//------------------------------// // 8. Diplomacy, Part 1 // Story: Fallout: Equestria - To Bellenast // by Sir Mediocre //------------------------------// Chapter Eight Diplomacy, Part 1 First was the sharp ache, total and consuming. From the base of my tail to the tip of my nose, from the frogs of my hooves to my stiff back, I hurt. It was not the searing stab of a bullet wound or the throbbing bruise of rock clashing with muscle and bone, but a pervasive, exhausting soreness, indiscriminate in its intensity and location. My ankles, my thighs, my belly and withers, my shoulders and pectorals and neck: It was as though I had pulled every commonly injured muscle in my body plus all the others, ripped them off my bones, stretched them some more, and reattached them at the ligaments. My first few breaths after waking came in fitful gasps, and tears followed closely. My mouth and throat were parched, my tongue like a piece of dried jerky. A yawning emptiness clawed at my belly. My head began to pound sporadically, near my temples and behind my eyes. Second came the linen sheets and quilted blanket, the faint heat of a crackling fire a room away, and the luxurious bed that would have been several sizes too large for me even cut in half. I was not bleeding on a metal table. I was not in a clean, bright room, surrounded by ponies in blue scrubs and masks. I was not in a hospital. Third came the smell of fresh bread, wood smoke, the persistent howl of wind and rattle of windows and patter of sleet. The brewing storm had come to a boil. Curiously enough, there didn’t seem to be any thunder, only the clattering ice and wind. The bedroom was sparingly furnished, but the furnishings present were all dark hardwood. A large dresser and oval mirror stood against the wall beyond the four-poster bed and its soft green curtains draping from a frame near the ceiling, wreathed in shadow from a flickering candle nearby. A half-filled bookshelf and a table strewn with papers occupied the wall to my left, and the small window there was covered by drapes the same green as the bed curtains. What appeared to be an immense sack, like a poorly-shaped cushion, rested in the corner. Zephyr’s pale, violet coat blended almost perfectly with the lightly colored cushion; if not for the shine of her well-groomed coat and teal mane, and the glossy cover of a thick book lying open on her chest, I might not have seen her at all. Hanging on a wooden rack by the bedroom door was a familiar suit of gleaming armor and white caparison folded across its back. On a narrow, semicircular table against the wall by the rack was a tall candle on a yellow, ceramic dish. The room was otherwise bare, and a faint scent of mild soap hung in the air; the floorboards shone, as though the room had been mopped recently. The faint crackling from the fireplace came from down the short hallway beyond the open bedroom door. Not daring to stretch, I lifted the covers and clambered out of the bed, keeping my steps light as best I could despite the ensuing agony any movement invited. On the bedside table were a pitcher of water, a glass, filled already, and a plate with a large loaf of bread, cut into four chunks. I levitated the glass, gulped its cool bounty greedily, and poured myself a second helping while I bit into one of two pieces of bread I held in my magic, scarcely breathing until I had finished. It was sweet and dense, filled with crunchy seeds, and slightly sticky with whatever confection glazed the crust. I took unsteady steps as I ate, my head spinning. By the time I had reached the bedroom door and glanced back at Zephyr, tears streaked my face. Then I twisted my head farther to properly look at myself. The half-spread limbs sprouting from new, sore bundles of musculature behind my withers were naked and bare, almost completely bereft of plumage, but they were there. In the warm, dim glow of the candle, tiny pinfeathers gleamed on my, I had to admit, rather scrawny appendages. As though I had another pair of legs attached the wrong way, with nerves and tendons juxtaposed randomly, I stretched my stiff, aching wings wide and wiped the tears from my face with a forehoof. I doubted I ever would possess Night Cloud’s wingspan, and certainly I would not have Blitz’s powerful strokes or Eagle’s endurance, but they were mine. My wings. They twitched and suffered odd, jerky spasms, but I managed to fold them back down against my sides. My hind leg, too, was whole, and midnight blue again instead of chrome and white plastic. It tingled more than anything else, and my knee in particular hurt the most of all my aching joints, except, perhaps, for my lower back. Though the candlelight was not enough for me to see whether any scars remained, the patches of shaved fur on my spine and flanks were gone, and my coat fairly shone with a uniform glossiness. It was also thicker and somewhat shaggy. My mane and tail, too, were long and wild, to the point of trailing across the floor. My hooves, strangely, appeared to have been clipped, filed, and polished. I recognized Zephyr’s skill at work. The squeaking of a faucet and burble of running water caused my ears to flick toward the hallway, at a door several meters along the right side. I approached the door, favoring my left hind leg with a slight limp. -Night Cloud?- I waited, my ear pressed to the door. Water sloshed again, but no voice answered. -Night Cloud, are you in there?