Over the next two days, I worked alongside Speaks with Talons and the other two in his casting circle.
I came to learn a lot about how the Servants cast magic in a circle, sharing the load and applying more force to overcome the added taxation of healing. Most of it was jargon I only half understood, but the biggest thing was that it required at least three servants and the maximum power of the spell was capped by the weakest caster.
In this case, oddly, it wasn't Speaks with Talons that was the weakest link. He was a slow learner, but he still had been studying since he was a child. No, the weakest link was the freelance Zebra stallion.
It turned out that he was not always a servant, and had only just started meditating on his own in recent years. He refused to go into details about his past but it was clear he still looked up to Zecora in great admiration despite not being her formal apprentice. While Speaks with Talons had trouble being in a circle at all, now that he could he had more stamina for it than the zebra stallion.
The zebra had been introduced to me as Consolation. This proved to be a headache due to an odd hiccup in the translation of my amulet. This was because he was the only creature I had met so far who's name was rooted a meaning and not just syllables, and was actively spoken in the native tongue instead of Equestrian. Even when I tried to speak it as it was spoken in his native language, my amulet translated my non-Equestrian words to their meaning in Equestrian. Needless to say, this caused some awkward situations on my first day working with him.
"He is a natural healer, though," Speaks with Talons mentioned to me while the young zebra stallion caught his breath so that they could continue, "Like Mandible, he has so many little techniques outside of magic he has helped treat others with. Consolation has only been awoken as a servant for about a year and yet he can already heal in a circle. I, however, have never been good at healing."
He shook his head and looked at me, noticing I had not even touched my water as we sat at the bakery.
"I have you to thank for the ability to heal at all, Beast-kin." His tone went sad, but was full of resolve. "You also helped me finally realize what I have known all along but not wanted to admit."
I could see his talon get stiff around his own mug, resisting the urge to squeeze it, and the bittersweet pain of acceptance in his eyes. "I will never be a proper healer. The raven tribe are a tribe of hunters, warriors and fishers. We barely even have any fields of crops compared to the other tribes. No, it is not my place to heal, but to destroy. I destroy those that would destroy more, so that I can protect my brothers and sisters in servitude as they heal. This is why the Animus Mundi gave me the burden of being a quasi servant."
I looked at him odd. "Quasi servant?"
He closed his eyes and nodded briefly before opening them again.
"It is the term for those that grow slowly in magic among the servants like myself. Quasi servants are still servants, but our magic is different. Many of us choose to train in a wider range of skills outside of the magic than most because of the additional amount of time needed to reflect on the magic we learn. Whether we study other arts or not, it still only comes so fast. The biggest fault among us is that the magic is also independent from the Animus Mundi once learned. It cannot be denied that we learn it from her, but it becomes infused into our minds as well as our hearts, almost like that of the pony mages. While I meditate and communicate with her like any servant, I do not need to call out to her in the moment I use my magic. Some among the servants see us as charity cases. Grossly flawed and barely functional through fouler means and we should be allowed to serve only in lesser roles out of pity. The only reason the ones that believe this even tolerate us is that they can't deny the Animus Mundi not only allows it, but thinks of us far more warmly than most."
He looked over at the wagons that were just arriving with more food for us to purify and take to more populated areas.
"It's also why I have so much trouble forming a circle with others. With the need to use our minds as well as our hearts, it makes it difficult to work in harmony with the others that only use their hearts. This is on top of the fact we learn magic at about half the rate of the normal servants and healing is extra difficult for us. No, I've always been more efficient in using magic to destroy than to heal. I just need to accept it."
He took a breath to steel himself and got up, only to have my hand catch him.
"Hey, death and destruction are a part of life. You shouldn't be a shamed of it." I gave him a confident smile. "I've gotten to know you pretty well by now. You have a good heart. I also know you had one back when you were young. I saw how you earned your name that day. I think she knew this when she empowered you with her more destructive magic. She knew she could trust you to be careful and never abuse the power."
I let go and let him actually get up. Getting up myself, I finished.
"You're not a weak servant just because your healing magic is weak. Out of all her servants, you were strong in exactly the way she needed to trust you with the dark side of the force."
I had to wave my hand to dismiss that last part as he looked at me with that familiar look of not fully understanding the phrase I made. "And I have a sneaking suspicion it is probably true for the other quasi servants too. Don't ever let the rest make you feel ashamed of that."
