new and naive can surprise you." Vanilla glanced down at his right forehoof. He'd been doing that a lot, mostly to make sure it was still attached. It had taken one metal clang to teach him that he needed to stop exactly on the sisters' orders, along with the seconds he'd spent lying among the leaves after Luna had knocked him out of the way. "You don't have to come any further, Doctor," Celestia offered again. "We can just pick you up on the way back. Both of you." He shook his head. "Neither of you are combatants," Luna reminded them. "Physicians, at least for those in the modern day, are not expected to see direct battle. There is no need for the two of you to put yourselves at any degree of risk." Chocolate swallowed. "We..." Vanilla gasped his next breath. "We sort of..." The sisters waited, with Joyous pausing in well-learned tandem. "...fit the suits," they mutually concluded, and Chocolate went on from there. "We're the only ones who do. And... five is better for a herd than three, Princesses. If we're the ones who can come along, then we'd better be here. We still have a patient to look after." Vanilla nodded and they both advanced a little more, although only after Celestia did. "How are you feeling, Joyous?" Vanilla asked. "I'm fine," the pegasus quietly said. His eyes went over the heavily-dyed, completely exposed fur. "I still don't like having you out in the open like this. If you were in your suit --" Celestia's soft sigh was mostly meant to be a means of cutting off Luna's increasing irritation. It partially worked. "Doctor, we've been over this. Repeatedly. Joyous can't bite down on the flowers when her mouth is covered, not with the limitations of the fabric around the snout: Luna and I proved that when we were testing. She doesn't have a unicorn field and even if she did, working through the suit would either give her trouble or completely stop her. And -- one of us needs to be able to move in a hurry. Teleporting somepony when you're several body lengths away from them is effectively impossible without the suits, and we'll be watching from at least that much distance. She needs to be capable of getting in the air." "It's guaranteeing another exposure," Vanilla pointed out. "It's my choice," Joyous softly reminded him. Most of the full-body wince was visible through his eyes. "At least use the mouth guard," the smaller stallion asked. "I don't want you swallowing the stuff." She nodded, and Celestia watched Luna's posture as it further sagged into concern. They wanted to do their part. They didn't believe there was any real chance for the disease to spread simply through encasing the flowers in their fields. But they were having trouble with the suits, every effort they made to move something was extremely visible, and the one way of truly getting past it was -- the one way. I could do it. She had been desperate enough to reach up to Sun. What was stopping her here? And with that thought, the memories played, right up until the very last. That. To call... it was just calling, wasn't it? In more realistic terms, it was simply bringing that aspect forward. Using it. Nothing was actually brought back. But within her inner vision, she still saw a face contorted almost beyond recognition, features distorted by the claim of its new owner and eyes which had turned red as blood, a memory which had made them swear... "Sister?" Celestia blinked. "You are not moving," Luna said. "Did you see --" "-- we're fine." It was only a little lie, and yet had to be told so much more than once. "Step forward. Carefully." They had been taught by the greatest tactician of their (and possibly any) age: that was what Luna would always insist, and if she found herself insisting rather loudly, well, that was no less than what that one deserved. She remembered every word, every moment from each lesson, and sometimes across more hours than she probably should have spent reflecting on such things. But the time was worth it, even when the pain came, for as long as she remembered... "Nopony's truly dead as long as their name's still spoken." It was soft enough to be inaudible outside the suit. But still, Luna said it. Unfortunately, her sister spotted the movement. "What are you thinking?" came the whisper. It was just barely enough for Luna to hear: the other three remained unaware. "Her first lesson." In this situation, there was no need to define 'her'. "The first, at least as our direct tutor." The elder sighed. "'Plan: the name given to the thing which starts going wrong.' That one?" "No other," Luna softly said. "So. Are we ready to -- adjust on the fly? Even when we personally cannot?" And her sister responded with the second lesson. "We'll find out when it starts happening." They gazed out across the cloud-altered grey light of setting Sun, looking at the flowers. The growers had, to some extent, planned well: the wild zone had been thinned out near the border, giving any attempt to hide within very little space to work with. But they had their camouflage and combined