//------------------------------//
// Dragons Aren't Real 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Corsica and I didn't speak as we made the long hike back from the rocket crash site, partly because we had said everything that needed saying and partly to conserve breath. As fit as both of us were, it was a substantial trek over very rough terrain, and both of us had stayed up all day.

As the temperature rose and Dead Herman drew near, the sky began to tinge with orange, the sun edging closer and closer to the mountainous horizon. What was my schedule like, again? Did I have work tonight? Could I go home and catch a nap before it, and if I could, should I? I was still worn out from my ordeal the other night, but mentally, I was fired up and wide awake, thoughts of rockets and weapons and airships and Equestria whirling through my brain and lending energy to my hooves.

To hear Corsica tell it, she and I - her special talent, my bracelet - were weapons someone had tried to bury in Icreach. And everyone interested in us now, everyone trying to get our cooperation voluntary or otherwise, wanted access to these. And I still didn't know what either of our weapons did.

But that wouldn't stop me from moving forward. I several paths wide open to me, first and foremost befriending Coda. That could be as easy or as hard as I wanted it to be, depending how hard I pressed her to trust me, but to hear her tell it she was more than willing to pay me an airship in exchange for a job that wasn't yet specified. I had everything else. If all it meant was a single job to have an unconditional ticket out of Ironridge, I was confident I could do almost anything, even tasks thought up by a goddess.

My eyes instinctively went to scan the darkening sky, and my intuition paid off: there was Coda's airship, a bright pink-black light that looked like a comet burning where the dirigible should be, floating down to dock at the ruins of the skyport. Maybe I could go pay her a visit right now, and do that instead of getting a nap before work. I swallowed, nodding at my plan.

"I'm gonna take the long way back," I told Corsica as we neared the base of Skyfreeze Tower. "Got a good lead to pursue. See you around?"

"Sure." She tossed her mane in a see-ya gesture. "Try not to get Lilithed out there."

I chuckled weakly. "If I do, I'll make it through just like I did last time."

And then we parted ways, her heading for the Ice District and me heading for Dead Herman. It wasn't important now, but it was good to know there was a way back home from the Sky District that didn't involve going anywhere prohibitively hot during the day.

Our parting lingered in my mind for a while, though. Even assuming I was right and Kitty was a windigo and Jamjars was in on windigo shenanigans... they had protected me. Kitty broke into jail and then followed me through Lilith's lair in order to keep me safe. Maybe she saw it as protecting her own property, and I wasn't fond of being treated like a piece on anyone else's board, but the fact was Jamjars' team offered me a lot of freedom while also fending off the competition. Unless Jamjars was secretly doing something really evil that would cause things to all of a sudden go bad if she wasn't stopped, my present situation wasn't actually that dire. The biggest threat to my current stability might truly be my own curiosity.

I entered Dead Herman, this time resolving to take the lift like a civilized pony and not climb my way up a cable like I had last time. Overhead, a pegasus soared down from the skyport, making the flight effortlessly. I looked away.

The lift took a moment to find, and I instinctively opened my bag when I got near, unsure if it required a fee. Money, money... I had just spent every last thing I had on cake to repay Kitty. Everything except the low-value griffon gold Coda herself had plied me with on my last visit, at least.

Remembering my last visit jogged another memory, though, this one much less helpful: I had promised to bring Coda a book on my next visit. And I had left the entire pile I was reading back at Jamjars'. There was no way I was making the trip back home and still coming back here again today.

Sighing, I straightened up, a dripping sensation running over me as reality threw a pail of water on my fun... and the sights and sounds of Dead Herman drifted in to fill the void. The town was coming alive as the sun set, lights clicking on and outdoor music starting up, hawkers beginning to fill their booths and ponies leaving their homes to participate in the earliest revels of the Sky District night life.

This place looked like it was wholly built on selling experiences and entertainment, right? In the perfect reputational gray zone to sometimes have quality products, but also not care what nation's currency you paid in? Surely there was a book shop here somewhere that would accept griffon gold.

