The next morning, I returned to the Wilderwind tower to find that I had done a better job fixing my armor than they had done fixing my hole.
A warning cone was present to ward creatures off from the uneven depression in the plaza, pushed slightly to the side as a pair of pegasi in hard hats sketched around it with chalk, wielding tape measures and clipboards. It looked slightly more like they were delineating a construction zone than trying to reconstruct a crime scene, but just in case, I didn't linger.
I slipped through the rotating glass doors into the tower lobby, questions about Flarefeather's legs gnawing relentlessly at my mind. After an hour of armor polishing to calm my thoughts, I had managed to make it through the night, but no amount of self-reassurances like but she was clearly not malicious would suffice anymore. I needed to know why someone else could share my most distinctive physical trait - a trait held by the old me, Procyon, and not my current form, no less.
Before leaving Icereach, I had always assumed my hooves were just a me thing. Unusual, but within the realm of just being an ordinary coloration that I had an inexplicable phobia of showing to others. Between Procyon and Faye's stories, it now seemed much more likely their current blood red color was a product of my self-image translating into my physical appearance, using changeling magic that I couldn't consciously control. But assuming all that was true, and that Procyon really did wear my original form, then my original hypothesis still worked for her hooves. Striking, distinctive, incredibly unusual, but no reason to suspect they weren't just the product of plain old luck and genetics.
And now, it seemed there was more to it than that.
The first possibility my brain could cook up was that these were the mark of a changeling queen, and Flarefeather was somehow just like me. But if that was the case, it wasn't universally true. Coda didn't look this way, and I had never heard anything indicating Chrysalis had, either. And it would be a silly identifier if it was the case because any half-competent changeling queen would just hide them to avoid being found out.
So, I took solace in the fact that there was hopefully a slightly more mundane explanation than that. But the dilemma I couldn't solve was whether Flarefeather had shown me her leg knowing I was the same, or it had been a complete accident. She said she thought I knew what it meant... but that could just have been because I looked so surprised, right?
If there was something that pattern could mean that was innocuous enough that she could expect a stranger to know, well, I was in the dark. And I needed to find out.
I strode across the lobby floor to the elevator area, feeling much more like I belonged here than the past two visits. At first glance, neither Flarefeather nor Lissa was present - in fact, very few were, indicative of a morning rush hour.
"Hey there," said a tiny griffoness in a neon green uniform with an even tinier beak and outrageously squishy cheeks. "May I ask your business today?"
"Looking for Flarefeather," I said, giving her a slight nod. "Is she in today?"
The griffoness curtsied and winked. "Did I even need to ask? She's with a client, and you can be next in line. Happy waiting!"
Remembering Flarefeather's advice to try talking with the other elevator girls while I waited rather than sit on my own, I opened my mouth to make small talk... and then a griffon pushed past me from behind.
Well, griffon might have been a generous term. He looked as though his eagle half had actually been made from a turkey instead.
"Hey, uh," he grunted, sounding winded from the walk across the lobby. "Any of you ladies free? Oh, sorry, I'm not cutting in line, am I? Got a, uh, a conference on floor three..."
The tiny griffoness gave him a very professional smile. "Hey there, mind if I check your... Oh, your ID's all set! Right this way, sir..."
I got a faint sense of missed opportunity from her as she turned her back on me and the elevator doors closed behind her. Not too surprising. I had no idea how she saw me, as an ostensible friend of a friend, but smiling all day long at guys like that had to be tough. And, looking behind me, there were enough griffons and pegasi hot on his tail that the other elevator girls probably didn't need me distracting them from their duties.
Though, maybe Flarefeather had asked me to distract them because they wanted it.
But I had already stolen away one of the tower's staff for the previous evening, and unless a dramatic revelation about our hooves convinced me to ditch Flarefeather immediately today, I was about to do it again. So I retreated to the waiting area, took up the same bench I had used last night, and pondered how strange it was that I had gone from the half-deliberately-awkward filly in Icereach who went out of her way not to be talked to to someone on-duty employees would rather chat up than do their jobs.
Twenty minutes passed, during which the supply of elevator girls dwindled to exactly one, and ponies and griffons started piling up beside me in the waiting area. That one, I guessed, was required to stay here to guard the elevators, because she continually rebuffed the formation of a line, telling all comers to stop and wait their turn. I didn't see a ticketing system, though. How was this supposed to work, everyone just got priority in terms of how important they were?
