Valey pouted, having been unable to keep her conversation with Maple as quiet as she wanted. Pressed by Gerardo to explain what she knew, she grumpily narrated, "Windigo hearts are pretty much concentrated badness. Hatred, despair, stupidity... you name it. Beats me where they come from; they're from before I was... around. Maybe they come from actual windigoes, or maybe they're fake."
"Fake?" Howe drew up indignantly, still walking so as not to get left behind. "Whose sacred heirlooms are you calling fakes, fraud?"
"I mean artificial," Valey droned. "Made by ponies, yaks, whatever. Like I said, beats me. Either way, they're also really hard to destroy, and that was something the yaks figured out how to do. Turns out, all you need is a pony, and, well..." She glared, avoiding eye contact with everyone. "You don't need to know the specifics. The harder part was getting the pony to survive, because otherwise, it doesn't break. But if they do, and when it does, it removes that pony's cutie mark."
"It does who to the what now?" Neon Nova blinked, limping along and favoring all four legs.
"She means brands," Howe sagely replied. "It is a... form of lingo my comrades have taken to using. I can't quite sniff out the meaning myself, but I'm sure it is very important!"
"Whatever." Valey rolled her eyes. "The point is, as far as I know, the marks would just reappear after a minute or two, so it wasn't much of a setback. Once the moon glass happened, though, they figured out you could catch the marks in an empty piece and that would stop them from coming back..." She raised an eyebrow at Maple. "Sound familiar, Ironflanks?"
Maple gasped inwardly, recalling that Shinespark had said Valey found out everything on her own... She was testing to see if Shinespark had told her about her cutie mark, and how Braen was powered. She nodded. "Yes. I've heard of it. Yakyakistan invented that?"
Valey shrugged. "Eh, something like that. Anyway, after they figured that out, the yaks started treating the hearts like a precious resource instead of hazardous waste, since mark loss went from a temporary side effect to something they could exploit... at least in the place I lived. They hoarded them and started doing all sorts of crazy experiments with cutie marks. It was a research station way out in the mountains on the eastern edge of the glacier. Prime middle-of-nowhere kind of place. What were they doing? I dunno. What would you do if you could separate your soul from your body?" She shivered. "I left before it was even a year old, and came straight here. One of the upsides to working in Ironridge is that moon glass is super rare, so I don't have to deal with it much."
But it was still there, Maple reminisced, thinking of White Chocolate. Pointedly, she didn't let her mind wander down the paths of what a markless pony could do... but Howe did for her.
"Remove your very soul?" He scratched at his head. "Well, I suppose I would seal it somewhere safe! Would that protect me from perishing were I to be tragically eviscerated?"
"Wouldn't that turn you all zombified?" Neon Nova asked, tilting his head. "If you took the little pony in your head and locked them up outside?"
Gerardo tapped a talon. "Are you quite sure a pony's mark and their soul are one and the same? What of those many who never earn theirs, or, like griffons, who cannot? Even were one to hold a position of some type of superiority, even ponies who do manifest marks spend the earlier stage of their life without! This all seems quite mysterious..."
"One question at a time!" Valey shouted, muttering under her breath. "You guys are incorrigible. If Selma really wanted to get under my coat, he should have just pestered me with questions..."
She coughed once they were silent. "All right. I dunno if you can make yourself immortal. I'd be surprised if that wasn't something they tried. You don't go all noodly, you're just like you were when you didn't have a mark. And Birdo, I seriously have no clue. Now do you mind? I don't know a lot about this, I hate not knowing stuff, and that's why I didn't want to talk about it in the first place! Point is, bad stuff is bad. The end." Sullenly, she walked away.
Maple chased after her, the group still wandering through the Flame District tunnels. "Valey, wait!" Her hooves pounded against stone as she drew up alongside her. "Is there anything else bad you know they can do? I know you said they were considered hazardous waste before the moon glass was found. We really could use knowing what the yaks want them for."
"Yeah," Valey sighed. "They could make ponies fight over them."
Maple's eyes widened, and she glanced back at Howe and Neon Nova.
"Pretty much." Valey shrugged. "I have no idea how. Maybe they're telepathic, and alive somehow. Maybe they just have an effect on nearby emotions. I can't detect when I'm near them, but I can detect ponies under their influence, so I'm guessing it's the latter. Fortunately, you're so meticulously nice that I really doubt you had any problems with it."
Visions of the past things she had done with the orb surfaced in Maple's mind, making her squirm uncomfortably. In the Water District, while robbing the crates... was that why she and Starlight had taken it, instead of what she presumed was moon glass? Had White Chocolate had any qualms about giving it back to her? Would anyone be drawn to it, sitting in her cabin on Shinespark's ship? Had Gerardo even put it there? She clenched her eyes, grimacing. Even simply being told was making her doubt her friends.
Finally, she considered how carrying it had made her feel. She had become exhausted to the point of collapse, weary with muscle pains and gaining no energy from long periods of rest in the motorized cart and at White Chocolate's house. Perhaps her cutie mark had somehow shielded her from the heart's magic, and caused it to take a physical toll on her body instead? She hoped that was the case. At least that would mean the damage had worn off.
