For endless seconds, Vermilion was too stunned to move. Everything racing through his head – the plans, the reflexes, the burning joy that finally there was something he could fight – all fled. He could only gawk at the chaos.
Teawater erupted with riotous life. Torches, lanterns, bonfires and dancing will-o’-wisps lit the town like day. And the noise – not just the thunder and sulfurous stink of the fireworks detonating overhead, but a hundred other sounds: inequine voices, wild laughter, rowdy songs, shouts, the roar of the fires and the papery murmur of the trees in the breeze. A troupe of changelings pounded on drums laid out on the grass beside the well, while a small, scaled-and-horned pony plucked at a tall lacquered biwa’s strings with her claws, punctuating the raucous din with sharp notes that rose briefly above the tumult, faded, and were lost.
“Whoa,” Quicklime said. She had no weapon of course, only her magic, and the bright yellow glow faded from her horn as she looked around at the spectacle. “Uh… whoa.”
“Um, boss?” Cloud Fire looked as lost as Vermilion felt. A ale flagon had somehow made its way into his hooves, and he sniffed at it carefully. “Are these the monsters?”
“May...maybe?” Vermilion realized he had a flagon too. He set it down carefully on the porch and retrieved his saber from where it had fallen in his moment of shock. Aside from the pegasi, he was the only creature with a weapon – the monsters all seemed occupied with other pursuits or watched them with amused expressions. He wavered for a moment, half of him insisting on bringing the sword up to attack or defend, while the other, calmer half pointed out that if these monsters had wanted to kill him or his friends, this was the oddest possible way to go about it. He lowered the sword to his side as a compromise, out of the way but not out of the fight.
The mayor was still close enough to touch, shuffling across the porch over to Quicklime. Mosses and toadstools covered her back in a verdant coat, and long fernlike fronds dipped from her withers to brush against the porch. Butterflies sipped from tiny flowers that grew in strands of pearls down her sides. Though hardly tall, she still had to crouch to greet Quicklime.
“Aren’t you a cute little unicorn?” she said. “We don’t get many many of your kind out here, not since—Oh, hello. Careful with that, won’t you?”
That was Zephyr’s spear, its tip nestled in the ivy just below the mayor’s jaw. Zephyr glowered at the mare, glowered at all the rest of the monsters, and slowly stepped around Quicklime, pushing the mayor away. The other monsters retreated as well, and the din of the celebration began to quiet. More heads, filled with fangs and horns and a few too many eyes, turned toward them.
“Easy now,” the mayor said. She backed up an extra step and sat on the edge of the porch. “Warriors, are you?”
“The best.” Cloudy had recovered his poise and his spear, though he balanced the flagon still in his other hoof. “And what are you?”
“Just ponies, like you,” said the wolf-stallion. He danced out of range as Zephyr’s spear swung toward him, the insubstantial fairy-wings sprouting from his shoulders flapping so hard they blurred into invisibility. “No need to be scared.”
“We’re not scared, and you’re definitely not ponies,” Rose Quartz said. She gave the wolf-stallion and the moss-encrusted mayor a long stare, then stood up on her rear legs to peer out at the rest of the crowd. “Where are the villagers? What did you do with them?”
“With them? Don’t you remember us?” The scarlet mare said. From across the green, Vermilion might still have confused her for a regular pony, but on the porch the differences were clear – her horn, thicker than any unicorn’s, twisted and branched like a coral. Ruby scales armored the bridge of her muzzle and breast, and her hooves were cloven like a goat’s. She smiled, and sharp little fangs peeked out between her lips. “I sold you those pumpkins and squashes just a few hours ago.”
“You sat beside me in the green all afternoon,” a new voice called from overhead. They peered up to see a sable, lantern-eyed pegasus peering down at them from the porch’s eaves. Batlike wings covered in velvet fanned the air at his sides.
“And not to put too fine a point on it, but this is my house you’re staying in,” the mayor said. She stepped carefully around Zephyr’s spear to stand in front of Vermilion again. The scent of pollen and wildflowers rising from her coat nearly set him sneezing. “Teawater is our town, and we’re happy to have you as our guests. You can stay as long as you like.”
Rose shook her head, and her eye tightened. “We came here to save Teawater and its ponies. You’re not ponies, you’re some sort of monster. So, I’ll ask again, what did you do with the villagers?”
“Do monsters normally welcome visitors? Do they hold festivals to welcome them?” The mayor peered over her shoulder at the green behind them. Most of the monsters had grown quiet now, but many still spoke quietly amongst themselves, nibbling at the food or watching curiously at the drama on the porch. The dreamora basked in the air above the huge bonfire in the center of the green, its twisting smokelike body painted vivid orange and yellow hues by the flames. An assortment of winged monsters perched in the trees, a few with fruits and sweets clutched in their claws.
“Do spiders welcome flies?” Rose countered. “We’ve seen your kind before. We know what you are.”
“And what is that, praytell?” A tiny voice, just on the edge of silence, caught Vermilion’s ear. He turned with the rest of them to stare at Quicklime, or rather the tiny little creature clinging to the tip of her horn. It was a mare, if mares only grew to the size of Vermilion’s hoof, with enormous butterfly wings that nearly doubled the size of its body. She swayed as Quicklime tilted her head.
“Well, you’re a breezie, I think,” Quicklime said. She turned her head slowly toward the scarlet mare, managing not to disturb the little butterfly-pony. “You are a kirin, and I’m pretty sure the gentlestallion over there—” she tipped her muzzle toward the wolflike stallion, “—is an amorak. That’s a nocturne up above us, and I see several changelings, an old dreamora, manticores, a few stygians, a zebra, and a bunch of other things I don’t recognize. Oh, and I think that’s a siren in the well.”
Vermilion turned to follow her gaze. Indeed, the well in the center of the green had flooded, and water now overflowed its rim, pouring onto the wide stone basin around it like a fountain. A frilled head emerged, its face a mosaic of sparkling gems that caught the bonfire’s light and reflected it in a thousand stars. Dark, enormous eyes opened slowly, unfolding fans of coral and kelp and shells, and Vermilion felt her gaze settle onto him, a cool refreshing blanket that chased away his worries. The notes of some piquant, hungry song teased the edge of his hearing.
The siren laughed, and with that the spell broke. The notes faded, and she sank back into the water, submerged but for the frilled tips of her mane, dancing above the surface, catching the bonfire’s light in their jeweled scales.
“Well spotted,” the mayor said. “You must be a very well-read young mare.”
“Thank you!” Quicklime chirped. She beamed at the mayor and hopped up on the tip of her hooves. The butterfly-pony perched on her horn flapped its wings wildly for balance. “But I also think it’s all an illusion! Rose?”
“I concur.” Rose panned her head around, taking the scene in again. The muscles in her neck and shoulders relaxed. “Looks like I owe you a drink, Quicklime. You’re all yokai, aren’t you?”
At that word, yokai, the entire tableau froze. Even the bonfire died into embers, and for an unhinged moment Vermilion wondered if it might be one of these monsters too. But it popped and snapped and the flames reemerged, and as if that were everyone’s queue, the monsters all turned to the mayor.
She sighed. “Well spotted indeed. Alright, everyspirit, as you were.” She clapped her hooves, and the assembled monsters backed away from the porch. They retreated toward the banquet table, grazing from it, or into little groups that sat and conversed, just as Vermilion and his friends had earlier. Overhead, pegasi began to fly again, fanning the air with their wings to disperse the pale blue haze that remained from the fireworks. Even the changeling troupe began to play their drums again, albeit at a slower, more sedate pace, gentle enough not to overwhelm the conversations taking place nearby.
“So, Luna sent you?” The mayor sighed. “I suppose we should talk, then. Come on, this way. I have some tea set out.”
* * *
The mayor led them around the green, perhaps out of deference to Vermilion and his team, avoiding the crowd of monsters lounging at the tables and bonfires. The ones Quicklime named kirin and amorak, the scaled unicorn and the wolf-like stallion, kept pace at the mayor’s side, chatting quietly to each other and occasionally glancing back at Vermilion or Rose Quartz, who walked so close to Vermilion that their shoulders brushed. For her part, Rose scowled back at them, the skin around her scarred eye socket furrowing into twisted, strained crevices, and Vermilion realized with a sudden start that it was probably the first time she had been outside without her eyepatch on since that night in Hollow Shades.
An opulent, open-sided pavilion waited on the far side of the green, at the edge of town where the neatly trimmed grass gave way to rows of orchards and pasture. A silk roof swayed overhead in the gentle breeze, secured to polished poles at each corner, and within sat a low table surrounded by plush pillows. A sable filly stood there fussing with a tea set, and when the mayor approached the table, she gave a little gasp and evaporated into shadows that crawled away into the darkness beyond the lantern’s light.
“Don’t mind Umbra, she’s shy,” the mayor said. She nudged one of the cushions up to the table and sat with exaggerated care, then gestured at the other seats. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
“I’ll stand,” Rose growled. “Vermilion…”
“It’s fine,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He set his saber down beside the cushion across from the mayor and took a seat. The pillow was as comfortable as it looked and smelled faintly of lavender and down.
