//------------------------------// // Voyeurism // Story: A Mark Of Appeal // by Estee //------------------------------// Celestia looked through the little window in the hospital ward's door, and could not find the minotaur on the bed. All she could see was doctors and nurses moving around the area: mostly minotaurs, two ponies, and one extremely out of place griffon. There was no room left for her line of sight to reach Rake -- but by shifting her gaze a little lower, she caught a glimpse of the metal cords which had been looped around the bed frame. Tying him down. Making sure he couldn't move. Something minotaurs would only do to one of their own in an absolute crisis. And she could not see his protests -- but she heard the bellows, and the repeated impacts of that bed frame against the floor as he writhed, making the whole thing jump. Bellows were all there were. He had gone to a place which existed long before the dawn of speech, and no longer remembered how or cared to find his way back. The bandaged hand touched her left shoulder. "Don't," Rounding Moonsault softly said. "There's nothing you can do. Unless our doctors find something while he still has time, there's nothing anyone can do. Watching just makes it worse." Celestia slowly turned, and the Referee stepped back to give her room. "How are your hands?" It was the natural first question, along with being something else they could talk about, if only for a few seconds. It produced a sigh. "Forty-one stitches between them. He shaped the edges of his horns -- gave them ridges. It's an old trick, and..." A surprisingly small shrug momentarily broke up the words. "...that means you're probably familiar with it." Celestia nodded. "But you'll heal?" "In a few weeks. Where's your sister?" Another natural question. "Sleeping." Luna, unwilling to teleport back to the embassy, had requested use of the on-call room and was currently occupying most of the lone bed. "I didn't even know she could be awake during the day," Rounding quietly offered. "Not for this long. You hear stories... that Sun burns her, that she can only come out at night if she wants to live at all. But they're just rumors, and stupid ones: there's been enough sightings of her under Sun to disprove everything, including today. But still... a few minotaurs believe it. There's probably a couple who would swear you had the world's most sophisticated illusion going during the parade, making another pony look like her, and --" a small smile "-- their reason for believing it would be the complete lack of evidence. I knew she could go out under Sun... but it happens so rarely..." Celestia sighed, ignored most of the irony, and began to trot towards a private waiting room, with the Referee following. They moved around several sapients on the way: hospital personnel, patients recovered enough to be out of their beds, families coming to visit the ill. Families on their way out because the miniature house in front of their homes was in need of an extension. None had come up to her, asked her to save the sick and dying, begged for blessing. Any visit to a pony hospital was guaranteed to have that happen, over and over until the pain became too much to bear. But these were minotaurs, and so there had been no request at all. Instead, ancestors had been asked to intervene, grant a little more time among the living before welcoming another loved one to their own household. Perhaps the dead were capable of giving those answers, where Celestia was not. But from what had happened around her, kept on happening no matter what anyone did, it seemed that so many of those answers had been "No." Carefully, she sat down on the provided couch. There was just enough room, provided she curled her body a little, didn't make too many open objections to the pressure of the rising cushioned back against her left wing, and generally didn't do anything which threatened to tip the right edge of her body past the leverage point. Such as taking one deep breath, which would put her on the floor. I probably should have gone with the floor. The Referee sat down, choosing a chair within easy view. Minotaurs moved by in the hallway, never getting too close. Granting privacy. "Sun doesn't burn her," Celestia quietly said. "Moon doesn't freeze me. I can go out at night, and she can walk in the day. They're just not our natural hours. But neither of us automatically goes into a coma when the other's time begins. We trot where and when we will, Referee Moonsault, as we need to." "But she is tied to the night," the Referee not quite asked. "And this hospital has staff which labor under Moon," Celestia replied, forcing her words to remain steady. "Because accidents happen at all hours, crisis knows no schedule, and so someone is always awake and alert to deal with whatever comes. And some will look for that life, others will have it seek them out, and for a few... it's the only resort. Someone is always bound to the night, Referee, because the night exists." Quietly, "Does she have a choice?" A few passers-by paused at that one, and then hurried on. "Do any of us?" Celestia softly answered. The Referee tried to steeple her huge fingers in front of her chest, and found the bandages getting in the way. "I did," she shrugged. "I put my name in for the debates years ago, because I thought I was getting good, and with my position in the queue, by the time I reached the center podiums, I just might be good enough. I made the choice to do that, Celestia. What I didn't choose was for the Nightmare to return just before I was scheduled for my debate against the last Referee, and for him to not quite get the answers out of you that everyone wanted. The Senate wasn't happy with that, and when the Senate, as a group, isn't happy... So in the end, he got the news -- but I wrote the welcoming letter. In a way, your sister is responsible for my holding the Referee post." With more than a little rueful irony, "It's just not something I'm sure I can actually thank her for, because the implication