//------------------------------// // Chapter the Ninth // Story: Redemption // by PourMeADrink //------------------------------// July 16th, 2031         Luna reclines comfortably against the back of the wooden lounge chair, her back and rump cushioned by the oversized, springy white towel folded beneath her.  Her head lolls against another towel spread over the slanted back of her seat, her eyes closed, the sunlight painting the insides of her eyelids a bright hue.  She releases a quiet, contented breath as the sounds of the beach wash over her like the waves of the nearby ocean.  The gentle, repetitive rhythm of rollers lapping along the sand, the bright tinkling sounds of children laughing as they splash in the surf, the excited barking of a dog, the hollow ping of a ball bouncing across the sand, the quiet murmurs and subdued laughter of a dozen conversations being held up and down the strand.   Coming to the beach today had been a glorious idea. The muted crunching of fine granules beneath a pair of sandals approaches, coming to a halt a few feet away.  “Freshen your drink, miss?” The blazing heat of the sun cascades across her body, soaking into her coat and warming her hooves, wrapping her in a temperature that’s managing to stay just a shade below too-hot, leaving her feeling loose and relaxed.  Inhaling the tang of the salt, the scent of the water, she idly shifts her tail, the end trailing over the edge of the chair and across the sand.  It is a perfect day.   “Miss, your drink?” Not bothering to open her eyes, she shifts her head slightly towards the questioner.  In the background she can make out the low noise of traffic passing to and fro with a quiet drone, the sudden, distant blare of a car horn standing out briefly and causing an involuntary, lazy flick of one ear.  “I’m fine, thank you.”  Even the hustle and bustle of the city behind her cannot intrude on the peacefulness of her surroundings.  The setting is so ideal, so perfect in its warmth and comfort, that it almost seems too good to be real.  Like a cliché scene taken from a television show. “Miss, where is your drink?” “Hmm?” “Your drink?  Where is it?” “It’s in the sand next to me.”  She mummers, stretching her hind legs languorously.  She’ll take a dip in a little bit, and the cool of the water will feel absolutely wonderful against her warm hide, but for right now she just wants to bask in the sunlight, in the happy sounds of people enjoying an afternoon at the beach.  Maybe it is too good to be real, but then again, clichés have to come from somewhere, right? “Where did you leave it?” The voice is growing insistent, almost distracting, but she just can’t seem to focus on it.  “Mmm…Leave what?” “My hair brush.”  The waiter’s voice is changing, becoming more feminine.  That’s sort of weird. “Hmm?” “Luna, where did you leave my hair brush?” Blinking her eyes open groggily, she’s greeted not by the faded denim of a blameless summer sky, but by the white plaster of the living room ceiling.  Her back and neck feel uncomfortably hot, and there’s an unpleasant dampness running from her shoulders to the base of her tail.  Blinking in confusion for a moment, she finally turns her head to the side, meeting the blush colored eyes of her older sister.  “Wha?” “My.  Hair.  Brush.” Blinking again, trying to clear the gritty feeling of residual sleep from her eyes, Luna glances around at her surroundings again.  No beach, no sun, no tanned waiter in flip-flops.  Just her, on the leather sofa, the television playing quietly in the background, and her sister standing next to her with a look that’s quickly growing annoyed.  Her mane is a damp mess, for some odd reason.   “I…uh…in the bathroom?” “No, it’s not.  Remember, you borrowed it last night before bed.” She stares dumbly for a moment, the gears of thought turning slowly, struggling for traction.  “Oh yeah, it’s in my nightstand.  Second…”  She yawns hugely, her jaws creaking.  “Second drawer.” “Thank you.”  Her sister returns curtly, turning and striding off with an irritable huff. Watching Tia leave for a moment, Luna gives her head a small shake and rolls over, making a face at the gross squelching sound as her sweat soaked hide pulls away from the leather and wincing uncomfortably at the stiffness in her wings.  She knows better than to fall asleep on her back like that, especially on the couch.  Standing, she gives her wings a careful stretch, mindful not to knock anything off of the coffee table.  She blinks at the T.V. for a moment, some sort of advertisement for car insurance, before turning to make her way into the kitchen.  She needs something to wash that hot, stale unpleasant taste out of her mouth.   Pouring out a glass of milk and taking a sip, she replaces the jug and swings the refrigerator door closed, the corners of her mouth quirking up a little at the small thrill she feels from the act.  Tia can act as blasé as she wants to, but even after all this time she still gets a little rush of excitement from the fact that she can actually do things.   The soft click of the front door opening draws her attention, and she smiles as her father walks into the house, still wiping his hands on a dirty rag.  “Hi…”  She’s interrupted by another yawn. “…Dad.” “Hey, sweetie.”  He smiles back, walking into the kitchen and setting the rag down on the counter.  Flipping on the tap he begins scrubbing his dirt stained hands under the flow of water.  “Finally awake huh?  How was your nap?” “Eh, it was alright, I guess.”  Finishing her glass with a large swallow, she sets it in the sink.  “I woke up really hot though.” Turning off the tap and drying his hands on a clean towel, he glances at her glass meaningfully before looking back at her.  “Leather furniture will do that.” Trying to suppress a sigh and almost succeeding, she focuses on the glass, lifting it in a shifting nimbus of azure light and rinsing it out, before placing it upside down on the drying rack.  Turning back to him, she lifts an eyebrow. “Thank you sweet heart.”  Flashing her a grin, he ambles over to the fridge, opening the door and stooping to peruse the shelves.  “You know, you wouldn’t be tired enough to need a nap if you started going to bed at a more normal time.” “I try to, Dad, but all I seem to do is lay in bed reading.”  She ambles over behind him, looking half-heartedly over his shoulder for anything appetizing in the fridge.  Deciding she’s not really hungry, she backs up a step to give him some room.  “Maybe I’m naturally a night owl.  Wasn’t Momma Callie that way?” “Yeah, she was definitely more of a night person.”  Straightening back up, he nudges the door closed, a brown bottle of beer in his hand.  “So, what are your plans for this beautiful Saturday afternoon?” She stops for a second, glancing at the kitchen clock with a little surprise.  It was two-thirty already?  “Uh, I don’t know.  I thought maybe I’d head down to the pond for a little bit, go for a swim or something.” “That sounds good.  Maybe I’ll wander down there a little later and join you.” “What are you doing now?” “I’m going to work in the study for a little bit first.  I’ve got some things to catch up on.”  He pretends to ignore the pained expression on her face as he turns to go.  Reaching the threshold between kitchen and living room he meets Celestia, giving her a smile and ruffling her mane slightly as he passes by. Shaking her freshly brushed mane with an annoyed snort, Tia enters the kitchen, walking over to a cabinet and eyeing the look on her younger sister’s face.  “Where’s Dad going?” “He’s going to work on his conspiracy stuff again.” Rolling her eyes, Tia selects a package of crackers from the cupboard, absently closing the door as she tears open the top.  “He’s starting to get obsessive.”  She remarks as she grabs a glass from the drying rack next to the sink and fills it with water from the tap.  “You know, we should probably talk to him about it.” “You know what he’d say.”  Luna replies, her face becoming a caricature of seriousness as she adopts her best ‘dad’ voice.  “I’m just keeping up with the news girls.  Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.  Now go take out the trash.” Her impression is bad enough that it draws a startled laugh out of Celestia, causing her to spray crumbs across the floor.  Choking a little, she quickly takes a drink, coughing as she washes her mouthful of half-chewed crackers down.  “Yeah…that’s probably exactly… what he’d say.”  She manages.  Taking a deep breath, she finally regains control over herself, moving to look out through the kitchen door towards the study, a touch of pensiveness tightening her eyes.  “Still though…” Shaking her head in the negative, Luna walks over to her sibling, bumping into her side gently to get her attention.  “It won’t do any good sister.  You know how stubborn he can be.  And besides,” she pauses, stretching her hind legs out one at a time.  “It seems pretty harmless, overall.  I mean, it could be embarrassing if people found out, but who’s going to?  It’s not like we have to worry about what other people think.” Sighing a little wistfully, Tia nods her head.  “Yeah, yeah I guess you’re right.”  Glancing over, she smirks at the tangled cerulean mess that trails down Luna’s neck.  “You really need to do something about your mane.” Glancing at a flop of hair dangling between her eyes, she returns her sisters smirk.  “I’ll bet.  Can I borrow your hair brush?” *************** Setting his beer down on the scarred and well worn oaken surface of his desk, Ryan reaches over and twists the little knob on one of the small, sleek plastic speakers that crouch on either side of the monitor.  Picking out the play button amongst the cluster of media controls on the keyboard, he presses it, reaching for his beer and sitting back as he waits for the first mellow notes of the piano to begin filling the room, an accompaniment to the swaying, honeyed voice of Ella Fitzgerald, singing to him about autumn in New York.         That’s always the first song on his playlist, and it’s one of his favorites.  So he is understandably confused and startled when, instead of hearing the warm, velvety strains of the opening notes drifting languorously from the speakers , his senses are instead assaulted by a sudden screeching, jagged and discordant jumble of what sounds like a broken synthesizer, an out of tune bass guitar, and a dying cat.  The noise ratchets upwards in both volume and intensity, audibly slapping him in the face, and after a pained moment he realizes with some alarm that the dying cat is actually the lead singer.           Reaching over, he quickly stabs a finger at the pause button on the keyboard with perhaps more force then he intended.  Sighing and taking a draw off of his Budweiser, he opens the media application and confirms what his battered ears have already told him.  The girls have been messing with the playlists on the computer again.  Instead of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and assorted company, he sees an album by a group called FistSlam, which, according to the little information panel that pops up when he mouse’s over the album title, is an ‘up and coming group out of Seattle that combines elements of Techno, old school Grunge and modern Country music.’           He stares at the description for a moment, his mind trying to process how and why someone would  decide to combine those particular genres of music in the first place, before idly wondering how mad the girls would get if he accidently deleted it.  It’d be for their own good in the long run, after all.  Musing for a few seconds, he finally shakes his head, instead navigating to the correct collection of music and queuing the desired tracks in the media player.  As the silken notes of his own playlist begin to filter into the comfortably cool air of his study, he takes another sip of his beer and closes his eyes, letting the mellow notes flow over him, breathing out in relief as they wash away the previous auditory unpleasantness.         The girls had always enjoyed music, but they had only begun really exploring the wide and mostly wonderful world of music for the last year or so, sampling different genres like humming birds flitting from flower to flower in a garden, trying out new things and developing their own tastes.  He’d hoped that those tastes would follow after his own, and while they did enjoy his music on occasion, he’s found that one of the reasons for which children seem to exist is to confound their parents.  Increasingly over the years that seems to have become one of the main reasons, especially when it comes to music.  Some of the things they choose to listen to… he shakes his head sadly.         Studiously ignoring memories of similar experiences between himself and his own parents, he sets his beer down to the side where he won’t accidently bump it with his arm.  Reaching for a stack of folders on the edge of the desk, he begins to sort through them, his mind switching gears from his children’s questionable musical preferences to more important matters.   Ryan doesn’t socialize much with the people in town, partly due to circumstances and partially from personal choice.  He’s already garnered something of a reputation as ‘that odd hermit’, which doesn’t bother him.  Such a reputation actually benefits him, in a way.  Odd people are expected to do odd things and act in odd ways.  People don’t question it, which has saved him from having to come up with some awkward answers over the years.  Despite all of that, however, he is intensely grateful that nobody from the outside world has ever had an opportunity to look at the items currently in his hands.  He might not be overly concerned about what others think of him, but he’d prefer not to be labeled as a ‘that crazy hermit’.  Given a choice between the two, ‘odd’ will do him just fine.          The first few folders in the stack belong to the girls, mostly various subjects they had been studying on their own.  Regular schooling for the pair had ended a few years ago, much earlier than it would have for regular children, after it became clear that there wasn’t really anything more they could gain from the standard run of general education materials.  He’d had them take the final standardized tests, the G.E.D equivalency stuff, something he’d viewed as a mere formality.  When they’d aced them as expected he’d declared their schooling at an end and thrown them a makeshift graduation party.          That’s not to say though, that they stopped studying or learning.  Ryan didn’t think they could stop, even if they wanted to.  It’s just how they were built, a product of both their natural inquisitiveness and their isolation.  The difference now is that they had transitioned from being taught, to teaching themselves.  They went at their own pace, and pursued whatever subject happened to capture their attention.  