That Changeling's a Bad OC!

by Raugos


Chapter 3

“Please, sit down.” Galleon smoothly gestured with a hoof towards the seat opposite his side of the table. “We have important business to discuss.”

Max felt a heavy wing on her shoulder, and Short Fuse began marching her to the indicated seat, her chains clinking along the way. Daring received similar treatment, with the addition of ropes to bind her wings, and within moments they found themselves seated opposite the supposed leader of the cultists. The rich, red, plush padding beneath her felt almost obscenely comfortable, and might’ve tempted her to fall right back asleep if it weren’t for the chafing shackles. And the five henchponies that stood watch at various posts around the cabin.

Max heard the door shut, and the bolt slid into place with ominous finality.

Nopony spoke for a while. Instead, Daring, Galleon and the rest of his underlings just stared, apparently sizing each other up. Max kept up her mask of bewilderment and uneasiness, darting her eyes here and there like a frightened rabbit, searching for potential exits and makeshift weapons. She found nothing of real use – most of the furniture was probably bolted down or too heavy to move, there were no visible maintenance hatches on the carpeted floor, and unless they opened up the curtains, she had no way of telling if the windows could easily be opened or broken through.

The room practically simmered with a cocktail of anticipation, apprehension, glee, ire and reverence, too intermixed for Max to identify their individual sources. When she tried focusing on Galleon, she came up against a blank wall; he was either well-practiced at hiding his emotions, or maybe one of those freaks who were only a couple of notches above statues as far as emotions went. Unless she tasted his output or got a proper whiff of him in insolation, she couldn’t tell if he was a fellow changeling.

Eventually, Short Fuse broke the silence by dumping Daring’s saddlebag on the table with a loud thump. Galleon then waved him off whilst he magically pulled out the rune stone and set it directly in the centre of the rectangular table. The bag, he levitated away and placed on his seat. The rune stone still glowed, and Max could hear the whispers starting up again in her head.

Galleon whistled and raised an eyebrow quizzically at Daring. “Well, I would love to say that this is an unexpected development, but credit where it’s due: in just a few weeks, you’ve accomplished something I’ve been trying to do for years. How?

“Straight to business, huh?” Daring grinned and glanced around the resplendent cabin. “You know, this is a pretty romantic setup, but aren’t you skipping a couple of steps? Most gentlecolts would buy us dinner first.”

“How about knuckle sandwiches?” The brown pegasus mare lifted a hoof and slammed it into an open wing with a meaty thump. “It’s one of my specialties!”

Galleon raised a hoof and waved her down whilst keeping a steady, severe gaze on Daring. After a moment, his eyes turned to Max, and she did her best to look small and pressed herself into the backrest, as if trying to burrow away from him.

Eventually, his eyes softened and he gave them a lukewarm smile. “Very well, let it not be said that the Forgotten Ones are without manners. Speckle, if you please.”

“Brother Galleon?” asked the blue-maned, yellow-coated unicorn stallion standing a little ways off.

“It’ll be fine. Go ahead.”

“Right.”

Whilst the stallion went rummaging through what sounded like an icebox somewhere behind another seat, Galleon leaned against the backrest and sighed. “Well, since we do have a new guest in our midst, I suppose introductions are in order. It’s only polite, after all.”

He smiled at Max and began pointing at his underlings one after another, starting with the brown pegasus mare off to the side. “Our resident knuckle sandwich specialist is Wind Shear; don’t tick her off. The big red guy is Blizzard, one of my staunchest brothers in the early days of our order. Speckle’s a fellow academician of great talent, Furlong’s one of our esteemed sisters of the night, and Short Fuse is our demolitions expert.”

Short Fuse chuckled like a miser counting his bits.

“In the broadest sense possible…” Galleon added with a frown. He then shook his head and inclined his head towards Max. “You have a name, my lady?”

“I… I’m Sunny Spring,” she mumbled, flattening her ears.

Just then, Speckle came back with a bottle of wine and a couple of salad sandwiches in tow. He placed the sandwiches on a couple of serviettes before them, uncorked the bottle with magic, and then poured out the wine into a couple of very colourful plastic cups that he capped and set beside the sandwiches. The wine bottle, he quickly hid somewhere out of sight.

Daring Do stared at the meal for a couple of seconds before tilting her head and levelling a half-lidded, deadpan look at Galleon. “Sippy cups? Really?”

Galleon shrugged whilst Short Fuse and a couple of the others chuckled. “I know what you can do with proper glassware and cutlery, so you might as well take it as a compliment. If Wind Shear had had her way, you’d be drinking out of a water balloon or licking it off the table with your hooves tied behind your back, but I like to think that we have a little more class than that.”

Wind Shear grunted.

Daring didn’t start, though. Neither did Max.

Just when the silence was about to get awkward, Galleon rolled his eyes and uncapped Daring’s cup with magic to take a gulp of her wine. He did the same for Max’s cup and then broke off small chunks of both their sandwiches and ate those, too.

“Have I quelled your fears?” he asked whilst he screwed the caps back on.

Daring harrumphed, but then sighed and picked up her wine with two shackled hooves and took a sip. Her eyes widened. “Wow. This is a good vintage. Crisp and smooth with a hint of rosy sweetness… Lime Yard nine-one-six, if I’m guessing right. Who’d you steal it from?”

Galleon smiled thinly. “You wound me, Miss Do.”

“I don’t hear you denying it.”

“If you don’t want it, give it back.”

Daring narrowed her eyes at him and took a slow, long and very deliberate sip from her cup without breaking eye contact.

“Hypocrite.”

“Pragmatist.” Daring matched his grin and hiccoughed. “S’cuse me. This stuff’s too good to waste, so I might as well do the honours.”

Under different circumstances, Max might’ve sniggered at the sight of Daring Do drinking from a foal’s cup. It would’ve made perfect material for blackmail, or for somepony’s… fantasy. She shook her head and opted for the sandwich instead. No reason to waste an opportunity to get something in her belly, especially considering the possibility that they might not get another chance to eat for quite a while.

Whilst they ate and drank, Galleon made a show of reading the notes and diagrams that Twilight Sparkle had posted to them via dragonfire, with a few critical glances at them every now and then, and he kept a very firm lid on his emotions whilst doing so. Max ate slowly, in case Daring needed all the time she could buy.

“You have some truly resourceful friends,” Galleon remarked. “It’s a shame we haven’t had the chance to meet them.”