that I needed the threat of Sun never being raised again to win my debate... it isn't the best one." "You've held the post since, though," Celestia pointed out. "And you can only do that on skill." "Skill and my being four hoof-heights taller than just about anyone else," was the reply. "I loom a little. Usually without meaning to." She smiled. And Celestia, who was only surprised by it long after the fact, found herself smiling back. They sat in silence, the scents of medicines filling their nostrils, never quite drowning out the odors given off by the dying. "Tell me about Rake," Celestia finally said. "What happened to him?" The Referee sighed, forced her hand into a pants pocket, took out a little case and opened it to reveal a dome of yellow. "You know what this is, right?" "A contact lens," Celestia readily answered. "We use them for movies and plays, to change the color of somepony's eyes for a while. And some ponies have -- other reasons for wanting to change their appearance. But they can't be worn for long, because... well, as I understand it, there has to be a certain amount of air in contact with the eye. Pegasi who spend too much time in the thinnest parts of the upper atmosphere can develop vision problems to go with their Manière's: temporary vertigo added to a potentially permanent inability to see where you're about to crash. So nopony wants to risk wearing them too long, plus they're uncomfortable and if they aren't cleaned properly, they can lead to all sorts of eye diseases. But that's not what he had, is it, with the red in his eyes? I've seen minotaur eyes go red, but it's always been from rage, not disease." The minotaur shook her head. "No. The contacts... we use them for the same reason: just changing eye color, at least for now. Some of our scientists think that if we found something a little more permeable to air, something clear, we could basically put glasses on the eye. Restore peripheral vision. But that's potentially a long way off. Rake was just using them to hide the main symptom of red-tinge. The most visible one, at least until the insanity sets in..." Another sigh. "He must have been on the absolute border, the last minutes where he could still think of that. And then he went for the door." The natural next question: "What's red-tinge?" "We're pretty sure it's a drug," the Referee dryly replied -- then looked at Celestia's expression. "Why so surprised? You still have the field booster problem in Equestria, don't you? Those mixes which intensify unicorn and pegasus magic for a few minutes? We see a few around here, although there isn't exactly as much demand." She reluctantly nodded. Field boosters were a continual low-level problem. All had visible side effects, practically none were good for more than fifteen minutes (plus up to three days of slowly-fading after-effects), and the most potent offered a temporary grant of fifty extra percent of the pony's original field strength -- something which put so much strain on the user's body that when the crash hit, the pony might just drop all the way into the grave. Even careful users didn't tend to last long: it was so easy to get a mix wrong... "Despite our best efforts. But I've never heard of red-tinge." "It's fairly new," the Referee said. "We've only been dealing with it for about a year. Just long enough to figure out what it does -- and not long enough to work out how to cure it. Rake... we're trying to educate people, but there's always someone who won't listen, who's so determined to succeed that they decide somehow, it'll work for them when it took out everyone else. The seller claims they got it right, it won't do to you what it did with every other user, and when you're stupid and desperate and too determined for your own good... you listen. But we don't see many cases, because most minotaurs did listen when we told them about the first ones who took it. And they won't run the risk, not on a guaranteed outcome. We think... there's just enough new victims to keep the whole thing afloat, but not enough to build a whole enterprise on. The sellers are probably running it as a sideline to something like sienna root. We'll know when we finally catch them." Celestia was familiar with sienna root: Equestria's minotaur population was low -- but it wasn't zero, and a few residents had been known to indulge. However, sienna root generally just made a minotaur sit in front of the nearest wall and placidly watch a movie which was playing solely in their minds, with the only problems coming if the audience decided to take objection to the script. This... "And what does it do?" The yellow eyes closed. "It makes you stronger." Celestia waited -- but the Referee did not look at her. "How much stronger? I saw what he did to the door..." Minotaurs valued strength, in just about all of its forms. A drug which increased the physical variety would automatically find some level of market. Heavily, "It depends on how long you've been on it -- we think." "How long does it last?" And in stark, forced neutrality, "Forever." Celestia blinked. Rounding Moonsault sighed. "We... can't talk to the ones who've taken it, not by the time they reach us. When you find out someone's on it, they're past talking. So our doctors are trying to work out everything from first hoof scrape. They're not even sure if multiple doses are involved, if the minotaur taking it just gets stronger as they keep taking more of the drug, or... if one dose is enough, if the effects keep building up over time and the extra sales are just to get extra money. What we know is that once it's in the body, it stays there. It's not digested or passed in any way. The ones who take it... just keep getting stronger. But whatever reason they had for taking it... it becomes the only thing they can think about. The only thing they'll try to do, other than keeping themselves alive so they can do it at all. And maybe for the heaviest users, the ones we don't find, even that goes away." The big head slowly dipped. Elaborate twin braids