with the continuing loss of light, the shading seemed to be enough. One minotaur on his way in from the sienna root patch had seemingly gazed right through them -- and then gone into one of the buildings, the one they had guessed to be living quarters. Neither sibling was exactly ready to trust the casual nature of his movements. There was still a chance he could be heading in to sound an alert. Celestia's instincts had borne fruit. Sunset was a natural time for shift change, and that was what seemed to be in progress. More minotaurs were heading in and soon enough, more would likely be heading out. Those on the retreat seemed tired, worn out from long hours on watch -- or simply spent at work, for there were no ponies anywhere, none at all, and the crops needed tending. Luna had known little about sienna root other than its effects, but just watching it being taken care of over the course of a few minutes seemed to prove it as immensely fussy stuff: the tangle continually being trimmed back as it tried to encroach on the narrow paths which ran between rows, new shoots wrapped in some kind of waxy paper, little sprinkles of water being granted to one section while excess moisture was patted off another. Strictly mundane tasks, as ordinary as the traps in the wild zone had been -- but in their way, also seeming just as tricky. Although it was possible that just about any activity would have appeared to be complicated by the suits. For there were suits. They all had suits. Mr. Hoovmat had done everything he could to block competition from reaching Equestria. But stopping manufacture in Mazein would have meant dealing with a different set of copyright and patent laws, not to mention incurring a certain requirement to spend money. Torque had been unaware of any such creations in his home, had been unable to track down any businesses which made them -- and yet there were suits. From the outside, at least on first glance, they seemed much like standard Hoovmat suits. The color was somewhat more muted: much closer to ochre than yellow. The clear front panel was the same, and the sounds of snorts which emerged through what had to be charcoal filters were oddly distorted by their passage. But on closer inspection, the material looked rougher, less refined. The hands... the outer two fingers on each glove were ridged... Luna frowned. "Lens, please." Celestia, crouched low next to her (or as low as she could be), slowly, carefully reached down, pressed her forehooves against the sides of one of their few carried pieces of equipment. Luna lowered her head, and her sibling's careful movement temporarily placed the binoculars over her eyes. "Scissors," Luna eventually said. "The gloves have built-in scissors." This frown was audible. "Built-in tools is about what I'd expect from minotaurs, but... unless that suit can't be accidentally cut..." "Or they simply care so little about their workers," Luna said, and looked around a little more. The buildings were visibly new and, in some ways, expertly constructed. "There goes another... hmmm. Why is there a second door just past the first entrance to the building? And to have water nozzles and showerheads in the ceiling and walls..." Celestia didn't know, and so they repeated it to the others. Chocolate came up with the answer. "It's a place to rinse off, Princess. They clean the exterior of the suits, then remove them." They could hear Vanilla's smile. "Which means it's something that can be cleaned. Given the shorter visible onset time with minotaurs, they'd know if they were being infected any other way. We're dealing with pollen or oils, Princesses. Having anything phase through the suits is no longer an option. We can work with the flowers, as long as we stay protected. And we just might have another break -- it's possible that no one new might come out of those rinsing areas until the last minotaur's gone in from the current shift. We could wind up having a few completely clear seconds, if those sentries would just move... " Everypony momentarily glanced up. The towers weren't that high: there was little reason to have them above the treeline. Just enough to survey the property from above, or keep an eye on the sky. Four of them, one at each corner, a minotaur in each. They had one small advantage in that their closest one wasn't: that tower had been set some distance away from the blooms. More space to cross before anyone could pass the flowers. No such crossings had taken place. The workers were going in. The sentries remained at their posts. "So we can go in ourselves?" Her sister's words had been instinctive. "Since we know our suits are enough --" There was an odd force to Chocolate's words. "-- we know their suits are enough." "We have proof," Celestia insisted. "Just the fact that they're using them is --" "-- what were you saying about assumptions?" Chocolate interrupted her, and the force now came with more than a hint of desperation. "You can't risk yourselves, either of you. Wind, soaked-down pollen... it's