- Again, no answer came. I frowned and opened the door slowly. A light haze of steam lit by another of the tall, yellow candles greeted me, along with the smell of lilac I had come to associate with Night Cloud’s scent. Most of the generous bathroom was taken up by a spotless, claw-footed tub that was simply too large to have been anything other than built-to-order. Night Cloud’s rear hooves poked over the edge of the tub, and her head lay on the reclining lip on one side. A broad, wooden step stood in front of the bathtub. Several ceramic and glass bottles of shampoos and conditioners occupied one end of the step, along with a jar of dried flower petals. I made my decision and crept up to the bath, closing the door behind me with nary a click of the lock or squeak of hinges. My legs protested at every step, and Night Cloud opened her eyes and gasped only as I slipped into the hot water with her and sat astride her belly. I braced myself on her chest, leaned forward, and locked lips with her. Night Cloud slipped in surprise and wound up lying with only her head above the water. I was partially submerged, and yet I trembled, beset by a pounding heart and fiery yearning that made the water seem tepid by comparison. I darted in for a hungry kiss. Night Cloud gave a soft, happy moan and hugged me so tightly that my back popped in several places. She curled in on herself to envelop me with wings and strong legs. We remained joined at the mouth for several minutes, no breath shallow and every touch invigorating. Those several minutes, inevitably, made me lightheaded, and a cramp in my thigh caused me to collapse on her while I stretched and shook my leg. The mare pushed herself back into a reclining position and nudged her hind legs against my flanks, giving a pleased hum as she nuzzled my neck. “Mmmmmmm… didn’t think you’d be up so soon.” The alicorn pressed hard on my back with her forehooves, causing me to gasp in surprise and pain with equal measure. “Night…” I laughed through the shudders brought by pain throughout my entire body and wrapped my forelegs around her neck. “Everything hurts.” I kept laughing, crying, shaking on her chest, and smiled as she reduced my back to limp putty. “Everything hurts so much…” “I know, baby… I know.” Night Cloud lifted her head and shifted her hooves to the bases of my wings, and I moaned as she pressed and kneaded the new muscles there. “The most severe pain should be gone within… probably the next day, based on how long you’ve been out already, but…” “But…” I grimaced, but chuckled despite myself. “Not all of it… how long before I can at least stand and not feel like my spine was ripped out and stuck back in wrong?” “A few days…” I hissed as she dug her hooves into my lower back. “Though you may still be sore for a couple weeks. It varies.” I glared at the wall of the tub. Sighing, I mumbled, “Any chance I could have some painkillers?” “The only thing strong enough to really help would be Med-X or morphine.” Night Cloud shook her head and nipped the back of my neck. “Both of which are opioids, and highly addictive… I really don’t want to give you opioids.” “Mmm… fine.” I crossed my horn with hers to touch our foreheads together, and murmured, “I love you, Night…” I bit my lip. “And, um… I, um… have a question, actually.” I nipped her neck experimentally in return and whispered, “Why are you horny when you wake up? Or why am I. I didn’t mean that you were—I meant myself. Not you.” The alicorn snorted and began to giggle in the hazy candlelight. A wide smile adorned her muzzle. “Well…” She slowly rubbed her forehooves on my back. I sighed as she traced along my spine until she touched my wings and resumed her massaging. “You certainly ask some questions, young mare…” She gave a short chuckle blended into a sigh, but looked away from me. “I just thought that, um… since you’re a doctor…” “That I might be able to explain it. Yes, I understand… though I’m not technically a—” “Yeah, whatever. You’re a healer, you know doctor and biology stuff. Close enough.” I sat up on her belly, resting my forehooves just below her ribs. “And why didn’t you hear me? I asked if you were in here, at the door.” “I didn’t—oh.” She leaned her head back again and lit her horn briefly. My own horn tingled, then her lovely voice, accent and all, came from within my head. -My coupling wore off… I forgot.- She inhaled deeply and let out a long, exhausted sigh. “Sorry. Anyway… as you’re about to wake, your brain releases several hormones. One of them is, ah… noradrenaline. Increases your heart rate and blood pressure, which, in turn, causes increased blood flow to your muscles and… your vagina and vulva, among other parts of your body. It properly wakes you up, makes you alert. It also causes feelings of arousal. Happens to everypony. For stallions, it usually causes an erection. It’s just blood flow, that’s all.” She cleared her throat and met my eyes again. “Baby, I’ve been up for nearly thirty-six hours… all of them long… I was stabbed, too, and I had to make do with normal healing treatments, not the fantastically potent kind. I’m sorry, but I’d rather stop the biology lesson for now… particularly that topic.” I moved closer and kissed her jaw. “I was out that long?” She cooed as I planted more kisses along her cheek. “Yeah. Claraby kept you sedated for the rough part… Orchid Wisp was able to remove that sword from your abdomen easily enough, but… it cut your abdominal aorta.” “That’s… bad… I’m guessing.” Night Cloud hummed and nodded while I stroked my hoof along her neck. “Means you bled a lot in a short time, right after Orchid teleported the blade free. Without a unicorn’s magic to prevent further hemorrhaging… that is, bleeding, with a telekinetically applied clamp, a wound like that is almost always fatal. Conventional sutures and coagulants aren’t always enough, even if you have the tools to apply them inside the body.” My ears flicked. “What are those?” “Mmm… sutures are stiches, clamps, staples… anything that keeps a wound closed while it heals. Coagulants force blood to coagulate, or to clot, to clump, more quickly than it does naturally.” She tilted her head, pressing her cheek to my hoof. “Claraby had to use entirely magical methods, since she couldn’t remove your armor straight away. That was before she gave you the Potion and the transformation began… it took quite a toll on you.” Tears had begun to gather at the corners of her eyes. “I was afraid that you’d gone into a coma, for a little while…” She stretched her wings up from the water and wrapped them around me along with her forelegs, squeezing me at the waist and above my withers. “But you’re tougher than I give you credit.” The aches in my legs and back and everywhere else were nothing in that moment. “Crystal…” Her voice wavered. Her breath hitched. I nuzzled her and allowed the her to cradle my head and kiss my brow. Tears and quiet sobs came next. “Crystal Dew, my darling, I love you…” She nuzzled above my horn and pushed her snout through my mane until her lips found my ear. “You are so brave and beautiful, Crystal… my Crystal… stay close to me. Come to bed with me tonight, please.” I rocked my