fell to each side of the wide neck. "Rake's lashed to that bed. With metal. Because what he wants to be stronger for is to beat me, and if he wasn't tied down, he'd come and find me again, whatever it took to do that. But in a few weeks, he'll need more metal to hold him, and then more, and... the ones we think took it first, they got to a point no one had ever seen before, like dragons in minotaur form. And then... they died. Because it was too much strain on their bodies. And there's no cure, Celestia. We can't even find anything which slows it down. Every police officer in Mazein is on the lookout for this stuff, but all we think we know is what it looks like, and... the only sample we have is inert, if it's a sample at all. We don't know how to handle the pure stuff, what risks we'd be taking. We've had people trying to buy it, but we've been sniffed out every time. It's a little side business, it can't be anything else given how many minotaurs understand the consequences... but there's always someone just stupid enough, along with someone else who doesn't care whether anyone dies as long as they have their coin. And every sale is one more person they'll never con again, one more minotaur tied to a bed and it might as well be chains, and in a few moons, it'll be one more room added to his family's Ancients house. Maybe if I visit on the day he moves in, I'll be able to hear them all yelling at him..." Her huge right hand came up to cover her eyes, and the bandages silently absorbed the tears. Celestia did not approach. With nearly any pony other than Joyous, she would have, even with a relative stranger. But minotaur grief was somewhat more personal, and an invitation to comfort was generally required. None was given, and so she respectfully kept her distance, added her silent mourning to the muffled weeping coming from the chair. And she thought. Luna looked around at the occupants of the embassy's greeting room. Her sister, of course. The Doctors Bear, because they had to be there. And Torque, suddenly more necessary than ever. But not Joyous: they were still trying to work out the meaning of this potential new information, weren't sure how much they wanted her to hear, not while she was still recovering from the last thing she'd been told. And as for her parents... they had been left behind in Canterlot, continuing the exacting process of creating the city's new weather survey map. Several updated sections (for there had been some fine degrees of slippage over the centuries) had already been forwarded to the Bureau, and the return missive had carried shock in every shaky letter as it begged for the full-time labor of the geniuses who had produced the most comprehensive work they'd ever seen. "Before we truly begin our conjectures," she began, "does anypony -- my apologies, Ambassador -- anyone truly believe we could be this lucky, for that dubious value of 'luck' which involves the multiple demises required to put us on this path? Or are we simply too willing to perceive similarities from the midst of our own desperation?" They all thought about that for a while, and none were willing to provide an answer just yet. "Let's start with what we know," Celestia eventually said. "Torque?" Who nodded, and a sweeping motion spread several papers across the coffee table. "I talked to a few people," he said. "Like Joyous said, the Releases were hired to check out some land. It was a startup company... something that needed a lot of space, and they also needed the weather in that area mapped out exactly. We've got ponies who tweak in Mazein, but professional surveyors are hard to come by. So they were called in from Equestria. They stayed for about eight moons -- a lot of land, a lot of detail." Luna peered down at the first map. "'Plot A: Mashie Sporting Venture,'" she read. "An arena? Of that size? If I am interpreting the scale correctly, that area occupies several acres, and unless Mazein was planning a somewhat larger version of your own Games..." "Doesn't matter right now," Torque said. "Point is, it put them out there for a long time, exploring the whole wild zone. And that's when Joyous first remembers their attention -- and everything else -- starting to slip. So we know where they were -- but that doesn't matter, because just about everything that was there when they were? Is gone. That land's been reworked on a level you might not believe unless you saw it: plants cleared out, water brought in... and I know they don't have anything like that." He pointed left, to a picture. They all looked. The color image was a rather refined one: the best minotaur cameras tended to spread through Mazein first. The captured flower was a rather wilted specimen, but its own death had not taken enough to steal all imagination of what it must have looked like in life. Edges which were alternately scalloped and ruffled, fine ripples working back along the petals to the stamen and pistils. It looked like nothing so much as a bit of seaform captured as plant life, right down to the soft blues and whites -- with one exception: the little ring of crimson which ran around the outermost perimeter of each petal. "That's what the doctors think is the specimen," he said. "It's the only thing anyone's found in a user's home that had no reason to be there. It's a flower which every police officer in the country's on the lookout for. And it is not on that piece of land any more. Trust me on that one: minotaurs walk through pretty much the whole thing every day. You couldn't hide it there, not even with illusion spells: someone would have stumbled through it by now and from what I understand after spending some time in Equestria, large-scale illusions are a hassle anyway." "But it was there once," Celestia quietly said. "And if it was in one wild zone, it could be in another. After Torque first showed me the picture -- while you were still sleeping, Luna -- I showed it to Joyous. And she..." It took a moment before she could continue. "...said it on the train. 