Fallout: Equestria - To Bellenast

by Sir Mediocre

14. Rebuke

Chapter Fourteen

Rebuke

The ravine was neither the deepest nor the widest I’d ever seen, and an enormous pile of prickly pain at its bed was conspicuously absent, but that was the first image that came to mind when I stopped at its edge—and then I looked at the cascade of meltwater coming down the valley toward the Gelgrin River, which lay half a kilometer eastward through the forest. As I watched, a shelf of dark, rooted earth that overhung the roaring flow—and one of the berry bushes we sought—began to tear away, and crashed into the ravine, sending a ton or more of soil into the mountain stream.

The valley floor remained in cold shadow, but higher up the mountainside, the morning sun beat down after the retreating clouds. The cycle of blizzards, seemingly centered on the Compass Lake S.P.P. Tower far beyond the west horizon, appeared to have abated.

“Hmmmmmm…”

I gave Minty a skeptical look and set my hoof on her foreleg. “Please tell me you’re not going to jump that.”

She shook her head and looked behind us. A mad thumping of galloping hooves came out of the wintry brush, and a blur of iridescent green and ash zipped past us and leapt.

“Wooooo!” Pinwheel Malaise seemed frozen in flight above the frigid flow for an eye-blink, and then she skidded to a muddy halt on the other side and pranced in place. “Top that!” she shouted over the roaring waters. Another chunk of the ravine’s edge collapsed and widened the gap by half a meter. Pinwheel backed away from the crumbling edge. “Or maybe don’t!”

Minty snorted and stomped her rear hoof. An incandescent glare built along her horn, she bolted toward the ravine, leapt—a flashbulb lit the snow-laden conifers and a clap of displaced air sucked a cloud of snow into a chaotic whirl in front of me—and a grape alicorn appeared from the air over Pinwheel’s head and soared past the Kirin to land behind her. The underbrush and low branches on the far side swayed suddenly around Minty. Pinwheel whistled appreciatively from across the ravine, and no sooner had I realized I was alone on the northern bank than Minty had lifted me in a sunny glow to carry me. Nádarin’s pistol bounced against my forelegs on the end of the strap around my neck, and below that were the rushing water and shrinking chunks of ice that clashed and broke on their way down the valley.

I looked up from the three-meter drop to the pulverizing rocks as I floated along.

Pinwheel chuckled and trotted away through the powdery brush. “You alicorns are a bunch of cheaters, y’know that?”

Minty giggled and set me down on mercifully solid ground far from the deathly chasm.

“Well, I can’t fly yet,” I hollered, “And I’m afraid of heights. Am I still a cheater?”

“Cheater-in-training, girlie,” said Pinwheel as she disappeared around a tall, camouflaging bush.

Minty danced in place and pointed her wing toward my side, then flapped both wings, stirring up a whirlwind of powder snow.

“What—oh.” I folded and tucked my trembling wings back against my ribs, ever-conscious of their near-bareness. “Um… guess it was a reflex?”

Minty whipped out her chalkboard from her basket-laden saddlebag harness, scrawled quickly, and flipped it around for me. ‘Good reflex! Can’t feel air without feathers, so flying bad idea, but magic still works. You can break a hard fall if you flap, also jump high.’

She spread her wings, reared up, and made one powerful downstroke as she kicked off. She launched three meters straight upward, blasting back my mane and the nearby foliage, and again as she came back down on a slower stroke. The woven baskets hanging off her hips clattered together, and one of the lids bounced halfway off.

“I think I’ll keep my hooves on the dirt for now, but I’ll keep it in mind.” I spread my wings out briefly and flapped gently, causing my hooves to lift off the ground unevenly, and immediately panicked and snapped them back to my ribs at the first sensation of not being on the dirt. “Yeah. Definitely… feels good to stretch without that suit on, though.” I stepped up to Minty, shoulder-bumped her leg, and telekinetically pushed the basket lid back into place. “And thanks for carrying me over. I’m, um… not much of a jumper.”

She smiled and tugged me forward with her wing, followed Pinwheel through the underbrush, and we left the tumultuous gouge in the land behind.

---

I parted the ubiquitous brambles covering the ground, stepped one hoof at a time over a fallen branch, set my basket down, and began to pick the dark red, bead-shaped berries, ferrying them a few at a time in an emerald line into the canvas-lined basket. I parted the bush from most of its berries, my basket developed a solid layer of fruit to show for my efforts, and I lifted it, picked a vaguely-south direction, and pushed between the berry bushes that rose half a meter over my head. I dropped the basket again two bushes over and began to deprive my next target of its plump, juicy bounty.

I had clambered through and plucked clean a dozen bushes by the time my basket was full to the brim. I tied the canvas sack off, levitated the heavier basket into the air, high above the surrounding brambles, and gave a short whistle. A gentle tugging on the basket in my grasp accompanied an incandescent glow, and I relinquished it to Minty’s magic, watching it float out of view. A few seconds after, an empty basket zipped over and dropped above my head, and I set about collecting again.

When red berries half-filled my second basket, a scuffling came from somewhere roughly southeast of me, and I stood stock-still with my ears forward. The soft scuffling broke the dead quiet of the woods again, and another sound came from due west, a low, throaty rasp and a set of uneven, plodding steps crunching in the otherwise deadening snow. They came from just beyond an obscuring pair of bushes.

I looked around briefly to grab a sizeable stick and shake the dirt and snow off it. I turned toward the plodding steps and hollered, “Hey, Pinwheel! Have you ever seen a ghoul out here?”

“Nope!” shouted the Kirin from a ways northwest through the trees. “Hasn’t been a single one in the valley since my grandpappy built the barn, and that one was a talker, not a biter.”

“Huh.” I stepped toward the bushes from behind which came the sporadic, crunching hoofsteps, holding the stick near my side. Another low, muffled moan carried through the foliage. I spread my emerald magic across the bushes and pushed the branches apart.

Minty cocked her head and stared open-mouthed and cock-eyed at me, drool hanging from her red-stained lips and muzzle. She chomped down on the cluster of berries held in her mouth, squirting more red juice everywhere. Leaning forward to loom over me, canting her head at an odd angle, and chewing noisily, all while keeping both eyes on me, she presented her chalkboard.

‘I am Minty Zircon, Queen of the Fruit Zombies. I demand tribute. Chop chop, tiny servant, or I chomp chomp.’

I burst into a fit of giggles. “Minty Zircon? That’s your full name?” She nodded and licked the dribbling berry juice off her lips, which served mostly to stain her muzzle further. Still laughing, I shook my berry basket in front of her and said, “Well, this tiny servant’s tribute isn’t ready yet, Queen Zircon, so Her Majesty will have to wait.”

She shared a bright, infectious laugh and began to write a new message. I picked more berries from an adjacent bush while she did.

‘Sorry about kidnapping, but I’m glad you wound up at Pinny’s place. New friend.’

No sooner had I read it than she stepped close to set one feathered forehoof across my withers and nuzzle the side of my neck. Despite being easily four times my size, she seemed much gentler and aware of her strength than Night Cloud or Blitz. I leaned my head into her neck and murmured, “I’m glad, too, Minty.”

Minty stepped back, giving a timid smile, and scrubbed her chalkboard clear again. She hesitated, seeming deep in thought with the chalk poised to write in her bright magic, and then she started, only for another sound to come through the scratching.

A scuffling came from the bushes to my left, then a hiss. Minty’s ears flicked forward and her eyes shot up, and I spun to face the sudden growling. A small, brown head poked out of a hollow beneath the brambles.

“Is that a weasel?” I murmured, holding my levitated stick out toward the animal. I lifted Nádarin’s pistol up and pulled the ratcheting charging lever I’d clamped onto the frame.

