//------------------------------// // chapter two // Story: Skipping Stones. // by ambion //------------------------------// There is only havoc in the storm. The shoreline was a nightmare world of howling chaos. Through the pounding waves Stones caught a glint of colour, some impossible speck caught between sea and stone. The lighthouse cut a swath through the murk and for a moment Stones could see the body, right where the water was blackest and the frothing madness riding it was whitest. She could not think, could not act. Caught in the pelting rain the mare could only watch in dumbfounded awe as - with the passing of the light - it was swallowed up once more in the tumult. The waves rose up, higher than she had ever seen, certainly never from the writhing shoreline. Up and up they rose, great mountains of water that slammed one another; volcanoes of water erupting violently. Panic pulled at Stones, yet even more so it rooted her to the spot. A surge washed over her knees and shoved at her forcefully. Grasping at her legs the swash tried to pull her back into the sea with it, but a Stone was not so easily moved. The beam came round again, the light brought her to her senses; the terrible fiends biting at one another were rock and wave. Fearsome as they were, these things were nothing more than that. All the howling banshees ripping at her mane were only wind, the stinging rain that blinded her was no malicious swarm. She could barely see for it, yet dare not raise a hoof from the firmament to clear her eyes. Her hooves were as limpets to the rock, four pillars of strength that held the mare up both physically and mentally. Blinking and squinting she turned her head to the wind, fighting the resistance of her hair as it whipped back and forth. The speck in the tempest rose up again, the colours of the body slick and shining, a luminescent green astride a tower of water, before it vanished from view again. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Impossible. Stones weathered the torrential downpour, forcing her eyes clear as they could be. A wave was rising. Rising, higher than all others, then higher still. A dark monolith. Stones watched, disbelieving as others broke before ever hitting it, the way in front of the unnatural surge parting, then lapsing back into frenzy behind it. All the while the obscured green spot of life tumbled and turned, submerged in the very crest. And it was getting closer. The whole of it, trampling the whole of the storm underhoof, hell bent on Broken Head. "No, oh nonono!" Her words were ripped apart before ever reaching her ears. She tried to scramble away, but the wave was so huge and fast, there was no where to go. Helpless and watching, the wave to end the world bore down on the island... ...and began receding even as it struck the land. Shrinking, sinking away, almost peacefully, calming the waters around it as it washed over and smoothed the grimacing rocks. Even then, it was still ten times her height when it ploughed into Stones, and all the world went upside down. Water became air and air became water; bubbles poured upwards around her, through her. Directions lost all meaning. There was only the twisting and turning, the pushing and pulling of the surge. Something solid slammed into her, so hard as to knock the breath from Stones, had she had any breath left to be stolen away. Even so, it was something tangible. Cold and slick, hard to grasp, Stones clung to it for dear life will all her strength, sparing none for the impact that slammed them both into the waiting teeth of Broken Head. Stones’ side bloomed with pain, her head cracked against barnacles, and as the water retreated over her it quite literally rubbed salt in her wound, marking a jagged line down her midriff, burning as if hot coals were stitched to her coat. She was crying out before the backswash even gave her mercy to breathe. The only good Stones could think of it was that she still still had the capacity to realize the severity of her injuries. A Stone got familiar with injury in their line of work. Her cry became a gasp for air, then a grunt as she hauled herself and the mass she clutched to an inch up the shore. Only on Broken Head could it be called such an innocent thing as a shore, and only because the rocks couldn’t be convicted of their murderous guilt. Another surge washed over them, roaring as it retreated. She didn’t stop to look at herself. It was too dark, then too bright, only to be too dark again. Stones made sure to keep looking firmly away from the gash along the ribs on her right side, fully aware of how much she needed to deny it. It wouldn’t be that bad. It wouldn’t. Pain spoke otherwise when Stones tried to stand. She fell to her good side, onto the mass of flesh she held, It squirmed. Twisted. Struggled. Alive she thought, not as a word that crossed her mind but as a sensation, a realization that moved through the whole of Stones. Eyes stinging, the mare could see so little, and what there was to see was the roiling blackness of the storm. All but the lump under her, colourless