//------------------------------//
// Borrowed Time 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Yelvey dumped me in what appeared to be a storage room deep in the castle dungeons, and then closed the door, leaving me in utter blackness.

As I lay there on the floor, my dream halfway between fast-forward and normal, something started to nag at me: remembering things I had consciously seen was one thing, but now I was remembering things from when I was unconscious. Had the memory spell knocked me out with my eyes open? Or was I experiencing this now in real time, suspended in a state somewhere between wakefulness and sleep?

Whatever the case, Yelvey eventually returned, depositing the unconscious Yunie in the same room. And then he left, once again.

This was bad. Snowport had a rogue memory manipulator on the loose, and nobody knew about it except me... and I was stuck here in some kind of half-coma. While I might have a resistance to Yelvey's most dangerous weapon, it wasn't the kind of thing I could use to protect anyone else, and giving any indication that I had it at all could seriously undermine my advantage in a war of information. Egdelwonk's relentless stalking came to mind, the way he would make fun of me for any possible time I told him something I might have been better off keeping to myself...

It was like he expected me to wind up in a situation like this, where I would sink or swim based on my ability to keep secrets.

So, what could I even do?

One option would be to raise the alarm as broadly as possible. Yelvey probably couldn't brainwash the entire city, right? Of course, his power was supposed to be immutable, and he was also a respected church official, so my word against his would sound pretty flimsy, especially if I looked like I was mad about getting memory wiped myself. The two pieces of evidence in my favor were the broken talisman, and the fact that I was demonstrably not under the same curse as he was. But only someone who already had a good degree of knowledge could even properly contextualize that... which meant going to Seigetsu.

Did I want to throw my lot all in with the dragon inquisitor?

She worked for Cernial. Yelvey did too, at least before Duma bought him out. And Yelvey hadn't been a saint before that.

Not like I had many other options...

A dim light appeared in the corner of the room.

I cast my senses over to it, the fast-forward on my dream disappearing. It was the head of a shadow-sneaking batpony, their mouth open and something small and luminous inside.

That was genius. All they had to do was close their mouth to turn the light off and submerge again... And with the source of the light where it was, even though I could see where they were, I couldn't make out any features whatsoever. I wanted one of those.

After looking around for a moment, they swam closer. Suddenly, I remembered the precariousness of my situation, and my admiration turned to fear.

Instead of going to me, though, they first went to Yunie. A few pokes of a hoof... and a sigh of relief.

Then they turned to me. I got the same treatment.

"Yikes," they whispered around the dim light, spitting it out into a wingtip and finally illuminating their face. It was Yunie.

Suddenly, I remembered, and felt silly for forgetting: there had been two of her, back at the bar. Identical twins, it looked like, though only one of them had ever spoken.

"Uh, guess you met a sticky fate too?" Yunie hissed. "Hmm. Uhh... Hmm." She glanced back at her twin, and then again at me. "Uh, I'll get you out of this. Gimmie a minute, I need to steal some stuff."

Instead of stealing things, she first walked back to her unconscious twin, put another hoof on her, and frowned in concentration. "Hmmm..."

Her special talent glowed - a talent that, I now saw, depicted a short link of chain.

The other Yunie stirred, then groggily got to her hooves. Both shuddered at exactly the same time.

"Still able to walk," the first one muttered. "Sorta. Good enough. Alright, alright, alright..."

The one that had been unconscious leaned on the first one's shoulder. The first one popped the light back into her mouth, and both were gone.

I stared at the darkness as my dream began to fast-forward again. Those were not normal twins.

Moments later, after another fast-forward, a brighter light turned on. It was Yelvey.

He scooped me onto his back, and once again started navigating the tunnels. Something felt weird, though... Or rather, a lack of weirdness. This Yelvey didn't have the strange sense of gravity I normally felt when looking at him, as if something inside him were tugging at me. That wasn't because I was unconscious, was it? No, I had felt it earlier, when he brought me here from the crypt room. Maybe he had used so much of Duma's Formula L that it was reducing the effects I felt from his curse, as well?

We were almost to the surface when we ran across a small patrol of dragon guards. And, by the expressions on their faces, they were looking for us.

"Your Eminence," one said, not using the title with nearly the weight it felt like it deserved. "Sir Seigetsu believes you to be late to an appointment of utmost priority. You are aware of this, yes?"

