Lullaby for Midlight

by Blankscape

Chapter 3 - Gray Morning

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The greeting rang out as I heard. There I laid barely awake in bed in my quarters, the specks of dust fluttering up and about in their own drowsy waltz. They were scions to the dream I had just woken from, telling me to do my best not to forget them. The floating specks whispered softly yet with gravity, that I make the memory tangible, lest I lose them to the cloying doldrum days.

"Gray morning," another voice called from outside, in reply to the first. One by one, they stirred out from gentle coil of sleep's embrace and joined the growing chorus in calling out the good-mannered words. It almost seemed sonorous.

"Gray morning," I muttered to myself...what was so good about that anyway? In what world did gray mean anything good or happy?

The early morning thought wound me perplexed with a scrunched brow. Beffudlement gnawed incessantly on my brain for the moment, then the sobering reminder came to me as naturally as I drew breath. I was a meagre doll, another slightly less significant blip in the Aerie. Sitting up from bed, I loosed a pronounced yawn, having come a night's goodly rest. I knew I had been dog tired the moment I had flopped into bed last night, but I simply didn't want to think about the why.

First thing's first, some water. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. By my rickety nightstand, I took hold of a glass halfways full as it idly stood by a candle that had snuffed itself some time in the night. With about a third left before it was spent, I was thankful the candle did not run out. I had only two other candles for the rest off the month, and it was barely a fortnight. Better be careful. After taking a drink, I took passing observation of the water. Its slight turbidity churned in my swiveling hand, and the sight of the specks that floated in it gave me insight into a lingering sensation that rubbed in my mouth. Its coarseness caused me to stick my tongue out. Ugh, what I wouldn't give for real clean water. Still it couldn't be helped, and at least the first item in my morning routine was checked off. To abide by the day's first swig of swill. Setting the glass back on the table, my eyes fell upon the things by the candle. Sheets of slightly crumpled scrap paper, a quill rummaged from the garbage and a broken bottle's bottom that served as an inkwell. The trio stared back at me expectantly, knowing at times I would reach out to them first thing in the morning. And it was well enough I kept them there handy. I had a dream to log.

After turning to sit more comfortably in bed, I pulled the nightstand closer to me with some effort, causing it to drag its splintered legs on the rough floor. The noise used to be grating to my ears in the past, but no longer.

As I took the quill in hand, a lithe yet resilient craft cobbled from a chipped bone, passing fancies of ghostly remnants came to mind. Was the creature it came from just some lumbering beast, or a hapless soul with the wherewithal to ask for mercy? Countless bones like these were found in the Aerie every day, nondescript and untraced. I shuddered to think this bone had come from someone once alive...someone like me. The ink in the well was decidely less morbid in origin, a runny paste mashed together from mud down the street, pieces of coal, and a splash of water whenever the paste dried. That's another item off the checklist. Pondering the morbidity of my everyday possessions.

Grasping the quill firmly, I readied my words as I dipped it in the inkwell.

"A dream none too far removed. A dream nonetheless" I mouthed as I touched pen to paper, heading the title. It was a habit of mine. Not like anyone would listen to the musings of a doll.

"There were ponies in my dream this time, only they were on all fours like we used to be. I had never had a dream centered on them before. There were so many of them, running around in the woods." Those words should have brought a smile to me, as all my other dream had before. "...carrying torches."

The detail had just come to light in my mind now. It was a dream, and the memory of it began to spoil. Just as I paused with the quill still on paper, the small blotch that threatened to well reminded me to hurry on and not waste paper. "And pitch forks and nets. It all happened in a pale wooded forest beneath a towering mountain. It was the dead of the night."

I stopped to dab the quill in the well and refresh it.

"We were on our way to some town, and I think I was a traveller to some extent, though I couldn't remember if I travelled alone or with someone else... Someone or somepony? I wonder how they would have said it..." Dabbing the pen again as I pondered the tangent, I half wondered if I should scratch it off but decided to keep it. "They probably would prefer somepony, I think. And I probably did travel with some...pony else, or at at least that how it felt in the dream."

