//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: Family and Friends 
// Story: Prologues 
// by Broken Phalanx 
//------------------------------//

The days had been long, yet mostly painless if one wasn’t at all connected with the royal family. 

Bilgames wrote upon the page with exaggerated care, each letter a miniature masterpiece from the effort put into it. Then he would take a few minutes to simply walk around his work quarters, looking at the various paintings and carvings decorating his office with a desire for distraction only found in the recently bereaved, only to quickly sit back down and continue his measured script. His letters were impeccable, yet utterly thrown off the instant when, just outside his room, he heard a shout of surprise followed by a loudly uttered curse from his guards; Bilgames mumbled an oath of his own as the page mysteriously became slightly more damp, before grabbing the concealed dagger he had placed under his desk and sliding with practiced ease beside the entrance to his room.

There was a trespasser about. Bilgames was no stranger to attempted assassination, having survived five thus far in his twenty year reign, but this one was rather strange for three reasons; the guards sounded more alarmed than actively angry at whomever it was intruding, Bilgames was certain he had located and otherwise pacified everyone who could’ve gained something from his departure from the living at least a half a decade ago, and the assassin was apparently trying to converse with them, albeit with a rather soft and choked voice.

And then, as Bilgames finally associated the distant voice of the intruder to a family member, an unbidden smile cracked his face and his eyes sparkled with tears of joy. It was only for a moment, however, and then he summoned what felt like a painful amount of resolve to slowly slide his expression back into that of disinterested curiosity; it was unbecoming of a king, after all, to show any degree of weakness before any of his subjects, family or otherwise.

Especially, as painful as it was to admit it to himself, this particular one.

Bilgames tossed his unused weapon on the desk, somewhat relieved, before taking a moment to straighten his clothing and ensure his appearance was as impeccable as it could get; he had become well aware of his guard’s capacity for gossiping, and leaving in a rush would only give the impression of softness that would inevitably be heard in every corner of the kingdom within a week. And besides, Bilgames reasoned to himself, if Selim had survived this encounter, then he likely wasn’t in any need for immediate care. And yet, he felt a slight amount of doubt remain.

Perhaps another minute passed, as Bilgames glanced between the now obsolete letter he had been working on (Uruk had wanted to know how the progress of the mines were going, as he was running out of material; both brothers, Uruk and Bilgames, had felt that letting a Royal member be buried in a simple wooden casket, even if it were simply a symbolic ceremony without a body, was unacceptable), the mirror, and the door, before he felt the slightest prickling of fear develop within him. Perhaps, Bilgames thought, it would be acceptable for a King to simply look out of his office to see what was occurring. Surely that couldn’t be construed as weakness. . . And with that, Bilgames cracked open the entrance slightly and peeked through the crack.

And then he rushed through the gate and sprinted towards the barely recognizable heap, which one of his guards was trying to treat.

***

Selim awoke, his first thought being, I feel like a smoked pig.

Blearily, he tried to rub his eyes, but instead blinked in surprise when all he could bring to his face were a pair of bandage swaddled clubs. He blinked again, and at this point his brain engaged and he found himself actually coherently thinking for the first time in nearly a week. He remembered the days that had passed while he had been lost within EverFree, and then with a grimace attempted to localize and terminate the memories of everything had passed after wandering blindly into the forest.

Certain recollections proved more difficult to excise than others.

That was astoundingly stupid, he thought to himself, wincing as pain finally caught up to him. Well, at least I can say for certain that there are some things that are best left unseen in that forsaken… his mind fumbled for a moment, trying to contemplate an appropriate insult for a forest, before finally settling, unhappily, on, ‘. . .orchard’. I don’t know how I got through that unscathed.

And then, because his mind evidently enjoyed being proven incorrect, Selim glanced down at his body and found, instead, a wreck.