'Sometimes after they'd surveyed a wild zone and found a beautiful spot inside it, someplace that would be safe during the day with adult company, they'd take me inside.' Her mom and dam thought it was beautiful. They thought it was safe. And so they brought her inside... and showed her the flowers. She remembered how beautiful they were, how they all just stood there for a while and... looked. She remembered seeing little brown animals with black stripes across their tails, low to the ground, curved backs, she didn't know the name, running away from them, squeaking in a way that almost sounded like laughter, then eating the flowers at the edge because they wouldn't get near the ponies, eating so fast that it had made her laugh back then, at how much they seemed to be enjoying it. And then... that's when she started crying, and..." A deep breath. "She realized that might have been it. The last moment she was normal, the first when she was... infected. And they were there first, because they surveyed it out. And decided it was safe..." They all gave her a moment. "The animals?" Luna inquired. "What might those have been?" "Grabbers," Torque immediately said. "They're pests. They eat. They take dumps. And then they start all over. They don't care much about where they get their food and really don't worry about where the waste winds up. They would have been relocated." More paper shuffling. "Okay. Says here the workers cleared out a colony near a little flat area. But that was done in late fall. They decided to do some of the weeding and earthworks then because... well, because they wouldn't have any live plants to worry about. All the leaves had changed, and every flower on the ground would have been dead already. So the workers didn't find anything, and I couldn't locate any details on the record about unusual deaths. They're pretty much all still around, barring some normal illnesses and accidents." The Doctors Bears simultaneously ignited their coronas, with each flashing their own field color once. The other three focused on them. "We... may have been looking at this the wrong way," Vanilla carefully began. "There are diseases which cross over between species. Not many -- but a few. Rabies, black bile: any mammal can get them. There are also allergens which could potentially trigger reactions in both ponies and minotaurs, and there are a very few medicines which can be used on anything with the right organs, at least once the dosage is adjusted. Overall, there aren't many crossovers, and some things don't even shift between the three pony races: only unicorns can contract Rhynorn's Flu. But there's more than enough to prove it's possible... and that brings us to Rhynorn's." Fever. Muscle aches. Field scattering. A total inability to focus unicorn magic on a deliberate target, sparks flying everywhere and moving whatever they had the strength to shift in a random direction. The illness which the sisters had, while believing themselves potentially infected with Joyous' condition, considered deliberately bringing on themselves to buy time. Chocolate took a slow breath. "We've been looking at this as a disease of marks," he said. "And -- what if we're wrong? Ponies and minotaurs: both mammals, with everything mammals have in common. But there's something else we both share, even if most ponies don't think about minotaurs that way at all..." "What if," Vanilla ventured, "it's a disease of magic?" The sisters stared at diagnostician and surgeon, with the ambassador not far behind. "Keep going," the big bull said. "And take your time." "We know --" Chocolate paused, swallowed "-- there's a biological component to magic. Places where things are channeled. Wings and horns, for starters. I always thought that for an earth pony, it was probably the hooves: that was the most likely place for the Cornucopia Effect to radiate out from. And Rhynorn's, along with a few other diseases and drugs and even one griffon allergen, tells us there are things out there which can affect magic. And a minotaur's magic..." He looked to the ambassador, who slowly nodded. "...is our strength," Torque finished. "Our drive. We've all got the same magic, at different levels of power -- but magic backs our muscles. I'm not arguing that. Stamina, determination, focus, and strength: the things which keep us going after we should have dropped. It makes us hard to put down, hard to stop -- Celestia?" Distractedly, "What?" "You looked kind of lost there for a second. Like you were remembering something." "No. Someone. Keep going, Doctors. Please." Vanilla managed a nod. "So what if this -- whatever red-tinge is, however it works -- affects a living being's magic? But not just the normal levels, not weather control or fields or the Effect. Deep magic. The magic at the core of what we are. It strengthens it to the point where the sapient can't manage it any more. And for a minotaur..." "Stronger and stronger," Torque filled in, his voice surprisingly soft, "until our bodies can't handle it. But Joyous is alive, Doc. Every minotaur who's been found with this in their body met the Ancients within seven moons. If it's the same condition, same cause, she's had it for years, and she's still alive." "Maybe that's the difference between minotaurs and ponies," Chocolate awkwardly suggested. "Maybe it takes longer to reach that point, or maybe it never gets that far with a pony. But... mark magic is subtle. It usually takes the least energy of anything a pony magically does. A strengthened talent, running constantly, might still need the same amount of base power backing it. She might never reach the point of total drain." "Or," Luna slowly said, "all she needs is to be exposed within a crowd, with her body trying to produce pheromones for hundreds of sapients at once." It took several seconds before everyone managed to push the image aside. "We do not know, Doctors, and I am hardly willing to test. We began with the knowledge that her ability to lead a normal life had been destroyed. Given her... stated solution should