//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: Imprint 
// Story: Starstruck 
// by Vest 
//------------------------------//




Illustration by Scorpdk.
Special pre-reader thanks to Dracon Pyrothayan




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_____



Where wind can't weather, the stone birds sleep.


Head under feather, slumbering heap.


Cobalt awakens, greets him in peeps.


Imprint unshaken, she's fallen too deep.





_____


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Chapter 8

Imprint






So much for attempting to make this journal a recollection of how we built this place.

It was supposed to be a simple diary of the construction process, the engineering that went into carving the tunnels and setting up this extension of the Archive deep beneath Canterlot.  I guess I got so carried away with a desire to protect the very information within its sanctum, I neglected to care for the information within this tome.

My own tome.

I can protect the absolute sanctity of a bunch of texts I had no hoof in penning, and yet here I can’t even protect my own forsaken tome from my own mental vandalism.

Well, since it’s become less about this magnanimous expansion of grandiose public-funded architecture and devolved to a selfish mishmash of sporadic self-reflection, I’m just going to write about... Me.  How horribly narcissistic, granted, but as my quill’s concerned, it can’t perceive the world; it can only perceive my thoughts.  Anything that comes to mind.  And now?

Now it wants to write about ducks.




* * * * *


The feeling had always lingered.

He couldn’t quite put a solid hoof upon it, but it was there.  Not prominent enough to be regarded any more than the very tingling of the air’s chilled droplets lapping against his coat, nor as strongly as the dusty vapor that wrapped and danced before his every breath through the decrepit masonry draped around them.  His own mind found it so easy to disregard; just another byproduct from entering a mysterious place engineered wall to wall with peril and puzzle to challenge the very capacities of all who sauntered through it.

So lost the feeling had been, so coolly tucked away like another trite detail of his racing mind’s purple prose in its struggle to retain comprehension on the ancient Archive, it hardly came to the forefront.  His instinct’s primordial screams for attention couldn’t carry the distance between him and the list of all that stood before him: walls leaking insects between every brick.  Troupes of blades, darts, and boulders flinging him to a panicked waltz tip-hoofing the line with immolation, pulverization, perforation, and annihilation.

Dragons.

Celestia-lovin’ Dragons.

Even something as straightforward as a simple gut feeling would flutter adrift in the empty hum of breeze stirring through the gnarled corridors before them.

Yet as the mystery of the Archive cleared, the fog of the unknown depths lifted, and the augmenting dangers only strengthened the resolve of the bookkeeper and the Princess, his mind could see through the background noise within itself.  The dizzying spectacle of Canterlot’s sanctified history diminished to silent acclimation.  The looming prospect of impending traps faded irrelevant with the realization that they were meant to test, not destroy those who attempt them.

Though, as the pink-singed tips of his tail reminded him in dry fluttering licks against his sooted hooves, the tests were well within the realm of destroying regardless.

With the comprehension of the architect’s journal, seeing the very struggle he underwent, seeing his project’s evolution from an endeavor of passion to a fool’s gambit to right a misdeed whose consequences he wouldn’t dare face...

The wrongs I do to do what’s right.

...There was always a method, always a way, always an answer.  With this realization bringing a soothing methodology to the Archive’s lethal intricacies, the initial rush of sensory overload peeled away, coalesced into just a part of the scenery, diminishing to humble expectation, leaving just...

Just...

The feeling.

The feeling had always lingered.

“This...this has just got to be a coincidence, right?” The only sound that followed was of the paper-bound thump of a journal falling heavily to the stone floor. “Right?!” Devon pressed, but only found two evasive faces looking back at him. The weight of revelation made the momentary pause stretch into a tortured eternity.

Realizing her anticipation for him to answer his own question was in vain, “Well,” the orange unicorn cleared her throat. “I don’t think so, Dev’s...” Gina waved a hoof at his face, her snicker injecting a sharp sour aftertaste into the conversation. “Ya got the same eyes.”

“Ugh,” he groaned. Devon looked to Luna, hoping for a better prognosis. But even she drug her hoof over the stone floor absently. Her uncharacteristic silence bit deeper than Gina’s impulsive remark.

“Dearest.” The Princess coughed lightly. “I... cannot say for sure,” she nitpicked through her words in timid murmurs. “I hath been away for so long that the names... the families of Canterlot are very... different. But,” Luna bit her lip, inhaling gently through her nostrils before continuing, “there is something about thee that feels...familiar.” She nitpicked her words. “Like I knew thy face.” With utmost regal care. “I know thine face... from elsewhere, Devon.”

The charcoal unicorn’s head hurt. The rush of alien emotions from the gauntlet to the seeming awakening of his magic was enough of a wild ride, but to be related so intimately to this whole affair sent a sickening shiver through his stomach. If it was true, his ancestor was the source of this entire thousand year old crisis, and where did that put him? It had to be a coincidence! After all, if he was related to Ghasen, it would be in more than just his eyes!

“Yeeeeup...” Gina broke into the conversation again, attempting an encouraging grin. “One major thing that’s different about ya is the cutie mark!” She jabbed at his flank. “Unlike you, Ghasen had this weird hummingbird thing, real fancy.”

“We alls has the sames cuties marks in our family. All the same cutie mark.”

“Yeeeeah...” Devon murmured. That sick twisting in his stomach wasn’t getting any better.

Boop! Hummingbird!


* * * * *


“And this one!” The Captain groused, his muzzle scrunching up to his face.  “I protested whilst heeding witness my maiden donning eye shadow yonder excessive heights. She appeared surprised!” Stormblade hoisted the heavy slab to the side, haphazardly letting it slide down the debris pile between them and the only open door leading out of the massive lava room.  “I’m starting to think these are really badly written jokes.”

Jetstream darted to the side of the slipping rock, taking a quick flight before plopping back to his hooves.  He tucked his sore wing close to him, leaning with a grimace against the offending joint.  He’d shake it off eventually, he always did.

“But what would all these hunks of rock be doing with jokes on them?”

No matter what kind of pain it was.

“Sir, they seem to be of an old dialect,” Jetstream trot up beside him, his hoof slipping on another slab the Captain slung blindly down the pile.  I only accept allowance of a pessimist, a return not be of expectation.  “Probably written, it seems, a hundred, two hundred years ago?”

Though Jetstream certainly was no scholar of ancient tomes and tongues, he was more than trained at reading the prehistoric nuances of body language.  Even from a distance, the suddenly rigid gesture of the Captain standing atop the pile whipped a breath of panic into the cyan pegasus.

Something was wrong.  He could see it in the Captain’s curled face.  Jetstream wasted no time, ignoring the ricocheting pain in his shoulders as he flailed and hovered up to the black-coated earth pony.  He looked out into the strewn wreckage beyond the joke-laden slabs they stood atop.

"All my life," Stormblade pondered, flicking stray grainules of dust from his shoulder with rhythmic jangles. "My fame. My duties. My benevolence. I've always felt I'd be haunted by something."

Jetstream sauntered to his side, examining the assortment of detritus scattered before them.  Spears.  Darts.  Various blades, axes, tomahawks, and skittering bugs.  A giant curved fang of shimmering steel.

With a shake of his neck, Jetstream twirled a strand of rainbow hair over his brow.  "Sir, did you say...HAUNTED sir?"

"Yes."  The Captain shook a lazy tendril of mane from his brow, and looked profoundly forward, ensuring his face was backlit by the ambient torchlight at his flank.  "Hounded.  Weighed upon.  Followed."

"Ah," the cyan Pegasus nodded, his brow resting in a bored gaze.  "So not ghosts."  All knowing, to his dismay...

"They follow me like...vespered tendrils of disembodied aberrations in the inky blackness of life..."

...To his dismay, the Second Captain was in a poetically metaphorical mood.

"I see, sir, so-"

"-But THIS!"  Stormblade cracked a black hoof outward, snapping it to a cracking singularity into the dim, musty atmosphere.  "I never expected to be haunted..." A ring of dust permeated from his obsidian hoof, framing the warped metallic wreckage adorning the center of the dispersed  weapons littering the floor.

Jetstream twisted his lip to the side, leering forward with narrowed eyes.  "By...a train, sir?"

The Second Captain's hoof dropped dejectedly.  "Jetlag, what did I tell you about interrupting my battle hymns!?"

Jetstream righted himself, propping his neck up straight, realizing he just broke the Captain's astute concentration upon mundane verbal inanity.  "Oh! I-" He coughed, clearing his throat as his mind snapped back to focus with a steaming platter of piping hot remembrance ready to serve.  "Sir!  Something, something, protocol, something, sir!"

"EXACTLY!"  The Captain clicked a fetlock against the private's forehead.  "And what did you just do?"

Ding!  Another serving of the Captain's vociferous rants, fresh from the night's annual chewing out!  "Sir!  Something, something, NOT protocol, something, sir!"  His shoulder bit against him again, the base of his wing crying out for attention.  He twisted a foreleg to the side, trying to pull the tension out from the throbbing injury.

He’d shake it off eventually.

He always did.

"Very good, Private Jetlag!"  Stormblade seethed, emanating a lengthy exhale as his neck sunk.  His eyes maintained an aggressive quiver, retaining focus on the smoldering train car as he slowly motioned to a purple-lit doorway to the side.

The cyan pegasus narrowed his eyes, wondering why the Captain was letting the wrecked train car get under his withers so.  Though as he leaned into a slow sidestep to follow Stormblade, a peculiar scent of familiarity started to emanate from the train car.

The train car.

…

The train car!

“Sir!” Jetstream called to the Captain in excitement.  “This is the lost train everypony is-!”

“Protocol, private!”

The pegasus immediately halted, slowing his pace to catch up with Stormblade.

The Captain chuckled softly seeing the rainbow-maned pegasus suddenly snap back to a regimented stance.  He lowered his voice, and resumed.  "I don't know if I should be grateful to have a private who remembers my commands so well..." Stormblade stopped, his nostrils scrunching as his eyes rolled up in agitation.  "Or if your extensive knowledge comes from your dismal inability to get it right the first ten times..."

Without even shuddering a wing.  "Sir."  Not even one rustled feather.  "Thank you."  Not even the slightest assertive drop of an eyebrow. "Captain Stormblade, sir."  Not one extropian hint of the supernova of unadulterated vitriol tearing the seams of his mind.

