"Where'd you even... get all this stuff?" I puffed, trudging through a forest, my back laden with several bags that were collectively twice as big as I was. Inside was supposedly a full suite of scientific instruments looted from our lab at Icereach... or at least half a suite, since Corsica was carrying the other half.
"From Icereach," Corsica said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Yeah, but when?" I pressed, my thoughts itching to focus on the trees and grass and stars surrounding me, yet pounded back into reality by the weight on my back. "I helped you pack, remember? When we were leaving? And I also lugged all our stuff to the ship from Jamjars'. I think I'd know if you were carrying these around all the time..."
Corsica shook her head. "Nicov brought them six months ago. Remember? After the mess with Aldebaran, Graygarden wanted to pay us off so we wouldn't make too much of a fuss about what happened to us on his watch?"
I blinked... and remembered. "Oh yeah..."
"I take it you never followed up with him to see what he learned, yourself?" Corsica raised an eyebrow.
My neck itched. "I had a lot going on, okay?"
"Didn't miss much," Corsica said, flicking her tail and leading the way. "He looked, but it turns out Ironridge doesn't have a tourist-friendly elevator to the bottom of the world. But since Graygarden was bankrolling the thing, I just had him throw in a bunch of stuff we could use ourselves if we ever made the trip ourselves. It's been sitting at Fort Starlight ever since."
That was... either remarkable foresight or remarkable luck, but either way, it was working out for us now. Nicov or someone else must have loaded this onto the ship at Corsica's behest while I wasn't looking.
Now all I wanted was to know why we were taking equipment meant for studying ether crystals at the bottom of the world into a forest in the tallest mountain range in the world.
It was a special forest, certainly, and I didn't just say that because I had never properly been in a forest before... Those few times I tried to go to the Night District and was turned back by the heat three steps in didn't count. I wanted to put down my bags, relax and extend my senses, feel the air around me... A sense I couldn't describe told me the trees were alive, and the winds, and the earth beneath my boots. Usually, though, when I was in a crowd, I felt crushed, like I needed to withdraw into myself as my personal space shrank.
Not here.
The presence around me felt like family, only in a form I had never experienced before. Strong, trustworthy, dependable, like someone who held their head high and held yours up when you needed it, too. Instinctively, I felt like this presence should make me uneasy, yet instead I felt secure, like I could walk and know I wouldn't stumble.
In my chest, Ludwig's little spark of cold felt diminished. But the pink flame felt strong.
I opened my mouth, but closed it before I said anything, the blue light in the distance getting stronger through the trees. I hadn't yet told Corsica about the flame, or even what I had been doing for the week I was underground. I needed to, but there just hadn't been a right time. Maybe soon?
Standing in this place, I felt like I could do most anything, and it would be alright.
Ahead of me, Corsica was entering a clearing, saying something about the sky and a new, gaseous form of ether, but I couldn't make myself focus on that. It wasn't just that I felt like I could do something. I needed to do something, like a restless determination had suffused my bones and was cradling my mind. It didn't matter what, so long as it had significance. If only I knew how to give this feeling a direction...
The trees opened up at last. Corsica slung down her bags, and I gently did the same, more on instinct than intent as my focus was stolen by the light rising up before me. The glassy ground dipped down in a crater, and a blue double-spiral of flame-like light filament wound softly up from the depths. Just beholding it, my body felt alternately cold and hot, and I let out a puff of breath that materialized in the frosty air. There was something immensely powerful here, and I was resonating with it like a plucked guitar string.
"Halcyon?" Corsica's voice rang distantly in my ears.
That spiral... I needed... I reached a hoof out...
"Halcyon...!"
Feelings flooded my mind as I closed my eyes and turned on my bracelet. I was drifting on a great tide of determination, of a fervent desire to live to see another tomorrow, a blend of sacrificial love and a stubborn perfectionism that could never accept a result that was won through sacrifice as being good enough. A chorus of voices, a chorus of feelings, countless hearts wishing as one.
