//------------------------------//
// 4. Hypocaust 
// Story: Spa and Order 
// by Skywriter 
//------------------------------//

Posey and I are chatting amiably over a proper, long-overdue hooficure by the time Auric arrives for me.  Specifically, we are at the point of exfoliating the frogs of my hooves with a quantity of caramel-colored sugar paste, which I am absolutely not going to start licking at mid-treatment, because can you imagine.  I am wearing a fluffy white towel on my head, and a hot muslin parcel of aromatic herbs encircles my neck: ginger, lemongrass, a trace of camphor.  The warm, medicinal vapors have profoundly slowed my heart rate and my breathing.  I glance in a nearby mirror; it is difficult to believe that this luxuriated pony is the same creature who was running cold and ragged about the alleys of Cloudsdale little more than an hour past.

He bursts into our tranquil little scene with an alien, but not unwelcome, energy. Apparently he has been vetted and given the okay by Posey's trained guard-filly out front.  Posey's face lights up when she sees him.  "Gustave!" she cries.

"Mais oui, mais oui, ç'est moi!" says "Gustave," in elaborately affected Pfrench.  "And 'ow is our petite princess ce soir?"

"She seems much more relaxed, if I do say so myself!" Posey gives my pastern a little rub.  It is just as well she is looking at Auric and not me, else she would see me staring at him in confused disbelief.  I catch Auric's eyes, and they twinkle at me.

Play along, those eyes say, and I do so.  Auric is without a doubt one of the stranger creatures in my immediate circle.

"Doing just fine, um, Gustave!"

He nods back.  Good girl.  With a bit of befuddled alarm, I notice that he has attached an elaborate faux handlebar mustache to his beak.  Stars above, who is this creature?

As I wonder, Auric continues speaking.  All Equuish now, but still with a comically-overdone accent.  "Your Highness will be 'appy to know her little journalism issue 'as been dealt with.  She may return 'ome whenever she pleases."

I do not have time to ponder the sinister implications of the words "dealt with" before Posey replies.  "That's wonderful news, Gustave!  I imagine Her Highness is so very pleased."

"Of course!" I say, with my best artificial cheer.

"We're nearly done here," says Posey.  "One more tepid bath and Her Highness will have had the full experience."

"But of course," I say, quailing at my needy stomach but determined to not interrupt Posey's all-important ritual.  "Just a quick soak.  Maybe put a bit of rainbow in it?"

I hate the little bitty pause that comes right after I've said something totally wrong but no one wants to say anything because alicorn.  Sweet Aunty Celestia, do I hate it.

"I'm sorry, may I ask if something's the matter?"

Posey shuffles one hoof.  After a moment, Auric-slash-Gustave comes to her rescue.  "Rainbows are, 'ow you say…"  He gestures aimlessly with one claw.  "...Not so common around 'ere."

"I don't want you to be dissatisfied with your experience," whispers Posey.

"I don't understand.  Don't rainbows come from the ducts?"

"Those ducts don't run to neighborhoods like ours."

"Why—"

"Rules, rules," says Auric, breezily.  "Ze Weather Corporation 'as so many rules!  Doubtless zere are many perfectly-good reasons for it.  Safety may be a concern."

"Rainbows are beautiful," I feebly protest, my head swimming.

"Of course they are," Posey agrees.  "Also kind of dangerous."

"But... you can literally take baths in rainbow."

"Yes, um, but what if somepony were to, um, drink it?  Or something."  Posey shuffles a hoof again.

"What kind of pony would even think of drinking rainbow?"

"Well, what if it was somepony new to the city, and—"

Auric more or less literally swoops in.  "Perhaps not so good to be talking about all zis now.  Ze hour is, how you say, very late.  Posey, petite chou, would you consider interrupting all-important bath ritual just once?"  He takes up her hoof in one claw and gives it a quick, dainty peck.  "Pour moi."