Saying it that way rolled awkwardly off my tongue, and I pondered on the strangeness of the new word before going on. Even more strange was my dismally small penmanship. No one would be able to read it!

"We were coming in from off country, a caravan of drab looking unicorns, ground pounders, pegasii and a few griffons. Of the winged ones, none of them clipped! They could fly! Everyone and everypony living in this country looked so vibrant and alive. At night, the soldiers came upon our caravan and woke us up. They called for us to help them, and as we formed into smaller parties I learned from hearsay that the capital had been attacked earlier that day."

I stopped to ponder the right words to describe aptly what I could remember. Best to keep in concise. It wasn't like anyone would get to read this. For my eyes only.

"A changeling invasion had been thwarted." I couldn't help but pause there, making another small blotch by accident before continuing. This entry was getting messy, and I was a half out of page.

"Before asking I had no clue, but right then it was clear that the soldiers had rounded us up to join in their bug hunt." A skittering buzz blew a draft into my window, nearly snatching the paper from under my pen. It made another splotch on my page, taking up more space left of my thoughts.

"Hey! I'm writing here!" I hollered with a disdainful fist.

"Well, excuse me, esteemed egghead! Some of us have actual jobs!" The reply echoed from up above, the speaker now a small black blob in the distance. There was no use in engaging him at this point, so I returned to writing.

"We had to search through miles and miles of the forest we were assigned to. It had gone on for a few days and nights, but the search proved fruitful as few had found over two dozen of them. They were drones with barely any strength to stay awake, and the ones that did, they ordered us to beat them back into unconsciousness. If that wasn't enough they even encouraged us to rip out what was left of their torn wings. It was...barbaric. I wanted no part in it any longer. So on the last night I ran away, telling them I would check on something that caught my eye. But then it happened."

The exact detail of that part escaped me, and I cursed the daybreak for coming at such a crucial moment. Steady contact of the quill caused another blotch to grow on the paper, and I quickly retracted my hand, cursing myself this time for my inattentiveness. Even less paper now, great.

"I heard someone crying nearby. I looked under a large root and saw her there. A changeling queen." I had to end it there. There was barely any space for for the entry stamp. For that I groaned under breath over the crummy start of my day. Regardless, my thoughts wandered back to the changeling queen from my dream. I had never seen one before, and I barely recognized her when I saw her. What was she doing there? Why did she order an attack on the capital? What was she after in the end? I would have asked her all those questions and more, were in not for the daybreak...or was it graybreak? I kept forgetting. Some lingo never really struck a chord with me.

Counting the spare pages left, I huffed another groan realizing this amount wouldn't last me through the week. Below them was a measly stack of five pages, from a dear friend in correspondence. The papers she had sent were pristine, it was tempting to wash off her writing and peddle them for a pretty penny. Even more temping, to use it myself. But I staved away those thoughts. Well, there was my reason to work. It was time I got ready. Taking the basin leaning on the wall and the slightly dank towel laid on it, I left to head for the commons washroom.

On my way through the derelict halls, I met the usual house help, an old drone named Kreen.

She was unlike the changelings from the dream who walked on all fours...or rather the changelings in the dream were unlike the everyday changelings I dealt with. For they stood upright. Some were average drones, ranging in sizes and heights close to mine. Scouts and infiltrators were much smaller, reaching only to my waist. A bit uncommon in number. They were blessed with larger wings though as well as strong flight muscles and a light carapace, which allowed them to fly, as was the changeling that passed by my window earlier. Now Kreen was a drone, and I saw them everyday. There isn't much to say about them though. They were normal, I guess? Then there were the changelings of a higher blood. Soldiers were a rare sight in Garriene, larger than the average drone. I seldom saw them around, the vast majority likely now into the greener pastures of Verdandeil, rendering their services. On the other hand, I had only ever seen a chevalier once before, and they all had departed for Verdandiel by now, likely under similar circumstances. Now Queens were mystery to me, yet the changeling I saw in my dream gave off a queen majesty even in her downtrodden state. Maybe if I drew out her details down later, Kreen could tell me if she was a queen. But that would mean saving enough money to buy a pencil!