Daring swallowed the last of her sandwich and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why, so you can indoctrinate them into… whatever it is you’re trying to do right now?”

After studying her for a moment, Galleon smiled craftily at Daring. “You know, I can tell when somepony’s fishing for information, but it just so happens that sharing our goals with you is worth the risk. You’ve dragged an accomplice into a war with the stakes completely hidden from her.”

He turned to Max. “Do you wish to know?”

Max tossed glance at Daring, then averted her eyes and nodded. “I… I guess so.”

“Worry not. I’ll keep it simple.” He gestured at his companions with a hoof, saying, “We are the Forgotten Ones, chosen by the Master to awaken the full potential of ponykind. With his ancient knowledge, we will rise up to be true masters of the world; no longer will we have to tolerate the whims of the dragons or griffons, or fear the onslaught of Wild Magic like the Everfree Forest and its ilk in Nightmare Moon, Discord and Tirek.”

He breathed deeply and closed his eyes with his faced turned skyward, as if feeling rain on his face.

Then, Max felt something cold brush against her mind as Galleon’s eyes glowed with unearthly, green light beneath his closed eyelids. His voice rippled with power as he whispered, “We seek the Master. He shall set us free. No more Princesses, no more Outsiders. Only equines.”

Daring snorted. “Power and equality for all, huh? And it doesn’t strike you as the least bit strange that you all call him ‘Master’?”

Galleon’s unearthly aura vanished when he opened his eyes and scowled at them. “Until we learn enough to call him Brother, it is only fitting to call him Master. But when that time comes, even the Princesses and their Elements of Harmony will pale in comparison to each and every one of us.”

“Yeah… I don’t buy it. Sounds too good to be true.”

“Your belief is not required.” Galleon reached into a bag beneath the table and produced several stones similar to the one that Daring had brought, only that they didn’t have a glowing rune like hers. He placed them in a cluster around the active stone and smiled. “Ironically, it appears that your efforts have greatly aided in our quest to find true enlightenment. We are now much closer to finding the Master. Help us finish it, and let ponykind find its true destiny.”

“And what happens if we don’t cooperate?” asked Daring with folded forelegs.

Galleon sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Well, if you must know, I don’t like hurting ponies. But if it will bring us any closer to the Master, I’ll consider it an unfortunate but necessary sacrifice.”

That doesn’t involve your own skin. How convenient.

Outwardly, Max threw a worried glance at Daring and bit her quivering lip.

Daring gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder before turning to Galleon. “So, what exactly do you want from us?”

“Simple.” Galleon dipped his head at the glowing rune stone. “Show me how you activated it.”

Daring clucked her tongue and winced. “Ooh, that’s going to be a little difficult right now.”

His eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

“I’m going to need full access to an alchemy lab and a full moon, so unless you’ve got one of those and Princess Luna on the train, you’re straight out of luck.”

“I see.” Galleon’s eyes flicked over to Max and bored into her. “Is that true?”

Max felt a couple of shadows looming over her, and a quick glance upwards confirmed that Wind Shear and Short Fuse were indeed leaning over the back of her seat and looking at her with distinctly manic glints in their eyes.

She gulped and nodded hastily.

“Well, that’s distressingly inconvenient,” Galleon huffed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “We’ll have to bring you all the way to a secure facility and wait for a clear night in this abominable weather…”

“Whatever. You’ve got me, so a few more days won’t kill you,” Daring said, rattling her chains in emphasis. “Just drop her off and I’ll… I’ll perform the ritual for you.”

“No.”

Daring frowned. “No what?”

“No, we’re keeping Miss Spring with us, thank you very much.”

“What for?” Daring gestured at her notes on the table. “You’ve already got our combined research all in one place, and—”

“And I know that you generally aren’t one for travel companions,” Galleon retorted with a languid smile. “So, she’s either indispensable to your work, or somepony you care enough about for us to use as leverage. Really, I’m disappointed that you think so little of our intelligence.”

He gave a curt nod, and Max yelped when a pair of brown hooves thumped down on her shoulders.

A split second of panic gushed from Daring as her pupils shrank, but she soon recovered enough of her confidence to toss her mane and scoff at Galleon. “Oh, come on, she was just my assistant in the activation ritual. I already had all the notes and reagents necessary for a Zebrican thermo-thaumic transmutation; it’s just that two pairs of hooves are better than one when it comes to synchronising catalyst insertion. Any one of your meatheads can take her place.” Daring turned to Max and gave her an apologetic grin “Uh, no offence, Sunny.”

Before Max could say anything, Wind Shear pressed a hoof down on her right shoulder, grabbed her right foreleg and twisted it behind her back as far as it would go, and then some. She shrieked and nearly reverted forms right there and then, but managed to surreptitiously loosen up enough of her anatomy to alleviate most of the pain.

She still didn’t need to act out the groans and whimpers that followed, though.

“What the—hey, stop that!” Daring yelled.

“Say please.” Wind Shear’s voice dripped with delight as she twisted harder, sending another lance of pain through her shoulder.

Oh grub, this is getting real.

Max blinked away false tears and tried squirming to relieve some of the sharp tension, but Wind Shear noticed immediately and smacked her in the face.

“Unless you want it dislocated, you’d better keep still, Sunny.”

“I’d listen to her,” Short Fuse whispered in Max’s other ear. “Legs make this really gross crunchy sound when they pop out of their sockets. Yuck.”

Daring released an angry snort and gritted her teeth. “Hey, are you listening? I’m talking to you—aaaaghh!”

Her snarl turned into an agonised shriek when an arc of purple lightning jumped from Galleon’s horn to her chest. Smoke wafted from the blackened spot on her shirt and her frazzled mane.

“No, you listen to me,” Galleon huffed, pointing at her. “We’re past diplomacy, so you’d best stop stalling and give us—”

“Okay, okay, we lied!” Max squealed.

All eyes turned to her.

Wind Shear didn’t let go, but at least she stopped twisting, and Max found herself able to pick up on the ambient mood. Aside from Wind Shear’s enthusiasm for assault, the others didn’t care all that much about her treatment. However, Speckle and the bluish-purple thestral with the pixie cut – she’d forgotten her name – radiated a small amount of uneasiness and sympathy, despite their impassive expressions.

So they’re not all crazy. I could work with that. Now or never.

