//------------------------------// // Cruft // Story: Glimmer // by Estee //------------------------------// He keeps trying to tell himself that he only feels half-dead. On a percentage basis, there's clearly enough of him left alive to allow some degree of movement: that's what's allowed him to stagger all the way home. However, it's possible that the recently-deceased portion might include his head, because he has a rather fuzzy memory of the brain having recently tried to drown itself. ...the quasi-recognition of roughly contemporary events seems to indicate some degree of function. Or in other words, if he was capable of having that thought, then he's probably okay. More or less. Just as soon as he confronts the puzzle offered by his own front door, because having an operational brain means that eventually, he has to remember how the locks work. Home. He managed to reach his home. A stallion with the sometimes dubious-seeming fortune to be Linchpin has returned to some level of foundation. He... doesn't feel like he's been spending all that much time in his own residence. It's also possible that he hasn't been sleeping as much as usual. But when you're making the rounds with a friend -- well, clearly some activities have higher priorities. He can sleep just about any time. His friend isn't going to be in Canterlot forever. There was definitely something said which suggested a departure date. He can't seem to remember what those sentences were, but the implication of Have To Leave Eventually was there. And there were no words about when the other stallion might be able to return. Or... if. He's going to lose his friend. My only friend. The locks open on the fourth attempt. More staggering. Eventually, he manages to aim for the center of the blurry aperture. When it comes to drink consumption among the Equestrian species... pegasi tend to be the lightweights, but they also have the quickest metabolisms. They go down fast and hard, then recover at relatively high speed. Unicorns serve as a sort of baseline, and Abjura -- -- he doesn't want to think about her, and he can't make himself stop -- -- told him that generations of Gifted School graduates had tried to find spells which would cut off drunkenness at a certain level, prevent it entirely, or just make sure there was no payback in the morning: the most anypony had ever been able to solve in that department was in finding ways to levitate secret bottles into their dorm rooms. And earth ponies... it takes a lot of alcohol to wipe out an earth pony. But after a long night of drinking, he's just about there. His friend isn't. (Or wasn't when the two-stallion party finally broke up.) But there's some legitimate reasons for that. To start with, that stallion is bigger. Even for an earth pony, he's big. Extra mass, additional resistance. If Linchpin's friend was a building, there would be some questions about finding a way to keep him from steadily sinking into the soil -- -- that's an odd thought. He's half-drunk. Or drunk enough for all evaluations of percentages to be doing some serious rounding down. Odd thoughts are going to turn up. -- bigger. More resistant. That's natural. Also, his friend was mixing the drinks. Travels a lot, he'd said. You learn things when you travel. Every stop is sort of like being born again, because you can just embrace the new. If you're in a place where nopony knows you, then there's a chance to reinvent yourself. Decide what kind of face you'll present to the world. Face. Not the mark. ...anyway, when you travel a lot, you learn things. Like how drinks are mixed in different places. But you can't just ask the bartender to turn over command of the taps. So they'd claimed a booth which offered protective shadows, ordered the base ingredients, and then some things had been extracted from saddlebags on the sly. There was this one blend which, after his friend had finished with it, displayed a thin circle of red powder around the rim. Something which added a tinge of that hue to the liquid, at least after it had been tilted across the addition. That had a Tartarus of a kick. It's still kicking. He feels like it's kicking him in the hips -- -- it's cold in here. Of course it's cold. Winter. He hardly leaves the heat on all day. Why run down the charge on the wonder when he's not there? And it doesn't feel like he's spent all that much time at home in -- -- in -- -- the wonder will get the temperature up in a hurry. That's what it's there for. ...it's not working. He raps it with his right forehoof a few times. This doesn't make it not work any faster, but briefly does call his attention to just how rough his fetlocks look. Also the fact that he now has fetlocks. He's never let them grow out before. Those should be trimmed -- -- the wonder isn't responding. The most likely cause is that it's out of thaums, and he's barely been home. So that means he hasn't paid a pegasus to recharge it in... ...fine. When magic fails, go to the mundane. There's a fireplace. He'll just start -- -- and he's out of wood. How did he neglect to restock -- -- fine. He has blankets. Lots of blankets. Just pile them up on the bed and then burrow under the layers. And then he'll sleep. Maybe he's in that special