His upper body was slightly burned and very much bruised around the ribs, but mostly untouched save for a thin layer of water that had likely been applied by some sort of quack doctor. His arms, however, were the result of a craftsman; wrapped in bandages that extended from his elbow to his fingers on his left hand, and from his wrist to his fingers on his right. His lower body, particularly the legs, had been more severely burned, apparently blistering quite badly if he were to judge, but again, nothing terrible. His right leg, however, had endured a beating, evidenced by the wrappings that were around his calf. Add the curious padded feeling Selim had around his skull that suggested significant medical attention, and the only mental image Selim could conjure up of himself was more reminiscent of a mummy than of a patient; he would’ve laughed, but it hurt to breathe.

“I see you’re awake,” said a speaker just out of Selim’s view; this didn’t, however, prevent Selim from sighing angrily when he realized who he would be forced to speak with.

“Hey, Bill. Guess what I’ve learned?” said Selim, a deadpan expression on his face.

“That you’re a fool, Selim? Because, truly, your lack of foresight is frankly staggering; how you survive in day to day life is a persistent miracle, if you ask me.”

There was silence for a moment as the both of them glared at each other.

And then Selim, grinning viciously, muttered, “I don’t recall trying to provoke my brother into starting a war with species that possesses a greater baseline physical strength, while we are lacking any significant weaponry. Maybe because the only one to do that was you, you thrice-blighted idiot.”

Selim, breathing deeply, paused to observe the momentary flash of shock flit against his brother’s face, only to continue on his verbal war-path, rising slightly from his bed and increasing in volume.

“Ol’ Coup is playing everyone like a damned fiddle and is getting a hell of a kick out of it, we lack any particular edge against the horses you seem to want to fight against, I’ve been fucking crippled while escaping to give this little nugget of knowledge to you, and you have the nerve to treat me like some sort of fool? You may be a king and I a servant, but that won’t stop me from getting my broken ass out of this bed and beating the hell out of you, brother!”

Rage utterly spent, Selim flopped back onto his back, involuntarily squeaking when his body displayed it’s disapproval of such roughness.

“…What’s this about Ol Coup? What can you tell me about the-”

“Of course that’s the first thing you think about. Not about how your brother can’t work the fingers of his-“

Bilgames loomed over Selim, and intoned with all the tact and sympathy of a descending knife.

“You are acting pathetic. Half a million people, brother, some of whom have been hurt a great deal more than you, I have to look after. Your info helps their lives; it hurts me, Selim, to see you wounded, but being bitter about how I can’t spend hours bemoaning your fate is stupid and childish, so cease with the idiotic lamentations. I’ll cry for your agony when I’m not busy treating an entire nation’s. I’ll talk to you later, when you feel more capable.”

And with that, Bilgames turned and stalked out of the make-shift hospital room. Even Selim winced, however, when the heard the dull thud a few moments later; most of their meetings tended to culminate in Bilgames leaving the discussion to engage in an impromptu boxing match against a wall, and if the thud were any indication, he likely broke the skin of his knuckles with that particular blow.

***

Hours passed. Bilgames reflected. Subjects were mulled over, and conclusions made.

“That was really damn self-righteous, in hindsight,” Bilgames thought aloud to himself, as he looked over the intra-city taxes. He hadn’t, really, wanted to sound so, so. . . domineering? Something about that struck him as off, as he had meant every word he had said; he just hadn’t intended to verbally attack his brother in such a blatantly, well, bastardy way. But by that same token, Selim had always refused to contribute as much as Bilgames knew he could, and while there was the fact Selim had, by all medical accounts, likely lost the use of his left hand, Bilgames couldn’t help but feel Selim was simply trying to pity himself most of the time.

It's frustrating, and, if I'm going to be honest, it drives me to the edge of sanity.

Add his bleeding knuckles on top of that, and Bilgames was not a happy man.

He set down the paper with a sigh, as he realized he had done his job too well; normally the taxes and spending would’ve taken hours, days, to calculate as hundreds of forms would be reluctantly processed.  Working for the last three days tirelessly, however, had greased the wheels of bureaucracy significantly.

Once, his popularity with the people and his servants had left a younger Bilgames incredulous, before he realized, many years into his reign and with some embarrassment, that he was soaking up some of the approval that Uruk and, yes, even Selim, had rightfully deserved. It had been one of those realizations that sometimes left him staring at a wall for a few minutes, unable to function efficiently as he considered how unjust some aspects of monarchy were.

