//------------------------------//
// Chapter 35 
// Story: Words of Power 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

They came for her a few hours later. First the metal taps on the ceiling, striking repeatedly where she was confined. She tapped back, even though Lotus was so overwhelmed she desired no motion at all. Yes she was still there, still alive. Whether she deserved to be after what she had brought into Equestria—that was for someone else to decide.
We could've trapped her. We could've put things right. But not anymore. What did burning that book mean? Magical things of course, but how could she know what they meant? Lotus's own understanding of magic was ashes on the floor in front of her.
Maybe not all gone. Her horn still flickered when she asked it to. If she tried the other spells she had practiced, she could probably use them too. Months of study wasn't gone. But if there was any chance that Lotus herself would be useful in capturing this evil mare, it was probably ashes now too.
Finally she saw the first pick emerge through the wall. Stones lifted of their own accord, while others floated to the sides, reinforcing the ceiling so it wouldn't collapse on her. Finally fresh air poured in through the opening, washing over the strangulation of the inner earth.
Lotus hadn't even realized she wasn't on fire anymore, not until she saw the kirin above her wasn't either. "Autumn Blaze?"
She might not be a Nirik, but the mare still looked shocked by her experience, haunted. She only managed a feeble wave. "We figured you were still down there when she came back to the surface to gloat, and you weren't there. Hold on a little longer, we'll get you out."
The sound of working kirin redoubled, shoveling ash and rocks and bits of debris. Lotus waited near the exit, far enough that she wouldn't be directly beside the opening if it caved in.
Finally it was big enough for her, and she wiggled and squirmed through the opening, not caring that her coat got scratched on the way. Her scales stopped the worst of it, far tougher than burned wood and twigs.
She made it up into the castle courtyard, or what had once been a courtyard.
There wasn't a castle here anymore. The village itself was charred and smoldering, though a good number of its structures had survived. Only this castle was directly attacked—the rest was the product of other fires, spreading in an arc from where Searing Gale had once stood. 
In another life, she had once seen images of a city after an attack like this. This one was much the same, with scattered groups huddled around the wounded sprawled out on stretchers or just blankets on the sidewalk.
A few were still Nirik, and had to be kept away from the others, with their fellows occasionally splashing them with buckets of water from the river.
Once that water had flowed clear and beautiful through Hono. Now it carried blackened debris and stank of rotting plants. It would be much worse in the coming days—a perfect community battered by ancient hostility.
A hostility that, in some ways, Lotus herself had brought. 
She wasn't sure how long she lay there in the dirt, watching the kirin tend to the wounded. She must've dozed at least once, curling up under a thin blanket someone brought her. She missed falling asleep with Iron Feather beside her. Now all she had was the moaning of the damned.
Eventually someone sat down beside her, nudging her with something—a clay cup. "Here, drink. You must be thirsty."
She took it in her magic, then sat up. The kirin beside her was Rain Shine, a Nirik no more. She had a fabric bundle on the ground in front of her—a pack, with a lantern extended from it.
Lotus drank, and found the cup was only plain water, much warmer than her preference. But it was clean, and that would have to do. She drained the whole thing before she realized what was happening. 
"You were telling the truth," Rain Shine whispered. "You warned us, and we did not listen."
Lotus nodded weakly. Given the suffering before her, she had no desire to gloat in being right. "I wish I was wrong. I wish it was really possible to keep hidden from her. I wish she never would've found me. I wish..." But she stopped short.
Lotus couldn't wish she'd never found the book—not without lying to herself. Without that book, she never would've found Iron. Getting turned into a kirin had been terrifying at first, then something even worse while she struggled to adapt to a new body.
Someone else might not have been able to figure it out. Without that spell book, Searing Gale would never be as dangerous. Lotus didn't know exactly what burning the phylactery meant, but there was one thing she understood: Searing Gale wouldn't intentionally surrender her power.
"I have completed a search of the village. There are only two unaccounted for—your friends, those who are not kirin. I am sorry—but not many creatures could survive this heat. They must be ashes by now."
A few hours ago, Lotus would've lied about their escape without hesitation. The kirin had kidnapped them, taken them prisoner against their will, basically caused this. She didn't owe them any loyalty!
And yet... their city was still burning, but she could take away some tiny part of that guilt.
"They escaped. After Searing Gale broke your defenses... they flew off. Probably to that pony town far down the mountain. They're long gone by now."
"With our secret," Rain Shine said, rising to her hooves again. "They know where we live, and now we have no defenses to hide us from investigation. If the ponies come hunting us, they will find a trail of black smoke to lead them directly here."
Lotus stood up too, taking a nervous step back from the powerful kirin. Rain Shine still towered over her, though far less dramatic than when Searing Gale was there. For one, the heat wasn't burning her away.
