“We’ll be arriving just as the quartzes detain the intruder,” Delphi informed as she led our little group along. Besides myself and Watson, a pair of topaz guards had fallen in with us. The emerald had taken it upon herself to get better acquainted with the time period. “For the fifth time. She is quite tenacious.”
“Fifth time, huh? I knew a few guys like that; too dumb or stubborn to stay down.” I flexed my hands, wondering if shield generating was at my beck and call. I wasn’t Steven, and as far as I knew, I didn’t have any gem knowledge imprinted in my mind.
One of the topaz thumped her chest. “Not to worry, My Diamond. No matter how tenacious, we won’t let this intruder harm you.”
“If anything happens, I want you to protect Delphi and Watson,” I instructed firmly. “I can take care of myself.”
The sight of a quartz soldier surrounded by what looked like multicolored lightning impacting the wall in front of me immediately after that was slightly troubling, however, especially the way her form seemed to visibly glitch and distort right before she vanished in a puff of smoke. Her gem fell to the floor and rolled towards us as the sound of fighting grew more intense.
“Stay here, Watson, Delphi. One of you topaz stay here and watch them. The other one, come with me.” Breaking into a run, I didn’t bother to make sure the topaz followed. Leaning an arm down, I scooped up the fallen quartz. “Watson, catch!” I drew my arm back, tossing it to her.
The scene that greeted me was one of absolute insanity. A dozen quartz soldiers of varying hues were punching and grabbing at a much smaller reddish figure wearing black armor who was, in turn, firing off what looked like balls of lightning from her horn in addition to punching and kicking back. Despite being a good foot and a half shorter and far less bulky than the quartzes, they outfought all of them and dodged almost every attack with what looked like no effort.
Most of the soldiers struck by their hand or hoof barely flinched, but the ones caught in the lightning balls staggered back every time, with their projected form distorting for a few seconds before becoming stable. One blue-tinted quartz stood almost twice as tall as the others, and had what looked like a large black mole with a white streak in the middle poking up from her right shoulder.
Pushing aside the quartzes, I thrust my palm into the equine’s chest. The impact sent her tumbling, allowing the quartzes to dogpile. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll give up.”
“Interesting. I’ve only ever heard of one red gem. You’re clearly not her and you lack the features of a fusion.” The mare’s voice was serious and only slightly shaken as she continued to struggle against the grip of the four soldiers holding her limbs. “Tell you what, you let me go and I’ll stop zapping your little play soldiers.”
Stepping closer; my eyes lingered on her struggling form and took in the shattered stump of her horn. “I don’t appreciate people picking fights with those under my command. You’re going to surrender yourself into our custody and if I like what you have to say, we’ll see about that horn of yours.”
Her teal eyes narrowed at the word ‘surrender,’ and her features twisted into a sneer as sparks cascaded out of her horn to streak down the outside of her armor. “I will not surrender as long as I can see the enemy and draw breath. I represent the Storm King, and he will send an army to find me if I don’t return to him what he sent me to retrieve.”
The magic sparks and lightning had enough of an effect on one quartz, causing her fingers to loosen as they phased out for a moment, freeing a leg. This was immediately taken advantage of, with the mare twisting herself to bring that freed hoof around and kick the soldier holding her other leg across the face.
It was at this point that I paused both my narration and massage to lift Tempest up off my lap. She squirmed for a few seconds before I wrapped everything below her neck in a form-fitting shield that forced her to mimic the action I had just described. With just a little more concentration I formed additional shields above and below her to spell out two simple things: Tempest Shadow. Self-trained, Diamond refined
“David! Put me down!” she snapped, her features morphing into a glare.
“What? It’s not like I’m going to drop you or anything, and you’d just fall back into my lap anyways if I did.” Much to the amusement of those in attendance, I placed her back in my lap. My hand went to her sore spots, putting a little extra effort in to smooth out her anger.
"Where was I again? Ah, right, an escaping prisoner."
