//------------------------------//
// No Shirking School 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

"First and most important question," Valey said, pacing around her dark wood office. "Breaking into Lilith's school: did Egdelwonk put you up to this, or are you doing it for other reasons?"

"I've got my own reasons," I told her, hoping she wouldn't ask what they were. "But he gave the idea his blessing. In a roundabout way."

"Figures." Valey stopped and looked at me. "Next questions: what are you trying to steal and how certain are you that's actually where it is?"

Go figure. "...A pony," I sighed. "Someone I know. They're locked up down there. And I saw them for myself last time I was there, less than a week ago."

Valey raised an eyebrow. "This the same occasion you came wandering into my fort through the back door?"

I nodded.

"Cool," Valey sighed. "So here's the thing. When Egdelwonk takes a liking to someone, he kind of tries to be like a trickster mentor sort of dude. He wants to make you cooler, in a way that often involves being as rude and confusing as possible and for no comprehensible reason whatsoever. Kind of like me, except less overprotective, and I have different ideas about what kind of lessons will do more harm than good, and I actually do tell my reasons to people I trust. Sometimes. Now, he's big on experience, on letting you get your knocks in out in the field. You with me so far?"

I nodded again.

"Then lemme put it this way..." Valey gave me a serious look. "Lilith is not some rookie-league practice boss. Her school is not an experience-grinding dungeon in a tabletop game. Now, you're a batpony, and she likes batponies a little too much, so the odds of her actually hurting you down there are very low. The odds of you getting tied up in something you really don't wanna be tied up in are astronomically high. Do you get where I'm going with this?"

"That going down is a bad idea?" I raised an eyebrow. "I've been there once before and got out fine, didn't I?"

Valey leaned on her desk and crossed her forelegs. "How'd you get there?"

I frowned, feeling weird recounting something that still felt unbelievable in hindsight. "I was in jail, and Lilith teleported me to the school."

"Cool." Valey nodded. "Then you didn't get out unscathed. She brought you in, showed you something you wanted, and let you go. You got out with a reason to return."

My heart skipped a beat.

"I'll tell you with a hundred twenty percent certainty what's going to happen if you go back there," Valey went on. "You're not going to get what you want. Instead, you're going to get a bargain: you do something for Lilith, and then she'll give you this friend of yours. Sorry to spoil the twist, but that's how it's going to go. And unlike Egdelwonk, I'd prefer for you to get your knocks in without something like that following you around."

I wanted to protest. I wanted to struggle, but I could see that she was right. Early on, my first concern in Ironridge was getting a job so I wouldn't have constant solicitations from every unsavory element of Cold Karma, for reasons that had only recently started to make sense. This was why Lilith let me leave unscathed after my first visit; it had nothing to do with Kitty. This was Lilith's means of getting me to sign a contract.

It was infuriating, though. How had she known the precise way I would react to Leitmotif? Her plan would have completely backfired if I was apathetic and wanted to leave Leif to rot. It also would have backfired if I had broken Leif out then and there, and taken her with me. There was no way she could have actually planned the way events played out. Too many uncontrolled variables. Then how...?

Unless she had been watching me the whole time, revising her plan on the fly. Was that it? Did she just have spies standing around every corner? Or...

My eyes widened. If Lilith had been intending to let me go and Kitty thus wasn't a necessary part of my escape, what if Kitty was Lilith's spy? I was all but certain she was a windigo, and windigoes liked playing various factions against each other. It was exactly the kind of thing a windigo would do.

Suddenly, my understanding of Ironridge felt like it was breaking down at the seams. I just couldn't remember every last thing that had happened well enough to check the plausibility of my theory. Guessing and puzzling out the motives of so many powerful liars based only on my own observations was just too much, even for me.

"You look like you get it," Valey said, reading my face. "So. What'cha gonna do?"

Actually, I wasn't sure that I got anything anymore. Quickly, I rewound my train of thought: what if everything Valey had just said was wrong? Or what if it was right, but all the conclusions I had just drawn based on it were wrong? Maybe Lilith was just an omniscient genius who could predict my every move.

That thought sure was comforting. And it still didn't bode well for my options.