At the very least, most creatures weren't accompanied for the entire duration of their visits. I watched the elevators come and go, and the griffoness who had greeted me came and went several more times, usually only five minutes per trip, rarely returning with the client she left with. Maybe they only escorted them to and from the rooms where they did business? Maybe waiting around for clients during their meetings was something they only did during off hours, or for particularly important meetings? Probably the latter, because Flarefeather wasn't back yet despite the volume of traffic. Or maybe someone just needed her in person for something.
Eventually, though, my waiting paid off, an elevator opening to reveal her with a sleazy teal pegasus with an oily black mane. Even from a distance, I could see the insincerity in her smile as she bade him farewell, the glint in her eyes as she spotted me, and the spring in her step as she ducked behind a freight elevator-tier stallion with the world's smallest toupe to come meet me.
"Aww, look who showed up!" she greeted with a pose and a wink, raising her voice to carry over the din of the lobby chatter. "Might I ask your business?"
"Only if we can talk outside," I grunted loudly, bringing back my stoic front from yesterday. "Sensitive business. Too many prying eyes here."
Flarefeather pursed her lips, shushed herself and downright pranced at my side back out into the plaza.
When we were free of the rotating doors, she let out a hefty sigh. "Whew! Haha. Okay. Seeensitive business?"
I shrugged. "Just figured you could use a cool-looking excuse not to get picked up by whoever in that crowd had the biggest hurry."
Flarefeather chuckled, and I found myself chuckling too.
"Well, hope I didn't keep you waiting," Flarefeather apologized. "That one was a problem customer - we profile everyone who comes through our doors and keep records on behavior to see exactly how much they can be trusted to be left alone, and he's a serial kleptomaniac. Even goes rifling through vases and potted plants when he thinks no one's looking. Sooo...?"
I shook my head. "Wilderwind's business fashion sure is a contest of slobs versus snobs. I can see why you want an excuse to be anywhere else."
Flarefeather nodded seriously. "Yeah, forgive me if I massage you with my eyes a bit. They need a break. And there's a long history behind the lack of self-respect some of those guys have, if you're a history buff."
"Speaking of keeping me waiting, though," I said, rounding on her and raising an eyebrow. "You sure left on a cliffhanger yesterday."
"What do you know, so I did!" Flarefeather grinned. "And it looks like it did its job, because here you are again! Wanna... walk and talk?"
I looked her up and down. No sinister vibes, certainly no more than yesterday. Not that this made me any less curious... "Alright. Where should we go?"
Flarefeather cheerfully shrugged. "What are you in the mood for? Food, entertainment, thrills? Cute stuff, cool stuff? Exclusive VIP stuff? We could even do boring stuff if you want to be a non-conformist."
"Nowhere risky," I requested. "How about... Err..."
An idea suddenly rolled over in my brain. "Show me a good side of town," I asked her. "Somewhere that's not just dubious money grubbers and whatever those business goons in the tower are."
"Aww, somewhere inspiring?" Flarefeather winked. "And safe, to boot? This filly knows just the place. Come, come on!"
She jogged a few paces away, spreading her wings before remembering at the last second that I couldn't fly. "Wait, you fixed your armor!"
"From the fall?" I shrugged. "Yeah, it just took a bit of polishing. Only cosmetic damage."
"You should make me some armor sometime," Flarefeather suggested. "Granted, I dunno how much more can be done to accentuate a physique this good. And I do like my speed. But wouldn't that be an awesome token of friendship? I'd trade you for it."
"Trade what?" I asked, falling in alongside her. "A continuation of our conversation from last night?"
Flarefeather waggled a booted hoof at me, grabbing the lip of the boot in a teasing grin. "That's really got your attention, huh? What are you thinking? Wanna see it again? Maybe all four at once? That one's gonna cost you a favor and a half."
I hesitated. "Look, I'm pretty sure you mean it innocently, but I've got a history with owing favors..."
"Yep. We covered that last night." Flarefeather nodded seriously, then skipped ahead and started walking backwards, facing me. "This is all part of the plan to get you to lighten up, remember? A little you rub my back, a little I rub yours, a few innocent favors back and forth with no strings attached? We have a little fun, and in the end, you get to write it off as a great deal that didn't get wrecked by your silly curse. And maybe it doesn't come out perfectly one hundred percent even in one direction or the other, and then I get to teach you that nobody cares. Right?"
