The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards

by Cloud Ring


Chapter 14: Warning

☄☄☄

Cursory Streak pressed the phoretic patch that went from her left shoulder further to her side by left wing, to ensure that it did not hinder wing muscles; the wing was still beating with a slight delay, breaking out of rhythm with its counterpart.

“Will I fly... as good as before?” she asked a small, dark brown stallion with a  cutie  mark of multicolored pills on his flank. He was lying behind a low table with a projection in front of him.

“Oh sure. With time, if you are not lazy, and if you will not forget that the air above the Net is dangerous for you. Especially when Blue is in Her full glory,” he replied in a pleasant low voice.

Cursory didn't ask a question, but leaned forward and looked directly into the doctor's eyes, indicating that she was waiting for more.

He sighed, “Listen, this is not Moon you are aligned to. Blue’s poisons are gradual and inevitable. So they accumulate in you — the analysis suggests that you might have had too many…” he twitched his ear, but continued, “...too close contacts with Her Changed.”

Cursory nodded, “This is my job. Now for what can I do to keep myself better,” she lowered her ears for a beat, “Are you suggesting that I avoid solving issues relating to Blue Moon entirely?”

“For a start, I’m suggesting that you decide what is more important to you. I see that your percentage of issues solved is very high now. But your overall contribution will be higher if you sacrifice the percentage now, but maintain a longer and healthier life, and thus longer productivity. Leave the Blue Moon related issues to the young ponies you teach.”

Cursory closed her eyes, made a step back and sideways. She didn’t find the words right away, but eventually asked, “How much time do I have left?”

“That's the wrong question,” the doctor replied in an instant.

“And yet, try to answer.”

“It will be very difficult for us to pull you out without irreversible consequences if you come into such severe contact with Blue Moon once more. But there are teams out there better than ours, if you would look more to the center of Metropolis and less to the Outlands than we are. And I believe we can do it one more time.” 

He coughed, turned fully towards her, and placed both front hooves on the table, leaning forward slightly. It was difficult to recognize the expression on his face through a translucent projection, but his voice betrayed him headlong. Sympathy, slight sadness, sincerity, “I won't put even one coin against nine on two more times.”

“And if I listen to your opinion and stay safe, then, nevertheless, how much time do I have left?” Cursory inquired in a monotone.

“This is an even less correct question!” the doctor raised his voice, “You can die from nines of different reasons. Your behavioral profile…”

“I know! Let's say right now I abandon my station, take a grade of status, lock myself up and sit quietly all my remaining life, like that colony under the Bridge. What then?” she leaned forward, twitching her wings.

“To begin with, you cannot live like this. Behavioral profile…”

Cursory jumped onto the table, ‘breaking’ the projection with her body — the greenish ripples of the news release flickered, but after two beats the image corrected itself for the interference, distributed across two screens on the sides of Cursory Streak — who hung over the doctor. 

He leaned back, fell sideways from the bench with a thud, shook his head, and snorted without getting up, “Just as I said. You won't live like this, reputable Cursory Streak. And for my own reasons, understanding your question and seeing your data, I will not answer it. You are healthy and you can leave the hospital building and fly away by all nine winds.”

The white pegasus stepped closer to him. The doctor raised his head, and, not turning away from her, also got to his hooves. He stepped forward — a third of a step, but that was enough.

Cursory sighed, "I apologize. I have another question. My companion is the Blue Moon’s Herald. Is that good or bad for me?”

The doctor blinked. He opened his mouth as if about to answer. He grunted and asked, “The same one with whom you signed up for check-up and treatment, named Gentle Touch?” waited for a nod and said dryly, “I can't say. There are too many unstable factors. Decide for yourself and negotiate yourself. These are the affairs of the Heralds and I cannot say what I would do if I were you.”

Now, when the news projection did not interfere with her, Cursory clearly saw that the doctor had a part of his thought hidden, and was not so much afraid of responsibility for a decision or influence as... yes, he literally could not say.

She exhaled and reached for the distant, unfamiliar aspect of White Moon — rules, traditions, permissions. The aspect's fire was not pearly, but slightly yellowish, like baked milk. Sparks passed through the nerves, causing both wings to fly open, one a little slower and not at full width. An alien and uncomfortable fire whispered to her, indistinct but displeased, like a distant unloved relative, ready to slip out at any beat and take its payment.

But the question was too important, and Cursory Streak did not like to postpone important questions.

“I invoke the sixth personal permission of the White Moon for special teams of the Trinity. I have the right to require an answer to the question if it is more important for the team than for me.” 

The alien aspect exhausted her faster than flying too fast through the thin air at an altitude too high would. She felt a growing dizziness, but she did not allow herself to be interrupted, and completed the formal, obligatory appeal, “Is the presence of Gentle Touch harmful for me or for the team? For the sake of the team's mission, I remove and cancel every and all inhibitions for this question!”