The growling became a snarl and a blur of brown fur lunging toward us. I slashed my stick downward, it shattered on a bristly back, and I staggered sideways under the weight of a snarling mass of fur and claws and teeth. Fiery daggers plunged into my hide as I fired my gun, and my magic sputtered out as searing fire tore through my upper leg. Minty’s magic pulled on the beast and pried its tearing jaws and claws away from me. I seized the snarling, struggling creature in my own emerald light and launched it at the closest tree. It crashed through several branches and tumbled through a snowbank, letting out a squeal as it thrashed about to right itself. Bleeding and snarling, the tenacious beast darted out of the snow straight toward us. A ringing in my ears muffled everything around me.

Minty lunged at the animal and let loose a muffled cry of rage, and she stomped and trampled the clawing, hissing beast until it was a lump of snapped bone and bloody, sable fur.

No surge of healing warmth came from within me, and the ragged tear in my midnight blue coat remained open and weeping. My ears continued to ring, and the ground seemed to spin beneath me.

I groaned and pressed my magic against the deep gashes at the base of my foreleg, and my breathing quickened as Minty darted back over to me where I lay in the snow. A crashing of brush came from the north, and Pinwheel Malaise leapt over the berry bushes to land nearby. I raised my head and tried to climb to my hooves, but my left foreleg wouldn’t move, and the spike of pain that followed sent my head back to the freezing ground.

“Oi! No, stay still, girlie! Minty, ditch that harness!” Pinwheel’s pink magic pulled a white bundle of bandages from her saddlebags, and she pressed the folded pad over the deep, ragged punctures in my pectoral and around the outside of my upper leg.

I spread the press of emerald light across my belly and ribs to cover the stinging cuts left by terrifyingly sharp claws. Biting back a sob, I looked down at the alarming amount of red on my chest and left foreleg. The bandage had soaked through in seconds. I fought to slow my breathing while my heart tried to kick its way out of my chest. The slightest movement of my leg sent lightning shocks of agony up my shoulder, and I began to shudder and sob with every breath. I swallowed and said in a distant squeak, “I can’t—I can’t move my leg!”

“Aye, it’s torn up, and you need to stop tryin’—can you keep pressure on that bandage for a few minutes, and hold it still?” I nodded at Pinwheel’s muffled question as she brushed her fetlock across my coat and looked at the bright red stain on her ash fur. “Good. It’s a wicked bite, but hold that pressure on it and you’ll be okay. Nautical will take care of you, girlie.” Minty undid the last straps on her pack harness and dropped the berry baskets on the ground. “Minty, keep an eye on her! You hold that bandage if she blacks out, got it? Don’t try to jump if you aren’t sure you can make it, now go! Go!”

Sunlight locked around my limbs, and I floated off the freezing ground.

Minty held me upright in her magic, and with a surge of acceleration, I shot into the sky. By no means was Minty a graceful flier, but she had wing power to spare. She launched above the treetops with a single flap and a tornado of billowing snow, set me behind her withers, and beat the air and snow of the woodland canopy into a spray of mist on either side. I clutched onto her neck with my right leg and tucked my head into her mane to avoid the icy, deafening shriek of air that blasted around us and threatened to catch my wings whether I wanted them open or not.

After a minute that felt like an hour of white-hot knives sinking into me, Minty settled into a glide, and a green-gold bubble surrounded us to block the howling wind. Nautical soared in from the left and flew alongside Minty, and she lifted me free of Minty’s back while we glided along. The pistol bouncing below my neck floated up and over my head.

-Relax your magic, let me take over. Bite this.-

I sniffed at the short length of rope floating in front of my nose, bit onto it, and held my breath as Nautical wrapped me with light and pressed a fresh bundle of stinging gauze into my wound.

The rope further muffled my scream, and whatever focus I had to sustain my magic left me. I hung limply in the alicorn’s sheltering field. Not long after, Nautical glided down to flare her wings and land in front of Pinwheel’s cottage.

Nautical held me in the air close in front of her as she trotted through the artificial tunnel, and the inner door swung open in a glow of red light.

“Bandages are ready,” said Skipper as we passed her, and her hooves shifted on the floor in a nervous dance. “Holy shit, that’s a lot—”

“Skipper, I need you to restrain her. She cannot move her leg, understand?”

“Yeah-yeah-yeah, I got it.”

Nautical laid me on my side on a short table, facing the front entrance; careful as she was, the landing still sent an invisible knife into my joint. I gasped and champed on the rope again as Skipper’s red magic surrounded my entire leg and held it fast. A set of heavy, muffled hoofsteps came closer, and a bright, lensed lantern swung in front of me, held by a brown-furred hand. “Crystal, relax your shoulder, try to breathe slower. Skipper, less field around the wound. Restrict, don’t compress.”

The red glow retreated from my joint. I hissed and tensed as Nautical levitated a set of forceps from a bag on the table and detached the stainless steel end of the tool from its brass mouthpiece. I began to shake despite Skipper’s telekinetic grip on my entire body.

Nautical lifted the blood-soaked bandage away from my pectoral and made brief eye contact.

-I don’t have anesthetic.-

I shifted the piece of rope onto my molars and nodded, still breathing quickly, but more deeply. I trembled as the end of the forceps disappeared inside the wound, and I fought the urge to yank my leg free. Nautical gripped a narrow, paired set of miniscule clamps in her teeth and slowly maneuvered her entire head to place the double clamps somewhere inside the wound. The cottage door swung open again, and Nautical’s ear flicked toward it.

-Minty, on my left. I need more light.-

My vision swam, and the ringing in my ears began to fade, but the burning was unceasing; farther down my leg, the burning became a creeping numbness. Minty’s bright magic added to the lamplight as though the sun had appeared indoors. A tiny, sharply curved needle and fine, glossy thread drawn from a spool inside a glass bottle darted through the air in Nautical’s green-gold magic, and for half a minute, the loudest sounds in the cottage were my shaky breaths and Minty’s occasional sniffle near my head. I spat out the rope to give my jaw some much-needed relief and arched my head back to look at her. The berry stains on her muzzle remained fresh and red, and the tip of her horn was an incandescent glare. Her eyes and cheeks were wet with tears.

I swallowed, having managed to bring my breaths under control, and rasped out, “Hey, zombie queen…”

Minty gave a feeble, hitching laugh and smile in reply.

I lay my head back on the table and dared to glance at Nautical’s barely-moving snout and the combination of tools in her telekinesis and teeth. I swallowed as a slight motion from one of the tools just beyond my sight pushed against muscle and bone. The red stain on the white cloth had spread to the table’s edge. Skipper’s red magic held my legs and wings frozen in place, but it did nothing to stop my trembling.

The curved needle continued to rise slowly out, pulling the fine filament with it, and dart quickly back in again. Much of my foreleg had grown cold and numb. A shiver travelled along my back, and I said in a tight, squeaky voice, “Are you a doctor?”

Orange eyes remained focused on my wound, but one ear turned.

-I was an assistant to one, a lifetime ago. Watched him work, learned what I could, while I could.-

Nautical snipped the suture thread, gingerly withdrew the paired clamps and needle, and set them aside, and I groaned as she pressed a fresh bandage over the wound to soak up more blood; much as the gauze no doubt helped, it stung the same as tearing teeth, and fresh tears blurred my sight. “Everyone back off.” Skipper’s magic vanished, and Minty and Uruqhart stepped away. Nautical levitated me into the air and began to wrap bandages tightly across my chest and around my foreleg to keep the thick pad in place. I shuddered as the linen pressed over the wound. Pins and needles began to rush along my leg, but it was an afterthought compared to the dull agony under the bandages. “You won’t bleed to death on my watch,” said the alicorn as she tied off the linen, “But you’ll have to wait for a potion from Bellenast or a good radiation bath to mend the rest of it.”

She lifted me off the table and lowered me to the floor near the fireplace, off to the side of the hanging stewpots, and put a cushion under my leg to keep it extended straight outward relative to my body. Minty lay down next to me and put her wing across my side, and Nautical made for the front door. “Minty, you keep her warm and you keep her still, understand? Crystal, that suture might tear if you move the leg much. Your descending pectoral’s practically torn free, so it’ll hurt like a bitch to try, anyway. Be a smart filly and don’t. I should be back in an hour or two, sooner if someone feels like teleporting us back.”