"Equestria isn't your enemy. Iron Feather isn't going to bring an invasion—he just wanted to help me get that book to Princess Luna, so we could trap Searing Gale. But now that it's gone..." She trailed off, ears folding flat. "I don't know how anyone will stop her now."
Rain Shine levitated the bundle onto the ground in front of her, touching against her foreleg. "I reverse my judgment, Lotus Cinder. You wished to leave this village—you may go. This is enough to walk down the mountain to the pony settlement. Go with my blessing."
Lotus levitated the bundle up into the air, then settled it over her shoulders. It was a saddlebag, heavy with supplies. Canteens, maybe a few tight wraps of food.
Nothing remained of her old life anymore—nothing she owned, not her body, not even her name. Only Gus, waiting somewhere down the mountain. 
“Just like that?” she asked. “After keeping us here for weeks?”
The kirin shrugged. “The shield is gone. Searing Gale rampages across the world. There is no longer anything to gain by imprisoning you in Hono. Besides—if I had not kept you here, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. But you are not required to leave. It might be wise to remain. Whatever fate the ancient queen has planned for us, she has always been concerned with the salvation of her own kind. She will not burn it too badly, or else take her own future with it. If you remain, your life may be spared."
They aren't strong enough to fight. They don't want to. Whatever other lies Searing Gale repeated, there was one truth. These were the children of pacifists; they wouldn't be going to war. They wouldn't even fight her.
"I'd like to come back here. Worked a lot of construction with my family, maybe I could help rebuild. But not now—not with Searing Gale still out there. Whatever awful things she did to you, she'll do much worse to Equestria. Someone has to stop her." She started walking. Slowly—slow enough that she wouldn't tread on any resting kirins, or the remnants of some precious artifacts unearthed from the ruins.
"It need not be you," Rain Shine called after her. "There are so few of us—perhaps Hono is the last settlement of our kind in the whole world. Equestria is a nation with millions of ponies. They will find a solution. It is their battle to fight."
"I brought that book into their world," Lotus whispered. She didn't know if Rain Shine could even hear her, but she didn't care. Those words weren't for her. "I'm the reason she got it. I can't hide now."
She walked through the burned village, body aching and smeared with ash and blood. That meant she fit right in with the other survivors. Though most of those wandered listlessly through the ruins, or else worked with purpose, digging for loved ones or possessions.
The temptation to stay and help was powerful—it might even be the right thing. But if Lotus saw only the town right in front of her, a whole nation might suffer the same fate.
No kirin tried to stop her. Most showed no sign of even recognizing her—she was another wanderer, another who would have to cope with a river of boiled fish, burned crops, and beautiful gardens in ruin.
She was nearly at the wall when someone finally called her name. "Lotus Cinder! Lotus, wait!" That voice came from far behind—there were no guards on the perimeter anymore. Anyone with the skill and bravery for that kind of work was helping with the rescue.
Autumn Blaze appeared from the charred doors of a house, galloping after her.
Lotus waited for her to reach her, pawing at the charred soil. The sun wasn't up yet, but the moon had almost set, and a single thin line split the distant horizon, signal of a sunrise soon to come. That was good, it meant she wouldn't have to walk down an unknown mountain in the dark.
"Saw you leaving. Rain Shine said you could go? Guess after—you know—you were right about everything... she didn't really have a hoof to stand on."
Lotus nodded once. "I wish I wasn't, Autumn. Hono was beautiful. You didn't deserve that."
The other kirin shrugged. "Eh, this isn't as bad as it looks. The only real loss was the castle, and that illusion spell. We're used to rebuilding the rest. Have to, when you're a half-dragon living in a wooden house."
She lifted something in her magic towards Lotus, a bundle of plain cloth wrapped in twine. But through one side, a glimpse of crimson silk poked through.
"I don't know what's waiting for you down there. Ponies might blame you for whatever the queen was doing to them. Might throw you in prison, or worse. Our ancestors tried living with them once. Turns out, they don't do well with creatures different than they are. Kind of a character flaw."
Lotus shook her head confidently. "Maybe that was true in the old days. But the ponies I've met weren't that way. Not Iron Feather—"
Autumn suppressed a laugh with her hoof. How she could manage that while standing on the ash that was once a rolling field of grass, Lotus would never understand. "Well duh not him. But maybe it's cheating to count the stallion sharing your bed?"
She blushed so brightly she might've caught fire right then, if she hadn't already burned her Nirik form so recently. There was no fire left in her now, just flattened ears and a tucked tail. "We didn't start that way. Or even as friends. But we got there. And Princess Luna—I talked to her a lot too. She didn't care what I was, she still taught me magic. Everything I didn't learn from Searing Gale." 
Lotus took hold of the bundle in her magic, pulling it close to inspect. Sure enough, the borrowed gown was inside, intact. "Why give me this? If you think the ponies are going to..."
Autumn Blaze shrugged again. "Not even a real dragon knows what the future will look like, Lotus. You gotta go out there and live it. If it wasn't for the sorceress... I might want to go with you." 