They’d even started doing their own research.         Setting aside two folders containing more mundane things like world history and mathematics, he comes to the next folder in the stack, a thick buttery yellow affair with Celestia’s name written in her neat, elegant style across the front.  Flipping through it, one would see printed reports and articles dealing mainly with mythology, with a specific focus on the legends surrounding unicorns and pegasi.  Accounts, tales and recorded oral traditions from ancient Greece, Rome, China, and a double handful of other countries.  She’d been working on it for some time, and he’s continually impressed with her thoroughness whenever he pages through it.   She’d initially gone through the material he’d already gathered, gleaned the important tidbits, and then gone further, digging up stories from countries that hadn’t existed for thousands of years, corresponding (with his grudging permission) with scholars and historians from universities around the world.  She still sought to know who they were, and where they had come from, and she pursued those questions with a doggedness and determination that was a little startling.         The second folder is a light purple color, almost mauve, with Luna’s name scrawled across its front in her angular yet neat writing.  Thicker than the previous one, it nonetheless followed a similar theme.  Historical accounts of ancient sorcery, legends about wizards, accounts of supposedly magical artifacts and mystical locations.   Information spanning recorded history, from ancient Egypt and the Salem witch trials, to more modern sources of a questionable nature.  Scholarly papers about Hecate worship and tales of lost Avalon sit beneath more dubious material taken from Wiccan and witchcraft websites.  It’s as thorough and comprehensive as the previous folder, and although he will never become fully comfortable with the subject matter, he is as proud of her as he is of her sister.   Shuffling a few folders containing financial records out of the way, he comes finally to the third folder, lighter than the other two but still substantial.  Its contents always seem to make it weigh more when he picks it up.  It reads like a pro-militia conspiracy theorist’s dream.  Page after page of news reports, articles, even some U.N. transcripts, all revolving around a central theme;  the degenerating state of global politics.  The cable news outlets had begun referring to it as ‘The Second Cold War’ with a sort of gruesome giddiness, as if it were some sort of macabre sporting event.   The news clippings and articles detailed a rough sort of timeline of events.  The eventual and expected formation of the East Asia Pact, an anti-N.A.T.O. coalition spear headed by Russia, China and North Korea, and the numerous rouge nations that had almost immediately begun to sign treaties with them.  The answering surge in N.A.T.O. memberships.  The development of viable nuclear weapons in both Iran and Syria.  The expanding civil war in Egypt, the Israeli fortification of the Gaza strip.   There were analysis on the various political moves and posturing between N.A.T.O. and E.A.P. nations, in-depth looks at the growing military abilities of both sides, and articles detailing the shrinking technology gap between both sides.  The raw data painted a rather alarming picture.  For the first time in decades, serious resources were being expended in the development and construction of newer and more advanced nuclear weapons by member states from both groups.           Even more worrying to Ryan however, was the portrayal of these events by the government, a non-alarmist line ceaselessly parroted by the news media.  The talking heads and pundits spoke constantly about the M.A.D. doctrine, how it worked the last time, how it will work again.  It was a head in the sand sort of approach that Ryan found, well maddening.  These things are scary, they’d say, but nobody would really take that final step, nobody could, it’d be crazy to do so.  These buildups, these weapons and defensive systems being developed and deployed, they’re just in case.  Better safe than sorry, right?  So don’t worry, we’ve been through this before, and we can suffer through it again, now let’s talk about the current Idol winner. They consistently and effortlessly reduced events that should have frightened anyone with an ounce of common sense into something resembling a spectator sport, effectively shouting down dissenting views as alarmist.  And the public was, by and large, eating it up whole sale, a fact that Ryan still had trouble believing.  It had taken a user on one of the newsgroups he frequented to sum it up for him.   People, he had said, are already scared.  The oil shortages, the rising food costs, the struggling economy, the crazy weather, the shrinking job market.  The domestic terrorism threats.  People feel like they already have enough on their plates to worry about.  They turn on their T.V.’s in the morning, and they’re assaulted with all of these troubles, all of these things in their day to day lives that they have to deal with.  And here’s this thing, this really big thing between us and the EAP, and the friendly news anchor says it’s all posturing and fluff.  It looks worrisome, but it’s not the big-bad that it seems to be, this is one thing you don’t have to be concerned with.  The people are overwhelmed, they want to believe, and so they do.  Flipping the flat grey cover open, he takes another pull from his beer before reaching for the mouse.  Minimizing the music application, he opens the web browser, navigating his bookmarks until he pulls up the site he’s looking for, an independent blog run by a public watch dog group.  The top article catches his attention. M.A.D. Gone Mad? Everyone is more than familiar with the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction now-a-days.  The concept that kept the U.S. and the Soviets from initiating global Armageddon during the ‘First’ Cold War faded away at the end of that pseudo-conflict, becoming just another term school children had to learn during history class.  Today it has re-arisen to a new prominence, and every soccer-mom and office-dad believes that it’s a safe word, the safe word, the one that’ll keep the world from spiraling out of control. Certain world governments, however, including some prominent members of both N.A.T.O. and the E.A.P., seem to be engaged in a race to see who can bring the most literal definition possible to both the acronym and the mental condition.  A terrifying game of one-upsmanship that both sides appear to have whole heartedly, if quietly, embraced.  Development and rumored deployment of next generation neutron bombs, efficient higher yield warheads, so-called ‘shotgun’ delivery schemes meant to saturate enormous areas, and more disturbingly, whispers about the development of cobalt-thorium devices, whose sole purpose is to maximize environmental damage from radioactive fallout.  Weapons designed and intended not just to ensure that both sides lose in a nuclear exchange, but that they lose as much as possible… Perusing the article, Ryan reaches absently for his beer, a little surprised to find the bottle empty.  Setting it back down, he finishes the piece slowly, the skin across the back of his neck tightening as a familiar feeling drops over him.  