“Wait, Naut!” Skipper shuffled around the bloody table in the middle of the room. “Is this really a good id—”

“Skipper, I’m going to fetch a princess because it must be done. Or would you rather wait for her to find us while the filly she is searching for lies wounded in our care? I’m sure that would go over marvelously.” Nautical looked over at me. “And Minty, the next time you see a Bloomfang right under your nose, kill it immediately. I don’t care if it’s a mama with cubs, you shove it face-first into the nearest rock until it stops moving. No exceptions. Ever… Skipper, clean the rest of those cuts, and keep her hydrated.”

The jade alicorn disappeared through the door. Uruqhart walked over to the south window and peered through the heavy curtains.

I rested my head on the cushion by Minty’s shoulder and telekinetically massaged my foreleg; the top half of my PipBuck, and most of my leg, were slick with blood. Minty gave a quiet sniffle and nuzzled the side of my neck, and I muttered, “I thought it was a weasel.”

Uruqhart let out a short, low chuckle. “Weasel? No. Bloomfang badger. Crazy little bastards. Crazy, mad, insane… take your pick and add diabolically aggressive on top. Weasels are mean, too. Just not off-the-charts mean. You can scare a weasel. You don’t scare a Bloomfang. Nothing scares a Bloomfang. Throw a dragon at one and it’ll charge straight ahead. Might even win, if the dragon’s young enough, small enough, doesn’t have its flame yet…” The minotaur grabbed his cloak and fur cap from the wall hook, then his rifle from near the door. “I’m going to meet Pinwheel halfway,” he said, securing the cloak around his shoulders. “Be back soon.” He, too, vanished beyond the door with a swish of his fur cloak and the heavy steps of two cloven hooves.

Skipper came over and lay by my side, then began to dab at the scratches on my ribs and shoulder with a warm, soaked cloth. “What’d you think the Bloomfang Mountains are named for?” I winced, but lifted my wing up so that she could reach several cuts underneath it. The badger must not have been satisfied by merely biting, and had tried to claw at every part of me within reach. “Flowers with teeth?”

“Skipper,” I muttered, voice high and shaky, “I’m from Neighvarro. I don’t know a lot of things, because I haven’t seen anything on the ground except around Cloud Loft Peak, a few places in the middle of nowhere between there and here, a factory in the desert, and one road between Cliffside and Bellenast.” I hissed and shifted my wing away from the scratch Skipper had found just behind my injured leg. “I’ve lived in the literal clouds or a flying metal box most of my life. I don’t know what the animals anywhere look like unless I’ve seen it in a friggin’ encyclopedia. I thought it was a weasel because it kind of looked like one. Give me a fucking break.”

Skipper sighed and murmured, “Yeah, that’s fair. Sorry, my bad… you know, there’s a lotta stuff I’ve never seen. Like… a volcano… or the Smokey Mountains. Pictures, yeah, but dusty old pictures don’t do ‘em justice.” She rubbed the warm rag across a stinging low on my ribs, behind the bandages, and glanced down at the bloody PipBuck on my leg. “So, uh, where’d you get that thing, anyway? Neighvarro? Pick it up in Bellenast?”

I groaned in annoyance, and even the movement of my ribs sent a jolt of pain through my leg. “It’s Pinwheel’s,” I muttered, trying to ignore a sudden sensation of vertigo. “Her mom’s. It was in the barn.”

“Shit, really?! She had a spare one of those just lying around all this time? Those things are worth a fortune to the right ponies. Course, show it off near a Steel Ranger and they might just cut off your leg to get it. Haven’t ever actually seen one of those dudes, though, but everything I’ve heard? They ain’t nice. Flash so much as a spark battery under their noses and they’ll bite your head off to get it.”

Minty gave a soft nicker and lowered her head across the side of my neck, mostly obscuring my view of Skipper.

“Shit! Sorry, sorry. I’m a chatterbox, I know, I can’t help it—I’ll stop—sorry. Stopping.” She finished cleaning the dozen or more scratches on my ribs and shoulder, then began to wipe the blood off my leg, wringing the cloth out in a bucket frequently. The metallic reek began to fade, replaced by the more appealing smell of vegetable stew.

On the opposite side of the hearth, out of the way of the path between kitchen and cauldrons, Nádarin watched me, having said not a single word from the moment Nautical had brought me in.

I levitated his gun from the floor nearby, where Nautical or Skipper must have placed it. The slide had locked open.

“Did it help?” said Nádarin.

I looked from the gun to Minty’s blood-stained, muddy hooves and back to the prince. “No,” I muttered, “Not really… might have just made it angrier, and my ears are still ringing a little.” I pulled the heavily curved magazine free of the gun: Not a single cartridge remained. I set the empty magazine and gun on the timber floor. Skipper eyed the weapon while she wrung water from the cloth, then focused again on a stinging cut on my shoulder. “Why do you carry this thing around if all you had was three friggin’ bullets?”

Nádarin gave a short, soft grunt and climbed slowly, shakily to his hooves. “Three bullets could save a life, by taking another.” Muscles along his shoulders and neck twitched in short spasms of pain, and he coughed once as he walked. Minty raised her head from my shoulder, following the stallion’s path toward us; Skipper spread her wings fractionally away from her torso and set her left foreleg forward, preparing to rise. “A few choice words might do the same… once in a while.”

Prince Nádarin stopped in front of me, looking down at the age-worn gun with something close to reverence. He spun the gun around on the floor with his hoof and pushed on the lower edge of the sheet metal compartment in the empty space left inside the curve of the magazine. “And sometimes,” said the prince, his voice lowering to a murmur, “You say all the wrong words.” He lifted his hoof, and the upper half of the container sprang open. Held securely inside the container by three retaining clips was a monochrome photograph in a circular, tarnished frame, about the width of my hoof. Under the scratched glass was a faded portrait of a unicorn colt—a stallion, if only just.

Prince Nádarin touched the edge of his hoof to the silver frame, and he said, “Sometimes, you are blind… you do nothing right, and you’re left with a foul trinket, instead of a son… a memory you neither can bear to keep nor throw away.” He turned away and went back to the singular cushion and blanket on the floor across the room.

“Shit, dude,” muttered Skipper, “That—well, I’d say it sucks, but…” She shifted her wings restlessly and said, “Kinda rings hollow…”

“Then you are honest.” Nádarin turned to Skipper with mirthless, tired eyes. “I lost my son,” said the prince, “Because I failed him as a father. Nothing can change that… least of all words.” As he sank to the floor and grimaced in pain, he said, “It would seem… I remain as much a fool now as I was then.” He coughed several times, each sound coming out with a wheeze. “Such is life.”

I lifted the picture frame free of the compartment and turned it around under the firelight. Minty shifted her head to allow me to raise mine briefly. Foreign letters and what might have been numbers were etched into the tarnished silver in fine script that flowed together in a continuous line. The emerald glow of my magic revealed myriad scratches in the silver’s polished surface. “What was his name?”

“Sasa,” said the prince, looking over at the gun on the floor. He murmured, “His name was Sasa… he would be twenty-six this year.”

The mere act of lifting my head from the pillow sent me reeling, but I set the picture back in the gun’s small compartment with what remaining focus I had, and carefully removed the set of extension rods and control levers I had made for the battle saddle on my hazard suit. I released the slide and internal striker, levitated the weapon across the room, and set it at Nádarin’s hooves.

“Uh… Bite-Size?” Skipper glanced apprehensively at the prince, then down at me.

“It’s empty,” I mumbled, “And he can’t use it, anyway.” I shut my eyes and surrendered to the siren song of the pillow and Minty’s wing. She sniffled quietly and nuzzled my neck again, and Skipper dabbed at the cuts on my ribs while drowsiness overpowered the throbbing ache in my leg. “Was never going to…”

---

Sudden motion at my side and the deep clunks and scrapes of hooves on timbers startled me back to wakefulness, and I blinked blearily as Skipper moved away from me and toward the south wall. She spun around, her barding clattering as she bumped into the wall, and backed into the corner adjacent the doorway to the next room, seeming to want to blend in among the myriad wood figurines arrayed there on the floor and wall shelves. Uruqhart had returned, and stood by the south window.