Like the collapsed chassis of the train dropped off a cliff, a waterfall, a council chamber, a cave floor, and two levels of a subterranean labyrinth, he held his poise.  The cyan pegasus maintained a polite show of reverence with the same astonishing miracle the train maintained any resemblance to... well, a train.  He would just twist and buckle with each volley of, oh what did he like to call it... constructive criticism.

“Finally you’re starting to learn at least something, Jetlag.”

No, no.  Constructive wisdom.

“There, see?  Being humble isn’t that hard!”

He’d shake it off eventually.

“Though, heh, I do make it look easy.”

He always did.


* * * * *




Yep.  Ducks.

It wasn’t always me that had an affinity for them, my beloved Gina, she... well she used to have a soft spot for them.  Nowadays, a gaggle could land in the front yard adorned in balloons and streamers, and she’d just keep looking at me longingly with that empty glance of whatever it is she becomes in my presence.

But she had a story from long ago, when she tried to care for one as a filly.  A baby duck seemed lost and alone on the road, and when Gina saw it on the way to school, it sprinted towards her.  Without thinking, on impulse and instinct, this baby adopted her as its mother right then and there.  Seems an odd and spontaneous gesture, as motherhood is quite a huge... well I’m rambling here; thing is, the duckling is obliged in such a way.

It’s something out of its control, something inherited, but they “imprint” upon others.  Imprinting, simply, is the process in which a baby will immediately determine a paternal figure regardless of species.  They’d imprint upon all four heads of a hydra if such was the first living creature they saw.

Gina’s story was unfortunately tragic, as without a proper caretaker of its own kind, the duckling didn’t live very long.  Imprinting allows one side to immediately love another unconditionally regardless of circumstances. But it still depends on the other to love them back as one of their own kind could.

So nowadays, when she looks at me with that twinge of hopelessness sealed behind a false visage of... I can’t even describe her look anymore.  But when I see that, I know how it felt for her when she first attempted to care for that duckling.

I’ve been imprinted on.





* * * * *


“Woah,” Gina gawked at as a succeeding parade of torches blazed to life before them, casting an orange glow through the gradually expanding chasm. “That’s so M. Seed Escher!”

The room was a tangled mess of paths and routes strewn like tangled ribbons. Yet it didn’t diverge and lead to multiple branching paths and dead ends like a maze, as the open and wide room clearly showed every path converging to the same point on the other side. The paths were not equal; some were mere simple walks from one end of the chamber to the other while others went up, looped, and knotted around others. Other paths still wound through hollowed passages of jagged rock and crystal. Yet they all met at the next door, another broad, sealed portal that stood imposingly in the way. Simply looking at it in its entire mixed-up tangled entirety made Devon’s eyes hurt.

“Okay, this seems kind of...” Devon began before both mares simultaneously clamped their hooves over his mouth, preventing any thoughts of ease to be heard, as if the chamber itself would turn inside out, or fire snakes or something in response to such impertinence.

Once assured of his cooperative silence, they released him. “Alright, alright,” the charcoal unicorn sputtered before setting off down one of the paths towards the door. Devon avoided the most obvious easy path and swerved around a narrow, perilous but not taxing route. If the mad diatribes of the architect had taught him anything, it’s that he frowned upon those who took the path of least resistance.

Each hoofstep echoed and reverberated off the twisting paths woven beside him.  He lowered his head to avoid a helix of supporting masonry, expecting a sawblade, spike pit, or zombie manticore to pin him down.  Yet he kept his wits about him, straining on each slow step up the sharp ascents and taking timid paces while sloping downward, always keeping a ready forehoof ready for an immediate grab should the ground suddenly choose to swell, collapse, or explode gregariously.

He exhaled deeply, coming to a stop.

Despite all of his careful steps and bracing for impact, he arrived at the door across the chamber without incident. 

“Well done, dear!” Luna called from the distance, following steps behind Devon and rubbing across his side as she reached safety. “Thou art getting an eye for the safest and wisest routes.” She beamed proudly at him. “Thank goodness I let thee lead, for I truly would have chosen a more dangerous or trap-laden path.”

“Hey, easy now,” Devon chuckled. “You’re gonna make me blush, Princess. Besides, we’re not through this yet.” Turning his focus to the door, Devon tried to understand it. Unlike the others, there was no obvious mechanism, no clue built into the structure itself. Indeed, the half dozen simple oversized keyholes were, despite the scale, perfectly normal. Normal, that is, save for its size, which would easily accommodate a hoof into its workings. 

“Well?” Gina grinned, not missing a beat. “Who wants to stick their hoof in the dark mystery holes and have it eaten?”

“Very funny, Gina,” Devon rolled his eyes as he approached the set of holes. “But you kinda have a point, there’s no way they would stick these in this obvious of a place unless they meant for us to notice it.” The charcoal unicorn ran his brass gauntlet up and down the face of one of the keyholes, hoping that the miracle it performed for his magic would do the same thing for the door.

“Dear,” Luna’s voice chimed in near to his ear.  “What dost thou think?”

Dear?

“Huh?” Devon blinked. “What do I think?” Every other door, Luna was more than happy to take the lead, but as he turned to answer the question, he saw an expression of intense trust, making his heart flutter with the newfound trust and reliance on him.

Finally a sparkle of appreciation! Everything, all the discomfort was paying off! She wasn’t even being sarcastic or chiding him for enjoying the moment. In fact, Luna seemed distracted by something at the ground...


* * * * *


Peep!

Slowly, the three ponies' heads inclined down towards the sound. Before them was a most peculiar sight.

A gosling, entirely made from stone.

It moved as smoothly and easily as if it were flesh and blood, yet was undeniably a piece of carved stone. It waddled and toddled in small circles, peeping constantly in worried tones. Or at least the ponies surmised it was worried. Twisting its head around, the gosling spotted the trio with a gemstone eye and immediately changed its wandering course to tightly follow and approach them, focused on Devon.

Peep! Peep!

"Erm..." Devon murmured as the gosling strode purposefully up to him and stopped, looking up at him with a posture that suggested it was waiting for his guidance. "Hello?" The charcoal unicorn extended his un-gauntleted hoof towards the gosling, which immediately chirped and nuzzled against it, pulling away only long enough to give Devon the same look of waiting for his lead.

"Thou seem to be..." Luna searched for words, but even as she sought to twist them into flattery for Devon, the Princess could not restrain a giggle as the gosling hopped and played around his foreleg. Reacting to her words, the gosling immediately retreated a few steps away from her, quivering at the mare’s voice.

"Aw Dev's, it thinks you're momma!" Gina chimed in, all too eager to fill in the momentary silence. "I didn't think ya had it in ya." This, too, caused another retreat back into Devon’s leg.

With a groan, Devon tried to shoo the bird away, but it came back instantly whenever his hoof would try to gently brush it aside. "I don't even like birds all that much," he muttered. As it chirped and nuzzled lovingly against his fetlock with all the snuggly warmth a slab of rock can provide, Devon tried to ignore the equally grating and irritating snicker from Gina, digging into the journal for any kinds of clues regarding the chamber before them.

After some quick rifling, a chunk of scribbles and quickly sketched drawings triggered his short-term memory, a cursory doodle of the warped pathways around him brought his hoof clenching down upon the page.  Beside the doodle, even more rapidly drawn characters of ancient old emblems, like those from his communications with the stars from previous, warped and weaved against the page margins.



This archive is nearly complete. I should be celebrating with the others, but there is no room left in my heart and mind to find joy in this monument. All of my thoughts are consumed with the contracts and the stars.



The page snagged and protested with the tugging of a small stone beak nipping at the corner.  Devon pulled the book away, but the gosling only pulled back harder in response.  The edge began to tear with each hoist of the small rock bird’s neck.  With a sharp gasp, Devon lifted the book over his head, bringing with it a small swinging bird dangling off the side, its little nubby wings waving gleefully for attention.

“Aww,” Gina couldn’t help but remark at the fluttering gosling chirping excitedly at him.

Devon sighed, holding the book open, tilting it almost sideways with shuffling forelegs to an angle where the gosling’s weight wouldn’t rip the page out.



I have bound the list given to me by the stars to their contracts. Every one of them was far more accepting of the idea than I expected. Even though I urged them to consider the costs, the repercussions of toying with destiny, the shortcut to their dreams blinded them, just as I was.



The architects penmanship loosened, the ink thinner and more faint indicating a rapid succession of strokes trying to keep up with his augmenting mental pace.



Just one more contract.

One more.

One more, and they have insisted that the will and power of Equestria shall be mine to correct these wrongs I’ve done against my beloved Gina.  My wrongs.  My wrongs! They promised to have even the will and powers of the Princess herself, granted, I be the one to see it fit when she too has such a desire.

When she too wishes upon a star.



A narrow thread of cobalt illuminated the edge of the page, the blue light threading along the fibrous edge before dissipating away in a slow rhythm of quieting hoofsteps.



Everypony believes that they are the one who will somehow beat fate, that the consequences will not apply.

I hope for once...this one is right.

She’s been right about so much, it’s what makes her so beloved. After the countless sleepless nights where she stood alone in obliged insomnia, performing her annual nocturne to a sleeping audience, she’s at least owed this.  She’s owed her due appreciation, a night we’ll all remember, one to be ingrained in our memories, to be spoken of through eternity.

Princess Luna, I feel your frustrations, I question not your wisdom... but simple as the desire is, you know not how easily simplicity falls to burdensome complexity. I wish you would reconsider by tonight, but should you choose to roll the dice, I am prepared to oblige you.

For her.

Such a humble wish I have negotiated with them. I would like for just one night, one night only, a night most beautiful and inspiring.  One night Equestria will see and tell of for generations.

A night to last forever.



A strip of parchment tore free, trailing behind a flailing gray blob of chirping blur before bouncing in a twisting ribbon behind the tumbling gosling.  Where it once clung hanging to the journal’s edge, the soft glance of the Princess stared back at  Devon.

She always knew it was just a matter of time until it all started coming together. While her own shameful foray into embracing darkness and attempting to summon eternal night would always be recognized as something of the past, even Devon’s courteous negligence of her history would only be temporary.

