...scent was the first sense to awaken, and it told her that the air was -- pure.
It wasn't Menajeria's atmosphere, something which defaulted to a greater state of cleanliness than that of her home. There were no artificial hydrocarbons there, nothing of exhaust fumes and laboratory creations and every bit of chemical falsehood which humans had forced themselves to breathe -- but the ponies still had a degree of industrial process. Steel melted in the forge, potions had to be mixed, and the girl suspected somepony had worked out the basics for concrete. And yet, with none of the more advanced travesties in effect, the air was cleaner, but -- this went beyond that. It was as if the air existed as nothing except air alone, had never known any intrusion. It was air as quintessence, and it was...
...thin.
The pressure against her skin and fur was right. There were no signs of being at high altitude, and she certainly wasn't gasping for oxygen.
(She didn't feel as if she really needed to be breathing.)
But it was air as quintessence, air as the concept of itself alone, and... it didn't seem to be quite present. Or perhaps she wasn't entirely touching it. She felt as if all awareness was being processed through a faint barrier.
The next thing she became aware of was that she'd had a sense of the air against skin and fur. But when it came to weight against her body, that was very nearly it. Some very light pressure from cloth, basic cottons and linens because the human-made artificial fibers took some getting used to and for a centaur, polyester never really stopped stinking --
-- she wasn't in her armor. And her body was very nearly in a sleeping position, with legs partially under her lower torso, arms folded beneath the soft weight of her breasts, while the pure breeze swept through the long blonde falls which came from head and tail. It carried the recognition of a new scent, something familiar and yet not quite there --
-- the breeze shifted, and a half-tangible leaf brushed through her hair. A ripple of grass lightly teased against her skirt, at least in those moments when it didn't seem to be on the verge of phasing towards her fur.
It was then that she recognized the lack of pain.
The Second Breath had stopped.
(All breath had stopped.)
But while it had been active, she had used her body as a ramming instrument. Forcing stone to break, and done so within a deep place which probably delighted in magnifying negative sensation. Add that to the weight of armor worn for too long, to the point where padding compressed and flesh felt as if it had to be next, leaving behind little aches long after the steel had been removed. And there were the small wounds which came from the act of living, tiny strains forever accumulating because to live was to hurt and... there was no pain.
None at all.
She had no awareness of her own heartbeat, possibly because she didn't seem to have one.
And now she was resting on soft soil (which had a little too much give to it), in a field of grass, within pure air...
There seemed to be a simple conclusion available, and the thought which summarized it was a peaceful one.
I'm dead.
Perhaps it should have brought horror. But one of the humans' greatest writers had said it: that any shock at finding yourself dead was mitigated by the ongoing presence of 'I'. There was something left of the girl, enough to recognize the condition and so much more.
She wondered if she was capable of opening her eyes, and did so just in time to see the weeping willow's lightest branches gently sway in front of her face.
Feathery, half-present leaves brushed against her ears. She almost giggled.
Flexible branches hung down all around her, like a cross between a cocoon and shroud. She rested beneath the drooping canopy, not quite ready to get up yet, and tried to peer through what felt like endless green.
What little she could see of the sky was clear. Sun was high and bright. Moon, very nearly full, trailed by a short distance --
-- for her home, it would have been natural: something which meant she needed an extra second before she understood the significance. Both, when the planet's artificial cycle never had them in the sky at the same time. It was always one or the other. And now it was both.
She thought she understood. These were the originals, and therefore they were also dead.
Moon was especially beautiful.
Standing seemed to be the next thing. Her skirt shifted as she rose, and the red cross between an ascot and tie moved in familiar ways. Warm sunlight touched her bare arms, while the buttons of her blouse strained to contain her. Some of the few pieces which had survived the trip to Japan, hadn't gotten through a full week on Menajeria, and poor choices all. She should have packed more in the way of pullovers...
The girl made her way out from under the willow, ducking here and there, pushing the soft falls of green out of the way while feeling as if too much effort would leave her hands going through --
-- it was a pasture. There were other trees, but they were fairly spread out. And beneath them, moving within the tall grass, occasionally a few meters above it... there were ponies.
Ponies and... others.
None of them were particularly old. Some had their fur pressed down in predictable places, as if they'd recently removed a metal weight. Several seemed familiar, at least once the girl had started to translate features away from the stone. And they milled about and above the perfect pasture and grass which scented as ideal. Talking (and she couldn't make out the words just yet), laughing, pressing up against each other in ways meant to show comfort.
Nuzzles were frequent. Some of those loving movements had to adjust for the fact that the recipient didn't have the same kind of snout.
She saw a knot of four. All were laughing. One nuzzled another, and something very much like a mountain goat gently rubbed her companion's fur, then licked a few strands --
-- looked up. Over, with horizontally-slit pupils placidly gazing across the sea of grass.
That one was the first to spot the girl. Others turned to see what she was looking at.
Some of them began to move towards her: hooves shifting across the pasture, including the cloven ones. And the air remained pure, for there was no fear.
The girl wondered what she should say. Perhaps the words would be the right ones --
-- and then she heard it, as her ears twisted backwards to gain more of the sound. Feet pounding against the soil, running faster and faster, sandals slapping dirt and skin in equal measure. Frantic panting breaths because that one wasn't used to running for long...
...there was a particular music within the words: a factor which distorted when the speaker tried to work with Japanese, but never truly faded. Multiple expressions of 'i' as a vowel would pick up an extraneous 'o': 'night' became 'noight', which took something away from any dread attempt to stalk it. By contrast, 'ou' collapsed into itself, while most terminal 'g' sounds evaporated. And it was all part of the lilt from too-quick speech, the rise and fall of the brogue.
There was also a certain pressure to the half-gasped syllables, along with a suggestion of physical weaving. A human typically shifted both arms as they ran, which helped to maintain balance because they didn't so much walk as perpetually fall forward. This female only had one limb available for that, and it meant she tilted to the side a lot. The other arm would be raised and bowed outwards, with the palm down against the top of the head.
"Lass! I found you, I found you, I found you, I finally --"
The girl turned: head and waist rotating first, proceeding across a natural range. And she saw a high-collared sundress cut to mid-thigh on shapely legs, gentle yellow being used to set off skin of blue, one hand tangled up in white hair and pressing down because the runner was trying to keep her head in place, saw tears falling from golden irises and before she managed to finish turning her lower torso, the newcomer went directly into the upper.
The left arm wrapped around her first: the right hand needed a second to untangle itself from long strands. A height difference of nearly fifty centimeters meant the new arrival was weeping into her bosom, and the girl felt her arms come up. Knew her own tears were flowing, running down her face and being taken by the white strands.