I set about wandering, keeping my eyes peeled. The town's population was interesting, and I had to avoid spending more time looking at the ponies than the things they sold: mostly a mix of bums and vagabonds, dressed up fancy but with unpracticed or inauthentic demeanors. Stallions with angular sunglasses and high-buttoned neck coats, cravats that weren't quite folded properly, manes styled with just a little too much grease. Several mares wore the same flank-covering garb Corsica had gotten rid of on our first trip here, most of whom looked like they were pretending to be setpieces or trophies for other ponies. It was fascinating to watch ponies do that, especially when it was a thing I had no desire to do myself.

As long as I held my head slightly too high, wore my coat with the air of someone who was trying to be big enough for it and never hurried, I blended in perfectly. No one heckled me with trouble. Many called out to me with offers and wares, but I paid them no mind, and they soon changed to other targets. I wondered how many other ponies here, like me, looked fancy but were actually broke.

I passed an open-air gambling den, and watched for long enough to know for certain there were at least two more.

My backwards ears swiveled, sifting through the push and pull of the town's festive atmosphere for any mention of books, and my hooves eventually found their way back to the central square, where I first met Howe. There was that statue, again.

Neon store signs reflected dully off the tarnished bronze, giving Shinespark of Sosa a dirty rainbow hue. I took in the statue again, now that I knew more about who it depicted. This was the purported power armor expert Leif thought could help me get to the ether river under Ironridge, huh?

Something about her still felt... not quite right. I couldn't place it, but I felt a tingling unease looking at that statue, as if a deeply buried part of me wanted to run far, far away, or else cower and become small. I couldn't understand why, though. A faint haze drifted through my thoughts, the telltale sign of memories that had been modified in my mask.

Had I met Shinespark before? How would that be possible? Unless her chosen hiding place wasn't in Ironridge at all, but in Icereach...

"It's a pretty statue, isn't it?"

I jumped. There was a pony next to me, one with such a quiet presence I hadn't noticed them appear... A familiar pony.

Her face was barely visible beneath a hooded cowl, her entire body shrouded in a slim dress, almost none of her exposed to the light. But even though I could only see her clothing, this was unmistakably the mare who found me lost at the edge of Fort Starlight.

I tried to remember her name, if I had ever learned it, but it didn't come to me.

"That's my mother," she said, looking up at the statue, voice tingly and ethereal. "Shinespark. She's a great mare. That statue was made before she was particularly great, though. Only when she was destined for great things. Do you know much about her?"

I shook my head, scanning the plaza. Surely, there'd be someone right... there. A dark pegasus, more solidly built than most of the other townsponies. Maybe not the most muscular, but everyone buffer had dirty muscles, ones that looked like they worked out for the sake of working out and didn't actually use them for anything. I couldn't explain the distinction in words. It was just intuitive. This pony, though, was used to action, and he was the professional the others were merely pretending to be.

This mysterious waif was a Fort Starlight VIP, and right there was her chaperone.

"The inscription says she was the first pony to be born on an airship," the thin mare said. "But it doesn't say anything about why that was important. You see, a year before her birth, Ironridge had a terrible airship crash. Airships were an emerging technology at the time, and this flight was supposed to show everyone what that technology could do. But it did the opposite. After that, Ironridge decided they didn't want to fly anymore."

I looked sideways at her. "Not that I mind the history lesson, but why are you telling me this?"

She looked sideways at me in return. "Because you were interested in the statue. How many other ponies do you see paying it mind?"

I blinked, and realized there were none.

Plenty of ponies, of course. But as I watched their eyes, they paid the statue no more reverence than they would if it were a fountain or generic centerpiece. No bows, no moments of silence, no nods of respect for someone who was ostensibly such a hero that she got a place in the center of the town. To hear Nicov talk about it, this town had apparently been founded where it was on ideology alone - at the place of the Yakyakistani Ambassador's death, whom I assumed had been slain by Shinespark.

Now that I thought about it, it did seem pretty strange.

