A stately pine stood tall, having sprouted amid a pile of rubble. What was once a tower of some sort, a round dwelling perhaps, was now just ruin, along with everything else. Something about the pine tree intrigued Sundance, because trees took time to grow and this one had been here for a while. The old stones were covered in brown and greying pine needles and the foundation was buried in leaf litter. This foundation was just one of many alongside the old road that ran from east to west along the base of the mountains.
They were perhaps twenty miles or so east of the temple with the love spring.
Changelings patrolled the ruins, exploring every nook and cranny. These stones would be collected, gathered up, and repurposed. Everything old and crumbling would be given new life with new construction. As much as it excited Sundance to recycle the old, he felt a bit sad that the ruins would be, well, destroyed. Many of the old cut stones were still good, even covered in exotic slime molds, lichen, fungus, and mildew.
Fudge Turnover was having an adventure. The earth pony mare trotted from place to place, chatting with the changelings, examining old stone piles, and even pronked about like an excited filly when the mood took her. Megara helped a few changelings lift a massive stone door that had fallen over. Why they wanted to have a look beneath it was unknown, or maybe Sundance failed to pay attention to some important detail. Meanwhile, Hornet chatted with her fellow 'lings, all of whom were happy for her.
Near the entrance that led into the undermountain, Paradox Sunflower studied the doorway, her face scrunched in such a way that it was almost unrecognisable. At her command, several changelings made paper rubbings of the carved stone doorway, which had stylistic phoenixes on either side. It was Paradox who had said the ruins outside were far, far older than the stone door itself, suggesting that this old settlement had been here for a long time, while the temple excavation was a bit more recent. Though how recent was unknown to Sundance.
"There are more ruins just like these," one of the changelings said to Sundance. "We've found them every few miles or so. Not really towns, or even villages, near as we can tell. Just some buildings. Probably so ponies pulling wagons along this road could rest, have some food, and get a drink. Everything was made of stone, and we haven't found any old rotten wood."
Glancing at the circular foundation, Sundance thought it to be an old guard tower, perhaps. What a mighty road this once was, with guard towers every few miles. One would need a mighty garrison of troops to populate the well-established fortifications. How much of this was built by Princess Celestia, by her command? And what of those who came after? Sundance suspected that the road went all the way east to Fillydelphia, or at least that region. Yet now, the once mighty road was but a ruin, decaying in decline.
And if everything along this road was made from stonework, which seemed to be the case—Sundance's mind couldn't conceive of the effort and labour required for such a task. It was easy to slap together something made of wood, but laying stone took effort and skill. It was labour-intensive. You would need an army of stonecutters to make all these fortifications that housed your army of guards. The sheer enormity of it all humbled Sundance, and overwhelmed his thoughts.
"We found a keystone!" a changeling shouted as Megara huffed, puffed, and grunted from exertion.
"Does it have a date?" asked Paradox.
"We don't know," two of the changelings replied together in one voice. "It is covered in mud and slime. The manticore is mighty. All of us together could not lift that fallen stone door."
One of the changelings lifted up the curious stone, sprayed it with a fine mist of acid, and then began cleaning it. Sundance watched, patient, his interest captured. The small female drone was fastidious, slow, and spared no effort. Centuries of gunk were scrubbed away with all due care. Fudge Turnover came running over to have a better look, but kept a safe distance because acid-spitting changelings demanded respect.
"Baroness Gleaming Glare," the 'ling said as she continued to scrub. "By the decree of Baroness Gleaming Glare… and that's all it says. There's some symbols though. A shoe, a hammer, and stuff I don't recognise."
"I know who that is," Paradox said.
"You do?" Try as he might, Sundance could not hide his surprise, and he wished that he'd studied more history.
"Gleaming Glare was an auroramancer. She was known as the Purging Light, and also as the Sanctifier. She was one of the many wives of Benthoof the Bloody, Scourge of Griffons. Gleaming was an undead slayer. She lived over seven-hundred years ago and it is said that she torched whole armies of the shambling dead. All of this makes sense now."
"It does?" asked Sundance, who couldn't make sense of anything.
"The stone construction, structures that do not burn, and the close proximity to one another, just a few miles apart. These are sanctuaries for ponies traveling along the road to flee too if they were set upon by the undead."
"Equestria used to be a lot more exciting," Megara remarked.