They hugged for a time. Something which almost seemed endless, because a proper hug went on for as long as was needed.
"-- I found you," Lala wept. "Saint Anthony and Anubis be praised, I found you..."
One of the girl's arms raised a little higher. Gently stroked the dullahan's hair, careful not to put too much pressure on any direction. You could touch a dullahan's head, if you knew them well enough. That degree of familiarity simply came with an obligation to keep it on the neck.
"I was waiting to see you," Cerea whispered. "I kept hoping... that if it happened, that I would..."
"I promised..."
They kept hugging, as what had been approaching hooves and wings continued to hold their distance. Giving them time.
Finally, Lala looked up from the soft swells. Wanly smiled, and then pulled back just enough to allow turning. Facing the others.
"I need her for a wee bit," the dullahan told them all. "Not quite time for the rest of you to take your turn, right? So if I can just have...?"
The herd, ponies and non, nodded as one.
"Tank you." (The lilt also had a tendency to shave out an 'h' here and there. Or, on a really bad day, 'ere and dere.) Lala reached out, took Cerea's right hand in hers: something which, as the second smallest of the exchange students, required reaching up. "Come on, lass. Saw a good spot on the run in, right? C'mere. We've got to talk, while there's time..."
Cerea nodded. Allowed herself to be led, and the two girls moved away from the group.
(One continued to follow. At a respectful distance, where deer-like ears would hear nothing. But she followed, and the dusting brush of a tail swayed.)
It left them going up a small incline: the sort of exceptionally gentle slope which mostly existed to tell the climber where their knees were. But it still gave them some elevation, and Cerea found herself looking at more of the perfect pasture, the sway of half-solid grass, some of the other creatures spread out across the field, like the ring of dozens visible to the left --
-- there was a six-limbed form crumpled among the blades, and fingers of bone, sinew, and darkened henna were just starting to claw at the soil.
It was oddly small: no larger than a colt of five years. The horns were barely nubs, while the body was an anatomical chart of starvation. It was gasping, as if it couldn't manage to breathe. Cerea didn't understand. She was doing perfectly well without breathing.
It writhed somewhat. Forced its head up, and saw some of what was surrounding it.
A number of them silently stepped closer. Pegasi and griffons flapped, and no sound came from that. Simply a shrinking of distance, as the ring continued to close.
The withered form tried to get up.
All four of the skeletal legs folded. Collapsed.
It looked up again. Yellow pinpricks just barely spotted the girls atop the little rise. A strangely-hinged mouth opened, and perhaps the frantic hiss of escaping air had been meant as a scream --
-- a slightly-cool hand squeezed her own.
"No, lass," Lala softly said. "You don't need to see this."
Cerea nodded. Looked away and allowed herself to be led, because the dead had something they wished to tell the other new arrival. Something they wished to do.
Behind them, the circle closed.
Lala had insisted on having Cerea give her side of the events first. It had taken a while, but... time seemed to be available, and dullahans could be endlessly patient.
Both girls were resting in the grass. For Cerea, that meant having her legs folded, placing her in the soil, but -- she didn't seem to be getting dirty. And she'd tried to pluck a few blades: she didn't feel hungry, but the grass smelled delicious. It was just... hard to touch. She couldn't quite seem to get a grip...
Lala had sat down next to her right flank. And then she'd leaned back, using the centaur's lower body for support. You could occasionally do that with a mare, if you asked first and the mare was in an exceptionally good mood.
There had been no need to ask Cerea. Not when it was family. And in the whole of the pasture, the dullahan was the only truly solid presence. Cerea could feel every breath through skirt and flank. Could tell that Lala was still breathing.
She'd just finished the story. (Words had been there. Most had felt suitable.) Leaned forward a little, tried to get a few blades again. It seemed as if concentration helped, as if she was forcing herself against that strange barrier, getting closer to the pasture in ways which the lack of distance didn't accommodate --
"-- careful, lass," Lala softly offered. "Please."
Cerea glanced over. "It'll hurt me?"
The dullahan shook her head. (There was a certain degree of connection when head and neck were together, which allowed such shifts to take place. It was also slightly tenuous, and that made some movements slow.) "No. Nothin' will hurt you. Not here. But... don't want it too much. Not right now."
She paused. The blue skin of her cheeks began to phase towards violet.
"I can explain," Lala offered. "Here and now, I can. But there's other things to cover first." Another slow shift. "Ponies..."
Almost automatically, "I swear it all happened --"
"I believe you," Lala gently cut her off. "Would've had more trouble if I hadn't seen them. And I wouldn't have found this place within the realm without you as an anchor, lass. Without the pact. Even so..." and there was a little wonder in her words "...it's all real..."
"Even the last part." Words which marked the first time she'd felt tired.
"Even Tartarus' illusions?"
"Especially the illusions." Her shoulders sagged. "I killed him, Lala. I'd never killed anyone. I just made a decision, and I --"
"-- if you're thinkin' it was murder," the dullahan immediately said, "it wasn't."
A little challenging, "How do you know?"
Wryly, "'Because we're talkin'."
"...oh."
The dullahan leaned back a little more. There was something about the slight coolness of the contact which reminded Cerea...
...coolness and hue. Two things which invoked Luna.
"I need a minute or so," Lala said, staring at the clear sky. "To put it all together in my head, what happened at home. There's a lot of it, and I can't ever say it all."
Cerea calmly nodded, and the other girl watched the movement.
"You killed someone with a practice blade," the psychopomp noted with bemusement.
It was almost a snicker. "Don't tell the humans."
"Not going to happen," Lala stated. "They wouldn't believe me anyway. That was part of the trouble, right there..."
Silent thought, as Cerea looked down at her.
It should have been strange, seeing the dullahan this way. Separated from dramatic cloak, partial armor which didn't do anything, and the false scythe. It was just the sundress, and... that felt more natural. As if it reflected more of who Lala truly was.
The warmth of the sundress, and the slight coolness of the other girl's body. And still, there was that half-cowlick which came off the front of her scalp. A blade of white hair. Something which almost looked as if it might be able to cut.
"We didn't start to worry until well after breakfast," Lala finally began. "You've stayed out for a while on long gallops, and we all know how you get when you find a new street. But when you didn't come in..."
Blue eyes closed, and the blonde head bowed.
"It wasn't you," the other girl quickly said. "You know that, lass."
"I thought about what had to be happening," Cerea sadly reflected. "That you would all believe I was dead --"
"-- not all."
It had emerged as something calm, and the shock of it got Cerea's eyes open again.
"Not --"
"-- we got the search going pretty quickly," Lala announced. "You don't really need the details there, except that our personal M.O.N. squad came in after a few hours. Which nearly got Smith fired, because the cultural exchange people think it should have been a lot sooner than that. But the neighborhood was being searched. Knocking on every door. Your personal film crew confessed to having caught you on a few streets, and that gave us part of the trail. But then it just -- stopped..."