"Is that what we're doing?" I frowned.
"Yep!" She beamed. "Now, the question you should be asking is, 'How can I pamper you in exchange for seeing your cool secrets, Flarefeather?' And believe me, I've already thought up dozens of innocuous and even platonic ways to respond, so I'll be a little miffed if you don't give me a chance to use them."
I raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want me to ask that?"
Flarefeather gave me a huge grin that said try me.
So I did. With all of the acting talent I always thought I possessed in Icereach, even though I was never sure how well it translated to the real world. Twirling on one hind leg, I struck a stupid pose with my butt out to the side and one hoof on my cheek, landing a giant wink with a toothy grin. "How can I pamper you in exchange for seeing your cool secrets, Flarefeather?"
Flarefeather's eyes went pinprick for half a second before she fell over laughing.
"Hey, you asked for it," I sighed, poking at her with a wingtip.
"I had no idea you'd actually go through with it," Flarefeather wheezed. "People aren't supposed to say the lines I give them, you know. Those only work when you're wearing one of these." She patted her salacious neon uniform. "Although, now I'm pondering what I wouldn't give to see you in one..."
"Information," I pressed. "Come on, tell me about your... You know?"
Flarefeather stood up, finally seeming to take me seriously. "Well, what's there to say? Like, you did recognize that, right? You looked like you did. What doesn't speak for itself?"
I lowered my voice just a little. "I've seen someone with it before, but I don't know what it means. And it was in kind of a worrying context last time, too."
"Oooooh..." Flarefeather glanced away in guilty realization. "So I totally accidentally caused you to freak out about this for all of last night? Wow, your luck really is terrible."
I nodded in mild annoyance. "Yeah, you can say that again. So what is it? Something actually innocuous?"
"It's the Royal Spectrum," Flarefeather explained. "It's, well... It appears on the descendants of sphinxes. Only, the thing is, it almost exclusively appears on griffons. Have you ever looked at a griffon's front legs? You know how they sometimes have those little bands of color above one talon, before the floof starts?"
"That's it?" I blinked in realization. "That's all it is?"
"Yeah," Flarefeather went on, letting her voice go back up to normal. "It's hereditary, and lasts for a few generations before fading. And the fact that only griffons get it is part of why this is the Griffon Empire and not the Griffons And Ponies Empire. Except, sometimes, maybe around one in ten thousand, that rule breaks. And when ponies get it, it shows up on all of our legs, and is way more colorful and visible."
"Point that out to me next time we pass a griffon with it," I requested. "I need to see this."
Flarefeather frowned. "You not from around here, or something? Well, I guess we established that you don't fit the local ethos, but there are griffons all around the world."
"Not where I'm from." I shook my head. "Long story, I'll tell you later."
"Well, I'll hold you to that." Flarefeather nodded resolutely. "And point it out when I see it. Anyway, mine's tied to the last line of House Izvaldi. Each province has its own, or more like each province lord's lineage. And the sphinxes themselves had no clue what theirs would look like until they had offspring. It's kind of weird, because a province lord's sphinx offspring will pass on the same colors as their parents, but the lords in the first place came from excess male heirs to the imperial line in Grandbell, so it's like the color just chooses to differ when you get your own land... There must be some magic at play behind the mechanics of how it gets decided. But isn't that cool?"
"So you're descended from Lord Izvaldi," I said, remembering long ago in Equestria when Starlight told me about my own parentage... A griffon noble, the Izvaldi regent, had by all accounts been my father by blood. Did that make us some degree of cousins?
Maybe I'd have to tell her, just so her flirting didn't get more awkward than she realized.
"Sure am," Flarefeather chirped, bumping my shoulder with her own. "That means you're hobnobbing with royalty, by the way."
"Didn't the sphinxes have crazy numbers of children, though?" I asked, skeptical.
Flarefeather puffed up her cheeks and pouted. "Well, pfft, who asked you? I thought you didn't know much about royal lineages and all that. But yeah, they do. Most of the the time. Not many like me, though."
I flicked an ear. "So how did the Izvaldi family tree look, anyway? I heard it had a griffon regent?"