"Not sure I'd use that word, exciting," Paradox said in return.
"Back then, you had a lot of wild magic around," Megara mused aloud. "Discord's legacy was still pretty strong. A lot of his abominations were very much alive. Necromancy was popular because it made it easy to survive. Equestria really wasn't settled or safe until just a couple of centuries ago… and the wilds are still profoundly dangerous, even now."
"They are," Sundance said beneath his breath, mostly to himself.
"The cities are somewhat safe, though giant monsters still crawl up out of the ocean from time to time. Sea dragons and sea monsters make life on the coast exciting." Scratching her chin, Megara continued, "But inland, you have all kinds of random monsters… which is why I'm employed. You leave the cities and in no time at all, you are in mortal peril. Lots of fun to be had in wild Equestria."
"Yeah," Paradox said, nodding, "fun."
"So, Paradox… something tells me that you know what this place is. Not this ruin"—Megara stabbed her extended paw-thumb at the massive doorway—"but that place. What is it?"
"It's the Cult of the Phoenix," Paradox replied. "Or the Phoenix Cult. They had a number of names. They existed a long time ago, about three-hundred or so years ago, and then they just sort of faded out of existence. Just one cult among many."
"Oh." Lowering her paw, Megara said, "Never heard of them."
"Most haven't. They worshipped Princess Celestia, which isn't all that strange, but they also worshipped phoenixes. I'll tell you more when we get inside. It'll be nice to tell the story in those sanctified halls."
"Well then… what are we waiting for?" asked Sundance.
"If anything jumps out and tries to take a bite of Fudge, I want you to unscrew their heads, Meg."
"That's kinda brutal coming from you, Sundance. Just saying. I'll do it, though. That right there, that's how a leader gives orders. I'm proud!"
Standing just beyond the doorway, Sundance gave his eyes time to adjust to the dim light. Flames flickered faintly in recessed hollows placed every few yards along the smooth granite walls. No candles, no torches, no lamps, just flames, which was more than a little strange. The floor had a downward slope, a soft incline that he knew would add up considerably if given enough distance. Above him was a mountain, an untold, unfathomable mass of tons of rock that he didn't much like to think about.
"This place seems safe," one of the changelings said. "We've only done a little scouting, but we can sense no life inside, beyond a few spiders or maybe bugs. Not even giant spiders. Just little tiny cute ones."
"My dad has lots of stories to tell about giant spiders," Megara said to no one in particular. "Every time I go into a place like this one, I hope to encounter some giant spiders so that I as well have some giant spider stories to tell."
"Why would an insectoid creature find spiders cute?" asked Fudge Turnover.
"Uh, I don't have a good answer for that."
"I can turn into a giant spider," another changeling said. "With giant grody fangs and a huge hairy butt and fuzzy-wuzzy spider legs."
"Good for you," Fudge Turnover said with a shudder. "Don't."
"D'aw, I wanted a reason to turn into the dancing disco spider. With eight legs, I've really got the moves."
"I'd like to see that," the changeling who thought spiders were cute said. "Maybe you could tie me up later? I could be your helpless victim. Yeah!"
"Alright, gigglebugs, that's enough of that." The struggle to keep a straight face was real and Sundance had to fight to keep his face from betraying him.
"Free from the shadow of our former evil queen, we can be silly," the two changelings said together in unison. "Being silly is serious business. It's the responsibility of being free."
"I'm having an adventure with silly changelings," Fudge Turnover said. "This is great. I can't wait to tell this story to Libby!"
The flaming phoenix mosaic on the floor had to be made of tens of thousands of tiny pieces of precious stones, all of which were set in copper and had some sort of smooth, completely translucent layer above them. It was the sort of art made for royals by masters of their craft, priceless in nature. Several changelings were cleaning it, scrubbing away the dust and grime of neglect.
"I never thought I'd find this place," Paradox said, her voice almost a reverent whisper. "Seeing all of this… it's almost like I'm having a Twilight Sparkle moment. She went searching for Star Swirl's lost library, you know. For some reason, she's not allowed to say if she found it. Assuming she did, it must have been like this, right now."
"Yeah, but what is this place?" asked Sundance.
"The Cult of the Phoenix," Paradox began, "were a secretive group of Princess Celestia worshipping unicorns. But more than that. Some say they were a monastic order of sorts. They practiced extreme altruism, gave up all possessions, all belongings, and lived their lives in the service of others. They pledged to use their magic for the benefit of society and those around them."