"And who is that on your back?" another added, before being kicked by the third.

"My guest and protege," Yelvey calmly rasped, still speaking in a stage whisper. "There was an incident regarding her. You can tell Seigetsu that the duties of my order supersede all other obligations, including hers, and that I apologize for the inconvenience. I will see to Seigetsu when and only when I am ready."

"An 'incident'." The lead guard folded his arms. "Elaborate."

"That is my business and none of yours," Yelvey said, beginning to move on.

"Halt!" the lead guard ordered, preparing to snap his claws. "Your order is permitted here by virtue of necessity, pontiff. Have you forgotten who makes the rules around here? Your presence is required by Sir Seigetsu under the authority of the Holy Cernial Convocation!"

If I had been awake, my eyes would have widened. The castle's guards treated someone so powerful like this?

They probably found him and his powers just as creepy and unnerving as I had, when I first learned Snowport kept someone who could erase memories around. Even if his presence was a necessity to their way of life - or, at least, to their ability to use the train tracks - a lot of people were probably nervous by default about the possibility of a secretive organization coming in and wiping their memories for reasons they would have to trust were good.

These guards had the law on their side, were in private with Yelvey, and if all three of them turned up with wiped memories at the same time after searching for him to remind him of a meeting, that would raise huge red flags. This was the perfect time for a confrontation. And probably every other time something like this happened, which was probably all too often.

Of course Yelvey's loyalty had been easy for Duma to break if he got treated like this. Not that I felt sorry for him, with how he had treated me, but still...

"Tell Seigetsu I will be on my way," Yelvey insisted. "But that resolution of this incident takes precedence."

"We'll see what Sir Seigetsu has to say about that." The lead guard waved at another guard, who took off running. "Now stay put!"

I could feel Yelvey tense up. There were only two guards left; what was he going to do?

Hopefully nothing. At least while I was unconscious, I liked my odds better with the dragons than without them. It was odd, though: right before attempting to wipe my memory, Duma and Yelvey had said something about pretending I had an accident while practicing my powers. If that was the case, why was Yelvey trying to avoid Seigetsu? The ostensible next step of the plan was to report to her, right?

I didn't like this. I needed some agency. But I was unconscious, and all the usual tricks I used to wake up from a bad dream weren't working! If only I could move, even a little, I could try to make myself fall off his back, or-

Another Yelvey appeared around the corner.

His eyes widened, and in less than a second, he turned around and fled. But it was a second longer than the guards needed to see him.

"What's going on?" the leader barked. "Hey!"

Both of them took a few surprised steps, starting to give chase... and then abruptly remembered that would leave my Yelvey unguarded. Before they could coordinate who went and who stayed, mine bolted in the opposite direction, leaving angry shouts in his wake.

Two Yelveys... The second one didn't have that weird tugging sensation either. All of a sudden, I realized what was going on here: both of them were changelings. The second one was creating a diversion for the first one. And, odds were, they were Yunie and her twin.





Corsica followed Seigetsu at a swift trot, hurrying to keep up with the dragon's long stride.

"I expect this should go without saying," Seigetsu said as they ran, Papyrus and several guards bringing up the rear. "But I apologize for this delay, and ask that you refrain from discussing sensitive information until we can get this all sorted out. Now..."

They rounded a corner, and nearly crashed into a guard who was barreling down the hall at a dead sprint, some quick footwork from Seigetsu allowing her to sidestep what would have been a painful collision.

"Sir!" the guard panted, skidding to a stop. "Sir, apologies! Have you seen Yelvey come running this way?"

Seigetsu's brow furrowed. "Running? I haven't seen him hurry anywhere in all my years. What happened?"

"Sir...!" The guard straightened up and saluted. "We found Yelvey in the tunnels after searching as per your orders. He had an unconscious mare on his back-"

"Halcyon, I know," Seigetsu interrupted. "Why was he running? What happened after you sent the dispatch to find me?"

"He refused your summons, Sir," the guard reported sharply. "Wouldn't tell us anything about what was going on. And then a second Yelvey appeared on the scene, and both fled in opposite directions while we were distracted! I suspect it might have been changelings, Sir."

"What?" Seigetsu's tail lashed. "Where is Halcyon now?"

