Cloudy Skies did not return to Alexandria until near nightfall. Her mission, though important, felt hopelessly mundane. Without knowing when Lonely Day and the other ponies would return from Philadelphia, and with no way to call and tell them, it was her job to find a satellite phone, make it work, then report on what they had learned.
It would’ve been far worse than boring to travel off on her own when Blacklight was putting herself into danger with all her other friends. Except Cloudy Skies had company, a pony who might very well turn on her at any moment. She didn’t hold a gun to the pony; that wouldn’t have been a very friendly way to do things. Rather, she disposed of all their weapons, and made it a point to avoid any location where True Sight might find new ones. She had bound the other pony’s wings, though that had been more Blacklight's idea. That way at least she would know she couldn’t change her mind and return to her master easily. Nothing else; no bindings on her hooves or leashes or weapons. Aside from not being able to fly away, she was just as free as Cloudy Skies.
They talked a great deal; much more than she had expected. Sight wanted to know about how living on Earth had been, really know. She wanted to know what Sky liked to do. She wanted to know what made living in Alexandria so great, and when winter was scheduled. Sky answered every question, as well as responding with some of her own. She learned that Sight was from Equestria itself, and that she had left her family behind forever to come to Earth. She couldn’t easily explain what had driven her to do it, or much at all from the last several years of her life. Whenever she tried, she just got a distant, sad look on her face.
That was okay with Sky. She knew that look all too well, and knew from personal experience pressuring her to talk wasn’t the way to go. She would just change the subject. She learned about the sort of games young ponies played in Equestria, learned they had fantasy novels just like on Earth. She learned Sight’s favorite food was apparently some huge species of moth, and she had missed it terribly when coming to Earth but been too afraid to say so. Sky didn’t recognize it, but she promised the batpony to help her find them if they existed. They probably didn’t, but it would be worth a shot.
Eventually she found a survival store, along with a pack of working batteries. She had never been that good with technology, so it took some time to get the phone working. Over an hour, actually. At least there were no complicated subscriptions to enroll in or accounts to make: Mystic Rune had removed all of that. Eventually she was sitting outside in the sun, holding still as the phone rang and rang. She didn’t remember anypony’s number, so she had just called the operator, knowing well that it redirected to Rune’s personal phone.
He answered. “Hello? I don’t really have time to talk right now, if you could call back tomorrow.”
“Wait, Rune! It’s me, Sky!”
Pause. He sounded breathless when he answered. “Cloudy Skies? Thank God you’re safe! Where are you? Riley said she didn’t know, and we weren’t sure-”
“I’m a few hours away. Had to drive to this city called Champaign to find a specialty store with one of these weird phone things of the right brand.” She glanced briefly at Sight, who had moved closer and was watching with interest. “Have you got to Alexandria yet? Or are you still on your way?”
He chuckled. “We’re back in Alexandria. Well, what’s left of it. Alex pretty thoroughly destroyed this library. Most of the rest of it is intact, though.”
The phone was on speaker, so she wasn’t all that surprised to hear Sight shout from beside her. She wasn’t even upset. “Is Night Speaker alive? Did it-”
“We got the bastard,” Joseph interrupted, voice flat. “Abrams shot him right in the head. The rest of us took care of the smoke monster inside him. They’re both gone. It’s safe to come back.”
Cloudy Skies frowned. The pony on the other end sounded like Mystic Rune, but Sight had explained that it was easy for Odium to force the controlled to act like themselves. That had always been part of his power. She covered the microphone with a hoof. “How do we know he’s telling the truth?”
“Have him put on the changeling. Master couldn’t control them, we all knew it.”
She did. Within ten minutes, they were on the road again, headed back to Alexandria. They hardly spoke during the drive back.
Sky passed through the center of town on her way to the hospital, passing through the wreckage of the battle. She saw one of the heavy armored vehicles, ripped to pieces, and the damage it had done to the library. Rune hadn’t overstated the damage. The generators were running and the lights were on in the hospital as she headed inside.
Whiplash met her at the door with an HPI rifle held in her glowing grip, prosthetic firm on her forehead. “Hey, Whiplash!” Sky nodded approvingly at the prosthetic. “You figured it out!”
“Yeah.” She pointed the gun towards Sight. “She’s just walking around? Wasn’t she their second-in-command?” She drew back the bolt. “I’ll give Adrian a call so we can bring her in.”
The pony beside her retreated a pace, whimpering. Sky felt anger boiling in her chest, and she moved to block the pony. “Hold on, Whiplash. True Sight has been cooperative since we caught her. She told us things. She’s never done anything that wasn’t helpful, never tried to hurt me or get away. She’s not to blame for what she did. She didn’t have a choice. Neither did any of the others. You ought to know that.”
Whiplash glared at her, though she lowered the gun. “It’d be mostly for her own good,” she eventually said, gesturing for Sky to move closer. She did, and the unicorn whispered in her ear. “One of the other Equestrians tried to kill himself a few hours ago. We got him down in time, but… we’ve got all of them in the psychiatric cells for evaluation until we’re sure.”
“Oh.” Sky glanced back at her new batpony friend, then shook her head. “I’ll keep an eye on her, but I don’t think that’ll happen.” She forced a smile, and raised her voice to make sure the batpony could hear. “True Sight is feeling much better now. She wouldn’t do something like that, would she?”
