Locating Senescey in the Crystal Empire was easy when you knew her as well as Papyrus. Sneaking up on her was another matter altogether, but the payoff was funny, and so Papyrus had gotten a lot of practice in his previous life.
"I never knew you were an egghead," he whispered, looming up behind her as she browsed the shelves of an antique bookshop.
Senescey whirled, catching him with a left hook and pivoting into a suplex, flipping Papyrus on his back and pinning him against the ground. He made no moves to resist, offering only a toothy grin: a great way to annoy ponies was letting them catch you when they didn't know what to do next.
"You," she sighed, backing off when she realized who it was, "have a lot of nerve. And a death wish. What do you want?"
"Letting me go that quickly? Disappointing," Papyrus said, getting back to his hooves as the shopkeep appeared to check out the commotion. "And here I thought you'd be unhappy to see me. I'm after a chat, and if I can properly snag your ear for it, a proposal."
Senescey glanced at the shopkeep and shrugged. He shrugged back, deciding nothing was on fire, and went back to whatever he had been doing.
"I've got a better proposal," Senescey hissed under her breath. "How about: I'm busy with something important, so you go and entertain yourself with someone else for a change?"
"Is that so?" Papyrus leaned against a bookshelf. "See, the way I understand things, you've taken up the mercenary life in recent years, and the filly who currently has you in her employ just absconded the other day and completely forgot you even exist."
"That was yesterday," Senescey said, making a show of trying to concentrate on the books. "And this might be a difficult concept for your juvenile brain, but I, like most sane adults, am capable of having multiple goals at once."
"Eh." Papyrus shrugged. "Ten bits says your name won't float through her head a single time in the next week or two. I know commitment issues when I see them. Speaking of commitment, how'd you like to get the old band back together and try to reconquer the Griffon Empire?"
Senescey put down her book and stared at him. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Hah." Papyrus swiped the book with a wingtip. "You just admitted I have a mind to lose. Now what is this you were reading about? Philosophy...?"
"If you can understand a tenth of the words in there, maybe I'll talk about it," Senescey grumbled. "Even though you're obviously just taking an interest in my interests to try to manipulate me. I'll ask again: what are you bothering me for? What do you want?"
Papyrus ignored her, reading. Not just philosophy, but governmental philosophy. A theory of a way to structure the state that the author was laying out as a hypothetical. Hard to say without historical context if this was a serious submission or just an attempt to challenge readers to think outside the status quo. He flipped closer to the beginning, looking for an abstract or list of basic tenets to their system he could use to-
Senescey flipped the book out of his wing and back under her own. "Well?"
"What's a former revolutionary like you doing reading a thing like this?" he asked, lowering his voice. "With how much blood you spilled in the old Empire to change it, one would think you've already got a grasp of the future you were fighting for."
"There's nothing 'former' about it," Senescey hissed. "I'm the only one our dreams live on in. What do you care?"
"So you are planning to conquer some place or other and remake it in your image!" Papyrus brightened, still keeping his voice down. "What's the occasion, old girl?"
"Shut up. I'm not a conqueror." Senescey glowered. "Again, what's it to you?"
Papyrus innocently whistled. "It's just, that seems awfully compatible with my idea that we go and tear up the Empire again, you and I."
Senescey turned her back on him. "You're actually serious? No. I'm not interested in making things worse."
"Funny, neither am I." Papyrus smoothly caught up with her. "Actually, I never was, but last time I didn't have my head screwed on proper. You know how it is."
Senescey gave him a try me look.
"You ever wonder why we're still alive?" Papyrus asked. "Frankly, I have no clue how you survived that mess, but I know my own path from there to here goes beyond preposterous. But forget about the how for a moment and ask yourself this: we're some of history's biggest villains, done and dusted, and yet our stories somehow aren't over. In fact, they could have quite a lot left to them. So where do we go from here?"
"...Huh," Senescey said. "I'm years ahead of you on asking that. Have you been thinking about it long enough to appreciate the answers I've found?"