She smiles at him, then looks to me for my approval.  I shrug, somewhat disingenuously; much as I'm loving Posey's ministrations, the sugar paste on my hooves is looking more and more delicious each passing second, and my risk of doing something ridiculous is rising to a dangerously high level.

Posey relents. "Very well.  For you, Gustave."

"Merci." The griffon bows, deep and gallant.

"You've done wonders tonight, Posey," I say, keeping my voice carefully even and trying not to whimper as she rinses my hooves clean of the presumably-delicious spa product and towels them off.  Light pleasantries are exchanged, Posey once again haggles me down to paying nothing for services that single-hoofedly saved my sanity, and with altogether uncanny efficiency, Auric shuffles me out into the chill night air.  Before I even completely understand what's going on, he and I are flying a broad, lazy, ascending arc in the direction of the Acropolis.

Once we are fully alone, I break out in a giggle. "What in Equestria was that?" I say, gesturing back in the direction of Posey's.

Auric shrugs, clacking his beak with amused rakishness.  "Oh, you know how it is.  Live for enough centuries, you eventually get bored and go off on a tear pretending to be outrageously Pfrench for a few decades.  Breaks up the monotony, don't you know?"

"No," I say, in all honesty.  "Auric, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm probably about as old as you are, and I haven't pretended to be Pfrench even once.  Okay, yes, I was crib-bound for most of it, but even so."

"You should try it one of these centuries.  It's marvelously therapeutic.  Speaking of which:  how was your introduction to proper Pegasopolian bathing?"

I swoon a little, and do a lazy mid-air flip.  The solid professional preening I'd just received as part of Posey's services has done wonders for my flight-confidence.  "Amazing."

"Aha," he says.  "That's the pegasus in you talking, finally.  You've been bathing as an earth pony for centuries, and as a unicorn for decades.  Earth ponies bathe to get clean. Unicorns bathe to get clean and to luxuriate."

"I just did both those things."

"Yes, but you did so much more than that.  Pegasi, my dear princess, bathe to connect.  The very idea of sequestering themselves from the public gaze in a little claw-footed tub to perform individual ablutions is a profoundly foreign one."

I cock my head at him, raising one eyebrow.  "Those are some six-bit words, sir."

"I purchase those little 'word-a-day' tear-off calendars, and I've had an awful lot of days.  Irrelevant.  My main thrust is that bathing is absolutely integral to this society.  Works its way into the very language."

"'Bene lave,'" I say, shifting effortlessly to Pegasopolian.

"That's the one."

"I always thought it was a funny way to wish somepony well.  'Have a good bath!'"

"It's all about keeping the feathers in working trim.  Going without a good soak once a day?  Unthinkable.  If you wish to fit in with Cloudsdale, you will bathe much more, and much more publicly, than you do now.  I'm sure Posey would love to have your business, but it would do your reputation a world of good to visit the public thermae as well.  Rub wings with the washed masses a bit."

"Do they—we—do that?  Just... all together?  Senators and weatherponies alike?"

Auric nods.  "The great equalizer.  It's been keeping Cloudsdale's society healthy since the Founding."

I muse for a moment.  "But, apparently, earth pony neighborhoods don't get the same amenities as the pegasus ones do."

Auric's mien darkens.  "Yes, well.  No one said the city's health remains strong."

"So New Veneighzia doesn't get rainbows, but they do get streams of weird magic-numbing elements that shouldn't even exist?  What's going on in this town, Auric?"

"I wish I knew," he says, sounding startlingly vulnerable.  Then his eyes light up with purpose.  "But perhaps none of this will matter in a few minutes.  Perhaps we'll be able to leave this place behind and let your Aunty Celestia sort this out.  Perhaps you and I will both be able to go home.  Real home."

"I don't understand."

"All you need to know is that it involves you getting something to eat."

I ask no more questions.  That is all I need to hear.