A sharp snort escaped me, closing the distance between myself and the mare. "I don't really care who sent you, you will stand down." Drawing my arm back, my open palm came down on her chest. I put as much pressure as I thought was safe, pinning her. "Give. Up."
The sound of air rushing out of her lungs reminded me of both a bellows, and the fact that gems were usually stronger than they looked. Easing up my hand allowed her to take in a sharp gasp of air.
“You done?” I questioned, looking down at her. “Or do we have to keep doing this?” I didn’t need to eat, I didn’t need to sleep. We both knew this. The only thing she didn’t know was how much punishment I could endure.
My other hand stayed in the air, palm vertical. The quartz soldiers seemed to understand, standing at the ready. It spoke to their restraint that they didn’t just beat her into paste. A point towards diamond devotion, as terrible as it was.
After nearly a minute of labored-sounding breathing, she looked up at me with a pained expression on her face. “As much as I’d... like to discuss the terms of your immediate surrender... I think you crushed my armor a bit.” Her eyes darted left and right, followed by a wince as she took a deep breath. “So, let’s call this a draw so I can stop feeling like I’m wearing something made for a teenager. I’m going to need my arms free for that.”
Slowly raising my hand from her chest, I lowered the other. “Let her go. Slowly. If she tries anything, give her a solid punch to the head.”
As if they were taking the pettiest form of revenge possible, the two green soldiers holding the mare’s arms both let go at the same time. The one holding her leg dropped that limb a couple seconds after her head and back made contact with the ground again, followed by a sheepish grin in my direction. “I didn’t know they were going to do that.”
The mare simply groaned and stood up slowly with one hand grabbing at the side of her armor while the other rubbed along the back of her skull. “If the big one could free my subordinate, he can help me unseal this a bit quicker, make it easier to talk.”
“You heard her, let the other guy go.” Rising to my full height, I gestured for the other guy’s release. “Just keep an eye on the two of them.”
Hearing his freedom was approaching, the unidentified accomplice began thrashing the parts that weren’t embedded in the gem. He earned said freedom when the fusion holding him together came undone; with the two gems involved being revealed as a blue lace agate and a white quartz.
“Tempest!” Scrambling to whatever passed for lower appendages, the pudgy little creature scampered over to the equine. “You okay boss lady? That big one laid the smackdown like pow!” he punched one fist into his other palm, sounding like an excited child.
Glancing at her side, the little creature sucked in a breath. “Ooo! That’s a bad dent! We gotta get you outta that.”
“Just work on unlocking the other side for me, Grubber. I really don’t need you to try and tell me it hurts when I can feel that for myself.” Tempest snarled that last part out through gritted teeth while closing her eyes tightly. “The quicker the better.”
“We could just take her to a bismuth and have the armor cut off...” The lone agate offered as a suggestion.
“Yeah, but organics don’t really like having sharp things next to their... whassname... skin?” her former fusion partner responded while idly brushing at her cheek-placed gem as if she could feel dirt clinging to it. “My Diamond, requesting permission to have a peridot examine my gem for light pollution from color mixing.”
Watching the little gremlin fiddle with the undamaged side of Tempest’s armor, I responded. “You’ll be fine, there’s no such thing as light pollution.”
It took me a couple seconds after saying that to realize that the only sound in the immediate area was now Grubber and Tempest working together to free her from her damaged armor. A quick glance up revealed that all of the soldiers were staring at me as if I had just told them I was lime green instead of pink. The agate raised one finger and opened her mouth briefly before looking down with a thoughtful expression.
Cocking an eyebrow, I focused on the agate. “What exactly is ‘light pollution?’”
“You healed a bunch of gems with amber patches yesterday, right? You saw how they were discolored? Light pollution is like that but it comes from fusing with gems that aren’t the same as you. It’s additive, and it weakens the structure of your gem; making you easier to crack or shatter. The other color begins to creep into your projection and taint it, and the weakening happens after that taint reaches your gem. There are a few in the archive who were so severely polluted their very gems were stained.”
