//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13: Citrine 
// Story: Anemoia 
// by Starscribe 
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Bit watched as the crystal seed spread through Pathfinder. She had positioned him atop a plastic liner, body raised so that he would let no crystal feelers grow into the rest of the lab. In crystalcraft, such growth was normally performed within isolated chambers, kept electrically charged to prevent outgrowth. Bit had to make do with the resources she could get her hooves on.

Pathfinder had been so borderline that he might not have even survived transport down to the basement crystal chambers.

Then again, she had no way of knowing if he had survived what he had experienced. She had disconnected the heartbeat monitor, stripping away every shred of clothing and bandage. Theoretically the seed was clever enough to tell the difference, and wouldn't incorporate something dead into the newly-birthed crystal pony. But considering it was her craftsmanship at work, and not the perfection of Crimson, she would rather just eliminate every possible variable.

She watched with the patience of a creature who had only just realized she was alive. Watched for hours as amber crystal a similar shade to his coat spread across his body, spidering in thin lines across his skin. Despite the illusion, it did not crawl over his coat, but emerged from within, riding along the vascular system. That meant it emerged first and strongest from the weeping injuries, exploding past the rot and bolstering what was already damaged. 

"The conversion process should not encounter serious disruption even with a nearly-dead subject, so long as the spirit resides within the body and the circulatory system is intact. See the appendix for precautions for use with an artificial heart..."

Fortunately she hadn't had to worry about any of that complexity, just had to watch and wait as more and more of the dying flesh was replaced by clear, amber crystal. It kept expanding, a thin membrane growing up in a wide dome over the plastic shell until the pony beneath was only an outline.

"Now we wait," Bit told him. "You should wake up within the week. I will check on you every hour until you are revived."

Either that, or he would never wake up, and she would have a perfect crystal sculpture of the pony who had depended on her. 

Bit tried to occupy herself productively after that. She called the other automaton up to the workshop, and began examining the damage to its superstructure. She sketched a few revisions she would make to their bodies, to make them less threatening but more useful as assistants.

But more often than not, she found herself going back to the crystal cocoon, and imagining what might be taking place within. Is this the beginning of salvation for Zircon? Ponies set free from their needs, immune to Equestria's intimidation and the worst the winter could throw at them?

It might be all that, or it might be the opposite. The death of Pathfinder might very well signal her severance from Crimson forever. "Are you proud of me?" she asked his portrait. "Would you have done anything different for Pathfinder?"

Of course the picture never answered. 

Three days passed before anything happened. Her constant dread that the marinading pony might shatter the instant she took her eyes off him weren't realized, at least not yet.

The distraction was the proximity alarm, warning her of a pony banging on the front of the tower. Bit's ears pressed flat at the constant, high-pitched droning. She hurried to a console at a clerk's desk one floor down, slapping the alert silent and summoning the cameras. 

There were three ponies standing at the front door—not trying to break their way in, though she could see how the systems had thought that. One of the ponies banged the butt of a spear into the door, over and over. They were a soldier of some kind, though the unform was red instead of gray and of a far simpler, woolen cut. 

She recognized the pony behind him, bundled up tight in several layers of cloak. And just beside her, another stranger. 

This one wore the same reds and golds of the soldier, though his uniform was slightly fancier, with a sash down his front with bits of metal gleaming from it. He wore an oversized hat as well, though none of it meant anything to Bit. Unlike the other two, this pony was a unicorn, as lean as the white bears that hunted on glaciers north of Zircon. 

"Open up!" shouted the soldier! "By order of the Union! The presence of the wizard is required!"

They'll probably have to bang on that door for hours. Bit skimmed the security measures available to her, and her mouth hung open. Everything. Turrets, gas, sonic cannons. She couldn't say how many of them had rotted away to nothing over the years. But that wasn't what shocked her.

Crimson didn't use them against the mob. He didn't fight back. Instead of testing her defenses, Bit pressed the intercom. "You want to talk with me," she said. Far below, the soldier stopped pounding. The mare gasped and stared at the wall, frightened. But neither of the other two reacted.

"Relax, citizen Rue," said the unicorn, calmly. "It is a communication spell. You are not in danger."

You are. I have twelve ways to fight you, and one of them probably works. 

He turned towards the wall. "Come down and speak with us, great Wizard. Unless the mare who saved the lives of thousands is too much the coward to face us."

"Give Pathfinder back!" Rue shouted, glaring at the wall. "Whatever horrible thing you plan on, give him up! You think Zircon's still the way it was before, where big ponies could do whatever they wanted to little ones? It ain't! You'll face justice for your murder!"

"Calm yourself, Rue," the unicorn muttered. "One more outburst like that, and you can return to the camp. We are not here to make accusations or threats on the wizard."