place between drunk and sleepy where you start to get good ideas. There's even a chance that he'll remember them in the morning. In the best case, one of the fresh concepts might be connected to relationships. Because that's what they were talking about again. Over and over. His friend proposed that... it might be the city. Canterlot mares: can't live with them, can't live without them, can look elsewhere. It's nice to think about. But it's probably him, because the true core element of the failed connection design remains Linchpin. The aspect which can never hold anything together. ...if it was just the capital... ...maybe if he rests. Maybe if he sleeps. Maybe if he adds every blanket he has, it'll feel almost like having the weight of a mare pressing against him. He layers. He burrows. The blankets warm up after a while. They're heavy, in this much bulk. But they don't snuggle. They don't breathe. ...he's supposed to meet his friend early in the morning. If he can close his eyes for a while, he just might open them again to find Sun was present. Which, at this time of year, might mean he was galloping late. He's trying to sleep. Or let the singular genius of the sleepy drunk rise to a level where it can do some good, whichever comes first. But nothing is happening. He's not resting, and he's not thinking. He seems to have a rather odd awareness of his hips. The stallion tries to rest on his side. Ponies usually don't do that. There's a vague hope that between the pressure of the blankets on one angle and the mattress on the other, the awareness can be suffocated -- -- his mark twinges. Something which shoves the sensation of mere awareness sideways, creating a hard landing in the center of a half-searing tactile array. And then he has a thought. Work. ...he's... not sure it was his. Linchpin knows what it feels like, to be in communion with his mark. There was a time when he chased that sensation a little too intently, because he'd just manifested, using his deepest magic felt good and -- well, just about everypony goes through flank-brain. But the feeling also occurs in adulthood. It arrives in a wordless flow of sensation which tells him that the design is proceeding down the right path. A sense of... twinning, as if there's two entities working on the problem. Something softer than a whisper. And this was a thought. Work. He doesn't want to. He's sleepy and worn out and he's going to be alone again very soon and -- this part feels important -- he's at least half-drunk. This isn't a good time to work, even if he hasn't done anything real in that department for -- -- it doesn't matter. The important thing is that he's in no shape to design anything right now and if his mark is trying to think, then let it think of that. Besides, if the icon is so determined, then maybe it'll come up with something on its own. The stallion burrows deeper under the blankets. Nothing about the fabric smells like a mare. Like company. Like love -- Work. -- because he's just cutting directly to the part where he effectively has a nagging spouse. One which is quite literally attached to him. His sole lifelong bond and right now, he's not particularly sure he wouldn't be better off at a true zero. He wants to sleep. He closes his eyes, tries to drift. WORK. ...maybe... maybe he's been ignoring his talent a little too long. Maybe if he gives it just a taste of what it wants, a taste, it'll shut up and let him sleep. (He could have thought about it more deeply. Wondered just what was wrong, and he did not. That, too, was part of the modified powder's design.) ...he's at the drafting table. He doesn't remember having walked over to it, and that seems especially strange. Based on what happened at the door, that absence would require him to have lost at least two minutes. But he's at his drafting table, and the bench is dusty. No effort is made to clean it before he climbs on. So now it's dirty fetlocks. Just a quick sketch. Something basic. A stable. To show his mark that he's willing to make an effort. And then he can sleep. It takes a minute to fasten the paper down at the clamping corners, and then his teeth carefully grip the bow pencil's metal base. A stable. He's sketched out a lot of stables. They're nothing special. Adding a personal touch to the door should be enough to satisfy the mark. To make that other voice go away. He draws... WORK. ...it's not original enough. That has to be it. The interior. He's never tried to add shelving in that section before. Surely -- WORK. -- and he's trying to design, he drops the grip long enough to go for the paper, tears it away and loads up a fresh sheet, but the lines keep coming out in what feels like the same way because there's only so much you can alter a stable and have it still be one, because every line must lead into every other in near-identical patterns or the whole thing collapses except that it all collapses anyway every time, broken designs, he tried to design a life which would have him with another and it's broken, it's always broken when the only constants are him and the icon on his flanks, something where there can never be any true change because it all goes down the same narrow canal, but he doesn't want to sail, he wants to stop and there's a voice instead of a whisper, it's getting louder and louder and it screams WORK! and a hard head turn sends the bow pen shooting across the room, his teeth tear the paper to shreds and it's not enough to make the shouting stop and he takes a snap at his mark. He can just barely manage it. His neck twists, his torso curls, and his teeth snag a few fur strands near the core of the altered hues for that patch of fur. He tears them out, and some of the blood reaches the wood. And even that doesn't make it end. The monster within his soul doesn't care. It was hard to tell exactly what they were missing. 