The mayor glanced between the five of them, apparently waiting for everypony else to take a seat, and when nopony did she shrugged. “Very well, more tea for us, then.” She poured out two cups from a steaming silver pot set upon a coal brazier in the table’s center and slid one across the table toward Vermilion. “Now, we may have gotten off on the wrong hoof. Or claw, in some cases. I am Botanique, and they say I’m the mayor around here, which I guess means I’m in charge. And you seem to be in charge of your band there, though the way that one-eyed mare is glaring at the back of your head, I wonder if—oh, now she’s glaring at me. Well, perhaps you should just tell me your names, and we can go from there?”
The skin on the back of Vermilion’s neck crawled. He lifted the teacup, sniffed at the rim, and took a little sip. Something like orange and jasmine, with a faint hint of that tannic flavor from the river.
I am having tea with monsters. The thought welled up from nowhere, accompanied by a sense of dizzying vertigo. He took a slow breath and set the teacup down.
“I am Vermilion,” he said. “This is Rose Quartz, and these are Zephyr, Cloud Fire, and Quicklime. I would say we are pleased to meet you, but that’s not why we came to Teawater. What have you done with the villagers?”
“The easiest way to answer that is to say that we are the villagers. The—”
“You’re not, though,” Zephyr interrupted. She didn’t bother facing the mayor as she spoke, instead staring at the swarm of monsters still loitering in the green. “You’re not ponies.”
“The slightly more involved answer is that half of us are the villagers you’re so concerned with. The rest of us, those of us here tonight to welcome you,” she gestured with a hoof toward the bonfires and banquet tables, “are the Flock. And the most difficult answer, but the truest, is that we’re all the same.”
“Meaning?” Vermilion stared out at the green. In the center, in the well, the waters shifted, and that sleek scaled face emerged again. The siren said something to one of the changelings and accepted an apple from it, then disappeared again.
“You’re possessing them, aren’t you?” Rose hissed out a quiet breath. “That’s why some of you look like the ponies we met earlier. And the others...”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘possession,’” Botanique said. “It’s more of a partnership. During the day, the villagers live their normal lives. And at night, we come alive, and we all share in the joy of our union.”
Quicklime came up beside Vermilion. Her expression was open, curious, and she set her front hooves on the table to get a bit more height. “Are the ponies aware of what’s going on?”
“Of course. Not in the same way you are, precisely. It’s more of a dream to them, one they barely remember when they wake. But a dream it truly is, miraculous and wonderful beyond the mundane lives they were burdened with before our arrival.” A little smile curled up the corners of Botanique’s lips as she followed Vermilion’s gaze to the siren.
What was the mare in the well dreaming? Was she down there during the day? A cold chill rolled up Vermilion’s spine. “The ponies… did they agree to this?”
Botanique shrugged. “Not at first. But they’ve all come around to it. Like I said, it’s wonderful to them, a fantastic dream they can look forward to every night. Not even Luna can promise her ponies that.”
Dangerous, treading on Luna’s domain. Vermilion had assembled at least a partial catalogue of Luna’s traits over the past half-year, and jealousy was near the top. He shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We are here to help these ponies, and that means freeing them from this, this…”
“Captivity,” Zephyr said. She squinted at the amorak and tightened her grip on her spear.
“Condition?” said Quicklime. Her expression hadn’t changed, still open, curious and calculating.
“Slavery,” Rose spat. Her horn sparked to life, filling the silk pavilion with new, stark shadows.
“Calm, sister,” the kirin said. She placed her hooves on the table, turned upward, placating. “None of us want to fight. Most of us can’t fight.”
“Then this will be very easy,” Cloudy said. He drained his flagon and set it on the table beside the teacups. “Look, I usually let the boss do the talking, but let’s just cut to the chance. We kill monsters. Luna sent us here to free this town, and the way I see it, that’s a pretty simple matter. So either you release these ponies and go back into whatever dark hole you crawled out of, or we get violent. And pegasus warriors are very good at the violence thing.”
Kill them? It shocked him, but that was silly. These creatures might talk like ponies, but they were still monsters. He shouldn’t hesitate to slay them any more than he had those hordes in Cirrane.
Those monsters didn’t talk to you. A traitorous voice whispered in his mind. They didn’t have tea with you.
“Oh, I have no doubt.” Botanique leaned away from the table. Her lips pursed, and her voice fell to a bare murmur. “There’s not more than a sword or two anywhere in this village. Many of us have fearsome visages, but as your Quicklime so astutely observed, they are mostly an illusion. Against Luna’s chosen warriors, we would fall like stalks of wheat. So, if you are inclined to kill us… go ahead.”
Everypony froze at that. They had somehow gone, in the space of just a few words, from contemplating violence to an actual invitation – a threat, even. Vermilion’s muscles bunched beneath his coat, ready to explode into action. The saber lay just a foot from his hoof; it would only take a second to snatch it up, kick the table over, and plunge it into their hearts. He rehearsed the movements in his mind, coiled them like a mousetrap whose spring grew tighter and tighter with each turn, until he contained so much tension that the slightest touch would release it all in a murderous unwinding. The hesitation he’d felt toward killing these talking, thinking monsters evaporated. He leaned forward and—
“Wait,” Quicklime said. “If we, like, stab you, what happens to the ponies you’re possessing?”
“I’m not an expert on stabbing ponies,” Botanique offered. “But what usually happens?”
Silence again. He stared at Botanique, his hoof frozen a few inches from the hilt of his saber. All the images flipped in his mind, the preparation, the sword, the strike. Except it was no longer this moss-covered monster he was spitting, but the frail, cinnamon-coated mayor who’d greeted him on the porch. The saber would’ve punched through her breast like paper mache and torn out her spine. Her blood would have soaked his legs up to the shoulder. He’d been less than a second from murdering her.
All the tension in his muscles came undone; the mousetrap flew apart. He turned to the side, lowered his head, and retched in the grass. The tea tasted much worse coming up than it had going down.
“Well, shit,” Cloudy said. He set his spear down and retrieved the flagon from the table. “I’ll get some more of that ale.”
* * *
The monsters gave them some space after that. Very considerate of them, actually. He just wished his friends could do the same.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Rose asked for what had to be the tenth time. She held a cup of sour apple cider in her magic and kept nudging it toward him.
He pushed it away again. “I’m fine. Was just a little, uh, dizzy.”
“Ponies don’t spontaneously vomit without reason,” Rose said. She forced the cider back up to his lips. “You were about to strike her, weren’t you?”
Fuck. He grabbed the cider from her magical grip and drained it in one go. “Yeah, and then we’d have a bunch of dead ponies, and I’d be a murderer.”
“Not a murderer. That implies intent.”
“I intended to kill them.”
“No, you intended to free them, by killing the monsters, which is something we’ve done plenty of.” Rose took a sip from her own cider, still floating sedately beside her. “And there’s a way to do it here, too. We just need to figure it out.”
They had retreated to the porch on the mayor’s house, which Vermilion had started to think of as their little redoubt in this haunted town. All their gear was still in the borrowed bedrooms, and he supposed Quicklime’s wards were still active. And at least it had a door and four walls, which was better than just camping out in the green surrounded by monsters.
Not that that stopped his friends. As soon as he’d recovered from that humiliating bout of sickness, Quicklime had promptly wandered off into the crowd. A gaggle of inquisitive yokai followed wherever she went, pressing around her or floating in the air, each according to their nature. Occasionally she stopped to talk with one, and Vermilion saw she had her little sketchbook out. A constellation of charcoals and pencils and chalks floated in a ring around her, sometimes darting in to scribble on the paper and capture whatever image caught her fancy. Just watching all those twisted bodies surround her made his skin crawl.
“She’s fine. Cloud Fire and Zephyr are keeping an eye on her.” Rose murmured. A pause, then, “Well, Zephyr is, at least.”
He looked up again, seeking the reassurance that Zephyr hadn’t moved. The pegasus perched on the spine of a gabled slate roof overlooking the green. Arranged in a line on either side of her were several of the yokai: an enormous peacock-like creature, if peacocks were the color of blood; an emerald-scaled viper with brilliant white wings and a body four ponies long; two of the stygians, those owlish monsters whose shadows danced and crawled across the roof, unmoored from the bodies that supposedly cast them; a silver eel swimming through the air as if it were water. They all watched Zephyr curiously and occasionally sidled closer, only to retreat when she flexed her wings like an irate hawk.
Cloudy seemed less concerned for Quicklime’s safety. He held court in the green, reclining on a blanket with a spread of food from the banquet laid out before him. Sharing it was the scarlet kirin and, with a bit more distance between them, Botanique. His spear rested beside him, and that appeared to discourage the less adventurous yokai from approaching.
“This is all wrong,” he mumbled.
Rose leaned against him. The warmth of her shoulder offset the faint chill of the desert night, and her scent – cotton and pepper and sweat – chased away the lingering brimstone still hanging in the air from the fireworks. He sighed and leaned back, careful not to push her over.
