//------------------------------//
// Chapter 16: The Well 
// Story: Through the Well of Pirene 
// by Ether Echoes 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 16: The Well





وَمَا أَنْتَ إِلَّا بَشَرٌ مِثْلُنَا وَإِنْ نَظُنُّكَ لَمِنَ الْكَاذِبِينَ


"Thou art no more than a mortal like us and indeed we think thou art a liar!" Shu'ara 186



Amelia


I jerked awake, splashing warm bathwater and suds everywhere. My struggles subsided when I noticed where I was. The tub was all fine porcelain and big enough for three grown men—or one large goblin, I suppose. White wood panels contained soap and bottles of various sorts. My nerves still sparked like live wires, and there were only vague recollections of how I’d gotten there, flashes of halls and lamps and hooves. Splashing along to the other side, I pulled myself up to climb out, only to find Rose there waiting for me.

As at the bathhouse, she wore her own face, and rose from her haunches to meet my eyes.

“Cat’s out of the bag now, huh?” I said bitterly.

“S’pose it is at that.” She tilted her head to a towel. “You need help cleanin’ up in there, or are you about done?”

“Don’t know if I’ll ever feel clean taking a bath here,” I shot back. There wasn’t much heart in it, though. Not after the night I’d had.

She tugged the towel down in her teeth and laid it out on a small chair by the door. “Well. Have at it, then.” I made no move for it. “Come on, Amy. You ain’t going to stay in there, are you?”

“What if I do, huh?” I slid back. “Might sleep here. Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“If you fall asleep in the tub, you might drown. I ain’t gonna let that happen.”

I glared at her. “What’s it to you, Rose? Why do you care if I live or die? All you care about is fulfilling some stupid prophecy.”

“That ain’t true,” Rose said defensively. Her shoulders tightened. “I was worried about you. It’s dangerous in the Everfree.”

The tub sloshed as I splashed up to the side again. “Yeah? Like, oh, I don’t know… when a basilisk comes along and tries to eat you?”

Rose shook her head. “He wasn’t goin’ to eat you.” Her eyes lit. “Not even after that thing hurt him. He wouldn’t have hurt you in the least.”

“Yeah? Holy cats, Rose, his jaws were this close—” I held my hooves together with barely a paper-thin space between. “—to taking my head off! I would have been lunch if I didn’t penetrate through the tree.” I snorted.

“He wouldn’t have hurt you,” she insisted.

“Oh, that’s right; just petrify me.”

“Yes!” She stamped a hoof. “And then you would have been safe and we could have undone the petrification when he delivered you back to us!”

“Because I’m safe with you, am I?” My teeth ground. “You’re just a bunch of damned liars.”

Irony, thy name is Amelia.

Rose didn’t answer for a while. The only sound was the thrum of the airship’s engines through the deck. She turned towards a mirror and glanced in it, as if trying to see something in herself. “You are safe with us. And I’m sorry. We did what we had to do.”

I’m sorry, Wire. “Sorry’s not good enough.” My voice trembled, and my teeth clattered as I opened my mouth. “It’s never good enough.”

“You overheard me at the bathhouse, didja?” Rose asked quietly.

I nodded.

“Aye, well…” She ran a hoof through her mane, stirring the bluish tips against the floor. “What if I told you what the prophecy was? What all of this means? Why we took you and lied to you and everything?”

Her eyes met mine as I lifted my head. “Promise? Everything?”

“As best I understand it.”

“Do better,” I pressed. “Your Wand King must know. It’s his prophecy, isn’t it?”

She chewed on her lip—delicately, in consideration of her fangs, I supposed. “I can talk to Twig and the others, see about gettin’ you an audience.”

“I think I’m owed it.”

“We’ll see, then,” she said. “Now, towel off. I’ll be right in the cabin outside.”

“Wait,” I said quickly, holding a hoof out to catch her attention. “One thing... what's a 'cythraul'?”

She turned her face to mine, grimacing. “You shouldn't use language like that. It ain't polite.”

“I figured.” I nodded. “What does it mean, though?”

“It means something like a demon,” she said. “Like an awful creature that serves only itself and puts no thought to others.”

I kept my face steady. Rose didn't need to know that my veins had turned to ice water.

When the door shut behind her, I scrambled out of the tub and searched every nook and cranny of the little bathroom. There was a vent, but, even with Penetration, the tunnel beyond was too small for me to fit my entire body into. Nothing sharp had been left behind. My bag and all my things were gone. Reluctantly, I rinsed the last of the soap from my mane and tail and wrapped myself in the scented towels provided. I rolled around until I was puffy and at least reasonably dry.

After a moment’s consideration, I did brush my mane, tail, and coat a little—enough to make me look at least moderately presentable as a young filly. My bangs were combed until they fell neatly to either side of my largely neglected horn. I even brushed my teeth after noticing that Rose or someone else had supplied the toothbrush I’d used back in Phonyville.

Rose escorted me down the narrow hall to a room I could only describe as belonging to a lady, all ripe with full pillows and lacy curtains. Within, Maille sat at the very same workbench she’d used in her shop, only cranked up a foot or so for her greater height and upright posture. I watched as she stitched a pattern on a green silk garment of indeterminate shape before Rose tapped her hoof on the door and drew her attention.

The dragon girl turned to face us, and her eyes lit up as they fell on me. “Amelia. I’m so very glad to see you again.”

I tilted my chin up, setting my stance firmly. Rather than snap back at her like with Rose, though, I instead glanced towards her bench. “What’re you working on there?”

“Just the final touches on that ‘special project’ I promised you.” She fingered the shimmering cloth. “I was working on it when they said you were missing. Haven’t had a chance to work on finishing it until now.”

In spite of myself, I glanced away. Every fiber of my being screamed out at me to denounce this woman and her accomplices, but it was very hard to do that when she sounded so darned sincere. She had always sounded genuine, though. That’s how they roped you in. “Knock it off,” I said at last.

“Knock what off?”

“I’m not buying it. Besides,” I lifted the hem of green silk. “This is the wrong size for a foal. It isn’t for me.”

“It is,” Maille said, “but I’ll have to show you later, when it’s finished.” She pressed me back gently and carefully packed the green silk away. The sticks were pulled from her hair, and she let it fall once more down her back to her hips. A slight smile crossed her lips as she noticed my attention. “Strange, I know. It took a long time for me to get used to being on four legs. Pony magic was even harder to master. I’m from so far away that I’d never even heard of Equestria until I was selected.”

“Where are you from?” I asked. My eyes followed her as she moved about her little room. I watched the sway of her silken dress as it flowed with her own graceful movements. Rose sat on a cushion by the door, evidently provided for Maille’s pony friends. Or quadrupedal, at the very least.

“Another world on the Great Circuit. You probably saw it in the skies of Mag Mell.” Maille sat on the edge of her bed and folded her powerful legs. Her claws had been covered in slippers. “You went a very long way. I dare say that if it weren’t for those Cup goblins, you might have eluded us again, at least for a while. For a little girl, you showed great resourcefulness in escaping the castle, the forest, and the city.”

“I had help,” I said bitterly, turning away.

“That must have been a feat all by itself,” Maille said, in that instructive tone she had sometimes taken back in Phonyville. “Don’t sell yourself short because you didn’t do it all by yourself. Being able to find and lead good talent is impressive all by itself.” She leaned forward a little with an uncertain look. “Where did they go, though? No one was on that boat with you, and I saw you enter the Cup Palace with that Wire girl and those three girls myself.”

My face fell. “They’re gone,” I said, and the words were lead weights in my gut. A hoof touched me and I jerked away from Rose. “They didn’t make it,” I snapped and turned away. The sadness in their eyes was the last thing I wanted to see right then.

“Amelia… I’m sorry,” Maille said quietly. “We wouldn’t have hurt your friends. I wish we could have done something to help them.”

“Sorry isn’t good enough,” I growled. “Sorry doesn’t make things right. It doesn’t bring people back. Sorry is never good enough.” 

Maille, Rose, Twig, Kiln, Pinion, Rainbow Dash, Fetter, Daphne, the Wand King. If it hadn’t of been for those people, none of this would have ever happened. Wire and the Crusaders could have lived their lives peacefully, out of the way of danger.

Maybe if it weren’t for someone named Amelia, they’d have never wanted for it, either.

“They might be all right,” Rose said. “The Cup will more likely hold them than harm them.”