"But then why are we—" She trailed off, silenced by his glare.

"You just want to talk?" Bit asked. "Nothing else?"

"Just talk," the stallion agreed. "The Union wishes to meet the pony who has done so much for the salvation of Zircon."

If I don't go, there might be another mob at the tower soon. Maybe even before the conversion process was complete and Pathfinder woke up again. She couldn't take the chance. If I have to flee the tower, where will Crimson find me?

"I am coming down," she said. "I'm near the top of the tower, but I'll be right there."

She disconnected, then began climbing. She hesitated only when she reached the second floor, and where she'd hidden her cloak. She donned it, along with a pair of sturdy boots, and her usual saddlebags. There wasn't anything inside. But shouldn't a wizard be prepared?

She didn't go out the front door, as much as they probably expected that. She couldn't risk they would try to force their way in. Maybe that unicorn wanted to strip her tower of resources the way the relay stations had all been stripped. She had to defend her home.

"What do I tell them, Crimson?" she asked, as she clambered through the sewage exit and up the tower steps. "Why did you let them in the first time?"

She thought she could hear a pair of hoofsteps just behind her, slow and halting. But whenever she turned to look, the Wizard was nowhere to be seen. She would have to face this alone, just like everything else she'd done since she ran out of brushes.

She emerged from the back of the building a few moments later, trotting towards the front as quickly as she dared. The ground around the tower had thawed somewhat, though even in summer there was a constant veneer of dirty ice on the edges of rocks and coating old machines.

Some of them looked like royal armor, buried in the snow. The tower's defenses hadn't helped, but the royal soldiers had. They hadn't been enough.

"Sir," the soldier called, pointing in her direction with the spear as she rounded the corner.

Bit stopped in place, adjusting the hood over her face. Of course that wouldn't stop her crystal body from being visible underneath, even if she didn’t catch direct sunlight. "I am Bit, the one you mistakenly identify as wizard of the tower. What is it you want from me?"

Before the unicorn could answer, Rue surged towards her, crossing the icy ground in a blink. She didn't attack, but loomed over her, face red and steam billowing out her nostrils. "Give us back Pathfinder!" she demanded. "You took him into your damn tower! We waited long enough. Now you give him back, if you don't want the Union to—"

"Be silent, Rue," the unicorn said. "She is correct, Wizard. That is one of the matters I wished to discuss with you. Though you say mistaken—what else should we call the one who restored power to the Capital Waystation?"

"I am the steward of the tower," she said, stepping around Rue so she could meet the face of this stranger. From all the failures she had heard of from the revolution, she expected something similar from their leader. But she could see no evidence of mad carelessness, of raw, unmastered destructive impulses. "I am Bit. Who are you?"

"Steward Bit," the unicorn said. "The Union will like that, I think. We are all stewards of the capital we have been entrusted, is it not so? It happens I have been entrusted with a bit more—my name is Keen Ardor, Secretary of Heat here in Zircon. You may have some idea why I wished to speak with you."

"You're gonna let her walk away?" Rue asked. "After what she did to Pathfinder? I thought you were here for justice! Party secretary and all..."

"Comrade Stone, please escort Rue back to the village. And Rue—it is your civic duty to remain silent about this pony from here onward. Your friend will have justice, but it is not for you to judge what form that justice takes. Is that clear?"

She practically melted. The soldier didn't even have to get close to her for her to back away, raising her hoof to her chest. "Of course, Secretary. I will... of course." She left without another word, practically galloping ahead of the escorting soldier.

But how long will they be gone?

"Apologies, Bit. Rue feels a great debt to Comrade Pathfinder for the service he did in relocating her family to the capital camp. But that debt is misplaced, as we both know. You are the reason that camp exists. You are responsible for the lives it saved."

"I am trying to help the pony she is talking about," Bit said, a little of her annoyance finally leaking out. Keen Ardor approached her to within reach, watching her from behind a pair of simple spectacles. "But the medication Pathfinder needed was gone a long time ago. Saving him has taken considerable improvisation. I will not even know if it is successful for another four days."

Keen's eyebrows went up, but he said nothing. He was silent for almost a minute in fact, staring openly at Bit. "I thought I was imagining it—some trick of the light, perhaps. But I cannot be. Your face is transparent. Please remove your hood."

Bit hesitated, then obeyed. She'd known this would happen, so it wasn't like she wasn't ready. 

She felt the sun through the back of her head, making her whole body glow faintly in the light. "You are not hallucinating," she said preemptively. “This is how I’m meant to look."

"What... are you?" Keen asked, awed. 

She answered reflexively, the same way she always did. "My master always taught me that I was the future for all ponies. An end to hunger, an end to fear of the cold and of time itself. I am the first of a new race that he will one day share with all Zircon."