//------------------------------//
// Princess Coda's Grand Adventure 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

I moved to the door of my cabin, running over my plans in my mind. I wanted to protect Mother from Yakyakistan's invasion, but didn't see that I had any tools to do so at my disposal. I had to keep an eye on Leitmotif, though I was reasonably sure she wouldn't betray me again at this point - especially if I kept trying to reach the Ironridge ether river, which was also on my to-do list. I didn't have the heart to think about where I would get the time or space to do any actual core sample analysis to further our research should that first step be accomplished, though.

Most immediately, there was my job. I could just not show up, but... Well, actually, I wasn't currently broke. But at the rate it kept happening, I'd be a fool to pass up a guaranteed opportunity to pad myself out with real resources.

And then there was Coda, whom I was supposed to be a cool big sister to. And then there was that mare, Nyala, with the creepy third eye that apparently only I could see. And I still was trying to find Garsheeva, though at this point I was pretty certain it would be counterproductive to my other goals and I would be better off trying to get Coda to buy me an airship - and then take her with me - some other way.

I took a deep breath. All those things I had no idea where to start with, coupled with the fact that apparently my hooves looked like this for a very bad reason. And my busy, crazy life had never heard of giving me time for introspection.

Whatever. First things first: Mother. I swung the door open and strode out to find Howe. If he was as professional an informant as Jamjars said he was, maybe he would know a way to-

I nearly tripped over Coda, sitting patiently outside my door, her pink-and-black tail wagging eagerly.

"Ah-ha!" She beamed up at me. "Your loving goddess suspected you were up and moving around! She couldn't confirm, of course, being as you are invisible, but her deductive powers still advised an investigation and lo, here you are. I took the entire rest of the day off!"

"Err..." I took a step back, remembering urgently that I had just been talking aloud to myself about some very personal issues. "How long have you been sitting there?"

"Only a matter of seconds," she chirped. "You did not deign to keep your lady waiting. So, are you now properly rested and ready to face the evening?"

I dug back a thousand years in my memory to the previous afternoon, which was probably closer to five or six hours ago. Was it smart for me to be up on this little sleep? Right, Coda was miffed that I wanted to sleep instead of hanging out with her...

She stared expectantly into my eyes.

"Er, yeah, we can hang out..." I guess I wouldn't get to bother Howe after all. "Anything in particular you want to do?"

Coda's ears flicked. "We should soon be docking at Dead Herman to entertain my faithful for the evening, but time is not yet so tight that I must retire to my weighty throne. Come! Your princess would pick your mind for stories of the surface world out on the balcony ere her labors begin!"

She raced off towards the lobby, and I more slowly gave chase, the ship turning so that its starboard windows faced the Aldenfold as it drifted down to port. When I got there, Coda was waiting for me, staying present just long enough to beckon me up the farther of the twin staircases to the second floor.

I followed again, and found myself at a landing. Ahead, the corridor entered what appeared to be the bridge, with several cult ponies lounging around and doing pilot things. To my right, the stairs doubled back and went up another floor. At a guess, most of the crew's quarters would be up there, but I realized I didn't actually know how tall this airship was.

Coda, however, was to my left, through an open door and standing on an outdoor balcony that was now overlooking Ironridge. In the evening light, the cone of heat over the city shimmered less violently, but I still was glad we weren't sailing into it. Coda beckoned for me to join her at her side.

"Your goddess, as threatened, fasted from her work this day," she said when I obliged. "Now, remember our bargain? I do desire to hear from you, oh lord of the lands and dweller of the surface. Give me tales of this strange and wondrous vista, that I might be sated as I collect the nightly prayers."

I didn't want to get her hopes up, as I did have to leave for work, but I had a minute... "Well, alright. What do you want to hear about? Give me a prompt, here."

Coda perked up. "My clergy tell me the air over the city shimmers so because of a great and unnatural heat, enveloping the city in a sinister pall. Do they speak true?"

I blinked, not expecting that topic. "Yeah, they do. It's murderously hot down there. That's why everyone's awake at night in Ironridge. Too dangerous to go out and about in the day."