She exhaled, letting the sparks of the flames roll down from her wings like raindrops. The yellow fire coiled into two low pillars on either side of the doctor, and on each of them the same question was repeated twice, in civilian and in lunar language.

The doctor looked at them with wide eyes... and shook his head, “I can not answer. I can not! Withdraw the question!”

Cursory looked into his face, the world on the sides was turning gray, there was no strength, the flame kept taking its price with each beat. He was sincere — and scared.

She sharply folded her wings, expecting both pillars to go out as she withdrew the appeal from her soul — but they exploded, throwing her off the table against the far wall of the room.

...go ahead ...I will rest a little...

Darkness came for Cursory Streak, and the flame went out.

⊛⊛⊛

Gentle Touch was sitting near the bed with the unconscious white pegasus with a book; noticing that the patient was stirring in her sleep, Blue Moon’s Herald quietly but hastily turned the book from the second page to one of the middle ones. She turned her ears to Cursory, waiting for the first question, and heard, “Why?..” Cursory's voice was quiet, hoarse, but clear.

“You’ll be better off if you keep quiet for now,” Gentle Touch slid off the deck chair and brought her a mug with a spout. Cursory took a long, greedy gulp of the apple juice, but continued almost immediately, despite the advice, “Why didn't he answer? He had to answer!..”

“Because you created a collision. You set a rule against an equally powerful rule. I thought you would be at least more careful with your powers. I didn’t think you, of the two of us, would be prone to self-validation like that,” Gentle tried very hard not to sound judgmental, but while speaking realized that she could not. Looking at the web rainbow inside of Cursory, Gentle Touch saw that she would turn red even before the blood actually went to the pegasus's cheeks.

“I mean…” Cursory Streak shook her head. “I can't figure out… how is it? Where does the collision come from?..”

Gentle Touch smiled, “I wrote a letter to the Trinity, and They answered. If you know the answer to this question, it will interfere with the mission. The fact that you have a question at all has already interfered with the mission but this cannot be fixed. Unless, of course, you agree to a deep memory correction with limiting triggers — and you will not agree.”

Cursory again sharply jerked her head, like a bird, “That’s awful... that is, I let everypony down? Because I can pretty much figure the answer out from the fact that it’s hidden.”

“No, not at all,” Gentle whispered quickly and soothingly, almost chirping, “so far everything is fine and you are a good, strong pony. Just don't worry about it. Take the question, and the answer, aside if you can. That would be the best for the team.”

At first it appeared like the conversation ended there, but after a long silence the pegasus glanced at her and spoke again, “Can you cure me entirely from… the Blue? They say they cannot, but you are stronger than them, right?”

Gentle lowered her ears, “I can remove some of Her poison, while it is fresh and did not have had time to penetrate deeply. But I myself run with it, do you understand? I can prevent the acute effects, but the chronic ones I will only intensify. In a way…” she shook her head, “you can say that I had hurt you. I should have worked slower with your wound. More thoroughly. And more skillfully. Sorry. If only I had been stronger...“ Gentle Touch sniffed.

Cursory went silent again for a long time, then turned to Gentle and got to her hooves.

“It's okay. I trust you, I allowed you to heal me in good conscience, and I accepted your judgement then, now, and for the future, even if you made a mistake once. It's good that you said that. And in any case, the first few cycles after your help I was almost completely fine. We managed to visit Melody, if that not-meeting counts. And now I am almost completely fine,“ but after these words, there was a small question in Cursory's tone.

Gentle nodded and remarked encouragingly, “I would say that now you can drop the ‘almost’. Do not worry. You will definitely fly just fine. Now... get some sleep. I'll be there. I would like for Solid Line, when she wakes up, to see you the way I used to see you... I mean, as somepony less alike to a greenish ghost with a skeleton inside,” the earth pony smiled and rubbed her eyes with a fetlock.

Cursory snorted, nodded and returned to the bed; turned to the wall, as if falling asleep, and the question went unexpectedly, without a base for it — Gentle did not even see the flow of lines that would lead to any question at all. All this time, she was afraid and prepared to answer about the doctor in case of Cursory remembering him, but the actual question was different.

“What will happen to those two? Short Cut, and that familyless unbound, Dip.”

Gentle was surprised that Cursory Streak assumed she would know the answer, but told the truth, as it is always better to do with those aligned to White Moon, “Two to one, I would say. Dip has found herself well on the Herald’s path, the second unbound… he is in a long sleep, for now. There is a chance that he will find a way, too, but not so great.”

“Oh, so it’s true… They say that all Blue Moon’s Heralds feel each other through dreams, that’s what I mean. I just checked, without expecting much. Or how else do you know?” the pegasus asked curiously, but with caution.

“In their case, there was an attachment in the reply letter from the Trinity. Written in a hurry and at the last beat, judging by the hornwriting,” Gentle Touch smiled.

She understood the significance of the previous question, and added, “So, your formal observing helped overall, even if you didn’t count Vortex. You did not fly to that issue in vain, reputable Cursory Streak.”