"Here's an idea," Procyon told me, floating up through the floor, her illusory form flickering slightly. "Why don't we go down to that school through the tunnels like Papyrus planned? I don't know whether Valey is right about this, but if she's wrong, you might be able to grab your mare and run and never have to deal with Lilith at all. And if she's right, then you meet with Lilith and find out what she wants from you. Assuming all this is true, Lilith's not going to force you to do anything you don't want to after going to the trouble of trying to bait you back down there."

I blinked. She... had a good point. The worst that could come out of this would be me getting trapped between two options I really didn't like, and that was exactly where I was now, between walking into Lilith's trap and walking away. And there was a possibility of it going better.

"I see you're considering it," Valey said. "Gerardo and Slipstream told me you were there when Lilith caught up to them the morning you arrived in Ironridge. They made a deal with Lilith. That's what it could be like."

Right. Now that I remembered that episode, I remembered the Composer being in Lilith's entourage as well... She was definitely working with at least some windigoes, if not Kitty.

I met Valey's eyes. "I wanna go with Papyrus's plan, with the gas masks and going in through the caves. If you're wrong, you're wrong. And if you're right, I'll be stuck between two hard choices, which is exactly where I am now."

She returned the gaze. "Only you can weigh how much you want something. I can just warn you what you might be getting into. If you're sure about that, then get on with your bad self. Maybe Egdelwonk'll be right about experience being the best teacher." She passed me the gas mask she had confiscated earlier. "Since I doubt you'll get down there without Papyrus coming with you, I'll try to rope Unless in to help keep him in line. He's... a little out there, and she owes me some favors. And she could beat both of you in a fight put together."

"Thanks." I took the mask and turned for the door. "And... thanks for trusting me, with all the stuff you told me about your search for the writs. I don't get that very often."

"Don't thank me," Valey grumbled, seating herself behind her desk. "Being too quick to trust is a problem of mine, and either you're going to betray me or get tied up in some stuff you really wish you weren't as a result. I just couldn't help myself."

"...Still," I said, stepping through the door. "Thanks."





Papyrus was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

"I see you've recouped your mask," he greeted, tail lashing in anticipation. "Got the old boss mare's blessing, or did you actually pull a fast one on her? She's tough to trick, but not impossible."

"The former," I said, reminding myself that traveling with Papyrus was all but certain to add a dash of chaos to my endeavor... Though if Lilith was such a schemer, maybe that was exactly what I needed. I didn't even know her endgame. "You ready to go?"

"Hah." Papyrus tossed his gas mask, catching it with a wing. "Your spirit's returning, Butterfly. For a moment back there you looked so pasty I thought you'd chicken out!"

"I'll take that as a yes, then." I looked around for the exit and took a few steps. "Apparently Unless is coming too. Should we wait for her...?"

Papyrus blew a raspberry. "That fluffy killjoy could catch up to you if you were halfway across the world. I say we ditch her."

"Alright..." I started walking. "Then you'd better know the way, because I was half dead from exhaustion the last time around. Let's get a move on."

So we did. Out of the main fort and into the maze of scrapped airships we went, Unless catching up less than a minute in. Valey must have briefed her quickly, because not only did she seem to know what we were doing, but she immediately pointed out Papyrus was going the wrong way.

We slipped through the hole in the wall that marked the entrance to the tunnels, Unless taking point and turning on a headlamp attached to her own gas mask. I checked to see if I had one too; I had gotten myself out of the habit of using my bracelet except when necessary and wasn't sure I wanted to tell these ponies anything they didn't already know. Valey, I felt like I had no choice but to trust. Not so much Egdelwonk's goons.

I didn't. Unless was the only one who brought a mask with a light.

"How come we don't get cool flashlights?" I asked warily.

Papyrus blinked, then fiddled with his mask. "Say, she's right! Where's my flashlight, Bats?"

Unless shrugged. "Sounds like a you problem. You got your masks, and I got mine. Not my fault you forgot to get the good ones."

Papyrus gave her a petulant look. I shuffled uncertainly, sighed, and resumed walking.

"You want to see a you problem, I'll give you a free sample, Bats," Papyrus teased, reaching to steal Unless's mask.

"Hey, buzz off!" Unless swatted him away.

I turned back and gave them a sharp look as the light flickered wildly, pointing in all different directions as Unless craned her head to protect her mask. "Oi! Is this how you usually handle yourselves on missions? Maybe I should have the light so you can't fight over it?"