With the heart to heart over, we started towards the door to help the unloading, only to find Mandible and the Speaker coming through the door with a fussy baby Hope in tow.
"Consolation," We heard Mandible call over to the zebra stallion, "I need to ask, do you have any fennel and peppermint in your supplies? We have ran out of her mother's milk that was sent with her and Hope is not responding well to pony formula. We have to calm her stomach before we can try any alternatives for feeding her."
Consolation looked up and glanced at the baby. "I do, but are you trying to make gripe water for her? That recipe for gripe water is not healthy for a newborn of any race and we would be gambling if we tried any other herbs for gripe water too. Bring her here. I may have another technique that can avoid hurting her digestive tract."
It seemed to sting Mandible that his remedy was potentially harmful, but he yielded to the more experienced herbalist and ushered the Speaker over.
As they set Hope on the table, Consolation looked to her father and asked, "Do you have anything of hers, a toy perhaps? A loose hair that came off will suffice."
The Speaker nodded and brought out what looked to be a simple bit of wood cleaned up and shaven smooth in a funny shape, covered in a bit of spit. It took me a moment but it was basically an impromptu pacifier made in a way she could suckle but not choke on it.
Consolation took the pacifier and a doll out of his own supplies. Carefully placing the pacifier on top of where the doll's mouth might be, he brought out needles.
"Do not worry. These will not touch her, nor cause any puncturing through my doll. They are simply to coax her natural gates into calming down to help her with her discomfort until her gas passes. In short, it will keep her from fussing and making it worse. Then we can look into relieving the gas."
It was weird, seeing him work on a doll that was twice the size of the child laying right next to it, but his methods seemed to be working. Hope was calming down, but wasn't quite completely settled yet. She was still feeling something.
I just shook my head and looked back at Speaks with Talons. "Some of the techniques you servants use to heal still amaze me to this day."
At first he was in shock, but looked back at me. "That's not a servant technique. It's voodoo, an æther based magic that manipulates the flow of energies in a body and mind. Though they do it through tools rather than horns like the unicorns, it started with the study of ancient mages who sought to better understand the natural patterns the Animus Mundi works through. That is why Consolation does not speak of his past before becoming a servant. He was a witch doctor."
When he saw me not understanding what he was implying, he shook his head and replied. "They study natural magics, but unlike quasi servants, they are not blessed by the Animus Mundi at all. This practice is purely focused in the mind, not the heart. Many servants want to lump quasi servants up with them, seeing us as only one step removed from them in practice. We have common roots, but there is bad blood between some shamans and the witch doctors."
Having completed the procedure with his doll and instructing the Speaker to carefully move her legs in a bicycle like motion, Consolation turned towards us. "'Never is it a waste to let a healer heal.' That is what Zecora once told me. So I will not deny my past, nor the medical knowledge passed to me by my old teacher. But I would appreciate it if you didn't needlessly tell others. I walk a different path now."
A few minutes passed as the Speaker steadily worked the gas out of his daughter's belly. After a while, we saw Plasma Wave and another volunteer come in to Sugar Cube Corner.
"Here you are!" The pegasus mare called out as they approached Mandible. Upon seeing Consolation, she gave a smile of familiarity. "I heard you were back in town! I can see you've finished growing up since I saw you last."
Consolation could only give an uneasy smile and a bowing of his head to her.
Holding his now calmed daughter, the Speaker came up to the group and the guard. "Never have I seen æther so beautifully wielded. If only more magi could learn to work with its flow like you did instead of push through it with raw force, the Fey probably wouldn't be so paranoid of it. Maybe after Hope is grown I can return and show them what I've seen in the outside world."
He locked eyes with me for a moment as I could see the gears turning in his head about how to judge me as well. Ultimately, he took a step back and called to Mandible. "Please tell the doctors that I have to refuse their request. While my wells of magical stamina are far deeper than most, it also regenerates far more slowly than most. Until Hope can safely eat something else, I have to save all my stamina to feed her."
Turning to the kitchen, the Speaker called out to the owners. "I must apologize, but do you have one of those 'baby bottles' I was shown by Nurse Redheart? Hope seems to prefer them to the nozzle of a milk bladder."