She sighed. Stared down at the grass.
"I tried to tell them," the dullahan stated. "Right from the start, that you weren't dead. I would have known. The other girls believed me. So did he, after a bit. But no one else did. Not when the press came around, not after the story went international --"
Cerea blinked.
"-- international."
"Right, it did!" The thin blue arms spread out to the sides, waved a little. (Cerea wasn't sure if that was Lala or the dullahan's body. The body occasionally seemed to express opinions of its own.) "Went around the world! We had vans parked in front of the house, reporters from what felt like half the nations --"
"-- why?" It felt like a legitimate question. "I can't have been the first student to vanish! Even if there weren't any kidnappings before this --" which she was having trouble believing "-- someone would have tried to jump their passport, stay in the country after deportation --"
There was a very thin smile on the dullahan's face. It was almost always a thin smile, if she allowed herself to be caught smiling at all. But there hadn't been a single moment of internally scripted, near-chūnibyō drama...
"Lass," Lala evenly observed, "you're the daughter of a herd leader. Adds some interest to the story. There was a political factor. And on top of that, you're white -- and there we go." It took a few seconds for the giggle to die away. "Expected you to look exactly that offended --"
"-- white," Cerea just barely repeated. "White?"
"And blonde," Lala impishly added. "Doesn't hurt. Of course, they had the rest of it to deal with. One network didn't cover anything until the last and once they had to, they digitally altered your ears. Bumped up the size, to remind their viewers that they weren't supposed to actually care. Another group wanted that audience to feel worse for you, and they brought them down. Didn't end well for anyone." Innocently, "But then, pretty much all of them just showed you from the shoulders up..."
The blonde (but not 'white'!) girl fumed for a while, until the dullahan finally sighed.
"I told them you were alive," Lala continued. "That I would know, because the pact was there. The house believed me. The press didn't. But even for us, it didn't help. Alive and missing meant there were so many things which could be happening to you. Things we didn't want to think about, or talk about. Even with each other. And..."
She trailed off for a moment. Lowered her right arm, and slim fingers ran through the grass.
...it hit the house hard," she eventually went on. "Everyone had their own way of dealing with it. Rachnera --"
"-- celebrated." The words were bitter. "Where no one else could see. And said a few words about how I was the only one too weak to escape, where everyone could hear --"
The cool palm pressed against her skirt. Cerea stopped.
"There were a couple of weeks where no one could move without getting snagged," Lala said. "Then there was a house meetin'. Everyone yelled at her. Miia slapped her. There hasn't been a tripwire since. Rachnera's dealing with it by not dealing with it. Skulkin' about, never admittin' to anythin'. And Miia, she nearly got deported --"
Cerea's upper spine went straight, almost locked in place. "What happened?"
"That documentary idiot came back." Lala spat. "The one who tried to get Papi's egg. I didn't recognize him, because he was before my time. He tried to sneak in with the press. Miia spotted him. Then she wrapped him. It got worse from there." A little more softly, "But the program cut her a break, because... because they knew how bad it was." Paused. "And they were already losin' a lot of students."
I nearly got Miia sent back.
I thought the program might fall apart.
"Because their parents were afraid," Cerea made herself say, "that it would happen to their own children. Whatever was happening to me."
And all the dullahan could do was nod.
"A lot of parents pulled their kids home," Lala quietly said. "For two months, we didn't have Mero -- she came back last week, Cerea: she won't talk about how she got loose."
Decibels were beginning to die. The other girl's head tilted forward, swayed dangerously on the neck as the scythe of white hair cut the perfect air.
"Papi cries sometimes." Almost a whisper. "Whatever she's doing, she'll just stop, and... cry. We keep finding her in your room. Nothing's changed there. We kept it waiting for you. A couple of other girls tried to get it, new girls, but -- we all linked arms and wings, blocked them every time. Rachnera was part of that. And so was he -- I felt that, lass."
Cerea knew. She'd been equally aware of her entire body going stiff.
"Because he blamed himself." Dark eyes closed, reopened. "He thought he should have known, done somethin' -- all the things which were impossible, he decided he was responsible for."
"He was home," Cerea immediately argued. "There wasn't anything he could have -- he would have just been trapped with me --"
"-- you know how many times he stepped in. Threw a punch, when we couldn't."
The blonde girl silently nodded.
"He thought he should have done somethin', even when he couldn't." The sigh was just barely audible. "Dat's where you two are alike. He didn't try to shove us out, but -- he talked to everyone. About goin' home, because he didn't think he could protect us any more. It didn't drive us off. Mero's ma pulled her out for her own reasons, and Mero couldn't stop it because she isn't an adult yet. But he didn't let anyone new in. And... it's quiet, Cerea. The house is quieter without you. Even Suu just goes puddle sometimes and doesn't come out of it for a while. Because..."
The words had a certain lilt.
"...we kind of got used to having a few hundred kilograms of blonde stomping her hooves around the place and pretendin' she was in charge." A cool hand gently pressed against the skirt again. "And they believed me, when I said you were alive. Papi kept askin'. But 'alive' could still mean enslaved, or worse, and... we miss you, lass. All of us, every day..."
They both waited until all of the tears had stopped.
"I'm sorry."
Gently "It wasn't your fault."
"I missed you. All of you --"
"-- even the spider?" Teasing.
Cerea took a breath, and found that she could. She just didn't need it.
"I kept thinking the same thing, over and over," the girl told the dullahan. "'I want to go home.' But it was never about France, or the herd. I wanted the house. To be with all of you. To..."
It took one more breath.
"...go back to my family. To see my sisters..."
Almost a whisper. "Is that what we are?"
Which made the girl's words turn frantic. "Prithee, but this one did not mean to offend --"
"-- just wonderin'," Lala quietly interrupted. "Wonderin' exactly when you'd finally figured that out."
She turned her body in the grass. Pressed a cool check against a warm form, and stayed there until the trembling stopped. When a little more of the pain began to fade.
The topics became a little scattershot after that.
"I'd like to meet Nightwatch."
Somewhat too quickly, "I hope you don't. I mean, not for a good long time. Not here --"
With a soft snort, "I don't know if I could find this place again without you, lass: we're a long way off from the fields I know. And I can't make a pact with someone I've never met."
"Somepony."
"...really?"
Solidly, "They're two separate words."
Which triggered another snort. "Anyway, no pact, no bloodline with someone who swore. You'd have to enter together." And a soft sigh. "I'd still love to see her, though. In her world, even if it was just for a minute. Or your Luna. I -- kind of think we'd get along. Least, I'd like to think that."