"Then again," Valey continued, "think about someone who isn't all friends-with-everything. Someone who already has it in for someone else, and is just looking for a reason to fight. Maybe food is scarce... That's a really big problem for ponies in Yakyakistan. It's not a very big influence, but if tensions are already high, it can be all that's needed to push something over the edge. From there, you get superstitions, and going on from those..." She kicked into a faster pace, pulling a few steps ahead. "Yeah, they wound up with a reputation."
"Hmm..." Gerardo was following along behind. "I suppose this could line up with what we know. A conflict in the Water District seems nigh inevitable, as Selma seeks to profit off it and fully believes it will happen. We lack any knowledge of Herman's motivation for starting such a battle, but the fact that these hearts can apparently cause wars of their own is cause for correlation. But if the effect is as minor as you say, why would they go to such extreme lengths to procure some, and then ship them as the centerpiece in this plan?"
Howe shrugged. "My, uhh... sacred intellect pales at this problem. Comrades? Any suggestions?"
"The way I see it," Gerardo continued, talons clicking against the floor, "is that this conflict will be on a much larger scale than what the hearts are known to create, yet still much smaller than the entire city... so far. Thus, I can see two explanations. One is that the yaks seek to amplify the power of the heart somehow to broaden its effect, thus expanding any conflict that is sparked... though that still doesn't explain the why, and could also be achieved through easier means. Furthermore, we have no clue how such a thing would be accomplished."
His eyes shone brightly in their sockets as he prepared to finish. "On the other side, it is entirely possible that... and forgive me for my uneducated scientific flailing... it could be less that the hearts are a catalyst for the war so much that the war is a catalyst for the hearts."
"Buh?" Valey stared sideways at him, along with everyone else.
"Erm..." Gerardo fidgeted under their stares. "What I mean to say is, if the hearts are capable of affecting conflict, perhaps conflict is capable of affecting the hearts? Valey postulated that they could have been created in the first place, rather than actual organs from demons of myth. What if the entire purpose of driving the districts to blows is to create a source of disharmony and strife to... enhance them somehow? Perhaps for some experiment bringing them closer to their ultimate goal that requires something more powerful than the existing hearts?"
Everyone continued staring at him.
"You know," Neon Nova pointed out, "there's a big, fat old war goin' on up in Varsidel right now. If a little punch-punch-pow is all it takes, why not slip on up there and borrow that old stuff?"
"I, well..." Gerardo hesitated. "In truth, I have no idea. I suppose that's a hole in my theory, isn't it?" He grinned crookedly. "While we're speculating about Varsidel, though, I did happen to adventure there many years ago. It was a politically... interesting place, and I'm not completely baffled by its present state of war. That said, their conflict was just beginning when I left the final port of civilization on my seaward journey to Ironridge, and as such I'm quite behind on the news. Does anyone know for certain that Yakyakistan is not behind the war there, as well?"
Maple's ears folded. "Are you saying you think Yakyakistan is trying to send the rest of the world to war, or something? Like... Like what happened forty years ago?"
"I can't say that I am." Gerardo shook his head. "Did we have this conversation before? I have a vague memory of it being stated by myself or another that the last yak war was an internal affair... Regardless, however, I'd wish them luck in attempting to destabilize or conquer the rest of the world, because they would fail. Not only are the Plains of Harmony virtually inaccessible, but the Griffon Empire is far too stable and geographically removed from their clout for the yaks to have any bearing there."
Maple sadly smirked. "You know, I recall a certain someone telling us Ironridge was far too stable for anything to happen while we were here when we were deciding to go, too..."
Gerardo chuckled nervously. "Well, Ironridge doesn't very well have a millennia-old goddess protecting it, does it? The peacekeeping abilities of economic councils, foreign powers and intense regional animosity pale in comparison to someone who's seen everything before."
"Well, the Plains of Harmony are also protected by the mountains," Maple sighed. "Though they do sound like a place I'd like to visit some day... I was talking about the Griffon Empire, though."
A smug grin spread across Gerardo's face. "Ah, well, you see... so was I!"
Maple nearly tripped.
"Are you pulling the Howenator's tail?" Howe asked, incredulous. "You mean to say that you found a rock to grow up under where you never even heard of the griffon goddess?"
Gerardo nodded sagely. "Such places certainly exist, though I'm mildly surprised you haven't at least come across mention of her in your life. Filling you in, I imagine, will be most-"
"Hey, can the chatter!" Valey suddenly hissed, pulling against a wall. The rumble of machinery was loud in the air, vibrations seemingly coming up through the floor, and the air temperature was steadily increasing. "We're at the part where we have to either sneak, look like we belong here, or beat up anyone who gets in our way, and even me being me I'd really prefer the ways that don't leave trails right now!"
Unhappily, Gerardo shut his beak, leaving Maple wondering just when she'd get another chance to ask.