“You… you don’t actually need a lab or the f—full moon… to get the stone to work,” she blubbered in between sobs. “We do need firestone solution and some diamond dust, though. You can get them—”

“I know where to find those,” Galleon snapped as he tapped a hoof repeatedly on the table. “But what do you do with them?”

“It—the process is written in there,” Max said, pointing a trembling hoof at Daring’s pile of notes. She then stuttered out a mishmash of gibberish, with her breaths coming in increasingly short and rapid bursts after each word, until she cringed and covered her face with her free hoof, ears laid back and tail tucked between her legs. “Oh, oh stars. What have I gotten myself into? I… I can’t do this!”

“Uh, Windy, maybe you should go a little easier on her,” Speckle said. “She’s no Daring Do.”

“Miss Spring,” said Galleon, more gently this time, “just tell us everything we need to know and I promise, we’ll let you go once the ritual is complete. Okay?”

Max sniffled wiped her eyes. “Okay. I just—oh dear. I need to go to the bathroom. I… I think I went a little just now.”

Short Fuse snorted. “Eww.”

Wind Shear’s grip loosened up a tiny bit as Galleon, Blizzard and Speckle wrinkled their muzzles.

Daring, on the other hoof, was studying her with one eyebrow almost imperceptibly raised. Max could taste her concern mixed with a tint of confusion; she definitely knew something was up.

After a moment, Galleon rolled his eyes and waved her off. “Very well, you may go. Wind, Speckle, escort her to the ladies’ room and make sure she doesn’t make any rash decisions.”

He glanced sideways at Daring Do, then reverted his gaze firmly to Max. “Things would go rather poorly for her if you attempt to do more than relieve yourself. Are we clear?”

She gulped. “Yes sir.”

“Good. Off with you, then. And be quick about it.”

Before Max could make a move, Wind Shear yanked her off the seat by her chains and then shoved her towards the other end of the cabin, in the engine’s direction. Speckle unbolted the door and allowed her to pass, followed by Wind Shear.

Within seconds of setting hoof outside the cabin, though, the door on the opposite end from which they’d entered shuddered and rattled as somepony hammered furiously on it.

“You there, I know you can hear me!” A stallion’s voice thundered, loudly enough to pierce the rumble of the train. “I am Count Day Money of Gold Ridge, and I demand access to my rightful quarters on this train!”

“Want me to kick his teeth in?” asked Wind Shear.

Blizzard squared his shoulders and plodded towards the door with a steely glint in his eyes. “No need. I’ll take care of him. You guys just keep going—Short, put that out right now!”

“Sheesh, fine!” Short Fuse rolled his eyes and used his mouth to smother the sparkling fuse of the cherry bomb he held in his hoof. Steam puffed out of his nostrils as he muttered, “Nopony lets me have any fun these days…”

Hooves slammed on the door again. “Last warning. You have twenty seconds to open this door and vacate my cabin, or I shall have you thoroughly trounced and lumped into a cargo crate filled with nails on the next tram to the Badlands!”

“Heh. Didn’t think you could afford this room,” Daring quipped. “Sounds like he’s got meatheads of his own, too.”

Galleon didn’t answer her. Instead, he shooed Max and her escorts off with an impatient wave of his hoof and said, “Just go. He is no threat to us.”

With that, Wind Shear shut the cabin door and began herding Max towards the restroom. Speckle brought up the rear. The adjacent cabin was probably meant for servants, considering its plain furnishing and ample storage compartments.

They saw no other ponies, and as they crossed into the next carriage, Max took advantage of the isolation to get a better read on her escorts. Wind Shear’s output tasted mostly of vague, sweet contentment, the sort that ponies had whenever they were in the middle of some calming activity they enjoyed. Speckle’s, on the other hoof, had a very distinct hint of reddish-pink spiciness that made her salivate.

Well, well, what have we here?

Max had to hide a grin as she snuck a glance back at him. He had his eyes glued on Wind Shear’s every move, particularly in the region of her hindquarters, and it didn’t take a changeling to figure out what that meant.

The unoccupied carriage had windows large enough to squeeze out of, but the glass looked thick enough to withstand heavy impacts, especially if they’d used tempered glass. And unless she first escaped from Wind and Speckle, they’d stop her before she could even make a crack.

They reached the restroom in short order, and Max didn’t particularly like what she saw. It was combined with a shower and had enough space to comfortably accommodate two ponies side by side or three standing in a line, but the window looked too small for her to squeeze through, and that was only if she could first dismantle the grill covering it. She’d have to find another way to ditch her escorts.

She stepped in and began closing the door, but Wind Shear blocked it firmly with her foreleg and shook her head.

Max blinked and stared at her. “Huh?”

“You’re not going in there alone.”

“What?” Max shook her head indignantly. “You can’t come in here and watch me!”

Wind Shear rolled her eyes and poked Max in the chest with a stiff feather. “You get your mind out of the gutter. I’m here to make sure you don’t try anything funny in there, so you can either let me in or go all-out on the carpet right now. I don’t care which.”

Oh, grub.

Max froze for a couple of seconds as she considered her options. Then, she flattened her ears and backed off to allow Wind Shear into the restroom. Speckle remained outside to keep watch.

After taking stock of her reserves, Max came to the conclusion that she probably didn’t have enough power to take them both at once. Wind Shear alone had ample wiry muscle to spare, and if Speckle had any training in combat magic, she wouldn’t last a minute against them.

“Could… could you please lock the door?” Max asked timidly.

Wind Shear raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“He’s a stallion,” she whined.

“Ugh, you’re such a princess,” Wind Shear muttered as she bolted the door. “There. You happy now?”

Showtime.

Max sniffled and wiped a tear away as she sidled up to her. “Thank you. That’s the nicest thing anypony’s ever done for me. Us mares have to look out for one another, you know?”

Wind Shear frowned. “What the h—”

The rest of her words failed to leave her mouth once Max closed the last few inches to plant a sopping wet kiss on her lips and pressed her against the wall. Any sour suspicion Wind had harboured simply vanished as her brain short-circuited for a few precious seconds, which Max used to shapeshift her horn back in place. She drew on her magic and blasted Wind with her strongest mind-blanking spell, right between the eyes. Awfully inefficient and draining for a non-queen to use, especially if she wanted instantaneous results, but she really didn’t have a lot of reliable options just then.

The spell didn’t reduce her to a drooling puppet immediately. Wind Shear swayed on her hooves, but her eyes remained focused, and she growled deeply through gritted teeth.