“It’s unsettling,” she said. “We’ve never encountered monsters like this. Monsters that could talk back. They’re… a lot like ponies, in many ways. And the illusions confuse the matter even more.”
He found his gaze resting on the well, as though drawn there by a magnet. The brimming waters rippled, and for a moment a frill of scales emerged, and he thought he heard something like laughter. He pulled his eyes down to the sanded cedar planks beneath his hooves.
“What’s the illusion?” he asked. “They’re flying. They’re dancing in the bonfires. How can that be an illusion?”
“That part is real,” Rose allowed. “What Quicklime means is that the monsters you see are not the yokai themselves. Nopony knows what a yokai really looks like, just what it wants to look like. And, because they are spirits, they can fly and breathe underwater and walk in fire. And, apparently, so can the ponies they’re possessing. But beneath the illusion, the pony is still the pony and the yokai is still the yokai… whatever that may be.”
“So how do we free them?”
Rose shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of yokai doing this. They’re supposed to be tricksters, not… parasites, or whatever these are.”
A shrill, indignant squeak stung his ears. They looked up to see the little breezie hanging from the rafters, glaring at them. Its huge butterfly wings beat the air, and it fluttered down toward them like a leaf in the wind.
“We’re not parasites.” She bobbed in the air before them, her frilled antennae swaying in counterpoint to her wings. “We’re ponies like you, just a little different!”
Illusion? Vermilion reached out and passed his hoof through the air above and below the breezie, feeling for the real mare. Nothing.
“You’re stealing their lives from them,” Rose said. She held out her own hoof for the breezie to land on. Her leg didn’t even shift under its insignificant weight. “I sympathize, but Equestria cannot allow ponies to be held captive like this. You will have to release them, or we will force you to.”
“This isn’t Equestria!” The breezie’s voice straddled the line between a pony’s and the stridulations of a cricket. She aimed one long antennae off to the east, where the enormous form of Simoom blocked out half the stars in the sky. “That is Equestria. We don’t intrude in the Sister’s territory, and all we ask is to be left alone.”
“Anywhere there are ponies is the Princesses’ domain,” Rose countered. She pulled her hoof in close to her muzzle, until the tip of her nose nearly brushed those enormous, fragile wings, and she studied the tiny pony with scalding intensity. “Even if they are not within Equestrian borders, ponies are still subject to her aid.”
“Her aid? Pah, you’re even blinder than you look.” The breezie flapped hard, bouncing into the air like an acrobat from a trampoline. She swooped around the pillars bracing the porch and vanished over the eaves, her little voice fading as it called back, “Just leave us be!”
Ouch. Vermilion tried to look at Rose without really looking at her. If the breezie’s barb had landed, though, Rose didn’t show it. She merely watched the little creature vanish, one ear flapping in annoyance, as though brushing away a fly.
“They have strong opinions, these yokai,” he said.
“Wouldn’t you?” Rose drained the last of her cider and set the empty cup on the rail, where it promptly vanished in a wash of shadows. They watched Umbra, the shy filly from the mayor’s table, gallop across the green, holding the cup in her mouth.
“We’re talking about killing them,” Rose continued, her voice softer. “Of course they have strong feelings about that.”
“So, what do we do?”
Rose turned her head toward him, bringing her eye into view. She studied him far more gently than she had the little breezie.
“You’re the leader,” she said. “If we found a way to save the villagers, would you kill the yokai then?”
“Ah...” Kill something that seemed so much like a pony? That spoke with them, that feared and hoped and reasoned like a pony would?
“Maybe…” He looked up reflexively. The moon was hidden behind the roof. He couldn’t see it, and it couldn’t see him. “Maybe there’s a way to save the town, without killing them?”
Rose looked up as well. “That’s not what Luna sent us out here for.”
“Luna’s not here. If she were, maybe…” he trailed off. The sentence wouldn’t complete itself. He knew, and Rose knew, and the rest of their team and probably the yokai knew exactly what Luna would do if she were with them. For all that their liege reveled in the vibrant hues and shades of twilight, her moral universe consisted of only two colors: white and black. Night and day, good and evil, hers and not-hers. And all the ponies of the world, whether they were within Equestria’s borders or not, most definitely belonged to her. There was no space in Luna’s orbit for thieves like the yokai.
There was no maybe. If Luna were here, the town would already be soaked in blood.
Umbra returned, an overflowing cup held carefully in her lips. She set it down on the porch near Rose, ducked her head, and vanished back into the shadows like she never was.
* * *
Dawn returned gradually, illuminating the sky to the east, where Simoom’s enormous form cut a black shape out of the heavens. All along the central column of the cloud city, shelfs and rays and tenuous limbs stretched out like the parts of a jellyfish, slowly orbiting the tower at their heart. The edges of the high city burned as the rising sun reached them, the rough clouds limned in deep pinks that brightened toward orange, then yellow, and finally a brilliant, shining white as the sun broke over the mountainous horizon. Veils of fog melted from the city’s ramparts as the cool desert air began to warm.
In Teawater, a greater transformation accompanied the growing dawn. The yokai grew quieter as the stars faded from the eastern sky, the laughter and music of the celebration drifting away, replaced by a yawning silence that unsettled Vermilion far more than the monsters’ noise ever had. One by one, the yokai settled to the ground, the flyers leaping down on outspread wings to rest in the grass. In the center of the green, the well overflowed its lip as the siren dragged her enormous form out of the water, her scales ringing like chimes as they ground against the stones. They lay down in the grass, as though in slumber, and when the sunlight finally washed over them their ghostly forms evaporated, revealing the ponies beneath.
The slumber did not last long. Even as the last of the illusions faded, the ponies were already rising. They shook themselves slowly, placing their hooves with exaggerated care on the grass, and looked around the crowded green at their fellows. The kirin, now a scarlet mare again, wandered over to her wagon and began loading it with fallen pumpkins and squash. The wolfish amorak, now a confused power-blue stallion, turned in a brief circle and then stumbled off into the village. The mass of ponies idled in place and gradually began to disperse.
“Oh, hello there.” Vermilion turned to see the mayor, the ancient cinnamon-coated mare, standing beside the porch. She mounted it with trembling care and took a seat by the eastern rail, where the sun was already warming the planks. She smiled at them both, her face vanishing in a mass of wrinkles. “Are you two visiting Teawater? There’s a spare room for guests here, if you need a place.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Rose said, not missing a beat. “We’ll do that.”
“Lovely, lovely.” The mayor yawned. In her cadence, the lilt of her words, her slumped but somehow still regal bearing, Vermilion could just barely discern the shadow of the yokai they’d spoken with that evening. Or was that the mayor, revitalized and shining through the yokai? “Let me know if there’s anything you need, won’t you, dearie? I’m Botanique, by the way.”
A clatter of hooves on wood announced Zephyr’s landing. She squinted at the mayor, gave a little shrug, and turned to Vermilion. “Looks like the excitement’s over, boss. What now?”
“Honestly? I think we just get some sleep.” He waved a hoof to catch Quicklime’s attention. The little unicorn shoved her sketchbook and drawing materials into her saddlebags and began trotting over to them. “Where’s Cloudy?”
“He went up for a minute,” Zephyr said. She fanned her wings as though in sympathy. “Wanted to see if maybe the yokai had someplace they were going during the day.”
“They’re spirits,” Rose said. She gave the mayor a little glance before continuing. “They’re still anchored to their hosts, we just can’t see them anymore.”
Vermilion peered out at the green. Only a few ponies were still left on the grass, ambling in aimless circles. They cast long shadows that reached all the way to the houses on the edge of the commons. “Because of the sunlight?”
Rose shrugged. “Sunlight, or maybe they just want to hide.”
Quicklime bounced up onto the porch just in time to answer. “Sunlight, and to give their hosts time to rest,” she said. Her eyes were red and bagged, and her normally tidy mane was coming undone, stray stands of long yellow hair escaping from her braids to outline her face. But her tone was still chipper. “You can see how exhausted they are, even with the yokai only controlling them at night.”
“Okay.” He glanced at the mayor, then shuffled over to the far side of the porch, dragging the rest of the team with him. When he judged they were out of earshot, he lowered his head and whispered, “Are we in any danger?”
Quicklime shook her head. “Not from the yokai. These illusions are pretty neat, but ultimately yokai are just trickster spirits. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t hurt us.”
“Tell that to the villagers,” Zephyr said. “Can we get possessed, too?”
“Uh…” Quicklime bit her lip, then shrugged and turned to Rose Quartz. “Beats me. Rose?”
“Between Luna’s protection and your wards, probably not. Probably.” Rose lifted her head to squint at the ponies still in the green. “We should watch out for each other, though, especially at night. And only sleep in the warded rooms.”
“Right, easy enough.” Zephyr yawned. “Hey, speaking of sleep, what’s the plan? We just gonna stay up? I’m not a night owl, you know.”
Right. She was tired – they were all tired after a full day of hiking and investigating, followed by a night with the yokai. “We’ll rack out now, get up at noon or so. That’ll give us time to prepare for evening and the yokai again. They may not be harmful to us, but they’re still stealing the lives of these ponies. There’s a way to stop them, and we just need to find it.”