in the dark, yet glinting with a sheen that promised such colour if only... Stones was not thinking these things. All semblance of thought had been pounded out of her when the wave struck. The mare moved only on compulsion; something like memory, something not so dissimilar from feral instinct, driving her up the rocks. Another wave surged over her back, nearly toppling Stones, nearly stealing back the prize she’d stolen away from the ocean, or at least, what it had thrown so viciously at her. She hobbled, draping the thing best she could over her shoulder, fighting off the urge to curl up on her wound and rest a breath. Rest two. Lay down. Not get up. Each step she took, Stones distracted herself with memories of similar marches; time had lead her into many of them, and the years had cultivated them into a strange blend of shame and pride to recall. If it was a march at all, it was one of retreat. One that proved a Stone had taken on the sea and lost the battle. But if they could still walk, it also meant they hadn’t lost the war. Soon enough she was beyond the reach of salt and barnacles. There was the door, and even that seemed a whole new world to her. Limping, she dragged the lump gently as she could through it. She collapsed, trembling, into the absurdity of warmth, dryness and light that was her home. She forced it shut again, cutting off the fingers of wind that plucked at it. The mare fancied that the storm’s howls were of frustration, that she’d denied it a victory. Her chin sank to the floor, her thoughts and vision swimming. Behind her were twinned trails of water and blood. It wasn’t distressing as a pony might have expected, and she watched it spread out and dilute in the puddles for a moment before remembering what it meant. She looked to her side. “Oh,” she said quite conversationally, as if the collage of pink, red and basalt coloured coat mish mashing its way along her midriff might answer her back. She blinked, and the mess was still there. “Oh balls.” She wasn’t quite feeling the pain, but she certainly wasn’t thinking. The big new bottle of iodine welled up in her mind, pushing aside everything else. More than habit, it was practically ritual. Ingrained. Stones stumbled her way to the storeroom. She was going to have to scrub her blood off of the floor. It’d probably stain anyway, and how embarrassing would that be? The iodine was where it always was, a shiny new bottle brimming with the good stuff. Her hooves and mouth were steadier than her mind. She pried the jug’s top off, then hesitated, the neck of the bottle gripped tightly in her teeth. She’d never liked the next bit. Nobody liked the next bit. She upended the bottle of pungent liquid. She managed not to scream or shout as fire bloomed along her side, because her jaw was locked on the precious bottle. If she bit down any harder she’d have had broken glass in her mouth to deal with too. “Ow ow ow ow!” Her back leg spasmed and flailed, quite beyond Stone’s control. She collapsed, panting for breath. Too late she realized it was all pouring out under her muzzle. There was already a fat, smelly pool of iodine on the floor. A month’s worth, gone like that. “Just great,” she muttered, learning on the upside that her capacity for snark and sarcasm was still completely fine. Her leg bore weight, that wasn’t at issue. A Stone could trust their hooves, always. It was the movement that hurt. She buried her injury under the biggest towel she could bring to hoof, then wound as much bandage around herself as she could, so tight that it strained her breathing. Then she saw the glistening mass of life by her door, quivering in the water and blood she’d made a mess of her floor with. Thought, so slow to come, finally slotted into place. The mare had unthinkingly assumed... she didn’t know. She hadn’t thought that far. Long Shore, maybe - he’d been in only a few hours earlier, and her disappointment there still stung quite deeply. But this wasn’t him, or even a pegasus at all. There were no feathers, because there were no wings put them on. Or legs, for that matter. Not that a pony had feathers on their legs, Stones thought vapidly. Her eyes blurred a bit, and she felt light on her hooves as she tried to clear it. Then she felt very light on her hooves and her vision swam altogether, and just like that she was gone.   