"Not flying didn't suit Ironridge well," the thin mare continued, as if my interruption had never occurred. "Other countries came in and left them behind. Shinespark's dream was to fly. To seize the sky and give it back to her ponies. And that was her birthright. That's why it's so important, where she was born. She was a hero that everyone could look up to when they wanted to rise."

"I like having someone to look up to," I mumbled.

"That's why it's so curious, watching ponies today," she went on, her tone an impossible mix of consternated and carefree. "None of them seem to have a symbol they can all look up to. But none of them act like they want it, either. And these ponies are certainly not flying free. It's sad, I think. I watch ponies a lot, and I just can't understand what went wrong."

Baffled, I looked out at the crowd again. Was this a sad, sorry sight? To me, it looked exotic. Fancy. Ponies reaching above their means for high living. The ponies I was watching probably figured themselves living in a utopia, or at least visiting one for a night of fun. Sure, the town's build quality was a little ramshackle, and it would have been nice if the ponies could really be like this, rather than just acting. I, and particularly the me of seven months ago, was the foremost expert on wishing your act could be real. But, all things considered, everyone was having fun. How was this sad?

"...Hey. What was your name, again?" I asked, unsure what else to say.

"I am Braen," she replied, nodding her hooded head. "It's been pleasant talking to you. Somehow, I don't think you've forgotten how to fly the way they have. But I think my keeper is getting agitated by my spending time with a stranger. I hope to see you around!"

"Hey, err..." I held out a hoof as she turned to leave. "Any chance you're familiar with this town? Enough to know where I might find a book shop?"

She pointed over my shoulder, a hint of luminous eyes peeking out from her low-drawn cowl.

"Thanks! I owe you one!" I saluted with a wing, turning as she resumed her retreat.





I had no idea what to make of my encounter with Braen, but my mind tried anyway, doing a fine job of distracting me as I tried to figure what would be a good book to leave with Coda that I could afford with griffon gold. I didn't want to disappoint her with trash, or worse, give her a taste for it, but didn't have time to read and vet anything myself...

There! I seized upon an entry in a rack of comic books: The Aegis Chronicles, Volume One, by Snowshoe. Jamjars had mentioned this one, right? I vaguely recalled her calling it popular during a sleepy train ride when I asked about Lalala's god, who was also called Aegis... The cover depicted a dramatic drawing of a massive metal dragon with a glowing drill-shaped tail blasting a crater in the ground with a humongous laser beam.

If Jamjars vouched for it, and it was about massive robot laser destruction, I was fairly sure it would appeal to an oversized goddess filly who had enough self-esteem to make up epithets for herself day and night. With any luck, she might even take some harmless inspiration. This one was a keeper.

Fortunately, the shopkeep was not only happy to take my griffon gold but gave me a toothy grin that suggested I was getting ripped off. Fine by me, though. That gold came from Coda, and the thing I bought with it was going right back to her, so I was net neutral either way. I made for the lift, which thankfully didn't require any pay.

Twilight was deep in the sky as I traversed the shattered skyport dome, and when I approached the old boarding ramp where Coda usually set up shop, several of her monks were out and about, putting up their entrance decorations to welcome ponies aboard for a night of prayer and whatever else they solicited. They spotted me, and I couldn't tell if they recognized me or just did that for everyone, but I was warmly ushered inside.

The Lady Coda bid me welcome, I was told. Had I come to offer a prayer of love and admiration?

I grinned a little to myself, imagining their reactions if they knew I was actually here to offer her a comic book about laser-shooting robo-dragons.

The lobby of Coda's airship was familiar, a wide room that straddled the ship from side to side, several curtained booths along the back containing Coda's prayer altars. No ponies had congregated yet at the tables along the other wall, where I recalled them socializing last time, but several of the booths had hooves visible beneath the curtains, and I didn't doubt those patrons would soon be chatting and making merry.

Coda's chamber was at the stern, a darkened hallway leading to the entry. Could I just go in, or...?

With a swish of fabric, the curtains in the hallway parted, and Coda was there.