“What does it matter? They’re never going to be freed.” I scraped a hoof along the floor. “I can’t help them.”

A hoof hooked around me and pulled me back. “I don’t know about that. Your future ain’t closed off,” Rose said.

I smacked her hoof away and gave her a sullen glare. “What’re you talking about?”

Maille and Rose glanced between themselves. The former moved to a crouch in front of me. “It’s what I was trying to tell you earlier, Amelia. It’s the whole reason we brought you to Ponyville.”

“Phonyville,” I spat.

They shared a smile at the word. “Yes, that. I know you feel hurt because you were lied to, and you’re right—you should feel hurt. You were hurt. We did lie to you, and it’s perfectly natural to feel that way.”

My eyes narrowed. “Stop patronizing me and say what you mean.”

Rose gave a sigh and interjected. “What we mean is that you’re a very important little girl. Years before you or any of us were born, it was set down that we must prepare for the comin’ of a new age. A time when the world—all the worlds—would change in a deep, fundamental way.”

“And that if we wanted to be there to guide it,” Maille continued, “then we would need to gather certain people. Six young ponies and one human girl. Not just any six ponies or any one human girl, though.”

“What, am I a wizard or something?” I rolled my eyes. “Look, the ‘Chosen One’ speech is, like, the most cliched thing ever. I’ve read tons of fantasy books and it’s all the same thing. What the hell is so special about me?”

“Ah.” Rose paused. “We don’t actually know. The Wand King and Fetter do. They keep the full wording of the prophecy.”

Maille shook her head. “We know you’re supposed to be bright, quick-witted. There’s certain phrases, too. You can see things that no one else can. The things you imagine come true.” She reached a hand out to me. “You’re supposed to be special, touched like few others. I know that to be true. You’re not a normal little girl at all.”

“No,” I said, looking her in the eyes. “I’m your special little piece of metal, aren’t I?”

Maille rocked back, her eyes wide. “How could you—?” She touched her hand to her chest and took a deep breath. “Yes… of course. My master wished to send something my way. That certainly explains how you showed up at Ivy Lane.”

Rose gave me a weighing look. “I’d say I was right, then. Aye… you are a strange little girl.”

“He knew I was there the whole time,” I said, ignoring Rose in favor of focusing on Maille. “What does that say to you? If he’d wanted you to find and capture me, he’d have just pointed me out and I wouldn’t have had the slightest chance of getting away. Instead, he gets you to tell me where to find you. I kind of wish I hadn’t. Maybe he was trying to warn me away.” I walked past her to the door. “Or maybe he was trying to give me a choice, the kind of choice you people have never let me have.”

“You don’t understand how important this is, Amy,” Rose said, but abated as Maille touched her back.

“No. We’ve underestimated her from the start,” Maille said, her voice quiet yet firm. “Amelia understands very well the meaning of duty and sacrifice by now. If she hadn’t before she started, she does now.” Maille turned towards me, and, though she stood at her full height and towered well over my head, it didn’t feel as though she was trying to look down on me. “If you do, Amelia, then maybe the working hasn’t gone awry. We’ve lied to you up until now—will you hear us out, hear the full story of how important this is, and decide then?”

“Will you back me up if I say no?” I asked in turn.

“I will,” Maille promised. “On my honor.”

Rose sighed. “I suppose it’s only fair she get to know. On to Twig, then?”

“Indeed.” Maille reached forward and opened the door.

She was right. I had learned a great deal since leaving Phonyville. Many of those lessons had been drilled into me with a great deal of pain, suffering, and hardship. Among those things was the power of deception, and how thinly sliced lies are more easily swallowed, especially when they’re delivered with conviction.

If they thought I was conniving before, they had no idea what was coming.

Our trip down the ship’s corridor was very short, mostly because we were near immediately interrupted. As we stepped out into an open galley between two decks, a pair of heavy shod hooves appeared at the top of the stairs I was to be led up.

The hooves were strange in and of themselves. They could have been blocks of heavy fired clay, or perhaps stone, and the pony they belonged to didn’t look much less solid. Her coat, such as it was, was short and bristly, concealing not at all her solid, powerful muscles. Her face was pretty for all that she looked like fired ceramic—or, at least, it would have been, if she weren’t scowling.

“So. There she is,” the mare said. She tossed her short, stiff, black mane back with a contemptuous flick. “Seems I owe you a few quarins, Maille.”

Maille, ahead of me, leaned back against the stair rail to look between the two of us. “Technically, we found her in the air over the city rather than in the city, Kiln,” she said with a smile, “but yes, I do believe I did win the bet.”

I started up towards the false Applejack, but any thoughts of trying to browbeat or wheedle her fled as she set her gaze on me. Her onyx eyes were approximately as obdurate as the rest of her. It wasn’t like I hadn’t already planned to be cautious around Kiln, having remembered quite vividly the way she treated the cross-eyed pegasus mare in her barn on my final day, but, where I had loosely categorized Maille and Rose as allies for the time being, I fit Kiln into a new slot entirely: trouble.

She made no way for me as I approached. “You could have gotten killed out there.” Reaching out, she produced a pouch out of midair, reminding me again that Twig wasn’t the only one gifted with a more solid grasp of goblin magic than myself. From it, she took a piece of paper and dusted tobacco on it, then rolled it up into a cigarette. She didn’t smoke it, though, she merely rolled it around in her hooves and ignored Maille’s disapproving look to stare down at me.

“I was lied to. Why should I have trusted you?” This was really something I wasn’t in the mood to deal with. Not with everything that had happened to me today. Keeping a level head was the only way I was going to get out, however, so I kept my voice even. Kiln, as Applejack, had always been straightforward and direct with me before, so I took a gamble on her now. “If you were in my hooves, what would you have done?”

Kiln watched me for a few moments more. I resisted the urge to squirm under her unyielding gaze. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been through,” she said at last, her tone flat and emotionless, before she finally stepped aside. As we passed, though, she put a hoof in front of me. “And don’t think I can’t see what you’re really like.”

Rose, from behind me, shot her an annoyed look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We lied to her, sure enough,” said Kiln as she flicked her cigarette into the air, making it disappear from sight, “but she’s a liar. Maybe she’s the chosen child, but that says nothing about what she’s like as a person nor about what she’ll do with the new age.” Kiln’s eyes flashed with quiet intensity. “You keep an eye on this girl, Maille.”

“Well, aren’t you just a tidy little bucket of joy, Kiln,” Maille said tersely, putting her hands on her hips. “Can’t you be happy that she’s back and safe? Our work won’t have been for nothing—that has to mean something to you.”

“You know what meant a lot to me, Maille?” Kiln said quietly. “Long hours by the sea, just the lot of us, six girls who had no idea what they were in for. It meant a lot to me when Twig’s folks took me in. Purpose tore us apart, and I mean to see that purpose come to a swift and final conclusion.”

“Purpose is what brought us together in the first place. It brought us together again.” Maille reached out to touch Kiln’s head, only for the mare to jerk away and walk around the terrace.

“Tell that to Flash and Pinion,” Kiln shot back as she walked away. “Good luck trying to figure out how this is all supposed to work without them, either.”

“What?” I asked, turning to face the others. “What happened to Pinkie—I mean, Pinion? Isn’t she with you guys?”

Rose nudged me with her head towards one of the doors nearby. “Don’t worry about it.”

“What if I am worried about it?” I protested. “I like Pinion. I mean, okay, she kind of terrifies me at times, and she tried to capture me with a net that one time, but she was really fun to be around.”

“She hasn’t reported back yet. It’s possible she’s just late for the rendezvous,” Maille said. She opened the cabin door and stepped inside.

Twig’s room, like Maille’s, was instantly recognizable in its own distinct way. In place of the tons of old books I might have expected from Twilight’s library, Twig’s walls were peppered with anatomical charts, clippings from newspapers, and, tucked way over in the corner, numerous photos of Rainbow Dash, grounded or in flight. Books had been piled beside a large wicker basket cushion, and her bed had deep curtains. The room was smaller than Maille’s, and, rather than feel cramped, it had a warm, cozy sense that reminded me of the best parts of my brief apprenticeship, when our heads had been tucked close together as Twig demonstrated some obscure trick or another.

“Empty? Wasn’t she supposed to meet us here?” Rose asked.

Maille pushed the curtains of the bed open and peered in. “Nothing here.”

