“I would like to ask you to relax, and talk about yourself. Nothing we discuss here will ever leave this room. No one is pressuring you, no one is expecting anything from you. All I want is to know who you are, and to offer advice that you can either accept or refuse at your own discretion.”
“That sounded rehearsed,” I quipped back. “Anyway, before anything, I would like to insist that I don’t know why I’m here. I’m completely normal and sane.” Being practiced in keeping my expression inscrutable, I did manage to keep a straight face when I said that. Until a snort in hilarity suddenly and violently escaped my nostrils.
To her credit, Dr. Cross Heart managed to hide her glee much more efficiently, due to not trying so hard that it backfired the way I did. “Really? That’s unusual. In all my years working in this job, I don’t think I’ve ever met a normal, sane person. Not inside my clinic, and especially not outside of it.” Understandably, also refreshingly, I was surprised.
“How about I talk a bit about myself first?” she asked me next. I didn’t have any objections while I assumed Dr. Cross made herself comfortable in her couch.
“Bear in mind that in order for our meetings to work efficiently, we need to maintain a professional relationship. I can tell you about myself, so that you know me as a person, but otherwise it would generally be more beneficial for the therapist to remain objective and impartial to the patient.
“As you might’ve figured out by now, I’m Celestia’s daughter, whom I assume you’ve met. I’m three hundred and twelve years of age, which counts for about half of my life expectancy. I’ve had three children, I have six generations underneath me and chances are that you’ve likely come across at least one of my grandchildren by now. One of them is a working physician at the clinic, while another is a rather well regarded deputy.”
“May they be in good health. Three hundred years? That is quite the lifetime. Suppose being the daughter of a demigod has its perks. I imagine you have quite a few tales of misadventures from your early life.”
She seemed to have picked up on my intention to keep her talking in my stead. “I do, though I suspect none of it compares to adventuring through the wide realm and banding with assorted misfits.”
I chuckled and relented. “There has been a group of adventuring misfits, though we weren’t exactly on the side with the law. Still, I suppose it’s okay considering the law was a joke and the authorities were as corrupt as they could get. I think my friends and I defended more innocent bumpkins than certain towns’ authorities cumulated since their founding. There was even this one time, when my friend Valarad…”
Half an hour later, I was mostly the only one who spoke. Didn’t she say she wanted to talk about herself? Oh well, I didn’t complain. I love hearing myself talk. Especially when it’s about nonsense! “...And that’s how I saved Evebrook from a pack of rabid, alchemically enhanced ferrets. Which I might or might not have unleashed to begin with.”
“Uh huh… And what happened to that young guard you mentioned?”
“Oh, Allejin? Joined up. Good man, stuck with us until the end. The Red Dervish, we’d call him, though I have to say, not the best singer. Now my friend Lilianne? Best singing voice I’ve ever heard. She could likely make Destiny himself change his mind if he wasn’t such a rotten old bastard. She even tried to help Allejin a bit regarding his singing skills. Unfortunately, there was only so much even she could do.”
“Do you like singing?”
I was slightly taken off balance by the sudden question. “I enjoy listening, though you wouldn’t catch me dead doing it, if that’s what you’re asking. Why?”
“It was either ask about singing, or ask about your friends which you no doubt miss,” Cross answered empathically, quill momentarily stopping its rapping on paper as she paused her scribbling down notes.
Before the lull in conversation got too awkward and I needed to cough out something to force it back to life, Dr. Heart started again, “What does it mean to be a necromancer?”
I sighed in a degree of relief. “It means to study death and control it. One can’t really control their own deaths through necromancy unless one pays a price, usually their humanity. However, what the craft means varies from person to person. Most followers simply want to try to unlock immortality, while most bumpkins consider it the taboo, an antithesis to what it means to be human. It’s a long story. Personally, I like to think of it as a tool for understanding, as well as for forestalling one’s death.”
“What about the price you mentioned?”
“Well, there was a risk involved, understandably. The average necromancer, who uses too much of their craft, does tend to have no other choice sooner or later but to ask Death for a contract, however I was not your average necromancer. I was more careful, and instead of focusing on gaining power in order to bring back someone from beyond… as tempting as it might’ve been; I instead opted to only use enough of my magic to keep myself alive… relatively speaking. Suffice to say, it was not a fun time of my life.
“Anyway! Let’s not dwell on such things. The past is in the past, let’s focus on the future.” I regarded in her direction wryly. “Any ideas on what I could do with my time? Baking, learning to read your language, sculpting? Or would you have me take up singing?” I was smiling friendlily, but my tone bordered on accusation.