we all fail, assuming that simply living is at risk does not represent a change." She paused. "Any pony can put the last of themselves into their magic: I have seen it, as has my sibling. Too many times." And she did her best not to see any of them again, and knew her sister had equally failed. "A final effort, a closing surge of strength -- and then, with nothing left to give, only the body remains. But that is a voluntary act. A deliberate sacrifice. For a disease to make that choice..." "What would it do to a griffon?" Celestia wondered, her voice saturated with nightmare. "Or if it's something that affects anything with magic, a zebra could get it, a kudu, a yak --" her eyes widened "-- or a dragon." That image took nearly half a minute to push into the nightscape. "Do grabbers have magic?" Luna finally asked Torque. "One does not require sapience in order to possess some degree of power --" He snorted. "They eat about ten times more than they should for their size and excrete maybe a third. That's about it. A few people keep the things as pets, and the feed bills... well, technically, you make it up by never having to carry anything to the compost heap. Of course, then you never get any compost. If they went out of control, there might not be anything green left in Mazein. Kind of like your parasprites, only a lot lower to the ground. And Polis isn't a barren wasteland, so they haven't." "Is it possible that they're naturally immune?" Celestia asked. "Is that something else which could be moved between species?" And Vanilla sighed. "We don't know. Princess, what we're all doing right now is the real gruntwork of medicine: we're guessing. We're taking every guess we have at what might be wrong, and we're hoping we don't make things worse by messing it up." "But we've already advanced what the doctors here know," Chocolate told them. "Joyous remembers being among those flowers before everything started. Up until now, that bloom could have just been the last of someone's gift bouquet that happened to be in the wrong place when the medics stormed in. Joyous' memory creates a link between flower and condition. And that means we need that flower. A living specimen." "And more than one," Vanilla quickly added. "One would be a start, but we're going to need every spell and test we have to take it apart while we try to figure out what it's doing. We're going to need a lot of living specimens, because we might go through a flower with every test. Plus just being around them..." "We are prepared for that," Luna reassured him. "With the suits --" "-- we don't know," Chocolate said. "Whatever triggers it might not get through the Hoovmat suits. It might turn intangible and phase into pony bodies. Magic creates risks, Princess. But --" "-- that's the risk we'll take," Vanilla finished. "Because that's our job." She could see her sister trying to hold back the words, and then she heard them given voice. "And if it kills you?" Celestia asked. "Then... it was our job," Chocolate softly said. "And maybe the next doctors can learn enough from our autopsies to figure out a cure," Vanilla quietly added. "There's been more than a few things found that way, you know..." His head began to tilt up and to the right -- then came back down. With his voice serious, "Of course, our talents are for medicine, so... maybe being infected would..." And stopped himself right there, a split-second before Chocolate shoved him, nearly knocking the smaller stallion onto the carpet. Three looked at two for a while. "We need luck," Celestia said. "Let's just hope this was ultimately the good kind, with the lost avenged and the helpless saved. Doctors -- you agree that the next step is to find the flowers?" They both nodded. "Then I'll find them." Luna blinked. It was all she would allow herself to do in the presence of an audience, even one this limited and with all three having been brought into a higher level of trust. She blinked. However, after she had led her sister to privacy, the form of protest became somewhat... louder. "No." "I have to do it." "No." "It's the only way, Luna. We don't have a plant detection spell and neither of us is going to invent one in the next few minutes. We have to find these flowers --" " -- NO! Tia, we agreed that we would only do -- that -- if there was no other choice! You know the risks!" And with a deliberate drop in volume, "We will find another way. We will find -- one of the dealers. It will be quite entertaining, making one tell us where the supply comes from..." "We," Celestia pointedly told our sister, "are not particularly good at going undercover. You can make yourself look like another pony for a little while -- a decidedly large pony, or maybe one of more standard height whose immediate environment ripples oddly, with things sometimes falling over for no apparent reason because the body which hit it appears to be a few hoofwidths away. Which presumes no one makes physical contact. And forget about making anyone believe the Diarchy has discovered a sudden mutual need for a new kind of high. The police have been searching for these sellers for a year, Luna. They've failed. We might succeed -- in several moons. Moons we don't have. Moons Joyous and her parents may not have. We need to get back to Equestria. We need to find the plants. This is the fastest way." "It is," Luna softly said, her lowered decibels starting to approach that level of soft-spoken fury, "the most dangerous way." "They're flowers. They're going to be outdoors." "Not if there are earth ponies working with them." "Then the building would have a sunroof." "We will fly." With what she felt was perfect logic, "At an altitude where no one on the ground could make out what we were -- and we couldn't make out anything on the ground? Mazein has to have pegasi among their police officers, at least one or two. So the growers are probably set up to detect intrusion approaching from the air and either hide everything or stop the scouts before they ever arrive. And Mazein isn't exactly