Shadows which comfort. The cool sanctuary within darkness.
"I think so too."
Silence. One girl breathed. The other couldn't seem to get a rhythm back.
Without judgment, "You haven't asked about your ma."
Which made Cerea snort. "I told you about that part of Tartarus. I don't want to think about her too much, Lala. I had those thoughts. They were just about the last ones, and maybe that's enough --"
"She's still your blood."
Immediately, "Half of it."
"Lass --"
Her volume was starting to rise. "-- the part which isn't diluted, and that's the reason for my stupid name, Lala. I made up a nickname which no one ever called me, and that was how I thought of myself. Because I couldn't stand the sound of my own name. She didn't give me a name, she tried to label me with a wish --"
"-- can I talk?"
Somehow, it was enough to stop her.
"About my mother."
(Just not for long.)
Lala nodded.
"...fine," Cerea muttered. "Get it over with..."
But the silence stretched out.
"You're a lot less formal," the dullahan finally said. "A lot. And before some of this came up, there were a few times when you were almost relaxed. None of us ever saw that in the house. Not for long."
"I'm under orders," Cerea firmly stated -- then paused, and almost smirked. "Also, I'm dead."
The psychopomp was briefly silent.
"We need to talk about that --"
"-- being dead means I literally," Cerea declared, "cannot screw anything else up --"
"-- we all saw it, after a while," Lala scythed in. "Especially Rachnera. Who does miss you, in her own way. She spotted it first, and -- worked those hard fingertips into what she saw as a weak spot. But it was worst after your ma visited. The pressure... lass, you were cleanin' the house bottom to top, and you kept trying to wipe out your own fingerprints and hoofmarks. Just about circlin', trying to get rid of every trace."
Defensively, "We make a mess. All of us. It's not our house --"
"-- we are a mess."
Cerea stopped. Lala's lips quirked.
"All of us," the smaller girl added. "All of the time. Damaged goods. Because every species had a gap. Lass, this is how we all saw you after a while. Let's say that you decided to find a thousand yen. One loose coin at a time. And one day, you looked at your total and you were three short. Three short, and that made you a failure. You couldn't stand that. So you'd go out, and you'd find four. And when you did? You'd look at the new total, and you'd decide you were nine hundred and ninety-nine short."
Cerea's mouth fell open.
"Tell me I'm wrong."
Nothing came out.
"Any time," Lala helpfully offered. "We've got a while yet."
The silence maintained.
"Right, that's it, isn't it?" the dullahan lilted. "But that's from your ma. And now you've seen it, and you're angry. You're allowed to be. But she's part of this."
The smaller girl raised her hands to her head. Lifted it away from the neck, and tilted everything until the golden irises were staring into Cerea's face.
"And she's part of you."
I don't want...
It was very easy for the dullahan to patiently stare. Especially the 'patience' part. The staring wasn't quite up to Fluttershy.
The head wobbled.
"My arms are gettin' kind of tired."
"Fine," Cerea finally said. "My mother. What happened?"
The neck received its burden. The dullahan rubbed at her own biceps for a few seconds.
"She didn't get the word for an extra day," Lala told her. "Another reason Smith nearly got sacked, and why she's still on probation. But then your ma came storming in. Tried to take over everything, and she did that when she didn't know how any of it worked. It's not like most gaps have people go missin'. So it was mostly blunderin' around, shoving her weight into people and barkin' the kind of orders which would have just made things worse. Only took a few hours before Zombina snapped. Told her that she understood, but none of it was helpin' and your ma had to step back." A brief pause. "You can probably guess what happened next."
Morbidly, "How many limbs did she knock off?" It was Zombina. They could all be sewn back on, but the process was annoying.
"How many? None," Lala firmly said. "Tionishia grabbed the blade. Tried to reason with your ma. When that didn't work, she tried to go wall, block everythin'. And after that failed..." The sigh was soft. "Ogre versus centaur. They both got the worst of it. Even when for 'Shia, the worst was just havin' to hurt anyone. But we got her out. She galloped away, once she was out the door. Didn't come back for hours. And then she was sorry, and quieter, and --"
"-- waiting for a chance to start over," Cerea decided.
More silence.
"She loves you."
Two toneless words. "Does she?" And then the bitterness came back. "She sure didn't love my father. He called out to her, and she ignored him. She wouldn't save him, when there were no laws yet and we could have attacked. I was about to go in, and then she dragged me off! Anything could have happened to him, anything, and it would have been my fault --"
"-- yours," Lala broke in, "when she dragged you off."
"I should have pulled free --"
"-- how is a centaur like a narcissistic hermaphrodite?"
Cerea blinked.
"...what?"
There were ways in which the girl could think of herself as French. In the same sense, Lala was Irish. The brogue, some regional biases, football club allegiance, part of what could sometimes be a slightly morbid worldview --
"Constantly hard on themselves."
-- and the somewhat crude sense of humor.
The joke, rather appropriately, died.
"No credit for comin' up with that on the spot?" Lala innocently asked.
A rather embarrassed breeze got out of the area.
"Centaurs," the dullahan muttered. "An entire species with no sense of humor." Which was followed by "I know you looked it up, when you could. Were there any deaths in your riot?"
Cerea shook her head.
"So he came out of it."
"She didn't know that," Cerea argued. "And a few of the humans were hurt badly. Hospital time. He might have been one of them. It's not as if I had his name. I still don't --"
"-- you could have asked her."
"When she refused to speak with me?" The tail was starting to lash. "After she ran, Lala? Did everything she could to avoid me? I thought she would have been happy to have me gone, because the sin had vanished!" Faster now, with the hairs skimming through the grass. "Or at least the evidence --"
She had told the dullahan all of it, because she hadn't felt there was any reason for holding back. There was time, and... she'd said it earlier. When it came to the living, there was no more damage she could do. Even if she wanted to get in one more good swing at a very familiar target.
"-- of her weakness," the girl pushed out. "The only one who ever gave in! Who ever --"
"...lass," Lala gently said, "I need to ask a favor."
"What?"
"Imagine it," was even softer. "Imagine your ma, on that night." The snicker didn't quite fit with the rest of it. "I understand that you'll want to stop just short of the act. Isn't hardly anyone who wants to picture their parents having sex. But -- put yourself there. Try to see it, just for a minute." The cool hand lifted higher. Rubbed the skirt, stroked unreachable fur. "Please..."
In time, the girl will learn that the core of the idea came from the humans. This seems to make it even stupider.
She has no interest in the colts. She thinks about being with them, and the most she can feel is disgust. What the filly doesn't know is that she isn't the only one. The generations of cumulative error have seen stallions warp into something which has no gentility left. Power and testosterone which reeks in their sweat and no thought which wants anything more than the act itself. Their own satisfaction. The conquest. Nothing else.
