Chapter 6
“So where are we now?” Twilight looked around afore she dropped and rolled in the dirt underfoot, like any horse in my world you could name. When she got back up she looked drier. Maybe I envied her the least little bit for how easy it was for her to get clean. “This isn’t that swamp.”
“It purely isn’t,” I responded her, and it wasn’t, either. None of that creeping moss hanging like ruined curtains in some haunt’s house, or the smell like something rotten, or the thick heavy swamp-plants all underfoot. Not night any more, either. It minded me of something. I said as much out loud.
“Well, it should, shouldn’t it?” Twilight walked past me and down the trail we stood on. “Whatever it is, it’s something from your memories.”
I tried minding myself what this place must be as I walked along that trail aside Twilight. It looked old enough to have been used by the first settlers and the Indians afore them. Dirt packed down beneath and half-seen animal prints in it, deer and rabbit and something that minded me of a man’s hand. Except I nair saw any man-print that showed claws tipping the fingers. Not airy natural man, airy way.
“It feels familiar, is all I can rightly say now,” I told her. I looked ahead and saw more trail and trees ahead. No sign of any sneaking Shonokin, and I didn’t, well, I didn’t feel like they were using around us right then. I said as much to Twilight and, “Might be what you did to the one playing at being Frogfather scared them off for now. I thank you again for that.” She didn’t say a thing, just kept trotting along. I added, “I mind me what you did when we first met. You’ve been a-learning since then and no mistake.”
“Thanks,” Twilight’s mane half hid her face when she spoke, but she sounded unsettled. “They’re our enemies, and I, I suppose I helped kill Sombra, and fought Tirek to the end, but I still don’t like hurting anypony whoever they are.”
“Who are these fellows Sombra and Tirek?” I inquired her. “Fellows from your world like Thorne and the Shonokin?”
She looked at me like she wondered what to say. She opened her mouth once or twice, sighed, and then pointed her horn at a long-fallen tree nearby. “Those Shonokin of yours don’t seem to be near. Maybe I should tell you what’s happened since we met.” She looked at her bare shoulders and frowned. “Even if I can’t prove it all right now.”
“I mind you said you had wings now, like Miss Dash and Fluttershy,” I went to set my guitar aside and didn’t feel the least bit happy to realize I didn’t have it with me. I looked down to see my army boots were on my feet. I took those with me after leaving the service. This must be some time when I wandered afore I got either my guitar or the learning I found. Back when I wondered what to do with myself after the fighting. I sat myself beside Twilight. “I purely hope they’re doing well. And Pinkie, and Miss Rarity, and Applejack and Spike and all the rest.”
“We’re all fine, which surprises me when I think about it.” Twilight smiled to say it. “It’s been a pretty lively past couple of years for us… How long has it been for you?”
“Near ‘bout the same, I figure.” I did some wondering. “It seems time passes more normal-like atween out worlds now. Normal for us, airy way.” I stretched my leg but didn’t feel tired as I would in my own old waking-word body after all I’d done. That was maybe the one part of this I liked.
But not so much as what I’d hear next.
“We-ell…” Twilight said, and started to speak. I tell you all, I wish you could have been there to hear it. She’d seen things like some hero from the old stories my greatest-grandmother and father might could have brought over the seas with them. How she and her friends stopped a wicked queen that a-tried making slaves of her people and a-turning herself into the lady her brother loved, and using her to be killing, Cadence, I think she called her.
“Does that name sound odd to you?”
“Not when I think on just how much you ponies purely down love music.” I wondered me if I heard something flap heavy-like through the trees overhead. I looked as cautious as I could, I didn’t want to go frightening Twilight or letting whatair made that sound know I saw them, but nothing there. “I doubt me that was all that happened. And I nair would have thought you had a brother.”
“Heh, yeah, Pinkie Pie said that surprised more ponies than I’d ever know.” She smiled and narrated me some more, how she and her friends faced a wicked dead king and freed his poor folk from a-being his slaves, like someone from one of those stories the brothers they call Grimm wrote about.
And more, about how those Elements of theirs changed again and became part of them like that magic they all used. I wondered me how crazy this would all sound to airy other soul alive, like something they show on that television I keep a-hearing of down in the towns.
And more still from Twilight. How she became what she called an alicorn.
