I walked upstairs and poked my head in the family room. Everyone was sitting around, looking on edge. I noted that Number and Malcomb had returned.
"I'm alive and unharmed!" I called out. They all turned to look at me, but before anyone could say anything, I continued. "I'm going up to my room for a little while to work on a project I've been putting off. I'm scheduled to meet with the humans alone in the basement again at six. Please keep the foals safe and busy."
They didn't even get a chance to respond before I turned and left. Was it inconsiderate? Yeah, but I had no intention of getting yelled at for the next hour or more, and I really did have work to do.
I managed to reach the stairs before the first pony came running after me, my mom. "Hey! You can't worry us like that, then walk off!"
I turned to look at her. "Sorry to be rude, but that is exactly what I'm doing. There is a person whose health is rapidly deteriorating, and I've been tasked with doing everything I can to help save. I already lost all the time I planned on working on it yesterday evening and have lost most of my time for it today. She doesn't have time for me to waste getting yelled at. Please, Mom, just go watch the foals for me. There's a person's life at stake."
Mom stepped back with a worried expression. "Is that the project Princess Twilight and Wild Growth assigned you?"
I nodded. "Yes, it is. You can all yell at me later, but I have a lot of stuff on my plate. If you are going to be here, I need you to help me, not hinder me. The help I need right now is someone to take care of the foals while I work. I'm trying to lessen how often Lántiān is forced to do that so she can stop having to play second mother to her brothers, but I still need help so I can deal with this project as well as the humans."
Mom shuffled her hooves and chewed her lip. "Okay, but we're going to have a long talk later about you being down there by yourself."
"You'll have plenty to yell about because I am meeting them again by myself in a few hours," I replied. "I am making progress earning their trust. I am not going to squander that. I will talk to you later, and thank you for what you are doing."
I heard her gasp in dismay at my announcement that I would meet with the humans alone again, but she didn't call me back as I went back up the stairs. Before I reached the top, I heard her practically gallop back into the room—probably to alert everyone I was being foolhardy again. Hopefully, no one would attempt to stop me.
The guards were still posted where they had been, looking bored and playing on their phones. Not exactly the most disciplined bunch, but they weren't the army. They noticed me long before I reached the second floor, so I suppose they were alert enough for what we needed. I didn't speak to them as I passed them.
I did take a few seconds to look into the colts' room. I could see a shape under the bed covers that likely corresponded with Mèng. Josie was at the foot of the bed and unfurled her wing from around her head briefly as I looked in. I saw her eye me and then cover her head with her wing again to sleep. She had some fairly impressive senses to pick up on my presence in her sleep. I wasn't loud or anything. I was satisfied Mèng was well guarded. I reminded myself I needed to find a second foalsitter for him still as soon as possible. Josie was supposed to have last night off, and it seemed likely I would need her tonight as well since I had no one else. She needed free days for herself—well, nights. It was another thing to add to the plate. I also added that I needed to do something in appreciation of her sacrificing her time the way she was.
Upon returning to my room, I grabbed the saddlebag from Equestria with my magic and shut the door. After a second of thought, I put another piece of my luggage up against the door, so it would not repeatedly bang while I was trying to concentrate. I didn't put anything heavy, just heavy enough to keep the door from banging, but light enough that anyone trying to open the door could still easily do so.
I laid on the floor and opened the bag, extracting the notebooks Twilight Sparkle had sent me. A quick flip through the first few pages showed her analysis of Bursa's resonance and biology. I only had a basic education in biology and wasn't familiar with many of the terms that the princess used in reference to Bursa's condition. However, the number of times the words critical and terminal came up were disheartening.
What I was more familiar with was the information about resonance. They told me it was terrible, but that word didn't give credit to what I saw here. The resonance was deteriorating and deteriorating at an accelerating rate. Bursa may have lasted for years, but she couldn't have more than weeks with the speed of decay highlighted here. It might not even be that long, as depending on how it decayed, a vital organ could fail out of nowhere.