We are perched on Mast Seven of the Bahamoot, one of the largest and most popular masts of the impossibly-huge redwood skyship permanently anchored into the central mass of Cloudsdale.  Far below us, beneath the acres of deck and deep within the maze of the ship's holds, is the gleaming headquarters of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation, relocated here from the old Weather Factory for efficiency's sake.  The towering Fo'c'sle is home to the city's financial district, where unicorn executives labor deep into the night (if the glimmering lights at the structure's portholes are to be believed).  Far to stern is the opulent Aftcastle District, where many of those selfsame executives live.  (I wonder for a moment how many ponies in Cloudsdale exist without ever even touching the substance that gives it its name.)  Stretching out between the two structures, occupying the lion's share of the upper deck, is the Foreign Quarter, alive with music and lights and tiny docking airships, looking like schools of pilot fish swarming about the Bahamoot's sleek and sharklike hull.  Duchess Blueblood's flagship, from her adventuring days, is named after an ancient mythical fish that was rumored to support all of existence on its back, and the metaphor has never been more clear to me than it is right now.

The Masts have long been stripped of their original function, of course, and have been lined with twining helices of pegasus-themed kiosks and comfortable cloud-lined observation perches.  Mast Seven is not the tallest of them (that honor is reserved for Mast Three, which supports the Crow's Nest Lounge, possibly the most exclusive dining establishment on the continent), but it does have an amazing and dizzying view of the Acropolis off the edge of Point Cumulus.  Auric and I watch as lantern-bearing couriers go about the business of governing the Greatest City in the Sky far below.  The trails of light they leave look like passing fireflies.

We are alone and away from the crowds.  Occasionally a trio of pegasus revelers will flap erratically past, laughing at jokes we sober folk cannot understand.  They pay us little heed.  The night is quiet, here.

Auric and I perch together but separated by an awkward cubit.  The night remains cold, and I find myself envying the revelers, wishing that I too had a gaggle of silly marefriends to cuddle up with, but there is only me and my bizarre griffon savior.  He and I are not at the cuddle point.

"So," I say.  "Food?"

"Of course," he says.  He rummages about in a sizable insulated satchel he picked up at some point between Posey's and here, and eventually emerges with a lovely crystal phial filled with a small measure of deep amber fluid.

"Honey?" I say.

Auric nods.  He is oddly solemn as he passes the phial to me.

"Well," I say, "it would be ideal to have some scones or something, but, beggars can't be choosers."  My stomach fairly roaring now, I remove the stopper, wondering for a moment at the ornate seal (but not for long).  I telekinetically bring the flask to my lips—

"Stop," says Auric, his voice breaking.  I am about to be irritated, but his tone and the expression on his face stops me cold.  Blinking, I lower the flask.

The griffon breathes a couple times, his chest rising and falling.  When he next speaks, his voice is distant.

"Many years ago.  Well before you came to Canterlot.  The age of the Shadowstar Tyrant, in the East.  Two weeks into the Siege of Stalliongrad, we were all roused from our beds and told the Imperial Army would breach our gates within the hour.  I had booked passage on the last airship to Griffonstone, called in every favor I had for it.  There was... a mare, and her child.  Barely a foal.  I pleaded with the captain to let them come as well.  You know the tales of the Tyrant, how he pressed into slavery any earth pony he could lay horn upon, to work his dread obsidian mines.  The captain asked me for this phial in exchange for their passage, and I..."

Auric trails off.  I set the honey down on the cloud-padded bench.  "What was her name?" I ask, my voice small.

"Sugarbeet," says Auric.  "Cinnamon Dust was her foal.  I never found out what happened.  I kept searching, once the smoke had cleared, for any trace, any story."  He shakes his head.  "Some things are beyond doing, Your Highness.  Even for someone with all the time in the world."

"I'm sorry," I say, not knowing what else to.  Impulsively I do go in for a hug, but I meet his outstretched claw.