From the terrace, the sound of light hooves scrabbling against wood reached us, and Twig bounded around the corner like the gazelle she resembled. “Sorry! Sorry,” she said as she stepped in. “Rainbow and I were talkin’ and I lost track of the time.” She paused in midstep, looking down at me, and smiled. “Amelia! Oh, thank the stars. I know I saw you when you landed, but you were near to death with cold…”

“Lost track of the time?” Rose asked airily. “I’ll bet.”

Twig kicked her with a rear hoof and walked up to me. “Regardless, we’re all glad to have you back, we are.”

I stepped back in the now-crowded room and examined Twig’s stuff in lieu of looking at her directly. “Yeah, so I’ve heard.”

“Now, Amelia,” Twig said in the tone she used as a princess and a teacher both, “I know you’re upset, but you have to understand our positions.”

“Rose and Maille already gave me the speech,” I said. “Yeah, yeah, I’m some special ‘chosen one’ with all these super powers or whatever.” I turned back to face her. “It’s a lot of vague promises, Princess, that don’t go anywhere.” Pausing, I let the barb settle in to gauge its impact. Twig considered me, running a hoof through her bramble-like mane in a futile attempt to settle it. I took that to mean she was mildly guilty but not enough to really be deterred. After a moment’s thought, I added, “I just want somegob to explain what this is all about. No more secrets and lies.”

My body language I kept deliberately minimal. If anyone could have caught me holding back or dissembling, it was Twig.

“She’s willing to hear us out, Twig,” Maille said. “It’s the least we can do.”

“Is it?” Twig asked. “None of us had a choice. Still…” She frowned at me. “You’re a smart girl, Amelia. I should have realized how smart after I trained you.”

“You know, that saved my life a few times,” I admitted. “Your lessons, that is. There were a lot of sticky situations where I’d remember something you’d told me. And the Penetration trick you taught me really got me through some scrapes—literally.”

Twig looked a little surprised. “You paid that close attention to my lessons?”

“In Mag Mell, I conned goblins out of over a thousand quarins with the books from your library and some crap my friends picked up by using your lessons.” All right, so that was only partially true, but it served as a good example. If only it were an example that didn’t involve the ponies I’d left behind.

That did the ticket, though. Twig’s face split into a broad grin. “That’s wonderful! And you got away with it, too?” She danced a little jig on all four hooves. “If I’d had another couple weeks with you, Amelia, I’ll wager you could have escaped us entirely!”

“Is that supposed to be a good thing?” Rose asked dubiously.

Twig waved her off. “Never mind that. What else did you use, Amelia? Just the Penetrations?”

“Well,” I said thoughtfully, “I’ve used Restorations as well a few times, and I think I managed a Teleportation once. I still haven’t gotten the hang of Transformations.” I made a sour face. “Vanishing still gives me trouble. I can make things Vanish about half the time now, but making them reappear is the tricky part.”

“Oh.” Twig scrunched her face. “You didn’t Vanish anything important, did you?”

“Just some stones and random junk I had.” I tilted my ears forward. “Why?”

“If you Vanish something and forget how to Produce it… well, you’ll probably never see it again.” She snorted. “I lost a pair of earrings my grandmother gave me that way. And more than a few coffee mugs.”

I giggled. “Really? Where did they go?”

“Who can say? Goblin magic—illusion, more properly, it’s older than all of us—is a very mysterious force.” She shook her head. “I don’t think anygob has a full theory of it, especially not that question in particular. It could be those earrings are buried far beneath the earth of some distant world, or perhaps they’ve disappeared from the universe entirely.”

“That’s kinda cool,” I said, and glanced at the other girls. “Do you mind if Twig and I catch up? It’s getting a little crowded in here.”

“Of course,” Maille said. “We should be seeing if dinner is ready, anyway. I’d imagine you’re famished.”

My mind flashed back to the dining hall and its seductive succulence. “I’m not hungry,” I said quickly. The churning of my stomach threatened to betray me. “Ate a big meal.”

“All right, well, we’ll catch up,” Maille said with a nod. Then she and Rose stepped out, closing the door behind them. “Come join us in the galley with Twig when you’re ready.”

Score. I had Twig all to myself.

It started with small talk. I opened up to her about my journey, she told me a bit about what it had been like to grow up in a magician’s apprenticeship—a great deal of manual labor and self-doubt, apparently. I left out most of the contributions of my companions, mentioning them only roundly. I did take opportunity to plead Wire’s case, in the event she did come to her senses and return.

“You kidnapped Wire?” she asked with eyes wide.

“Well… not deliberately. It was kind of an accident.” I grinned sheepishly. “Please don’t let her get into trouble? It really wasn’t her fault.”

“I understand. I’ll make sure her parents know.” She flopped onto her bed. “I wish I could say that I had nearly as much fun as you.”

“Didn’t you get to spend most of it with Rainbow Dash?” I asked, feigning innocence. “I thought you two were pretty good friends.”

“I, well…” Twig squirmed on her sheets for a moment. “I guess? I don’t really know how she feels, though, and I just get so… tongue-tied around her. I’ve never met anypony who was half that… cool and mysterious. You know what I mean?” She looked at me uncertainly and kneaded a pillow between her hooves.

I nodded and gestured for her to go on. She definitely had it bad. Even Daphne had never pined after anyone quite that pitifully.

“I never expected her to be so nice, too. Nothin’ at all like the legends—I don’t think she’s ever so much as thought of skinning her enemies alive, let alone actually done it.” Twig rolled over to stare at the ceiling. “What am I sayin’, though? She’ll never accept me now that she’s seen what I really look like. I’m just some weird goblin magician she met on a job. I can’t even brush my hair nicely.” She covered her face with a pillow and groaned. “How am I supposed to compete with a princess, anyway?”

“Well, you know,” I said, worming up to the side of the bed, “any relationship is really built on trust, isn’t it? She must have shown you a lot of trust, if she kept working with you after what happened back at the castle… But you haven’t really returned that trust, have you? You never told her that I had been deceived; she didn’t have the slightest idea.” After a pause to let that sink in, I settled on the bed, near her ear. I felt like the Morgwyn, a shadow whispering secrets. “I’ll bet you haven’t sent even one of those letters to her friends.”

“I… I can’t, I mean…” Her eyes widened as she looked at me. “H-how do you—?”

“Come on, Twig. It’s obvious,” I said. If I’d had hands still, she’d be in my palm. “You sounded so guilty when you were talking to her, it’s a wonder she didn’t call you a liar right then. Is it any surprise you can’t talk to her when you feel so ashamed at deceiving her?” I twitched an ear and smiled like a cat. “I’ll bet you read all of her letters, too, looking for any hint of how she felt.”

The stricken look on her face and the way her eyes shifted told me louder than words that I was on the money.

After all, I knew exactly what she was going through. If she felt a fraction as sick at lying to Rainbow Dash as I had when the Crusaders were lost, then she was writhing in agony.

“I wonder,” I asked, taking a step up to her, “have you written letters back to her as Twilight Sparkle—the real Twilight Sparkle—but didn’t have the nerve to pass them on to her?”

Swing and a hit. Twig flinched back as if struck and hugged her pillow tightly. “I-I don’t mean to. I… I ain’t got a choice! The Wand King said we’re not to tell her anything.”

“What’s that say to you?” I put my hooves up on the pillow and looked into her eyes, holding her fast. “That if she finds out, there will be trouble. She’ll be upset. Why would the truth hurt her, Twig, unless this plot was somehow against her?” I dropped my voice to a low register again, reveling in the sensation of control. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. You and the false Elements of Harmony are part of some game to hurt her and her friends.”

“No!” she protested. “That’s not true! We’re going to take you to the Well of Pirene and help you meet your destiny! It has nothing to do with Rainbow or her friends.”

“Oh?” I tilted my head. “Do you know that for certain? I thought only Fetter and the Wand King did. What do you know?”

“We’re to take you to the Well, where you’ll fulfill your destiny by being the first person in three thousand years to lay hand on the Golden Bridle.” Twig wiped sweat from her brow, her eyes flitting around. “We-we’re supposed to be there, in place of th-the Elements.”

“Why?” I asked. The Golden Bridle sounded terribly familiar, like I’d read a book or seen something on television about it. “What does the Bridle do? What are the Elements there for?”

“I-I don’t know,” Twig stammered. “I mean… you’re supposed to usher in a new age with it. An age where goblins and men can finally return to grace.”

“Grace?”