"Okay, so." Flarefeather brightened, clearly prepared to answer this question at length. "Lord Goraldi Izvaldi was the last sphinx to take the throne, and nobody knows exactly when he died because his death was kept secret for ages for political reasons. His eldest son was Lord Victor, the first griffon regent. And then Victor's eldest son was Lord Percival, the second griffon regent, who was in charge up until the war happened. Got that much?"
I nodded. Simple enough.
"Now," Flarefeather went on. "Goraldi had, like... actually not that many kids? By Wilderwind standards. And a lot of them who weren't Victor randomly died. In suspicious circumstances. Lesson from history, if your big brother is kind of evil and has or wants a throne, don't give him any reason to think you might usurp him. Used to happen all the time. What a great system, right?" She rolled her eyes.
"If half of Wilderwind is related to Lord Wilderwind, how come they aren't all dead for the same reason?" I asked, tilting my head.
Flarefeather shrugged. "Oh, that's easy. This only becomes a problem when the sphinx passes on without any sphinx heirs. No need to assassinate someone who can't steal your throne because you're a sphinx and they're not. Lord Wilderwind just waited to kick the bucket until the system collapsed, and boom, the military took charge."
"It was that easy?" I frowned.
"Yep." Flarefeather grinned. "Turns out already having a system in place for allowing up-and-coming leaders to raise their own armies funnels all the upstarts into the existing framework, and lookie there, no one company could get strong enough to mount a war of succession. Bureaucracy can be good for things!"
It sounded more to me like a coup had just been performed using claims based on legal authority rather than blood, but I had no reason to argue. "So where do you fit into the family tree?"
Flarefeather nodded along. "Yeah, so, one of Goraldi's sons had half a brain and married into minor Everlaste nobility and went to live there instead. The guy was a pegasus called Lord Crowscone - really questionable name, I know. But it was a smart move for staying alive! Anyway, that guy was my dad. Please don't do the math, by the way. I was an illicit off-the-books love child nobody knew about, and he was old enough at the time that it's kind of gross to think about."
"Huh. So that would make you Goraldi's granddaughter, and Percival's cousin..." I trailed off, keeping the rest of my musing in my head. If Percival was my father, then we were... what, first cousins once removed? Was that how that worked? A generation apart, even though we looked to be about the same age. "Right?"
Flarefeather gave an affirmative wing salute, twirling her rose rapier for emphasis. "Nailed it in one! You're pretty smart, mystery mare."
I blinked, an awkward thought just now occurring. "Wait, have I not told you my name?"
"You know, I was wondering if that was deliberate," Flarefeather said with a wry smile. "Were you holding out on me for a reason, or did you really just forget?"
I felt myself redden.
"Well!" Flarefeather patted me on the back with a gregarious wing. "Congratulations, now Lissa owes both of us lunch. I was pretty sure you were just spacey, but after I told her they got you in to see Geirskogul without giving the secretary a name either, she was convinced. This is a good deal for you, by the way. I'm sure you'll like Lissa, too."
"You tell her about what happens while you're sitting around waiting for random clients to get out of meetings?" I folded my ears. "Does being in love actually make you do stuff like that, or are you just doing it to show off?"
Flarefeather mashed a wingtip against my muzzle to shut me up. "Nuh uh uh. You can ask me for deets about my love life after you give me your name, sarosian. I had my fun, but no trying to wriggle out of this now that the bet's been called."
"It's Halcyon," I said. "My name. And you're the one who never asked."
"Halcyon, huh?" Flarefeather rolled it around on her tongue. "I like it! Gives off a kind of 'ye olden dayes' vibe. I'm Flarefeather, by the way. Since you also never asked." She threw in a cheeky wink.
I rolled my eyes. "I already said your name. When I was miming your silly request, remember?"
"Wrong word; mimes are supposed to be silent." Flarefeather spun in a circle. "Anyway, walk and talk successful. What do you think?"
I blinked, paying more attention to my surroundings. We were in some sort of recessed courtyard that had been meticulously designed to appear a lot bigger than it actually was, and very difficult to see from afar. Sculpted pillars held up the edges around an open-air center, the rest of the city continuing up on the roof even as the courtyard stretched on below. We had gotten here courtesy of a curved, descending road that cut a neat trench down to the courtyard's entrance, and were far from alone.