Upon seeing a nod from an empathetic Ms Cake, the Speaker set Hope down on the floor and spoke, "Please, surrogate mother, help me feed my daughter," while passing his staff over his hand.
With this, a familiar sight of ten berries appeared in his hand. His hand was so small that he had to drop his staff to keep from spilling them onto the floor.
With some quick maneuvering he placed them in a pouch at his side then pulled one berry out again. When Ms Cake brought the baby bottle, he placed the one berry inside the bottle then reached up and set it on the counter.
Turning to Mandible and Plasma Wave, he took off his pouch and offered it to them. "But it is not our way to waste any resource. So you may also tell the doctors that while I will not expend any of my magic to create any additional berries, they may still have the excess that would otherwise go bad after I have seen to it that I have enough to feed her. I sympathize with the children who's stomachs were all but shut down by the poisoned food, but my duty as her father comes first. With her mother unable to feed her, I can't risk sparing even a single drop of my magic for anything else."
With the pouch in tow, Plasma Wave nodded and prepared to head out to deliver them. "Hopefully this will still help them get back to normal food. With so many from the party sick, the doctors are having a hard time rationing that stuff they put straight into the blood until they can get more in. I've survived on those berries myself when Zecora made them, but I'm still surprised even a baby can eat them without straining their bellies."
After Plasma Wave stepped out, he noticed the mare hadn't left with him. Turning back around, he poked his head back in.
"Lightning Dust? Are you coming?"
The mare he called out to shook her head and looked at Consolation. "I'll meet up with you later, dad. I have an old acquaintance I want to catch up with."
With another nod and a simple smile, Plasma Wave left.
Turning to Consolation, Lightning Dust lowered her ears for a moment then shook her head back and forth. "So did you hear what happened to Gets Things Done?"
Consolation simply sighed and closed is eyes. "Yes. He died last night from one of the more quick acting diseases they contained within the prisons. I know I should morn him, but with the sheer amount of pain he caused for his own ends, I can't seem to shed a tear for my older brother's passing. In some ways I'm actually relieved."
Lightning Dust Nodded in kind, then abruptly turned her attention towards us.
"OK, I caught up with Consolation. So I wasn't technically lying, but I need to ask all of you for something. You're all healers, right?"
With all of us gathering, Speaks with Talons and myself scratched our heads. "Technically, in our cases?" I spoke for the both of us while the rest simply nodded.
With an expression of slight desperation, Lightning Dust gave a look of a mare out of options. "It's my dad. I've known him my whole life and I can tell something's wrong. He's really good at putting on a brave face but what I've seen today has gone above and beyond. Something's terribly wrong with him, but he won't admit it."
She looked at us with a growing expression of fear.
"The doctors are stretched thin and either can't or won't fight to get him to consent to an examination. Please, figure out what is wrong with my dad and help him."
The entire room went silent at her odd request. After it sank in, we all looked at Lightning Dust with unease and empathy.
The Speaker went first as he reached for the baby bottle again, then his daughter, "If I find something, I will be sure to do what I can. However, much of my time and energy is filled with taking care of Hope and learning to get along in this outside world. So I am not sure how much I can do."
When he turned to the rest of us, he seemed a bit surprised our faces matched his expression. With a gurgle from Hope's now hungry belly causing her to get fussy again, he proceeded to excuse himself and start mashing the berry into juice and dilute it with water to bottle feed her a little at a time.
Tree Hugger, whom had been quiet thus far, came up and put her hoof on Lightning Dust's shoulder. "As much as we'd like to help figure out your dad's bad mojo, we have to stay here to purify the food for the greater good."
Mandible, being the only one that wasn't preoccupied, piped in. "I will try to do what I can too, but he only sees me as the broken changeling he rescued that one time. I don't think he'd open up to me much."
Speaks with Talons looked at the first cart they finished unloading and shook his head. "He has a bond with the Beast-kin and myself from our adventures, so he might open up if we could be with him. Sadly, we will likely take the rest of the morning for the last of today's batches and will be completely exhausted after that."
Lightning Dust closed her eyes to look inward as her face became mixed with an array of motions in a span of only a few seconds. Anger, confused frustration, and finally disappointment.
She didn't make a fuss, but rather just turned to walk out.
"Wait," I called out to her.
She stopped in her tracks to turn her head back.