I stared long and hard at her, my mind going through everything I knew. Dismissing the possibility outright would be foolish, this wasn’t the world I left or one I was familiar with. Light pollution could be a very real thing here.
“As far as I know, the only thing that can cause discoloration is corruption; something that can only be inflicted by the diamonds. Corruption causes severe trauma to a gem’s mind, causing them to become monsters,” I explained, not really looking at her anymore. “Even when healed it leaves discoloration and physical scars.”
“Well, the diamonds, other than you, of course, were the ones to tell us about light pollution in the first place. They don’t have any reason to lie to us, though.”
My mood soured, from whatever it had been from our little cease fire. My sisters had gotten here first, far in advance of myself. And what did they do with that time? Become dictators. Swatting the thought away, I resolved to get the story from their lips. My mind had to stay here.
A soft clattering brought my attention back to the pony and the odd creature at her side, as the breastplate and back of her armor released at last and was dropped on the ground beside her. She let out a loud snort and clutched at her side before looking up at me. “Could we, perhaps, get to a room where I can have some privacy to check for open wounds? I know gems are different, but I don’t feel like stripping in front of a bunch of strangers.”
“We can head to my quarters.” Turning, I made my way back to my entourage. “Watson, could you help me out with something?”
She seemed to perk up immediately. “Of course I can, David. That’s exactly what I was made to do, after all.”
“Right. Could you help our new guest? I’m sure she can walk fine on her own but you’re the perfect size to help her if she needs it.” Motioning towards Tempest, I stepped around Watson. “Just brace her if she stumbles and... Right... you wouldn’t know what a shoulder carry is...”
Watson stared at Tempest for a few seconds, then giggled softly before moving over to her side. “Would you like me to contact a silver to see if there are any appearance modifiers available for your new pet, David? I’m sure we have some that would be compatible with non-gems.”
“How ironic, that a pearl would assume I’m someone’s pet.”
“Ohh, do you have any pet food? I wonder what gem pet food tastes like. You can always tell how nice people are by how tasty they make their food for their pets!”
My finger pressed gently against Watson’s lips. “She’s not a pet, Watson. We don’t own creatures that are sapient, alright? She’s a guest, treat her like any other gem.”
Delphi took my attention, already mid curtsy. “I’ll fetch an amber, David. We’ll arrive shortly after you settle in.”
I couldn’t help but size up the odd orange-brown gem that walked into my quarters while I was waiting for Tempest to finish checking herself for wounds in one of the side-chambers of my designated residence. Her legs and torso were concealed by loose white clothing with the diamond authority symbol in the center of her chest. Her shoulders and upper torso were concealed by a short oval shield-like garment that hung from a collar around her neck, and most of her face was covered by what looked like a medical mask while her gem was nowhere that I could immediately discern. Her arms were oddly-proportioned to the rest of her body, with oversized hands. Her arms also seemed to be made of liquid.
It took most of Tempest’s little self-exam to get a good look at Amber’s body. She spent most of it gushing over me like a preteen, plying me with ‘dreamy’ praise and hyper compliments on my healing ability.
“-lmost nothing left!” Amber babbled, having gone back to my big healing. “None of us ever dreamed of having that kind of power!”
“...Right, so, other than stroking my ego with endless compliments, why exactly did you think I was going to need an amber here, Delphi?” I forced a smile on my face and tried not to think about how gems were forced to almost worship diamonds.
“To heal the unicorn’s horn, David,” Delphi replied, standing beside my bed with Watson.
“I foresee you offering when the situation allows."
“Well, I actually already offered it, but my tears should be enough to heal any wounds by themselves.”
The amber switched tracks, her motormouth shifting back a gear. “No disrespect, My Diamond, but have you ever healed an organic? Your tears might have unintended side effects.”
I paused and thought for a second. It was true, actually, that I had no idea if Pink Diamond could heal organics or not since I had only ever seen Steven do that on the show, but all of Steven’s powers came from his gem, which was his mother’s gem. The general fan consensus was that Steven had no powers of his own that Pink herself didn’t have, and that the only reason he could fuse with Connie was because he himself was half human, but that could also be wrong. “Okay, and how do you propose we test this?”
