Gravel crunched under my hooves.
I had been climbing for what felt like days, hauling myself around crevasses and over miniature peaks with two unconscious mares draped over my back, though judging by the movement of the sun it had been closer to just four hours. Was it stupid to heed Unless's warning and not just go to Fort Starlight while I was there? I didn't know. But I had heeded it, and now I was about a third of the way to Dead Herman, where I knew there to be a road down to the Day District, circling around the Ironridge crater far enough from the rim that I didn't overheat from exertion.
My current plan: make it to Dead Herman by nightfall, find a no-questions-asked motel, spend last night's pay to get a place to stash Corsica and Leif until they woke up, go to work, then return to the motel when I finished and do whatever needed doing to take care of my newly-rescued enemy.
That this plan would require me to be awake for thirty-six hours, during which I worked two shifts, spelunked a poisonous mine, and mountaineered for twelve hours with a very heavy load wasn't lost on me. I just didn't see any better options. I would push myself until I succeeded, and that would be that.
The terrain made me feel like I was a giant walking across a full-fledged mountain range. Overall, it was flat, with very little elevation change across the miles, but up close it was nothing but extreme ups and downs, tiny valleys and miniature peaks and loose, shifting boulders I was extra-careful to watch out for. The world felt shattered; my scientist brain whiled away the hours trying to piece together how it must have formed and couldn't come up with anything. Something incredibly violent must have happened to the land, breaking it and raising it, but how had it not eroded into more large-scale features like rivers and valleys? Granted, it had been protected by a glacier until very recently, but glaciers shaped the land, too.
I reached a long, flat slab of rock that felt loose, yet was too large and wedged in place to move. Was it possible there was a small cave beneath, if it was covering a valley? That could be a good spot to rest...
No. No resting, I told myself, shaking my head and moving-
Once my legs had been given the idea, there was no stopping them. I tripped, even though it was the flattest ground I had seen for hours, landing in a heap with Leif and Corsica on top of me.
I tried to get up, but my body had had enough. I couldn't move.
That was... unfortunate.
I stretched one hoof out, trying to pull myself along, but for nothing. All I could do was sigh. Admittedly, I had never pushed myself this far before, but my answer to being tired was usually just to force myself to keep going. And now my legs just said no.
Maybe I had limits that weren't based on determination, after all.
The rest was so welcome that I couldn't even bring myself to be disappointed.
After a few moments, I found enough strength to struggle out from beneath Corsica and Leif, at which my comfort went way back up. In the name of making the journey, I had repressed my usual uneasiness about physically touching ponies to an extent, but now it reminded me that it had been there all along, a sticky, heavy-hearted buzzing sensation that was sliding off my coat like soap now that I was alone. It wasn't a feeling I let myself experience often enough to understand. Not like it was painful, or intrinsically bad, or anything. Some part of my mind just said no.
I looked around for Procyon, but she didn't seem to be nearby.
Well, I didn't see much of anything to do. Maybe I should see if I could get some-
As I was closing my eyes, Leif stirred.
That got my attention back. I pulled myself a few slouches closer. "Hey. You coming to?"
"Unnnnngh..." Leif twitched. Now that I saw her, for the first time completely unclothed and in broad daylight, she looked... surprisingly like an ordinary batpony, aside from a haggard lack of luster that reminded me strongly of Mother. A bath and some proper grooming would do her a world of good, but wouldn't be everything. She had seen things and been places, I could tell just by looking at her. Heavy things, the kind of things that weighed on a pony's soul.
But if I ignored all that, she really was just a normal batpony. Or a changeling pretending to be one, at least.
It was almost hard to imagine someone so ordinary had caused me so much grief by visiting my town half a year ago.
Leif stirred again. "No... No, I... still... muh...?"
She cracked one eye. "'s that the sun...?"
"Welcome back," I told her, managing to half-sit up. "Lemme know when you're all here..."
Leif pried both eyes open. "Halcyon?"
"In the flesh," I replied. "You're welcome, by the way. I figured your emaciated corpse would be lighter than it actually was, so now we're stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere to go, and nowhere to run. So how about we talk like civilized ponies and you don't make me regret risking my rear to break you out of that creepy lab, eh?"
"Talk slower," Leif mumbled, getting one foreleg beneath her and shifting so she was laying upright. "I need a minute..."
Slowly, the reality of my situation dawned on me: as tired as I was, Leif was even worse off. She was completely at my mercy. I had known this for hours, while I carried her as she slept, and yet only now it fully hit me: the tables were turned. Whatever I wanted to do to pay her back for Icereach, I had the power.
The feeling came, and I bathed in it, and then it went. I didn't do anything.
Leif's eyes fully focused, watching me.
I took a deep breath. "I think I yelled at you the first time, when I found you down in the Flame Barracks," I said. "So let's skip that for now and get to the ultimatum: I just saved you. Are you gonna make me regret it?"
"Why?" Leif asked. "Why did you come back?"
"Several reasons." I shrugged. "I still don't know what to think of you, for one. I've moved on, but it's less like I've gotten over it and more like I've started painting my bedroom even though I haven't fixed the hole in the wall. Part of me wants to know if there's a chance you guys were good guys all along, but really, I just want to know what all that pain in Icereach was for. I want it to mean something. Plus, if I abandoned you, I'd be just as bad as you are. And..."
