Chapter Three
Impetus
I stood on a padded examination table, almost motionless, while cerulean magic lined up a clear phial capped by a rubber stopper with a stinging spot on my neck, where a syringe waited.
“I hate needles.”
Night Cloud scarcely moved, but her electric blue eye darted over toward me, then back to her syringe and phial. “Well, for a young mare who hates needles, you’re very calm and cooperative about having your blood drawn.”
“You’ll grow out of it eventually,” said Zephyr from the corner of the room.
“Maybe,” said Night Cloud. “Some ponies never do.” She stood stiller than I did, shifting her head only while she exchanged the filled phial for an empty one. “It helps if you know your doctor, trust them… and some ponies say it helps to simply not look.”
“Nope,” I muttered, “Can’t see it, still don’t like it. Still a needle, still stabbing me.”
“Well, I may not be a doctor just yet, but I’ve had plenty of training, and practice finding veins. They don’t let just anyone open a clinic and start sticking ponies with needles… we here in the Kingdom aren’t blood-letters or miracle peddlers. So, if you don’t trust me, then trust Doctor Patch, and the Bellenastian Council of Medicine.”
“I trust you,” I said, meeting her eyes again; she either didn’t notice, or ignored me, and I quickly looked away. “You looked for me all over that desert, and carried me all the way here. That makes you really friggin’ awesome in my book.” I dared look one more time as she fitted a third phial to the syringe, and she glanced at me again. “Why wouldn’t anyone trust you?”
She held my gaze for the moments the phial needed to fill with blood, smiling, and plucked the phial away. “Depends on whom you ask, sweetheart,” she said quietly, “It could be because I’m a big, scary, monstrous alicorn!” She growled and snapped her teeth near my ear, then pulled the syringe from my neck and pressed a tiny ball of gauze to my coat. “Hold that, please.”
She stepped away to place the trio of sample phials in a padded stainless steel cylinder on the clean counter that took up the entire west side of the room, and I finally had a decent view of her cutie mark: A flower on its stem, with eleven starburst petals, bright orange at their tips and cerulean near the center, all around a delicate, golden yellow stamen.
Night Cloud set the sample cylinder into a small alcove on the counter and closed its glass door, and with a pneumatic whoosh, the cylinder shot down out of sight.
“Or,” she said, coming back to the table, “It could be because I’m obviously a rude and uneducated tribal mare, who obviously must have no idea what she’s doing, and can’t possibly be qualified. Never mind three years of rigorous institutional training, practical tutoring, and everything my mother taught me before I ever came here…”
She lashed her tail and said quickly, “Of course, all the ponies doing the criticizing seem to forget that the training and certification process takes a bit more than three years. Of course I’m not qualified yet. That’s why I’m performing clinical duties, at the request of a licensed physician, not conducting surgeries or diagnosing illnesses.”
Zephyr coughed and came to the table. “Well, I, for one, am glad you’re doing the doctoring, and not some random pony off the street.”
Night Cloud took a deep breath and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on a rant. That was uncalled-for.” Smiling at me, she said, “Anyway, that’s it! We’re all done here. The lab should have those results back within an hour; I can have those copied for you, and they’ll be sent to the medical records office in Bellenast, as well, along with yours and Eagle’s. And if you’d like, I can go over them with you.”
I leapt off the examination table, and Zephyr and I followed her down the hallway to the clinic lobby. The ceiling sported faintly buzzing light fixtures and vents that pushed cold air throughout the entire building.
She swept open the door in the brightly lit waiting room and led us out to the warmer and jarringly dusty cobbled street that ran the entire length of the quiet town, from the fence of sandstone blocks stacked at the cliff’s edge half a kilometer to the south to the still-lamp-lit gate at the north end nearly twice that distance away. The lamps lining most of the street had gone out, and the first rays of dawn peeked over the rooftops.
“I’ve never seen anything like this…”
“Like what?” said Night Cloud.
“A town. You know, on the ground… I didn’t know there were any places like this in the wasteland…”
“Mind what you call a wasteland, sweetheart,” she murmured, “And to whom.”
Zephyr steered me to Night Cloud’s left side with her less-injured right wing across my back. Looking around at the mix of brick and sandstone block buildings and storefronts, she said, “Cloud Loft’s best little mechanic here didn’t have the prettiest picture of the other side of the fence. I’d say the ‘wasteland’ is winning so far.”
“Oh?” Night Cloud laughed, pulled a brush from her saddlebags, and attacked my mane.
“Hey! What gives?”
“I’m remedying a debilitating case of bedhead. Stop squirming.” I grumbled wordlessly and surrendered to the ultimately relaxing brushing. “So, what was life like for a unicorn in Neighvarro, hm? Can’t say I’ve ever met a pony from that far north, never mind from the Enclave… I’d never even heard of them until Blitz told me about it. They almost sound like a myth.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, looking up at her, “Ever hear any myths about ponies trapped in castles?”
“I grew up in the Palomino Desert, sweetheart. My foalhood stories didn’t have anything so… grandiose as castles.”
“Well, that was my life,” I muttered. “I grew up in a flying metal box, connected to hundreds of other metal boxes, inside one bigger metal box parked in the middle of a city made of clouds. And I’m afraid of heights. It sucked.”
“Okay, that does sound bad.”
“You have no idea,” I muttered. “I like having dirt under my hooves. Dirt, grass, rock, even ice and snow. It beats growing up using a cloud-walking spell all the time. I had to wear a talisman anytime I went outside the Thunderhead. And I had to go outside it for school, so… fun times.” I glared up at her. “And before you make a joke about me not growing up, yeah, yeah, I’m friggin’ small, and I’ve already heard every joke there is. Old news.”
“I wasn’t going to, sweetheart,” said Night Cloud. “Sometimes, I wish I could be closer to your size again. Blend in a little more.” She halted just long enough to lift her hoof and show me her brass-plated shoe and the ring of clips holding it on; the bottom had a thin lining of black rubber. “My shoes would be less expensive, for starters.”
“Question,” said Zephyr, “Where’d you get that brush?”
“The Gilded Bell Salon, in Bellenast.” Night Cloud grinned and tossed her head, sending a ripple down her fountain of obsidian hair. “They make their own coat and mane conditioner in-house!”
“Okay,” I muttered, “That’s just showing off.”
I looked up as wing flaps approached us, and Eagle landed behind us on Zephyr’s left and drew up to her. He spread his amber wing over the both of us and nuzzled Zephyr.
Zephyr said, “Know what? Forget the snazzy lights, I want to see this salon. Three tickets to Bellenast, please.”
Night Cloud laughed brightly, smiling as she led us along. “Well, the trip takes about a week. Zephyr, you’re welcome to rest in one of the wagons if you need to, but if you’re up for it, walking will be better for your recovery.” The cobalt-blue alicorn cocked her head and gave us both a pensive look. “And if I may ask… what brought you three so far from home in the first place?”
I scowled at the ground in front of us, and Zephyr squeezed my ribs tightly with her wing, saying, “Home didn’t feel like home anymore.”
“I’d thought about leaving every now and then,” said Eagle, “Just never had a good reason to actually do it… and a little while ago, we had a, ah… enthusiastic disagreement with the ponies in charge. It finally felt like time to start fresh.”
