I sat down and told them everything I could. How I meditated in that cave, how I couldn't be one hundred percent sure if Fluttershy was really Fluttershy—even though Archimedes told me that everything pointed to it being so—how I betrayed Luna and subverted the principals of the Equestrian legal system to ensure Dalock was neutralized for good. I told her I couldn't take the risk of him getting free again with how Bane would always have a claim to this world while Dalock was still in it.
I also told her that while I explained my reasons, I made no claim that they granted justification for my actions. I told her how, in one final security measure against myself and what kind of monster I might become some day by crossing those lines, I bypassed my bewitchment and gave Princess Luna the opportunity to hear my true name at the same time that I retrieved Dalock's from my memory. When they asked what had driven me so far, I told them how I felt I had touched a power I felt I shouldn't have in bringing her back, and how not accepting the death and taking the rules of life and death into my own hands was among one of the most heinous forms of desecration I could have made to my beliefs.
I finished with telling her that, in a way, even though the world of Equis was safe now, pending his execution, Dalock did achieve one last victory in that he got me to break my own code.
Fluttershy listened intently, her expression no less dedicated with her new fanged face than her old one. Over time, I saw her become a little worried about something, but her eyes urged me to continue.
"And that's about it. I'm sorry for barging in unannounced, but I felt you had the right to know," I finally finished.
Fluttershy sat there and pondered for a bit longer before she spoke up.
"So do you need to kill me? Undo the mistake?"
I looked at her in horror. "Do you really feel that unsettled now!?"
She shook her head. "No. I do feel different, but it isn't bad. I don't have the aches from the injury with my hoof like I used to, and ponies keep staring at my fangs and wings rather than making eye contact. It's just that I vaguely remember a sinking sensation and you calling out to me. I felt at peace and felt like there was nothing to worry about anymore. I barely came back because when I heard your voice, I remembered that I had a message to deliver and it was important."
She lowered her head. "But I honestly do feel like I cheated every pony else that died in the war when I came back. I don't really want to die again, but if that will set things-"
"It won't!" I called out in worry, "For the love of all things sacred, it won't! Maybe you really are her, willing to give up everything for what you feel is right, but please don't ever even suggest that again. If any sin was committed, it was on me. For better or worse, I'm a healer now and there's an old code of healers when healing from my world. It's one of the few bits of wisdom I feel were worth keeping. 'Above all else, do no harm.' Maybe I shouldn't have done it, but now that you are alive, you have every right to live as any other being. It's not on you and don't you ever let me catch you saying anything even remotely like that again!"
With this Fluttershy smiled, unphased by my outburst. Tempest outright cackled, then responded, "There's the caring Moss we know and love. You made a few mistakes but you haven't lost yourself and owned up to them. With that safeguard in place, we can neutralize you if we have to."
She shook her head and looked back at me. "Are you certain you worded it to where he'd only plea guilty on stuff he knew he did? Because you know the dream walker's guild will be judging him as soon as the hypnotist from Seaquestria arrives tomorrow to put his otherwise sleepless form under, and they will be looking at his memories of the court room, right?"
With other formalities out of the way and an explanation that I had to leave and couldn't live at her cottage anymore, Fluttershy insisted that I come and visit when I travel through again.
With my old supplies on my back, I made a week long trek back to the edges of Canterlot to finish my final task before heading out to... wherever. It was a little rough, sleeping in the talons of Archimedes while in my mouse form, then switching out and carrying him while he slept and eating only the magically conjured goodberries. It was especially frustrating since I had to wake up mid way through the night to just transform again for the second half. In doing so, though, we made decent time to the memorial.
I could see it. It was in the early phases of construction, with only the foundation laid. From what I was told, a statue of the multiple races in the rift war would be built on the site of the battle with Dalock to honor those that fell. There was one in particular I had to make my peace with.
The plant life was growing over the scorched earth, slowly healing from the wounds of the war. A mother and her colt were at the sign that was the border of where the construction began and where those not working on it weren't allowed to get any closer. It had become an impromptu substitute memorial for those that needed to make their peace with the departed before construction was complete.
I quietly waited for the colt to finish crying and his mother to pull him away before I approached it myself.
I placed a hand on the sign, "Hey there, Speaks with Talons. I doubt you can hear me, but I suppose I'm just doing this for my own grievance anyway. Still, if you are listening..."
I paused for a moment, then pressed my amulet out of courtesy to my late battle brother. "If you are listening, Speaks with Talons, I hope you're at peace. I finished the mission. The family is safe from the last of my kind. If I see you again, I'll be sure to tell you of whatever adventures I have from here to then. I won't deny, though, I really, really hope they are the burning something in the kitchen and learning to hold down a job variety, not the grand adventure to end a threat to the world variety. I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime, and then some."
I heard a young voice pop up beside me, "I haven't! That sounds exciting mister fish monkey!"
Looking down, I saw what was the splitting image of my battle brother staring back at me, except as a child.
I couldn't help but just stare and process what I was seeing. The griffin boy got bored, however, and quickly called out, "Hey, dad! Come look at this guy! He's funny looking and he said he knew Uncle Talons!"
Looking at the griffin coming up to the child, I was stunned into a stupor of processing what I saw again.