"The future is turning ambitious," I whispered with a chuckled.

An ear swiveled on Kreen's head, and she turned to address me. "Well, gray morning to ya, Parny. What was that you were mumbling about?" Ever the nosy character, it had always been on honest-to-goodness curiosity.

"Ah, it's nothing. Just this really strange dream I had. Set the gears in my head turning, it did."

"Well, just make sure you don't dawdle and lose another haul, especially so soon," she reminded me with a waggle of a broom in claw. "Off to start the day? Marn just finished his shift last night, said he got ya folks an extra forty gallons today."

Good news and bad news to my ears. Scratching my head I mustered a smile for her. "Gray morning, and thanks. I'll be sure to give him a discount next time he wants something scrounged."

Morning wash had gone about as usual. Wordless and uneventful, as grimy steaming pipes and swill bath water went, which at the very least was warm. And pretty great all in all, considering the others with me in wash today. A lumbering pair of a minotaurs scrubbing dirt from their night shift at the mines off each other. A sultry pone washing her clients' filth with the exotic scents and soaps they gifted her. And mangy griffon hen who had been here longer than anyone can remember, washing today's load of laundry in her very own corner. It wasn't too crowded. No mishaps, no assaults, no brawls, and especially no nasties. It was a good wash. The sight of the hen and those nubs though. Seeing them squirm on her bare back never failed to get a gawk out of me, even in the face of the more revolting sights the Aeire had to offer. Poor griffon, her dreams as plucked as her wings.

Now back in my room I only had to slip into attire before heading off. Stinky tatters wafted stalely when I opened the drawers, and when I put them on, it caused my skin to itch. I would have liked shower every night instead if I could, even in swill, but Marn didn't solely work on the boilers of our alley. Their were dozens of others than needed his attention. Arguably his job was the most tiring of us all.

On my way down, I met Kreen again as she tended to morning meals. Today's highlight was last week's moldy bread. And not just crummy and stale ones, but ones with bits of mold growing on them and freshly gnawed at by evicted ants. Either that or the early birds got the good bread on their way out.

"Oh ya aren't eating today too? You know meals are covered in your rent," she pointed out, a million lenses in her eyes pondering my paying arrangements.

The sight of the moldy bread put my appetite off, but I wasn't about to tell her that. "It's all fine, Kreen. I'm a fat sloven pone who needs to work more anyway."

She shook her head. "Nonsense, you work just as hard as anyone else in the alley. So here's a little something from my personal garden."

Peering inside the small bag she handed over, I was surprised and humbled to receive such a fine batch of peanuts. Not one of them looked spoiled...not on the outside leastwise. "I don't know what to say." Actually I did, but I just didn't what her to know. I learned my lesson the hard way that changelings had hardier consitutions. But that didn't mean her odd gift didn't have its uses.

"Then don't!" The carapace around her mandible morphed into a wide toothy grin. Good intentions soaked in a broth of rotten eggs and spoiled milk, that what Kreen was. "Just go work yet flank off, okay?"

Rather than gawk there and look stupid for longer, I took to her suggestion, chuckling warmly at her kind gesture before returning a wave then heading out the door.

My commute through lowtown was a long and winding route, but when you learned the shortcuts like I had, you wouldn't have to suffer through the slogging crowds. Here at the port area was where the crowd turned dense and slogging. I had to be careful and keep my hands to my pockets, lest some ruffian pinch my purse off me. Arriving at the port proper, I presented my tag and acquired my raft.

Seeing the dingy thing moored on drab shores, I was so eager to set off and return to that island again. But I caught notice of its runty dim crystal underneath glowing pathetically. That meant I had to go have it change. If I didn't, I'd run the risk of it turning full rock on me, and falling into the abyssal seas. The delay only egged on my enthusiasm, and I scouted the horizon for a telltale silhouette. My spirits were laid low when I realized it was gone. Vanished among the other island that drifted aimlessly over the abyss.

"Oi, where's the new shore that popped up a fortnight ago?" One guy asked another behind me, both likely scrappers themselves. Their faces were hidden in the same tattered masks as mine.