“Really… that sounds a lot like me when I left my tribe.” Night Cloud tilted her head, eyeing Eagle. “How’d you hear about Bellenast, then?”
“Well, I bumped into an old minotaur on the east side of the Badlands a couple months ago. Hunter, trapper, fur trader. He told me he got his gun from here. It looked top-notch, so I figured, any place that can turn out something like that must be pretty packed. He said it was the safest place around, gave me a map and directions… took a while to fix a chariot up for the trip—”
“Then a big stupid storm knocked us off-course,” I said, “And a giant storm naga tried to eat the chariot. Then we crashed, and a giant robot tried to kill us, and a building fell on me.” Zephyr let out a weak laugh. “Then the robot came back and tried to kill me again—twice! And—” I stopped. “Eagle, where’s my armor?”
“With mine, in one of the wagons at the north gate. They have guards; nobody’s going anywhere with it.”
“You—you just stuck him in a wagon?!”
“Uh, yeah—wait, what?”
I shrugged off Zephyr’s wing and bolted down the street for the town gate.
“Crystal!” yelled Eagle and Zephyr in unison.
“That’s Carbide!” I shouted back. “He saved my friggin’ life, and you just stuck him in a—yaaah! Hey! Hey!” I flailed and tried to run on nothing as cerulean light colored my entire world and brought me to a halt midair. “Put me down! Friggin’ put me down! Night Cloud!” A few ponies in the street stared as I floated ten meters backward and Night Cloud gently lowered me to the dirt.
Zephyr pointed her hoof up at Night Cloud. “Okay, that is convenient. Thanks.”
I glared up at Night Cloud; she avoided my eyes.
Eagle put his wing on my back again, and I shook it off. Sighing, he said, “How about you tell us what’s going on, instead of trying to run off on your own? Who’s Carbide?”
I glowered at my bowl of soup on the low table in the corner of the saloon. “He doesn’t deserve to be stuck in the back of a wagon like a friggin’ sack of oats.”
Night Cloud murmured, “Well, it’s a suit of armor, isn’t it? Just put it on once we leave. He may not be able to talk, but he’ll have company, at least.”
“I don’t want to wear it, I want to fix it, so he can talk again.” I stomped a hoof and accepted the temptation of diced carrots, beets, radishes, and several other vegetables I’d never tasted in my life.
“Crystal,” said Eagle from across the table, “That suit doesn’t even have a spell matrix interface. I bet you can figure it out, but no matter what it runs on, you can’t fix something that complex if you don’t have the right tools.”
“I know that,” I muttered around a mouthful of food, “And I don’t have those anymore. Thanks for the reminder.”
“Hey… it sucks, I know, but you can always get more tools, kiddo.” Eagle stretched his wing across and flicked a stray bit of my mane back from my eyes. “That shop wasn’t all mine… I just borrowed it from the last pony. You don’t have to start from scratch, just find someone who’ll let you work. You’re more than good enough… and I’m not too shabby, if I say so myself.” Zephyr rolled her eyes next to him.
Night Cloud said, “There are several robotics groups in Bellenast, at the schools… and I’m sure one of them would have some insight, be able to help you.” I grunted and remained nose-deep in my rapidly emptying soup bowl.
“Would you like seconds?”
I paused in the middle of licking the bowl clean, and glanced up at Night Cloud. She hadn’t touched her own breakfast, served in a pair of red and yellow-striped dishes each twice the size of mine.
Beginning to blush, I quickly looked away from her. “I’m friggin’ hungry, okay?”
“Clearly. That’s why I asked, sweetheart.” Night Cloud lifted one bowl and carefully spooned soup into mine.
I cringed, mumbling, “You don’t have to do that…”
“Well,” she said, setting her bowl down, “That doesn’t stop me from doing it.” She nudged my withers with her wing and said, “I’ll just have a snack later… hope you don’t mind a little pepper.”
“Thank you.” Night Cloud, Eagle and I all looked at Zephyr. “For sharing,” she said, laughing. “Sorry, I just… I’m… having trouble believing what I’m seeing.” She waved her hoof around at the cozily lit saloon. “This. All of this.” She looked to my left as the front doors creaked open. “You. What you’ve done for us.”
I glanced away from my soup long enough to watch Blitz and Ivy cross from the entrance to the serving counter; Blitz ducked her head several times to avoid catching her horn on the ceiling timbers.
“You have actual healing potions,” said Zephyr. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around that… you saved our lives, and… you found Crystal. You brought her back to us.” She leaned on Eagle and sniffed, saying, “We can’t repay you for that.”
“Well,” said Night Cloud, smiling at them, “I don’t expect you to.” She turned that smile down to me and laid her wing across my back. “And I’m happy to have made some new friends.”
I fleetingly hesitated, then scooted close to night Cloud and nudged her shoulder. “Thanks.” She giggled and gave me a squeeze with her warm wing. “I’m, um… I’m really glad someone ignored that sign.”
Her ears twitched toward me. “Sign?”
“Um… there’s a warning sign, about the robots.” I pointed my hoof south. “I passed it on the old train tracks, north of the, um… Spannerworks place. The factory.” I glanced up at Night Cloud, who merely raised an eyebrow. “It said all signals would be ignored. Distress signals, I guess.”
Zephyr frowned, wiping her eyes. “There were warnings… about the killer robots.”
“‘Rogue robots beyond this point,’” I said, lapping another peppery mouthful of soup. My throat burned slightly. “Exactly what it said. ‘Proceed at your peril. By royal order, fifteen-ninety-seven, all signals to be ignored.’”
Zephyr set her head on the table and groaned. “Oh, fuck me…”
Blitz and Ivy came back from the serving table, each holding several large bowls of soup and a platter of bread loaves. The immense purple mare looked over all of us, tired and nonplussed. “Do I want to know?”
“Blitz,” said Night Cloud, “Ivy… would either of you happen to know anything about a warning sign about robots, on the railroad near that old factory?”
“Uhhh…” Blitz slowly lay down at the table corner next to me, and I couldn’t help but stare up her. “That… is a new one on me. Ivy?”
Ivy took the spot at the end of the table, and for a moment, she merely stared down at her breakfast. Her brow furrowed ever-so-slightly. “Corio had them built,” she said, ears flicking suddenly forward. “One sign on every footpath through the area, and the old roads. Kept most ponies away.”
Eagle let out a low, somber laugh. “Figures… we didn’t come by road. Wouldn’t have seen them.”
“We didn’t put them to the east, or the south.” Ivy grabbed two crispy loaves from the platter and broke them in half. “No-one ever came across the flats.”
“Well… I guess we just picked the worst possible place to stop and do repairs. That place looks like a gold mine of salvage.”
“You aren’t the first to think that. Something in that place keeps it alive, keeps the machines running… a caretaker. Machines tending machines.”
“So, what,” said Zephyr, “It’s some kind of robot doom factory, and you’re just… okay with that? Having it on your doorstep?”
“They’re tools,” said Ivy, “Not thinking creatures… they do what they’re told, nothing more. Simple machines. Nobody ever told them to go beyond the fence, so they don’t.”
