//------------------------------//
// Freedom to Choose 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

On the deck of the Immortal Dream, Corsica watched as Twilight soared away, ostensibly to take care of princess duties now that fixing the ship had been handed off to Starlight. Probably a bunch of preparation for going to Ironridge. Sounded like work.

An instinctive aversion to thinking about work reared its head in Corsica's mind, then crumbled just as quickly to dust when her present reality caught up to her: she didn't have to be lazy anymore. She could throw herself at the workload of a princess returning from a three-week vacation now, and come out no less unscathed than any old pony! Not that she wanted to, of course. Bureaucracies had never been anything but a hindrance to her, and pulling their strings sounded like it would get boring fast. But it was a real boredom; not volunteering to help Twilight was a laziness she could choose, rather than one forced upon her.

A cool mountain breeze drifted off the water and tugged on her unbrushed mane, bringing the scents of melting snow and evergreens. This was unfathomably refreshing. In fact, she almost felt like laying around for a while simply to have a rest that she could properly enjoy, rather than laying on the floor like a puppet with cut strings. It would certainly do her healing, avalanche-stricken body good...

But screw that. There was a town to explore, and she had done it dirty last time by being unable to care.

"Hey," she called to Starlight, who was standing at the railing in thought. "You need me for anything, or can I take off?"

Starlight blinked at her. "You're going somewhere?"

"Exploring," Corsica said. "What more needs to be said?"

Starlight pulled out the mirror from the hospital - from where, Corsica couldn't say. But Starlight needed no more words to make her point, either: Corsica looked like a dump.

The first time she saw her own reflection, she had been distracted and preoccupied by her age, and ever since then, she had been too focused on her injuries, her smallness and her lack of crippling lethargy to notice the condition the rest of her body was in. But with Starlight's expression and the mirror once again held in front of her, it was no longer possible to ignore the truth: she really, really needed a bath.

"Point taken," Corsica said, feeling herself redden. "I know you literally just carried me up the stairs, but could you, uhh...?"

Starlight sighed, lifting Corsica in her telekinesis and floating her back down to the cabin level, where the Immortal Dream's one and only shower was located - far from the luxurious bathtub Corsica preferred, but at least they were at port so water rationing wasn't important.

"Here," Starlight said, producing Corsica's shoes and ear ornaments from somewhere once they were at the bottom of the stairs. "They took these off at the hospital, so I held onto them for you. You're not going to need any help in there, are you?"

Corsica took her ornaments in her aura and stubbornly wheeled herself towards the bathroom. "I'm an invalid, not an inv... I mean... bah. I'll be fine."





Fortunately, Corsica's horn was in perfect working order, and she was able to make up for her infirmities with a generous helping of telekinesis. Unfortunately, the process of cleaning herself brought back memories.

She had been this way too, back in Icereach, the first time she awakened from her post-avalanche coma. She remembered pressing the hospital staff about the matter: didn't they clean their patients if those patients were incapable of doing so themselves?

The answers had been mixed: yes, they cleaned her up substantially from the state she had been in when Halcyon dragged her in through the door, and no, they were a hospital, not a resort spa. No one was going to shampoo her mane and tail, let alone the rest of her fur. To make matters worse, Corsica herself had been split on what she wished they had done. Part of her was aghast at her state, but another part of her had recoiled from the idea of anyone even touching her unconscious body, let alone grooming it. And it was awfully difficult for a mixed answer to appease an upset teenager who didn't know what she wanted.

That incident had led to her discovery of how distant Graygarden had been while she was in her coma, once she started asking why he didn't intervene on her behalf to make the hospital into a spa. And that, in turn, had led to one of the first and still most damaging uses of her special talent: wishing Graygarden wasn't her real father.

Corsica scrubbed aggressively, newly frustrated with the track her mind was going down. Couldn't she put this behind her? It wasn't like she was anywhere near Graygarden, or could undo that wish, or even wanted to make up with him in the first place. Right?