He was still needed.  And while at first his own contemplations as to why she let him trail along were set aside behind the irresistible aspect of following somepony as regal and awe-inspiring as Luna, the growing familiarity with the labyrinth’s engineered madness allowed more coherent thoughts to coalesce.

His thoughts spent the last couple hours juggling why Luna was so adamant about coming to this place.  Yet his natural intuition seemed to lean back, forehooves crossed smugly, nodding with satisfied glances at him.  Could it have been any other thing that drove her to this place?

The feeling had always lingered.

“And now you know why,” Luna sighed.


* * * * *


He’d heard rumors...

“Wahahah!”

...But he never actually heard the Captain squeal like a school filly.

“Jetlag, this is incredible! I knew my instinct would pay off, but I had no idea it would pay off, like like, like THIS!” The Second Captain was delirious with pleasure as he ran up and down the shelves of treasure. Even Jetstream, guarded and cautious, could not restrain the widening his eyes as he took in the wealth of the room. Apart from a few disturbed tiaras, this seeming treasure vault had been untouched for centuries. “Don’t you realize what I can do with this?!” 

Jetstream sighed. Stormblade’s smile begged for an answer, and the pegasus knew that no matter what he thought could possibly be the right answer, the actual answer would be oh so much worse.

“Donate it to...”

Stormblade’s expression fell.

“Invest it in...”

And fell.

“Give your subordinates a raise?”

Snort.

Sigh. “Fund an overly luxurious vacation for yourself?”

“Getting warmer, Jetlag.”

Siiigh. “And some lucky mare?”

“Precisely!”

His head reeling from how easily diverted his superior officer grew, Jetstream stepped back and walked a circuit around the chamber, trying to piece together just exactly what it was. It was obviously ancient, but any details beyond that lay beyond his knowledge. However, he knew that somepony had been there before they were, small discrepancies in the arrangement of the treasure told the guard’s instincts that not all was as it seemed.

But questions lingered on who was there and where they got to. Worry gnawed at his gut with the recent wild events around the city; a missing Princess, trains falling through the palace, a stolen Element of Harmony, a dangerous unicorn on the loose... all this had to be connected, but how? Jetstream would be hard pressed to piece this puzzle together under the best of circumstances.

“Wheehee! I’m the richest pony in Equestria!”

And this was anything but the best of circumstances.


* * * * *




By the time anypony would get so far into this vault, there are few tests that can be summoned that would actually provide challenge and meaning for them. Any thieves, Princesses or pilgrims this far on the path are tested as much as they need to be. However, this chamber should not be neglected either. But it is difficult to test one's kindness in any meaningful way.

To that end, the unicorn Crystal Shine (bound to my contracts three days ago) created a spell to animate statues. He imbued life into a set of stone geese that were carved for decoration. Instead, they are the guardians of this place. The goslings are the keys to the next door, all one needs to do is lead them to the door and it will open. However, these small statute goslings will only follow and obey the kind of spirit. Cruelty will only cause them to flee for the safety of their parents. These goslings, while friendly, are keenly aware of any loss of temper or patience from their wardens and even the slightest showing of anger could be enough for the entire process to be reset.

Kindness is something small and simple, but easy to ruin. Even kind intentions can cause cruelty.



Turning his gaze back to the wider cavern, and back down to the little stone gosling at his hooves, Devon pursed his lips and stooped down to the gosling. With his face so close, the golem-like bird quickly reacted, running up to his muzzle and applying its literally abrasive brand of affection. “Yeek...ow, okay!” Devon tried to laugh, scooping it up in his un-gauntleted hoof. “So we gotta find all your...er...brothers and sisters? Do they even count as that?”

Peep!

The gosling beamed up at him with shining eyes. 

“Do you know where they are?”

Peep! Beam.

“C’mon, Dev’s! Use your motherly instinct to find em!” Gina called. Devon turned his focus back to the gosling and tried again, feeling a flush of embarrassment creeping up his cheeks as he tried to communicate not only with a baby goose, but a STONE baby goose.

“Er...peep? How many more of you are there? Can you help me find them?”

Peep peep!

“Ugh...come on, give me a little break here, huh?” Devon could not believe he was having this conversation. And all the while, the gosling turned blissful circles around in his hoof, cuddling tightly against any part that it could reach and leaving small abrasions with every single show of affection. “Owowowow...little pootin’ tootin’...” Devon hissed, a small show of frustration bubbling out. Immediately, the gosling tensed and scurried towards the edge of his hoof, hesitating only as it had no place to jump down immediately. Panicked peeps filled the air with a rapid fire staccato of alarm. “Hey! Hey!” Devon pulled it close. “I’m sorry okay? Just didn’t think you’d be so...rough?” he tried.

Peeep?

The gosling gave him a long, distrusting look.

“Promise, no more of that! Just been a long day of it is all, but we’re almost there.” Devon forced out double the amount of patience and forgiveness than he thought the situation warranted. “But I gotta get your help, okay?” All the while, Gina chortled and laughed, either at Devon or at some private joke going on in her head, inspired by Devon’s conversation with a statue.

The charcoal unicorn rounded about and carefully conveyed the gosling past Gina towards the set of holes. Gingerly, Devon tried lifting it up to each keyhole until the living statue sprung from his hoof and nestled into one of them with a delighted squeaking sound.

“That’s the right one?” Devon’s question was answered by a heavy grinding sound as locks inside the door pulled and opened. “Alright! One down!” Smiling brightly, Devon spoke. “And five to go, this should be foal’s play!” 



The stars came to me the night following this entry. It seems Crystal Shine's spell interests them. In a flash of starlight, I was shared the magic by them, almost instantly, and now I too can breathe life into stone. But why? What could they intend for me with this power?

Even though Crystal Shine is bound to his own contract, I refuse to speak to him of this. It was part of his contract that the magic he creates still be used from now for thousands of years to come. Considering how fast magic evolves, I do not see this happening, but the contract is in place. I've learned enough to know that somehow, it will happen.

The evening has been disorienting with the stars’ new gift.  How quickly they are now to assist me, it’s easy to get their attention now.  But... too easy. Now they seem to be approaching me without provocation. I contemplated any ulterior motives ahoof, but pieced none yet.  Though it was hard to concentrate on the long walk home tonight, every wavering of concentration, and my untrained new magic would start making pebbles dance in festive parades before me.

I swear, I even got the statue atop the plaza fountain to wink at me. Whatever the stars gave me, I must learn to harness it.  And fast.




* * * * *


“Grrffff...c’mon!” Devon groaned. He was back in the maddening tunnels of jagged crystal, propped on his stomach against a slightly less jagged shard and driving his hoof into a small gap. As his hoof banged and scraped along the walls, jabbing into hidden protrusions and piercing spikes of stone, a wild peeping sound followed it. “Pleeeease?” Devon added, trying to swallow his frustration and present an appearance of complete welcoming warmth. “C’mon little guy, just come out here, I promise it’s fine.”

Devon could not see what the next gosling was doing and could only hear it shuffling and scraping along the stone. He had no way of preparing for when the gosling, in spiteful curiosity, bit down on the flesh of the unicorn’s fetlock.

“GHRGH!” Devon winced. Normally the bite of a gosling was more of a tickle, but this was made of granite, and its bite fierce. Biting his lip, Devon rode out the agonizing pinch as he curled his hoof around and gently dragged the gosling out into the open. “Ow...ow...ow....” he repeated over and over until he could cradle the stone bird and extract its mouth. “You are a...” he had a very good avian curse in mind, but gulped it down, “a very bitey little guy aren’t you?” In front of him, the gosling peeped, gemstone eyes shining the same light as the one before it. “Now are you all done? Gonna play nice?”

Peep!

“Thank Celestia,” he murmured, taking a moment to asses his foreleg. After a moment, Devon stopped trying to count the individual cuts, scrapes and marks caused in his groping reach for the statue bird. Weaving through the path back to the door, Devon was not entirely surprised to find Gina and Luna waiting for him.

“Way to go, momma bird!” Gina called, snickering.

“Well done!” Luna echoed. Their tones were different, while Gina’s had pure derision flowing in her words, the Princess was far more sincere, a friendly face in the crowd. “Thou art doing wonderfully, dear!” That dear certainly felt like it was worth the cost of cutting his leg to Tartarus and back at least. Lifting the gosling, Devon fit it into another one of the holes and was rewarded with the mechanical churning and grinding. 

“Any one of you wanna get the next one?” Devon asked hopefully. 



I attempted another rebellion tonight. I took Crystal Shine’s contract and attempted to destroy it outright. Completely unmake that what bound him to me and the stars. I assembled all of the components, even pacifying the lava dragon long enough to secure the gauntlet all for nothing.

I should have figured that it would not be so simple. I know -how- to do the task, yet it eludes me. If I were more paranoid, I would say that the stars were keeping the knowledge from me, but if they had, they would not be so subtle. Could it be that these contracts are unbreakable? Are they permanent? Or do I simply lack the ability to change them once they are forged?

Regardless, there is a specific list of components that must be in place before the spell could even work. Naturally, the contract and all aspects affected by the contract are required. The gauntlet is crucial for mine, as it holds the essences of those bound, without it, the magic is useless. A powerful source of magic is needed as well. To this day, I can only think of the Element of Magic, but I imagine the Princesses could also reach such a level of power. 

As a means of securing the contracts, all are sealed by a rune. This is not a decree of the stars, but one of my own devising. With the rune in place, I ensure that nopony can modify the contracts, and that they will have to go through me to even consider it.

Finally, all of this work must be done in the sight of the stars. If the contracts are manipulated in daylight or darkness, the magic will not take hold. The starlight is the very ink of the contract, and all work requires it. The sun’s light renders any change unbreakable until the next night.




* * * * *


“Sir...” Jetstream groaned. “Sir, is this really what we should be doing?”

“Pfft! This is extremely important, Jetlag!” The Second Captain paused in front of the great mirror, bedecked in jewels and ornamental weapons. “If I am going to make any kind of decent impression when I save Princess Luna, everything has got to be just right. It’s the art of presentation!” Stormblade raised a hoof to model a ceremonial, gem-encrusted sword, giving it a few test swings in the air. Somehow, some way, the jangling and jingling had found a way to get louder and more intense.