"Taken by one of the Yelveys," the guard said. "Looks to me like a kidnapping."

"Sound the alarm," Seigetsu instructed, turning around. "You all know the protocols for this. I must attend to my brother and the command room." She waved to Corsica and Papyrus. "You two are not to leave my side until further notice. Understood?"

Corsica nodded, tense. "You got it."

Papyrus had the good sense to keep his mouth closed.

Led by Seigetsu, they and the remaining guards swiftly made for the exit to the dungeons. "Changeling impersonations, kidnappings..." Papyrus said as they ran along. "Does this sort of thing happen often around here?"

"No," Seigetsu said, looking like she was slowing down so the other guards could keep up. "It is much more common closer to the front lines. But I think you can imagine why we would always be prepared."

Corsica's mind shifted to the superweapon in the basement. "Yep. Got a decent idea."





I could hear stomping on the roof overhead as Yunie carried me through the final floor of dungeons, the surface just above. She had shed her disguise and returned to her original form, and met back up with her twin, who was now silently tailing us. How was it fair that she got to recover so much more quickly than I did?

From the sound of things, as well as Yunie's demeanor, the alarm had been well and truly raised. This stank. I wished I could ask her what was going through her head: as far as I was concerned, the dragons were still my allies, and I wanted to be found. Yelvey and Duma were the ones who did me dirty. Although, from Yunie's point of view, everyone on Cernial's team might look like one side, and everyone on Abyssinia's would be the other.

Maybe. How much did she know? Duma talked like Yunie's twin had been paid to guide him down there, so she might have been bribed by him and certainly knew her way around the dungeons. But also, the twin had been memory-zapped, and yet they were still acting with perfect coordination. Did they have some kind of telepathic link? I instinctively wanted to assume Yunie knew everything I had seen down there, but I really couldn't safely assume that.

What were her goals for me, anyway? If only I could wake up and ask...

Yunie peeked around a corner, only to draw back as a squad of guards approached, preparing to march past. If only I was awake. I needed to be awake. I was-

"Right," one of the guards said, "here's our station. Let's put this door on lockdown."

Yunie rapidly backed off as the guards spread around both sides of the door, turning on bright, portable lights to ensure no shadow sneaking was possible and settling in for what looked like it would be a long vigil.

With a soft hiss, she retreated into the dungeons, taking me with her.

A few minutes later, after another near run-in with a patrol, Yunie snuck me under a decrepit door into an out-of-the-way storage room. She perked her ears, listening for any nearby footsteps, then seemed to determine she was far enough out of the way and there were enough old crates in this room to hide behind should anyone try to search it. And then she set me down, stretched out, and sighed. "Well, this is a mess."

Was she just going to hunker down in here and try to wait for the heat to blow over? Maybe. If so, odds were I would come to down here, sometime or other.

I could already feel my dream slipping into fast-forward again. Time to wait this out, and then figure out what I was supposed to do...





"Sire," said a dragon entering the command room about thirty minutes after Corsica, Papyrus and Seigetsu had first reached it. He carried a courier's bag and knelt on one knee. "I have reports from squads three, five, seven and nine. No new sightings or suspicious activity of any kind."

"Well, no news is good news," Terutomo proclaimed, standing over a table fulled with rosters and diagrams. "It's seeming less and less likely this is a coordinated infiltration, and more likely it's the work of a few disgruntled activists. On the bad side, still no trace of Halcyon or Yelvey, be they real or fake." He nodded to the courier. "Bring me more updates. Keep doing your rounds and return when the situation changes, or in an hour."

The guard nodded and lumbered off.

For a moment, the command room was still. Most of the dragons who remained were poring over paperwork files - civilian registrations, Corsica had been told when she asked. No one seriously thought they would be able to identify the culprit behind a changeling kidnapping solely from clues in decades-old paperwork, but it turned out there was precious little else to be done during a lockdown when the situation was completely unevolving.

"I am to blame for this," Seigetsu sighed as the silence settled in. "As an inquisitor of Cernial, I have training in recognizing changeling disguises that can scarce be afforded to every common foot soldier. Had I but arrived on the scene before the impostor was able to flee..."

"How sure are you the Yelvey who bailed was an impostor?" Papyrus asked from the corner where he and Corsica were made to wait.

