//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: Wright // Story: A Song Of Death // by JLB //------------------------------// Even if time may have passed, it did remarkably little to stop the aching that Bane felt in… most of his semi-corporeal body. He was no quite hurt, of course, but definitely impacted enough to be dragging his thin, tree-branch arms on the floor as his sickly, ichorous body kept a steady, slightly angled nosedive after the dark blue equine. Perhaps, it would be fair to say that he underestimated her sister greatly. The assumption was that no force available to this world’s quadrupedal inhabitants could tear through to him, especially not one wielded by the ruler of the realm opposite to his. He was quite severely wrong, and being thrown against the suddenly feasible walls, as well as burned by what had to have been near-cosmic solar temperatures, made for a highly unpleasant experience. It was of little consolation, but the outcome of the extended conversation between him and the two “Princesses” was intended all along, as opposed to being forced out of him through application of extreme force. “You have long stairways for creatures this tiny,” Bane pointed out, jerking his head back and forth to alleviate the pain, casting twisted shadows on the moonlit walls. “I fail to see how that concerns you,” the Princess in the lead cut back at him, failing to hide the amount of disdain she felt towards him. “Geaaahhhh, Princess, you could at least work at a better conversation stopper. I think I should be asking a lot more questions than I am, what with the…” Bane’s upper hands flailed for a few moments as he vibrated in place, reappearing in the shadows behind the Princess that had outpaced him with all too much enthusiasm, “...procedures to come. I’m nervous!” he added, chuckling raspily, ending in a pained cough and a screech. “You should be. In fact,” the dark blue equine stopped to take a spit, almost back to its natural color, if only a bit blooded, “In fact, I suggest you learn to worry a lot more. What little I’m unfortunate to know of you sounds a lot like a being I was familiar with before.” Bane perked his eyeless head, only to ram it directly into a spike of a gate that separated the flights of the seemingly endless spiral stairway. The pony he was following definitely noticed, but failed to acknowledge the fact. Perhaps, for the better. She spoke of something curious. “You only ever do what is necessary when you’re worried. Too drunk with your own power to spend it properly, if even to harm your enemies. It’s all games to you, until something happens to remind you that you aren’t indestructible.” He knew who she meant. Having been through her mind, he caught a rather ancient glimpse at that creature. Then again, he knew of him in a more recent fashion just as well. Discord, she had to have been implying Discord. “Only I am,” Bane tried to say plainly, but failed to stop his voice from creaking into a peak and a dive, “I don’t die. I’m merely inconvenienced. Like right now.” Well, for what it was worth, the Princess succeeded in making him worry, since the glimpse into her memory was far from the only encounter Bane had with the history of that particular being. Something told him that if the Princesses ever had time to learn of the consequences, they would not be too happy. Or… maybe they would. It was hard to evaluate pony logic. On the bright side of it all, Bane was likely going to become a necessary bit better at it. “He thought so as well. Don’t think that we can’t find a way to contain you.” “Don’t think you can threaten me just because we’re on the same side,” he answered back, emerging from a shade right in front of the Princess, staring right into her face with his eyeless grin. She stopped for downwards of a second, and continued the descent. “I have no reason to fear you,” she said in response, “I said I knew your kind well enough. You’ll have your due, and we’ll have ours. As far as we’re here, you should be grateful that I’m not ruining you any more than my sister already has.” “And as long as we’re in my realm…” “Don’t expect me to believe that my behavior would change a sliver of what you’ll do when we’re in “your” realm. You’re a sick creature. I may as well take my opportunities here, not that you won’t take yours there. So, to remind you - be grateful that you aren’t broken down bone by bone right now.” Smart pony. More than he expected. “I don’t have bones.” “We’ve arrived. I’d tell you to make yourself comfortable, but I think we have elaborated our stance towards each other well enough to skip that,” Luna said, pressing a hoof against a solid stone wall at the bottom of the overly long staircase. The stone dissipated, revealing behind itself a room filled with artificial light, bookshelves fit with various tomes, aromatic braziers, glyphs covering the walls, and, last but not least, the thing that interested Bane most. “So, we meet,” he said jokingly, curving his body over the corpse that laid on a stone table in the middle of the room. Pale purple, of a shade just a touch lighter than his own form. Stallion. Not the bulkiest that he had seen, but definitely possessing some muscle mass - part of the realm’s military, most likely. An ocular device of some description imprinted on his flanks, probably meaning he was involved in reconnaissance of some manner. Unkempt