“Shit,” muttered Skipper, “Shit shit shit.”

“Easy, Skip,” murmured the minotaur; despite his calm voice, he held one hand on the long rifle leaning on the wall beside him.

Minty stretched out her wing, but brought it back down over me quickly and lay her muzzle across my neck in a protective gesture. She levitated Nádarin’s pistol and the memory orb box over to me and set them next to the cushion.

The front door opened in a haze of green-gold light. Ivy came through the doorway and moved to the right to stand in front of the kitchen entrance; she made brief eye contact with me and looked over at Prince Nádarin, who was equally silent where he lay. Eagle followed her closely through the door in his power armor, sans helmet and crinet, but kept his distance, watching Skipper in the corner and Uruqhart where he leaned against the wall.

Then the most beautiful mare in the world stepped into the cottage. Night Cloud stood stock-still in the entryway for only a moment, clad in white caparison and resplendent steel beneath, then locked eyes with me and came straight over. Minty lifted her head from me once gain.

Night Cloud sank to the floor in front of me without a word and levitated her panniers off to set them aside, then opened them both and withdrew a veritable swarm of gleaming instruments. She set the array of tools on a stainless steel tray she placed atop one pannier box, picked a rounded scissor set from them, attached it to a telekinetic guide rod, and deftly cut the stained bandages away from my shoulder. Minty lifted her wing off me and scooted sideways to give Night cloud room in front of me.

Night Cloud looked at Minty for a second, as if only just noticing the grape alicorn was there at all. Night Cloud’s eyes were red, but dry, and they darted back and forth, no doubt across the scratches and bloodstains on Minty’s coat. Her jaw tensed, and she returned her attention to me.

“Hey, gorgeous,” I said, faint and thready, “Wanna come down here and kiss me, or do I have to stand up?”

She mostly stifled a snort, smiled, and answered. The short, gentle touch of her lips to mine was the most wonderful and reassuring feeling I’d had all day, and ended far sooner than I’d have liked.

“Hey, cutie,” she whispered. She brushed my mane back from my eyes and pulled the bloodied bandages away from my leg. I groaned as the bandages tugged on my fur and peeled off a half-formed scab, and a trickle of dark red ran from the partially clotted puncture. Night Cloud stroked her magic along my neck over and again while she examined me and scrubbed my coat around the wound with a white cloth and disinfectant poured from a dark bottle. She looked over at the corner of the room, where my hazard suit lay in a pile.

“Look who’s been prancing around naked in the snow,” she said softly.

I gave a strained nicker and muttered, “Wasn’t so comfy after I hiked eight klicks in it… kinda stinks, too.”

“Maybe now you’ll criticize me less for not wearing mine every minute of the day.”

“Point taken.”

A brown bottle and several instruments floated into view along with two stainless steel canisters, each about forty centimeters long and ten across and covered with printed labels and warnings painted in white and yellow. While she opened each canister and drew the purple and white components of healing solution from each through clear tubing and into an ampule set in a centrifugal mixer, she telekinetically cleared the scabbing and semi-congealed blood away from my wound and shone a bright, electric light on the once-again-bleeding gash. The mixer spun up to speed for about ten seconds and slowed again, leaving the ampule filled with milky purple fluid.

Night Cloud plucked the ampule from the mixer receptacle and attached it to a syringe, then pulled off the needle cover, and I briefly entertained the idea of voluntarily running away from the most beautiful mare on the planet.

“Oh, come on…”

“Sorry, baby. This is what you get when you’ve run out of radiation.” She cleaned most of the blood from my coat immediately around the bite and used a buzzing, electric shear to shave away a small patch of my coat on my pectoral and another patch higher up on the outside of my shoulder, then held her cerulean magic over both places, which stung and tingled as her horn glowed brighter.

“Now relax,” she said, “This will hurt either way, but it’ll be worse if you’re tense.” She gently held my leg steady in her cerulean magic and massaged around the wound, aligned the needle, and slowly pushed it into my pectoral muscle. I gasped and gritted my teeth at the sharp, pinching pain, pressure, and burning sensation that spread through muscle and hide as she telekinetically pushed on the injector. A soft crackling sound came from the wound as sparks arced across it and muscle joined back together again under the guidance of her magic. Night Cloud withdrew the syringe and next pushed it deep into my shoulder for the next injection.

“Why can’t I just drink it?” I muttered through my teeth. I blinked away tears as they came and focused on breathing and lying still while the hypodermic needle—more like a hollow awl—delivered the not-quite-miraculous potion.

“Local injection is more effective,” said Night Cloud, “Faster, safer, more controllable. Lets you direct the propagation of the spell more easily, to target specific areas that need more delicate guidance, such as, oh, damaged bone, cartilage, and recently sutured arteries. Heal from the inside out, so that you don’t miss anything because the exterior of a wound site closes over before you can finish the internal work.” I shuddered and let out a tense breath as the sparks and faint wisps of smoke faded, leaving behind a small, raw mark on my hide and a stiffness in my leg and shoulder. The much shallower cuts on my ribs and belly stung and burned, but that pain, too, began to fade. Her horn glowed again, and a tingle ran through mine. “Intramuscular injection also keeps more of the solution out of your circulatory system, and therefore away from your baby.”

“Okay,” I muttered. “I guess that’s better?”

Night Cloud nodded. “Until we can perfectly replicate the Ministry of Peace formula… better safe than sorry.” Night Cloud leaned down to nuzzle my jaw. -I’m sorry I couldn’t reach you in time.-

-Oh, don’t even start, Night. It wasn’t your friggin’ fault… where’s Blitz?-

-She was searching to the north; she’s on her way now. I want time with you later. Zephyr’s been a wreck, Eagle too.-

I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up, stumbling as a jolt shot up my shoulder. I raised and stretched my foreleg several times, stomped the timber floor twice, and took the rare opportunity to nuzzle Night Cloud from a slight vertical advantage while she remained on the floor. “Thank you. For everything. I don’t think I can ever say that enough.” A set of heavy steps came nearer, and I reared up to brace my forehooves on Eagle’s armored shoulders as he swept both wings forward and enveloped me with amber feathers.

“Hey, kiddo,” he whispered, squeezing me tightly. “Warn me next time you want to go sightseeing, okay?”

I laughed and nuzzled him; for the first time in nearly three months, the mere scent of a stallion didn’t threaten to make me bolt. He lifted his left wing away, and a pale violet snout and teal mane appeared right next to me. Zephyr hugged me with one wing and nuzzled my neck, drawing in hitching breaths.

“Hey, Zeph,” I mumbled, “I’m okay now.”

Zephyr let out a choked laugh. “Okay,” she squeaked. “This is okay,” she said in a voice strained with anger. She pointed at my still-blood-caked leg and the pile of soaked bandages with her wing. “This is what you call okay?” She gave a hysteric, half-sob, half-cackle and grabbed onto me with both forelegs and wings, pulling me down into the fiercest hug I’d ever had. My ribs protested, and my wings started a riot followed by swift defeat. “Kidnapped, taken to the middle of fucking nowhere for two days, mauled by a fucking badger, and you’re okay. Yeah, sure. Fine. Okay.”

I grimaced and pushed against her forelegs with my wings, reeling as a wave of dizziness struck me. “I didn’t do all that on purpose… and I’m still sore, Zeph.”