You attract a stallion with a vagina and a pulse: another century, and one of those qualifications may become optional.
You can't ask them to caress.
To kiss.
To love.
When mares look at snorting, reeking, uncaring brutes... disgust can be the least of it.
And centaurs have this much in common with equines: if the mare isn't in the mood to have sex, then sex isn't going to happen. Mating effectively becomes impossible. There are ways in which the body closes itself off and if the stallion tries to persist beyond that, the kicking begins.
The species has rendered itself into something where half of the population doesn't want to breed. The mere thought can make extinction look like the soft option.
But the species must continue.
And the humans, who breed horses... who, in pushing for some of them to become faster, stronger, better able to work and race and who did it all while not caring about the fact that the results were snorting masses of hormones which just happened to also be neurotic messes that no equine mare would willingly touch --
-- came up with the concept of 'teaser'.
This is how it works.
For equines, you find the mare who'll carry the foal. Then you have to find out if she's in estrus, because horses do have that. And if the time is right -- you have to make sure she's receptive, because the wrong stallion is going to be kicked. Bitten. Worse.
So you start with the teaser.
A teaser stallion has to be in good condition. A strong libido is a necessity, as they have to want the breeding. But what's just as important is a good temperament. They have to shine on personality. Skill at nickering, slow approaches, and gentle contact. They're the sort of stallions who, during a few carefully-supervised hours, can get the mare in the mood.
The humans observe.
Watch for that moment when the mare agrees to the act.
And in the instant they see she's receptive, that it's going to happen -- they get the teaser out of the stall. Swap in a snorting mess of hormones and neuroses, who will already be aroused because there's a receptive mare in front of them and they don't care about the fine details.
That is how you breed racehorses.
Now. Apply all of it to something which can think.
Even without estrus, the centaur mares need to be receptive to breeding. If the emotional state isn't present, then sex is rather unlikely. The fad (or fetish) for raw power wore off a long time ago. Just about no one in the current generation can be aroused by any living stallion. And you still need to get the mares in the mood, because the other option is extinction.
So what's left?
You get just about all of the mares of breeding age together in a single residence. Wait for their menstrual cycles to synchronize: something which can happen with multiple species when their females are living in close proximity.
And then, when there's no way out -- you tell the youngest what's going to happen.
The stallions are no longer suitable: the older mares recognize that. But you do whatever's needed for survival.
It's the only way.
You can't bring in horses. They're large, difficult to corral, make too much noise, and they aren't the least bit arousing. A horse can't tell a centaur mare that it loves her.
It can't hold her hand.
There is a night in every spring when no filly can look out of a window...
When the girl was first seriously considering the possibility (or rather, the dream) of having sex with their host, she tried to do some research. Attempting to discover whether it was possible and, if the answer worked out to 'true', exactly how she was supposed to manage the act without killing him. (The first rule of such Internet scouting turned out to be avoiding anything with a .de address. Forever.) But after her mother confessed...
Knowing it was possible was no longer a comfort. Existing as the living evidence turned into something opposite. But there was a new question in play: how were they found?
Use the right websites, and you can search through time.
There are liminals who can pass for human, at least for a little while. The mares pay them to go out into the world. In one generation, they place classified ads. Eventually, special-interest magazines get involved, and a little block of text at the very back invites the curious to connect with others who share the same fantasy. Approach the present, and a website can call out to dreamers directly. And in every year, the trap is set.
Do you dream of something different?
Are your tastes tilted towards that which never existed?
Imagine. Imagine six limbs and a warm embrace...
(Someone has to write the erotica for those smaller mailings. Eventually, for the websites. The girl never finds out who was hired for that. Perhaps some of the gap's mares were working from the inspiration of memory.)
Eventually, you get a number of them together, still under the direction of those few who can pass. There's a meeting, a hookup, a convention. An annual event which just happens to take place within a day's travel of a gap.
The wheat is sorted from the chaff. You're certainly looking for pleasant features, but it's more important to find a personality which offers warmth and comfort. A tender touch goes a long way. Everyone involved had better both know what a bath is for and have made a recent personal acquaintance.
Then you gather the wheat together in privacy. The seeds. That which sows a future.
You lock the doors.
And you tell them everything.
Some probably laugh. Quite a few might have tried to leave. Offended, angry that someone tried to take it this far.
Then you show them the evidence.
The girl presumes the liminal host might reveal themselves right there. The final argument, the one which can't be countered. It... won't matter in a day anyway.
And once they believe...
...you offer them a dream.
One night in every spring.
It starts early. After all, the parties involved need to be introduced.
The humans are brought into the gap. (There are multiple smuggling routes used for this alone. The girl's one-day exit chose something new.) They meet the mares, and an hour normally has to be allowed just for the shock to wear off on both sides.
Pairs sort themselves out. There's a walk around the area. Quiet conversations, as each side truly learns about the other. Flowers may be offered. Bouquets are waiting at strategic points, just to make that happen. And there's conversation and hand-holding and perhaps a few might even attempt to dance.
The young mares tell themselves that they're only doing what they must. But the illusion quickly closes in, begins to solidify. They've never had a male speak to them like this before, with respect and adoration and... as someone who exists in the presence of a dream.
Hands are held. If permission is given, skin can be gently stroked.
The mares usually have to wind up leaning in for the first kiss. In and down.
They come to know each other, as much as one night will permit. And when the illusion is complete, when the mare's body is starting to respond -- the new couples go to the special stables. Blouses are removed. The soft caress moves to those areas where nerve density is highest.
It almost always reaches the point where the mare is willing.
The stallion, waiting in a nearby, soundproofed room with only alcohol for company, is always willing.
And when the moment is right --
-- the older mares swap out the teaser.
That's how centaurs breed.
The girl, who went out into the world before the special house called for her, learned that just a little too late.
The details also happen to double as the world's most effective emetic.
It has to be done quickly. There are many ways in which the secret of liminal existence was kept, and one of them is a special brew. Something which makes humans suggestible, distorts memory into what the drinker is told. But it only affects a limited span of recent time. Take too long...
One of the base components is alcohol. (Satyrs can do a lot of things with alcohol.) For those at the gathering who don't agree to the trip, there are free drinks. Everyone else gets their glass at the end. A few even raise them willingly, with a toast to the power of a fulfilled dream: they might not have gotten to complete the act, but -- they touched a centaur. For a number, that's enough.
A dream which, by morning, will be less than dissipating mist.
They won't remember.
None of them ever remember.
A number stay in the special interest community. Anyone who's been proven as an excellent teaser may wind up being invited back.