hind legs in a fidgeting motion, nudging her ribs at the same time as I rubbed my forehoof in circles on her chest; I sent waves rippling back and forth around us. Laying my head on her neck, I murmured, “Night… um… maybe it’s different in your language, but… in Equestrian—or, um… Celestian, ‘come to bed’ usually means… something different. So, um… probably better if you just said ‘sleep together,’ instead.” Night Cloud bit her lip and let out a slow breath. “Is that… something that you want?” Electric blue eyes focused on me, tired and filled with something I couldn’t say with certainty was not fear. I gave a short, high laugh. “Well, um…” Her teeth showed in a smile, but the corners of her mouth were tight. I giggled and nuzzled her chest, mumbling, “I’d love to try, at some point… but, um… I get it if you don’t want to.” “Baby…” She sighed, hugged me, and whispered, “I’m not ready for that. Not just yet. Certainly not tonight; I’m much too tired. I’m sorry.” “You don’t need to be.” I flicked my tail, splashing water over the side of the bath, and gave her a squeeze. “Just… let me know if you want to snuggle… I’m available.” “Mmm… snuggle. Right.” Her soft, demure chuckle brought a smile to my face. “I did mean that I want us to sleep together, if you’re comfortable with that, but for anything else… I really think we should wait. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. Please, forgive me.” “Nothing to forgive.” I shrugged and kissed her cheek. “Are you ever going to learn not to apologize for everything?” I squeezed her abdomen with my legs, causing her to giggle. “I’d love to, um… sleep together, since we were doing that already, on the way here. As long as you want to.” “That’s fine.” She chuckled and gave my waist a retaliatory squeeze with her wings again. “I really am sorry, baby. I’m worn out… I’m afraid I don’t spring back from life-threatening injuries and surgeries as well as you seem to. But, besides that, I don’t believe that, ah… making that decision so soon would be wise.” “Night, I know what ‘I’m not ready’ means. You don’t need to explain it… or justify it. It’s okay.” I pecked her cheek and murmured, “Thank you, by the way. For saving me… again and again. For… for fighting for me.” I grasped her just as tightly in return. “That was an awesome aetheric blast,” I murmured to her. “You’re friggin’ scary when you’re angry.” “I…” She shook with soft laughter and muttered, “Honestly, I… I wasn’t really paying that much attention, Crystal… I just… I wasn’t thinking… I was just… so furious… so afraid… when I saw that mare do that to you… I couldn’t stand to… I wouldn’t stand to…” Steamy as the bathroom was, the mare had yet to wash her face or mane. The tears crawling down her cheeks were plain for me to see. “Crystal, I can’t stop thinking about it…” Her normally melodic tone became a husky whimper. “I killed a pony… I swore an oath, as a healer, as a protector, never to take a life, and… diaĉas amorandas féle Gaía eta Nube, mertaĉa un equura… mertaĉa un equura…” I gently took her foreleg and held her hoof as she lapsed into silence and wept. A length of bandages was wrapped around her upper leg, where she had stopped with her own muscle and bone a blade meant to plunge into her chest and pierce her heart. “I shot her, too,” I mumbled. “It’s not all on you, Night.” She seemed not to hear me. As the indigo alicorn mumbled something I couldn’t understand in her tribe’s language, I raised my forehoof and hit her chest, just hard enough to sting and get her attention. “You’re my choice.” “Ka se—” Night Cloud blinked and rubbed her chest on reflex, then grabbed my hoof. “What?” “You are my choice.” I clutched her shoulders and sat up astride her belly, bracing myself against her so that I could look down at the mare just once. “You’re my choice, Night Cloud.” I clasped my forehooves behind her neck and hugged her tightly, “You killed a pony? Guess what: She hurt me… she tried to kill me, Night Cloud… so you decided she didn’t matter anymore. You did what I said. You chose me over her. If somepony tries to stab me or shoot me today, will you choose me again?” “Yes, my love,” she whispered in my ear, hugging me tightly in return. “Earth and Sky, yes, a thousand times, yes…” I leaned back and kissed her, savoring the tender warmth of her lips and intoxicating caress of her tongue. “When somepony tries to hurt you,” I said as I broke contact, “I’ll choose you. Not them. You. I will choose you every time, Night Cloud. I may not be as big or as strong or as fast as you, but darn it, I’ll do whatever I have to for you.” I flinched as she placed her forehoof below my ribs, where not long ago a sword had impaled me. That cold, seizing agony, I doubted I could forget. “But you can’t wait for somepony else to fight for you, Night… you have to act first. It’s like Carbide said: You have to take preemptive… action.” Night Cloud’s brow creased. The corners of her mouth tightened. Phantom speakers popped and squealed in a helmet I wasn’t wearing. I swallowed. “Night, where’s Carbide?” I peered into the cavity of the suit’s armored torso, levitating the entire exoskeleton so that its chest panel and the blue peytral faced the crackling fire. A triangular hole, warped at the corners and charred black along its channel, ran through the titanium plate that had protected my belly and continued through the honeycomb frame, circuitry, and insulated lining of the suit before stopping on the back. One of the exoskeleton’s heavy vertebra had been cracked at the exit point, and the connecting pistons and armored plating were scored with lines of char and oxidation. I forced the protective halves of the cuirass open, and my ears fell flat and shoulders sagged as I saw what lay inside. In addition to being caked in a copious amount of dried blood—my blood—the power conduits and numerous talismans and circuit boards that ran along the spine were similarly melted and charred in many places. Hundreds of miniscule, interconnected components both electronic and thaumoelectric in nature were damaged far beyond any point of easy repair. “He hasn’t moved at all? Said anything?” I waved my forehoof in front of the suit’s attached helmet, squinting at the lens at the corner of the right eyepiece. “No blinking lights? Radio signals?” “No. He