“But you always had one of those,” I bespoke her, pointing to her horn. She wondered at me with her eyes and blinked.
“They used to call unicorn horns by that word a long time ago in my world, before the Princesses… They use it in your world too?” She looked around for something to write it down with and sighed. “I so hope I can visit your world for real someday. Like Canterlot High. I have to learn what your people know.”
“Like what place now?”
She told me how she’d gone to another world chasing another student of Celestia’s, someone named Sunset who’d gone bad and needed to be shown that she’d done wrong. All human folks there she said, or near all. “Not like your people though. More – colorful, like us; same coat colors, same mane colors, same names, like a reflection of Equestria. But music could be as strong there as when you used it. I wish you could have seen it.”
“I’d not dare, save I had a friend like you with me for the company.”
She grinned and finished it up. More troubles in that other place, but with Sunset a-helping this time, against three sirens like from the old-timey stories of the Greeks. Stopping them, and then finally facing down what sounded like the devil his own self, something she called Tirek.
And as she bespoke me, something else that made me feel uneasy, like someone was nearby, a-watching and a-hating on us both. I looked around and listened with whatever attention I could spare from Twilight, but nair sign, nair sound, of anyone, be they Shonokin or whatair.
“You’ve had a time for yourself, and no mistake,” I told Twilight. She blushed as I said, “Did I air tell this to anyone, they’d nair believe a single word of it.”
“There was a lot more,” Twilight admitted. “Things I consider at least as important – helping old friends, making some new friends, learning and seeing new places and a new home, I still miss the library, and trying to teach some of what you showed me about protective magic when I could find the time.” She sighed. “I’m pretty busy these days.”
“Not so busy that you couldn’t come here and let me drag you into my troubles, sorry to say.” I patted her on the withers. That minded me. “You say you have wings now, and are as strong as Applejack. Whereair did they go?”
“I’m not sure,” Twilight scratched her chin and frowned. “I think it’s because this isn’t my physical form, and this is your dream-realm. Luna told me that since you remembered me as a unicorn that I might find myself turned back into one.”
I reckon I felt the worse then. It must have showed, because she took me by the hand. It felt funny to have that little hoof holding me, but the look in her eyes was as kindly as any human born of woman that air lived, and more so than some.
“It’s not your fault! It’s nothing you can help. I did pretty good as a unicorn, too.” She stood up and set her head against me. I patted her along the neck as she said, “And no talk about dragging me into your troubles. You’re a friend in trouble and I’m able to help. What else am I supposed to do?”
“I wish this didn’t fall on you along with me,” I gave her a gentle squeeze back. “But I’d be hanged for a liar if I didn’t admit I felt right glad you were here. Whereair ‘here’ is right now.” I thought for a second and minded myself of something I once read, and I said it to her. “’Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers’.”
“Yes!” Twilight looked double interested at those words. She shook her head. “That sounds like something Celestia might say.” She smiled. “Something I might say too, these days.”
Something rustled in the bushes right nearby. We both heard the short sharp mean laugh.
That fast Twilight was up and atween me and it, her horn glowing as she faced the spot where that laugh seemed to come from. Whatair it was we didn’t see, and I can say I tried.
“Why don’t you come out?” Twilight said. She didn’t raise her voice but I heard how she meant bad business when she said it. “Come on out, and see if you find what we said as funny when we can look you in the face.” She scraped the ground with one front hoof, like any normal horse getting theirselves a-ready to fight.
Whoair was in there didn’t want any of it. We both heard, or maybe more felt, something sidle away. I can’t describe it so well as I wish, but it felt like the heaviness of cold and hating eyes on us slipped away. I tell you all, it felt good to not feel it any more.
“I think it’s best we were a-moving along again,” I said to Twilight. I looked down around and saw a few pieces of wood here-there on the ground, big enough to make a good torch or club with. I fetched the biggest piece up and held it. It made a fine good weight in my hands right then.
“I think you’re right,” Twilight bespoke me in turn. We both of us set off down that trail, a-watching the woods about us as we went and wondering whatair it was we would be running into next.
And with me hoping and a-praying that whatair it was, it wasn’t something of my memories that the Shonokin would use to make an end of us both.