“Carbide, um…” Ivy turned her grey-blue eyes down to me, horn glowing gold, and a faint tingle shot down my neck. I swallowed. “He said the big one that attacked us wasn’t simple.”
For an instant, an image flashed into my mind. I stood in the collapsing building over a hundred kilometers away while a steel behemoth loomed before me, and my gun hovered in my sight, wavering with heat.
I blinked and shivered as the sight left me.
“Perhaps I’ll have a chat with this Carbide, then,” said Ivy, “If he becomes available.” She broke off a chunk of her loaf of bread and set it next to my bowl, and the barest hint of a smile crossed her muzzle. “Quite the feat for such a young mare, to face such a foe and escape… even with help.”
“Yeah, you’re a gutsy filly, I’ll give you that,” said Blitz, “But maybe try not to poke any more giant robots from now on? You were lucky this time.” She ruffled my mane with her magic and said, “Can’t rely on luck, can’t trust it. That’ll kill you nine ways to next week.”
“Blitz!” Night Cloud jabbed the much larger mare’s side with her wing, then gently wrapped it around me again. “Really?”
“What? It’s true!”
“And sometimes being right isn’t the important thing, Blitz! She’s been through enough. Stop trying to scare her.”
“Oh, for—I wasn’t trying to scare her! Look at her! Does she look scared?”
“I melted a hole in a giant robot’s face,” I said around a mouthful of bread. Beginning to grow distinctly warm in the face, I leaned on Night Cloud’s shoulder again. “And I know where my allegiance lies.”
Blitz sputtered while drinking from her canteen. “Where your allegiance lies? Yeah, okay, you just like her because she’s the same color. Little blue pixie.”
“One,” said Zephyr, tapping her hoof on the table, “Don’t call her a pixie. Two, they’re not. Crystal is ultramarine.” She pointed at Night Cloud. “She’s closer to cobalt.” Leaning sideways away from Eagle and lifting herself up against the table for a moment to look from a different angle, she said, “Little bit of indigo. Just a little.”
“Well, look at Miss Color Wheel over here. ” Blitz rolled her eyes as Zephyr sat back down, and took a small sip not from her canteen, but a smaller flask covered in dents and scratches. A hint of alcohol reached my nose. “And what am I?”
Zephyr squinted up at the sun-like light fixtures on the ceiling before she turned her eye to Blitz. “Purple…”
Blitz scoffed.
“Going toward sable… actually, more like sable going toward purple.”
The immense mare stared openly at Zephyr, replacing the steel cap on her flask. She stowed it in her saddlebags and nodded at Zephyr. “Know what? Thanks. Most ponies forget that part.”
-Still hungry?-
I glanced up at Night Cloud’s quiet question and bemused smile, preoccupied by the last bite of my bread.
-Um… I think I’m good now. Thanks again, for sharing. You’re…- I swallowed, and once again my face began to flush. -You’re awesome, Night Cloud.- Glancing around at the others, I quickly nuzzled her shoulder; her coat had a subtle scent of flowers. I swallowed and smiled up at a pair of entrancing, electric blue eyes. -And… you’re really beautiful. Seriously, I mean it.-
She laughed softly, nudging her wing against the base of my neck. -I… well—that’s… very sweet of you. Thank you, Crystal Dew.-
The ongoing conversation between Zephyr, Eagle, Blitz, and Ivy floated past my ears, and not one word stuck with me. -I don’t get what you said earlier. I really can’t see how anyone could ever think you’re monstrous… that—it just… that doesn’t make any sense to me. At all. Doesn’t compute, period. You just… I mean… you’re a doctor, you’re nice, you’re smart, you’re generous… seriously, how can someone meet you, spend a single minute with you, and say something like that?-
She gave me a skittish grin and laugh—barely an exhalation—looked away from me, and finally began to eat. -Well… some ponies, when they meet you… they will decide that they dislike you before they ever consider to spend a single minute with you. And sometimes, you can’t change someone’s mind… no matter how hard you try. And when those ponies focus on what you are, first, rather than who you are…- She lightly patted her wing on my back. -Well, being an alicorn doesn’t exactly help.-
-What’s wrong with being an alicorn?-
-Nothing. Being one isn’t the problem, not if you ask me, or any other alicorn. But ‘any other alicorn’—that’s the tricky part.- Night Cloud nudged me again and glanced from her soup bowl to Blitz. -It’s complicated, Crystal Dew… very complicated. And it’s not my place to speak of it in the first place. If you’re really curious, talk to Blitz. I’m sure she’d be willing to tell you, if you ask her. Just… not now, all right? Not while she’s eating. Maybe after we’ve set out.-
-Um… okay.- I laid my head on her shoulder; across the table, Zephyr watched me, lips pursed and ears forward. She immediately broke eye contact with me in favor of eating. -Um… Night Cloud?- I set my hoof on her leg, she glanced down from her bowl, and I quickly yanked my hoof away. -You, um… if you want, you can call me ‘Crystal’… Eagle and Zephyr never call me ‘Crystal Dew.’-
-All right, then.-
Night Cloud chuckled. While I lay warm and snug under her wing, a shiver nevertheless ran down my back.
-It’s my pleasure, Crystal.-
In a cluster of lifeless buildings in the desert, beams of steel and slabs of concrete and webs of twisted rebar shifted here and there, creaking in protest as their centuries of life came to a dilapidated end. Powdered plaster and crushed cinder blocks choked the air with a grey pall.
A great laboratory, once a shining edifice of steel and polished glass in the heart of the compound, was a mound of destruction.
A titan of steel and circuitry and rubber trundled down the spacious road, leaving the ruined laboratory and a trail of rubble behind. A molten hole a meter across had been bored into the steel skin of the dome atop its towering hull.
The machine rolled slowly and inexorably through the cracked and ruined paths and derelict factory buildings, and navigated to the very edge of the sprawling oasis of concrete, plowing aside rusted piles that once had been transport carriages and fallen pieces of roofing and all manner of rubble.
The damaged dome and telescope spun, glacial and precise, to point out across the sand and flat, cracked, red ground and look to the north horizon, and from its great height, the machine saw a faint red cliff rising amid the haze and dust. Between the machine and the distant cliff was a sea of sand.
The arcane furnace in the titan’s heart roared, muted by layers of magical shielding and mundane metal. Motors spun, wheels turned, and Maximillian journeyed east.
13 Spring’s Waking
I never thought I would miss the mountains, but here I am. The air here is hot, dry, thicker, richer in oxygen. Sun doesn’t help. Hardly a cloud in sight, and I’ve never been able to see so far.
I think I’ve walked more in the last two days than I did in a whole season in Neighvarro. My legs are sore, hip hurts, stifle hurts, thigh hurts. The rest of my leg feels dead. No temperature, no itching, just pressure and something Night Cloud calls Phantom Limb Syndrome. Yippee!
Carbide, if you can see this, thanks. I owe you my life. I’m not trying to complain, I swear. I don’t know how you made it, and looking at it kind of freaks me out, but it’s way better than a stump.
I’ll return the favor. I promise.