didn’t respond to a telepathic coupling, either. Ivy and I both tried. I wasn’t able to feel anything, but Ivy said there was… something. A presence, but no conscious thought.” “So he’s…” I took a deep, trembling breath and swallowed. “That means he’s still alive… right?” “It’s as though he’s in a trance of deep sleep, or in a coma… although, I’m not certain how well either of those terms apply.” Night Cloud set her wing on my back. “When… when you were stabbed, the blade discharged some kind of spell. Eagle said it might have been a matrix disruption.” “No… maybe as a secondary element, but disruption spells don’t melt things. That sword… the spark cell powered an electrothaumic induction burst, with a seeking element.” I shivered and muttered, “It’s a spell meant to fry things, not just zap them offline. They’re drawn to the closest, or most concentrated source of electrothaumic activity nearby, like the matrix of a suit of power armor. That’s how most targeting talismans work.” “No,” whispered Night Cloud. “Your heart.” She slid her foreleg around my back and rubbed my chest. “It should have targeted your heart… a pony’s heart is… baby, your heart is several orders of magnitude more electrothaumically active than any talisman. It’s the locus of all magical power in your body. If that’s how such a spell works, then… it should have killed you. You’d have gone into cardiac arrest immediately. That can’t be it.” I shivered. I touched the inside of the heavily reinforced half of the cuirass. “The spell that disabled the suit hit me before that mare… before she stabbed me. I felt a shock first. That was a matrix disruption. The sword… it didn’t do anything that flashy. It targeted something else.” The halves would swing open on hinges to allow me to step into the suit, but they protruded from my chest far more than was necessary for armor alone. The framing and nexus of insulated ribbon cables on the interior panel, nestled under a wire mesh that had been scorched black, were the most charred of any parts of the armor. They fed into what once was a black, rubber grommet, now polymerized and brittle. A similar entry point sat on the right panel; it bore similar burn markings, but they were less severe. “The sparks. Where did they focus? On the peytral, around the front?” “I… I didn’t see it, baby.” Night Cloud squeezed me and murmured, “I was stunned. Zephyr was the only one in the position to see you, and… that mare’s spell made quite a lot of smoke when it struck me. She probably couldn’t see anything, either.” “Mmm.” I swallowed and pulled a manual release latch inside the thick cuirass panel, and the titanium plate on the outside, scarred with yellow streaks of oxidation, popped outward a centimeter. “This suit doesn’t use a spell matrix for control. Power distribution, maybe…” I gently pulled the cuirass plate apart from its frame, and the reason for abnormal thickness of the collar and chest pieces, which I had first pondered as I saw the suit in a mirror, became apparent. Within the left half of the cuirass panel was a thin, yellow circuit board dominated by an array of aluminum fins surrounded by miniscule electrical components. The smell of melted plastic and capacitors wafted up from the opening. I grimaced at the sight of the hundreds of tiny, black squares, interconnecting lines, and protruding cylinders, most melted or burst, that formed the control center of my suit of armor. “There’s the computer,” I muttered. “I think. It’s so small…” Night Cloud leaned over me to look. “What is that?” Resting inside a hollow within the left panel, surrounded by melted wires, ribbons, and a four-pronged, rubberized clamp was a dazzling ball of crystalline material, so clear and perfect that it had to be solid diamond, encircled by a geometric, metal cradle the same deep blue hue as the detached peytral lying on the hardwood floor. It was the size of a billiard ball, polished immaculately, and possessed facets in the shapes of pentagons and equilateral triangles. A pure, white light, dimmer than a candle guttering at the end of its wick, flickered faintly throughout the interior of the polyhedron. The light danced across every face, edge, and individual vertex of the diamond ball. Lines of gold, thin as gossamer and numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, spun in parallel, fractal paths that led deeper into the center of the orb, all converging on a translucent, milk-white sphere at its center. Faint, dark marks scarred the corners of the noctium cradle. “It targeted this, not me.” “It’s beautiful…” Night Cloud leaned over my shoulder as I lifted the ball gently free of its cradle of melted insulation and fused wires. I detached the many scorched ribbons and warped connectors that had plugged into narrow slots on the metal cradle. A minor amount of thaumic feedback surged into my horn as my magic touched the ball, causing me to flinch. My head throbbed fiercely, but I kept my telekinetic hold of the cradle; the thick, noctium bars were rounded and molded perfectly around the diamond facets on their inside edges, and made the entire object roughly the size of a ripe grapefruit. The cradle’s structure formed a shape with twelve pentagonal faces: A dodecahedron. “But what in Gaia’s name is it?” I held the ball to my chest and whispered, “This is Carbide.” The light within the diamond polyhedron brightened by a fraction when my hoof touched the noctium cradle’s surface; my hoof wouldn’t fit through the gaps between the bars. “I know you probably can’t hear me, Carbide,” I murmured, “But I’ll say it, anyway: I’ll fix you.” I blinked as my vision began to blur with tears. Night Cloud hugged me from my side. “I just… don’t know how yet.” “Baby…” The tall alicorn nuzzled between my ears. “I promise you, I will help you however I can with this… though I don’t know how yet, either. But, for now…” She wiped my cheek clean of tears, then rested her forehoof on mine, over the diamond orb and its noctium frame. “I’m exhausted, and I would appreciate… very, very much if we could go to bed, now…” She stood and stepped away. I followed her, every muscle screaming in protest. I levitated Carbide’s cradle, keeping the metal and diamond ball in sight. “Where’s Eagle?” I said softly as we entered the hallway and turned to the right. “With Ivy and Blitz… trying to find any trace of the Kekalo Prince and where any more of his soldiers may be. They’re safe; don’t worry.” I scowled. “So it wasn’t Supreme Jerkoff Beardo, then?” “Beardo… no, that wasn’t him, I’m afraid. Maybe his second-in-command, maybe a friend… I don’t know. Some nefarious, slimy brigand or another. That’s for ponies wiser and more powerful than us to discover.” Night Cloud giggled and reached for the door, pausing. “And please stop using that word; it’s very crude.” “What? Jerkoff?” She cleared her throat quietly and murmured, “Yes. ‘Jerking off’ is a euphemism for masturbation.” I followed her into what I surmised was her bedroom, where the suitably enormous four-poster bed and bizarre cushion-chair waited with Zephyr on it. -Don’t think I’ve ever heard that word before.