The Guardian

by Alexshy


24. Crystal Empire

Interrupted by the alarm clock ring, her sleep shattered to the slowly dissolving in the darkness pieces; Rainstorm was glad that it did. Unable to remember the details, she, however, had enough of those imprinted in her mind to understand that her dream wasn’t of the happiest ones. The mare sat in the bed, slowly returning to the reality around: her breath being the only sound, except the quiet heartbeat of the wall clock, breaking the silence of the bedroom. The double bed became too large for her alone, becoming suddenly cold a few inches aside when Rainstorm reached out with her fore hoof.

With a quiet sigh, the mare got up and stretched, spreading her wings to the bone crackle. A quick glance through the window told her that the sky was yet dark and gloomy, just like her dreams before Rainstorm was dragged out of them into this grey winter morning. She had set the alarm specifically to have time for the morning patrol as early as possible, when she would be already able to distinguish the probable threat from the surrounding landscape. The daily routine remained independent from Rainstorm’s sentiments – for good or bad, she couldn’t tell. Thus, bracing herself, the mare trudged to the bathroom.

The shower was a true blessing: it was taking away the bad memories, even if temporarily, giving her the so necessary charge. Besides running off her muzzle, the water mercifully hid the tears if the latter dared to show up. Rainstorm could always use the towel and pretend that everything was alright after exiting the shower. That morning was exactly one of those: the mare threw back her head with her eyes closed, letting the water run off her muzzle free. To imagine that it was taking away the troubles and sorrows with its gentle yet invigorating flow was quite encouraging; even if that feeling turned out short-living. As usual, Rainstorm left the bathroom, knowing that she was greeting another morning alive, not as some kind of a pony mat.

The silence moved in and was living in the house with her, except the rare occasions when some relatives came, mostly Azure Wreath. The rest of the time, only the ticking of the wall clocks sounded in the empty rooms when Rainstorm determined hoofsteps didn’t disturb it. During the nights, unless some blizzard started howling outside, knocking on the front door and jerking the window frames, the house – Rainstorm wasn’t even entirely sure if she could still call it Home – became echoing. So, one could easily hear a letter falling on the floor from the table. With one exception – there was nopony to write letters or do their homework now. Everything she wanted, Rainstorm could tell personally those few she kept a connection with.

That morning wasn’t an exception: going down, Rainstorm unwittingly listened to her booming hoofsteps; they were rolling off the stairs and through the ground floor, dying in the farthest corners of the rooms. The house changed its face and feel, and they were now hardly pleasant for the once happy mistress. Entering the kitchen, the mare leaned heavily at the table, closing her eyes and pondering about the breakfast. In fact, Rainstorm was to confess to herself that she was rather trying to fish some brighter images from her memory for a while. Something she still had no matter the woes which had struck.

‘Come on, girl, it’s not the best time to turn squishy!’ Finally shaking it off, Rainstorm made herself perk with some effort. After all, she had her self-assigned duty – the Seekers were not going to get rid of themselves. Throwing a glance at her reflection in the semitransparent cupboard door, she decided that breakfast could wait till after the morning patrol, except maybe the invariable cup of coffee. However, several minutes more could be spent brushing and braiding her long, wavy snow-white mane for better fitting into the helmet.

The short and determined business knock on the front door sounded too loud in the empty hallway to be ignored by the mare pensively bringing herself to order.

“What in Equestria?!” muttered Rainstorm, putting away the hairbrush; her feathers ruffled in foreboding. ‘Who may knock on my door that early?’ She would prefer any news to the ones about the exact black mysterious creatures.

Right in front of the door, Rainstorm listened to herself habitually. Not that she expected a Seeker to knock. But… Not that she expected them never to invent anything new as well. Whoever that was, they weren’t felt like those beasts. ‘I wonder then…’

“Yes!”

The opened front door revealed somepony, whom Rainstorm was least expecting to face. Streaming in the winter wind, the seemingly endless night coloured mane started entering the house, filling the hall with lavender scent, before its mistress even made a step. Never considering herself short, Rainstorm was to throw up her head to look at the alicorn princess overshadowing the doorway. Unlike those in the lightening sky, the stars filling the flowing mane shimmered brightly. The light from the hallway reflected in the silvery chest plate with the crescent moon and in the dark blue eyes. Two smiling sparks lit between the long light-blue eyelashes as the alicorn mare took a look over the owner of the house.

“Errmmm… Your Highness!” Rainstorm hurried to make the belated bow, flushing at the inner image of her ruffled self with the half-braided mane.

“Good morning!” Princess Luna seemed to be tasting these words as it was something she rarely had a chance to greet with. “I brought the… reinforcements!” added she as casually as somepony could at the first ray of the dawn.

Apparently, the entire depth of perplexity was clearly drawn in the rounded electric-blue eyes of Rainstorm. With a dainty smile and light clacking of the silver-shod hooves, the Princess inched aside, showing a glimpse of the familiar blocky steel heads behind her to the bewildered mare. If the four guards felt awkwardly in their new armour, they did their best not to give that out.

“C-come on in, please!” Rainstorm unfroze and backed up with a welcoming gesture, feverishly thinking what could bring such guests to her doorstep. “Coffee? I…” a part of her mind involuntarily snorted at the ridiculousness of the phrase and the moment, but she couldn’t help being hospitable.

“Sure thing!” Luna wasn’t somepony to ask twice: bowing her head slightly under the lintel, the alicorn mare entered the spacious hall. The girl’s nose twitched, taking a sniff. “Although, thou needst to start all ov’r, Rainstorm. Methinks, that portion hath escaped the vessel and is frying now…” concluded Luna with a smile.

Two pegasi and two unicorns followed the Princess; their armour was definitely of the human making but painted in recognizable dark-blue and violet colours. They instantly turned the large, empty room into suddenly herded; in bewilderment, Rainstorm inwardly admitted to enjoying that.

“Reinforcements?” Rainstorm asked again, despite the princess’ remark and the faint smell of coffee boiling over. “Night Watch…”

“Well, of course!” nodded the Princess seriously. “I always thought that the town was a zilch problematic for a single caretaker, forsooth. For the one who needeth to sleep at times at least.”

Gesturing to the guards to stay in the lobby, she casually followed the pegasus mare into the kitchen, where the coffee calamity took place. Quickly cleaning and refilling the cezve, Rainstorm placed it back on the stove and peered at the Night Princess inquiringly, not forgetting to address her half-braided mane finally.

“These valorous stallions may be not so experienced as thou art…” diving under another lintel, Luna took a look around the kitchen, making a mental note of its exemplar order and nodding with satisfaction to some of her thoughts, “…in terms of dealing with the Seekers but rest assured, they are specifically equipped and know well what they shall face.” The Princess glanced at Rainstorm, elaborating. “Besides, their main task shall be to detect the threat, trace it and keep the monsters separated from our subjects… until the elimination team arriveth. Well, unless two unicorns turn out to be enough. They aren’t supposed to perform any risky operations… thou as well, in the earnest,” Luna rose one eyebrow meaningfully.

“I can see how five are better than one, Your Highness!” nodded Rainstorm, swaying back her braided mane. “And the reasons are understandable…”

“Thither is one more nuance, thou art yet uninformed about…” examining the checkered tablecloth with exaggerated attention, Luna rose her eyes at Rainstorm. “Four is better than one!” continued she after a meaningful pause. “These guards of Night Watch shall keep an eye on Ponyville for a while instead of thee, Rainstorm.”

“Thou see, Alex may… Hmmm, shall need,” Luna corrected herself, elaborating at the widening again eyes of Mrs. Flume, “thy help in the Crystal Empire. So, thou needst to prepare for the trip, Rainstorm. Far but fortunately short as I am going to take the liberty of transferring thee at which hour thou art prepared.”

“Rest assured, these chaps know what they are doing,” said the Princess before Rainstorm said a word. “They are well trained and… I dare to assume Alex would choose them in the situation alike.”

“Oh, one more thing, Rainstorm,” Luna glanced at the mare strangely evaluative. “I wouldn’t have asked under different circumstances… but alas, we are to decide and act fast, without much time for the preparations.”

Rainstorm nodded automatically, quite intrigued with what could make the Night Princess “ask for”.

“Wouldst thou agree with the guards making a temporary… headquarters in thy house while thou art absent from Ponyville anyway?”

Rainstorm blinked.

“Dost not worry – the guys are neat!” Luna let out a dainty smile, watching the mare. “They shall attend to the household with arrant seriousness at which time defending the town from these sinister abominations.”

Her collocutor shrugged shortly; taking an unwitting look around the room, Rainstorm remembered her recent reflections about the house being too large and empty for her alone anyway.

‘Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to make it serve some noble purpose instead…’

“Why not?” Rainstorm’s muzzle brightened. “The house is theirs… except a couple of bedrooms,” she stumbled and let out a faint sigh. “I’ll notify the… family.”

“Tis wondrous!” exclaimed Luna, trying to keep Rainstorm on the bright wave. “I extend mine hope we can rule out the question of continuous placement anon…”

“It’s not a problem; they may stay as long as they need!” Mrs. Flume looked concerned but for a different reason, which she lost no time to voice. “Your Highness! You said that Alex would need my help there. What’s going on? Is he okay?”

“I wasn’t getting any news since they left for the Crystal Empire,” added she, looking into the deep, dark-blue eyes of her guest. “That makes me worry…”

“Thou dost not need to, forsooth,” Luna returned the glance. “Everything turned out alright… that time, despite all the circumstances were hardly on their side. Alex had a hard day, that’s given, and needeth some time to recover…”

“Forgive me, Your Highness! Please don’t hesitate to tell,” Rainstorm couldn’t stand the delay; Luna spoke in the most soothing voice, but the words “this time” and “some time to recover” were not the ones to tune the pegasus mare into tranquillity. “Is he severely wounded? Somepony else?”

“No and no. Rest assured, Alex wasn’t wounded; besides, the worst hath passed – they did everything they could,” giving a tiny smile, Luna elaborated mercifully. “The source of his troubles was not in the Seekers but the elements rather. Saving the passengers from possible recurring attacks, Alex got severely frostbitten. However,” quickly added the Princess, before Rainstorm uttered a word, “his life is out of danger currently.”

‘If ‘t be true he was, I would be in the Crystal Palace in no time!’ Luna’s eyes flashed, and seemingly Rainstorm caught the unspoken idea.

“He was to fly around the detached train car for several hours straight,” continued Luna softly while Rainstorm was trying to gather her thoughts. “They said it was enough to kill anypony… But Alex is not anypony!” She nodded firmly to her thoughts. “Syne he was moved into a warm room, his body had taken care of itself perfectly. Alas, he is unconscious still, but I could reach out to him. Everything shall be fine!” concluded the Princess categorically, adding in half voice. “We need to pay more attention to the details next time.”

“Ahem…” Luna’s eyes gestured towards the stove. Before Rainstorm took a move, the blue aura enveloped the cezve, moving it off the fire to avoid boiling out. “Allowest me to help thee hither.”

“Oh! You… shouldn’t worry. Thanks!” Rainstorm jetted to the cupboard, returning with two cups, then rose her eyes at the Princess. “And… your escort, Your Highness?”

“Methinks they shall be more than capable of helping themselves, at which hour thou introduce them into thy abode’s “yes” and “no”s,” Luna smirked, equally spreading the contents between the cups. “Thither is another matter calling for immediate attention! Thou can’t help him recover, but thou shalt be of great help at which hour he doth that himself.”

Rainstorm nodded; Luna watched with satisfaction as the concern in the pegasus mare’s eyes gave way to determination.

“Thou seest, the Seekers always were rare guests in the Crystal Empire,” explained Luna when both mares took a sip of the liquid cheerfulness. “Either they aren’t that immune to the frost – ‘tis failing to explain though the recent incident – or the Frozen North is less interesting for them, considering what they are searching. At which time it is undoubtedly a blessing, alas, the residents of the Crystal Empire have less experience in anti-seekers measures and thus need somepony to assist. The fastest and most successful Seeker elimination thither was still performed by mine sister.”

“Speaking of experience, Your Highness,” Rainstorm interposed humbly, throwing her still damp braid back. “While mine was successful so far, it can hardly be called extensive.”

“Hmmm…” Luna chuckled. “Thou still hath destroyed singlehoofedly twice more Seekers than many of the specifically geared for that guard mages. No place for superfluous humbleness hither, lief!”

“That’s not solely my contribution, Princess,” Rainstorm gave a tiny smile. “If Alex hasn’t applied a scoop of his own blood to the spear blade… I’m afraid taking down both seekers would have been considerably harder!”

“Oh! I was expecting some trick of that kind,” Luna muttered with a mysterious expression. “This is a zilch too radical, in the earnest.”

“Anyway, back to our task!” the Princess shook her mane, causing another tide of lavender. “The numbers and behaviour of the creatures in the Crystal Empire show that they are plotting something. Likely something quite nasty! I prefer to prepare for the worst-case scenario. That is whither thy role lieth, Rainstorm! Normally, Alex would have done the job. Still, thy help would be valuable. But if,” Luna made a meaningful pause, “if ‘t be true, he is not capable of standing for the Crystal… Empire at which hour is necessary, thou probably needst to stand for him.”

“I’m not diminishing Fluttershy’s virtues,” added she pensively. “But, alas, she isn’t enough of a fighter to keep them both safe!”

“Understood, Your Highness!” Putting away the empty cup, Rainstorm nodded with her electric-blue glance only.

“Tia… Mine royal sister, Princess Celestia, was planning to visit Crystal Empire herself,” drawled Luna. “Mayhap it befalleth that she is to confront the monsters. In that case, thy duty is the same – to help her; however, no sacrifice, please. Thy highest priority is the safety of you three. Tia is more than capable of coping with a few Seekers, methinks! Even if ‘t be true she needed to turn to… mass-destruction type of magic ere…”

The pegasus mare coughed diplomatically, followed by Luna’s sly smile.

“So?”

Rainstorm fancied the deep-blue eyes peering somewhere deep beyond her own; her answer was ready long ago anyway.

“I need some time to suit up, Your Highness,” she thought about her armour – durability came for the price of difficulties to put it on alone, “and have a word with the guards. Then I’m ready! Perhaps if somepony can help me with the armour, using magic, it would take less time.”

“’Tis wondrous!” Bright sparks lit in Luna’s eyes. “Not a problem forsooth. Whither is thy armour?”

“Dost not worry about the rest!” added she encouragingly; the blue aura accurately put the emptied cup on the kitchen table. “I shall make sure that thou art accommodated with all the amenities upon arrival. It’s better without breakfast!” noticed the alicorn mare cheerfully. “Upon the first time, teleporting may do funny things to thy stomach.”

*

“…thus the guards couldn’t even approach the area until that “tornado” started fading out!” one couldn’t tell by the stallion’s voice if he was vexed or, on the contrary, delighted by that fact.

The low winter sun peeked into the high lancet windows of the Crystal Palace, making the colourful glares dance all over the inner walls. Ignoring the mere fact that it was December outside, some of the windows were slightly opened. Letting the breezy air inside, they revealed the landscape uncommon for the winter: snowless streets with houses hiding in their gardens – some trees and shrubs persistently manifested at least their autumn dress, some were stubborn in boasting green, the sown fields far behind the city outskirts, the variety of colours with green prevailing wherever an eye could reach. It could look incredible if not for the faintly shimmering barrier. On the verge of visibility, yet not overshadowed even by the direct sunlight, it played with all the colours of the rainbow, like a giant soap bubble wall, rising seemingly behind the horizon and gradually dissolving into the skies. Lingering at one of the windows, Princess Celestia caught herself on the momentary impulse causing her to give a small smile at the view; the latter was very contrasting with anything behind that “soap bubble” wall and even with the rest of Equestria at that time of the year, except maybe for the far southern regions.

“Your Highness?!” Shining Armour’s concerned voice pulled her out of her musings.

“Yes. Sorry…” Halfheartedly, the Princess turned away from the window; her expression changed from slightly absent to concentrated again. “Sorry, Shining, I simply… Each time visiting you folks in winter I think that maybe it would be a good idea to cover at least Canterlot with something alike. You see, most of the winter emanations are not to my liking.”

“The Dome is managed by the Crystal Heart,” Shining Armour blinked, surprised by that sudden detour from the main course of their conversation, “but I can’t imagine…”

“We could probably use the veins of magical crystals to reach a similar effect,” Celestia noticed pensively. “The entire mountain is riddled with them. Oh!” she suddenly gave a start, emerging from her thoughts. “I got slightly distracted by the advantages of the Dome. Excuse me, I’m afraid I missed the last couple of phrases entirely,” the alicorn mare glanced apologetically at her collocutor.

“Well…” Shining Armour cupped his chin with the fore hoof, remembering where he was at when the view outside chained the attention of the Day Princess. “I was telling about our guards being unable to find the detached train car first, even if we were absolutely sure that we determined the location correctly. The scouts were crossing the area back and forth, not reporting anything significant.”

“Later, the pegasi reported a strange weather effect right in the middle of the sector.” Both moved down the gallery when the unicorn continued. “It looked like a wide tornado, moving so fast, they were unable to get through the wind front.”

“You know, tornados aren’t a rarity in the frozen plains, I have seen a few myself,” Shining Armour returned Celestia’s meaningful glance. “But even those guards, who lived here their entire life, called that one strange. The vortex was too wide for the wind that strong; normally, the tornado concentrates and starts sucking up objects from the ground.”

“I’m not a specialist in tornados anyway,” shrugged Celestia, “so, if you say…”

“The pegasi tried to investigate the phenomenon from above but failed. However, they noticed that the vortex wasn’t drugging anything significant up, except snow; yet it didn’t allow them to approach from the top either as if the blizzard wasn’t enough. The latter passed its peak and was fading already, so seeing the tornado was twice as surprising.”

“We were to use magic to “look” inside,” elaborated Shining Armour, “and found out that the centre was some solid object resembling the missing train car by shape and size.”

“Perhaps at that moment, our activity got noticed,” he smirked. “The tornado started fading slowly while keeping its width.”

“While it shouldn’t do both at the same time…” guessed Celestia.

“Exactly! Shortly, we could approach and bring the Icebreaker close enough to notice one single, large object flying in circles around the supposed train car… And at the moment we confirmed the train car’s presence, we could see the flying creature,” the stallion’s smile turned wide unwittingly. “Never seen a wingspan so wide, except for the grown-up dragon once!” finished Shining Armour almost enthusiastically.

“Naturally, he was to make that… tornado by something,” the Day Princess muttered aside.

“Errmmm… Shining, dear,” she suddenly stopped, looking over the shoulder. “We took the wrong turn. My usual guest room is in the East wing!”

“Ahem… Your Highness!” the stallion’s voice turned serious at once. “I’m afraid we can’t offer you the same room as usual. My deepest apologies!”

“There was one serious reason,” explained Shining Armour after a meaningful pause, “we were forced to use that room exactly. We really had no other choice but to place that human and miss Fluttershy there.”

“Excuse me?!” Celestia’s eyes rounded while the meaning of the phrase came through her thoughts, caused by the already received information. “I can’t take the room I usually occupy for the several years in a row while visiting the Crystal Palace?!”

“Not that it was crucial…” the Princess shrugged a bit confusedly, feeling that her initial reaction came out a bit thick. “But now I simply need to know the reasons…”

She turned on the spot and headed along the familiar route, determinedly trotting on the echoing crystal floor and not leaving Shining Armour another choice but to follow.

“Your Highness, you will see that the problem was insurmountable indeed,” diplomatically noticed the unicorn, catching up with the alicorn princess. “Due to the blizzard and prolonged flight, I believe, the human got severely frostbitten.”

“I suppose the speed was too high while his equipment not entirely suitable for our climate,” elaborated Shining, catching Celestia’s glance. “He landed quite heavily when we started evacuating the passengers. Miss Fluttershy rushed to him, but the human fell unconscious, bleeding from his mouth.”

“How is he doing now?!” the mild discontent in Celestia’s voice turned into concern.

“That’s another mystery,” Shining Armour shook his head slowly. “Even after you notified us about… Alex’s, right? About Alex’s peculiarities. He is recovering now,” he said quickly. “But, frankly speaking, that was the last thing we expected.”

“Do you mean that…” the Princess even stopped for a second.

“The frostbite was severe. And the inward injuries were worse than the outer ones. His skin turned cyanotic due to the frostbite, but we did everything possible to transport him to the Palace and place in the warmth. Considering we couldn’t use magic on the human, I can’t see if we could cope any faster.”

“And?” Celestia stared at Shining Armour almost with a naturalist interest.