Coda eagerly wriggled. "But you, as a princess, are surely immune to it, giving you unfettered access into the dealings that evil would rather keep hidden?"

"Not a chance." I winced, remembering my ill-fated attempts at going to the Night District during the night. "I'm afraid my princess powers don't protect me from that one."

"Intriguing," Coda mused. "I have tried to grasp the concepts of 'too hot' and 'too cold', but after commanding my followers to prepare experiments, we together deduced that I have some degree of resistance to such things. Not that they are entirely pleasant to experience, but they do not repel me as they would mortals, particularly when I exercise my powers. Long have I assumed my wicked mother must be the same. Were I her, then, I would conduct my business at the hottest hour of the hottest part of the city, whereat my advantage would be greatest over those I seek to subjugate."

"You can't get too hot?" I tilted my head in interest. "Or too cold?" That was an interesting tidbit to file away...

Coda shook her head. "The powers of a changeling queen extend to an uncanny ability to regenerate our wounds, fueled by the emotions we contain. My clergy speculate that for ills born of extreme temperatures, I am simply able to heal the damage done to my body faster than it can be inflicted. But none know for sure."

"Bet you'd like it in Icereach, then," I said. "That's my home. Well, my old one, before I came to Ironridge."

Coda fixed me with an eager gaze.

I sighed, figuring I now owed her a story. "It's out in the mountains, to the west," I started. "Real remote place. Incredibly cold, too. In the middle of the day, with good weather, you bundle up to go on the surface. Unless you're Corsica, because she's got thick fur... But at night, or when a storm comes, you're as good as dead if you go outside. That's why we all lived in caves. It's pretty different from living on an airship all the time, let me tell you..."

Coda listened raptly. "Fascinating. I have been across Yakyakistan in years long past, but never to this Icereach. Regrettably, there is one of me and so much of the world to scour... Imagine if my mother was there all along."

"Probably not," I said with a shrug. "It's pretty peaceful there, most of the time. And..."

I trailed off. Now that I thought about it, Icereach was supposed to be the place where Ironridge and Yakyakistan sent secrets to be buried, right? A neutral ground they agreed to support in years gone by to act as a repository for things like Yakyakistan's old rockets that didn't have a place in the world today?

Its whole purpose was as a place to hide things. I had been hidden there... Or, more accurately, Mother had been, a refugee and former criminal looking for a place to retire off the map. And the concept of changelings was deliberately pushed far away from the public's collective conscience, so no one might be paying attention to the signs. And it successfully hid a windigo for who knew how long... Icereach would actually be an awesome place to hide a changeling queen.

Not that Coda needed to know.

"...And what?" She was looking at me expectantly.

"And I think everyone would know the signs of changelings when they saw them," I lied, feeling a pang of guilt for abusing this child's trust, even though it was for her own good. Before I could check myself, I backtracked. "Or maybe they wouldn't, and it would be a great place to hide. Some changelings did manage to fool me there, after all. It's a long story. But there's a lot of places in the world where-"

Coda fixed me with a look that said I wasn't getting off the hook for this story... and yet, it was an understanding look, too. "This is the incident you spoke of earlier when you mentioned being kidnapped by changelings."

I tilted my head. "I told you about that?"

"Yes!" Coda perked up. "Well, sort of. Your princess recalls being quite shy about revealing her true nature to you over concerns about how you would react. You were loathe to delve into detail, however, and so there is much that even I do not know..." She hesitated. "You claimed earlier that your internment was not likely the work of a queen, yet how certain are you? Might it perhaps be worth charting an expedition to this Icereach to scan it with my spell?"

And just like that, I was caught in a choice I knew was coming and really didn't want to make.

Coda was offering to leave Ironridge and fly to Icereach. I not only knew she would let me come along if I asked, I was all but certain she would beg me to if I didn't. This would accomplish multiple goals of mine: first in getting me out of the city, second in getting Coda out of the city, third in giving me a way to reach Mother, and probably a more timely one than any other options I had. It just had two downsides, one of which was that I would essentially be using Coda to get what I wanted.