"Prepare to be scandalized," Papyrus warned. "But I'm bored, and if you've got any better ideas on what to do next, I'm all ears?"
"Fine," Senescey sighed. "I need to pay for this, and then let's go get drinks. Try not to make me regret thinking about explaining all this to you, and hopefully your attention span has improved."
Half an hour later, Papyrus and Senescey were seated at an outdoor cafe with tables, chairs, cutlery and even the sunshade parasols made from crystal. From the strains of conversation around them, Papyrus picked out two mothers complaining about their foals' schedules, a pair of academics debating what sounded like math, several young couples on a group date... A perfect venue for laying plans for world domination. Or whatever Senescey wanted to talk about.
Politely, Papyrus folded his forelegs on the table. "I'm all ears."
"This," Senescey said, pulling out her book and slapping it on the table, "is a treatise about the role of gods in government, in a hypothetical setting in which gods don't actually exist. The Crystal Empire was sealed away for one thousand years, libraries and ponies and everything. It's a time capsule, a portal into the past, to an age when Garsheeva and Princess Celestia still existed, but did things very differently. Like any age, the thinkers of this age spent a lot of time on the question of how to build a society that was fair, equitable, and would eternally endure. The difference between their time and our time is that we have no guarantees about tomorrow, yet we know that after all our forebearers' actions, the world they left behind endured for a thousand years. Does that make sense to you?"
Papyrus resisted the urge to needle her about their comparative intelligence. "Thinking more about what comes after the revolution, eh?"
"It was a blind spot of ours last time," Senescey admitted. "Not the one that ultimately did our plan in. But seeing what Chrysalis achieved has forced me to consider it. She did everything we wanted, Gazelle - smashed the old hierarchies, usurped the goddesses, undid-"
Papyrus waved an urgent hoof. "I know I'm the last one to lecture about respecting naming preferences, but there are actual pragmatic reasons not to call me that around these parts. Ones that go beyond politeness and self-control."
Senescey sighed. "Papyrus. And it would be nice if you returned the favor."
Papyrus put a hoof over his heart. "I'll have you know I haven't called you Senescey even once today, despite constantly thinking it. Though if we're earnestly trying to be civil, what was the new name, again...?"
Senescey rolled her eyes. "Leitmotif."
"Ah, yes, yes, Leif. Like the things that grow on shrubs. My apologies." Papyrus cleared his throat. "And I suppose I just got carried away again. Do continue about Chrysalis?"
Senescey gave him a withering glare, but relented. "She didn't leave anything good in her wake. The Griffon Empire she left behind was no better than the one she tore down. It... was the same as it might have been if we got our way, and assassinated every sphinx who didn't align with us. That's why I need a plan, a vision for the world after it's remade. I don't know if I have the power to see such a transition through. Remembering how helpless I was, how small of a thing sent our plan off the rails... If I tried, again, to start a revolution, I can be almost certain that I'll lose control of what I set in motion again, perhaps this time after it's too late to stop, and only wind up ruining things for everyone. But what I can do is think. If I can come up with a blueprint for a society that's better than our current one, one that doesn't hate sarosians like the old Empire, that doesn't suffer the excesses of the aristocracy, that doesn't chain ponies with ignorance like this one... then maybe when someone comes around who does have the power to remake the world and see their mission through, I can leave a record behind with a plan they can follow, so they don't end up wasting the opportunity like Chrysalis."
Papyrus grinned. "And that's where this comes in," he said, patting the book. "You think you're far from the first to feel this way, and looking for such records left behind by others so you can tinker with and renew them."
Genuine surprise shone in Senescey's eyes, and she cracked a small smile. "So you do have a brain cell."
"Lest you forget," Papyrus muttered conspiratorially, "I spent my entire foalhood - the first one, that is - daydreaming about exactly the same. Now, I was a bloodthirsty murderous monstrosity cursed by chaos to have my benevolent ambitions twisted beyond insanity, and I can't even claim my ideas weren't impractical and childish before that set in. But I do know a thing or two about this."