small, Luna. We could fly over every square acre -- given a couple of years. This gets us everything just about at once. It's... the only way." Several deep breaths came from the smaller, each gathering more strength for the next assault. "Are you trying to impress her, sister? Show Joyous just how much you are willing to risk for her?" It was a question she'd already asked herself. "No." And then, more honestly, "Well... maybe a little --" and she quickly cut off the rising pre-shout tones "-- but that's not the reason, Luna. I couldn't even tell her what I'd done. I'm doing this for her. For her parents. And for Equestria. Because eventually, someone or somepony just might bring this flower to us. To our nation. If they figure out it can strengthen mark magic... you heard Vanilla. He thought about it. Just for a second, but he was seriously thinking about it. And you could argue it was for a good cause, he was banking on his boosted talent to save the Releases and himself... but he doesn't know exactly how this would manifest in him, or if there's any cure at all. All ponies would hear -- would want to believe -- is that it makes talents stronger. Somepony would try it. Somepony always does. And even if the sellers never figure it out, it's possible that all a pony has to do is be close enough to a minotaur who's about to use it. Joyous doesn't remember eating any of the blooms. They stood among the flowers, Luna, and that was enough. Given enough time, we will have more cases. We need to act now. So I'm doing this." A simple "No." Celestia glared at her sister. "And what's your reason for that?" Quietly, "Because I will do it." No. I won't let her. Not that... Insistently, "They're flowers, Luna. If the growing area is outside, there might be workers checking on the crop -- during the day. That'll make things easier to spot. It -- has to be me." More breaths from the younger, each a little slower than the one before. "And if they are importing it?" Celestia had no answer for that one. Finally, Luna said "When?" "Starting at about..." Celestia thought about it. "...ten-thirty in the morning tomorrow, local time. Until I find them or cross the border." "Hours." The word had been stark. Softly, "I know. So... anchor me. Please. And when it's over, pull me back." Her sister looked at her for a while. "How long has it been since you have done this?" "Two hundred and seventy years." This level of desperation didn't come along very often. "Ruby Dreams was my seneschal then, and she pulled me back. I'm out of practice. But it's like your illusions: you reach the point where practice doesn't help any more, and... it was never something we could practice too much. Just... Luna, please..." and she finally let the fear show through. "...anchor me." Her sister's wings spread, flapped, brought her into a level which permitted direct eye contact. The dark head slowly arced forward, and the younger nuzzled the elder. The nuzzle meant for family. "Always." They held the position for as long as they could. "I hate that you are doing this," Luna finally said. "I hated it every time. Even for this cause, I hate it." "Anchor me," Celestia half-whispered. "And when the time comes... pull me back." The early morning had seen the beginning of their official tour. Luna hadn't slept much: she could not. It was both a perpetual gap in her magic and irony of her life, that she lacked any ability to control her own nightscape, and so the images of disease-boosted dragons had done their best to disrupt her renewal at every opportunity. And there had been other concerns keeping her from finding true rest. Such as the thing which Celestia was about to attempt. There was wake-up juice available at the embassy, and along their tour path. She'd consumed just about all of it. It helped that she was supposed to be awake, at least for this part of their group illusion: the tour had been claimed as being for her, after all. Several events had been scheduled for the early morning, and others were set somewhat further away from sunset in the daylight direction than she normally cared to see. But on their second day in Mazein, the sisters went around Polis. They dropped in on two schools: one just about entirely populated by minotaur children, the other a little more mixed, and with all students expertly educated in just how to applaud at maximum volume. They had spared an hour for an art gallery, with Luna trying to work out whether the switch to iron as a favored sculpture medium was any form of improvement, especially once the rust had begun to spread -- despite the curator insisting that such had been the creator's intent, along with being an extended statement about the transient state of matter which managed to bore her long before ever hitting anything remotely resembling a comma. Joyous had missed that, although it hadn't been for lack of trying. With Luna's capability for making her look normal proven, she had begged to come along. Nearly every tenth-bit of Luna had wanted to accommodate the pegasus, and it had taken a tremendous effort for the tiny sensible fraction which remained to declare a full override. Covering Joyous for extended periods was draining, and Luna would need to be awake for a long time on this day, possibly through noon and then well beyond. She had to save her strength and remain alert -- but couldn't tell Joyous why. Ultimately, all she'd been able to do was offer a "later," a word which had delivered a fully visible kick. In many ways, it was the best thing to do, keeping Joyous at the embassy on that second day. The Hoovmat Suit (Revised) was holding. They had performed multiple tests on sample suits before leaving Equestria, and so had a very good idea of what that newest (and probably final) model could take before tearing. But there were things which could rend it. With the refinements in place, casual movement was no longer one of them -- but Joyous could still snag fabric against branches and the sharpest of thorns. A deliberate attack was almost guaranteed