"Ah!" she declared, striding towards me in her unusual body, proportioned like a filly but only slightly smaller than an adult. "Princess Halcyon the Garbed, may she wield the scepter of judgement with compassion, has arrived? You there!" She pointed a large wing at one of her clergy, which were still made up of unicorns wearing batpony costumes. "Why does your tongue not serenade her ears with her list of epithets? Tell me not that you would make light of your goddess's efforts in composing such a scroll."

The monk glanced at his companion, who in turn glanced at her companion, who sighed. "We now welcome Princess Halcyon the Garbed, Lady of the Veil, Impenetrable Be Her Emotions, May All Her Enemies Stumble into Holes, Warden of Trust, She Who Could Resist the Pink Flame, hear ye, hear ye."

Concerned, the first monk looked back to Coda. "Princess, you are aware it will interfere with our holy mission to elevate others to the status of-"

"Put a sock in it," Coda primly told him, wandering over and smiling to me. "Long have I awaited our reunion, my enigmatic equal. Shorn from your presence, I have found my usual methods of self-entertainment growing even dimmer as of late! Would you deign to join me in my throne room where we might talk un-"

"Princess?" A cleric descended the staircase leading toward the prow. "You are aware prayers have started for the night, yes? Your throne-"

"Your loving goddess finds interruptions most rude," Coda interrupted, bapping the cleric on the nose with her pink-black aura. "And yes, it would be difficult for me not to be aware, given what I do each night, every night, from the dawn of time until its inexorable end..." She sighed. "Attend me, Halcyon. Lest my duties never give us a moment's peace."

Coda turned and walked back into her throne room with a huff. I followed, and the clergy didn't try to stop me, but I could tell they all were watching and had no idea what to make of this.

In the throne room, the lighting was just as dim as before, Coda's throne just as weird and unnerving. A pipe organ tipped on its back, the pipes on the back turning into snaking coils that vanished into the walls where the prayer altars would be, a broken alicorn statue reclining on top... Coda herself reclined on the throne, her special talent sparkling faintly.

"Your goons sure push you hard, huh?" I said, stopping in the middle of the room and glancing over my shoulder.

"They are nothing if not committed to the cause," Coda admitted. "Though I am their goddess, they have been working to these ends far longer than I. It is my role to bless and admire that dedication, and to lead by example that they might be all the more committed. That said, they can be rather stuffy at times..."

She brightened. "But enough of my boring entourage! Tell me of you! What kinds of experiences have you partaken of in the mortal world, Princess Halcyon the Garbed? Your goddess overflows with curiosity, and has long relished the chance to experience your unknowable mind once again!"

"Kind of a lot," I chuckled, her enthusiasm breaking down a few of the walls in my mind. Somehow, this felt completely different from our first meeting: even though Coda wasn't an alicorn, I wasn't the least bit intimidated from meeting a goddess, or weirded out by her not being the way I imagined. "But here. I fulfilled our bargain."

I took out the comic book and tossed it to her.

She caught it in her aura in surprise. "You would throw something at the Princess of Love? Is this thing considered culturally acceptable among lower beings? Fascinating. Truly, I must live in an insulated..." She trailed off, righting the comic book and staring at the cover. "Oh my. Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined creatures like this to populate the streets of Ironridge! I imagine they must possess some level of rarity for them to be worthy of story books, but still, I can scarce fathom such a sight in any realm, let alone the one of mortals."

I blinked. "I'm... pretty sure that dragon doesn't actually exist. Unless someone built a replica because they saw it in the book, but who even knows if that's possible?"

Coda squinted at me. "Then who penned this, if not an acquaintance of such a behemoth?"

"They... made it up?" I shrugged. Of all the reactions Coda could have to this, I hadn't been expecting her to think it was real.

She scoffed. "You mean to tell me an artist conceived of this without having seen it before? Next, I suppose you'll insist mortals are capable of saving themselves from the encroaching darkness, or even holding back the hands of fate!"

I tilted my head. "Err... What? How do you mean?"