still terrifying having you this close. We'll get the flowers. We'll do the tests. It's too early to trust in anything. We'll figure things out when we get to safety. When we know." Luna forced her pulse rate to slow. "Your point has been made," she sharply whispered, "I would appreciate it if you would hold off on berating us with further repetitions until after the mission. During is starting to become annoying. However, when it comes to getting the flowers, we are early -- so unless we see our clear moment, we must wait. Joyous?" The pegasus glanced up. "Plan your path. Let us hope the Guards' aim is true. To send it across so much distance, through that much interference..." "I can adjust it," Joyous quietly declared. "As soon as it gets here. I just need to touch an edge for a few seconds." Luna blinked. "You are -- that expert with the technique? But you did not finish --" "-- my parents are weather surveyors." She sighed. "I'm not. I never will be. But I learned some things. And... living in the fringe... I used that technique a lot." Luna managed a nod. "Remember: the overhead clouds are not simply decoration. Should you encounter true difficulty, every one is charged and waiting for you. Your second responsibility in case of trouble is to clear the area with the flowers: your first is simply to get clear. But if you cannot flee immediately for any reason, there is lightning. Use it." After all, there was a reason for those long-dead raiders to have sent their ammunition ahead: because it usually worked. Joyous nodded -- but her eyes were focused on the flowers. All of them had spent some time looking at the blooms during their wait: looking for approach paths, making sure the minotaurs who were leaving the area completely cleared it. But Luna had also found herself looking at the beauty of those petals, the seafoam washed across the land. They were magnificent blooms, more than fit to grace a garden. There were sections within the palace's own carefully-maintained settings where they would have fit in perfectly. Such as being set around the benches in the section which had originally been themed to Trottingham. They were beautiful. They were deadly. And Joyous, looking out over the things which had unknowingly, uncaringly destroyed her family's lives, was waiting. "Last review," Celestia whispered as the final yawning minotaurs began to move towards the buildings. "Joyous, work fast. Just pull the flowers out of the ground and head-toss them into your saddlebags. We didn't see any outer rim air defenses on the way in, magic or otherwise: I'm still not feeling any magic." (Luna nodded agreement.) "But we've got sentries in towers, and I haven't forgotten what a crossbow is. So we're going to the secondary departure plan: once you've got the samples, we'll go on the ground for a while, until we've got tree cover and we're out of range for arrows. Once that happens, get as much altitude as you can and get out of here. There's Guards waiting for you at the designated evacuation point." The distance had taken hours to carefully cross on hoof: it would be mere minutes in the air. "Once you're clear, we follow on the ground. If we need to make speed, we use their road -- carefully: remember, Princess Luna and I spotted a few traps there too. Taking off the headpieces and teleporting is reserved for --" she spotted Chocolate's look "-- Doctor, I'm fairly confident that the rain took out any pollen long before it reached the point where we first began working our way in. There is a safety zone. For starters, should we reach the central highway and still have pursuit on our tails, I'm going to take this thing off regardless of your opinion on the matter because in the worst case, we would have been infected just from going by earlier and there isn't much we can do about that. Also, the suits are just heat-resistant enough for me to burn off anything on the exterior without harming the occupants, especially since I can direct where the radiance goes. And if you're going to tell me that pollen or oils can affect us after having been turned into a fine coating of ash, you'll need to talk a lot faster than you already have." "If we are under attack," Luna quietly finished, "we defend ourselves. However, if there is a risk of suit breach --" and her eyes briefly closed "-- my sister and I shall leave. We do not wish to abandon anypony. We will try to make sure everypony is safe. But in the end..." She couldn't make herself look at Joyous. "...we understand where our priorities must lie." "Thank you," Joyous gently told her, and Luna heard the sincerity and gratitude. She hated herself for all of it. Sun was almost completely down. It would be time for the formal stage of lowering within minutes, joined to Luna's moment for raising. It was something they could do without worrying about the suits: the thread ignored that covering in the same way it had ignored earth, stone, and metal. Their duties would not give them away. But only Luna could see in the dark, Moon