//------------------------------//
// Chasing my tail. (Stemming the Tide, Part 5.) 
// Story: Meta Gamer in Equestria: Champion's Folly 
// by reflective vagrant 
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We had managed to setup a small medical station to help with the diamond dogs that came to us for healing, but I felt pretty useless through it all.
There were few diamond dogs besides the one pup that was bruised up with the "strange" wounds, as Fluttershy seemed to call them, if I had the words right.  Even then, all of the other diamond dogs that did have wounds had them well on the mend already before we arrived and were healthy otherwise.
That relegated me to a dual job of shaking my head for any of the other ill diamond dogs coming straight to me for aid while pointing them to Mandible and Fluttershy, and finding what little things I could do to help.

Boiling water for clean bandages and general application cloths on top of making ice to convert into cold compresses was about all I could do. That is to say, providing fire for the boiling pot Scraps and Tempest had managed to get one of the locals to lend.  Beyond that, about all I could do was slowly use my mending spell to mend Scraps' studded leather armor between bandage boiling.  It was a slow process, steadily reattaching layer by studded layer of the armor.
"I feel bad,"  I called to Archimedes as I clasped the two natural lodestone magnets together, causing the next layer to re-fuse as if it were being cut in reverse.  Some tiny flakes of material were missing and flakes of material from other layers were lodged in the re-fused seam.  It was fairly strong, save for a scar of imperfections in the leather, showing it to be not quite as strong as it was originally.  But this was as close as we could get it without getting it to an armorer or leather worker and getting the bits replaced entirely.
"You are not using a holy symbol for your cleric spell of mending.  You are not violating your own rules."  He looked out at the diamond dogs being brought in.  Some had diseases that were easily treatable by our two "real" medics, but a few of them weren't so lucky.  Mandible could give them a few different herbal medicines to up their chances, but still had to look the ones that brought them in with a gravely apologetic look.
Archimedes looked back at me with an apologetic look of his own, sorrow taking the place of his usual disdain. "But that is not what you are feeling bad about, is it?"
I saw the diamond dogs and Speaks with Talons finally start putting new makeshift bandages into the pot for me to sterilize.  Knowing I didn't have time to start another layer of Scraps' armor, I signaled my partner to help Mandible with analyzing a difficult case.
He just about turned the diamond dog away before seeing Archimedes land beside the spot he was sitting.
As Archimedes reached his wing out to touch Mandible's side, I  pulled my hand forward as discreetly as I could manage with two fingers extended upward and the rest curled as if focusing, and called out as quietly as I could, "Ductu."
Mandible felt the surge of magic from his moral support buddy, and gave the diamond dog laying in front of him one last look over.  He strained hard, but the boost was enough, and he came out of his near trance with a look of realization.  Bringing out two different herbal medicines, he ground them together and called Scraps over from Fluttershy's side to translate his instructions to the healthy diamond dogs overlooking their comrade.
With a smile on the changeling's face, Archimedes flew back to my side and I turned back to the now prepared pot.
With a nod at Speaks with Talons, I raised my curled fingers in an aggressive form and called out, "Uro!" causing the pot to be almost completely engulfed in the flames of my bonfire cantrip.
With the fire up again and taking up the majority of my attention to keep it going, I set down the armor I was working on, settled into my spot to be ready to re cast the bonfire a couple of times before the pot finally boiled.
"It's easy to destroy," I called to Archimedes as I stared into the flame.  "I know a few different ways to kill now, but that isn't power.  The Animus Mundi gave me this spell because I 'embraced fury.' but fury isn't anything special."
With a shake of my head, I briefly pointed to Fluttershy and Mandible's general direction while still focusing on my flame.  "The ability to create and preserve, now that is power.  That is special."
"You are able to heal wounds.  Does that count for anything?"
I glanced down at the owl then back at the flame, preparing to re cast it.
Calling another "Uro!" and doing the complimentary gesture, I restarted the fire as soon as it went out.
"I get the sentiment, but not really, no.  You can focus your magic through me to do that, so it's not exactly me doing it.  But even if you want to count that for the sake of argument,  I know I could do more.  I know the exact spell that could heal these sick diamond dogs."
Archimedes nodded solemnly.  "Lesser Restoration.  I mastered many spells in the eras I waited in Toril and I know that one quite well.  I'm sorry we couldn't spare enough quintessence to allow me to focus a second level spell for you.  We took a risk to reroute enough of it to even let me be your catalyst at all."
I gave a heavy sigh as I continued to stare into my flame.
"I wasn't talking about you.  The Animus Mundi knows the spell too, as well as a lot of other healing spells.  Even now, it's on the tip of my tongue but I can't cast it.  I can't call out to her because of the whole 'what does she mean to me' bull crap Zecora keeps prattling on about."
I thew a stone at the fire in frustration. "I know what she means to me.  She likes me for reasons I may never know and so she lets me stay.  She still openly calls me 'son of Gaia.'  I'm a child of my home world.  I'm not one of her children, nor do I want to be.  I'm the stray that she took pity on and let in out of the rain.  Why isn't that enough?"
Archimedes said nothing and just stared into the flame alongside me.  After a long silence, I re-stoked the bonfire spell again.
A few more seconds of silence passed before he called out to me with an odd feeling I couldn't quite place, neither warm nor cold, yet gave a sense of an old grandpa giving a word of wisdom.
"That sounds more like what you want to think you mean to her, rather than what she means to you."
He didn't press the matter, and said it in a way that seemed to imply he didn't want a response.  He just left the statement to sit with me as I continued to focus on the flame.