Dozens of griffons and ponies milled about, mostly between my age and thirty. Most of them were either unclothed or wore sophisticated dress in line with the better-presented business attire of the tower, but a few seemed to be making a show of artful buffoonery with their appearances. I got the impression they were parodying the sloppier of the tower dwellers, the ones who had let their appearances go to seed: their garb was just a little bit more coordinated in its rudeness, their mismatched colors slightly more artistically mismatched and their cravats folded despite being untucked.
"Where are we?" I asked, noting that the decor was more tasteful as well, despite being the most lavish I had seen since the tower. This place was still trying to show off, but it felt more like a museum than a casino.
"The Wilderwind School of Business Acumen," Flarefeather proudly announced. "This proud institution is over eight hundred years old."
A school? My ears perked up. "Does it have a library?"
"One of the oldest in the Empire that's still standing." Flarefeather gave me a cheesy, noodly smile. "Why? Are you a neeerd?"
I blinked, Corsica temporarily superimposing herself over Flarefeather in my vision. She could have said the exact same thing, on a good day.
Before Flarefeather could notice my hesitation, I shook my head to clear it. "I know how to appreciate a properly curated library from time to time. And you're proud of this place too, since you said you were taking me somewhere inspiring."
"Aww, well, you caught me." Flarefeather hung her head in mock disgrace. "Yeah, I like it here. I mean, this is where the best and the brightest of the younger generation congregates, right? Everyone here is the future."
I tilted my head. "Have you actually studied here?"
"Not as a student." Flarefeather shrugged. "My job as an escort usually makes me too busy for stuff like that. But I sure have a lot of experience with what the current generation in power is like. Whatever comes next has gotta be better than those blowhards, right?"
"That's a cynical way to put it," I pointed out.
"Hey." Flarefeather gave me a jaded look. "You wear this suit, take this rapier, and do my job for one single day, and then tell me you don't agree."
I stared at her, wondering what the politest way would be to decline.
As I stared, Flarefeather slowly started smiling.
I frowned. "What?"
She pulled up close to me ear, and whispered, "Staring doesn't have to be free."
I shook my head and walked a few paces away. "I can't tell if you took me seriously or not when I said I don't really do non-platonic stuff..."
Flarefeather innocently shrugged. "Hey, can't blame me for getting mixed signals. You're the one sending 'em. Anyway, the school is cool and all, and I could talk your ear off about its modern role trying to restore the city's magic, or its historical role teaching merchants and diplomats how to interact with Varsidel and who cares what else, but this actually isn't the part I wanted you to see. You wanna go a little further in?"
"Lead the way," I said, following in her hoofsteps.
The underground campus was surprisingly large. Compared to the city up above, it had straight, well-designed corridors designed to get people where they were going, and felt like a more utilitarian version of the upper reaches of Cold Karma. The city surface, on the other hoof, more resembled a bowl of spaghetti...
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the reason for the shift in architecture, though in my defense, I was unaccustomed to looking for it: ceilings everywhere meant no one could fly. The city above didn't need to be optimized for transportation, and in fact keeping it unoptimized probably helped the ruling winged class feel superior. I didn't mind tunnels, though. In fact, I liked them. They brought everyone else down to my level.
Hopefully Flarefeather wouldn't find out that it wasn't just the weight of my armor, and I actually couldn't fly.
"Here we go," Flarefeather said, opening a door to another sector that had a different air to it, with far fewer ponies around. In fact, the only one I saw was sitting just inside the door, on a stool by the intersection of a hallway, reading a book.
They were dressed in the characteristic garb of the Night's Boon.
"Ah! Flarefeather," the stallion said in a brisk, pleasant voice, perhaps in his early thirties. "Come to visit the kids again? And with a friend?" He sized me up, then raised an interested eyebrow. "Are you a sarosian?"
"This is Halcyon," Flarefeather sang in a slightly more cutsey voice, showing off her uniform. "And I'm technically on the job, but she's a friend, too. Mind if we drop in?"
"Oh, well, of course!" The stallion bowed deeply, then offered me a hoof. "My name is Poplar. It's a pleasure to have you here, Miss Halcyon. A friend of Flarefeather's is a friend of ours."
"Likewise." I uncertainly bumped his hoof. "But, she sort of brought me here for fun and on a whim, and I don't really trust her to explain what's going on."
