Grandpapa led Valey through two doors and a corridor, Starlight and Amber on her heels. They ended what felt like a bedroom converted to a storage room, a functional lock on the door that the old stallion quickly used to bolt them in. "Now then," he sighed, seating himself on a chest. "I have told you what I want. The sarosian race has an embattled image, here in the Empire. I would see it improved, and certainly not see it harmed. You have potential to make a big difference in either direction, and every bit of experience I possess says force is the only kind of reason your type listen to." He raised an eyebrow. "But you've been stubborn, and so here we are."
"Uh huh." Valey nodded. "I'm not interested in trashing the reputation of batponies here, though. I've seen how we're treated, and it stinks. Bananas, I had a pretty good idea of what it was like already the first time I even met you. So, I'm officially promising that's not my intent." She returned an even stare. "You happy? Because something tells me it's not that simple."
"Do you understand?" Grandpapa countered. "Have you seen with your own eyes the darkest depths our kind can sink to to get what they want?"
"Yeah, actually, I have," Valey said, sitting on her haunches and folding her forelegs. "Chauncey. We even brought him up earlier. I saw his Nightmare Modules, met Stanza three times, spent way longer than anyone deserves with Crystal, and was there when he blew up Izvaldi. And after all was done, I thought he was sad. I'm never going to fall so far that I do things like him."
Grandpapa scrutinized her, then rubbed his chin. "Well, you do have a moral compass, but if that's all you saw him do..."
"We learned about the thing with the foals and the moon glass," Valey continued. "We saved Puddles from him. I know about the Firefly Sisters, and what he was using them for. I know exactly who Navarre is and what he was doing there, and I know why Chauncey wanted me, too."
Grandpapa hummed. "And do you know why he left Mistvale and came to the Empire in the first place?"
Valey blinked. "Uhh... I think he said he just didn't like the Night Mother?"
Grandpapa scoffed. "That's what he would say. Do you know what happened between him and Lord Victor, Percival's father? Do you know what he had to do with that mining accident that poisoned the river twenty years ago? Or why ponies like Crystal and Meyneth hated him so much?"
"Uhhh..." Valey trailed off. "No, I... never actually did hear why he and Crystal hated each other. He's kind of dead, so I didn't care to figure out..."
"You said you knew him, old stallion," Amber remarked. "You two just go way back?"
Grandpapa nodded. "Oh, yes. We go very far back. Once upon a time, we were clergy together in a southern city in Mistvale."
"He was a monk?" Valey asked. "With you? We heard from one dude Chauncey was around in this war fifty years ago, and got ticked and tried to steal the Nightmare Modules, but he was definitely lying..."
"And you were close to the Empire?" Amber added.
"Indeed," Grandpapa said. "This was a long time ago. Before even the Yanavan incident, or the brief war with Gyre that preceded it. In those days, we were zealous and pious, young stallions who loved the Night Mother and her laws. And then? A mare came."
Valey and Amber sat, listening attentively.
"She was from Gyre," Grandpapa narrated. "Quite a beauty, but not a sarosian. She was looking for refuge from her life there, and our temple accepted her."
"And someone fell in love with her," Valey interrupted. "But you guys had those heresies..."
"A sharp little mare, aren't you?" Grandpapa wryly said, leaving Valey uncertain whether he was being sarcastic. "We might have both had our hearts set aflutter. He was the only one who was serious enough to do anything about it."
Amber nudged Valey, and they both fell silent, letting him continue.
"The rest of the world, at this point in time, was feeling the grasp of Yakyakistan's expanding empire," Grandpapa continued. "Mistvale had traded with the Griffon Empire before, on and off throughout history. But the yaks' reach touched our shores, and we suddenly had materials we could never have dreamed of getting on our own. Garments, craftsponyship. Magical learning... Windigo hearts."
Valey's eyes widened slightly. "Those were around back then? This was fifty years ago, right? Since it was before that Gyre war? I thought the windigo hearts only appeared after Yakyakistan's war finished ten years later..."
"However they got them, they had them," Grandpapa insisted. "There weren't many, and they didn't come cheap, but the convoy insisted it was a powerful magical reagent with unknown applications. Chauncey bought one with temple funds, believing it could react to our Mistvale arts and do something to help. He and that mare from Gyre had a relationship together in secret, but it's hard to keep secrets from the Night Mother when she can communicate in our minds. But Chauncey found a way."
Everyone listened as he continued. "Chauncey found a way, by using Mistvale arts on windigo hearts, to create these," Grandpapa said, pulling out a small, black piece of metal that reminded Valey suspiciously of the substance that made up Stanza's crown. He held it out for them to examine. "It's a part of yourself. When a sarosian loses this, they are locked out from the dusk statue network connecting us all to the Night Mother."
Valey blinked. Crystal had said she couldn't talk with dusk statues, hadn't she...?