I felt like... I could sink in, accept the chorus, lose myself in it and become one with it, and let it become one with me... except instead of drifting through it, I was being carried by a spark of pink.
"Halcyon!"
I pried my eyes open. My bracelet was burning, and a filament of blue was touching my hoof, reaching out of the crater like a curious tendril, its sapphire mixing with my emerald at the very tip.
And then my bracelet's glow changed to pink, and a small spark of pink traveled out from my hoof, flowing back down the filament like a marble through a pipe. The connection broke, separating me from the filament just as Corsica's hooves closed around my barrel, dragging me forcefully away from the edge.
"Hey-!" I protested, my senses returning all at once.
"You alright?" Corsica asked, standing over me and looking frustrated and concerned.
"Yeah, I..." I shook my head to clear it. "What just...?"
From the crater, the blue spiral began to shift and change.
Both of us turned to look, Corsica apprehensive and me curious, as it spun abruptly faster, the ends of its filaments converging into a ball of otherworldly midnight blue... and slowly, that ball took shape, holding the form of a pony.
It congealed further, hovering at the lip of the crater, until we were being watched by an astral pegasus hanging in midair, her mane and tail long and lush and curled at the very ends. Her coat was made of gentle midnight flame, and her mane and tail of stars, but her eyes held a familiar pink energy I could still feel inside me... yet could feel out there, as well.
Corsica's jaw was loose. I didn't know what to say either, but I tried anyway. "Are you...?"
"You heard my call," she said to me in a gentle, whispery voice.
"What's going on?" Corsica asked, looking back and forth between the apparition and me. "Hallie?"
"I am called Kindness," the stellar pegasus said, hovering with her wings outstretched, but not flapping. "Where are we? I did not realize this place of power existed in the world, yet it was sufficient to resuscitate me. To you, I am deeply thankful."
I got gingerly to my hooves. "We're in the Aldenfold. The mountains south of Ironridge? You're the pink flame, right?"
Corsica gave me a clueless look that ever so slightly demanded an explanation.
The pegasus simply nodded.
I looked between them, completely unsure of who to talk to first. This really would have been easier if I explained everything to Corsica when I first had the chance...
"Do not be alarmed," the pegasus said. "You are good ponies, I can tell. Over the past years, I have been gravely weakened to the point of unraveling, but thanks to you, that did not come to pass." She focused on me. "But I can see that not all sits well with you. You are confused, my little ponies?"
I glanced at Corsica and swallowed. "This is... what I was doing while I was gone for a week. I went down to the ether river, after the crystal tower appeared. I wanted to find out why, and thought I could hear the crystals calling for help... It's a long story. I found..."
Corsica stared levelly at me.
I sighed. "It's a lot to explain..."
After half an hour of explaining the same things over and over, Corsica had heard too much.
"Look," she sighed. "You're obviously dancing around something to explain why this endeavor took a full week. Maybe you don't think I'd believe you, or maybe you just like your secrets, so can we focus on this?" She nodded at the pegasus, who had waited patiently throughout the entire exchange. "It's related to the ether river and the crystal tower. You saved it, and it asked you to take it to find someone in Equestria. Right?"
Halcyon hung her head. "I know I should have explained this earlier-"
Corsica waved a foreleg. "You probably tried, and I shooed you off while eating my soup this morning." She turned to the pegasus. "So... what's up?"
The pegasus regarded her. "...I don't know."
Corsica raised an eyebrow. "You don't know what's up?"
The pegasus shook her head, looking slightly dejected. "This situation is outside of everything I was created to do. My seat of power is broken, and I am greatly diminished. You have saved me, but I know not what to do. Furthermore, these mountains block my perception. From here, I can see nothing of the world."
"Alright," Corsica said, "let's start at the beginning. What are you?"
"I am Kindness," the pegasus repeated. "A shard comprising one-ninth of the world's soul."
Halcyon's ears perked up. "Oh, right! Valey told me about this..."