"Ahh." Poplar bowed again. "Milady, would I be ruining the surprise were I to answer any more of our guest's questions? I do so love raising awareness of this place, but if you have dibs..."
Flarefeather puffed out her cheeks. "Dibs! Dibs dibs dibs. I totally have them. Come on, where are the kids?" She hopped up and down impatiently.
Poplar laughed. "Well, as long as your eccentricity doesn't rub our guest the wrong way. Please, after me."
The corridors of this wing ran in a rectangular lattice, each rectangle surrounding four laboratory-style classrooms with short, room-width windows designed for public viewing. When I peeked in, however, I saw not desks and machinery and test tubes but foals' play equipment. A collection of interlocking foam mats, arrayed blankets for nap time, a large chest of numbered wooden blocks... This was clearly no college.
One of the rooms was occupied. Through the window, I stared as at least thirty colorful foals frolicked and played, their ages varying between just old enough to stand and ready to learn their times tables. Several more adults in Night's Boon garb watched over them, most of them around Poplar's age.
"One moment while I announce your presence," Poplar said, budging open a door and slipping lithely inside.
"Okay," Flarefeather breathed the moment he was gone. "Ground rules: literally just be a sarosian and stand around doing sarosian things. This'll be cool, I promise this'll be cool. Also, don't tell them I'm not a real princess. I've already tried, and they won't believe you. Now, do you mind helping me get this outfit off? In a platonic manner. We're all adults up in the tower, but duds this saucy will set a bad example for the kids."
Huh. She was actually nervous. Stage fright, specifically. Curious, I decided to help her, though I knew absolutely nothing about working with clothes on a body that couldn't shadow sneak to make it easier, let alone belonged to someone else. In the time it took me to find the hidden zipper underneath the top of her skirt, she had all four boots and her headdress sitting by the door in a pile. Fortunately, she neither made a flirty joke nor seemed to misread the source of my embarrassment.
"...Hold up, though." I stepped back once the deed was done, seeing Flarefeather for the first time without most of her regalia, all four of her legs colored like a dramatic alpine dawn. I couldn't say it without it being taken the wrong way, but she actually looked way better this way... "Aren't those supposed to be a secret?"
Flarefeather gave me a toothy, pickle-shaped grin. "Yeah, they are... Not! I lied to impress you." She hesitated, then added, "I mean, they're sort of a secret. Don't go telling random strangers. Just, it's not literally me and Lissa and a few other escorts who know. Um, you're fine with that armor getting played with, right? No weapons that could accidentally fall out?"
She stared conspicuously at my greatsword. I unstrapped the sword and propped it against the wall next to her things.
"Nothing else?" She raised an eyebrow. "Daggers, blowdarts, shurikens, cursed magic whachamahoozit you said saved you from the fall?"
I shook my head, lifting my foreleg and tapping my bracelet. "None of those, and it's a much worse idea for me to take this off than leave it on. I'll be careful."
Just then, the door opened again, Poplar beckoning us both inside.
In the room, the teachers and caretakers stood to the side. The foals and grifflets were all corralled in the center, in something resembling a military parade formation, and from the efforts of the older ones to nudge the younger ones back into their positions, I realized they had probably learned this of their own volition.
"Hello, my subjects!" Flarefeather declared in a faux royal accent, her mane long enough to sweep dramatically as she walked toward them now that it was no longer tied up by her ribbon.
An older grifflet held two talons to his beak and made a surprisingly good imitation trumpet solo noise. The foal formation broke down cheering, and I hesitantly followed Flarefeather as she carved a path with her wings up to the edge of the room, where everyone could see.
"Princess Izvaldi has a treat for you today, my subjects, yes!" Flarefeather crowed, sweeping a wing slowly towards me... and then, in a snap motion, grabbing my head and pulling it closer to the crowd of children.
"Look!" she urged, tugging on my ears, trying to get them to stand up straight so she could show off their leafy buts, pulling out my wings and flexing them for me, prizing open my mouth to show off my fangs. "Ears: real! Eyes: real! Everything, real! They all told you sarosians were extinct, but lo, one has entered my vassalage, the knight Halcyon!"
Mercifully, she let go of my face, focusing on the children instead. "I've been wanting to teach you about sarosians for a while now. Who here can tell me where sarosians are from? You?" She pointed at a waggling pink hoof.