“The skin started getting normal as soon as we put him in a warm room. I’d say that the regeneration rate was incredible! However, the problem with his lungs looked incomparably worse,” Shining Armour shook his head. “The human breathed out blood for the first few hours, and the medics debated the drainage advisability. You see, they were confused by the restrictions on magic, naturally,” he gave an apologetic smile. “Nevertheless, they came to an agreement on one thing when we noticed the first recovery signs – they never saw somepony regenerating that fast! A few even confessed to us with Cadence that they would give an alicorn a fifty-fifty chance. But that…” he shrugged only. “So, I’d say his life isn’t in danger at the moment.”

“The problem was,” continued Shining Armour when they passed the crossing and entered the Eastern wing, “that the human fell unconscious exactly when his wings had their maximum span. I believe, they should shrink somehow,” he glanced at Celestia inquiringly, “as I can’t see how he could walk or even stand on the ground with those.”

“Naturally, we could do nothing with them,” added he, getting the confirming nod from the Princess. “Neither they looked as if they were going to react in the nearest perspective. Thus we were to place Alex into the largest room of the Palace – the only room fitting was the one Your Highness usually occupies while visiting Crystal Empire.”

Celestia let out a tiny sigh, but it wasn’t clear if she was finding the situation irritating or comical now.

“Even then, we were to disassemble and widen the window to lift him inside as we couldn’t fit those wings through any of the regular doors,” watching how Celestia rolled her eyes, Shining Armour added casually. “The palace carpenter is assigned to rebuild the frame from scratch, keeping it usable.”

“Well, at least the rest of the changes have a purely cosmetic nature,” the unicorn huffed vaguely.

“The rest?” Celestia glanced at Shining Armour, raising one eyebrow. “There were more…”

“Hmmm… Naturally, we were to place them both into the same room,” shrugged the stallion. “Miss Fluttershy was specifically persistent to take care of the human. And, of course, we made some refurnishing of the room to fit these wings.”

“Later, we found out that she was forced to stay in that room most of the time,” seeing that Celestia became truly interested, Shining Armour hurried to tell the Princess the rest, “as when she leaves him for a prolonged time, Alex turns restless even in his unconscious state…”

“Sweet Harmony! How’s that manifesting?” The Princess looked at him fixedly, even stopping again.

“He starts tossing about and his wings try to flap frantically,” sighed the stallion. “Interesting though, while setting in motion in such cases, they don’t fold or shrink or whatever they are supposed to do…”

“Due to the size, they caused a horrible mess the first time that happened!” Shining Armour shook his head with a little, sad smile, elaborating. “We wanted to replace miss Fluttershy on her duty, you know, to give her a breath and… Cady volunteered to keep an eye on the human for a while.”

“Well, Fluttershy left the room,” he shrugged at the obviousness of the result, “and after a few minutes, it happened. Cady said it was horrible; the wings almost sent some furniture fly. As the result, she is mildly cautious about the human, not to tell afraid.”

“I guess it won’t hurt Luna to know that point of view as well,” noticed Celestia meaningfully.

“Cadence rather admits that the human may pose a danger in certain circumstances if you’re talking about that, Your Highness,” Shining Armour raised his glance at her. “Not that he is deliberately dangerous. While she realizes that he was unconscious and couldn’t be responsible for the actions, she would prefer to keep some distance until he wakes at least. We decided to remove most of the furniture from the room, except the necessary minimum…”

“Have you experienced anything strange in the palace, Shining?” Celestia interrupted him pensively. “If my memory serves me well, I have notified you about the rest of his peculiarities.”

“Sleepwalking?” Shining Armour smirked, but his expression changed at Celestia’s serious look. “So, this is true! It was hard to believe, frankly speaking…”

“So, you have not…” concluded Celestia with a chuckle. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t ask, Shining.”

“I guess his fainting is deeper, more coma-like,” Shining Armour scratched his nape. “Yet he is recovering. Unfortunately, the medics can’t predict the exact terms – human physiology is still mostly an unfamiliar turf for us…”

“Mind that we are dealing with not purely human physiology but rather the still evolving organism,” Celestia said, biting her lip pensively.

“Anyway,” the unicorn shook his mane in a more cheerful manner, “we assigned a couple of professional maids to help miss Fluttershy, as she is practically to stay there all the time. Despite there being an interconnected bathroom, we put a bathtub into the bedroom itself to avoid further problems. Obviously, her meals are served there as well.”

“The truly royal welcome!” Celestia gave a laugh; if she was disappointed by the situation, now that impression seemed to cease, facing the objective reasons. With a nod, she trotted on, thinking over something.

“By the way, has my dear sister visited you already?” Suddenly her voice turned mysteriously insinuating; the Princess threw an inquiring glance at Shining Armour. “I was quite busy the last few days, thus, unfortunately, fell out of some of the events.”

“Yes, Your Highness, she did,” with a light smile, the stallion easily switched to the offered topic. “The next day, after we rescued everypony. We were slightly surprised that her visit came out in a hurry. Yet, Her Highness, Princess Luna had time to exchange a few words with Cadence…” Celestia raised one eyebrow while Shining Armour continued. “Not enough to dispel Cady’s concerns but enough to ease them, at least. I believe that she knows Cadence’s point of view already.”

“Frankly speaking, she spent most of her time here with miss Fluttershy and the human,” Shining lowered his voice. “Understandable, considering the circumstances and the importance of their visit, which is now hindered for an indefinite time,” he shrugged, missing completely the wry smile touching Celestia’s lips. “If Your Highness sent them to help us against the evident threat, relying on the effectiveness… I start to wish occasionally the Seekers making their next step as soon as possible while you are here to offer the helping hoof; otherwise, it will be quite problematic for us to cope with a whole group of them.”

“No idea, what they… I mean Her Highness and miss Fluttershy, of course… were talking about,” added the stallion, “but Princess Luna left visibly encouraged if not to say satisfied. I suppose by the news that everything went without the casualties and the human was recovering.”

“Doubtlessly!” Celestia chuckled shortly.

“By the way, your sister came not alone, Princess,” Shining Armour threw a perplexed glance at her. “Leaving that visitor here in the Palace. “Alex’s aide. Methinks he shall need one!” that’s how she introduced the mare.”

“How fascinating!” The sparks of interested amusement glimpsed in Celestia’s eyes, while the stallion went on with the story of the strange visitor.

“…anyway, that pegasus mare isn’t going to leave her post, just like miss Fluttershy; looking like a statue most of the time, she literally guards the room entrance since arrival. That’s despite we are taking all security measures,” the cerulean eyes rolled sarcastically. “Come to think of it, I can’t remember even seeing her muzzle – she is always packed in that armour of hers, from hooves to ear tips.”

“Supposedly, Lulu didn’t want Alex to be left unattended,” Celestia murmured as if speaking to herself.

“We wouldn’t allow that anyway!” Shining Armour snorted with a tint of reproach; he could catch the phrase but clearly missed the mischievous smile it came out with.

“Speaking of that armour,” remembered he – Celestia could catch the enthusiastic tunes in his voice at once. “At first, we kept guessing how she could even see anything in her helmet!” The stallion chuckled. “Sure, it looks kind of heavy and intimidating at the first glance. Strange and faceted,” Shining Armour fell silent for a second. “I haven’t seen anything like that, even from the Changelings.”

A shadow of distaste slid across Celestia’s face; catching that, the unicorn silently nodded in agreement.

“But then we saw how it works,” the same tunes of elation glimpsed in his words, now amplified as Shining touched his speciality. “At least when she is resting. I can’t imagine staying on duty all the time, full-clad, without enough motion or rest. But the secret is truly amazing!” The stallion’s eyes began shining brighter and brighter. “You see, Your Highness, the armour parts were made in such a way – when their owner is sitting, the upper parts interconnect with the lower ones, resting and spreading the weight on them. And so on, all the way to the floor, ground, whatever… That way she can sit… inside of her armour as if no weight was applied to herself. Like… like under some tight-fitting tent,” Shining Armour gave an enthusiastic laugh. “She is practically relieved of the armour weight during most of her duty!”

“I suspect that being not the only secret of the armour,” his cheerfulness made Celestia let out a tiny sigh. The Princess was to admit again that Alex’s prognosis of the situation came true and his defence improvement plans started working, while Shining Armour added confidentially. “Frankly speaking, I wouldn’t mind equipping our guards with such armour and testing it in the field, so to speak.”

“You will see for yourself,” whispered he to Celestia, as both approached the end of the gallery with the large double doors.

With a tint of bewilderment, Celestia’s glance fell at the guards holding their post at a certain distance from the room doors, unlike the usual guarding procedure when they were ready to block the guarded passage with their bodies if necessary. Followed by Shining Armour, she approached, gracing the saluting guards with a slight nod and finally noticing the reason, which made the stallions in standard Crystal Empire armour keep some safety zone in front of the bedroom doors.

The sight made Princess Celestia wince a little, despite she was familiar with the new armour samples. That one was different: at first, the silhouette sitting motionlessly next to the large doors reminded the Princess of the stone gargoyles of the Old Castle, so still and solid it looked. The steel-grey faceted parts of the armour formed seemingly the organic whole, barely gleaming in the twilight of the dead gallery end. No visible seams were breaking the figure covered with a complex pattern of thin lines on the metal surface. The sunlight barely came in that corner, thus it wasn’t easy to notice the still, silent guard at once.

The stony gargoyles and dragons at the Old Castle had their own distinct, even if ugly, muzzles; however, that figure’s head was presented by the solid helmet, resembling a long hammer without specific traits. The Princess could notice several tiny reflections of herself in the polished metal facets. Celestia glanced back; Shining’s expression clearly stated “You see what I was telling about!”

Something tinkled – the sound seemed to be coming from inside of that metal statue, which started unfolding like some intricate paperwork figurine before Celestia’s widening eyes. First, the headpiece detached a little, revealing the mobile connection covered with dense metal mesh from inside. Stretching its neck, the metal monster began rising to its legs with unbelievable for such a heavy-looking thing grace. With a faint metal sound, part came up after part, showing the flexible zones of the armour, which were completely hidden before, until the guard picked itself up to the hooves with a short cold clank. With the faint steel tinkling, it stretched its armoured on the margins wings; the braided tail covered with dense metal mesh swayed once from side to side.

“Your Highness!” saluting Princess Celestia and Shining Armour, the mare’s voice came out slightly muffled like from the metal barrel.

“Umm… Rainstorm,” the unicorn kept watching the armour with admiration. “How’s it going? Any news?”

“Without changes, sir! But no news is good news as well in our case,” the armour-clad mare barely shrugged. “Alex is still unconscious and miss Fluttershy is taking care of him. Nopony, except the maids, left or entered the room.”

“Thanks, Rainstorm!” Shining Armour let out a smile.

Properly guessing the royalty’s intentions, Rainstorm providently stepped aside with a short metal clank, opening the way to the bedroom.

“It seems that our guests enjoy wide support, Princess,” added Shining Armour for Celestia in half-voice when the high double doors started opening, enveloped by the golden aura. “Is she some sort of personal bodyguard or…”

With a tiny huff, Princess Celestia even lingered for a second, answering his question with her own.

“Would you be surprised if I tell that my dearest sister ordered the Night Watch to follow his commands if the human finds it necessary to acquire support?”

“Hmm…” Shining Armour chuckled vaguely. “Probably wouldn’t. I see one thing for sure – that guy knows a lot about armour and weapons.” His muzzle became lit with an inspired expression again, just like when he described Rainstorm’s arming.

The doors finally opened, revealing the heavy blackout curtains of rich burgundy velvet, tightly shut and shielding the entire passage from the accidental noises of the palace gallery. Peeking from under the edge of the curtains lying on the floor, there was a couple of large black feathers visible. Celestia blinked several times in perplexity – she remembered the room to be really spacious and the bed usually stood against the middle of the right wall.

Spreading the curtains with her aura, she froze on the doorstep for a second: the view differed indeed compared to the last time she saw it. Occupying most of the opposite wall, the window became almost twice as larger than it originally was, reaching the floor now and being practically an exit to the wide balcony. Carefully fixed, the traces of recent hasty alterations were still visible on the stone; the entire sliding frame looked as if it was rather some temporary, even if masterfully implemented, construction than the finished solution.

Coming through the uncurtained ajar window, the golden rays were flooding the spacious bedroom in light tones, looking now even broader as the furnishing became truly ascetic. Truth be told, the room was freed of most of the furniture Celestia remembered to be there. The only things that survived the changes were the large bed to the right with a couple of small nightstands snuggling to the wall and a modest couch in the opposite corner, presumably for the maids to take a short breath of their duties when needed. The left wall kept only the fireplace, lit and spreading the flickering glow along the floor at that moment. Next to it, on the narrow free stripe of the floor, there stood a moderate-size bathtub on the peculiar metalwork legs and a big copper vat, obviously intended for warming the water as the tub wasn’t connected to the general water supply. The smaller unobtrusive door to the adjacent bathroom was tightly shut.

“Your Highness, Princess Celestia! Prince Shining!” Two maids in the neatly ironed uniform turned their heads towards the newcomers, greeting the royal alicorn and unicorn in restrained half-voice and cautiously checking their way before stepping back and bowing in respect.

A glance down, and Celestia realized that their wariness was easily explicable. Nearly three-quarters of the bedroom floor were covered with the enormous wings, compacted as much as the troubled rescuers could afford, not hurting them. Even folded, their tops leaned against the wall at the head of the bed and their tips touched both opposite walls with the window and the door, leaving only a narrow space at the fireplace uncovered with the fluffy, irregular anthracite carpet. The light breeze played with the long feathers making their edges stir faintly. Naturally, both maids, Fluttershy and now Celestia were to look where their hooves went, walking on the wings only if unavoidable.

Eyes closed, facial traits calm and limbs motionless, the human was residing on the wide bed, covered with the blanket slightly above the waist. The pillows were placed in such a way to keep his upper body in the semi-sitting position, which looked reasonable due to the recent problems with Alex’s lungs. However, his skin had its usual colour at the moment, showing that the worst passed indeed; only the dry, chapped lips told that the human was still far from perfect health.

To the left of the bed, the black trembling feathers mingled with the long streaks of pink where the lush tail and mane covered the rest of the unoccupied floor and bed covers. Folding her wings tightly, Fluttershy nestled down at Alex’s side, resting her chin on the human’s shoulder. With her eyes tightly shut and her breath slow and measured, it was clear that the pegasus mare was sleeping. Yet at the same time, the girl looked impatiently waiting for Alex’s awakening, reaching his cheek with her nose as if trying to feel his presence constantly. The long curled eyelashes trembled lightly at the sudden disturbance, but Fluttershy remained deep in the Lunaland, wrapping her fore legs around the human’s arm.

“Well…” Stepping over the long primary feathers at the doorstep, Celestia approached the bed from the hoofrest side, taking another closer look at the entire situation. “Now I see what you meant under trouble!” she glanced at Shining Armour, who remained at the entrance not to make the limited space even tighter. “Indeed, there was nothing else you could do.”

“Can imagine the mess made by them flapping frantically,” added she quietly nodding towards the enormous wings on the floor – shuddering, the maids exchanged the concerned glances. “Poor Cadence!”

“Yeah,” sighed Shining Armour. “She told me that his wings literally sent the chairs flying…”

One of the unicorn girls reached out to wake Fluttershy up, but the Princess stopped her with a tiny gesture.

“There is no urge for that! Let the girl rest.”

“Thank you, Your Highness!” One of the maids whispered with gratitude. “She was bustling around him for the first forty-eight hours in a row… And is having very little sleep every day still.”

“Keep your job done, girls!” Celestia nodded royally. “They need to recover fully, preferably sooner. This couple is our best weapon against the monster-intruders.”

Carefully, not to step on the wings, she returned to the door, followed by both maids’ obeisance.

“I admit, everything was done the best possible way,” gesturing for Shining Armour’s attention, Celestia said in half-voice. Suddenly her tone change a bit, and to his bewilderment, the stallion noticed how the princess’ white cheeks flushed faintly. “And… I would like nopony to tell him about forcing me out of my usual room later… However, I rather like how the new window came out,” ended she confusedly.

“Oh…” Shining Armour coughed diplomatically. “Of course!”

“One more thing, Your Highness. We had no instructions about the foals, so… I don’t know what to undertake,” added he with concern.

“Foals? Which foals?” Celestia made quite an effort to keep the imperturbable look.

“Umm… Two foals. A colt and a filly,” sighed Shining Armour. “They are coming regularly to find out how the human is doing, by their own words. Not that they are much of trouble… but my guards are already making fun bets regarding which entrance to the Palace they try to sneak through the next time.”

*

Pulling him from the tranquillity of nonexistence little by little, some distant sounds started reaching Alex’s hearing. Almost on the verge of it, they at least provided some dimensional depth to the endless darkness his consciousness was dissolved in. Or, perhaps, the direction, in which Alex – as soon as he started realizing himself as such – decided to move towards, to supposedly emerge from whatever strange condition he got into. If not physically, then mentally, grabbing onto those sounds as on the guiding thread and aspiring with his entire mind towards their source.

At some point (when by his conclusion, he made quite an effort already) Alex realized that he was recognizing them. Unobtrusive and quiet, those sounds reminded him of shallow waters, moving lazily on their own or being mildly disturbed by somepony slowly wading through them. Serving as a background to them, so subtle that Alex even didn’t give it any meaning at first, the even noise of the flowing water was reaching his ears, making Alex completely puzzled regarding his possible location in the Universe.

‘…or rather falling water…’ glimpsed in Alex’s mind when he could remember the familiar sounding. ‘A waterfall?’

‘Merlin’s pants! What is going on?’ he frowned mentally, if that was ever possible, gathering the scattered memories shard after shard. There were some he couldn’t find despite all the diligence. ‘We were travelling across the Frozen North towards… the Crystal City! Right… Then what can a waterfall do here? Where am I?!’ his consciousness twitched in bewilderment.

Nevertheless, the sounds he heard were enough of a beacon; for the lack of anything else, Alex did his best to reach out to them. Feeling that the surrounding void started gaining volume and distinctness, Alex realized with surprise that it now resembled the darkness under the shut eyelids. There was some light, gently declaring itself behind them.

Bracing himself for whatever he might be facing, Alex opened his eyes.

He found himself lying on his back, facing the deep blue sky, which truth be told hardly resembled the usual view at the Frozen North as he had learned. The rare clouds were slowly flowing at an unimaginable height. No birds, no other sounds, nothing.

Alex inhaled. The air was present to his relief; fresh and cool, it was nowhere as cold as supposed to be in the kingdom of eternal winter. And it tasted somewhat sterile, not tinted by any notable smell, thus confusing Alex even more. The human realized that wherever he got, was warm; not perceptibly hot, but simply comfortable. And there definitely was some surface, he was lying on!

‘Ohhh… We couldn’t have been taken to the Crystal City, under the magic dome, could we?’ with a little effort, Alex picked himself into sitting. “What is this place?!” unwittingly he asked that aloud when his vision focused on the surrounding landscape. The one Alex couldn’t recognize.

Moreover, the next image made him wince in bewilderment – Alex found himself sitting on the surface of a small but very picturesque forest lake. Presumably, he was lying there seconds before as well. That perplexed the human instantly: one could easily lay on the water surface, but nopony could sit – Alex was sure about that. And even lying on water would have meant his body at least half-submerged into it, getting wet naturally. However, Alex not only felt completely dry but also that lake was felt as if it had solid, mildly cool glass for its surface.

Sitting in bewilderment, Alex stretched his arm and slapped the lake lightly. Without any difference, it felt like a solid floor, even if he saw the splash and heard it. His pat caused the usual ripple and circles running on the water, yet Alex couldn’t feel any on his fingers. None was there when he got his palm closer to his eyes to check and even rubbed his face.

‘Errmmm… You must be kidding me with that “water”! Another… vision?’ Somewhere deep inside, Alex already started to guess about having one when he noted the lack of smells and other sounds in that place. Getting in terms with that fact, he poked the lake once more with the same effect. He could see and hear the water, even saw a few yards of crystal clear depth under the surface, but couldn’t feel the latter as an expanse of a lake.

With a shrug, Alex got up and took a look around finally. The waterside was covered with grass and flowers, coming almost to the water edge; the small and large stones sitting in the lake near the shore looked as if they were specifically placed for the best view. Another glance at the sky revealed no sun visible, yet everything was lit by the soft light, almost like on the sunset when everything got painted into mild golden and reddish tints. There was one strange thing though, making Alex’s suspicion about having another vision even stronger – no dragonflies hovered above the water lilies. The latter glowed from the lake here and there like some white stars. Alex remembered that he didn’t notice any birds in the clear skies, any movement on the shore; a quick glance down reminded him that there were no fish in the depth under that strangely solid lake mirror.