"Well, don't look at me as if I had somethin' to do with it! Got me just as surprised as you are now, seein' I arrived at such ungodly hours." He was smoking a pipe when I turned to check my raft. "The shame of it is the port authority just released this new map on the island after surveying it."

The other scrapper threw his pick at the ground in frustration. "Damnit, I should've gone in when I had the chance. The biggest shores in forever and ripe for the pickin', gone!" He shouted, kicking up dirt in the air. If only he knew what it was really like over there, he'd learn it would be the farthest from what he expected.

"And risk roamin' its plains till you got good and lost? Don't be an idiot. You know the old adage about certain opportunities. Now why don't we go over to one of the shores on the Brink, eh? Better than sittin' our flanks here and wastin' the gray light."

The younger, smaller scrapper sighed. "I suppose you're right, pops." Both in agreement, they headed for the opposite end of the port, dragging their rafts in tow.

I was surprised. And here I was thinking they'd break out into a fight. Scrappers in a scrap if you would. Then again, I hadn't expected them to be related. In any case they were right. The Brink might have been picked dry at this point, but it was the largest island and had all sort of nooks and crannies tucking treasure away in paths less tread. Said paths were also likely more dangerous, needing forethought and cooperation, a scarce combination ever sorely needed in times such as these. Oh, well. Better to divvy up loot than die alone. I had better catch up to them and join in. Changing the crystal could wait.

I walked and approached the pair from behind. But before I could speak up, someone else had approached me from behind first, a tap on my shoulder garnering my attention.

"Fat sloven pone, I presume?" A muffled sly voice whispered smugly in my ear, followed by friendly dagger's edge not far from caressing my throat. "Sloven maybe right, you've dulled considerably. Let's see how heavy the fat weighs down on your feet, shall we?"

As a scrapper with a fair amount of confidence in my own wits, I was loath to oblige. Fingers squirmed through my clothes, in and out at a speed. It had been so long since I had been swindled myself, that I swung my body in a quick turnaround, eager to capture the perpetrator where they stood. And yet the anxiety of emptied pockets flooded my hands, causing me to cross the aforementioned actions in a haphazard mess. As such I fell to the muddy ground, dazed from the impact as I watched the thief scurry off.

"Appreciate the charities, love!" The masked thief hollered with a wave and a kiss goodbye.

The birds, rather than chirp, cursed profanities for me as they circled my head. It took me a second to gather my bearings, but the instant I got foot, a detail gnawed a familiar bite with irate clarity. This setup...I've seen it before.

"Hey you!" They had already rounded the bend before I could address them. There was no choice left to me but to give chase.

Passing the same corner, I spied a telling tailcoat whisking down another corner just enough for me to catch a glimpse. Rounding another left turn, the minute detail caught my eye again if only on its tail end of its nifty high-end leather, now that I noticed. The goose chase went along as such for quite a few turns, leading further away from the docks and transitioning into the Aerie proper. A ragged breath caught my winds as the crowds began to thick. The plaza where I now found myself was ripe with the scent of labor, booze and dirt. A perfect place to lose me. If only said braggart of a thief didn't underestimate me and literally wear their earnings! Hiding in plain sight, I've gotta hand it to them. But this only puts things in my advantage!

"Gotcha, you--"

"Thief! A thief!" My prey cried out when I pounced! It was a different voice now, sounding gravely and old. In the thick of the bustling crowd, the call was quick to gain attention, and my action came under scrutiny by all within immediate earshot. "Someone help! I'm being pinched!"

"What's this about pinching purses? In the middle of a gray day?" One minotaur constable puffed, lumbering his huge self past a mumbling crowd. "A scrapper hitting rockbottom, now that is a sorry sight, if I've ever seen one." He commented, t'sking away his indignation as he held me aloft by the scruff of my jacket.

"Get off me!" I shouted, a disconcerting tear making its way to my ears from behind my head. "You're ripping up my gambeson, you oaf!"