“Presentation?!” Jetstream sputtered, teeth raking with the new symphony of rattling noise. “Second Captain, we’re trying to find Princess Luna, right? Then why by Celestia’s beard are we fooling around in front of a mirror!?” 

“Jetlag!” Stormblade barked. “Do not interrupt me! This is an important facet of the investigation!”

Something snapped in the pegasus’ mind. “No it’s not!” Jetstream stamped down and flared his wings in frustration. “Missing! Princess! Sir, we still don’t even know how we get OUT of here! And this place needs more than just us taking some treasure t-”

“Don’t question me!” Stormblade roared with a new cacophony of jingles. “I know what you’re up to, Jetlag!”

“We need to...wait.” The pegasus nickered, blowing a strand of rainbow mane aside. “What am I up to, anyway?” Jetstream’s tirade came to a halt.

“You’re just trying to steal the glory of this place’s discovery from me! I knew you were bucking for my position as soon as I got it!” Stormblade sneered triumphantly as the pegasus felt new gray hairs spontaneously in his mane. “Clever clever Jetstream. I applaud you for sticking to your plot, but the jig is up. I know every one of your little tricks to steal my job.”

He couldn’t be serious.

“You can’t be serious...”

Oh but he was.

“Oh but I am!” Stormblade clamped his hoof down in a shallow display of power and strength. “You will find no more ways to steal my achievements from me.”

The pegasus watched with growing horror as Stormblade seemed to have had this speech practiced, right down to hitting his marks with his steps and movements.  Like it was all just one big long-rehearsed song and dance number.

“I always knew that the system in Canterlot would have those trying to exploit it. Luckily, I still have my honor, and I will be a pillar of it long after your scheme is uncovered.” A pause to reposition himself to the right angle. “Even if you somehow get promoted, you will never hold it because you lack valor and honor, Jetlag! You have nothing to offer Canterlot! You have nothing to offer Princess Luna!” Yep. Definitely rehearsed, judging by the dramatic swirls of his hooves and poses which may have looked imposing in some foal’s imagination. “And you most definitely have nothing to offer me!”

Before Jetstream could speak, Stormblade struck his final pose.

“In fact, the best thing you could do for me now is to slink back to your...politics and leave the real work of protecting Canterlot to those who are still dedicated to Lu-er...her!”

“Sir...are you sure? You’re going to-”

“The time for words and schemes is over, Jetlag, please remain here if you’d like or see yourself out.”  He marched in proud cadence down another aisle of jewels, hoof-picking the subtlest of accessories.

“Are you...” the cyan pegasus’ head pulled back in disbelief, his teeth suddenly grating together with a fresh slug of tension surging up his ribs.  “...Ack,” he winced, twirling his shoulder inward with a raised foreleg.  “Are you, dismissing me sir?”

“Afraid so, private.” The Captain raised a brave heroic foreleg before him. “For it has always been destiny’s humble wish that I show my prowess and capability, not just as a Captain, but...” He lowered his voice to a dramatic hush.  “...As her stallion.”

The pegasus’ rainbow mane frazzled.  “P-Permission to speak freely sir?”

“Denied.”

Denied?  No, no, something something protocol a flying feather!  “Captain Stormblade, with utmost respect, you cannot, you must not, proceed alone you don’t know what-”

"-OKAY!" Stormblade slammed a hoof on the ground, the thundering echo devouring whatever words were in flight.  “Okay,” he repeated in a deep exhale, lowering his voice.  "It was all fun and such, derping around with you and being your good buddy,” his eyes lifted, softening for the first time his memory recalled through an eternity paved over by time, “but your attitude, Jetstream..."

What about his attitude?  Was the Captain...would he...dare he even...?

"Sir?"

"See!?” He spat sharply. “That, right there!"

Oh, he would dare.

"What, sir?"

"That thing..." the Captain waved his black hoof before him in quick tight circles, "...there.  What you're doing right now.  Interjecting, interrupting, interfering, interacting.  You're speaking too much, I needed you more in the background."

Somewhere in the world, a camel collapsed under a fluttering tendril of straw and a shattered spine.

"Stormblade, listen."

"Captain-"

"Listen!"  The cyan pegasus slammed a hoof on the floor, his jaw clenching with the surge of tight pain slamming through his wing.  The room echoed again, this time ringing in dizzying pirouettes within the Captain's ears.  They twitched in the unfamiliar reverberations of a hoof not his own.  "We need to seriously discuss-"

A black fetlock rapped into his chest.  "You need to seriously oblige to me!"  He would not be overpowered.  “Oblige to me!”  He would not be spoken down to.  “You listen to me!”  He would not have the slammed hoof of another being addressed at him, no, nopony puts a hoof down at him.  Stormblade loomed over him, snorting a volley of hot air through his rainbow mane in a thick vaporous sheet.

Unimpeded, the pegasus attempted.  “Please, will you...” Jetstream snagged the words in his throat, meticulously reassembling them.  “What we need is to set our egos aside for a second to-”

“-Ego!?” Not a chance it was going to make any ground. “My ego!? This isn’t ego, private!”  Oh, how he let the word sink in. Private. Peon. Underling. "I am a Captain, I am your Captain.  I am to be respected, revered, and followed because I am a Captain!"

Without thinking.  "And Sombra was a King!"

*Khlamm!*

Silence immolated the room following the explosion of two black hooves bucking a fissure into the crystal wall.

"Don't make me invoke Clopwin's Law in this!"

Oh, shoot.  That line, the one his brain had always drawn out in plain sight when he practiced his telling off speech in the mirror late at night...

“Sir, wait.”

...Crossed it.

“Out!”

Blinking, Jetstream turned and headed away from the mirrored wall. Amazingly, he felt conflicted. Jetstream had no love for his immediate superior, and the spit on his dedication to Canterlot would have sparked a brawl were it anypony else, but still the private felt slightly responsible for him. They had recruited together and struggled through the same basic training. Indeed, before Stormblade had talked his way into officer’s training, they regularly shared patrols, and such camaraderie was not easily shaken.

“If that’s what you want, si-”

“OUUUUT!”

By the time he flew back to Canterlot castle and got help, he was sure that Stormblade would be battling tears again, and eager to regale the rescue party with his fabricated exploits. With a sigh, Jetstream lifted off and swooped away, back towards the door and hole that had brought them into this bizarre labyrinth.

The Captain’s remaining sting of words racked against him, the verbal fangs still clenching tightly around his ears.  Combined with the remnant aches of his battered wing, each beat of his wings through the warm cavern air upwards shot a bolt of deja vu between the pegasus’ eyes.

*Floomf.*

“Private Jetlag you will honor my authority!”

*Floomf.*

“Show them your nephew’s screw-up that has been cast upon you!”

*Floomf.*

“Now, Jetlag, do that dance we made you do!”

He shook his neck, feeling the muscles pop refreshingly along his spine.  Finally, in flight, and now carried through the warm updraft of the lava floor cradling him upward, he looked down again at the purple crystalline light pinching into the distance beneath.

*Floomf.*

“Finally you’re starting to learn at least something, Jetlag.”

No.

*Floomf.*

“There, see?  Being humble isn’t that hard!”

No, no.  Not like this.  Not like this.  He couldn’t just let the Captain get his way.  Jetstream knew that when it came to humble wishes, he questioned not the Captain’s “constructive wisdom...” but simple as the desire is, he knew how easily simplicity falls to burdensome complexity.

*Floomf.*

“Though, heh, I do make it look easy.”

And while his words would always knock him down, belittle him, and make him feel two haunches tall, Jetstream had one skill nopony else in the Captain’s company could lay claim to.  He wouldn’t give up on him. Sure, the constant tirades grew tiresome, but embers of pride emanated within his chest at the thought that he had just stood up to the Captain, that even after disregarding the tenets of protocol and attempting to drag him back to Equestria that he still felt bad about leaving him behind.

He felt bad.

After being rid of the pestering buffoon, he felt bad!  Really bad!

*Floomf.*

“Finally you’re starting to learn at least something, Jetlag.”

He shook it off.

“Finally you’re starting to learn at least something.”

He shook it off.

“You’re starting to learn.”

The pain in his wing started flaring up again.  And through his rushed gallop to the cavern mouth exiting to the starry winter sky outside, the throbbing did not recede.

It never did.


* * * * *


Back in front of the mirror, Stormblade beamed. “Finally, now Luna is all mine,” he said. “Oh Jetlag, running off like the cowardly lot you are was the best gift ever.”

He giggled delightedly. “You handed me the best way to usher in my name as the Hero of Canterlot.” Stormblade turned a circle to admire his new plundered attire, so engrossed that he did not see the equally jewelry clad hoof emerge from the mirror until he was drug through with two eagerly clasping forelegs.


* * * * *


“And that’s...five...” Devon groaned, the peeping stone gosling happily squirming into its nesting keyhole. It settled in with a happy chirp, leaving the charcoal unicorn to assess himself. His forelegs was gouged with cuts and bruises, matched by marks on his face and stomach borne from crawling and straining to reach into nests of broken crystal. 

Turning back to the tangle of paths, the charcoal unicorn swallowed hard. He did not relish going through the painful hunt once more. 

“Dear!” Luna protested, “thou must rest, I think thou hast given enough, more than thy fair share.” 

Looking over his cut forelegs, Devon shrugged. “They were all scared of you and Gina, they only go with me, Luna. Besides,” he smiled slightly. “I’m scratched up already. I don’t see any reason for you to be like it as well.” 

Kindness was always so much easier when it was small, meaningless things, in meaningless days. Holding a door, helping with a fallen bag of groceries, they were all acts of kindness to be sure, but what did they truly cost?

Everypony always spoke of the ‘little things’ in kindness, but the sentiment always felt incomplete to Devon. While a certain warmth existed in the small things that brought joy to another, the heart of it beat when the kindness came at a greater cost.

Sacrifice.

Kindness when kindness is not easy, or smart is when its resolve is tested. The test takes so many forms, when nopony would carry a grudge for turning away from it. Reaching through shattered stones and shredding one’s legs even more, swallowing pride to allow painful honesty through or even putting aside rage and indignation to summon up the ultimate of kindnesses: forgiveness.