“If you have any tears left over, we could test them on the hedgehog. It does seem to be missing some mass from its ears,” the amber suggested, pointing to the little blob that was snoring in the corner.
“He’s a hedgehog?” I questioned, looking to Watson for confirmation.”I thought he was some kind of badger?”
“He doesn’t appear to have any spikes or spines on his back other than that stripe of spiky white hair, but he’s clearly not a skunk. Maybe he’s just some kind of organic hybrid creature with many compatible families mixed together?”
“Either way, it would allow for a benchmark,” the amber pressed. “It doesn’t even have to be awake for it.”
“But the missing portions of its ears are the same on both sides, so a test result where nothing happens would be inconclusive. Perhaps we could cause a small injury, purely superficial, so that we know for sure that there is an injury to be healed?” Watson responded quickly.
Listening to their little back and forth bemused me. To treat a living breathing, thinking person like they didn’t have a say in the matter. To set an example, I went to the corner and nudged the little guy. “Hey, I need to bother you for a second.”
“Huhwha?” He mumbled in response, shifting and rolling over to face the wrong direction at first before shaking his head and looking around. “Tempus?” His voice was groggy from interrupted sleep, much like some lazier soldiers I’d seen early on in boot.
“Just me.” I greeted him with a slight wave. “We need your help with something. I think we can fix your boss’s horn, but we need to make sure it works on people with flesh first. You got anything that would need healing?”
“Well, I...uhh.” He turned himself around slowly and reached down to scratch at his stomach. “I can’t swim?”
“I’m sorry, what? That’s not something that needs to be healed, you just need to be taught-”
“No, I mean, like, I sink like a rock in water and I get tired really fast so it’s hard for me to exercise. It’s a bone thing, I was told, like I have actual big bones despite being so short. I even weigh more than my parents, and they’re a few inches taller than I am with just as much chub.”
Clicking my tongue, I nodded my head. It wasn’t exactly a ‘wound’, yet it was comparable. “I can’t promise it’ll work. You might feel a ting-”
“Hold on, a bone density issue is going to need an impartial measurement of the subject’s mass to properly assess progress since his own perception of things could be subject to alteration by a side-effect of your tears.” The amber stretched out her arm towards Grubber and rested it on top of his head while playfully ruffling his mohawk. “I’ll just see how much effort it takes to lif-by the stars he’s heavy!”
She didn’t even visibly move her arm before suddenly exclaiming that, but that didn’t stop me from giving the extended limb a quick swat. “You were going to lift him by the top of his skull? What kind of doc... gem, right, nevermind that criticism, just let him go now. Put your hands under his armpits and lift that way.”
Amber nodded and quickly shifted her grip as well as moving closer so that her other arm could be brought into use without stretching both limbs across the entirety of the room. “Let’s see if I can get a measurement other than ‘shouldn’t be possible’ this time.”
“You know, you aren’t exactly being quiet out here.” Tempest’s voice carried a hint of amusement as she pulled the curtain aside and leaned against the doorway’s frame to observe. She had removed all of her armor and most of the padded clothing beneath it, and had a bandage wrapped around her right bicep as well as one across her stomach with what looked like an ice pack of some kind pressing against her left side. Tight shorts and a sporty-looking shirt kept her from being completely nude.
“I didn’t know we should have been,” I replied, giving her a once over. “I thought you didn’t want to strip around strangers. You look pretty stripped to me.”
“There’s a difference between having a dozen soldiers watching you disrobe and having a small handful of people see you in what you consider to be minimally presentable attire. I would have kept my arm and leg armor on if they didn’t need to be connected to the breastplate to keep some parts from flopping loosely and annoyingly. It’s not like I’m standing here in lingerie and a silk gown like a wh-”
The creaking of a door intruded on my recollection. Delphi’s short strides brought her from deeper in the cottage. “You really need to remember who your audience is, David. We don’t want angry parents visiting again.”