You're supposed to rotate couples. Even so, there are a few for whom not just anyone will do. Some of the mares wind up meeting the same human for the third time, and the tears have to be held back until they leave.
So what happened with her mother on that night?
The teaser had done his job. Her mother was... ready. And the girl can almost understand that, because stallions just try to get into positions where they can squeeze. They don't fondle or massage or caress, and kisses are right out.
The girl managed to get their host to touch her a few times of her will, and it was... soft.
It was so easy for the girl's breath to grow hot...
...her mother had been with the teaser for hours. They'd talked. Touched. Then they'd gone to the stable, her mother would have undressed, and the teaser naturally followed suit.
(Mares were instructed to avoid comments about underendowment.)
Kisses and touching and... her mother was ready.
As the girl understands it, the teaser should have been swapped out. There are older mares who do that. So what happened? Was there a new mare in the role, one who was easily distracted? Who found something else calling her away, the wrong sound coming from another part of the stables, a summons for multiple mares to intervene, told the human to rejoin the others on his own, and just completely lost track of affairs?
Did the teaser almost reach the gathering?
When did the human hear her mother cry out in pain?
The stallion -- the one whom the girl thought was her father -- had been drinking. For hours.
The approach was rough.
The start was worse.
There's a weighted baton secured in each breeding stable, one which is even larger and heavier than the standard because an aroused stallion can be harder to dissuade. The mares aren't supposed to use it unless they have no other choice. And her mother, who had just cried out in pain at a moment when the supervisors were out of hearing, trying to reach the last resort, being dragged away from it because the stallion doesn't care --
-- the door would have opened.
The human racing in: something the stallion doesn't notice. The intruder sees, in a single instant, what the mare is trying to do.
The baton is seized.
There is a centaur stallion whom the girl believed to be her father. He is strong, extremely stupid, really needs to be kept away from alcohol, and exists as a trotting pileup of genetic errors.
As it turns out, one of those is a certain vulnerability to being hit squarely at the back of the skull.
The stallion drops, and stays down for hours. (The mare will tell everyone that he was so drunk as to pass out after the act, and they all believe it -- including him.) It leaves mare and human effectively alone in the same stable, with the mare looking at her rescuer. The one who showed her that some touches didn't have to be harsh. Who, at least for a single year, saved her.
There are many distractions on this night. No supervisor ever gets back to that stable and even if they had, the mare has used the baton to jam the door.
They reach for each other...
The two females sat in the grass for a while. After a time, the breeze returned. Cerea still couldn't seem to make the air work for her. Not that she needed it, but -- it was frustrating. As if everything about the place was almost present...
"We did some of the smugglin'," Lala quietly offered. "Dullahans, I mean. Never me personally. It was for the adults. I only got as far as bein' taught how to put on the makeup, before the gaps opened. And the contacts." There was a soft groan. "As far as I'm concerned, a girl in heavy pancake makeup looks like only one thing in God's world, and dat's a girl in heavy pancake makeup. But some people don't look too closely." She paused. Sighed a little, and stared up at the sky. "The contacts make my eyes hurt."
"I never met any of the smugglers," Cerea wearily replied. "That was for grown mares. Did... they tell you what it was like? Going out into the world?"
"Stress," was the answer. "Stressed, all the time. Wonderin' if they would be the one who made the last mistake."
"No," the girl miserably said. "That was me."
It had been the whole story. The dream fight with Luna required the proper context.
The dullahan sighed.
"Best to deal with that first, I think," she decided. "And then back to your ma." She leaned back against Cerea's flank. "Lass -- I'm going to ask you somethin' serious."
The girl waited.
And, almost all at once, the too-fast pace of Irish speech accelerating throughout, "How much longer did we have, to stay hidden? Hard enough in the medieval days, when travel was so hard and there were just a few humans who might risk going off the roads. But then you got the explorers. After a while, technology put cameras in the sky. The ones who could pass... we were bein' run ragged. Everywhere at once, just trying to spot the potential leaks and fix them before the flood washed us away. One mistake. One moment of bad contact, a collar that fails just as someone bumps me. Always, always one moment --"
"-- which might have been mine --"
"It couldn't have held much longer," Lala quickly argued. "Can't reprogram every satellite, hack systems which never get tied into anythin'. Can't be everywhere. The elders knew that, Cerea: the elders for all of the gaps. It's why they talked to each other through the burners, because -- it was almost over. No matter what we did, it was almost over. When you think about it, we barely got as far as we did. And it was going to be easier to come out, announce ourselves and try to account for the gaps, than to let them find us. Coming out... we could try to control a little of it. We would be there when the reaction hit."
"Their hands might have been forced," Cerea countered. "Building rumors. Hoofprints in the mud --"
"-- and you think you're the only one who ever tried to get out for a day? Who nearly got caught? Centuries, lass: centuries in the gaps. That's a long time to go with just one rebellion."
The girl fell silent.
"It was almost over, no matter what happened," Lala told her. "Maybe you did leave evidence. For kids, who might not have told their folks. And no one said the parents would believe them. Even in the worst view of it, you were -- coincidence."
They both mulled that over for a while.
"So we're exposed," Cerea said. "Forever." Because going back into a closet was effectively impossible, and she couldn't even use a typical Japanese walk-in.
Dryly, "At least now they have to kill us in the open."
"Fatalistic," Cerea observed.
"Dullahan," Lala countered. And gently, "Lass, don't you blame yourself for enough already?"
"I've been trying to blame my mother," Cerea dryly responded. "It hasn't been much of an improvement --"
"-- she's scared."
The blonde head turned. Blue eyes slowly sought contact with gold, which stared right back.
"She's been scared for a lifetime," Lala quietly decided. "Yours. You had it, down there in the caves. She probably tore apart every book your people ever wrote, trying to find out if there were any other times. To see what happened if a centaur bred with a human. There's species who need that, worse off than yours --"
The lamia. Where every birth was female, and humans were an essential part of the reproductive cycle.
"-- but I doubt she came up with anything, or the fear wouldn't have been there. She said it in front of us, that horrible word, and I know why you hate it. Diluted." The anger briefly twisted blue skin. "It's like saying one drop of Protestant blood means you can never be Catholic, and the Americans had their own version for their colors. But with your ma -- I do believe she was afraid to see what you'd look like, when you came out. And she got the right limb count, so..."
The scythe of a cowlick had its way with the pure air.
"She pushed you, because she was afraid," the dullahan continued. "Afraid of the price for what she'd done, and that you'd be the one who paid it. So she was looking for where the damage might be, like you said. She pushed to see what broke. Because she's been afraid since the moment you were born, and she was afraid for you. A birth like no one had ever seen before. And she tried to love you, but..."