would take some time to reach them, and Joyous... there wasn't enough heat in the area to let her steer purely on pegasus sight. She needed a little light, and the Guards' work -- -- billowed past them as a weak, tree-broken mass of nearly-dissipated wisps. Joyous stretched out her wings as the early evening fog shifted around them, took a slow breath and moved her feathers. The vapor began to collapse inwards, gaining density, slowly obscuring vision. A razorwhip of a tactic, Luna thought, watching the expertise being demonstrated. Double-edged. Pegasi within fog would steer on heat, as long as there was enough difference in temperature to work with -- something which could become self-sabotaging as the moisture chilled everything within it. However, a body moving through the fog would be warm enough to see -- for pegasi. The sisters could work with those senses. The doctors, however, would simply be peering into fog. They are not combatants. As long as we can see what she is doing... The sentries wouldn't be capable of perceiving Joyous. That was the important thing. The sentries who still weren't moving. The renewed fog began to sweep across the area, and the blooms slowly faded from sight. "We may need a distraction," Luna whispered. "Something to take our tower's gaze away from the area. Which did you wish to try?" "Lightning?" Celestia whispered back. "Can you manage it?" "I seem to be," Luna wryly replied, "insufficiently irritated for a casual -- wait..." A building door opened. Four minotaurs stepped out. All were in suits, and every last one carried at least three weapons strapped to their hips. They peered into the fog, with mist and headpieces rendering their expressions unreadable -- but the big hands shifted closer to the weapon grips. "Crossbows," Celestia softly groaned. "Perfect. Daggers... did you ever think you'd miss the days when it was just -- wait, there they go --" It was what the current shift had been waiting for. The fog had not quite reached the building, which left them able to see their replacements coming out. The sentry in the closest tower turned away, headed for the ladder to ground level. The four who had emerged turned to face different directions. None were looking towards the ponies. "Go," Luna hissed. Joyous stood up, moved forward. A glow of pony-shaped heat went into the fog. They watched. They listened. And the minotaurs talked. The words were in Minotaurus, as might have been expected -- but the exceptionally tricky translation spell had been cast on them all by the one Guard who was capable of managing it, just before the suits had been donned for painting -- and the first word set the true duration running. "Hey! Wait for me to get up there!" "Are you kidding?" That from their own tower. "It's so damp, I swear I can feel it through my suit! I want to get inside before the rain breaks. Up in the tower with all the sides open, plus if there's any lightning... your shift, your problem." The sound was making its way down the ladder now. "I'm getting inside and getting some rest. You enjoy the weather." "Weird weather," said the first minotaur. Slowly, "Real weird..." Four ponies tensed. "The clouds moved in hours ago," the departing minotaur said, voice now at ground level. "It's probably just a freak front. If something was backing this, it would have made a move by now." "What about the fog?" Luna could feel every hundredth of bale-weight of the suit, and it seemed to be pressing against her fur with a thousand times that amount of force. "What about it? It's damp and Sun's being lowered. It's fog." "Clouds," the new arrival said, "and fog." That glow of heat turned, heading back towards the building. "Hey! Where are you going?" "Where you should have!" the first minotaur said. "Get back up there! He's gotta get his suit on!" "But my shift's --" "Get up there! Because if he even thinks you missed something, he's going to put you on the test squad! Want to guess what he'll do if there was something to miss?" Luna was familiar with many kinds of silence. This one had been produced by fear. "I'm going," their sentry swallowed. "I'm going. Tell him -- the fog came in as you were coming out, that's the truth, tell him I sent you back..." They heard the door close. Hooves pushing against wooden rungs. Luna stared out into the fog, found Joyous. There was a cooler object in her mouth: the protective guard. She was just about at the edge of the blooms. Hurry... But it was no good. She could not send thoughts, and projecting the emotional resonance of worry would do nothing which the minotaurs' words hadn't. Joyous had heard all of it, the same as they had. She knew their time was limited. "Is the fog thick enough?" Chocolate whispered. "I think I can almost make her out --" "-- watch the tower," Luna hissed. "Concentrate on that. Watch the sentry. If he pulls a weapon, call out a warning. Can you do that?" "...yes. But -- what are you going to do?" "I am watching the door," Luna told him. "There is someone inside who needs to