Cactus, rocks, colorful, flowering succulents, rocks, prickly trees, reddish dirt, and yet more rocks surrounded us, and the road went more-or-less straight north from Cliffside, over ten kilometers behind us. Spiny lizards watched us from their shaded perches under craggy layers of rock in the escarpment off each side of the road where it carved through the gentle, arid hills.
Dust rose behind ten canvas-covered wagons ahead and ten more behind me, each pulled at a steady walking pace by a team of four ponies, and the second teams walked along behind them on the hard-packed dirt road. Four two-pony teams of guards flanked the line, each equipped with a well-made battle saddle, and garbed with tan caparisons, hats, and shawls to shade them from the rising sun.
And behind the caravan’s middle wagon—empty save a few long, thin crates and some bedrolls—a group of four ponies followed on either side of us, garbed in tan and goldenrod-trimmed cloth and gleaming armor beneath, from head to tail and down to steel-shod hooves. Each of them had a sleek gun on a compact, rounded mounting on the left side of their barding that bobbed with their steps, all pointing downward. Cloth-covered shells on their backs concealed their ammunition, and cleverly hidden under panels between the reinforcement fluting in each suit’s crinet plating were the control cables.
Of the four guards nearest us, two were earth ponies, one was a pegasus, and one was a unicorn, and even her armor had the same control mechanism.
Not far ahead, in front of the rear wagon, Night Cloud walked next to Zephyr, holding several bright pages of finely printed laboratory data I couldn’t have read from a meter away, never mind five. The rumbling wheels and hoofsteps gave them near-perfect privacy.
Zephyr’s bandages were equally bright as the pages in the midmorning sun, but Night Cloud’s glossy, obsidian mane blowing in the wind caught and held my eyes without contest. She was larger than Eagle, but taller, leaner, and slimmer around the belly; muscle contours showed clearly under her short coat, and her straight tail hung nearly to the ground, catching dirt along with her brass-plated shoes.
For a futile and pathetically short-lived moment, I considered not admiring the stunning view.
“Pretty slick gear the guards have,” said Eagle quietly from beside me. “What do you think?”
Taking a quick, deep breath and shuddering, I nodded. “Yeah, um…” I glanced again at the nearby ponies in armor, and bit my tongue hard enough to sting. I looked straight at Eagle; he had hung his helmet on his shoulder. His matte-black and grey power armor was a heavily worn and menacing contrast to the boldly colored and polished barding of the ponies flanking us. “Yeah, nice kit. Looks old. I mean, new, really well-made, but… you know, old.” The cloth-covered ear of the bay stallion closest to us flicked back toward me. I stepped closer to Eagle and whispered, “Like something from five hundred years ago, with stuff stuck on top.”
“Yeah, maybe… but look a little closer, kiddo. You want ‘old with stuff stuck on top,’ look at me. That armor? Nothing about it is tacked-on, it’s designed from the ground up. I see talisman nodes, conduit routing in the contours, and those guns? Motor stabilization… imagine what you could make with that, Crystal. Remember those sponson mounts you rebuilt, first day in the shop? This is like that, but a fraction of the size!”
I sighed and muttered, “Great, now I want to steal one of them and take it apart… thanks.”
“Yeah, me, too… I can’t imagine they’d wear it if all it did was stop knives and rocks.”
A shadow fell over me. I squinted up at the scant, wispy clouds drifting past the sun, but quickly looked away, blinking. The spot faded slowly while I looked instead at the dry, but thriving landscape beyond the dusty road. Not only cacti and waving bushes, but scraggly trees dotted the desert.
“Not exactly the endless expanse of poison and mutation they told you about in Neighvarro, is it?”
“No,” I murmured, following the path of an enormous hawk soaring far above us. “I figured that out when I fell… saw a lot of green down below, on the way back up.” I snorted. “Professor Laminar said they’d lock me in the brig if I ever talked about it… Coil Blur, too.”
“Lock you up?” Eagle chortled. “No. They’d brand her, toss her out over Foal Mountain, Smokey Mountains if they’re feeling generous… might have branded you, too, sent you down with her.”
“Really?” I mumbled. “Even though… but she wasn’t even—I’m still not…” Green eyes under an amber mane found me, and I trailed off.
“They don’t care… never have.” Giving a weary shake of his head, he said, “They might have just sent you off to some backwater hole-in-the-wall—like Cloud Loft—but you wouldn’t get a choice. Not that they’d have liked if I’d ever told you that… if Prof said to keep your mouth shut, it’s because he’s seen it happen before.” He brushed his wing across my ears, saying, “Might have been a little cold, but he did right by you, kiddo.”
“He was always nice… just…” I sidled over and reared up, hopping along on two hooves to bump my armored shoulder against his. “Not nice-nice.”
Eagle laughed as I stumbled back to the left, leaving clawed boot prints in the road, and he said, “So how’s the suit feel?”
Frowning, I glanced down at the dark claws on my boots. “Sluggish.” Even with a slightly longer stride, courtesy of my significantly less polished and far-from-sleek armor, I trotted to keep pace with Eagle’s walk, and with everyone else around me. “It lags behind constantly. Not much, but I can feel it. It moves after I move, not with me. Like it’s weighted for a moment, then not… kinda hard to do any fancy legwork.”
“Huh… not enough time to fit everything just right, iron out the kinks, I guess.”
“Well, it stays cool, which is super nice right now, so I’d say Carbide did a fantastic job.” I twisted my head back to peer at the bulky, vertebra-like pieces of armor superimposed over my back. “And it’s flexible.”
“You know…” A slow and heavy set of steps came closer to me suddenly on my left, and I warily eyed Blitz as she drew up to me. “You look a bit like a little dragon, with the spine and helmet, and the ribbing, the claws. Even the tail is spiky.” I flinched away as she snapped her broad wing out to my head level, just below her ribs. “A re-eee-eally itty bitty dragon.”
I glowered as she pulled her wing back. “I am well aware,” I said, “That I’m small… not everyone’s lucky enough to be born gigantic.”
“All right, all right,” said Blitz, sighing. “Sorry.” She ruffled her impressive wings and looked to the sky, where Ivy flew high above us, a pine-green silhouette against the blue. “I wasn’t born this big,” she muttered. “So, what’s this I hear about a workshop? You two mechanics or something?”
Eagle laughed and pointed his wing right at my head. “You bet. Cloud Loft’s one and only thaumic engineering genius, and best metal shaper in the shop, bar none.”
“I’m not a genius,” I muttered. “And I’m not the best anything at Cloud Loft anymore. Now I’m just… me.”
“Oh, look at that,” said Blitz, “A little humility. You should be proud of it—though I suppose humility somewhat precludes a propensity for pride.”
“Pre—what?” I shied away from her as she stuck her head down to peer at the back of my armor.
“This looks neat.” She lifted my gun away, floating it around in front of her.
“Hey!”
“Oh, come on, I’m just looking. Don’t see a lot of aetheric guns around here. Where’d you get it?”
“I built it,” I said, glaring up at her. “And—fine. Just be careful. I don’t have my schematics anymore.”
“Relax, I won’t break it.”
Blitz spun the bare metal, cylindrical gun over to inspect it from every angle. Six spark cells in two series of three protruded slightly from the gun’s top, and thick bundles of wiring snaked into rounded cutouts in the cylinder. Attached to the front of the forty-centimeters-long cylinder were five parallel heat shield fins that surrounded the projector rod and densely packed thaumic inductors at the center.