She trailed off for a moment, and the girl took over.
"Afraid." Bitter, saturated with disbelief. "And you think she loved me."
"When I meet people," Lala neutrally offered, "they're usually not in the best place in their lives. Some of them are at the end of their lives. They're scared, and they have a lot of ways to deal with that. Some of them involve lying. Ask a dullahan about fear."
Cerea's fists clenched.
"Or ask me," she countered. "After months spent having just about everypony --"
"-- then you should know. She pushed you, lass. Because she was afraid. Pushed you so hard to be a centaur, until you probably wanted to be just about anything else because 'centaur' was never good enough."
They were so pretty.
All of the ones in the magazines. On the websites.
...small and fine and I knew some people liked breasts that size...
...just about no size --
-- but people were willing to be with them.
To touch.
To love.
And I wanted...
She had gazed at the captured opinions of others until they had become more important than her own.
"I think she loves you, in her way," Lala offered (and the girl almost wished she could believe it). "But she doesn't know how to show it. All she remembers is the fear."
"And she still left him for the mob." There was no point in understating it. "After they'd stayed in contact for years. The gaps were open. She could have saved him --" stopped. "No. Taken him back, right then and there. A mixed-species couple --"
"-- one of the first," the dullahan observed. "The first targets. And she would have had to admit to everything, on the spot."
"She abandoned --"
"-- people are complicated." Somewhat more softly, "I said your ma loved you. I never said she was the best mare, or that she made the right decision. She might have forgotten how on both. You could say the best of her was almost left in that stable, after the fear set in. Except that the best of her is right here. And she was too close to see it..."
The small girl looked up at her. Gold eyes roamed across Cerea's features.
"Did she ever really look at you?" Lala asked. "Did anyone? When all she was telling them to see was a centaur?" And waited.
Eventually, the girl's ears and tail all twitched.
"I don't understand." Words she'd brought with her from two worlds.
"Lass," Lala said, "centaurs... evolve. Fast. When the gaps opened, when some species saw yours for the first time in centuries, they couldn't believe how much you'd all changed. Skin and fur, height and build. And your males got twisted. Changed to the point where no mare wanted to be with one, something else which happened right quick. A whole species on the verge of not being able to breed any more, with no way to reverse what happened to your stallions because all the damage might have been on the chromosome the mares don't have. Can't replace. What's the solution, when evolution comes callin'? The one which means there's no dilution at all? Never was, and never could be?"
What are you --
The question never had the chance to be born. The answer effectively killed it.
"Cerea, lass, love -- you look just like your mother..."
She barely had any grounding in science fiction. But there were movies in the household, mostly bad ones. Biology textbooks had been smuggled into the gap.
It was enough. And for the second time, the girl's jaw dropped.
"Let's say interbreeding is possible," the dullahan continued (and, in Cerea's opinion, did so just a little too evenly). "Are centaur genes that dominant, to let nothin' of your da go through? Or are centaurs reaching the point where the mares are a little like the lamia, and the sperm cell is mostly a trigger? Maybe the egg cell just doubles the chromosomes and calls it solved." Staring at the girl's face, "I know your lot didn't do much with photography, no more than mine. Not when we're just about all taught that cameras are something to fear. So there's no record of what your ma looked like at your age, and memories can lose detail. Especially for a species which thinks about how things smell a little more than how they look. But for what she looked like, when she was young -- I'm bettin' the answer is right next to me. Because she was evolvin' to work without males, or to make sure the stallion's damage can't be passed on."
The smaller girl pressed more tightly against the larger's trembling flank. Because it was usually hard to detect Lala's presence in a room. She possessed something approaching an anti-aura: one which made her easy to dismiss or overlook. (Overlooking the fake scythe could take some effort.)
You didn't always know she was there. Until she wanted you to.
"Cerea, when we all saw you next to her for the first time, adjusted for age and everything else, the things your body hasn't finished with yet -- you're just about her clone."
And there were no words. Simply the feeling of her own hands lifting to cover her eyes, and the renewed discovery that the dead could still shed tears.
She felt the dullahan stand. The cool hand gently stroking her spine, upper to lower.
"Maybe it's not entirely that," Lala offered. "We've all got a human aspect, don't we now? Some more than others. Maybe we all need a little human blood every so often, to stay healthy. But that would still make you the most complete centaur to come along in hundreds of years. The first --"
"Second," the girl choked out. "I'm never any better than second at anything --"
"-- she kept pushing you." Both hands were at work now. "Win one category, get pushed into the next weight class. Never giving you a real chance, not when the goal was being moved back on the field after every kick. And even if you're just second -- you're always second. Racing and strength and jousts and aim and everything I could ever name. Saint Sebastian's arrows, Cerea: how talented does someone have to be if they're second-best at everything? There's no dilution, love: there never was. You're just -- you..."
She stopped. Moved around to the front, gently pulled Cerea's hands away from her face.
One was standing. The other was still in the grass. The centaur had to look up at the dullahan.
It also changed their relative positions for the next hug.
Even through the dress, under the heat of a lost Sun, Lala's bosom was slightly cool.
And then the dullahan sang.
The topics changed a few more times.
"The self-defense amendments are coming. Some people are trying to stall them, but the momentum's there."
"How long?"
"Next month, soonest. A year at the worst. Retributive force, equal to what we're being attacked with. Most of the cultural exchanges are looking the other way until that happens." Lala paused. "Some people gave the changes a name."
"Oh?"
With absolute dead-toned neutrality, "Cerea's Laws."
"My --"
"There was a lot of publicity," the smaller girl offhandedly said. "Maybe more than a lot. That sort of thing tends to get named after whoever set it off. And there was this story going around. The one which said you were so honorable about obeyin', you'd obviously let yourself be taken without a fight." Lala grinned. "I didn't have the heart to tell them..."
"I was hoping you'd win."
Slightly impressed, "Really, now?"
"You or Miia," Cerea admitted. "You'd be good for him. And you've got a couple of edges. You're not going to kill him with breakfast. And as far as he's concerned, you've got the best legs."
"Says Miss Busty," Lala giggled -- then took a closer look. "Bustier?"
"I picked up a cup size," Cerea admitted.
Teasing, "Just the one?"
"Maybe. I... can't actually read the label."
"...wait," Lala said. "I think I missed somethin' in the first telling. Since when do you let anyone put you in a bra?"
"I've been thinkin' about his summoning spell," Lala began, pulling her knees up to her chest. (She was sitting against Cerea's flank again, and had been for some time.) "What you said for the things he told you, and what you guessed."