“Perhaps we’ve both cooled off enough now,” Bilgames muttered to himself, before getting up with a grunt and heading over to where his youngest brother was, with any luck, recuperating.

The first words he heard upon brushing through the entrance of the room were, “-and this is where the gears go, so the wind-” and then immediately following that, in the same voice but in a far more irritated tone, “What the hell are you doing?! You’re going to mess up the sketch! Why did you bow-”, and then, finally, realization.

“Brother.”

“Selim.”

There, in the few moments that followed where they stared at each other in abject silence, Bilgames correctly assumed Selim was dreading whatever would next be uttered. Bilgames raised an eyebrow into an almost amused expression, before, with mock cheerfulness, saying, “Yeah, we’re going to have a discussion.”

It was clear to everyone in the room, even the still bowing architect, that the tone had been intended to be regal and otherwise unflappable; however, it was also equally clear to everyone that the tone must have become lost in the transition from brain to mouth, and had been instead replaced with the tone a father may use when scolding a son and is otherwise contemplating a punishment as banal as going to bed without supper.

A long, long minute ticked by, as all three parties uneasily glance at one another, unwilling to speak due to embarrassment. Finally, in a move that should have had the man remembered as a hero, the architect, head still bowed respectfully, cleared his throat and spoke with all timidity of a mouse.

“Shall . . . shall I leave, lords?”

Both of the brothers snapped their gazes towards him, before finally slowly relaxing and looking back at each other, far more sheepishly than before.

“. . . Have you finished everything you need to with him, brother?”

“No, I’m afraid,” Selim said, intently focusing on his bandaged arms as if they now held the key to hiding the flushed embarrassment reddening his face. “I still need to finish telling him about this mechanical windmill thing.” Selim glanced at his brother, quietly measuring the likelihood of being shouted at for a few hours, before eventually coming to a conclusion that was amenable to him and adding, “It should only take a few more minutes, if he stops inclining his head like a prospective ostrich.” The last few words were tinged with a rare amount of amusement, considering their speaker, and his next few words continued this anomalous trend with, “Come on, now, either bury your head or get up; we’ve got work to do.”

Bilgames, smiling softly, took a seat and simply let the next hour wash over him; it was, he thought, perhaps somewhat unfair to not be working right now, but he didn’t particularly care. He had distinct memories of watching waves of people swirl around in his little prepubescent world, each individual self-involved in their own personal little universe; it was fun to get even the slightest peek into another’s life, to see how they saw and live how they lived. While Bilgames had mostly grown out of this habit of people watching (being stared at by a king tends to halt most individuals, and leads to far too many troublesome issues to be worth doing anymore), he was still enthralled with the little interactions people had with one another.

The hapless architect, however, was having what must’ve been among the worst days of his life; not only had he been privy to a royal argument, he was also being forced to finish his work before they would consider letting him leave, which could only mean they intended some terrible fate for him when they finished using his talents; worse yet then that, the king was staring at him with a faraway smile that could only foretell torture, and the architect could almost hear the snapping of limbs and dear gods the next few years of my life are going to be an utter hell and what did I do to deserve this ohgodohgodohgod-

“You can leave now. . .?” Selim said for the fourteenth time, staring with a degree of confusion at the mentally broken man before glancing at Bilgames and raising an eyebrow; Bilgames, for his part, merely shrugged, before hurriedly summoning some guards to take the nice yet slightly deranged man back home for some soup. There was a harrowing moment where they had to pry the papers from the architect’s death grip, but it was a simple enough process with six people collaborating.

“Well,” Bilgames said when he finally returned, smiling lopsidedly at Selim, “that was a hell of an icebreaker as far as conversation was concerned, eh?”

They both forced a chuckle, before Selim cleared his throat and grimaced, replying, “I don’t disagree with the whole ‘need to show strength before the people’ part of ruling philosophy, but I think some of them fear us to the point they’re becoming ineffective at their jobs.”