Twig took a deep breath. “Grace is, well… it’s a quality that used to thrive in the world, embodied in things like the Elements of Harmony or the Arcana, or even people. It’s an ancient myth, one not many people know about. The Wand King does, though. He’s ancient. He lived in a time when Equestria was a part of Earth, not separated on a little branch like it is, and men, ponies, and other creatures lived together in harmony. Back then, the animals could think like men do, just like they do on Equestria still, and men were as full of magic as any other creature. They were said to be filled with grace, at one with the world, and they neither aged nor truly died.”

I settled back to listen, my ears alert.

“Something terrible happened, though. I’m not really sure what… the Wand King says that mankind and ponies and the other kinds transgressed, and they were punished so that their children became mortal and could no longer see the true nature of the world without becoming twisted. He says that they lost the true grace of magic within them, and carried only sullen sparks. They eventually left, leaving behind first Midgard, and then the great city of Mag Mell, to worlds we cannot reach.” She adjusted her seat and gestured, forming an image in the air beside her of a jagged white tree. “At that time, when men and ponies were mortal, Equestria split from the earth and formed its own world, an incomplete world, but one where they would be safe.”

“From men?”

Twig nodded. “I know the Bridle is involved in that, somehow. Men used it to cross the Veil to Equestria safely, and that’s why it’s had a weakness ever since—a child of man may pass so long as they do so on a bridled horse.” She made a sour face. “Used to be that goblins who didn’t come recently from pony stock originally had to do that, too; I guess we’re too twisted to count. It’s gotten weak since your birth, so now anygob can cross it, mind.”

“And what do the Elements of Harmony have to do with this, whatever they are?”

“The Tree of Harmony is the force that keeps Equestria separate. I’m not sure how or why, but I think it’s because it represents the compact of harmony that bound the race together in ancient times. The Elements each are on par with or even greater than the Arcana as sacred receptacles of power, so I can’t even guess at what they can do together.” She shook her head. “That’s just my supposition, though. My master, a great magician, taught me everything she knew, and even that pales compared to the ken of someone as old as the Wand King.”

“So if I’m supposed to help fix this, why the secrecy? Why did the new Cup King turn against it, or call it a gamble?” I drilled my gaze at her. “Why are you needed in place of the real Elements?”

She shook her head harder. “I-I don’t know. I mean… I know that I was chosen because of h-how similar I am to Twilight…”

“Not the same, though. So,” I said, poking her in the knee, “you’re part of some strange ancient prophecy that you don’t understand, replacing Rainbow Dash and her friends—”

“It’s not—”

“And,” I cut her off, “your Queen Stylus and Page Rail both went missing or died under mysterious circumstances.” I lifted a hoof to her, sardonic. “Face it, Twig, in any faerie tale, you’re on the villain’s side. Rainbow Dash is on the hero’s side, and she’s Loyalty—she’s not likely to crack and join your team. What are you going to do when she finds out that you’ve been lying to her and this whole thing is some sort of insane trick involving her close friends?”

“I…” Twig’s mouth scrunched up and she tightened herself up. “I…”

Silence hung.

“I should go see Maille and Rose,” I said. “I’m feeling famished, now.” Leaving her on the bed, I hopped down and walked over to the cabin door. As I closed it, I heard a pained sob.

Victory.


* * *


It had never really occurred to me to wonder before that I might be a little unusual for a girl my age. Certainly, adults had called me precocious all my life. They said I was quick, ahead of my years—sometimes, they called me too smart for my own good and too clever by half, and I knew what they meant when they said that, too. The other kids didn’t like me. It was hard to blame them when I called them slow and stupid for not being able to keep up with my games and ideas.

I didn’t care. The only people that understood me were the older kids, and they wanted nothing to do with me.

My world had expanded beyond them, though, all of them. I rode a castle-sized airship to meet destiny. If I hadn’t been an unusual girl before, it didn’t matter anymore. Usual girls don’t get to play high stakes games with strange aliens. If I was Chosen, so much the better.

When I stepped outside Twig’s cabin, though, I halted, feeling a wave of uncertainty break over me like a splash of cold ocean water. What gave me pause was not so much regret over what I had done to Twig—I genuinely appreciated her advice and aid, but she had brought this on herself—but because when I looked around outside I expected to see four young faces looking back at me expectantly. They’d be revved up for the next adventure, even timid Wire, and eager to hear what I had to say.

Would their faces instead twist with disapproval when they saw what I had done to Twig?

I would never find out.

At this point, I had a decision to make. My original intent had been to escape on a light craft and flee to Equestria, but now I wasn’t so sure. This talk of the Well and the Bridle had me intrigued, and I found myself tantalized by the possibility of strange magic that lay just within my grasp. The goblins had driven me to it, but that didn’t mean that going was necessarily a bad idea.

One thing was certain. It would have to be on my own terms. Perhaps going to the Well was my destiny, but if I let a giant ancient centaur hold my hand, then I might as well just give up then and there.

That left only two remaining issues to solve: getting there, and throwing off pursuit.

If the Morgwyn had been here, the whole task would have been easy. It could have told me some secret way out and sabotaged the ship to help me escape. The cat-monster certainly could be here and I’d never know it.

A light bulb clicked on in my brain. If the Morgwyn could potentially be here, then it didn’t matter if it actually was or not. The fact that it might be was so plausible that all it would take was a little push.

On the way to the galley, I took opportunity where I found it. Pitching my voice with a heavy Wand accent, I went up to an armored goblin stepping into a nearby cabin. “Oi, didja see that cat just now?”

“What cat?” he grumbled down at me, his granite face uninterested.

“A tidy big one. Black like smoke, eyes like blue fire? I swear I just saw it slip away when you walked up.”

His eyes widened and he whipped his neck around. I moved on. Anygob who looked like a pony I avoided, since they might have been background characters from Phonyville and wouldn’t have bought my act for a minute.

A tall, thin, female goblin cleaning a vent was my next victim. “Careful. I heard somegob a deck down talkin’ about some sorta creature slippin’ into the vents. All black fur with a barbed tail and devil blue eyes.”

Feeling a little cocky, I decided to spice it up with my next mark, a trio just outside the galley. “Did you see Fetter earlier? He was talkin’ with somegob in the shadows as called itself the Morgwyn. Who speaks in third person all the time, seriously?” I leaned forward. “You know, he came to the castle with two other goblins, he did. Word is they was never seen again.”

A grin split my face as I rejoined Rose and Maille. When I wandered in, I found them at a table with a number of pony goblins; probably the background ponies I’d been worried about earlier. Perfect, they could share in my next move.

“Hello, Amy.” Maille gestured next to her. “Have a seat. Where’s Twig?”

“She said she wasn’t hungry.” I looked at the spread and pulled some bowls over. “So, I have a question,” I said as I set a couple eggs on my toast. “Why does everyone always say ‘the’ Morgwyn instead of just ‘a’ Morgwyn, or call it ‘Morgwyn’ without the ‘the’? And why is it an it, not a he or a she?”

Maille choked on her cereal. “Hel’s Teeth!” she swore. A few other goblin ponies at the table glanced our way, and tried to pretend they weren’t listening.

Rose’s face darkened at once, but she, rather than Maille, answered, practically biting off her words. “That thing ain’t either. It’s neither a boy nor a girl because it don’t need to be; it’s unique, and I hope it goes extinct sooner rather than later.” She shivered—the reaction was considerably different from the overexaggerated fright she’d displayed as Fluttershy, but the tension in her spoke volumes about her fear. “I can’t imagine what it wanted with you that weren’t a black-hearted ploy.”

“Oh, well; I was just wondering,” I said idly. I chomped down on my toast.

“What happened to the creature, Amelia?” Maille asked, perhaps a touch apprehensively.

“It kept popping up during my trip.” I kept my tone even and unconcerned. “Pretty much wherever I went. It said it was keeping on eye on me for somegob.”

“Somegob?” Maille frowned. “Do you know who?”

“No.” I sipped from my orange juice. “Just that it would always be near me, in case I needed it.” I looked at them innocently. “You don’t think it could have followed me, could you? I mean, we’re way up here, and you guys caught me by surprise. Unless it knew you were here somehow, I guess.”

“Fetter,” Rose growled. She put her hooves on the table and began to stand, only for Maille to grab a handful of her mane and pull her down.

“Rose, calm yourself,” she said.