“Sorry.” She stopped squeezing, but refused to let go of me. “Baby, I know you didn’t—that’s not what I meant. I’m just glad you’re okay…” She shook and began to sob quietly, pressing her head against my neck and withers. “I was just… angry because I couldn’t do anything, and I was terrified you’d be hurt, and I wouldn’t be able to help… like that factory all fucking over again…” In a sniffling whimper, she said, “I can’t protect you, I never can… I’m not cut out for this… I never was…”

I sighed. “Zephyr…”

“Ironic…” We both turned at the quiet word and ragged, wheezing cough that followed. Prince Nádarin looked barely able to lift his head and speak, but speak he did. “… that those best suited to parenthood, so often say as much…” He coughed again, and flecks of blood stained his foreleg and the pillow on the floor. “… and those least suited… are so ready to claim the opposite…”

Zephyr released me and rose to her hooves, staring across the room at the stallion. She planted one hoof forward and froze, hackles raised and wings half-spread. Her voice trembled as she said quietly, “And what would you know about it?”

Nádarin took a slow, wheezing breath, and muttered, “That I was least suited.”

Zephyr tucked in her wings, but she remained tense and ready to lunge. “Imagine that. A parent kidnapping a child for ransom, and being unsuited to the job…”

Ivy moved suddenly away from the front doorway. “Eagle, Zephyr, make room, please.”

Zephyr looked as if she wanted to kick Ivy straight in the nose, but she obliged, and she and Eagle both moved closer to the blazing hearth and kettles. Zephyr seemed to notice Uruqhart leaning next to the window for the first time, and the minotaur dipped his head to her.

-Blizziera, the entrance is clear. Mind the ceiling.-

An instant after Ivy’s words reached me, a near-ultraviolet flash came from through the windows. Moments after, the outer door creaked open, and heavy steps approached on squeaking floorboards. A second set followed, and Blitz stepped through the front door with her head bowed low to clear the frame with about two centimeters to spare above the top of her cuirass. The entire exposed surface of her barding, sans caparison, was covered in a glittering layer of rime, and she took deep breaths, as though she had spent the last few minutes at a gallop. Nautical approached just behind her.

“Hey, Blitz,” I said, sitting up from under Night Cloud’s wing. What took you so long?

She looked around at everyone present, finished with her eyes on me, and quickly stepped close to lean her head down over Night Cloud and nuzzle my cheek. Her horn flashed, and mine tingled in response to the reestablished coupling. “Sorry I’m late.” I was searching farther north. “Are you all right?”

I pecked her cheek and nodded. “Thanks to Night Cloud.”

“Thanks to Nautical,” said Night Cloud. “I just cleaned up.” She glanced past Blitz at the forest-green mare. “You need to be a physician’s aide.”

-I was, once.-

“Okay, Princess,” said Zephyr, scowling as she pointed her wing at Nádarin. “Now that you’re here, I have one question: What’s the verdict on Shitstain here?”

Blitz stepped back from Night Cloud to turn and stand at nearly her full height, hindered only by the rafters and a desire not to embed her horn in them. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, her lips tightened, and she turned a tired, irritated eye to the ill stallion. “Prince Nádarin,” said Blitz, “Will receive no verdict… until he has received medical treatment, and he has been tried before the High Court.” Blitz moved to stand between Zephyr and the prince, and she said, “Many ponies would suffer tomorrow if we did what you want to do today.”

Zephyr stomped the floor and flared her nostrils in a terse snort as she glared up at Ivy and Blitz, eyes still brimming with tears. “I told you to stay out of my fucking head. Both of you.”

“Young mare,” said Ivy, “I don’t need telepathy to read a book.” She nodded toward me and said, “That filly chose restraint. We cannot allow you to do less. We have a kingdom to protect, and we cannot risk a war with the Empire because one radical group has acted against us. We will have a conference with the Emperor to determine the Prince’s judgement and any reparations to be made.”

I sat down beside Night Cloud and stretched my leg again as Zephyr took a challenging step toward Ivy. “And what are you going to do, then? Send him back home in a pretty carriage if they ask? He deserves a one-way trip to the bottom of a fucking lake!”

“What is deserved,” said Ivy, glancing quickly between me and Zephyr, “Is not for you or me alone to decide.”

“Not for—is that a fucking joke?!”

Eagle set his wing on Zephyr’s back. “Zeph—”

She slapped her wing up to throw his off. “No! After this? After everything he’s done to your home, you’re going to—”

“Hey!” I shouted, leaning on Night Cloud’s side under her wing. Zephyr stopped and looked down at me, and I scowled and said, “He did one really dumb thing. He’s not friggin’ evil, and killing him would be a really bad idea right now.”

“What?” Zephyr stared at me in utter bewilderment. “Crystal, you… don’t tell me you’re forgiving—”

“Will you just stop it?!” I said in exasperation, sighing and pressing my snout to Night Cloud’s neck. She massaged my back with her wing, which did something for my mood, but less than I could have hoped. “Yes, I’m fucking forgiving him! I don’t want anything to do with him or any of this dumb crap, and killing him isn’t going to help anyone, Zephyr. Yeah, he kidnapped me! Okay, fine! Big fucking deal! But he didn’t hurt me, he didn’t even point a friggin’ gun at me, he didn’t club me with a wrench, and he didn’t friggin’ rape me. He isn’t Aurum Bannister, so just stop! Okay?! I’m fine, and it’s over and done. His problem is with Ivy, so let Ivy fucking deal with it!”

Zephyr wilted. She quickly came around Night Cloud, sat closely by me, and hugged me once again. “I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think—” She let out a soft whine as she nuzzled my cheek, and tears rubbed off on my coat. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, “Me, too. I’m sorry, you’re sorry, everypony’s sorry for something. Cool. Fine. Kidnapping’s over, badger’s dead, and Night stabbed me with potions. Everypony chill the fuck out.”

She barked a high, strained laugh and nuzzled me. “Okay, baby… I’ll try.”

“Y’know, it’d probably make things worse.” Zephyr and Ivy and everyone else looked over at the sound of Skipper’s scratchy voice, and the lapis-colored mare shrank into the corner, wincing. “Woah,” she muttered, “Uh, hi, welcome to the show.” She scuffed her right forehoof on the floor, swallowed, and said, “Yeah, so, all these blizzards are bad enough. Do you really want these Empire dudes sending a revenge party over to visit? ‘Cause murdelizing Princey over there is how you get that. Just saying.”

Night Cloud gave a short, choked laugh.

Ivy turned toward Skipper, then strode between Blitz and Nautical. Pinwheel watched from the kitchen doorway, and Skipper’s ears flicked toward Ivy as she stopped not two meters away.

“Uh, hey there, Miss Ivaline… Ma’am.”

Ivy’s ears barely twitched. “Bold, young sister, to wear the coat of the King’s Armoury when you have not earned it… bold or ignorant. Did you buy your barding, or did you take it from the dead?”

“Uhhhh…” Skipper’s ear pinned back, and she scuffed her hoof on the floor again. “Well, it wasn’t doing a skeleton any good…”

“Did you bury the remains?”

“Yeah.”

Ivy gave a curt nod. “Then I thank you for your respect. If you would relinquish it, and show me where you found the owner, I will give you an equal replacement.”

“A replace—” Skipper froze with her mouth half-open. “Wait, what? Seriously?”

“Hey, Ivy? Blitz?” I took a breath as she and Blitz looked down at me. “I have a question, and it’s way more important than some old barding. No offense to the dead.” I enveloped every clasp and freshly made buckle on Skipper’s barding, unfastened them all at once, and lifted the suit away from her piece by piece.

“Hey, hey,” said Skipper, ducking her head as I lifted away the crinet, “Come on, Bite Size…”

Night Cloud drew in a sharp breath beside me as she watched; Blitz’s tail flicked, and her lips curled into a grimace.

I set the barding on the floor. “Night, stand by Skipper?”

Night Cloud squeezed my side with her wing. -I’ve seen enough. They need help.-

-I’m not trying to convince you.-

She stood, taking care not to jostle me, touched my back with her wingtip as she turned, and went over to stand next to Skipper. Unprompted, she began to remove her armor, white caparison first, gleaming plates second, and finally the pearlescent gambeson beneath.