"In Maretonia," he said, the words coming more rapidly now.  "On the verge of an epochal dust storm that buried the entire country.  I skirted an ocean of sand ready to fall on me to recover this from one of my caches.  On another occasion, I swallowed this phial and held it in my crop for six days on an overland trip through the dragon lands.  I once literally walked into a burning building to retrieve it."

"Stars above, what is it?"

"That, dear Princess, is the last measure of crystalberry honey to be had anywhere in existence.  Crystalberries were an important orchard crop of my home, your home.  Honeybees went wild for the blossoms.  They made of them a honey of exquisite character, unlike anything in the world since."

I swallow.  "This is from the Empire?  Really?"

"Yes.  So it's both rather valuable and rather important to me.  And I apologize for throwing this all at you, because I realize you must be famished by now, but I just couldn't let this happen without giving you a bit of context."

"Of course," I say.  I eye it curiously.  "Is it okay to eat?  It must be a little past its sell-by date."

"Never goes bad, kept properly.  And I've done my best to."

"And you're sure you want me to have it."

"Absolutely."

I look at the phial for a minute longer.  It is not often that one sees the last-ever instance of something.  Then I summon up the last traces of my politeness.  "We should both have some, obviously."

Auric's face is at war for a moment, but the conflict soon resolves.  "No.  I won't risk everything on one moment of hedonism.  If there's even a chance..."

"What is supposed to happen?"

"Just drink it, please.  Before I change my mind."

I mull it over for a moment longer, then remove the stopper and consume the last crystalberry honey that will ever exist.  It warms my throat as it passes, and then it is gone.

Auric stares at me eagerly, his yellow eyes piercing.  "Well?"

"It was sweet," I say.

"And?  What else?  Anything?"

I open and close my mouth helplessly, then shrug.

Anger suddenly crackles across Auric's face, and it is terrifying.  "Useless!" he shouts, and I cannot tell if he is referring to the situation or to me specifically.

I cower a little.  "Sorry!" I say, but Auric's ferocious squall leaves as quickly as it blew in.  The griffon's feathers smooth back down, and he is again as he was.

"No, no, it's all right," he says, absently waving a claw in a gesture that is just a bit too calculated and artificial.  "Stupid to hope, in truth."

"What didn't I do right?" I say, still cowed.

"Certain rather silly individuals may have had the... apparently incorrect notion that if I were to reunite the last Crystal Princess with a true, pure memory of the Empire, that'd be what it would take to bring it back to the world."

I look at him, trying for "compassionate and understanding" but apparently missing the mark.  "Oh, stop," says Auric, scooting to the far edge of the cloud and perching there like a chastised schoolfilly. "I've no need for pity."

"How do we know it didn't work?"

"The Empire was the crux of all Earth magic in Equestria," he said.  "The light and love of the crystal ponies would burst into great arcs of shimmering color that would regularly fill the northern sky.  I imagine we would know."  He gestures, offhoofedly.  (Offclawedly?  Not sure.)  "Also, I think we'd feel it."

"I'm sorry it didn't work, Auric."

"Stupid hope, like I said.  Anyway, I expect you'll want some proper dinner."  He fishes around in the bag some more, and emerges with a box of woven bamboo sheets.  My eyes go wide, and I think I am literally drooling.  "Under normal circumstances I would actually have prepared you something myself, but I was a bit pressed for time, what with threatening the life and livelihood of several unsavory members of the press should certain photographs appear in tomorrow's Acta.  So, you will have to settle for this rather large box of steamed custard buns.  Nai huang bao, I believe they're called.  I'm not sure if you've ever had them or if the idea appeals to you and, oh, okay, wow, that's... rather a lot of them to try and cram into your face at once, Your Highness."

"Mphwhaufwghfoumouphouph," I say, decisively.  Then, I conclude:  "Pwhfh?"

"Why yes, I do have a second box."

