I hovered as a ghost, airborne, as Faye walked in a solemn procession of ponies through a blue-purple forest, the bright morning sky reduced to a gloomy dusk by the dual canopies of giant leaves and crawling vines. I hadn't regained control since earlier, when she kicked me out.
Since before Papyrus - who, unless I was missing something critical, really was Gazelle - chewed Starlight out and excused himself with a smirk.
There were too many questions to ask. Where were we? Had I really been gone for two whole days? Why was I gone, and where had I been? Why didn't I remember? Where was the bracelet? What had transpired with Starlight and the Elements, to get them into the situation I awoke to? What was up with the way Corsica had been acting when I came back? Why was Seigetsu here? Last I remembered, she was betraying me in the Aegis room, yet no one seemed bothered by her presence.
The most important question of all, I was finally starting to wrap my head around: yes, this was really happening. Not a trick of my senses. Not a misread situation. Real. And that made room for me to think about the next most important one: what Faye was doing, prancing around in public in control of our body.
So I asked her.
She folded her ears. The visual equivalent of it's complicated.
Good. If the answer had been anything else... Well, I'd be worried anyway, but at least that one made sense.
But I wanted more.
"My whole reason for existing is to be up front, because you didn't want to," I pointed out, trying to keep the worry from my voice. "I know we're a special case with our abilities, but this can't have been something you went back on lightly."
If you want to come back up front, feel free, Faye responded silently, thinking at me. Feel more than free. I just thought you needed time to get your bearings back. After all, you... you've had it rough lately.
It was true. A hundred old stressors orbited my ghostly head, and new ones as well, blending into a soup that made it difficult to tease apart one cause from the other. But for the moment, they backed off, waiting.
Perhaps because I had been gone for two days, and the world had changed so much around me my old knowledge might not be valid anymore.
More likely because nothing I did right now mattered, because I wasn't in control.
I thought about that, rolled the idea around with my mind like a ball of putty, and couldn't tell if it was correct. It felt correct. Watching Faye, someone older and more competent and more attuned to the current situation than me, yet still fundamentally also me, take charge was liberating. I noticed she and Corsica walking close together in the line, and from their postures I knew that whatever walls my stumbling had allowed to grow up between us were breaking down. Corsica looked as worn-out as always, but she didn't feel mad at me.
And yet, despite all that, I remembered the resolution to the Aldebaran incident, more than half a year ago. I remembered how my own plan bore no fruit thanks to my botched execution, yet everything turned out alright anyway, thanks to the competence and sacrifices of my friends, with a bit of divine luck on the side. I remembered how, at the moment of truth, my role was rendered obsolete, I had no part to play, and could watch from the sidelines as a meaningless face in a crowd.
I remembered how bitterly that stung. And because of that memory, I couldn't trust that sitting in the back with Faye up front was nearly as great as it seemed to be.
"Do you need me up front?" I asked, trying another angle. "I don't know that I wouldn't make a mess of the situation, but that hasn't stopped you from turning our life over to me before."
It's complicated, Faye thought again, signalling it more directly this time. I'm changing, Halcyon. I've been forced out of my comfort zone and had to adapt. There are still long-term consequences to me running our life, I'm sure of it. But the short-term ones are maybe... more survivable than I thought.
She was quiet for a moment, then continued. It's not dire. I can do this... some of the time. But I do need you up front eventually, in the sense that I can't steer our life correctly. And you need to change too. The path you've been on for these last few weeks isn't tenable. We need a new paradigm. One that involves less division of duties. More sharing of responsibility. More guiding our life as a team.
Some part of me I hadn't been paying enough attention to unwound at her confirmation that I wasn't suddenly unnecessary. Tension drained from my shoulders, and I flew more easily.
Seigetsu has our bracelet, Faye went on, and I could feel her choosing her thoughts carefully. It's a hostage, to ensure we behave after what happened in the tower. Initially, that hostage was you. But I bartered a swap.