Skipper simply stared as the many pieces of steel came away and floated in a cerulean haze, but barely gave the armor a second glance. “Well, damn,” she muttered, “Look who got all the right stuff…”

-Night, what do you weigh?-

-Three hundred and seventy kilograms.-

I wrapped my telekinesis around Night Cloud and lifted her slowly half a meter off the floor. I set her down again as an ache flared in my skull in time with my heartbeat, then wrapped Skipper in emerald with greater difficulty and lifted her, too.

I winced as my field around Skipper spiked, and she dropped abruptly before she had risen ten centimeters.

The mare stumbled. “You okay there, Bite Size?”

“You’re tall,” I said, rubbing my hoof against my brow at the base of my horn, “And I’m tired. You should be at least fifty kilos heavier than her, not twenty kilos lighter.” I prodded Blitz’s ribs telekinetically. “What’s stopping you from letting them live in Bellenast? You know, where there’s plenty of food and farms to go around? Where you don’t have to worry about the local gangs burning down your house and garden?”

“I thought—” Blitz shut her eyes, and her ears drooped. “Doesn’t matter what I thought… I was wrong.” Violet light built around her horn, she unclasped and removed one of the talismans of her heavy, silver necklace from beneath her collar, and a flash lit the room.

Zephyr jolted in place, ruffling her wings. “The fuck?”

Minty made a soft whine and ducked her head, and Skipper muttered, “Oh, you did not just do that…”

Blitz stomped a hind leg, and her mane and tail burst into rolling clouds of violet that lit the cottage harshly and caused spots to appear in my eyes when I turned away, blinking. The cloud dimmed to a bearable level over several seconds, but remained a glowing, seething mass of something not wholly unlike plasma. When she spoke, her words both seemed to ring within my head and carry beyond the room.

“Did you know of this? Did any of you know?”

A sudden pressure bore down on me, like a migraine centered under my horn, and a chorus of voices sounded throughout the cottage, clamorous and overlapping in disunion, but then a powerful choir overcame the chaos.

{{Children, why have you gone so far? What has happened to—you…}}

I shuddered as an overwhelming feeling of disgust and annoyance took hold of me, and glanced aside as Minty gave a muffled whimper. The terrible choir’s pause was short.

{{Well, if it isn’t the little princess. What brings you down from your golden tower, Your Highness?}}

“I have shown you. See with my eyes, here and now, if you must. Three of your own are suffering, have been suffering, and you have done nothing. You call them your children, yet here they stand, starving to their bones. Do you still claim them, or do you spurn them?”

A riotous murmur broke out, as if a thousand ponies spoke all at once just outside the timber walls, but the riot swiftly grew quiet.

{{We welcome all our children back to us, should they wander astray. They brought this suffering upon themselves of their choosing. They could have used their strength at any time, to rebuke all those who would threaten them, but they chose weakness. They chose to seek you. You, who have wasted our gifts on frivolous pursuits time and time again, and have given nothing in return!}}

Blitz scowled and stepped away from the cottage door as it opened yet again, and in stepped Orchid Wisp in her green barding and leggings. Nautical froze where she stood, transfixed. Blitz strode over to stand by Skipper and placed her wing over the smaller alicorn’s back; Skipper shivered in place, flicking her tail and tapping her forehoof on the floor in a nervous cadence, but she started at the protective gesture.

“That I have nothing today does not mean I will have nothing tomorrow. Our tests require samples and analysis. That takes time. If you would provide me more samples, Claraby could run more tests in para—”

{{Every sample we provide for your blundering is another soul we can’t save! Another pony deprived of our lifeblood, our blessing!}}

“And a young filly would have died without your lifeblood!” shouted Blitz. “Is it not enough that it has saved one life? That it has saved two? Two children who would have suffered the remainder of their lives in disfigurement and crippling agony are now hale and happy. Is that not enough? Is that not a good use of your lifeblood?”

{{Those children don’t understand the true strength we can give because you have taken it from them. You think to know better than all of us!}}

“Numbers suggest my dissent is not unique.”

Blitz looked over at us as Minty’s whimpering became quiet sobbing. Night Cloud rushed over to the young mare and embraced her gently with her wing. “Ivy,” said Night Cloud tersely, “Help them. Please.”

Ivy stood stock-still, merely listening, watching.

{{And you!}}

Nautical tore her dazed eyes away from Orchid Wisp, and a shiver traveled across her body.

{{You have stolen from us! But you are…}}

Nautical’s tail swished, and a sudden blaze of fury surged through me, only to be extinguished by an icy wave of grief and confusion that made me quake and blink away unbidden tears.

{{Nautical Mile, you were a paragon! You hide from our children the same blessing you gave freely to so many! Why? You brought salvation to so many of us, taught so many of us, and now you do this? Why? Why weaken our Unity when we most need strength? Why take our children from us?}}

Nautical turned properly away from Orchid Wisp and said for us all to hear, “Every child I brought to you is now a slave… all it took for me to see that was one pony’s honesty.”

The moment of silence that came next gave way to a mob of raging minds screaming to be heard all at once. I shrieked at the pain in my skull and collapsed on my side, and Zephyr’s panicked words became unintelligible when the screaming in my head became a roar.

{{SLAVE? OUR CHILDREN ARE SOLDIERS! And you are a thief and hypocrite! A betrayer! We have spent a century and more clawing our way up from Equestria’s ruin, building our strength, creating our army from nothing, and you choose to undermine us now? Return to us, our children, and we shall forgive you!}}

A sudden flash of gold washed over the room, and the bedlam in my mind stopped all at once. The fiery throbbing ceased. Minty drew a hitching breath and looked up, and Night Cloud let out a sigh, still hugging the shorter mare. Zephyr pulled me upright and cradled me against herself, holding both wings around me as if to shield me from the very world.

Ivy’s mouth drew into a tight grimace. The light faded from her horn.

“You have held their shackles long enough. They are under my protection now, as shall be all our sisters who should ask it of me, from now until the day you die.”

{{TRAITOROUS WRETCH!}}

The murmurs of anger carried through me once again in a wave, and the choir sang once more, but it quickly grew quiet. The voice of a mare that came through the murmuring was as cold and assured as a glacier carving through a mountain.

{{Your strength is hollow, Ivaline. You are weak, and we grow stronger by the day. Your time will come.}}

Ivy raised one hoof as her horn and eyes lit with a white and golden glow, and she stomped. The clamoring voices howled in revulsion, and one voice like a thousand peals of thunder roared and sang above them all.

“AND WHILE YOU WERE FESTERING IN YOUR PIT OF POISON, I WAS BUILDING A NATION! DO NOT LECTURE ME ON THE NATURE OF STRENGTH, PARASITE!”

Ivy lit her horn, another blinding flash filled the cottage, and all trace of the ceaseless chattering at the corners of my mind vanished in an instant. The few magic lanterns in the room went out, and every pony but Pinwheel gasped or yelped in shock, even Blitz.

The pressure faded, and I shuddered in relief. Eagle sat on my other side and wrapped me and Zephyr with his wings, nuzzling the nape of my neck. Zephyr suffered a full-body shiver and muttered, “Are they done? Fucking Tartarus, my head hurts…”

Minty gave a low groan, Skipper’s legs wobbled as she sat on her haunches, and Nautical slowly lay down, her stare going far beyond the timber walls. Orchid Wisp joined Nautical and lay her head along her neck.

It was as if the bleak cold of Winter had been swept away by the warm sun of Spring in the blink of an eye.

Blitz sighed and rubbed her head with her wing. “Fuck.”

Skipper shook herself and let out an anemic bark of laughter. “Ho-o-oly shitbiscuits.”

“She’s furious,” mumbled Nautical, sounding dazed and distant, “Furious and afraid… she respects you, Ivaline… but that won’t last.”

Ivy slowly shook her head. “It will not.”

Blitz patted Skipper’s back with her wing, then came over to lie next to me, bathing me in the near-ultraviolet light from her mane. “I… I’m sorry.” She touched her nose to my cheek, then raised her head. “To all of you… Nautical Mile, Beat Skipper, Minty Zircon… I am sorry. I did this to you, not the Goddess. You suffered for my pride… my arrogance and foolishness. I…” She sighed and dipped her head once more, squeezing her eyes shut briefly, then said, “Come to Bellenast with us… I’ll help you however I can.”