I paused before moving onto the next section and prayed. This situation may seem hopeless, but God had chosen in his infinite mercy to let Wild Growth find Bursa before she perished. I had to believe that we could find the answer to save Bursa. There was always an answer, only a question of whether you could find it. I had to believe I could find that answer. This was my doing, if indirectly, and I needed to make it right. I never knew Bursa, and still didn't know her, but she was another person in danger of dying because of my actions. Too many had already died, and I didn't want to add another name to that list—stranger or not.
Continuing through the first notebook was Twilight's prognosis of the situation, which more or less matched what I had figured. Twilight gave Bursa twenty-two days from today at most. In another week, Bursa would be unable to move independently and would begin experiencing seizures, increased bleeding, and fur loss. The deterioration would continue past the twenty-two-day mark till Bursa's body was nothing more than a pool of goo, probably by the forty-day mark. She'd be dead long before it reached that point.
I moved onto the second notebook. It began with speculation about what type of spell or set of spells had been used on Bursa. In the end, it was impossible to tell. It continued with everything Twilight knew about transformation magic and resonances. There were several transformation spells listed. Among those spells, I recognized my temporary transformation spell, the inferior Equestrian version of the temporary transformation spell, Sunset Shimmer's full transformation spell—which I noted matched my understanding of the spell almost exactly, the rehumanization spell—which was the first time I had seen it, and the spell that Twilight had ultimately used on Jean and Roger Martinez—a spell the griffons would ransom their kingdom to obtain. There were also notes about something called changelings and their magic.
It was humbling, having this in front of me. This particular notebook was one that people would kill for. Years ago, I would have certainly done so. I immediately vowed to myself that it would stay enclosed in the saddlebag at all times when I was not reading it. I had to believe the government did not know she had sent me this information; otherwise, someone would have tried to seize it, even if it created a diplomatic incident. Twilight Sparkle was showing a surprising amount of trust in me, letting me have this. True, I had a compulsion on me not to share this information with anyone but her and who she approved, and I knew much of this information already, but I hadn't known all of it.
I put that notebook back in the bag, closed it, and moved on to the third and final one, which also happened to be the largest. This one quickly proved to be the most fascinating. These were the princess's failed ideas and spells in relation to transformation magic and stabilizing resonances. This notebook was the reason I was being given such trust. I had a particular talent for picking through the failures of others and finding applications they may have overlooked. I had spies gather such information for me for years, from all the best mages Earth had to offer. Failures were less closely guarded than successes, and combing through those failures, I learned much and developed many ways of applying them that their original mage never considered. Bob McDermott had been a particularly valuable mage to pick the trash from, and many of my most unique designs were based on the application of his 'failures'. He was smart, but having Twilight Sparkle's failed ideas in front of me was a whole other level.
So, I sat, and I read, and I pondered. Today was not going to be solving anything. Today was me taking in information and gathering inspiration. Tomorrow would be much of the same, as I re-read the texts and reconsidered each spell, having read about all the others already. Perhaps in two days, I would start to have ideas. The urgent nature of what I was trying to help solve might not seem like it could afford two days of no progress, but developing answers required a firm understanding of what I was working with. Luckily, I was well-versed in transformation magic. Otherwise, it might be weeks or months before I began to think of anything. My prior knowledge could be an obstacle—it encouraged me to think in specific familiar patterns rather than outside the box.
Time passed as I studied. I became utterly enraptured in exploring Twilight's failed ideas and the impact each of them had in her simulations. There was so much potential here. I was unsure if it was the potential that would help with the immediate problem. Still, I found myself considering applications to other situations and ways different aspects of different spells could interact in tandem. My talent was making the most use of what I had been given, combining elements to create something greater, and I was being given a great deal to work with.
A knock at the door finally brought me back to awareness about the rest of the world. "Who is it?" I asked.