“A waveguide… huh. One that mimics the channeling properties of a unicorn’s horn, if I’m not mistaken.” Blitz peered along the gun’s length and held it up in front of her snout. “Seems a bit… unfinished.”
“It’s a proof-of-concept. Just a smaller version of the ones I made for Eagle.”
“Huh. So what happened to the schematics?”
“A giant flying snake monster bit a hole in our carriage,” I said, “And scattered all my notebooks over the whole friggin’ desert, that’s what.”
“Oh. Ouch… well, I’m sure you’ll be able to… ah…” She glanced ahead suddenly and carefully set the gun back on my armor’s harness, then strode to our left, out of the way of the rear wagons. “Hold that thought. Come over here.”
I glanced at Eagle as he set his wing on the back of my neck and nudged me onward. Night Cloud and Zephyr had stepped off to the west side of the road, and Blitz stopped next to them.
The four ponies in full barding and uniform caparisons accompanied us, but Blitz nodded to the bay stallion and said, “Wellspring, some privacy, please.”
Wellspring nodded, stomped his forehoof twice and trotted south past me and Eagle, along with the one yellow pegasus mare of the quartet of armored guards. The other earth pony stallion and unicorn mare went north, stopping twenty meters away.
By that time, most of the caravan had passed us by. Zephyr stood stock-still, and only briefly made eye contact with me. Night Cloud stowed the few sheets of papers from the clinic in her white saddlebags, and the cobalt alicorn stood directly in front of me.
“Crystal…” Night cloud took a deep breath and raised her hoof, but hesitated.
I looked around at all of them, but inevitably gave most attention to the mare in front of me. Tears beaded in her eyes. “What?”
She blinked them away. “Would you take your armor off, please?”
“Um… okay?” I backed away from her and telekinetically pulled the interlock releases on my bulky collar and on my ribs, just behind my right foreleg.
A chorus of whirring came from the armor. I flinched as the legs moved of their own accord to assume a wide, rigid stance, then split open. The peytral, collar, flanchard plates, and croupiere extended outward and upward to allow me room to pull my head up, and I shifted my legs gingerly out of their braces.
Night Cloud levitated me bodily free of the armor, unzipped the environmental suit, and tugged it gently off me, and Zephyr stepped up to my side as Night Cloud set me down again beside the ungainly, empty hulk of metal.
Night Cloud put on a forced, calm smile and said, “Crystal, sweetheart—”
“So,” I said, “What do those papers say?”
“Well… one thing the tests showed was a high amount of the progesterone hormone in your blood, which is… it’s a sign of pregnancy. I know this may be surprising, and upsetting, but—”
“Upsetting?” I stomped my hind hoof, causing Zephyr to jolt away. “Yeah, okay, upsetting? Seriously?!” Night Cloud winced, eyes wide and ears back. “You want upsetting? How about a stallion bashing my friggin’ skull with a wrench and raping me? That was surprising, that was upsetting.” I nickered and shook as my heart suddenly hammered in my breast. “It’s been over two months, okay?! I’m not a porcelain doll, I’m not a foal, and I’m not stupid, so just friggin’ spit it out already. Am I pregnant or not?”
Night Cloud nodded, leaned down over me and nuzzled my neck. “Crystal, I’m so sorry…”
“Okay. Fine. I’m pregnant.” I sniffed and said with a crack of my voice, “Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. None of that is your fault, so what do you have to be sorry about?”
She sat on her haunches, set one foreleg and her wing across my back, and pulled me into a firm hug. She rubbed my withers and the back of my neck, and whispered, “I’m sorry that someone hurt you, Crystal… that’s all I meant.”
I glowered out past her shoulder and cradling wing at the surrounding desert while I tried to blink my eyes dry. “Um…” I patted her shoulder, then hooked my forehoof over her withers and mumbled, “Sorry… I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“I know that,” murmured Night Cloud, nuzzling behind my ears, “It’s okay. It’s okay… go ahead and cry. I’m here, as long as you need me.”
“I don’t want to cry,” I muttered, while my tears soaked into her fur and mingled with dust. Zephyr walked around Night Cloud and closed in to touch her hoof to my shoulder, then backed away, smiling stiffly. “I’m tired of crying… I’d rather be doing something. Making something, fixing something… anything.”
Night Cloud laughed quietly and nudged her nose against my cheek. “Well,” she said in my ear, “Until you have your tools and a workshop in Bellenast, I’m afraid all I can do is give you hugs, sweetheart… is that okay for now?”
“Yeah.” I pressed my muzzle into her coat, relishing her closeness and the scent of lilac. “That’s great. Thank you.”
“Good.” She squeezed me again, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“What became of this stallion?” said Blitz from near us, twisting her hoof into the dirt.
“He’s not our problem anymore,” said Zephyr. She spun about to stand between us and Blitz, lashing her tail. “Is that good enough for you?”
Blitz closed her eyes for a moment. “It can be… if you would prefer it.”
I shrugged Zephyr’s hoof away. “He’s dead,” I said hoarsely, “All right? I—I just… I killed him. He’s dead.” Night Cloud drew a sharp breath, then laid her head on my neck, all but completely hiding me from view. “I was mad, and… and I killed him… okay? He’s friggin’ dead and gone, and…”
“Oh, darling…” Night Cloud set her cheek against mine and lifted her wing up to my ears.
Blitz stepped around Zephyr and carefully bowed her head to touch her nose to my snout. I stared silently at her left eye, and the tiny streak of brown on her rose-pink iris.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. As she drew away, her faintly glowing mane brushed across my snout and tickled me. She stepped back and looked between Eagle in his armor and Zephyr in her soft yellow cape and bandages underneath; I twisted my neck around to peer past Night Cloud, and she lifted her head away from me in response.
“So,” said Blitz, lightly stamping her forehoof, “Exile, voluntary or otherwise?”
Zephyr nodded, and Eagle answered. “Of a sort. The Enclave’s idea of… let’s call it house arrest, was a step too far. They didn’t take our objections gracefully. So, we played along for a month, made preparations… said our farewells.”
“I see.” Blitz took a deep breath and half-flared her wings. “Well, whatever judgement… or farce thereof, that your erstwhile home may have passed on you, that verdict has no merit here.” She stretched her wing down to brush a feather through my mane. “And I wouldn’t fault a child for defending herself.”
Blitz glanced northward at the receding caravan and the drifting pall of dust it left. “You have done no wrong against me or my people. You owe me no explanation, nor anyone else, and I understand if you’d prefer this to be the last word about it.”
Zephyr frowned up at the sable-purple giant of a mare. “Who are you?”
Blitz chuckled, scuffing her hoof in the dirt. She winked at me, crossed her forelegs in a curtsy, lifted her broad wings to the sky, and bowed her head to Eagle and Zephyr in turn. “Would you believe me if I said I’m a princess?”
“No, seriously, who the fuck are you?”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t believe me, either.” She opened her saddlebags and pulled out a golden, jeweled crown several sizes too small for her head. She stuck her left hind leg and front foreleg out in a precarious pose. “Ta-da! Princess. Can’t actually wear it right now, though, so you’ll just have to imagine it. Oh! I know.”