Rose shook her head free. “He’s the one as used the monster in the first place!”

“I know, but keep your voice down.” Maille glanced around to see the other goblins at the table talking amongst themselves. “It isn’t like him to take risks like that.”

“The two of them seemed pretty close,” I chirped brightly.

“You haven’t seen the Morgwyn on the ship, have you?” Rose asked me. Her eyes flicked to the corners of the room, as if a black cat-monster could have been hiding in a well-lit galley.

“No,” I said, wide-eyed. “Well, I usually don’t. It just kind of appears when it wants to, sometimes.”

“If you do,” Maille said, “please, don’t listen to it and come for us at the first opportunity. I know it helped you escape, but we don’t know why or what for. It’s killed goblins before and I don’t know what Fetter was thinking…” She paused and raised her voice. “Idle gossip and flapping tongues are a fine way to lose one’s station in life.”

The buzz in the room subsided. Rose muttered, “That won’t be enough.” A sentiment which echoed my own thoughts nicely.

“Come along, Amelia,” Maille said. She chivvied me along ahead of her into the hallway. Somehow, though, rumor ran ahead of us like a barking dog, and, before long, we ran into goblins whispering about shadows watching them, of glowing eyes seen in darkened corners. Perhaps most importantly of all, I heard one goblin telling another that she’d heard Fetter himself had invited the creature on board.

Maille scowled, and stepped inside her cabin long enough to retrieve a green silk bundle.

“What’s that?” I asked, perking my ears up. “Is that the project you were preparing for me?”

“Indeed.” She frowned down the hall at the armored goblins bustling through the side corridors.

“Damn,” Rose grumbled. “They’ll be turnin’ the whole ship over before long.”

“It’s not our concern… not yet anyway,” Maille said, and the three of us moved to a less cramped area of the vessel. Brass finishings gleamed on the walls, and I looked down off the side of a rail to see a great hold full of small craft. Little airboats like the one I’d taken shared space with small planes and larger, heavy-bottomed helicopter craft that could carry many goblins in their bowels.

I took particular note of a number of small craft with rapidly beating wings and carriages of cloth over wood-frames. They flitted around the small hold like hummingbirds and had pretty simple-looking controls. A feather-coated woman in one tilted a stick to adjust position, and another to adjust altitude. The main challenge would be finding the height to reach the controls—perhaps a few boxes would suffice.

“Amy?” Rose nudged me. “Come along, then.”

As we went, we found increasing signs of panic among the crew. Vents were being opened and scoured, cabins were thrown open. My seeds of rumor and suspicion were bearing bitter fruit for the goblin defenders, and through it all I hid my suppressed glee.

The three of us walked into a long chamber with wide staircases leading down into the hold. Fetter waited there, the first time I’d seen the lumpy goblin since arriving at the Wand Castle. Changed into a fine outfit of blue and gold trim, he actually looked reasonably respectable, and might have seemed authoritative but for the slightly harried look on his features. He worked his wand nervously between his fingers before jumping at our approach.

“Ach! Maille, it’s you. Thank Thor,” he said, adjusting his hat as he glanced around.

“Fetter,” Rose said icily. “What’s the matter? You lose your pet?”

“Rose.” Maille waved her down. “Fetter, what’s going on here?”

“Morgwyn’s been spotted all over the damned ship is what.” He flicked his eyes from side to side. “It’s lettin’ itself be seen, toyin’ with me.”

“What in the name of Thor were you thinking in getting its help in the first place?” Maille asked. “That damned cythraul can’t be controlled.”

“What was I supposed to do?” he demanded, pointing his wand at me. I backpedalled a bit, remembering what the King’s had done to my assailants earlier. “The bloody beast had her already! If I’d made an issue out of it, Allfather only knows what it might have done. Killed her, for a start, and then probably gotten to work on me.”

“Well, you let the devil in,” Rose said with an indelicate snort, “you find a way to deal with it. Best have an explanation ready for when the King finds out.”

“Right now, though, we need to get Amelia in to see him,” Maille interrupted, stepping forward.

He blanched and took a step back from the taller woman. “That ain’t part of the plan! Whatever for?”

Rose placed a hoof on my back. “We promised her an explanation. I think she’s ready.”

“Ready?” Fetter glanced between them. “Are you both mad? That was never part of the plan!”

“It wasn’t part of the plan for her to escape and run wild around Mag Mell either, now, was it?” Maille pointed out sardonically. “What about Flash and Pinion? We need her cooperation, Fetter.”

Before he could really cogitate a response, however, a titanic voice rang through the vessel, seeming to rattle the lamps in their fittings. “Fetter!”

Rose tilted her head with an ear cocked. “Looks like news has reached the Wand King, Fetter. Hope you have that excuse ready.”

“Damn,” Fetter swore. He twisted in place and glanced towards the hangar; for a moment, I wondered if he might flee.

Rather than let him make a decision for himself, though, I stepped forward and put my forelegs up on his side. “Mister Fetter? I’d really like to help out. I’ve heard the truth from Twig and Maille and Rose and I realize that what you’re doing is extremely important, and I want to be a part of it.” I wagged my tail. “I’d love to help with anything I can do. I… I could even help with these awful rumors about you and the Morgwyn! That thing never mentioned you even once, and I remember how bravely you stood up to it.”

That elicited a blush from the Wand Knight, while Maille and Rose both brightened. The dragon girl put a hand on my shoulder and looked at Fetter intently. “We can still recover this from disaster, Fetter. We can get Pinion back, and with Rainbow Dash we don’t really need Flash anymore.”

“Moreover,” Rose said, “there’s the matter of timin’. If the enemy has captured Pinion, as we figure they might, they’ll know how to find the Well if she talks. And what if the Morgwyn decides to snatch her while it’s here?”

“What in Hel’s name are you suggestin’?” Fetter shot back.

“Let us take her,” Maille said fervently. “We can go to the Well with Amelia and the others. We can secure the Bridle and sort the Elements out later.”

Oh, Maille and Rose. You two were wonderful.

“No!” Fetter protested. “Absolutely not!”

I tilted my head. “Why not?”

“It’s—” He spluttered on his excuse. “The Wand King, he won’t allow it. Absolutely not.”

“Aren’t you already in hot water?” Maille reminded him. “If you aren’t seen to be doing something decisive about this crisis, you might as well hand in your wand.”

He looked between the three of us, sweat beading on his brow. “Look, I can’t…” He swallowed. “There’s no way. The King…” Shuffling his boots, he glanced back and forth. After a moment, he grabbed Maille and spoke to her tersely. “Don’t leave the ship without me. I can talk the King into it, or else, well… it won’t matter for me none then. The Bridle’s well-guarded; there’s goblins there who’ll listen to me.”

“We should get ready, then,” she said, with a nod towards me.

“Right.” He backed up a pace and the three of them looked down at me knowingly.

Before I could open my mouth to ask “what’s up”, the wand lit up in Fetter’s hands. White fire raced along its gnarled length before leaping out to strike me once more in the chest. Much as it had on the river bank, the blast knocked me spinning and robbed me of my senses with the force of its impact. This time, I endeavored to hold limp rather than risk flailing around. Tremendous heat baked me from the inside-out, drawing my breath in ragged gasps as I felt my blood boil.

I was enormously grateful that the process of my bones shattering and reshaping into a new configuration had been numbed so thoroughly. After seeing the amount of agony Sweetie Belle and the others had gone through with their injuries, it was not something I would have looked forward to. My limbs stretched, my hips creaked with dissatisfaction, my nose and jaw pressed back into my skull while my skin smoothed out, turning from a pony’s pale flesh to my original, tanner complexion, with the thick coat giving way to sparse white hairs. With a violent, unheard shriek, my horn dissolved and melted back into my forehead.

And so, panting, feeling not unlike a piece of dry, overcooked chicken, I put my human hands under me and climbed back to my human knees. Shuddering with recently-tortured muscles, I forced myself to stand up. Sharp canines and incisors met my teeth, and I could roll my shoulders and feel the difference.

If they had been expecting me to look shocked or surprised, they were sorely disappointed. However naked and disheveled I was, with my long blond hair falling all about my nude form, the difference between the little girl they’d captured a week ago and myself was night and day. Innocence and knowledge.

Maille, to whom I still barely came up waist high to, crouched and unfolded the bundle of green silk. It was, in fact, several garments—a full outfit consisting of an undershirt and a lovely dark green silk tunic that would belt at the waist. She also held a shimmering coat of chain-link maille, which was so fine and supple that it seemed almost like linen rather than a suit of metal.