Digging around in my pockets, I pulled out something I had brought just for this occasion: Mother's locket, with the picture of her and Leif and another mare, and the initials F+S+L. I pulled it out, opened it and showed it to her.
"How much..." Leif spoke slowly. "Do you know about who we were, and what we did?"
I wracked my memories, knowing Mother had told us the story shortly after I awoke from my injuries. "You were revolutionaries," I said. "In the Griffon Empire. You were trying to topple the aristocracy. She said she betrayed you. She also said you weren't trying to lay groundwork for the changeling invasion, and that you being changelings didn't even factor into it. That your motives were completely independent of that."
Leif looked away. "So you don't know. That's what they were hiding from you in Icereach."
My heartbeat quickened.
"When we were in Icereach," Leif said, looking away. "We were looking for some information, among other things. But it's impossible to learn anything there. You probably don't need me to tell you that; it was your home. Suppose it makes sense that of all the things a colony of batponies would try to hide, it would be that."
"What?" I asked, leaning closer, suddenly afraid. "What do you know?"
Leif slowly met my eyes again. "Do you really want to know? It's... not the kind of thing your life will be the same after."
I swallowed and nodded. Was this something I actually did know? Something hidden behind my mask...?
Instead of telling me, Leif asked another question. "What's your opinion on changelings? As a whole. Not any individuals who happen to be them."
What? "Err..." I hesitated. I didn't really know how to answer that, not when I knew so few of them.
Leif waited.
"I don't think that what you are has any bearing on what you do," I said, dredging up memories of tense conversations in the hideout during our exile, of my own nature as a mask, of my impersonation special talent that gave me so much in common with the changelings. "It just gives you different tools to do it with. That's all."
Leif nodded, then took a breath. "Batponies are changelings. Changelings are batponies. The only difference is that you haven't 'awakened' yet."
I felt like I was suddenly very, very far up in the sky.
The Twilight of the Gods. The war in the east that exterminated Mistvale and tore apart the Griffon Empire. An army of changelings attacked out of nowhere, and in the aftermath, batponies were extinct. Not because the changelings killed them, but... but...
That was what everyone in Icereach was hiding from. I knew most of the Institute's ponies were older than the censorship laws, and thus probably knew the things that were being censored. That was why they didn't want to think about it. That was why the Griffon Empire's history became so hard to find, as of the war.
That was what everyone in Ironridge knew when they were giving me funny looks. The mare who had a tantrum in the clothing store. Everyone else who stared at me wrong. And all the ponies who tipped their hats at me? They felt sorry for me. Or maybe they wanted to be my friends, so I wouldn't steal their identities.
That was what the ponies of Icereach had done, decades ago, when they 'created' the changeling skeleton I found in the mural room adjacent to the chapel. That was how they made a changeling. They just... found a way to turn batponies back to their base form?
That was what I would have learned if Icebeard's journal hadn't been destroyed.
That was what Elise must have known when she offered to take Mother in as a refugee. That was what Mother must have known when she escaped from the Griffon Empire and left behind her old home. That was what Ansel...
Actually, Ansel probably didn't know. Not with his abiding hatred of changelings, yet his cordiality to batponies, like me. This knowledge would probably hit him even harder.
I wondered if Corsica knew.
I wondered if Jamjars knew... Of course she did.
I wondered if Ludwig knew.
Slowly, my mind settled back into my body, and I returned to the ground. Leif was watching me.
"I guess..." she said slowly. "That means you really didn't know."
I shook my head.
"I suppose your mother wouldn't have mentioned it," Leif said. "But we were sisters. The three of us, in that photo. That makes me your aunt. Adoptive aunt, at least."
I blinked.
"She was never pregnant while I knew her." Leif shrugged. "Not unless she was very good at hiding it."
"So..." I struggled for words. "Is she a changeling, then? Am I...?"
"Depends on your definition," Leif said. "Both of you have the power. You might not have awakened to it yet. If you could shapeshift, I think you'd know. It's not something that can be taught, though. Part of you has to be broken for it to become voluntarily possible. I don't know that you'd want to hear about it."
"I do," I insisted. However far I had come, I had to know the rest.
"Brands are the key," Leif told me. "Special talents. Cutie marks. Whatever you want to call them. It's why we're born with ours - they give us our shape, our form, our identity. Other kinds of ponies get to choose their identity as they grow, and seek out causes that they choose to care about. Usually, at least. But our bodies are uniquely able to adapt, physically, to our identity. And because of that, ours is set at conception. So, in order to shapeshift, you have to lose that. Rejecting it isn't enough. You have to have it torn out of your body, and lose it altogether."
I shuddered. I already worried about who I was enough as-is. Losing what little I had...
Actually, I might have already done it. Procyon looked different than I did, her uniqueness more exaggerated, mother-of-pearl instead of silver and her hooves more colorful. The green crystal, the mask I wore, might actually be physically changing my appearance, and the other me just didn't let me remember whenever I turned back.
That would explain a lot. Like why she was so adamant that I never take off my mask in public. Someone would see.