Skipping Stones did not want to wake up just yet. She knew what kind of trouble awaited her there. Even so, she found herself groaning into consciousness. The aches, pains, and outright hurts she had gotten had waited impatiently all through the night and seeing their chance, harangued her all at once. Oh, and she was somehow wet and sticky. The place reeked of iodine. Stones breath caught. It was hoarse and raspy when she got it going again. Groaning, she exerted the infinite effort of opening her eyes. She was sideways. She was on the floor. Stones groaned again, somehow more expressively this time. Her hooves, seeing a great deal more sense in being upright, scratched weakly for purchase on the floor, but it was wet and they slipped back and forth.. There was a tug at her side as her legs moved. She dimly recalled a bandage. The growl of pain she found along her side made for a firm reminder of it. The towel was caked with spatters of her blood. Sometime in the night it had gone tacky and dark, gluing the cloth to her. Moving it at all could tear it loose and open her wound. Her side itched terribly. She groaned a third time. There were no words in it, but was heavy with the suggestion of curses anyway. She tried to lift her head, only to struggle with the stiffness of it. It didn’t seem fair at all; she’d been maimed and brutalized already, to be sore from a night on the floor was just excessive. Stones forced a few steadying breaths through her and found the strength to stand. The shoddy bandage job held on for all the itching. Stones did her best to put that, and what lay beneath, out of her immediate mind. Her hooves took her one rickety, uncertain step to the long stairs before she realized how absurd it would be to go up and check the light in this state. It came as quite the startling upset. Any other day - every other day - it would be absurd to consider not doing it. Habit outweighed sensibility, and the mare scrounged for rationalizations to break routine. The fact that she was hurt worse than usual somehow wasn’t enough on its own, and the call to go up and keep the routine taunted her maddeningly. It was clear weather outside, she realized. Clear as Broken Head could ever enjoy, if such a malicious little spit of land could enjoy blue skies and peaceful breezes. That was something to consider. And it was day. Day was good. And there’d be nothing out from the harbours this soon after such a gale. Armed with her dirty excuses Skipping Stones turned away from the familiar stairs, feeling treacherous and wilful. It hurt to move even that much. Not two steps away laid the thing she’d fished from the water. It was grossly, iridescently green. It was breathing faintly, with little wheezing huffs. Scales. She could see scales. Stones’ initial revulsion was tempered by the fact that more than a few of them - tiny, shimmering flecks of colour were scattered about on her floor. The creature was as roughed up as she was. She tried to follow the shape of its hunched up body, but two emerald eyes fixed on her and bore deep, pleading with undeniable intelligence. The wide pupils weren’t round at all, rather, they were shaped like blobs that had been squeezed and stretched together. It almost had the face of a pony, which made those eyes all the more upsetting a thing to look at. Something milky blinked down over its eyes and were gone just as quickly, but they weren’t eyelids. It worked its mouth feebly. If it was trying to speak, there were no words. Flaps along its narrow neck flicked open revealing moist, frilly pink tissues to the air. They fluttered weakly, opening and closing. The milky film came down over its eyes again, stayed, and the creature curled back on itself. Stones blinked and waited for sense to come. She blinked again, with still no idea forthcoming, sat down in front of the seapony. “Uh, hi,” she said. It glared from the corner of its eyes with accusation. It turned away, inadvertently showing a pectoral fin. They were smaller than what she might have expected to see, and very thin. She could see right through it to the wiry little bits of cartilage inside, hardly thicker than the hairs of a pony’s mane. They stretched out and bent in delicate, dexterous ways then the fin pressed back down flat where it became almost invisible against the seapony’s body. Seapony. Stones had never seen one before. You weren’t supposed to. They were myths. Not real. Just tales for the gullible and superstitious, and the butt of bawdy stories between sailors. Admittedly, she was the last pony to know the happenings of Equestria, but there’d never been any seaponies as far as she could tell. It didn’t stop the one on her floor giving her dirty looks. Next she’d be hearing changelings that changelings were real. Stones reached out a hoof and touched the thing. It was fishy, and burbled angrily at her in a quite, bubbly kind of way. There was no warmth to it. There was a substance that made the seapony soft, but not the way a pony would be. Like wet glass. Slick, and smooth. She pulled her hoof away from the vibrant flesh. “Seapony,” she said, still not quite believing the sight before her eyes. Hooves, however, were more dependable by half, and they had certainly felt a seapony, brokering no conjecture. She had a seapony on her floor. It was crazy no matter which way she looked at it. Stones, being an uncomplicated pony, started with the simplest issue at hoof. “Do you want water?” she asked, feeling like a doofus. Still, it blinked at her in what she hoped was a promising manner. That was good enough for her. Stones grit her teeth and grinned. “Right, than.” Her first idea was to get it to the sea, but that was scuppered almost instantly. It was badly hurt, not to mention herself. Oh, and this was Broken Head, which was the possibly the only place in Equestria