It’s an odd sort of feeling, a combination of intense worry and iron resolve, paradoxically making him want to hunch his shoulders and square them at the same time.  Doing his research always makes him feel this way. He can no longer recall the dream he had all those years ago, and to be honest, he’s not really certain if he even had a dream anymore.  He recalls it now as more of an awakening, a moment when he opened his eyes and actually took a good look at what was happening outside of the confines of their home.  A moment when he’d stopped thinking their isolation was enough to keep them safe.  It’d started as a renewed interest in the news, something he’d only been able to give cursory notice to before.  It was helped by the time freed up when the girls had finished their regular schooling, and further bolstered by an indefinable yet growing feeling that something was beginning to loom over the horizon.  Something dark.   When Iran had detonated its first nuclear weapon a couple of years back, a weapon that used nuclear materials and knowledge openly obtained from the newly formed E.A.P., he’d started his collecting.  When Syria, Myanmar and Venezuela had become member states alongside North Korea, he’d begun to plan.  When China started its slow buildup in the Strait of Taiwan, when Russian tanks had begun rolling into former bloc states, when the U.S. started aggressively implementing its ‘Armed Forces Revitalization Initiative’, he’d accelerated those plans.   He’s aware that the girls look askance at what they call his ‘obsession’, a label he can’t really argue with.  He is somewhat obsessed, and he’s a little surprised they haven’t tried to talk to him about it yet. In truth he’s actually sort of grateful that they haven’t.  How can he explain that he’s just got a feeling, this growing certainty that they need to be ready, need to have some sort of plan?  That he’s learned over the years not to question those feelings anymore?  It’d sound crazy.  Hell, maybe it was.  Crazy or not, though, obsessed or not, it doesn’t matter.  Ryan’s been worried before, and he ruefully acknowledges, if only to himself, that worrying has become one of his less desirable defining traits.   For the first time in his life, however, he’s actually afraid of what’s going on in the world. Printing a copy of the article for his folder, he switches over to an update from one of his R.S.S. feeds, a story on the ground breaking ceremony at the Badlands missile site outside of Provo, Utah, part of the Air Force’s segment of the A.F.R.I.  Before he can begin scanning the news, however, he is interrupted by a small pinging noise and a flashing icon next to his email program.  Bringing up the little window, he’s surprised to see a message from Zaius realty in his inbox.  He hadn’t expected to hear from them for another week at least.   Smiling to himself, Ryan opens the message, jotting down a note when he’s done and hitting the print button.  Closing the email and browser windows and standing with a small stretch, he lets out a satisfied sigh, deciding to see if there’s any coffee left from this morning.  Folding the printed email as he walks out of the study, his smile grows a little larger.  Finally, some good news.           *************** A slight breeze blows through the canyon, causing the brush and the trees to rustle gently, filling the air with the small, secret sounds of needles and leaves engaged in an almost imperceptible dance with the wind.  The breeze brings with it all the smells of the high desert mountains through which it has recently journeyed.  A slight, sharp hint of sage, a subtle suggestion of pine sap, the crumbly smell of loose earth, the dusty aroma of an old birds nest, fragrant wild grasses and sun warmed wood, all wrapped within the smell of summer air.           This has become one of Celestia’s favorite places on the property, what her father would call her thinking spot, the place where she comes when she needs to clear her head, when she needs to sort things out, when she needs to get some perspective or just get away for an hour or two.  She loves her dad and her sister, fiercely, but being in the same house all of the time, sometimes things can get…well, she’s thankful that she has a place like this to escape to from time to time, a place where she can breathe out the stress and the frustration and breathe in the peacefulness of her surroundings.           It wasn’t surprising then, that this had become her preferred place for practicing.  She could really focus on her magic here, free from all of the distractions at home.  Here she didn’t have to worry her father, or worry about her sister startling her at just the wrong moment.  Here she can really concentrate on not just what she was doing, but also the how and the why of it.  She’s noticed as she gets older that the latter two are becoming almost as important as the former.  Plus Dad had been pretty upset the last time she’d had a ‘miss fire’ and accidently changed his favorite house shoes from canvas to silly putty.  That he’d been wearing them at the time had not helped matters.         Luna liked to tease her about this place, asking her when she was going to buy a yoga mat and wondering out loud how she could contemplate her naval when she didn’t have a belly button.  Kidding aside, Celestia did have to admit that there was something very Zen about her relationship with this canyon, and the question of whether that was a natural thing or something affected didn’t matter.  Luna liked to quantify, to reduce things to their facts and figures.  Tia preferred a more natural, organic approach.           Glancing skyward, back towards the mouth of the canyon, she can see a faint white line scratching from east to west just above the horizon, an airplane chronicling its journey across the blameless azure sky.  It seemed like there was more air traffic than there used to be, but thankfully it all kept pretty far north of their particular stretch of mountains.  She started to wonder idly where it was going, what the people onboard would do once it landed, but shook her head, turning away and looking back at the spray of flowers in front of her.  She wasn’t here to daydream.           She focuses on one of the small white blooms standing in the patch before her, eyes drinking in the details as she clears her mind.  Concentrating, she gathers her energy, her horn beginning to glow.  She’s always liked the little white flowers, Sego Lilies, according to her father, but they didn’t tent to last long when picked.  Dad had shown her how to press them between the pages of a book to save them, but invariable they always ended up crumbling.           Reaching out, she gently encloses the three lobed flower in a faint haze of golden light, working carefully.  It had come to her the other night as she lay drowsing in bed, that there might be another way to preserve things, not just flowers, but food, books, practically everything.  She’d worked the problem over, picking at it for a couple of days, and she thought she might finally have some idea how to do it.  Or rather, where to start.  Raising her head, she plucks the flower, its stem swaying back and forth as it’s relieved of its burden.  Bringing it closer, she narrows her eyes, the glow around her horn brightening noticeably even in the strong wash of afternoon light.          Although it was undeniably different than anything else she had ever done, working with magic was also similar to some things in a lot of ways.  