“Holy cats, Maille,” I breathed, genuinely taken aback by the work. I felt at the material, noticing how she’d picked out shapes in different colors of thread on the tunic. Wand, Cup, Sword, and Ring, along with six colored gemstones around the collar.

“Knew you’d love it.” She smirked with more than a hint of professional pride. With a twist and shake of her body, she fell to all fours and changed at once, her white hair darkening and curling as she took on Rarity’s visage. The red light of her horn enveloped the garment and touched it to me. There was a flash, and the costume donned itself on me, with the maille hidden beneath the outer tunic. It might as well have been a coat of feathers for all the weight it had. The fake Rarity cinched a fine leather belt about my waist and buckled it with an elegant dragon-head buckle, then collected a pair of shoes Rose carried in her teeth. Despite lacking either socks or time to break them in, they slipped onto my feet and flexed without any real chafing. It was as if I’d worn them all my life. As an afterthought, she fiddled with my hair and pulled it back with a spell. To complete the ensemble, she placed a bag about my shoulders—my own, heavily modified to match.

“There!” She said proudly, lifting a mirror. “Isn’t that just the look the future hero of the Nine Worlds should have, darling?”

I had to admit—the strange creature reflected back at me did look impressive to my eye. She carried herself straight and tall, and the outfit lent her an air of otherworldy purpose and strength. There was more to it, though. Changes even at that juncture. My face hadn’t been quite that catlike before I’d left home—my eyes sharper and more focused, my teeth pointier, my countenance more focused. Not only was my posture better, but I moved with a more subtle grace, with less of the jerky motions I’d had before. I was even taller by an inch or two.

Goblinization comes in stages.

Oh, well. At least height wouldn’t be an issue with the controls anymore.

I wrapped my arms about Maille’s neck. “Thank you. I’m… I’m sorry things couldn’t have worked out better earlier,” I murmured, again in a spate of honesty. One could have written a book with what I’d omitted, however.

But sorry is never good enough. Someone can apologize until they’re blue in the face and it doesn’t change what’s happened.

Rose looked to the door where Fetter had disappeared through. “Shame we couldn’ get you down to the ground. Fetter’ll sort it out, though, or we’ll have a new Knight of the Wand ’ere long.”

That, of course, wouldn’t do at all. My web of lies wasn’t that well-constructed, and it would fall apart with the slightest genuine scrutiny. The rumors would only take a matter of time to be traced to their source, too. Not only would that mean the end of their trust in me, but it would also mean that the Wand King would be both fully involved and right there as I claimed my destiny. That wouldn’t do at all.

Just as well, though. I still had one card up my sleeve.

“I should talk to Twig,” I said. “She can probably come up with something.”

Maille shook her head. “We shouldn’t defy the Wand King, Amelia.”

“I haven’t heard anything from the Wand King,” I said cynically, “just Fetter’s word on what the Wand King said. Besides, it’s not like we’re going to steal a craft and go on our own or anything.” Brazen of me to say, but Twig had said that sometimes the best way to hide things was in plain sight. “Twig can back Fetter up, or maybe find some other way to convince the King.”

They glanced between one another. “Well,” Rose said, “we need to go find Kiln again, anyway. Will you be all right without us, Amy?”

I nodded. “I can find the way. Catch up with me there.”

Much had changed. My strides took me down the corridors with purpose, and goblins cleared from my path. Extraneous details that might have distracted me a week ago were dismissed in the intensity of my focus as I marched up to Twig’s cabin door and barged in without knocking. I couldn’t even spare a moment to consider the fact that I was a nearly-hairless biped once more.

Twig looked up from her pillow, bleary-eyed. From the looks of her eyes, she’d been crying since I’d left. Her eyes were at first surprised, then angry, and then widened in recognition as they settled on me. “Amy…?”

“Yes,” I nodded, shutting the door behind me. I watched the doe-like creature pick herself up awkwardly. This would be a delicate operation—I’d already cut into her once recently, and the Wand King’s actions had forced my hand, but a misstep would land me in hot water.

“Wh-what happened?” she asked, wiping her face. “You’re not supposed to be turned back until we get to the Well.”

“Oh, Twig, it’s awful,” I said, moving to her side. “It’s Mister Fetter an-and my friends.” An ability to cry on command would have been useful, but I settled for a low note of panic and fear. “For some reason, everygob thinks that the Morgwyn is on board, and that Mister Fetter is helping it out! The Wand King is furious, and Maille and Rose are really worried! They think he might disappear, just like Queen Stylus and Page Rail did.” I pressed myself into her soft coat.

“Wh-what?” Twig gasped, putting a comforting foreleg about my shoulders. “I… no, that’s… Freya have mercy.” She shook her head with a disturbed swallow. “What was that about your friends?”

So far I’d been playing fairly plausible lies, but I went out on a limb this time. The Wand King’s own need-to-know policies could be used against him. I’d already sown the seeds of doubt—it was earlier than I would have liked to harvest them, but I had little choice. “I thought I’d lost my friends—Wire and the others—along the way, but when the Wand King summoned him, Fetter was so afraid that he told me the truth. He said they’d been taken separately to the Well and placed under guard there, in case Rainbow Dash or I try to act against him.”

I tried not to tense up more than I had to for the act. My eyes watched Twig’s face apprehensively, searching for any hint of her not swallowing it. Sure enough, her features clouded as she frowned down at me. “Fetter told you that? How could that have happened? They weren’t with you.”

“They came in an airship after mine,” I said quietly, looking down at the floor. “I… I abandoned them. I didn’t think they’d make it, so I jumped on an airboat and tried to escape without them.”

It took no acting at all to pull the latter sentence off.

“Amelia…” Twig softened and pulled me close against her. “I’m so sorry. We… we never should have done this. Don’t blame yourself. No girl at your age should have to go through all of this.” She sniffled. “I don’t know how you’ve managed.”

“I’m fine,” I whispered, burying my face in her shoulder. “I’m fine. I’m okay. I-I…” My throat constructed and I had to cough and wipe my eyes and nose. No time to be traumatized, had to finish it.

After all, sorry is never good enough.

“You need to tell Rainbow Dash. She can save them. They took her adoptive sister, Scootaloo, and the sisters of her friends, the real Applejack and Rarity. Those are the girls who helped me out.”

“Amelia…” Twig froze. “That’s… it’s treason to go against the Wand King…”

“Do you really think he’s doing this for the good of everyone?” I asked bitterly. “He just wants to control me, control my destiny. He killed those Cup goblins who were chasing me, you saw it. A chicken hitting the ground at that height is dead. Do you think he cares more about you, or Mister Fetter, or anyone else for that matter?” I tightened my grip about her. “I overheard him at the castle. He fears the Elements of Harmony, and he wants to use Rainbow Dash, me, and everyone. But… we can do it, Twig. We can do it on our own and beat him. Maille, Rose, Rainbow Dash, even Flash and Pinion and Mister Fetter.”

My voice had become strong again, strident and powerful as I looked her in the eye. I could see the change in Twig, watch as the barriers I’d broken down earlier reshaped themselves, buttressing her from within.

“Tell her the truth. Explain everything and she’ll understand. You can fix this,” I whispered, “together.”

“I… I’ll talk to her.” Twig nodded firmly. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” She extricated herself from my embrace and hurried to leave the cabin.

The door had barely shut before I opened it after her, watching as she scurried down the hall with her gazelle-like leaps. There. My time bomb was ticking, now I had to get out before it blew.

I hurried through the corridors, my new boots serving their purpose well as I practically flew down the stairs past the gangs of goblins searching for the Morgwyn, all of them too preoccupied to pay me any heed. It had only taken the abuse of all of the compassion and trust others had of me to do it, but I’d managed to light off a civil war. All I needed was to get to the hangar before it exploded around me.

Though I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d forgotten something important.

Turning the corridor to the hangar, I leapt at an open hatchway and slammed so hard into empty air that had become as unyielding as stone that spots appeared in my eyes. I rebounded to the floor and stared up crosseyed. The doorway shimmered, and, as the mirage cleared, I saw that the door was in fact closed—it had only appeared to be open.

“Well,” Kiln said dryly from behind me, “look at that. The girl wonder isn’t perfect after all.”