that turned strolls by the beach into a deathsport. Or would, if there was anything like sportsmanship about it. There wasn’t. If she couldn’t bring the seapony to water, she’d bring water to the seapony. It wasn’t much better prospects. Stones had had more than enough ocean for now. She thought of her tin bath, and of the rainwater reservoir. It’d be brimming full after the storm. She stiffly went to get her bath. “Are you okay with fresh water?” The creature’s eyes were two inky, misshapen pools locked on her. The gills flickered open and shut. “I hope that’s a yes,” she said, and clamped her jaw down on the edge of the bath. “Frej waha is jusch going to ha’ to be good e-na.” Stones dragged it over with loud, grinding clanks. Her towel and bandage peeled away with the terrible, itchy feeling of scabs, but she ignored it and carried on. The tarnished tin echoed with one final clank as Stones set it in place in the middle of the floor. She turned to the seapony. She tried to grab it, but between her aches and its determined slipperiness it was impossible. She’d get one hoof’s grip firm, only to have the seapony squirm out from the other. She was getting exasperated with the unruly creature. “Oh, come on!” she said. “It can’t be any worse than drying out on the floor.” Whether she talked sense into the seapony, or it was merely exhausted from its struggles, Stones didn’t know. Either way she was grateful, because even when lax it was a heavy, damp lump almost as large as she was. It had no limbs beyond the pitiful little fins, except for a tail that tapered off from the torso and curled in on itself. It loosened and clenched repeatedly as Stones pony-handled the creature, and she kept a wary eye on it; it looked quite strong. Finally getting a grip she was more sure of, the mare hefted up the seapony with a grunt, feeling more of her scabs tear open on her side as she did so. She dropped the seapony with the most delicate thud she could manage. It hunched up on itself again, hiding its eyes under the milky lids, seemingly resigned to the tub. Stones took a moment to catch her breath. She could feel the itch and the ooze, and when she finally looked at her side she was not happy. It was still a mess, but one that had had time to dry and go sticky and pick up bits of grit and. Ugly, organic things were happening there, and the jagged edges along her side were inflamed into angry red, weeping speckles of pus and blood. Stones hoped she’d been judicious enough with the iodine. She’d certainly wasted a great deal too much of it, and it was going to be a long time before she could hope for more. Stones jolted when she noticed the strange, blobby pupils staring and blinking at her injury. The seapony had propped itself up enough on the edge to see, but she couldn’t recognize the expression it had, if any at all. “It looks worse than it is,” she insisted, though she still wasn’t sure it could understand her at all. The seapony worked its tight, lipless mouth, making only a sad little gurgle. It shut its eyes and slumped back down into the tin. Stones couldn’t decide which was worse: the itch or the actual pain. Dribbles of stuff she tried not to think about worked its way down her midriff as she limped off to fetch the bucket. “Here you go,” she said, pouring the cold, fresh water over the seapony. The filminess flicked back from its eyes. It made a few flaps of its fins and gave an encouraging wiggle. It was as slow task as ever, but Stones found herself taking to it with an unexpected enthusiasm. It was as if by doing this, it would make everything better. When the seapony had a few inches of water it wriggled this way and that in it, Stones hoped it did so with delight. The gill flaps flicked open and shut, fanning out the feathery tissues to the water and air. It gargled something that could almost have been a word, and Stones redoubled her efforts. The seapony buried its face in the water, noisily slurping at it. Strange sacs in its throat made even stranger noises as they filled up. Fluid overflowed from its mouth as it tried to speak. The mare hurried with another bucket, pouring it with earnest over the seapony. The seapony choked out mucous-heavy coughs. “Fresh water,” it complained in a gurgling, musical little voice. “So you can talk,” she said. It blinked the strange eyelids at her. Stones wondered if that was a seapony’s way of nodding. She poured another bucket over it. “Thank you,” it murmured. “Don’t mention it.” “I didn’t know you would save me. You’re not going to eat me, are you?” Stones thought about this. “You’re not going to bait me down to the sea and drown me, are you?” The seapony blinked. The mare hoped this time it was only a blink. Stuck to the old tin bath as it was, its superstitious fear seemed the more reasonable of the two. “You were doing well enough at that on your own,” it burbled. Stones dumped the bucket on its head. Satisfied with her work, the mare fetched her bloody, crackling towel from the floor. It was a sticky, smelly mess, with the linen wrappings clinging and brown. She tossed