Coda adjusted herself on her throne. "It is common knowledge that creation is the realm of the divine, is it not? I have thought much on these things since we last met, trying to draw contrast between you and I on one side and my clergy on the other. Such was my excitement that I reread every single publication they have released for me, yet all are mere regurgitations of the facts and sensibilities I instill in them as their monarch. The art they produce is a reflection of the ideas they are given. Yet you say this is not the way of things?"

"Not really?" I tried to fit that through my head. "Or not at all, even. Imagining stuff is a big part of what makes ponies ponies. And griffons and yaks and stuff, too."

Coda looked at me with a sour resignation. "Though your feelings are ever hid to me, I can hear it in your tone: you do not jest. Phooey. That the careful observations of a goddess should so easily be disproven is disconcerting. Tell me, how do mortals determine that they are right?"

I took a deep breath. "Slow down, here. I've got a lot on my mind, and wasn't quite prepared to get bombarded with philosophy the moment I walked in the door."

Coda graciously nodded. "Of course. Take all the time your unknowably mortal or immortal mind needs to process the dilemma. It is, after all, difficult enough to be grappled with by a goddess."

What a strange filly.

"...Right. So." I took another breath. "There's not a cut-and-dried thing like objective right and wrong. You've got stuff that's empirically correct, like science, and you've got stuff that most everyone just plain knows is wrong, like killing people. But there's always going to be some nutjob here or there who disagrees because most of the time, ponies don't have any special way to determine that we're right. We just decide we are, after spending however much effort we feel like making sure. And that leads to a lot of folks with different ideas on what being right means, and sometimes we fight over that if our disagreements are too major. How's that?"

Coda chuckled. "You make it sound as though every single mortal in existence confers upon themselves the mantle of divinity. How does anything productive get done?"

I shrugged. "It doesn't, always. And when society moves, everyone's got different opinions about whether it's in the right direction."

Ironic, that I was the one giving this lecture, when I was usually so decoupled from society and the ponies around me.

"Of course it doesn't." Coda airily sighed. "I suppose that is why the salvation of true goddesses like me remains necessary, to sort out the messes made by impostors. But alleviate your fear, for I shall govern with love and bring salvation to all, and all that."

I blinked at her. "And all that?"

Coda shrugged. "My holy powers attuned to smiting evil, and evil they shall smite. But the woes you speak of? Do not relinquish yourself to terror at this admission, but your goddess has little idea of how to fix that. Would that I could observe the problems of the people up close, but I'm beginning to fear I am wholly unprepared for such a role. Tell me truly; do you believe a goddess can fix problems she does not understand?"

I wasn't sure what to say.

Coda hopped down from her throne and began to pace. "Meeting you has been eye-opening for me. Though it was enjoyable and stimulating, I have had nightmares of late in which I reveal my splendor to the world and am wholly surprised by the sights I see there. From my very birth, I have been training my body and mind to become the keystone to this world's salvation, but how can a keystone shape itself if it knows not the bridge it is meant for?"

Once again, I had nothing.

"Halcyon." Coda's eyes briefly met mine. "I..." She shook her head. "No, never fear. Any inadequacies I have for the task, that is why I as yet still prepare. When the time comes, I will save the world. Your mind clearly has enough thoughts of its own without the fear that your goddess knows not whether she is ready."

Coda's nervousness was strong enough that I could almost physically feel it, and my mind began to put together a picture of her for me. Her speech when I arrived, her taking the comic book too seriously... She was testing herself, trying to see how quickly she could adapt to the things I was telling her, and she had found herself wanting.

The unknown was scary, and also wondrous. I knew this more than anyone, especially the pre-Aldebaran me, who was paralyzed by her fear of learning more about herself and yet intoxicated by the call of the world's horizon. Coda was the same. Every time I corrected her assumptions, both today and the last time we met, she reacted with curiosity rather than annoyance, and greedily drank down everything I had to say. But now she was thinking on her own future, and the uncertainty terrified her.

...Ironic. Coda was a goddess who could supposedly read the minds and emotions of ponies around her. I was just a refugee kid out on an adventure. But she couldn't read me, and I could perfectly read her.