* * * * *




Even I felt slightly indignant towards her as she finished up her story.  Gina was always good at telling them, had a certain flavor with her words that made me stop and think her intended message several times after she told them. Every story had multiple meanings.

It racked me for months after hearing the duckling didn’t... how she failed to raise the duckling.  It had chosen her, she was more than capable of hoof-raising it, but seemed to feel no guilt in telling me it... that its life was unfortunately brief.

Yet as I look unto her, I feel a despair of hopelessness brimming.  Unlike the duckling, she’s my own kind.  She’s supposed to be my wife one of these days.  One of these days...

If I can feel the panging regret in my own fiance imprinting upon me, I could only imagine the greater hopelessness of the duck choosing her. The second she appeared in its black beady eyes, the second the duckling identified her as another living creature, it was too late.  One second that didn't need to happen.  One second that sealed the poor thing's destiny.  Because one second.

Well.

One second... is all it takes.

Strange.

Seems that in setting aside an evening to talk only of me, I’ve inspired myself for the next challenge for our chamber.




* * * * *


“Phew, all done!” Devon exclaimed as the last gosling slid into place. With the final whirling grind of cogs and locks, the door shuddered as it freed itself from their grip. The tortured sound of ancient hinges ripped through the stillness of the cave as the door swung open on its own weight and momentum. Turning to Luna, the charcoal unicorn smiled. “One more of these and we can finally get out of here.”

“Indeed!” Luna replied brightly. “I have so much to discuss with thee,” she followed, pressing against his side as they strode towards the hallway. “But much that should be saved for later,” she added, finishing with a small wink which ignited Devon’s blush.

“Jeez, you two,” Gina sneered, picking up her pace. “You’d think this was a date or some...” her voice trailed off, her own orange light disappearing down the hallway in pursuit of the mingling gray and cobalt sparks. However, as they wound through the new corridors, Gina sped up, keeping her eyes firmly on Luna. Something about her behavior troubled her, the way she leaned tightly into Devon’s side, the way she gradually went from leading the charge to allowing Devon the chance to lead. Annoyance gave way to affection. Focused determination gave way to care and playful flirting. It was all natural, nothing about the changes immediately spoke of anything other than a hardened heart softening to sincere, if perhaps clumsy, affection.

Yet...

Gina’s train of thought came to an unceremonious end as she ran into a pair of cutie marks. “Gyoof! What’s the big deal? C’mawn what’s the holdup?” Muscling around Luna’s side, the orange mare saw what had drawn them short. The hallway opened up wide, revealing a torrent of rushing water falling in a single wall in front of them. Moon and starlight filtered in through the water, bathing the open cavern in a weak, watery light. 

“We’re below the palace!” Luna declared with a sudden rush of recognition. “I remember this place! This is directly below the castle, hidden by the waterfalls.” Luna stepped forward. Now armed with a point of reference, she looked almost familiar in the unfamiliar cave. “Of course...of course! I remember this very cave when I...” she trailed off. “When I went to meet somepony here long ago.”

“Pft...you don’t need to lie to us,” Gina growled. “You were meeting Ghasen, we have the journal, remember? Just what did you meet him to do?”

“We see no need to explain it to a scoundrel such as thee!” Luna’s retort was acidic. “We know that thou cannot be trusted, so we shall keep our secrets to ourselves, thank thee.”

“Hey, that’s no fair!” Gina snorted, laughter mixing with her anger and frustration. “You all know what my deal was, Why can’t I know what you were mixed up in?”

“Hey.”

“Because we hath no desire to share it with thee. Thou would most likely use it against us given a chance!”

“Ladies?”

“Pfft! I’ve been nothing but good to both ya! Who pulled your flanks out of the fire like...five times already, huh? Huh?”

“Luna. Gina.”

“And was it not thee who got us into these perils from the beginning?!”

“HEY!”

“What?!” Both Gina and Luna wheeled on Devon, their ire directed at the unicorn who would dare to interfere with a downright good argument going on.

“There’s something in the journal here.” Devon ran his gauntlet-clad hoof over the open journal in his hoof. A flicker of gray telekinesis lifted the folded page out from its hiding place. “Looks like somepony stuck a note in this or something. Slowly, as not to damage the ancient paper, Devon unfolded the folded pages into its full size and began to read as the two mares ceased their argument for the time being to join him.

Even in the murk and from such a distance, Gina instantly recognized it. Her eyes sparkled in a sudden surge of opportunistic delight. Then, just as suddenly as she spotted her chance, she ground to an immediate halt.

“H-hey...wait...” she spoke aloud, drawing Devon and Luna’s gaze. But her voice was not directed to either one of them. The mare’s eyes were straight to the starlight filtering in through the water. “Hey! Don’t talk to me like that, I’m doing exactly what you as-what?!” Gina shook her head. “Wa-wai...WAIT!” she pleaded loudly, bracing her hooves into the stone and dusty. “Whaddya MEAN I’m done?!”

“Gina? Are you okay? What’s going on?” Devon asked, turning his attention back to the mare from the inviting open door. As he spun to fully face her, the charcoal unicorn was momentarily blinded by a flash at the ground around Gina’s hooves.

“Oh no...” Gina whispered as the light retreated. “Oh no no no...no...” she gasped, voice cracking as the light swirled and flowed up and around her. “I can’t be done now. I...I did everything you asked and you’re...”

Her eyes narrowed, then shot open in bewildered disagreement.

“But I don’t WANT the Gray anymore! I don’t...I have new friends now!” The orange unicorn tried to lift her leg to move, but despite her efforts and straining body, she was firmly rooted to the cavern floor. “They, they actually speak to me, and care about my feelings, and actually tell me to stop talking and call me annoying and other things ponies do to other ponies, I can’t remember when I, when I-” She nickered, spinning atop her rear hooves while waving in all directions.  ”NO! GET OFF OF ME!” Gina screamed in a growing frenzy and panic. “LET ME GO! I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK!”

“Devon!” Luna called to the charcoal unicorn, sprinting behind him to regard the agonizing transformation. “Look upon her leg!” 

Around Gina’s leg, the light had condensed and slowly climbed upward. Where it passed, the fur and flesh were gone, replaced by cold stone. 

“I see, I-I kn-know!” Devon stumbled over his words. “How do we stop it?”

The orange unicorn halted, firing a hopeful smile to Devon.  “You can do it!” Gina exclaimed. “Dev’s, this is your thing! You can break the contract for me, can’t ya?”

“Huh? ME?!” 

Gina thrashed against her petrified hoof again. “Yeah! Yeah! You can do what...G-G-Ghasen did on me, just in reverse yeah? You’re a Bookmark! The contract is right there! Right in your hoof! All ya gotta do is...” Gina trailed off, looking more to Devon for the answer. 

“Is...?” Came a flummoxed response. Devon turned to the paper that fell from the journal. “Wait, are you saying this is...” Turning his light to the parchment, Devon saw symbols. They were not scrawled in any ink he knew, but something else entirely. The markings glistened and glimmered, very faintly pulsing like starlight. They somehow both held the quality of fresh ink, and the permanence of inscription. The symbols bore resemblance to hoofwriting, yet how could anypony write this? 

“I don’t know! I just know that you gotta help-ACK! NO!” Gina warmed up a verbal broadside before another surge of light drew her eyes down. The light was picking up in speed, climbing her legs and leaving new trails of ashen stone where her orange coat used to be.

Devon flung a twisting forehoof over his head in exasperation. “Well I don’t know either!”

“Please help me!” Gina’s wild panic had died into a sobbing plead. Tears rolled freely down her face as heaving cries replaces her breathing. She was no longer speaking directly to Devon, Luna nor the invisible forces. She pleaded to anything that might listen and help with utter sincerity. “I was free. I can’t go back...”  Her eyes drifted, directed towards put peering through the charcoal unicorn.  “I had...friends.”

The Princess and stallion jilted their necks back.  “Friends?”

"Dev's...c'mon..." Gina whimpered as stone closed up one of her legs. "C'mawn, don't leave me like this. You gotta help me!" Straining against the inert weight that her hooves locked into, the orange unicorn leaned and stretched towards Devon.

Desperation rolled clearly off of every word.

"If you don't, I'm gonna be like this again! I don't want to go back!" As stone swallowed her chest, Gina coughed and gagged as magic took over where her body once was. Stone forced air from her lungs, leaving her gasping and sputtering uselessly in front of Devon as the ashen coating began to creep up her neck.

"Help you?" Devon repeated. Conflict coursed through him. She was the one who started this whole thing! She stole the Element of Magic! She attacked the palace with a train car! She was clearly plotting malevolence against him! Her own words hung with treachery. She was dangerous. She was, if nothing else, a tool of whatever greater evil swirled around the archive.

She had saved his life, too. She had made it possible for them to get this far. She had thrown herself into the jaws of doom to make sure that all went well. She was necessary. She was, if nothing else, a victim of whatever greater evil swirled around the archive.

"D...v..." she choked out once more before the stone swallowed her neck, strangling out the rest of her voice in a single, unsettling gurgle. All that she could speak with now was her face and eyes, begging for his trust and forgiveness. To Gina, it was a feeling all too familiar, the clutching darkness and growing silence from every one of her senses as her body ground to stasis, alive but utterly disconnected. The Gray was back, but no longer the steadfast companion to her madness. Stone swallowed her face, locking it in a permanent expression of terrified begging, even capturing the tears that flowed from her cheeks. No artist could match such emotion with their skills, no master could even approach such sincere fear. As her last choke echoed off of the crystal, the cavern eventually melted back into chilling, terrifying silence.

Staring at the pony statue, Devon swallowed, trying to control the conflicting battle of emotion within him. All his life, he had fantasized of the times where he would possess such power, a cruel fantasy of holding redemption to those who had wronged him and keeping it just out of reach, inflicting tacit revenge on the life which had so regularly kept his own growth denied. It was even reasonable to leave her behind, right? Even though he held such a power now, he found himself struggling to turn his back on her. She had helped them, but more than that, it was her final plea. Even though he had never been in such as position, he could not shake the undeniable need of Gina’s begging. "What do you think, Luna?" Devon asked, eyes still locked on the pleading statue.