dark hair, a pair of dead yellow eyes. Two wings by the sides, although… not feathery, like those of most ponies would be. Skinny membranes, reminiscent of a bat - in fact, upon closer inspection, the furry points of the ears and the slight abnormality in iris shape made the similarity even more clear. That was, from what little he could recall in terms of general knowledge, a thestral. Batpony, or nightkin, in layman’s terms. Rare breed. Not a very dated death, too. Whoever handled the body clearly did what they could to clean it up, but Bane could tell that it was a manner of poisoning at work. Something gaseous, likely to have caused severe inner organ dysfunction. That was not particularly unordinary, not to Bane, at least, although likely was for the realm. What was unordinary was the complete lack of a soul, not even a lingering fragment of one. A complete blank in terms of mana, which, for these creatures, was something that would require extreme draining efforts. “You’ve cleaned up for me. How nice of you.” “If you mean the missing soul, you have our common enemy to thank for that. You haven’t forgotten what this all is for, have you?” “Trust me, Princess, I wish I had. I doubt you realize how embarassing this is,” Bane turned back to face her, finding her in the middle of levitation of multiple tomes and assembly of a magical ritual he was not quite familiar with, but could guess the nature of. “Oh, I do. Trust me, I’ve went through something similar. Not quite in the same fashion, but regardless… adaptation can be a painful process.” “Really?” he said, his lower arms touching up the body on the table without much direction, twisting around the joints and trying the different tissues, “I know I haven’t found that when I looked into you.” “Because all you’ve seen was that which I’ve feared. I didn’t fear having to adapt. I had a certain advantage that you will never have. It more than neutralized the trauma of having to get used to having a body after a millennium of being the lesser celestial body.” “And what is that advantage?” he asked with venom rivaling the noxiousness of the gas that killed the stallion below him. “I had friends. You won’t.” Bane had no time to fasten up a reply, or think on the matter - a vicious red glow took over him and the pale purple thestral stallion. Princess Luna was not wasting her words away when she said that she would take her opportunities while she had them. It really hurt. At least the current inhabitants of the Canterlot Towers were used to loud screams. None of this incoherence or magnitude, however. Although, who knew, maybe Luna was even more prepared than she looked, and the room was soundproof. That would definitely help the morale. Far away into the distance, she could see the dying lights of the tiny settlements the ponies had surrounding Everfree. Ponyville was, by far, the biggest town in the direct vicinity, and that alone said a lot - the whole thing was barely a few streets and a plaza. It fell some time ago - enough for only smoke to remain. Not that there was much fire to begin with. When word got through that the royalty’s own little favorite town got mowed down, they started to really scuttle. No way that whatever took Ponyville could have reached the other villages that fast. No, that had to be them running for it fast, and leaving their houses to burn, so that nothing would be left to pile through. Or, that was what would make sense. Guildenstern knew for a fact that ponies would die a horrible death before they would make sense. Some specifically chosen ones could do it quicker, like, for instance, when their country got into more trouble than they could ever think of in all their thousand years of life - then these specifically chosen ones would do the right thing and call in someone who knows how to do things properly. Finally get on the same team with the ones who should have been carrying the whole affair if they were ever given the chance. Regardless, the fact that it looked as if ponies were doing something that made sense made the griffon officer ponder if that was really going on. Ponyville went down in a cloud of mist, and there was smoke at best coming out of it. Green smoke, and it erupted even after all these hours. Not very natural, but who knows what sort of magical supplies got damaged during the rampage? Mostly explainable. Now, there were fires all around, and a steady flow of panicked refugees. Her soldiers sorted them out handily enough, while she had watch on the wall of the quarantine zone. They were positioned on one of the roads to Canterlot - the pre-city garrison and a whole quarter was under their control. Not a thing the ponies expected to see when they ran for it, she could tell. It was a shame that she had to be on the wall, where there was no way to see the panic in their eyes. Hell, why even pretend - she would gladly kick a few of them around if they even looked like they were going to give her a reason. It was her own little paradise - well, sure, there was another officer, and they did answer to two generals, but that was beside the point. There was noone who would care about the ponies anywhere near a position of power, and that was what mattered. Sure, there were issues here and there, like her soldiers speaking a language she was not too fluent with, or the negligible probability of the Princesses coming in to visit only