Corsica gave her a sideways look. For a scientist, Halcyon wasn't very good at keeping all her information concise and delivering it all in one piece... "And what else did Valey say? Anything that would be good to know sooner rather than later?"
Halcyon looked at the ground. "Look, I've had a lot to think about..."
"Valey is known to me," Kindness said. "My home played sanctuary to her many times over the years."
"Alright." Corsica turned back to the pegasus. "Let's say I believe everything you say. The world is alive? It has a soul?"
Kindness nodded. "Ponykind has forgotten much over the millennia. When the world was created, it was decided that certain concepts or emotions should have inherent power, that good might have an incorruptible weapon to use against evil. My siblings and I, the other shards of the world's soul, were created to arbitrate these forces and provide structure and enforcement to the new laws of nature that our creators desired. We are artificial life, and not people as ponies understand each other to be, so to think of the world as alive as you perceive it would be misleading. However, it does have a will."
Corsica looked her up and down. "Natural laws, huh? Got any proof? We're scientists. With equipment." She gestured to the bags at the edge of the clearing. "An experiment we could peer-review would be pretty groovy. Just sayin'."
Kindness shook her head. "I am not Knowledge. I am Kindness. My domain is not to question or understand the circumstances of our existence, but to care for the creatures who partake in it."
"Knowledge, then? That's another one?" Corsica lit her horn, floating over a notepad and beginning to write. "What are the others?"
"Knowledge, Hope and Love," Halcyon interrupted. "Then Kindness, Laughter, Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity and something called the Spark. Same as the Yakyakistan faith tenets. Valey explained this too."
Corsica threw the notepad at her. "You take notes, then." As Halcyon caught it, she turned back to Kindness. "So, how about the crystal tower? What's the deal with that?"
"The crystals are born from me," Kindness explained. "Through my power, they can be conjured and shaped. However, in my hour of need, as my focus slipped, they took on a form of their own. All I wished for was to flee."
"Well, that's sort of what they were doing, right?" Halcyon looked up from the notepad, where she was hastily scribbling. "If you're trying to get away from something, going as far up as you can manage isn't a bad idea. What were you fleeing, anyway?"
"The misuse of my power," Kindness said. "Emotions are self-replenishing, infinite over time yet finite at any given moment. They are prone to feedback loops: when you help your fellow pony, you feel good and encouraged in doing so. For millennia, ponies have drawn upon the power of my siblings, such as Love and Knowledge. Willingly given and used for purposes that align with their domains, the emotions of the world are vast indeed. However, for too many years now, my ponies in Ironridge have been using the power of Kindness to create weapons of war. Such a perversion was painful beyond measure. It tempted me to feel nothing at all, so that I could not be used against myself. And such temptations ate away at me, combined with the pain, until I became diminished to the state you see now."
Corsica looked at the hovering pegasus with concern. "What would happen if you got diminished further?"
"Nothing," Kindness said. "I have already been forced to abdicate my domain. The laws of nature that I imposed in my portion of the world have already begun to unravel. My existence means little if I cannot fulfill my duty. However, I still want to exist."
"Laws of nature?" Corsica raised an eyebrow. "Like, science will just stop working? Math won't exist anymore? That stuff?"
"I think she means the gray sky," Halcyon whispered.
Kindness nodded. "Worlds have existed before without us, but they all met their ends, worn away by the scouring of entropy. We were conceived as a solution to that when our birthplace faced the same scourge, and its ponies realized that they could not otherwise last forever. Indus, our world was called. Though I remember nothing of it, I know my own purpose."
Corsica scratched her chin. "And a magical embodiment of kindness somehow changes the laws of entropy? It still exists, you know. Entropy is easy to observe wherever you go."