I rose shakily to my feet and pressed my back against the sealed hatch to find Kiln standing there, clad in heavy silvery plate armor and flanked by a small squad of heavy-set goblin ponies. They were all quite reminiscent of the farmhands she’d had working on her farm in Phonyville, but there was no friendliness in their eyes now.

“Kiln,” I breathed. “Look, you—”

“Don’t even start, kid,” Kiln said coolly. “You have a disturbing habit of opening your mouth and making folk do what you say.” She regarded me with quiet disgust. “The minute this hogwash about the Morgwyn started, I knew. My friends may want to believe you’re the innocent harbinger of the future, but I knew better.” She spat, a gooey gob hitting between my feet. “You’re a serpent, the kind that slips in your bed in the night and kisses you with poison.”

“Maybe you’d better find a new Chosen One, then,” I snapped back. “I’m the one you’ve got.”

“Yeah?” Kiln took a step forward. “What makes you think that just because you were chosen, that makes you special?” Her lip curled. “Prophecies ain’t set in stone. They’re instructions, guidelines. And you know what? Maybe we do need a new Chosen One.”

I mentally inventoried my bag. I had the sound sphere, but little else that would help me distract or fight off an armored squad. There was no way I was going to be able to Penetrate through the door behind me in time—I knew because I’d already tried, but my heart was racing too fast for me to properly concentrate.

“Morgwyn! Help!” I shouted.

“Oh, now that’s cute.” Kiln snorted. “You think I buy that the monster’s here? Color me surprised to find that you’re the one in league with it. Figures a that cold-blooded murderer would be right up your alley.”

Damn. I needed to keep her talking. Time was on my side.

“Kiln, please. I just want to—” She cut me off by the simple expedient of socking me in the gut. To both her and my surprise, the impact was immediately absorbed by my armor, despite the fact that it was mere chain. The blow spread across the entire surface area of my torso as the material stiffened in response to the strike. Sadly, it was still powerful enough to bounce me off the door and bruise my chest.

The grim-faced goblin shook her hoof, glancing down at me as I recovered on the floor. “Maille makes damned fine armor, I’ll say. Won’t help you now, though. Boys?” She gestured to me. “Take the little princess to a cell to cool her heels.”

“What in Hel’s name is going on here?” Maille demanded. She slid into view clad in jewel-bright steel, with Rose at her heels. A pair of griffins—or griffin-like goblins—backed the latter up. They stared at the farmhands and Kiln in mild horror. “Amy?”

“Just taking the trash out, Maille,” Kiln growled. “She’s been playin’ you like a fiddle.”

Rose stamped her hoof. “Kiln! What are you on about? I know you were suspicious of her, but are you beating up a child?”

“This child would set the whole damned ship on fire, given the chance,” Kiln said sharply. “She’s the one who started the rumors about the Morgwyn bein’ here!” She pointed a hoof at the two of them. “Are you two so blind that you can’t see what she’s doing to you? She’s playing you against the rest of us!”

Though still stinging from the blow, I managed to reach inside my bag and twist the sound sphere’s key. While they argued, I rose to my feet and opened the door, with both the sound of my movement and the door silenced. By the time one of Kiln’s henchgoblins shouted, I’d already slammed the door open and started to run.

“Stop her!” Kiln shouted, the sound echoing oddly thanks to my moving globe of silence. The goblins beyond were too much in a tizzy from hunting for the Morgwyn to really notice. I didn’t pause to see if Maille and Rose opposed her, but hoofsteps followed me out.

I made it to the railing over the hangar before one of them, a huge crimson stallion who had played Big Macintosh, caught up with his enormous strides. His foreleg closed about me in an unbreakable vice, and I shouted and screamed and beat at him to no avail. The sound sphere fell and bounced down to the floor of the hangar below.

“No one to help you now,” he snarled. “Game’s at an end, bairn.”

Laughter echoed through the chamber. Deep, powerful laughter. It seemed to come from far away at first. Then it came again, closer at hand, issuing from a vent. More laughter joined it, a chorus of sinister chortles filling every corner of the hangar. At once, everyone paused to listen, and the Morgwyn spoke into the silence.

“Oh, how lovely this is. They squirm and they shiver in the guts of their great machine. They think they can pin smoke, that they can reach into a mirror and pull out their own reflection.”

I felt the stallion’s arm quake.

“Such irony. They should know better. To seek the Morgwyn is to find it, to call its name is to draw it. Foolish creatures. The Morgwyn is older than your kind. The Morgwyn was ancient when your master first drew breath as a squalling babe. The Morgwyn blackened the skies with ravens eons before you shaped the Wand from the stolen elemental chaos of fire.”

“Now you’re in trouble,” I said with a frustrated growl. I squirmed out of the weakened grasp of the stallion and shot a dark look back at Kiln, who advanced after me with undiminished purpose.

“Hear, o’ King of Wands, o’ ancient centaur. Hear, Nessus the River Ferryman, Nessus the Hero-Slayer, Nessus the Twice-Damned. The herald comes for thee.”

It came in a rush, from where I couldn’t have said. Heat and flame, darkness and power, the Morgwyn struck Kiln and her gang. Kiln fought back with equal ferocity, but I didn’t stick around to watch.

With so much chaos, no one stopped me as I leapt on to one of the ornithopters. It only took a moment to look over the controls, but the craft sat on a rail, and a large lever stood nearby. As I reached for it, a figure dropped from the rail above and landed with the floor reverberating from her powerful legs. Maille stared at me uncertainly, her eyes wide.

“Amelia?”

I looked back at her, silent for a few moments. “I’m sorry,” I said, and threw the lever. The ornithopter slid free with a thunk and a screech of metal-on-metal, riding out into the void.

Sorry is never good enough.

I plummeted through the freezing air and clouds, my new outfit warding off the chill excellently. Maille’s last gift did its job perfectly. I gripped the engine cord and pulled hard until the engine coughed and the wings churned the vapor around me. I stared around at an ocean of clouds, frowning. There was no way I’d be able to find my way to the Well, not like this. If it weren’t for my contingencies, that might have been the end of my mad rush.

I looked up to the heavy bottom of the fortress airship, squinting as searchlights found me. Damn it, Twig. She couldn’t fail me, not at such a critical juncture. My time bomb was the only option I had left.

Tick.

Tick.

Boom.

It started as a sound, one not unlike the crack of a gun. I watched as the hull shuddered with some sort of internal impact. Another impact echoed through the night air and the hull shuddered again. Then, with a woman’s scream of primal rage, a burst of rainbow light blew through the hull with a shower of shorn timbers and arced ahead through the clouds. I smirked and slammed the controls forward, racing after Rainbow Dash’s wake. She was my beacon.

With the false information of the Crusader’s whereabouts, I’d more or less forced Twig to tell Rainbow Dash where the Well was, after all, and I knew she’d head right for it. Despite its many hitches and snags, my plan was complete.

It was time to claim my destiny.


* * *


Fire filled the sky. The aurora stretched in a green curtain from one end of the sky to the other. I wondered if this was near one of the planet’s poles, whichever planet this was, or if this place was simply unique that way. The light was so bright that I had no trouble reading the controls.

The shade was hauntingly familiar, too. It was a vivid, almost unnatural green hue, one that I swore I recognized.

The aurora’s radiance bathed the clouds below me in seafoam green, and they soon parted to reveal the ocean far below, its waters shimmering as the wind whipped its surface. An island rose in the distance. I was drawn to it like a moth to flame, my eyes roaming across its rocky cliffs and forbidding beaches. Under the ethereal light, columned ruins revealed themselves as a whole ancient town surrounded by crumbling walls and fallen into disrepair. Its buildings clung to the cliffs like strange coral, daring the storm to wash them away.

My tiny, buzzing craft came in low over the walls, and the stunned and dazed bodies of goblins were littered across the streets. Some terrible force of destruction had ravaged this place mere minutes before, smashing through walls and people alike as it searched every corner and crevice.

I flew on. This wasn’t what I had come to see, entertaining as it was to view my handiwork. Rainbow Dash trouncing the defenders was an unintended—but welcome—side effect.

I scaled the island’s greatest rise, leaving the town behind as I followed a stairway cut into the cliff face. There, at the top of the hill, a temple had been carved from the living rock. Caves led off into the marble hillside, but a good portion of the complex remained open to the sky. I brought my craft down near the roof, easing it against the wind, and, largely due to my complete lack of skill, landed hard. The wooden frame and cloth skin cracked and split with the force, and I was nearly thrown clear. I felt my shoulder wrench as I jolted and shook, but ignored it. The pain would fade soon.

