As the last of the boy's strength to stay up past bedtime failed him and his father and mother took him away to sleep, Ebony Nexus turned to me.
"Thanks for helping. This party has helped with morale considerably, and I appreciate you helping me restore real hope for the Fey. It's not going to be easy for them, but I'm happy knowing what is in store at the end of their journey. There is one more thing I'd like to try now, though, if you're willing to help."
She looked down at the amulet. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to return this, as nopony else has a use for it, but I'd like to try to sing one of the songs stored inside. It might mean a little more if I sing it. Could you help me set this up? I've seen you use it but I'm not quite getting it right and the attunement isn't helping me."
I shook my head. "there's a good chance it's not in there. What one were you wanting?"
She smiled. "I think you called it number seven? It was the one you adapted to sing at the birthday celebration of your shop's co-owner's father in honor of his way of helping ponies?"
I closed my eyes and nodded for a second with a smile, before realizing exactly how that song had gotten in there.
'Archimedes... you sly bastard. You knew she'd like it,' I thought to myself, again holding off actually sending the message.
I knew I had spent all my level two slots and was about to spend my last level one, but my gut was telling me it was worth it.
With some adjustment of the settings and confirmation that she couldn't fuel it herself and sing at the same time, we got the cave set up and let everybody know that she was going to sing a song. We even got Diary to cast tongues on her so she could sing it unbutchered in English, and let the song translate automatically via the Tongues spell.
They were all expecting a treat. They said she wasn't the best singer, but she had an above average set of pipes. As soon as they listened to the signal to be quiet, I activated the amulet with my last level one slot.
What they weren't expecting was to be blown away by her vocals being adjusted by the effects of the song, creating backup singers based off of her voice to sing along side her, echoing her words with only slight alterations, as if four ponies were singing instead of one.
"Carry on, my..."
The audience was straight up mesmerized by her performance until she was finished, their souls soaking in the performance like leaves needed to soak in sunlight.
I myself felt like I was looking at what could have been Guiding Star's ancestor, if I hadn't already known she was going to die soon.
As the song ended, the crowd cheered. I could have sworn I saw Ebony waver a bit as the song ended, but she waved me off and whispered to me. "I'm fine. I just never used sirenite or harmonic magic to enhance singing before."
She took off my amulet and started to pass it back to me.
"It was exhausting, but I couldn't deny it was fun. Here's your-"
Before I could reach for my amulet, it was snatched out of her hoof by Bunny Angel.
"I didn't notice at first, but it makes sense now. Had I known we had one of siren blood, I would have never let you near our hideout!"
Bunny Angel put himself between me and Ebony Nexus in a rather protective stance.
I backed up and put my hands up in a surrendering like pose. "I see you're back from your mission. What do you mean by siren blood?"
Ebony Nexus likewise looked at him and asked "Yes. What do you mean by siren blood? I don't recall him having any memories of being a descendant of a siren."
Bunny Angel put his hand to the edge of his ear and gently flicked it. "I had thought his initial surrender was due to his strain with using that amulet, but then I see him asking for it back so easily. Looking at his genasi heritage, it would be easy for him to not know."
I backed to the wall. "For someone usually peaceful now getting aggressive, could you start making more sense? You're starting to scare me."
His rival, the draconiquis, popped in over my shoulders. "Yes. While I am not fond of this little interloper, I would like to make sure we are right before we do anything. Just being connected to the blue box makes him a valuable asset."
Bunny Angel eased his stance, but kept his arm out to block Ebony Nexus from getting to me.
"Sirenite, when sufficiently pure and properly cleaned and cut, can act as a source of harmonic resonance for certain magics. It enhances singing and can boost music and emotion based magic. The problem is that impurities render the crystal frail with fault lines and cause static noise in the harmonics. This noise in the harmonics feeds back into the wielder, causing a kind of damage to the wielder with any real, usable level of harmonics being harnessed."
My mind was thinking of how my crystal was robust, and probably didn't have much impurity. I didn't interrupt, though, as he wasn't in the mood to listen to any counter argument.
"Sirens, however, are able to tune into any harmonic frequency and are able to absorb the noise, not taking any damage from it. This type of crystal is the key material in their signature weapon. They have a history of using this to mesmerize and manipulate people with dangerous results in the past."
He tossed my amulet to the head guard.
"But the down side is that they rely on it so much that their musical ability is next to nothing without it. So if you want to prove your innocence, sing. Sing without it and prove you can sing comparably well as when you had it on the battlefield."
