//------------------------------//
// Truth Is Out There 
// Story: Ofolrodi 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

Wildcard's headcrest rose and fell with apprehension.  He cocked his head to the left... then to the right.  Finally—as he perched on a dormant metal vehicle—he looked at the other two members of his "group" and hand-signed.

"It's just your imagination, Double-Yoo," Logan replied, staring across a suspended platform between buildings of the timeless city.  "Unless this place is secretly harboring an immortal string section, I seriously doubt you're hearing any music."

Wildcard clenched his beak shut.  Mulling.

"It isn't wise to ignore Jordan's intuition," Seraphimus stated, leaning against a metal structure a few paces away.  "No matter how seemingly inane."

"You've ignored your former colleagues' advice pretty damn hard," Logan countered.  "To have gotten this far..."

Seraphimus sighed.  "Are we not supposed to be 'scouring the city' for more clues concerning the past?"

"Hell no!"  Logan spat.  He leaned on the hilt of his axe.  "You think my fat ass can move from one level to another that quickly?"

"Then..."  Seraphimus raised an eyecrest.  "...what is our 'group' pretending to do right now?"

"What, are you retarded?  The others are doing the 'searching.'  Us?  We're guarding your grimdark sorry-ass!"

Wildcard smirked ever so slightly.

Seraphimus blinked at them.  "... ... ...this has got to be a joke."

"I'm staring at the only joke on the entire Dark Side right now," Logan droned.  "Why go to the trouble to pack your things and leave—only to suddenly dig your heels in and linger like a Goddess-forsaken vagrant?"

"Honestly, make up your mind," Seraphimus grunted.  "Do you air-breathing cretins wish for me to stay or to turn to ashes?"

"I'm here to ask you what you want, Princess Cockatiel."

Wildcard watched intently.

Seraphimus' gaze danced between the two.

"Well...?"  Logan frowned.  "You might be able to evade Rainbow Dash and her giggly gaggle of go-alongs, but not us, baby."  His grip of the axe tightened noticeably.  "Let's have it out.  Right here.  Right now.  What are you wanting to do, exactly?"

The former Talon Commander breathed firmly.  Hotly.  "Is it really such a conundrum?"  Her headfeathers tightened.  "I want justice for Verlaxion..."

"And...?"

"Justice for my family," she spat.

"Then why aren't you smoking our asses?" Logan grunted.  "You had your chance when we battled the death wyrm."

"... ... ..."

Wildcard gestured:  "Maybe not all justice is paid for in blood."

Seraphimus' gaze flickered to him.  "Is it not?  Just what did your beloved friend pay back at the world's edge?"

Wildcard's metal knuckles tightened.

"Lady, we all want the same thing."

Seraphimus looked at Logan.  "And just what is that?"

"Answers," Logan said.  "Meaning.  Something to legitimize the fact that we all threw our asses over the Edge to protect a voice-cracking pipsqueak with a fruity mane.  Something to prove that Mortuana, Axan, and Bard didn't give their lives in vain."

"A catharsis over abandoning your only daughter?"

Wildcard winced.

Logan breathed calmly.  "Sure.  That too.  But I'm not the only desperate soul here."  His dark brown eyes narrowed.  "You couldn't avenge your Goddess and family in blood.  So... that only leaves understanding."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Do I?"  Logan bore a bittersweet smirk.  "Don't I know that we've butted heads for so long that we all realize it's a load of bullshit?  Don't I know that you've had your tailfeathers royally owned by the Austraeoh so often and so religiously that slaying her just won't make existence all nice and shiny in your eyes?"

Wildcard grinned.

Seraphimus saw his expression.  She sighed.  "I realized—long ago—that she was beyond my faculty to combat her blighted strengths..."

"Yeah!  Back when she smoked your Talon crew before joining us at Wyvern Point!" Logan said.  "And what did you do then?"

Seraphimus stared at them blankly.

Wildcard suddenly interjected with swift hand-motions:  "You went seeking answers.  It brought you to Chandler."

A surly growl escaped Seraphimus' beak.  "That turned out to be a wild goose chase."

"No..."  Logan shook his head.  "Verlax stuck her ugly mug in and sabotaged all the work you and Keris had accomplished to unveil the putrid conspiracy leeching off the Council at Frostknife."

Seraphimus went silent.

"She knew that you were just one or two trials away from rocking her world... from shattering the narrative that she had set in icy stone centuries ago," Logan firmly said.  "So she pulled off a 'miracle.'  With one pre-programmed conversation from one of her stupid frost golems, she set back your progress by hundreds of miles."  He gestured.  "She got the Council to elect an inept strawman into executive office... and suddenly the top brass of Rohbredden returned to its boneheaded dogmatism... willing to chase a pegasus to the ends of the earth when its own ponies were being attacked by windigoes."

Silence.

Seraphimus slumped further against the structure, gazing blankly down the suspended platform.

"Verlax used you, lady," Logan muttered.  "As far as she was concerned, you lived out the end of your bargain.  What's more, she expected you to honor it to the bitter end.  She wanted you to die at the World's End.  But—thanks to Rainbow Dash—you didn't.  So... here you are now..."  Logan pointed.  "...in a forsaken world of blight and shadows.  And—you know what?  You're seeking answers yet again.  Just like you did back when you nearly took down the Consortium.  Only now...?"  He shook his head.  "Now there is no Verlax to throw a wrench in your path to understanding... unless, of course, you choose to listen to the Verlax living inside of you."

Seraphimus ran a talon over her crest feathers.  Her next breath was a shuddering one.  "I h-had all the answers I needed until my Goddess was slain."

Wildcard gestured:  "The answers you needed?"  He allowed a pause to sink in.  "Or the answers you wanted?"

Seraphimus said nothing.

Logan looked at her, then at Wildcard.  He sighed.  "Come on, Double-Yoo..."  He stood up and trotted off, hauling his axe.  "Let's go check on the wagon.  The only thing that can sort her out is herself."

With a gaze lingering on the former Commander, Wildcard nevertheless followed the other Heraldite.

Seraphimus sat alone, surrounded by fossils and debris, encased in the shadows of agelessness.

When she finally looked up, it wasn't with an expression of clarity... but rather that of sudden curiosity.  Her beak hung open slightly as her headcrest raised in contemplation.

"I... do hear music..."  Her charcoal brown eyes darted left... then right.  The air danced with the ghostly hint of violin strings.  "... ... ...what in Goddess' name...?"