"Is that yours?" Amber asked, the black metal reflected in her eyes.
"This?" Grandpapa shook his head. "Oh, no. This is Chauncey's. He gave it to me decades ago as a token of friendship. These things can only be unmade by their owners, and he could use the network as long as he was touching it. But he wanted his thoughts and relationship kept secret from the Night Mother, and so he wanted it nowhere near him."
"Can I see that?" Starlight tilted her head, looking expectantly at the tiny piece of metal.
"Here." Grandpapa gave it to her. "Now that he's dead, you can keep it, for all I care. In the hooves of all but its owner, it is inert and useless." He shrugged. "Chauncey always said he knew instinctively where it was even when it wasn't on him, so having it far away was something he enjoyed. It was like it registered in his sense of smell."
Valey suddenly froze, glancing at Starlight. "That's, uh... Huh. Really?"
"I never did it to myself," Grandpapa said. "But we're getting distracted. Chauncey found a way to put himself outside the Night Mother's reach. He had to give up his robes when he couldn't explain to the other monks what had happened to his connection, but it was something almost any of us could have done, and all for the sake of what his heart told him was right. Would you have done that? Forsaken the Night Mother's teachings because your own heart told you otherwise?"
"Well, duh." Valey shrugged, pretending not to have been staring at Starlight. "I'm not exactly her biggest fan."
"And, so, you can see why I was worried." Grandpapa nodded. "Young firebrands feeling they know better than their protectors never ends well. It didn't for Chauncey, either. He kept that windigo heart of his, and the two of them saw each other in secret, and they tried starting a family. They didn't know that sarosians always breed true. If you've been around Chauncey recently, it might feel like an open secret, but this is very rare knowledge in the Empire and in Mistvale. But they were happy together, and I covered for them, and they might have lived happily ever after if the inevitable hadn't happened and they were discovered."
Valey and Amber's ears stuck up straight. "It was interesting it took so long, in hindsight," Grandpapa said. "Mares don't just have children when they're the only one of their kind around, and especially not three of them. Those two were busy! But even if Chauncey didn't find out, someone higher up did. His lover was mortally injured. His foals were killed."
"Ouch." Amber folded her ears.
"Yeah," Valey agreed. "He had it coming, but... ouch."
Grandpapa shrugged. "The executor of the Night Mother's will who did the deed was a local mare. She had a family too. A young daughter, several years older than that filly there." He pointed a hoof at Starlight. "A child for a child, Chauncey said. Nobody knew it was he who fathered those three. So he foalnapped her. He was blinded by grief, wanted the most painful way to make that executor pay. I was there when he did it. He took that windigo heart and did something he must have learned from Yakyakistan, something nobody even knew he could do."
He made a smashing motion with his hooves. "The very next moment, his lover was entombed in ice, missing her brand in a room beneath the floor of the temple shrine. There was a light floating in the air, a symbol matching the mark of the executor's daughter. We watched as it was drawn into the blue energy conduits that form lighting in Mistvale's cities. And where that daughter had been was a young sarosian filly who looked just like his lover."
"But that's impossible!" Valey protested. "That stuff wasn't invented until after the war!"
"The war in Yakyakistan?" Grandpapa raised an eyebrow. "Oh, that had already transpired. These two were careful, and didn't even dare to have children for many years. It would have been perhaps thirty-five years ago. Maybe more. They had many years of memories together when this occurred. It was the point at which I realized he was dangerous, and we went our separate ways. I left the Empire for Gyre, and grew into the service of their lord, fighting in the tournament. Chauncey stayed in Mistvale. I do not know what he did. But next I met him, after the Yanavan affair years later, he still had that stolen filly... and he had a Nightmare Module."
"Yeah, we heard he had something to do with that," Valey sighed. "Wasn't from a trustworthy source, like I said."
"How he did it is irrelevant." Grandpapa shook his head. "I just saw him while he was passing through. The child was grown up by then, with a newborn daughter of her own I knew was his, though she posed as Chauncey's daughter herself. The newborn was Crystal. They were barely with me for a day, making their way south, and Chauncey filled my ears with plans and goals to create some way to transfer a pony's memories. I don't even know if his old lover was still there, frozen in the ice on the brink of death, but he wanted to regain the time they had spent together. He had researched the heresies, found out that sarosians always breed true, and wanted to research the ways we have offspring, hoping he could modify us to create a new sarosian who can have children of either parent's type. He believed that would make the heresy unnecessary... or allow him to do something the Night Mother couldn't. That blackened form of my old friend was lost and very, very angry."
Valey winced. "Sounds insane. Not that he wasn't already, but do you mean all those weird research habits of his he kept talking about using to make a new goddess came in the first place from trying to save a forbidden love?"
