CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE - THE LESSER
"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." - George Orwell
"Real eyes
Realize
Real lies." - Tupac Shakur
"What is the point of reference for the new world in gestation? The world of production; work." - Antonio Gramsci
History teaches us who we are. Where we come from. What we as a society should be striving to become.
To lie about history - to distort it on purpose - is to disgrace that vital dialogue between past and future. To twist the very fabric of the equine soul.
When the kids of Safety step out on their rooftops on a cool autumn night, and wonder about their purpose in this world, it is those lies that tell them what to dream. When they pass small armies of slaves in blue jumpsuits on their way to class each and every day, it's those lies that keep them from noticing.
How can you even begin to concieve that a better world might maybe kinda sorta be just a little teeny tiny bit possible if you don't even know what that better world is supposed to fucking look like? How do you rebuild Equestria if you don't even know what Equestria used to be?
It made me wonder about history class back home. How the Hearth's Warming chapter in Miss Cheerilee's book teaches us all the good stuff that aligns with what we already believe, but completely fucking ignores what happened to the Founding Sisters afterwards.
That thought planted a haunted seed in my heart - a lingering queasiness.
'Cause I'd been lied to too.
Bananas Foster was right. Nopony ever seems to know the social history of sheep - their lore, their dreams, their values. 'Cause none of us ever even thought to ask. It was all because of a tale we'd been told - a lie about what civilization was. A story that left sheep out entirely.
* * *
My friends and I sat on crates all lined up for us in the center off Miss Honey's cavernous office. It had been some kinda mogul's business-y throne room once upon a time. But the moulding on the big fancy columns was crumbling. And the copper dragon statues had turned green with age.
All that remained was a gargantuan metal desk - way too big for Miss Honey to sit at - and a console the size of a pipe organ, taking up most of the office's western wall. The two fixtures had all sorts of cables and stuff running between them.
That big machine musta been the reason Miss Honey staged her base of operation in some business-jerk's power cave. Every other surface was either painted pastel, speckled with googly eyes, or plastered with macaroni art from Safety's student body.
Miss Honey typed away at the pipe organ console while the three of us sat, silently digesting our own dread.
Our passions had had time to settle down a bit. And my brain seized the opportunity to yell at me for being so damn stupid.
What the fuck, Rose? You're supposed to be lying low.
You're supposed to be meeting up with Misty Mountain. To aid his mission. To get home. To live to fight the shadowmajigs another day, and fucking free Blueberry Milkshake, who's getting subjected to unspeakable tortures. Because of you.
Miss Honey fiddled with dial and knob and button and screen on that great big old console of hers. While my brain went to war with itself for what seemed like a million billion trillion years.
...
...
...
...
...
Finally, Miss Honey hopped off her stool. Totally abruptish. And crossed the gargantuan office to approach us. Grim as coal.
She didn't say a word - not at first. Just turned her eyeballs into drills and pointed them straight at me. Then at Foster. Then Cliff. While her pipe organ console-a-majig filled the silence between us with a low hum. Bvvvvvmmmm.
"Well?" Miss Honey said at last. "Let's hear it."
My friends and I looked to one another in confusion. None of us had ever been to a principal's office before, let alone a post-apocalyptic one. We didn't know what to expect, but it sure wasn't this.
"From what I've been told," Miss Honey continued. "Y'all are pretty vocal about the way things ought to be run around here. Well," she clipped her hooves together. "Here I am. Let's hear it."
Foster cleared her throat in the awkward quietude that followed.
"Come on," Miss Honey said. "This is my school. I make the rules. Not Miss Mango. Not your friends. Not Red Eye. She pointed to a giant flag that hung from the wall: a big red eye looming over the old Equestrian flag I knew.
"I'm always straight with you kids," she said. "So come on, be straight with me. Do you have a problem with the way Safety is run? Yes or no?"
I bit my lip. Dug my hooves into the crate beneath me.
"Well, not the way it's run in particular," Foster jumped in, all diplomatical-like. Trying to draw the fire to herself. "It's actually pretty great what you have accomplished here, it's just…"
"Slavery," said Cliff Diver. "It's all made possible by slavery. Isn't it?"
"Thank you," Miss Honey said, eyeballing me and Foster. Voice like stone. "Thank you, sugar pie," she said to Cliff. Voice like nectar. "Now we're getting somewhere."