She floated the crown onto Night Cloud’s head and clasped the gem-studded ring at its front around her horn. The crown resembled a helmet: It covered her brow and part of her snout, and extended between and behind her ears. Night Cloud rolled her eyes.
“There,” said Blitz. “Now just pretend she’s purple.”
“Right, so… have you ever heard of the Ministry of Arcane Science?”
“Yeah,” said Eagle, walking at our right, “But I’ve never heard anything like this. You’re saying they made alicorns?”
“Well, the megaspells hit before they could actually finish the project… but yes.”
Blitz led us from the center of the group, and the two pairs of guards flanked us at the tail end of the caravan. Night Cloud had carried me while we caught up to the wagons, and had draped a white, lightweight caparison over me to shield me from the sun instead of setting me back on the ground. My armor sat in the rearmost wagon ahead of us, along with my and saddlebags.
Night Cloud had yet to remove the slightly-loose crown, and occasionally glanced back at me while I brushed and braided her mane from my perch on her back.
“Twilight Sparkle wanted to create the perfect soldier,” said Ivy from Blitz’s left. “She created a spell in material form, that would grant a pony the vigor and resilience of the hardiest earth pony, the agility and flight of the fleetest pegasus, and the versatility of a unicorn mage, ready to be trained and sent to battle. She called it the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion. In her hubris, she believed she could rebuild a pony’s very essence from the inside out.”
“Hubris?” said Zephyr. “Looks like it worked to me… so what did she screw up, then, if you’re right here?”
“Nothing,” said Ivy. “For all her faults, Twilight Sparkle was a genius, the greatest mind of her generation, bar none. Her spell was perfect; it did exactly what she designed it to do, under the conditions she intended.”
“Translation,” said Blitz. She leaned down to stage-whisper to me, “Conditions were interrupted by a balefire bomb.”
“Then how did anything come of it?” said Eagle. “Did they have a second lab somewhere?”
“No,” said Ivy, briefly looking over Blitz’s back at us. “Much of the lab was destroyed, and the entire Potion stock was necromantically corrupted… but it remained viable. Some ponies came back to the lab about a decade later, after the radiation had subsided enough for them to retrieve some samples of the Potion for their own use.”
“Boom!” Blitz jumped mid-step, bouncing on the road. “Balefire-fueled necromantic super-ponies. Top that!”
“Blizziera, you have such a way with words.”
“Yeah, yeah, let me have my fun. You know how often someone actually wants to hear about this these days? Not. Often.”
I giggled and looked over at Ivy; despite her droll tone, she smiled.
“So, ghouls,” said Zephyr, “You’re like ghouls. Just without the… ghoulishness.”
“Ehh, it’s a little more complicated than that,” said Blitz, “But also—yeah, basically.”
“No need to worry,” said Night Cloud, lifting the crown off her head and floating it back into Blitz’s saddlebags. “We aren’t radioactive.”
“Or cannibals,” said Blitz.
“You know,” muttered Zephyr, “I think most ponies wouldn’t feel the need to say that part.”
“It’s an important distinction!” Blitz nodded back along the road toward Cliffside. “Doctor Patch? He had something to keep himself busy right after the balefire hit him, ponies who depended on him. Any ghoul that doesn’t have that kind of focus, that drive to keep going? That’s a walking pony chomper. I hope you can tell the difference if you ever see one.”
“I’ve seen a few in the Badlands,” said Eagle, “They looked pretty aimless. Feral.”
“Most of them are,” said Ivy. “They stay where they die, most often. But every now and again, you find one that likes to wander, has some habits from before, but not enough mind left to truly think. That can catch you off-guard; you might assume it’s a pony walking toward you, not a beast.” She glanced across Blitz’s back again at me. “If you stay in the Bellenastian Valley, you’ll probably never see any.”
“Nice to know,” said Zephyr.
“I saw one,” I mumbled, finishing another braid in Night Cloud’s luxuriously groomed mane. Her right ear flicked back toward me. “Yesterday morning.” I peered around her head at my bulky suit of armor stowed in the caravan wagon. “Carbide said it was, um… probably one of the ponies who worked at Spannerworks. In the power plant.”
“It didn’t hurt you, did it?” murmured Night Cloud, turning her head back at me.
“Power armor,” said Eagle, “Compound-cell aetheric plasma cannon. What do you think?”
Night Cloud smiled and let out a quiet hum of laughter. “Right… I suppose you three are better-equipped than most ponies.” Then, her gentle, accented voice came over the rumbling of wagons and hundreds of hooves. -Crystal… not that I expect you’d have a reason to, but… please, promise me you’ll never go anywhere like that again.-
I leaned forward and quickly nuzzled her neck. -Fine by me. I’ve had enough of giant robots for one week.-
-I can only imagine.-
The ground faded kilometer by kilometer, becoming less and less red as we travelled north away from the true desert, and the road began to meander as the land dictated. The rocky hills nearly matched the color of the guards’ uniforms, and groves of hardy evergreens joined the endless shrubs.
I had eaten most of my levitated bowl of spicy, tangy stew on the walk from the food line by the time I reached the gnarled pine growing from the hillside just off the road, where Blitz and Ivy had sat for dinner. In the soft yellow light of a magic lantern, the bark looked like striated stone, flowing and swooping from the dirt into bulbous shapes near the trunk, and spindly, needle-laden limbs about three meters off the ground. Only about two-thirds of the tree was alive; its south side was mostly bare of needles, the branches like skeletal claws reaching for the darkening sky.
I went straight to Night Cloud and lay by her side, immeasurably glad to rest my legs. Blitz looked up from her meal for a moment, and Night Cloud patted her wing on my shoulder. She once again gave me another helping, not of stew served by the caravan cooks, but a wood bowl of oats and nuts poured from an earthenware jar wrapped in a wire cradle and canvas padding. She clamped the jar shut and stowed it in her bags again, and I sniffed at the sweet and salty mix.
“What’s this?”
“My tribe calls it abeni bokan,” said Night Cloud, “Steamed oat cereal—translated more literally, it just means ‘oat snack.’ Some ponies add dried fruit and peppers, spices, and usually plenty of salt and honey, or molasses… trail food. I skipped the pepper for this batch. Didn’t think you’d like it that much.”
“Well, um…” I set my hoof on her foreleg and mumbled, “Thanks. It smells great.”
Zephyr affixed me with a tight-lipped smile as she caught up—and once again, quickly looked away when I made eye contact. She snatched her bowl off Eagle’s back and set it down by its carrying handle, then placed his nearby and sat in the lengthening shade of the tree. I lapped up the last of my vegetable stew, hiding my frown with the bowl.
“Never seen a tree quite like that,” said Eagle as he approached.
“Meridian Plateau Pines,” said Ivy. “This is the oldest one in the grove.”
“How old?” I said, looking up through the deep green needles.
“Three thousand, two hundred years, give or take.”
“Woah.”
Eagle whistled.
“Looks weird,” I said, “But kind of pretty, too.” I wiped my muzzle clean before diving into the bowl of sweetened oats.