‘Well, you lived up to that even – walking on the water,’ smirked Alex, accurately trying the surface, then heading to the shore, which wasn’t too far, ‘even if it is in your head only!’

However, no matter how many steps he made, Alex noticed that he was hardly approaching the shoreline. Either that place or vision was more complex than it looked at the first sight… or he simply wasn’t supposed to get there.

‘Like in a badly implemented computer game…’ Alex sighed. If there was no chance to proceed forward, maybe he could walk in another direction.

A turn around revealed an awesome view of the mountains and a canyon. The latter was cutting the cliffy plateau and opened, taking the far side of the lake into the wide embrace. The left edge of the canyon mouth was the most beautiful waterfall Alex had ever seen, even if he could compare it with Winsome Falls. That one surely couldn’t boast the variety of rich colours, but it still provided quite an image to enjoy. Its main stream was wide and strong, falling down and filling the lake at its foot; the dashing down mass of water roared and produced plenty of water mist. But the river seemed to flow even wider across the plateau, thus many smaller and calmer streams were falling down the stone wall, almost covering it entirely with a shiny veil about two hundred feet wide and ending in the lake with noise and water foam. That water galore was shimmering with thousands of gems woven into it by the same strange light without the visible source, which was shining over the rest of the scene.

That edge of the sky above the canyon and waterfall was almost completely overshadowed by a spanless mass of the familiar silvery branches and leaves shimmering with the silvery-green elusive gradient. Even from that far, Alex could see the subtle pulse of the forest giant; it was running in waves across the entire tree, making the glow flow through the branches and unusually large maple-like leaves. Impressed by the view, the human made a few steps toward the waterfall, finding out with surprise that proceeding in that direction was much easier – he was actually covering some distance, not walking on a single spot. Alex stopped again. As he remembered, there was nothing, resembling that lake, near the Tree of Harmony and the cleft it occupied; the latter was situated in the depth of Everfree, surrounded by the forest. Truth be told, the Tree he knew was bigger than any of the trees Alex saw in his entire life or could imagine… but it wasn’t that enormous. The scene looked so surreal and somewhat artificial – he finally found the fitting word, remembering about his own perception being limited there – Alex caught himself making a funny face. In reality, the Tree of Harmony would never be supposed to be seen from that point.

‘So, it is you again!’ he smirked inwardly, taking a look across the faintly glowing crown; Alex almost heard the subtle chime produced by the forest goddess.

“Of course!” The voice, which first seemed to sound in his head, made Alex flinch, even if it wasn’t his first audience at the Tree of Harmony. To his bewilderment, the voice turned up coming from behind rather, and the words were spoken, not translated right into his mind. That was the first audible sound there, except water, Alex’s breath and his own voice.

Reaching his nostrils the next second, the lavender aroma told Alex that there was nothing to be alerted by. Slowly, he turned; the smile of anticipation was already written on the human’s face. Dark blue against the soft, even light, the alicorn princess returned the smile, approaching Alex; she walked on the lake surface as if there was never anything more habitual for her. The endless mane and tail of star-woven night sky were flowing in the insensible wind, even if Alex could sense no motion in the air around. Shaking them slightly in a casual manner, as if she just arrived there flying, the girl folded her wings and waved her shoulders slightly, stretching. Even then her silver-shod hooves produced only the tiniest circles on that weird water body; the Night Princess looked gracefully floating above the lake mirror, barely touching it. Alex caught himself staring at the alicorn beauty like enthralled. Staring until she approached, making their noses touch; her half-lidded eyes were smiling.

“Of course, She is…” Repeated Luna; the long eyelashes faintly trembled as her eyes filled almost entire Alex’s sight. “Having reasons to expect thy faster recovery, methinks!”

“Although, I know two others who anticipate that more!” added she after a short pause, nuzzling Alex tenderly. Unlike the “fake” water, that touch was felt by him in the entirety of its fluffiness, to Alex’s immense joy. “I am happy that thou art safe, lief!” Luna’s lips slipped across his.

“Am I? What has happened, Luna?” Wrapping his arms around her neck, Alex snuggled his forehead to the girl’s warm cheek. “I… I can recall fighting with the Seeker and… getting rid of two of them. There were more,” Alex wrinkled his forehead, “but they refrained from attacking, I suppose.”

“Fluttershy… and other ponies, the foals,” suddenly startled Alex. “Are they safe?!”

“Worry not, mine love!” Luna’s wings wrapped him into a soft embrace. “Everypony is alright! They were unharmed at which hour the rescue team reached the detached train car,” added she soothingly.

Alex slowly exhaled, his eyes closed. The Night Princess watched him with a smile – the human definitely felt more than was ready to show.

“But I can’t remember what followed the fight,” Alex looked into the deep lakes of Luna’s eyes. “Everything is blurred after that point. And…” he took another, slightly lost look around. “I don’t know that place.”

“I mean, I guessed that everything was happening in my head,” added he with a chuckle. “But I always thought it must be based on something familiar more or less.”

“Not necessarily,” Luna’s breath was slowly ruffling his hair – it tickled a bit. “If ‘t be true She is projecting something in thy mind, lief. That place is real: it is a small forest lake in Everfree, far south from the Tree of Harmony and the Old Castle.”

“So, that river and canyon…” Alex interrupted her; his eyes widened.

“…the river and canyon crossing the road to the Old Castle, forsooth!” nodded Luna with a dainty smile. “As far as I can recall, everything thou art seeing reflecteth reality… with an exception of the Tree – it can’t be seen from that place. Hath She tried to tell thee something?”

“Not yet but I can feel the presence.”

“Mayhap it is merely a form of support for thy faster recovery?” Luna glanced at him slyly. She pulled Alex walking slowly across the “lake” with her, heading to the shimmering and playing with sparks of light waterfall.

“Speaking of which,” Alex followed next to the Princess. His hand lay on her silky shoulder – the touch of somepony real in that strange vision was comforting. The touch of Luna herself was promising safety and a happy outcome. “Can you still enlighten me about the details? Ehhh… There… was a huge red locomotive… or was I hallucinating already?”

“Thou was not, naturally,” the sparkles of amusement were dancing in Luna’s eyes. “It was the local track-cleaning and rescue transport. They call it Icebreaker. And it is actually of the giant proportions, lief.”

“Everypony was safe at which hour Shining Armour and his guards reached the… crash site,” repeated Luna. “Not even cold… Mayhap just frightened a zilch, feeling like a fish out of the water. We both know what effects the Seekers can cause. One of them felt worse than the others, but nothing irreversible forsooth. Everypony was taken to the Crystal City, examined and allowed to attend to their own business later.”

Alex slowly nodded on the go. Spending even a few minutes in a metal barrel under the focused attention of those monsters was probably equal to some infrasonic treatment for a human, let alone a couple of hours of the same “joy”. He realized that the one “feeling worse” was that unbalanced, goosy pegasus: surprisingly, the ill-tempered guy held for that long.

“Thou art another story!” Luna stopped; the deep blue eyes glanced into Alex’s with sudden seriousness. “They say, thou was flying around the train car to protect it from the mind-wrecking scoundrels. For several hours at least!” She slowly shook her beautiful head. “Actually making some kind of snowy tornado the Seekers had no chance to pass. The rescue team couldn’t at first likewise.”

“I had no choice,” simply said Alex, guessing the course of her thoughts. “There were many of them I couldn’t see and… I couldn’t afford to chase any.”

“I know,” a tiny change of pitch of Luna’s soft voice gave out her concern. “Thou was frostbitten severely, Alex,” added she after a moment of silence. “Even knowing thee, it’s truly miraculous that thou art recovering without noticeable consequences. Thou and Shy are residing in the Crystal Palace as it was planned… with minimal corrections.”

“Alas, thou art still unconscious, hence the vision,” added she, looking at Alex with sympathy.

“Makes me wonder if sleepwalking is still possible in that condition,” drawled Alex pensively but his sly expression revealed him joking.

“Thou art incorrigible!” Luna sighed, pulling him closer again. “If I were thee, I would have preserved energy for recovery instead of experiments in that case. Yes, that’s me saying that!” she glanced at him meaningfully. The following passionate kiss, however, hardly added to the mentoring atmosphere.

For a few moments longer, Alex allowed himself to completely dissolve in that feathery fragrant embrace, giving up to the soft velvet lips, which were demanding and thirsty more than ever at that moment. Despite her words about limiting stresses in favour of recovery, it was obvious that Luna missed him a lot.

“Everything will be okay!” Alex snuggled closer to the soft coat, stroking Luna’s back soothingly. “I’ll do my best not to force it, I promise.”

“Wait!” Throwing a glance between her folded wings, Alex noticed that there was somepony else in his, or maybe his with Luna, vision. “Somepony is sitting there!”

“Oh, that should hath happened…” Uttered Luna with a tiny smile; she nuzzled Alex tenderly. “Let us come closer and look,” she glanced over her shoulder at the wall of falling water. Alex already suspected, who that might be, judging by the colours and especially by the opulent mane and tail streaming down from where the pony was sitting. Needless to say, he was astounded by that presence, guessing if that were the tricks of the Tree of Harmony or one of the sudden equestrian wonders, which he failed to get used to again.

At a closer look, his first assumption turned out true. Sitting on the large rock protruding from the lake bed in the shallows almost near the waterfall, the mist and occasional drops reached her and settled on the lush mane like some fine diamond dust, Fluttershy was peering musingly into the waters below. Undisturbed as there was no wind, her mane flowed down her shoulders and hips and together with her tail trailed from her cliff seat, almost bathing in the lake yet looking so still as if they were cut from the same rock. However, Alex immediately felt the beloved honey-floral aroma when they approached. The entire stance of the sitting girl expressed pensive sadness; although, not a tragic kind of that feeling but rather the sense of missing somepony dear to her, being unable to talk to. A faint anticipating smile could be read on her lips and in the bright turquoise eyes, no tears in the latter but rather a fatigue and patient expectation.

There, the noise of the waterfall seemed overwhelming and, strangely, at the same time background as if the raging water was ashamed by its own intrusiveness and tried to stay subtle, not interfering with the rest of the sounds – Alex could perfectly hear their feathers rustling, their steps bothering the impossible lake surface, even his pacing breath and heartbeat. Thus his next step, causing a water splash, sounded for him almost like a shot.

The long eyelashes trembled and batted twice as the turquoise eyes moved and glanced directly at Alex. Fluttershy turned her head, straightening as if something gave her a new charge of energy and making the sumptuous mane and tail finally move and flow on the rock, showing that she wasn’t an incredible masterfully made statue of herself. Alex could swear that recognition lit in her wide-open eyes when a tiny yet joyful smile slid across her lips. Still, the pegasus girl remained where she was, not uttering a word.

“M-methinks, she isn’t a part of mine vision, correct? I mean… not created by the vision or… Her,” Alex gestured with only his eyes towards the enormous tree crown spreading in the sky, high above their heads, then turned to Luna. “But… What’s wrong with her, pray tell. I can see that Shy recogniseth our presence. Why is she so… detached though?” his voice faltered.

“Rest assured, she is alright, lief!” with a tiny nod, Luna hugged Alex with her wing. “Tis being quite unexpected in every other case but not that one. However, it was mildly surprising for me, even if ‘t be true I anticipated that route of development.”

“I assume that it can tell only about growing mental bonds between thou and Fluttershy,” noticing Alex still looked dumbfounded, Luna elaborated. “Thou art forming a similar connection with her, lief, as thou didst with me. But Shy hath no magic of that kind, even supposing that all the ponies possess some kind of magic… she nev’r had any related to dreams, as far as I can recall. Methinks, tis tethering the connection… from her side at least.”

“Do you mean…” Saying that Alex was astounded was saying nothing. “I know that pegasi flights have magical nature, learned it on my own example. But this…”

“Yes, lief,” Luna kept examining Fluttershy with appraisal in her eyes. “She shall be quite lucky, if ‘t be true she starteth to recognize that bond and receiveth some control of it. She could reach for thee at the hour of need at least.”

“Reach?” Alex glanced at her pensively. “Wait! Don’t you mean that I… in that nightmare of mine… I thought that was a part of my dream only.”

“No, lief,” Luna nuzzled him tenderly. “Thou hast called and I was able to heed thee, thus coming to the rescue. Thou knowest, I don’t like the others suffering even in their dreams unless that teacheth a lesson. Wasn’t thy case, methinks.”

“Alas, I could only do as much,” she shook her head with regret. “I had no time to catch thee, only Fluttershy.”

“Never mind! You did it perfectly,” Wrapping his arms around Luna, Alex stroked her neck. “Otherwise, that nightmare fall from the dam would have been twice worse!”

Then he stepped closer to the “rocky seat” which Fluttershy still occupied looking tranquilly detached even if recognizing his presence somehow; stretching his arm, Alex was going to touch her cheek softly, but reconsidered, pulling back.

‘What if I only startle her?’ glimpsed in his mind.

“I don’t know what exactly she is seeing in her dream,” elaborated he, looking back at the smiling Princess. “Don’t want to scare her if I touch.”

“That I can’t tell at the moment,” Luna shrugged lightly. “I’m in thy dream, lief, not hers.”

Together, they watched Fluttershy observing the lazy water curling around the rock – the flow caused by the waterfall reached there almost fading. In the ringing silence, Alex fancied that he could hear his thoughts aloud. He turned his gaze to the top of the waterfall, to the sky overshadowed by the immense silvery crown of the Tree, feeling a soft touch of Luna’s cheek on his neck.

“I was thinking, my love,” uttered Alex, breaking the silence first. “There, in the frozen valley… I clearly felt that the Seekers wanted to get us, to prevent us from reaching our goal – the Crystal City.”

“Mhmmm…” Luna murmured, cuddling him again.

“Why did they suddenly abandon their attempts and leave? I eliminated only two of them,” Alex pursed his lips, thinking. “There were more. Exactly as the reports said – about two dozens of the creatures in total. I never saw the Seekers giving up on their aim that easily, even taking damage. And I must say they had an advantage that time – a new form of the monster appeared… was created… whatever. A flying one! They…”

Alex suddenly noticed that Luna was quietly nodding to his words, without much concern or shock in her eyes.

“I saw them, lief!” The girl noticed his abashed look. “Thanks to thee.”

“Thou art unconscious for several days, Alex,” Luna elaborated mercifully. “Alas, I can’t be with thee all the time in pony, but I am always with thee in another way, mine love. I saw them in thy memories.”

“Can’t say that was unexpected,” she glanced at Alex, who could only nod in agreement. “Quite nasty things forsooth – correct thou art!”

“As for them “giving up”…” Luna shook her head slowly. “Methinks, ‘tis meaning that you both were not their main aim hither. Recallest whither we are, Alex. The main and the only biggest inhabited area is under the magic dome… its centre being the Crystal City. Seeking for something – I assume, it must be of magical nature – they have only one ripe target to aspire, in the earnest.”

“The Crystal Heart?!” exhaled Alex. That sounded like a question and a statement of fact at the same time, as Alex was confident in his guess. “Twilight told me about it a couple of times…”

Before Luna could confirm his assumption, a loud rustling sounded over their heads. It came up growing as a soft but overwhelming tidal wave and faded as suddenly as was born. Looking up, Luna and Alex noticed the shivers coming across the enormous crown of the Tree as if caused by a strong gust of cold wind. If Alex needed confirmation, he could have hardly gotten a clearer one.

“I’m afraid thou needst to recover as soon as thou can, my love!” Intercepted by Alex, Luna’s glance turned unusually serious. “The rest is up to thee… to what and how ardently thou wantest.”

“I want to solve that problem,” Alex didn’t linger to answer. “Isn’t it what we came here for in the first place? However, how’s that supposed to speed things,” he took a look around then over himself, “my recovery in particular? Or you’re insisting that it is rooting in my head now…”

“All I got in Equestria, was thanks to you, Shy, Twilight, the others!” Said Alex ardently. “I will do my best to protect what we must, but how am I supposed…”

“Thou art keeping to doubt thyself, lief!” Luna gave out a dainty smile, but her eyes stood serious. “Although, I must admit thou art catching up faster now.”

“There is… something else, bothering you,” Alex said half-inquiringly, half-affirmatively; he squinted, looking into those dark blue lakes.

“’Tis more of a prevision,” drawled the Night Princess. “The faintest feeling that you need to return as soon as you can. And I mean – return to Equestria, not simply regaining thy consciousness! But… for that thou first needst to recover and help Crystal Empire against whatever is troubling it. With Shy’s help if ‘t be true it is necessary or anypony else’s.”



“Look, she finally dozed off!” One of the unicorn fillies in the maid uniform nodded towards the bathtub.

“Let her sleep then. Poor thing!” Another maid followed her companion’s glance with a tiny sympathetic smile. “I heard that both had it hard on them. But the girl keeps being on her duty for a few days straight, sleeping with one eye open, having a half-bite, half-sip meal.”

“I saw them when they arrived,” nodded the first girl, then her eyes turned dreamy. “I would like somepony like that guarding me when I’m injured,” she threw a spear glance at the pony shaped armour suit resting on the small couch in the corner. “Although, I’d prefer not to be injured at all,” the unicorn maid let out a quiet giggle.

“I noticed,” another maid threw a smiling glance at her. “You tried flirting with her nearly from the start… to no avail though. I’m sure it’s a no-catch situation here, my friend,” added she, shaking her high manedo fixed with a black and white barrette. “They are completely tied together!”

With these words, the unicorn maid glanced meaningfully at the large bed occupied by the single guest. Or rather by his wings mostly, as the human was unable to occupy the entire king-size bed but his powerlessly spread wings covered all the free space of it. Not stopping at that, they stretched further, resting on the covered by the soft carpet floor of the large semi-round room and almost touching the opposite walls. Aimed to fit that sudden feathery trouble, the room was freed of all the usual furniture, except the named bed, a wardrobe and a couple of couches at the wall farthest from the bed footrest. The large bathtub was placed closer to the ornate fireplace, leaving enough walking space around the bed. Barely illuminating the tub from behind, the embers of the slowly smouldering fire glowed softly, making the curvy tub legs cast long shadows, which were dancing around the room. The night was quite warm and the hearth was just guaranteeing the constant temperature together with the ajar window to the spacious balcony on the eastern side of the highest tower of Crystal Castle, where exactly that room belonged. Thus, to maintain comfort, the maids were simply to control the fire intensity or window gap.

Adding to the hearth light, a large magic crystal was hanging on its chain from the high, sky-blue ceiling of the room; emitting the dim diffused light, that crystal served as the main chandelier – the room was prudently cleared of the candles and generally all the sources of the open fire. As Shining Armour already mentioned, the maids had the opportunity to witness how those lying seemingly limply wings could turn devastating in a wink of an eye. Leaving the lit fireplace was at first a matter of debate as well; however, as the human didn’t show the signs of sleepwalking so far, the royalty agreed halfheartedly that it was necessary to aid the sooner recovery of their guests.

“Tough luck!” with a tiny humorous grimace, the first maid picked a short log with her aura, placing it in the fire; with the quiet crackling, the firewood lit, spreading the faint resinous smell. “If they are feeling each other’s presence even through the sleep or being unconscious… I’m out,” the girl threw her fore hooves up jokingly. She checked the window behind the slowly wavering curtains, noticing. “We should tell the carpenter to do something with the new frame – the wind still makes the large glass tingle.”

“No wonder,” whispered her colleague, checking on the human, “they completely changed the entire construction in a hurry, simply to fit him through. At least it’s not an open hole in the wall now.”

“Yeah!” the first girl levitated a large jug. “Well, let’s keep the water warm, so the poor filly doesn’t get cold, sleeping in the bathtub like that.”

Filling it partially from the tub, partially from the copper vat heating next to the fireplace, the maid tried the water. Satisfied with the result, the unicorn girl headed to the tub where the pegasus filly was submerged in her dreams.

Breathing measuredly, Fluttershy was sitting chest-high in the water with her coat looking fluffy from the warm humidity of the air. Flowing in the tub, her tail occupied the entire free space and made the water look pink. The lush mane was gathered and wrapped into an embroidered towel with coats of arms not to damp it in the tub; the long eyelashes were trembling faintly in the sleep but a tiny smile was adorning her face. The girl was seeing a dream, but for a change, it was something clearly happier compared to the recent ones.

Adjusting the bed covers over Alex, the unicorn maid watched how her friend started to pour lovingly the warm water from the jug on the strained shoulders and wings of the pegasus girl. With quiet gurgling, the water was taking away the stress; Fluttershy stretched lightly in her sleep and straightened her shoulders. The smile came through more clearly, making the maid taking care of her produce a content mien.