True, it seemed to follow its own rules, but those rules did not exist outside of the normal world.  Magic, her and her sister had discovered, existed alongside and interacted with gravity, heat, light, electromagnetism.  The strong and weak nuclear forces.  It was affected by those forces as much as they affected it, so far as they could tell.         Bringing the flower closer, she begins to delicately weave flows of energy around it, forming what she’s taken to calling a matrix.  Magic seemed to need order, to gravitate to structure.  She found it easier to lay these flows of magic along the petals, where she suspected they began binding with the hidden capillaries within the petals.  Order.  The flower itself began to glow, an almost imperceptible brightening of its white coloration that causes the yellow and black markings at its center to stand out more.         Luna, being the more scientific minded of the two, was giddy with the idea that they had discovered a previously undetected natural force.  She grew excited when she spoke about how it could change certain concepts, and had dove head long into physics, relativity, and string theory.  Celestia had her own thoughts on that, however.  It seemed to her that she was sensing more and more of that warm energy as she got older, like its presence was growing stronger.  That could be attributed to her increasing abilities, but sometimes in her quieter moments, it almost seemed to her that the magic hadn’t existed until she’d used it for the first time.  She’s never voiced such thoughts, of course.  She isn’t sure if such an assumption is ego or honest assessment.         Laying weaves of energy along the outside of the flower, the petals bobbing gently as it floats in her magical grasp, the glow changes, flashing once brightly before extinguishing as she completes the ethereal construct.  Structure.  Studying her work, she sees that the color of the petals seems a little duller, their bobbing a little slower, almost as if the thing were underwater.  She brings the blossom closer, nudging at it with her nose.  Does it seem harder to bend the white leaflets?  She’s pretty certain it is.         Fighting to suppress a surge of excitement, she carefully sets the lily in a small box laid open on the ground beside her, nestling it in next to several other flowers and a handful of leaves.  She thinks she finally understands what just happened, and even better, she’s pretty sure she knows how to make it go further.  Glancing for a moment into the open topped cardboard box, unable to keep a small smile from lifting the corners of her mouth, she turns back to the Segos growing in a small, irregular patch along one wall of the canyon.         Her and her father had planted them here one summer when she was still a filly, only a pair of flowers at first.  It was supposed to have been three flowers, but her younger sister had ended up eating hers on the ride to the canyon mouth.  The patch was smaller this year than last –it had been a particularly dry winter- and after an afternoons worth of work she was running out of flowers to practice on.  She was going to have to either find something else to use after this spell, of she was going to have to call it a day, and after an afternoon of near constant magic use she was getting pretty tired.           Gathering her energy for what she’s decided will be her last try, she begins forming the spell matrix before picking up the flower, trying to work it into a general approximation of the shape it assumed last time.  Absently she can hear a faint rustling in the bushes to her right, no doubt a small bird or rabbit shifting about, easily ignored.  Focusing, she reaches out for the last blossom, plucking it and lifting it steadily while trying to build up as much energy as she can.  Bringing it closer, she stares at the petals, small beads of sweat beginning to trail down her face, trying to see the microscopic capillaries, trying to envision exactly how the weaves of energy will-         “Hi Tia!”         A fluttering of wings precedes a sudden clattering of hooves from behind, startling a gasp out of her.  At the same moment the bush next to her erupts with frantic movement, causing her to snap her attention to it in involuntary alarm.  The twin distractions prove to be just enough for the already flagging Alicorn to lose her concentration completely, releasing the charged, not quite formed spell in a blast of shifting, almost prismatic light.  The beam goes wild, striking part of the bush and splashing liquid like against the rock wall behind it, little flecks of mica throwing back erratic pinpricks of crazily refracted lumination.         Dragging in a ragged breath, trying to still her racing heart, Tia stares wide eyed at the section of rock she accidently hit, before turning an incredulous and furious glare back towards her sister.  “Luna!  What in the name of…of anything, do you think you’re doing!”         Taken aback by her sister’s anger, Luna tilts her head a little to one side, raising an eyebrow in confusion.  “I came to see what you were up to up here.  What are you doing?”         “I was practicing, until you scared me half to death.  You’re lucky I didn’t accidently blast you with that spell!”         “But I landed behind you.  If I had landed in front of you, then maybe you might have zapped me.”  Luna clarifies for her clearly confused sister.  “What are you practicing anyway?”         Closing her eyes for a moment, Celestia takes deep, calming breaths, trying to rein in her anger.  After a long moment she finally succeeds in transitioning from anger to mere annoyance.  “I’m trying something new.  I just about had it when you came in and ruined it for me.”  Opening her eyes and taking in the smirk plastered on her younger sister’s face, she fights to keep her face neutral.  She’s not getting angry again.  She is merely annoyed.  She doesn’t want to kill her sister.  She doesn’t.  She has to work harder to convince herself of that last part than usual.         “Did it involve that bush you shot?”  Luna asks brightly, gleefully ignoring her older sisters strained expression.  “Were you trying to make it more bush-like?”         “Luna…”  Celestia responds in a warning tone.         Prancing over to the bush in question, Luna looks over at her fuming sister with an impish grin.  “It does look bushier on this one side, don’t you think?”  She gazes down at the gently shifting leaves.         “Luna, I swear…”  Celestia trails off, noticing a sudden change in her sibling’s expression.  She seems…disturbed.  “What?”         “What did you do to this rabbit?”         “Huh?”         Looking over, her features surprisingly somber, Luna repeats herself.  “What did you do to this rabbit?”         Moving closer, Celestia stares down through the leaves, just making out the silhouette of a small hare amongst the shadowed branches of the interior.  It looks odd though, stretched out in a strange way.  She glances at Luna as her sister’s horn begins glowing softly.  The bushes part with a deep blue glow, and the rabbit floats up, hanging in the air before them.  It isn’t moving, although it looks like it should be.  Its hind legs are stretched out behind it, its back arched, its front legs coiled as if to absorb a landing that never came.         “It looks like it’s in mid-jump.”  