“You’re quite paranoid, aren’t you?” Cross retaliated.
“Paranoia is a healthy thing to have, even if someone in your field of work might wish to argue something superficial to the contrary.”
She sighed in response. “To answer your question, I was actually compiling a list of things for you to do with your free time for Luna to look over. I didn’t intend on suggesting you to pick up choir activities, but I’m starting to consider it a good disciplinary experience.”
“...You wouldn’t.”
I could swear she was smiling sinisterly at me. “Wouldn’t I?”
I suppressed a shiver, she chuckled at my expense.
“Either way, there are actually a number of things you could choose to do in order to stay busy, however I wanted to highlight what might potentially help you learn to be a valued member of society-”
I failed to contain another snort in amusement. “That might prove more difficult than you might think. I enjoy the company of friends, not people in general. I tolerate my disdain for everyone and anyone for the sake of not wasting my life as a decaying and insane lich inside a cave. A lonely existence, with no benefit above being dead other than the delirious dreams one might be able to cook up, or the unspeaking skeletons keeping one company… But it would still only be slightly worse that having to deal with people on a daily basis.” I shuddered at the last two words.
“What if I told you you don’t need to interact with other people in order to be an active member of society?”
I sighed awkwardly. “I suppose I could accept that. There was the matter of not wanting to have anything to do with the society that justified turning me into an avatar for fear and contempt, before I arrived here. It will be… tricky, but I’m willing to give this world a chance, at least.”
“I’m happy to hear you decided to not let your past decide your lifestyle.”
“Right. Do you have any more interesting questions, or can I go now?”
“Is there somewhere else you’d rather be?”
“Well, as much as I do enjoy it, talk is cheap and abundantly available for me now. We could talk while I got some kind of work done today for a change.. Or rather, I’d like to have a little bit of actual fun, before you and Luna subject me to schoolwork.”
Dr. Cross seemed to be thinking of an adequate comeback for a few moments, until something unforeseen happened. Sleep magic started taking effect in the room. My first assumption was that my supervisor had finally decided she could pacify me for the rest of her looking after me, but then I picked up the distinct sound of laughter, coming from a familiar, tiny voice.
‘Sprites. At least they should make for a good enough distraction for me to slip out.’
I felt the doctor’s magic gathering in extremely large amounts. Before the magic could take effect, rather explosively I noted, I had ample time to exit the room and close the door behind me.
‘Let’s see. Where, should I, begin!’
The sound of guards yelling for me to stop made it clear that I was still little more than a prisoner. It was mildly upsetting.
‘Ah, military! So rigid in their beliefs, so blindly loyal. My favorite kind of toys to break!’
Death-affiliated Snallighasts, and now Delirium-affiliated Sprites. Maybe the one sending these creatures was watching me, waiting for me to become vulnerable. Maybe it was their intention to offer a distraction in order for me to be able to slip away and become unguarded. Or, maybe the beasts weren’t controlled by anyone at all, and found their way to me on their own somehow. Regardless, I wasn’t going to ever find anything out by standing idly and waiting for answers to come to me.
The only way to deal with a potential trap is to spring it. Of course, I doubted Dr. Cross would agree with such a course of action.
I was on a timetable, I needed to stay ahead of my chaperone, lest I’d find the floor moving away from my hooves. It wouldn’t be a problem to stay out of her reach, if she continued to keep her slow, casual pace behind me, if only the guards wouldn’t stand in my way.
I already memorized the flaws in the soldiers’ armor. I ran in the opposite direction of where I could hear two of the guards approaching from, just far enough to turn a corner, so Cross wouldn’t have vision of me to grasp me in her magic. She didn’t levitate me already, I assumed she couldn’t for a reason, that being that perhaps she needed direct vision of me. A range of effect was also likely, but considering I was dealing with a direct descendant of a rather god-like entity, I wasn’t keen on finding out what hers was.
I listened to the clanging of gold-alloy plates as the guards drew closer. ‘They even gave the pegasus that same bulky armor? You can’t be serious...’
Timing right, I rolled out of the pegasus’ immediate reach... and failed to account for my tail’s length. As the guard bit down on it, I only had enough leeway to swing and kick off his armor plate, twist, grab hold of his helmet, and then proceed to check how well it protected against physical trauma.