She sauntered over to Cliff. "I'm gonna be real with you," she said. “I hate it. Possibly more than you do." She threw her eyeballs at each of us. One at a time. The stable kids. Well-fed bunker-stunkers. Who had, supposedly, known Wasteland hardship only briefly.
I had to choke back a smirk. 'Cause in that moment, I knew that Glenn hadn't ratted us out. That the confidentiality of emotional education was real. At least somewhat. Or she would never have presumed to hate the institution of servitude more than I did.
"Slavery is a terrible evil," Miss Honey continued.
"Then why do you have slaves working here?'' I demanded.
I shot up out of my seat. Legs trembling with rage. Itching to take a swing at her. Or to run. Or... something.
Miss Honey spun and pointed at me. "Good," she said. "Now you're being honest. That's when you ask the smart questions. Come on."
She turned her flank to us, and head-gestured that we were meant to follow. Foster, and Cliff slid off their crates, and Miss Honey led us all to that pipe organ console full of screens and buttons and dials and things.
A few flicks of a few switches later, and Miss Honey was showing us Safety's main street on one of the screens.
The picture moved. It felt like we were walking down the sidewalk. Or floating. Seeing the world through the eyeballs of one of those mechanical sprite bot things that Safety kept around.
Two blue jumpsuit slaves stepped into frame. They were carrying a pane of glass.
"See those two mares right there?"
"Yeah," we all answered.
"What do you think they were doing before they came to Safety?"
Cliff, Foster, and I shot our eyes at one another. Like this was some kinda final exam, and we all had to steal answers from each other without the teacher noticing.
"Either slaving, or starving," answered Miss Honey. "That's what. You know what they'll be doing if I call old Red Eye up, and send 'em back?" She pointed to that big old flag again. As if his presence were somehow everywhere. "Nothing fun."
Miss Honey closed her eyes. Shook her head. A small act of mourning.
"The best of the best come here," she continued. "The luckiest of the lucky."
"But they're always terrified," Cliff said. "That's not luck. That's not any kind of life."
Miss Honey held up a hoof. "I'm gonna stop you right there, child."
She faced the big old pipe organ again. Fiddled with some dials. Next thing I know, we're watching blue jumpsuit ponies gathered around a table. Playing cards. They laugh. They hold up dingy cups. Toast one another. They greedily feast on nachos covered in some kind of mysterious nutrient paste.
"They don't spend their entire lives in terror," said Miss Honey.
"They're just afraid of us," I said. Falling to my flank. Clutching my chest. Remembering the look in the eye of that one slave I'd met in the alleyway during my orientation. Reliving that fear on Kettle Corn's face when I'd tackled her down a hill in the middle of a musical number, and reared up, ready to trample her skull to pudding.
I couldn't bear the thought of anypony fearing me like that.
"They're afraid of getting sent back," said Miss Honey.
"Sent back?" Bananas Foster said.
"A while ago," Miss Honey explained. "Back when Safety was brand new, what you call 'blue jumpsuit ponies' used to fraternize freely with the children of Safety.
'That all ended when one student came along and started talking rebellion." Miss Honey hung her head low. Like it was her own personal failing. "It didn't end well."
In that moment, I could feel the stareitty eye of the dude in the flag. It seemed to look down on me. Stirring up nightmares and wonders of what could have happened to those rebel slaves. Or the kid who'd helped them organize. It made my skin crawl - the power in that flag. Like when I first touched the Emperor card in Pinkie Pie's tarot deck, and felt his presence.
"They run from kids now," Miss Honey said. "'Cause they know that if they talk to you - any of you - then they can't work for me anymore." After a brief moment of silence, our principal worked up a faint little smile. "And everypony wants to work for Miss Honey."
My stomach got all blurbley and my heart shattered into a trillion million pieces. If the fear that those jumpsuit ponies endured was actually the best life they could ever hope for, I didn't wanna imagine what the alternative was. What cruelty went on in that fucked up Pinkie Pie amusement park just beyond Safety's borders.
FWOOOONG. I could suddenly smell the stale air of the Trottica mines all over again. The sweat. The taste of coppery blood, and rock dust on my tongue.
I could hear the thunderous sound of children stampeding against their captors.
I could see the look in the eyes of that poor Wasteland boy who got taken away from his burning village the night I first set hoof in the Wasteland. The kid I never saw again.