put on a suit. Someone they are afraid of, someone they may not make a move without. That is the one to be worried about. Unless Joyous is spotted, we may at least have until that one emerges. Sister -- the tower. If he draws a crossbow, can you --" "-- through the suit?" She knew Celestia would be frowning. "Yes, I can grab it. But it'll give our position away." "If he sees her," Luna forced out, "giving our position away is the least of our problems." Where was that dangerous one within the building? How long to put on a suit? There would be hands involved: that suggested a rather speedy donning. How long did they have...? She checked on Joyous, and the head movements were easy to make out. The pegasus was among the blooms, and a covered mouth went down, pulled, came up again. A distinctive shade of heat turned towards a cooler saddlebag, deposited something damp and chill... How many times has she done that while we were talking? How many flowers does she have? Is it going to be enough? Again. Again. Slowly, carefully moving not just around the edges, but a little deeper into the patch. Luna's guess was that she was trying to take from where the blooms were thickest, trying to make sure nothing would be missed. That's enough, Joyous. What was the sentry doing? Where was he looking? That's enough. Come back. You have to come back... The pegasus' head dipped. Over and over. "Why is she still out there?" Only necessity kept it from being a shout. "She has to know --" "-- we told her," Chocolate whispered, "that we might use one up for each test... she's been through so many tests herself, maybe she thinks --" -- the door opened. A very large bull emerged. There was a huge blade on the left hip of his suit, and it did nothing to take Luna's attention off the ancient thick goggles which covered the viewing panel. Goggles she knew just as well as she'd known the designer. Signature scanner! He can see magic, any -- Too many things happened. Some of them were in rapid succession. A few were simultaneous. None were welcome. The new bull bellowed. "It's a pegasus fog! It's fresh! We've got ponies! Find them! Make them dead!" Joyous, within the blooms, heard the words, started to move, faster than she ever had. Movement which was spotted by the sentry in the tower. The crossbow came up. Celestia's field ignited. Sparks flew through the fog as her corona tried to work through the material of the suit, glow lit up the mist and a flickering projection lanced forward, pulled the aim offline just as the startled minotaur yanked on the trigger. The bolt thudded into the ground, less than a body length in front of Joyous. The new bull's head spun, drawn to the flash of fresh power and there was a roar, the furious sound of a minotaur who'd just been challenged. Hooves beat at the ground, that hideous short-term speed moving directly towards them, a path which would lead through the flowers -- -- something went past Luna on her right, mostly registered as a secondary level of shock which would have to be dealt with when there was time, there was never time in a fight, not when the first law of plans had once again exerted itself, not when things were going wrong. "GET OUT OF THERE!" she screamed, feeling her own corona starting to surge. "JUST GET --" But Joyous had responded to the impact of the bolt by doing something natural. She'd reared back. A motion which had sent the saddlebags crashing to the ground. And the glow of life moved in the fog, searching for where the harvest had landed, refusing to leave without it -- -- the minotaur, charging towards the glow, never saw her. The fast-moving legs rammed into her flank. He tripped: she fell over. Her cry was by far the louder. And that was when the other fresh sentries began to orient on the scene, drawing their own weapons, joined by those who'd been afraid to go inside -- There were too many weapons. Every bolt was a chance to not just pierce a suit, but a heart. Luna's head came up, her eyes looking everywhere as her field fought against the suit, energy searching for any way out, and she had one of their weapons, she pulled and got it away from its bearer, but she felt so weak, most of her strength was blocked and her field's dexterity was down to just about nothing, she could only affect a single target at a time, she could feel Celestia straining and see the eruptions of sparks every time either of them tried anything, the suits were keeping them from defending themselves, from defending everypony and -- -- there's one way out of this. One. I haven't... Tia. Forgive me. And in the midst of the chaos, Luna found a moment for looking inside herself. Went down. Celestia couldn't focus. The suit, the Tartarus-chained Hoovmat suit was stopping her from doing just about everything she needed to do. She could take them down one at a time, but she knew the sounds of the fight would have alerted those inside the buildings and it wasn't going to be long before one at a time wouldn't be anywhere near enough. As opposed to