The other was that, if Chrysalis really was somehow in Icereach, Coda would find out and it would be all but impossible for me to protect her.

"You look deep in thought," Coda remarked. "Might you share the workings of your mind with me? Though you are doubtless the more worldly of us two, the formidable intelligence of a goddess is not a force to be dismissed lightly."

Maybe... I should just tell her.

"My mother..." I took a breath. "Is still in Icereach. And I'd like to get her a ride out, sooner rather than later. So I've kind of got a vested interest in heading back home. But I don't know that Chrysalis is there and it would probably be a terrible engagement to fight her there if she was. If you wanna get your cult to give me a ride out that far, I'd appreciate it, and it would mean you'd get to hang out with me for however many weeks we'd be flying for. But I don't wanna tell you it's for the sake of finding Chrysalis."

Coda looked confused. "Why not?"

I blinked. "Why not what?"

"Why not tell me it is for the sake of finding Chrysalis?" Coda asked, visibly trying to parse what I had just said.

Just as she struggled to understand, I struggled to understand what she didn't understand. "Because it isn't. It wouldn't be."

This didn't appear to help. "So?" Coda asked, looking to me for answers.

"So... I... don't want to lie to you?" I took a deep breath, distancing myself from the situation, and looked at it again. "Do people regularly tell you things are for the sake of finding Chrysalis when they clearly aren't?"

Coda shook her head. "The chain of causality is not so clear. As a goddess, I am bound by inexorable destiny to face my birth mother. It cannot but happen. Mortals, agents of destiny that they be, are bound to uphold this. You are an anomaly because I cannot predict your actions, but the simplistic paths of others, less so. Observe that my faithful pray for success and favor upon me without knowing so much as the nature of myself, much less my mission. Behold how my clergy, unable to see the order in the random chaos of their own movements, hail my endeavor when putting forth acts and desires that, on the surface, have nothing to do with it whatsoever. It is a matter of faith, not function."

Words had just happened, and they did not register in my brain. "Say that again. Slower and clearer."

Coda sighed. "Yes, have an example for your busy mind. Suppose that one of my clergy, studious in their duties, petitions for a night on the town, severed from responsibility and beyond my sight for a small span of time, and suppose they claim without reason it is to the benefit of my holy purpose. My other clergy, burdened by a mortal understanding of causality and unable to see the greater picture, reprimand them for slacking off, as they cannot see how this idleness might serve me. Do you understand so far?"

I nodded. A job where you got reprimanded for asking for vacation must stink.

"However, I allow it," Coda went on. "As the actions of mortals are predictable to me, that means they are fixed. As they are fixed, that means they can move only from a fixed source to a fixed endpoint, as dictated by destiny. And as my destiny is to strike down my mother, it is a foregone conclusion that their request serves my purpose. Such is the passage of fate."

I hesitated. "And you can see exactly how this will play out? You know this destiny well enough to see exactly how this scenario benefits you in the long run?"

Coda shook her head. "I assume I should need to become a much more powerful goddess to put together the threads of the grand tapestry like so," she admitted.

"Then how do you know it actually serves your ends?" I pressed. "And that ponies don't just say something is in the name of your holy quest when they want something from you?"

"Logic and extrapolation," Coda primly proclaimed. "I know that my destiny is set. I know that the actions of mortals are predictable. It thus follows that the course of their actions has my destiny as its endpoint."

She let that statement hang in the air, looking to me for approval.

"And you've thought about everything like this for how long?" I asked.

Coda shrugged. "Since right now. To translate the complex mind of a goddess into words others can understand is a difficult feat indeed, let alone the intricacies of my heart. Your goddess often thinks of new ways to explain herself, so forgive her for thinking such thoughts aloud."

I shook my head. "Well, let's back up. How do you know your destiny is set?"

Coda gave me an isn't-it-obvious look. "Because it is written in my scriptures."

"Who wrote your scriptures?" I went on. "How do you know they're infallible?"