"The moon," said a wide-eyed pink filly.
"Mmm, not quite," Flarefeather hummed. "But here's a hint: it was always night there."
A grifflet was hopping up and down, so Flarefeather picked him next. "Da Misty Mountains!" he exuberantly declared.
"Yes, Mistvale," Flarefeather corrected. "Now, who knows what Mistvale was like? What kinds of places there do you think sarosians lived in?"
"Boats," said a unicorn colt without being called on. "They lived on boats and were pirates for a living. And the pirate ships fought with Garsheeva!"
"They fought Garsheeva's own ships," Flarefeather gently told him. "But they also lived in Mistvale as well. Mistvale had a lot of mountains, with cities at the tops of the mountains, and more sarosians living in the valleys between the mountains. And the cities were enchanted so that their plants glowed blue in the dark."
"Where were you from?" a filly asked me. "Everyone in Mistvale's supposed to be dead, so are you from somewhere else?"
Flarefeather gave me a look that said the ball's in your court.
"Yeah-" I started to say, when I was interrupted by another grifflet.
"Are you a zombie?" the grifflet asked. "I heard that you can come back from the dead."
"No," a filly protested, "being dead means you can't come back from the dead!"
I swung in a quarter circle, causing my cloak to billow and recapturing their drifting attention. "Heh! Heh. I have climbed to the roof of the world, traveled the darkened sea on the cloaks of gods, peered into the afterlife and clawed myself back out. How else do you think I survived the ending of my race? I... err..."
The kids were mostly confused, so I sighed, dropped the act and let my voice return to normal. "I'm from across the sea to the west. And no, I'm not undead. Does anyone know what countries are to the west of here?"
"Gyre," said the unicorn colt who had spoken without being called on earlier. "And then the desert."
"That's east," Flarefeather corrected with a smile. "West means across the ocean. Does anyone know their geography?"
A studious filly had her hoof up without jabbing it around, so I called on her. "In the west, there are Ironridge, Varsidel, Yakyakistan and Silverwind," she reported dutifully, looking to Flarefeather for approval.
"Silverwind is a myth," said the unicorn colt, clearly trying to restore his street cred by scoring a win.
One of the real teachers waiting on the sidelines came and scooped him up. "Hey!" he protested. "It is a myth!"
"Silverwind isn't a myth," Flarefeather told the crowd, "it's just empty and has nobody living there, just like Mistvale is now. The world has a lot of empty spots. And a lot of spots we think are empty, but might actually have rare discoveries waiting to be discovered. And other times, they have new people to meet instead! Don't you all thing being able to see distant lands with your own eyes would be amazing? Now, I know all of you can't go traveling until you're older, but until then, I've got your back with my stories, okay? Alright! Before we leave, does anyone have any questions for my knight, Halcyon?"
Somehow, no one blurted, so I was able to pick a talon.
"Are you really able to turn invisible?" the grifflet asked, clearly expecting a demonstration.
I shrugged. I could do that. "Can anyone dim the lights, just a little?"
One of the teachers got up and obliged, and soon the room was dim enough for me to shadow sneak. I sunk into the floor up to my chin.
The crowd rumbled with enamored whisperings. "Pick me!" a filly begged, barely able to contain herself.
I glanced around, and the children close to her didn't seem to be pressing questions. Taking that as a sign that they were giving her a turn, I nodded, selecting her.
"Are powers like those how sarosians helped High Prince Gazelle topple the Empire?" she asked, curious and earnest.
I bit my lip. "Probably? I might be the wrong pony to ask about that. Too young to have been around back then."
A grifflet rotated to face Flarefeather. "You should get an older knight," he advised.
"Hey." Flarefeather grimaced. "If someone actually was old enough to remember those days, the last thing they'd want to do is talk about them, so you'll have to settle for stories from youngsters like her. And me. And anyway, getting old isn't as fun as it sounds. You kids are lucky because you get to hang out with each other all day long. Old people are boring. Now, can Princess Izvaldi and her knight Halcyon get a grand procession on their way out?"
The trumpet grifflet enthusiastically returned to his role, the older children clearly relishing the role of showing off their choreography. And, a minute later, we were out.
"Be honest with me," I teased as Flarefeather put her work uniform back on. "You only brought us here to have an excuse to yank on my ears."