'Who' was easy. Spike could get a mane-and-tail count on 'who' just by taking a glance around the area, and was trying not to do so too often because... he had his own education in magic. His best guess had been that Twilight's miniherd might be about half a gallop away, and it would take time to cross that much distance. If everything worked out, they would be reunited at the apex of a geographic triangle. Looking around every time he heard something rustling through the green, just in case a very small alicorn stepped out of the shadows... that wasn't doing anything except proving the existence of gravity. Because he kept looking towards every source of half-distant sound and when the source didn't turn out to be ponies, his heart sank. They all knew who they were missing. But before they could go off in search of the others, they needed to quantify 'what'. And that was presenting some problems, because the Princesses had more or less been corona-shoving supplies into saddlebags at speed, trying to load everything up before the fragment's charge dropped too low. The location of certain items could be guessed. There had been books about local animal and plant life: Fluttershy surely had those. A few things were universal: translator devices had been passed out more or less in bulk, and the supply on the common style included spares in case they broke down. (The one Twilight had been granted was one of the rarest enchantments known. Most of the group would be working with devices which had been preset for the languages of the region. Hers was able to work with the concept of language, and could translate something never before heard -- in both directions. Spike was dearly hoping not to run across any previously-unknown sapients. Bipeds were scarce, and getting his point across through desperate gestures of handling claws hardly ever worked.) But there had been corona-held items levitating in all directions. Something which had been happening too quickly to fully keep track of just what had been going where. Some of the pieces had been scattered from the impact of recoil, but others were outright missing. And they currently didn't have time to take a full inventory. The rainforest floor could be searched, trying to discover how many of the smaller offerings were taking shelter under the lower canopy of greenery -- but after that, they had to start moving. There was only so much daylight to work with, and moving through a completely unfamiliar wild zone under Sun would be risky enough. Eventually, they would need to stop and make camp. ...which partially presumed somepony had wound up with a tent. Spike was on his handling claws and knees, moving slowly through the greenery as he patted the soil, searching for the smallest items. Most of the time, it put his head under the lesser canopy. Leaves kept trying to poke into his auditory spines. He had to look up in order to find the others. Rainbow had initially tried an aerial survey, going to war against a second verdant blockade -- and losing: the pegasus was now muttering to herself as she forced herself through the smaller plants, one reluctant hoofstep at a time. Pinkie was checking the borders of the scatter area, herding in the most distant pieces. Trixie... ...Trixie. We should have enough canteens to clean water for her. We'll just have to load them more often. We need to find water. ...how are we supposed to work with... ...freshly bandaged and mostly reoriented, was hoof-poking around some of the largest tree trunks. Rarity, who was known to have some rather extensive, comprehensive, and weight limit breaking problems with packing, had begun her personal search through the debris while at a status significantly below 'happy'. The designer hadn't hit all that hard at the end of the recoil, meaning her injuries were rather minor -- but the rupophobe had skidded some distance through chlorophyll. Along with everything which was holding it up. "I can't find that piece of the teleportation device," Spike finally said. "Is it so very essential?" the designer crossly inquired. "It would be fully depleted of charge now, would it not? And the fact that it could have no additional thaums added is part of why we find ourselves in this situation to begin with." She looked up from her hunt spot, and a furious blue gaze did its best to drill accusation through the performer. Trixie visibly felt the glare. Tensed, with the streaked tail executing a half-lash. A hard hoofstep forward was required to free her from the instant wooden tangle. And then she continued to search. "I don't know," the little dragon