This was a downside to being able to care again that she had completely forgotten about: getting hung up on stupid stuff that didn't matter. She hadn't realized how good she had it when she still had her special talent... not that she wished she could get it back. That was a fool's desire if there ever was one. She had chosen which side of desire she wanted to stand on, and no matter how many regrets she might have, they would never outweigh the value of what she had just gained.

She finished her shower and toweled herself as dry as she reasonably could without either hurting herself or falling off her roller, this time determined to make it up the stairs to the ship deck without getting carried. Starlight was in the engine room as she passed by, thankfully too distracted by its piercing hum to notice her. Now, the staircase...

Corsica glanced down at her not-quite-load-bearing hooves, four wheels in between them. She glanced up at the stairs, with wooden frames and lips and metal grates in the center to catch runoff from the deck or dirty hooves. She put one forehoof on the first step and pushed, and felt a stab of pain long before she started to lift herself from her roller.

This was already feeling like a worse and worse idea. Frustrated, Corsica stared at the open doorway at the top of the stairs and growled, "I wish I could climb this staircase by myself!"

Nothing happened. No weight in the back of her mind, no sudden surge of strength as her body knit itself back together. She tried again to climb the stairs, only to meet with the same result.

She was helpless. And while there was a perverse joy in it, in having a challenge she suddenly couldn't conquer simply by wishing it so, did it have to be something so mundane and easy that finally bested her? This was embarrassing! Her fault for not being more careful what she wished for, and if her memories were accurate, this state wouldn't last for more than a week or two, but still. Did she have to trade a broken mind for a broken body, and still be unable to do anything on her own? It felt like the universe was laughing at her.

Finally, she didn't have to rely on anyone to blaze a trail through life for her, could walk on her own power, didn't need to be afraid if she fell off Halcyon's coattails... except she literally couldn't walk. Or climb a staircase.

This stank.

Too proud to admit defeat and ask for Starlight's help, and vaguely aware that she could get into all sorts of trouble in Snowport if she was on her own and unable to defend herself, Corsica retreated to the ship's library and looked for something interesting to read. It was clearly more of a personal collection than a curated assortment for the general public, leaning towards nonfiction with a scientific bent. Most of the volumes had seen heavy wear, and were evenly split between engineering and medical texts, both about three decades out of date. Sometimes more.

But there was one book, however, that stood out both for its age and lack of apparent subject matter, at least as far as its cover and spine were concerned. It was just an old bound leather notebook, thick and musty and looking as if it had been drizzled on more than once, with absolutely nothing on the exterior indicating who had written it, or when, or why.

Intrigued, Corsica pulled that one out and flipped it open right to the middle.



Yea, did the waters of the Yule kiss my keel like a mare scorned, but held it aloft did they, they held it aloft. Westword and southword did I sail, but not up, for the portage of a mile would be impossible without pegasi a thousand strong, and I am no pegasi. Now I have no boat, and my boat has no captain, and the rivers of the mountans her doom would finde her here. Rocks and pebbles, strames at perfect slopes, that my headache might by crystaline waters be quashed!

They can't see this majesty.



Corsica didn't try to suppress her grin. How drunk was this writer? The writing was wobbly and riddled with typos, and she could only imagine the story that led Starlight to possess something like this.

She chose another random page, this one much more legible and sober.



I've found a spot to set up camp that should last until my leg heals up. This cave is situated on a hillside, its mouth facing downward. Higher altitude than I'd like, but no chance of flooding during storms.

These views are enough to make any forget about the Promised Land. It baffles the mind that no one has sought to colonize these cliffs. The colors are vibrant and larger than life, and there are peaceful forests and gentle meadows in between the jagged peaks. With the hubris and wingpower griffons are known for, they might take it easily.

I sense there's something more at play beyond a lack of imagination. None of these climates should be possible. I am no wizard, but I sense this land must be steeped in magic beyond my ken. It feels as though I've set hoof in the land of gods. Were it possible to disturb this tranquility, I think it would have been disturbed long ago.