Hayseed!

Max grunted and gasped when Wind Shear landed a heavy punch to her side, just between her hips and ribs. Luckily, changelings didn’t have their kidneys in that exact spot. It still hurt like a diamond dog burrowing through her gut, but at least she could still move and think relatively clearly. She tensed up to take Wind’s flurry of low blows whilst she channelled more magic into her spell, grimacing as the green beam from her horn to Wind’s forehead pulsed several times in rapid succession.

When Wind Shear suddenly threw her considerable weight forward, Max lost her balance and slammed into the opposite side of the cubicle. Wind didn’t get to capitalise on her advantage, though, as her shrunken pupils finally took on a greenish hue and drifted in slightly different directions. She slumped to the floor, leaving Max panting as she leaned against the wall.

“Hey!” Speckle rapped on the door. “What’s going on in there! Windy?”

“Shut up. I got this!” Max growled back with Wind’s rough voice.

Wincing, she rubbed her aching midriff, then hauled Wind Shear onto her hooves and shoved her against the wall repeatedly, squealing and yelping with Sunny’s voice.

“Try that again. I dare you.”

“Oww! I’m sorr—aagh!”

“Didn’t catch that, missy.”

“I’m sorry!”

She slammed a hoof against the wall.

She then whimpered and let out a choked sob.

“Yeah, I thought so. Now clean yourself up before I do it for you, and trust me, you wouldn’t want that.”

Speckle said nothing, but Max detected some relief wafting from the other side of the door, mixed with more than a little bit of heaty wistfulness.

Wow, he’s really got it bad.

Max turned her attention back to Wind Shear and found her leaning against the wall with her cheek pressed against it, staring at nothing in particular with half-lidded eyes. Max wouldn’t get anything substantial out of her in that vapid state, and the spell probably wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. Only Mother’s magic could keep ponies down like that for hours on end.

Plan B.

She shifted her foreleg back to its natural form and secreted a glob of pod ichor into Wind Shear’s mouth. Then, she held her mouth shut and pinched her nostrils until she twitched, squirmed and eventually swallowed most of it.

After dragging her to the back of the cubicle, Max took a moment to study Wind Shear, especially her cutie mark of a tornado with dizzy stars coming out of it. Once she’d committed it to memory, she simply made her legs thinner to slip out of the shackles, and then she unlocked the door wearing Wind Shear’s sleek and well-toned form.

“What happened?” asked Speckle with a concerned frown as he tried slip past her into the cubicle. “Did you knock her out? Brother Galleon won’t be—”

Max barred his way with a foreleg and gave him a sultry smile. “Forget about the princess. It’s just you and me now, hot stuff.”

His jaw dropped. “Huh, what?”

She grinned toothily and huffed out a breath of hot air in his face. He stiffened like a board and stared wide-eyed at her, unmoving even as she clamped her mouth to his. His entire face rapidly turned from yellow to red, and after a couple of seconds, he closed his eyes, leaned forward and hugged her back, engulfing her in a cloud of fluffy bliss and gusto.

Max drank it all in furiously, savouring the red, spicy sweetness as fiery strength coursed through her body, refilling her depleted reserves. Speckle shivered and wobbled on his hooves, but he didn’t let go. She kept draining him, using a portion of his output to power the same blanking spell she’d used on Wind Shear. He didn’t even notice or care.

Eventually, he collapsed onto his back with all fours splayed out and his face frozen somewhere between a dazed smile and a wince. Max licked her teeth and sighed contentedly.

Score!

She’d taken enough to last several weeks of sedate living, or a few hours of combat, depending on intensity. Either way, with her hunger quelled, she could more easily focus on the task of getting herself and Daring Do off the train. Preferably without injury.

Nopony had walked in on her draining Speckle, but that kind of luck probably wouldn’t last. After forcing him to swallow some pod fluid, Max stuffed both of them in the cubicle and twisted the deadbolt out of shape with her magic. She would’ve preferred to shackle them up as well, but she didn’t have the time to search for the keys. Any longer, and Galleon might send one of the others to check on them.

The train didn’t have police or guards on board, and if the conductor’s prior behaviour was any indication, she couldn’t rely on the railway staff to help, so she’d probably have to save Daring Do on her own. She just needed to choose the right face for doing so.

Hmm, maybe something nondescript and totally forgettable.

Green flames licked at her hooves, leaving a drab, orange coat in their wake, but stopped halfway up her legs and fizzled out when an idea wormed its way into her head. It would probably get her into trouble, but…

Eh, stuff it. It’s not like I’m going to get this opportunity ever again.

The flames engulfed her again from the hooves up, and she emerged as a strapping unicorn stallion with a rugged, sky-blue coat, cherry-red eyes and a long, flowing mane and tail of dark indigo. He had a well-muscled frame and unshorn fetlocks, all tailored to make even the stuffiest of mares swoon at the sight of him.

Grinning, Max admired her significantly improved musculature and trotted in a circle to get a feel of her new gait.

Nice. Been a while since I wore this one.

Resisting the temptation to look for a mirror, she quietly walked her way back to Galleon’s cabin. Along the way, she tested the strength of the windows with a few kicks and managed to produce some respectable cracks spidering from the points of impact. Not tempered glass, then. Breakable with some effort, if push came to shove.

The rolling hills with forests in the background didn’t look familiar to her, but she figured that they’d probably gone past Ponyville along the north-western track to Vanhoover or the Crystal Empire.

Muffled shouts came from the classy cabin the moment she entered the carriage, and the closer she got to the door, the stronger the miasma of bravado, annoyance and rage that permeated the thick walls. None of them were particularly nourishing, and came from too many sources for her to identify the ponies within.

“—brute, I will have recompense for your shameless misappropriation of my quarters and purloining of my edibles, or so help me—”

For a moment, the stallion’s voice rang loud and clear when the door opened and grey pegasus darted out into the corridor.

She froze.

Short Fuse still had his attention on the cabin’s occupants – she caught a glimpse of Galleon in a standoff against a red-faced, richly-clad earth stallion backed by a couple of burly underlings with sleazy hairdos – muttering to himself, but he soon closed the door and started down the hallway towards her at a gallop. The moment he saw her, he came to a screeching halt with wings spread wide to avoid smashing into her and simply stared.

“Uh, what’s going on in there?” she asked with a smooth, deep voice.