She took another step back, towards the smoldering ruins. "But not with what happened to Hono. My home needs me. If you're not gonna stay, you should take a little piece of it with you."
Lotus nodded tearfully, then slipped it away into her open saddlebag. "You don't... b-blame me?"
"Nah!" Autumn bounced over to a brightly blooming bush of blue flowers. "We still have a village!" She touched them with one hoof, and the bush crumbled, scattered desiccated petals to the wind. She winced. "Eh. Mostly."
Lotus swallowed, taking another step towards the gate. Maybe in the heart of Hono no kirin could tell who she was—but as she left, she drew their attention. Some of those eyes were angry, or resentful, or just sad. It was hard to tell with their faces so smeared with ash.
"Look, you tried to warn us. Now we rebuild, replant, regrow. Kirin aren't flammable, we'll make it. Assuming Equestria doesn't fly up the mountains to blast us. If you get the chance, tell them we're not genocidal monsters, alright? I'm not convinced they all know."
"I'll do that," she promised. "And when this is over, I'll be back to visit. If... you'll let me in."
"Sure! You can crash on my couch if you want, I've got like three of them."
She gave the kirin a brief hug—light enough that she wouldn't stop to reconsider leaving. For now, anyway. If Equestria didn't want her help, she would find her way back. When it was time.
"If those friends of yours made it out..." Autumn finished, once she had let go. "Keep them from getting too singed, okay? And if you have any foals, bring them too. I'm basically their aunt at this point."





That was Lotus's cue to leave, before the embarrassment built up enough that she actually did light more stuff on fire. She slipped through the gate, now without even a spark of magic brushing against her coat. Not even a trace remained.
The survivors won't be able to recreate that spell. She knew it with total confidence, just as she knew that she had to find Iron and Gus. The culture she'd seen sheltered on this mountain was too focused on its survival, it didn't have time for the number of skilled specialists for such incredible feats.
There might have been information about how to accomplish it in Gale's book—but now that was ashes. At least she hadn't burned the library.
Lotus had last made this trek while surrounded by guides, and not given much time to learn the direction. It had almost felt deliberate, trying to prevent them from relaying any information about the village's location even if they did escape.
But Lotus couldn't fly like the others to get a better perspective—she would have to walk, wandering along cliffs and through forests towards the vague direction she remembered seeing the pony town below.
It wasn't within sight from the village's exit, nor was it by noon when the sun finally rose high into the sky. By then Lotus had emptied both canteens, and her coat was soaked with the sweat and dirt of hard travel.
That part wasn't so bad—she was already filthy from the flames that consumed Hono. What were a few more awful smells to join the disgusting bouquet?
Towering tropical trees gave way to bare slope, then grassland, and more. Whatever else was true about Equestria, it wasn't a densely populated country—or this part wasn't. So not that different from her old home.
Whether or not Lotus would ever see Livingston again, she still didn't know. Maybe Searing Gale would win, and leave no princess to send her back. Or maybe with the book gone, Equestria wouldn't be so friendly to her. She couldn't deliver their salvation anymore.
Then she reached a ridge overlooking a precipitous cliff, and she finally saw it. Not the town, though that might be lost in the space behind it—this was much closer.
Lotus had seen blimps before, and photographs of the lighter-than-air zeppelin once built in her world.
The airship rising up from beneath her was closer to the latter, with a silvery rigid body of reflective metal, bearing a simple painted glyph on both sides—a crescent moon, encircled by a wreath of feathers. Windows and other openings scattered along its length. Some might be for cannons, others showing the doors to balconies along its top, or curved viewing platforms.
That shouldn't be in the air. Lotus's basic understanding of physics rebelled at what she saw—at least three hundred meters long, yet every inch seemed packed with stuff. Decks, windows, silhouettes moving inside, the barrels of cannons. Didn't zeppelins have to be mostly empty to fly?
She was missing the point, of course. Figuring out how the craft flew was far less important than making sure it noticed her.
She jumped energetically up and down, waving her hooves towards the huge ship.
It kept rising, and was soon level with her, tilted sharply upward with the nose. Massive engines mounted to the back pushed it forward at a pace no pony could run, and stubby fins along all four sides directed it in the air. They were directing it right past her.
"Wait!" Lotus focused on her horn, using one of the simplest spells she had learned—light. She pointed her horn at the largest windows, then blasted out with a spray of sparkles and amber light, sizzling to flame at the edges. 
She dropped to one leg a second later, panting from the effort. But someone had to have—
On its top deck, several figures leapt off the side, spreading their wings wide. At her distance, she couldn't yet recognize them by shape, only the color.
Iron Feather led them, his body a sharp contrast against the afternoon sky. Of course it would be him.
Lotus Cinder couldn't think of another pony she would rather be her rescuer.