to find out their subordinates abused, or the fact that the green smoke coming out of Ponyville was starting to freak her out - but all in all, it was fine. By far the biggest problems was the language barrier, but then, that was part of what brought her to be in charge. Unlike those krauts, she was effectively Equestrian-born. That, and some shoulders pushed, got her where she got. And quickly. Just like it should be. At the exact moment, there was little for her to do - let pass the refugees, and control her soldiers if they ever got too wild roughing the troublemakers up. Seeing how Guildenstern would, if she had the chance, only encourage the roughing, all there was to her duties for the hour was overseeing the trickle of tired, scared ponies heading for their new homes. Boring, yes, but it was part of the job. Besides, there was a good amount of personal interest in looking at the incoming ponies. If not for that, she would most likely have laid the duty off, and let them sort themselves out. But a certain something… a certain someone, kept her waiting. She played the old, small, multicolored ribbon with her talons, and thought what to say when they would meet again. Guildenstern was almost sure they would. That pony was pretty tough. Definitely a survivor among all of them. The one half-decent pony that there ever was, even if she made a lot of wrong choices. Chances are, some of those wrong choices would come by as well… Well, she knew how to fix wrong choices pretty well. “Oh, you piece of…” And how convenient for these wrong choices to show up at the edge of sight from the wall. Guildenstern was sure. Her eyes never failed her before, and right now, she knew she saw who she saw. She also knew who she did not see. “You. Piece. Of. SHIT.” The griffon sqawked with anger, doubly so when her talons tore through the old, colorful memento by accident. That was not the plan. That was not the plan at all. She was going to have a talk with them, and for their own sakes, Guildenstern hoped that the one of them who mattered was simply lagging behind. That it was all just a happy little misunderstanding. Because otherwise, there was going to be a lot of trouble. For them. It had been so long since this magic had found a use. The ancient, unrefined mechanism of reanimation - recreation, reconstruction, reinterpretation, rather. Back in those long forgotten years, when other empires stood, and now forgotten races stood in fear of the undead horde, things were different, so different that even his mind had begun to slowly erase the memories. The Undying’s world of origin was never a place for creativity. As more cultures progressed, and some races began to die out, it became more and more about quantity rather than quality. Back at his very beginning, each of his undead would be awakened directly by his own command. Quickly transformed into a much more fitting form for whichever creature it used to be, a new voice would join the vibrant choir. They shaped themselves to the Dead God’s design, much like their general once was, and each was different in some way. But as time went on, the living had spread their infestation ever faster, ever quicker, unrelenting, ever combating the sour peace of the Song of Death with their misaimed cacophony. Clusters of them on all sides, it was no longer possible to fine-tune the performance to make the pieces unique. There was only one Undying, and there were many of the living. So the Tombstones were created, that the armies and their creation may be autonomous. They bore their fruits. With time, the more individual reanimation technique had left him. The sprawling world of the plentiful living demanded more output than he could allow with such precision. That was what the Dead God commanded. In this realm, the Dead God had fallen silent, and in this realm… the possibilities were endless. Several hours after having seen to the start of the process nearly intimate to him, the Undying was in practice of the skill he had abandoned all those years ago. As the mist had begun to seep away out of the streets, the town had become easier to navigate - easy enough to find relatively intact walking corpses. He started with those that were missing parts, so that there would be no big loss if the reanimation failed to apply. Even though the grey torso had crawled out of sight, there was no shortage of other undead, damaged enough to make little more of themselves than a meat wall by default. It took several tries, but eventually, he had found himself twisting them to his own design with relative ease. Not a very quick process, as these were already undead. but proper corpses were impossible to find in Tombstone vicinity - regardless, it worked. He found himself struck with inspiration still, and saw that even after all these years, he still had the designs in his mind. It was not at all aimless, or simply for creativity’s sake - the Undying had realized that the combination of the masses produced by Tombstones and specific advancements he could bestow on them could be more than productive. Normally, it would take too much of the natural mana that his homeworld was short on, but… there was a reason why he chose this particular town. Not even a remote shortage of it. Whatever was the weapon that allowed them to take over the world was still a mystery to him, but their physique and settlement locations were