"It is likely." Grandpapa nodded slowly. "That was the last time we ever spoke, though I have heard stories from Meyneth. He found himself seeking refuge in Izvaldi, which was ruled by Lord Victor, a corrupt, incompetent griffon with no eyes for the future. Victor's father was ailing and had recently been forced to give his son control, and Chauncey realized if he could manipulate the lord, he could have a whole province all under his control. A place to build a refuge for himself and his dreams..."
"So did he?" Amber shuffled where she sat.
"Oh, yes." Grandpapa nodded harder. "He tried to bargain, at first. But Victor only had eyes for himself, and asked for that mare, the executor's daughter with the brand and soul of Chauncey's lover, as his concubine. It was nothing more than a little case of selling a seat in the government to the highest bidder. And while the Chauncey of old might have refused, this one had a Nightmare Module, and love had been replaced by desire in his heart. He wanted the other modules. He knew one could erase memories, and desired it in his quest to restore his lover's mind. He thought anything he did could be undone. And so he sold Crystal's mother when she was still too young to speak."
Starlight was still busy studying the metal, but Valey frowned. "Dude, this isn't the greatest story..."
Grandpapa shrugged. "It is what it is. Most importantly, it's a warning, one for anyone who would give themselves up for power. You start by putting your heart above your goddess. And the spiral of destruction will never end."
"I would never do that!" Valey protested. "I know about Nightmare Modules. I've held one, and I'm never using one no matter what!"
"Are you really?" Grandpapa raised a dangerous eyebrow. "I know their effects myself, and I saw one, a shadow cloak, used when your friend faced me in the arena. That is not one Chauncey had. Someone on your side has already dabbled in these, and they are one wound to the heart away from catastrophe. You are playing with forces you don't understand. It feels like power, and I watched my friend take that power and when the world hit him again, he burned."
That got Starlight's attention. "They're really that bad?"
"He knew it cost him some emotions," Grandpapa continued. "When I met him on his way south, he spoke of feeling colder, more rational, like something was missing and he didn't know what. He spoke of lights around other ponies, about desire, and how wonderful his transmuted lover made him feel, even without her memories. But it cost him his reason, his ability to weigh the value of anything beyond what he wanted. And he lived like that for years, watching and ruling Izvaldi as an advisor, raising Crystal as his granddaughter and keeping her hidden from Victor while he used his power to keep chasing those dreams. And then it all ended with a bottle of alcohol and a moment that wasn't meant to be overseen."
He took a breath. "Meyneth wouldn't tell me the details, other than that she was there. But Lord Victor was drunk, saw that mare he had been promised with Chauncey and Crystal. Victor killed her. Crystal killed him, barely into her tenth year. Chauncey protected her and framed it as a suicide, but blamed her when they were alone. 'If you hadn't been seen with your mother, he wouldn't have grown jealous...' Victor was always a jealous griffon. I learned this from Meyneth. The goal of all his experiments was gone. He was broken by a Nightmare Module. Who knows if it was possible in the first place. But what was he left to do but take all of his work and repurpose it toward fighting the goddess he believed started all this? Experiments on eugenics. Memory transference, controlling a mare's offspring, moving brands... all of it began moving towards a singular goal: kill the Night Mother."
Grandpapa sat back, finished. "...Wow," Valey eventually said. "That's so messed-up I don't even know if I'd believe it, except... it kind of explains the way he was. He definitely hated gods and thought the world needed someone better."
"I don't know whether to feel sorry for him, or what," Amber sighed. "So what does all that have to do with Valey?"
"It's a cautionary tale," Grandpapa answered, shaking his head. "It's the worst ponies are capable of falling, when they combine an immense passion with following their heart, a disregard for our gods, and a knowledge of these sciences mortals were not meant to know. Tell me, Valey. How does this not describe you?"
"I..." Valey swallowed, looking at her hooves. "Bananas, you're kinda right. I do know way, way more than I'm comfortable with about Chauncey's science, and not just from after I met him. But I wanna be a good guy, and I'm never selling out my friends. And, like, if this has so much potential to go badly, anyone knowing about this... what do I even do?"
Suddenly, she became aware of Starlight holding onto her side. "You give up and stop trying."
Grandpapa hummed in interest, then nodded down at Starlight. "She understands. You must understand that hardship is the way of the world, trust in those far above you instead of trying to usurp them, and admit to yourself that just because you can and you want to does not mean you must. Whatever you were fighting for in the tournament, you would be happier without it."
"I was fighting for my friends," Valey mumbled.
"And Chauncey started out fighting for his lover," Grandpapa finished. "How long do you think it took him before he started fighting for his own need of her instead? The more I learn about you, my dear, the more you remind me of him when we were young. This is why I wanted you to quit the tournament. And it is all I have to say."
"We're, uhh..." Valey looked at her friends. "Gonna need to talk about this for a bit..."