"Riiight." Senescey scrutinized him.
Papyrus shrugged. "Need I remind you how we first met?"
"We prayed to the Night Mother to heal our crippled bodies and she said she'd do so if we loyally served you?" Senescey raised an eyebrow. "Which, might I add, was a promise she never made good on?"
Papyrus blinked. "Was that really how it went? Huh. Here I always thought we hit it off because we were disaffected by the status quo and you and your sisters had Lord Gyre in your pocket."
"I can't tell if you're joking," Senescey groaned, massaging her temple, "or if you really never knew... You had to have known. You're messing with me again. Stop that." She shook her head.
"Well, I suppose that point's a bust," Papyrus lamented. "So, you think your time is best spent thinking and researching so you can tell the next guy to take over the world how to do it right. What makes you think they'll listen?"
Senescey frowned at him.
"Like you said," Papyrus pointed out, "Chrysalis wasn't in the mood to listen to anyone when she tore up the place. Neither was I, when I had my god powers. Wouldn't it be awful if you did all this work, only for the next megalomaniac to come along, trash everything, and then not even realize your ideas exist?"
"...I can't control that," Senescey said, slowly and levelly. "I'll just have to hope it doesn't happen."
"Liar," Papyrus cheerfully declared. "I've got no idea what it is, but there's no way you'd spend your life on this if you didn't have a plan."
Senescey glared at him. "Look at everyone around us. You think they operate under any guarantees their life will amount to anything? You think they have any kind of insurance that someone too strong to care about them won't come along, trample everything they've worked to build in their lives, and not even notice? We can't control things like this, not within our fundamental world paradigm, and learning to live with that reality is how everyone operates on a basic level. And people who can't learn to live with it wind up like... like you, or Starlight." She sighed. "This is what I'd like to change."
Papyrus leaned in, ears perked.
"I don't want a world where mine operators can poison rivers with impunity, and get away with it," Senescey hissed. "I don't want a world where ponies have to accept that everything they do could one day be rendered meaningless, like the hundreds of thousands of sarosian lives in Mistvale that were snuffed out. I don't want a world where the ones who lead us are no better than those who follow them. And I lack the power to break the established order and replace it with something new, but I know there are those who have it. That's why I'm going to be ready with a plan, on the crazy, off chance that I was brought back for a reason and I do get the chance to use it."
"...You know," Papyrus said, "have you ever thought about doing a test run?"
Senescey tilted her head.
"Put this universalist thinking on the shelf for a moment," Papyrus said, adjusting himself in his chair. "I've been thinking about my own lot in life, and the unhelpful truth I finally managed to confirm is that the only reason I still exist is because Starlight hates letting others win and there's no more meaning to it than that. That leaves me with a big black stain on my record, and a whole lot of nothing to do. So suppose I went back to the Empire and tried to kick the place back into shape a little. Could I really make it worse than it already is?"
He leaned in. "You think the new, slightly-saner me will create a bigger mess than the old, off-his-rocker me? True, I don't have the power and influence I once did, but that's nothing a little guile can't fix. Who knows? Maybe I'll even leave things slightly better than I found them. Problem is, I've got no ideas beyond winging it and taking some names. No plan! No vision. These things happen when you decide to take a place over for the sake of taking it over. So, feel like putting your plans for a grand society through some real-world experience?"
Senescey scrutinized him, hard.
"If we fail spectacularly, eh, it was already a lost cause." Papyrus shrugged. "If we do a measure of good, even if it's far from perfect, isn't that better than not acting at all? And if we think of something better to do along the way, it's not like I'm wanting for years on my lifespan. What do you say, old partner?"
Senescey sized him up.
"For kicks and giggles, we could even be proper teammates, and not call you my minion anymore," Papyrus offered.
"Have you talked to anyone else about this?" Senescey whispered. "Like Nehaley?"
Papyrus perked up. "I was just going to hit her up next! Figured it would be easier to get her in on this if I already had you on board. Also, wherever we go, we'll be bringing Braen, because I'm still technically her bodyguard and there's no way she'll say no to an offer to travel the world."