They all mumbled their agreement. Even Rose, normally stoic and inexhaustible, seemed ready for a rest. Zephyr wandered over to the edge of the porch and flagged Cloudy down from the sky, and together they shuffled into the guest rooms as the world outside grew brighter with the new morning.
“Oh, hello there!” the mayor said as Vermillion passed. “Are you all visiting Teawater? We have guest rooms you can—”
The rest was lost as Cloudy shut the door behind them.
The bed still smelled like dust and mothballs. Vermilion didn’t care. He scraped the dirt off his hooves with the badger-hair brush bolted to the floor, then heeled up onto the bed and collapsed with a groan. The bed rocked a moment later as Rose climbed up beside him. They didn’t bother with the sheets – something about the weirdness of the hour, about trying to sleep even as the sun poured in through the curtainless windows, made the sheets seem superfluous, like they were just lying down for a nap. In the next room, quiet voices bantered over something or other, but quickly fell silent as their friends tumbled into their own beds.
He didn’t so much close his eyes as let exhaustion pull them shut. A deep breath in, held for a moment while his heart realized yes, now, it was finally time for bed and it could stop beating so hard, and then a slow exhale. In, out. Again. Ready for sleep to take him.
Perhaps an hour later – judging by how the sunlight had shifted on the wall – he was still waiting. Rose tossed and turned beside him, grumbling quietly, rearranging her limbs every few minutes before grunting and trying some new position. And despite the exhaustion quivering in his limbs, sleep felt no closer than before. If anything, he was more awake now than when they’d crawled into the bed.
It was going to be a miserable day for both of them. He resigned himself to staring at the walls for the next several hours, and when sleep finally took him, he barely noticed.
The frost gathering on the sheets beneath him was his first clue. Faint traces of fog flowed across the bed and onto the floor like a waterfall. Hints of primrose and ice chased away the cloying scent of dust.
He turned. As expected, Luna was on the bed with them. But her form was far smaller than before, barely larger than any normal pony. And when the sunlight streaming in the window touched her coat, she seemed to fade away, until he could see straight through her to the sheets on the other side.
“At last.” She leaned down to brush his cheek with hers. A cold chill, refreshing and wonderful, sank into his core. “You are asleep at a very odd time, my Vermilion. Any later and I wouldn’t have caught you at all.”
He sat up. If it weren’t for the way his weight sank him into the mattress, he might have been the taller of the two. “We made it to Teawater. The ponies are possessed by yokai, and—”
“Yokai?” Luna’s muzzle wrinkled. “Those nuisances? What do they want?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Quicklime said she’s never seen anything like it.”
“Hm. And have you destroyed them yet? Yokai are pitiful spirits; they should be little challenge to my champions.”
“Ah, well…” He froze, his mind spinning. His saber, Botanique, that little filly. How violent the simplest and easiest solution was. “Not yet. The yokai are only apparent at night. That is why we are sleeping now.”
“Mm.” Luna stared at him for a long moment. “Very well. Remember my trust in you, Vermilion. My trust in all of you. Yokai are deceitful things, and they will attempt to misdirect and evade you at every turn. But so long as you remember your oaths to me, and to the ponies we seek to protect, you cannot go astray.”
“Of course, Luna.” He sat up straighter. “It will be as you command.”
“Good.” Her form flickered, turning more ghostly with every breath. “If you insist on sleeping days, we may not meet again for some time. Be firm, my Vermilion. I anticipate your victorious return with joy.”
An insubstantial, raven-hued wing stretched out to brush his cheek, and he fell into a restless, troubled slumber.
* * *
“Is this how you normally look?”
Huh? Vermilion blinked at the wolf-stallion, the amorak, reclining atop the split-rail fence hemming in the green. Beyond it, in the moonlit darkness, row upon row of apple and pear trees rustled, filling the air with the sweet scent of pollen, ripe fruit, and the endless dry whisper of their leaves. The amorak’s deep blue coat blended neatly with the shadows, and only his luminous yellow eyes betrayed his presence.
For most ponies, anyway. To Vermilion, the amorak may as well have been sitting in the noontime sun. The moon cast more than enough light for him to see.
“What?” he finally asked.
“I said, is this how you normally look?”
“Of course.” He glanced down at his torso. A little more muscular than the scrawny stallion he remembered, and still dappled with dark spots where Blightweaver’s blood had splashed him, but otherwise the same Vermilion he’d seen every day for his entire life. “I’m not a yokai.”
“Mm, I know that.” The amorak sat up, somehow balancing on the sharp edge of the split rail. His little wings beat up a storm, stirring the sparkling motes of dust that accompanied him into a tizzy. “But do you always look like this?”
An hour ago Vermilion had carried on a mostly one-sided conversation with the powder blue stallion hosting this yokai. He was Teawater’s barber, doctor, sometime-surgeon and pharmacist. An eclectic mix of skills, and Vermilion was glad they had Rose Quartz on the team for anything more complex than a manecut. Fortunately, the stallion was only grinding some willow bark in a mortar and pestle when Vermilion found him, and he kept grinding that same piece of bark all afternoon. Eventually, Vermilion guessed, the bark would finally be reduced to dust, and the stallion would find something else to mindlessly wile away at.
But then nightfall came, and the yokai returned. They stole up from between the floorboards, squeezing out the cracks in the walls, leaping down from the rafters to swallow up their hosts, and in the space of a breath the stallion vanished, replaced by this wolf-pony with his wide, wolfish grin. And like a wolf he followed Vermilion out into the green, lounging just out of saber range, watching him with the intensity wolves reserved for lambs.
It was a little unsettling, even if it was just an illusion. But still better than the siren.
“What do you mean?” he said. “I’m an earth pony. I can’t change.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” the amorak said. “But granting that it mostly is, do you always look this tired? Or, dare I say, unwashed?”
Vermilion grunted. “I didn’t sleep well last night. Day, I mean. Today.”
“Uh huh.” The amorak pounced from the rail, landing soundlessly on the grass beside Vermilion. He sniffed at Vermilion’s shoulder, then belly, and probably would have gone lower if Vermilion hadn’t pushed him away. “Have you tried warm milk? Love that stuff. Helps with insomnia, according to Piedmont.”
“Piedmont?” Vermilion frowned. “Your victim?”
The amorak’s eyes tightened. “My partner, thank you. He loves helping ponies. It’s why he became a doctor. He’s also in love with Enceladus over there,” the amorak motioned with his muzzle toward the center of the green, where a tall doe with six legs and six eyes, clad in pearlescent scales, filled a bucket from the well, “but hasn’t worked up the courage to tell her. Whenever she comes in to get her mane trimmed, he’s so tongue-tied he can barely speak. But he’ll figure it out eventually. I’ve been giving him some advice.”
“Advice, sure.” Vermilion stood and started across the green. Somewhere around here Quicklime was making sketches and discovering new, useful things about these monsters. Maybe she’d like to talk to this stallion. “And how will he ever do that? I’ve seen your hosts during the day. They can barely put two sentences together.”
“They’re slow, sure,” the amorak said. He easily kept pace with Vermilion, occasionally floating a few inches above the grass, as though walking were a choice rather than a necessity. “But they still do all the things ponies in Equestria do. It just takes them a little longer.”
Unlikely. It would take them a week to have this same conversation. “You seem to have the better end of the deal.”
“It is a good deal, I’ll admit.” The amorak – Piedmont, apparently – coasted along beside Vermilion, his paws touching the ground every fourth or fifth step. “Imagine being a ghost, Vermilion. It is Vermilion, right? Right. So, imagine you’re a ghost, not dead, just a ghost. You walk around in a world that can’t see you most of the time, that you can’t touch. You hear the voices of your kin, but only when you gather on the nights of the new moon in the shadow of a pony’s dwelling can you feel each other. Do this for a hundred years or five hundred years or maybe a thousand years, like some of us, living in a world of fog and shadows, and the whole while you see these beautiful beings, these ponies, so perfectly alive. Within the world and a part of it! Everything they do matters! And though their time is so brief, they burn like a raging bonfire, filling the space around them with light and heat. And now, Vermilion, we get to share in a bit of your warmth, your delicious life. We taste the world just like you do for a few hours, and in exchange we let our partners be the very things they dream for half the day. And if they’re a little slow during the other half, a little tired, isn’t that just the price for a well-struck bargain? Are you so certain you are freeing them from anything?”
“My certainty doesn’t matter,” Vermilion said. He stopped at the banquet table in the center of the green, where a small but still rich selection of food was set out for their meal. Gilded trays piled with apples and pears, platters loaded to overflowing with almonds, walnuts and pecans, plates filled with sliced, sharp-scented cheeses, bowls of pomegranates and plums, and in the center a delicate sugar sculpture of a windmill, cunningly wrought so that its vanes spun on a toothpick axle. He surveyed the feast, imagined how it would all taste, and then selected a small round of rye bread for his meal.