"It's not something you do for fun," Leif went on. "It's an incredibly violent process no matter how you do it. Other ponies, because they begin life without their brands, are able to survive without them and live relatively normal lives. We're not designed to do that. If you take away my or your brand, our soul goes with it. We become animals, capable of only the basest emotions and no rational thought. When Chrysalis appeared, she took over the mechanism our old goddess, the Night Mother, used to collect prayers and speak to her faithful: a construct called the Daydream Network. And then she used it to rip out the brands of every single sarosian on the continent. No matter who you were, no matter where you were, one heartbeat life was continuing as normal, and the next you were a soulless puppet, bound and tethered to her. The horror of that final moment... has no words."
"But you're still here," I pointed out. "And Mother and I survived."
Leif slowly nodded. "About three years ago, there was... an event. I simply woke up, and was myself again. My brand back where it belonged. I was deep underground, surrounded by crystals. I remember a faint, golden light receding around me. Except, I wasn't in my body. I was a mint-green unicorn, wearing a dress in a fashion I had never seen before, with a bouquet of flowers. There were several others with me. All of us remembered the end, and then... we were there. So we banded together to survive, and discovered that somehow we could shapeshift on our own. I suspect the process of being broken and put back together unlocked it in our minds."
A faint, golden light. Underground. Among crystals.
The light spirit...
"And that became Aldebaran?" I asked.
"Yes," Leif said. "Not all of us were there at first, but eventually we became the four that came to your home. As for your mother, she wouldn't tell me how she and you survived, but from what I can tell you two were never broken."
The bracelet. It had to be.
"Eventually, the four of us decided to pursue Chrysalis," Leif went on. "We all had our own reasons. Many of them. I had... my sisters." She pointed at the locket. "Felicity, the eldest. Me, Senescey. Larceny, your mother. Just before the end, we had a fight. The details don't deserve to be remembered, but... we didn't part on good terms, and after being closer than close for my entire life. They were my partners. We had a mission, and we failed to see it through. I want to use my life to finish what the three of us started, but first... I wanted to get them back, so we could make amends. I don't have the means to challenge a god. I don't know if anyone does. But somehow, my brand and my soul got free from Chrysalis, and found their way to me in that cave. I held onto the belief that if I could be put back together, my sisters could be, too. And even if I didn't know how to free them from Chrysalis once I found her, I just figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. That's why we came to Icereach. We were looking for Chrysalis. And I assume that's what you really want to hear about, isn't it?"
Mutely, I nodded.
Leif closed her eyes. "...I don't know where to begin."
"How about with why you kidnapped us?" I started, gently raising an eyebrow.
Leif sighed. "There were multiple reasons. We fashioned ourselves into a company of mercenaries so that we could get work and collect resources while also pursuing leads on our target. That means we had many active goals at the same time, and we tried to multitask between them. With your case, we had two different tasks we were trying to accomplish. One, for our search for Chrysalis, involved trying to bypass the security on a machine that was allegedly stored in that cave we took you to. We thought we needed Corsica for that specifically. The second, a side job we were doing for money, involved getting you and Corsica out of the city for an extended period of time. And while I know you had a bad time, both of them blew up in our faces, as well. So which one do you want to hear about first?"
"Bypassing security?" I tilted my head. "You mean that thing you had Corsica stick her horn in, you actually thought would work?"
Leif nodded. "That one, then?"
I narrowed my eyes at her. "Did you even try to break in there yourselves? I hacked that thing in five minutes because I was bored with nothing to do after you bailed. Its security was so bad, it must have been designed by an infant."
Leif looked surprised and a little taken aback.
I tilted my head. "Gonna take that as a no?"
She sighed. "Rondo knows about boats. He was in the most technical profession out of any of us in his old life. I'm afraid none of us have the skills to do anything more with those terminals than operate them."
"Serves you right for not hiring us legit and being up front with us, then," I told her. "So what were you expecting to find, if not that weird letter?"
Leif gave me a sharp look. "We went over that plenty of times among ourselves, thank you, no need to rub it in. What we were looking for was the control terminal to a shuttered machine called Project Nemestasis."
I felt a stupid grin growing on my face. "You know that was actually down there, right? Basically one of the first things I found once I started exploring on my own?"
Leif groaned and buried her face in her hooves. "Yes, we got betrayed by our benefactors, we know this, I've been reminded a million times! Of course it was all there. Are you going to let me finish, or do you need more time to gloat?"
"Well, this is pretty satisfying," I admitted. "And you kind of owe me. You have no idea what you put us through back there. Or just now, to get you free."
"Fine," Leif sighed, "let the humiliation conga continue. Let me know when you're ready to hear about what Project Nemestasis actually does, unless you want to tell us you already know that, too."
"No," I told her, "but I do know Icereach is some kinda scary secret weapons depot, and also that hideout where you ditched us is probably left over from a previous Yakyakistan administration where they stashed old war stuff from before they signed their peace treaty with Ironridge."
Leif raised an eyebrow. "Do you know about your rockets?"
"That they're finished and have been this whole time?" I raised one back. A small part of me wondered if I should be chancing telling her anything she might not know, but... she was telling me a lot. Enough that if she was making things up, she probably deserved an award in storytelling.