Short Fuse took a moment to compose himself, then jabbed a wing back at the door and said, “Business deal gone sour with plenty of muscle involved, so you’d probably want to keep clear of anything down this way for now.”

“Oh. Sounds nasty.”

“You have no idea.” Short Fuse glanced up to meet her eyes and frowned. “Say, you seen a brown peggy and yellow cornie on your way here?”

Came out to get backup, eh?

Galleon had probably found himself outmatched by the shouty rich guy, if that was the case.

Max scratched her chin thoughtfully, then shook her head. “Nope. Don’t think so. I did see a little earth pony, though. Teal coat. Poor girl just slipped past me and kept running – looked like a lost puppy that’d just seen a ghost or something.”

Short Fuse’s eyes bulged. “What?”

“Eh? Somepony you know?”

Short Fuse uttered an expletive of some sort, but she didn’t quite hear it over the sudden cacophony of shouts, crashes and thuds that erupted from Galleon’s cabin. He ground his teeth and rocked on the spot with legs bent and wings a-flutter, apparently torn between barrelling past her to get backup and rushing back in to help. He then froze for the second time when the door burst open and Daring Do leaped out of the cabin, sporting a frazzled mane, scorched shirt and a satchel slung over her shoulder.

Max saw Galleon’s thestral lackey pinning somepony to the floor with her fangs bared just as Daring slammed the door shut.

Short Fuse lunged at Daring, but Max hooked a foreleg around his neck in mid-leap and slammed him to the floor. His eyes lost a little focus, but with a bit of wriggling, he managed to get both hind legs underneath her to deliver a double-kick to her belly. She crashed back-first against the ceiling, but on her way down, she used the momentum to deliver a hefty elbow drop on his belly. Short’s grunt turned into a strained wheeze as she drove out all his air, and then she clapped both front hooves against his temples. His eyes rolled up, and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

That’s for blowing up my house, birdbrain, she thought as she stood over him, panting whilst her heart hammered away in her chest.

Somepony yelled in the cabin, and she and Daring both glanced at the door when it shook as something heavy slammed against it. The sounds of scuffling continued, mixed with the whizzing and crackling of magic.

Max beckoned her over with a hoof and stepped over Short’s unconscious body, away from the cabin. Then, when she threw a glance back and saw that Daring hadn’t moved, she jerked her head in the direction of the engine and said, “Come on, let’s go while they’re distracted!”

Daring started forward cautiously. “Who the hay are you?”

“I’m a friend of Sunny Spring. We’ll rendezvous with her after we get off the train.”

Her brow creased, and Max tasted sour suspicion wafting from her. “Is that so?”

“Look, I know that teamwork isn’t your thing, but…” Max flicked her eyes to the cabin door, then back to Daring and winked. “But you do like winning more than you like hogging all the glory, don’t you?”

Daring’s eyes widened with a flicker of understanding. Her nod started off hesitant, then gained speed and conviction on the second one as she leaped alongside Max and said, “All right. Let’s get out of here.”

Max grinned. “Right, we should—”

The rest of the words died on her lips when she heard a giggle and a crackling hiss. She whipped her head around and felt her stomach drop through the floor when she saw Short Fuse sprawled on the carpet, using a match to light a grapefruit-sized cherry bomb with a manic, albeit sleepy grin on his muzzle. He clumsily set it on the floor and gave it a feeble push, sending it spinning towards them like a fat top before he passed out again.

“Oh, crab baskets,” Daring swore.

She darted forward to grab it, but Max was faster. She snatched it up with magic and bolted to the next carriage, searching for anypony’s emotional pings. Finding none, she yanked the door open with magic, hurled the bomb in and slammed the door. She then ducked back into Galleon’s carriage just as a deafening bang rattled the train.

All noise from Galleon’s cabin ceased.

“Let’s go!” Max cried, breaking into a gallop.

Daring didn’t need telling twice.

They both barged through the cracked door into the next carriage, and Max saw that the bomb had left a blackened smear of burnt carpet on the floor between a couple of wrecked seats and a table. More importantly, it had nicely blown out all the windows for their escape.

“Can you fly?” she asked as they crunched over shattered glass and halted at the window with the least jagged shards at the edges.

“With these?” Daring flared her tattered wings and shook her head. “I could manage a short flight, maybe more of a controlled fall, but I’ll wreck what’s left of my feathers. We’re going too fast and too close to the ground. And, no offence big guy, but you’re way above my load-bearing capacity right now. Any chance you’re good at teleporting or levitating?”

“No. We’re out of luck,” Max said.

She stuck her head out and squinted as the wind clawed at her face and tugged at her mane. Far up ahead, the tracks shifted from a bed of rock and grass to a series of metal arches sitting on stone columns, spanning a huge ravine. The bridge was easily two hundred metres long and just about as tall at the ravine’s deepest point.

So we’re near Galloping Gorge now. That could work…

The ravine should give Daring Do enough space to more gently decelerate and reduce the risk of damaging her feathers.

“Wait for the ravine, then jump,” Max said to her. “I’ll find a way to—”

The door behind them burst open, and she heard the pounding of rapidly-approaching hooves.

Hayseed, can’t a girl get a break?

Max charged up a spell on her horn as she whirled round to take aim at the newcomer. Galleon came into their carriage at a gallop, with steely eyes and dishevelled mane, but before she could release her spell, a fuzzy, bluish-purple missile rammed into her and sent the world spinning. Her magic fizzed out, and she cracked her head against something with a hard edge. Stars winked in and out of existence before her eyes.

The thestral snarled in her face, then yelped when Daring tackled her from the side and grappled with her underneath a table. Max ignored their combined grunting and scuffling to focus on the furious unicorn stomping towards them, his horn ablaze with purple magic.

She rolled and evaded the first bolt, but the second one grazed her in the rump just before she took cover behind a seat.

Should have become somepony with a smaller butt…

Max ground her teeth and shivered as the stun bolt sent lightning coursing through her nerves. After a couple of seconds, she regained enough control to peep above the chair, just in time to see Galleon flinch and cry out when Daring splashed something directly in his face.

“Furlong, get the bag!” he cried, fumbling around with his eyes scrunched tight as reddish-purple liquid dribbled down his cheeks and muzzle.

Behind Daring, the thestral crouched low in preparation to pounce on her. At the same time, the grass and rock outside dropped out of view, and she felt a series of little jolts as the train crossed onto a different set of tracks for the bridge.