“We’re not here on our own behalf,” he continued. He took a bite of the loaf. The crust had a crisp crunch, the soft, fluffy interior was still warm from the oven, and it held the tangy, almost spicy flavor of a perfect rye. He chewed slowly over his next few words. “We’re here as servants of Equestria and Princess Luna, and she sent us to free Teawater.”
“That is a lovely sentiment,” Piedmont acknowledged with a dip of his head. “But forgive us if we don’t see it that way.”
That was a first. Monsters, asking for forgiveness? He grunted around another bite of bread and pushed away from the table. Rose Quartz was around somewhere, and he suddenly wanted her shoulder to lean against, her scent to chase away the strangeness of Teawater, her voice to remind him that not everypony around him was a ghost.
“This would be easier if you just acted like normal monsters,” he grumbled.
“Indeed.” Piedmont plucked an olive from the banquet table, holding it delicately between two claws. He chewed on it and spit the pit into the grass. “And what is a monster, Vermilion?”
“Are we playing this game?” Vermilion sighed and closed his eyes, casting his mind back through the past half-year of service to Luna. “Somewhere, far to the east of here, across the whole of Equestria, past a forest called Gloom’s Edge, there are the ruins of a town once known as Hollow Shades. Around these ruins, perhaps living in them now, there is an enormous spider, a spider taller than any building in Teawater. His legs are as thick as tree-trunks and his fangs are like wheat scythes. This spider – this god – calls himself Blightweaver, and unless he is stopped he will eat everything in the world, every animal, every pony, every bird in the sky, all his monstrous kin, every tree and lake and even the mountains themselves, until the only thing left in all creation will be a great web spanning the entire cosmos, with him at its center, gorged and putrid, swollen to bursting, sitting there for all time. That is a monster.”
“I will grant that sounds quite monstrous,” Piedmont said. “What else?”
“Dreamoras.” That was next, wasn’t it? Vermilion tilted his head toward the bonfire. Even with his eyes closed, he felt its warmth washing over his face. Above it the yokai wearing a dreamora’s smoke-like form would be basking in the flames. “You are familiar with them, I assume?”
“I am familiar with them,” Piedmont said. “Any more?”
“Many. Amoraks, like that costume you wear, and stygians. Windigoes.” He stopped for a moment as a cold wind caressed him, seemingly born out of nowhere. Arnapkaphaaluk, it whispered. He shook his head and drove on. “Things I have no name for, that now roam free across the north. And, and…”
A pause. “And?”
“And—” Vermilion’s throat closed with a spasm. Sudden pain, like needles crawling up from his lungs, silenced him. For a minute he could only shake, unable to breathe. The cool desert air turned to oil on his coat, and he knew that if he looked up at the night sky, to where the moon should be looking down, he would see only an empty hole, a circle so dark that it could not possibly be there in space but must instead be a hole in his mind, and if he stared long enough into the hole he would see its edges begin to churn and bubble and bleed, and when at last his eyes adjusted to its infinite darkness and saw not merely the hole but into it, he would realize that the hole had grown to encompass all the world, and now its misshapen monstrous lord was there with him, and—
“Ah,” Piedmont said. Vermilion’s trance broke at the sound, and he jerked, shocked back into reality. The amorak still sat there, the little teasing smile gone from his lips, replaced with a sober, serious and piercing expression that seemed to bore into Vermilion’s soul.
Vermilion’s bread had fallen to the grass at some point. He bent to pick it up and saw a lightning bug clinging to the crust, and he blew it away with a gentle puff of breath. When his hoof finally stopped trembling, he took another bite.
“We’ve seen it too,” Piedmont said, his voice pitched down to whisper. He glanced up at the night sky for a moment. “At night, in the space between the stars. Calling out to everything unloved by the sun.”
“The Nightmare. That’s what Luna called it. It’s why…” He made a vague gesture with his hoof at the village around them. “All this is happening. Everything outside Equestria coming under attack. I’ve seen towns snuffed out like candles. And I won’t let Teawater be the next one to fall.”
“Well, that is a grand purpose you’ve set yourself toward.” Piedmont took a small step toward Vermilion, paused for a moment, then walked up and sat beside him. His little wings brushed Vermilion’s shoulder with each fluttery breath. “Are you so sure we belong with those monsters, though? Would you be so happy to destroy us?”
“It’s not my happiness that matters.”
“Pity, it should.” Piedmont leaned in to sniff at Vermilion’s shoulder with his cold, canine nose. “So, what are monsters, then?”
“I just told you.” Vermilion shrugged, pushing Piedmont away with ease. “What more do you need?”
“You gave examples of monsters. But what is a monster, Vermilion? The next time you see one, how will you recognize it?”
“Monsters are…” Vermilion frowned. Monsters were… monstrous, of course. But that was circular logic. So, what were they? “Monsters kill ponies.”
“Rattlesnakes kill ponies,” Piedmont said. “Are they monsters?”
Right, of course not. “Monsters are evil, then.”
“Sure, sure.” Piedmont pointed his muzzle at the bonfire in the center of the green. “Are dreamoras evil?”
Vermilion followed his gaze. The green was crowded with yokai still, sitting in little groups, snacking on treats from the buffet, chatting like ponies. The siren in her well held forth with a pair of batlike pegasi perched in the branches of a birch tree above her. Botanique, the ancient mayor, sat perfectly still to pose for Quicklime’s charcoals. Rose and Cloud Fire sat with the scarlet kirin whose name Vermilion had never learned in the silk pavilion. And, of course, in the center the bonfire roared with undiminished strength, and above it the dreamora coiled endlessly, drinking the flames like water. Were dreamora truly evil? He remembered them infecting his dreams in Maplebridge, sapping the life from every pony their curse touched.
“They eat ponies,” he said. “Of course they’re evil.”
“Ponies eat grass,” Piedmont said. “Pegasi eat fish. Does that make them evil?”
“Fish can’t think.” There was a word for this sort of argument. Canopy had used it a few times in her journal, and he’d asked Rose what it meant one night as they huddled together to read. “This is sophistry. You’re using arguments to deceive rather than persuade, and it’s clear why. You don’t want us saving this town.”
“I don’t want you to kill my kin,” Piedmont said evenly. “And if you think it’s sophistry to ask a monster hunter to explain what a monster is, then I suppose I’m guilty of that too.”
Vermilion huffed. His breath formed a little cloud in the cool air before dissipating. “Are you a lawyer among yokai, Piedmont? A philosopher?”
That got a smile out of the amorak, though it was a small one that didn’t touch his eyes. “We’re more complex than you think, Vermilion. I’ve lived hundreds of years. Dozens of pony lifetimes. And yes, I suppose you could say I’m a bit of a philosopher. We’re not all tricksters, you know. Some of us would rather debate problems than cause them. That’s all I’m doing now.”
Vermilion stared at him for a long moment, then looked down to marshal his thoughts. Around them, the green buzzed with activity, but Vermilion ignored it all. And when he finally had everything in order, he spoke.
“Not all monsters are evil,” he mumbled. “But all evil things are monsters. Not everything that kills ponies is a monster, but all monsters kill ponies, or hurt them, or…” he glanced up for a brief pause at the siren in the well, “or steal from them. Monsters cannot exist peacefully with ponies. They must always be at war. So… monsters are anything that is incompatible with ponies. Anything that we must fight. Anything that will destroy us if we do not destroy them.”
Piedmont was silent as Vermilion spoke. When he finished, the amorak gave him a tiny nod. “That is well-reasoned. Do you think it applies to us?”
Yes. Of course. How could it not? A world filled with yokai, a world like Teawater, would be a nightmare. Ponies would be nothing but slaves. He jerked his head in a little nod.
“Hm.” Piedmont settled back on his haunches. “Well, that’s sad to hear.”
“It doesn’t make me happy to say, either.”
“Then we have something in common. What would make you happy, Vermilion?”
Serving his master, of course. But then, Luna would demand he slaughter everything in this town in order to save it, and that would hardly make him happy. He stared down at the grass, his mind tumbling over itself in a fruitless struggle to square that circle.
Piedmont chuckled at his confusion. “Sorry, an unfair question. First, you have to know what happiness is.”
What happiness is. For a moment Teawater vanished, and he was back on some dusty bed a thousand miles away, dreaming of Canopy. First, you have to know what happiness is. His head jerked up, a thousand thoughts rushing to the fore of his mind.
But Piedmont was gone. Only empty grass and the revelry of the town beyond remained.
Rose and Quicklime were sitting on his bed when Vermilion entered the room. Behind him Teawater slowly woke with the morning sun, the yokai all vanished back to their invisible dens as the ponies of the town stumbled about their day. He closed the door, latched it, then trotted over to join the two mares.
Quicklime had her sketches laid out on the covers. She’d finished more than a dozen during the night, of Botanique and the siren in the well and that scarlet kirin and many others. There was even, Vermilion saw with a start, a sketch of him and Piedmont sitting beside each other, wrought in hasty marks, capturing little more than their gestures but still recognizable all the same. Once again he wondered if Quicklime had missed her calling as an artist.
Well, these two were the smart ones. He hopped up on the bed, careful not to crush any of the sketches, and settled down beside Rose. “What do you think?”