Her friend sent a meaningful face from the bed where the human’s eyes made a move under the closed eyelids as if he was observing something.

*

The twilight enveloped her as the usher mare held the curtains, letting the filly through one of the entrances. Stopping for a second so her eyes could accommodate the low light and let her go down the stepped floor, but no longer as the next viewer might bump into her on their way into the cinema hall. The latter was half-empty though: the fluent glance around the rows of seats told the unicorn girl that her precaution was redundant – foals could hardly be taken to watch a movie of that kind and the heads peeking from behind the backrests were few. The large rectangle of the white screen was dimly glowing in the even more muffled light, and the girl hurried to the seat marked in the ticket which she was still levitating in front of her.

She inhaled the smell of the dry-cleaned upholstered seats, the caramel flavoured popcorn; a faint tint of dust coming from the carpeting spoiled the overall feel a bit, but it was inevitable for the place herds of ponies visited daily. Not for this movie session though – the genre was not a cash flooder there.

‘When was the last time I visited the cinema?’ inwardly chuckled the girl. ‘Oh, Celestia! I’m talking like some elderly mare…’ she rolled her eyes sarcastically, trotting down the stepped aisle.

Making her stop, something caught the girl’s attention halfway down: a very familiar figure glimpsed in the middle of the otherwise empty row when the first frames appeared on the screen, highlighting the hall. With a tiny smile, the filly threw another look around, biting her lip at the sudden idea.

‘It’s unlikely that somepony complains if I take the seat not assigned for me by the ticket, so…’ the girl started to make her way to the familiar silhouette, which glowed with its light coat in the darkness of the cinema hall; she ducked down not to accidentally disturb the ones already sitting further up.

“Umm… Hi! May I land here?” she cleared her throat and addressed the sitting unicorn in half-tone. “If I’m not a disturbance for you, sir!”

“Mmm… Yes! Oh!” the stallion raised his eyes at her and they widened with recognition and surprise. “Silver!” he caught himself exclaiming and lowered his voice, throwing an apologetic glance back at the nearest two viewers who winced a bit. “Ingot… Of course, you may…” still looking surprised, Diamond Chisel pulled down the folding seat for her with his sparkly aura. “It’s a bit… unexpected…”

“You can call me Sil, just like the others do…” with a thankful nod, the girl sank onto the offered place next to him. “Well, I avoided… public entertainment for a while indeed!” she glanced at Diamond’s muzzle – the colourful flares highlighted it, quickly changing one another. The usual pre-session movie advertisements started flashing on the screen.

“Umm… Err… I didn’t mean that…” the stallion stumbled, whispering confusedly. “Sorry! I mean that this movie itself is an unusual choice for… for a girl and…” he faltered and fell silent, feeling that the words might lead in the unwanted direction.

“Oh, it’s okay, Diamond,” Silver Ingot let out a tiny giggle. “I was never a fan of noisy herds, regardless to… you know,” she winked cheerfully. Noticing that in the light of another flash, Diamond Chisel exhaled with relief.

“As for the movie itself…” started she. The screen went dark, then the new sequence turned out to be black and white – given in stylized font, an inelaborate title changed with the opening credits. “An old eastern story is…”

Somepony coughed deliberately from the darkness of the auditorium behind.

“Let’s just watch!” smiled Silver Ingot. A small hoof touched Diamond’s fore leg, making the unicorn freeze in surprise. A recognizable melody of the authentic stringed instruments started flowing from the speakers with the drums making the floor tremble slightly under their hooves with the low tones.

“I’m still puzzled by the choice?” Diamond Chisel gave a laugh when they exited the movie theatre together two hours later, as Silver Ingot accepted his reserved offer to walk her home. “Given it wasn’t some kaidan, but still… a story of ronin’s fight for honour, peppered by a love motive. Why?”

He was to wait for a couple of minutes. The town lights sparkled in the girl’s eyes; Silver Ingot was still there – in the snow-covered fir woods of the mountain slopes. The snowdrifts of evening Ponyville just helped the immersion.

“Why?” the girl finally woke up, answering Diamond’s question. “I guess, this culture interested me since I was introduced to it in early flillyhood. Besides, I was always wondering about my uncle’s fascination with Neighpon. Sometimes I understand him,” Silver Ingot let out a tiny smile watching a family with two foals hurrying along the snowy street and outrunning them with Diamond – the happy voices of the foals kept ringing even at the distance. “That movie seemed to be a perfect choice to tune in to the traditional aspect. I admit, I never saw that one before,” she confessed jokingly.

“He used to live there for quite a while,” elaborated Silver Ingot, throwing a smiling glance at the stallion. “Long before we met with uncle Will it seems. Uncle was with the army already,” added Silver Ingot pensively, “Maybe it was related. He wasn’t telling much about that part of his life. What he told – he had a close friend there. A neighponese mare, a bit older than him back then,” she kept telling on the go with a kind smile without noticing Diamond’s eyes watching her with admiration trying to pace up with the girl. “With two daughters… “Two fillies about your age,” uncle Will says. She was a local sword maker, a very masterful one by uncle’s words.”

“Hmmm…” Diamond Chisel chuckled with surprise in his voice.

“Yeah,” the bright eyes sent a sparkly glance at the stallion. “The mare sword maker, in Neighpon, long ago! Can you imagine, Diamond?” the girl wondered how easy it turned out – to talk heart to heart with him.

“I guess she was a real master, so that rare case was explicable,” shrugged Diamond Chisel. “But you’re right, Sil… I’d call that very unusual for Neighpon.”

“The more I wonder why he left anyway,” nodded Silver Ingot. “I realize that I should be thankful for things going that way exactly not another, but… Sometimes I feel for him. I only started to understand what a big part of his heart stayed belonging there.”

“I wonder why he wasn’t going with you today,” Diamond Chisel kept kicking a small piece of ice pensively, then glanced at her. “Is mister Steel okay? I assume he would be an even more involved watcher of that movie…”

“Strange that you asked,” Silver Ingot glanced at the stallion interestedly. “Uncle Will said that he wasn’t feeling well enough today,” she sighed. “I was going to stay at home then, but he insisted that I didn’t change any plans, saying it would be a crime to pull me back on the weekend… considering that we both weren’t exactly social for a long while. He said it was nothing serious and finally persuaded me to go alone.”

“And was it indeed?”

“Uncle said that he wasn’t feeling like trotting here and there all day long,” sighed Silver Ingot, the sparkles in her eyes dimmed a bit. Maybe it was because they were passing a poorer lit alley. “I know that he isn’t getting younger. There is nothing I… anypony can do about that, but…”

The trampled snow kept crunching slightly under their hooves.

“Hey, why am I talking about myself all along,” Silver Ingot bucked up, breaking the silence when they entered a brightly lit street again; the girl flashed a bit of forced smile. “And what did you find in that old movie? Come on, Diamond, spill… the gems!” the smile turned sincere; the filly nudged the stallion’s shoulder lightly.

“Well, my story isn’t nearly as mysterious,” Diamond Chisel tried to feign exaggerated seriousness, failed and broke into a smile as well. “I lived in Neighpon with my parents for a while, when I was a tiny foal.”

“Fascinating!” the girl's eyes widened; Silver Ingot’s mouth rounded. “So… we can say, we have some common threads,” added she coping with the first surprise.

“I don’t remember much, but I definitely remember that it was a good time,” chuckled Diamond Chisel. “And I also remember watching that movie with my mom and dad… I still have no idea how they managed to take me through the usher in the cinema as it wasn’t exactly a kids’ show,” simply shrugged he. “It is one of the bonds tying me tightly with them… ever since they have gone,” added the stallion with a mix of happiness and sadness in his voice.

“Besides,” he glanced at her after a second, deciding to change the mood, “I simply like the story very much. An outcast warrior, a ronin… Do you know who exactly ronins were?”

Silver Ingot nodded; the girl already walked backwards listening to and watching him fixedly.

“His fight for the truth and honour… His seemingly desperate feelings toward a nobility. I find that story inspiring at the very least.”

“And he remained unvanquished till the end!”

“Thanks to the strong core and his beliefs – yes!” Diamond Chisel confirmed with determination.

“Not by that filly though!” a small snowball secretly made by the light-grey aura suddenly smacked against the coat on his chest; the girl gazed at him slyly.

“Ouch! I guess… Kinda!” Diamond huffed, scooping some snow and powdering the prancing girl in return.

“If I may ask… how many times did you see that movie?” Silver Ingot watched the stallion, biting her lip.

“Hmmm…” Diamond Chisel pretended to be remembering. “Let me think… More than a hundred. Actually, I lost count a couple of years ago!”

“Seriously?!” the girl’s eyes rounded; Silver Ingot burst with sincere laughter. “A hundred times?!”

“Absolutely!” confirmed the stallion, trying to hold back a smile. “It’s not getting worse with each view!”

*

The faint floral-honey aroma kept teasing Alex’s nose until it became clear that it couldn’t be a part of his dream. Little by little, waking up his senses, more smells trailed up his nostrils – first clean and starched linens, then some medicine, and finally the thin tart smell of burning firewood mixing with tints of unfamiliar perfume. Regardless of what Alex was seeing at that moment, he noted unwittingly that he had hardly ever gotten a smelling palette that rich, in his most sophisticated dreams. Rustling with curtains, a gust of wind sneaked through the ajar window, sending a whiff across Alex’s face and dispelling most of the scents, except the initial floral sweetness. The latter became only stronger, disturbed by the breeze, which surprisingly carried no breath of the frosty winter but a feel of fresh spring morning instead.

The airflow brought the distant hum – multiple sounds of a big city mixed in it casually, so nopony could distinguish the separate members of this choir while easily recognizing it in its entirety. The next moment, the noise was cheerfully interrupted by a joyous bird chirping. The sound kept floating in Alex’s right ear, arousing his consciousness – without much care of anypony sleeping or recovering there, the little feather-ball was jumping back and forth along the windowsill, loudly declaring its energetic presence to anyone who would listen.

The chirping was so persisting, that Alex made a face in his thinning sleep. The eyelashes trembled and he turned his head, clearly feeling the touch of the cool bedding on his cheek. The human’s left hand moved a little, grabbing the linens lightly as if trying to explore that touch. His right hand, as well as his right shoulder, partially his chest and neck, was snuggled to something warm, soft and breathing, his skin meeting the silky coat when Alex tried to raise his arm. His seeking fingers slid on the velvet shoulder and dived into the flowing mane – the floral-honey fragrance became stronger – then travelled across the body cuddling to him, finally reaching the girl’s shapely hip. Recognizing that touch, Alex’s heart started beating stronger, speeding up the blood in his veins. The enormous wings covering the bed and half of the floor twitched; with barely audible rustling they started shrinking quickly to a more reasonable size as if suddenly returning under the conscious control.

With a blink, Alex slowly opened his eyes.

Undisturbed by the muffled light, his focusing vision revealed the high ceiling and something pink at the corner of his sight. Regaining clearness, Alex’s mind combined all the sensory stimuli… and a tiny smile brightened his lips. Lifting his head a little, Alex found out that warm, soft and breathing somepony snuggling to him was Fluttershy. The girl fell asleep above the bed covers, resting her head on Alex’s chest and wrapping her legs around him as if trying to make sure that the human wasn’t going to disappear suddenly. That image immediately called for the memory of Alex’s first waking in Fluttershy’s cottage when he just got to Equestria; it brought another smile to his face.

Remembering what he could about their trip and adding his vision to that, Alex concluded that he had been lying around for a few days at least. With Fluttershy on guard by his side that entire time, he probably gave her quite a task – the interval between his fight for the train car and his recent vision was completely blank for the human.

The long eyelashes were resting on her cheeks; breathing slowly, the girl remained in deep sleep even when Alex’s fingers ran lightly along her fore leg and shoulder, touching her warm, silky cheek. Exhausted by the chores and worries, Fluttershy didn’t wake when Alex planted a small kiss on the beloved yellow nose.

‘Did Luna manage to visit us personally?’ wondered Alex; strangely, he felt a faint note of lavender on Fluttershy’s face, like a drop of perfume on the warm skin.

“Alex-s-s-s…” Fluttershy breathed out, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder tenderly. Her sumptuous mane tickled Alex’s face, making his smile wider. But the girl’s eyes remained closed; she was still in Lunaland, unaware of her special somehuman regaining consciousness in reality. “Mhmmm,” the small hoof stroke his chest through the covers.

As if all of his senses suddenly returned to him in full strength, Alex felt very sharply how long he was lying there without moving. His entire body itched for action, tired of the long forced idleness, and he could hardly resist that call. Very carefully, not to disturb the sleeping marefriend, he slid from her cuddle slowly, tucking the pillow under the girl’s head.

Untangling from the bed covers with all possible precautions not to wake Fluttershy, Alex got up. The body and limbs felt a bit stiff, but he assumed that the more he moved the faster it would pass. The room was truly spacious, even more visually, because – as Alex found out – it was nearly empty for some mysterious reason. A look around presented him with the large bed they shared with the sleeping pegasus beauty, a couple of modest nightstands and a bathtub in front of the fireplace. The precautions were not excessive as there was another pony in the room: a unicorn mare in maid uniform fell asleep on a small couch, which Alex hadn’t noticed in the corner before. She must have been tired of the constant vigil, just like Fluttershy. The maid dropped her chin over her fore leg on the armrest and the long strand of light hair escaping her uniform headpiece was wavered by the girl’s slow breath.

The problem – bringing another strike of deja vu – was that somepony decided to treat Alex’s injuries while depriving him of his clothes. Again! Alex’s eyes quickly scanned the room, failing to find anything resembling a wardrobe. There was, of course, a possibility to return to the bed, but Alex could hardly cope with a few hours more without motion. With an inward groan, Alex rolled his eyes and grabbed the first getting in his sight towel from the edge of the bathtub, wrapping it around himself habitually. Then his eyes stumbled upon a humble door blending into the bedroom wall. Cautiously open, it revealed the most anticipated by him – the bathroom.

However, a quick search around the smaller room gave nothing, except more towels and various bathing utensils; no sign of his clothes there either. Alex took some time, drinking the cool water right from the tap; that finally relieved him from the sandpaper feeling in his throat, making Alex feel that it was probably the tastiest thing he tried lately.

‘Well, one problem less!’ The peaky face, boasting some stubble and looking a bit raccoonish because of shadows under the eyes, smirked at him from the large mirror over the sink. Examining himself, Alex realized that he could eat a manticore, but that could wait as he needed fresh air more.

“Oh, you’re here!” he even voiced that as his eyes stopped at the thin silvery band belting his forehead. Luna’s gift, the ancient helmet kept serving Alex as intended – nopony could take it off the head, even while its master was unconscious. That was totally things changing. Gapping the door, Alex took a peek – both girls remained asleep as he left them. Tiptoeing across the room, the human pulled aside the curtain he noticed before, revealing the large window occupying most of the wall and reaching the floor. A small bird chirped out loudly, scared by his sudden appearance and bursting away from the balcony. Alex threw a glance over his shoulder: thankfully, the feather ball didn’t wake anypony. Muttering something through her sleep, Fluttershy cuddled the pillow tighter.

The sliding part was ajar; the human did his best to sneak out to the balcony and close the window quietly. Ruffling his hair, the breeze enveloped Alex’s body, cooling the skin and making the muscles strain in anticipation – it wasn’t particularly cold, like a Spring… With a foalish smile, Alex caught himself having no idea which time of the day it actually was: the Sun was three quarters up… or down its daily archway, because Alex didn’t know the location of cardinal points. Under the magical dome, presumably in the middle of it, one could hardly determine visually where the North was.

Alex inhaled the full chest of cool air almost making his head spin. He stretched to the bone crackle, feeling how his lungs were spreading, enjoying the exercise. Obedient to his will, the thin stripe of silvery metal on Alex’s head started spreading the faint glow all over him, in a wink packing the human into the habitual armour.

‘Looking decent at last!’ smirked Alex, remembering that he hadn’t taken off the towel. ‘So I won’t shock anypony, taking a warm-up.’

With a screech of metal against the marble balcony floor, Alex jumped into the air, screwing into the clear sky. The wings seemed to miss the regular job; they unfurled and trembled, eager to show what they were capable of. A few storeys of the crystal wall and the high spiked roof whizzed by in a single wink.

Scaring away a small flock of birds fluttering around the tower – they scolded the sudden peacebreaker with indignant chirping, Alex rose higher and hovered for a moment above the Crystal Palace. From this point of view, the entire building or better say the complex of them looked like a giant cluster of shiny crystals protruding from some vein. With its spiky shapes, smooth angular surfaces and asymmetry, shocking from the first sight yet elaborate, the Crystal Palace seemed to be rather a natural formation than something built by the masterful union of magic and hoof. Alex wondered if the palace was magically carved from the existing enormous crystal body or even magically grown as such.

Reflecting in a multitude of the rainbow-shining facets, the sun glares almost blinded him; shielding his eyes, Alex soared higher, so the entire Crystal City spread underneath like a colourful circular map. The majority of the buildings repeated the architectural style of the palace but in miniature and obviously modesty. Looking like smaller slabs of crystalline ore, they started sending colourful sparks and glares around at the first change of lighting, giving the entire city almost a festive feel during the sunny days. The roofs were flat or barely slanted, covered with some dark material, contrasting to what Alex saw in Ponyville and Canterlot. That could probably be explained by crystal ponies’ attempt to use solar warmth in the region where the locals were not spoilt by sunlight and heat, even taking the magical aid into account. Considering the low sun trajectory – even Celestia’s magic couldn’t make the Day Star shine equally for the entire Equus – having some semblance of everlasting late spring was an awesome achievement.

From the above, the city looked familiar and at the same time strange. Peering, Alex saw the same considerably narrow (due to the practical lack of massive transport) streets, occupied by the ponies hurrying on their daily business. The locals gave preference to the low-rise architecture, like most of Equestria: the houses and public buildings mostly had up to three-four floors maximum. That was the peculiarity Alex loved the most – a less dense population naturally provided less stress for each of the citizens and was in his opinion one of the reasons for general ponies’ geniality. The realization came suddenly – Alex couldn’t call the city green, which wasn’t a problem with any other settlement he saw, including such a huge one as Canterlot. Of course, there was enough vegetation surrounding the houses and growing along the streets, but due to Crystal Empire environment conditions, Alex couldn’t say that any of the building was literally drowning in the foliage like, for example, in Ponyville. The poorer, more stony soil and colder weather affected the local flora, thus giving the city different colour.

With a few powerful wing flaps, the landscape distanced: Alex could cover the surroundings of the Crystal City with his sight while the smaller buildings turned into the dollhouses with the large chunk of shiny crystal protruding in the centre of the circular city – the Crystal Palace. The ponies looked like tiny sparkling ants, crawling on the colourful map below. Another characteristic the human hadn’t gotten accustomed still: not so explicit across the rest of Equestria, there, in the proximity of Crystal Heart and its magic peak, they literally glimmered as if their coats were made of some gems, at times having that impossible faceted look.

Suddenly, inexplicable joy filled Alex; the light and wind kept pumping his soul with cheerfulness, and a wide smile found its way onto his face. Evading the dangers of the long hard road to the Frozen North, bringing all the co-traveller ponies unharmed (somehow, despite his prolonged blackout, Alex was absolutely sure that all the passengers arrived safely), Fluttershy keeping a constant eye on his recovery – everything made Alex forget about the imminent future troubles and the goal of their trip for a moment. He made a few loops and figures in the sky, inwardly resembling himself the birds carelessly skipping around the palace roof. That caused nothing but a chuckle and another burst of sparkling joy. A crazy idea – to check how high the magic dome spreads – came into Alex’s mind.

Turning around in the air, he started to gain height, darting up from the palace grounds. Higher and higher, he could already take a look at almost the entire territory, covered by the life-saving magical cap. The view resembled what Alex used to see at home, except the trees were generally lower and prairie-like patches competed with forests where the soil wasn’t cultivated and turned into the patchwork of fields and gardens. Hills looked more pronounced on the face of the Crystal Empire, which was cut here and there by the separate rock formations showing the proximity of the mountains. The wind started whistling in the human’s ears with increasing speed; smirking, Alex was to call the full helmet to his service.

“… thus I hope we’re coping well!” Following Celestia to the Palace doors, Shining Armour cocked his head optimistically. “Even if we lose sight of the pack occasionally, we are directing the creatures where expected. Without any casualties so far!” meaningfully added the stallion.