"Hey," I said. "Look. I know last time I made a big deal about the whole building-trust thing, and it's usually a very smart thing to do. But sometimes, ponies don't have any choice but to trust each other. They're in dire straits, and they need to take a risk to get a helping hoof, or something. And, like, I don't need to be a mind-reading goddess to see you've got something heavy on your shoulders. So if you need to share with someone, I promise I'll do my best not to let you down."

Coda studied me. "...Not a hint of deception. And yet you do contradict what you told me last time. Are mortals always so full of contradictions?"

"I thought you thought I was a goddess," I pointed out. "But yeah. We are. Welcome to the world, kiddo."

Coda hesitated, then looked down. "And you take an oath of trustworthiness, in the name of love?"

I nodded.

"Very well." She looked up and met my gaze, and for a moment, her eyes flickered. "Then allow me to ask of you a favor. But first, I must give the necessary context so you might believe what I have to say. Do not panic as I show you my true form."

Something about me prickled with unease... and then Coda was washed in a blanket of pink-black fire that lasted for a single heartbeat. When it was gone, a changeling stood before me where once an alicorn had been.

My heart sped wildly, but this was no ordinary changeling. Unlike the black, featureless shells Aldebaran turned into when not transformed, Coda still partway resembled a pony: her eyes were normal, instead of pupilless sockets, and the frill on her neck and tail strongly resembled her old mane. She was also vaguely pinkish-white in color instead of black, and her wings were much larger than I had seen on Aldebaran, more like those of a dragonfly than anything. And her horn, instead of being small and curved, was long and straight, pockmarked with holes that should have been debilitating to an ordinary unicorn.

Run, my head told me. Changeling. Run!

I stood my ground.

"...I was unsure how you would take this," Coda said, her voice carrying a slight reverb that hadn't been there before. "You did tell me you have suffered at the hooves of changelings before, after all. But rest assured that I am no ally to those who slink in the dark. Do you know what I am?"

"A changeling," I pointed out.

"A changeling queen," Coda corrected, pointing up at her throne. "Changelings are divided into drones and queens, and the queens number only two: myself, and my mother, Chrysalis. My mother is evil beyond measure. The menace that collapsed the eastern continent was no mindless changeling mob. It was an army created and remote-controlled by her. And it is she that my destiny is to stop. With the power of purifying love, I will one day face her in combat, and remove her scourge from the world. Hence my name, and my title: the final note in the song of despair..."

So the changelings had a boss. A god-monster boss. "You're not really an alicorn, then, but your powers are real," I said.

Coda nodded. "My royal form is one worshipers are far more comfortable with, as this land does contain lore about the divinity of alicorns." With a flicker of flame, she was back to her alicorn self. "And to tell the truth, I prefer it as well. It is good that you haven't fled yet, Princess Halcyon the Garbed. Tell me, do you think it is possible that the changelings you have encountered before were servants of Chrysalis?"

I hesitated. Back then, Elise had made such a big deal about how the changelings seemed to have grown up and become people of their own. And Coda said they used to be remote-controlled. This must have been why Elise thought they changed... "Doubt it," I said. "But I'm two hundred percent certain there are other changelings in Ironridge. The police department uses them as teleporters."

"Yes, such has been brought to my attention," Coda told me. "You will notice I am in Ironridge now, rather than any other city. So, have you not forsaken me after seeing my nature? Was I right to place my trust in you?"

"I'm still here," I said. My mind was far away, though: Coda was hiding a thing like this about who she really was. Oh, her clergy probably knew, but the ponies she had praying to her almost certainly didn't. Almost like me and my mask, only where I put on a different mind, she put on a different body. And both of us lived with our disguises so much, they were almost more true than the reality.

I didn't really need extra commitments now, when I was already planning to rescue Leitmotif and bail on Ironridge. But if I could at all help it, this was not a kid I wanted to forsake.

She was far too much like me.

"That is a substantial relief." Coda sighed, climbing back on her throne. "Then let me tell you about my efforts to slay my mother, and what I would ask of you in assistance."