Coda hesitated. "...Truth be told, I believe they have always existed. Divine manuscripts cannot simply spring into being through the works of mortal hooves, after all. Though now that you mention it, I am not entirely sure."

I sighed. "So, if someone asked you to give up your crusade against Chrysalis and go become a farmer, or something, and they said it was in the name of helping you fight Chrysalis, would you do it just because they invoked your destiny?"

Coda scoffed. "An impossibility. Such a wish would result in a logical contradiction, would it not?"

"Yeah," I pointed out. "So would you do it?"

"Irrelevant," Coda answered. "Because such a question will not be asked in the first place. My destiny would not permit it."

I sat back, folded my forelegs and raised an eyebrow in challenge. "You wanna bet I can't ask you to give up and let Chrysalis become someone else's problem?"

For a moment, Coda looked surprised, and then resigned. "But you are a princess, outside the passage of fate and thus my predictions. You can do anything. Including, like as not, defy my destiny. To which I would be grateful if you didn't..." She trailed off, her eyes widening in realization. "Ohhhh. That's why you couldn't say earlier that going to Icereach would help track my erstwhile quarry. Because you are not privy to the forces of the universe that might guide your question to steer me true."

Part of me was tempted to leave this bizarre conversation here, but I decided I wasn't done yet. "And what about everyone but me? What if one of your clergy asked you to hang up your sword?"

"I told you." Coda shrugged. "It is impossible for them to ask."

I levelly met her eyes. "Which is a belief you apparently hold because they taught it to you. Right?"

Coda puffed up. "Your princess figured it out for herself, thank you very much."

"With information they taught you," I pointed out. "How many times have you been down to the real world and interacted with ponies who know nothing about you?"

"We have been over this time and again," Coda lamented. "Never. 'Tis the duty of my position to-"

"How do you know," I insisted, "that this understanding of the way things work can survive contact with ponies who aren't part of your cult's orbit and don't know the right things to tell you? How would you ever find out if destiny doesn't work like that if you only ever talked to ponies who had a reason for you to believe it did?"

Coda suddenly looked defiantly brittle. "But I figured this all out for myself. I was not taught it. My clergy can scarce even understand it."

"But you figured it out from such a small and similar sample of ponies," I pressed. "The world out there-"

"Is so much bigger, I know!" Coda suddenly snapped, and I worried she might cry. "I know I'm living in a bubble! And you are the only link to the outside I have, so stop asking me confusing questions and tell me what it's like out there!"

I looked out at the city, steeling my resolve. "How good are your wings, kiddo?"

Coda flexed her overgrown wings. "Most powerful. But why-"

"Then you better know how to use 'em, because we're going on an adventure."

Before she could protest, I grabbed her and leapt over the railing.





For a brief moment, we were in free-fall, and I questioned whether this had been a good idea.

Then, Coda's wings snapped out like a parachute, catching our momentum and yanking us forward and up, as I clung to her barrel to avoid falling. "What has possessed you, creature!?" she squawked in surprise, the two of us hovering awkwardly in midair halfway between her airship and the distant outskirts of Dead Herman.

"I'm not gonna tell you any more about the outside world," I grunted, struggling to feel less like I was one slip away from plummeting to my doom. "Not from the comfort of your cozy airship, and not while you're taking prayers on that throne. If you wanna see it, I'm gonna show you. And you'll see just how little was stopping you from flying out here this whole time."

"Kindly..." Coda struggled. "Ungrapple your princess, please...! She has never flown with passengers in such a manner!"

"Then let's stick a landing," I urged. "Because I maybe should have mentioned first that I can't fly at all."

Thankfully, Coda obliged, flapping awkwardly and dropping me on the rocks without too bad of a crash. I straightened up, watching as she gingerly landed herself, poking at the craggy terrain.

"You've... seriously never been down here before," I ventured.

"It has been the duty of my clergy to plumb the world of mortals," Coda muttered, lifting and examining a stone. "I take it we are still outside the city proper. Almost like this is a purgatory, of sorts."

I nodded. "What are you gonna do?"

She looked back up at her airship. It was still moving to dock with the skyport. Apparently, nobody had noticed us jump.