The gravel square in front of the palace entrance separated it from the accurate garden, humbler and flatter than the one in Canterlot, yet treated as masterfully. A few gardener ponies were on their duty at that moment, trimming the hedges, watering the vast flowerbeds and adjusting the paths. Taking a look around, the royalties crossed a narrow landing and headed down the shimmering, almost transparent at some places stairs.

“Or the goal of the Seekers matches our plans for now,” noting the guards’ salute with a slight nod, Princess Celestia wasn’t going to fall into excessive optimism easily. “What about the last phase? When, and if, they enter the dome.”

“Basing on Your Highness’ idea, that the Seekers want to approach the Crystal Heart one way or another,” the stallion lowered his voice, “we prepared an area where the beasts can be contained for a while, using all sorts of distraction and confronted by one of the planned methods.”

“There is a settlement near the dome border,” Shining Armour elaborated when they reached the bottom of the stairs. “We relocated the inhabitants completely, technically there are absolutely no civilians but… A large group of guards is residing there at the moment; the soldiers imitate the civil activity, in case our enemy receives any intelligence data. If they rely on any in the habitual sense of that term.”

“Obviously, without their regular armour,” added he under Celestia’s glance. “They have it stashed and prepared. I admit that it is a certain risk,” shrugged the unicorn, “but they know what to deal with. I sent volunteers only and… would have been there myself, if that didn’t blow up the cover entirely.”

“If only we could have the new armour,” Shining Armour shook his head. “We could try to eliminate the monsters on our own!”

“So, what do you plan exactly?” Celestia kept watching the gardeners, but the white strained ear told that her question wasn’t dictated by casual curiosity.

‘If these two get to know each other better,’ glimpsed in her head, making the Princess purse her lips, ‘we will get a full-fledged militarist movement.’

“We’re going to… herd them into the town and lock there, then give some ground for our attack,” Shining Armour glanced determinedly. “The buildings are empty, so even if Your Highness is forced to use powerful Solar magic…” he made a meaningful face. “This is deemed inevitable destruction. We can rebuild everything later and save lives now.”

The Princess kept silent; instead of an answer, Celestia’s eyes were chained to the ponies behind the green hedge. One by one the gardeners glanced up and remained staring at something; interrupting their work, they gestured one to another, attracting attention to the sky. Both Shining Armour and Celestia looked up just in time to notice the dark shadow which pierced the low cloud, folding its giant wings like an arrow. In a second, a distant bloop reached the ears of bewildered ponies on the ground.

Rising between the rare clouds – humble parts of the solid gloomy blanket covering the rest of Frozen North, which were mercifully allowed inside by the dome magic – Alex couldn’t see the upper border of the dome itself while the faint rainbow tint of the giant soap bubble still could be spotted where it met the ground far away. Under the impression of his investigative idea, Alex completely missed the moment of crossing the sonic barrier when a sudden thought flashed in his head.

‘If I pop out of that bubble… can I return as easily? There must be freezing cold outside of the dome!’ the human was feeling some discomfort already, having no clothes under his armour. ‘Last time I messed with local weather didn’t end well yet I had warm clothes underneath!’

Throwing another glance up, Alex was to admit that the dome could spread high enough, letting the sun shine through unobstructed by clouds, so even oxygen problems could easily add to the temperature ones. Deciding that it would be smarter to ask than to try, he made a wide loop in the sky so fast, that the light dimmed in his eyes for a fraction of a second with the catching up overload.

‘So, this is what a jet pilot must be feeling!’ realization struck Alex together with the hissing noise catching up with him from below, making him praise his armour and especially Luna’s gift once again. The entire city looked like a small patch on the ground from there. Fortunately, long gone the times when the mere sight of that could drive Alex unconscious. Guessing how much time it took to reach that height and inwardly shocked by the result he was getting, Alex nevertheless smirked and darted to the ground even faster. It seemed he found out the key to his problem – motivation!

At the bottom of the Crystal Palace stairs, Celestia and Shining Armour exchanged bewildered glances.

“Did he just take the sonic barrier?” the unicorn’s words didn’t leave space for the doubt – the stallion knew whom he was talking about.

“Inscrutable!” muttered Celestia, following the black dot in the sky. “The guards reported that he reached Canterlot from Ponyville neighbourhood in twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes… which,” the Princess was calculating for a couple of seconds, “which should give about seven-sixth of the sonic speed already.”

“Naturally, I didn’t believe them!” She looked at Shining Armour pensively. “They wouldn’t have joked, of course, but I thought there was a mistake in their time perception due to the extreme situation…”

A bright flash of pale-blue magic on top of the stairs interrupted her: the Princess and the unicorn stared at the light greyish-cerise alicorn girl galloping down the stairs in a completely non-royal manner. The long violet with rose and golden streaks mane fluttered behind and the crown with violet gem tilted dangerously on her head; the guards on the upper landing made an effort not to wince aside. Celestia couldn’t hold back a tiny smile – some traits of the former foalsitter could be easily recognized in Twilight.

“Careful, Cady!” Shining Armour hurried to the alicorn mare. “What’s going on, dear?”

“The human!” Cadence inhaled discomposedly; her light-purple eyes were tinted with panic. “He… vanished! I came to check on them… and found only sleeping girls there…”

“We know already…” Celestia threw her eyes up, gesturing for the girl’s attention. Increasing in the sight, the black dimly shining in the sunlight silhouette approached the tower balcony, unfurling the wings and slowing down. Seconds later, the sound wave of another bloop and following humming noise reached their ears.

“Oh!” Cadence gazed up just in time to notice the figure touching down and disappearing behind the balcony.

“That must be at least twice the sound speed…” automatically noted Shining Armour.

Without further ado, Princess Celestia lit her horn; the magical aura enveloped all three of them, teleporting the ponies to the tower.

The armour boots heavily clacked on the marble floor; Alex folded his wings and was going to remove the armour, which didn’t feel pleasant against the skin, even if the speedy descent warmed it up a bit. However, the same feeling reminded him of the lack of something important in his wardrobe, so with a chuckle, he only commanded the helmet to open. An emotional squeak followed by the frantic hoofsteps reached Alex’s ears from behind the closed window. The window sash slid open almost hitting the frame; the curtains were flowing around a gracious figure – somepony winged was struggling with them to come through, causing a little smile on the human’s face.

“Ohhhh, Ahhhhlex!” Finally, the annoying obstacle was overcome; the were curtains thrown aside with a sizzle of their bearing rings, revealing slightly out of breath Fluttershy closely followed by both unicorn maids. How she exhaled his name made Alex stumble a bit, reminding him of Rarity. Seeing that it was his marefriend still, he relaxed.

“Don’t ever do that again!” Fluttershy wanted to grab him in a cuddle, but slowed down in time – the spiky armour wasn’t quite welcoming for that. “I mean… Alex, please… You could wake me up, before… You scared me so much!” She approached him, looking up into Alex’s eyes pleadingly. The maids kept dithering in the doorway with unconfident expressions.

A bright flash made both unicorn girls jump on the spot with a squeak, bringing three more ponies to the balcony, which became herded at once. Strangely, Fluttershy didn’t even bat an eyelash at that sudden disturbance, staring at Alex and biting her lip.

“Could you please… remove all that steel?” asked she a bit hoarsely; the girl’s eyes were still chained to Alex’s. “I can’t even hug you properly.”

A glance over the shoulder confirmed the newcomers to be Princess Celestia and Shining Armour; the latter Alex hadn’t met personally before, but could easily guess based on Twilight’s stories. Princess Cadence – whom he knew from Twilight as well – was cautiously peeking from behind of her husband and aunt in law.

“I’m afraid it’s next to impossible at the moment, my love,” Alex said softly, looking for a way to explain his problem diplomatically. “Because I would prefer to face the ladies, moreover, the royalty… errmmm… while being a bit more dressed. Alas, I couldn’t find anything…”

“Oh!” Cupping her mouth with her fore hoof, Fluttershy remembered that Alex had just escaped the “hospital bed”; the girl’s eyes widened in realization, but Alex could swear that he noticed two gamine sparkles in them.

The maids were doing their best to muffle their giggling but mostly failed, throwing cautious gazes at the princesses; then one of the unicorn girls bowed quickly and whisked back to the room.

“One moment, please!” chirped she.

Shining Armour was chuckling outright at the situation and the reaction of the mares; he nuzzled Cadence on the strained ear, making the Princess breathe out and relax – nopony was going to bite her.

“Ahem!” Celestia’s cheeks flamed up and she tried hard to keep her face, squeezing out a wry smile. “I’m glad that… you both are okay now and…”

“Your Highness! Excuse me please!” the distraction returned in the face of the unicorn maid, levitating something clean and folded. The clang of metal from the room told about another guest, making everypony turn heads.

Contrary to the rest, Rainstorm could ignore Alex’s steel spikes to a certain extent, being packed in the finest possible armour herself. Rattling on the marble floor with her steel-shod hooves, the mare stormed through the open window and, before anypony could utter a word, rose on her hind legs, squeezing Alex in a hug with an earsplitting clang and screeching. She backed after a second in complete silence.

“Errmmm…” Rainstorm sat down almost in a saluting pose. The long polished helmet covering the entire mare’s head, couldn’t hide the slight embarrassment in her voice. “Ummm… Glad to see you back in line, m… sir! No incidents happened during your absence,” added she in a deliberately business-like tone.

“Ahem!” Celestia woke up first, blinking. She threw an appraising glance at the human. “Well… As you seem to feel well enough for the… flying exercises, I suppose you can join us a bit later and afford a discussion. Of course, after you fill yourself up,” the Princess took another look at Alex’s haggard face, “and…” Celestia stumbled as her glance moved to Fluttershy, who didn’t take her eyes from the human.

With a sigh and indefinite hoof wave, Princess Celestia vanished with another magical flash.

“Well… We shouldn’t be a disturbance as well, right, darling?” Princess Cadence pulled Shining Armour towards the room, nodding to Fluttershy and Alex. “We’ll see you later. Let’s go, Rainstorm!” She gave path to both Shining and the armoured mare, keeping behind and almost packing them off the balcony and the bedroom.

“Thank you very much!” Alex could finally take his clothes from the maid.

“Come on, Alex! Let’s fix you up,” perked up Fluttershy, dragging him into the room and towards the subtle door. “The bathroom is here.” The maids glanced at each other with mischievous smirks.

Alex could barely enter and put his folded clothes on the first horizontal surface he spotted and address the magical band on his head. The bathroom door closed behind with a click of the lock as the silvery shine started removing the steel from him.

“Alex!” Fluttershy turned around and wanted to tell something but the words stuck in her throat, making the girl swallow fitfully instead. Without hesitation, as the last armour piece left Alex, she simply jumped at him, wrapping her legs around her human. Alex staggered, barely staying on his feet; the towel dropped on the tiled floor.

Feeling the soft warm coat against his skin and the tail wrapping around his leg, Alex could only hold Fluttershy, soothingly stroking her fragrant mane and shoulders while the girl gave him a deep, thirsty kiss. Her small fore hooves kept travelling along Alex’s back while Fluttershy continued working for his reactions. The latter didn’t linger to manifest themselves all over him: with the fluttering girl’s body snuggling tighter into him, Alex couldn’t avoid lighting up with passion, feeling the life in its entire brightness at once. Appearing again at the edge of perception, the lavender aroma only increased his arousal, even if it seemed somewhat strange there at that moment.

“Strange… you smell of lavender a bit,” Alex nuzzled Fluttershy’s cheek tenderly when their lips parted for a short break.

“Mmm… Luna was here with a short visit while you were unconscious,” something in Fluttershy’s voice made Alex focus his eyes on her muzzle, spotting how her cheeks gained a little blush. “It was her who brought Rainstorm… And… Umm, I was in disarray still. She did her best to… console me,” Fluttershy bit her lip cutely, lifting and reaching for something behind Alex’s back. The noise of the shower filled the room.

“But…” added the girl, lowering herself and settling in his embrace before her turquoise eyes widened and lips dug into Alex’s again, making them both melt in another kiss, “that wasn’t eno-o-o-ahhh!!!”

*

“Oh, here you are, finally!” Celestia brightened, taking a greeting look at the human and the pegasus mare who entered the high but narrow arched doors. “We, frankly speaking, expected you a little earlier, but…”

Catching a glimpse of amusement in the Princess’ expression, Alex and Fluttershy exchanged glances; Fluttershy did her best to imitate equanimity while both were taking the free seats at a big round table. With hidden amusement, Alex pulled a chair for the girl, helping her seat herself.

“…it seems that I was right, delaying the meeting for an hour anyway,” the Princess was spinning a teaspoon with her aura musingly.

Building guesses if the Princess was genuinely giving him time to catch up with the world after his prolonged blackout, Alex sank to the free chair. The chance was equally possible that Celestia was having fun, naturally guessing how Fluttershy could pounce Alex, seeing him finally safe and awaken.

‘She is completely in Fluttershy’s team, if that’s the term,’ glimpsed in Alex’s head, ‘preferring Shy being next to me all the time over Luna. I guess Tia hasn’t found out that we came to the… tripartite agreement!’ at that thought, he did his best for his feelings not to show up too obviously on his face, throwing a glance into the high windows at the opposite side of the hall.

The image opening to his eyes behind was truly attention-worthy: placed on top of the subtle elevation amidst the otherwise flat Crystal City, the Palace provided an awesome chance to see far away to the border of the inhabited land and beyond, at least from that particular room. The broad garden, presented by undersized vegetation mostly, spread out below, barely tinting the bottom of the picture with green. The rest of it was taken by the naturally formed “valley” of fields and wealds between separate rock bodies and settlements, rarely framed with the dark-green brush of the fir woods. Alex remembered how Twilight told him about that land being recovered to the inhabitable condition not long ago, so the forests were still adapting to the less harsh conditions compared to the wind-ridden frozen wasteland, humbly taking back the territory in a more favourable climate. Anyway, it gave a beeline view to the icy mountains towering far behind the magical dome, the marge of grizzled gloomy clouds herding around their tops and a wide strip of the clear blue skies above. As the clouds moved, the sunlight shining from behind the Palace hit an occasional glacier, making it flash for a moment like a distant beacon of pure diamonds.

Alex’s eyes slid across the politely expectant muzzles of Shining and Cadence – the couple was given the opportunity to enjoy that view on a daily basis, thus they could take the liberty to ignore the image, which lost part of its initial awe-effect on them – and with a tint of regret, the human was to return to the more prosaic matters.

“As she arrived to help you with your task, I suppose,” before Alex could utter a word, the Princess noticed, “I thought it would be natural to invite your…” Celestia stumbled, looking for a neutral word, “your aide, ermmm, Rainstorm to join our meeting. All the data she can get may turn out crucial for your advantage.”

Alex smirked at the sound of the opening doors behind – obviously, properly guessing Rainstorm’s mission, Princess Celestia didn’t yet give her determination enough credit. Showing up in the doorway, the pegasus mare made a few steps into the hall and froze on the spot, waiting for further orders.

“Your Highness?” sounding like from a steel barrel, Rainstorm straightened as if she was on the Royal Guard’s duty or parade.

“Come on in, Rainstorm!” With a dainty smile, Celestia nodded toward the gathering. “You will need to know, what you are going to face, my…”

Alex figured out that the Princess was about to habitually address Rainstorm as “my little pony”, but evidently reconsidered as the term was hardly fitting for the tall, armour-clad mare. Raising her fore hoof in a welcoming to take a seat gesture, Celestia only let out a tiny sigh when Rainstorm approached, freezing again like a metal statue a few inches behind Alex and Fluttershy’s backs.

“Your Highness! Before anything else is said, I need to inform everypony present about one very important thing!” Alex looked at Celestia deadly serious. “There is another, totally different in behaviour, kind of Seeker now…” He couldn’t tell that his words became a thunderbolt, but a pause that fell was more than self-explanatory. “The flying creatures… the Flyers, so to call, appeared during our trip to the Crystal Empire or some time before.”

He heard a small tingle behind, but when Alex looked over his shoulder, Rainstorm was standing on the spot as a solid piece of rock. Whatever emotions swirled under her helmet, the mare didn’t utter a word.

“Fluttershy mentioned some different creature, supposedly a flying one, you could catch a glimpse of when your train car got blocked by the snowdrifts,” the Princess closed her eyes for a second, pursing her lips as if she was hoping till the end for the news to turn out a mistake. “So, there are… flying Seekers now indeed. That changes things considerably!”

“We haven’t seen any flying creatures so far,” Shining Armour cupped his chin with the hoof pensively. “However, we haven’t approached the Seekers too close, remembering about their mental impact…”

“I would prefer to mistake but…” Alex shook his head slowly. “While quite clumsy and jerky on the ground, they are fast and dangerous in the air. Truly deadly in close combat, both on the ground and in the air, as they have sharp blades of bone-like tissue for their extremities and the pointy beak-like heads. And the beasts don’t hesitate to use them,” he tried to describe the monsters briefly to the present ones.

“Oh, Celestia!” Princess Cadence gasped with widened eyes, quickly covering her mouth with the hoof. The white alicorn mare kept listening to the human passionlessly.

“Yes, Your Highness!” Alex turned to the Princess of Crystal Empire. “I’m afraid they are quite nasty creatures. And, considering their only semblance of sense organ – the red “eye” just as the… normal Seekers have, these monsters provide the same effect for the unprotected ponies most likely.”

“Keeping all that in mind,” Celestia looked at the human and the pegasus mare behind his back, “it gives only us three who can directly confront them.”

“With all respect, I think you shouldn’t get too close to them either,” Alex made a pensive face but the Princess saw that there was no subliminal sense in his words. “Leaving that as some sort of backup plan we hopefully won’t need.”

“Well, that’s exactly what we were expecting!” Shining Armour even leaned forward. “We practically laid a trap – cleared a seemingly inhabited area to lure the entire group of Seekers there and hold them, while somepony capable could deal with them by point strikes.”

“Don’t worry, miss,” he turned to Fluttershy, who just raised her fore hoof, going to contribute to the discussion. “There will be no potential victims in the area when the Seekers arrive…”

“Oh! That’s great, no doubt,” the pegasus girl gave a tiny smile. “What’s about your guards, Your Highness? I haven’t seen any protective armour used by any of them since we arrived in the Crystal Palace.”

Shining Armour could only let out a heavy sigh.

“That’s because we don’t have any yet, miss! Hopefully, we start getting it soon,” added he in a half-voice aside. “But all the guards were instructed to keep a safe distance from the creatures, directing the latter by magical means when possible.”

“Surprisingly, while they don’t favour cold,” the unicorn smirked, “they do their best to flee the fire as well. We noticed that from the very first Seeker,” Shining Armour threw a glance at Celestia; Alex and Fluttershy noticed how the Princess nodded slowly. “So, we keep the constant red line between our guards and the monsters.”

“Actually, we are… herding them since we discovered the group last time – yesterday, slowly pushing them towards the border,” added he.

“But, Shiny!” Voicing her concerns, Princess Cadence looked startled at the moment. “Wasn’t it dangerous?”

“I mean, what if he didn’t… what if he woke up several days later?” continued she in a calmer tone, throwing an apologetic glance at Alex. “And the Seekers entered the dome already…”

“I decided to push only when Her Highness Celestia arrived,” with a slight bow towards the Day Princess, Shining Armour explained. His fore hoof softly lay on top of his wife’s fore hoof. “Weighing the risks, I still prefer to keep a constant eye on these beasts to losing them again, so they pop out when we least expect it. Moreover, somewhere deep under the dome already!”

“That’s reas…” started Alex, stumbling when he realized – they said that simultaneously with Celestia.

“Hmmm… That’s indeed reasonable,” repeated Celestia with imperturbable expression. “So, where is that place? Enlighten us finally, Shining?”

“Just… a moment…” with almost an illusionist gesture, the unicorn materialized a large map, taking some effort to fold it by half. “Here it is! A modest settlement right behind the magic dome at the South-West,” the map lay on the table so its folded part appeared under Shining and Cadence fore hooves and the edge got in the sight of Alex and Fluttershy; leaning forward, Celestia could see the small dark point with an inelaborate name, highlighted by Shining’s aura. “Away from the South gate and railways, but close enough to call for reinforcements from there if necessary,” noticed the stallion, pulling another smaller map and laying it on top of the first.

“Just a small town,” he nodded towards the detailed plan of the settlement. “But it has enough buildings and corners for the monsters to wander around, getting distracted.”

‘I hope that we won’t as well!’ smirked Alex inwardly, examining the map and realizing that it was impossible to learn it fast.

“Excuse me, please,” Fluttershy was leaning over the plan, but one fluffy yellow ear perked, turning towards the doors. “It seems, somepony has an emergency!”