"You've already got a light," Unless told me, still ducking Papyrus's playful advances. "Your bracelet, yeah? Or is our intel on that bunk?"

Immediately, Papyrus stopped going for Unless. "Say, that's right! Bats, old chum, turn the light out and force Butterfly to use her bracelet so we can see. I want to see it in action!"

Unless stopped dodging and looked at me, thoughtful, but didn't turn her light out.

Suddenly, a new, sapphire light lit the tunnel from behind us.

"Or," Corsica said, horn glowing and also carrying a mask, "you could leave the lights to the professionals. How about that?"

I stared at her, surprised and grateful. "You're coming too?"

"I was following, just in case." Corsica shrugged. "Wasn't figuring I'd get needed this early on. Halcyon, everything I've learned about Lilith has bad news written all over it. I know bits and pieces of your plan. I doubt these two know anything, and since they're dysfunctional and you have a habit of getting overwhelmed, I'm appointing myself leader for a day." She pointed a hoof at everyone. "Who among you isn't fine with that?"

I nodded gratefully. That would actually make this a lot less stressful... "I'm fine."

"Throw in a doughnut and I'm fine," Unless added. "I like bribes."

Papyrus's eyes widened eagerly. "Can I be leader?"

"No!" Corsica and Unless flicked him at the same time, one with her aura and one with a feather.

Papyrus sulked.

"As good as we're going to get," Corsica sighed. "We can all go get food later, if this goes well. Now, Halcyon, be very specific and tell everyone what we're doing here. What is more important than why. You have the floor."

I cleared my throat, figuring if Corsica wanted to do the work keeping everything together, I might as well play my part. "We're searching for a pony," I said. "Her name is Leitmotif. Corsica and I will know her when we see her. She's not in Lilith's school; she's in a cell in the Flame Barracks, which are adjacent to a toxic mineshaft connected to this tunnel. Ideally we don't have to enter the school at all. Once we have her, I've basically got an understanding with Egdelwonk that he'll get all of us out of here safe and sound in exchange for me formally joining up, so there hopefully won't be a return journey. There's also a good possibility Lilith is expecting us and wants me to make a bargain with her in exchange for Leitmotif, in which case we hear her out and then play it by ear."

"Also," Unless added, "if we do go in the school? Lilith is, like, legitimately helping ponies who really need it. Even if I think she's shady too. So no fighting and no causing innocent casualties."

"What's so shady about her?" Papyrus asked. "Not because I don't know, I just like listening to you flap your gums about things everyone already knows when we could be getting on with the infiltration."

I gave him a sideways, chagrined look. "You already knew about Leitmotif? I'm pretty sure I never mentioned her name to you."

"Names, how boring." Papyrus sighed. "Things everyone knows or things that aren't important. Butterfly, there's a finite amount of attention we all have for caring about things, and sometimes, you have to prioritize!"

"...Thanks," I told him. "I'm glad you couldn't care less about our objective. But you're only here because you told me this is how I could win your favor, and I need to pick your brain for knowledge about the Griffon Empire, so if you lower my opinion of your competence too far, I'm no longer gonna have a use for you and you're getting left behind. Is that clear?"

Unless whistled. "Ooh, burn..."

"Technically," Papyrus insisted, "I'm here because you offered this as an excellent idea for how to win my favor. So don't put the blame on me, now. And like I said, things go significantly better when I'm following someone else's plan than when I make my own."

I narrowed my eyes at him.

"...Come now, how much power do you really think we have to change our natures?" His eyes bored into me. "Can you blame me for being what I am? More to the point, will it change anything if you do? Because I could blame you for a whole host of things, and yet it would frankly be a far less productive use of my time than trying to stave off debilitating boredom working for Egdelwonk and helping you break into an abandoned mineshaft for kicks and giggles."

How much power did I have to change my nature?

I glanced at Procyon. She looked away.

"What are you blaming Halcyon for?" Corsica asked cautiously.

"Screwing around while we could be on our way, for one!" Papyrus flicked his tail. "It's a long way to those mines, lest you forget. A long way."

"I'm the one who stopped us here," Corsica reminded him. "And I'm stopping all of us until we can put our issues on hold and work together, or else taking Halcyon and going home. As fun as it would be to give Lilith's school a visit from a traveling circus troupe, that's not the best way to get what Halcyon is after."