# # #
Twilight kept her ears and eyes open as she traveled beside John through the woods, moving what felt vaguely like downhill. If direction had any meaning in what was basically a dream-world. She thought they could go faster if she could fly. That thought made her concentrate on restoring her wings. She felt magic stir in her, but only a hint of what she had back home. Twi looked at her shoulders and sighed. It was a shame John was so strong-willed. Then again, if he wasn’t, the Shonokin would be able to tear this whole place apart and kill us both.
That gave her an idea.
“John? Maybe I can get my wings back in here after all.”
“Howair do you mean to?” He loomed at her curious, and almost as young as some of her human friends at Canterlot High. But there was a shadow in his eyes that they never had. They never had to kill their own kind, which probably explained it. At least she hoped they didn’t.
“This place is really from your own memories, right? It’s your dream-realm,” Twilight waited for him to nod, looking wary. “Well, then you should be able to change it. Just concentrate on me having wings again, and it should work.” Twilight stood in front of him, legs braced. “I think.”
John’s eyes went wide. “I can surely try, but what if I make you into something else? Something like those Sunnytown ponies we met in your world? I’d not like that, and I reckon you’d like it the less.”
“That won’t happen,” Twilight said as she made herself relax. She closed her eyes. “Just think strongly of ‘pony with wings’ and I should be able to use that to take my true form back again.”
She couldn’t see his face, but after a moment she felt something pushing at her, reshaping her. It wasn’t like the sudden wrench she went through when she used the Mirror Gate – wait, there were so many of those mirrors, would one lead to this world? It was more like the sudden uncomfortably warm ‘flowing’ she felt when using polymorph magics. And somehow when it ended she felt very familiar.
“Twilight,” John said, sounding amused and dismayed at once, “I reckon it didn’t work. Not how you wanted it to, anyhow.”
“What do ya mean – Huh?!?”
Twilight found herself off the ground. Yay, wings! But her voice! Rough and scratchy and very memorable. She looked along her body. A sky-blue coat, a long lashing rainbow colored tail and mane...
“You turned me into Rainbow Dash?” She folded her forelegs and huffed as she glared at John. It took her a moment to realize that was how Dash showed annoyance and she quickly unfolded them.
“You told me to think on a flying pony, and Dash was the one that stuck out in my mind the best.”
“She’ll be glad to hear that,” Twilight said, dropping back to the ground. She prepared to take her old form back and hesitated. “Wait, could you think of an Earth pony?” She saw his confusion. “You know, like Applejack?”
“I’ll try,” John said, and she felt him do it. That warm stretching and pulling again, and when she looked over her withers she saw a golden mane and tail and burnt-orange coat. She raised one hind leg experimentally and felt Earth pony strength in it. John crouched down in front of her.
“You look rightly enough like Applejack to be her twin,” he said. “Whyair did you want me to be doing this to you?”
“It might be useful,” Twilight stretched and found she could restore herself to ‘unicorn’ by focusing her thoughts on her memories of herself. “I may not be able to throw a lot of unicorn magic around, but maybe Pegasus and Earth pony magic will be less damaging in here.” She sighed. "Then again, I'm still not very good with Earth pony or pegasus magic. Better to stick with what I know." She closed her eyes and thought of herself, what she saw in the mirror every morning. When she reopened them she was herself again.
John blinked to see it happen.
“You get yourself in trouble that bad, you do whatair you need to and nair mind me.”
“We are in trouble that bad,” she reminded John. She started off down the trail again. “And I won’t take chances that might maim or kill you, any more than you would me.”
Something snickered again nearby. John snatched his club up and she snorted at it. It reminded Twilight all too well of Chrysalis’ mockery. The way the Shonokin made themselves look somewhat human, and even their slit-pupil eyes, brought the Changeling Queen to mind as well. But the Changelings and Shonokin are two different species, aren’t they? Or are they? If humans can be counterparts to ponies, why not some other race to Changelings? She shook herself, mane slapping against her neck. Thinking about the possibility of meeting another Chrysalis did nothing to calm her.
Purely for something to talk about, and to stop herself from giving anything else away to their watchers, she said, “Just what are the plants and animals we can find around here?”
John told her, pointing them out as they went. “There’s wake-robin, the blue beside it is spider-wort, and those little rosy bits are twisted-stem…” She kept her eyes on the plants and her ears tuned to both John and the odd sounds about them and by that they passed, well, some period of time.