“They’re friendly,” Quicklime said. “A lot more than I’d expect, considering we came here to kill them.”
“But they’re tricksters,” he said. “Could this all be one huge trick? Convince us they’re harmless?”
“It’s possible, but it would take a tremendous amount of foresight and planning.” Rose leaned down to peer at Quicklime’s sketch of Botanique. It was drawn in soft pencils, with a level of detail that seemed almost magical. Every strand of moss growing from Botanique’s coat, every rill of lichen outlining her bones, and each little bee that swarmed around the flowers in her mane was rendered with subtle shades and sharp lines that seemed to lift off the page, ready to fly away. “They didn’t know we were coming, remember. And nopony has ever written about yokai cooperating with each other like this. It’s like they’re something entirely new.”
Somepony knocked on the door. Rose’s horn glowed, and the latch flipped open, followed a moment later by the door, revealing Cloudy and Zephyr. The pegasi glided across the room to crowd onto the bed. Zephyr draped herself over Vermilion’s shoulders to peer at the sketches. Her slight frame was little more than a blanket for him.
“Well, at least one of us did something last night,” Zephyr said. “Nice drawings.”
“No luck?” Rose asked.
“Nah, just a bunch of very nice spirits.” Cloudy rolled onto his back and stretched out his wings, covering half the bed. “They really want to be our friends.”
“So we’re back at square one?” Vermilion frowned down at his hooves. “Luna’s expecting us to report some sort of progress.”
“The progress is that we’re keeping the ponies of Teawater safe while we figure out how to deal with the yokai,” Rose said. “Luna will just have to be patient. Quicklime?”
The conversation fell silent as all four turned to Quicklime, who was doodling something on a sheet of paper, beside a detailed sketch of a stygian’s wing. She scribbled a few more lines of indecipherable text in a spidery script with a pheasant quill, then finally looked up. “Huh?”
Rose gave her a little bump with her shoulder. “Any ideas on how to break their spell?”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Maybe. A few. I need to test them carefully, though, or we might just have a whole village of angry spirits on our hooves.”
“And how long will that take?” Vermilion asked.
The little unicorn shrugged. “I dunno. A few more nights, maybe? Do you want me to rush?”
He shook his head. “No. A few days won’t hurt, as long as we’re careful.”
“Sounds great,” Cloudy said. He folded a wing and nibbled at his covert feathers, slowly preening them back into line. “But what do the rest of us do while Quicklime is saving the world?”
Hm. Vermilion glanced out the sun-splashed window. Somewhere out there, a powder-blue stallion was preparing herbs in a pharmacy, or giving somepony a very, very slow haircut. And perhaps he worked up the courage to tell his secret love how much he admired her. Vermilion shook his head to banish the idle thought.
“Just keep studying them,” he said. “Get to know them. It will come in useful later, I’m sure.”
* * *
Vermilion stood with the pegasi on the porch. They had been up for hours, waiting for this moment. Far to the west, the sun was a livid red orb just above a line of grey clouds shrouding the horizon, dim enough to stare directly at without any discomfort. It painted the world in warm golds that contrasted with the cool breeze blowing from the east. They watched in silence as it sank, first kissing the clouds, then falling slice by slice beneath them, until only a tiny line of fire remained, and then it too was gone, and twilight swept across the world.
“And there they are,” Zephyr whispered. She turned away from the setting sun toward the village green. Vermilion and Cloudy turned as well, watching the yokai emerge from their hiding spots to conquer the village again. They rose in misty coils from the grass, twisting like snakes, and erupted outward to conquer their hosts. Perhaps that was their weakness? That breathtakingly short moment, between apparition and assumption, when the yokai had yet to envelop its victim? He imagined himself chasing smoke and fog around the village, batting at it with his saber, wounding it no more than he could injure water.
“Be careful,” he said. But the pegasi had already taken wing, and he doubted they heard him. He watched their dark silhouettes spiral up into the greying sky, to join the fantastic flitting forms of yokai rejoicing in the dawn of night.
The porch creaked behind him, and he turned to see the scarlet kirin standing just a few feet away, close enough that he could take her scent. Pumice and cherries and something he couldn’t quite place, a dry scent, not entirely pleasant.
He gave her a small nod. “Ma’am.”
She smiled. The tips of tiny fangs poked out, bright white against her carmine lips. “Please, just Bijoux. Your friends seem to have flown off without you.”
“They’re pegasi. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I made them stay on the ground all day, just on my account.”
“Fair enough.” She walked past him, brushing against his shoulder. The scales armoring her flanks were smooth and dry, like a snake’s. And there was the scent that eluded him – shed snakeskin. “Come on, we’re setting out the banquet tables.”
The feast was less sumptuous again than the previous night, continuing the trend. Still it was orders of magnitude more lavish than anything an earth pony town ought to be serving, and better than most harvest festivals back in Vermilion’s little hamlet. Pastries and quiches and fruits filled silver platters the length of the green. He frowned at the feast and eventually selected the least appealing morsel he could find, a poached eggplant sliced thin and topped with tiny diced tomatoes. It was regrettably delicious.
There seemed to be fewer yokai about the green tonight, the spirits gathering in smaller groups, and beyond the green’s fence he saw them walking through Teawater’s dark streets, apparently on errands of their own. Did yokai have jobs? Were they appointed to some ghostly task on most nights, and this festival was the exception rather than the rule? If Vermilion and his friends stayed long enough, would the town eventually settle into some nocturnal rhythm that mirrored that of its daytime residents, filled with spirits going about their nights, shopping at the grocer, working in the fields, teaching their spectral foals?
“Doesn’t seem like much of a dream,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Sorry?” He turned to see Rose peering at him from across the banquet table. A pewter plate loaded with sliced strawberries and bananas floated beside her. The pink scarf she normally wore to conceal her blinded eye was instead tied loosely around her neck like a kerchief.
He ducked his head. “Just talking to myself.”
“Mm.” She nibbled on a strawberry. “Well, we’re here if you want to talk with somepony else. And there’s always the yokai.”
The yokai were more than happy to talk. Over the next few hours he spoke with more monsters than most ponies probably knew existed. Bijoux, the scarlet kirin, tempted him over to the bonfire, where a gaggle of changelings tapped quietly on drums while pressing him for details of his old life on the farm. Soon he found himself explaining his decision to leave and join the Company, and the boring, mundane details of life as an earth pony quartermaster’s apprentice. At Enceladus’ prompting, he recounted the wonder he always felt for the pegasi and unicorns, the Company’s true warriors, and maybe a note of jealousy entered his voice, for no sooner had he finished describing the awe of watching Canopy dance with her spear than the dreamora lurking in the bonfire leaned out from the flames, its smokey body roiling and pulsing as it spoke.
“But…” Its voice was a rasping whisper in the back of his mind. “Are you not now the greatest of Luna’s champions? You, an earth pony?”
“No, of course not.” He shook his head vigorously. “Earth ponies are strong and hardy, but that is nothing compared with a unicorn’s magic. My friends Quicklime and Rose Quartz can work wonders. And Zephyr, she is an artist with her spear. No warrior—no living warrior can rival her.”
“You sell yourself short,” Bijoux said. She claimed a grape from a wide bowl sitting between them with her lips. A long, serpentine tongue flashed in her mouth, and then both it and the grape vanished from sight as she swallowed. “Take it from us, Vermilion. Yokai are the weakest beings in all of creation, made of fog and shadows and spidersilk. Even an ant is stronger than any of us.” She waved a cloven hoof at the circle of monsters.
“Bijoux is right,” Enceladus said. She stared at him with her six milky eyes. “Yokai dream of being earth ponies. You are everything we are not.”
Rose could explain this better. Or Canopy could with her logic, if she were alive. They knew as intimately as anypony the weakness of his tribe. Instead he struggled. “This is an earth pony town, isn’t it? And aren’t you helping them escape being earth ponies? Letting them live out dreams as anything other than what they are?”
“Everything dreams of being something other than it is,” the dreamora rumbled. “Even Luna, the master of dreams. Even the moon dreams of eclipsing the sun.”
Luna, dreaming of surpassing Celestia? Yes, there was some truth to that. It was always present in the way his master glared at her sister, or how she spoke about their rivalries. The gossip he heard whispered whenever they visited the royal court.
They must have sensed the sudden unease in his posture, for the conversation changed to more prosaic topics. Prosaic for monsters, at any rate – whose host was falling in love with whom, little Umbra’s antics, and their ongoing attempts to lure the siren out of her self-enforced loneliness in the well. Vermilion kept his peace throughout, and by the time the eastern horizon began to glow grey with the suggestion of the arriving dawn, he had nearly convinced himself that they were ponies too, and almost forgotten that his duty was to destroy them.
* * *
Days passed. They took to their shared beds with the rising of the sun, and they woke in the early afternoon to surveil Teawater’s ponies as they went about their slow, circumscribed days. And patterns did slowly emerge – the apple and pear harvests came in from the orchards, and the shops opened on time, though few customers managed to do more than bump into the shelves and knock over the wares. The wainwright eventually finished fixing his wagon.