It was an awkward strike. A punch with the force of a small leg, dissipated across the plates primarily designed to protect against magic, but horribly lacking in every other regard. I needed to compensate for the protective shell, and fortunately I managed to make the guard stagger and loosen his mouth enough for me to pull free.
‘Useless tail. Also, I feel like they should focus more on protecting those overly large, vulnerable eyes, rather than waste money on decorating the helmets. Those are meant for large-scale combat and phalanxes, not security patrols... Case in point,'
The guard was waving his hoof at me impotently, not managing to quite reach past the crest on his helmeted head. It was quite pathetic. ‘Now that’s a design flaw if I ever saw one. Then again,’
Thinking quickly, I jumped off, grabbed hold of his wings and caused him to lose his balance in-flight, just enough to steer him to crash into where I heard the other guard’s clanking armor, incidentally head-to-head. ‘What was the point of giving a flier such bulky armor, if such a critical element as their wings are left exposed like this? It only serves to make them heavier and fall harder! I’m starting to think their designer was drunk or something. Most importantly, however,’
As the guards staggered back up, I prepared to strike them in the most important areas for armor to protect its wearer … then changed my mind, cast a sight spell for an outline, then struck them in the second most important place instead: in the torso, in this case aimed for the liver. The crippling pain should keep then down for several minutes, long enough for me to evade them. 'WHY is their armor only covering their upper bodies, leaving their undersides and LEGS exposed?'
The two guards were both gasping for air and failing, one of them appeared to be holding himself from puking while the other was barely staying conscious.
I had already found their species' heart's location in their chests beforehand, from my proximity to Luna. It was in the right place for an equine. From that, I assumed that beside their wings, horns and the additions to the brain, their bodies were similar enough to what was familiar. My assumption was proven correct so far.
'Pain is definitely the same. It would certainly be counterproductive to cancel out natural defenses. So I'm not entirely out of my depth, the general rules are still the same. Don't hit hard, just hit in the right place in order to rattle the insides. The shock is enough most of the time, and if I am to make a modest assumption, if they're really so protected by their magic, I have barely anything to worry about. If it weren't for this little safety net, this little escapade would've been a lot harder to justify.'
Once the fight was over, I cast my sight spell again, to orientate around the hallway.
“I’d like to have a word with your instructor and armor designer. Before I ask Luna to fire them both, that is. Which would be, preferably literally setting them on fire, if they fail to offer proper arguments for their methods.”
I didn’t wait any longer, however, since I could tell that Dr. Cross was arriving around the corner soon, in her calm, casual trot. Perhaps she expected these guards to stop me?
“...Wai-” one of the men didn’t have time to finish his request before I closed another door behind me. A small empty room this time. No one inside, but there was the vague scent of a sleeping quarter about it.
A third spell, a vague impression of my surroundings. A bed to my left, a cupboard next to it, a wardrobe in the corner, what I guessed was a tea table… [']'I suppose that employment as castle staff offers decent accomodations. Privacy? Must be a head of staff or something.'
I didn’t have much time for pondering, my pursuers wouldn't need long to get back on their feet. I gathered my frayed attention and looked to single out the distinct refraction of windows.
‘First priority: escape. Second priority: figure out a way to deal with levitation magic, as soon as I’m not short on time anymore.’
I looked out the window, cast a fourth sight spell and noted the distance to some roof tiles below. Good, but not great… still better than nothing, however. I then got to trying to decide where I wanted to head next. Preferably somewhere with a lot of obstacles to deny direct vision. And with an echo effect.
‘Too bad I don’t really know where anything is in this castle… Perhaps they could send another creature to offer cover for me to get to the forest? Perhaps a Dullahan, or a Tulpa?’
I studied the slope of the roof tiles underneath me. It would be difficult, I decided to finally try my wings to slow my descent a bit so I wouldn’t bounce off. I regretted not having an opportunity to figure out the bloody things earlier, rather than indulge in the simple joy of piggy-back rides. Curse my giving into temptation!
I took a deep breath and jumped off, moments before the door opened behind me. A couple tiles broke under my hooves, and my wings were guided more by instinct than anything else, but I managed to get a proper footing (hoofing?) on the incline.
“Thank you, hardwiring. I imagine it would be rather pathetic for a bird to die because it was too stupid to use its wings, right?”
A quick sight spell later, just enough to tell where the windows were, I proceeded through. I sensed someone was inside, however the glass deflected my sight spell. I couldn’t see where I was entering.
A surprised voice sounded out as I entered. A sight spell later, I noticed what seemed like a pony at a desk. Paperwork, maybe?