Ivy stared at the trunk a moment longer. “Make that… three thousand, two hundred give or take, plus one hundred and twenty-six.”
“How do you figure that?” said Eagle.
She brushed her wingtip across the twisted trunk, stopping when her feathers found a discolored knot. “That was when this core sample was drilled… one hundred and twenty-six years ago.”
Zephyr laughed and said, “Okay, how do you just know that?”
Blitz began to chuckle, and Ivy, soft and distant, said, “One of my grandchildren, Maple Bounty, took the sample. As I recall, he looked for a particular isotope of carbon in the heartwood, to determine its age… dendrochronology, fascinating field… imagine it, a humble tree, a living thing already ancient before Discord made the world his twisted canvas. This tree predates our recorded history, what little of it survived the war.” She set her hoof over the knot, then let it fall away, and she smiled. “It was a notable discovery. Something he was proud of, wanted to show his grandma.”
“Your grandson… and that was a hundred and—” Zephyr shook her head, looking almost dazed. “Just how old are you?”
Ivy bit off a piece of oatcake floating in her golden field and chewed in silence.
Zephyr scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Fine… well, where are you from? Or is that secret, too?”
“Appleloosa,” said Blitz around a mouthful of food. “That’s a matter of public record.”
Zephyr snorted, pointing at Blitz. “Okay then, you’re a princess. So who is she? Your freaky immortal bodyguard, butler, advisor, what?”
“Butler,” Blitz said, chortling, “Haven’t heard thatone before… no, really, I haven’t heard that one before. Ivy is many things… definitely not a butler, though.”
Zephyr breathed deeply and started on her dinner. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”
“Since some of you are being obnoxious,” said Night Cloud, looking at Eagle and Zephyr, “The Lady Ivaline is an advisor to Her Highness, yes… for lack of a better term.”
Blitz swept out her wing and wrapped Ivy in a hug. “Doesn’t begin to do her justice.”
“Blizziera.”
“Oh, nobody cares.”
“And who are you?” said Zephyr. “I’d have guessed her daughter, but… you said you’re from a tribe somewhere?”
“The Réklat tribe, from the San Palomino Desert,” said Night Cloud, glancing at Blitz as the larger mare began to chortle behind her canteen. “Past the western edge of the Forest of Leota… I’m just an aspiring physician… and, incidentally…” She nodded toward Blitz, smiling, and said, “I am, in fact, adopted.”
I looked quickly between Night Cloud and Blitz. “Wait—what?” The cobalt mare next to me giggled, and I yanked my hoof off her foreleg; she shifted her leg and gave me an odd look. “You—you’re her daughter?”
“Yes,” she said, tilting her head at Blitz. “For better or worse, this silly, outrageous mare convinced me to allow her to adopt me.”
“I don’t deserve her,” muttered Blitz, sipping her water.
“And without her,” said Night Cloud, raising her voice a hair, “I would be another dead spirit… claimed by the beasts of the Leota, and returned to the earth.” She put her wing over me and said softly, “Not unlike you with those robots and your friend, Crystal.”
“Right. Um… yeah.” I swallowed, glancing at Zephyr. -Night Cloud, you’re, um—it’s still kind of warm out here, so, could you maybe—
She yanked her wing up, folding it quickly at her side. -Sorry.-
-Not do that, yeah. Thank you.-
A light tickling ran across my back at the same time as her horn glowed cerulean and she looked down at me. -If this is warm for you, then your winter coat is really a bit too heavy for the desert… maybe it’s time for a trim. Lose some of that fluff; what do you think?-
I shivered, shaking my head, and tried to focus on eating the sweet and crispy meal in front of me instead of the pleasant brushing sensation. -It’s still really cold out here at night. No thanks.-
-Quite cold, yes, but we do have blankets, sweetheart. And tents, and fires.-
-Maybe I like being fluffy, okay? I don’t want my coat trimmed.-
-All right.- She ruffled her wings, and each time I glanced up from my food, I found her to be watching me. -Did you have your own room at Cloud Loft?- I nodded. -Well… would you rather share a tent with Eagle and Zephyr, or have your own? We have a couple extras.-
-I hate being alone.- I looked past the yellow lantern at my closest friends, listening to the quiet sounds of eating and the distant singing from one of the groups around the campfires farther down the hill. -But… do you have any idea how friggin’ awkward it is to share a room with your parents? I mean, they’re not my parents, but… it’s still weird.-
-In all honesty… growing up, I shared a room with my sister or one of my aunts, sometimes my mother, until I left my tribe… that’s just how it was. I never had a room of my own until Blitz gave me an entire house… and that feels huge and empty.-
-Why’d you leave?-
Night Cloud hummed and drank long and deeply from her own canteen. -They wanted to choose how I lived… they even tried to choose whom I would love. When I properly realized that… I decided it was time to leave. Time to make my own life, my own way.- She nudged my ribs with her wing. -Well, Crystal, sweetheart… if you don’t want to bunk with Eagle and Zephyr, and you don’t want your own tent, then you can share a bedroll with me in Blitz’s tent.-
I froze mid-swallow, nearly choked, and grabbed my canteen to clear my throat with lukewarm water. Coughing and taking a deep breath, I glanced between Night Cloud and Zephyr; she had looked up from her food at me in alarm, and I was the one to look away first.
-Share… um…- A rushing heat rose up my neck. -Um… I mean, that—that sounds… nice. Is there, um… enough room?-
-Darling, it’s a big tent, and you take up about as much space as my saddlebags.- Night Cloud nuzzled behind my ears. -And besides that, there’s absolutely no excuse for you to be alone in the middle of a group of complete strangers when you could be with a friend, instead.-
-Okay.- I nodded, fidgeting with my forehooves around my bowl. -Um… thank you, Night Cloud.-
“Hey, Carbide,” I murmured, sitting on my haunches in front of the empty hulk of armor in the wagon. I lit my horn with emerald green, adding to the yellow lamp by my hooves, and peered at the tiny camera lens on the front of the suit.
“I, um… well… we’re on the road. I guess you can see that, if you can see anything right now. We’re on the way to Bellenast, should take four or five days to make it there. I promise, as soon as I find someplace with the right tools, and… maybe someone who knows about robot stuff, I’ll fix you. Night Cloud says there are ponies there who work on robots. And I know you’re not a robot, but your fancy suit is more like a robot than the armor I’m familiar with, okay?”
“So… um… just wanted to say hi, and… let you know I haven’t forgotten.” I reached my forelegs awkwardly around the bulky collar section and touched my brow to the anodized peytral. “Thank you for everything, and, um… good night, Carbide.”
I stood up and leapt out of the wagon, and trotted across the dark road toward the white pavilion tent twenty meters away and the campfire in front of it.
Zephyr exited the smaller, yellow tent across from the large one, looked around briefly, and made straight for me the moment she saw me. I slowed to meet her, and she stopped to hug me. She nuzzled and squeezed me tightly, and whispered, “Crystal?”
“Yeah?” I mumbled.