admitted. "But we should be close to whoever made it. Maybe it could be fixed." "Fixed," Rarity darkly repeated. "There's a chance they're friendly," Spike reminded her. "If it's just a treatment center for sick ponies --" "-- then we would need to worry about falling ill ourselves," the white unicorn half-spat, and the fact that the words had even gotten to half was an especially bad sign. "And even if the condition is fully non-contagious -- something I will admit is possible, as nopony among those first exposed has yet to show any signs of sickness -- then I would still have certain questions about their treatment methods. Assuming the disease does not bring madness, and that poor stallion simply decided to make his escape. If they had a device to allow teleportation, Spike, then please consider that they might have more than one. We are rapidly approaching the point where we --" another glare at Trixie "-- will need to move on." She looked directly at him, and her expression was less than kind. Then she looked a little further up. "I think," she said as her snout wrinkled, "that may be one of the local squirrels. And it clashes. With itself. Is there some reason you are staring at me? Have you simply never seen white before? ...or what is left of my natural... actually -- did Fluttershy send you? Wave a forepaw once for yes, and not at all for no. Or just... right. You clearly have no concept of what I am saying." Teeth momentarily ground against each other. "But we will have to be very careful regarding any animals who do approach, because it is very likely that Fluttershy is doing her best to dispatch scouts in an effort to locate us. Spike, we have been searching the soil for at least half an hour. If the fragment is not here, then as with the division in our supplies, anything missing wound up with them. Find our missing fellows, find the bit of device. And everything else. And everypony else. And as such, I feel it is well past time to conclude our efforts and leave." Rarity was dirty, green-stained, lost, dealing with a limited wardrobe, and was nowhere close to welcoming an unexpected excess of showmare. Having her conduct the hunt while at a level of 'merely unhappy' was currently going to require a major emotional boost. I'm not in charge. He wasn't entirely sure that Rarity had taken the position of herd leader. But he also recognized that it was an exceptionally bad time to argue with her about anything -- "We can go in about five minutes," Pinkie announced. Rarity's head turned at the speed of doom. "...really," inquired a rather patient form of death. "Faster if somepony helps me," the baker admitted. "I think this spread is the last of it." She squinted downwards. "Whatever 'it' is. Maybe this was supposed to be part of Twilight's supplies, and the Princesses just wanted us to carry extras. Some of it looks like the smaller pieces from her lab. And I can get it all by mouth, but it would be faster with a field." The designer slowly nodded. Straightened her forelegs, turned, and began to trot in that direction. Spike watched. At the left edge of his vision, Trixie tried to ignite her horn. Several sparks moved in random directions, and the performer's features twisted with pain. "...not quite yet," she muttered. "Not quite..." She looked around, and a purple gaze fell on Spike. The mare nodded to herself, and carefully started moving towards him. Spike waited. There wasn't much of anywhere to go, and... ...he'd been alone with Trixie at the tree a few times, when Twilight had needed to go out. They hadn't really talked. He understood that his sister had forgiven the showmare, found her both easy and enlightening to work with, but -- that was Twilight. He watched Trixie approach, straightening to do so. And at his height... Her injuries had been bandaged: coverings reluctantly provided by Generosity. One of those dressings was near the base of her horn: he recognized both that it was why she was currently having trouble with casting, and that she would be capable again by morning. All of the mares were dirty. There were varying amounts of stains. But Trixie hadn't put on any clothing before departure, because she wasn't supposed to be part of the mission. He could look directly at her sternum, and -- there was a different kind of discoloration there. Something subtle, accompanied by a little twist to the fur. A distortion which echoed to the flesh beneath, in the place where the Amulet had rested. It wasn't her. She kept saying that. But she was still the one who had put it on. The little dragon loved his sibling, and fully understood that Twilight was capable of making mistakes. And now the unicorn was directly in front of him -- "Did you tell her," the performer quietly asked, "that it wasn't her fault?" Spike blinked. "I --" was as far as she let him get. "She's powerful," Trixie steadily went on (and he saw her foreknees tremble, wondered just how much effort was going into keeping her voice even). "And she'd never tried to move six sapients before. It was her first major attempt, under less than controlled conditions. And she still made it work, because she must have believed she could. In a way, getting seven is more impressive than anything." Which