Then she looked at me.

"If you wanna believe it's in the name of beating Chrysalis, believe it," I told her. "You'll probably get way more useful intel coming down here yourself than you will sucking up one more day of prayers. Or were you thinking your first experience with the outside world would be when you finally find her and inevitably have to leave your airship to fight her?"

Coda blinked. "In truth, I had not considered that... Although your princess is still shaken by your boldness. Heaving her from her own balcony in such a manner..."

"Think you're gonna win a fight without being used to being tossed around like a sporting ball?" I raised an eyebrow.

The look Coda gave me suggested she had legitimately never considered this before.

"If you've gotta write it down in the books as being for the cause, then do it," I urged her. "Being used to this place really will help, I promise. But aside from that, do it because this is what you want to do."

"You are..." Coda hesitated. "Requesting that I permit you to show me the city. In person."

I nodded. "Yup."

"What of my clergy?" She glanced back up at the ship, excitement and worry clashing in her voice. "And the night's prayers? And your own followers to whom I offered my ship as sanctuary?"

I shrugged. "My friends will wake up when they wake up and then take care of themselves. Your goons can do whatever. Maybe they'll just let everyone come pray with no one on the other side to listen."

Coda hesitantly giggled. "It is rather amusing, imagining the faithful sincerely believing their prayers are being heard, only for them to echo into the abyss... I imagine it is also rather immoral to waste such fervently given convictions as that, though you do make a compelling case as to why I should join you. Is this... really alright?"

"Sure is." I nodded, offering a booted hoof. "You in?"

She stared at me, tensed... and bumped it, all at once. "Coda is in! Yes! Eeehee! Guide on, Princess Halcyon, master of the land! Where are we going?"

"First off, some ground rules," I said. "Just so we don't get in any weird situations. For starters, you're a changeling queen. You can do the disguise thing, right?"

Coda nod-nod-nodded. "It is a power I am proficient with. Have we need of subterfuge? It would not do to let my mother's agents know we are coming..."

"Err... Sure, let's go with that," I said. "But also because alicorns are kind of... distinctive. And if people see you just walking around, we'll likely get mobbed by curious strangers and never get anything done. Think you can be, like, a pegasus or a unicorn?"

Coda took a deep breath, puffed out her chest... and in a wrap of pink-black flame, she was gone, a little batpony filly standing where she had once been. Her horn was gone, but so was her supernatural size: she looked like an ordinary filly, no more than thirteen years of age.

"That'll... do nicely, yeah," I said, noting that she hadn't touched her colorations and unsuccessfully reminding myself that this was really a mare the same age as I was, despite the fact that she was a filly now in both mind and body. If it wasn't for the fact that her birth was apparently a documented historical event, I would have sworn she really was a pre-teen.

I hesitated. "On second thought, batponies are treated kind of... strangely in the city. Maybe a pegasus or a unicorn?"

Coda flashed again, and was a pegasus. "What do you mean by strangely?"

"You'll see. Not like I can go as anything other than me," I said, aware that technically wasn't true. "Or maybe you won't know what normal is to recognize the strange stuff. Exciting, eh?"

"What else?" Coda vibrated in excitement.

I took note of her stubby little pegasus filly wings, not at all the huge alicorn ones that had landed us safely from the airship. Odds were, I'd be hiking back to town... and I had a job to get to. "So..." I took a breath, thinking of how to explain this. "I've got a job..."

Coda listened raptly.

"Which, if you're unfamiliar, means I do arbitrary tasks for other ponies in exchange for cash," I told her. "So... you wanna come watch? My boss will probably be okay with it if you hide and don't really make it obvious you're there. I'll pretend you're the daughter or kid sister of a friend of mine, and that I'm getting paid to watch you for the day. And you'll probably want to not refer to either of us as royalty where anyone else can hear, because I'm actually not a princess and you're pretending not to be one too. Most kids would probably hate this, but I've got a feeling you'll love it. Sound like fun?"