the lot aside and went to fetch something fresher. The storage room was pungent with spilled iodine. Her meals were going to taste of it for days. Stones sponged up as much of the spillage as she could with a new wrap of cloth, then pressed it firmly to her side, hissing a little intake of breath as she did so. She fumbled to wrap it tight, but felt confident with her work. Just like the seapony, she was out of the deep end now. She couldn’t see the seapony’s head poking over the side. For a dizzying instant the old ghost stories came back to her. Getting a grip on herself, she looked into the bucket. The seapony was curled up on the bottom, presumably sleeping. It wasn’t like either of them had had a very restful night. Stones meant to go for her own bed, so she was a little surprised when her aching hooves took her to the winding staircase of the lighthouse. Sighing quietly, she hoisted herself up the first step. An hour later, Skipping Stones stumbled back down to the ground floor. She was beyond tired, into that dogged, unrelenting determination of the the utterly exhausted. But the lighthouse was sorted for another day, and secure in that knowledge the haunting need to keep it that way let her go for the time being. She had to stop halfway through a glass of water just to catch her breath. Finishing the one, she drank down another and ambled onwards. She collapsed on the tired old bed, shuffling weakly to find some small comfort before sinking into a dreamless slumber. The mare woke up hungry. Groaning, she slumped from the bed to the floor. “You were making a sound,” said the seapony, which then went on to emulate a wheezy huff. “The whole time.” It was rather captivated with that, whatever it was. The little fins flicked idly at the surface. “Uhuh,” she managed to grumble, or maybe it was just her stomach. It still stunk of iodine in the storage room, not that it mattered much to her appetite. She hadn’t even touched any of the new delivery yet. She had green vegetables, even fresh fruit. Mostly it was unripe, so that Stones wouldn’t have it going bad all at once, before she could get to it. Her thoughts drifted over the water to Long Shore, and she pouted angrily. Some ponies could be so clever and so stupid, both at the same time. She passed by the little yellow pears in a bowl, and green bananas. Feeling tired and callous, she gave anything she couldn’t outright eat a miss. Feeling petty and spiteful at a certain pegasus, she reached out and took the chocolate. Stones broke off a tiny corner and chewed it up. “You want some?” She held it out, only to have the whole block snatched away with a splash. “Hey!” she called to no avail. It savagely gummed the block of chocolate, spilling water everywhere as it did so. “Hey!” she called again, taking a futile lunge at the slippery seapony. It didn’t work, but the splashing stopped and just maybe the seapony had gotten the message. It looked at her with its inkblot pupils, and gave it back with a wet splat. The chocolate had a shiny new coating of dribble. As she watched, a dollop of mucous rolled down it, then fell to the floor. “On second thought, you can keep it.” “Okay,” it said, and took the piece back with a more genteel gusto. Stones watched it eat. “So much for a special occasion,” she meant to say, but by the time she opened her mouth she realized that it actually was one. Just not the kind she’d expected, and with a lot more mucous. More tired than hungry, Stones lay on her bed and stared at the tin bath and its curious occupant. “Do you have a name?” she asked. “Do seaponies have names?” “Neap,” it said, and turned back to gumming the chocolate to death. “Neap,” Stones said softly, trying it out. Somehow, it didn’t feel what it ought to be. She wasn’t sure what it should have been. Something with apostrophes. “Neap. Oh, and I’m Skipping Stones.” She’d never really liked her first name. “Hello, Skip.” “Call me Stones.” “Okay, Skip.” The mare groaned and turned over. Her side complained. That was easier to ignore than the eager sounds of eating. The tub was giving the otherwise cheefrul ‘num num’s’  a sonorous, haunting quality. It certainly broke away from the usual of wind and distant wave. Stones slept strangely. Stones thought it must have been sometime in the afternoon when she woke up again.  She blinked away some fleeting dream or other. Neap was curled up on the bottom of the tub, and she was content to leave it at that, hoping he - or she - rested better than Stones had. The basalt mare put jam to bread and chewed through it slowly. The last bite was still on her tongue as her hoof touched the stairwell. “What’s up there?” asked the small, burbling voice. “It’s a lighthouse. Up there’s the light.” She didn’t want to explain it, just do it. “The spinning light?” “Yes.” She made for the stairs again. “What’s it for?” “It has to be lit.” The seapony dunked its head and burbled with thought. Stones didn’t wait on it and was gone, up the winding steps. Something grated at Stones’ nerves as surely as the grit in her wound. It always a while to go up and