From my cave mouth, through a pass, I can see the lowlands of the known world stretching out below. I feel as though I will be safe so long as I keep that land close in sight. But if I did lose myself to curiosity and press upward and inward, of all the places I have seen in the world, I think this would be the very best one in which to die.



Corsica frowned. Was he talking about the Aldenfold? Her memories of her own flight south from Ironridge were muddied, along with everything else from the avalanche onward - possibly because of her rewinding, but more likely because she had just been experiencing the world in a dulled, uncaring state. But even then, she remembered seeing mountainscapes of impossible variety and lushness, bamboozling environs in which fields of flowers sprung up above rows of ice-capped peaks.

She flipped to another random page. It was a detailed, well-documented blueprint for some alchemical apparatus... which she quickly realized was an alcohol distillery. This stallion wasn't merely a drunkard, he built his own equipment for refining spirits while out in the wilderness. Now that was dedication.

Idly, Corsica skimmed the rest of the pages to see if he had left any more diagrams, perhaps a sketch of the view or a map that would help her pin down where in the mountains he had traveled. She did find a map, though it only showed his route inside the mountains themselves, and was artistically embellished enough that she doubted its accuracy.

Near the beginning of the book, however, something else stood out to her: a giant, full-page drawing of the Emblem of the Nine Virtues, the symbol of the Church of Yakyakistan. An upside-down equilateral triangle minimally inscribed with a hexagon, she had seen this shape plenty of times before, usually in the context of Icereach's censors trying to pretend they weren't as bad as they actually were.

This version of the emblem, though, was modified, a circle drawn around it and a heavy horizontal line drawn through that, just below the top of the triangle, leaving only three of the emblem's vertices above the line: the top two points of the triangle and the topmost point of the hexagon, all in a straight line of their own.

Those were labeled, too. The extra line was Aldenfold, the top left triangle tip was Unicornia, the top right triangle tip was Garsheeva, and the top hexagon point was just some question marks with an arrow.

Corsica frowned. That was all there was to it; no labels had been placed on the rest of the emblem. Her thoughts went back to the massive underground door in the crystalline Macrothesis, its locks built to only open when the words on them were correctly identified... and no one present had known the true meaning of Aldenfold. How old was this book? Could its author have known something that had been forgotten?

Not like Corsica wanted to open that spooky door. It had probably been shut for a good reason. But who could say no to an ancient riddle involving forgotten knowledge?

She rotated the book twice, looking at it from different angles, and started to suspect there was a much more sensible solution to what the diagram meant: that extra line literally represented the Aldenfold mountain range, where the author had been traveling. Garsheeva, up in the top right, that mean the Griffon Empire in the north's far east. Which made this a map of the world, or at least a very loose one, superimposed on some religious symbolism.

It would have to be a pretty old map, if there were just question marks where Ironridge was now. Ironridge was what, eight hundred years old? Could this book really be eight hundred years old?

If so, it was remarkably well preserved. But she could understand a little more why Starlight kept a thing like this around. It probably belonged in a museum, and would be the pride of any collector's archive.

"What are you reading?" asked a voice from the cabin hallway.

Corsica was too cool to jump when startled. Not truly, but in this case her instinct to avoid hurting herself was able to overpower her instinct to jump, so she took the win and let herself feel cool, looking slowly up with an I knew you were there expression. "Nanzanaya?"

"I just woke up," the zebra yawned, wiping a hoof across her eyes. "We're bobbing. Are we on water? I thought this was an airship..."

Corsica blinked... and realized the boat was, indeed, gently rocking, and slowly moving up and down as well. It felt so natural, she wouldn't have noticed if no one pointed it out to her. Weren't sailors supposed to get seasick from the rocking of their boats? And this was all that was? Bunch of wusses.

"We're at port," Corsica explained, remembering that she had been asked a question and opting not to mention that she had broken the engine. "Don't think Seigetsu's here right now."

Nanzanaya stepped closer, frowning as she took in Corsica's appearance. "Am I still half asleep, or do you look different?"