Indeed, Alex and then all the rest noticed some distant noise, approaching from the long gallery and turning into the hurried drumming hoofsteps. The gathering exchanged glances; Celestia raised one eyebrow when the steps not even slowed down in front of the door but rather turned galloping as if the newcomer sped up seeing the close goal of his determined rush. Strangely, the guards outside didn’t even ask a word.

The doors blast opened, letting through a breathless crystal pony guard – Alex imagined him running all the way from the Palace entrance and opening the doors literally with his forehead. The latter didn’t make Alex smile though.

“Your Highness!” the guard bowed to Princess Celestia when he could squeeze a word out again. Celestia barely nodded, gesturing him to report without foreword.

“Your Highness!” the stallion took his breath and turned to Shining Armour and Cadence. “The group of Seekers… has entered the prepared area!”

Perhaps, everypony was already prepared for that situation emerging sooner or later – the news didn’t make an explosive effect. Alex could read a visible portion of readiness even in widened eyes of Princess Cadence.

“The entire pack?” simply asked Shining Armour.

“Yes, the entire pack,” confirmed the crystal pony guard. “About two dozens, as reported!”

“So, it started!” the unicorn got up, straightening; sending a tender glance to Cadence, the light-cerulean eyes became hard and determined. “What will be our decision? I need to be with my serviceponies at the moment, regardless of it!”

“We’re accepting the call,” drawled Alex, taking a look around the gathering; he then quickly pushed back his chair. “That’s what we planned anyway!”

“Fluttershy,” he turned to the pegasus mare. “As there aren’t any potential victims in the area… I would like to ask you to stay here. No… I’m insisting on you staying in the Palace. Two dozens of Seekers is not something I’d wish you to encounter!”

Throwing back the pink wave of her mane, the girl looked into his eyes for a second and silently nodded with understanding.

“I guess it’ll take me some time to reach the border,” continued Alex. “Can you transfer Rainstorm to the site with you?” he turned to the unicorn stallion.

“I’m not sure if I can teleport two of us to such a distance,” Shining Armour shrugged with regret. “Especially with all the armour…”

Alex pursed his lips for a moment.

“Tia, can thou give them both a lift, please?” the human suddenly brightened, shifting his gaze to the Day Princess and not paying attention to the shocked gasp reaching his ears from the opposite side of the table. “Methinks, thou hast the means to look after us despite the distance – that magic mirror of thine or something… Correct?! So, thou art our backup plan,” Alex smirked wryly, meeting Celestia’s glance, “in case we befall to fail.”

The Princess slowly nodded in agreement.

“Excellent!” Alex turned to Rainstorm. “Thou shalt be transferred next to the settlement. Watch the situation afore I reach thither on my own. Thy main task is to distract the creatures this time – please, dost not try to engage directly, especially on to the flying ones.”

“Yes, sir!” the armoured mare almost saluted; even if Rainstorm expected more involvement, she didn’t let a tiny note of disappointment slip out.

“You’re staying with the princesses, my love,” Alex hugged Fluttershy reaching to him. “We’re kicking some Dark Mist butts… and hopefully, no mass destruction magic is needed!” he sent a smiling glance to Celestia, heading to the doors.

“Come with me!” the human waved to the crystal guard on the run. “You’ll need to show me the proper direction!”

“Errmmm…” Shining Armour threw an inquiring glance at the Day Princess when the galloping steps faded behind the doors. Celestia only shook her head slowly, gesturing for him to join Rainstorm in the centre of the hall.

They almost dropped out of the portal and it took Rainstorm a second to understand where the above and below were situated, even if it wasn’t her first teleportation already. Thankfully their hooves hit the ground immediately, yet for a moment she tried to spread her wings reflexively. Bringing Shining Armour and her to the destination, the teleport was already collapsing, flashing with a tiny bright spark in the end.

When her senses returned to balance, Rainstorm took a look around – they found themselves at the grassy, open to all the winds and draughts hill overlooking the surroundings. The settlement, Shining Armour told about, wasn’t far, lying behind a grove of low trees at the foot of the hill. It wasn’t too big: the buildings of various heights herded together, forming the labyrinth of the narrow, crooked streets, as Rainstorm could see from their vantage-ground. The place was chosen specifically – one, unfamiliar with the town, could roam inside for hours, especially if all the obvious ways out were promptly cut. The latter was exactly the guards’ plan after luring the hostile creatures into that trap.

The mare caught herself hearing nothing except the wind wrapping around the hill. That felt strange, as the mild climate offered the birds’ concerts to a grateful listener almost everywhere else under the magic dome. There though, the spreading silence could mean only one thing – something was going to happen; something that drove the sensitive feral inhabitants away from the area. That could seem suspicious to their enemy as well; however, Rainstorm remembered that the Seekers were known to pay little attention to the wildlife, generally ignoring anything that didn’t cross with their supposed task. Unlike the animals, Rainstorm and Shining Armour felt the faint signs of the Seekers’ presence right upon their arrival.

The town ahead looked sleepy, but straining her eyesight a little more, Rainstorm spotted some movement: first at the far edge of the grove, then behind the natural covers – rock outcrops and small terrain folds occupied by runty vegetation – left and right of the settlement. The crystal guards circled the town, ready to hold the positions for a long time if necessary. Something touched her shoulder, screeching lightly on the metal of the mare’s armour – silently, Shining Armour gestured her to the large rock protruding lower from the hill.

“As we still don’t know how observant these Seekers are,” noticed he when they hid in the shadow, “staying openly on the high spot could probably alarm them earlier. How long will it take the human to get here?” Shining Armour glanced at the mare inquiringly.

“How far are we from the palace?” Rainstorm asked in reply, still peering into the town ahead. “It will depend on the speed but…”

“The dome radius is about two hundred miles. We are close to the border.”

“A matter of minutes,” she answered evasively. “He is constantly training the flight, so…”

“I saw already,” smirked Shining Armour. “Fine! We prepared to hold them inside the town for several hours at least if no surprises emerge from their side.”

“Rest assured, they can provide a few,” Rainstorm muttered aside. She sniffed the oncoming wind with her nostrils, making a concerned face. As if confirming the faint smell, several trails of smoke started rising into the sky, showing up at the various spots around the settlement. “What’s that?!”

“How do you think we were going to keep them grounded?” the unicorn squinted slyly. “As soon as the Seekers got there, the obvious exits were barricaded by collapsed structures and fire – our guests seem to dislike the latter much! There is no exit from the town now, at least by the ground. But to find that out the monsters will need to find their way to the north edge of it, according to their course. And that’s not going to be an easy task either!” Shining Armour smirked meaningfully.

“Hmmm…” Rainstorm huffed indefinitely.

“Thankfully, the complex optical instruments turned out conveying their effects not!” the unicorn pulled out an altiscope, levitating it to his eyes. “Unlike the common binoculars, this one contains reflective parts,” Shining Armour explained with joy in his voice. “I tried it when Princess Celestia mentioned your protective helmet in one of her letters. Don’t tell Cadence though!”

“And… here… we… are!” muttered he after a minute of concentrated observation. The stallion turned away from his optics and threw a doubtful glance at Rainstorm. “I don’t know if I can… adapt it to your headpiece…”

“There is no need,” drawled Rainstorm, spotting a moving object darker than the roofs and stone walls. “I think I can see one. Near the town hall, right? Or whatever that tower is…”

“Yeah,” Shining Armour pressed into the oculars again. “One, two… Aha…” estimated he, as more and more creatures were entering the open place cautiously.

“As I said,” Rainstorm exclaimed, poking her steel-shod hoof up somewhere behind their backs. “Even less than ten minutes!”

Staring up, both noticed the dark dot; it was constantly growing, surprisingly approaching them from a different direction than expected. Cutting the clear skies, it passed under the lonely cloud and moments later the cloud mass started curling and pulling after the faint trail, stretching out along the course of the flying object.

The stallion gave a quiet whistle; from the corner of her view, Rainstorm saw him following the slowing down silhouette.

“Made a hook,” Shining Armour noticed with satisfaction. “Approaching the target from the east. It’s reasonable – the sun won’t be shining into his eyes… Not giving out the Crystal City direction either,” squinted he approvingly.

“That speed though…” he glanced at the mare when the loud air sizzling finally reached their ears.

Rainstorm only shrugged; the polished metal of the helmet didn’t express anything.

“I see you both know what you are doing!” the unicorn smirked, hiding the altiscope. “And I need to be with my serviceponies now.” Shining Armour nodded towards the town.

“Keep the Seekers in sight until you soar, that’ll make your job easier,” advised he, disappearing with a flash. “Stay alive!”

Unfreezing, Rainstorm jumped up, unfurling her wings. The steel-shod hooves gave a clank on the large rock, in the shade of which the mare was hiding a second ago; giving the additional boost, they sent her in the sky when the wings found the air stream. The grassy hillside interspersing with motley calvities of granite rushed back under her; faster and faster, till it smudged into a continuous green carpet. Rainstorm kept gliding low above the slope, gaining speed while staying undiscovered for the time being.

At the bottom, the grassland gave way to the grove and Rainstorm was to soar higher. Snuggling to the ground, the low spreading vegetation turned out to be rather trees than some large shrubs. They were rustling and whispering in the wind cautiously as if sharing the strain of the moment before the inevitable battle. Inching above the tops, the mare slid left, going to get around the settlement and approach it from the South. The sun then should shine on her back, highlighting her approach yet at the same time disturbing the enemy, considering they still could rely on some sort of vision.

Remembering about her main task – to distract the Seekers, giving Alex a tactical advantage to take them down, preferably one by one – Rainstorm threw a glance over her shoulder. The silhouette in the sky slowed down, reflecting the sunlight for a second and producing a blinding metallic flash.

‘He spotted the Seekers!’ with that guess, Rainstorm watched how the steel arrow in the sky dived down, entering the hedgehop almost in a wink, and started speeding up again.

‘I’m losing time!’ Rainstorm turned sharply, leaving the sun behind. She had her own weapon with her. However, the spear, while being effective upon the direct hit, could turn into a disadvantage in no time if Rainstorm missed the aim – for another attack, the mare was to retrieve her weapon from the ground, opening herself to the enemy’s retaliation.

The town lay ahead, tied to the end of the road, which was snaking to the south under her wings. Rainstorm redoubled her effort: the stones and separate shrubs turned into striped flashing by. Cutting the field in the sight of the town edge buildings, a small ravine showed up. Some dull metal glow attracted Rainstorm’s attention – a unicorn guard threw his head up, gazing back and following the mare, who whizzed above their squad waiting for orders.

The walls emerged as if growing from the ground – Rainstorm was to soar higher, taking a quick look around the town labyrinth. Several streets opening outside of the settlement were blocked by the conglomerations of debris. The heaps of stones and wooden beams sticking out with the sharp fractures were the parts of the nearest buildings most likely, demolished at the moment the black abominations deepened into the town. The smoke columns were rising here and there on the town border; Rainstorm caught a glimpse of crackling flames nearby. The pegasus mare smirked inwardly – Shining Armour approached the task of blocking the Seekers with all possible seriousness.

Her eyes quickly found the small square near the protruding tower, town hall as she called it. The creatures were still there, choosing their way among several indistinguishable narrow streets. Soaring higher, to keep the enemy in sight and to show herself at the same time, Rainstorm rushed to the Seekers. She kept her wings at the right angle to make the oncoming wind sizzle loudly on the metal-protected margins; her shadow fell on the square pavement. The simple trick worked: regardless of the monsters simply feeling the ponies’ presence or hearing her, one by one, the centaur-like creatures turned, rising their “glances” at the approaching mare.

Rainstorm shuddered: despite the protective helmet, she almost felt those shining red “eyes” peering into her at once. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the spear tighter. More and more Seekers showed up: coming out of the narrow passages between the buildings, emerging from under the colourful canopies, they were spreading around the square. Expecting an easy fight against a single enemy, over a dozen of the creatures came into her sight, yet Rainstorm could spot movement in the deep shadows of the adjoining streets – there were more of them.

With a bright metal flash, something jetted in front of Rainstorm’s bewildered sight, cutting the town square in halves and sending the dust fly in two dispersing waves. It seemed to fall from the sky, passing the view in the lowest point of its bowl-like trajectory, then darting up again right at the edge of the square, almost scratching the edge of the nearest roof. The mare froze on the spot, hovering above the suddenly becoming motionless square. The next second, with a deep sound of a giant broken string – Rainstorm felt the urge to cover her ears – the shock wave came. Frantically flapping her wings, Rainstorm tried to hold on the spot, almost blown away by the air pressure, which made the monsters below stagger. All the dust was swept away in a wink, forming a semblance of dandelion fluff at the end of the square before settling.

One of the Seekers in the middle of the ruffled square shuddered and started falling apart in front of her eyes. The strike of the glaive was such a monstrous force and speed, that it cut the creature in halves. Bemusedly, Rainstorm watched how the parts were sinking to the ground like in some slow-motion movie. The dark mist-like substance started coming out of the severed Seeker; it tried to pull up along the trajectory of the attacker but soon began to fall, thinning and spreading around without the point of gravitation. The steel shining spear was too high in the sky to be reached.

The entire square came in motion as if hit by a spell! The Seekers rushed under the cover, hiding under the balconies and awnings, hurrying to the doorways and tight corners of the houses. Doubtlessly, it would be next to impossible to repeat the sudden aerial attack with ease.

Sending mental damnation, Rainstorm scanned the square, looking for any aim she could hit with her spear. As if in reply to the threat, three slim dark silhouettes rushed into the sky, emerging from the unseen before nooks between the town buildings. Soaring from the farther part of the town, they managed to sneak further north than the main pack, apparently.

Bony constitution, black leathery look of skinny bodies and large wings, which had long blade-like claws, same as their rear extremities ended with – Rainstorm realized that she was observing the creatures Alex barely told them about. The flying Seekers, the Flyers! Completely ignoring the bewildered pegasus, they darted after the receding attacker, quickly picking up speed.

‘Time to contribute, girl!’ grabbing her spear tighter, Rainstorm jetted after the flying monsters. In a few seconds, the realization came that despite her speed she was losing the race to the dark abominations, which were catching up with the human. Thankfully, noticing the pursuit, Alex was already turning around. Making a loop in the air, he dashed towards the Flyers, gaining the speed with incredible pace. Before the flying monsters could orientate, he halved the distance.

The next second, Alex’s silhouette smudged in Rainstorm’s sight: folding the wings, the steel spear darted towards the three chasers, screwing into the air between them and momentarily appearing behind. An earsplitting bloop reached Rainstorm’s hearing – the string of ripped turbulent air struck the Flyers, scattering them away momentarily and swirling chaotically. Trying their best not to lose height, the monsters regrouped.

‘They don’t look beaten enough yet…’ thought Rainstorm, using that sudden confusion of the enemy to shorten the distance.

Giving the enemy fair credit, the Flyers didn’t take long to recover, rushing the next second into an attack. Like some angry black wasps, they started circling around the human, seeking the best chance to strike him down. Alex swirled in the sky, reflecting their attacks, returning with gain whenever possible. The entire clash rolled up and down in the sky on the spiralling trajectory, making it hard to distinguish where each participant in the fight was.

Steel clatter on the blade claws, air sizzle and bright bunches of sparks spraying out each time Alex’s weapon hit the bony extremities of the Flyers – Rainstorm reconsidered entering the fight as it was at that moment. It went without saying, approaching the battle meant suicide. That giant fan of steel, wings and claws would have ground the mare, even probably regardless of her armour. Instead of that, she started flying around, keeping a safe distance and waiting for a chance to attack a Flyer accidentally thrown out of the main mess.

‘Damn it! No chance to approach the monsters hiding on the ground with these bastards on your tail! Ready to strike you down the moment you gape,’ from the corner of her eye, Rainstorm kept watching the town square below, noticing how the Seekers began to crawl out of their cover cautiously. A reckless thought to kick them back into corners came to her mind, but before the mare decided to rush down…

Marking the spot she was hovering over, as the town hall was hardly visible from their positions, and spotting the place Alex swooped down to, Shining Armour and his serviceponies entered the fight. Less than in a second, the air below filled with sparkling fireballs! Flying in on ballistic trajectories, the magical projectiles carpeted the town square and the nearby blocks. Each fiery cluster hit the ground with roar and boom, with its flames starting to flow around the place of impact; the flood of them turning the area into a burning and flickering apocalypse. Two Seekers, which managed to get out to the square, disappeared behind the raging wall of flames. But Rainstorm could clearly see – the rest didn’t hurry to meet such an infamous fate, staying under the protection of the stone buildings, which yet withstood the bombing, minimizing the fire hazard.

Apparently, Alex decided that confronting the nimble Flyers in the air was a waste of time and effort because he suddenly dived and dashed to the ground, forcing the three of his pursuers to follow.

‘What a crazy idea!’ after the momentary confusion, Rainstorm darted after them. ‘Does he want to try pushing some of the flying monsters into the flames?’

On the one hoof, entering the crooked, narrow town streets would certainly lower the speed of the flying Seekers, making them a better aim for her. On the other – Rainstorm clearly saw that landing wasn’t his plan, yet manoeuvering in the narrow gaps between the buildings would be quite hard if not impossible for Alex with his speed and wingspan.

Keeping some distance behind the entire group, Rainstorm watched with round eyes how the human scudded almost vertically to the edge of the town. The bony flying scoundrels followed close, spreading into a short diagonal line to notice and prevent any possible sharp manoeuvre of their aim. However, as Rainstorm noted with grim satisfaction, the closer to the ground they were getting, the slower became the Seekers’ speed.

‘Flesh puppets or not, they definitely don’t want to turn into a black splotch on the pavement!’ the wry smile slid across the mare’s lips under the helmet.

She was already estimating the course and the distance to the flying monster going last, planning to hit him with her spear. By some incredible effort, Alex braked down a few feet above the stone-paved road; the long main feathers on the back edges of his wings even got bent up slightly on their tips. Turning almost at the right angle, he rushed along the street, which seemed a bit straighter and wider than the rest of the labyrinth. The Flyers drew in between the houses after him, forcedly stretching into the line and losing the advantage of simultaneous attack chance.

The walls of crystal and bricks, the windows, the balconies and awnings, which she needed to dodge, started flashing by. Rainstorm tried to keep slightly higher than the rushing pursuit in her sight to be able to see the forthcoming situation, not missing an obstacle or a turn. They already passed two of them at that crazy speed; the Flyers slowed down considerably at the sharp turns of the narrow uneven street, but Rainstorm ignored the chance to strike the trailing one – she was quite busy with fitting each next turn herself.

However, despite the heat and tension of the pursuit, Rainstorm started guessing the general direction of that race – Alex was leading them to the town square, doing his best to exhaust the Flyers by wavering them between the houses and corners. The mare was preparing for the square to suddenly pop ahead: in that case, she would need to pull up immediately. Perhaps, Alex was going to fly straight through the opening raging with flames, with the new projectiles hitting the square, to pull the monsters under the strike of the crystal guards; it wasn’t a suitable variant for her.

Indeed, after another turn, a wider gap showed up ahead: a tiny piece of the blue sky, overshadowed by dense clouds of smoke, orange glares dancing on the walls of the houses on the edge of the square filled with flames. The latter began settling down though – fortunately, shortly after the air fight moved to the town structures, the crystal guards prudently stopped the shelling, fairly supposing they could easily hit the wrong somepony. The last several fireballs plummeted into the pavement, pouring it with the fiery spreading clouds, and the cannonade died out. Right in time, in the next second Alex burst into the town square, fanning the dying flames high with his wings and crossing the open space, leaving a bright fiery trail on the ground.

Even if the monsters following him felt the burn, it turned out insufficient to distract, let alone stop them. Encouraged by the broad space, they immediately formed a line behind Alex, going to attack him at the tiniest chance. The human already headed to the opposite edge of the square, his speed dropped a little as if he was welcoming the black abominations to try their luck.

Rainstorm gasped involuntarily – Alex was flying to the narrow gap between two large brick walls, it could hardly be named a street, rather some dark alley – it looked impossible for him to fly through there normally. The Flyers probably suspected the same, as they spread wider to intercept any Alex’s attempt to turn away in front of the approaching obstacle. The speed was still quite high.

Several yards before the narrow gap, right when the collision seemed imminent, the wings sent the human forward, boosting him with one powerful flap. In a blink of an eye, Alex turned vertically, drawing into the alley parallel to its walls with a loud bloop caused by momentarily increasing speed. A strong draft pushed the dust and garbage outside of the opening.

The middle Flyer entered the narrow alley automatically; by the uneven jerky movements and strange trajectory, Rainstorm realized that it wasn’t the preferred event development for the creature. However, she managed to notice how the monster straightened in the air and continued the pursuit into the darkness of the gap. The rightmost and going the last Flyer had time to correct its trajectory and drew into the passage almost normally, even if its speed dropped cautiously.