Leif nodded. "Project Nemestasis is a targeting system. Yakyakistan designed it to help get the rockets where they were supposed to go, once they lifted off. It was an early attempt, not the system the rockets use today, and it got shuttered for unknown reasons that likely involved a scientist going rogue and stealing irreplaceable keys required to use it, but we don't know for sure. The point is, it's in Icereach and the rockets are in Icereach and we hoped but didn't know that if we could reactivate it, it would be a back door into the system that could allow us to fire and control the rockets ourselves, which is a slightly reasonable hope because we couldn't figure out where the front door is and it's entirely possible they reactivated it and now it is the front door. Can you think of why we might want to do that?"
I blinked, and slowly shook my head.
"Chrysalis," Leif said. "Striking a god with a rocket laden with explosives from the other side of the world is about as safe and effective a way of fighting them as you're going to get. It's our best idea for killing her by a mile."
I shivered. Who thinks of these things? Besides Leitmotif?
"A-and you think Corsica was they key to unlocking that machine?" I raised an eyebrow. "How'd you figure that one out without even seeing the thing itself?"
Leif sighed. "We were told. Figured it out from an informant who, in hindsight, had ties to the Composer. It was more of a riddle than a straight answer, though. Supposedly, the 'head scientist's daughter' was the key. But who else is that supposed to mean? Did Graygarden have other kids? Corsica was his daughter, right? Maybe it meant the daughter of a previous head scientist, but the only other head scientist I know of is very dead and we'd have a lot of work to do to track down any offspring he may have left behind. Just thought we'd try the easy solution first."
I tilted my head. "You think whoever gave you that riddle also set up the fake terminal with the letter telling us you were all changelings?"
Leif shook her head. "I can't see any other way to make sense of it. That facility wasn't a place just anyone would have access to, and neither were our identities. If it wasn't done by the Composer themself, it had to be someone very close to them. But the only reason I wouldn't suspect them directly is that I don't know what motive they possibly could have had."
"Welcome to my world," I said with a shrug. "Where everyone does whatever and you're lucky if ten percent of it makes sense. So if that letter we found on the terminal wasn't actually on you, what were you planning to do with us after Corsica unlocked your machine?"
"Make up a story to convince you to leave Icereach with us," Leif said. "Potentially convince you to stay in the hideout for a day or three while we did what we needed to to finish up affairs there. Ideally without losing your trust, which would have been a lot easier if Elise hadn't caught onto us before we left, a lot easier if you hadn't started to get suspicious also before we left, and infinitely easier if it hadn't been for that letter."
I nodded. "Yeah, no offense, but your ability to string us along kind of made you look like amateurs."
Leif closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. "...Thanks."
This time, I felt slightly bad for insulting her. Slightly. After all, she was being pretty cooperative, and she had clearly been through a lot too.
"Anyway, that was the paid job, the one we were doing for money, because nothing in the world is free," Leif went on, pretending that hadn't just happened. "Even mercenaries with powerful and shady benefactors need to make a living. And, as you can see, even though we made a mess of things, you two were eventually gotten rid of because you are no longer in Icereach. Whatever you're doing here, I hope it was gentler than what happened under us."
"We were gotten rid of?" I blinked, then slowly remembered what Gerardo had told me on my first night here. We were. By Elise and Graygarden. Icereach's political power was waning as the governments of Ironridge and Yakyakistan lost interest, he said. Icereach was also mostly inhabited by natives who would respond to that by closing themselves off from the world. Elise and Graygarden wanted to get us out before Icereach became completely isolated, and we lost the opportunity...
It couldn't be. Elise tried to stop Aldebaran. She got captured by them! She...
I looked to Leif for an explanation.
"Graygarden hired us," she explained. "To set you three up in a life outside Icereach. Initially, we only came to your home with the expectation of hiring Corsica, having her unlock the Nemestasis machine, and bringing back home, immediately and unharmed. When we invited you and your brother to come along, it really was just an innocent research trip, at first - we had a story set up to tell you about why we were really hacking that terminal, of course, and not actually going to investigate an ether cave, but we all thought it could be a fun adventure and maybe Corsica would be happier having her friends along. And at first Graygarden wasn't thrilled. But then he had a change of heart when he realized that this could be an opportunity to get you free from Icereach and what was going to happen there. He has a... personal connection to Aldebaran, I'll say, so he knew a small little bit about who we were, going in. So, we adjusted our plans to ensure all of you came along, intervened when Elise tried to stop us, tricked you when you tried to walk out... I'm sorry. If it wasn't for that letter on the terminal, we probably would have tried to string you along all the way until we could bring you to Yakyakistan, and set you up for a new life there."
I looked at the ground. All this... It sounded so fragile when she said it, like I could swing a hoof and shatter her words into shards of glass, and then none of it ever would have happened. Like it wasn't real, and had all been an illusion.
Maybe it had been. And now that I could see the illusion, its hold on me was slipping.
"Why did Graygarden want us to leave?" I asked. "I've heard it from one person, but what did he tell you? What was going on when we escaped and got back to Icereach?"
"That's..." Leif took a breath. "Complicated. Once you were out of the picture, Graygarden wanted us to depose him, pretending to be you, and then give him safe passage out of Icereach. If that sounds complicated, it was a plan his mistress made up, not his or ours. She's... a bit of a schemer. With an addiction to drama and complexity."
Jamjars.