My ears faced semi-forward in alarm. "How did she do that? Did she know what I was?"
Faye considered this. A lot has happened, but I think as far as she knows, your emerald is just a magical coping mechanism for me. Not a piece of my soul.
"A piece of your soul?" I stared at her. "I thought I was your mask. A collection of traits, mannerisms, memories..."
Seigetsu might not know, but I told Starlight about our split, Faye hesitantly thought. I've been trying to get her to warm up to us. And she might be more like us than we thought. Not the same, but she might know something about the way we are. Magically, I mean. And after the last two days, I think our multiple nature might be something a lot more significant than a mental condition backed up by changeling magic.
"And Procyon," I added, remembering our pearlescent third half. "And whatever light wave magic separated her out first."
Faye looked like she wanted to say something, but didn't.
"Does anyone else know?" I asked. "If you shared our secrets with anyone, or if they found out, I..." How did I feel about that, really? "I should at least know."
Faye shook her head. I made some sort of pact with Papyrus to get him nominally on our side. I was thinking with my heart, not my head. It might mean trouble for us later, but... Anyway, I didn't tell him anything. But I think he might already know we're a changeling queen.
I stared at her, wordlessly requesting elaboration.
He's literally Gazelle, Faye explained. The Empire's old High Prince. Reincarnated. Somehow. Maybe I'm just self-conscious, but the way he talked about himself in relation to starting to war... It reminds me far too much of my nightmares from the east, the ones I didn't share with you until after Ironridge. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it felt like he was pushing me on purpose, like he had reason to believe I might feel the same.
I frowned. "It... could be a coincidence, I guess."
Also, Faye added, he claimed to have been there when we were born. Saw it - saw us - with his own eyes. And even as a newborn, we would have looked pretty different from Coda.
Thinking about it, I breathed out. Supposedly, this wasn't our original form: Procyon was. But Procyon still had a green mane, colorful hooves... Had Papyrus ever seen my hooves? I couldn't remember. It wasn't the kind of thing I willingly showed ponies, but he was nosy. And even if the color shades were wrong, the emphasis was still in all the right places...
As I began to accept this, a second possibility rose in my mind. If Papyrus really was Gazelle reincarnated - I had no idea how that was possible, but the world was full of supernatural impossibilities - then he would be another link to my past.
Before, the only one I possessed was Mother. And guiding her thoughts back to those days felt sacrilegious. But offending Papyrus...
I smacked myself to break that train of thought, realizing that no matter how I framed this, I was considering trying to have a productive conversation with Papyrus. But still. It was a possibility.
"What about Corsica?" I asked, focusing again on how the two of them were walking closer than we probably would have if I was still in charge. "Why was she acting that way earlier, when I came back? And how do things stand between us now?"
Faye shook her head. That's for you to figure out. By asking her. Which is what she wants. She's your friend, after all.
"And not yours?"
Faye looked conflicted. I looked up to her a lot. But things were different between us in those days. I know I just said I wanted us to share our decisions more, but our relationship with Corsica is something you need to build for yourself. She and I have too much between us already for it to end well, even if it looks cordial to you.
I stared at Corsica, sifting my memories for the way things used to be.
For a moment, I was distracted by the contrast in demeanor. This Corsica was borderline haggard, her mane limp and sporting a few loose strands, carrying herself along with a stubborn sag in her shoulders. Even after the Aldebaran incident, she hadn't been like that, at least after she got a few weeks to recover.
There had to be something I could do to help her, to change that. Anything at all.
And then I caught up with Faye's meaning. The way things used to be, when I tagged along with the original Ansel, pestering him and his marefriend. Annoying. Never accepted. For whatever reason, never giving up.
For me, that felt like another lifetime. But it only felt that way because those were Faye's memories, and for her, they would be so much more recent than to me.
Maybe she was right. I swallowed, then nodded. "Should I go talk to her now?"