- Night Cloud sighed and climbed into the bed, lying on her side, then levitated me smoothly up and set me down, pulling the blanket over us both. She spread her wing over me and stretched her legs out; on a normal bed, her hind legs would dangle off the end of the mattress. -It’s… you know, pleasuring yourself. Stimulating yourself, sexually. With your hooves, or magic, or toys.- -You could have just said it’s the fancy word for jerking off. I know what that means.- -Oh. Well, the way you said it, it sounded like… never mind.- I blinked several times and set Carbide’s metal self on the bedside table, by an unlit candle. -So, um… what kind of toys?- She stroked her hoof along my withers as I glanced over at the corner, where Zephyr slept. -Crystal Dew, baby… I think your curiosity about this is perfectly fine, and normal, and healthy... but I really would rather not discuss those right now.- I flexed my wings slightly and turned onto my side, then pressed my back closely to Night Cloud. Every motion caused more burning, and I continued to ache even after I lay still, but her warmth and the gentle swelling of her ribs against my back seemed to transform the acute stabs into a dull throbbing that I could ignore. I levitated a third piece of the loaf of bread from the plate on the bedside table and began to eat, careful to keep crumbs in the emerald haze of my magic. -Did you make this?- She hummed quietly and patted my ribs just behind my foreleg. -Just for you. I added honey. Thought you’d be hungry… I know I was, afterward. The Potion contains most of the energy required for its effects, but some of the final parts of the transformation rely on your own metabolic processes… meaning it leaves you hungry.- -It’s good.- -Thanks. I’m glad you like it.- I swallowed the last bite of bread, my hunger sated, my hooves warm, and Night Cloud’s wing curling in to spread over my belly. -So, it’s okay to call somepony a slimy brigand, but not a jerkoff?- -Well, neither is exactly polite, but one of them is overtly sexual… and likely to make ponies think less of you. Your elders in particular.- I smirked. Both our breaths had slowed. -So, does that mean it’s better to make your insults fancy? Like ‘slimy brigand?’- -Better to say nothing at all… call me a hypocrite. Be kind, courteous, and respectful to all you meet, and when that fails… don’t waste your breath.- -So if somepony tries to bully me in this school you want me to go to so much… I’m guessing your probably don’t want me to throw them into the nearest wall.- She snorted softly. -Heavens no, sweetheart… they’re schoolyard hooligans, not bandits… they aren’t worth violence. Honestly, unless you go out of your way to antagonize somepony, I doubt even the worst bullies will give you much trouble, especially not while I’m around. Don’t hesitate to use a little force if you need to, but don’t pick fights. Walk away. Be the better mare.- -I’ll just imagine I’m making out with you, then walk away.- The mare made a quiet hum and tucked her chin against my head. -Smart filly.- I levitated a new log into the fireplace behind me and returned my attention to the damaged circuit boards and bundles of insulated cables between them. My suit of armor lay open, tipped onto its side near the hearth. The scant tools I had to my name I had placed in a neat row next to a bowl that had been filled until recently with a simple breakfast of ground corn and oats. Across two pages of my diary, I had sketched a diagram of the armored exoskeleton’s internal connections, detailing its detached power cables, many discrete circuit boards, and several talismans of esoteric design and function, all of which had been modified from standard conventions to interface directly with the suit’s electronics. The talismans and the gemstones they contained, at least, were unharmed by the electric and thaumic surge that had crippled the suit, but most of the electronic components were beyond repair. Soft, snipping sounds came from near my ears as Zephyr trimmed my mane with a set of delicate razors on her wings and a comb in her teeth. Lacking a proper barber’s cape, I had wrapped a clean towel around my shoulders. As the low crackle of the fire grew to something warm and pleasant, I penned a final line and label between what appeared to be a power distributor and the cables leading into the armor’s collar, where the computer rested next to its empty, twin compartment. I looked up, gazing in silence at the blue, metal cradle and diamond ball within it on the floor nearby. Refusing to place my friend on the floor directly, I had set Carbide’s dormant form on a plate, instead. Sighing, I murmured, “What do you think, Carbide?” Zephyr paused her clipping, and my ears flicked at the sound of her teeth shifting the comb back, holding it between her incisors and molars. “He can’t hear you… can he?” I ran a glowing, emerald mote of magic over the diamond ball, shook my head, and turned back to my diagram. “No… at least, I don’t think so. He…” I chewed my lip and said, “That is… the diamond… the light in it flickers a little sometimes, when I touch it, but I think that’s just thaumoelectric capacitance. Like static electricity, going into your hoof.” “Have you found out what all those parts do?” “Some of them.” I pointed at one of the talismans, a densely-twined coil of thick, copper wire wound around an iron ring. In the center of the ring was a fire ruby, cut into the shape of two truncated, six-sided pyramids