Slipping into the almost-but-not-quite steaming basin, Sundance felt most of his troubles fade away as the comforting warmth saturated his sunny ochre hide. Like dry earth, he absorbed an impressive amount of water, his body grew heavy, his limbs leaden, and a strange force pulled him down until he was almost submerged. The faint stench of rotten eggs made him think of home, and then a small, quiet part of his mind reminded him that he was home—just in a very different part of home.
When Megara flopped into the water, Sundance found himself the victim of displacement and he bobbed about like a doomed apple in a washbasin. Within seconds, the water turned murky—and while he wanted to care about the befouled broth he found himself in, he was too tired, too worn out, too fatigued to be bothered. In time, more water would flow into the basin, and the yucky water would flow out. At least, that was how it should've worked. But this water was filthy, so much so that Sundance wondered if he would ever be clean again.
River Raider hesitated. She was unspeakably filthy as well, covered in dried, caked-on slime, mud, and blood. A grunt. A sigh. Sundance felt eyes upon him, but he dared not turn his head to make eye-contact, which might upset the brutish beast. River Raider was the one that found the bathwater-hot pool, which was on the ridge with the trail that led down to the lowlands below. Some of the hot waterfall flowed through natural channels and ended up here, in this little basin—which the ogre himself may very well have used, if such a creature ever bathed, which was doubtful in the extreme.
"What's the matter?" asked Megara. "Afraid of a little penis in the pool? The teeniest, tiniest little twat-trout?"
The irritated behemoth's only response was a snarl, while the sodden pegasus frowned.
"It's a bite-sized snack, like a cocktail weenie—"
"Hey!" Sundance shouted in protest while also scissoring his hind legs together beneath the water. "That's uncalled for."
"Well, she shouldn't feel so threatened by it. By you. It's ridiculous."
"And you"—he reminded himself that the manticoress had just unscrewed an ogre's head not that long ago—"you should be more respectful. River, do you want me to go?"
Snarling, she flung herself into the water and Sundance was once more almost swept out by displacement, which lifted him and carelessly flung him around. Somehow, he ended up right in Megara's embrace, which might've been exciting under most circumstances, but proved decidedly awkward right now, given the circumstances. None too gently, she shoved him away, and then sat him back down near the edge of the stone basin.
"Just what is it with you two, anyhow?" Sundance demanded, now too irritated to leave this alone.
"We're both apex predators," River Raider replied. "Masters of our domain. Natural enemies, at least in the larger scale of things. Competing monsters… of which I am the stronger."
"You wish, horse-spawn."
"Hey, didn't you have a horse-dad?"
Megara's good natured grin turned into a savage sneer. Meanwhile, Hornet, still in changeling form, paced around the edge of the pool, her head high, her eyes bright, and her chitinous limbs tap-tap-tapping against the stone. Her face was a mask with no expression, an armored shell that revealed nothing of her mood. She was quite filthy, just as soiled as both Megara and River Raider, and Sundance wondered if Hornet would join them.
"I am the product of centuries of breeding, while Megs is just a mistake—"
"Don't do that," Sundance snapped, and his objection made River Raider bare her teeth at him.
He didn't back down.
"Ladybug, are you just gonna stand there?" asked Megara.
"Probably," Hornet replied. "I get clean with acid. That water is filthy."
"Eh, it will run clean… eventually. You should join us, Ladybug."
"Most creatures would dissolve in acid," River Raider remarked. "What about your… your plant-parts? Don't those get damaged?"
"Naw." Hornet shook her chitinous head. "Don't know why though. Chemical protection? Magic? I have wondered about it… but then I got scolded for distracting the Collective and causing precious thought-cycles to be wasted on frivolity. I was a naughty larva. I suppose I still am. Did you know that I can swim in boiling water with no harm?"
To which Megara replied, "That's actually… pretty impressive."
"You both seem so fragile for being so dangerous." Hornet came to a stop, turned her head, and looked down at her two female companions. "Soft bodies, made of vulnerable flesh. Weak to so many chemical compounds and not to mention the temperature vulnerability. How is it that your kind survived? I honestly don't understand. How did we evolve to be enemies?"
"How is it that the changelings lost and almost went extinct?" asked River Raider.
"I wonder the same thing. There are other Collectives in the world, and they didn't make the same mistakes that we did. We should celebrate mutual cooperation… friendship… whatever you wish to call it."
Hornet gracefully slipped into the water and caused nary a ripple.
Sundance was somewhat surprised when she settled in beside him, and he found himself studying her redwood antlers, which were pointy, jagged, and vicious in the extreme. While she was alien, with a physiology utterly different from his own, he found that he could appreciate her physical form. She had a mane of sorts, a thin, shimmering iridescent film that seemed to be all colours and none.