During a brief pause, Paradox inhaled.
"They believed that if they lived perfect lives of service, free of greed, living as though touched by the lost Element of Generousity, that they could be reborn. Just like the phoenix. When they died, they would have their bodies cremated, and if they were worthy, they would be born again to live anew."
"So they lived to get a reward," Megara said. "Doesn't sound too altruistic to me."
Turning her head in Megara's direction, Paradox scowled.
"Look, I'm just saying… they went through all that trouble and gave up everything and endured all that deprivation in the hopes that they would get rewarded. That's a form of greed."
"I disagree."
"Sundance?" Hooves clip-clopping against the floor, Paradox moved closer.
"I live in service to others," he said, uncertain of what to say or how to say it. "I've given the whole of my life to Twilight Sparkle's plan… so… I think I can understand this cult. Maybe. Just a bit. You don't give your life to cause… at least not in this way, with so much invested… I'm probably really messing up my words here… look, what I'm trying to say is, when you give all of yourself to something you believe in, what you want is some validation that you're doing the right thing. So if they came here to die and to have their bodies burned and had hopes of being born again, maybe they just wanted proof that they weren't throwing their lives away."
Not long after the last of his words left his mouth, Sundance became acutely aware of the fact that everypony—everyone—was staring at him. There was a prickle in his scalp, a tightness in his guts, and tension in his tail. His mouth opened, his jaw moved up and down, but no words came, just soft throaty sounds that accomplished nothing of meaning. He looked down and saw the phoenix in the floor looking up at him.
"I wish that my beloved Argyle was here to hear you say that."
Lifting his head, Sundance glanced at Fudge Turnover and nodded.
"Nopony came back from the flames, or so it is said." Eyes downcast, ears splayed low, Paradox shook her head. "They built such great works. Libraries. Schools. Hospitals. They helped to modernise Equestria. Much of their construction survives to this day. But none came back from the flames, and so the flame went out. They just sort of vanished. Faded away. Failed to attract new members, I guess. And this… this is all that is left of them. Princess Celestia will want to know about this, because this is their revivarium. But nopony revived. If these walls could talk, what stories might they tell?"
"Pebble could make the walls talk," Megara remarked.
Saying nothing, Paradox stared at the much larger manticore with a curious, hopeful expression.
"Most rocks don't have much to say, and what they do have to say is, well, not worth hearing. But every now and then, you get a helpful rock that's in a mood to be nice. That, or Pebble has to threaten to shatter it… but the rocks see that as a form of sexual reproduction and goad her on to punch them and they sexually harass her and… you know what, I'm gonna shut my meow-hole now. Sorry."
Revivarium. Sundance allowed the word to roll around inside his head while he made an effort to avoid thinking about perverted rocks. The fact that rocks had awareness at all bothered him on a deep level. Ponies lived with rocks. Sat on top of stones. Had houses made of rocks. And if rocks had awareness, which it seemed that they did—Sundance did not want to think about the disturbing implications, no. He wanted to think about the new word in his vocabulary, revivarium.
Did the stones judge them?
Sundance's sudden surge of insecurity suggested that might be the case.
"You just had to open up your meow-hole," Sundance said to Megara.
She seemed baffled by his words and her glowing orange eyes narrowed. "What?"
"You know what you did," he said to her. "You know exactly what you did."
"What'd I do?" she asked, clearly not knowing what she had done.
The harsh look that Sundance gave the manticore was the sort of expression that only friends could get away with. Unbeknownst to him, it was the very same look that Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, had turned upon her friends a great many times, with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie being the most common targets, and Fluttershy being the recipient only once. Megara's claws clickety-clacked against the floor as she bore the full brunt of Sundance's withering stare.
"Stop that," she said to him, "you look too much like Octavia right now and it's creepin' me out. That's the same look that Vinyl gets, and my dad… and just what was it that I did to deserve that, anyhow?"
In response, Sundance offered up a dismissive wave of his wing.
"Princess Celestia makes that same face, too," Paradox said to nopony in particular. "Probably for the same reasons. I wonder if I do it, too?"
The secret lair of the Cult of the Phoenix, beyond being exquisitely decorated, was a solemn place of quiet reflection. Long hallways stretched between lonesome chambers, a forgotten sepulchre buried beneath the mountain. Of all the different rooms found so far, this one was the one that struck Sundance right in the feelings, and he had trouble dealing with what he saw.