not. These insignificant clumps of huts would also serve as testing grounds for his new soldiers. Basic undead to take the blunt of the damage, and the improved ones testing their strength to see if their formation was worthy of begin added into the Tombstone runes. Although that was the plan, the undead general could not fully admit responsibility for it. “The vile dead,” his mouth moved on its own accord as he watched the batch of undead before him writhe to the rhythm of the reformation energies. As he found out that there was a way to combine creativity and productivity, he did fall upon a sour note. His basic knowledge of the equine properties, combined with that which he gathered from the souls devoured, was still not enough to transform them into something he was content with. They always came out too… generic. Not good enough to his own standards. These were canvases the likes of which he failed to recall, and the limited improvization he could provide was insufficient to meet the opportunity presented. And with that, he found himself with what almost felt like an excuse to indulge in another daring move. “...in accordance with… results of… last harvest season… we have promoted extended work hour application for…” the equine to his side uttered in incoherent gasps, breaking up between syllables. He would take time to tune his strategy to the opportunities this new land presented. Time was something he may very well have had little of. But an opportunity such as this could not be overlooked… as such, the Undying saw little wrong with getting inside help. This one used to rule the town. Even in her memories, she referred to herself as Mayor. He went through them twice over - once upon devouring, and once upon availing himself of the soul, instilling life back into the back-broken husk of the beige mare in a torn suit. She was the first one to be reconstructed with proper direction. In making her anew, he knew he was taking a risk, but it was worth it in the end. It was the sound thing to assume that the ruler of the settlement would have known the way around a more organized equine formation best - but what he found in the reshaping of her soul gave a palpable hint at what could be so unusual about this world’s denizens. She was not just the ruler - she was a ruler. It was ingrained into her identity. Not a caste, not a social differentiation - an actual, physical, integral part of who she was. He needed not to tune her for this duty - she already was. All he had to do was to add the needed details, and ensure obedience. The ponies had a specialty, each single one of them. A collective at the first glance, they were outrageously individual. It was never taken to this extreme in any race he could recall. “All will succumb,” he gurgled. “...with respect to your… admittedly respectable business… we cannot allow…” she mouthed in return, her front limbs perched against a large stone, formerly part of the building she worked in. With all that, he knew he could, once obedience was ensured, do that which seemed highly illogical. Even with how much the former Mayor had gone to resemble him, the transformation stretching her form out by meters, the broken back mostly fixed, but forcing her to keep the imposing limp, and turning the muzzle into a much more vertical, gaping, staring visage, she was still not the Undying. And yet, he did something that he knew he was not allowed to do. Or, would never have been allowed to, if there was any overwatch by the Dead God. She was separately sentient. Not an extension of his will. The Mayor was allowed thought of her own. Individual thought. Individual input into the creation of his minions, no less, and individual assistance of the effort to take over this world. The Mayor was now the Undying’s - or, rather, the undead army’s - Wright. “With this… the council meeting is officially… over. I… will be glad… to see all of you well… and… fine…” she raised her voice to attract the general’s attention, not that he was directing it anywhere else, “...in the next quarter. Fare… well,” her much elongated hoof pointed at a particular undead equine. There was little reason for him to be unsure of the Wright’s intentions - after all, the swarm of the variously transforming undead was all of her own design, awaiting their test. Among them were those he was unlikely to have really conceived himself - some with necks extended and stomaches transformed to create a burning acid, some with hooves sharpened into claws and tendons strengthened to pounce the quadrupedal living, some with immense ramming power to bring down entire platoons, and much more. She had proved his trust in terms of creativity. “Flesh.” He was just curious what she wanted with an undead foal. “...and… don’t forget… your glasses, Mr. Bar… digan,” she uttered in a rapid gasp, and the light pink foal, a headdress of some manner stuck in its mane, had begun to cringe and twist where it used to lay. Soon, its spine and legs had changed to allow a quick bipedal charge, and its front limbs were shaved off in a similar way that some of the others were. The face had fused into a constant grin, and the rest of the creature shook maniacally to help support its weight with the new bone structure. “Heh-heh-heh,” the Undying’s throat coughed out chuckles, and among them, gave this new creation his stamp of approval. “Jockey.” Princess Celestia sat in