"His mistress," I said. "She's your fifth member, isn't she? I know she's involved with whitewings, and was the real owner of the hideout where you left us."
"You figured that much out?" Leif nodded. "Yeah. She is. She's... not a changeling, and she has completely different goals to us, so we never got along that well. But she's friends with the Composer, and got in with us as a condition for us getting our airship. She also has a spell that lets her change color like a chameleon, which makes for good enough budget shapeshifting that she could still keep up with the things we did."
Huh. From the sound of it, Leif didn't know that I lived with Jamjars. I wondered what she could tell me about how trustworthy Jamjars was, or what her real goals were... Probably not a glowing review, if Jamjars was associated with the Composer.
Wait, though. Jamjars was already friends with Kitty...
An image of Kitty's stupid, innocent, blepping face filled my mind. There was no way that kid could be the Composer, right? No possible way she could be the same cool, calculating presence that turned into a cackling windigo and then blew me up in my own house.
No possible way. Except that both of them were windigoes with ties to Jamjars, and both of them were very good actors who occasionally showed off sharp personality swings...
If she was, I realized, Leif didn't know. Kitty had been with me when we met in the Flame Barracks, and Leif didn't recognize her.
This, I felt like keeping to myself.
"Why try to depose Graygarden, though?" I asked. "Why in our name? What was it supposed to accomplish?"
Leif hesitated. "That information is... dangerous. Halcyon, I basically owe you my life after today, and I was already indebted to you after that catastrophe at Icereach. But I want to make sure you're not the kind of pony who would... would let this ruin their life by taking it as a call to become something they're not supposed to be."
A memory flickered through my mind of Elise talking about Starlight, a filly who accomplished extraordinary feats, yet only attempted them because she felt like nobody else would rise to the occasion. Was that what Leif was talking about?
"I'm..." I hesitated. "What are you asking? I'm a good pony. I try to do the right thing. What do you want to know?"
"If something bad was going to happen," Leif said, "would you run away and save yourself, or would you try to stop it?"
My blood chilled. "How bad?"
"Bad, bad," Leif told me. "But the kind of bad that you can run from. Would you?"
I looked away. What kind of question was that?
"Something bad that might happen to Ironridge," Leif went on. "Do you care about this city? Would you try to stop it? I can see in your eyes that you aren't perfectly happy here, but is it enough that you'd stay out of harm's way and not get involved? Could you walk away and live with yourself afterward? Or would you be a foolish, innocent child who's compelled to play the hero, even when you're just a single mare and don't have the power it would take to make a difference?"
I remembered Valey asking me a similar question: what did I want to do with Ironridge? Given the choice, would I try to improve it, try to get revenge for all the stress it had inflicted on me, or just walk away?
Why was I given questions like these, anyway?
"Tell me what's going to happen," I said. "I don't know how I can answer that otherwise."
Leif hesitated. "...Cold Karma is ruled by windigoes. Yakyakistan knows this. They're plotting a holy war to break the treaty and wipe them out."
My fur prickled.
"After the Steel Revolution, Yakyakistan offered Ironridge a hoof in friendship," Leif went on. "Their rogue ambassador, Herman, had dreams of annexing Ironridge and rebuilding Yakyakistan's empire. Church leadership refuted that, and the countries were supposed to walk side by side. But then Ironridge's fledgling new government failed, suddenly, and Cold Karma moved to fill the void. That company became ruled by opportunists pursuing their own agendas, and formed a vacuum within itself. A vacuum that, now, the windigoes fill, providing air conditioning to all of Ironridge and steering the city's course from below. Yakyakistan's church? They think they've learned from their mistake, and that Ironridge can't sustain itself without outside rule. To them, Cold Karma is to Ironridge's government as an infection is to a wound."
I shivered.
"Your home? Icereach?" Leif shook her head. "It's the midpoint between the two nations. Yakyakistan's reconquest will start there, in the form of a formal secession from the treaty and rejoining to Yakyakistan. Pressure has been building toward that moment for a long time. Graygarden knows, Halcyon. His superiors in Yakyakistan, Icereach's yak ambassador, they know, but Graygarden was different because he wanted to stop this. His plan, that we were hired for, was for us to depose him in a fake coup. The citizens, he expected, would react by overthrowing you - or us, pretending to be you - and then closing themselves swiftly to foreign influence, unknowingly expelling the real Yakyakistani conspirators in the process and seceding from both sides. He could then leave and start a new life in anonymity, and his daughter and her friends would likewise be safe. That was the goal."
She sighed. "What we hadn't accounted for was that we were being manipulated by an Ironridge windigo ourselves. The windigoes want to start a war, and currently, that's the path events are on track toward. We were trying to forcibly cut Icereach's ties to Yakyakistan to forestall the war, and so they intervened to preserve a beneficial status quo. I still don't know everything about what happened from your perspective on that night, but what I assume happened is that the windigo in the Nemestasis facility - whom we didn't know was there, I promise - helped or goaded you into returning to Icereach or something to derail our plans even further. Once we were captured and exposed, all the happenings could be blamed on us, and things could go back to normal. Right back onto a path leading to nowhere but war."
So that was what really happened.