Max leaped out of cover and blindsided Furlong with a body slam. She didn’t stick around to see the results. Instead, she wrapped a foreleg around Daring’s barrel and ignored her protests as she charged towards the window.

“Are you nuts?” Daring cried. Her wings squirmed and fluttered against her sides, but Max didn’t let go.

“New plan!” she shouted back over the roaring wind as she leaped out the window and into empty space, with the trees and river far, far below them.

After about a second or two of freefall, she shapeshifted out a pair of massive pegasus wings to brake, grunting when the sudden air resistance threated to pluck them out of their sockets. Once they’d slowed enough, she beat them furiously to gain height and hovered in the shadows beneath one of the bridge’s arches. The rusty metal trusses offered no suitable surfaces for perching, and they looked far too angular and edgy for them to wedge themselves in the gaps for any length of time without serious discomfort or injury.

“No good. We’ll need to land and make a run for it,” Daring said in an undertone. “Hurry, before the crazy bat gets a good vantage point.”

Max shook her head. “They’ll be expecting that.”

“You got a better idea?”

“Yup, but I need you hanging on my back for it to work.”

Daring cocked an eyebrow at her, but nodded. “I can do that. On three?”

“Three!”

Max heaved Daring up and released her, then pulled her wings in tight for a quick dive whilst Daring flared her own wings. Once directly beneath Daring Do, Max reopened her wings and grunted when she landed on her back, straddling her just right to leave her wings relatively unhindered. She then flew straight towards one of the arch’s support columns, banked up sharply just before crashing into it, and then beat her wings once for some gentle forward thrust so that she hit it with all four hooves, poised like a mountain climber. Except that she had no rope.

Daring murmured something that sounded like a curse as Max climbed up the column like an ant, and a little more loudly once she hit the arch’s curve. The cold metal trembled as the train roared overhead, but her natural adhesion still held, even with the extra weight.

When she felt Daring’s hold slipping, she paused and said, “Uh, you’ll probably want to change sides once I go upside down.”

“Way ahead of you.”

Max held still as best she could whilst Daring climbed and clambered until she straddled her chest and midriff rather than her back, leaving all four hooves dangling over empty space.

Yeah, totally not an awkward position at all.

“For the record, I didn’t—”

Daring cut her off with a primary feather to the lips, then pointed it to the other end of the bridge. The train had finished crossing, and its heavy rumbling dwindled with each passing second until only the howling wind remained. Down below, a lone bluish-purple thestral, probably Furlong, glided in slow, lazy circles at half the height of the support columns, sweeping her gaze to and fro as she scanned the dense vegetation on the steep slopes of the ravine. A few seconds later, the big, red pegasus joined her search for them.

How long can you keep this up? Daring mouthed at her, flicking her gaze to Max’s hooves and back.

At first, Max thought of simply asking why the need for such silence when they were so far away from Galleon’s hirelings, but halfway through opening her mouth, she remembered that thestrals supposedly had freakishly good hearing. She had no idea if they were that good, but they probably couldn’t afford the risk in case she flew close enough to hear them.

I can do this all day, she mouthed back.

Okay. Then we wait, Daring replied with a nod.

Furlong and Blizzard did look up to see if anypony was hanging on to the metal tresses, but they didn’t come close enough to get a good look underneath the arches. Even if they did, the somewhat cloudy sky was probably still bright enough to keep anything on the underside of the bridge hidden in relative darkness. That might change come nightfall, but judging by the sun’s position, they still had hours until that happened.

And even if they did wait that long, they had no reason to suspect anypony hanging upside down beneath one of the arches. Max didn’t think anypony but Daring had seen her shapeshifting.

Right, that’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?

Max could taste some apprehension and distrust coming from her, and she couldn’t ignore the thumping of Daring’s heart against her chest whilst they kept their eyes on the pegasus and thestral below.

On top of that, now that things had quietened down, she could feel ghostly voices whispering in the back of her mind, like the ones that had come from the rune stone; Daring probably had one in her satchel. Max would’ve preferred to chuck it away, but she couldn’t see any chance of agreement from Daring, so she simply ignored them as best she could.

She just hoped they wouldn’t drive her crazy…

* * * * *

Furlong and Blizzard searched for literal hours, widening their spirals to cover more and more ground in either direction of the ravine. They occasionally dropped below the canopy as well, and Max surmised that Daring must’ve taken something really valuable in addition to the rune stone for them to waste so much time and effort. She’d lost count of the number of trains that had thundered overhead in either direction since theirs. All throughout, Max and Daring kept still and deathly silent.

At sundown, when half the sky had turned purplish-orange in stark contrast to the dark blue of the Unicorn Range on the western horizon, they finally stopped searching. Blizzard flew northwest, presumably to report to Galleon, whilst Furlong disappeared into a large tree overlooking the ravine and didn’t come back out.

Clever. Sneaky, sneaky…

Furlong must’ve used the same tactic to stalk them all the way from her house.

Her tree was easily more than three hundred metres from their spot, so Max felt safe about using her voice once more.

“Finally. I thought they’d never leave,” Max whispered. “Unless you want to sleep on me all night, we should get moving. I don’t think we’re going to get a better chance.”

“Well, you are pretty comfortable,” Daring said with a hint of a smile as she ran a hoof through the thick coat on Max’s chest. “Where did Sunny Spring find a hunk like you?”

“Uh, is this really the best time to be discussing this?”

“You’re right, how silly of me. I’ve got a better question.” Her face hardened, and Max felt something sharp poking her side as Daring leaned closer and growled, “Where is my friend and what have you done to her, changeling?”

Max blinked. “Excuse me?”

Daring smirked. “Come on, don’t play that game. You started off as a unicorn and pulled a pair of wings out of your bunghole after jumping off the train. You didn’t even bother hiding your horn after that, so you can’t even claim I’m misremembering things after having a stroke. I noticed your magic’s green, too.”

“I… I see. What if I told you that there is no Sunny Spring? I made her up to fit into pony society, and I just took on a different character after ditching Speckle and Wind Shear.”

“I’d say that’s an awfully convenient story, and that you’d better start spilling your guts before I do it for you. I’ve taken down prison guards bigger than you with nothing but a spoon and teacup.” She pressed the sharp object into Max’s hide, then waggled her eyebrows menacingly. “Just imagine what I can do with a can opener.”