"Yup," Corsica said, using her floating book to hide her grin. Seeing all the reactions to her new age was going to be like triple dipping at the free sample kiosks in Eaststone Mall by wearing silly disguises so the vendors couldn't remember her... "Two hundred guesses why, and none of them will be correct."

Blearily, Nanzanaya focused. "You're kinda beat up. Makes you look smaller. Got in a fight with the locals?"

"A hundred and ninety-nine guesses remaining," Corsica giggled, her grin growing.

"So you're not beat up?" Nanzanaya raised an eyebrow. "That roller is just for show, then?"

Corsica sighed. "Fine. A hundred ninety-nine and a half guesses remaining."

"Oh, so I'm getting somewhere!" Nanzanaya walked properly into the room. "How did you get wrecked, then? Lemme guess... Accident while docking the airship?"

"You think this looks that recent?" Corsica asked. "That I'd have time to get busted up, make it in and out of the hospital in..." Her eyes widened in realization. "We've been here for almost two days! You did not just wake up and notice we were on the water!"

Nanzanaya burst out laughing. "Hey, gotcha! I guess you really were out cold since we landed. I've just been sitting around here with nothing to do, so you can forgive a little prank, right?"

Corsica put her book down, making a note to come back to it later. "Really? I know you're on super dragon probation, but they couldn't even get someone else to watch you while you stretch your legs on shore?"

"Technically, I was never on super dragon probation. I've just been following Halcyon, who is," Nanzanaya pointed out. "But even if I was, I had two meetings yesterday confirming I was free to go. One step closer to securing aid for my home, yay..."

Corsica tilted her head. "Didn't you and Halcyon broke into a top security vault in the Crystal Empire? I'm pretty sure you were under probation. What were you even thinking would happen?"

Nanzanaya rolled her eyes. "I was trying to get the attention of the powers that be around here and let them know that this was serious. And while I did get bit of a reputation, guess what: a dragon inquisitor and multiple alicorns know my face now. If it wasn't for this business with Yakyakistan and Ironridge taking up more of their attention, I'd say things would be proceeding smoothly."

"Dunno how justice systems worked in your home country," Corsica said, "but going to war on your behalf is kind of a big ask, and breaking and entering isn't usually the way to build goodwill..."

"Your friend was with me," Nanzanaya pointed out. "She got busted even harder than I did."

"My friend was an idiot," Corsica countered, the words tasting strange on her tongue. Not the part about Halcyon being an idiot - that much was a given. More the part about them being friends. She hadn't really thought about Halcyon much since her rewinding, and this wasn't a good time to start.

Nanzanaya raised an eyebrow. "And her idiotic tactics got her what she wanted. What's more important, the first impression or the end result?" She shrugged. "I must see my homeland saved. Easier to convince someone that extreme actions were born of genuine desperation than to get their attention by being civil and polite."

"If that's the case, what are you hanging around talking to me for?" Corsica raised an eyebrow. "You said you're free to go. Why not go?"

Nanzanaya gave her an intense look. "Because you saw Him."

"I saw who?" Corsica asked cautiously.

"Unnrus-kaeljos," Nanzanaya whispered. "The Traveler in the Deep. He took Halcyon, and you were there to see it, weren't you?"

Corsica stiffened. "What's it to you?"

"I'm trying to figure out what happened, down there," Nanzanaya said. "You don't have the mark, but I've never seen someone in the process of making a deal with him to watch how fast it actually appears. But now my own eyes are confirming what I've heard from the others: you've grown physically several years younger. That can't happen by mundane means."

Corsica blinked. "What?"

"Furthermore," Nanzanaya said, "Halcyon, who was supposed to be my ally in all this, never wound up doing anything useful. No matter how many times I reminded her of my presence, no matter what offers I made, in the end she ignored me completely and left for lands unknown."

"Join the club," Corsica scoffed. "But what are you talking about?"

"In fact," Nanzanaya continued, "when pressed, she deflected most of the credit for her achievements in this country onto you. Deflections which I ignored, because she possessed the sign and you didn't. But now I'm wondering if I misinterpreted the timing of the prophecy, and it was you I was meant to work with all along."