Luna appeared in Vermilion’s dreams, always curious about their progress, never outwardly impatient. But his master moved in phases like the moon, and he knew that her patience was not endless. Soon she would demand answers. Soon the tide would come for Teawater.
“I feel,” he told Rose as they lay together in bed, the morning a bright exclamation outside the curtainless window, “like we are stuck.”
Rose pressed her muzzle against the side of his neck. She hadn’t spoken in a while, and he realized belatedly that she might’ve been asleep. Still, she answered. “Maybe. But we’re not in danger, and neither are the ponies here. Things could be much worse.”
“It’s not sustainable, though. A town can’t last like this, half-monster, half-pony.”
She let out a long sigh. Her breath was hot against his coat. “Maybe we’re looking for the wrong solution, then.”
He tipped his head toward her. They hadn’t made love since that night in the tent, out of consideration for their friends in the next room, but their position was certainly intimate. Were they still lovers? If enough time passed without any further escapades, would they go back to merely being friends? Some boundary between them had been breached, and he felt it whenever they were together – the gentle ease with which she leaned against him, or the subtle glances they shared in the spaces between words. Even now her thigh pressed into his groin, a persistent, whispering distraction.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe I was wrong,” she mumbled. “About the yokai. I don’t think they’re evil, just desperate. Maybe there’s a way to free the town without killing them.”
“I don’t think Luna would approve of that.”
Rose shrugged. “Maybe she doesn’t have to. She sent us to solve this problem. She has to trust us to do it our way.”
Our way. He turned the thought over in his mind as the morning grew brighter outside their window. In time, Rose’s breathing eased into a gentle rhythm, and he was alone again with his thoughts.
* * *
Vermilion found his quarry out in the orchards.
Here, far from the town center and the green, he could imagine Teawater was a normal town, untroubled by spirits and dreaming through the night. The leaves hissed in the breeze, rising and falling as the wind held its breath. He picked his way down the rows, kicking aside fallen apples and pears, leaving the lights and noise behind him.
A low, rocky hill rose in the middle of the orchard, more stone than soil, covered in tough grasses where the trees refused to grow. Piedmont sat in the center, bathed in the bright light of the full moon. He turned as Vermilion approached and dipped his head in greeting.
“I thought wolves were supposed to howl at the moon,” Vermilion said. He took a seat beside the amorak and looked around. The hill was high enough for them to see over the treetops. The warm glow of Teawater’s festival lit the sky to the south, and if he squinted he could make out tiny dots soaring through the air over its roofs. Behind them, clad in silver, Simoom loomed over half the world. The great cloud city still spun slowly, even at night, turning about its central axis with inexorable, ponderous gravity, as if defying the weightlessness of its pegasus masters.
“Wolves may or may not, but I am not a wolf,” Piedmont said. He tipped his head up to peer at the moon. “I am a pony, whether or not you agree.”
Vermilion didn’t, but that was unimportant tonight. “You said something the last time we spoke. About happiness.”
“Happiness?” Piedmont shuffled over to a bare slab of rock, free from the sharp grass, and settled down on it. He peered at Vermilion. “Remind me?”
“You said I had to know what happiness was, before I could be happy.”
“Ah.” A grin played at the edges of Piedmont’s lips. “Yes. And?”
“It doesn’t seem possible,” Vermilion said. “I don’t need to know what hunger is to be hungry, or what pain is to suffer. They are… as soon as you feel them, you know what they are.”
“Self-evident, you mean. Experiential.” The smile vanished from Piedmon’s expression, replaced by a piercing stare. The little fairy wings sprouting from his shoulders flapped excitedly. “You can’t define hunger except as the sensation you feel when hungry, or pain the sensation you feel when you are hurt.”
“Right. So why should happiness be any different?”
The amorak barked suddenly. It broke the easy silence of the night, shocking Vermilion with its abruptness, and it took him a moment to realize Piedmon was laughing. “Oh, Vermilion. You asked if I was a philosopher, and now you’re probing the nature of happiness. Perhaps you’re the one who missed his calling.”
Vermilion blew out a huff of breath. It fogged briefly before dispersing in the wind. “It ought to be the same. Happiness is what I feel when I’m happy. Everypony knows that. But…”
Piedmont raised a bushy eyebrow. “...but?”
“But…” Vermilion trailed off again. When no response followed he reached into the saddlebags strapped to his barrel and pulled out Canopy’s journal. The green cover was black in the moonlight, and he set it in the grass at his hooves.
Piedmon was silent. He peered down at the book, then up at Vermilion. His wings slowed, and then stilled.
“That is a book,” he finally said.
“It’s a journal,” Vermilion said. “Sort of. The pony who wrote it is dead, and she never meant for others to read it. It’s more like a collection of thoughts than anything else. Things she wanted to remember. So, when I read it, it’s like I’m stealing her memories.”
“I wouldn’t call it stealing,” Piedmont said. “But go on.”
Vermilion opened the journal. The page he wanted was dogeared, and he set a small stone on the edge of the book to hold it open. He scanned the lines briefly, reading easily in the moonlight. Canopy’s description of Verisimilitude’s death was one of the longest single passages in the entire journal, and Vermilion let the words into his heart, living them as best he could. He closed his eyes and imagined himself there with Canopy as the minotaur’s spear caught Verisimilitude, it’s crude iron head punching easily through her lightly armored breast. There would have been shock, of course – the sudden violence, the horror of seeing her friend mortally wounded. But then the second shock, slower but greater, the one that lodged in Canopy’s mind and deviled her thoughts for years – Verisimilitude’s smile as she lay in the dust outside Calypos, moments away from dying.
He opened his eyes. “She said the same thing, word for word. That I have to know what happiness is, first. And here, she wrote about a mare who smiled as she died. Who was happy at the moment of her death. How is that possible?”
Piedmont pulled the journal across the grass toward him. His eyes danced down the page, and for some time they were both silent, and then he closed the slim volume and slid it back toward Vermilion.
Eventually, the amorak spoke. “I would have been more tactful if I knew how much the subject mattered to you.”
Vermilion shrugged. “I’m glad you said it. But you can imagine my surprise, hearing a spirit in the form of a wolf asking the same question as a pegasus warrior who died hundreds of leagues from here.”
“I think I might have liked to speak with her,” Piedmont said. “But it’s not surprising; it only means that she was a philosopher too. I suppose that makes three of us.”
“I’m no philosopher, I’m just an earth pony.”
Piedmont growled, sounding so much like a true wolf that Vermilion leaped to his hooves. “Don’t say that, Vermilion. Philosophy is self-knowledge, and it is a gift for everything and everyone, great or small. It is greater than any unicorn’s magic. Greater even than Luna or Celestia’s power.”
Vermilion snorted. His heart slowly climbed down from his throat. “You haven’t met Luna, then. She’s stronger than you can imagine.”
“I have not. But has all her power made her happy?”
Of course, he started to say. But traitorous thoughts crept up from the depths of his mind, whispering reminders to him – his master raging over Celestia’s slights, the seething anger that swirled like a thunderstorm around her. Oh, there were moments of joy. Joy when her possessions pleased her, when Vermilion or Cloud Fire or the others had served her well. Joy that burned like a fire. But happiness?
He racked his mind for memories of Luna when she was truly, purely happy. He lost himself in the pursuit, and when at last he looked up it was nearly dawn, and he was alone on the hill.
* * *
He found Quicklime out on the green beside the well. The noontime sun hid behind a faint veil of high, misty clouds, softening the daylight and smearing their shadows across the grass. His coat prickled lightly with sweat – although well into autumn now, Teawater was still a desert town. The light and heat stirred in his earth pony heart, demanding that he find some hard labor to strain his muscles against, to burden his bones. Urging him to the toil that was his birthright.
He settled down beside her, pressing his back to the stones. She looked up from her sketch and smiled.
“Good morning, sleepy head,” she said. “I thought you were the early riser?”
“I’m not sure what early means in this town. How are you?”
“Good. I spent a year working the night shift when I was with the Intelligence Corps, so maybe I’m used to weird hours.” She lifted a slender charcoal stick up to the sketchbook and added a few light strokes. “I think I’m almost done.”
He peered over her shoulder at the sketch. It was Teawater, though he could not tell if it was night or day. All the detail was in the buildings, the trees, the ground. Even the grass and the well were rendered in nearly perfect detail. But the ponies were simple abstract shapes, thick, undefined marks that left him to wonder if they were supposed to be yokai, too.
“It’s very nice,” he said.
“Oh, not this.” She blew on the page, scattering a little cloud of charcoal powder, and closed the sketchbook. “I meant the spell.”
He blinked. “Spell?”
“For the yokai.” Quicklime put her pencils in a little metal tin and tied it shut. The coat around her lips was dusted in grey and black – apparently she used the charcoals in the earth pony fashion rather than with magic, sometimes. “To fight them.”
Oh. “It… you can kill them?”