"I shall trust in your judgement, Ordinary Citizen Halcyon the Garbed!" Coda furtively whispered, already going hush hush, as if we were undercover. "Lead on!"





Our journey through the Day District could have been summed up in a picture album, and I was almost disappointed I didn't have a camera in my bags. Coda, feeling the heat wafting up the broken escalator tunnel and making a face - she wasn't slowed down by it, but she clearly wasn't comfortable, either. Coda, standing on the abandoned overlook platform outside the tunnel entrance, her sparkling eyes reflecting the light of the city. Coda, whispering questions in my ear as we passed our first stranger and they paid us no mind. Coda, having a close call with a cart in a crowded intersection, completely unused to watching where she was going. Coda, discovering that riding on my back made asking those questions that much easier, after I swallowed my hesitancy and put her up there to keep her safe.

Coda, riding on a train for the first time - her reaction reminded me of my own. Coda, seeing the city from a different angle and realizing what things she had seen before but never thought about were for, like the airship port where Gerardo docked two fateful weeks ago. The two of us, strolling through Eaststone Mall, as I pointed out the bookstore for her, told her the story of Kitty licking forty cakes, and offered to buy her breakfast at the very same Varsidelian noodle joint Jamjars had taken us on our first evening in Ironridge. Me, relaxing and watching Coda pick apart her food, learn the new tastes and meticulously separate the good from the bad - noodles, carrots and baby corn stayed, mushrooms, peppers and onions were all taboo.

It was magical, a heavy haze of nostalgia settling over me like a wedding veil, reminding me of my own first experience with Ironridge and painting it in a brighter light. And somehow, even though I was helping a child goddess to shirk her duties while plotting a rescue mission from the front lines of a brewing war and harboring a changeling revolutionary as an enemy-turned-friend, it was the most normal I had ever felt.

Maybe it was all the other ponies around us. I watched them, thought about it, and realized so many of them were families, too, taking their children out for a walk or a fun night out.

This... It was what I craved.

It was what I had been searching for all along.

I took us through a souvenir shop on our way out of the mall, ostensibly to buy Coda something, though I wanted something for myself, too. She wound up with a carved hunk of crystal my trained eye easily recognized as a cheap knockoff, but was still pretty. I got a postcard showing a view of the Ice District dam from the entrance to Eaststone. Maybe I could give it to Mother once we reunited, however that was going to happen.

"Enjoying yourself?" I asked, stepping out of the mall plaza and into the heat, Coda having returned to her now-favorite spot on my back, my discomfort with the contact by now thoroughly abused and stuffed in a closet.

"That is one word for it," Coda muttered, sounding vaguely dazed. "It's just... so much, all I can do is try to take it in. There's so much emotion everywhere, it would take all my focus just to read one pony. I am reminded of how my eyes feel upon seeing a bright light after sitting in a dark room. It makes my ship feel like a wasteland..."

"Maybe your ship is a wasteland," I hesitantly offered. "But this, right here? This is real. Tell me you think all these ponies, all around us, are just insignificant machines on predetermined tracks towards a destiny that's shaped around a small hooffull of divinities."

"I can't think about that right now," Coda mumbled. "I just... All this... You see..."

I did see. I saw all the ponies around us, slouching along or holding their heads high in the oppressive heat, the stars a hazy mess up above through the waves of rising heat. It felt so real, so much more than Cold Karma and Lilith's machinations and the impending war with Yakyakistan, even though I knew those were real as well... Even if it was just for this one moment, I did want to keep this place safe. Safe from the outside, and safe from itself.

How long ago it had been that I believed in destiny, and how interesting that I was now the one trying to convince Coda that hers didn't exist.

I held up my postcard, matching it with the skyline and trying to find the exact point where the picture was taken. I knew it was close, and I knew it didn't matter. I just wanted to stand there. Holding up the card in a wing, I searched the picture and my eyesight, trying to match the daytime view in the postcard to the nighttime sky I saw now. It wasn't impossible, thanks to the brightly lit tip of the Cold Karma building poking above the dam, and the lighthouse on the mountain that formed the dam's northern wall...