that joined together with a silver plate at their bases. The fire ruby was held to the wire torus with numerous spars of rough plastic, save where a solitary wire at each end wrapped around in opposite directions. “That’s a thaumoelectric inductor. It hooks directly into the busbars. That’s what sends power to the spine, as far as I can tell.” I motioned to the corners of my widespread collection of parts. “There are smaller ones for each of the legs, and another for the tail.” Letting my hoof fall, I muttered, “But those are just for power; the talismans are easy, and I can probably find the sensors he used to tell how he was moving, but I don’t have a clue how any of the electronic stuff works… I don’t think even Eagle would. He never dealt with any of this kind of stuff before…” “So we need somepony who knows computers… at a very detailed level. You could start looking at school… that’s as good a place as you’ll get.” Zephyr put the comb back in her teeth and continued snipping away at the wilder parts of my mane. I rolled my eyes. “Great. Another reason I should go. Guess I can’t avoid it…” Zephyr clicked the comb back again to speak. “What’s this other reason?” I scowled, then thought of the indigo mare sleeping down the hallway and put on a smile I couldn’t hide. “Night Cloud said I could be in her classes…” “Crystal, she’s five years your senior. You’re smart, but not… well…” I raised an eyebrow and turned halfway around. Zephyr bit her lip. “You’re behind by a year and a half already, from Neighvarro’s curriculum, and by two years if we’re going by Cloud Loft standards. Not on math, and certainly not the sciences, but I doubt they’ll let you skip the other subjects that easily. You need to be in school, whether or not you get the same courses as her.” I turned back to the fireplace, watching the dancing flames creep up the new log. “Night said I’d take a test to see where they’d put me.” “And she thinks you can match her?” Zephyr patted my shoulder. “Sweetie, I’m not trying to discourage you, but… it isn’t a matter of how intelligent you are. It’s about having a complete education, not jumping ahead to be with your marefriend every class… besides which, she’ll graduate in a year, anyway, and then you’ll be on your own. Bellenastian schools teach eight grades. They allow for scheduling around apprenticeships, but that just means all the courses are more condensed, more rigorous.” I froze in the middle of turning to look back at her, mindful of the razors at her wingtips. “When did you have time to go investigating?” “While you were sedated for that Potion… and while you slept like a rock after that.” I sighed and muttered, “Thirty-six hours… right…” “Closer to two full days, for you.” Zephyr removed one the razors from her left wing and used her dexterous primaries to hold the comb, then leaned forward to snip at my bangs. “And we didn’t come here right away; stayed at the hospital, instead. I asked around… it was something to keep my mind off…” “Everything that could go wrong?” I rolled my eyes. “Night Cloud had half her friggin’ body crushed by a monster, healed herself all wrong, and she was just fine after she drank the Potion. Kinda hard to believe, but I don’t think a sword in the chest is that bad, in comparison.” Zephyr’s wings withdrew, and the razors clinked together. “Don’t joke about that.” She swallowed and murmured, “Please.” I tore my eyes off the fire and settled for watching the floor, instead. “Sorry… so, um… who’d you ask about…” “Oh.” She chuckled. “Turns out, Night Cloud has classmates who work at the hospital. Go figure. After Ivy and the guards took care of those Kekalo soldiers, she showed us to the hospital.” Zephyr cleared her throat. “Um… Night Cloud met us in the waiting room, with a nurse, after she took care of her leg injuries. Her name was, ah… Capillary Action.” I blinked. “Cappy!” “Hm?” I stomped my hoof on the floor and said, “Must be Cappy. She was in the operating room when that mare teleported me and Night Cloud in. I mean, I didn’t see her… I just remember hearing her name. And…” I frowned and closed my eyes, thinking of the fourth mare with both wings and horn that I had seen. “There was another alicorn. Orchid Wisp.” “Yes,” said Zephyr, “I saw her at one point, but she was… rather busy. Anyway, Capillary Action told me about her courses; she’s taking many of the same classes as Night Cloud. I don’t think that your being able to take those same courses as her is a realistic expectation to have. I don’t doubt your ability… I just…” She pulled my mane back from my neck and snipped at the ends, smoothing it out neatly. “If you’re agreeing to go back to school just because Night Cloud gave you that expectation, especially on the basis that you’d be with her for many of your classes… that’s not fair of her.” Zephyr nuzzled behind my ear and said, “I don’t want you to be disappointed. Eagle knows his stuff, but all the things he’s taught you are specialized, not a comprehensive education. I don’t think you understand quite how much you’ve missed, Crystal.” “Rub it in,” I muttered. Glaring at the door and curtained window that led to the snow-laden street and cloudy morning outside, I said, “Do you know when he’ll be back?” “Around noon. He’s checked in every six hours.” “Your radio?” “Yeah.” I glanced up from the tidy web of parts and peered to our left, at Zephyr’s defunct suit of power armor, laid bare for the first time since we had stayed three nights at Cliffside. Once the pride of any pegasus of the Enclave, and then subject of my experiments and many protective talismans, it had been reduced to a scorched, pockmarked husk, its polymer and ceramic plating blasted to ruin. I set my pen and diary down, biting my cheek; when compared to the indiscriminate, throbbing aches that saturated my body, the sensation barely registered. “So the main talisman and secondary power distributor still work… just not the flight systems… what about the control interface?” “I…” Zephyr laughed. “Yeah, the radio, the EFS, the targeting and gun mounts… secondary systems all checked out. The primaries are just too shot. I could walk with it, but not fly. Sweetie… if there’s anything in that old suit you think will help…” She took a deep breath and set her hooves on my shoulders. “It isn’t like