I never knew if he lived to see the freedom that the Trottica kids won for themselves. It all came back. And it made a horrible sound that pounded in my ears. FWOOOONG.
"...But it's still slavery," Cliff insisted. "Still evil." He trembled so hard, his knees knocked together like a clonkitty New Years party favor.
Foster put a hoof on his shoulder. Pet his mane to calm him down.
"Don't I know it," Miss Honey replied. "But if you wanna change the world you've gotta start with the world you got. Not the world you want."
She fiddled with the big pipe organ thing again. Switched a couple of dials, punched some keys till we had a view of someplace indoors. Not the sprite bot. Not the slave quarters.
The hospital. Intensive Care Unit. The boy with the accordion lungs.
Bananas Foster pressed closer, mesmerized by the sight of him - the sight of children coming from all over Safety, waiting for the privilege of keeping him company.
"Y'all know him?" Asked Miss Honey.
"No," whispered Foster. "Not personally, anyway."
"We visited just before lunch," I clarified.
"Well, you see that pump there?" Miss Honey asked. "That tubing, that screen? Those wires running below? Do you see it?" Miss Honey waited for a reply that never came. "Everything there was made possible by seventeen different factories, three refineries, two power plants, and four processing centers. All operated by slave labor. I know because I requisitioned those parts. I secured the horsepower. I petitioned Red Eye for the resources to build a real future for Equestria's children. One that serves the greater good."
"It's not the greater good," Cliff sniffled, eyes fixed on the screen with Accordion Boy. "It's still slavery. It's still horrible. It's still evil."
I put my hoof on his shoulder too. 'Cause I felt his outrage. I wanted to stand up and shout it all down. But couldn't. 'Cause we had a time traveling unicorn kid in a wizard hat to rendezvous with. And we needed to make that our number one priority.
"Maybe, son," said Miss Honey, shaking her head. "Maybe you'll even be the one to abolish it someday. But this right here - this right now - is the lesser evil. And it's all we got to work with."
Bzzzmmmm. The grinding hum of the giant-pipe-organ-console-thing cut the air between us as those words hung heavy in my head. The lesser evil.
I had never considered such a thing. Even for a moment.
The very idea was fucking insane! Worse than the Wasteland. Worse than the mines. Worse than trenches and pointy wire and war. Because even in the face of horror - even as we stared down death and torment and slaughter and cloaks and stuff, we'd still had another option - another hope.
Burn the whole fucking thing down.
But this? Just...chilling out? Casually reaping the benefits of a world built on horror? Simply 'cause it was better than the alternative?
It made my liver boil over with bile.
The lesser evil may not have robbed us of our bodies the way that slavery did. But it robbed us of our consciences. Our souls. Ourselves.
What it meant to be pony.
Were we just supposed to live our lives like those townsponies under the reign of the cloak-o priestess? With their tchotchkes and their creepy needlepoint quotations hanging over broken fireplaces?
Were we just supposed to...go about our day? Pretend that everything was okay? Like those villagers had pretended we weren't getting tortured and murdered for gems under Trottica?
It's fucking unthinkable.
And still, I couldn't bear to look at the screen. And imagine what would happen to that bubble boy without his accordion lungs. Without Safety.
Without slavery.
"You don't have to agree with me, children," Miss Honey spoke up.
I blink-bloinked. Grownups never say that kinda thing.
"But," she continued. "I can't have you tossing desks around either."
Cliff Diver tightened up. Unsure whether to hang his head in shame. Or hold it way up high in defiance.
Foster noticed him trembling, and leapt in. Drawing attention to herself instead. "Where does that leave us?"
"In a bit of a pickle," Miss Honey replied. "Under ordinary circumstances, you'd have all the time in the world to adjust. Like everypony else."
In the brief moment that our principal took to shake her head and suck in a fresh breath, I couldn't help but wonder what all the other kids must have done when they first found out how Safety runs.
"But these aren't ordinary circumstances," Miss Honey continued. "And you're no ordinary kids. Are you?"
Miss Honey's cheekbones dropped their rosey smile. And her eyes turned cold and gray. Like some kinda button had been pushed to switch her face up. Transform her into the Miss Honey that everypony feared.