“I have two extra bedrooms,” said Night Cloud, who had taken her disinfectant supplies out again, and busied herself cleaning Minty’s numerous scratches and the dried bloodstains—hers and mine—on her coat. “You’re welcome to stay with me, for as long as you need.” She tossed her head back to clear her mane from her eyes and said, “There aren’t any extra beds in those rooms at the moment, but that can be remedied.”

“Say, uh…” Skipper pointed her wing at Nádarin. “Speaking of remedies, if you want Prince Ungabunga here to live, you probably want to treat him soon. Bite Size kinda blasted him with radiation.” Night Cloud failed to suppress a chortle, and Zephyr let out a strangled laugh behind her wing. Blitz looked first over her shoulder, then down at me with an inscrutable expression. “Woah, hey,” said Skipper, “It wasn’t on purpose! She was trying to signal you gals, only she went a little overboard and lit herself up like a balefire egg, and Princey wasn’t out of the danger zone, so—”

“Thank you, Skipper,” said Blitz, holding up her wing. “I think I get the idea.” She massaged her head with her wing joint again and sighed, staring at the floor. “I…” She gave me a small smile and shook her head, laughing softly. “I did not expect this of today…”

Prince Nádarin coughed and said in a rasp, “You and I both, Your Highness…”

Blitz let out a dry, hollow chortle, replaced the talisman on her necklace, tucked it beneath her armor, and rubbed the back of her neck as her bright, glowing mane settled back into its normal state. “You’re under arrest, by the way… Your Highness.”

“I gathered.”

“Hold that thought,” said Ivy, and from her saddlebags she produced two weapons, my coach gun and a less-engraved model with a minotaur’s hand grip and stock still intact. “Crystal Dew.” She showed one of the brass shells I had loaded with a rounded, protruding slug machined from solid brass. “You made this, did you not?”

I nodded.

She snapped open the newer coach gun, loaded the shell, formed a double-layer sphere of gold around the gun, and fired it at the ceiling. I flinched and Zephyr gasped as the gun exploded with a muffled thump and flash into a mangled, metal flower, and the smoking pieces fell in a pile at the bottom of the suspended shield. Zephyr squeezed me a little more tightly.

Ivy held my gaze and said, “When you put cannon propellant in something designed for less than a quarter the chamber pressure, and you turn the slug a few hairsbreadths too large, your gun becomes a bomb. Imagine that happening near your head.” She stuffed ruined pieces of weapon into her saddlebags and shook the seven remaining shells in her telekinesis. “I stopped making these a hundred and fifty years ago, and so did everyone else, so until I can teach you to make your own safely, you get them from me and no-one else, understand?”

My ears drooped, and I shakily nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good.” She put my coach gun back in her saddlebags, as well, and said, “I can replace a gun. I can’t replace you.” She turned directly to Nádarin. “Prince Nádarin of House Sunflower. Thank you for depriving Crystal Dew of her weapons.” She glanced sidelong down at me and said, “Had you not, she might well have killed herself while trying to use them against you. Your efforts to avoid threatening or causing her harm in the course of your actions will be considered during your trial, as will be any offer of recompense you are inclined to make on behalf of your House.”

Ivy lifted the bronze box up from the floor near my hooves in her golden magic, along with the emptied pistol, and opened the box to inspect the glass ball inside. “All fifty-three of those ponies under your command—questionable though such a distinction may be—have been captured, and are awaiting trial.”

She placed both the memory orb box and pistol in her panniers and looked down at Nádarin again. “Argent Nimbus has told me that opinions strongly differ between the families. Some of them wish to continue a feud started by ponies now long dead; an inheritance of wounded pride, perhaps. Argent Nimbus is convinced you seek vengeance. I don’t care why you might or might not want my head, because you aren’t getting it. You’re going to help me stop this foolishness, rather than perpetuate a feud that could become a war if the wrong House’s idiot progeny dies.”

“Argent Nimbus is a friggin’ creep,” I said. “I wouldn’t trust a word out of his stupid mouth.”

“He’s under watch,” said Ivy; I couldn’t tell whether her lip had twitched or if she had smiled at me. “Let us worry about him.” You have good instincts. Trust those. “Prince Nádarin? We have graver trials ahead of us than this. You know that in a way few others alive can. Cooperate, work with us, and you may yet contribute to the betterment of both our peoples. Doctor Wisp? See to His Highness’s care until the ambulance arrives. I expect he’ll need a week at least before he is fit for trial; that should be enough time to send an envoy to the Emperor and arrange for a representative to come to Bellenast for council. You are to oversee his treatment during that time. I trust Claraby can authorize that?”

“She already did,” said Orchid Wisp, rising carefully next to Nautical, who glanced lethargically up at the larger mare, but remained lying on the floor. “Remarkably prescient of her.”

Ivy made a curt nod and glance down at Blitz as she turned to the door. “Blizziera, let them eat before you bring them back. Stay close to Nautical Mile. Ward her. Lend her your strength.” She opened the front door and grimaced as she looked briefly down at Nautical. “I leapt into the maelstrom of my own accord… our sister did not. Bring her ashore.” Ivy vanished through the door, and her hoofsteps faded quickly.

Blitz turned from the door as it closed, and she let out a quiet laugh.

“Right,” said Pinwheel Malaise, stepping out from her kitchen doorway with a collection of wooden bowls in her pink magic. “Not to be rude, but now that all that’s done, lunch is ready! Unfortunately, not all of you are invited, on account of there not being enough to go around and some of you needing it more than others! Now, I don’t mind the company, but, eh, this is the crowdedest this little cottage has ever been! You, big Princess pony, you’re a wee bit in the way of the food. Mind scooching over for the gals, if you please? Skipper, you’re first in line.”

“Well, hot damn!” Skipper launched to her hooves and sprang halfway across the room to reach the bubbling stewpots. “Music to my ears, Pinny!”

“Yes, yes, dig in. Don’t burn yourself.”

Blitz carefully stood and moved over toward the west wall, by the front door, and she glanced at the kitchen doorway as Skipper stepped past me and Zephyr, who couldn’t help but stare at the alicorn’s stark ribs with a haunted look on her face. “Miss Malaise… Pinwheel?”

“Yes?”

Blitz pointed her wing at the hanging stewpots. “Is all this from your own stores?”

“Nah, the gals brought most of it by from their place a month or so back for a rainy day.” Pinwheel flicked her long tail and said, “Turns out it was a week of snow and winds that’d make the Frozen North blush, not rain, but what can you do?”

“Ah.” She gestured at the north wall. “And has your first planting been affected?”

“Ground hasn’t frozen and the snow’s melting fast while the sun’s up, so everything should be fine. Just means I might need to do some extra fishing, little bit of foraging. I, eh…” Pinwheel looked over at me with pursed lips. “I expect it’s the snow that drove the Bloomfangs this far up the valley in the first place. They don’t normally come to that patch of the woods, but those bushes are fine in a freeze, so… I should have thought about that when I took the girlies out lookin’ for berries.”

Blitz raised her forehoof. “No-one is to blame, Pinwheel. Thank you for bringing Crystal to the safety of your home in the first place… as well as Nádarin. I can’t say I know many who would have done what you did under such… alarming conditions.”

“Eh…” Pinwheel nodded. “Yeah, I can see why some folks might not, but in all honesty, when I bumped into those two, it was the wee lass that looked like a bomb primed to blow, not Mister River. She, eh, walloped him pretty hard. Twice.” I winced. “Or thrice, dependin’ on how you look at it.”

Blitz gave me a sideways smirk. “I can imagine… anyway, you can expect a delivery of grains within the next week. These blizzards have affected the entire Bellenastian Valley, and beyond. Now that the Tower has been shut down completely, we can begin relief efforts and actual damage assessment, but we don’t have complete records of everyone living in these mountains. If you have any neighbors, it would help us to know exactly where they are, so we can schedule deliveries for those who need the help soonest.”