She says quietly, her voice startled and a little awed as she studies the poor creature.  Both of its long ears lay back against its neck, and peering at it she can see the dark grey fur on its chest looks weird.  After a moment of study, she realizes it’s laying back in different directions, as if moved by the passage of air.           Eyes narrowed, Luna scrutinizes the hare, before turning a wide, surprised gaze to her sister.  “It’s still alive.”         “What?  How…”         “I don’t really know.  It’s weird, like some sort of hibernation, only more so.  Like it’s completely frozen or something.  But I can still feel…life, I guess.”  Reaching out with a hoof, Luna prods at one of the back legs.  It’s as unyielding as stone.  Drawing her leg back she taps it harder.         “Luna!  What are you doing?  Don’t hurt the poor thing.”         “I’m not Tia.  I don’t think…I don’t’ think I could if I wanted to.  I’m pretty sure we can’t do anything to it while it’s like this.”  Looking seriously over at her sister, she furrows her brow.  “What, exactly, were you trying to do anyway?”         “I was trying to find a way to preserve those flowers.”  She nods towards the brown cardboard box a few feet away.  “I’ve been trying all afternoon.  I thought I had figured out a different approach when you showed up.”         Having the good graces to finally look sheepish, Luna turns back to the hare, setting it carefully down beside the bush.  “What do we do with it now?”         Considering for a long moment, Celestia finally sighs dejectedly.  This isn’t going to go over well. “You should probably go get Dad.”           “Huh?  What’s Dad going to do?  He doesn’t know anything about magic.”  Luna responds with wide eyed hesitancy. Looking down on the rabbit resting oddly on its side, Celestia shrugs in frustration.  “I don’t know, just… just go get him, alright?”  She doesn’t watch as her sister turns and launches herself back in the direction of the house.    Studying the poor hare, she reaches out tentatively with her magic, probing gently.  No, this isn’t going to go over well at all.         Standing at the porch railing with a reheated cup of leftover coffee, Ryan takes in the beauty of the day, letting his mind work over things at its own pace as he fingers the folded printout in his other hand.  Looking at the red and white package of cigarettes sitting on the painted wood for a moment, he gives his head a small shake, instead opening the printed email again. Mr. Williams,      Your background, credit and DHS checks have all come back good, and you have been approved at the rate we previously discussed.  Please give us a call at your earliest convenience to set up a meeting and a tour of the lot.  We greatly look forward to working with you.                                                                 Very Respectfully,                                                                          John Landon                                                                         Senior Agent         Taking a sip of coffee made somewhat bitter from the microwave, he starts going over his mental checklist again.  Their finances were more or less in order, thanks to his portfolio and the residuals he receives from both inheritances.  He’d have to shift some things around and do some creative budgeting, but all in all they’re set on that note.  In all honesty he’s actually getting a hell of a deal, mostly because they hadn’t been able to sell the property for years.           The location is also pretty good.  Quiet, out of the way, with very restrictive access as far as roads go.  There will be some issue with utilities –sewage and the like- but he’s already been in contact with a local contractor about that.  Transportation might become an interesting challenge, but if worse comes to worst, he can always load the girls into the back of the truck.  It wouldn’t be the most comfortable, but the camper shell covering the bed would keep them out of sight.  They might not like it, but if it reaches that point, whether or not they like it becomes a secondary concern. Glancing idly in the direction of the canyon, his thoughts shift in turn.  Tia had gone out earlier to practice.  He knows she does that to keep him from worrying, they’ve both realized he’s still uncomfortable with the whole concept of magic.  What he hasn’t had the heart to tell her is that whether she practices her magic in the house or out of it, he’s going to worry regardless.  At least when she’s in the house he can be there if something goes wrong.   Like the time she tried to boil water for tea without using the stove, and ended up setting both dish rags on fire.  Or the time her sister got impatient waiting for the fridge to make more ice, and ended up freezing the kitchen taps.   Sighing, he shakes his head slowly.  Though they did make mistakes, they were making them with less frequency then they had before, and they were figuring out new things all the time.  Despite his reservations, he has to admit that they’re getting pretty good with what they can do, oddities notwithstanding.   Not that there were plenty of those.  The way they seemed to be able to sense some things, for instance, like that time when they were camping.  Luna had picked up a piece of firewood, looked at it strangely, then discarded it instead of adding it to the fire.  She’d told him, in all seriousness, that there was a family of bark beetles living inside it.  When he’d questioned it she’d kicked some of the dried bark away with one hoof, exposing a half dozen scuttling shapes. Then there was the time the television remote had been lost.  Ryan had searched for about an hour, until Celestia had walked in and asked him what he was doing.  When he’d told her, she had looked around for a second, closed her eyes, and nodded toward the back corner of the couch.  Lifting the cushion and wedging his hand in the frame, he had found it.  She’d answered his incredulous look with a small laugh, saying she’d followed the faint residue of magic that still clung to it from the last time Luna had handled it. More disturbingly, though, was the other thing he’d been begun to notice.  He couldn’t be sure, and he’d never voiced it, but they didn’t seem to be growing the way they’d used to.  He didn’t know if it was just some normal facet of Alicorn biology or not, but it seemed to him that ever since they’d really started using their magic, they’d…slowed.  Not mentally, of course, but physically they only seemed to be a couple of years older than when they’d first began lifting things about with their horns.  It could just be that they were almost done growing, but it was a stark contrast to their weed-like growth when they were still fillies.  That it seemed to have begun when they started practicing felt a little too coincidental to Ryan.         Taking another drink from his mug, he reconsiders the pack of smokes, finally giving in and reaching for them, when a distant flapping of wings makes him pause.  Looking up he sees Luna flying in from the direction of the canyon, circling once before landing in a spray of gravel.  She looks around wide eyed for a moment before spotting him.  Studying the expression on her face, he sets his now tepid mug of coffee on the railing.  He’s got that feeling again, that tense, jittery stomach sensation one gets when standing too close to a steep drop off.  Steadying himself with a breath, he walks over to meet her.         “Sweetheart, is everything alright?”  She looks at him nervously, meeting his eyes hesitantly, and he suppresses a sigh.  Yep, this is going to be one of those times.  “Luna, what is it?”         She breathes deeply, shifting her wings about nervously as she answers.  “Something… happened in the canyon that you…”         “Is your sister alright?”  He cuts her off, chest tightening.         “What?  Oh yeah, she’s fine.”  Luna responds, glancing back in the direction she’s just come from.  “But, something happened.  She wants you to come see.”         Evening out his breathing he follows her glance, before looking back and catching her eyes with his.  “What happened Luna Maybelle?”  He says in a steady, calm voice.         She winces slightly, looking almost furtive.  “Nothing really bad, just…just come and see.  Please Daddy?”         He studies her, one eyebrow lifting as she continues to fidget.  Deciding it would be easier to do as she’s asking, he looks towards his pickup with a resigned sigh.  “Alright, I’ll be up there in a minute or two.”  Looking back towards his younger daughter, he frowns.  “You’re sure you two are alright?”         Finally noticing the concern in his voice, Luna settles a bit, giving him her best smile.  “We’re fine, Dad.  And it’s not anything really…bad, so much as different.  I promise.  We just don’t know what to do.”         Searching her face for a moment longer, he nods, turning and walking towards the truck.  “O.K. sweetheart.  Go on ahead, I’ll be right behind you.”         Watching through the windshield as she springs back into the air, he starts the engine, smoothly shifting into first gear.  Taking a moment to roll the windows down and turn off the radio, he crosses the yard and starts down the little access road that eventually runs past the canyon mouth.  He tries, with mixed results, not to focus on the immediate worst-case scenarios that have cropped up in the back of his mind.  He doesn’t see any smoke rising, can’t smell anything sinister on the balmy afternoon air, and his ears pick up no hint of a helicopter or circling drone, which goes some way towards easing his mind.  It can’t be that bad, can it?         A few minutes later he reaches the gap in the rough granite ridge on his right.  He parks and kills the engine, stepping out and shading his eyes from the warm summer sun as he peers back into the canyon.  He can see both of them back there about half way down, the larger white shape of Celestia settled on the ground next to the smaller, darker shape of her younger sister, their backs to him.  They appear to be holding an animated conversation.         Crunching along the rocky ground, he keeps glancing around, looking for anything different or out of place, but everything seems fine.  Approaching the two, he notices for the first time a small cardboard box sitting off to one side, which seems to be full of flowers, of all things.           Turning their heads at the sound of his footsteps, Celestia stands up, giving her coat a little shake to dislodge some of the dirt from it.  Sharing a look with her sister, she takes a breath and turns towards him, meeting his eyes, a strange combination of trepidation and determination tightening her features.  “Hi Dad.”         “Hi, sweetie.”  He studies her for a moment, curious at her expression.  She looks like she’s about to own up to something she did wrong, while at the same time defending her actions.  “What’s this about, Tia Marie?”         She seems to struggle for a moment, her mouth opening, before simply standing aside and gesturing to the ground next to her with one wing.  Following the tips of the alabaster feathers, he finally notices the small jackrabbit lying oddly on its side, the grey and black fur helping it to blend in with the terrain even at short distance.  The girls have found dead wildlife before, and while they never seemed to like it, they had long accepted that it was simply the way of nature.  They hadn’t called him for a dead critter since they were fillies, crying and begging him to ‘fix it’.  So why had they now?  Looking questioningly at his older daughter, he sees that her expression is tighter then it was a moment ago.  Brow wrinkling, he squats down beside the rabbit, one hand absently rubbing at his knee as he does so.           No, they wouldn’t have him come out here for a simple dead animal.  Taking a longer look at the unfortunate hare, he tilts his head slightly.  It’s posed strangely, as if in mid-run.  Reaching out he pokes at its outstretched hind legs, looks at his finger tip with a raised eyebrow, then pokes it again.  The leg is unyielding, as if made of stone.  Leaning closer, he brushes his hand along its haunches, seeing that he can’t even disturb the fine, long hairs on its pelt, which, he notices a moment later, is neither warm nor cold.  The eyes aren’t glassy with death, and even though it feels solid like wood, the nose looks moist.           Standing creakily to his feet again, he stares down at it with a confused frown.  “Is it dead?”  He asks without looking up.         “I..uh, no.  No, it’s not.”  Celestia answers hesitantly from next to him.           Turning slowly to look at her, he frowns again.  “Tia, what is this?”         “See…it, uh…I was trying…”  She haltingly replies, and he can see on her face anxiety, confusion and excitement all at the same time.  It dawns on him that she doesn’t really know what she’s done, and doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.  Or, he realizes a moment later, if he’ll be angry with her because of it.         Reaching out, he lays a hand along her cheek, stopping the disjointed flow of words.  Looking her in the eyes, he pushes all of his own misgivings and concern to the bottom of his mind and gives her a reassuring smile.  “Sweetheart, it’s alright.”  Gesturing to the warm, loose soil, he gives her another reassuring look.  “Sit.”  Matching action to word, he sits with his left leg folded and his right stretched out.  Looking up at her, he pats a spot next to him, watching as she finally settles to the ground.  Glancing over, he motions for Luna, and after a moment she joins them.         Fixing them both with a calm, measured look, he pats Celestia on her neck.  “It’s alright honey, you’re not in trouble.”           Smiling when he sees she’s regained her composure somewhat, he nods.  “Now, tell me what happened.” He sits for almost twenty minutes, listening as Tia tells him about flowers and matrices and what she was trying to accomplish, asking few questions and nodding whenever Luna interjects with her own information or piece of the story.  During the whole of it he manages to keep his unease from showing, his own feelings taking a back seat as he tries to grasp the concepts they’re talking about.         When they wind down, he looks them both in the eye.  “So it’s what, petrified?”  Seeing them both nod in assent, he glances over at the jackrabbit.  “But it’s still alive.”  Looking back, he receives the same nods.  “How long will it stay…like that?”         Celestia glances over at the animal, her brow wrinkling.  “I’m…not really sure.  Not forever, I don’t think.”  She looks at her sister.  “Can you feel the energy dissipating?”  When Luna nods, Tia looks back at her father.  “It seems like the magic put into the matrix is what’s keeping the rabbit…that way, but the magic is slowly fading.”  