"You sure about that?" Unless raised an eyebrow. "I'm actually being serious, here. Breaking in through the back door is one thing, but what about disguising ourselves as someone who's legitimately supposed to be there? It's a public-serving institution." She glanced at me. "You wouldn't even need a disguise. You're a bat already."

Everyone looked at each other.

"Maybe on a future visit," I said. "Depending what ultimatum she gives me, and if I really don't want to take it. Right now, we've come this far. Papyrus, can you please take this just a smidge seriously?"

Papyrus sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't get so carried away with myself. Fine. A smidge of seriousness. Though, honestly, if there's any place for goofing off, isn't it the long, lonely walk before the danger starts?"

"We're not walking," Corsica pointed out.

Papyrus gave her a suggestive smile. "And that's becaaaause...?"

Corsica sighed and started walking.





It took what felt like hours to reach the broken emergency exit door that heralded the stairs to the Flame District. Fortunately, the going was monotonous enough that everyone shut up and let us march in silence. I wondered what time it was on the surface.

"Masks up," Unless said, already wearing hers. "Air's gonna get mustier and mustier in this staircase, though the real problems won't start until we get through the door at the bottom. Halcyon, how'd you make it through last time, again?"

I swallowed. "I... got carried. Held my breath and closed my eyes."

"Whew. You've got strong lungs," Unless whistled. "Try not to ruin 'em by staying down there too long. Now by my count we've got three wings and one no-wings, so we should be just fine to fly through if Corsica's alright getting carried. You're cool with that, right?" She glanced at Corsica as we descended.

Corsica's noise-making shoes clattered loudly on the grate metal stairs. Beneath the mask, she didn't look amused. "If it's in the name of spending less time in the toxic mines, maybe..." She glanced at me.

I had never flat-out told her I couldn't... you know. Her look not only said she knew, but asked if I wanted her to cover for me.

Not if it meant spending more time than necessary in the Flame District core. "I..." I hesitated. "How bad would it be if we fell? The place is pretty vertical, right? And it's a mineshaft? With weird air? There's a chance I might not, like... be completely comfortable flying in a place like that."

"Cool," Unless said. "Still leaves us with two really good fliers. Which one of you is fatter? Papyrus is stronger so they'll be stuck with him."

Corsica snorted indignantly. I wasn't sure whether she was more offended by the idea of being called fat, or of riding with Papyrus, but she was taller than me and had a thicker coat and was thus probably heavier, too...

After an eternity of stair-descending that felt slightly shorter than when I climbed it with Kitty, we reached the door to the Flame District proper, a metal construct that looked like it had been forced open and closed many times after its hinges had expired. Most recently, I remembered, Kitty had probably jammed it back in its frame with the goal of stopping mine gas from escaping.

Unless bucked it as hard as she could. CLAAANGGGGGGG!

A tiny crack at the bottom became visible, but it stayed stuck in its frame.

"Bad news, dudes," she said. "Whoever last closed this thing really didn't want anyone else coming through. There's a chance we could open it with sufficient force, but it would probably never close again. And I'd sorta prefer if Fort Starlight didn't become the exit to a long-term ventilation shaft for letting this place breathe."

I glanced at everyone. "Then what do we do?"

Papyrus shrugged. "You can do that sneaky sarosian shadow thingamajig, right? I see a bit of give at the bottom there. Why not ferry all of us across?"

I blinked. I had heard that it was possible for batponies to take passengers, but I never learned how, and recalled that the last time I tried, it straight-up didn't work. "Any of you know how to do that? Because I don't."

"Give it a try," Unless suggested. "Gently. Maybe we can figure it out?"

Corsica glanced at me, clearly remembering the last time I tried - it was she who was with me when I failed it. "Gently," she insisted, echoing Unless, and stepped closer, extinguishing her horn, her eyes wary behind the mask's green-tinted goggles. The only light now came from Unless's headlamp, which she pointed away from the base of the door.

I nodded, slowly putting a hoof on her back and sinking down into the shadows. At first it worked... but I couldn't pull Corsica in with me. She just wouldn't enter the ground. I glanced at Unless and Papyrus for help.

Papyrus shrugged. "It's all dark magic to me."