She would wonder later how much time passed before she looked up to see a town before them. Twilight blinked at the sight of it.
Wooden frame houses, so different from most of Equestria, reminding her best of one visit she’d made to the hard-living Whiteys, the ponies who lived deep in Whitetail Wood. They looked weathered, but firmly made. A small shop, enough like ones back home to bring a pang of memory. In the distance a schoolhouse almost exactly like Cheerilee’s in Ponyville, enough so that she half expected to see little fillies and colts come tumbling out.
She also heard somepony speaking. But no ponies – people – in sight.
She started forward, only to freeze as John took hold of her withers.
“Now I mind me of this place,” he said, his voice wary. A glance showed her how his eyes narrowed. “Better stick close by me, here. This was one of the worst scared times I air did know in my whole long life, even in Equestria.”
A wave of dread broke over Twilight like one of Sombra’s magical mind-game traps. Or when she’d faced down Thorne or Tirek at the height of their power.
“W-what time was that – this?”
“Remember in that Library tree of yours? When I told you about that grimoire like Thorn’s?”
They were all in the Library, after she first met John at Sweet Apple Acres, and she was telling him what had happened to her with Thorn. And he was interrupting, again.
“I reckon I can tell what you saw when he opened that book. The first part was all white paper pages with writing on them in red ink, a-looking to be done by hand. The second part was red paper pages, and the writing on them was in black ink. And the third and last part was all black paper with no words on them you could see, save when Thorn made you hide all the light away and then you saw silver letters come onto the page…”
Then something snapped inside her with the memory of Thorn’s “magick” and she was on top of him, ready to trample him, horn charged with magic and ready to fight, seeing only another of Thorn’s race under her hooves. Applejack’s voice coming from a great distance, trying to talk her down.
“HOW DO YOU KNOW?”
And John also trying to calm her down, speaking even more slow and careful than Applejack.
“When I was a young man, maybe a sight younger than you are now, I wandered into a town where they were a-burying a man that’d died and asked for someone to eat his sins and take all he possessed. Like a gone gump, I did just that because I was hungry and looking for a home place of my own. It was a low-down trick. The people who offered me the house and all in it meant for me to become a witch with them. They tried to trick me into it with money and then food, and when neither worked they offered me a book to read. It was like the one I just described. It almost took me, but I got away.”
She didn’t like where this was going. “Y-yes?”
“This is it.”
John let go of her withers and strode forward for a building she didn’t recognize, some sort of public hall like Ponyville Schoolhouse except larger and white instead of red, with a tall steeple crowning its belltower. The slow tolling of the bell rang in her head, her ears twitching down with each peal. He was four lengths ahead before she shook herself free of the memory and followed him.
Beside that building, a fenced-off yard filled with markers – rough-hewn stones similar to Pony memorial stones mixed with wooden stakes with crossbeams. By an open pit at the far corner, a small herd of “people” stood. Twilight looked with interest. This was the first time she’d seen any members of John’s race, aside from Thorn and those few men in that frozen place, but she didn’t care to remember Thorn and was too busy saving her life among the snow and ice. So she took a closer look as she followed John.
He walked right into the yard and stood on the outskirts of the small group. Twilight took it all in: the stallions – no, “men” – in rough clothes that showed signs of patching at the elbows, made of some fabric that showed in grays and browns and blacks, with white shirts beneath those long coats here and there. Many of them held broad-brimmed hats like Pinkie’s father wore in their hands, their scarred knuckles showing tight and pale. The mares – no, “women” – with them wore long dresses, slightly better kept than the men’s clothes but of the same sort of cloth. They all showed faces that reminded her of Applejack’s older relatives as well as of the hard-living Whiteys, lined and rough from weather and sun.
And in every one of those faces, dread mingled with satisfaction as they stared at the sight before them.
Another human-stallion stood there, in a long black coat like but unlike those of the Shonokin, holding a hat in one hand and a large open book bound in black leather in the other. Behind him and next to the open pit, what even she knew for a casket, plain wood with the lid nailed down. She dimly noticed something like a large dog lying beside it. So his folk practice inhumation like Earth Ponies, instead of cremation like Unicorns or “air burial” like Pegasi or “trench burial” like Sea Ponies… No marker tree? She looked at those faces again and saw the glee, no, the relief, there. No. Even if they do it normally or not, they don’t want any part of this one returning to them. Like Princess Celestia casting Thorn back to wherever he came from.