was followed by a soft snort. "I could have wished for eight, actually. Eight would mean she'd gotten a Princess, and I know they're both capable of international teleports. Memorize an arrival point, then head back to Canterlot and regroup. We could have resolved the whole mess and started over." He'd had more words planned as a followup for 'I', and seemed to have forgotten what they all were. "Did you tell her?" she insistently asked. "When you sent out that scroll?" The little dragon reluctantly shook his head. "She had to know what our situation was," he forced himself to say. "That had to come first." It got him a slow nod. "Then that's what has to come next. That it's not her fault. And that she saved us. All of us." In openly-measured syllables, words where he could watch her weighing each one, "I was -- at the back. Out of sight. I mostly had a view of everypony's tails. And I didn't mean to go into the between, and I was trying not to thrash around because I didn't know what would happen if I broke free." She took a breath. The distorted flesh shifted. "I -- did find out that you can't really talk in there," the showmare quietly said. "There's something to breathe. But it doesn't conduct sound. I mostly saw tails, I wasn't close enough to touch anypony -- but I did see the lockdown. There was no way to miss that. And if we'd hit it, we would all be dead. Spike -- I mostly know her through letters, and I still have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen if she starts blaming herself." The streaked tail slowly swished, left to right and back again. "If she takes all of the responsibility for the separation, or for me being here at all. I'm pretty sure it's going to get bad. Fast. So the next time you send a scroll, you have to tell her. All of it." And he'd thought about his sister having saved them all, but he'd needed to give her the group's status first -- -- I should have -- -- he would have. The showmare had just said it first. "The next scroll," he told the showmare. "As soon as I can." They would have to ration the supply, but -- this was important. "Good." She paused. "...thank you." He felt oddly unsure of how to respond -- -- a downdraft of wind blasted against his scales, and hooves touched down on the right. "Need you for a few seconds," Rainbow roughly said, and a wing tried to curl him in: the central result was having his view obscured by feathers. "Let's go over here and talk..." The pegasus guided him away, insofar as that description could be applied to the occasional open shove. The pushes didn't end until they were both behind one of the larger trees, which was also when he finally felt the intensity of Trixie's distant stare slide off his scales. "Rainbow --" "Don't trust her." He stared up at the weather coordinator. The streamlined jaw was tight with resolution. "Don't hurt her, either," the pegasus told him. "But keep an eye on her. See what she does. Twilight trusts her a little. Same way Fluttershy trusts Discord." Which triggered a snort. "But maybe it's just the same, right? She's safe for Twilight. As far as you can ever call either one of them safe. So don't hurt her unless she does something to deserve it. But for trust?" Loyalty snorted again. "She's gotta earn it." "So what was that one?" Applejack asked, watching the latest recruit vanish into the undergrowth. "An' Ah mean the one which kinda looked like a cross between a really big guinea pig an' a ferret." "...agouti," Fluttershy quietly told her. "She's willing to look. But I'm not sure how far they travel, or how fast. I can try to get more birds, but... it's the same problem I was having. When you're above the trees, all you see is treetops. And it gets dark down here." A little more softly, "And then there's the amount of land. It's more than a few cells to search, Applejack. And with the animals... there was so much to learn, and I didn't have time to memorize all of it. I'm reading as fast as I can, but..." "Ah know," the farmer sighed. "But Ah appreciate that you're tryin'. So -- agouti?" "...yes." "An' the one jus' before that? The biggest rodent anypony's ever seen?" "...capybara." "Capybara," Applejack carefully repeated (after some adjustment for accent). "They poisonous or somethin'?" "...no. They're... like beavers, sort of. If they bit you, it could be nasty. But that's just because their teeth and mouths are dirty. They don't have poison." "Not what Ah meant," the earth pony clarified. "Well -- mostly. Thinkin' they might be poisonous t' eat. Cause that one was jus' sort of loungin' next to the gator --" "-- caiman," the pegasus corrected. "-- an' it wasn't making a move. So it had t' taste really bad. Bad enough t' stop a gat -- a... how did y'pronounce --" "...no," Fluttershy softly said. "They aren't. It was just hanging out." "Hangin' out," needed some time to force its way through the disbelief. With a rather odd firmness, "...capybaras just are like that." Applejack smiled. "Got it. 