to breach the suit. And none of the reinforcement spells anypony knew had worked on the strange, custom-woven material which a great-grandparent had chosen to use for his final prototype. Accidents happened. Accidents could happen. The standing plan for one was to teleport Joyous to safety, then make their excuses later -- but accidents also had very little respect for strategy. And even if the suit was not breached, there were still the charcoal filters to consider. Being in the suit prevented the pheromones of others from reaching Joyous and triggering the production of a key for those locks. But she was always surrounded by created mists, the little alert signal which never stopped. The filters absorbed it, kept it from reaching the outside air, allowed Joyous to move among sapients -- and eventually became saturated, which then allowed the mist to go through. Every one of Joyous' excursions had a strictly limited duration, and they'd only been able to make so many filters in the time before leaving for Mazein. They had to save them for important uses. (Part of Luna still insisted the parade had been important.) And then there were other considerations for their supply... Joyous wasn't stupid. On the intellectual level, she understood all of it. But on the emotional one, she wanted to go outside. To be among ponies and minotaurs. To have a simple conversation, perhaps buy a little something from a shop. To pretend, if only for a short while, that she was normal. If there is no cure... if there is nothing that can be done and she chooses what she sees as her final answer... Luna had said no. And the word had wounded two. They had told the embassy that they needed privacy. Complete privacy, where nothing less than a threat to a nation could interrupt them. It had been instantly granted, and there would have been times when the lack of questioning regarding why would have made Celestia want to weep -- but on this occasion, she was simply grateful. And then she felt guilty about that gratitude -- -- followed by trying not to think about it at all. There were other things which had to be considered now. They had been offered one of the larger bedrooms, and both had immediately rejected it: too much comfort could work against them when the time came for pulling back. They were in the basement. The dark, slightly cold, rough-hewn basement. It was just about perfect. "Are you ready?" Luna finally asked as they took their positions on the damp stone floor. "I'm never truly ready," was Celestia's honest answer. "Not for this. But I'm as ready as I'm going to be." Luna nodded. "I am here," she said. "Remember that I am here." Celestia nodded back. Closed her eyes. And began to look inward. Magic. Not enough. Go down. Talent. It doesn't matter right now. Delve further. Memory... And there, she paused. She always would. "It's like there's... a thread." He had tilted his head at that, and it had made a few small drops of blood fall from his chin. (He was no good at shaving, and never would be. There seemed to be little point to mastery, as his chin and throat healed perfectly every morning, at the moment the beard grew back.) As always, the motion didn't make the bells under his hat's brim ring: very few things ever did. "Be more specific." The words were slightly irritated in tone. He became irritated easily when he had a puzzle to solve. She'd tried. "Something finer than spider silk. I can't see it. I can only feel it brushing against me. On my flanks, where... the 'mark' is. And it stretches into the sky. There's a tension on it. A pulling. When I try to move... I feel like I'm towing it along. Yanking on it with my teeth." "So you think you know where it goes," he'd thoughtfully said. "How long is this thread?" "What?" It got the expected frown. "You have a sense of it? Then describe it more fully. How long does it feel?" She didn't have a word other than "Very." "How strong?" "Unbreakable." "How solid?" And she'd blinked. "It's... hollow." He'd stared at her, with those sharp yellow eyes. "Hollow." "I just realized that. It's hollow." There was a crashing sound, and they both jumped a little before settling back onto the floor of the cave. The others were already in defensive positions, and nopony had sounded a cry of alarm. It was just the storm, and they had shelter, at least for now. "So not a thread," he had told her. (He was always telling her things.) "More of a reed. A channel. You're sending things up. And maybe, with what we've seen... other things are coming back down." She'd nodded. That sounded about right and besides, in too many of her early talks with him, nodding was just about all she got to do. And then the thoughtful look had intensified. It should have been the warning. He liked to experiment. He needed to know. He would do so many things in order to know... "You're sending thoughts up," he'd said. "At the very least." Another nod. "I wonder," he'd said, "what would happen... if you tried to send more?" And it had taken them five hours to pull her back. The thread. The reed. The channel. The link. Forged in an instant during an event she hadn't understood at the time and, centuries later, was still trying to work out. Thoughts went up. Results came back. She could send more than thoughts. And every time she did so, she wondered if nothing would come back. One by night. It was a mantra. One by day. It was meditation. One by night. One by day. It was survival. She delved inwards, down past memory, beyond instinct, to the heart. To the open end of the waiting channel. It glowed, within her heart. It was heat and fire and blinding light. It was the last thing left in the world which could still burn her. One by night, one by day. One by night, one by day. Hesitated, as she always did. Let the fear rise, surge, granted it a split-second of control -- and with it distracted by seeming victory, surged past, into the tunnel. The fear followed her. It had to. She needed the terror. The walls scraped against her wings but I'm in the basement, I'm