"I..." Luna began, approaching and standing resolutely beside the charcoal unicorn. "I think that thou should make the decision. I shall support whatever route thou think is best."

Devon looked down. Part of him hoped that Luna would have a stronger opinion, something to hang his responsibility on. But now it all fell to him. All it would take is a momentary surge of practical cruelty to turn and continue, to leave her to the fate that she had fallen into. By now, though, with as much as he had learned, Devon couldn't fully see Gina's fate as her own anymore. How much of her actions were the madness of her confinement within the contract? How much of it was her acting on her behalf, or on the behalf of another? If she were forced or coerced, does she deserve freedom and a chance to make things right?

Some long-lived instinct stirred within Devon. He may be unable to influence much, but he held the power to allow things to be made right. He had the power to give Gina the chance to make recompense for her actions, forced or otherwise.

His foreleg trembled against the gauntlet's interior, as if his own conflicts agitated whatever foreign and distinct personalities resided within it. "Luna," he finally spoke. Devon could even believe he was allowing himself to relieve such a burden from another who had so clearly been plotting against him. "I'm going to free her."

"If thou believe that the wisest course, Devon," Luna nickered, raising the Element of Magic in her telekinesis. "What must be done?"

"I..." Devon breathed softly. "I have no idea."

I have no idea.

He aligned the jeweled tiara above him, seeing the fluctuating energies coalescing between it and the gauntlet in his grip.  This had to work.  This had to work!  This had to...oh hoof fungus, he was going to have to...

“Luna, if you laugh, I will-”

“Wouldn’t dare, sweetest!”

He was going to have to wear it.

“Methinks thou would make a most wonderful princess!”

Ha. Ha. Ha...

Devon closed his eyes, and focused on the magic flowing around him. The only clue he had was the resonant hum between the contract, gauntlet and pendant around his neck when collected near Gina’s statue. All around him swirled the unavoidable feel of powerful magic, a nearly invisible tickle on the back of his mane that made his fur quiver on end. Experimentally, Devon lit his horn and tried to reach his magic out and match the resonance.

His consciousness slowly melted away and faded into the same frequency of the sparks and jolts that swirled around the items. Something was there, and as he pulled his focus towards it, Devon could infer its importance, he could tell on an instinctive level well below any intellectual level that it was something he should not see. Some reflex, some twitch of feral, primordial thought recoiled at its presence. Devon’s very spirit urged caution as he drew his mind into it before he realized its weight.

The unicorn’s mind swam in the very stuff of destiny. Fate.

All around his mind flowed through the medium, Devon experienced Gina’s fate. In a dazzling flash of sensation, he saw her fillyhood to her pleading with Devon. But it came not in emotions or even memories, it felt more like he saw the plan, the outline, the very design of her life from beginning to end. It was striking in its lack of emotion, all of her secrets past, present and future laid out before him with such stark plainness that it shocked him. There were none of the feelings or context that were such an integral part of a pony's being, leaving an icy cold dossier on the unicorn's fate. Her budding love for Ghasen, her enslavement, the madness that now swallowed her mind, all of it were experienced so coldly that it sapped Devon's own passion and heat. He found his mind bending to adjust to the cold logic of the stars. He fell deeper and deeper into it, logic crushing the spirit and drive from his heart.

With the Element of Magic resting on his head, Devon felt the magic in the gauntlet surge like a barely constrained beast. Where before, he could merely observe and read the flowing destiny around Gina and her contract, he now could see its workings. The unicorn saw the machinations of fate for a single moment, and even the peek at such a thing birthed a splitting headache deep in his skull. Staggering forward, Devon strained simply to just maintain consciousness as the overwhelming magic from the Element coursed through his body and horn.

“Ggghr...” he groaned, struggling up on his hooves and gazing at the contract. In his perception, Devon clearly saw every piece in place. The contract glowed with trapped and intensified starlight, each ‘word’ carved into the stone petal exuding a soft influence on the same field of destiny that flowed through, in and from Gina. The gauntlet shared the same flow as the mote of Gina’s very essence strained to be reunited with its true host, to be free of confinement and constraint. Yet, while it was separated, the contract held ultimate sway. Even the quill spoke openly to Devon, not in words, but in ideas and feelings, granting him an almost instinctive understanding of what must be done. Finally, atop his head, the Element of Magic provided the force that a mere unicorn needed to push aside and manipulate the binding fates that ensnared the unfortunate Gina in their grasp.

Slowly, Devon saw a new swirl of movement and magic from the quill. His own. Fed by the Element and channeled through the gauntlet, Devon could bend the words of the contract, rewrite the rules binding Gina, change the terms of the deal or...

Destroy the contract entirely.

Guided by a knowledge not his own, Devon angled the flowing magic from the quill at the contract, spiking it towards the words with the sole intent to tear it apart. Crude, but he saw no need to do anything beyond breaking the contract. Gina would be released and the stars’ grip on her banished forever.

It was in his blood.

He reminded himself constantly, with the remembered words of the architect, his own ancestor who created and preserved the magic... it was all in his blood.

The charcoal unicorn’s heart fluttered in excitement as the binding contract began to melt away under his magic, his gift. It was moments away from completely vanishing entirely before he felt an invisible hoof smack across his horn.  He reeled back from the sudden unexplained shock, waving a flailing hoof over him hoping to fend off whatever had just blindsided him, but only found his limb cutting through featureless air.

The aura around the fluttering contract writhed, shuddered, and ground to a halt. An invisible force locked the words of the contract to the slab, and while Devon’s magic could tug at it, they remained bound and shackled snug.

Only the rune of the contract will allow any change...

One piece to the puzzle remained, and it lay before his eyes. Etched into the stone petal was a symbol, blending a hummingbird with the fiery symbols of Gina’s star-shaped cutie mark. With the image before his eyes, Devon forced his magic to assume the same shape and design. The silver pendant around his neck fluttered, the twisting silver quill elevated before him and danced in rhythmic cadence to the weaving pulses of magic bridging the divide between parchment and horn. As the magic bent and folded over, each step it made towards matching the shape caused the words on the contract to grow looser and looser. 

It was working.

By the reign of Celestia, it was working!

Almost there...

The rune he crafted bent into rough shape. Not quite perfect, but close.

Well now... 

Devon’s head felt like a thousand buffalo stampedes. Every sense burned. His sight was nothing but blinding light and the vague shape of the symbol he struggled to hold in place and perfect. His hearing was gone for the roar of invisible magic all around him. All he could feel was the rushing pressure of fate itself struggling to prevent something from changing it. Even his smell and taste were dominated by the sensation of unseen might fighting back. Like a pebble trying to divert a river, Devon was overwhelmed by the force, yet pressed on.

The rune twisted closer. Only a few details left...

Devon felt fate struggling on some level that was well below his normal thought. It was not personal instinct, or even pony instinct, the overwhelming call to not interfere or alter fate hit him at something of a tadpole or primordial level. 

This changes things...

Ping!

The contract pulled taught, lifting before him as the miasma of spiraling magic rampaging around it shifted color from dull purple to a brilliant green.  Tight vespers of electrified energy dispersed to cloudy slabs of thick smoke, and they pelted through and around the fragile parchment.

Through a narrow break in the hazy chaos, a sliver of clarity divided through, showing the parchment still intact, but tugging viciously on each end, as if every energy the universe could afford was working to shred it apart.

Every energy...except one.

A lone purple shard of glowing light bound tightly down the middle, its edges holding tightly and resealing with each vengeful tug of the churning green smoke.  A weight shifted in his saddle bag with each pulse of purple light cutting through the haze.  Looking down, he saw a narrow shred of light pulse over his saddlebag’s rim.

Unclasping it, the architect’s journal immediately shot out, spinning and aligning directly before him.  The churning green smoke pulsed away, clearing the room and drowning the parchment in a sea of spiraling blues and violets.  Letter by letter, the parchment’s contents shifted, realigning and shifting back to their previous form, slowly undoing each intricate detail of the etched emblem.

“Oh, no no no!”  Devon rushed towards the hovering book, the pages flung open and faced towards him.  The hastily etched sketches of the architect’s run-on squall of consciousness illuminated and beamed outward, various symbols and designs popping off the pages to manifest into defensive magics around it.  A ring of fire sputtered around the floor.  Steel oozed and hardened across the cover.  With a retreating spin, it opened its leatherbound maw, and clenched down on Gina’s contract, devouring it back within its binding.

Pages tore out, folded, and attacked Devon’s charge in the form of origami cranes, planes, and...

...Hummingbirds.

The volley of oncoming paper creatures suddenly parted around the charcoal unicorn.  He slowed his sprint to see them twist around him, making every effort to provide space around him without slowing.

Of course.  They wouldn’t attack their own blood!  They’d attack...

… Oh cinnamon swirl!

“Gyah, by my-ACK!!” Luna reeled back, her horn suddenly illuminating in new shades of blue and violet.  “Devon! What art thou doing!?”  Sweeps of telekinesis racked the space before the Princess, but with each swipe clearing the screeching flock of paper birds, another would immediately fall into its place.

The journal.  It couldn’t attack him.  It was...defending him!  It was mistaking him for Ghasen!?  Only designed to help its bloodline?  He didn’t know anymore, he didn’t care!  Without thinking, Devon closed the distance to the tome, and flung it shut.  An explosive torrent of energy bubbled between the covers, daggers of blinding violet light sliced between the pages, but Devon clamped it close to his chest as he began his run.

Pages twisted and lurched, freeing themselves from the tome, leveling before his eyes in purple glow as he sprinted forward.

He had an idea.

It was not much, but it was all he had.

As the stars had stated, as long as a contract physically exists, it cannot be broken.  Whatever magic remained imbued in the tome was ensuring of that.  But what if he could make the contract not exist anymore.  What if he could throw it... out of physical existence?

Rounding the corner out of the room, he spied the crystalline mirror across the twisting bridges and walkways.  Bolts of violent energy ricocheted through them, rings and blasts of jetting debris exploded from their bases as the bridges came alive, lashing and whipping across the room.  A single path remained in place; the old rickety wooden scaffolding that twisted in lurching arcs beneath the bridge it previously wrapped around.