"I beg your pardon?" Terutomo looked up from his rosters.

"Seems to me you're sitting around and twiddling your claws while there's productive guesswork to be done," Papyrus said, standing up. "Answer me this: how hard is it to incapacitate someone who can make you forget why you wanted to incapacitate them in the first place?"

Seigetsu looked up as well. "I see your point. However, difficult does not equate to impossible. If we only focus on the most likely outcomes-"

"Then you have the biggest chance of guessing the bad guy's game," Papyrus finished for her. "Right?"

Seigetsu looked cross. "I was going to say, we influence the investigation with our biases of which factors to weigh most heavily. For instance, while it is implausible that Yelvey could be easily rendered unable to communicate with us, it is equally implausible that he could be persuaded to voluntarily do so. The Convocation would not allow the Order of Silence the powers it gives them without methods in place to control the ones who use them."

"Right, right, right," Papyrus said. "Listen, every single ruler throughout history has had methods to ensure their subjects bend to their whims, and oh so many of them fail badly enough that they get deposed, or worse. Maybe things are happier down here, but in the north, just within living memory, we've had more collapses of societal order than you can count, including the terminated reign of a pair of millennia-old goddesses in the Griffon Empire. You think they didn't have contingencies every bit as robust as your Convocation's?"

Seigetsu sighed. "As I recall explaining to you before, Equestria's information barrier exists in large part to dampen the spread of such cataclysmic change. I have a working knowledge of conditions in the north, as well as its history. Such upheavals as regularly happen there are not the norm for Equestria. Our society is stable."

Papyrus chuckled. "You said it dampens upheavals, not eliminates them entirely. Look at the war going on in your home country and tell me with a straight face that there's no possible way anyone could seek to sabotage you back here, for no other motive than because they resent your peace and tranquility."

Seigetsu frowned.

Papyrus shrugged at her. "Still don't get it? Thinking your deterrents against treason are infallible is a rookie move. So, while there was certainly at least one impostor involved, who's to say your sinister minister didn't snap his chains and make this an inside job?"

Terutomo gave Seigetsu a look. "He has a point. Perhaps we should consider it. After all, you yourself have often been bothered by the lack of transparency behind Yelvey's comings and goings."

"I have," Seigetsu admitted. "Using an unrelated incident as an excuse to investigate those suspicions smacks of dishonor, but when you put it like that, this presents a precious rare opportunity..."

Papyrus yawned. "I'm sure Halcyon cares a whole lot more about your honor than getting rescued." He glanced at Corsica. "How many times has she actually been the damsel in distress? I bet she hates it."

Corsica snorted. "More times than me. And she does." She looked up at Seigetsu and Terutomo. "I've got a question, though. How come you haven't asked me to use my special talent to help out? You can tell I haven't already used it."

Terutomo tilted his head. "Have I been briefed on what it does?"

"Ethical reasons." Seigetsu folded her arms and turned away. "And personal ones. If you use it I will not stop you, but I would never try to control such a power myself, beyond protecting myself and my interests from its use."

Papyrus said nothing, though Corsica was pretty sure he already knew what her talent was and how it worked.

Maybe... she should save it for now. Making broad, vague wishes was both more taxing and often resulted in more stressful outcomes than limited, specific ones. Of course, there was something to be said for preventative measures: trying to turn back the hands of time was about one of the worst things she could do with her talent. That never worked out well.

She had gone through with one... maybe two wishes since the long hike from Sires Hollow, judging by the state of her mind. Smaller ones. If she knew her own limits, she could get away with a big one and stay functional. Unfortunately, she didn't see much of a way she could ensure that the situation would resolve satisfactorily with no more need for further wishes. The last time she had wished everyone would be satisfied with the outcome of a stressful situation, it had been right before getting possessed by Ludwig... and she remembered how that one had worked out. Never again.

At the same time, saving it when Halcyon had literally just been kidnapped? When was there a better time to ensure things didn't go off the rails?

"Wish this is a misunderstanding, and whoever bagged Halcyon actually means well," she muttered under her breath, low enough that hopefully no one would hear. Having this special talent at all was the biggest unbalancing factor in her life; every time she did anything to acknowledge she had it just felt wrong. And asking anyone else to believe in its power would be even worse. Add that to how many times she had regretted what she wished for...