I looked around nervously. Buying time, I said "You kinda have me at a disadvantage. I don't have any instruments I know how to use. That's kinda what the amulet was for."
"Partner? I've just been asked to sing without my amulet. Even with my practice, I still suck without the rhythm backing me. What am I going to do? Am I actually part siren?"
Bunny Angel looked at me. "I'm not asking you to reach the same performance overall, just your singing. Sing anything."
"I know you. And no, you aren't part siren. I wouldn't think any less of you if you were, but I know from the time we have spent together that you aren't."
I got panicked and barked back, "Tell that to him!" somewhat ironically.
I felt a wave of reassuring confidence through the connection as he answered, "We will, and more. Just calm yourself, find a center and think of song eleven. I know you have enough talent to sing that one without instrument backup. It's simple enough, and I'll help you keep rhythm through our emotional connection. It should work for at least that song."
"Well?" Bunny Angel called to me, expecting a response.
"Hey! A few seconds, alright!? You're putting me on the spot."
"I'd probably be able to remember if I wasn't panicked. What song was that again?"
He didn't answer in words. Rather, I felt the rhythm flowing from his heart and I understood which song it was.
Emotions ran through me like they had never before from Archimedes. No time he sent a message nor helped cast a spell did it feel even remotely like this. He nearly suffocated me with emotion once when he forced the connection open from the tiniest crack I left for him, but it wasn't like that. This wasn't emotion bleeding into me as a side effect of a spell or even pushing like a brute.
No. It wasn't going into me and stopping there. It was going through me and out again through the music. I was just at the end of the fire hose, directing its final flow. I smiled and stood up straight, stomping my heel to the rhythm he was sending. It was almost more like him trying to sing through me, rather than him helping me sing, though I still had to focus on my part.
I finally gave in to the urge to send the briefest of spats back to him at his choice of music and how it was perfect for the situation. "Oh, you sly bastard..."
"If you said goodbye..."
~~~~~~
Several of the emotions I felt him pump into me weren't relevant to the song, but I could relate to anyway. I knew what they were. They were his feelings for Ebony Nexus and they were reminding me so strongly of my feelings for Fluttershy.
There was one feeling that was foreign to me, but I couldn't deny felt kinda nice. I knew what it was too. It was his feeling of romance that he had tied up with all his other feelings for her.
I had no feelings of romance for Fluttershy. Despite this difference, however, I managed to let this emotion of Archimedes's flow through our connection with little trouble.
~~~~~~
"...hold you for the longest time!"
I felt practically electric all over as the song ended and the emotional link settled down again. The ponies in the crowd were stomping their hooves as the rest of the crowd showed similar motions of being impressed. A few in the crowd lucky enough to have their significant other with them had come together in the song and were listening with a look of contentment on their faces.
Bunny Angel stood there, shocked as I asked him. "Was that good enough?"
He shook his head and gestured the head guard forward, who passed my amulet back to me.
Bunny Angel clutched his hand to his chest and bowed, almost shakily. "I apologize for doubting you. I... I need to go."
With this, he left and I found Ebony Nexus following him in suit.
Before I could follow, I heard Archimedes call out, "I can feel your curiosity, but let the course we set them on play out. Let the love birds have their moment of privacy."
I could only watch the draconiquis look at me from the other side of the room, stroking his beard and looking at me in a way that seemed half and half between puzzled and intrigued. After only a second of eye contact to let me know we saw each other, he vanished with a snap of his talon.
I tried to throw the draconiquis off our trail, if he was listening in. "Far be it to rag on him, but why would a celestial like Bunny Angel fall in love with a pony? A part of why I never found a partner on Equis was a sense of bestiality to it. I mean, they're a sapient race that can choose for themselves and I won't think less of them if they ever did anything like that, but I never found a point. I wouldn't be able to have children with a pony. Bunny Angel strikes me as a morally upstanding guy that would likely have rules against it, so why with a pony?"
At first, nothing happened. I didn't get a response back for several seconds as I watched the room get back to their thing. The head guard even commented, "Well, that party definitely helped with morale more than I thought it would, thanks to our council mare's and your performances," before walking off.
I felt like I had taken a line too far before I got a response back. "It would be the same as if he fell in love with a human. His kind are not human nor even humanoid, even if they look similar at a glance. It would be just as bestial for his kind to fall in love with a human as it would be a pony. The resulting child he could have had with a human would be called an aasimar, similar to your genasi heritage with genie blood. If he were to sire a child with her, they would likely have a similar mortal-celestial hybrid. If I know my history correctly, their love story was one based in personality, rather than biology. If male and female attraction played any role between them like most romances have, it was likely secondary to mutual respect for each other's convictions."