I sat back, my head swirling. Things were... so much bigger than I imagined, and yet, at last, I could see the full picture. All the confusion I had endured since entering Ironridge? It was just games played between the branches of Cold Karma that didn't really matter. Things were as chaotic as they were there because the windigoes were behind it, and they wanted to bait Yakyakistan with the appearance of chaos. Me, my friends? We were just pawns. Pawns who happened to be important enough to ponies with a modicum of power that they tried to get us safely out of the way, and we insisted on sticking our necks back in. And even though I thought we ultimately saved Icereach, now Leif was telling me our interference had been for the worse.
But... that couldn't be it. We were powerful, too. I had my bracelet. Corsica had her special talent. Maybe Leif didn't know, but we hadn't been moved out of the way just because someone cared about us.
Odds were, it was because we really were powerful enough to influence the course of history, and no one liked it when wild cards took the stage.
"So what are you worried I might do?" I asked. "Go out on the streets and tell everyone I can that Yakyakistan is going to invade?"
Leif nodded. "That's pretty much it. Mostly, I don't want you thinking that because you know, there's something you can do, and because there's something you can do, you have to do it. That's a fallacy that will never let you rest. It's one I've lived my life through, and even though I know I could just sit back and stop caring, I can't make myself. Ironridge, Yakyakistan? We intervened in Icereach for money, not ideology. I have empathy for all the common folk that would get crushed in a war, Halcyon. I despise, down to the very core of my being, authority figures who would treat their subjects as statistics and casually let that happen. But by the same token I'm rooting for Cold Karma's destruction. This city's order... Even this world's order is rotten to its core. Sacrifices have to be made to overturn that, to build something better. But when the very things we're called on to sacrifice are the ponies for whose sake I want to build something better..."
She briefly trembled. "There's no right answer except to cling tight to my convictions. That's why I could go either way. I can help Graygarden restore Icereach's independence, for money, while telling myself at least the civilians in Ironridge will be protected. I can also stand back and do nothing while telling myself at least Cold Karma and all of its rot will be taken out with it. It's not an enviable position, but I have more choice in it than most. The only one who could actually rewrite the world order is a god, and that's not the lot we've been given in life."
Some part of me wanted to hug her.
It wasn't a thing I did, hugging ponies. I didn't understand the appeal, didn't want anyone else to hug me, and always felt weird touching ponies anyway. But I had pressed back that instinct for a long time today already, carrying Leif and Corsica across the barren Sky District, and I could take a little more.
So, I reached out and did it.
It still felt weird.
Leitmotif winced in surprise, then leaned into it just a little. "Beneath all the snark, you're not so bad."
"I dunno what I'm doing from here," I said, letting her go and stepping back, my legs feeling stronger again. "But, I forgive you. And if you want, you're welcome to come with. Unless you've got other plans?"
Leif shook her head. "Not ones I can follow. Changeling transformation isn't free, and Lilith forced me to do it far too much. She wasn't just trying to develop a method of forcing that. She also wanted to make me... hungry, so to speak. I think she was intending to use me to experiment on alternate power sources to strengthen the changeling hive. She probably wanted me to need it badly enough, I would accept it voluntarily. A willing test subject always gives better feedback than one who's been coerced."
"You call that willing?" My hackles rose, and I felt a spike of shame that I hadn't sprung her free the first time, in the Flame Barracks. "Who is Lilith, anyway? She's not Chrysalis, is she?"
"No," Leif said. "I'm almost certain she's not. But she's not a normal pony, or even a normal changeling, either. We don't know the real name for them, but in Aldebaran, we've started calling them Changeling Bishops. All our knowledge on them is observational, so there's too much I don't know, such as where they come from. Like queens, they can use the old Daydream Network to control soulless drones in a hive mind, but I don't think they can remove brands to create new changelings and I don't think they can store emotional energy. Like I said, there's too much I don't know."
My eyes widened a little. "So Lilith's whole thing about breeding batponies..."
Leif nodded. "When Chrysalis appeared twenty years ago, she absorbed the souls of more than ninety percent of the world's batponies. What she likely didn't know when she did that is that we can't procreate without brands and souls. And since she treated her army like disposable tools for conquering and killing, her ranks dwindled fast. All the bishops we've identified seem to be instilled with a single-minded purpose, much stronger than a normal pony's desires or brand. Lilith's mission is to restore the numbers of the batpony population by any means possible. So, what we think is that Chrysalis created Lilith, however bishops are made, to rectify her mistake and ensure the world has a healthy supply of us to make more drones from."
Usually, when my blood ran cold, it was a sharp drop, all at once. This time, it was a slow decline, getting cooler, and cooler, and cooler.
"Because that's what we are to her." Leif's voice was hard. "Disposable workers... No, more like food. Chrysalis is no better than Cold Karma or the Empire's old nobility. In fact, I think she's even worse, because she actually has the power to change the world order and make it better than this."
My ears pressed back.
"All Lilith cares about is making as many batponies as possible by any means possible." Leif ground her teeth. "Our comfort? Our happiness? Anything she does that works in our real favor is just part of the calculus. She sees us as nothing but machines. Or maybe she really does care, because she's the machine and Chrysalis thought she'd be most effective if she was made that way. I don't know the real reason for her existence, or my existence, or your existence, but I do know what it looks like, and it... it..."