There was another change from before. I’d only been so-so at coping with the pain of injuries before the week. Now, nothing seemed able to deter me.

I had eyes for only one thing.

Massaging my arm, I climbed over the wreckage of my craft and strode through the columned arches. I ignored the rearing male and female statues of winged and horned ponies just as thoroughly as I did a mosaic of bronze-age men holding aloft a golden light, while creatures on four legs or two cowered from them.

The smooth marble was slick with water, but I paid it no heed, for Maille’s boots held their traction well. I blithely ignored the fact that no goblin defenders had been knocked out up here—indeed, it should have been odd to me that there were none to be seen at all. I was perfectly alone, and that suited me just fine.

I could feel it calling to me. It sang the song of the aurora, its tune changing in concert with the dancing lights. Bright, shining chords hung on the air and thrummed deep within my soul.

A gash in the rock met me, and I stepped inside the cave, careful of my footing as I picked across unworked stone. The song was clearer here, more pure. All of the human- or pony-constructed nonsense outside was mere window dressing, a familiar patch for the unready. My steps carried me through a winding, pitch-black passage until I once again stood beneath the open sky.

Black, rose, and white marble streaked up, there at the epicenter. The aurora above twisted and kneaded itself around this pole, as if it were more vital than any mere magnetic peculiarity. The rock here had been cut not by hands, but by some titanic act of nature. Here, sheltered from the winds, lay a spring as smooth and clear as a pane of glass.

In its depths glimmered a star.

A streak marred the night sky’s perfection, and Rainbow Dash alighted on the stone nearby. She stared at me for a long time, her rose eyes strained and hurt. “So, it’s true, huh? You really aren’t a pony.”

I shook my head, looking back at her uncertainly. I didn’t know quite what to feel—it seemed difficult to keep my earlier anger with her against this new information, particularly when she looked like that. Her fear for her loved ones had an almost palpable sensation.

Yet the anger remained.

“Where’re the girls, Amy?” she asked tersely. “Twig told me they were here. You told her they were.”

“Rainbow,” I said quietly, “why did you leave me behind?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Back in the fake Ponyville. You’d come to tell me the truth, didn’t you?” I set my bag down on the stone and turned to face her again. “Why didn’t you? Why did you leave?”

“I…” She bit her lip, her great wings folding. “I was angry. I was going to tell you, yeah. I thought you knew that it was a show, really, and were just blowing me off.”

“It’s easy to play ignorant, isn’t it?” I said bitterly. “How come you didn’t figure out the real truth sooner? Did you like playing the hero that badly?”

Rainbow shuffled her hooves. “Well, no. I mean… yeah, I was really keen on the whole acting thing, and Twig… well, she…” Her cheeks reddened. “She talked it up so… awesomely, you know? From day one, she spoke like it was the greatest show in the world, and that we should all be proud to be a part of it. Then she met me, and she made it out like I was the best thing to ever happen to them.” Her eyes turned distant. “I didn’t want to disappoint her. She really looked up to me, and that means a lot to me. I know what it’s like to care a lot about what somepony thinks about you.”

The mare exhaled and lowered her head. “But, yeah… I was pretty much blind to the whole stupid thing. Look, kid… Amelia… I should have cleared this up from the start. I’ve learned to be better than that, and I wasn’t this time. Now ponies I care about are in danger. You’re in danger. Heck, I’m in danger.” She scratched at the back of her head. “What I mean to say is… I’m sorry. I screwed up. I… look, if you lied about the girls, I forgive you. You were probably a prisoner and stuff and I can’t really blame you.”

She extended a hoof to me. For all that she was beautiful as a brash, boisterous creature, humility suited her well. “What say you climb on, kiddo, and we go fix this thing?”

I stared at Rainbow Dash for a long time. It was an uncomfortable awakening, an awareness of the fact that she was not the unreliable creature that I’d come to believe. Indeed, I realized that I had been counting on that fact, relying on the notion that she loved Scootaloo so much that she’d fight her way through the Wand airship to this spot. I played out the possibilities of our reunion, pictured the looks on everyone’s faces as I returned on her back. Maille’s dismay would turn to joy. Twig’s tears would dry. I’d show Kiln that I wasn’t just a liar. We’d smash our way through the Cup Palace and rescue Wire and the Crusaders. We’d flatten the Wand King and all of his hordes. I could return home and apologize to Mom and Dad for worrying them.

“Sorry,” I said into the silence, realizing at last that childish fantasies are exactly that, “is never good enough.”

With that said, I tilted forward and dived into the pool.

Freezing water and my golden hair swirled around me as I sank. I kicked hard, taking myself deeper. My lungs began to burn before I ever came near the star, but I ignored it as I had the pain in my shoulder earlier.

There, at the bottom of the Well of Pirene, I found it. The object itself was, in simplest terms, a plain, unadorned harness with a set of fine, chain reins, resting there on a shelf near the fissure that fed the spring. Even at that nascent level of understanding, however, I knew I looked upon an object that transcended simple categorization. It shone with its own inner radiance that filled the world with a clear, crisp light—no, that doesn’t do it any justice. The Golden Bridle did not shine with light so much that it opened the way to a world beyond imagining, through which poured an unimaginable essence that defied merely mortal concepts of photons and nerve impulses.

You must not, a woman’s voice whispered in the recesses of my thoughts as I neared. Please. I beg of you.

I stretched my hand out.

In my mind’s eye I saw her, a cloud of shimmering green hair spread behind a beautiful mare as she lifted her hooves imploringly. You know not what you do. This is not what was meant to be—you are not the Aquarian. The world cannot bear your touch.

Yeah? I answered back. Too bad. The world owes me.

I reached out and closed my fist around the chain.

That was the point where I changed forever. That was the point where the little girl Amelia gave way for good.

Joyous song filled my mind at contact with the Bridle, and I knew things as I never had before. All at once, it seemed as if a fog had cleared from my mind and my senses. Individual grains of sand stood out on the spring’s floor as my sight sharpened, and all around me I felt subtle shifts in pressure as Rainbow Dash disturbed the water’s surface above.

What strength had been stolen by deprived oxygen returned now in full measure, and I marveled as I spun about nearly effortlessly to face the surface. Much as with my senses, it was as if a veil had been violently stripped away by the Bridle’s touch, revealing deep reserves that had always been there, just out of reach. I kicked towards the surface and surged.

It was as if a light shone forth not merely from the Bridle, but from within me, and all it had taken was the merest touch of that device. This was nothing like a unicorn’s magic, but a raw motive force within my very core.

Rainbow Dash swam back in shock as I burst from the water and landed on the stone shelf with surprising athleticism. I breathed in the air and tasted upon it the coming storm, felt the gentle kiss of the aurora’s light on my head, and heard the hump of the propellers of King Nessus’ airship as it came over the island. When my palm touched the rock wall, I could feel its strength radiating back at me, trace its fracture points and flaws with a thought merely by directing my inner light at it.

“Amelia? What… what are you?” Rainbow Dash breathed. She shook the water from her mane and stood staring at me with wide eyes. “Celestia’s white flank, what… what…” She seemed to be having trouble concentrating, her eyes glazing as she beheld the bridle in my hands. I turned to see her flare her nostrils and try to backpedal, only to stumble and recover awkwardly when her rear hooves encountered water.

I pushed the wet hair from my eyes and regarded her with my new awareness. Instinctive fear radiated off her, and that wasn’t merely my assumption at seeing her rolling eyes or rapidly moving chest—I felt it as surely as I knew my own mind. Some part of her that she didn’t understand feared this thing in my hands as deeply as a horse back home might fear a hungry lion.

Yet she seemed to have no power to escape it. Her wings refused to move, and her legs stiffened with paralysis. She opened her mouth to object, to scream, but only short, gasping whimpers escaped.

She trembled as I stepped towards her. The Golden Bridle pulsed in time with her breath. They tugged at one another with inexorable power. I looked down towards the ancient talisman and then back up towards the mare. It all felt so right.

This was my destiny. This, I believed, was what I had been born to.

And if not, well. Damn destiny. It’s what I deserved.

And, so, as ancient Bellerophon and Pegasus in the legends of old, I bridled Rainbow Dash at the Well of Pirene.


* * * * * * *