Thousands of stone urns.
Thousands upon thousands of stone urns, all arranged in neat rows on ornate stone racks. And this was just one room of many. How many unicorns had died in service to their cause? So many had died, none had revived, and yet, so many kept to the faith. Why? What made them stay the course? For that matter, what made him stay the course? As he stood among the urns, he thought about his own life, and beyond just that, he pondered how he would not see the end results of his hard work. He would die long before the task was completed, before there were results—he would die never knowing.
His soft sigh disturbed the dust.
"They kept the faith," Fudge Turnover said, and as she spoke she leaned up against Sundance's side. "Even when it must have seemed pointless to do so… I try to keep the faith, too. My faith in the Earth Pony Way… in democracy… in all the things we earth ponies hold dear, even as it crumbles down around us. I think… I think that's what it must have been like for them. To see so many of their own dying from old age, or disease, or whatever it was that brought about their end… and none of them ever came back. It's like you said, I think they wanted validation. But that never came. In the end, all they had was their faith, and even that was dying."
Uncertain of how to respond, Sundance slipped his wing over Fudge Turnover's back, all while hoping that his actions weren't untoward. She seemed disturbed, distraught, disheartened. He thought of their conversation during lunch. How long ago was that? Not long, but it felt so long ago. Time was different now. Fluid. Elastic.
"It hurts to look at," she said, her words a soft murmur. "Imagine seeing all of this and thinking… knowing that you'll end up here as well, yet still hoping that things might work out, so you commit yourself to the flames. I don't know if I'm that brave. I'd like to think that I am, but I just don't know."
"Is that why you came with us?" he asked. "To see if adventure suits you?"
"I don't know," she replied. "Everything I used to believe in doesn't… it's not… there's no…" Her words turned into a heartbroken gasp, and she leaned even more of her weight against Sundance.
"When there is nothing left, when you have let go of everything, then you will be free," Sundance said.
"That's a nice saying," Fudge Turnover replied.
"It's written on the side of that urn over there," he said to her whilst he nodded in the urn's direction.
"Oh… how remarkably appropriate for the situation."
Some distance away, Paradox walked between a row of urns, her head turning this-a-way and that-a-way. She had a small parade of changelings that followed her, each of them silent, solemn, and not at all silly. In the archway of the door, Megara sat in the dust, her expression one of profound sadness, with a hint of defeat, and she scratched her fuzzy chin with forlorn absentmindedness. Hornet stood beside her, almost unmoving, her pegasus form expressionless.
"If this was my reward," Megara said to Hornet beside her, "I'd feel cheated."
"I don't get why the dead are put in jars," Hornet replied.
"It's a pony thing. Well, others do it too. Ponies are monument makers and memorial builders. The future is tempered by remembering the past, my dad says."
"But no one here is remembered," Hornet said with a shake of her head. "These dead in jars are long since forgotten."
This room was not like the others. Narrow, not very long, it was sparse, spartan even, with the only decorative feature in the room being a statue of a unicorn. Paradox, ever the eager scholar, had rushed forward to study it, while Sundance decided to hang back and give her plenty of space. The statue, like the room, was not particularly fancy. It was detailed enough, but did not show individual coat hairs. If it was anything like the unicorn it resembled, then that unicorn was painfully plain and utterly unremarkable. A short-shorn mane, with a longer than average horn, strange ears that had a distinct and unique curve to them, narrow eyes, along with a masculine form that was curiously feminine or a feminine form that was decidedly masculine.
"I've long studied your works." Little more than a faint, almost scratchy whisper, Paradox's words were barely audible. "While my fellow students played at recess, I studied your notes on field manipulation. You had no way of knowing that you were right… you didn't even know the names of the forces that you harnessed. Such brilliance. I understood your work like nopony else. It was never about power, but understanding. You were my best teacher."
"Perhaps you could introduce us?" asked Sundance, who rather felt that he was intruding upon a private moment.
"This is Eternal Dark," Paradox replied, still whispering. "Princess Celestia's most loyal, most dedicated, most faithful devotee. At least, during the time when he was alive. It is said that he only told Princess Celestia no just once."
"Just once? So he was a yes-pony?"