Beyond the casket and the crowd, two shrunken gray figures sat stiffly on the ground like naughty foals being disciplined, their backs to the hall. Confused, she looked at John.
“Old mountain custom,” he whispered to her. “Airy witch or person that sells their soul won’t look on a church ‘less they can’t help it.”
Twilight looked back at the figures. Their clothes were unwashed rags, their hair hung in a tattered mess. They looked like the saddest and most pitiful beggars she’d ever seen.
“Whoever they sold them to, they didn’t get paid enough,” she whispered back to John. He just nodded.
“And thus,” the human before the crowd said as he indicated the box behind him, “we set to rest Levi Brett,” a sudden intake of breath from the crowd, short and scared. “Our deceased,” his mouth seemed to work on an unpleasant taste, “brother.”
“And good riddance,” someone muttered somewhere in that crowd. The rest shifted like they felt they ought to rebuke them, but lacked the desire.
“He has left this request behind,” the black-coated man said. He set a thick leather packet down on the casket, along with a heavy bronze key. “For someone to eat his sins, take their weight on themselves, and pray out the evil that he did. For that person, he set aside the money in this wallet, a good fifty dollars.”
Twilight looked at John. Even here curiosity still worked in her. She whispered, "'Eat his sins'?"
"It's an old-timey custom, near dead even when I was a boy," John whispered back to her. "Someone who died without air confessing their sins and asking forgiveness for them, other folks will ask a body to take those sins on their own selves to save the dead man from a-dealing with them." He nodded at the speaker. "Fifty dollars is a right rare amount of money to be a-asking for that."
Twilight didn’t know how many bits “fifty dollars” was worth, but the sudden intake of breath and renewed interest in the eyes of some onlookers showed her John's truth. It must be valuable here among these folk. One young man among them, as young as John had been in Frogfather’s swamp, stepped forward as the man spoke again.
“And too, that they shall gain his house on Dravot Ridge, along with all that is waiting for them within it.”
At those words the eager human-colt paled and stepped back into the crowd.
“Twilight?” John stepped forward. “Come along with me now.” To the man in the coat, he said, “I’ll take them, sir. Me and my friend here with me.” He pointed at Twilight.
The crowd looked at him and then her. Twilight wondered if for a second confusion flashed across those faces. It passed like a handful of dust on the wind. This is a dream, after all. From what John and Luna both said, I’m a part of it. To everyone but John and the Shonokin, I belong here.
Black Coat stepped forward. He seemed relieved, but when he spoke it was with a tone of warning.
“Are you sure, son?” He looked down at Twilight. Worry was in his eyes. “And yourself, young – lady?”
“I rightly am, preacher,” John nodded to him. “’Asides, it’s for the dead man’s rest, isn’t it?”
“That it is,” Black Coat – no, “Preacher” – replied, and a shrill voice from the crowd called, “Amen! Bless you, brother and sister, you’ll need it to rid yourself of Levi Brett’s sins!”
“John…” Twilight looked around at those faces, gone from despair to sudden hope mingled with fear. She wondered who if any of them was a Shonokin. Even if they weren’t, she felt the tension here in the air. “You really did this?”
“I was a-starving then,” he answered her as he took the wallet from the preacher. “And fifty good dollars was naught to laugh at. But mind now, stick close by me.”
“Don’t worry,” she muttered back as Preacher raised one hand over her and John alike.
“Son, daughter,” he said bleakly. “Let me give you whatever blessings I can now. I can only hope it will be enough and that you won’t suffer out of season for what you’ve done.”
“That would be right good now, preacher,” John said. Twilight waited with him as the blessing was said. It reminded her in some ways of similar things she'd heard said among ponies. And zebras and griffons and Diamond Dogs as well, from what she remembered. No surprise, is there? Most of us want the same things. She glanced at the casket. And fear the same things.
And the words were done. John turned to one of the nearest in the crowd, a stout man and his wife with blunt honest faces. His eyes stabbed at them both over a thick heavy beard and mustache.
“I ask your pardon,” John said, taking some of the money from the wallet. It looked dingy in the light. “Is there air thing to be eaten here? My friend and I are hungry, and we can pay…”
The man recoiled. It reminded Twilight of what her friends told her about the Crystal Ponies when surprised they were by Sombra. He and what had to be his wife both took several steps back.