Bilgames grunted, neither affirming nor denying, and the two brothers simply sat in the room for a few minutes, letting the time pass by peacefully as if in preparation for the havoc their eventual, inevitable argument would do.

“. . .so. . .” Selim said, resigning himself to his fate, “. . . this talk of ours. . . How much of it is going to be you shouting at me?”

Bilgames bristled, apology forgotten, replying, “If you weren’t such a caustic little shit, that wouldn’t be such a frequent problem, would it? Now, what was it that that you wanted to tell me about our local spirit of chaos?”

“. . .crazy bastard’s manipulating both sides. He probably messed with their minds before we arrived at the fort, maybe even forewarned them of our arrival,” Selim said, chuckling mirthlessly. “The ponies probably don’t have a singular unified command structure like we do, probably more of an oligarchy if I were to estimate from the general haphazardness of the locations of their forts; you know what that means. . .”

“Left hand doesn’t know what right hand is doing. . . huh. Well, that’s interesting.”

“Yeah, and it’s pretty bad for communication. Worst thing, though, is that Ol’ Coup is basically untouchable.”

Bilgames’ head perked up slightly when he heard this, and with a dire expression asked, “What makes you think that?”

“I hit him with a bolt of lightning. Most things sizzle after that, or maybe end up twitching for a couple of minutes if they were particularly lucky. I’m pretty sure, however, that he ate it.”

“...Yeah, that sounds pretty unassailable to me. What should we do?”

Selim looked pensive for a moment, before he eventually sighed with defeat.

“I don’t think there’s much we can do. I mean, just knowing helps, but. . .” Selim sighed again, before continuing. “. . .if he half wanted to, brother, he could’ve turned me inside out and played my arteries like a banjo. I mean, even within the forest, where we’ve gotten reports that the ponies’ locating magic becomes obscured, I’d be nothing more than a sneaky solitary mosquito annoying what is essentially a giant. And that’s assuming his magic plays by the same rules theirs’ does.”

Bilgames glanced at Selim, before raising an eyebrow and muttering, “Surely you don’t think surrender is acceptable, do you? Because I refuse to grovel before that thing.”

Selim glared at his brother, before spitting, “Of course not; just because I can’t think of a way to circumvent Ol’ Coup doesn’t mean that others haven’t. If worst comes to worst, we could just interrogate a horse; before that, though, it’d be wise to first check with our other channels of info. You think we’re able to trade a couple of books from them? I know for a damned fact there’s some sort of black market style trading going on, and now might be the time to exploit it. . .”

Bilgames stroked his chin for a moment, then shook his head in negation before stating, “I think your idea is sound, but I’d rather we find out all of the above as soon as possible; I’ll send some messengers, but. . .” He trailed off, staring at Selim’s bandage bundled, paralyzed, hand, before shaking his head and adding, “I’ll have to send Uruk the good news; I’ll have him start work on a gauntlet for you.”

“You know,” Selim stated wryly, “being ‘damaged goods’ isn’t exactly something I feel I need to cover up; I’m not ashamed of being maimed, brother.”

“Selim, you may not think it, but I’m not just King because of my good looks; I do, believe it or not, have a brain as well,” Bilgames said, chuckling slightly. “You have magic, yes? Hells, that’s why you’re our Witch. . .”

Selim nodded, interested how this line of logic would conclude, despite himself.

“So, Selim, what I was thinking was that you could use your magic to manipulate each of the digits of the glove.” Bilgames rubbed the back of his head, as he awkwardly realized that his assumption that magic could work in that manner may have been erroneous. “. . . You can do that, right? . . . in hindsight, I’m not quite so sure this was as smart of an idea as I thought it was. . .”

Selim nodded, slightly, as he processed the presented idea: it was a remarkably mundane usage for his power, and it likely wouldn’t require much effort to wrangle the magic necessary into something that wouldn’t blow his fingers off. Of course, there were downsides; just because he couldn’t feel any damage to his hand didn’t mean it wouldn’t still be present, and his grip wouldn’t be as flexible as most other peoples’, but even just having a semi functional hand was superior to a lump of immobile flesh. . .