Oddly enough, the response wasn't even a little bit bitter like I feared. It was calm and collected, like a teacher educating a student on a subject without judgement. It was Archimedes speaking in code as if he and Bunny Angel weren't one in the same being, just at different points in time. Something told me it wasn't just to keep Discord off our tracks if he was listening in—Although that definitely was a part of it. It was more like he genuinely understood the question wasn't meant to judge, but to understand.
I kinda felt bad not trusting him with being so mature and understanding with my unconventional way of analyzing. Then I remembered that most of the population I lived with even in Equis, while still more mature than my home world on average, wasn't beyond feeling such offense. So the reflex had some merit, even if not with him.
The festivities were getting cleaned up just as both the guards and myself saw one of the larger forms of pony stallions come barging down the cave.
"Help! He got hit by one of their traps and we don't have any potions! Is there a medic!?"
I saw a griffin being pulled behind him on one of the one-pony wagons. The griffin bore deep gashes like those found in a bear trap right into his sides. One of the wounds looked like it clipped an artery, he was doing his best to keep it clogged with his talon and keep his blood in.
Immediately, the guards ran to get Bunny Angel, but the guard came back with another that had been coming from the other direction. "Bunny Angel is gone! Our council mare is also missing!"
The head guard shook his head. "Every creature listen up! I'm assuming command and I'll have no chaos here today!"
With a look to around to make sure he had order, he then called out, "Any creature with medical training, focus on him!" He then pointed to the wounded griffin. "Every creature else, find our council mare and Bunny Angel! We can't lose our only potion maker and healer!"
With both volunteers and the guards moving in full alert, including the three I had sobered up, I looked to the griffin as did many others.
"Do we have any healing potions in stock!?" One of the cooks called out to the quartermaster of the base, who was in charge of rationing out supplies to the squads and keeping the base running on the side of supplies.
The quartermaster shook her head and called out. "None that will work on a griffin. All the ones I just inventoried have a poison to birds symbol on them. All the universal ones were shipped to the northern front!"
The cook shook her head. "Dam it! We told them our council mare said substituting onion for lavender would have side effects on the potions! Why didn't headquarters listen and leave us at least a few universal ones!?"
I remembered I had seen a fairy and satyr working on a blanket after the party had settled. I looked over to them and called out, "I think I can stabilize him! But I need a sewing needle and at least a few inches of thread!"
The satyr didn't even hesitate to pull out as much of the thread she had been working with as she could in a single motion, then bite the thread off where it was patching the quilt and held it out to her fairy counterpart. The fairy in turn took the needle and zoomed to meet me with the needle and almost a foot and a half of thread.
The guards had made way to let me work. I cleaned the wounds with the usual waving of my hand and a calling of "Nickto!"
Immediately, I felt a shock in my arm, like that you would get from a hand buzzer. I was confused but it only took one look at the fresh blood starting to pour out of the now clean wound to tell me I had to shake it off. Time was of the essence.
With the needle and my knowledge of how to use tinkerer's tools, I could do a version of my nearest artificer imitation to the cleric cantrip, spare the dying. It helped with wound stabilization when I was out of spell slots, but my version wasn't a true cure all for any wound, even with the glove. Tool style casting had its limits compared to infusion casting, but hopefully this jury rig of it would be enough.
I reached beside me and pulled up my potions kit. Quickly, I grabbed the nozzle for my swiftness potions. With a portion of the raw syrup in one hand, I placed it at the edge of the most critical wound while moving the needle in a circular motion as if to sew with the other and called out, "Firmus!"
Immediately, that same pain returned, shocking my system on both arms and well into my chest this time. But whatever it was would have to wait. I saw a red energy jump from the needle and first few inches of thread in one hand to the syrup in my other hand, which came to life and practically jumped into the wounds. Binding them like superglue, the once syrup turned adhesive caused the bleeding to immediately stop. A sewing like pattern could be seen on the outside as it also bound the nearby skin together like an all encompassing bandage. The glove would have bypassed the need for the syrup, but I needed raw material in this version and it was the only one that fit the bill on hand.
"There. That should stop the bleeding at least. I'm likely of little use beyond this with my current equipment, but I'll double check."
I stepped back and let the other medics take over.
The more conventional medical professional came into the room after being called and looked at my work. Though she looked more like a medieval field medic rather than a modern doctor, she was more equipped to handle this than I currently was given my limitations.