"No," Kindness said. "But we provide an exception to the laws. A conduit between the material plane and the realm of emotions and souls, by which one might more directly affect the other. I am sorry. I cannot explain exactly how it works. As I told you, Knowledge is not my domain. I merely know that, without us, energy in the material world is a zero-sum equation, that will disperse and dilute no matter what. Energy in the emotional plane, by contrast, comes and goes, multiplying itself and canceling itself out, never stilling as long as life exists. The mana energy that seeps up through the ground and ponies collect in wells to power their machines? The flow of that energy comes from us, as does the heat I attempted to use to push ponies out of Ironridge so that they would stop misusing my power. Through us, so long as the world and those within it desire existence, we can replenish the energy that is lost to space, the finite materials that, once broken down, can never be recovered. That is our duty."
Halcyon looked shaken. "So without you, all the mana wells in the north will eventually dry up?"
"Perhaps," Kindness told her. "Or perhaps my siblings will be able to intervene. I am not the first of us to lose my home. There is precedent, far to the southwest of here. However, as you can see... in pinning our ability to survive for eternity upon the changing tides of emotion, we render ourselves vulnerable to those who do not desire harmony. Ponies were gifted the capacity to choose selfishness over selflessness. Because of this, our system can and will fail when they simply lose the desire to coexist."
"Seriously?" Corsica's voice was less steady than she expected. "So just because one bad apple was misusing your power to create weapons..."
"Back when the tower appeared," Halcyon cut in. "Kitty and Jamjars obviously had something to do with it, but they sounded surprised when things broke down this early." She turned to Kindness. "And the thing that pushed you over the bring was conjuring a shield to protect the city from a missile. I get not wanting to make weapons, but how'd you get hurt by that?"
The astral pegasus hung her head. "I was already gravely weakened by the time my powers were called upon. Understand that I am not independent from the ponies that live upon the land. Souls are born from the Lifestream, the great river upon which my crystal palace is built. There is always cruelty in the world, to which I am painfully sensitive, but just so am I sensitive to the kindness that ponies show one another as they go about their lives. I can weather much simply by watching the feelings that ponies express for others and affirming my purpose in them. However, Ironridge's air has become stagnant of late. There is a seed... Something vile in the city. A powerful knot of noxious emotions that choked me whenever I tried to recover my strength. Perhaps without it, I could have weathered the misuse of my powers indefinitely. But, assailed on two fronts, I was drowning."
"Noxious emotions..." Halcyon frowned. "Like a changeling queen? You don't mean Coda, do you?"
"No." Kindness gently shook her head. "Coda was known to me. She is a child for whom I care. I could not see the source of the miasma of which I speak. The foul emotions which comprise it are opaque to me, and prevented me from understanding what was inside. I know only that it was in the cities at the forest floor, what you called the Night District. And I know that it touched many, many ponies."
Halcyon gritted her teeth.
Corsica glanced over. "You alright?"
She sighed. "That's where Ansel spent most of his time. When he said he wasn't coming with me, he made it sound like he had found a really important cause, something he needed to do... I wonder if he knew about this? If he was trying to do something about it, maybe he really was doing something as important as we are."
"I dunno about that," Corsica said. "Guess it's on him to take care of himself. So..." She turned back to Kindness. "Anything more we should know? Aside from the fact that the world might slowly be ending, and Halcyon is somehow acting as your vessel until we get you to this champion pony?"
"How about this place?" Halcyon asked. "The crater, the power here. What is it?"
Kindness focused on the crater. "...I don't know. The Aldenfold are a part of the world we cannot see. I knew not that this place even existed. It is a holy place. There is nothing here anymore, but something once occurred here that was so significant, a memory of it has been scarred upon the land, and that memory itself is strong enough to imbue the land with immense power. The site of the convergence of countless wishes, innumerable ponies united in their desires... It is this kind of power that my own existence exists to permit. I wish I could have seen whatever occurred."
"Huh." Corsica looked around again at the crater. "...Well, we did come out here to take some measurements on this place... Any chance you mind if we get some scientific readings on you, too?"