“Oh good, someone more my size is here. Hop on up, Delphi, I stepped on something sharp the other day and my right frog still hurts.” Tempest smiled up at me as a soft blush crept over my face. “Our Diamond is simply too big and clumsy to properly care for an area so small.”
“Tempest, you’re almost as bad as he is.” A chorus of sound erupted from the young ponies as Delphi walked around from behind my chair and came into view, with one filly jumping to her hooves and running right up to the blue gem.
“Oh wow! Your dress is so shimmery.” She tried to stop, and is only saved from slipping and falling on her tail by a perfectly-timed catch by Delphi. “Is that a Rarity original? My mommy has one and they tend to be shiny like that.”
Delphi smiled, setting the filly back on her hooves. “The design is, but the dress itself is a part of my form. Yes, I paid her for making the design for me.”
The filly blinked, tilting her head. “How did you know I was gonna ask that?”
“Sapphires, like my dear Delphi here, are gifted with the ability of limited foresight. It’s how she knew to walk in and interrupt me before I could finish saying a word that most of your parents wouldn’t want you to know while I was a bit too caught-up in remembering old times to stop myself.” I responded while looking down at the two of them over the arm of my chair. “And Rarity rarely actually finishes assembling her creations these days according to Princess Twilight. She has a pair of Silver and Gold assistants that help her realize her visions.”
Clicking my tongue, I moved Delphi into my lap before the filly could ask any more questions. “The real reason she came in is to make sure a special someone can share their bit of the story,” I said, putting my free hand on Delphi’s head.
So, altogether it took about another hour of talking things over amongst ourselves to figure out the best course of action. During that time the bismuth from earlier came back with a selection of containers for collecting my tears and carefully measuring dilution concentrations. Some of these vials were so small and the glass so thin it looked like a stern glance might break them, and at the time I wondered how they had even been made. Now I know that some of the pebbles I’d made by accident were already at work making small things as they were needed.
A further hour passed just getting the tears needed for said vials. I made sure to switch out the quartzes as it went. It wasn’t really a comfortable process for any involved, and Tempest and Grubber both seemed shocked at what I was willing to endure to heal the many cracked gems in the archives. We’d even managed to fill up a container that looked like it’d make a good coffee mug for me with tears while the bismuth was busy fetching a stone barrel full of water.
After a few more minutes of careful measurements and dilution, followed by dropping a cracked gem extracted from an archive mirror into a container full of water and adding drops of tears until the crack sealed, we found out that my tears were effective on gems starting at around a 400-to-1 volumetric ratio. “Okay.” I pointed to Grubber. “Now, if you please, we need to test these on organics and you’re the only other one here.” I motioned him over. “Don’t worry too much, you shouldn’t get hurt.”
Hesitantly, Grubber closed the distance between us. “I-I ain’t scared,” he dismissed, a hand moving through his hair. “I just ate something that’s got me all wired up.” A squeal tore out of him as Amber lifted him up again. “T-totally not scared!”
“Well,” she began, with the strain of lifting him clear on her face within moments, “I can certainly say that this would be much easier if we had a scale handy. One with a digital readout would be nice, but I don’t think we have anything that measures more than a few pounds at a time without errors.”
Giving Grubber no chance to back out, I tipped one of the more concentrated vials over. Pink water trickled down onto his head, making his ‘mane’ stick to his body. Deciding a quarter was enough, I righted the vessel. “Feel anything?”
“Does hungry count?”
“You’re always hungry, Grubber.”
“I am not, I just...oh. OH! Put me down.” The odd creature began to squirm in the amber’s grasp as a strange gurgle emanated from his gut. “Put me down now, I gotta go!”
“You heard him, put him down,” I ordered, taking a step back.
“But nothing’s happened to him yet, My Diamond.” She sounded absolutely baffled by the order.
“Just put him down,” I insisted. “Obviously something has happened.”
Confused, but complying, the amber placed Grubber on his feet. He moved faster than I thought his pudgy body could; almost leaving a cartoon dust cloud in his wake as he scrambled to exit my chambers. “I need a bathroom! Bathroom!”