“You take that money away from me right the now, you hear?” He glared at them, doubled his hands into fists. “I wouldn’t have any part of Levi Brett or his money when he lived, and I’ll have nair part of it now that he’s dead. You and that poor young lady are purely a-rotting away inside from the sins you took on yourselves.”
“Please, young sir, miss,” his wife stepped up beside him, laying a hand on his arm. Pity warred with fear in her eyes. “I nair thought to turn away a hungry soul in all my born days. But I won’t have air thing that Levi Brett touched or used in my house. You’d best go away from here, to some other place where they don’t know what you carry on you. I sorrow that I can’t do more than that for you.”
“Is this the hospitality John told me about?” Twilight snapped. She looked up defiantly at the two humans, who gave her the same angry-scared looks they’d given John. She snorted. “Turning hungry ponies, er, I mean people, away?”
“If you knew what Levi Brett did, you’d nair have touched the least little penny of his money,” the man rumbled at her. Twilight rolled her eyes at this. This was almost as bad as Ponyville when Zecora first came to town! But before she could say anything, somepony cried out in a shrill voice.
“Look! See what Levi Brett’s critter is doing!”
Twilight turned and saw that the dog she’d seen by the casket was rising. It looked at her and John, with nasty clever eyes that made her think of a sewer rat. Then it loped over to them, too-long skinny paws slapping the dirt. It didn’t move like Applejack’s pet Winona, or even like a pony. It moved more like a Diamond Dog forced onto all fours. Like it wanted to stand upright, but couldn't quite manage it.
“That was Levi Brett’s critter,” The anger left that man's voice. He and his wife, everyone in the herd, showed a wild rising fear in their faces; if they were ponies, she’d have expected a stampede in the next few seconds. Twilight began to remember things John once told her about familiars, and the forms he’d seen bad magic-users in his world take on to terrorize others. She wondered if you could feel ill in a dream as the man said, “It came and lay right under his window when he was a-dying in the preacher’s home, and it made sounds like a woman screaming the whole while – you two, just go!” He shrieked at her and John. “It was Levi Brett’s, now air thing that was his is yours, just go to his house! It’ll follow you there!”
The creature, whatever it was, took one more step towards the crowd. Twilight could not say that they ran away, but they walked very quickly. Once they were gone it bared discolored fangs after them. Twilight half wondered if it sneered. Only when they stood alone beside the coffin did it turn and set itself between her and John.
“Hey!” She stepped as close as she dared. “Move it, there, pal! He and I both own you,” she swallowed past a foul taste in her mouth, “remember?”
It looked at her and stubbornly refused to move. John stood beyond it, hands half balled into fists. She noticed him sticking that wallet into his pocket, and making very sure where he kept it.
“John, I’m getting the idea that we’re done here.” Twilight looked back at the townspeople. They were drawing off swiftly, giving them fearful and angry looks as they did. All save three who lowered the coffin into the grave and began spading earth over it. And a small group of human-foals who reminded her all too well of the bullies from her own fillyhood as they pointed and jeered.
“Your soul to the devil,
Your soul to the devil,
Your soul to the devil – devil – devil…”
She snorted at them and they scattered with mock cries of fear and jeering laughter.
“Nair mind them, Twilight,” John nodded at the whatever-it-was, that beast from the coffin. “I begin to mind me more how this all went. Been a long time ago, else I’d remember the better. Right now I remember that we follow him.”
She saw how the creature looked at her, with a bit of a sneer in those too-smart eyes. That head, like a raccoon in the muzzle but with too much of a forehead behind. She wondered if even Fluttershy could find something likeable about this thing; not even from Thorn’s conjurings or Sombra’s mind-traps had she gotten such a feeling of something indefinably wrong.
“What are you?”
If it understood it gave no response. It merely headed for a trail leading into the woods away from town. It stopped once there and looked at them expectantly.
Twilight followed with a sigh.
“We’re going to be sorry before this is over.”
“All the more reason to get this over and done with,” John answered her as he came along behind. They started heading under the trees, hanging close and low around them, feeling like dungeon walls.
“Just so long as we’re not the ones who end up done,” Twilight muttered, and followed along that dark trail to someplace she knew she wouldn’t like seeing.