"Given the expediency, I'll have to let this patch job stay, though I could have done the same with some stitches if given enough time."
She pulled out a crude tube and kept it to his chest as he struggled with staying awake.
"Stay with me buddy! You hear me?" The stallion that brought him in called out.
"He lost too much blood. If he doesn't get something to replenish his supply soon, he's going to die anyway. Can we get a healing potion in here?"
A griffiness came up and looked at the medic.
"None that will work for our kind, but could we share blood?" She looked concerned. "We are both griffins, so he can take mine, right?"
She looked at the girffiness and shook her head. "Sadly no. We're still experimenting with that on ponies, never mind other races, and there's more complications than we expected. Successful transfusions are rare. Only twins have managed to do this successfully nearly every time and we don't know why. Unless you're his twin, I don't think it will work."
"I'm not his sister. I'm his..." She teared up and couldn't finish.
"Then sadly, we can't risk it. Even if by some miracle he could take yours, it would put you at risk too. I can't justify risking another in a random transfusion with no potions that can heal you to fall back on."
The wounded griffin called out to the griffiness "Honey..."
As I heard their conversation, I had a conversation of my own with Archimedes.
"Hey, my potions use up spell slots, but are my healing potions off limits because of that?"
"I was wondering when you would ask about those." He seemed so smug in his answer as he practically snapped it at me. "Are? They? Spells?"
I smiled as I had my answer. "No. They aren't."
I called out, "Does anyone have a vial? Even another potion flask would work. I think I can whip up something real fast."
Immediately, the eldest of the three children I had given potions to earlier came forward and held out the three vials in her hands. "I was wondering if you would want these back. Are you going to heal him?"
I nodded. "But I'm going to need some clean drinking water."
The medic looked at me skeptically as a guard came and filled a vial I held out with the water skin in his levitation.
"Now is not the time for showboating and snake oil! There is no way you could fix up a potion in the-"
By this time, I had put the stopper back on, inserted the nozzle that complimented it into the stopper, and injected the powdered substance I made a point to not tell the people I gave the potion to what was in it.
"-amount of time he has left! He has minutes, maybe half an hour at most! What do you intend..."
She became silent as the bottle swirled around in my hand and glowed red from my spell slot being used in it. I felt a little sting in my finger tips where they met the vial, but otherwise I felt no particular pain.
I gave her a glare as I held out the fresh potion, "I've drank these myself. Now if you have another option, do it! Otherwise, step aside and let me administer this! The drawback to these is that they don't last very long."
That was only half true. It was tied to my magic much like an infusion, but would fade if I rested for an extended period, basically overnight. Although, I was about to go to bed again regardless. My exhaustion from the astral judgement was catching up to me faster than I'd have liked to admit.
The griffiness called out, "Doctor!?"
The wounded griffin had finally fainted.
"He lost concusness. It's worse than I feared." She grimaced her face and levitated his beak open with her horn. "He'll die without more blood and I'm out of ways to give it to him. Every minute we delay for Bunny Angel to get back ups not only his chance of dying but permanent damage to his brain. Do it!"
I carefully poured the liquid into his mouth, making sure to hit the back of the throat. It didn't matter if it went to the belly or the lungs, given what was being healed, but it did matter if it got there fast. The potion that hit the lungs would just absorb into them, turning into oxygen rich blood while the stuff in the belly would simply become regular blood. The faster it got there, the more blood would be replenished vs other cuts. Some small things might also be caught in the mix and healed, especially if he was bleeding internally, but yea, we needed the bulk of it to be blood replenishment.
I finished giving him the potion and checked his pulse. It was weak but there. For a second he seemed to not do anything. But I knew the potion was just doing it's thing. It would take a few seconds for the renewed oxygen in the blood to get to his brain again. The griffiness started to cry and the doctor turned to me, as if to berate me, but was cut off right as the griffin gasped.
The griffiness hugged her lover with tears of relief as the rest of the crowd cheered.
Well, the rest of the crowd except for the doctor on duty.
She just made a point to give me the stink eye.
"Alright. Your concoction seems to have some ability to heal like a normal potion would. Would you mind giving me another sample to test and see the range of wounds it can heal?"
I nodded. "I can make more later, but they won't be instant like these. They will take the same time as normal potions. This instant stuff is special made at home and I only have three portions of the healing type left in my kit. They should be good for at least six hours once mixed. Maybe eight if you're lucky."
I had given her a safe ballpark estimate with a possibility of longer on how long the potions would last with me resting soon.