* * *


The very last patient was an extremely sick pup with dark welts all over him.  It didn't even take Mandible a second to quickly shoot back in fear.
"I must apologize," he called out after recovering from his shock.
He gave the pup another look over at a distance as I fetched my crystal and muttered "Linguam Intellegere," to activate my comprehend languages spell, in absence of my amulet.  I didn't want to miss any details on something that had scared him.
"This disease closely resembles one that is deadly to my kind.  But on closer inspection it is another illness."
With a moment to steel himself, he approached the pup again and bowed his head to the pup's parents.  I recognized the father as the diamond dog who had stolen my amulet, sporting a fresh set of wounds similar to the first pup we treated.
"I'm sorry, but while this illness is not contagious unless you allow some of his blood to enter your body somehow, such as through a cut, it is still much like the other in that it is always fatal.  There is nothing I can do to even improve his odds of pulling through.  He has a day left, maybe two if he is unlucky.  All I can do is ease some of the pain that is in store for him in his final hours."
Scraps paused several times to look at Mandible before translating the bad news, which was quite odd hearing him with my spell re translating it back to me the exact same way as Mandible said it, save for Scraps' mannerisms causing a few minor hiccups.
After this, the parents looked horrified at the news.  When Mandible suggested they burn the body after he has passed to keep the rest of the village safe, the mother quickly scooped him up and the father spat at the changeling's hooves in contempt.


Once the parents left, the group of females that had lent us the pot took it back as Tempest thanked them with an exaggerated bow to make up for translation.
"Is alright.  Bitch look out for bitch."
I was taken back by the language, hearing the translation directly, yet apparently everybody else was shocked at the female's words directly too, but more by actually hearing them.
She nodded.  "Happy speak decent pony tongue."  She then booped her own snout with her paw curled up like a hoof.  "And Happy also know how to see pony magic, even when sent through hoof."
I froze for only a second, but quickly snapped to as I heard Tempest call out, "defensatrix gentes!" activating the coats of arms on her armor to detach and act as floating shields, followed by her striking a battle stance.
Knowing she only pulled out her animated shields in a moment of great need, I pulled out my wand in ready for conflict as well.
We practically drew our variants of the blade ward cantrip side by side, mine a pentagram with my free hand, hers a yin-yang like equestrian symbol of the two sisters in the air with her horn, both of us finishing off with a distinct "Tutela!" spoken in unison.
We backed up a bit, but felt odd when the female simply looked at us with a surprised sense of alert confusion.
"Happy said bitch looks out for bitch, not tattle on bitch."
Our wards faded as Tempest carefully approached.
"What do you mean?"  She asked in a measured tone and volume.
The female pointed to her eyes.
"Eyes window to spirit.  When diamond dog look into eyes, we look into spirit.  Pony might have body of pony, but when we see pony approach Scraps at circle, we see fire in pony's eyes.  Fire of caring and anger, and fire of determination.   Pony may of had body of pony, but pony have spirit of bitch."
She puffed up in pride.  "While males like to fight for dominance, bitches look out for other bitches."
She pointed at Tempest. "And you, pony, are bitch in spirit, so we look out for you.  Not tattle.  Lend pot.  Same as xi fu for any covdj."
I lost translation as my spell ran out and had to kick back into translating manually a little late, but I think I managed to get the gist.  We were safe.  They weren't going to tell on Tempest for cheating.