Selim’s lips twitched upwards into a momentary smile before he asked, “Why didn’t I think of that first?”

Bilgames grinned, replying in a ribbing manner, “Because you prefer doing the blatantly impossible rather than the more readily available practicalities, if I may make an observation.”

Selim grunted in response; if Bilgames had experienced some of the backlash of those spells, Selim was certain, he probably wouldn’t have made such blanket statements. ‘Not that he is completely wrong, of course,’ whispered a traitorous thought, before Selim executed whatever synapse spawned that notion with extreme prejudice.

“I’m glad we could talk,” Bilgames said, rising from his seat before adding, “If you need anything, ask. I’ll see what I can manage.”

“Thank brother, but I don’t-” Selim said, automatically going through the socially accepted motions before pausing and actually contemplating his situation; he was basically on bed-rest for at least a few days, perhaps even weeks or months, and by all rights, it would be fine if he spent that time trying to figure out the why behind some of his more magic related concerns, right?

“. . . actually, do we still have those Unicorn horns on storage? I remember for a while that we were stockpiling the damned things like squirrels; if I could be brought about. . . six of them for starters, I might be able to get some work done, even in my current state.”

“Didn’t you consider keeping those things unethical?”

“Oh, so we buried them like I suggested, Bilgames? Because I must’ve missed that part during our discussion on how you were going to keep them regardless of my objections: if I remember your words correctly, it was so ‘someone could study them later’.”

“. . .I’ll have them sent up to this room immediately. Don’t hurt yourself, please; I’d rather not have fate flip another coin for your life.”

“No promises, but I’ll try not to accidently kill myself.”

“Promise, or I’ll have you chained to your bed.”

“. . . I promise.”

***

A letter was sent and received, though only the unknown gods knew how long it took; in the slightly orange glow of the workshop, time condensed into a meringue-like substance, and only the craftsmen working there could decipher the distortions the metal tinged air had upon minutes and hours. Even then, however, it was only with the vaguest of estimations: it was not an irregular occurrence for a smith to become possessed by some strange mood; to work, the duration of which to them felt like only hours, upon a single object with the care of a master; and wake from this unique form of madness a week later, a completed item before them that would sometimes possess some sort of arcane capability such as preternatural sharpness (if a weapon) or capacity to be locked by the simple utterance of a phrase (if a clasp).

It was reasoned, with the sort of logic people use when they wish to avoid becoming societal pariahs, that this was simply the result of the land’s magic working its way through them into their craft. This was, of course, a unanimous conclusion, and one that remained one of the most tightly kept secrets among the craftsmen. Even if it was one’s mortal enemy, it was expected of everyone, from the weavers at the looms to the blacksmiths at the forge, to jump through hoops for whomever needed it; they looked after each other so they themselves were looked after.

Such was the state of affairs when Bilgames’ message, now heavily smudged by fingerprints of coal, was opened by Uruk.

The short, heavy-set man took his time reading over the paper, at some points sounding out a word aloud to try and remember its exact meaning; his voice, as rough as an unshaped stone and used so infrequently that a patina had likely formed on his vocal cords, made a few of the nearer craftsmen pause in astonishment; to some of them, this was the first time they had heard Uruk’s voice. This lull in activity was only momentary, however, as they were for the most part practical people, and work still had to be done.

It took Uruk a few minutes of carefully tracing along the text with his finger, surmounting each word with a slight yet cumulative difficulty, but when he completed his reading, the effect was dramatic: the paper was folded up, and a small smile crinkled his features. To most, this change would be equated with finding a couple of dollars, or finishing a difficult job easily; the amazement that flitted across the faces of the other, less stoic workmen, however, betrayed that notion rather quickly.

Uruk gestured, grabbing the attention of some of the silversmiths nearest to him, before waving his hand in a dismissive motion; years of being forced to read the subtle expressions of their boss aided them, and with a significant amount of relief they wandered away from the various forges they had been asked to work at (an embarrassment and a source of slight pride in it of itself; Royalty had asked them to make the casket for a fallen brother: it’d have been simpler if the smiths had simply been ordered, as at least then the craftsmen could’ve cursed someone other than themselves for the situation they were placed in), back to their normal work stations.