"You ever tried it without clothes on?" Unless suggested. "Shadow swimming lets you take along inanimate objects, I know, but maybe the magic needs fur-to-fur contact to work on other ponies?"

I swallowed. "I... don't really like touching. Or shedding my clothes around others."

"Less than you'd like having to turn around after coming all this way?" Unless raised an eyebrow. "If you're ugly, or something, I can promise not to look. Could even go in complete darkness!"

Papyrus, wisely, refrained from making a distasteful comment, though I could tell the possibility at least crossed his mind. "I'm not ugly," I insisted. "It's just... a personal thing."

"Think it'll work if I hold onto your tail instead?" Corsica suggested. "Try that."

"Alright..." I offered. My tail was pretty short, but it was as good an idea as any.

And it worked. I dove, Unless averted her light, and Corsica started to slip in behind me, holding fast to my tail, her eyes widening as the shadows engulfed her. I quickly surfaced again now that I knew it would work.

"Nice!" Unless cheered. "Problem solved, let's go?"

"Weird..." Corsica was staring at the ground where she had almost gone under. "I know what it looks like when you do it, but I don't like the way it looks when I do it."

"Just close your eyes," I advised, readying myself to ferry everyone across. "You can see when you're down there, but it looks pretty bizarre. Ready?"

"Ready."

And so I dove, slipping under the door with Corsica behind me.

There was no floor on the other side.

We fell out into muggy, sweltering pitch blackness, and I screamed in surprise as we began to tumble, Corsica still holding my tail. After a second, she latched onto me tighter, and I thought I heard her yell too. And then we hit something hard, and someone else was yelling. Someone I didn't recognize.

I scrambled upright. Corsica lit her horn. And for the first time, I beheld the Flame District.

The sight of it momentarily took my breath away. We were in a cavern that, as best as I could tell, was egg-shaped, situated near the very top and big enough to contain all of Icereach, but it was impossible to see the far walls due to a thick, hazy malaise of foul air. Ghosts of catwalks and machinery hovered in the center, a giant column descending through the middle to which everything was attached, but it was all a detailless, textureless gray.

What wasn't gray were the crystals.

Pink crystals of enormous size filled the room, crawling up the far walls, blooming out in bushels and clusters, rising up and through the machines like climbing tendrils, growing over or sometimes even piercing the derelict equipment, branching and scaled and pleated in ways that made them look like they were racing towards the surface, yet were frozen in time. It reminded me almost of a storm as it fell down the face of the Aldenfold, only going up instead, surging and coiling like tongues of flame.

The crystals were glowing, but they hadn't been before Corsica lit her horn. We were standing on one, in fact, poking out of the wall. A short distance above us, the door was visible, exiting onto a grated catwalk. Could I not shadow swim on catwalks? It almost sort of made sense, since they were full of holes and I was trying to sink into the ground like I was making myself two-dimensional...

Corsica let go of me and got up, gaping around. She turned off her horn, and slowly, the crystals all faded out over the course of a few seconds. She turned it back on, and they started glowing again.

Someone was still screaming, a voice I didn't recognize. Corsica didn't look like she could hear it, and the more I thought about it, I wasn't sure that it wasn't all in my head. Or... maybe whimpering was a more accurate word. Whoever it was, they sounded afraid. Like they were crying for help.

"Halcyon, what..." Corsica took a few steps to the edge of the crystal and looked down. "What is this place?"

"I had my eyes closed the first time through," I admitted, staring into the smoky constellation of pink and gray, my voice muffled by the respirator. Something acrid stung the back of my throat even with the mask, making me want to cough. We couldn't stay here for long.

"Hey!" Unless was calling from behind the door above us. "You two alright in there!?"

Before I could answer, the two of them burst through the door, except the door didn't open. They just seemed to materialize in front of it in thin air, briefly flailing before spreading their wings and landing on our crystal cluster.

"Hey, what was that?" I protested, taken aback and momentarily distracted. "I thought I was your only ticket through there!"

"Ancient dumpster magic," Papyrus apologized. "Far below your pay grade. Egdelwonk would have our heads if he caught us doing the setup for that trick where you could see, so we couldn't do it for you. Tough luck, eh?"

Unless was looking back up at the door. "Huh. So you fell through the grate? Guess I should have remembered there was something like that there. My bad."