She wrinkled her muzzle at the word. “Not directly. The spell lets you see through their glamour. I mean, technically it’s more complex than that. It temporarily modifies your phase-space a few degrees along an orientation the yokai can’t influence. Imagine being just a little bit in a different dimension, but it’s a dimension that neither ponies, yokai or physical matter can interact with, so it won’t feel any different. If it works.”
“Uh.” He tried to imagine, and didn’t even know where to start. “Say that again?”
She grinned up at him. “Don’t worry about the details. If it works, it will let you see, and more importantly, affect the yokai.”
“It won’t hurt them?”
“Not directly. But your sword certainly could. And once the yokai’s dead, the pony they’re latched onto should be freed.”
A sudden memory of their first night in Teawater returned. He sat at the table across from Botanique, reaching for his saber, ready to run her through. But now it wouldn’t be the pony he killed, but the monster possessing her. They could finally do Luna’s grim work.
He swallowed. “Have you told anypony else yet? About this spell?”
Quicklime gave her head a little shake. “No. I figured you’d want to know first.”
“Right. Thank you.” He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “You’re a smart pony, Quicklime. What do you think we should do?”
She looked down at the grass. “I don’t know, Cherry. They’re not like all the other monsters we’ve fought. They’re just like us in a lot of ways. And when I’m talking with them at night, getting them to pose for my sketches or just chatting, they are so friendly and welcoming and just… happy, I guess. I start to wonder if they’ve discovered something wonderful here, some better way of life than we have, free of want, free of fear, free to live out whatever dream they please. But then…”
“Then?”
She looked up, blinking rapidly. “But then I remember the ponies they’re possessing. I don’t know if they’re happy, or sad, or confused. Do they feel like prisoners, or are they finally living out their dreams too? If we free them, are we just releasing them back to their mundane, waking lives?”
“It would be their lives, at least.”
“I know. That’s why I’m not sure what we should do. But I don’t have to decide – that’s your job.”
Right. It was. He looked around the sleeping town – sleeping, though it was noon, and Teawater’s ponies walked through the streets, going about their slow lives – and wondered what Canopy would say.
* * *
The nighttime green was boisterous again. Yokai crowded onto the grass, filling the air with an inequine babble of voices and songs. The feast tables were piled as high as the first night. Monsters approached Vermilion and his friends with treats and tankards of ale, and begged them to come sit beside the well to help coax out the siren, who was too shy to show her bejeweled face to such a crowd.
“Go on,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”
Rose lingered behind as the others ran or flew to the feast. She leaned in to brush his cheek with hers. “Everything alright?”
“Yeah.” His eyes followed Quicklime, who was already chatting with a trio of yokai, a wide smile on her face. Had she told Rose about her success yet? Her discovery of the spell that could doom the yokai and their endless celebrations?
“Just a bit worn out. I think I’ll take it easy tonight.”
“Mhm.” Rose peered at him with her good eye. “Alright. Let us know if you need anything, though.”
He nodded, then, struck by a sudden urge, gave her a quick peck on the cheek. It was clumsy and unpracticed, and he almost missed. He realized, as soon as it was done, that he’d never kissed her before in public. His cheeks burned so hot it must’ve shown through his coat.
She tilted her head. A long moment passed, and his embarrassment began to bleed away, replaced with dread. Had he gone too far? Presumed too much? But before he could stammer out an apology, she leaned in and placed a slower, softer, more expert kiss on his own cheek. Her horn tangled briefly in his mane when she pulled away.
He licked his lips. “I’ll, uh, see you later. Keep an eye on the others for me?”
She smirked. “Just one eye, right?” But then she laughed and turned away to trot off into the green.
Keep an eye on the others. He was an idiot sometimes, he decided. But at least Rose could laugh at it now, and that was a small victory. He waited until she joined the crowd, then turned and wandered off into the dark streets of Teawater.
He knew the town by heart, but only by day. At night they rarely left the green, where all the yokai dwelled. But something called him deeper into the town, past the houses and the shops, down south to the fields and the windmills. Here, unobstructed by the buildings, he could see east across the river to the true desert. At the edges of his sight the Company’s tent city sparkled with bonfires, and above it turned Simoom. He watched them both for a while, wondering what Electrum worried about these days, then sighed and turned back to Teawater.
It was not as empty as before. Lights glowed from the third story window of the town hall, the tallest building in Teawater. The light flickered and pulsed, warm and yellow, like somepony had left candles burning unattended. Shadows danced on the walls inside. He stared at them, puzzled, then walked through the fields toward the structure.
The door was unlatched. He pushed it open, revealing the wide meeting hall that occupied the whole first floor of the structure. It was neat and tidy, as he expected from an earth pony town, even one occupied by monsters. Desks and filing cabinets lined the far wall, beside a podium where speakers could address the town. Opposite them, a stairway led higher. He heard hoofsteps above. Curious, he started up the stairs.
The second floor was filled with a few offices. The scent of dust and paper and ink filled the space like fog. Still empty, though. The dust on the floorboards was undisturbed, except where he walked now, toward the stairs leading to the top floor. Faint voices filtered down now along with the candle light. He listened for a moment, then took a step toward the stairs.
A dark form suddenly appeared, blocking his path. “What are you doing here?” Piedmont whispered. He sounded out of breath. Fearful, Vermilion realized with a start.
“I saw the lights,” he whispered back. Above them, the voices faltered, and the hoofsteps stopped. “I was just wondering—”
“Please, go back to the green,” Piedmont said. He stepped forward and tugged at Vermilion’s shoulder, trying to turn him away from the stairs. But the yokai’s grip was as weak as the breeze, and Vermilion shrugged him away with barely a thought.
“What’s up there?” he asked. He took another step forward, peering up the stairwell.
“Nothing,” Piedmont said. His wolfish tongue flashed out, licking his lips. “Just us. Just some yokai.”
“You’re hiding something.” Vermilion set his hoof on the stairs. Above, around the corner, the lights seemed to shrink away.
Piedmont flowed past him, blocking the way. “Vermilion, there’s nothing for you to see up there. It is something we must do and you will not understand it.”
“Show me.” He walked up the stairs, pushing the yokai effortlessly aside.
“Listen. Listen.” Piedmont clung to his withers, pulling himself along with Vermilion. “I can explain everything, but not here. If you see this you’ll think the worst of us and it will ruin everything we’ve built. Teawater is a miracle, Vermilion. It is the most beautiful thing in all the world but it is not without its flaws—”
Vermilion didn’t hear the rest. He stepped into the candlelit room and stared.
Several yokai stared back, horror on their faces. Enceladus, the six-legged and six-eyed doe, trembled on her slender legs. Bijoux backed away from him, her eyes wide with fear. A changeling and a white-winged viper pressed against each other, frozen. All terrified. All terrified of him.
And in the center, surrounded by a ring of flickering candles, was Botanique. The ancient mare thrashed on the bare floor. Her mouth stretched open, as though she was screaming, but no sound emerged. Her chest and barrel flexed, and something moved beneath her skin, swelling and coiling. The mosses and lichens and ferns that grew from her coat shuddered and fell away.
“What…” He took a step forward. “What’s happening? What’s wrong with her?”
“It’s not something we want,” Piedmont said. A note of resignation had entered his voice. “Believe me, Vermilion, we don’t want this. But it is our nature.”
“What?” Vermilion tore his gaze from Botanique’s writhing form to stare at Piedmont. “What does that mean, your nature? What is happening to her?”
Piedmont closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Vermilion. We would have told you eventually, when the time was right. Or maybe it never would have been right, and we would have… I don’t know. I don’t know, and I’m sorry.”
A loud snap yanked Vermilion’s attention back to Botanique. One of her legs had broken and now hung at a terrible angle. The twisting, pulsing growths beneath her coat migrated slowly upward, up her chest, up her long neck, swelling it obscenely large. The mare gasped for breath, her unseeing eyes bulging out of her skull.
And then, as if that were the climax, she grew still. The plantlike growths all faded away, revealing the true pony beneath, the cinnamon-coated mare who’d greeted them a week ago on the porch of her house. Above her, the ghostly form of the yokai appeared, translucent in the candlelight. She stared at Vermilion, anguish on her face, and vanished into the shadows. The other yokai, all except Piedmont, escaped as well, leaping out the windows or into the spaces between the floorboards.
“I’m sorry,” Piedmont whispered. And then he was gone too.
Vermilion stared at Botanique’s broken body. Shock numbed him. Was she alive? He took a cautious step toward her.
It was as far as he got. Botanique suddenly spasmed, her body twisting so far that her ribs and spine cracked like dry twigs. A seam opened up down the center of her chest, dripping with blood, and her body opened like a book. Organs and viscera and an ocean of blood poured out, knocking over the candles, extinguishing them, plunging the room into night. And in the darkness something glowed above Botanique’s dissected corpse. Something faint and luminous, with the suggestion of feathers and eyes and scales and corals and gems, hints of every form a yokai might take. It pulsed and sang and grew brighter. Under any other circumstance, he would have called it beautiful.
The newborn yokai rose slowly higher, past the dusty rafters, until it vanished through the ceiling. Without its cold light the room fell into total darkness, and Vermilion stumbled through pools of blood to reach the stairs.