Uruk glanced at the paper once more, before casually tossing it into the flames of a furnace. A gauntlet, he thought, hobbling to an anvil and picking up a hammer. Tis’ simple enough, I suppose. I wish they’d tell me what style they want, though; I assume they want me to do plate, but the wrist should be scale if he actually wants to have a degree of flexibility, probably padded on the inside as well so it doesn’t skin him from extended wear. . .Iron rusts too easily for this . . .What sort of metal should I use?

At this final pondering, it was only years of practiced silence that prevented Uruk from bursting out laughing; he gripped a chunk of the partially shaped silver, concentrated upon the concept of a gauntlet, and . . . let the fey mood overtake him.

***

Mercy sat in the medical bay, occasionally glancing at her leg; it had been a minor miracle she had survived at all, the doctor had wasted no time in telling her, particularly considering that joints in general are quite high on the list of things that shouldn’t be removed from the body.

She, with considerably less tact than normal, had asked if there was anywhere that was actually low on the list; when she finally stopped cursing, the working doctor at the time deigned to simply retreat with a far paler face than be forced to reply.

She still felt more than a little guilty about that entire situation, but it was buried under several layers of simmering loathing.

I hate this place, Mercy thought, gripping the linen blankets that covered her with ire, before her eyes slowly settled on the letter next to her; she unconsciously tried to reach over for it with the closest leg, only to mutter some foul curse under her breath when she realized, indeed, she no longer had that hoof: it took a few seconds of carefully inching closer to finally grab it.

It had been interestingly constructed; it was a letter within a letter, the outermost (and longer of the two) clearly intended to be the beginning of a correspondence. This letter had all the typical well-intentioned meanderings of friends trying very desperately to not mention the elephant in the room, while still trying to project concern for the aforementioned elephant, while still yet attempting to be supporting and not insultingly upbeat, and finally being quickly enough done so there wouldn’t be too much of a wait for it to be received. As such, it was a horrid mess of scribbled out words, poorly used phrases, fractured sentence structure, misspellings, and barely comprehensible hoof-writing.

Mercy cherished it.

The second letter, however, was (while still dreadfully rushed) far more comprehensible, if only because it was only a few sentences long. It read thusly:

Need 5 4 powerful semi-decent Unicorns by the 27th of next month. To meet near EverFree, 5 near the base. with them. Thank you.

So, they managed to reverse the petrification, huh? Normally Discord makes it difficult to undo his spells . . .

Whiskey’s prose was rarely so trimmed down, and seeing it as such forced Mercy to read the letter twice, if only to make certain that there weren’t spiraling columns of semi-colons and hundreds of words hidden somewhere in the text. She carefully scanned the letter one last time, then very carefully placed it into her saddlebag. She grinned nearly imperceptibly; Whiskey only made statements like this when he was certain results could be produced.

Though, what those results could be, she thought wryly, was another question entirely.

And it made sense why she, Mercy, would be an ideal courier: as an Earth pony, she’d be more than fit for travel; she knew how to fight, and could likely hold her own against others, even with only one hoof; and finally, the injured tend to be given a wide berth by almost all adversarial creatures save for the mindless predators, as even the most idiotic diamond dog would know better than to bother somepony who’d be less than useless in mining operations, to say nothing of the honor-driven Minotaurs or the rarely seen dragons.

If she didn’t know him better, Mercy would’ve entertained the thought of Whiskey finding this situation perfect.

She again glanced at her bandaged leg, this time seeing, in perhaps a few weeks or so, a functional peg-leg, and frowned slightly; it wasn’t ideal, perhaps, but what was, in life?

***

Days passed, if the orange and the pear that had replaced the sun and the moon were any indication.

“You’re taking your situation with considerably more grace than I would’ve expected,” Bilgames said dryly, leaning on the doorway to the medical room—now also known as, if the gossips were to be believed, as Selim’s makeshift laboratory.