"To platonically play with your ears," Flarefeather corrected. "And sure, that was like... fifteen percent of the reason. Maybe twenty. But you did want to see something inspiring, right?"
"Those kids?" I tilted my head.
"Me!" Flarefeather insisted, getting up in my face. "Performing a selfless act of community service? No rewards, going above and beyond the call of duty? And, yeah, the kids. I mean, don't you like kids?"
Poplar was waiting for us, and stepped out from around a corner. "The majority of those kids belong to students here, you know."
I lifted my ears.
"Sorry for stealing your thunder, but it looked like you were floundering a little," Poplar said to Flarefeather as she struggled with a bow strap. "And I can't help myself when I see an opportunity." He turned back to me. "About twenty years ago, shortly before the war, the Izvaldi capitol complex was destroyed amidst a battle between Garsheeva and a notorious heretic. There was an orphanage on the premises, and though it was successfully evacuated, its facilities were destroyed. Due to some personal connection I don't fully understand, a high-ranking commander in Wilderwind offered to assume responsibility for the displaced children. We were even given an education here at this school, despite being unable to pay and unusually young..."
"We?" I interrupted. "You mean you and Flarefeather?"
Poplar blinked. "Oh? Myself and the other teachers here, yes, we were among those orphans. Flarefeather has a different connection to this place, and would probably bite my head off if I tried explaining it for her." He chuckled. "Regardless, once we came of age, many of us from the Izvaldi orphanage wanted to repay Wilderwind for what it had done for us. So, we opened this program using the resources they originally gave us to educate ourselves. And now it functions as an educational day-care of sorts for the students' children... Quite useful, given how Wilderwind boasts the highest rate of single young mothers in the Empire. It's just our way of finding meaning in our lives while also saying thank you."
"Sappyyyyy..." Flarefeather rolled her eyes. "Anyways, boom, there's your heartwarming, uplifting and inspiring field trip that I totally didn't get to explain at my own pace. Community service is cool. Kids are cool! I'm cool for coming to help them, even if I'm a little more popular than I am effective... Ever since I told them what my legs mean, I've just been the resident Princess, even though I'd forfeit my head if I actually tried claiming the Izvaldi throne. Does this, um, meet your expectations? I'm kind of worried this bombed, just a little..."
I shrugged. "I've just never really been around kids much before. There were almost none where I grew up."
Flarefeather's look morphed to sympathy. "Filly, you're missing out. Kids are awesome. They're so innocent, even when they're talking about things they have no right knowing about. And they don't judge you if you act weird while trying to hang out with them. I love kids, and I wish I could do a little more for them beyond brightening up their day with my princess accent."
Her seriousness took my ambivalence and bowled it over. "You really do enjoy this."
"Suuure do!" Flarefeather's grin returned. "Anyway, how was that for a sinister ulterior motive for wanting to make friends with a sarosian? Absolutely diabolical, right? Your life has been ruined now that a room full of kids got to see a new species for the first time in most of their lives?"
I giggled just a little. "Alright, alright, you win..."
"Sounds like our work here has brightened up your day as well, then," Poplar said with a bow. "Please take care on your travels. The Empire has never been known as an easy place in which to be a sarosian."
We left the foals' wing, heading back through the corridors to the central plaza. "So?" Flarefeather asked. "Hungry yet, or should we do something else?"
I shrugged. "What are our options? I could go either way."
"Well, Lissa does owe us lunch," Flarefeather pointed out. "For that bet earlier. And I would like you to meet her properly. You know, since you were interested in the library earlier, I could leave you there while I fly back to the tower and get her, and then we could all meet up and head somewhere from there?"
"That sounds good." I thought it over, and decided a school should be arguably the safest place in the city... though there was always a possibility of me uncovering a horrifying revelation while idly perusing tomes that would ruin my life for the foreseeable future. But that was a risk worth taking for the chance to ransack a research library not curated by Icereach. "How long will you need? I could use as long as you give me there."
Flarefeather tapped a hoof to her chin. "In that case, how about I give you an hour? Gotta remind the bosses that I'm still working, even if it's not where they can see it."
An hour? That was like offering someone a salad with only a single crouton. But it could at least be enough to determine what sections I'd be interested in coming back to later. "Sounds good," I told her. "Point me in the right direction, and let's see how much fun I can have in an hour."