Maybe hold off on that for a moment, Faye suggested. I think Papyrus finally got through to Starlight after a lot of wearing her down, and we've almost gotten where she's taking us. Just pay attention for now, and you might be able to catch up on some of the way things are.
Corsica trudged along as the sky lightened around her, the thick forest finally coming to an end.
Even out from under the trees, the core of the Everfree still felt dimmer than Ponyville, as if the sky was slightly confused about how to put away the night. But Starlight's destination wasn't the sky, nor was it the ruined castle on the hill: it was the canyon, the same place where they had entered the crystalline Macrothesis the day before.
"Starlight?" Rainbow asked, hovering along as they began the descent to the canyon floor. "Are we going back to-?"
"No," Starlight said, her brow shadowed, looking almost as weary as Corsica felt. "But close."
Maybe it wasn't an apt comparison, Starlight's exhaustion to Corsica's. Seeing someone else take the lead, first Papyrus with his bullying and now Starlight with her mystery trip, let a part of Corsica relax. The part that was always on standby to clean up messes, to step in and save Halcyon's agenda by making that kid's problems her own.
It helped. Didn't make things perfect, but it sure did help.
Corsica reached the bottom, glancing back at Faye and wondering if it was really still Faye, or if Halcyon had taken the lead again. Getting to speak with Faye more was interesting, but if those two started swapping at a regular pace, it would become a real problem for her ability to tell them apart. And also a problem for how to think of them. Right now, Halcyon was siloed in her brain as the real thing, and Faye was... Halcyon's past self? From before they made friends, except not annoying.
Maybe it was Corsica's perception that had changed, and Faye was the same as she always was. Doubtful, though. This Faye didn't seem like the kind of pony to relentlessly, innocently stalk her and fan filly over her every move. But if Faye had changed, had diverged from who she had been back then, it was all the harder to figure out how to think of them.
Both as the same pony? That wouldn't work. Both as completely separate individuals? That didn't feel quite right, either...
"Here we are," Starlight said, having taken the group in the opposite direction down the canyon and now facing a wall patch that was grown over with crystals, forming a massive sheet that stretched nearly halfway up to the surface.
"What's this?" Rainbow pressed.
Only those who had been in the back room when Papyrus gave his speech had come, and Papyrus himself was nowhere to be seen. Only Seigetsu, Corsica, Faye, Rainbow, Starlight and Twilight... and out of those six, Twilight was the only one who looked like she was following the point of the expedition.
"Starlight," she said, "is this...?"
Starlight lit her horn, put a hoof to the base of the crystal wall... and like a pleated mechanical door, it began to retract into the ground, sliding into itself.
On the other side was a cave big enough to fit Twilight's entire castle. And in that cave was a giant airship.
It took Corsica a minute to realize this was actually an airship and not a beached sea ship, and even then, she wasn't certain. It dwarfed the Aldebaran in both length and width, and matched it in height if you counted the prow and stern. Two floors underneath the deck, she guessed, both with more headroom than Gerardo's cramped little ship.
Coda's Verdandi was a better size comparison, albeit a little taller. But the Aldebaran was what stuck in Corsica's mind, because like it, this ship had a wire contraption suspended above the deck that seemed to be built around supporting several large, metal hoops, all pointing straight forward.
She remembered the storm that powered the Aldebaran, windigo power, living clouds reaching down and funneling through those hoops like a tornado. But the Aldebaran had been black and sleek, elegant yet gaudy, with a hull forged from the finest metal.
This ship was entirely wooden. And yet its varnish didn't bear a single scratch.
At Starlight's command, the crystals shifted more, growing into a staircase that provided a walk-up gangplank to the vessel. She looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words.
"The Immortal Dream," Twilight said, naming the ship for her. "It... looks exactly like I imagined it would. Can we go aboard?"
Starlight nodded. "We'll... need to fly back to Ponyville and get provisions before taking her anywhere. And the trains would be much faster. But there are places the trains don't go."