One of the bridges dropped downward, slamming against the wall behind Devon!  A heavy wave of compressed air vaulted him foreward.  His forehooves spun backwards in a tumble as his rear legs skidded to a halt just a half haunch away from the cavern’s pit.  Another bridge wound up, and like a mallet propelled with world-crushing force towards him!

He jumped forward, feeling the volley of pebble buckshot digging into his charcoal coat.  Shoulder first, he landed and tumbled on the wooden scaffold, and floundered over skittering hooves to find his footing beneath the warping supports.

He wasted no time beginning a frantic dash across to the other end of the cavern.  More bridges aligned and swung through the air, dropping down and smacking against the walls.  Each deafening blow forced the wood beneath him surging upwards, none of his hooves ever finding a confident hold in his frenzied sprint.

A narrow stone bridge suddenly looped and whipped downward towards him.  He felt the scaffold just a couple haunches behind him give and snap, the reverberating force catapulting him forward.  He spun, watching helplessly as the room twisted into a nauseating angle, before the telltale reassurance of wood smacked him squarely in the chest.

The wind rushed as the bridge whipped up for another blow against him.  Devon flung his rear legs sideways, righting himself on his back.  He looked up, seeing the stone tendrils of the room’s masonry join together into a single unified knot of stonework and architecture.

They immediately plummeted downward, the charcoal unicorn instinctively holding his forehooves over him... the tome still in hoof.  Dozens of violet bolts suddenly surged through the bridges as they stopped, hovering in tense anticipation as if avoiding any harm to the architect’s journal.

A succession of iron and wooden cracks brought the world spinning again as the scaffolding finally gave way, and listed weightlessly downward.  Devon began his run again, and feeling the last fiber of wood shiver and recede beneath him, he gripped the tome between his teeth and pressed all his weight down on his rear legs, propelling him airborne with extended hooves.

His fetlocks snagged into the rocky ledge, but the ledge immediately peeled and voiced no interest in holding his weight with a short diatribe of pops and cracks.

Gravity prevailed, dragging him into the chamber’s dark depths.

A deafening whoosh of air broadsided Devon’s ears as his rump plopped unexpectedly on solid ground.  Well, ground more solid than usual.  Cracking open his eyes, bolts of purple magic coursed beneath him as the union of bridges caught him.  Or, more importantly, caught the precious book that controlled them.

A final lurch of weight propelled Devon across the chasm, safely before the crystalline mirror.  In front of him, the eager grin of a charcoal unicorn stared him down.

“Is that?” The reflection beckoned.  “Ah, the Princess gave you the Element of Magic!  It’s what I always wanted!”  The charcoal projection waved its hooves forward.  “Yes, it’s perfect!  It’s always the thing I needed to...hey, hey w-w-wait!”

Devon sprinted into a leap, and with both hooves, swung the tome into the beckoning reflection’s muzzle.  The mirror’s apparition impulsively grabbed the offending book, peeling it off his face.

A page peeled free from the book, immediately twisting within violet magic and taking the form of a folded hummingbird.

“What in the, h-hey!” The reflection held the tome of his head, trying to protect himself from the assaulting origami bird.  “Ow!  Stop!  Ow! Oww!”

A teal and cyan sliver of light crept up to the edge of the book.  In disoriented and dizzy flops, Glyph crept to the surface.

The Glyph!  What was it...!?  Oh for Pete’s sake!

Retreating backward into the mirror, the reflected charcoal unicorn swung at the hummingbird with the book, Glyph chirping dizzily with each rapid swing.

A pinging bolt of magic coalesced atop Devon’s horn as he directed a hoof at the darting bird.  The gauntlet effortlessly obliged his conscious whim, summoning a tight pinch of telekinesis around the hummingbird.  It twirled and darted, trying to pry free from Devon’s magical grip, but was helpless as Devon aligned it with the tome, pressing it against the cover.

“Glyph!”  Devon called out to the chirping paisley swirls, pinning the hummingbird to the tome.  “Get on!”

“Hrnnrgh!?” The Glyph questioned him, but feeling the cold kiss of the mirror surface creeping up the tome’s cover, immediately got the hint.  It darted to the bird’s wingtip, compressed, and with a succession of frenzied rapid swirls, cleared the gap.  The origami bird burst into an eye-piercing glow as it pulled free from the tome, spinning and darting clear from the turmoil.

The reflection reached out to the glowing teal hummingbird, but his eye immediately caught a swirl of dark blur in its peripheral vision as it saw Devon ready himself with both hind legs raised.

“Do not want...” The reflection groaned, before every ounce of air within it blasted through his nostrils under the explosive weight of a double-buck square into the tome.  “PYUU-uuffgh!” The book crashed into his sternum in a shattering crack.  The tome disappeared, swallowed in the shimmering blue depths of the mirror, fading away in the grip of the tumbling charcoal projection.

A discomforting stillness emanated around Devon.  The air sucked away, dragged upwards to the ceiling.  He looked up, and saw the lurching knot of bridges collapsing, cracks and fissures crept menacingly across the looming twisting pillars, regiments of rock and masonry peeling off.

Devon whirled his shoulders behind him, and sprinted along the pit’s edge away from the collapsing bridges.  A large chunk popped off, a killing shadow enveloping him with a cold blast of wind.  He rolled to the floor, jumping forward and skidding across the coarse floor.

*Kwa-kwoom!*

A volley of thick air propelled him away at a disorienting angle.  Devon flopped onto his back and looked up, only to see several more huge rock slabs converging onto him.

“Hyaaah!” A familiar mare’s voice ricocheted through the crackling air. “Swing in low, Luna!”

A screeching torpedo of orange magic sliced through the air, embedding deep into one of the rocks.  A dozen fingers of dust exploded outward, a ring of quickly expanding fire surged outwards, washing Devon in an exhale of scorching heat.

“Brilliantly done, Gina!”  Luna chided from across the chasm.  Looking over, Devon saw the cobalt Princess flying rapidly towards him, the orange unicorn holstered tightly within her forehooves.

More careening slabs of collapsing bridge dropped viciously, dozens of heavy boulders cracking free and falling.

“Shots away!” Gina called out.  “Heeee-yaag-aag-aag-aag-aaaagh!!”  Several bolts of gleaming orange magic connected, again clearing the space above Devon with a rapid volley of fiery blasts.

“Huzzah!”  Luna called out in glee. “How many points do I-”

“Seven!” Gina called up.

Luna coughed, her breath catching in her throat.  “Oh!”  She blinked heavily, and refocused back to the charcoal unicorn.  “Seven.”  She shook her head.  “Huzzah.”

“Danger close, Dev’s!”  Gina grit her teeth, a growing orb of coalescing orange energy pinching tight on her horn illuminated the room vividly.  She was prepping a big one.

The wrapped bridges finally dropped in unison, buckling as one under its own weight.  The thick gnarled column of stone masonry fell as a single dark cleaver of mutually assured destruction upon the charcoal unicorn.

“Quickly Gina, quickly!”

Looking up, a fluttering green piece of paper caught Devon’s eye.  With a swipe of a hoof, he reached up, clenching the dizzy Glyph.  He pressed it into his chest, and tumbled to his side.  “I’d get down if I were you.”

The origami hummingbird halted, then clenched tightly against his sternum.

Like watching a sunrise... from ten hooves away... blistering heat lapped across the room, wrapping and crackling through the dropping behemoth above.

“Ack! Too much!” Gina squealed in surprise. “Pull back Luna!”

“We can not!”

The orange unicorn reeled.  “Hard to port!”

“Not with thy weight!” Luna groaned through clenched teeth.

“Weight!?” Gina shrieked.  “What are you saying about my-”

The column blasted maniacally with supernova force.

“Dive!  Dive!”  Gina reached up, wrapping a forehoof around the Princess’ mane and dragging her head down.  “Hit your burner, pilot!”

The scalding shockwave slapped against the two mares, a salvo of simmering rocks pelted across them.

“Quit pulling upon my-” Luna yelled, “Upon thy twelve!” The Princess snapped a hoof forward, pointing at a massive slab careening towards them.

“On it!”  Gina unleashed a single bolt of magic, the beam glancing against it.  “Woaaah, hold ‘er steady gal!”  She aligned her head again, her horn pulsing with crackling energy.  A second blast cleaved through the rock, dividing it before them, each slice splitting clear.  “Ha ha!  The stone has been doub-”

“Inbound!” the Princess shouted. “Eyes ‘pon ten!”

“I see-PYEEUUUFGH!” Gina flopped sideways as a large chunk of falling bridge dislodged her from Luna’s grip.  Twirling through the air, she reached upward, feeling the navy blue fetlock in her grip.  But the fetlock... did not grab back.  “Luna?”

The Princess did not respond.

“Luna!?”

She looked up, hoping to see teal irises staring back, but only saw a spinning stunned face.  “Hrr-gh...”

“Princess!”  Gina clamored up her leg, positioning herself over the falling Princess.  A black silhouette blotched out the room’s fiery light in a menacing silhouette.  “Evasive maneuvers, pull right pull right!”

“Unnghf...” The Princess clenched her eyes shut, her body lurching to the side.  “Myeeengh, my head, I-” She felt a pair of forehooves grip on her wings.  “By yonder, art thou daft!?”

“Switching to manual power!”  Gina planted her rear hooves in the Princess’ back.  “Roll tight and lift!”  With a quick pull, she extended the Princess’ wings out, feeling the telltale flow of air coursing beneath them.  They ascended and tilted, the tips of the Princess’ regal slippers catching the edge of the killer projectile.  “Get up Dev’s!”

Devon lifted his head, a pile of soot and glowing embers shaking off his muzzle.  “Gina, what are you doing!?”

“Oh, nothing!” She yelled back.  “Just flying a Princess around, the usual!  Get ready for extraction!”

“Extraction!?”  The charcoal unicorn stood up, seeing the fast approaching pair barreling down upon him with seemingly lethal velocity.  “Shouldn’t you slow down!?”

Gina looked down at the Princess, her eyes still swimming without focus.  “That’s a negative, control.”  The wall behind Devon began crashing around behind him, the facade sliding down and angling over him.  “Suck in your gut and exhale!”