“Well, that makes sense. Unless your tears were going to just straight-up erase all the extra material his weight wasn’t going to change unless something came out of his body.” The magenta mare remarked in a tone that suggested she was holding back any expression of amusement. “But, if it doesn’t add or remove material, how do you intend to fix my horn?”
I gestured to the Amber. “That’s why I brought her here. Plus, I know for a fact that my tears can encourage bone growth.”
“So you’re effectively a sapient source of actual healing potions that can kick the ass of anyone who’d try to capture you and exploit you for that. Someone like you would have made revolution impossible if all the tales of the time of gem overlords are true.”
“Well, she’s here now and showing you considerable mercy.” The amber commented smugly before looking up at me. “Permission to examine the damaged area and ensure there’s nothing foreign there that could cause complications in the healing process or subsequent infections for your new pet, my diamond?”
I merely nodded at Tempest. “I’m not the one you need to ask, but do remember, she’s not a pet. She’s a guest.”
Amber nodded and turned to face Tempest. She stayed silent for a few seconds, simply looking at the unicorn before sighing. “Right, organics...would you mind if I examined your old injury before treatment begins? The last thing I want is for our new diamond to have to deal with an imperfect use of her abilities scarring her for life...and the pain you’d have to endure, with the accompanying screaming, would also be unbearable for me.”
Sighing, Tempest lowered her head. “Just get it over with. I don’t like people touching my horn.”
“I would imagine not. Old medical records show that few slaves or pets enjoyed having their wounds touched.” Amber subtly stretched her legs to make sure she stood just a little taller to get a better look at all areas of the jagged stump, and her right hand quickly changed shape to form a bunch of small medical tools. “This may hurt a little, but if you punch me I’m going to glue your arms to the wall. Understood? Any pain is only because I’m cleaning something that would hurt far worse if it wasn’t cleaned.”
Tempest nodded, and I watched her flinch slightly a few times as Amber began to meticulously clean the broken horn. Small chips of bone fell to the floor and were quickly swept up by a pair of pebbles that darted out of a hole in the wall that didn’t exist before they came out of it.
I made a note to talk with the pebbles when we were done. It didn’t sit right with me that my tears brought things to life pre programmed to serve. “See any complications?” I asked.
“I see multiple potential complications with this, my diamond, mostly because organics are messy creatures with all the bones and the fluids involved. That odd little gremlin-thing did prove that your power obeys the basic conservation of mass principle inherent in the core concepts of physics, though, which means that in order to fully repair her horn it is going to need to rebuild the basic structure of her horn by pulling bone and whatever tissue it is that unicorns use to channel their magic.”
She sighed and inhaled to gently blow against the slightly-less-jagged stump of Tempest’s horn, sending a puff of powdered bone from her cleaning into the air. “I think it would be best for her if I did something to mitigate the loss of matter and tissue elsewhere while your power works to heal, that way we don’t have the problem of an organic body trying to expel the patch that I make to heal someone. Pets aren’t gems, and her new horn trying to push a replacement aside might do even more damage to her.”
“Okay, I get that you have a few dozen centuries of tradition about the proper relationship between gems and all of the other intelligent species on the planet, but she just told you not even an hour ago that I’m not a pet.” Tempest narrowed her eyes and straightened herself up to her full height. She somehow managed to look down her muzzle at the taller gem, as if she was berating a lower-ranked soldier for a mistake. “I am a battalion commander in the army of the Storm King, and I will be treated with no less respect than you would give to any high-ranking quartz soldier, understood, civilian?”
“I expect you to comply,” I added, my disappointment bleeding into my tone. “Unless you want to clean all the murals with just your hands, or be assigned as an assistant to a bismuth on all of my non-medical projects.”
“You’d treat me like a pearl?” Her eyes widened a bit as she looked up at me, then she shuddered in response before actually offering Tempest that dorky arms-crossed salute. “Forgive me, unicorn-”
“Tempest.”