Corsica knew what that meant. Even if Starlight didn't want to say it out loud, stepping outside her front door to rekindle the Flame of Kindness had a high probability of not ending with that, even if they succeeded.
Rainbow was already on the deck, and Faye and Seigetsu drew closer as well. Corsica, however, gave the rings above the deck a wary look. "Out of curiosity, what does this thing run on?"
Starlight stared at it too. "Me."
Corsica climbed the crystal stairs, feeling a faint tingle as her hooves touched the deck. This place... Something about it felt almost like the chapel in Icereach. Halcyon was the one who loved that place, but that hadn't stopped Corsica from needing to find her there from time to time. She didn't share Halcyon's superstitions, but the chapel still had the air of an ancient sanctuary, as if ponies had been venerating it and seeking refuge there since time immemorial.
So did this airship.
"How old is this?" Faye asked, evidently thinking along the same lines. "It looks brand-new, but feels... different."
"Twenty years," Starlight said. "Since she first flew. But she was alive before that."
"Alive?" Seigetsu gave her a curious look.
"Fly on her for long enough," Starlight promised, sounding dazed. "And you won't be able to think otherwise."
Was that what she felt? Was that just superstition, or real magic? Corsica looked around, and saw three doors on the deck: two leading to the prow, and one to the stern.
"Every other airship I've seen had the entrance in the side," she remarked. "Not the top. Why's this one different?"
Starlight slowly walked toward the prow, letting the crystal staircase fade away now that everyone was on board. "I don't know the current trends in northern airships. But this one was designed to sail the skies, or the sea. So the entrances need to be on top."
She waved everyone forward, towards the left front door. It slid open on rails rather than swinging on a hinge, and yet didn't offer the slightest resistance from rust, warp or age.
Beyond was a staircase, its wood an autumn blend of deep reds, yellows and oranges. The steps had been reinforced to prevent slipping, and they curved gently along the inside of the prow, reaching a landing near the very front of the ship.
To Corsica's right was a wall with a door. Ninety degrees beyond that was a balcony leading back into the main belly of the ship, and beside it was another staircase, a switchback leading further down.
Starlight took the door.
Inside was a large room covering the right half of the ship's prow, a little wider than the landing so it could also cover the center. Balanced there, in a line along the wall so as to evenly distribute their weight, were racks and cases of equipment, wired lovingly together with some of the best cable management Corsica had ever seen.
Not that Icereach scientists weren't capable of making their inventions pretty. In fact, they wasted a lot more time on it than a productive operation should have allowed. But this ship's innards had been designed from the beginning to fit together into a harmonious whole, the machine cases bearing a style of metalworking that was usually reserved for antique furniture. Even the latches to open the cases looked like tiny, metal pegasus wings that folded up when undone.
But all of that paled next to the technological centerpiece: a giant cloud of metal rails, contiguous and twisting, hanging from the ceiling and serving a purpose Corsica couldn't even begin to fathom. Was that technology? Art? Art imitating technology? It looked moderately homogeneous, so whatever it did, it probably all served a single purpose. Perhaps some sort of reaction chamber, or even an energy core? Maybe-
Twilight's eyes glowed with the light of scientific inquiry, but Rainbow Dash was looking askew at Faye. "You alright?" she asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Faye shook her head. "It's... nothing."
Starlight gave her a look too. "You've seen something like this before?" Then she caught herself. "I... probably don't want to know..."
"The rings above the deck, too," Faye murmured. "I hoped it was a coincidence, but this looks exactly like the Aldebaran's engine.
Starlight looked somewhere between disappointed and relieved. "I suppose the technology wouldn't have died out when I left with this ship. Shinespark and Arambai must have built more of them."
"Except, the other place we saw it," Faye continued, "was on a pirate ship, and it was powered by windigoes."
Starlight frowned, then shook her head. "Pirate ship or no, this one used to use windigo hearts as well. Windigo hearts serve as a disharmonic battery that can trap and contain the ship's fuel."