She probably meant it. Max tasted no deceit on her, only grim determination and a bit of fear, presumably for her ‘missing’ friend. She would’ve loved to make a smart-flank comeback to Daring’s threat, but anything more than a mild squabble would likely draw Furlong’s attention to their impromptu roost.

“What’ll it take to convince you that I’ve been with you right from the minute you broke into my house?”

“Hah. I’m not giving you any hints. Start talking.”

Max took a moment to gather her thoughts, then grinned roguishly. “That secret ingredient in your tea last night? That’s the same stuff we use to keep ponies sedated in their pods. Puts you right to sleep when ingested, almost indefinitely if your lungs are also flooded with it.”

Daring’s eye twitched, accompanied by a spurt of revulsion when she made a gurgling noise in her throat. “I—what? You made me drink your excretion?”

“Secretion,” Max corrected. “Totally different thing. Also, it’s completely harmless. I seem to remember you asking for more.”

“I… Heh. Okay, was a good one. You almost had me.” Daring chuckled and shook her head. “But it doesn’t rule out simpler explanations; you could’ve easily been spying on us right from the beginning.”

“Maybe. But I’m the only one who can activate those black stones that you guys are crazy about, and I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m a changeling. I’m not related to any powerful warlocks or necromancers, but my mother did beat Princess Celestia in open combat, once.”

Daring opened her mouth, then closed it slowly. Max could practically see the gears working in her head as she averted her eyes, deep in thought.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“It’s… possible.” Daring frowned at her and harrumphed. “But really, we’ve known about these stones for hundreds of years. Are you telling me that a changeling has never bumped into one of these in all that time?”

“I know, right? It’s almost like saying that everypony would’ve caught on to Daring Do being totally real by now,” Max retorted with a grin. “But that’s crazy talk.”

Daring narrowed her eyes. “Point taken.”

They lapsed into silence. By then, the sun had already sunk below the mountains in the west, and the wind had slowed to a stiff breeze that rustled the trees far below. Perfect conditions for napping, or a nightly glide.

Eventually, Daring broke the silence with a sigh and stopped poking Max with her sharp tool. “Well, I don’t have a better explanation, and right now isn’t the best time for fact-checking, so I guess I’ll go with your story for now… Miss Spring.”

“Hey, that’s the spirit!” Max said with Daring’s voice.

Daring Do’s ears twitched, and she blinked a couple of times before saying, “Is that what I sound like?”

“Uh huh.” Max nodded enthusiastically, then reverted to her scratchy, real voice. “By the way, my real name’s Maxilla. Just call me Max.”

“You a guy or girl?”

Max rolled her eyes. “Girl. But that’s not really important to a shapeshifter unless we’re talking about fertilising eggs.”

“Right. But I’m guessing you don’t want me using your real name when you’re disguised. What do I call this big guy?”

Oh grub.

Max bit her lip.

She’s totally going to judge me for this, isn’t she?

Steeling herself, she switched back to her heroic, masculine voice and said, “I’m Valiant Dawn.”

Mirth dribbled from Daring as she raised an eyebrow. “A little auspicious, don’t you think? Your size and colours really won’t blend in anywhere, except maybe a carnival.”

“Well, I figured since this’ll be my only chance ever to be in a Daring Do adventure, I’d go as my original character.”

Daring sniggered.

“Hey, cut me some slack!” Max growled indignantly. “He’s my first OC and I’m a little attached to him. Sure, he was awful at first, but I got better at writing him on my fifth or sixth fanfic. At least he’s not a red and black alicorn.”

“Thank Celestia for small mercies.” She shuddered, then prodded one of Max’s wings and said, “Still an alicorn, though.”

“I cheated because we were in a pinch. I’m supposed to be a unicorn, if you remember.”

“Right, right,” Daring said with a placating smile. “Relax. I’m not judging.”

Max narrowed her eyes.

Daring Do managed to keep a straight face for a whopping two seconds before a giggle burst out of her. After recovering, she grinned sheepishly and said, “Okay, maybe a little, but at least you’ve gone a long way towards making me think you’re really Sunny Spring after all.”

“Right.”

Max stole a glance at Furlong’s tree, but it was too far to make anything out, and she’d already had her eyes elsewhere for too long to be sure that she hadn’t found a new roost. They’d simply have to operate under the assumption that she wouldn’t bother moving from such a good vantage point.

“We really should get out of here,” she continued, turning back to Daring. “It’s weird enough having this conversation with you on top of me the whole time. I’m surprised getting off wasn’t your first priority—a-a-and that came out wrong…”

Very interesting choice of words, Valiant. This a fantasy of yours or something?” A huge smirk lit up Daring’s face as she stroked Max’s cheek with a hoof. “Maybe I’ve been using scepticism as an excuse to keep snuggling with this awfully chiselled stallion just a little bit longer, hmm?”

If Max had her regular wings out, she was certain that they would’ve immediately flushed bright blue and teal. And had she written this in any of her stories, she would’ve instantly found herself surrounded by an angry mob of readers accusing her of blatant, amateur wish-fulfilment.

She stared at Daring Do for a couple of seconds, frowning. “You’re messing with me.”

Daring’s head tilted slightly. “Am I?”

Hayseed, she’s got a good poker face. Max couldn’t even taste her feelings.

The silence stretched.

Then, Daring Do chuckled. “That was a joke.”

A sigh escaped Max. “Okay, now can we—”

Her words turned into a pained grunt when Daring suddenly straddled her with significant pressure and dug a hoof into her ribs.

“Or was it?” Daring’s eyes glinted with steel as she leaned closer.

Max flinched when Daring gave her a peck on her cheek.

What the hay? She simply stared with her mouth forming an ‘o’.

“Just remember, you’re not the only one who can play games,” Daring whispered in her ear, then patted her satchel in emphasis. “I’ve still got the can opener, plus a whole new bag of tricks that Galleon shouldn’t have put within hoof’s reach. Don’t make me regret trusting you, and we’ll both make it out of this adventure alive and well. Got it?”

When her affirmative came out as a squeak, Max switched to a hasty nod.

Daring’s infectious grin sprang back into place as if nothing had happened. “Good! Now, what’s your plan for getting us out of here?”

Hayseed, what the heck was that? Daring Do isn’t supposed to be this terrifying! Did… did I just get out-changlinged by a pony?

Max took a slow, deep breath to steady herself.

Well, it’s Daring Do, so no shame there.

She let her breath whoosh out through her nostrils.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

“Okay, just leave it to me,” she said, thankful that her voice had stopped quavering.