'Shy?" "...what?" Sincerely, "Y'havin' fun? Gettin' t' see all of the new critters?" With a soft sigh, "...I wish I was. But... not like this. Maybe after everything gets better. When we find everypony else, and... we know things are okay again. With us, and everypony who could ever be hurt by this. Twilight?" The little alicorn, who'd found herself with a rather unwelcome opportunity to practice moving very light objects with a completely hidden field, rolled up the most recent sent scroll. Several pinkish sparks flew. "Did I miss something? Did one of your new friends report back? Which way should we --" "-- not yet." Just a little more quietly, "Are you okay?" She didn't answer immediately. Honesty and Kindness watched her, waited, and quickly nudged the smaller body away from a group of pitcher plants. "No," Twilight finally said. "I'm not going to be okay until we find everypony. But that's why I have to keep moving. Fluttershy, please go up and take a peek above the canopy again? I want to make sure we're still on course." Both groups fought their way forward. On the first day in a new land, something which felt so much like being on another planet without having left the current one, it was just about all they openly fought against. The lone external foe. There were times when it was hard to move. The vegetation clustered too thickly, slowed or fully prevented passage. Each miniherd found places which they couldn't easily pass through, needed to go around. Both sent their respective pegasus up after each detour, trying to make sure they were still oriented on the mountain. They trudged through the green for hours, and there were also times when everypony felt as if they were barely making any progress at all. And they had planned to stop at the first sign of Sun-lowering, that initial extra loss of light through the thick canopy, but -- they had fallen into summer. Hours of daylight gained, all at once. Internal clocks were reeling. There were more strange animals. Twilight's initial first contact with a primate came through sound, and it immediately led to her looking for a good place to set up defenses because a call which sounded like an indefinitely-prolonged burping contest couldn't mean anything good. Then Fluttershy had shown her the actual howler monkeys, and the librarian quickly concluded that the entire order of species was never going to produce anything sapient or suitable for polite company. Rainbow, however, would presumably be jealous of the burping. Foreign animals. Odd plants, and Fluttershy was the only one who had the briefing books. She guided Twilight and Applejack to a few grasses which supplemented their rations. The weather coordinator decided something smelled really good, then discovered that the plant had produced the scent as a reproductive strategy. Certain types of seeds did best in natural fertilizer. This variety had apparently decided that it could be spread further through vomit. Streams were found. Small rivers. Twice, the rainforest reminded them of why it had earned the name, and everypony got to be that much more miserable because wet clothing clung. Several stains transferred. Eventually, the light began to fade, and there was only one tent. Each group had to work out shifts for who was going to be on watch. Spike, as the youngest, was exempted from the duty. Rarity refused to let Trixie take one alone, sarcastically noting that the performer was injured and clearly required rest. It marked the first thing she'd said to the other unicorn since the march towards the mountain had begun. Two groups ate, as best they could. Set up a perimeter. Sleep was sought, and partially found. Eventually, it was Twilight's turn on watch. And she stared out into the forest, listening to the sounds from without and words from within. Because she'd read the last scroll from Spike, the one he'd risked expending just to tell her, and... ...they were alive. All of them, and... maybe the lockdown would have gone after the group directly. It was something she'd thought about while preparing for the transport. But she'd had another choice: to try a direct counter. If she'd broken the barricade, and everypony had safely passed through, then -- they wouldn't be separated. She'd made a choice, and didn't know if it had been the right one. And then there was Trixie. Who wasn't a Bearer, who had never volunteered for this stage. Who shouldn't be part of it, who could get hurt or -- worse. Twilight hadn't meant to bring her, and... ...she wasn't sure her intentions mattered. Not with this kind of result. She kept trying to tell herself that it could have been worse. They could have appeared within the mountain, and it was rather unlikely that they would have lucked into the cave. (Fluttershy couldn't see it from their current angle, but Spike had indicated the hollow on the rough sketch as a marker.) The speed they would have achieved upon exiting that degree of solid... It had been a long day. Far too long, with so much of the night having abruptly died. But the little mare had no trouble with staying awake. She had to protect her friends. ...her remaining friends. There were four mares and a sibling somewhere in the rainforest. Lost. Lost. Lost. They were supposed to meet at a bar. Some bars open that early, if you know where to look. Or, at this hour, a few might have simply stayed open that late. Linchpin isn't sure it currently makes much of a difference. All he knows is that he got