Corsica glanced up at the ceiling. "So this ship summons a blizzard whenever it's turned on, too? And hangs from the storm like a creepy cloud gondola?"
Starlight was speechless.
This snapped Twilight out of her science trance as well. "Shinespark and Arambai fought to protect Ironridge from windigoes. According to you, they both have firsthoof experience with how dangerous these creatures are. Although you did use windigo hearts as batteries, so if they took the same concept further..."
"That's impossible." Starlight shook her head. "I'd have to see for myself, but that fundamentally can't work. Windigoes aren't harmonic life forms like ponies and griffons. Their only use to us was as containers for the power of the Flames of Harmony, and doing that only works when they're dead. There must have been something you were misunderstanding. But summoning a blizzard..." She squeezed her eyes shut.
"Back up," Corsica encouraged. "Forget how they're breaking the rules. What rules are they breaking? What's this thing supposed to do normally, and how's it work?"
Starlight sighed. "It's called a harmony extractor, which is a fairly large misnomer, but the name stuck around from before its inventors knew how it worked. And for specific types of creatures such as ponies, it borrows your life force, essentially turning the machine into an extension of your body so long as you're connected."
Corsica lifted her ears, curious. Back in Ironridge, when talking with Valey about her special talent, she was fairly sure the other mare was dancing around a lot of technological insight that would have been fascinating if it was more relevant to the matter at hoof. If Starlight's old friend group had invented this, then this was probably what it was.
"The magic of living creatures has a rigid classification system," Twilight explained, taking over for Starlight. "I don't know if you use the same frameworks for understanding in the north, but there are three mechanically distinct categories: magic performed by machines and learnable unicorn spells, magic inherent to all members of a species, and magic given by your cutie mark. As an example, species magic is how pegasi fly."
She turned to the cloud of rails. "Conventional mana technology and unicorn spells operate by the same principles, and can do mostly the same things. But species magic comes from a spark of life that Equestria really doesn't understand as well as I wish we did. Machines aren't alive, so the best they can do is try to replicate the effects within a different system of mechanics... but harmony extractors change that. When a pony can share that spark of life with a machine, the machine can suddenly employ species-class magic instead of just mana technology. In this case, pegasus flight."
"So do you have to be a pegasus to make it do that, then?" Faye asked. "Or a batpony?"
Twilight shook her head. "No, you don't. The effects don't seem to differ in breadth depending on what race connects to the machine, provided it's a harmony-based one. So, windigoes don't count." She sucked in a breath. "Which implies that at our core, we're all the same regardless of the shape of our body: different types of ponies, griffons, yaks, and most importantly, the world itself."
"Which matters," Starlight said, "because even though it's the same kind of spark, it's not always the same strength. Normal pegasi might be able to fly on their own power, but they can't spare enough to make an airship do the same. The world, however, is strong enough that just bottling up a bit of its fire is enough to run the ship for weeks. And since we happen to have..." She glanced around, triple-checking that Seigetsu hadn't followed them to the engine room, then lowered her voice. "A portable, pony-sized piece of the world's soul..."
Corsica nodded. She got the picture.
"You all might want to watch this from up on deck," Starlight encouraged, gesturing to the door. "It'll be more impressive out there."
A low hum was building in Faye's core as she emerged from the staircase out onto the deck, finding Seigetsu with her hands clasped behind her back, studying the wire cage that held up the ship's metal rings.
That hum was coming from behind her, from beneath her, and yet all around her at the same time. The longer Faye was awake, the more the glow she saw around ponies faded into obscurity, an unremarkable part of her perception that she instinctively tuned out and ignored. Far removed from the stars she saw when coming out after an extended slumber, when those lights were bright enough she could see them in the distance through solid walls.
Yet suddenly, they forced their way back into her perception, hard enough that the glare made her wince and stirred the hungry emptiness in her core. Because the entire ship was glowing.