“Uruk’s only got one foot after that whole dust explosion incident, and you’ve held your own in-errr. . . you’ve had to deal with shit like this before as well,” Selim said, dryly for the most part save for the brief interlude in the middle of his statement.

“Ah, I believe you’ve found the remarkable delaying effects of keeping yourself busy. Enjoy it while you can.”

“I plan to. How’re the kids doing?” Selim said, as he carefully split the a horn in half to get a side-diagram.

“Eaban is doing well; he’s a bit too much like his father though.”

“Ah, so the little bastard is getting into fights, eh? Don’t worry too much about him; if you need any help teaching him otherwise, I don’t mind. What about Lilim?” Selim said, as he delicately carved away at the bone-like shell; one slip-up, he was aware, and any info gleaned from this particular horn would be suspect at best.

“Lilim has got some sort of lung sickness,” Bilgames preemptively moved to restrain Selim, who had already flung away both the horn and the shimmering brass dagger he’d been using to dissect it, “but it’s not that bad and she’s getting better!”

Selim struggled pathetically for a few moments against Bilgames’ grasp, before eventually slumping back down onto the bed and glaring at his brother.

“Look, Selim, I know you want to help, but-”

“’But’, nothing!” Selim said, momentarily spluttering with rage. “Family’s family! You don’t fucking keep that sort of thing a fucking secret, especially from someone who can fucking help!”

“How, exactly?” Bilgames countered. “I remember what happened last time: you caught the sickness from Eaban, and you got hit with it twice as bad! Five months, brother!” Bilgames sighed, before covering his face in exasperation. “I know you want to be a good uncle, Selim. But you’ve got to trust me to know when we need help; if it were really a life or death situation, I would’ve told you.”

Selim sat on the bed, on the verge of either sulking or sobbing angrily, before finally saying, more tremulously than he would ever admit, “. . . just . . . don’t leave me out of the loop again, okay?”

“It won’t happen again. I’m sorry, brother.”

They was a period of little talking from either of them, not even interrupted when Bilgames handed Selim the horn he had been dissecting as well as the knife he had been using.

The silence, however, was eventually broken when Bilgames cleared his throat and said, “You know, Selim, have you ever thought about having kids?”

Selim glanced up at his brother, before smirking and continuing his work. He replied, “I’m going to admit I’m utterly disturbed at the prospect, brother; after all, we’re siblings.”

“Look smartass, that’s not what I meant and you know it. You ever consider settling down with someone, starting a family?”

“I’d be lying if I said no, brother.”

“But. . .?”

“Firstly, frankly, our family has an abysmal survival rate when it comes to giving birth to children. I don’t believe I could let someone I loved enough to start a family with potentially die in the process. Secondly, I don’t really think I could do the actual parenting bit; hell, I’m only really decent for the doting and punishment parts. Finally, we both know the only way I could ‘settle down’ any further would be in a grave; I think some of the dead do more than I do. . .”

“So. . . no children of your own?”

“I’ll be blunt here: to hell with that prospect.”

“Heh, can’t say I’m too surprised. How’s the, ahem, research coming along?”

“Painfully,” Selim muttered, before picking up half of the Unicorn horn he had been working on and tossing it into an unfilled corner, a difficult feat considering that most of the room was now occupied with a variety of differently dissected horns; some parts had been crushed into a fine powder, some had been carved into smaller and smaller pieces until they looked no different than colorful chunks of gravel. “But it’s coming along. I think I’ve learned two important things, but nothing for certain unless we had a live specimen, and even if we did, I frankly don’t feel a moral obligation to vivisect anything, even if it is for science.”

“Anything useful? Or just facts?”

“I endeavor under the illusion, brother, that facts are useful. Anyway, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to do half as complicated stuff as--” here Selim pointed in a corner off-handedly, “--they can. They’re like rockets, while I’m like dynamite.”

“Not all of us understand your references, brother.”