"Hah… Sundance…" A nervous peal of laughter escaped from Paradox, and she squirmed beneath the statue's unblinking lithoid gaze.
He waited; surely she had more so say.
"Those were dark times… dark, dark times you understand. Dark times that suited the Dark family. Hehe—uh—um… where was I? Oh, right. Princess Celestia, she um, she politely asked Eternal Dark to stop burning her opposition to cinders and making ash piles of those who threatened to unthrone her. Such a simple request… simple request though it might be, he refused and told her no. Those were different times… the dark times that eventually led up to Equestria's Civil War. Which took a long time to uh, um, foment? Is that the right word? Might be. There was a long slow decline, a few plagues, and a whole lot of trouble. The Darks basically kept Princess Celestia in power."
"He sounds… a bit brutal—"
"Oh, he was very polite. Chivalrous. Kind and forthright."
"So he was nice when he set you on fire?"
Paradox's nervous tittering was her only response.
"I'm sure he had other qualities that made him memorable—"
"Oh, he did. He advanced particle physics, applied scientific principles to magic theory, created what we now call the particle model, laid out the foundations of understanding for quantum magical theory, created a spell for isolating thaumatons for study and observation, and so many other accomplishments. Too many to list. He also founded the Cult of the Phoenix, which is strangely fitting for a pony with the name Eternal. Quite fitting, wouldn't you agree?"
"Indeed—"
"He just vanished one day. Nopony knows where he went. Some thought him murdered. Others told fantastic tales of how he created a mirror so that he could travel to other worlds. A few suggested that Princess Celestia banished him to the place where she banishes ponies because he told her no. But here he is. He came here, to this place, and died. He's uh, actually, the source of quite a number of conspiracy theories, including the whole Phoenix Cult Conspiracy."
Knowing full well that if he said anything, he would only be interrupted, Sundance waited.
"Historians… well, I don't know if you can call conspiracy theorists historians, but I digress. Where was I? Oh, right… historians, which are really just well-spoken and well-educated conspiracy theorists, they theorise that Princess Celestia ordered Eternal Dark to create the Phoenix Cult. Which sounds totally crazy, but also completely plausible."
Paradox inhaled with a scratchy wheeze.
"Those were times of progress. Unicorns were always the weakest of the three tribes. High mortality rates. Many mares died while foaling. Foals themselves didn't survive foalhood maladies and diseases. There was a lot of death leading up to that point. Plagues and such. Bad things. Bad times. But, while Eternal Dark was alive, that was the time when change took hold. More unicorns lived. Their population boomed. They started to survive. Vaccinations and such worked to great effect.
"There were suddenly a lot of unicorns in Equestria. A whole lot of unicorns, and not all of them could be important. Not every unicorn gets to be a lord, or a baron, or a duke, or somepony with a cushy life. You started to get a huge number of unicorn commoners, and they hated that. They really resented it. Some wanted to rule, believing that unicorns had a right to rule. They didn't much care for peasant work and mucking out barns and they resented a life of hard labour.
"So, naturally, there were uprisings… and revolts… and rebellions… and the Darks and others loyal to Princess Celestia had to put the dissenters down. The Civil War was coming, that much seems obvious when you look at it with a historian's eye. Anyhow… word has it that Princess Celestia had Eternal Dark create this cult of altruism to bring the unicorns back into the fold and keep peace in Equestria. Which might be true. She denies it of course and insists that Eternal Dark struck off on his own. But that doesn't change the fact that his actions brought some measure of peace to a troubled nation, and delayed the events that caused our uncivil dispute."
"That does, in fact, sound like something Princess Celestia would do," Megara said, speaking for the first time. Standing in the doorway, she scratched her chin for a short time, then shook her head. "Just look at what Princess Twilight Sparkle is doing. Social engineering on a massive scale. If you ask me, Princess Celestia totally planned all of this and played coy about it because the end results benefited her and her little ponies."
"It's all about us little ponies," Paradox said with a nod of agreement.
"The real lesson to be learned here," Sundance said, "is that it is dangerous to tell Princess Celestia no. She might involve you in one of her social engineering projects as punishment."
"You said yes."
"That I did, Paradox… but what if I'd said no?"
"So… did she plan this… or did Eternal?" asked Megara.