right now, when it was just about right for getting them killed. Them -- and soon after them, everything else. The dark thought crossed her mind: to simply stand all the way up, identify herself, scream for the attack to stop, because no sane party would want to risk potentially ending the world. She had tried it a few times over the course of her life, and none of them had been in the presence of a sane party. Luna was fighting, but with the same difficulties and a strange lack of seeming focus in the efforts: her sister was severely out of practice. Joyous, on the ground, struggling to recover and the minotaur was nearly up, close enough to see the pony in the fog, lost in the mists he could not breathe. He laughed. His hands went to the grip of his blade. "One down," he declared -- -- impact. Vanilla Bear was rather thin for a unicorn, and his was the species which possessed the least base strength of the three pony races. He couldn't gallop all that quickly and didn't possess the mass to increase the impact of his charge. But in a crisis, in the moments when instinct took over, just about everypony might lower their head, put everything they had into going forward. The minotaur was stronger, perhaps by orders of magnitude. But he'd just gotten up, he was completely focused on Joyous, and the diagnostician had just charged into his right thigh, horn-first. A horn blunted by the covering of the suit -- but still an unbreakable horn, one which refused to transmit force to its owner's skull and allowed the entirety of the impact to be delivered on a single point. The minotaur screamed, staggered back. Vanilla, with no experience of how to recover from a charge, fell to the side. Celestia sent a crossbow spinning off onto the fog, vaguely aware of new hooves pounding past her, she could hear distant muffled shouts from the buildings, there would be reinforcements at any moment -- -- the big bull didn't go down. Staggering him was all Vanilla's valiant effort had been able to do. And now those hands were on the grip of the blade again. "You're both going on the compost heap! You're just getting there first --" -- green pressed against the suit's throat. Sparkling, glowing green. He stopped. He looked down at the glowing field, the thinness of the edge. And then he finally saw the unicorn, whose horn was ablaze with the light of a full single corona. "Tell them," Chocolate said, voice no longer muffled by filters, "to drop their weapons. Now." It made him a target. Celestia took care of the first minotaur targeting him. But the doors -- "-- and what's this supposed to be?" the bull sneered. "If you could do anything, little pony, you would have --" "-- it's my trick." Chocolate's voice was shaky. Terrified, the fear fully out in the open. And yet he stood his ground, horn still lit. "I knew I wanted to be a surgeon before my mark ever appeared. And when my magic came... it turned out I didn't need a scalpel. Don't move. Don't even lean forward. It's sharp." The bull stared at him. "HOLD UP!" he shouted, or at least as much as he could without expanding his throat too much. The other minotaurs stopped moving. "Surgeon," the bull softly said. "Doctors don't kill." "I've killed nine ponies," Chocolate Bear said, and the words were almost placid. "Any doctor my age has a count, because surgery goes wrong, because we looked in the wrong place, because we make mistakes. We mourn. We hate ourselves. We move on, or pretend we do. But my partner jokes that I only learn by cutting. You're a minotaur, and I've never treated a minotaur. But you're also a mammal. I know where every major artery is in your body. I know where to cut you. My field is up against your left carotid. One more thought and I can use a femoral for backup. Between the two, you'll bleed out within heartbeats. Trust me: if it's you or him, I already chose him." Celestia could hear them now. Hooves pounding against wooden floors. Getting closer. And then the bull said what they all already knew. "YOU'RE DEAD!" the minotaur laughed. "Do you know where you're standing? Do you know what you're breathing, pony? I see your suit! I see the headpiece, on the ground! You're a corpse, and you just haven't stopped moving --" A second burst of glow pressed against the bull's inner right thigh. The words stopped. "I told you," Chocolate informed the world as he steadily stood among the blooms. "I already chose him. Vanilla?" From the ground, a shaky "...what's up, Chocolate Bear?" "You heard him. It's the pollen." "...got it." Desperately, "Chocolate --" -- which was when the doors opened, releasing two dozen bellowing weapons-bearing minotaurs into the fight -- -- at the exact moment it ended. Dark blue shot into the newest of nights, surrounded everything. Weapons were pulled away from bodies, crushed into splinters, twisted into sculptures destined to be rejected for not quite demonstrating the true transient state of matter. Minotaur forms were hoisted into the air, but only long enough for them to realize what was