The well kept black feathers, the sheer height, the battle armor, the smoothness of both her stride and the features of the beak and face. It felt like I was staring at a cross of the graceful Chinese hero Mulaun from that movie and an amazonian warrior, but as a griffiness. She was huge, even a little larger than the eagle headed griffins I had seen.
She stared right back at me without caring that I was staring at her. "I assume you know how to speak?"
"Of course he can speak, dad! He was talking to Uncle Talons just now!"
Without looking, she gently took her talon to his beak and closed it. Not in anger, but simply a parent controlling a rambunctious child. The child looked disappointed, but became quiet obediently.
"Is my amulet translating right? Did I just hear him call you 'dad'?"
The previously calm griffiness shot me a blood curdling glare. "Yes. You heard correctly. My brother may have sired him at my request, but I am his father in every other sense of the word! Do you have a problem with that!?"
The hairs raised on the back of my neck, though out of fear and not my portent trick.
"No, mam," I responded with the utmost respect.
"Easy there. This is the Beast Kin, also known as Moss, our late brother's battle brother."
Turning to look behind the giant griffiness, I saw the Toucan griffin, Sings to Canopy, followed by a smaller raven griffiness and two young looking griffinesses that looked like a parrot and vulture. The young griffinesses were not fully grown, but still clearly older than the boy.
"I believe you have my name, Moss, but allow me to introduce the rest of our family. This is Cries when Slaying, Speaks with Talons's full sister." He gestured to the large raven griffiness, then to the smaller raven griffiness, "and her wife, Silent Mercy, whom is not fluent in Equestrian. Just the way they speak her name in Equestrian and maybe a few small phrases."
I saw an advanced medical kit on her side and what looked like what might be a thin blade holding her feathers on her head together like a hairpin. Her eyes were looking me over akin to a medic assessing a wound, and a predator about to strike at the same time.
"The rest have not quite earned their names, but these two are our half nieces from the parrot and vulture tribes and my current charges until I can get them up to speed for our father to take over."
Cries when Slaying shook her head then pulled her son in close to her. "I knew when he was born a boy, that his grandfather would want to snatch him up to the shaman arts. With my brother's death, Claps to Thunder finally was forced to take on new apprentices, even among the girls of our family. They could have made such good braves too."
Silent Mercy looked at the stallions patrolling near the site and the immediate area near the city. "Males are the prominent retainers here? No wonder my wife's brother was so fond of this place. Mammals are so backwards to birds."
Sings to Canopy leaned over and said, "The Beast kin's amulet will still let him hear you, Silent Mercy."
She looked at him blankly, "And your point is? Are we going to attend the execution of the one that set our family's disturbance into motion or are we going to continue site seeing?"
Sings to Canopy looked up to me. "Will you be joining us in Canterlot for the execution, Beast Kin?"
I thought for a moment, realizing they were talking about Dalock, then shook my head and turned to the memorial again. "Sadly, no. I've been banned from the city for reasons that were entirely my fault. I'm taking a risk just getting this close to say goodbye."
Cries when Slaying looked back to me. "Then perhaps you will visit us back in the griffin lands some day. Blood may be a catalyst that starts a family, but it is the ties that we form that truly breathes life into one. You had those ties with my brother, and I hope to form similar ties with you someday, Beast Kin. Until then, we must hurry on."
She promptly took command and gestured every griffin to the city.
"Hey mom! Can I get-" The boy called to Silent Mercy as they moved on before being cut off.
"Don't you come to me for something when your father says no! If I felt you needed something she denied, I would have objected then! Ask again and you'll get the back of my talon!"
I sat at the edge of that site for a few hours as the workers arrived and got to building the memorial.
Eventually, the morning went on, and I heard some ponies coming up from behind. I heard a sniffling pony call out in a voice that indicated she was under the weather.
"I told you he would be here and that he could be trusted! I've never met him before but the other me said so and I trust me."
Turning around, I saw a sick Pinkie Pie and a wobbly Lightning Dust along with a gray pegasus mare and a stallion with a tie. Following up behind them was Tempest.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Moss, but we really are in a bit of a pickle. I need to get these two back to when... where I got them from but I need to get them patched up first. I understand you have access to greater restoration now, yes?"
I could get the sense that these weren't common bystanders but have had their share of adventures too. A headache started to grow in the back of my mind.
"It costs a good deal of..."
I was cut off when I saw a bottle with enough diamond dust plopped in front of me for five castings of greater restoration.
"Keep the change. Something tells me you're going to need it."
* * *
With the odd group out of the way, Pinkie Pie restored with just the lesser restoration spell and the remaining diamond dust redistributed into portioned out vials in my own pouch, Tempest came up to me.
"We need to talk. I've been told there's a disturbance in the tribal griffin lands, but I need some creature that will help me get them to let me in. Aside from the trade city on the border of the vulture and parrot tribes lands on the coast, they don't take kindly to foreigners that have no ties to any of the tribes. Servants of the Animus Mundi are also an exception, but Zecora refuses to help. While we fought together, I never earned the title of battle sister due to my ties to the Equestrian military making it simply a "part of my job" instead of from my own free will like you. Do you think you could use your influence as the Beast Kin and help me investigate?"
I put my head in my hands as the headache came to full bear. I rubbed my eyes for a moment before looking up to the sky and shouting at it.
"This is my real penance, isn't it!? I can't just settle down anymore. I'll have to just keep dealing with this crap!"