Seigetsu was watching her. So was Terutomo. And Papyrus. And several other dragons in the room had taken note, as well, and were trying not to look like they were staring.

"Also," Seigetsu said, "I did mention that all dragons can resist and identify that power you use. While our kidnapper shouldn't be so lucky, you might draw some stares just slinging it around like that."

Corsica felt her cheeks turn deeply red. "Can all of you just... see it?"

The dragons doing paperwork shuffled. "I'm just paid to work here," one said. "And keep my mouth closed? About the church and Inquisitor's business?"

Corsica groaned. She wished-

She managed to stop herself from thinking anything just in time.





Finally, at long last, I came to.

My body felt like it was made of sludge. I had a strange, stinging sensation on my face where the memory knife had struck me that was more unnerving than painful, and gray static was receding from my senses, as if I had just crawled out of an ocean of the stuff. This was... not a sensation I wanted to repeat twice.

"You awake?" Yunie whispered from nearby, her light turned off, the room bathed in complete darkness.

I groaned in reply, making a tactical decision on the spot: don't tell anyone I could remember things I wasn't supposed to. "Where am I...?"

"Uhh." Yunie trailed off. "So, that's kind of a long story? What's the last thing you remember?"

How should I answer that? "I woke up," I mumbled slowly. "And... was going to a meeting? I think..."

"Nice," Yunie whispered. "I hate meetings. So, you want the bad news, or the bad news?"

"Nnngh..."

It wasn't that hard to pretend. I really did feel like something had messed me up.

"Okay, so the first bad news is, I found you unconscious in a storage closet in the castle dungeons?" Yunie started. "And you've probably had your memory wiped. And I'm pretty sure when the spooky clerics wipe peoples' memories, they're not supposed to leave them in storage closets, so you probably got on the wrong side of something bad. Uh, second bad news is, we're now hiding in a different storage closet because I might have tried to carry you out of there and might have accidentally put the whole entire castle in a lockdown, yeahhh..."

"How'd you manage that?" I pressed, keeping my voice down. I already knew, of course, but I was curious how honest Yunie would be.

"Bad choice of disguises." I could hear Yunie shrug. "See, the dungeons - especially the part I found you in - aren't, like, places civilians are allowed to go? Including me. And I might have picked the wrong guy to pretend to be so I could pull rank when dragging your corpse up into the daylight. Everyone makes mistakes though, right?"

I rubbed at my face. "What were you doing down there if it was so illegal?"

"Uhhhhh..." Yunie fidgeted.

I waited.

"Okay, so this is a bit of a story..." Yunie sounded deeply uncomfortable. "So, uh, the guy you were meeting is Yelvey. He wants you to join his cult because you've got the same curse as him. Sound at all familiar?"

"I was going to get some information out of him," I said. "Right. That's what Seigetsu said she set up the meeting for."

"Totally," Yunie agreed. "Completely legit. Except you don't actually have the same thing going on at all, do you? You're just pretending to, and no one is smart enough to just check under your clothes because it's taboo..."

"...Keep talking," I sighed, wanting to hear more before I started correcting her.

Yunie fidgeted again. "Yeah, so, see, after you left the bar last night, I went to go stalk that Duma guy because I thought maybe he'd be trouble, and that's interesting? And he told me that you were, uhh... You know, like..."

She trailed off. "Look, I did try to save you and didn't even ditch you when the going got rough, so you're not gonna wreck me if I know your secrets, right?"

What did she know? That I was a changeling queen? Or something even I didn't know? "Spill it," I sighed.

"He said you're a foreign agent," Yunie whispered. "Sent here to like, uh, hijack the reins of government, or something?"

My ears stood straight up. "He what?"

"Except he was confused," Yunie went on, "because you didn't seem to recognize him. And he said he was sent here to support you in your mission. Anyway, he thought you were going to try to blackmail Yelvey or something and compromise his integrity. And I know a bunch of stuff I shouldn't, like my way around these tunnels, so he bribed me to help him follow you down there? And I really hate spooky clerics and really like money, so it was an easy bribe."

My fur stood on end. Duma thought I was a foreign agent, and he was assigned to support me? Who was he mistaking me for?

Was there someone still out there who might be dangerous and unaccounted for?