on stone, Luna is there, Luna is waiting for me her feathers were being singed there is no heat, there is no flame, there is no light, I am here and this is now, one by night, one by day the borders of mane and tail moved faster, then faster still, began to glow one by night, one by day one by one onE. U-USER USER ONE ACKNOWLE-DGE-DGED ACCESSI-NG She opened her eyes, and Sun gazed down upon the world. There are secrets. There are always secrets, and this is one of the deepest. Luna had said it just before the restored eclipse, truth masked in metaphor. "She is Sun. I am Moon." And most of the time, that's a lie. They are ponies. Alicorns, yes. Living without aging. But they eat, breathe, get sick. They have feelings and thoughts and problems and histories. Ultimately, they are ponies -- -- until they are not. There is a pony body in a stone basement. That is no longer important. What matters is that there is SUN, and SUN is united for the first time in... it does not remember. SUN's memory is imperfect, for SUN is... damaged. But it is healing. As long as the pony is there, SUN is healing, and in time, SUN will be better. SUN doesn't know how much time. Ask and it would say something very much like SOON. It has always said SOON, although it started as something closer to SOUNE. That is how SUN, and the pony, know that the healing continues. Perhaps there will be full memory one day. The last thing restored. SUN gazes down upon the planet, for it always has, in what it believes to be always. SUN always looks, as does MOON, for there is forever something to watch, at least for as long as the cycle continues. But now it must search. The land sweeps by below. For SUN is moving, and that movement is necessary. Crucial. It is the reason for everything. But to SUN, it often seems as if it is perfectly still, and the panorama scrolls across the gentle curve for its benefit -- well, it and MOON, of course. It saw MOON recently, during the eclipse. It had been... quite some time. It was happy to see MOON again, and MOON... They kissed, as they went by. Did the ponies notice? Probably not. But there was a kiss all the same. Something within SUN desires focus. The memory of a kiss is sweet, especially one freely given after so much time apart. But SUN is supposed to be looking for something, and SUN has not felt so complete in... time. Whatever that time truly is, SUN feels it works out to too long. The sense of unity is wonderful, and it makes SUN want to help, because helping means that feeling continues for a while. And so SUN looks down and instead of simply recording the passing view, looks for something. The hot gaze focuses. SUN cannot descend, but sight can. What is being sought is... small. On the ground, and so SUN looks from a lower vantage, or rather, magnifies the image until it is as if SUN sweeps the world while skimming through atmosphere, something it has never felt and only has a sense of through the pony. It cannot feel the wind, for there is none -- but it has the pony's recollection of what wind is like, and feathers, and fur, and... SUN wants unity to go on forever, for in unity, SUN does not feel so damaged. Feels so much closer to whole, to healed instead of healing. But it has been asked to look, and so it does, for SUN knows the pony, and SUN loves her. The planet moves. A careful regard hundreds of gallops long and considerably less wide shifts across it. Time passes. It doesn't matter how much. SUN looks. And then SUN sees. The flowers are... there. Yes, there, and there are things moving among them, little lives tending to ones still smaller. SUN feels a part of itself register the location, and then the pony tries to leave back down the channel. Back to basement and USER TWO and world. But SUN blocks the way. For it has been some time, that time is always too long, and SUN loves the pony. Loves her enough to keep her forever. The world moves. The cycle goes on. It is good. There is unity. There is the hope of renewed perfection. There is -- -- cold? SUN is cold. SUN does not know cold. Does not want to know cold. Cold is for MOON. But the eternal fire is being attacked, portions seem as if they are being snuffed out, and it's only in an incredibly tiny area, something so small that SUN can barely think of the scale, but to have any portion of the flame assaulted can be too much to bear, there is cold and there is ice and somehow, it teaches SUN, which had lost the memory from before, of a new way to truly burn... "...LUNA! STOP!" The dark field winked out. Celestia tried to recoil from the floor, failed to crack the ice around her forelegs. "It hurts! Luna, you have to break this, it hurts..." A single brief flare, and the ice broke. And then the smaller body pushed itself against her. Helping her get up. Providing warmth... "It hurts..." Celestia whispered, and the echoes reached across centuries. "I know," Luna whispered back. "I know it does, Tia, I know. But it has been hours, nearly four of them. Sun is moving past Mazein now, and... I had no other choice. I had to pull you back..." Celestia tried to ignite her horn. To warm herself. It didn't happen, not on the first try. Using the channel was usually something beyond automatic, a process much closer to subconscious -- right up until she received a reminder of what she was truly touching. Instead, she simply huddled more closely against the only pony in the world who still understood what had just happened. What she still needed help to stop. "Fire," she finally managed. "I need a fire. A hot bath. Anything." "I will take you to both. To anything you need." "Maybe lava." "Even that." And from the depths of memory, "Cantomile? Can we spice something with some dust of --" "-- not... for a very long time, Tia. But if I should ever find any again... you'll get it first. I promise." Celestia blinked. Not at the promise, for that was just Luna. At the contraction. "Let's go find a fire," her little sister said, and the one who always pulled her back carefully helped her up the ramp.