I looked to Foster. Desperate to hide my discomfort. Together, we shook our heads and shrugged. As if to say, 'what in Equestria is she talking about? We're just three ordinary bunker stunkers. Not time traveling dream-wizards at all.
But she didn't buy it. "The circumstances of your arrival were peculiar," said Miss Honey, voice like ice. "You know it. I know it. And so do certain ponies who have a whole lot more power than I do."
My friends and I looked again to that Red Eye flag. Knowing damn well what she meant.
"I've personally vouched for you - all of you," she added, eyeing Cliff Diver in particular. "And we're doing things The Safety Way...for now."
"Thank you for that," said Foster with a smile, and a faint little laugh.
"You're very welcome, sugar." Miss Honey squinted her eyes, and stretched her cheeks into a pained smile. "But there's gonna come a time when Miss Honey can no longer help you. You understand?"
None of us replied. That pipe organ console thingy just hummed some more. Bvvvvvmmmm.
"Do you understand?"
"Uh, yes."
"Yeah."
"Of course."
We all stammered out our replies.
"I don't think you do," said Miss Honey. "If word gets out that you've been raising a fuss. Trying to stir folks up against the way Fillydelphia is run, I won't. Be. Able. To. Help. You. Do you understand that, children?"
We all nodded in silent terror.
Listening to Miss Honey plead was way worse than threats or logic or reason ever could be.
"I'm gonna get a little heavy now," said Miss Honey. (As though our conversation thus far had been nothing more than chit chat over brunch). "I need to know. How'd y'all do it? How'd you get in?"
…
…
…
"W-what?" Said Cliff.
"But that's not your way," I stammered.
"It's not the Safety Way," Foster squeaked.
"Yet...here we are," said Miss Honey.
The console-a-majig seemed to roar a whole lot more now. Bvvvvvmmmm. Bvvvvvmmmm. The quieter we got, the more oppressive that buzzing grew.
"How did you three get under the wall?" She asked again.
"Under?" Cliff said.
And as all of our brains stopped dead in their brain-tracks, Miss Honey took a moment to dissect us with her eyeballs.
Like a squiggle-majig trapped beneath a microscope, I shrunk under her gaze.
"We just sorta...passed through this weird tunnel," Cliff said hurriedly. "And then we woke up in some rubble."
"That's all?" She said, this time looking right at me, the worst liar in the room.
"I, um, yeah," I replied. "I mean...yeah."
"We're really not sure," Foster added. "It was long, and dark, and I was half asleep."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, ma'am," Foster replied.
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
We all played along. Bobbed our heads enthusiastically. In its own strange way, what Foster said actually was the truth.
But deep down inside I was screaming. 'Cause, like, what the fuck? What did Miss Honey know? What did she think that we knew? This was clearly some kinda pop quiz. But, like...the kinda quiz you get in dreams where the schoolhouse is suspended over an active volcano, and all of your classmates will melt to death in a pool of lava if you give a wrong answer, and the lava has piranhas in it for some reason, and the piranhas wanna eat your flesh off as you're melting to death, and by the way...you forgot your pencil.
"Here's what I'm gonna do," said Miss Honey, looking on all three of us with approval. (Apparently, we'd passed the volcano quiz). "No more classes." She spun to face her console again and studied some kind of graph. Names, dates, times. A few clicks of a button, and the squares on her schedule grid changed color. "Go home,'' she said. "Get some rest. You've had a hard day."
"Wait. Are we grounded?" Cliff asked.
"No, you're not in trouble," she replied. "If anything, I blame myself for signing off on the schedule in the first place."
A hush fell over us kids. A grim hopelessness as we watched our grid go gray. There was no way she was gonna let us go to that field trip.
Miss Honey raised an eyebrow. "What? Y'all got plans already?"
I cleared my throat. In that super conspicuous way where you try to pretend that it's just a little dust in your throat, but really you're hiding guilt 'cause you don't want your principal to know that you're on a mission, and you're supposed to rendezvous with your timefriend at the market at 3 o'clock.
"Children, I need you to lay low for a while," said Miss Honey. "Until this whole thing blows over."
"What blows over?" Foster asked.
Miss Honey narrowed her eyes. Got into a staring contest with Foster.
But Bananas didn't flinch.
Then Miss Honey turned to Cliff who just sorta...shrugged all confuseitty-like.