"That's what happened?" Corsica looked at her. "How do you know so much about shadow swimming, anyway?"

"Friends with a bat," Unless told her. "But this isn't the place for idle chitchat. Hop on; let's spend as little time in this purgatory as we have to."

Fortunately for me, Corsica got stuck with Papyrus, not that I was too much happier riding on Unless. Her wings cut through the haze like knives, and in a matter of seconds we had descended toward an opening in the wall that looked like it led to a tunnel.

I jumped off the moment I could, the voice in my head having been replaced by the rush of flight in my ears. And then that was replaced by the realization that there was something carved into the stone tunnel wall, which I read as I waited for Corsica and Papyrus to catch up.

Halcyon is a Dummy,

Bet she won't read this,

Kitty was here

I narrowed my eyes. "Quaint."

"One more door, and this one I couldn't open if I tried," Unless warned, pointing ahead. "And no more forbidden dumpster magic. You're getting all of us through this one. Partly because I want to see you comfortable with taking passengers. It's an important skill to have for keeping your friends safe."

I glanced back at the crystals. Papyrus and Corsica were arriving; they were still aglow. Was that the same kind of crystal that was so prevalent at the chapel? The ether crystals I studied had never been pink. But Leif told me these mines had a route to the ether river...

"Get a move on!" Papyrus shoved me. "My poor lungs don't want to spend any longer in this pit than yours do!"

"R-Right." I swallowed and began ferrying ponies across.





The next door, blessedly, didn't have a grate on the other side for me to fall through, though I suppose I knew that because I had seen it before. We were in the Flame Barracks, now, where it was marginally cooler but still hot, but more importantly less humid. The air was old and stale, but not toxic like the core.

Not that I was taking my mask off any time soon. My coat and my fur felt filthy, and I was sure everyone else would smell equally awful.

"So far, no welcome party," Papyrus said once we were all inside. "What a pity. Though I suppose that is the desired outcome... This friend of yours was in these caves, you said? Let's see what we can find."

Unless nodded. "You got any magic powers of super recollection, mystical abilities to know exactly where our target is, or a plain ol' paper map? I know my way around here better than most, but the Flame Barracks aren't exactly small. Might take a bit to search by hoof."

I thought back, scanning my memories. "It was real close to a door that took us from the maintenance wing proper into caves like these," I said. "We found her pretty soon after we left the proper building."

"Better to go on than nothing!" Unless took the lead, beckoning for all of us to follow.

"Hey, so..." I asked as we walked. "You seem to know a lot about a lot of stuff. Like these caves. How come?"

"Dumb answer?" She shrugged. "'Cuz I work for Egdelwonk. That's the whole point of the job. Real answer? Way long ago, this place was constructed for military purposes. Why anyone would build a military fort deep down in a mine is a long story, but basically even after the original builders were gone, there were certain types who saw a lot of value in some super out-of-the-way mazelike fortified caves. For, uh, clandestine purposes. Guess you can say I used to fly with that crowd before ol' Wonky caught me up in his program."

I wasn't sure how to follow up on that, so I kept following and she kept leading. It was hard to get a read on Unless's age. My best estimate was anywhere in her twenties, which was an awfully vague range to peg a pony. But I knew Cold Karma had arisen within my lifetime, and Lilith's school was tied to them... How old must Unless have been when she was performing clandestine activities in these caves? Probably before the mines became uninhabitable during the Steel Revolution? So that would mean she was at the older end of my estimated age range, and had also been a young filly at the time...

Maybe I should just quit doing mental math on ponies' ages altogether. I always wound up feeling like they were younger than they were supposed to be. Although, with Leif, that had been a sign of her being a changeling, so it wasn't a habit it would be easy to shake.

"Any chance it's this room?" Unless asked, rounding a corner. "We're getting to the likely areas..."

I stepped through an open door into a room that had clearly once been a prison, its red rock carved out into cells along the sides with black rusty metal bars separating them from the hall. But it didn't feel quite right, and Leif was nowhere to be seen. "Not this, but one like it."

"How about..." Unless led us around another few turns. "This?"

Still no dice.

"Hmm..." We took several more corners. "This one, maybe?"

We peered around the doorway. Sitting patiently inside was Lilith.

She had a table, some visible paperwork, and the expression of a mare who was about to close on a very profitable deal.