The leftmost, closest to the improvised trap beast crashed into the edge of the gap, smashing hard against the house wall! The bricks started raining down with a loud rumble, large cracks running across the wall surface from the spot of impact! The dust fumed up, filling the air and covering the scene for a moment.

Making an effort to hover straight, Rainstorm finally closed her mouth. She soared higher to be able to see where Alex was leading the remaining Flyers. Simplifying her task, a fountain of broken planks, pieces of cloth and various small debris burst from another end of the alley, showing where the race broke out to the wider street. Apparently, some obstacles in the narrow passage turned out to be unavoidable. Watching Alex taking right and generally clockwise regarding her, the mare understood his plan to bring the flying seekers to the central area at least once again. Doubting the second success of the same trick, Rainstorm dashed about the square in search of something which could help to get rid of the persistent flying bastards. She saw how one or another of the Flyers tried to rise higher from time to time to attempt an attack, making Alex change the course sharply, judging by how the creature stumbled and jerked in the air, diving down again after that. Her mind was ripping apart by the wish to help and the ringing alarm of one puzzle – where the rest of the Seekers could be.

‘Hopefully, they couldn’t get far from here!’ Making a loop around the town, she completely lost sight of the monsters, feeling almost guilty now. ‘They couldn’t escape discreetly, I’m sure… It was scorching Tartarus down there, they must have no time for the retreat!’

On the other hoof, flying around the square, Rainstorm didn’t notice any large ash piles or the Dark Mist spreading around; it allowed her to suppose that none of the Seekers was eliminated by the blind shelling. Meanwhile, the flames died down, leaving the pitch-black burn marks on the pavement and surrounding walls, but no signs of the remnants the mare was seeking.

‘They must be hiding somewhere…’ the mare stumbled mid-thought, flying past the town hall for yet another time – one of the walls of the tower was damaged. Most likely by the time, as the repair works were planned and one side of the tower was stuck all over with scaffolding. The top of the tower possessed no roof, gaping with the opening which welcomed all the winds and rains. Approaching the town hall, Rainstorm noticed the long cracks heading down the wall from the tower top; several temporary wooden strainers supported the wall along its height, literally not letting it crumble down under its mass.

‘If I can unbalance it…’ glimpsed in Rainstorm’s head.

But before the mare rose higher to check the tower from the top, some sound from the square gained her attention. The dust had long settled over the place where the Flyer crashed into the wall. Despite Rainstorm’s hope that the beast buried itself for good, something slowly scrambled out from the pile of broken bricks with scratching and crackling. The debris started flowing down before her sight and a spear-like extremity showed up.

The Flyer was doubtlessly wounded, and wounded severely; with one wing broken it couldn’t properly move, let alone fly. Resembling a crashed mantis even more, the monster pulled itself from the heap of rubble, crawling out clumsily and giving Rainstorm light nausea by its sight. Her first urge was to rush and finish the abomination for good, but the mare held herself noticing the determination, with which the half-crashed carcass clawed its way across the circle – the thing clearly had some goal. Hovering next to the town hall, the pegasus mare watched like enthralled how the broken Flyer crawled towards the wide low building with broad windows on the ground floor – probably the large store or some sort of covered market before. The beast reached the closest opening and pulled inside, grabbing the edge with its claws. Straining her eyes, Rainstorm fancied some movement inside that building, deep in the shadows behind the broken windows.

“Of course!” the mare even muttered it aloud. ‘What a foal I was! They were hiding from the fire under the stone cover all that time. The fireballs could blast the windows and even smash the doors, but couldn’t harm the creatures inside!’

As if confirming her thoughts, a couple of black tendrils flashed in the opening: a big shadow moved from inside, hiding behind the frame and almost peeking outside. The bombing ceased and the Seekers started looking for ways to complete their task, whatever it was. Appearing in the light, the trunk-like leg of the same coal-black colour with its hoof gave a small bright sun flare on its leathery surface. That became the last drop for Rainstorm – weighing her spear, the mare darted down to the building, aiming her throw on the fly.

Whizzing in the silence of the broad square, the spear scratched the thick leg of the centaur-like thing and stuck into the lower beam of the window frame with an echoing, vibrating boom. The scratch was enough though, the imbued blade did its job – barely wounded the creature almost fell inside the building. Soaring again, Rainstorm heard with a wry smile, how the Seeker collapsed on the floor, limping on the immediately turned inoperable leg. The creature was doomed to disintegrate slowly, with the human’s blood eating it from inside. The mare glimpsed to notice how the shadows inside recoiled deeper from their defeated kin.

She picked her spear on the next dive, pulling it from the wood with some effort. The gaze inside confirmed her find: the darkness in the building stirred and wavered, flowing with the red sparks – more than ten, as Rainstorm noted, shuddering from disgust. However, it flounced away from her shining steel silhouette and the dry sound of the spear pulled from the frame. The crippled Flyer almost disappeared between its companions as the mare could notice, rocketing back to the tower.

At a closer examination, it turned out that the top of the broken wall could easily be held by the large but quite time-beaten wooden beam. Breaking or shifting it down would probably make the entire thing collapse under the weight of the upper parts. Hovering over the town hall tower, Rainstorm kept watching the monsters’ hideout from the corner of her eye. None of the Seekers dared to show up in the openings; met by the deadly flying enemy, they preferred to stay inside.

‘Probably changing their tactics…’ Rainstorm made a wry face under her helmet. She just thought that she couldn’t see the backside of the building when the growing noise from her right announced the arrival of Alex and his pursuers.

The mare soared higher above the town hall; she could see the flickering movement approaching the square and dodging between the houses. Risking to spoil everything, Rainstorm tried landing on the weathered beam – the plangent dry groan of the strained wood told her that she was on the right way. Popping up from the tower top, Rainstorm saw Alex bursting into the town square with the same two Flyers on his tail. Apparently, the human couldn’t lose any of the monsters in the narrow streets.

“Over here!” Rainstorm started waving her fore legs madly; the scream bawled from her helmet, making the mare sound like some battle horn. Hearing her or noticing her frantic pantomime, Alex darted towards the tower as if the entire Tartarus broke loose after his heels.

Freezing inside from the fear of setting the trap off prematurely, Rainstorm rushed down. All the four steel-shod hooves met with the wooden beam, kicking it down hard with all the weight the armoured mare could provide. The large timber responded with a sound of earsplitting dry shot, trembling but withstanding the strike. Squeezing out damnation, the mare rocketed again for a better kick and crashed down on top of her speed, angrily stomping the persistent wood – there was no time to waste; she noticed Alex halfway to the tower. The beam gave up under her second blow; with another dry shot of breaking wood, it cracked apart, skewing itself in a fortunate way and even putting additional strain on the wall which was already on its last legs. The latter trembled, letting out a long stony groan, and started to collapse, crumbling down level by level; Alex was already inches from the tower as Rainstorm could see, soaring and feeling pain in her strained legs – the hit was either way palpable.

The human dashed through the cloud of dust and small falling stone specks, making it swirl and fan around from his wings. The first Flyer managed to pass as well, being hit by a couple of falling bricks. The entire mass of stones and broken planks of the collapsing wall dropped on the second Flyer, burying it under the tons of debris. Some broken beams looked sharp enough to give hope the menacing beast could stay there forever. Rainstorm couldn’t hold a triumphant scream; she watched how Alex pulled up sharply, luring the last Flyer to follow.

‘He probably wants to dodge it on the top of the loop, at the maximum overload,’ thought Rainstorm, ‘making a sudden dash from below and striking the bastard!’

However, the flying Seeker suddenly lost interest in the pursuit; bemusedly, Rainstorm watched the creature turning away from Alex’s peaking trajectory, slowing down and gliding towards the building the rest of the monsters kept hiding. The Flyer landed and quickly rustled inside on its blade-like legs through one of the broken windows. The silence that followed sounded suspiciously menacing to the mare.

“Are they all inside?” Blowing her over by the wind, Alex returned, hovering next to Rainstorm, slightly aside not to hit the mare with his wings. “All which survived.”

Rainstorm nodded silently. The two pairs of eyes were chained to the squat building: something strange was going on with it. The entire construction shuddered as if being pushed by some short seismic surge underneath. The low rumble came outside; rolling through the innards of the enemy’s hiding place, it reached Alex’s and Rainstorm’s ears on the lower border of their hearing. Powdering the window openings to zero visibility, the dust poured down from the walls and roof edges; separate bricks started falling down – squeezed out from their places, they dropped and splintered against the pavement, peppering the square with small shards.

“Fall back!” Alex gestured to Rainstorm to keep a safe distance from the building. “They learned to fly out of the blue! Who knoweth what they are plotting now!”

Realizing that he admitted the explosion possibility, Rainstorm nodded and pulled back and higher into the sky to avoid possible stone shrapnel. Meanwhile, the changes kept happening to the construction. The streams and tendrils of the so-called Dark Mist started trailing out from the gaps and openings of the building as if somepony began to pump the substance inside of the abandoned store. In a matter of seconds, the entire building was shrouded in that magical haze, fuming now strongly from the broken windows. It looked trembling through the Dark Mist as if it got into a strong torrent of heated air.

‘Merlin’s pants!’ Alex grasped the unfolding glaive firmly. ‘I extend mine hope they aren’t calling for reinforcements!’

The next moment the low hum shook the entire square: Rainstorm felt how the sound sent shivers down her spine literally. It seemed that the building had been ripped apart from inside and the stones and bricks groaned from the monstrous strain. In a blink of an eye, the cloud of Dark Mist enveloping the constructions pulled inside as if some giant magical pump sucked it all. After a second of ringing silence, which struck the ears hardly less than that bone-shuddering low-pitched sound before, the building started collapsing, folding like a house of cards before the bewildered sight of the human and the mare.

Something huge, almost half the size of the building containing it, was coming out of the shattered store, rising from the heap of broken bricks, wooden beams and parts of floors. Unable to believe their own eyes, Alex and Rainstorm froze in the air for a moment.

‘They concatenated in a single… giant Seeker!’ There was only one possible explanation of what they witnessed and it struck Alex like a thunderbolt.

‘Granted it can be fought the usual way,’ glimpsed in his head, ‘but I’m afraid it can withstand much more before it goes down!’

The red orifice amidst the monstrous Seeker torso turned around like a giant beacon. That made Alex wonder if at that size the creature could reach the crystal guards blocking the town. Once coming together, the beast spread the ghostly tendrils of Dark Mist again. Sheets and stripes of black haze curled around the colossus’s legs like banners, flowing around the giant headless centaur figure. Strangely though, there was no anxiety or confusion in Alex’s soul, only focused calmness and judgment.

What he noticed next made him smirk wryly – the hope to defeat the monstrous creature there and then wasn’t ephemeral… unlike the Seeker. Alex had no idea if the concatenated creature was supposed to be fully materialized but as soon as the process was incomplete, it evidently wasn’t. He could see the last parts of the demolished building falling straight through the enormous body of that behemoth!

“Stay away from its blows!” Suspecting the Seeker to start their favourite bombardment by everything turning up under their extremities, Alex waved to Rainstorm to clear the way. Folding his glaive and clipping it to the belt, the human rocketed into the sky, starting to draw a wide loop and distancing from the fight scene.

At a loss, the mare kept watching his silhouette, until the human completed the loop, turning to the giant Seeker and levelling himself low above the town. Rainstorm started to understand what Alex planned to do. Still considering it a completely crazy idea, she began rushing forward and about in front of the enormous creature, trying to distract it from manoeuvres. She was undoubtedly risking – nopony knew how fast that assembled Seeker could be, but that exactly was the reason to hold it grounded for a while.

Mentally drawing a beeline between himself and the dark silhouette in the distance, Alex darted forward. It felt as if the wings were going to propel him with planet-escape velocity: the surrounding landscape smudged in his view upon the initial speed up. Keeping accelerating, Alex rushed towards the enemy, hoping that he took sufficient distance for that strike. Another boost came suddenly, making the world around him turn into a flowing colourful blotch; his sight reddened, making Alex forcedly dispel the thoughts about possible overloads and especially about what could happen if the Seeker managed to materialize before Alex reached him. Turning into a large steel bullet! The ears got stuffed up, the sight narrowed to the small spot with a floating dark figure in the middle. Completely entrusting himself to his wings, armour and helmet, Alex made the final effort. Folding the wings, so he formed a large drill, he turned himself into the spiralling jet.

Noticing the white boiling turbulent trail appearing behind the steel spear, Rainstorm dashed aside leaving the Seeker alone. The mare knew, could easily guess at least, what was going to happen in a fraction of a second. The thin white line crossed out the square, cutting the air like a blade cutting the silk. Rainstorm could barely notice the bright spark at the pinpoint of that line, concerned about getting away from the impact front faster. The materialization process turned out more complex and lengthy, so the steel spark went right through the giant Seeker. For the tiniest moment it looked motionless.

The next moment Rainstorm saw how the dark substance forming the creature started to trail out of the large hole on its side – the Seeker was pierced through. The Dark Mist pulled outside, curling around Alex’s trail. Even before collapsing, the black monster started literally crumbling: it looked as if the Seeker was imploding, being sucked into itself.

Then came the shock wave. Mixing and swirling everything on the square and in the air around, it swept and crushed the creature like some paper cup, bombarding it with debris and dust from the destroyed building. Rainstorm could barely struggle with the air pressure, which almost hit her against the nearest wall then yanked the pegasus mare back towards the low-pressure zone, which was formed by the hypersonic “projectile”. She had no doubt – this time Alex topped the speed of sound far more than twice. As if trying to complete the effect, the sound wave finally arrived, bursting the rare surviving windows around the square and spreading around in a deep juicy bloop, which rolled across the town dying down on the periphery. That was the second wave, which almost completely overshadowed the first one, making it sound like an echo.

Teetering in the air, Rainstorm looked around, scanning for Alex and feeling still stunned, not to say contused. Right before the shock wave came, she managed to notice the human correcting his trajectory up by some miracle and dodging the collision with the distant buildings. Fighting light vertigo, the mare finally found his silhouette in the sky. Wavering and stumbling in the sky, the human was landing on the spot where the remnants of the giant Seeker – the cloud of Dark Mist – were still wreathing and mingling with the dust. Before his legs touched the pavement heavily, the dark substance started pulling up to him, reaching and seeping through the gaps in the armour; the entire, looking like a jelly pile in the wind, cloud was absorbed by the human in less than a minute.

The mare headed to the ground as well, while the last shreds of Dark Mist disappeared under Alex’s legs. For a moment longer, he stood listening for his senses and taking a look around. Rainstorm already landed in front of Alex, looking at him inquiringly when he finally nodded with satisfaction. The silvery glow enveloped the helmet, taking away a good portion of it and leaving only the habitual thin metal band around Alex’s forehead; only then, Rainstorm allowed herself to pull off her own headpiece after a bit of struggling with the straps.

“Done with them!” summarized Alex tiredly. Gazing up at his face, Rainstorm noticed how the pitch-black eyes fluently changed to the regular sea-green but slightly bloodshot ones.

“Are you okay?” with soft concern in her voice, she came closer ready to give him a shoulder to lean upon. “That dash…” Rainstorm fell silent.

“Well!” Alex took a breath. “These wings surely have some magic to them. I thought I was going to become a plaice inside my armour during that last spurt!” He smirked. “Normally, I suppose, I should become a pancake indeed… Which tells us that we need to reinforce our armour more,” added he after a meaningful pause. “And you?”

“A little beaten up by your shock wave, but I’m okay,” Rainstorm puffed away a strand of snow-white mane. “I managed to kill two Seekers! One with the stone fall,” she nodded towards the damaged town hall, “and one from the… ground pack.”

“Cool!” Alex made a pondering mien. “I got only one!” He glanced at the mare with such seriousness, that she couldn’t believe her ears at first. Then the smile started sneaking onto Alex’s face slowly. After a moment of dead silence, Rainstorm gave under, bursting with uncontrollable laughter. She dashed to the human, grabbing him into a short but tight hug, finally letting the tension release her. Seeing Rainstorm unable to stop laughing, Alex broke into a wide smile, shaking from laughter a moment later as well.

“Hey! We saw your last dash!” With a loud clap of the teleport, Shining Armour appeared next to them amidst all the mess on the square. “That was…”

With a bright flash, two more unicorn guards arrived.

“You went at least five times the speed of sound when crashing into that thing!” exclaimed one of them. “I was counting... Is that even possible?”

“The area is safe now!” Alex said instead of an answer.

Shining Armour chuckled indefinitely; he already turned to the guards, giving orders to extinguish the fires around the town, when another flash lit the square, making everypony shield their eyes for a moment.

Another teleport brought three mares: one kept standing there with a subtle smile while the other two launched forward as soon as their hooves touched the ground. Alex barely managed to remove his armour – Fluttershy hung on his neck, nuzzling him frantically, while Princess Cadence grabbed her husband in an ardent cuddle.

*

“Where are the girls, I wonder?” Almost flattening the tip of his nose against the window, Spike took a look outside, at the round, rarely crossed by the random ponies square in front of the Golden Oak Library. “What time did you invite them to? The weather is hardly nice enough for taking a walk…”

“Mhm…” It took a couple of seconds to focus on his words, raising her eyes from the book she was reading. “Oh… To half-past one PM, give or take several minutes.” Twilight threw her glance up to the wall clock. “It’s twenty minutes before two. But it’s winter, you know, Spike, roads tend to become longer in winter,” added she with a smile. “Don’t worry.”

“Hmm…” the little dragon shrugged and returned to watching the outside, showing by his entire look that he was hardly convinced by the girl’s words. One thing Spike was right about – regardless of the clear sky and the sun shining as bright as it probably could in December, the weather was hardly welcoming for the prolonged walks. Seen from inside the Library only by the wildly swaying treetops across the square, the wind blew in strong drafts, pouncing occasionally and making the glass tingle in the colourful glazing on both sides of the front door. The empty now square had been regularly cleaned of the snow, the rest of which was trampled down by the ponies, thus the wind had little chance to raise some white powder into the air. Otherwise, it would have turned into a snowstorm near the ground; even then a hoofful of snowflakes flew by the Library door from time to time, quietly scratching along the glass as if pleading to enter.

However, nopony was going to welcome the cold and snow there. Coming inside mostly through the stained glass entrance windows, the sunlight became coloured. Its mild rays scattered around the spacious hall, playing catch-up on the low tables and couches, riding along the multitude of book spines on the endless bookshelves and even curiously peeking into the kitchen through the open door. Having no dedicated fireplace, the room felt surprisingly warm and cosy: the secret was known by those familiar with the Library – the back wall of the kitchen hearth was also the sidewall of the hall. The only free spot in the room unoccupied by the books, so somepony knowing Twilight well could easily suspect some trick there.

Wrapping her hind legs in a soft plaid, Twilight Sparkle was nesting with all the possible comfort in the corner of a large couch at the far wall. Probably her favourite place, as from there, the girl could easily see the captions of the majority of the books behind, reaching the necessary one with her magic, and the wall clock, which – let’s be frank – was rarely used while reading. Thus, lighting a couple of candles, as the sunlight was reaching that spot too scattered and the electric light could ruin the atmosphere of her comfy bookworm nest, Twilight dived into her book of choice, folding her soft lilac wings so she practically had a couple more pillows under her back. Throwing another glance at Spike impatiently trampling at the entrance, the girl returned to the interrupted line with ease, quickly submerging between the pages again.

‘He must be jumpy because of Rarity coming…’ that idea brought a smile to Twilight’s muzzle. ‘Everypony was so busy lately, we hardly met the last few days; besides, all the Seekers-related tension…’ the girl slowly shook her head at her thoughts. ‘And now she is coming and will be… undistracted for a change.’

Watching Spike’s passion and Rarity ogling the human, Twilight often praised her decision to plug the Mirror Lake with a large cliff – the idea of cloning Rarity had been clearly seen in Spike’s eyes at least once. Twilight shuddered and hurried to dispel the memory of the once misuse of the lake power.

‘No way, once was enough! Just imagine… several of her in a fit of despair…’

Thoughts like that were hardly welcome by the relaxed girl. Everything was prepared for the tea; all the plan points checked out most likely. Thus Twilight could mercifully allow the girls to be late. Several recent snowfalls made cruising around Ponyville very problematic, unless one used the regularly cleaned roads and paths only; besides, Applejack lived the farthest of them. Plain logic told Twilight that there was nothing to worry about.