"That he couldn't have reversed it anyway." The girl sighed. "Even with a guarantee, the price --"
"-- not that, lass." One hand went out, gestured dramatically. "He might have still had some of the dark magic in him. From the deep place, from Tartarus. And he'd been in there for a long time, hadn't he? Stealin' that power, over and over. Maybe it's dreaming, but... a dreamer can know a little about what's going on in the wakin' world. Make enough noise, and that becomes part of the dream. And I can't believe that Tartarus liked having its power stolen."
"So?"
The smaller female went silent. Hugged her own legs, then let go.
"I almost think he had magic, of some kind," Lala said. "Everyone else there does -- and yes, lass, everypony: don't start. Just -- not what he considered to be it. Whatever he had wasn't flashy enough. Subtle. And he wanted what he couldn't have, because that's what just about everyone wants. He had a brother, he killed the only one who still loved him, and then he wanted someone who would save him. When he's got all of that magic, of all sorts, and some of it used to be dreamin'. Not awake, not completely aware, but dreamin' he would stop. And that power had to have been tangled up in the casting."
There were times when the dead seemed to think very quickly. It might have been from getting the actual neurons out of the way.
"Twisting the spell," Cerea said. "To find someone who would stop him."
"You told him there was a herd," Lala conceded. "And then he died knowing he'd never reach it, at the hand of the one he'd called." The smile was exceptionally thin. "I'd call that torment..."
And finally, Lala stood up.
"It's about that time," she said. "I gave you as much as I could, lass. But even a dullahan can't stay in the realm forever. Not this far from home."
Cerea sighed. Pushed her hooves against the soil, and felt vaguely irritated as the keratin threatened to pass through earth. It took an extra second before she found the leverage to regain her full height, followed by backing up so she could look at the smaller girl properly.
"I can go back to the ponies I saw," she announced. And the other. It seemed important for her to reach the other, and the air told her that one was relatively close by, perhaps even watching -- but these moments were for Lala. "Talk to them about what happens next --"
The head tilt was honest enough. Curious and, with Lala, a little precarious. "-- why?"
With a borrowed morbidity, "I'm dead. I think that's the next step."
"And who said you're dead?"
Cerea stared at her. The dullahan smiled.
"I know what happened. All of that discharged energy went through me. My body was shutting down --"
Lala's right arm came up. The cool palm touched Cerea's lower sternum.
"We can touch," the psychopomp said. "I made sure of that. But lass -- did you notice how much trouble you're havin', when you try to touch somethin' else? You're only about halfway here. On the border. Right up against the last barrier, if you want to think of it that way."
The stare didn't seem to be getting any less intense. Lala ignored it.
"Because there's a few problems with that death," was the dullahan's next casual announcement. "You said that place doesn't allow suicide. And you killed him -- knowin' that his death might take you out. Does self-sacrifice count for suicide? It might have given you a little bit of an extra chance. And, lass..."
The pressure from the cool palm lightly intensified.
"...trust a dullahan to know. No doctor, me. I can't work out the specifics. But it feels like your body's in deep shock, right up against that edge. Everythin' else got put out of the way for a while, so there would be less to worry about. It's trying to heal, back there in the world. But..."
The smaller girl stepped back. Looked up, and smiled.
"There's those who say centaurs have nothing supernatural about them, no magic," she declared. "Wrong, all of them. Because every last one of you is supernaturally stubborn. The real fight between you and the 'taurs isn't just about the curves: it's to see who can be the more bull-headed. And you'd think they wouldn't be losin' so badly, not with the head start. If you decide you want to be here, lass, truly wish to stay in this realm, reached towards it with everythin' you had -- you would, I think. But if you try to go back..."
She stopped. Looked at the centaur: hooves to head, front to back. The golden gaze seemed to pause partway along the left flank.
"There's those," the dullahan softly repeated, "who say centaurs..." And stopped.
"Lala?"
White hair vibrated. The head shook so quickly as to make the body lunge for it when the tumble inevitably kicked in. Fortunately, the body had become good at blind grabs.
"I'm not sure," Lala tried again as she put her head back on. "Not a doctor, and I think this is more than that. So I can't guess." Refocused. "But this is about you, lass. What you want. Finally, it's about what you want. So -- what do you want?"
The girl thought about it.
"I may never get home," she made herself admit. "No matter what I do."
Gently, "I know."
She looked at her sibling, then tried to inhale truly pure air under a clean sky as she gazed at the perfect pasture. Thinking about a world where the truest, most constant background scent was fear. Terror forever pounding at her brain, when this place offered some level of stability --
-- there was an ibex watching them.
The new female was some distance away. Too far for eavesdropping: a distance-granted offer of privacy. Simply... watching.
And then the ibex nodded.
Backwards-curling horns gave the movement some extra emphasis. So did the smile.
Stability.
The gaps offered stability.
Forever.
She thought about it, as she looked at the ibex. And then Cerea nodded back.
There was enough time for goodbyes, and a little more.
"There's rules," the psychopomp told her, as they walked together at the last. "I'm not sure how much you'll remember. You'll know you saw me, at the very least. But some things might slip. And when it comes to me... all I can carry from you are words. Just a few."
"To them."
Lala nodded.
"What do you want me to say to the girls?"
Cerea closed her eyes.
"That I love them. That I'll keep trying to come back."
"The spider, too?"
It made her smile. "If you must."
"To your ma?"
"That..." One more breath. She seemed to have lungs, of some sort: it was the air which didn't fully cooperate. "...I haven't forgotten her. That I think I did something right --"
"I may," Lala solemnly cut in, "have to take out the 'think' --"
"-- and if she wants to doubt me, she can choke on it."
The dullahan blinked.
"Those must have been some orders," Lala half-whistled. "Anything else?"
"I don't know the squad that well --"
"-- to him, lass," Lala quietly clarified. "To him. You've barely mentioned him this whole time, and -- this is it."
She opened her eyes again. Thought, as hard as she could.
"To look after all of you, because the rest of the group is still trouble. That I hope he's happy, in the end. And... that maybe it's better, if everyone wins."
For the first time, the dullahan frowned.
"That's it, lass?"
I wanted to love him.
I wanted what I thought I couldn't have.
So I told myself that whatever I was feeling had to be love.
"And -- it wasn't his fault. I think it's what he might need to hear."
Lala nodded, and did so as something about the air between them seemed to blur.
"I miss you," Cerea choked out as her limbs grew heavy, a distant thunder starting to pound in her ears. "I miss all of you every day, and I might never come home. I miss you..."
The cool arms wrapped around her for the last time. A strong, desperate grip was offered back.
Everything started to become indistinct. Insubstantial. Everything but the form held so tightly in the girl's arms.
"We'll see each other again," Lala whispered from the center of the final hug, while the land deepened into shadow. "At least once more, love. I promised...."