She took a deep breath. "Sorry. I care... a lot... about certain things. And you asked. And I've been not in the best emotional state for the last... long time."
"I can relate." I looked away. "Anyway, while you're looking for Chrysalis... You ever meet someone called Coda?"
Leif nodded. "In the weeks before she awakened to her own powers, Chrysalis had a daughter. That's Coda... cared for by a portable cult made of the exact same scientists who gave Chrysalis her powers, minus their very dead leader. Scientists who used to work for the griffon province of Izvaldi. Did Larceny... Well, you knew her as Nehaly. Did she tell you about why we were fighting the nobility?"
I hesitated. "She said your mother died." Which would have been her mother as well, I suddenly realized. Unless they were half-siblings?
Leif nodded again. "Poisoned, when we were foals. Contaminated drinking water. The result of a poorly-maintained mine, upriver from where we lived. In Izvaldi. The very same administration that's now that child's caretakers."
She shook her head. "Coda may have the same goals as me, but I could never, ever ally with her. Even if it weren't for her followers, I couldn't look another changeling queen in the face, especially one so young and unformed, and not be tempted to... abuse it. Maybe I should. Maybe it's the best way to get what I want. But everyone else in Aldebaran didn't want to either, and it would almost certainly result in us no longer being our own masters. So, we've avoided ever crossing paths."
I waited, thinking of something else to say. And eventually, I did.
"Back in Icereach," I began. "I was impersonating Rondo for a bit. You know, since he was pretending to be me, he gave me a ready-made disguise... I was there when you were arguing about a research paper on ether crystal fault plane dating."
Leif chuckled dryly. "That was karma, pure and simple. When Corsica wakes up, if she'll have anything to do with me, I've a mind to ask her about it. Not sure that I'll be in a position to do anything with that knowledge for a very long time, but if there's any reason you'd be willing to work with me again, it... sure would be an opportunity."
"I was the primary author on that," I told her with a hint of a smug grin. "Submitted it in her name for reasons. She helped too, of course, but if that's got your interest..."
Leif stared at me with very much interest indeed.
"First," I told her. "What are these fault planes to you? My memory's a little foggy, so be explicit."
"A potential method of tracking Chrysalis," she said. "Your paper had several dates that you'd identified. Some of which you correlated to major world events, and others that you couldn't. At least two of those events, Chrysalis was involved in, one of which you didn't know about and actually was when we regained our brands. You thought you could improve your methodology to determine the place of events in addition to the date, right? If that happens, we could potentially use that technology to detect and pinpoint these events in real time, which would reveal her exact location should she be involved in something like this again."
I folded my forelegs. "So in other words, you have a vested interest in being able to use technology that doesn't yet exist, but I have the potential to create."
Leif nodded.
I thought about it for a moment. And then I got an idea.
"Alright," I said, offering a booted forehoof. "Then let's make a contract. But, this time around, you're gonna be working for me. You just said you're fine either way with how events go in Ironridge. You used to be a mercenary, so you're clearly fine with odd jobs. I'll make you my research assistant. You share your knowledge when I need it, help me with this and that, take care of yourself, and maybe we'll get that technology hammered out together. Deal?"
Leif looked deep into my eyes, as if searching for something. Then she lifted a hoof and bumped mine. "As long as you know it'll take a while for me to recover from this. I'm not going to be doing changeling things for a few weeks, at least."
For a moment, I was stunned. It was immeasurably satisfying to be on the other side of the table, after so many shady characters had done or tried to do this to me.
Quietly, I resolved that I would buck the trend and be a good boss.
"We can play the long game," I told her. "As long as Yakyakistan doesn't come in and interrupt with their war. But not too long, because I don't like it in Ironridge and do want to leave at some point."
"Right," Leif said, straightening her composure a little. "So what's the first order of business? Aside from getting back to civilization. I notice you took the scenic route."
I shrugged. "Someone told me you wouldn't be appreciated in Fort Starlight. Anyway, I haven't had time or space to do any research while I've been here, so we're still at square one. The first thing we need to do is..." I hesitated. "Actually, aren't you supposed to be running off to save your friends? What about the rest of Aldebaran?"
Leif shook her head. "They'll help themselves. As far as I know, they're already free. But we were always more united by the convenience of working together than anything. You and your research can get me closer to Chrysalis, and Aldebaran was out of resources and had nowhere left to go. To put it bluntly, I like my odds better with your plan."
I hesitated. "They escaped? And just ditched you?"
Leif shrugged. "That was our pact. An alliance of shared goals, working together and yet every pony for themselves. If I got out first, none of them were expecting me to come for them. You can look for them, if you want, but I have no leads, and I'll warn you now: I'm your family. And I like you, and I have a conscience, and I owe you. But the others don't have the same shared history your mother and I do. I'm sure you're feeling all happy and friendly about how we are suddenly getting along, but it's not going to play out the same way twice. Any of us but me, I think, if you found them and freed them and they weren't already free, would either try to convert you to their own ideology or walk away. And there's no karmic reward waiting for you based on the percentage of us you 'save'. But that's even assuming they're not doing things under their own power already. I'm all but certain they took bargains from the other Cold Karma heads, and are now doing new things."
I glanced around, searching for a loophole. "How do you know?"