"Not gonna get any better response out of me until you explain a little," Corsica warned, realizing that even if she was no longer pathologically tired, Nanzanaya probably couldn't call her out on it if she used that as an excuse to get out of whatever was being foisted on her.

Nanzanaya looked expectantly at her. "This transformation you've undergone. Did you wish for this? Did you ask Unnrus-kaeljos for this, at the bottom of the world? That's the name of the light wave they say took Halcyon."

Mentally, Corsica swore. Did she answer that with a straight face? Nanzanaya had never seemed exceptionally trustworthy, and she couldn't even remember if the zebra had reason to know about her special talent. "I think," she decided, "that's for me to know and you to puzzle over. So what if I did?"

Nanzanaya sighed in confusion. "Your demeanor is just as mismatched with my expectations as Halcyon's was. Let me try a different tactic: ask me anything you like about that light wave."

"Why?" Corsica tilted her head. "Elaborate on everything you've just been talking about, and then tell me what you want from me, here."

Nanzanaya took a step to the side, starting to pace. "I couldn't be any less transparent about my goals here if I tried. The Aptann Valley is in trouble. We need Equestria to protect us from our neighbors, Abyssinia, whom I might add are your neighbors as well and currently at war with your sworn allies in Cernial. The only part I haven't been fully forthcoming about is that before I left my home, I received a prophecy saying I would receive aid and succor from someone I met in this land. I was to recognize that person using a mark Unnrus-kaeljos, the light spirit, bestows upon those whom it has made deals with. Halcyon had that mark. You do not, though I suspect you made a deal as well. And I'm trying to figure out why my prophecy appears less than accurate."

She stared at Corsica. "What else must I clear up?"

"Halcyon has a mark from making a deal with this light spirit?" Corsica leaned closer. "Whaddya mean?"

"A third eye upon her forehead," Nanzanaya explained, tapping her own forehead with a hoof. "One that only other bearers of such a mark can perceive. You can't see anything of the sort on me, can you?"

Corsica grumbled a no. She wanted to complain about Halcyon never mentioning something like this to her, but, honestly, was that much of a surprise?

"My time is running out," Nanzanaya told her. "You single-hoofedly convinced Equestria's monarchy to intervene in your own nation's conflict. I don't know what luck or resources you brought to bear to pull off that feat, but I desperately need the same miracle. If you help me... I can see your frustration with your friend's secrecy. Halcyon and I share many of the same secrets, on account of our histories with Unnrus-kaeljos. Help me, and I can tell you anything I know to bridge that gap."

Corsica narrowed her eyes and looked away. "If you're serious about that, you should wait. For at least a week. I haven't decided how I feel about Halcyon these days."

"This could hurt your land as well," Nanzanaya pointed out. "Suppose Equestria is blindsided by Abyssinian aggression because they ignored me, and have to re-allocate resources abruptly to deal with the new threat, cutting off promises you were counting on partway through?"

"I don't care about my home either, right now," Corsica said, closing her eyes and feeling as if her heart was being needled relentlessly. "I've only just started feeling like I can afford to care about anything, and I'd rather spend that freedom on freedom for its own sake than solicit new causes to chain myself to. Ask me when I'm not physically an invalid and have already gotten to run around and enjoy a good couple nights on the town."

Nanzanaya frowned... and then brightened. "Well, I'm not in that much of a hurry. It won't be too long until evening. Do you need a lift, or help getting around?"

Corsica squinted at her. She knew when she was being sucked up to. It was practically one of the daily tenets of her life at Icereach, at least pre-avalanche. But that also meant she knew how to deal with it.

"I'll accept any and all favors, if you can accept that I'm offering nothing in return," Corsica said, shelving the old drunkard's journal in a place where she'd easily remember it later. "Just don't drop me going up the staircase."

Nanzanaya nodded agreeably, following as Corsica rolled out of the library and towards the front entrance. As she passed by the open door to the engine room, amid the annoying magical buzz, she could have sworn she heard that same voice say, Have fun!