coming, just before they were flung into towers, buildings, and anything else that was available. The slamming repeated a few times, just for emphasis, and then the reinforcements were collected into a smaller area. One which had a shield dropped on it. "We," Luna declared, "are done." Or at least, the words had come from Luna's mouth. The words which just barely sounded like her sister at all. Celestia, who no longer had anything to fight off, was able to turn, stare at her sister and the corona dancing around the younger's covered horn. The dark blue, star-filled corona -- which now bore just the faintest hint of reddish-purple. "You're at the limits of your weaponry," Luna said. "And your raiders, barring the three I'm sensing who turned back at the door when they saw what happened to the others. I, however? Am not at the limits of my magic. Would you like to see where the limits are? Or would you prefer to surrender? Believe me, given a choice, I hardly mind getting the chance to show off..." The head bull looked at her, then to Celestia. Seeing size by corona's light. "...you two?" he asked the night. "What are you two --" And then, looking to Chocolate as the moderately saner choice, "You're still dead." "I know," the surgeon said. "Would you like to join me?" A third field blade appeared, right over the bull's covered nostrils. "This," Chocolate observed, "would be a really good time to mention the cure." Long seconds passed. All of them hurt. "There isn't one," the bull sneered. And in his only remaining triumph, Celestia heard truth. Which was when Vanilla got back on his hooves. "Wrong," the smaller stallion declared. "There isn't one yet." Joyous was the last to recover and, as the only pony who could risk flight, she was the one sent to alert the Guards, let them know what the sisters and physicians were bringing out via the road. Vanilla looked her over before permitting the flight, diagnosing a badly-bruised right flank -- but the impact had inflicted no injury upon the wing. She was capable of flight. But it was several minutes before they could make her leave, talk her into doing anything other than apologizing to Chocolate over and over again, voice breaking with every word, heart already broken. More time was required to extract a promise that she would come back, that she wouldn't do anything to punish herself over what had happened, because whether she wished to believe it or not -- even when she wasn't capable of believing it -- none of it had been her fault. Eventually, it was Chocolate who got her to leave, and he did so with the same words he had given to Luna and Celestia and his partner, with that last needing more repetition than anypony. She took off, and her tears substituted for the rain. The others began the trot out. Luna's field kept the minotaurs in line, although it didn't do much to stop the swearing. "Nice working," Vanilla said. The words were bitter. "It would have been nicer if you'd done that a few seconds earlier." "I already told you both: it... took time," Luna said, and that was not a lie. "Time to figure out a way through the suit." And that was. "I am sorry. I... know that being sorry is not enough. That words are not enough. Actions, however..." She glanced back at Chocolate, trailing at the rear of the pack, five body lengths behind the others. "Everything we have done to save Joyous," she told Vanilla, returning her focus to him, "for her parents -- we now do for him. You know that, Doctor Bear. Somewhere inside, you know it. I can only ask that you try to remember." He sighed, and there was too much in it. "I know, Princess. Just... give me some time. Please?" Luna silently nodded, trotted forward. "Sister?" No response. "Tia?" Heavy hooffalls against the road. "Tia, please --" "-- you called on him." Without looking at her. "...yes." "On him." Looking everywhere that wasn't her. There seemed to be nothing she could say to that. "How many years has it been?" Celestia quietly asked. "How many years when we didn't even think about it, never seriously, when we swore we wouldn't -- and you... you just..." Trotting under Moon. A Moon which was starting to feel like the last place she could go. The place from which nopony would ever pull her back. "Don't talk to me," the elder told her, and moved away. Luna didn't accelerate to match. Instead, she kept her pace, alone under Moon and leaf-dappled shadows, until the last of the tears had been fought back. And then she dropped her speed, allowing Vanilla to silently pass her, waiting until Chocolate had reached her. "I am --" The last word would have been 'sorry,' and she felt it would have done as much good as the word ever did: none at all. But Chocolate spoke before it could emerge, and the words were the same ones he previously had said to Vanilla, the sisters, and Joyous. "It was my decision." She felt her wing shifting, felt the urge to drape it over his back. Pull him in close, comfort him. But the suit prevented it. And so they silently trotted into the dark.