Dawn was approaching by the time Corsica and Halcyon made their way back to the Verdandi. They had plenty of data that needed to be analyzed, and plenty of discussions to have and conclusions to draw about the things they had observed, but a few conclusions so far seemed inevitable.
First, 'ether' as a concept might have to go. It was becoming clear that there were several very different things with slightly similar properties that were getting lumped together under the same label, and an entirely new classification system for a new group of materials would likely be warranted in the long run, but that would have to wait to get ironed out until they knew a lot more. Second, whatever Kindness was made of - and the blue filaments, and the gaseous ether, and even the glass and some of the plants growing near it - probably fit into their old concept of ether, underscoring why that concept needed to evolve.
Third, Halcyon had something she wasn't saying.
It had to do with her bracelet, and with how she hadn't been enthusiastic about letting Corsica watch when re-hosting Kindness, or however that had worked - the astral pegasus explained that she probably wouldn't be able to continue manifesting like this once they left the crater, and then Halcyon lit her bracelet and the apparition just floated inside.
That was a head scratcher. Part of Corsica wanted to wish Halcyon would tell her, but... that would be crossing a line.
Oh well. Plenty of other things to ponder and think on, like whether and how all this tied into their original research on ether crystal fault planes. If the ether river really was based on emotional energy, then perhaps world events of great societal importance could be causing the ripples that formed the fault planes much more directly than they expected...
I had trouble holding my head high as we returned to the ship, the moon low in the sky and my legs starting to feel the burden of lugging heavy equipment while being awake for too long.
It felt like I had missed an opportunity. Could haves and should haves swirled around in my brain, mostly about how I didn't explain to Corsica earlier what happened to me in the caves, or how I could have reached deeper into the energy in the crater, but never did. But the biggest thing that was bothering me was that even now, I couldn't bring myself to explain to her that I was a changeling queen.
I was supposed to be over this. It wasn't fair. When I first learned, I was less bothered by it than the fact that Faye was so scared of letting me find out. But even with the feeling of the crater at my back, that I could do anything and it would be okay, I just couldn't bring myself to spit it out.
Not on our way there. Not once Kindness had appeared, and I was stumbling my way through an awkward explanation of how I had gotten in that situation. And not now, on our way back.
It should have been fine! Why wasn't it? Why couldn't I do this? I... I... The harder I struggled, and the more I failed, the less it actually felt like I could do it.
It didn't make sense.
You can't run from who we are, Faye's voice told me inside my head. This is the same thing that happened in the trench, when you couldn't use the bracelet in front of Balthazar, remember?
Then what was I supposed to do?
...I don't know, Faye conceded. I'm rooting for you, I really am. But... maybe us being split isn't working in your favor right now. We're terrified of this, Halcyon. Of who we really are. You're hiding from that fear, but it's still there, just so hidden that you can't understand when it stops you. If you felt it, the whole thing, all at once, then you'd know why we can't do this.
Then how was I supposed to overcome it?
How do you know overcoming it is even a good thing? I know it's inconvenient, but healthy fear keeps you safe. I know I promised you that we'd be in this together, and I'm not trying to discourage you. I just want to explain why this is impossible.
I frowned. It was going to become a whole lot less convenient next time something like this happened, and questions about how I was doing what I was doing got in the way of an important opportunity to learn about some new phenomenon. Besides, Corsica knew I was dancing around something. She was plainly suspicious. I didn't have to go out and advertise it to the world, but my best friend and science partner needed to know.
In that case, take a rest and try again tomorrow. No sense in doing it while your emotions are high. The calmer you are, the better.
...Right.
Having someone to confide in like this helped a lot, actually. I wished that, soon, I could do the same with Corsica.
We returned at the crack of dawn to find the ship abuzz with activity. Papyrus looked like he was arbitrating, and Mother and Leif were both there... but so was someone else.
They were a small mare, probably about sixteen, wearing incredibly tight-fitting clothes... or not? Something about them was very off, the way she fit into...
She was an alicorn. And her wings, though furled, had the telltale glossy blades of inertial stabilizer rotors poking out where the feathers should be.