Except the lighthouse wasn't in the postcard. That was a shame. It must have been an old photo. The lighthouse did add to the skyline, like it was always meant to be there...

"What are you looking at?" Coda mumbled, leaning forward to see what I saw.

"Just trying to line up this picture," I explained. "It's a shame it doesn't have the lighthouse, though."

"Lighthouse where?" Coda scanned the skies. "What do you mean?"

I pointed at the mountain. "That one. See? It's not in the picture."

Coda squinted. "Perhaps mine eyes are playing tricks on me, but your princess sees no difference from that photo..."

"You don't see the lighthouse?" I blinked in surprise. "It's like the mountain's defining feature! Right up there at the top, in the middle!"

"Hrrm..." Coda mused, deep in thought. "Seer of spectral... What's a synonym for lighthouse that begins with S? I believe you have a phantom, but this might merit a title. Beholding the unseen is quite unusual..."

I gaped at the lighthouse, more and more weirded out. Coda couldn't see it. It wasn't in the postcard. But I could see it?

The obvious explanation was that Coda was nearsighted and didn't know it, which was especially believable when she had never had to interact with anything at a distance before and lived on a close-quarters boat. Except for the tiny, problematic detail that I had already seen a very unusual eye on a mare's forehead today that no one else could see, and I was paranoid enough to detect a pattern.

Whatever. I shook my head and carried us on toward the train station to get to my job, figuring I could always ask someone else if they saw it later. Go figure that even my best, most ordinary night in Ironridge could still be party crashed by the paranormal.





As we rode to the wedding venue, a new concern quickly replaced the phantom lighthouse in my mind: Jamjars.

I had learned much and more since my last meeting with my foster parent, about Aldebaran and her involvement with events in Icereach. Trusting her at this point was both stupid and impossible, though we had a working relationship that so far had done more good for me than harm. Thinking rationally, Jamjars probably was treating me and Corsica like pieces on her board, and so the biggest way to shake things up and make her a danger to us was to threaten to remove ourselves from her game... So how should I handle meeting with her? She was my boss. I couldn't avoid her.

One potentially appealing option was to confront her outright with everything I knew, ask for her pitch to join her side for real, and then accept, in the name of preserving the status quo in a slightly more stable fashion. Still with the intent of fleeing Ironridge when I could, of course... Except, with Coda tagging around, that probably wasn't a conversation I could have, since it would demand utmost privacy.

Time to kick the can down the road and hope nothing world-shaking transpired tonight, then. And if everything did somehow explode, at least I was currently in the company of a goddess.

Hoo boy, imagining Lalala's reaction if she learned about that...

I walked in through the venue doors, half an hour early, mentally rehearsing how to say nothing. Thumper was waiting for me.

"Hey, you!" she greeted loudly, and for a moment I thought I was about to be in trouble for bringing a filly along.

"Yeah?" I walked closer, tense.

"You seen the boss?" Thumper asked, noticing Coda with some surprise. "And what's with the kid?"

"Watching the sister of a friend for the night," I explained. "Don't worry, she's well-behaved and can keep out of the way. What do you mean, though?"

Thumper waved a hoof. "Eh, worry about the kid later. Like I said: have you seen the boss? Jamjars? You live with her, right? She didn't show up to our meeting an hour ago to finalize a venue candidate for next month. Workaholic like her is never absent."

"Errr..." I took a step back. "Actually, I crashed at someone else's place yesterday, so I wouldn't have seen her, no. Is she completely missing?"

Thumper shrugged. "Seems like it. Booster and Lalala haven't seen her, still waiting on Saturn. Oh well, whatever. We can get this show on the road ourselves. So, uh, the kid..."

"I can wait and watch and make myself invisible," Coda helpfully declared, as practiced. "Not literally. But close enough. And I promise I'm patient?"

"Good kid." Thumper nodded. "Alright, Halcyon, we've got a few things I need you to cover for me for during the setup because I'm covering for Jamjars, so it's good you came early..."





The weddings commenced, and then they passed, three in total commanding the better half of the night. But Jamjars never appeared.