"Fine," Senescey sighed. "You don't have my enthusiastic support, but it's not like I was getting anywhere with Halcyon anyway. I'll work with you until, and only until, I get fed up with you or find a more promising way to spend my time."
As he followed Senescey, who knew better than he where Larceny - now known as Nehaley - was sleeping, Papyrus studied her. Not just because she was pleasing to look at: her demeanor had changed since the old days in the Griffon Empire. The Senescey he remembered was a young zealot, the middle sister in a trio of assassins, old enough to remember why they were fighting but young enough that the battle had been her whole existence. The least powerful of the three, but the most loyal: Felicity, the elder, could be tempted by emotional connection, and Larceny, the younger, had accepted their reasons for fighting as truth without ever experiencing them for herself.
Senescey had also been the best-adjusted, the face he could put forward when something needed to be done by a normal pony. But now, she had lost some of that normal-pony veneer, an intensity to her eyes that had always been there, yet gotten harsher, a warning that she was a mare with nothing left to lose.
She walked with confidence and ambition that didn't belong to a scholar, or to someone who had resigned themselves to the possibility that their plans could be torn asunder by the whims of fate. It had been nearly twenty years since Papyrus had been a sphinx, with its sixth sense that made him slightly more receptive to the emotions of those around him, but experience and instinct told him Senescey was still withholding the bulk of her story, and her plan.
Fine by him. Ambitious pawns were the best pawns, because you could count on them to be self-starters and do things even when you weren't around. Of course, he'd need a better grasp on what made her tick to predict her actions and play that fully to his advantage...
It almost reminded him of Meltdown, and the things he saw in her. But Papyrus didn't let himself dwell on his ex-lover. This time around, he wasn't going to lose sight of the fact that he was trying to be a good guy. That meant being clearsighted about the possibility that he could fail, and repeat his past mistakes. And if that happened, he wasn't going to let anyone else take themselves down along with him.
Senescey stopped at an ordinary door in the castle's lower residential sector and knocked. "It's me," she declared.
A muted grumble seeped through the door just as Papyrus was preparing a joke about no one being home. Nothing followed it, but apparently it was all the invitation Senescey needed to shadow sneak through the doorjamb, leaving him out alone in the hallway.
Changelings. So rude how they could do that even when not in sarosian form. Idly, Papyrus leaned against the door and fantasized about being able to do that, pressing his ear to the crystal and hoping to catch a snippet of conversation-
The door swung inward, and he crashed over, Senescey barely dodging out of the way in time.
He grinned and dusted himself off. "Oopsie! Now, what have we here?"
The room could be roughly compared to an Ironridge hotel suite. It had one bed, a tiny bathroom with little more than a toilet and shower, and the sparse amenities provided under the philosophy that guests deserved comfort, but wouldn't be spending more time here than necessary for sleeping.
Larceny wasn't sleeping, though she was in bed, a bathrobe completely covering her scarred leg and a well-worn book held in her good wing. Her mane, once a dazzling sapphire, had been dyed bubblegum pink and then ignored for a month, its original blue making a lengthy comeback at the roots.
She looked... about the same as she had looked during the trip down from Sires Hollow. Which was to say, if you took her despondence and Senescey's newfound determination and mixed them together, you'd get something approaching a normal pony.
"If you need something, don't get your hopes up," Larceny warned, eyeing Papyrus with a blank stare. "My days of doing things are long behind me."
"Well, I suppose that saves me from having to ask if you'd like to go on an adventure," Papyrus said, saluting with a wing and strolling back out the door. "I'll just leave you to all the important things you're not doing."
He hid around the corner of the door just long enough to give the impression that he really had gone away... and then a little longer for good measure. Eventually, he heard Larceny ask, "What was that all about?"