“Forgive me, Tempest, for forgetting your place and station as well as the orders of my diamond. What I think would be best is if I created a prosthetic replacement for the missing majority of your horn while my diamond’s healing power is used on you. That way her power could potentially convert the matter of the prosthetic into what your horn should be made of instead of drawing all of the mass from elsewhere in your body. This may be aided by you actively trying to use magic while we do this so that you do not end up handicapped by having to re-learn how to do anything after so many years without a fully-functional appendage. My kind of gem is a mineralized form of ancient organic matter, which will likely enhance compatibility if we do it this way.”
Tempest actually paused and blinked a couple times before looking up at me. “This is really happening, right? I’m not lying out in the badlands dying from heat stroke? I have a diamond offering to heal me for nothing, and one of the elusive gem medics actually trying to make sure I can still zap things while learning basic spells all over again? This is like some sappy children’s story where even the villain ends up with a happy ending... I’ve done some... some really underhanded things to get to this point, and I was hurting your soldiers. Why would you even bother to help me?”
Putting a hand on her shoulder, I gave it the softest squeeze I could. “Why not? If I’m going to be the leader of these gems, I need to lead by example. If it helps, I’ve done things I’m not proud of either.”
Tempest nodded after a few more seconds, then looked to the amber. “Alright, your apology is accepted, and your plan seems sound. I say we get this treatment done so that I can complete my last mission from the Storm King before I resign from his service, so I can begin repaying you for this act of kindness. I think I could start by being your personal bodyguard for a few months? Keep away some of the more annoying things that can hurt gems but magic utterly nullifies?”
Mulling it over, I slowly nodded my head. “Alright, I think I can accept that.” I didn’t ask about her mission, it wasn’t important. What was important was the wealth of knowledge she held. By the grace of god, it seemed, a native had fallen right into my lap. Whatever I needed to do to get her to open up, so that I could learn things from two different perspectives, would be done.
“Very well. Let’s get started right now so that my cleaning isn’t wasted.” Amber waited only to see if Tempest nodded or not before seemingly pulling a small glob of material off of her arm and beginning to mold it into a rough cone shape in her hands. “The average unicorn horn is approximately twenty centimeters long, your stump projects about five centimeters from your skull. Would you prefer a sharp point with a slight curve as one subspecies has been documented to have, or the more normal blunt tip?”
The healing process proceeded quickly from there, with Amber’s work and Tempest’s responses creating an orange-brown cone that fit perfectly on top of the shattered stump after only a couple minor adjustments. Once Amber was satisfied that she’d gotten the shape as close to natural as possible she gave Tempest a nod, and small sparks began to emit from the area between the horn and the replacement.
I took that as my cue and poured the last of the small vial of tears over Tempest’s head, which immediately resulted in a discoloration of the amber section of horn as the channeled magic began to shoot to the edges and turn the substance red where it passed. Amber’s hypothesis turned out to be correct, as we could see sections of bone and other tissues consume the ‘prosthetic’ as they grew, and Tempest even groaned a couple times, as if this entire process was soothing a giant muscle cramp.
The horn only had an inch or so of Amber’s material left to consume when a quartz soldier from before walked in through the door Grubber had left open in his rapid escape. In her left hand was a misshapen cluster of glowing green crystals. “My Diamond, this gem is starting to make my arm feel funny, and she hasn’t stopped glowing despite not even showing any signs of reforming this entire time.”
Tempest’s eyes widened, and she staggered back a step as the teal corona around her horn began to destabilize and the entire spire was surrounded in the electricity-like sparks from earlier. “The Malachite of Misfortune, no, get it out of th-”
A ball of lightning shot out of her horn towards the ceiling before she could finish her sentence, and she let out a sharp cry of pain as this happened. I couldn’t help but look up despite my concern for Tempest, as the ball exploded in a fireworks-like display against the ceiling, which was followed by a sharp
from the crystal chandelier above us.
I heard Delphi shout my name, but all I could think to do as the massive decoration started to fall was grab both Tempest and Amber and shove them both towards the other doorway.