her room, looking out the window into the blackening heart of her realm. Its blackening signed up by her own will, and its dissolution at stake if what she had done was the wrong thing to do. That was the happier thought - the more pessimistic approach plainly said that there was no option to lead the ponies out alive. The Elements had fallen into disrepair. The military was too spread out, and too low in numbers to stand a chance against the threat, the way it was described, and the way it had visibly crushed through Ponyville. Even an approach of complete fiery retribution on the invaders was impractical. That was her first idea when she had first calmed down. Find the monsters that had invaded Equestria, and scorch them there and then. She was the only one powerful enough to do it by herself, as far as she was concerned - Luna was formidably adept with destructive magic, but not anywhere near her level, and other alicorns were far too specific in their own abilities, which were rarely anything that could stop a horde such as this, even if they were to hypothetically come together. She alone would have been good enough - and not one other pony could. The question of her temper could be brought up later, for all she cared. Unfortunately, the growing difficulty of hiding the cut marks on her body told her that if she ever lost control of herself, especially in a moment as explosive as that… she would be trading one issue for another. So many millennia of ruling Equestria. So many choices made, so many alliances revoked, so many friendships ruined, so many lives wasted. All of it on her shoulders. She would have been completely out of commission had it not been for Luna by her side and Cadence to the north. Simple as that. It was such a horrible time to be having a decamillennial crisis. An even worse time to have had to stoop to the lows she was currently at. The sheer idea behind the plan to save Equestria was responsible for many of the cuts that the Princess had taken an unhealthy addiction to. Thinking about it sickened her. It was better to simply imagine the picture by its pieces, not that it was pleasant by itself. Inviting a murder of positively ravenous ravens to pick her loyal ponies apart. Abandoning the Bearers when their Elements were no longer needed. Letting distant cities take care of themselves to save space in Canterlot. Making a deal with so many devils, and seeking out others to do just the same. The inevitable necessity of establishing a shield around the capital, making the safe haven of the ravaged country inaccessible for whoever lingered to come. So many betrayals, little and not. Sometimes she did wonder if it would not simply be a more painful path down the same road that crossed out direct confrontation with the threat. Maybe it was. Maybe not. For what it was worth, one of her decisions would avail her of the thoughts, at least temporarily, if only to focus them on one singular fault. She knew what the news was even before there was a knock on her door. “We have recovered Twilight, Princess. She is below, in the infirmary. Everything is as you have ordered.” “Thank you. I’ll be there momentarily.” For the coming days, spending time with Twilight will serve as the reminder that she had taken from her student that which she worked so hard to earn. All of it only to make that which wormtongues around the nobility had suspected come to fruition, of course. There was no break to catch. So, for her own sake, Celestia had decided to focus on the bare necessities. Twilight’s health first. Twilight’s impending re-education second. All that had gone wrong with the world third. Instilling pain was one thing. He had established good familiarity with it through that. Pain was an integral part of many nightmares, and, besides, it was a necessary component of active combat, which was something his corporeal body was drawn into remarkably often in the late years of his existence in the homeworld. Feeling it was not a vice he had explored often, primarily due to being Fear itself, and secondarily due to being generally pervious when it came to any usual sort of causing damage. It seemed as if some force even higher than him had decided that it would only be fair if the moment he gained actual nerve endings, he would be refunded with all the pain he should have experienced prior. Yet again, it really hurt. “Stop writhing. You’ll damage the body.” “GEEYAHAHAHEHEEEAAAAH—” “Oh, don’t… Nevermind,” his probably more than willing torturer sighed and got the agony-struck thestral body in a tight magical bind, prohibiting it from moving anything but the mouth and eyeballs. That got rid of the multiple bone pains he had inadvertently caused himself, but unfortunately, the rest of the nerve endings was definitely on fire. “THAT WAS NOT THE PLAN,” the recently dead body spoke, with hisses and moans spacing the distance between each word. “I said the procedure would be inconvenient. You could have assumed.” Clever pony. Too bad he was in too much pain to process that properly. “THAT IS NOT WHAT I AAAAAGGHHHHHHH—” the thestral’s inhabitant continued his route of torment by accidentally biting his tongue. “That’ll be enough,” the Princess said, and cast a new light from her horn. Multiple sharp objects entered different parts of the restrained body, but, thankfully, it had little regard for the pricks when it was burning