Papyrus kept waiting. His instincts told him Larceny wouldn't respond to the same kind of bullying Senescey had: it would take more than persistence, an earnest promise and a good deal to get her out of bed. Or rather, it would take far less, but then she would just become deadweight, and he couldn't have that. This was going to take Senescey's help, and at the very least, he needed to know how inclined she was to give it.
Suddenly, the wait paid off. Senescey marched out of the door, immediately spotted him, and narrowed her eyes. "If you were going to be polite about this and respect our wishes to be left alone, you should have done it for me, too. Fair's fair: get in there and finish what you started."
Papyrus broke into a huge grin. "You want me to invade your sister's personal space and refuse to leave until she gets back on her hooves? Aww, isn't that sweet." He marched back through the door. "Sorry, lazy lady, but apparently I'm not being given the option of doing this respectfully. Wanna go on an adventure?"
Larceny sized him up in confusion, and looked to Senescey as well. "Whatever you want, I'm not physically capable of doing it. This isn't a matter of persuasion." She looked back at her book and sighed. "I see you two are cooperating again, though."
"It's a..." Papyrus waved a wing. "Joint venture. Between old besties. Felt only right that I offer an invitation. Also, I've never been one for mocking the infirm, so don't worry, I got it all out of my system on the shrub before coming here."
Senescey's ears folded indignantly. "Leif. I am not a plant."
Larceny looked at her bathrobe. "Does it have anything to do with what we were trying to do last time?"
Papyrus whistled far too innocently.
Larceny focused on Senescey. "I told you in Icereach, I can't go back to that. You don't want me to come back to that. I was the reason our plans fell apart. I betrayed you, and I haven't had a change of heart. I found something new to live for. I'm done."
"You certainly look like you're living the good life," Papyrus remarked. "I bet this is how everyone dreams of spending their time! Retiring at twenty, hanging out alone in bed in a room with no windows for the last two decades? Mmwah, what a life! So fulfilling." He blew a kiss. "Ambition's all burnt out, I take it."
"I left my mark on the world," Larceny said, not rising to the taunting. "I gave Halcyon a chance to live her own life. That's a fair trade for mine."
"And now you're going to wait here to die," Papyrus agreed.
Larceny blinked at him. "What part of 'I can barely move' don't you understand?"
"It seems like a simple concept," Papyrus agreed... and then grinned. "Until you consider that your bodies already weren't in that great of shape back in the Empire, and that didn't stop you from chasing a cure. Can you only take, what, an hour on your hooves each day before the exhaustion makes you feel like death? Or is it fifteen minutes? Fifteen minutes each day, for what, twenty years? That's nearly two thousand hours of time you've still been good for since we parted ways."
"...I can't do math. Whatever you say," Larceny said. "I'm tired, Papyrus. And I'm saving what little strength I do have for the times when I need to protect my investment. My soul is burned thin. You can't even comprehend what I went through to save her. If you two are working together, that means you're planning something big, and even if my body worked, my mind just doesn't anymore. I can't."
"Still not over things that happened twenty years ago, eh?" Papyrus leaned against the wall. "Ever seen a therapist about that?"
"No," Larceny grunted.
"You should try," Papyrus pointed out. "Because believe it or not, I know a grown-up emo kid who can do what the Night Mother promised you all those years ago. Yank out your soul and stuff it in a new body at the drop of a hat? Happened to me, and I've even got all my old memories, just with enough distance that I'm not dysfunctional from guilt."
Larceny gave him a look.
"Could probably even make you young again!" Papyrus enthused, strolling over to the edge of her bed. "Nothing against being a fruitcake, I'm sure someone's into that, but you could even get a little romance in your life!"
"Not to put a damper on things," Senescey said, "but my understanding of your situation is that you were literally reincarnated as a newborn foal, with a new mother and everything. But practicality aside, he's right: you deserve a new chance at life. One of the few sarosians to survive Chrysalis's wrath should be meant for more than wasting away like this."
"I already got a new chance at life." Larceny stared tiredly at her book. "I made the most of it. I did something that matters. That's enough."
"Small words for someone who used to dream of toppling the imperial aristocracy," Papyrus prodded.