“I didn’t want to say anything,” she said, gently stroking her hoof through my mane, “But… baby, please… take this slow, okay?” She sniffed, saying quietly, “I get it, she rescued you—Tartarus, she’s the one who volunteered to search for you, and… and she’s nice, and she’s sympathetic, and affectionate, and honestly, yeah, she’s drop-dead gorgeous. I’m not blind, baby.” I stiffened and stood stock-still while she squeezed me again. “I’m just… I’m worried, Crystal. I’m worried, I’m really worried, and… damn it, I didn’t want to say anything, I didn’t want to, I swear, I’m not trying to butt in… to… damn it…” She firmly squeezed me again, trembling all the while. “Fuck, I am not prepared for this…”
I swallowed, and swallowed again. I said squeakily, “What are you worried about?”
Zephyr let out a strangled, shrill laugh and whispered, “Baby, she’s—she’s just a little old for you, and I don’t think she even sees how—no, you know what? Of course you wouldn’t think about… shit, how do I even do this… fuck, I can’t even figure out how to say it right, why the fuck should I expect you to—hmmmmmm…” She bit her lip and stomped her hind leg repeatedly.
“Zephyr?” I whispered, nuzzling her collar. “What—”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, just…” Zephyr stepped back from me and set her wing on my neck. “Baby… Crystal, just… you know what? What I said first. Take it slow. Okay? Whatever happens, take it slow. Can you promise me you’ll do that? Please?” I nodded jerkily. “Okay! Okay. Great. I’m not mad, I’m just… concerned, and… and I don’t know what to do about it, and I… I’m freaking out, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw all that on you… I didn’t…”
She made muffled whine in her throat and hugged me again, and she whispered, “I don’t want anyone to hurt you again—I’m not saying she would, please don’t think that, please, that’s not what I mean… I’m just… I’m scared, and I already fucked up, Eagle and I both fucked up, we fucked up bad, we couldn’t protect you, and… I want to, but I don’t know how, and I don’t even know if I should, and… I’m just… I don’t know what to do… I don’t have the right to say you can’t… try with her, or… am I making any sense at all, or am I just blathering?”
I stood in silence, heart hammering, breathing slowly. “Zephyr,” I said, barely more than whispering, “She just offered to share a friggin’ tent, because she doesn’t want me to be alone, and I…” Swallowing, I mumbled, “I don’t want to sleep right next to you and Eagle… that’s friggin’ weird, okay? It just is. I’m sorry. That’s all it is.”
“No, baby, you don’t need to be,” she muttered, “I understand that… after being cooped up in that chariot, believe me, I understand. You deserve some space. I just… I guess I’m just overreacting.”
I sighed and scuffed my hoof in the dirt next to hers. “She’s just… being nice.”
“Or oblivious,” muttered Zephyr. “Or both.” She patted my back and said, “Know what? Forget I said anything. Get some rest, enjoy the slumber party. Pretend I didn’t have a panic attack.”
I stepped close to her and laid my head on her shoulder. “Just because I have a crush,” I mumbled, “Doesn’t mean it’s ever going anywhere.”
“Oh, so it’s definitely a crush, huh?” She laughed and nuzzled me once more. “Well… at least you’re not trying to deny it.”
“Why bother? You already know.”
I brushed aside the white tent flap and blinked in the dim yellow lamplight. Night Cloud lay on the left side of the tent, with her head on a down pillow and only a woven mat between her and the dirt. There was room on the mat for an exceptionally small pony to lie comfortably beside her. Two larger mats occupied the adjacent and opposite sides of the spacious tent, and saddlebags and several canteens in harnesses filled the spaces between them.
I claimed that small space beside Night Cloud, resting my head on the pillow by her outstretched forelegs. She pushed part of my mane back from my eyes with cerulean light.
“Night Cloud? Um…”
“Hmm?”
I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth in silence while she brushed her magic through my mane, over and over. Sighing, I bumped my nose on her leg and murmured, “How old are you?”
“Nineteen.” She matched my volume and lowered her head down to a comfortable position on the pillow, watching me with one electric blue eye. “Why?”
I struggled not to laugh. “Just, um… curious. You and Blitz and Ivy, um… I can’t tell how old you are. You all look young. I mean, you look a little younger than them, but… only a little. Or they look just a little older than you. Zephyr’s age.”
“Well…” She pressed on my back with her telekinesis and massaged my withers and shoulders. I sighed and closed my eyes. “Blitz will be thirty-nine this autumn, and Ivy… well, her date of birth isn’t in any of the Bellenastian history books I’ve read, and she won’t tell anyone, but I know she has to be between two hundred and… maybe two hundred and ten—hard to believe, I know.”
“How is that even possible?”
“That one I do know,” said Night Cloud, chortling near my ear. “You see, the spell that transformed us… it doesn’t simply give a pony wings, or a horn, or the strength of an earth pony, whichever they lack… it changes our bodies, our organs, tissue, even individual cells—and by extension, our magic—at a fundamental level. There’s a necromantic component in the spell, in the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion. An… an immunity, even an affinity of sorts, for the energies released by balefire. So long as we have a bit of balefire radiation every now and then… we don’t really age anymore.”
“So you’re… what, immortal?” I touched her upper foreleg and muttered, “Always young and gorgeous… must be nice, looking perfect all the time.”
“Mmm… I don’t know about that…”
I scooted closer to press against her side and nuzzle her; she smelled of lilac and a long day’s walk of dust and lingering sweat. “Night Cloud, you’re the most beautiful mare I’ve ever seen. Anyone says different, they’re blind or dumb… or just jealous.”
She added a coat brush to her massage, and I dared look at her watching eye. Her lips drew halfway between a bemused smile and a grin; then she gave a breathy chuckle and settled on a placid smile. For several minutes, she remained silent, continuing to ease the stiffness and aches from my back with her masterful telekinesis. I breathed slowly and deeply, drifting into a lull under the relaxing touch of her magic. Hoofsteps drew near the tent, and Night Cloud laid her head next to mine on the pillow.
She stopped brushing and pulled the sheet up to my withers, and murmured in my ear, “You’re a very brave young mare, Crystal… good night.”
“Mmm… g’night…”
I blinked in the dark and turned my ears toward heavy steps and flapping wings. The air was cold and dry in the dead of night, and the two other bedrolls were empty. I raised my head to see over Night Cloud’s neck. Blitz had gone to the tent opening, horn glowing violet in the gloom.
A petite, snow-white pegasus stood in front of her just outside the tent, wearing only a canvas pack harness across her breast, a streamlined pack on her back behind her wings, and a helmet with a radio antenna behind her fully exposed ears. She was slightly smaller than Zephyr, but lean and wiry. Her nose and lips were a bizarre pink, her eyes vivid blue, and her wind-blasted mane a bright, striking green.
Blitz peered at an unrolled letter and a map floating in her grasp, whispering to the white mare. Blue eyes and one white ear flicked toward me. Blitz glanced back into the tent at me immediately, then stepped fully outside and closed the flap behind her.
-Just a missive from my brother. Royal business, nothing for you to worry about. Sorry I woke you up… go back to sleep.-
Blitz’s hoof beats receded.
I laid my head down by Night Cloud’s shoulder. She drew a long, deep breath through her nose and wrapped her wing around me to thwart the frigid desert air, and I did exactly what Blitz had told me.