"Then you'd better think things through before stooping down to lowly thievery! I know scrapping's not the most fulfilling of jobs, and quite the farthest from glamorous. But decent wage is decent regardless." He may be preaching righteous words to get into the crowds good graces. But I've seen his modus before. Having gotten him to turn a blind eye several times in the past, the crooked constable's face etched a familiar impression in my memory. But it seemed the reverse wasn't mutual. Another thing in my favor. I didn't know whether or not he's turned a new leaf but he was still in my way. Time for a diversion.

"And you call yourself a constable, passing blame before due evidence is presented! The real thief is over there, you idiot!" I pointed toward the thieving actor playing the victim, but the whistle blower had already gone.

"You're not pulling the wool over my eyes--"

"Not there, over there!" I pointed again.

Still as dumb as ever, he didn't catch my second bluff. "Where!?" The crowd, riding his rhythm, tagged along in his gullibility.

A subdued rip barely rang out last my own ears as I tore into my coat. Well, there goes my hood. Slipping past the crowds, I was in the clear for now, and with a second wind to boot. Good thing I had an extra head cloth to wrap my hair in, or its pink pastel hues would have given me away. Catching a glance of the telltale nifty leather coat tail, there was no doubt to it.

"You're toying with me, aren't you?!" I yelled in a run for the thief, who leaned against a corner, yawning.

Seeing them round another corner, I entered a mad dash, resuming the goose chase. Their plan was to tire me out. Too bad for them, they were dealing with a scrappy scrapper! I had my legs beneath me, made strong and hardy, owing that to working my bones tired out on the abyss for a living! I knew I had endurance on my side. What I didn't know was the stack of crates precariously situated round the bend, ready to careen down on me as I made the turn. The top of the stack barely stuck past the corner as I entered it, and just as barely did it graze me as it toppled down. While having largely evaded it, the brick wall nearby caught me in my roll unyieldingly, returning my recklessness as a painful impact.

"Great, more bruises for the night," I gruffly complained while shaking my head and picking myself up.

"And bruises mean mistakes. Hopefully that crash lodged that lesson in your thick skull this time, eh?" The thief scolded, relaxing by the wall while playing with a lock of pink... Wait a minute.

"It's such a shame, love. You've really let yourself go. Maybe if I sped things up, the proper chord would strike in you?" Chuckling victoriously, she started off again! This was the end of it, time to wrap this up!

I gave chase only for a short while, matching her speed rather than trying to catch up to her. When the next turn came, I stopped short, foreseeing another stack of crates she sent falling in anticipation of me. This time, I shimmied up a pipe and made for the roof, wanting to cut the thief off. We had entered the warehouse complex of the Aerie now, and an idea took root. Following the sound of havoc in her wake, I tossed off shingles down to the ground to emulate my footsteps. The crates and barrels came down, a telltale trail clear from my vantage point. I only had to follow that trail, and throw her off certain turns with my shingle bluffs.

"Oh, shoot," the thief cursed, looking winded herself. There it was, a dead end catching my quarry.

Jumping down from rooftop to rooftop, and finally down on the ground with a vindictive stomp, I eyed my target, vigilant for shifty moves. "You've no place to run, love," I shot back in a scowl, noting the high warehouse walls. Even so, the thief kept calm, carrying pompous confidence in her stride. That there was a shifty move in and of itself. Being sure of one's self was the first step to fooling others.

"Okay... So you got me, love." The shrug in defeat and quaver in her voice was a complete one eight from her earlier air and tone. It was oh so enjoyable watching her squirm. "In fact if you check your person, you'll notice I didn't take your wallet in the first place. Haha, surprise! Wild goose chase!"

Seeing her shrink away as she always did, it was both endearing and grating at once. But more of the latter, considering what she just put me through. She definitely deserved this! "And you're just as sloppy as ever!" A quick slug to the face was enough to shake her down, unmasking her as she took to a knee.

"Hey, Parnella. Always good seeing a familiar face, isn't it?" Familiar face indeed. A face that, to the uninformed, inextricably matched mine. Right down to the pink pastel hues in her straightened locks in her pony tail and even the carefree skyblue in her shifty eyes. Folk none the wiser would assume we were twins. But the circumstance was more complicated than that.