down the spiraling staircase, but for the first time she could recall it felt like a long time. She chalked it up to her tiredness and the recent excitement, and thought of it no more. Or tried to, but the edgy feelings kept seeping their way back into her thoughts. Her focus simply wasn’t in the job before her, and it served only to frustrate her further. The mare huffed out a breath and sat on the barren, age stiffened beams of wood that made up the floor; something she only did when particularly troubled. The island was a gray blotch gnawing at the base of the tower, surrounded by a world of blues and whites and yellows. She had sketches, tucked away somewhere, that she’d made from up here. All the heavily stenciled lines, cutting back and forth across one another, biting into the page. She’d never done the waves and sky the justice she felt they deserved though, and had left them at that. She wondered why she was thinking about this at all. Broken Head gnashed its teeth and growled by way of its usual response to her inquiries. Neap. A seapony. A seapony in her bathtub. Stones’ brow furrowed. She wasn’t going to be able to have a bath. Neap had eaten her chocolate. She’d offered it up. It could be watching her while she slept. She’d been watching it while it slept. She wondered if Neap was mare or stallion, and made note to ask. For the first time in years, the humble question mark was wriggling its way into her head. Routine hadn’t left a lot of room for that before. She wasn’t sure she liked the unexpected. Stones scab cracked open with a sting while she was refueling the lamp. She cursed, struggling to adjust her bandage. She tugged on it this way and that, but couldn’t get it to feel right. If anything, she made it worse, and an icky trickle of something seeped out from under it. Stones grimaced and turned to ignoring the tickle itch of it best she could. She finished loading the fuel and priming the winch, mindful of every little tear reopening on her side as she did so. Round and round she went down the stairs, shifting and itching in her bandage all the while. She fumbled it off as she stepped off the very last of them. “You’re hurt again,” Neap said helpfully. Stones huffed.”What’s the light for?” Stones dipped a sponge in the tub, then dabbed it at her side. “For the ships.” She, said gesturing a wide bowl shape. The sponge went flying. “The-” “I know what a ship is.” Stones let her hooves come back down with two little clicks. She went and got the sponge. She wondered if using water with seapony in it had been the smartest move. The mare shrugged to herself and went on dabbing. “So, uh, are you a seapony mare or...?” Neap blinked at her. “Stallion, of course,” the seapony gave a squeaking huff of indignation, “but don’t get any ideas. You seem nice and all, so please don’t wile me and get me pregnant.” Stones, who’d been sponging at a particularly rewarding bit of scab and, nodding along with half an ear, was caught up suddenly. “Wait what?” Getting an answer made only for even more, and stranger, questions. “Right,” she said, not even really wanting to make sense of that. “I promise not to. Not to mention that I’m a mare, so...” her utterances trailed off. She just hoped to leave it at that. “My water’s going sour,” Neap said after a long, vaguely awkward quiet, like that of two strangers waiting for their turns to make use of the bathroom. Stones grunted and took up the bucket. “More empty water?” the seapony asked. “Freshwater, yes. It’ll have to be, for a while yet anyway.” Stones hadn’t seen any major injuries on the seapony, though the mottled patches of colour hinted at a whole spread of bruises all up and down its body. Some of Neap’s scales had gone dark, like little grains of black sand, and these ones popped off, sometimes with the seapony helping them along. A trickle of water was crawling through the air towards the bucket, with the sound of Neap humming something deep and heard more through the hooves than the ears. The seapony spurted out some fluid with a wet slap, and the water collapsed, doing a convincing impression of having been entirely normal the whole time. “What was that?” Stones asked. “It’d be a lot easier with proper water. I’m sorry. I’m weaker than I thought. I’m tired.” Neap hunched down so that his eyes were just below the surface. He blew small bubbles. “Me too,” the mare found herself saying. She filled the bucket up from the reservoir, hoping to freshen Neap’s water, if just a little. A moment later when it was full,  he was curled up and asleep. Stones poured it in slowly as she could, then walked away soft as her hooves could. “What am I going to do?” she mused silently as she crawled onto her bed. Skipping stones drifted through her thoughts and feelings, trying to find some sense to them. Sleep was as hesitant in coming as answers. She lay there a long time anyway, as if feigning it hard enough and long enough would make it become real. Eventually her silence was broken with a groan and, dropping her hooves to the floor, Stones wandered on up the stairs of the tower.