The pony nodded, though she seemed to grow more nervous as Sky returned to stand before her, as though a few seconds of private conversation had spoiled their relationship of trust. Sky ignored her retreat for once and gripped the rope in her teeth, tugging the knot free. It fell to the ground in coils, pooling about her hooves. “If Odium’s really gone, we don’t need that anymore.”
“N-No… I would like to see my friends, though. If… if it’s okay with you, Sky. The ones who made it.” She looked down, whimpering. “You didn’t kill anyone else, did you?”
“No.” Whiplash tossed the gun over her shoulder, and seemed relieved not to be levitating it anymore. “A few of ‘em got pretty beat up, but Alex was careful not to kill any. Bruises, a few broken bones, nothing severe. Our doctor’s patched the hurt ones up as best he can. They’re in the same wing with that stallion Adrian shot a few days ago.” She turned, gesturing with her tail. “I’ll show you.”
She did. Even though Sky insisted she didn’t have to go into confinement, True Sight insisted she should go see her fellow cultists. She was fairly sure they would still see her as a leader, with the monster they served finally gone. She had been right. Sky followed the batpony as she urged them to cooperate, repeated Sky’s promises from earlier that they would be treated well and not punished for anything they had done while controlled by Odium. The captured ponies practically melted at her words.
“I’m sorry we locked them up,” Sky said, as Sight prepared to climb into one of the padded cells with several of the other flying ponies. “You don’t have to go in there. I know you won’t try to hurt yourself.”
“I won’t,” she repeated. “But I want to make sure they don’t. I’ll try to convince them. In the morning, you let out the ponies I ask for, okay?”
Sky agreed, though Whiplash looked furious. Somehow, she thought the unicorn had other reasons for wanting the ponies locked up.
All the ponies Cloudy Skies was excited about seeing again were gathered into a room on the second floor, eating MREs and speaking in hushed voices. “Hi.” She felt the exhaustion of her day crashing down on her then, but she fought it off. Long enough to end up in a huge hug between herself and Blacklight and Rune and Wanderlust. Even Whiplash there, at the end. Olive only said hello, working as he was at Day’s side. He was the only one in the room (besides Whiplash) who didn’t have a plate of something.
When the hug finally ended, Sky made her way past the group to look down at the filly resting in bed. Day looked the worse for wear; burns covered her face, particularly around her eyes and mouth. She looked strangely thin, and her ragged breaths came unsteadily. Sky’s best friend looked worse than anypony Sky had ever seen. “How is she?”
Olive shook his head. “No telling. She was barely alive when I brought her in. Whatever that thing did really tore her apart. No telling when she’ll wake up. Or if.” He reached over to the desk, lifting a light leatherbound book from it and tossing it onto a bare part of the bed near her. “Apparently she wanted you to have this if anything happened. Figure you should probably take it now.”
Sky looked, feeling a sudden chill as she realized what it was. Lonely Day’s journal. “No.” She shoved it away, pushing it near Day’s leg. “She’s still alive, right? I’m not taking that if she’s still alive.” She fought back the tears, though only barely. Her voice still cracked.
Olive looked like he was going to insist, but Mystic Rune stepped in, levitating the book off the bed and back to the little table. “She doesn’t have to take it now.”
“Maybe not. But Alex might not ever wake up. That thing might’ve actually been able to kill her. She looks like she’s getting worse, no matter what I fucking do!” He slammed one hoof down with enough force to shatter a tile, huffing and puffing like a horse about to charge.
“We should get out,” she suggested, and they did. Rune headed off with Whiplash to keep an eye on the prisoners, while a limping and bandaged Wanderlust came with her to a room a few doors down the hall, lit only by moonlight streaming through the window. They sat together there in the empty room, staring up at the night.
Neither of them spoke, not for what felt like hours. They didn’t really need to. It wasn’t conversation they wanted after watching their city destroyed. Sky rested her shoulder on Wanderlust’s, and he wrapped his wing around her in turn. She shivered, whimpered, and cried. So did he.
Maybe she slept, maybe he did. It was hard to say for sure.
Eventually she must’ve woke, because she remembered asking: “Are you still going to leave soon?”
“No.” Wanderlust shook his head vigorously. “Not soon.” He met her eyes. Neither of them looked away. “Maybe not ever. I’ll have to see if anything keeps me. Like… like having somepony I care about.”
She chuckled, though she didn’t want to. “Somepony? I thought you thought those words were silly.”
“I do.” He nuzzled her. “But the somepony doesn’t. If silly words are what it takes, that’s pretty cheap.” His face darkened, and he turned away again. “Small price to pay. Compared to… to…”
Sky embraced him again, holding him as tightly as she could. “Don’t pay anything, Wanderlust. I don’t want you to change. Don’t compare me to a monster.”
“Right… you’re right.” He sat up, smiling weakly. “I do mean it, though. I’ll be sticking around for the foreseeable future. Besides.” He tossed his shoulders vaguely towards the window. “It’s not like there aren’t other ways for ponies to learn about the satellite phones. Those radio ponies talk about it now. We’ve got our own local broadcast, and Joseph’s rerouting the operator calls. I call that enough for a little while. I can afford to take some time off.” He met her eyes again. “That is, if you’ll spend some of it with me.”
Sky considered that a long time. She thought about Lainey, and how she would shiver and convulse at a man’s touch. She couldn’t feel it, couldn’t even hear a man’s voice without thinking of the barn behind her house, or the cellar she had been locked in. Cloudy Skies wouldn't live in Lainey's hell for another second, but maybe Lainey Park could come visit Sky's paradise.
“I’d like that.”