She frowns for a moment, trying to work it out in her head.         “So, it’s got what, a charge or something?”  Ryan asks, struggling to understand.         She brightens and flashes him a grin.  “Yeah, yeah I think so.  The more energy you put into the matrix, the longer the effect.  That makes sense.”  She gives him a cautious look.  “I think…I think I might be able to tune it, even.  Change how long it lasts, at least somewhat.”         “I’ll bet you could make it more efficient, too.”  Luna pipes up, growing excited.  “If you fiddled with the matrix, you could probably change how slowly or quickly the energy fades.”  She looks at her sister with a questioning smile.         Ryan stands up with a small grunt, interrupting Celestia’s answering nod.  Twisting a little to stretch his back, he stares at the rabbit for a moment, an absent expression on his face as he works to absorb the implications of this new…wonder.  “Tia, you couldn’t accidently cast something like this on yourself, right?” “Not really.  Well, I mean I could, but it would have to either be some weird accident, or deliberately.” He arches an eyebrow.  “An accident.  Like getting suprised by your sister or something?”  He turns his head towards Luna, who meets his gaze with a sheepish expression. Celestia smirks at her younger sibling.  “Yeah, something like that.” Shaking his head, Ryan looks up, judging the sky.  The sun is past its zenith, beginning its final slide towards the horizon.  Leaning down, he picks the jackrabbit up gingerly, placing it gently into the box full of flowers.  It wouldn’t be right to just leave the poor thing exposed to the elements, like some sort of weird bunny fossil.  “Luna, put that box in my truck and then head back to the house.  We’ll talk about your part in this little incident when I get home.” Giving him a weak smile, she turns and begins trotting quickly back towards the canyon mouth, the box traveling beside her in an azure glow.  Watching her departing figure, Ryan reaches out as Celestia moves to leave, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. When Luna has launched into the air and turned towards home, he turns to his oldest daughter, and she looks at him quizzically, eyebrows raised.  “We’ll head back in a moment, sweetheart.  But first, I have a few questions about this…new thing you can do.” Nodding, she settles back down on her haunches, and he clears his throat.  “So, this petrifaction thing.  How well do you think you could…uh, tune it?”         *************** “So as you can see Mr. Ryan, the lot’s ten acres.  From the fence down there, all the way up to that first set of ridges here.  A lot of it’s pretty steep up and down stuff, but you have a few good acres at the foot of the mountains.” Ryan looks around, taking in the view.  The sun hasn’t quite reached its peak yet, leaving long, leaning shadows to climb out of the dips and folds of the encroaching foothills.  It’s pretty rough, rougher then he’d have normally preferred, and it’d take a lot of work to develop and build on, but the mostly flat acreage at the front of the property isn’t what interested him.  Turning back to the middle aged gentleman in the red windbreaker, he nods.  “I understand part of the property was already somewhat developed?” The realtor, Ronald by name, nods once, walking over to the shiny S.U.V. he arrived in.  Leaning through the driver side door, he pulls out a survey map of the lot, indicating a section along the western side of the property line.  “Right over here.  There were a couple of little caves here once.  Nothing too impressive, mostly used by local miners to store supplies once upon a time.”  Turning, he points towards a rocky escarpment about a quarter mile from them.  “About ten, twelve years ago, this guy from California came in.  Had this idea that if he built a fancy wine cellar wealthy folks would pay him to store their priceless vintages.” Ryan looks at him, one eyebrow climbing in confusion.  “A wine cellar?” Ronald nods, a smile growing on his pudgy face.  “I know how it sounds.  He had plans for this elaborate, sealed thing, humidity controlled, temperature regulated.  Even a system to monitor how much light each bottle was exposed to.  Sort of like a safety deposit box for people’s rare, expensive alcohol.  For the real buffs, you know?  People with too much money and not enough sense.” Ryan looks at him quizzically.  “He was just going to store wine?” The realtor shakes his head, pointing towards the south-eastern part of the property.  “No, he had plans for some sort of retreat on the more at-grade part of the lot.  Rich people would drop off their booze, then spend a week getting pampered with other rich people.  Never quite got to that phase though.” Ronald throws his head back, early morning sunlight reflecting softly from the scalp beneath his thinning hair as he laughs.  “Poor guy bought the place, drilled everything out and connected it all together.  Spent a fortune reinforcing everything.”  He shakes his head, tapering off into chuckles. Ryan chuckles with him.  “What happened?” “Economy took another nose dive, and his investors dried up.  Poor guy was ruined.” “So how much…”  Ryan cuts off as he is interrupted by an electronic chiming from his front pocket.  Fishing out his cellphone, he looks apologetically at the realtor, before walking a short distance away.  Reaching some brush that he judges to be a safe distance from prying ears, he glances at the caller I.D., frowning as he swipes at the screen.  “What’s happened?” “Huh?  Oh, nothing Daddy.  How’s your thing going?” “Luna, I told both of you this number was for emergencies only.”  He says in a tight, quiet voice, closing his eyes and resisting the urge to groan. “Oh yeah, Tia wanted me to let you know that the rabbit woke up.” “It’s awake?” “Yeah.  We let it go in the yard a few minutes ago.  It was perfectly fine.” He nods to himself, mentally tallying the days since they’d brought it home.  Today was the seventh, which made it about a week and a half.   “It was completely fine?” “Yeah, it acted a little groggy, but after a minute or two it was fine.” “Alright sweetie, I gotta go.  I’ll see you two in a bit.” “Ooh, wait!” she stops him short.  “Can you bring us back some Rocky Road?  We’re out.” He sighs, tenting the fingers of one hand along his brow.  “I’ll see what I can do.” Ending the call, he slips the sleek little square of plastic and glass back into his pocket, taking a moment to collect himself.  Turning, he walks back over to Ronald, trying to ignore the curious expression on his face. “That your wife?”  The realtor asks with a smile and a rueful shake of his head.  “Mine is always calling whenever I’m in the middle of something.  It’s like she knows the exact wrong time to bother me.”   Trying to ignore the question without seeming awkward, Ryan nods towards the little shaded area on the map.  “So the guy lost everything, huh?” “Yeah.”  Ronald answers, smoothly picking up where he left off.  “Ended up defaulting on the lot and moving back to California.  I felt pretty bad for him.” “But he put some work in on that cellar thing?” “Yeah, mostly just the structural stuff. Concrete to reinforce the walls and ceilings, leveled out most of the floor…” Shading his eyes, Ryan looks across the foothills, trying to pick out the structure where they begin to rise more steeply to meet the foot of the range. “Well, why don’t we go take a look at that?”