“Well, if I really need anything, I can just bother Uruqhart and his folks for it, but there are a few ponies five, six miles up the river that might appreciate the help… I can show you on a map if you’d like.”

“Please,” said Blitz, and Pinwheel nodded and promptly trotted back to her kitchen. “The less we have to look, the faster we can help.”

I rested my head against Zephyr, and she brought her wing up to cradle me in response. “Tired?” she murmured.

“Tired, hungry, angry, annoyed, freaked-out… just friggin’… I don’t know, a bit of everything.”

“Way out of your depth?” said Eagle, coming to stand next to us.

“Yeah,” I muttered, watching between Zephyr’s feathers while Orchid Wisp prepared an intravenous Rad-Away drip for Prince Nádarin and shaved clear a miniscule patch of coat on the side of his neck for the needle. “I want to go home.”

“I know the feeling.”

I looked over at Night Cloud again. She returned a sideways glance and smile, but kept her attention on Minty, who sat stock-still while Night Cloud cleaned the shallow lacerations on her right leg. “Guess you never got a chance to look for a place?”

Eagle chuckled. “Nah… I did see something interesting way outside the city while I was flying, though. Looked like a race track. Bunch of storage sheds around a sort of amphitheater, split up around the track. Went into the hills and back, it looked like. It was too far away to see more than that.”

“It’s for chariot racing,” said Night Cloud in tone of derision as she poured drops of the mixed healing potion directly on Minty’s leg; her shoulder twitched as the sparks danced across the cuts the badger must have given her during its death throes. “It’s a dangerous use of one’s time… but plenty of ponies enjoy it. Thrill-seekers, mostly.”

I rolled my eyes and stood up. Zephyr lifted her wing away and let go of me as I moved over toward Night Cloud. I reared up to brace my hoof on her shoulder and pecked her cheek. “You jumped all over a bunch of boulders with me on your back. You are a thrill-seeker.”

She pursed her lips as I sat down by Minty, smirking. “I am confident,” said Night Cloud, “In my ability to jump. That’s something I know.” She wiped clean and dropped a few milliliters of potion onto the last cut on Minty’s foreleg, then pressed the nearly-empty syringe’s needle into a steel tube a bit longer than the hypodermic. The face of the syringe depressed a plate on the tube, she twisted it, a metallic rattle came from the container, and she pulled the syringe away, free of its needle.

She put away the syringe and tube in separate compartments in her pannier box and said, “I am not especially inclined to trust my safety to a pair of adrenaline junkies piloting a hover chariot barely the size of my own body around the Corsair Hills while the rest of the contenders either try to fly three millimeters over your head at a hundred kilometers per hour just to gain a second of lead, or you oversteer and fly off the track and into a ravine.”

“That’s specific,” muttered Zephyr.

“What kind of chariots do they allow?” I said, “Wingpower only, or aerokinetic jets?”

“Wingpower and ground carriages only on the short track, but the Corsair Hills track is open to both. One to two ponies pull, the lancer hooks flags on the track to score—” Night Cloud looked straight at me, her mouth frozen open for an instant. “No. No, absolutely not.”

Eagle burst into raucous laughter. “Night Cloud,” he said, winding down to a chuckle, “You’re telling the wrong filly ‘No.’”

She closed her eyes and let out a slow breath, and said tightly, “You’re probably right.”

Minty chortled and scrawled on her chalkboard, drawing Night Cloud’s attention as she held it up.

‘Sounds fun. Alicorns allowed?’

“Yeah, I’m with Minty,” said Skipper between mouthfuls of stew, “That sounds awesome.”

“Yes, we’re allowed,” said Night Cloud, “With some restrictions. Unicorns may use telekinesis or a pivot harness to aim the lance, but not both during the same race, and the same rule applies for alicorns; I found controlling the lance with the harness easier. Using any magic while pulling is an automatic disqualification, and all unicorn lancers must wear a coupled monitoring gauge for the entire race, to ensure that they use telekinesis only to aim the lance.”

She stood up, having finished tending Minty, and moved over to lie down again next to me. Minty filled a bowl of stew and set it in front of me, then retrieved her own, which was probably four times larger. “I tried it when I was sixteen,” said Night Cloud, placing the bloodied cloth in yet another stainless steel container. “A few practice laps through the Hills and one proper race as a puller. Made a complete fool of myself in the process, and decided I’d rather do other things with my time.” Night Cloud set her wing snugly across my back and nuzzled my cheek, and said, “But I suppose it was rather fun… at least until I lost control on a turn and went off the side of a cliff.”

She gave a soft snort and said, “And for those of you present who were born with wings, allow me to assure you that, no, flying off a cliff doesn’t become any less terrifying in the moment just because you can glide down to the bottom of the ravine… especially when you’re strapped to a chariot with a pony without wings trying to tell you how to use yours.”

“How’d you recover?” I lapped up my first mouthful of the aromatic, slightly spicy stew, and pondered how much I would need to bribe Nautical to cook my every meal for the rest of my life.

“In the hospital,” said Blitz, chortling.

Night Cloud sighed. “I believe,” she said stiffly, “She meant my flying, Blitz… and I didn’t, Crystal. I was a novice flier. Strong wings, very little skill. I crashed.”

My mouth thoroughly occupied, I chuckled and bumped my head on her shoulder.

In the short-lived battle that followed between continuing to talk and eating delicious food, eating delicious food indisputably won.

Author's Note:

Hoboy. I’ve been building up to this for ages. I hope it delivers. Yes, I retconned how Bellenast-made healing potions work. I’ll go back and edit all the other instances of their use eventually. Rather than being like a bottle filled with oil and water, it’s a two-component magic epoxy thing stored like any other medical-grade liquid, minus a need for refrigeration.

Also, if anyone can spot the song titles/lyrics in this, it’ll make me smile, I guess

If there’s anything that catches your attention, whether editorial, continuity-related, or just something that doesn’t feel quite right, let me know. Feedback is blood and I am a mean green mother from outer space! Feed me, Seymour!

Comments

[Madmadmad123]

It liiives great chapter

[Quiznak]

Yeeessss! So glad this is still alive. Great chapter. Excited for more!

[Sir Mediocre]

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Rumors of my death are pseudo-exaggerated!

Because I’m undead. Like most of my characters, actually.

Let’s see:
1. Carbide: Lich, explicitly undead.
2. Doctor Patch: Ghoul, explicitly undead (Who remembers him?).
3-10. Crystal, Night Cloud, Blitz, Ivy, Orchid Wisp, Nautical, Skipper, Minty: Unitoids, undying. Produce minute quantities of necromantic corruption/contamination in their hearts, able to metabolise outside sources and regenerate in perpetuity as a result. Not wholly Undead, but definitely Necromantic Turbo Heart Gang, an implicit subset of Undead.

[Etyco Filly]

God damn, I've actually come around and developed a smidge of sympathy for Prince Gobbledygook. Based Crystal for telling off Zeph like that.

[Sir Mediocre]

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The Many Names of Primaĉe Nádarin di Kasín Hasara Sol (Prince Valley River of House Sunflower):
1. ^^^
2. Prince Jerkoff Di Sol (Crystal)
3. Grandpa, Mister River (Pinwheel)
4. Princey (Skipper)
5. Shitstain (Zephyr)
6. Prince Ungabunga (you/Skipper)
7. Prince Gobbledygook (you)

Not quite so legendary or solemn as Lady Ivaline.

[AndyHunter]

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No problem, bro. I'm glad you take my feedback in a good way.

Remember that long episodes do not mean quality; you can detail your world as the characters explore it. In the first episode, the most important thing is to know the motivation of the characters and their personalities. For me, that was the most serious thing about this chapter—too many explanations.

Adding more dialogue can help, and the details that you think don't add much can be removed. I do this too, because when it comes to "pacing," I'm very bad at it. Sometimes I don't know if some parts are rushed, so I add every detail I can to slow it down.