//------------------------------// // Radiance // Story: Speak Not Of The End Of The World // by Shaslan //------------------------------// <> Nothing to worry about. Another weak cough. A dream of a hospital ward, instead of a balloon in a jewel-coloured sky. This happens to ponies. We get sick. <> But he could already see the answer in her mind. Sneezes, coughs, fevers and chills. People had no such illnesses, but this one was beyond the norm even for ponies. And Laotyn knew those symptoms. The pain, the bloodied noses. The dulling of the fur and the eyes. Slower in Cherry Berry than it had been in the princesses, but the same. And the same as it was in the other ponies he could see in her memories. The sun sickness, they were calling it. How ironic. It was Issia, after all, that had called the people here in the first place. <> he said abruptly. <> He had been slow, too slow, to realise it. He had known that the memories hurt the ponies, that too much mental contact was bad — but even this? Even for Cherry, the last person he would ever, ever want to hurt? A few little conversations, and it was killing her. Aw, really? She sounded disappointed. I don’t even get my nocturnal buddy to help me pass the time? Being ill makes you sleep a hell of a lot, you know. <> Laotyn choked out, and he was apologising for far more than she knew. Laotyn, I— But he yanked his tendrils out from the controls, and he never heard the rest. When he left his pod he was ink-black from end to end, and Lyia jerked back from him as though he was contaminated. <> He did not answer. She would not understand.