He stepped back, readying for a pick-up hopefully more graceful than his imagination envisioned. “Exhale!?  Why do I-PWOOF!!!”  His imagination was pretty spot on.  A circle of stars danced around the unicorn’s vision as his lungs were emptied by the impact into Luna’s hooves.

The collapsing wall piled onto itself, the roof above following suit.  Columns, supports, and boulders chased after the half conscious Princess and winded unicorn, but Gina held the Princess steady within her hooves, keeping the wings extended and maintaining flight through the explosive chaos.  She glided back around, aiming for the kindness chamber, then pulled the wings back at a sharp angle to bring the Princess to a steep descent through the narrow door into it.

Devon hung on, clinging around the Princess’ neck, his dangling legs clamoring before feeling them scooped up and clenched to Luna’s chest.  Cobalt forelegs cradled him, holding him close, Luna’s teal irises finally focused.  Not on her direction.  Not on the crazed orange unicorn commandeering her own wings.

Not on any of that.

Time slowed and sound peeled away, Gina’s energized cries of excitement faded to an echoing muffle, as for just one moment Devon found himself being held tightly by her.  A peculiar sensation of warmth crept through his chest, his mind trying to take it all in, as they ignored the collapsing room around them to hold onto the other.

A single brief moment that reigned paramount in the young bookkeeper’s life that lasted as long as the ground would allow before bucking him across the spine with a hard landing.  A single second.  A single, long and well-received second.

Because one second...

Well.

One second... is all it takes...


* * * * *




I found myself pitying the duckling for weeks after Gina told me that story.  I know that I wasn’t the one it imprinted, I wasn’t the one who let it down, I’m not even the one who had to deal with the guilt afterward.  But I still pity it, for how powerless it must have been to its own whims; whims it had no choice or influence over.

At least with our own challenges in the chambers, we allow some choice and control in the matter. Like many things in life, it is but another test of character to see if you have the virtues to proceed.

Yet it is the lack of control in this regard, this inability to change your own feelings, especially with an emotion as volatile as love... It scares me sometimes. It scares me, yet it happens to every duckling in the world, every gosling, and even to those...

… To those we care for the most.

The things that bring destruction don't frighten me as much as the things that bring unconditional love.

One you can overcome.

The other you overcome... and regret for the rest of your life.

Probably my greatest regret is knowing I’ll never bring Gina the dreams she always had.  Nowadays, every dream is just me, me, me, by simply being in the same room as her I am fulfilling her woefully shallow comprehension of existence.  She always wanted to see the world outside of Equestria.  She always wanted to learn how to sing. She always wanted to write a novel.

Now that I think about it, I think I understand why she had such an affinity for ducks, why it depresses me so much that she did.

She always wanted to know...the freedom of flying.




* * * * *


“Devon! Darling!” the voice seemed a thousand miles away. “Answer me!”

“Murrhumph...”

“Curses, he fadeth from us again. Gina! Stop thy foalish prancing and help me wake him! T’was thy landing that crushed his head so!”

“Wheeheeeheeee!”

Darkness folded around Devon’s eyes and ears again. Until that is, a telekinetically thrown splash of water washed him out of it. In front of his muddy vision, the unicorn first beheld a blur of cobalt. The blur spoke, to the side as if scolding.

“That whilst SURELY bringeth him back, thou bouncing dunder-whaa? It worked!” 

“Dev’s...ya...ya did it...” Gina stammered. Running a hoof across her head, she laughed. “Y’did it! YA DID IT!” The laughter of glee mixed with tears of unutterable happiness. “Ya broke it! I...I’m...I’m free.” She spoke in a whisper, like she worried that if she spoke too loudly, it would somehow break her out of the dream she now lived. The orange mare experienced a full body quiver before she burst out in bouncing, tumbling jumps of pleasure. She bounced in tight circles around Devon and Luna. 

“I’m free! I’m free! I’m freeEEEEE!” 

“Ugh...” Devon groaned, rolling out of Luna’s forelegs and slowly up to standing. His head still rang like a Summer Sun Celebration parade, but at least the spinning had come to a stop and his vision focused. Piece by piece, his memories rearranged in his head to form a coherent assemblage of the past few minutes. Gina...the journal...the twisting cavern and his maddening run. Did all of that work?

“DEV’S I COULD KISS YA!” 

Must’ve worked.

“Please, Gina, quiet thyself,” Luna chided, moving to Devon’s side to help him as he staggered up to his four legs. Lowering her voice, Luna spoke gently, though her tone betrayed the rush of urgency she just experienced. “I am so glad the thou succeeded, and safely! I couldn’t bear losing thee after helping us get so close.”

“I dunno...” Devon groaned as more memories closed in around him. “To get us here, I just threw away that journal, without it, I don’t know if we’ll have any way to figure out the last cham-” His despondent protest was cut off by a silver-clad hoof gently pressing his lips closed.

“Shh shh, thou mustn’t panic, darling,” Luna said smiling. “Such a journal is no match for the power of thy mind!” The Princess of the Night wrapped an encouraging wing around his shoulders, guiding him forward. “We shall be astounded as we see thy quest to the end. I know that thou whilst win thy prize!”

“Wait...you mean your prize, right?” Devon turned a head, moments from meeting Luna’s eyes before another voice barked into his ear.

"Dev's! Dev's!" Gina cried, stopping him at the door. "Waitaminute, don't you see what's happening here?!"

"What do you mean what's happening?" Devon asked slowly, looking around the room for some unseen trap. "Gina, what are you going on about?" Devon braced himself against Luna, who squeezed into his side in turn. Turning to the unicorn mare, he found a face in fast-thinking panic, eyes darting as pieces and logic pieced together in her mind.

"It's the Princess! You gotta get away from her!" Gina barked, charging towards the pair. "She's caught in a contract!" Luna cringed at the sudden rush of movement, tucking in against Devon. "We gotta help her! She can't be with you like this, Dev's!"

Devon blinked. "Wait..." he looked between Luna and Gina with a slow sway of his head. "You think that she's...?" Devon shook his head. No! She's not under some spell! I would have noticed this, I would have been able to tell. This is my gift after all! "Gina, come on, you're acting crazy, Luna's fine." Devon laughed slightly, echoed by Luna's own soft chuckle. "I know you went through one yourself and being all paranoid and stuff, but I think she's fine, you don't need to wor-"

"Dev's!" Gina interrupted. "I know it, too! I was hoofing THERE when it happened to me! This is wrong!" Gina argued with rising anger and shocking clarity. Gone were the erratic laughs and giggles that marked her speech, whatever was in her head it was gone and replaced with desperate sincerity. "You can't be with Luna! You just can't, Dev's!" As she spoke, the orange mare threw her shoulder in between the pair, trying to physically separate them. "We can fix this, don't worry! Once we get further, we can get her out of that. But we gotta make sure that neither of you get too close so it is easier to free Luna fro-"

"Gina!" Devon tried another dismissive chortle. "You're completely overreacting." The charcoal unicorn braced himself and repelled Gina's attempt to force him and Luna apart. She's just freaking out at any sign of love. Luna's acting perfectly normal and this is all right and good. She's just being Gina. Devon placed a foreleg on Gina's shoulder and changed his tone to calming and reassuring, doing all he can to pull her out of the feverish hallucination. "Just take a few deep breaths, Gina, we're not caught in any kind of contract or trap. We gotta keep going, yeah, but just take it easy alright?" Devon smiled. "I understand, but I think Luna and I are just fine. You alright, Princess?" Devon asked, leaning back into Luna's cobalt mane.

"Of course, dear," Luna responded instantly, with a sweet smile.

"Y'see, Gina, just fi-"

"She's NOT fine, Dev's! Look at her! Look in her eyes and ask her to say that again!" Gina pleaded, batting the reassuring hoof off of her shoulder and pressing her own hoof into Devon's chin, trying to turn him into Luna's eyes. "Look! LOOK!" Gina strained as her resisted and squirmed when he would not cooperate. "Dev's, you wanna help the Princess, don't you? What're you waiting for? I thought you'd be kinda in a hurry to get her freed from all of this. Free from all this fake..."

"Fake!?" Devon snapped, forcing Gina away from him with a surge of agitation and anger. "Fake?! Of course it's not fake, stop this, Gina." How DARE she? What, is she so completely gone that she is trying to hurt me still, after I saved her?! Devon felt his cheeks flush with indignant anger. "I just helped you out here and now you're trying to break me away from Luna, I thought you said you were on my side, Gina!" Devon felt the sting of genuine betrayal, "I help you and you try to stab me in the flank, you're a real piece of work, Gina, real piece of work." With a stomp, Devon turned his attention back to the path ahead and leaned more securely into Luna's side. I was just getting happy and comfortable, go figure that somepony would take offense and tell me that I was getting too happy. Not anymore, I earned this and I'm not going to let Luna go. "We've been through too much together to just stop because you think it is wrong! What, have I messed up something else by actually having something go my way?"

"Dev's, you know what I'm say-"

"I know, and I know you're wrong! Luna knows you're wrong!" Devon's face burned. How dare she try to put doubt into the budding romance, poisoning it at the very root! Shaking his head to banish the thoughts, he turned his gaze back towards the affectionate Luna, who nuzzled at his cheek. I can't pay any attention to her, Gina is just being crazy.

"Pay her no need, darling," she said, almost echoing his very thoughts. "Yonder unicorn is lost in her own muddled mind, she doth not recognize affection." At those words, Devon let out a relaxed sigh as they rounded another bend of mirrored crystal hallways. Affection was all it was.

As their reflections whipped and trailed behind them, Devon watched Luna's. She was smiling, happy and fully pressed in mutual affection with Devon. Finally, things were looking up. Gina had no idea what she was talking about, and Devon's confidence grew with every step.

He wouldn’t let the malicious whims of a sporadic stranger get under his skin.  Something was ahoof, he knew she was still concocting something. How ungrateful she was after being saved.

Yet upon passing every puddle, every marble tile, every mirror, he intentionally avoided Luna's eyes in every reflection. He couldn’t pin a hoof to why, just something his gut feeling mandated.

The feeling had always lingered.