Some subtle noise from behind the front door made her dragon aide perk up; ungluing from the window, Spike rushed to open the door. Hearing the muffled hum of voices, Twilight rose her glance; levitating the book and the quickly unwrapped plaid aside, the girl jumped off the couch to meet her guests. The lilac aura caught and held the door edge – Spike had to brake down visibly, not letting the wind fly open it and hit the wall.

The girl blinked – the sunlight was contrastingly bright, but the silhouette at their doorstep couldn’t be mistaken for anypony. In the stream of cold air, which threw a hoofful of snow inside, there stood Applejack, shaking the snow off her shoulders and mane.

“G’day, partner!” the mare broke into a wide smile. Finally bringing herself to order, Applejack pulled off her stetson and brushed it with a sweeping motion, making the last snowdrift fall off the brim. “Ah may come late, but nothin’ can stop me from visiting friends, not even a blizzard.” Stepping aside, before Twilight could ask the question making her eyes widen, the girl cleared the way for the rest.

“Howdy, Twi!!!” Applejack even staggered a little as a colourful jet whizzed by, stopping right in time not to jet-boop the alicorn girl. “What’s boiling, mate? From Pinkie’s words, I got that you wanted to tell us something,” Rainbow Dash squeezed stunned Twilight in a hug; then her glance darted to the bookshelves. Without lingering, the pegasus girl rushed along the bookcases, examining the shelves for the novelties. Rainbow preferred fiction but checked the entire stash habitually. Zero catch that time couldn’t spoil her mood and she landed next to Twilight with a smile. Meanwhile, two more girls – Rarity and Pinkie – entered, shaking the snow from their hooves and boots in front of the door.

“Errmmm…” Twilight’s eyes slid from Rainbow to Pinkie, to Rarity, then returned to Applejack, whose coat was still sparkling with the multitude of tiny melting snowflakes. “It looks as if you were coming from totally different Ponyville, Jackie…” drawled she in bewilderment.

“Ah was to cross the field,” Applejack smirked, checking the red band on her damp mane. “Even if today it’s unusually bright and sunny for December,” elaborated she under Twi’s puzzled look, “it’s blowin’ hard in the fields, making the snow from the plains fly into the air. It sweeps almost along the ground at times,” the girl shook her head. “Ah’d say it’ll bring some proper blizzard soon, remember my words!”

“Oh… I feel for the students,” leaving her trendy boots by the front door, Rarity breathed a sigh of sympathy. “They need to cross a part of the field before school!” Untying the fancy shawl covering her mane, the girl levitated it into Spike’s paws, already loaded with Applejack’s and Pinkie’s scarves. Thrilled even with that attention, the little dragon barely managed to catch the shawl, as the unicorn girl absently dropped it – Rarity’s thoughts seemed to be somewhere else still. “It’s quite windy there, darling!” she finally noticed Spike, patting him on the shoulder.

“Ahm… Err…” the dragon was about to melt into a puddle again.

“We don’t notice it here usually,” Twilight came to help. “The Golden Oak is too large to give a creak even after strong winds. And that snow-hat muffles everything.”

The snow remained laying in heaps on the large branches indeed; the tree giant didn’t even drop all the leaves yet. The latter simply changed their colour to deep-bronze and brown, unequivocally hinting at its name, but a good portion of them stayed in their places, holding the snow on the crown and letting it ignore even the strong gusts.

“So, how are you doing, girls?” Twilight gestured welcomingly. “Pinkie! Pinkie?”

“Ah? Oh…” the cotton candy mane shook as the girl giggled, pushing back to her neck the large fluffy earmuffs, which made her rather see, not hear the friend’s question. “I’m fine. Absolutely fine!” Pinkie broke into a smile. “Just busy, you know… As usual, Twi. Not that busy as I will be at the face of the holidays! Just regularly busy in the bakery…” she took a pause to inhale. “But visiting my friends is as important, so… I have a couple of hours while the next portion of dough is leavening.”

“Let me help, Spike,” noticing Twilight’s aide loaded with a tray of snacks emerging from the kitchen, Pinkie rushed to him. “Cute stuff! Your own work… or Twi dared to take part?”

“Oh, no! I’m not going to experiment on you girls,” the alicorn filly let out a tiny flushing smile. “So, worry not!” making the girls give a laughter, reassured Twilight.

“Well, ya know, Ah have mostly nothing to do till late February,” following Twilight into the room, Applejack shrugged. “So, Ah’m all for the friendly gatherings this time of the year.”

“And I have a day off from the weather duties today,” smirked Rainbow. “Funny thing, I’d have nothing to do even otherwise: there is no single cloud outside, a rare case for December,” she sighed with feigned discontent. “What an irony – having a day off on a clear day,” giggled she.

“Don’t you say!” Twilight nodded. “What about you, Rarity? You look… absent… a bit,” throwing a concerned glance at her friend, the alicorn girl joined Pinkie and Spike in setting the table for tea.

“Oh, it’s all about the sewing! Not coming out of my head, Twi,” Rarity swayed her mane back with a dramatic hoof wave. “I’m so thankful for that break, darling!” she batted her eyelashes, helping to levitate the cups to the low, broad table. “The Hearthwarming collection! And the Spring one is adding to the hassle… Even with the motorized sewing machines. Ahhh!”

“That’s what I wanted to talk about as well – Hearthwarming!” noticed Twilight, as if by chance shifting that way Spike turned out next to Rarity.

“I bet if Alex was here, she would forget about sewing for a while, rushing here one hundred twenty per cent more eagerly,” Rainbow quietly nudged Applejack, making both girls giggle.

“I can hear you!” Rarity raised one eyebrow at the friends; Spike sent a sulky glance at Rainbow Dash while Rarity added plaintively. “I’m not exaggerating, girls. I have loads to make… Thanks Harmony, for the improved lighting – the evenings become darker and darker naturally.”

“Yeah, and the Seekers are not going to thin out,” grimaced Pinky, letting out a smile almost the next second. “Hey, maybe nopony told them that they were supposed to become less active in the cold?”

“Well, at least we have a more professional line of defence now,” noticed Twilight. “Four specifically equipped guards instead of one volunteer. By secret, Princess Luna informed me that she was going to send more as soon as they have enough armour – could be faster but they are to address all the possible regions. Isn’t it what you craved for, Rarity?”

“Hmm… Knowing Rainstorm, I’d say that she is four-guards-worth on her pure enthusiasm,” smirked Rainbow Dash, picking her cup from Twilight’s aura. Applejack nodded pensively.

“Oh, come on!” Rarity rolled her eyes; then her muzzle became concerned. “Speaking of the Seekers! Where are the fillies? The studies usually end… this-time-around!”

“Don’t ya worry, partner! Thanks, Spike!” Applejack leaned to her friend, accepting her tea from the dragon’s paws. “The fillies are at the farm already! Ah checked on ‘em before leaving.”

The relief glimpsed in Rarity’s eyes but the girl kept looking at the wall clock over the bookshelves, estimating something inwardly.

“Oh, I hope that they didn’t swerve the last class for that…” drawled she. “And I sure do hope that “at the farm” didn’t mean “in the clubhouse” at least, darling!” the unicorn girl shook her sapphire mane with a meaningful glance.

“Of course, not!” Applejack gave a sincere laugh, catching her stetson escaping her head at the last moment. “They are at home, sugar cube! And Granny Smith isn’t going to take her eyes off them.”

“You understand, the girls I mean are the same Cutie Mark Crusaders we know,” squinted Rarity, making everypony around giggle.

“Last time Ah saw them, they were very, I mean VERY busy with some astronomy stuff. Not goin’ to run anywhere,” Applejack added, seeing her friend’s doubt. “Besides, Winona is with them. She will defend the girls no matter what…”

“The Seekers can’t affect the dog,” reminded Twilight; the girl sent an encouraging glance over her cup, enveloped in the lilac aura. “Most of the animals actually. A mystery for me, but… I remember Alex saying that and also that predators tend to attack the Seekers.”

“Right!” Rainbow Dash lit with an idea. “Perhaps that is why we literally had zero monsters approaching the town from the south. Everfree serves us as a shield. I guess that Timberwolves take their prey regularly.”

“Ah’d say, not much to take, partner!” With that memory emerging, Applejack grimaced. “The one Ah saw personally turned into some ashes and nasty black fog…”

She broke off – the other girls, all like one, unwittingly shuddered. The long pause enveloped the room; everypony had more or less unsetting thoughts as the forest beasts were mentioned, the freshest of them being the incident during Nightmare Night when Timberwolves had nearly eaten one of the Ponyville school foals. When it came down to them, the girls always started having mixed feelings about who were the worst – the magical predators or the Seekers.

“Well, girls,” thinking that the pause lingered a bit, Pinkie hurried to break it, “you won’t deny that it became safer anyway. I mean with the professional guards taking the duty around Ponyville.” The girl shook her cotton candy mane with emphasis, making it puff. “You don’t need to worry that much, Rarity. If I were the fillies, I’d rather go bonkers because of being foalsat that tightly!” she giggled despite the tint of concern on Rarity’s muzzle.

“I wonder though, Rainstorm wasn’t simply replaced by the guards, she completely disappeared out of the town after Princess Luna’s visit,” added Pinkie pensively. “Is Canterlot suddenly short of the weather pegasi… or monster fighters for that matter?”

Twilight bit her lip: they had discussed the events in Crystal Empire with her mentor the day before, and Princess Celestia assumed that the Elements of Harmony should be informed about the situation in general. However, they agreed that excessive dramatization would rather turn out harmful, loading the alicorn girl with a non-trivial task of delivering the news cautiously. Fortunately, Rarity’s barely contained snort distracted the company from Twilight’s visible hesitations.

“C’mon, Rarity!” Spike seemed to wake from silent watching of her, making the girls stare at him in surprise. “What’s wrong with Rainstorm? You don’t pout at Flutters or… Princess Luna, if that’s what I’m thinking about,” he broke into a sly smile; Pinkie froze half biting through the cake and exchanged glances with Applejack. Only Twilight looked more concerned by some inner dilemma. “Or, by the way, at Twilight…” Spike nodded towards the lost in thought hostess. Rarity even put down the cup and looked at him as if seeing anew.

“You know,” the unicorn girl cocked her nose and glanced down from under the thrown up eyelashes. “I’m enough realist to admit that Fluttershy is… errmmm… naturally without a rival here!”

“Oh!” Rainbow chuckled, hiding her mien behind a large gulp of tea. Pinkie and Applejack laughed while Spike nodded with a meaningful face.

“As for Princess Luna,” Rarity shrugged. “I’m not blind, darling; after all that happened, I doubt they can even be separated.”

“Ya nailed it, partner!” Applejack threw her fore hooves up jokingly. “Only Mac could state it firmer.”

“That Rainstorm upstart…” Rarity wrinkled her nose with a huff.

“Calm down, mate,” Twilight shook her head with a smile. “Rainstorm is simply loyal. Very loyal!”

“Heard that?” Rarity glanced at Spike meaningfully. “With all mentioned before, Twi is prudence and decency embodied!” Her exaggeratedly satisfied expression should mean that she reflected all the tricky insinuations.

“By the way,” as if suddenly remembering, Rainbow turned to Twilight, “it’s been over a week since Alex and Flutters left. How’s it going without him, Twi?”

“You mean without somepony, who either comes home bleeding out or with the new extremities,” Twilight glanced at her friend, “who sits with his pieces of metal long after midnight, then falls asleep over the blueprints and books, yet… keeps wandering around the town? Who…”

“Yeah, yeah, exactly!” Rainbow kept nodding with a wide grin. “All of that, mate.”

“It’s a bit boring,” simply said Twilight. “A little bit too quiet. Of course, I like order and stuff… But with him, it’s like a guaranteed guessing game of what surprise will come next. And I’m not always winning that game – it can be fun…” she let out a tiny smile.

“Boring? Speak for yourself, Twi,” Spike rolled his eyes jokingly. “I have definitely felt the difference by the doubled kitchen duty at least!”

“So… These two bring into your life the required dose of… how can I put that… less dangerous chaos,” Rainbow gave a laughter. “Interesting! You could always ask me though,” she spread her wings a bit, imitating the frantic flapping, “or… Discord.” Now both Applejack and Pinkie joined her giggling.

“Thanks!” Twilight heartily shook her head, hugging and nuzzling Spike. “I’m so sorry, Spike. You know my cooking skills… I would probably need to put all my magic skills to use after that, curing us from of poisoning.”

“Twilight, darling, maybe you need to take some household courses,” Rarity lit with an idea. “Lately Sweetie Belle made visible progress… Well, she didn’t actually explode anything in the kitchen last time, but that’s quite inspiring, so…” added she enthusiastically while Twilight inwardly shrunk at the image of the adult alicorn taking household lessons.

“Any news about ‘em, Twi?” quietly asked Applejack, becoming suddenly serious after laughing. “Or, even better, from them.”

“Yeah,” agreed Pinkie. “They just vanished out of the blue. I’d like to know what the deal was if you can tell, of course.”

“Well…” Twilight finally made up her mind. “Let’s begin with this – Canterlot wasn’t their destination from the very start. Alex and Fluttershy are in the Crystal Empire now…”

“Huh! I knew,” Pinkie easily overtook the surprised girls and Spike. “I knew, there was more to that. First them, then Rainstorm leaving… with the help of nopony else but Princess Luna herself. Hmmm, something tells me that there must be a big mess in Crystal Empire then…”

“Calm down, partner!” Applejack pulled back the fluffy pink tail back. “Let your conspiracy get the actual soil to grow on as it is about to be spilt.”

“Big” is the word, Pinkie!” nodded Twilight. “We suspected an attack at the Crystal City being prepared, and there was one…” she was going to get directly to the core problem.

“Sweet Celestia!” Rarity’s eyes rounded when after several minutes Twilight drew the line under her brief story, completely omitting Alex’s problems with elements of the North. “So, they can literally combine forces now. The Seekers!” In her eyes, the girls could clearly see the frantic search for the new methods to make the fillies’ life safer. And harder!

“I’m afraid – yes,” nodded Twilight regretfully. “However, I assume a single bigger creature is at least easier to notice and avoid. That doesn’t take away the entire problem of dealing with the huge thing though.”

“I wonder, if they always could,” Pinkie squinted and cupped her chin. “You know, I would like to know how small and inconspicuous one could be and how harmful therein.”

“Ah certainly hope they didn’t,” Applejack shuddered. “Ah would hate to think about countless tiny vermin of ‘at kind, nor of huge ones becomin’ usual.”

“I highly doubt we ever had any cat-size Seekers,” Twilight shook her head with a sad smile. “Supposedly that trick is another reaction to them being attacked here and successfully eliminated so far.”

“Hmm…” silent before, Rainbow Dash finally uttered. “Come to think about it, there is a bigger problem, girls. The flying monsters! So far we thought that at least skies were safe…”

“As if we had it easy, risking to be attacked on the ground…” slowly muttered Twilight, feeling how the thought about an unknown flying threat – Princess Celestia couldn’t provide much detail – caused horripilation tingle down her back.

“Pegasi can cope with that problem!” Rainbow shook her mane peremptorily. “Of course, we need protection from the mental effects at least. I guess that making it light enough is kinda problematic…”

Hissing loudly, one of the candles behind the large couch flickered – the flame almost reached the chandelier metal and struggled in the middle of the shallow wax pool. Reaching with her aura, Twilight pulled another one from the nearby drawer and placed it right upon the burnt-out one, lighting from the second candle. After a momentary pondering, the girl lit a few more, as it started to feel a bit dark to her liking in the large room.

Meanwhile, fairly supposing that a higher level of glucose in blood could help against stressful thoughts of all kinds, Spike chose a cupcake and was examining it from different sides, as if choosing where the bite would turn out tastier. He decided to treat the voiced problems philosophically, not because he was lucky not to confront a Seeker yet, but prudently assuming that the problems must be dealt with by those who are prepared for that. After the monster attack on the smithy was successfully repulsed, Spike started feeling much confidence in the joint capabilities. At least in the ability to provide a suitable defence.

Twilight’s aide prepared to give the cupcake a bite when, suddenly, his expression changed, and Spike put the sweet treat back on the plate carefully.

“Are you okay?” Pinkie turned to him immediately: willingly refusing a cake was an outstanding decision in her eyes.

“Yeah,” Spike stifled out. “Just… a moment. Sorry!”

A green flash lit the room brightly; burped out by Spike, a thin flare left after itself a medium-sized band-tied scroll, which would certainly smack into the dish of treats in the middle of the table if Twilight didn’t catch it with her magic.

“No doubt, it’s handy!” commented Spike with a meaningful face, bringing back smiles to the girls’ muzzles. “But not in the middle of a meal.”

“Hmmm…” Quickly unrolling it, Twilight already gazed through the letter. “Nopony cancelled the holidays at least. Although, I’m not sure I can imagine the Hearthwarming celebration this year. We are invited to Canterlot for the holidays, girls!” she addressed her guests louder. “To the Castle, to be exact. Us all, Spike, of course,” she kept reading while Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow and Pinkie visibly perked – the mere mention of one of the most important holidays brought a dose of optimism at once, “Alex and… and… Discord?!”

“That’s definitely added in Luna’s hoofwriting,” Twilight looked closer while the girls burst into laughter. As her eyes kept running along the lines, the girl’s expression turned pensively concerned unnoticed yet by the rest. “Yeah, this Hearthwarming may turn out eventful… However, I don’t know how we are going to deal with the constant Seeker threat,” drawled she.

A loud sound from outside – as if something hit the metal pan with a ding – made the rejoiced ponies fall silent and turn their heads. Exchanging the puzzled looks, the girls shrugged almost simultaneously while the wind hit the front door with a tiny squeal.

“Spike, would you be so kind…” Twilight threw a glance at her dragon aide, who picked the cupcake again and was going to give it due attention. “We haven’t expected anypony else knocking… Hmpf, we don’t even have anything, which could sound that way. Maybe it’s one of those armoured guards.”

“Ughh!” With a heavy sigh, Spike put away that miserable cake; following it with a dreary look, the little dragon pouted jokingly. “Why am I the only… delivery service in this house?” with an exaggerated eye-roll, he got up and trudged to the door.

“Ahem…” Spike even grunted, stumbling at the doorstep for a moment and staring at something out of the girls’ sight. Applejack got up, looking at him inquiringly, ready to provide help if necessary, but Spike simply waved his paw indefinitely and slid out, cutting the frosty draught.

The friends tensely listened to the muffled voices outside, a long metal screeching and receding flapping of some wings. In a minute, Spike returned, visibly trembling.

“The w-w-wind is ch-chilling! T-too cold f-for a d-d-d-dragon!” His teeth were floating. Trying to dispel the cold with a single strong shudder, Spike glanced at Twilight and elaborated. “Another letter!” He handed her a standard envelope, making a wry mien. “It’s Derpy’s duty today.”

Judging by the girls’ expressions, all of them could easily guess what that meant, even if Spike hadn’t added, making Rainbow and Pinkie snort.

“Err... Our mailbox needs some… position readjustment now.”

Picking the letter from his paw, Twilight already opened it with her magic. Her eyes quickly scanned along the lines and a smile lit the girl’s muzzle.

“That’s from Fluttershy and Alex, girls! Hmm… hmm…” she kept brushing through quickly. “Fine! They are returning soon. Finally, we’ll find out the details. Especially about those flying monsters…” Twilight’s eyes shone with naturalist interest as she clopped her fore hooves together with an almost happy expression.

“How soon is that “soon”?” Rarity threw her eyes up at Twilight inquiringly almost simultaneously with Rainbow Dash, who simply asked. “When?”

The girls exchanged glances.

“I simply feel better protected when the one immune to these monsters is here,” elaborated Rarity, waving her fore hoof with deliberate nonchalance.

“I would like to hear about the flying jerks in detail straight from the pony’s mouth,” Rainbow’s tone was, on the contrary, unusually serious. “I would like to know what I can probably fly into!”

Twilight returned to wading through the letter; the next several phrases brought a warm smile to her muzzle.

“They just need a day or two more to… “visit Sunflowers as promised”. Excellent! So the foals have settled finally!” she nodded slowly. “Frankly speaking, I thought it would become more stressful for them to be torn out of two families in a row…” Twilight stumbled when the rest of the girls stared at her, realizing the underlying of her words. Pinkie and Applejack broke into a smile.

“I always said that…” Pinkie stated imperturbably, making the girls laugh; Rarity perhaps less sincere than others. “Even with Princess Luna involved…”

Anyfay, Ah finferely fope, fe maiffox can fait til ffeir return!” reached the girls’ ears, making them look over at Spike. The little dragon finally sharked the entire cupcake of his choice with visible satisfaction, gazing at them like an owl through his mouthful.