Climbing up onto the tracks proved a little tricky, but they managed it with minimal noise and emerged on the side opposite from Furlong’s roost. The tracks had a higher elevation, too, so if they simply stayed on the far side and kept a low profile, they could remain completely out of the thestral’s line of sight.

They backtracked southeast along the bridge, placing each step steadily and carefully so as not to risk Furlong picking up on any clip clops if the wind died down at an inopportune moment.

At length, they reached the end of the bridge and broke into a canter once they found softer, grassy ground to muffle their hoof falls, angling towards the woods in the south as the terrain allowed. What little moonlight penetrated the clouds still provided ample illumination for her, though Daring evidently had a lot more trouble seeing under those conditions, as she occasionally stumbled over debris or uneven forest ground.

They stopped only once they’d gotten deep enough that even a patrolling thestral couldn’t possibly see or hear them from any reasonable height. A rocky overhang with a partially uprooted tree leaning against it provided them with good protection from the stiff breeze and cover from any eyes in the sky.

“Well… that was… quite a detour,” Daring said in between pants as she lay down on the crunchy bed of leaves and began taking stock of her satchel’s contents.

“No arguments here…” Max took a moment to shapeshift her wings away, then collapsed into a weary heap as soon as the green flames vanished. She chuckled. “Not that I’m complaining, though. That was kind of aweso—”

A chill settled in her spine when she felt those cold, clammy voices slithering at the back of her mind again. When she turned and saw Daring Do inspecting a black, inert rune stone in her hoof, Max winced and scooted a little farther to her side of their shelter.

Almost forgot about those…

“Galleon got our stone, but I managed to nick one of his own when he wasn’t looking,” Daring said.

“We lost all our notes too, huh?”

“And we got some of his in exchange, so it’s not a complete disaster.” Daring grinned and unfolded a map peppered with scribbled notes, circles and crosses and spread it out on the leafy ground. “If I’m reading this right, we’ve just found our next destination; Galleon plans to find this ‘master’ of his in the mountains far west of White Tail Woods.”

Max peered at the map and tapped her chin. “Figures. It just had to be somewhere deep in uncharted territory.”

“Not to the archaeological community, it isn’t,” Daring said, waggling a feather at her. “We found some ruins there a long time ago, but it was too deep in dangerous land and not elaborate enough to be worth further exploration. Couple of walls here, some pavement there… Nopony’s cared to take another look since.”

“Until now.”

Daring nodded. “Until now. And it looks like these stones might be the keys Galleon needs. You saw how pushy he got about learning our secret for activating them. Speaking of which…”

She held the stone out to Max. “Care to give me a demonstration?”

Max winced. “Does it have to be tonight?”

Daring kept a straight face and didn’t retract her hoof. “I won’t force you, but unless I get confirmation that you weren’t lying about it, I can’t trust you to watch my back when I sleep. And I really would rather get some shuteye tonight.”

It’s a test, isn’t it?

Her midriff and ribs ached from her scuffles with Wind Shear and Furlong, and her limbs felt like they’d already turned to jelly. But then she spotted a couple of fresh bruises on Daring’s hind legs and neck, plus a rather long cut along her left flank caked with dried blood, and decided that she probably wouldn’t want to have an irritable and possibly violent travel companion in the morning due to lack of sleep. With her dishevelled mane and bloodshot eyes, she looked just as ready to drop and nap through all of the next day as Max felt.

Sighing, Max got up onto all fours and put on a confident smile that she didn’t quite feel. “Well, since Valiant Dawn’s supposed to be quite the gentlecolt, might as well play the part.”

Daring rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth did curl up a bit as Max reached out with a hoof.

She paused just a couple of inches from touching the stone. The voices in her head had risen to a hair-raising chorus, and her brain itched.

“This one feels a little different,” she warned, frowning. “I don’t know what’ll happen to me, but…”

“Don’t worry, big boy. I’ll keep you safe if it knocks you out.”

As soon as her hoof made contact with the stone, the voices ceased. The world dimmed until even she had difficulty making out the surrounding trees. Dark columns rose up from the ground, until it looked like a shadowy auditorium had materialised around her, superimposed over the forest. She could still see Daring Do, albeit drained of her colours and unblinking, frozen in time. Thousands of eyes encircled her, twinkling like black stars.

Within moments, a cloud of smoke whirled up from the ground and occupied the same space as Daring Do. It coalesced from the darkness into a chitinous figure that looked awfully similar to a changeling queen, except that it had the thicker musculature of an earth pony stallion. Everything else looked frail and wispy in comparison.

Max couldn’t move. She could hardly blink.

The figure’s teal eyes bored right into her soul, and the darkness around her whirled into a blaze of colours.

She felt like a comet shooting past rivers, trees, hills and mountains, right into a dark tunnel that went into the heart of the world. And then… a city of black stone arches, towers and bridges.

“Come.”

She felt drawn forward, but the pressure around her suddenly lifted, and she could see the forest and Daring Do again. The figure tilted its head ever so slightly, as if surprised.

It reached out with a hoof to touch her face…

Oh, grub no.

Max pulled away with every ounce of her will in every possible sense of the word, and the outside world gradually regained motion, one ponderous fraction of an inch at a time. Just before its hoof touched her chin, something snapped, and Max jerked backwards and fell onto her rump with a gasp.

Daring dropped the stone and rushed to Max’s side. “What happened?”

“I think Galleon’s master might actually be a changeling.” She winced and rubbed her temples as she tried to recall the details of the vision. “And you’re right about the map. He showed me the way. I think I’ll know the entrance when I see it.”

“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” Daring said dryly.

“Still… worth it.” Max inclined her head towards the glowing rune stone and grinned weakly. “Believe me now?”

Daring Do followed her gaze, then smiled and thumped her on the shoulder. “Yeah, I do. You go ahead and get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch. We can talk more in the morning.”

Max dragged herself to the cosiest spot underneath the rocky overhang and collapsed with a sigh. The whispers continued crawling inside her skull, but she couldn’t find the strength to care about them anymore.

Still, she did feel obligated to show a little courtesy.

“You sure about that?” she asked, yawning widely as Daring stuffed the stone into her satchel and plodded off a bit, to where she had a better view of the surrounding area.

Daring sat on her haunches, and Max tasted sweet, golden pride seasoned with a hint of companionship leaking through her shell of mistrust.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Welcome to the team, Max.”