When her eyeballs hit mine, and saw what musta been pure confusion on my face, Miss Honey lit up like a birthday cake. Out of nowhere. Like she was relieved by my utter cluelessness.
"Hearth's Warming," she said. "Red Eye will be Guest of Honor at our jubilee. All eyes will be on Safety until it's over, and we do not want any of those eyes on you."
"Red Eye?" I said. "Here?"
"Oh, don't y'all be scared," she said. "It's not like that. Red Eye adores children. He just--;"
Before she could answer, a knocking sound came from the door. Knock knock knock knock knock, the knocking sound said.
"Arg," Miss Honey grumbled.
"He just what?" Said Foster.
Knock, knock, knock. The door repeated itself.
"One moment!" Miss Honey erupted at the invisible knocker on the other side. Then, with what patience she had left, turned to Foster. "Let's just say that Red Eye loves Safety so much that he'd do anything to protect it."
Glug. Cliff Diver swallowed his throat apple. "Anything?"
"Anything."
Bzzzzt. A light on Miss Honey's desk lit up.
"Ugh." She trotted over to the giant pre-war monstrosity desk - a relic that some industry mogul had perched behind (once upon a time) and passed judgment from like an emperor. She hopped up a little step stool. Mashed a button built into the desk itself. "I'm with children right now," she said. "This had better be good."
"You called me over, ma'am," a tinny voice answered.
Miss Honey pounded that button. "Come in, come in," she said. "And be quick about it."
The ancient door creaked open. In poked a beak. "I came as soon as I heard," it said.
"Glenn!" I exclaimed.
He set talon through the door, and my heart lifted. My hooves itched to take off and gallop in his direction. To throw myself under his shimmery black wing for a great big griffon hug. And to cry right into his feathers.
But a Rose Voice clobbered me from the inside of my own skull. And urged me to follow those feelings to the worst possible conclusion.
Do it, said the voice, super cynical-like. Do it! It's good for Miss Honey to see you trust in an adult. Run to him! Lessen her suspicion!
But as my hindquarters fidgeted, eager to spring into a gallop, another Rose Voice chimed in. That makes Glenn a part of it, doesn't it?
Elderberry's words sprang back into my brain. From when she'd first described emotional education as something that "taught you to be okay with everything that goes on around here."
I froze as all my Rose Voices duked it out inside my head, biting and bucking my neurons into incoherent clouds of brain dust.
And Glenn just looked at me. Clucked his tongue against the inside of his beak. Neither smile nor frown nor grimace nor laugh - an expression altogether alien to equestrian anatomy. But his eyeballs said, I'm so sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry.
"You all know Glenn, of course," said Miss Honey. "He's here to help."
Glenn nodded.
"If any of you ever feel like throwing a desk," Miss Honey continued. "Or shouting at the top of your lungs, please come to me. Or to Glenn. There are so many places in Safety where that's not only appropriate, but encouraged."
"Encouraged?" Cliff said.
"Emotional education is about finding constructive ways to let those feelings out," Glenn answered.
It was then that something in me snapped. Made me want to jump up there and flip that giant pipe organ console upside down. Like Cliff had done to his classroom desk. 'Cause this wasn't about feelings. It was about obedience. Compliance. "Ways that don't interfere with all of the slavery," I said under my breath.
And even as the words crossed my lips, I could feel Bananas Foster wince. And hope with all of her might that I would shut the hell up.
"I've arranged some emergency counseling for you three," said Miss Honey.
"I thought you wanted us to go home," Foster protested.
"I do," Miss Honey answered. "But you could really use some emotional education right now. It's best if you go with Glenn and let him help you."
Glenn swung the door open for us. Gestured at it with a wingtip. Like a gentlecolt. Or gentlegriffon. Or whatever.
None of us followed.
Glenn clucked his beak. "We're only going back to my office where we can talk more privately."
My friends and I all looked to one another. Acutely aware of the fact that our chances of meeting up with Misty before sundown were getting slimmer and slimmer.
"Do you not feel comfortable taking the walk?" Glenn asked. "Are you concerned about your peers?"
I shook my head no.
"Miss Honey?" Bananas Foster asked.
"Yes?"
"You said we're not in trouble. But we still have to get emergency education, and then go straight home? If we're not grounded, as Cliff put it, then what activities are we allowed to do?"