through the door, and the stallion is in the booth. A pony who smiles upon seeing him -- -- but only for a moment. "Whoa!" his friend declares, and the force from that note of open alarm gets the bigger pony onto his hooves. "I've never seen you look that rough! Something happen on your way home? I was thinking about it after you left, that I'd given you too much of the good stuff for a first time and I should have hitched up, led you back to make sure nothing happened -- !" Linchpin can readily believe that he looks -- well, 'rough' is probably being polite. Almost everything about him, and nearly everywhere. But he'll have to take his friend's word for it, because the mirror was only used once before heading out. Briefly, and just to glimpse a single part. You can cover a mark with clothing. But blending dyes evaporate. Illusions are dispelled. And when the icon is damaged... it heals. The image, and the skin underneath it. Heals faster than anything else on a pony, and the damage he inflicted on the previous night was apparently minor enough to be completely repaired by morning. It heals perfectly. When nothing else ever does. That almost feels unnatural. "Bad night," Linchpin says. It's easy to hear his own words. After a while, the other voice was down to low, near-constant mutters. Something which he had a lot of time to judge, when he couldn't sleep. And then... ...maybe it's a whisper again. But he's far too aware of it. Like sensing a constant trickle of fresh blood running through his fur. "I knew it," the other stallion groans. "My own Tartarus-freed fault." The big body forces itself to settle back down. "Get in here. I've got something else." Which is followed by a little wince. "If you'll trust me again, after what happened last night." He trusts his friends. Friend. "What is it?" "You had too much stick," the big earth pony sympathetically tells him. "I'll mix you up a carrot." They have to keep it in the shadows. But it's that kind of bar. And it smells enticing, it tastes wonderful, and it calms Linchpin almost immediately. There's just a single tremendous full-body shiver after he swallows, as if every strand of fur is trying to shed something. And then he's calm, and... the awareness of that whisper is gone. (Too calm. It's one of the first things he realizes, when he finally begins to truly think again, frantically sketching out the designs of another while he waits for spackle to buckle under pressure. Far too calm, much too quickly. But the brews were meant to suppress certain kinds of thought, and... he trusted his friend.) "Better?" "...yeah." And they talk. Relationships. Flaws. Failures. Broken designs. Maybe those aren't the words which get said, but it's all Linchpin's able to hear. "Maybe it is the city," he finally says. "Maybe it's... everything." "Maybe," his friend sympathetically offers. "Doesn't mean things can't change. Or shouldn't." And sighs. "Ready to head out? Because we're probably gonna be asked if we're ordering more soon. Shouldn't try to get away with too much, when we could be checked on." Again. "Heading out. I don't want to think about that. But... it's like I said the other night. Getting near that time. But we could try somewhere else, while we've still got Sun to play with. Or if you need some rest, you could just head home." With a warm smile, "I won't mind. Promise." He doesn't want to go home. Going home would mean cleaning up the last fragments of the drafting table. "Not yet." His chin dips. "Not home." And his own next words surprise him. "Not Canterlot. I swear I'd take you to Ponyville if I thought it would make a difference." "Not Ponyville," the big stallion rather quickly says. "I stay out of Ponyville." "You're basically a professional traveler," Linchpin teases. "And there's somewhere you don't want to go?" "There's one good bartender there," his friend informs him. "And she is mean. I'd rather not have you learn about that the hard way." The larger stallion gets up. The smaller follows, and they both start towards the main bar. Getting ready to settle up. To... finish. He's going to lose his friend. (The big stallion has been through a lot of friends.) "I just want to get out of here," Linchpin abruptly says. "Working on that --" "-- of the city. Out of -- everything. Sun and Moon, I swear if I could right now, I'd just go somewhere else and start over." As much as he ever could, because no matter what he does, where he goes, it's always going to be Linchpin traveling with two permanent pieces of baggage: self and mark. He briefly wonders which is the bigger drag weight -- -- the big stallion's eyes just went bright. The pure excitement of a child. "You mean that?" ...he does. Somehow, he really... "Yes." And sighs. "But I don't know where I could ever really get a fresh start --" And now his friend is openly beaming. "Do you trust me?" He does. More than anypony. (There's nopony else left.) "Yes." "Would you take a chance? Come with me?" There's nothing for me here. It's a dark thought. It's also an oddly uplifting one. And since it included a 'me', he's completely certain it was his own. "Yes." Which brings out the brightest smile he's ever seen. "I travel a lot," his friend says. "I know a place."