At least that perfectly explained his weird behavior toward me. If he thought I was his collaborator, he had probably been throwing all sorts of signs and passwords into his demeanor, and his strange insistence on selling me stuff I didn't need... Those products were probably exactly the sort of support materials he thought his collaborator needed.

Everything made far, far more sense than I wanted it to. And Yunie's account matched up well enough with what I had seen, so I didn't even have reason to doubt she was telling the truth.

"Anyway," Yunie went on, "You're pretty obviously a foreigner, but I'm guessing you're not a secret agent? Because I actually spied a little on your meeting with Yelvey, and it sounded a whole lot more like he was telling you how cool being a spooky cleric was and you were telling him to get bent."

"Sounds like something I'd do," I agreed. "Did Duma show up, then? Did you see anything he did?"

"I was... somewhere else at the time," Yunie apologized nervously. "I might have gotten rumbled and had to dip. You know how it is."

Hmm. So she knew all the things her twin had seen up until the point she got captured and memory-wiped... Just what was that twin? Some sort of second body she could remote control and borrow the senses of, like Kitty and the whitewings? It obviously had to do with her special talent... A talent like that would be incredibly useful to have.

If she didn't want to tell me that, well... fair enough. I wasn't telling her about my own way of cheating the memory erasure, either. But everything else she had said matched up close enough with my memories, and that was reason enough to trust her in my book.

"Right." I pulled myself together, shaking off the worst of my symptoms and standing up. "Should go without saying, but no, I've never met Duma before last night and don't have any mission he's supposed to be helping me with, even if I am a foreigner. So there's probably someone else out there he's looking for, and he got distracted on me. What did he say he thought I was doing? I need as much detail as possible."

"Why?" Yunie sounded visibly confused. "It's not your problem. All we've gotta do is wait out this lockdown and then get out of here, and you can have nothing to do with the clerics or their church ever again."

"If someone's up to no good and we know about it, we can't just let them get away with it," I pointed out. "And Duma just screams 'up to no good'. Tell me I'm wrong."

Yunie groaned. "Oh, great, you're a goodie-goodie. Actually, we could just let them get away with it? Because, uh, we owe the local government nothing? And it belongs to a nation that's waging war against our own?"

"Maybe they are," I sighed, noting that she was lumping me in as an Abyssinian. Did she take me being a changeling for granted? "But just because we don't need to do anything doesn't mean we shouldn't. Even if they do some shady stuff, should we really just stand by and let someone make things worse?"

"Blechhh," Yunie complained. "Fine. You sure are invested in a place you've spent all of two days in. But just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. And anyway, it sounded like he just thought you were trying to get a corrupt official on your side, or something. You know, get your foot in the door, influence policy just a little, earmark yourself some money, maybe get someone to turn a blind eye so you can pull a heist... Manipulating them a little to get a piece of the pie, like literally everyone else does?"

"Is that how you do things in Abyssinia?" I stared at her outline in the dim light. "Sounds like Ironridge. Also, you didn't make it sound like ordinary governmental corruption earlier. But it doesn't matter if it's big or small or if this is the norm here or anywhere else. If I'm really not allowed to have an altruistic motive, then let's just say Duma's been stalking me, Yelvey bumped me off, and that's reason enough for me to try and mess up their plans."

Yunie hesitated. "Eh. When you put it like that... What are you even gonna do, though?"

I instinctively tried to turn on my bracelet, only for it to be nowhere to be found. "Find some guards, get caught, go see Seigetsu, and tell her Duma is in these dungeons and has some tools that would make it really easy to buy Yelvey's loyalty." And had already done so right in front of my eyes. Talking to Yunie had steeled my resolve; my earlier hesitation about throwing my lot in with the dragons was suddenly nowhere to be found.

"Aw man. Seriously? I'm gonna get super arrested," Yunie whined. "Do you know how big of a crime impersonating an authority is? Hard pass. How about this: you do that on your own, don't say a word about me, and we call us even for me trying to save you back there. Even though I messed it up. Deal?"

"I'll try to keep it quiet," I promised, hoping I wasn't badly overestimating my agency in this situation. "But I, for one, am not gonna be a bystander when there's something I can do, even if it's for someone who does things in a way I don't like. Because that isn't..."

I felt my special talent faintly tingle.

"...the place I want to have in this world."