Miss Honey eyed all of us briefly. One last time. And sighed, "Whichever activities you're ready for. I'll trust in Glenn's judgment on that one."
The griffin swallowed his throat apple, and nodded sternly. Like this was some kinda grave responsibility.
My eyes strayed to the flag one last time, and wondered what kinda pressure Emperor Red Eye was putting on all the adults. What would happen to Glenn if he fucked up, and the mystery pegasus kid became trouble.
* * *
After we headed out, to my surprise, Glenn let us be. At least for the trot over to the Green Building, where his tiny office hid.
Cliff, Foster, and me all clustered together to talk, and...just sort of...you know...recuperate in privacy while Glenn held a respectful distance back.
"You didn't have to do that," Cliff leaned over me and whispered to Foster.
I whipped my head around nervously. But found Glenn trailing us by half a city block.
"Do what?" Said Foster.
"Join me," Cliff retorted. "In my, you know...freedom...indignation...uprising...thing."
"Well...I did," Foster replied.
Cliff took a couple more steps, letting Foster's non-answer stew in his brain for a bit as the pavement clopped against our hooves. "It was dumb of you." He leaned in closer, making a Rose Sandwich out of me. "You coulda stayed silent. You coulda stayed behind. You coulda found out more, and busted us out of whatever trouble we mighta gotten in."
"We didn't get in any trouble," Foster's voice pitched way up high, like a foal's.
"But you didn't know that," said Cliff.
Bananas cringed. Hung her head low. Kicked a pebble. Reflecting on the dangers of her actions.
Cliff was right. Playing along with history class would have been the logical thing to do. The sneaky thing to do. The Fosterish thing to do.
"Yeah," said Bananas. "Well, I guess we all let our emotions get the best of us sometimes."
Clippity clop. Clippity clop. Clippity clop. Clippity clop. Galloping hooves came barrelling around the corner, and we all fell silent.
A yellow filly emerged, saddlebag bursting with books, mouth clutching a slice of toast. 3.6 moments later, and she was gone without ever having glanced in our direction.
…
Bananas Foster was the first to exhale in relief.
"We're not some kinda public enemy," I said.
"Sure feels like it," said Cliff.
"Miss Honey is very concerned about Red Eye," Foster leaned over me and whispered. "And what he'd think if we rebelled."
Cliff pressed toward me from the other direction, and made another Rose Sandwich.
"To the kids," Foster continued. "We're still just...kids."
"We need to convince Glenn to let us go to that market," I said.
"How?" Cliff said.
"Maybe if we all just tell him... I don't know...slavery is great...or...something, he'll sign off on the trip."
"He'll never buy it," said Cliff.
"It's not about liking slavery anyway," said Foster. "It's about blending in."
The three of us fell silent. Up ahead was that happy old mural. The infirmary where Accordion Boy was being kept alive by machines that slavery had built.
We passed it slow. Reverent-like. But the happy filly painted on the wall seemed to mock me with her giant smile. Differently than before. Now I imagined those prancing hooves were perched on a mountain of bones.
I wanted to puke.
"Damnit," I said. "The lesser of two evils fucking sucks."
"Yeah," Cliff said somberly. And once that mural had passed, his lips twisted into a deep sneer. "What about the lesser ponies, you know? The ones who aren't the best of the best?!" He sing-songedly mocked Miss Mango's words. "The ones who make all of this happen." Cliff's voice trembled and trailed into a whisper, "History's losers."
I looked away from Cliff. And found Foster beside me, stoically silent. Trying damn hard not to flinch, or say anything, or show how she really felt.
This slavery stuff didn't hit her like it did us. Hell, she'd enslaved her fair share of sentient beings herself if you counted the nurses under her control.
But before I could call her out on it, Foster lunged across me. Thrust herself at Cliff and hugged him tight with her forelegs.
I stumbled to an awkward halt. Spinning around to make sure Glenn wasn't gaining on us. But he kept a respectful distance, and let us do our thing.
By the time I twisted myself back around again to Cliff and Foster, he was sobbing against her chest. She raised a forehoof o' comfort, and ran it through his hair.
"How could they do this?" Cliff wailed, mouth full of mane. "How?"
"Life just sucks that way sometimes," Foster's eyeballs drifted apologetically to mine.
"Food first," I said to myself. "Morals follow on."
The High Priestess of Trottica's words. Haunting me all over again.