we have a wealth of spare parts lying around to repair it with, anyway… and it did what you built it to do. Kept me alive when I needed it most. Whatever’s left, put it to good use.” “But… what if you need it?” I crossed my forelegs and reached backward to hold her hooves with mine. Zephyr leaned forward and hugged me, pointing at the noctium cradle and diamond polyhedron nearby. “Your friend needs it more.” I sighed and gazed in silence at the arrayed armor parts, my diary, and Zephyr’s shredded suit. Levitating the diamond and metal ball that was my friend—blind, deaf, and mute—I stood on stiff, aching legs and stepped away from my work of the past hour. I held the polished cradle close to my breast and walked past Zephyr. The pegasus accompanied me toward the hallway. “I’m going back to bed,” I murmured. I untied the towel from my collar and swept a wave of magic over my mane, tail, and coat to free any leftover clippings of hair, then dumped it all in the small waste basket at the kitchen entrance on the right. “You’re still tired?” “Not really. I mean… sort of, but… it’s not normal. Everything hurts, and Night says the only painkillers that would help are addictive.” I stretched my naked wings briefly as I approached the bedroom door and grasped the latch telekinetically. “Sleeping seems like a good idea, and… I just… want to be there when she wakes up.” Zephyr gave a soft nicker. “I can’t believe you’ve known her a week and you’re already… well…” I paused in the doorway, ears swiveled toward her. The pale violet pegasus shook her head. I frowned, but it was a half-hearted thing. Zephyr padded across the dark room, bit onto the ill-shaped, cushion-chair-thing, and began to tug it with her. As she dragged the amorphous piece of furniture through the doorway, I whispered, “Well… what?” She rubbed her neck with her hoof and murmured, “You deserve some privacy. I’ll be in the living room.” Slow, inexorable heat flooded my neck and face. I closed the door to Night Cloud’s bedroom and struggled to form a coherent sentence in my mind. I coughed and attempted aloud. “Do you… not want me to, um…” Zephyr froze, then released the cushion and turned toward me, a pronounced weariness framing her eyes. “Crystal… under Bellenastian law, until you’re sixteen, you’re not legally able to… to consent to sex.” She stepped close and hugged me, resting her chin on my withers. “That means that if you and Night Cloud decide to have a harmless roll in the hay, then she becomes guilty of statutory rape.” I scowled. “I was talking about just sleeping together, not sleeping with her. I know the friggin’ difference. What does statutory mean?” She stepped back and held me at foreleg’s length. “It means, sweetheart, that the law defines it as rape because one of you is not of legal age. She would most likely end up in prison if anypony ever found out about it… she would be convicted for sexual abuse of a child, since you can’t legally give consent, yourself.” She sighed, and whispered, “And her entire career as a doctor would be ruined.” The mare squeezed my shoulders, backed away, and turned to the living room again. “I don’t think she’ll ask you to do anything… but I don’t know if she’ll say no if you ask her. So please don’t.” “She already did,” I muttered. Zephyr looked shell-shocked for a moment. “… she asked…” “She said no.” I stretched my wings out again, wincing, and sighed. “I asked… I mean, I didn’t really ask, but the topic came up; she said she wasn’t ready. I guess… partly because she thinks she’d, um… get in trouble.” Zephyr stomped, drawing my gaze up to meet hers in the dim hallway. “There’s an important distinction between not wanting to get in trouble and not being comfortable with the idea. Just because you are interested doesn’t mean she is. The mare has fought and bled and killed for you, in the one week you’ve known her, Crystal. Don’t repay that by being selfish.” My ears drooped. “Okay, okay… I get it.” “Do you?” She stepped closer to me and wrapped her wing tightly around my torso. I began to fidget as her feathers rustled across my naked wings; it was one of the oddest sensations I’d experienced in my life. “Crystal…” She set her chin in my head and murmured, “We left our home… came all this way, fought every vile monster and thug that stood in our path, ultimately because… because one idiot took advantage of you.” I scowled, grinding my teeth. “And?” “And what that stallion did to you was very obviously wrong, Crystal…” Zephyr nuzzled my ear and stepped back from me. “But you need to realize that there are far more less obvious ways that you can hurt somepony you love than there are obvious ones. Even simply asking for something like that can hurt. She might feel pressured to accept, just to make you happy, even if she’s not ready. Even if she’s afraid—and don’t think that because she’s older than you, more mature, that she isn’t afraid.” “I know that,” I muttered. “Then you should know it’s still wrong, and even if you aren’t trying to hurt her, you’d be taking advantage of her… it just isn’t as obvious.” The pale pegasus touched my chest and said, “Remember that, when she keeps you warm at night.” My voice came out as a defeated squeak. “Okay.” I swallowed and turned, trembling, to open the door. I listened as Zephyr dragged her makeshift bed to the hearth, leaving me to return to the privacy of the bedroom. As I climbed into Night Cloud’s curtained bed and waited for the coming sunrise to wake her, I was, indeed, warm and safe. Even so, I shivered. “Crystal?” I blinked blearily at the large, deep violet hoof near my own. Then, I looked up at the towering figure to which it belonged. I surged up instantly and wrapped myself around her neck, standing on the very edge of the bed. “Blitz!” “H-hey, nice to see you, too, kiddo…” The mare hugged me in return, sighing softly as she nuzzled my withers. “Glad to see you safe… and well.” “Baby, what…” Night Cloud stirred behind me. “Oh, Blitz! Gaia éta Nube, you’re all right…” “I hate to spoil the morning,” said Blitz, releasing me and stepping back, “But, ah… Crystal, there’s a giant robot tank outside the city gates. It wants to talk to you.” “Maximillian.” I sat down on the bed and levitated the diamond and metal polyhedron on the adjacent table into my waiting hooves. “I, um…” My ears drooped as Night Cloud sidled up behind me and nuzzled me, wrapping her forelegs around me. “I’m guessing he hasn’t, you know… blown anything up, since you’re here, and not… there. Dealing with him.” Blitz nodded. “For the moment… we have every cannon in range pointed at it… him?” She made an odd face. “Maximillian? So, is that meant to identify it as a male, or… is it just a name?” I looked down at object in my grasp; my magic caused scintillating, emerald light to fill the diamond ball and the golden traces within it to stand in stark contrast. “Carbide said ‘him.’ When he told me about the signal.” “Huh. Well… he wants to talk to you.” Blitz shuffled in place, sat down, and reached around both me and Night Cloud with her wings and forelegs, hugging us both closely. “Asked for you by name, in fact… how are you two feeling?” “Better,” said Night Cloud, “Mostly. I could do with some breakfast.” “Sore,” I said. “Everywhere. All the time. Fine, otherwise. What about you?” Blitz let us go and sighed. “There’s a foreign army lurking somewhere in the valley, a crazy prince with a grudge against me and mine, and most of the city’s narrower streets are now frozen over and impassable. Oh, and there’s the giant robot tank of dubious intent at the gates and it won’t go away.” She smiled and rubbed her shoulder. “Fine, otherwise.” I giggled. “So, um… now what? Go talk to Maximillian?” “Normally, I’d say no, but the thing—uh… he… verbally agreed to disarm while he waited. At my request. Then he actually did it.” Night Cloud crossed her forehooves over my belly, pressed her muzzle gently against the side of my neck, and said, “How, exactly, does a robot tank normally do that?” Blitz shrugged. “Some parts of the armor opened up, and a bunch of missiles and ammo belts fell out. Took a few minutes. And he let me disconnect the power coupling for the big laser thing on its middle. I don’t know if that was everything, but we’re dealing with a machine… or entity… that’s willing to make a good-faith gesture, so… I’m willing to give him the benefit of doubt.” I frowned and raised my hoof. “One more question. You said he asked for me by name.” The deep violet mare nodded. “I’d like to know how he got that, too.” She pointed down at my chest, and the diamond ball I held. “I suspect Carbide was in communication with him, at some point.” “Oh. Um… he could receive signals from Maximillian back in Granit Bridge, but he’d have needed a really powerful transmitter to send anything back over that distance. Way more powerful than you can fit in a suit.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I’m more worried that he asked for me by name because I, um… shot him in the face the last time we met. Then he tried to tear down a whole building while I was in it. I think. I wasn’t really awake during most of that part, but…” I shuddered and muttered, “I remember leaving that building. It wasn’t fun.” Blitz stared at me for several seconds. “You shot him… in the face. You mean the thing at the top? Vaguely resembles some kind of head, if only because it’s where you expect one to be?” I took a moment to parse that, then nodded. Then, slowly, her muzzle contorted into a frown, and she groaned and held her forehooves over her eyes. Night Cloud lifted her snout from my neck and murmured, “What is it?” “Repair talismans,” said Blitz, rubbing her temples. “Its head appears to be perfectly intact. Because of course it fu—hrmm… of course it regenerates. Peachy.” “Um… most robots have repair talismans.” I pushed my hoof out from under Night Cloud’s wing to point at the doorway to the living room and suits of power armor out of sight there. “Enclave power armor has them, too.” Night Cloud yawned and said, “Seems only practical to put one in a larger robot.” Blitz grunted and flared her wings in irritation. “Yes. Well. This robot is extremely large, has followed us across the length and breadth of the entire Kingdom, has expressed a singular desire to come within driving-over-and-squishing range of ponies I love, and is apparently capable of negotiating. Machines don’t typically do that last one, and it has me on edge.” She took a deep breath, ruffled her wings restlessly, and put on a smile that spoke volumes about how much she had slept recently. “Oh, and there’s still that foreign prince running around somewhere, plotting to stab me in the neck. Probably. I’m not sure which I should be more worried about: The pony out for my blood, or the machine that has an agenda.” I laid my chin against Night Cloud’s wing and levitated the diamond ball and cradle that had occupied my waking thoughts and dreams alike. “Carbide said Maximillian is programmed to protect him. He wasn’t chasing us. He’s following Carbide… or my armor. Its radio beacon. If he wants to talk to me, it’s just because Carbide was in my armor.” Brief ideas of the other reasons an enormous, armored war machine would be following me caused me to shrink within Night Cloud’s comforting embrace. “I hope,” I mumbled. Blitz stared at the object hovering in my magic. “And now he’s lost that signal… but he knows that Carbide is still… alive. Or he knows where you are, and expects you and the suit to be in the same place.” I swallowed, rubbed Night Cloud’s hooves, and looked up at Blitz. “So… are we going to talk to him, or not?” She had placed both forehooves on her temples again. Massaging slowly, she said, “It’s either talk to him and hope that he keeps his word about not rampaging through the city, or open fire first and hope that our guns are big enough to destroy… him…” She paused and frowned, staring at the floor as she set her hooves on the edge of the bed, near mine. “Before he, ah… can fire back… with whatever he has hidden under all that armor. Goddesses above, this thing can think and barter with us—did barter with me—and my first thought is to blast it to smithereens.” “Well…” I touched her hooves and said, “My old rifle melted a hole in his head, and that didn’t keep him down.” I leaned back and nuzzled Night Cloud. “How about we try talking? That’s the nice option.” Blitz sighed and rubbed her neck. “I suppose…” Night Cloud hummed in assent. “Coffee first, Blitz?” “Coffee?” The deep violet mare’s ears shot up. “Excellent idea. Coffee first, then talk to the giant robot tank.”