Slowly stuffing my wand back into my left sleeve as the last of the diamond dogs finally went off and left us alone, I couldn't help but laugh, despite my attempt to stifle it.
"What is funny?"  Archimedes asked me, coming back down from the air.
"It's just an odd irony.  A few words that fit up too perfectly with a slang from my home world that I couldn't help but laugh at.  You probably wouldn't get it."
"You never know, I might."
I shook my head again and got my furs in order to resume traveling and looking for information.  "Alright, alright.  I'll give you the short version. They said she was a bitch in spirit...  I find myself unable to disagree with that statement."
He landed on my shoulder and pondered for a moment.  With his head returning to his regular scouting pattern as a familiar, he responded.
"It's a word that describes ones nature or personality that happens to fit...  Wait.  We have more company. Behind you on your left."
I turned around to my left enough to half face what my familiar noticed.  I saw the father of the doomed pup holding my amulet out to me.  There it was, with the string even fixed.  There was a whimper to his attempt to ask something from me as his eyes went back and forth between the amulet and to my nearest hand.

The pain in is eyes as he begged compelled me to give it another shot.
"Landlord,  lady of the land...  Great Animus Mundi...  Spirit of the land I reside in..."
But alas, my words fell short and I still couldn't feel anything.  I just couldn't find a personal connection to her. The mental block of me being an outsider was still there.  I dropped my eyes to the ground and whimpered what even to me felt like an empty apology.
"I'm sorry.  I can't help him."
I knew he couldn't understand my words, but I hoped he could understand my tone as the tears began to fall from my face and I clutched my left arm with my right in shame.
"Beast-kin!"  I heard Speaks with Talons call out to me, too late.
I looked up and saw the diamond dog pounce on me again, this time driving the amulet hard into my chest, but I also felt something else.
Looking to my left arm, I saw the diamond dog had pulled my wand out of my sleeve.  Next thing I knew, he was running like a bat out of hell with the wand in tow.





Thankfully, the time without my amulet's translation was over, as the fixed string was holding and the amulet's magic seemed to not suffer any damage.
The part I wasn't so grateful for, however was how the fighters in my team left Mandible and Fluttershy behind in the village while we chased the thief across the mountainous landscape.  If it weren't for Scraps knowing the area and Speaks with Talon's natural flying, we would have surely lost him.
When we caught up to him, finally, he was in a cave with...  A humanoid?!
Looking closer, his mate and pup were there too, and the humanoid with a hood was finishing the sprinkling of what looked to be diamond dust over the pup in the sickly purple tinted lighting of the cave.
The welts all over the pups body quickly dissipated as the humanoid's spell finished, burning up the diamond dust into harmless steam in the process.
He looked up at us, gave an audible growl and shooed the couple out of the cave.
With the rest of the team catching up with me and Scraps, we saw him twirl my wand briefly, then use it to push back his hood, revealing the pitch black face of a dark elf.
"And so we meet yet again, though for the first time properly in person."
"What did he say?"  Tempest asked, nodding to my amulet.
I didn't respond, as my body was tensed up in fear from multiple factors.  The two biggest ones were the fact that my eyes were somehow focusing on both his body, and an otherworldly presence emanating from him that I couldn't "see" but still somehow "saw."  Combine that with the fact that I saw his lips move to the words that showed I didn't need my amulet to understand him, and my mind was both denying and screaming the truth at me about who I saw before me.
"Impossible!"  I heard Archimedes cry out in my mind, "He died!  In the desert, he died!  Nobody else can have that marker, and he died!"
He grinned a sinister grin, not all that scared of the griffin snarling at him and the pony charging her horn in preparation. 
"Allow me to introduce myself, my dear lesser half,"  He called out with a mocking tone at the end.
He twirled his hand around twice as a little devil like creature still sporting an amulet appeared at his side.  He then went into a long ramble, gaining ever more gusto as he went along.
"I am the blight set on this world.  The near slayer of Fey.  The master of great magics, and your greater half!"
He looked at his audience with the eyes of a crazed madman.  "I am the champion of Bane!"
Looking right at me, he carefully pronounced each word, exaggerating his lip movement to where I could see what he was saying even if I were deaf.  "I!  Am!  @#^$#*Dalock!"