I shushed her insistently, making sure to convey that I was not going to get no for an answer. Thankfully, the light gray mare remained quiet as I slowly opened the door to check the hallway. All clear, it seemed there weren’t any more guards on this hallway.
I couldn’t detect any of them, due to their gold and orchialcum armor plating meant to isolate magic. Great for hiding their magical presence, but even better for protection against magic. Unfortunately, gold is brittle and orchialcum is extremely hard to manufacture, so that was probably why they made a practical patchwork regarding defense from conventional blades and fangs. Upon further consideration however, what with their little ‘thou shalt not kill’ rule going on in respect to their Windy-goes and likely other assorted revenant entities, perhaps they figured they didn’t really need to worry about anyone going straight for the jugular that much. There was also the matter of their magic apparently defending them, strengthening their pelts so they breach less easily, making their bones bend like Zebrican rubber when they should be broken instead, even offering them quite some time to be recovered should they stop breathing. I imagine that should a scenario arise, there were any number of ways they could enchant even non-armor to withstand physical abuse.
‘Still, that’s no excuse to not train your soldiers properly. Necessity is the mother of ration and adaptation, but reason should step forward and adopt the role, right? I suppose these ponies are just not very reasonable.’
Back to the now. I closed the door behind me then started walking down the hall, expecting the pegasus guard to come in my pursuit sooner than later. They didn’t see where I went, but they could potentially sense where I was. There was no use dealing with the two guards pursuing me in a more drastic manner, since there were a few hundred more around the castle just waiting to be asked to do something other than stand motionless like statues all day. I did not envy them.
‘A lethifold, maybe? That should offer a good distraction. Or maybe a makara? No, there are neither waters nor brothels frequented by sailors nearby..."
My train of thought was interrupted, as I felt the floor move away from me again. I cast another sight spell, and noticed a unicorn guard emerged from behind a corner ahead of me.
“A sound cancelling spell? No fair,” I whined.
“Your escapade ends here, Your Highness,” was the guard’s straightforward response.
“'Your Highness'? Since when do you need to detain your royalty?”
That said, it was not out of the question that at least one of the hundred-or-so guards in the castle was going to be competent enough to present at least this much common sense.
And there I was. Floating helplessly. It seemed that my quest to wander around looking for trouble while doing absolutely nothing productive for anyone else was at an end… or was it? I had a theory, well, I had a couple theories, but this one was the one I was more likely to work for me to escape.
I waited for the unicorn to walk closer, then I beat my wings as forcefully as I could, propelling me to headbutt the unsuspecting guard. My theory proved correct. A lot more correct than I expected.
Skull met helmet, crown first. Ow.
"Are you alright?" I heard him ask.
I rubbed my head and steadily got on my haunches. If it weren't for the ponies' aforementioned rubber-like resilience, I would have definitely broken my horn. Or jabbed one of the guards' eyes out. "Yeah... Just give me a moment to adjust. Blasted new pain receivers... Okaydone," as I headbutted him again even harder in the temple, causing him to be the one to collapse this time.
It was rather obvious that the pegasi’s(?) wings could not work normally on their own. They had to work on a magical basis, particularly the same way these ponies picked things up with their hooves, which happened to be the same basis on which their telekinesis worked, to a certain extent. I didn’t just propel myself forward with my own magic, instead I used a bit of knowledge pertaining to basic necromantic Siphoning in order to use the levitation affecting me in my favor, accelerating me just enough to achieve a certain amount of force.
It wouldn't have worked at all if it wasn't for the fact that these wings seemed uniquely designed to cast a field on my entire body, allowing for ample surface through which to 'soak in'. Almost as if pegasi were actually digging through the air, like they could manipulate it, push it, stand on it... the abundance of telluric outlets across the entire body didn't hurt either.
'This magic is weird. Oh well, back to the now. Chances are that my underhanded trick strategic genius will likely not work as well a second time...'
I could hear the pegasus guard finally catching up to me. “I got you, you little-” I struck him over my shoulder. Short ark, lower jaw. It rattled his brain enough to cause him to fall in a heap.
'...so I better not get caught like that a second time.' I bent my head back around to regard the newest guard. “Your training really is horrible, isn’t it?” No answer. Both guards seemed to be out cold. “Pansies."
I started back on my way. I turned a corner, heading towards the stairway. The way things were going, it was not a matter of if I was stopped, but of when. So, I decided to find a way to end my little adventure on my own terms, with a climax.
I was looking for the barracks.