"That they might have fallen in with Cold Karma?" Leif asked. "Because I got approached multiple times before Lilith snatched me up, and every time I told them to get bent. But the others don't have the same hatred of power structures as me. Rondo especially, but all of them, I think they would have taken the deals."
I looked at the ground.
"Buck up," Leif encouraged. "There's probably not a lot they can do for your research that I can't, and even if you don't trust me, think of how many fewer reasons you have to trust them. Our group was falling apart at the end anyway, and none of us were looking forward to figuring out how to resolve our differences about Chrysalis if we ever did get her at our mercy. So, for your research, what's the next step?"
I took a deep breath and sighed. "The first thing we need to do is get down to another ether cave. I asked you about this when we met in the Flame Barracks."
Leif nodded. "I remember that. Still trying to get down there?"
"Yep." I looked back in the direction we had come. "I've proven I can survive in the central mineshaft. For a bit, at least."
"It'll get harder the further down you go," Leif promised. "Unless you want to go in now and see how far you can get before being forced to turn back, but I wouldn't count on it. Had any luck searching for a space suit?"
I shook my head. "Haven't even started on finding Shinespark, and I feel like I'm walking a razor's edge with Cold Karma."
"Go figure," Leif sighed. "I am... probably... not going to be that helpful when it comes to Shinespark. She, and her friends, don't like me. Which may have been my fault for things I did to them during my campaign in the Empire, but what's done is done and the only reason I'd do it differently is because I lost and I wanted to win. So I'll help where I can, but you'll need to find her on your own. And if you're in deep enough with Cold Karma to spring me from that lab without a fight, I would not get in any deeper if I were you."
"Any ideas where she might be?" I tilted my head, daring to hope.
"Nope." Leif shrugged. "Not a clue. If you want me to start looking for hints, I can do that as soon as I'm well enough to transform again. This is my original form, and I... like wearing a disguise."
"Understandable." I checked my legs, seeing if I was well enough to travel. Corsica was still out of it, Leif looked more wobbly than I was... and I was worried I was beginning to cramp. I definitely wasn't ready.
Instead, I cast around for something more to discuss... and remembered the black metal shard Lilith had been using to control Leif's transformations, that Leif had begged me to bring along. I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to her. "So what's this?"
Leif's brow shadowed with regret. "A... part of a pony. It's not supposed to take physical form. I don't know a whole lot. But, that's mine."
I studied it. It was black. The same kind of metal as my bracelet.
Part of a pony that shouldn't take physical form, huh? I wondered who Mother's bracelet had come from, and why it was so much bigger.
"You can't forge it, or do anything with it, really," Leif said. "Unless you're a mad scientist. I can feel that something's missing, though. I'd ask for it back, but I suppose you want to keep some collateral so there's no repeat of our meeting in Icereach?"
I hesitated. I looked at the metal. The sun burned down overhead, but it was so black that even the reflection seemed worlds away, like I was looking at the sun through a long, long tunnel. And then I looked back at Leitmotif.
"Nah," I said, passing her the nugget. "From now on, we're gonna trust each other. Without holding any advantages. And if either one of us breaks that, it'll stink to be them, because they'll have thrown away something way more valuable than whatever they get for their betrayal."
Leif snorted as she took it. "Naive kid. I guess Larceny really did get you a good life, if you can be that innocent about things. Don't get me wrong, I'm jealous. Maybe a little too much so. Just wish I could have had a foalhood like that."
No. I didn't think she did. Whatever had happened in her own foalhood, I had forgotten mine, cut myself out of my own head and conjured up a replacement, because it was too much for me to live with anymore.
"I wasn't going to tell you this," Leif said, holding the nugget, "but the three of us... Your mother, me and Felicity... We weren't very nice revolutionaries. I don't know what she told you about our history, but to a lot of ponies, we were the bad guys. Professional assassins, con mares, out on a mission to erase the status quo and make it like it had never even existed. We had our reasons, and I won't renounce them. The world we were born into deserved to crumble. But that doesn't mean such a process is painless. So... don't get too cuddly with me. I lost the two mares I cared most about in the world because I was forced to choose between them and our mission. And while I'd give anything to get them back, I still made that choice. So just watch yourself. Being friendly and trusting, even with someone who just spilled her heart out like me, isn't magic. And even if I don't bite you for it, you mark my words someone else will."
I raised an eyebrow. "But you want to be better than that?"
"Of course." Leif shrugged. "Who plays the part of villain because they enjoy it? There's always another reason."
I stretched. "Welp. I've already gotten burned a hundred times. Might as well take my next risk on someone who's at least got a reason to be friendly. Partners?"
Leif nodded. "Partners."
That settled it. Someone in Ironridge, finally, whom I felt like I could trust... more than Cold Karma, at least. I let out a breath of relief.
Now all we had to do was get-
My ears picked up a faint shimmering sound moments before a shadow fell over me, and I looked up. It was Coda's airship, in the middle of circling the city.
Leif craned her neck to look, and so did I. And then a lift detached from the side of the ship, lowering itself on a rope to meet us. Standing in the middle was a fat, familiar pegasus.
"Hoi there," Howe greeted with a curious salute. "Her majestic smallness and all those titles sends her regards, spotted you here, and wants to know, dudes: need a lift?"