I gave an uneasy apologetic face to Speaks with Talons and the other healers, but steeled myself to continue. "If I can get Archimedes to cooperate, I think I can wrap the last of this up quickly. I still have to go home immediately after due to my paperwork, but it should free up you guys."
"No," I heard Archimedes call to me, which I promptly ignored.
"I play by a different set of rules compared to natives when it comes to casting. I actually have a limited reserve of energy I can tap into. The catch is that I have to have Archimedes's cooperation to cast the spell I've been using here, and he's been a stick in the mud."
"What if Dalock attacks?"
Still ignoring him, I continued "He doesn't want me wasting my spell slots, my reserves, doing a spell I can cast without them if given enough time. He is afraid of not having enough magic to deal with something if it happens, but the fact is I don't have enough magic to deal with it even if it did. I need to rely on my friends, but if I hold on to my reserves needlessly, I won't be able to rely on as many friends and my resources will dwindle in the long run."
I turned to Archimedes on his perch, noting that Speaks with Talons followed my movement. "All I can do is up cast level one spells while Dalock has the ability to stockpile his magic indefinitely. In the long run this is a bad idea and you know it."
"He hasn't let me cast this spell with the reserves that let me cast quickly. Please, Archimedes,-" I shifted my tone to a pleading one as most of the creatures present started looking at him longingly, just as I needed them to. "-Partner, will you work with me on this?"
The owl stuck his head down "...I still feel this is a bad idea, but you have a point. We will need allies to take him down."
Turning to the teams that were piling the food in from outside, I told them to stop. With everyone looking at me through the door or windows, I made quick work of the nine carts, taking only a few seconds at each cart to move my hands and call out to Archimedes before casting the spell to purify the food, still in the carts.
Coming back inside, I used up my smallest remaining spell slot on the pile that had already been unloaded.
Almost every creature was shocked at my ability, except for the Speaker.
With a look of disgust and contempt, he practically spat at me. "You still wield that forbidden energy?"
I rolled my eyes up as if I had a migraine, then turned to him. "OK, one, I never had a say in it being inside me or not. Two, this 'forbidden energy' is the very stuff that ended the war and made this world safer for you and your daughter. Three, until I manage to figure out how to use the magic from your precious 'surrogate mother,' it's the only healing magic I have. So hate me if you want, but it is a bad idea. Hatred is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die."
The Speaker was taken back for a moment as the rest of the room was surprised by my bit of wisdom and sudden boldness.
"'Surrogate Mother,' that is what the Fey call her?" I heard Mandible call out, breaking the tension.
He shrank back when we looked at him oddly. "I couldn't be sure with his thick accent earlier. It's just that Wild Storm says it's one of the things I must meditate on. What to call out to her as when I start to awaken as her servant. I was going to just use the same words as my teacher, but he insisted it needed to be personal, from my own heart. From what I've heard others call her, her raw power and brood like..."
He paused, trying to find a better wording.
"...Or what mammals might call maternal nature have resonated with me. With my insect heritage, I feel the title Queen of Queens might be a befitting title for me to call her. I still have a ways to go before I solidify it though."
Pushing the more pressing matters forward, Archimedes asked, "So how many spell slots do you still have?"
Shaking my head and focusing inward, I did a quick count. "Three level four, two level five and one level six."
"It will have to do. Try not to expend any more. We at least need something to last until help arrives if he attacks."
I looked at all of them, working in harmony, ecstatic to suddenly be able to help out Lightning Dust. A part of me was happy to be able to enable them, but mostly I was just sad I couldn't do more.
With a slumping of my shoulders, I turned towards the door and called out.
"Well, regardless, good luck you guys. I'm happy I managed to free you guys up, but I gotta head back to the cottage now."
Speaks with Talons stood in front of the door, blocking my exit. "No, you don't."
"Oh come on now. With my work complete I am obligated by law to return home when I'm not with Fluttershy or otherwise detained."
"No, your work isn't done. The first day you purified the food you might have been working under the Cakes, but Tree Hugger, Consolation an myself were put in charge of purifying the food and we are the ones you have been answering to since that day. Right now we are your employers, and we say your job isn't finished yet."
I stopped and stared at him as I absorbed his words. A smile slowly grew on my face and I stammered in a sense of relief, "Y-yes sir."