A Whitewing.
Except this one was smaller - and, particularly, thinner - than the models I saw in Icereach, and in the Cold Karma weapons hangar. Instead of silver, she had a golden, amber sheen, and was more visibly a she instead of an it. Someone had taken a lot of care to make her look more equine and less machine, to the point where I couldn't actually tell if the cute little suit jacket and miniskirt she was wearing were part of her body, or real, detachable clothes.
She turned to look at me. Instead of the monochrome, pupilless eyes most Whitewings I had, her eyes were luminous and mechanical, looking similar enough to real eyes to be endearing instead of creepy. She had cornea, irises, and a flexible enough face to give me a smile.
"Hello!" she called out, greeting me and Corsica in a soft voice that I knew I had heard before. "You were out when I made my grand entrance. I didn't mean to exclude you. I'm very sorry."
Wherever I had seen this creation before, not knowing was bothering me intensely. I wracked my memory...
"Braen?" Corsica asked, taking a step forward.
"You remember!" Braen bounced a little on her hooftips, showing off a fine motor control I wasn't quite sure even normal Whitewings possessed.
And then it clicked: this was the robed, hooded waif who first showed me the way to Fort Starlight, on the day I got arrested and escaped through the Flame District with Kitty. She had introduced herself as Shinespark's daughter.
Well, now I saw why she had been so heavily covered up.
"What are you doing here?" Corsica asked, giving me a look to see whether I recognized the creation before us.
"I was sent along by Mother and Other Mother," Braen explained, rocking cheerfully on her hooves. "To keep your engine room technician in check!" She pointed a hoof straight at Papyrus's face. "And to provide moral, emotional and physical support!"
Papyrus raised an eyebrow at us. "Well, you two don't look as oh-Garsheeva-get-me-out-of-here as a certain unnamed former revolutionary." His tail flicked at Leif, who scowled. "Already been introduced, I take it?"
"What's going on here?" I glanced at Mother for an explanation.
She just gave Papyrus a resigned look, then turned to me, chewing yet more bubble gum. "Be careful what kinds of company you keep."
"Yes, yes, Larceny, Halcyon is absolutely taking your unfounded suspicions to heart, she's so good at it that I wasn't even invited to be here," Papyrus sighed, glancing back at me. "She's been in this mood ever since I pulled the introduce-myself-as-Gazelle trick. Although that was when we first met... Is she always like this?"
"How about," I gently suggested, "you go back to the engine room and work on getting us back in the air, stop annoying my mom and let us talk to Braen in peace before I find out how good of projectiles this heavy science equipment makes?" I patted the bags on my back for emphasis.
Papyrus whistled innocently and backed a few steps away. Corsica looked impressed.
"The engine's not going anywhere, chief!" Braen told me, standing at attention. "She's alllll out of power. I've triple-checked her three times already."
"I took a flight while you were out," Papyrus added. "There's a village two days' walk away, or less if we flew the landlubbers down a cliff. I say we walk for it."
"Before we think about that," Corsica said, pointing a hoof at everyone in the room. "Writs? Especially you and you?" She pointed at Braen and Papyrus. "We're not going anywhere near civilization until all stowaways are accounted for. And you'd better speak up now if there's anyone else."
"Already got mine." Papyrus shrugged. "Kids these days, talking like being born into privilege is unusual!"
"I need no writ!" Braen smiled again. "I have a mechanical body!"
Leif shrugged. "Airships don't need writs. I don't know what Equestria will think of a talking machine."
A talking machine...
Instantly, Papyrus and Corsica and science and Kindness lost all importance in my mind. It didn't matter what Braen was doing here, or whether she needed a writ, or how bad I was at detecting stowaways on my own ship, or whether there might be more that I should be looking for. Here and now, only one thing mattered: all my life, I had been talking to machines, treating them like people and considering them my friends.
Here, by some miracle of science that I would not rest until I understood, was one who could talk back.