You... too? Corsica thought back at it, not about to have a conversation with a voice in her head while Nanzanaya was watching, but more and more sure that she wasn't just hallucinating.





With Nanzanaya's help, Corsica was able to get off the ship and onto the docks, which were thankfully designed for easy traversal by dragons pulling carts loaded with cargo. The whole city opened up before her like a landscape in a pop-up storybook, and new temptations flooded in every time she turned her gaze: dragons to chat up, stores to visit, viewpoints that would be great to check out if only she could climb. They passed by the statue of Saint Tadashi in the central plaza that Corsica vaguely remembered from her first trip here. This time, she could have listened to a lecture about his cultural significance for hours.

...Wait, this was the place where dragons didn't like talking about their religion to non-dragons because they were humble and didn't want to make them feel inferior. Scratch that. Mojo or no mojo, the world's censorship walls were still a pain in her flank.

All the city's temptations were for naught, however, because Corsica had a particular destination in mind she already would have gone to if she was on her own and very much wanted to see Nanzanaya navigate as well: the western side of town. The Abyssinian quarter.

Nanzanaya caught wind of her plan soon after they passed through the western gate, its guards seeming to already recognize both her and her accomplice. She gave Corsica a wry look.

"What?" Corsica shrugged innocently, her shoulders warning her that this wasn't entirely a safe action yet. "I hung out with them last time I was here. Can't blame me for wanting to catch up with old friends."

"Contrary to what I've given you cause to believe," Nanzanaya lectured, "I have no strong feelings one way or another on Abyssinians themselves. It's their king I must see stopped. Him, and the magical tower on our border he is using to curse my homeland."

Corsica raised an eyebrow.

"But I suppose you had no way of knowing that," Nanzanaya lamented. "So your intent to annoy me with this destination still comes across."

Corsica stuck out her tongue and kept rolling, spying a four-legged fish and a pair of spherical frogs haggling with a bipedal bird-thing on a corner. They looked bizarre. How had she not been more curious about this the first time around? Could that fish actually swim, and that bird actually fly? What was the purpose of the frogs' massive, webbed ears if they were just going to hang down flat against their sides like that? How did keeping your balance work when you walked on two legs all the time, anyway?

Curiously, Nanzanaya regarded them with a similar level of intrigue. Could that be taken to mean she hadn't interacted with many Abyssinians up close before? She hadn't said anything to indicate that wasn't the case...

Freedom Town, that was the name of this place. Corsica's other murky memories started resurfacing the longer she stared at the ramshackle city's jagged architecture and unevenly sloped roads, clear enough to guide her into an alley that was more or less where that tavern would have been. Fauntleroy, that was the name of the proprietor! And there had been a walrus, and some batpony twins who mugged Halcyon, and that weird centaur who wound up imprisoned in the Aegis vault beneath the castle... Whatever had happened to him?

"Do you have a destination in mind, or are we wandering aimlessly?" Nanzanaya asked. "Because although I am willing to wander, I can't help but harbor suspicions you are doing this to annoy me."

"Oh, I've got a destination in mind," Corsica promised. "And it'll be the perfect place to help you loosen up. Should be right... around... Here!"

Fauntleroy's tavern came into sight, just as lively as Corsica remembered it, the lights already glowing even though it was still two hours to sundown. The door was wide open, scents of fish and brine wafting freely, and even as she watched a trio of creatures eagerly loped their way inside to begin the night's revelry.

"Dunno if you've ever been to an Abyssinian bar before," Corsica said, rolling up to the door and catching her cart wheels on the uneven doorstep. "But it's, uh... an experience..." She struggled to get one wheel over the lip, then another, and then the last to. "You'll thank me for... in the morning!"

Inside, the building was smokey and warmly lit, an absurdly lanky bipedal cat scuttling around behind the bar counter. At a large corner table near the window, she saw a familiar walrus chortling and bumping mugs with several others, including a trio of polar bears in suits she felt like she should remember better than she did. It was the smell of chaos, and although her injuries were poised to do their level best to prevent her from having a good time, there could be no doubt that Corsica was in the right place.