"It's Starlight. May I come in?"
I lit my horn and moved the luggage away from the door. "You may."
The door opened, and she walked in. Starlight quickly took note of the notebooks and seemed to recognize them. She probably was present for at least part of the time the princess was filling them out. She may even have contributed to some of the ideas included within.
"You said you had a meeting with the humans at six. That is half-an-hour from now," Starlight announced.
I blinked. Had I spent that much time up here? I grabbed my phone that I had never put on earlier, but someone had thankfully put it on the charger after taking it off me. It confirmed the time. I did a quick check of Lántiān's location with the GPS and saw that she had returned. I hadn't intended on spending the entire time studying since I needed to arrange a foalsitter for Mèng still, and that was going to be last minute as it was. Now I was unsure if it would be possible at all. There were a few humans I knew in the area. Maybe I could pull a favor for a one-night assist from one of them. None of them would be happy about it, especially calling them last minute like I would be doing. Some of them had every reason to dislike me, but they might do it for a foal in need, at least for one night.
I put the notebooks back in the saddlebag and placed it under the bed before standing up. "I suppose I should head down there. I need to make some calls still— or you could do me a favor and make them for me while I am dealing with the humans."
She raised an eyebrow at me. "Call who about what?"
"Josie needs a night off," I explained. "I'll lose her services if I don't give her at least a night or two off every few days. I don't have time to find a proper secondary foalsitter tonight, but I have three humans I know who might possibly help. You have met all three. I just need one of them."
Starlight nodded. "I understand. Who are they?"
"In order of preference, my brother-in-law Paul, his wife Devon, or Jennifer Tanner as a last resort."
Starlight gave me a skeptical look. "Jenny seems to be a stretch. You two aren't friends, and it would be a long—possible, but long— drive for her to get here tonight."
I nodded. "That's why she is my last resort. I am fairly confident Paul will help. They moved to the area not long ago so their daughter could begin college here in the fall, and have been bugging me to visit them since they arrived."
"Why haven't you?"
My head lowered. "Seeing them reminds me…" I licked my lips. "It is one thing to talk to them on the phone. It is a whole other thing to see them in person. It hurts, Starlight. I know they want to see a familiar face and family, but seeing them reminds me of Tonya's death, and seeing Jessie reminds me of how I almost got her and my grandfoals killed. If I knew Jessica was going to be applying to the University of Colorado, I might have moved somewhere else."
Starlight came close and hugged me. "Avoiding them won't make the pain go away. They lost a family member too. Mourning is never easy, but it helps to have others there who share your pain."
I sighed. "I suppose I can invite them over, if everyone else is going to be here anyway. Although, I just need Paul for tonight. Luckily this place has a lot of rooms. We might need to clean out some of the rooms on the other side if this keeps up."
"Number Crunch is staying in a hotel nearby, so you don't need to worry about her. Trixie and I are sharing a room for now, even though she rehearses her routines in her sleep," Starlight replied.
"We should be okay, for now. Rosetta and her foals sleep during the day, so they can double into existing rooms if we have to," I replied. "Let me go down and talk to John again. I think I'm making progress. He seemed a little skeptical of everything, but he also seemed like he was listening. I'm trying to coax him into coming out and getting him on the internet to look things up himself."
"While you're doing that I'll make those calls you wanted," Starlight replied. "I'm still not happy about you going down there alone again; no one is. You should have heard Lántiān explode when she got back and heard. She got right in my face and started screaming at me for letting you do it."
"Great," I muttered. "I guess I should be happy she didn't try to slap you around. I told her to stop that."
"She mentioned that, and said it was the only reason she wasn't doing it. She also said that she needed to set an example for her brothers about a pony keeping her word, since you can't seem to do so."
Would anything ever get any easier with that filly?
"Thank you again, Starlight. Wish me luck with John."
"Just don't get shot!"
I nodded, I hoped it wouldn't come to that, but couldn't promise anything.