"Pfwhee!" I say, throwing my hooves wide.  Then I gesture at the bag.  "Enh.  Enh."

With an amused smirk, Auric tosses me the remaining custard buns.  They are just as heavenly as the first ones:  soft, cloud-white pillows of steamed dough surrounding mouth-watering centers of golden, sweet baked egg.  I tear into them like a wolverine.  It is quite some time before I am able to do anything more than eat.

Eventually, though, the roar of my metabolism subsides.  I can still feel it lurking in the shadows at the edge of my being, but it is quelled, at least for the moment.  I eye the wreckage of the meal.  Perhaps it was the result of a poorly-placed box lid or some other act of camouflage, but it seems as though I might have overlooked the very last custard bun.  I look at it forlornly for a moment.

"It would be awfully rude of me to—"

"Oh, just have it," says Auric.  I dive for the bun, and it shortly follows the rest.  I sit back against the cloud, momentarily sated.

"Thanks, Auric.  That was absolutely wonderful."

"Mm," he says.  Then he leans in, and while his voice remains soft, there is a flicker of that same intensity I saw earlier.  "Never do that again."

"I know, I know.  Abominable table manners for polite company.  In my defense, I was absolutely famished, but I will promise you right now that you'll never see me eat like that ever—"

"No!  Stars, how can you be so frustrating?  I'm not talking about your table manners, I'm actually talking about your insistence on not eating.  I know your Aunty Celestia runs a show of propriety and secrets, and it rubs off on pegasi like that stodgy old Weather Eye whose manse you're bunking in, but you're in Cloudsdale now, Princess.  The ponies here adore heroic feats and accomplishments of the physical form, and yes, that includes eating.  Pegasi feast beyond reason.  They're famous for it."

"But... as a princess, and a representative of Canterlot, I thought surely—"

"What, that you shouldn't blend in?  Shouldn't be anything like the natives?  Cadance, I swear to you, there are certain night parties where you would absolutely be the star of the show were you to unleash that metabolism upon an unsuspecting buffet.  I've been to such parties.  They're tremendous.  Look, I know you feel the Cloudsdale situation is a bit up in the air right now, pun absolutely unintentional, especially since H.E. Smiles has apparently gone insane in refusing to cede her post.  I can't begin to fathom why you or your Aunty aren't stepping in and removing her by force."

"Well, it'd be… impolite, wouldn't it?  Surely she'll see reason eventually."

He flicks away my words like an irritating insect.  "Your reasons are your own, of course.  My point is:  you're an alicorn, Cadance.  You don't need an official position to make this city yours."

I wonder at the sound of his words.

Below us is the mass of twinkling lights and thunder that is Cloudsdale.  I lean forward, just a bit, tasting the air. Canterlot, the Mountain, is so utterly and completely my aunt's that it had taken me a long time to notice, much in the same way I imagine most fish do not notice they are wet. Reduit had been mine, I suppose, but in the way that an egg belongs to a chick; I smashed that shell emerging from it, and neither that Cadance nor that Reduit exist any longer. The Empire is a distant dream, singing in my bloodline but doing little else, and I have lived on dreams for so long I am hungry, ravenous, for something more... substantive.

Just for a moment, the part of me that is alicorn stirs, and opens its eyes…

There is thunder in my ears and lightning in my mouth. This is one of the hinges of the world, the last and proudest stronghold of the pegasus nation, which devours air and water and produces rainbows and storms, light and dark in equal measure. Their lives spin around me in a whirling tornado, reaching back to their near-mythical progenitors, the Hurricane and the Flower, and forward to a fate I cannot see but can almost touch. I smell bread, and salt, and rain, and sweat, and tears, and love, and hate, and rot, and growth, and I know that I can take this bit between my teeth and pull, it's right in front of me if I only want it enough…

It gets away from me.  Auric, I realize, is still talking.  "...not by rank.  Not by position.  But you could own this town as much as your Aunty owns Canterlot, and you could do it merely by living life as large as you actually are, Ms. One-Of-Two-Remaining-Alicorns.  Neither of us is apparently returning to our actual home anytime soon.  We may as well make the most of the forever we have here."