"Well," Paradox began, "this is on her ancestral lands. And this whole temple was probably something else before the cult moved in and renovated the place. She probably knew that this place was here and maybe told Eternal where to find it. There's a royal ransom in rubies and gemstones, plus all the magic fixtures to be found here. Eternal Dark had to have resources to start the cult. There's books to print and propaganda, and spreading the good word, and so many other tasks to be done. I mean, starting a religion is no simple task. Getting ponies to believe can be a tough sell."
"More so for this." Wing extended, Sundance started to rub his chin. "You've got to convince unicorns to give up their aspirations of nobility and convince them to live lives of servitude. To throw aside whatever wealth they might have had and live in service to others in need. That's… I wouldn't even know where to begin."
"You know, Sundance… you could revive this cult. Make the phoenix rise up from the ashes—"
"Megara, don't make jokes like that."
"Sundance… I'm not joking."
Teeth almost gritted, every muscle in his back tense, Sundance cast his stern gaze upon the manticoress to read her face.
"Look, you don't have to promise them that they'll be reborn in the flames. You could just… I dunno"—she shrugged with both her wings and her forelegs—"just be honest and maybe convince ponies that this is the right thing to do. Or maybe this is dumb. Without some kind of carrot, they have no reason to join. Nevermind me, I don't know what I'm talking about."
Eternal Dark's weighty observance remained unblinking—a good thing, because blinking statues were a cause for alarm.
"It seems to me that Paradox is delighted to be here," he said while still rubbing his chin. "And if she's happy to be here, then others will be happy to tour this place. Once we get the resorts up and running, we could do historical tours. Educational tours."
"And we could be tourist herders," one of the changelings said.
Immediately, without hesitation, Sundance replied, "Oh, that's not a bad idea."
"It's not?" Tilting her head in a specifically equinesque manner, Hornet turned away from the statue to make eye-contact with Sundance.
"It would help the changelings," he replied. "Ponies would interact with them. Have a nice experience. It could only help relations."
"This is the nuts and bolts of society," Fudge Turnover said as she approached the statue of Eternal Dark. "I study the civic sciences. Manipulating the masses to work together towards a common goal is no simple thing. The real trick isn't just getting society to work, but making them believe that they want to do it. A cult has the ways and means of making its members believe in the fantastical… or even the mediocre and mundane."
Her expression soured.
"Voting, it is said, is a clever ruse to get everypony to share what they are thinking. That's easier said than done. Argyle, bless my beloved's heart, will spew out a windstorm's worth of words, all of them quite pretty and eloquent, but getting him to speak his actual mind is an almost impossible task. A lot of us earth ponies are strong and silent types, or loquacious motormouths that don't actually have much to say. There are some that believe that earth ponies adopted voting as a sort of means of survival, not just for herd consensus, but also so that we know what we're thinking as a whole."
"And by getting others to vote, you can see if your social manipulations are working or if your plans need fine-tuning," Paradox said to Fudge Turnover, who now stood beside her. "You can refine your plan in real-time. Make adjustments. Which might be a reason why Princess Celestia is a big fan of voting."
"Right. But it all goes wrong once somepony puts their own selfish interests ahead of that of the herd… and that's why Fillydelphia is burning. Somehow, we were made to work against our own self-interests. We have all these competing interests… the landlords and the industrialists and the investment firms and bankers... which makes me wonder… is that why Princess Celestia's plans tend to work out? I mean, if she's really the one responsible for this cult and its accomplishments, if she was the architect of this massive, unimaginable scale of grand social manipulation… do you think it worked out because she focused on our interests rather than her own? What I'm trying to say is, she didn't do this for her own gain. We got the benefit. These unicorns built modern Equestria and left behind a legacy of libraries and hospitals and aqueducts, all of the things that make Equestria what it is."
Humbled, and perhaps feeling more than a little stupid, Sundance came to one conclusion: he had nothing meaningful or relevant to add to this conversation. All he could do was listen—and maybe take all these words to heart. He was but a small part of Twilight's grand plan—a project of such scale that he could barely comprehend it—and all of it could, in theory, be ruined if he put his own interests ahead of said plan. Suddenly, selfishness and greed felt profoundly dangerous, and he could not help but wonder if he was the right pony for the job. A great weight settled upon his neck, he felt his head bow somewhat, and nothing could be done to resist the hard tug of gravity that bore him down.
"There's still more to see," Paradox said to all. "Let's keep looking. There's much to be learned here."