“Right, right. Uh, it’s like I’m pushing in all directions at once while doing magic, meaning that I can’t hit something with all I’ve got, while they can channel it in a specific direction, and direct it, thus being more effective. Their horns somehow make magic flow more easily; maybe it’s a focusing point or something like that, letting them take magic and shape it more fluidly. I don’t know, really, but it’s a guess. And I can’t just pick up a horn and try to manipulate magic with it myself because. . . I don’t actually know why, but I think it has something to do with how they’re more connected with the world’s magic than I am. Perhaps-”

“Selim. Focus. Is there anything we can use to help against them? Magic is a hell of an asset for them, brother, and not all of us have your . . . unique gifts.”

“Yeah, yeah, let me get to that. Anyway, the horns are hard, like a bone, right? But the stuff inside them is much softer; it’s like a bug carapace, in a lot of ways. Anyway, if you hit them on the horn, it should make magic difficult for them. I don’t know what’d happen to the bastards if you hit them while they were casting magic, though; I’d imagine it’d be worse than what happens to me most of the time, though, since I at least don’t focus through something directly next to my brain.”

“So. Hit them on the horn.” Bilgames raised an eyebrow in amusement, before continuing. “Just how, pray tell, do you imagine someone could do that?”

“Don’t look at me; you wanted to know shit, and I told you. It isn’t my job to run the. . . ‘military’.” At this point, Selim set down what he was working on and looked concernedly at Bilgames. “Brother. We’ve never quite recovered from that situation with the, erm, Wendigoes. I’ll be honest here-”

“Oh, just now?”

“This is no joking matter, Bill. We lost-”

“-quite a number. I remember. I was there, Selim; two groups of us were sent off to the north to bring back one of those damned creatures, dead. Well, we did just that, and its remains are being used to keep our food fresh!”

“We’ve all heard this before, brother, and while I commend you for your prior military service, the fact remains that we’ve still not completely recovered from that; oh, mostly, true, but I don’t think we should continue our rather. . . daring skirmishes with so few actually trained military men,” Selim said, carefully substituting in the word ‘daring’ where normally he would’ve placed ‘stupid’. 

“Again about this? And it’s only partially about us, isn’t it? I understand your theory, Selim, but even if the equines are, to some extent, being mind-controlled, we still need to defend ourselves.”

“If I had any love for our enemies, Bill, I’d think I would’ve lost it by this point,” Selim said, flopping his paralyzed hand before Bilgames as a twisted presentation of proof, before continuing with, “But I do care for our people. So-”

Selim froze, his eyes filming over as he muttered disconnected, nonsensical phrases. 

Bilgames leaned forward, momentarily worried, before sitting back with a sigh. “Another one of these,” he muttered, his rigid sitting posture slowly slumping into a more natural position. “Damned inconvenient; what if one of these things happens when something urgent is present?”

A minute passed before Selim, blinking away the remnants of whatever he had seen, asked, “What’d I miss?”

“Nothing; you were the one talking before it happened. Anything of note within this most recent vision of yours?”

Selim sighed. “It was like the majority of them; interesting, but ultimately of no use. And the visions in general are getting more frequent; I think it’s because I’m up to do anything like . . .” he pointed his fist at a random corner and splayed his fingers as if he were about to do something magical, “. . . but I don’t know.” He gripped his forehead before concluding, with more than a hint of worry, “What if the visions get more frequent than my lucid moments, Bill?”

“They won’t.”

“And how are you so certain?”

“You’ll think of something, or I will, or Uruk will make something that’ll surprise us all. Don’t worry; the future is malleable, and we’ll twist it into a form we find most acceptable.”

“If you say so . . .”

“I do. Now, what was this useless information about? Was it more nonsense about those strange ‘engine’ things, or books, or what?”

“Well . . . it was about some twit named Jonathan Swift; you wouldn’t begin to believe what he recommended people eat . . .”

***

It’s difficult to balance, were the first words Mercy thought as she left the hospital. And it was true; despite the supposedly ‘sufficient’ amount of physical therapy, the small bag she had one of the orderlies tie around her had thrown off her normal center, and now she was finding each step to be an adventure into the realm of drunken stumbling, minus the alcohol. She took a moment, however, to rub the verdant field around the hospital with a distinct amount of joy.

I almost forgot how nice the grass feels against the hooves, and with that pleasant thought, Mercy started walking home.