She squinted, but it was still there, an ethereal light picked up with a sixth sense instead of her eyes. An infinite source to her infinite drain, the feeling increased in intensity, thrumming like a waterfall in a desert as blue lightning began to crackle along the wire mesh, leaving tiny midnight flames to arc along in its wake. A mist rose from the contraption, like ether yet full of galaxies instead of stars, gravitating toward the area bound by the rings.
The tension in her core reached a fever pitch, and suddenly the mist snapped together in a filament - and then a second later, that filament burst alive with power, like a slice in reality that split apart to admit something more. A comet tore its way into existence, trailing stars, its burning head hovering in the rings above the bridge and its tail streaming off across the deck. A caged god, deep blue and burning like the night sky.
Starlight appeared on the deck in a blink of teleportation, her horn glowing midnight blue instead of its usual teal. She stared up at the comet with the expression of an engineer, eyes flitting about, and then nodded in satisfaction, sliding open the rightmost front door.
Inside, beneath the ship's windshield, an array of instruments gleamed, burnished brass protecting the wooden trim without compromising the color. A single captain's chair swiveled in the center, black and majestic, with plenty of space behind for others to gather and watch the ship's course.
Starlight hesitated before the chair, and Faye wondered how long it had been since she sat in it last.
Instead of taking the chair, Starlight walked a circuit of the bridge, running her hoof along the walls, checking every console and instrument. Built into the front of the dashboard, off to the left, Faye saw the first indisputable sign of the ship's true age: a terminal that had to be older than she was, its design belonging to an age where artistry and functionality bore equal importance in designing a machine.
None of modern Ironridge, where all you cared about was results. None of modern Icereach, where scientists chased patents and sought out ways to waste time. An elegant machine, from an age where ponies broke new ground, yet made machines that were worthy of being the first of their kind.
"It's been a while," Starlight whispered, putting her hoof on the chair. "Sorry I left you here in the forest, all alone."
So that was why they weren't just taking the trains. Things clicked in Faye's brain all at once: Starlight saw this ship as a friend, and wanted its support if she was going to be testing her longstanding limits.
Halcyon's ghost rose out of the floor beside her. "I've explored the whole thing, I think," she said. "There's a mess hall, a big hold, eight normal cabins and one big one. A library, too. I don't think we'll be cramped for space, no matter who comes along."
Faye glanced at Corsica.
Halcyon nodded. "This'll be the first time since Icereach I've had my own room."
Good. Having no space to call her own was probably one of the things weighing on Halcyon. Faye knew how thoroughly they had turned their Icereach room into a private sanctum, and Halcyon had only continued what Faye had started, building an altar to herself and who she wanted to be. Losing that might have been the beginning of her unmooring, or at least related to it.
As she thought, Starlight's aura gripped a lever and moved it, the knob at the tip brightly-colored and the brass handle long, so it would be satisfying to pull.
The ship didn't even lurch beneath them. And yet gravity seemed to increase, and the cave outside the windshield began to move as the ship started to rise.
Patiently, Starlight maneuvered them out into the canyon, taking as much care not to bump into the walls as she would if it was a friend's body she was piloting. Faye could feel the ship's responsiveness even without being in that seat, and they rose faster once the open sky was visible above.
The rim of the canyon passed before them, and then the ground fell away, the sky brightening further as they passed the canopy, too. To the side was the forest's ruined castle, but Starlight turned until that was out of sight, pointing them toward Ponyville instead.
Rainbow Dash sized the distance up, then soared out the open door. "Race you back to the castle!"
Starlight barely acknowledged her, Twilight's tree palace dead ahead on the horizon.
Twilight stepped closer, putting a wing on Starlight's shoulder. "How long has it been since you've flown this?"
"Not long," Starlight whispered. "I've had to travel, sometimes."
Twilight nodded.
"But when I returned to Sires Hollow, almost twenty years ago..." She took a deep breath, caressing the control panel with her aura, and then turned to Twilight and returned the nod. "That was the last time I flew with friends."