up, getting used to new life. The fires continued to gnaw at him for a few hours more, at least in terms of feeling, and eventually, died down to reveal severe numbness. Sedatives, Bane realized, even with how slow the new body acted under their effects. “Knowing you, you’ll be able to walk soon enough. This is a large enough dosage to dispose of a mammoth, but the ritual does have its side-effects. You can thank me in particular. Regular spirits would have had a much more fragile proposition ahead of them. With you, I am quite convinced that whichever wounds you cause yourself will heal by themselves in due time. The excess energy had to go somewhere, so I rerouted it to keep your body intact whenever you fail to make sure of it yourself.” Halfway through her speech, he had also realized that she had these sedatives by her all that time, but generously allowed him to experience the sensations of being born into flesh. Clever pony indeed. “I… eeeeghhh…” the thestral tried to move his front hooves to shield his eyes from the alicorn’s horn light, but ended up hitting himself in the face lazily. “As you can see - it’s already fading. You’ll be moving within a minute.” “How do I… revert… again?..” “You go back to this chamber, provided you don’t lose the permit. Don’t worry, we’re aware of the threats you’re going to make. Noone else will know,” the Princess spoke as vials and other approvedly nightmarish instruments that were used during the ritual were put back into place, “This alliance, as unpleasant as it is, works for both sides. And no, there is no need to try to remind me that there is a part where you have an upside against us. I am sober enough to recall that.” “Thanks… Taunting… is very difficult… when your tongue is so - bluah! - big…” the “pony” on the stone table answered in a slurred attempt at venom. “You’ll get used to it. You’ll have more than enough time before you reach your new workplace,” the Princess said, heading back to the door eagerly, clearly intending to leave him in the room at the bottom of the stairs. “Aeh… Wait, just a second…” he lifted a hoof to gesture towards her, almost succeeding in that, and nearly managed to pronounce the words properly without biting any part of his mouth, “What… what is my—” Bane instinctively corrected himself, pointing the limb at his body, “—his...” His body was that of a recently deceased and newly reanimated thestral, and this obvious realization caused him to tap himself on the head again. He still had to get used to having a daytime form. “My name. What is my name. Who… who am I, exactly? They… they will need a… ehhhuuuhhh… a believable story.” “You’re a former scout from the northern frontier, recently arrived, and given your job through the connections you had with the royal registry. That will do well enough. Your name… Well, this poor pony had no next of kin, and no real acquaintances, so you are free to use his own. He is listed in the few records we have as Atropos.” The thestral stared right at the Princess at the door, his jaw hanging open. “Atropos.” “Yes. Thestral naming conventions are unlike those of most ponies. It wasn’t easy finding his name, surprisingly. I’ll save you the actual history of the body.” “No, no… No. I… I have no option… but to tolerate your abuse, but this, this is just… ridiculous. Don’t prank me, Princess, that isn’t funny.” “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” the alicorn looked back at the miserable body, her eyebrow genuinely furrowed. “Wait… you are serious? This… pony, his name was Atropos?” “Yes. You have that right,” the Princess nodded in response, still confused. “Bhah. Bhahahah. HahahahaahhhhhhaAAAAAAH—” Atropos had erupted with howling laughter that sometimes broke into pained wails, as in so doing he had fallen off the table, and found it troublesome to control his mouth as it gasped for air with laughter. “I… fail to see what is so funny,” she scowled at the unpleasant sight and the hysterical screams, not too eager to help him yet. That lasted for two minutes at best, as at that point the pony body had turned over and she saw that Bane had already managed to tear his mouth open with effort. “How did I come to this…” Luna sighed, restraining the thestral once more, and kick-starting the regeneration processes within his body, stabbing him with another sedative to get him to stop wailing. “I… I…” once more injured and sedated, Atropos had finally breathed in, and began to form words. “Care to explain? I don’t intend to stay here all night.” “That… That’s my name,” the disgusting-looking maw, two huge tears forming an extended smile to the sides, came out with words. “Yes. That’s your name now. What’s so funny?” “No… no, not now. That... is my name. I… I am Atropos. The Bane Elemental. My… given name.” Luna rolled her eyes, and left the dangerous irritant sedated and stranded on the floor under many flights of stairs. She had had enough for the night. They would meet again, and tolerating him was getting difficult enough. “What… a coincidence…” Atropos slurred, and rested his head on the floor, swimming in a sea of sedatives and dull pain as his mouth repaired itself, the smile remaining still. Then he realized that she left him to learn to walk, by himself, with many flights of stairs to act as the “final exam”, and once again realized that he was, indeed, dealing with a clever pony. It was still funny.