"You don't even have redundant nervous systems," Hornet said to her companions. "If something happens, some unfortunate injury, you end up paralysed, or worse. You only have one heart and if something happens to that, you die. When I was younger, still a larva, I wondered how you soft creatures dominated the planet. This got me in trouble. I wasn't supposed to think of you as being soft, squishy sorts. But I couldn't help it."
She paused, shook her head, and added, "I don't know how to keep you safe, Sundance. Your body is like a magnet for misfortune. You can drown. Suffocate. Your flesh is so weak. It scares me. Yet, I cannot deny that you have strength. I don't understand it. At all."
"This got weird." Heaving a snort, River Raider sent a bolo of bloodied snot soaring over the edge.
A thin column of smoke rose from the ogre's camp.
"One bad queen almost caused your extinction." With her head just above the surface of the water, Megara was a lot less threatening. "I can see why you're afraid of her. For your species to be so geared towards survival and then for Chrysalis to introduce such a vulnerability… I can't imagine what that's like for you."
"We almost ended because of her," Hornet admitted, and her voice was more than a little sad. "The Collective shapes us all. Forges us to ensure our survival. Each new threat we encounter, we evolve rapidly to ensure our own survival. But… she warped our Collective. I don't think it had a way to deal with such a threat from within. She caused the Collective to turn on us… if we became a threat to her and her rule, the Collective minimised that threat to ensure her survival… at such a cost to the rest of us. Explaining this to outsiders is… difficult."
"It's why you fear her jumping out of your Collective like a monster out of the closet," Sundance said to Hornet.
"Yeah. That. We're supposed to trust the Collective to do what is best for us, but that trust is injured. I'm not even supposed to talk about this. They'll know. They'll know and I'll be in trouble. I'm treading into dangerous territory, but it feels good to let it out. We're supposed to act like everything is normal with the hopes that everything is normal. And maybe that's for the best—"
"And maybe it isn't," River Raider said while she sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her foreleg. "Like I was telling you earlier. Only now, it seems so much more important."
"So… today I showed up at another creature's home, gave them brain damage, and right now while I sit here, they are becoming smoke and being poured into the sky. How am I supposed to feel about this? So much happened. None of it was normal. How do I feel about it?"
Each of his companions turned their heads to look at him, and Sundance wished they hadn't. Megara's battered, lumpy face was almost clean. Just a bit more scrubbing and some of the horror would go away. As for River Raider, she squinted at him, her eyes narrowed in such a way that suggested that the sun caused her some discomfort. Try as he might, he couldn't read her expression, which really did a number on his insecurities. Her squintiness was cute, though he tried very, very hard to not think about that too much. It was almost as if she'd just crawled out of bed—which made him think of other things, none of which were good to have floating around in his headspace.
"I guess you're wanting to know how you did today, in your own roundabout way of asking."
"Right, Meg. Exactly that."
"Well, you did awful," Megara said. Droplets of water glistened on her quivering whiskers as she took a deep breath. "You froze up pretty hard… which I rather expected. I wanted to see how you handled shock, and you showed me. We'll have to work on that, Sunshine."
While he could not help but feel disappointed, he also felt relieved; this honesty was refreshing. Was it fear that froze him up with crippling stupidity? He rather doubted that. Too much to take in at once? That seemed likely. He noticed that the water was now a little clearer, though not by much. It occurred to him that if somepony peed in the pool, River Raider would know—and maybe Hornet too.
"Yeah, I would," the nocturnal pegasus said, confirming his suspicions. "Don't you dare."
"You didn't show much in the way of killer instinct," Megara said, continuing. "There was a real lack of aggression… though you did finally get your aim sorted out. Hitting a bale of hay or a stump is quite different than throwing at a live target. Sometimes, our brain tricks us and makes us miss for our own peace of mind." Reaching up with a paw, she tapped against her temple with one extended paw-finger. "Overcoming that is hard, sometimes."
"I think Sundance did fine," Hornet interjected. "But… I think that you messed up."
In response, Megara—her eyebrow raised—replied, "Did I now?"
"You just described the problem, even. You chose the ogre as a live target dummy." The pine needles on Hornet's antlers were particularly green in the vivid sunlight. "You wanted to purge Sundance of what you believe are his weaknesses… which are actually his strengths. You run the risk of destroying what makes him a good pony. Today's shock and awe tactics cost him something, though what remains to be seen. River is aware of it too… but you, you're oblivious. I find it worrisome."
"Huh." It appeared as though Megara had nothing else to say.
Voice low, River Raider said to Megara, "She's not wrong. You tossed Sundance into the deep end to see if he'd sink or swim. He's not like us. In fact, he's not at all like any of your students. I don't like what happened. When he came up out of that cave, there was something wrong with him. There still is, but he's buried it."
Again, Megara grunted, "Huh."
Hornet asked, "Do we risk losing his compassion?"