With a quick spraying of portions into the two remaining vials, the medic snatched one from me before I could mix the water into either. "I'll also be testing this to see what it's made of, but go ahead and finish the other one with your magic. With any luck, I might be able to replicate this mix for you."
I shook my head but didn't balk. I knew she wouldn't but I'd let her try anyway. I could see the tech they had here. The healing potion pre mix could only be preserved with freeze drying the ingredients, but I'd let her give it a shot anyway.
So instead of arguing, I just added water to the one I still had and swirled it, adding my energy and feeling the sting at the tips of my fingers again.
Once I indicated it was finished, she snatched it out of my grasp with her levitation as well and turned to the crowd. "Alright. We already have griffins confirmed, but I will need a tissue sample of every other race possible! We have an aarakocra coming back in from duty soon, right? To the front of the line with him the moment he gets back! With all current stock being avian unfriendly, we need to see if this is safe for them too!"
I took the chance to get out of the crowd and sneak back into my room. Sitting back down underneath Toad Oil's branches, I nodded to him and did my best to contemplate on something that I finally had time to worry about.
I called out to Archimedes, "Hey, what happened to my magic? It hurts when I cast spells now."
He sounded almost guilty as he replied somewhat hesitantly. "I... I was afraid this would happen."
I paused for a moment.
"I've been patient with you, dragging me back to this time, but I need to put my foot down. Now, calmly, I need you to explain what is going on and I will do my best to calmly listen."
Time Turner finally butted his head in. "Ah that's harmonics for you. You and your friend here have done some excellent harmonics in the past but..."
I could hear a near cawing over the connection, like a speaker was picking up background noise.
"Every time I helped you, there was a side effect of emotional harmonics. That's why you always feel disdain from me. I have to catalyze my helping you with some kind of common emotion we share. It's not my disdain for you, but rather a disdain we share. The disdain for our own kind and the hypocrisy we have come to know them for."
I settled in on my makeshift bed as best as I could and mentally nodded.
"Ok... following so far, but not seeing the connection yet. Waiting patiently..." I said, resisting the urge to lash at him to hurry up. I knew he'd get to it. Every time he helped me with a spell, I felt some kind of emotion from him. That was one difference between him and the Animus Mundi. Sometimes I did from her, but only on rare occasion.
"It's because while you have many emotions, you don't have any feelings of romance. In order to make that song work the way it did, you needed to sing with emotions of romance backing you. You didn't have it naturally, so I had to infuse mine into a cocktail of emotions that we do share. But apparently it still came at a cost."
"That explains why that song went over mediocre at the dance I sang it at."
Time Turner came back in. "Basically, when you harmonized with something in the past, be it with your friend or your amulet, it was always with an emotion you shared with the thing you harmonized with. In the case of the amulet, it was emotions you imprinted when you wove the songs into them as you wrote them."
"But there is something else." Archimedes interjected, getting a little irritated. "In sirenite, impurities cause noise in the harmonics. Your amulet was so pure that not only was it very durable, but any noise from mineral impurities were so slight that even your non siren blood was able to handle it, at least at the levels you used it and them being your own emotions feeding back into you. But because you didn't sync up with the emotions I fed to you properly, a harmful level of noise happened from that lack of syncing."
Time Turner piped in again. "It could happen anyway, even with a crystal of sirenite as pure as your amulet, if enough energy was resonated, even if it was your own. But you'd have to store your amulet to the brim with emotional energy over a longer period of time by singing into it and then will it to be it far more forcibly released than you do with your songs. That's about the level of noise that your friend produced when helping you with an emotion you couldn't sync with. Hey, it was flowing through my machine to reach him! Of course I can monitor the levels! Alright! Alright! I'm leaving!"
Archimedes gave a tone befitting someone wanting to calm himself. "At that level of exposure, you should heal from it fine. A few days not casting any more spells than you have to and you will recover. As for your potions, I don't know. But the amount of pain you feel should be proportional to the interference with your magic recovering, so go off of that. The less pain you induce, the faster you recover. The faster you recover, the less pain induced when you cast later. So tomorrow will be the most critical, but yes. As few spells as possible and held off as long as possible."
With the diagnosis done, I held off asking Archimedes where he went this night in the past, as that could blow our cover.
Instead, I crossed my eyes as I looked upward and back a little at Toad Oil's trunk, speaking to him rhetorically. "I don't suppose you know where Bunny Angel or Ebony Nexus went? Perhaps one of them could help with this headache I suddenly am finding myself with?"