"Those dreams were delusional," Larceny sighed. "Just a way for... for you and Felicity to cope with losing Mother." She focused on Senescey. "Thinking bigger doesn't mean your actions will be more important. I chose, in the end, to save one life. Anything she does, everything she experiences, will be the legacy of my actions. Anyone whose lives are better because of her will also be my legacy. Over the course of history, you can't measure how big that will be. But it's not something I'm scheming towards. Not something I've been flailing at for twenty years. Something I've already done and finished. That counts for more than any dreams or hypotheticals."
Papyrus grinned a broad grin. "But why stop there?"
Larceny turned to face the other way.
"So you've done something you're proud of. Congratulations! I make myself feel that way all the time," Papyrus proclaimed. "Doesn't do anything to erase that gnawing sensation asking why am I here or what am I going to do going forward. And if you think it does, I bet you're in denial."
"Doesn't matter if it does or doesn't," Larceny grunted. "I don't have the capacity to do any more anyway."
"Ah ah ah," Papyrus chided. "We got on this track because I already won that argument. If you wanted a functional body, there are ways, out there in the universe. Why, I bet the shrub would even carry you if it meant getting you in on the fun!"
Senescey scowled, but also looked intrigued. "I thought you were recruiting us to help you take over the Griffon Empire. You don't think we're going to find a way to fix our bodies there that we somehow missed the first time."
Papyrus whistled. "Well, like I kept telling you, I have nothing but time on my hooves. Plus, I'm a good guy this time around! And you three technically did all that work for me for nothing before. And Larceny does have a point that she's not good for much in this state. So it seems it's in keeping with my goals and interests to spend at least a little effort getting you patched up first, no?"
Larceny was actually listening now. "Do you have a plan, or are you just trying to get my hopes up?"
"Bits and threads I could pull on to see if a plan comes tumbling out," Papyrus cheerfully answered. "And an excellent way to stall until those bear fruit. You see, I'd gotten dreadfully fond of having a trio backing me up from the shadows, but there are only two of you. We'll need to recruit one more."
"Braen will be easy to convince. You said so earlier yourself." Senescey grimaced. "And don't even pretend she can replace Felicity."
Larceny nodded. "Felicity was the one who kept us together and devoted to the cause. Without her, whatever we had before isn't coming back. Even if you have a way to fix my body, which is a big if, don't get nostalgic for our old dynamic. It's gone for good."
"Actually..." Papyrus put on his toothiest grin. "She was the one I was thinking we go look for."
Both mares looked at him incredulously.
"So you didn't know! Smashing!" Papyrus stomped a hoof in delight. "And here I was worried the shrub might already have found out! Unless Felicity met another end later on I missed out on, in which case step on me and call me a court jester, but she did survive the initial purge!"
"How!?" Leif asked, forcefully grabbing Papyrus's shoulders. "And you didn't think to mention this earlier!?"
"Excuse you, I was preoccupied with my impending potential doom upon asking Starlight why she didn't kill me," Papyrus chided. "But she was very much alive, albeit pregnant and emotionally needy to a crippling degree. Something to do with the power source on Shinespark and Valey's airship acting as a shield to block out Chrysalis's connection... or maybe it was that giant metal dragon that kept hanging around. I was in a chaos coma at the time, and not feeling up to investigating." He stepped back and bowed. "But, if you think that's something worth getting out of bed for, I could probably get us a passably stale lead or two on what happened to her after."
"If you're toying with me I will flay you alive," Senescey said, her yellow eyes burning with intensity. "...Sister?"
"You're going to need to make good on his promise to carry me," Larceny warned. "I'm not kidding about being an invalid. Any energy I use ever incurs a debt that needs to be slept off immediately. Don't ask me to fight. Can't fly. Can't even think too hard. But... I do wish I could see her one last time."
Papyrus slapped the bedside. "If things go the way I'm planning, seeing her once will only be the start of it. We're getting the band back together! Plus Braen. Can't pull a Halcyon and forgetfully leave without Braen..."