I look down on Cloudsdale. It's just a city again.  But somehow more.

I begin to smile.  "Yes," I say.

"Good girl."

"But!  I'm still getting a job.  If I'm making this my city, all the more reason to cut ties with Aunty Celestia."  I nip up Celestia's book of stipend checks from my bags.  "That means that these little things go bye-bye."

"Do as you will, of course," says Auric, his voice infuriatingly neutral.

I shoot him a bit of a half-glare, and grab up the promissory notes in my telekinetic field, preparing to chuck them right off the mast.

Then I stop.

"Or," I say, "I could decide to to be a bit less overdramatically childish and use them for some greater good, rather than just tossing them all over the Foreign Quarter."

"Go on."

"My stipend could send Posey's filly to flight camp.  It'd be everything either of them want for.  Maybe I should stop cocooning myself up in my own problems and start seeing myself as a part of the city I'm in."

"Ah," says Auric.  "That's what I wanted to hear."

"You seem to be on good terms with her," I say, rather more meekly depositing the checks in front of Auric.  "Would you mind apportioning them out?"

"Your wish is my command," he says, scooping them up.  And then there is silence between us for a time.

"Auric?"

"Hm?"  He raises an eyebrow.

"What was home like?"

"It varied.  Depending whose rump was seated on the throne.  When your father ruled alone, it was a cold, white country.  But, when your mother arrived, and her love warmed the Snow King's heart... ah."  His eyes get a faraway look.  "Shining, green, warm as can be.  Wonderful festivals.  Vast rolling fields surrounding a city of faceted jewels, anchored by a tower that rose above them all as though it ached for the heavens.  Happiness and well-being settled around the place in clouds, and I do mean that literally.  When the sun would heat the crystals of the city, the air all around turned electric with joy."

"Posey had something in her shop.  A little pink salt lamp.  I'd never seen such a thing before, but the moment she lit it, I was floored."

Auric is still for a moment, but there is clearly some turbulence beneath his surface.  Then he gives a heavy sigh.  "That would be the smell of home," he says. "Apparently, it's in your blood.  Would that I had known you were in there having authentic Imperial experiences without me.  I could have saved the honey."

"Sorry."

"Don't be.  It was just a thing.  It's an exception to the old 'things can be replaced' chestnut, for it absolutely can't, but it's still less important than certain other old relics that did escape."

"Am I an old relic?" I ask, a smile playing on my muzzle.

"You've aged better than I," he says.  "But, yes.  We're just a couple of lost, lonely antiques of dubious provenance.  Let's at least not gather dust, eh?"

I spontaneously try for the hug again, and this time, he doesn't stop me.

"Auric," I whisper, "what is the meaning of love?"

"I have lost everything I have ever loved, Cadance.  It is my dominant association with the word."

"So love is... loss."

"Unfortunately."

"No, that doesn't sound right."  I shake my head.  "But then again, what do I know?  I mean, I hardly even know you, and apparently you've been watching me my whole life."

"Intermittently.  I have my moments.  Don't make the mistake of confusing age with discernment, Cadance.  I've merely experienced love.  You're the Princess of it."

"Then… that's not right.  'Loss' isn't right."

"I suspected as much," he says, patting my withers with one claw.  "But the night is cold, and you're warm, and I'm warm, and perhaps that's all either of us need right now."

We stay perched in the wind for quite some time, watching the never-sleeping lights of Cloudsdale far below, huddled into one another, gray feathers against pink fur.

"Your Lieutenant will be wondering after you by now.  Almost certainly there will be Tartarus to pay when you get home."

"All the more reason to stay here a moment longer."

"As you wish, Your Highness," he says, and it is long past midnight before either of us moves.