"You think I messed up. I suppose this comes from your awakening? Your newfound sense of understanding the ins and outs of battle?" Orange eyes flinty, Megara's face hardened into a no-tell mask. She flicked away a crusted lump of snot and blood from the corner of her nostril, and then just sat there, staring, her face an unreadable blank book that offered Sundance no words for understanding.
Were he but a little smarter, he might've realised that while he was cut off, Hornet and River Raider were not. They knew, while he did not. While he was stuck with a blank, they had understanding. Had he realised this, he might have been upset. Or insulted. Perhaps a bit put out. Or not, for he was a remarkably understanding pony, one not quick to anger. His fate, his future as a warrior, depended upon a silent contest of wills that he was absolutely oblivious to, and cut off from.
"So today, in no uncertain terms, I fucked up?"
"You went with your own experiences, but you lack sensory awareness to understand the consequences of your actions." River Raider's response was surprisingly patient and lacked her usual antagonistic barbs.
"Sundance suffered from your lack of awareness," Hornet said.
With a sigh, Megara's expression softened considerably; the hardness became something warm, almost friendly even. She looked right at Sundance and said, "You have a fantastic bodyguard, Sundance. I hope you show her the appreciation she deserves. She will serve you well."
"I don't understand." It was true; he lacked comprehension.
"She was brave enough to tell me I'm wrong, and courageous enough to convince me of said wrongness. That takes guts." She wiped her swollen muzzle and then her broad paw vanished beneath the water. "I think that… well, I think I might have to come up with a new approach to this. Play to your strengths. I agree that a mistake was made… I did intend for the ogre to serve for target practice. I specifically chose the ogre because I knew he would survive a few pricks with a javelin."
"That… seems cruel—"
"No worse a fate than what he deserves, Sundance. Don't defend the ogre."
"I'm not… I'm just… in over my head. You set me up to fight something you knew that I couldn't kill… what was the lesson, exactly? What was I supposed to learn?" When he heard her sigh once more, his ears pricked, and he was aware of an itch inside of his brain. "Was the ogre supposed to suffer so that I might learn? Is that the cost of my greatness? Needless suffering? What am I—"
"It's just an ogre, Sundance."
"And you're just a manticore." While he might have missed with his javelins, he scored a direct hit with his words. He saw Megara's eyes narrow, and then he was distinctly aware of her pain. "Do I apologise to manticores or is that optional?"
"Wow, the jugular…"
"Hush, River. Now is not the time."
Hornet's words did not distract Sundance, who stared right at Megara.
"The second mistake I made today was doubting your courage," she said to him, never turning away. "Not your fearlessness… that's not courage. Just because you have a bit of magic that separates you from your fear doesn't mean that you have courage. But as it turns out, you have the testicular fortitude necessary to challenge the mighty manticore. You drew blood. I'm proud of you."
"I'm so confused right now," he said in return.
"Mistakes were made," Megara began. "And I think it would be wise to start over. You two"—her eyes darted to and fro between her fellow female companions—"I trust that you'll supply me with the situational awareness I need. We can't screw this up… too many lives depend upon us getting this right. So tweak my whiskers when I'm wrong. And as for you"—her eyes returned to Sundance and settled upon him like leaden weights—"you be you. That's important. Let's see if we can preserve that, but still turn you into a lean, mean fighting machine. That's a challenge I'll gladly take on."
"You're not mad?" he asked, unable to believe his own good fortune, because nopony wanted the baleful attention of an irate manticore.
"Why would I be?" she returned. "My father taught me to fight. But it was my mothers that taught me to take my lumps with feminine graciousness."
"I'm sorry about what I—"
"Don't be." The manticoress' tone turned unpleasant. "Sundance… you have to learn how to dish out the hurt and not feel sorry about it. At least, not when it's deserved. As River so rightfully noted, you went right for my jugular… and that was the right thing to do. I respect that."
"None of this makes sense… none of this makes sense at all."
"Well, perhaps that's the first thing we need to do as a group. Find some way to sort this out. Make it make sense. Or at least give you some sense of understanding." There was a splash when Megara lifted her paw from the water, which streamed down in glistening, shimmering ribbons. She pointed at herself. "I'm a manticore. And that, that's a pain in the ass"—extending her paw, she gestured at River Raider—"a highly evolved pain in the ass. Did you know that she can sense the neurons firing in your brain? Neuroscientists speculate that her kind still has a primal connection to electricity, and that this is the source of their psychic sensitivity. The brain is an electrical organ, and she's just using pegasus magic in some weird way."
Then, almost smiling, she held out her paw to Hornet. "Nature's consummate survivor. Some might even say the perfect survivor. Also a perfect biological horror, because she's an emovorous parasitic organism that bathes in acid." Her swollen lips parted, and Megara did smile. "And then there's you. You… and us. Us, and you. I don't know if you've noticed, but you're not like us. Yet, here we are. We have to find some way for you to work with us… but not spoil you as a pony. We're monsters. You're not. We have a lot of work ahead…"