Flicking her on the muzzle, she winced more so than when I had slugged her. "In your case, Piper, it could go either way."

---

Sleep's soft embrace cradled me in a blanket of darkness. I could just stay here and keep ignoring the waking world. Here I'd remain, safe and carefree, away from all troubles.

No, I had to get up. I needed answers.

The darkness receded at the lazy afternoon's amber glow and my eyes fluttered open. The sand in them briefly irritated my eyes as I blinked in the afternoon light. With a flick of my hoof, I whisked the sand away with...a hoof?

"Gah!" The sight of a purple hoof where my hand would have been took me for a shock.

Before panic could set in, another migraine set itself snuggly in my head, and I waited for it to pass. Arms clutching my head, and legs tucked into my belly, this headache proved brief and benign compared to previous ones thus far. I had a feeling I've been having one too many headaches in recent times.

Then and there, a rush of memories flooded my mind. A warm and hearty meal shared with friends. The surge of pain that explained my transformation. Mergo cradling me in her arms. A pair of piercing red eyes that seems to prod and pry at my soul. No cries in anguish, nor shouts of anger. I only shuddered and stared blankly into space as the memories came back to me. But that wasn't the end of my recollection, no. There were more. An unwary stop by the cottage. My innocent jaunt in the forest. And my unwitting happenstance upon the Mergo, her companion and the portal that manifested there...and flesh dust.

The memory caused me to gag.

"Oh! She's gonna get it the next time I see her! And not just a stern talking to either. Just you wait, Mergo. Just you wait!" I shouted, clenching my fist...we, hoof.

Seeing it so clear and vivid for the first time, I pulled the appendage in for closer inspection. No digits, no stubs, not even the ghost of my knuckles. Just a dull horseshoe slab of nail sticking out from the bottom of my hoof. Giving the rest of myself a once over as well, there was no denying it. I had been turned into a purple unicorn.

"Kirin glow!" I loudly uttered the old call from myths with a raised hoof, hoping to get any reaction.

"Kirin glow!" Still no response. Maybe I had to chant it?

"Kirin glow, Kirin glow, Kirin glow!" Nothing. Not even a spark. Throwing myself back in disappointment, I whined in frustration. "Man, he's supposed to be boss! Why can't I do magick like the Kirin?"

There was no point in staring at my hooves. My empty stomach grumbled and wretched for my neglect. I needed to fix that. But before I could, the first immediate hurdle presented itself. "I never thought I'd have to go through this again with conscious effort."

One steady hoof on the floor, I pulled my upper body over my legs...and fell flat on my face. "Ow."

I nudged myself on the head with a reprimanding hoof. "Idiot, you're a pony now. You have to go on all fours." The idea dropped an unfamiliar weight in my belly, having to stoop down to an animal's level.

Right arm hoof, up. Left arm hoof, up. Back legs, at the ready. It propped myself up like a table, but the unfamiliarity of the position and height threw me off, making me shake at the knees. One-up'ing their example, my elbows gave in and buckled down.

"Okay, okay. Try that again." With a little pep talk, I was on all fours again, surprised and emboldened that I wasn't so shaky this time. "Alright, one hoof forw-"

I had slipped again but caught myself right before falling over completely. "It's fine, it's fine." With more words of self encouragement, I retracted the errant hoof and settled back into a stand, one more stable than the last that filled me with good vibes. "Alright, let's try again."

My hoof went forward...and I fell again. And again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

The cycle went on for almost an hour. Tears welled in my eyes as I huffed frustratedly at my lack of progress. "Come on, just go already! Why won't you work!?" I yelled at my hooves.

Amber hues turned dull and drowsy as the yawning sun neared the last leg of its course. I was hungry, alone and on the brink of giving up.

"Just go already!"

Fueled by aggravation, impatience got the best of me and sent me in a push forward, courtesy of my back legs. "Hah, I'm running!" I realized. But not for long, as a wall proved all too eager in halting me to a sudden crash by the low dresser. "Ow."

Hoof finding purchase on the dresser, I pulled myself up in view of the mirror. "I was walking, wasn't I?" Looking at my reflection, I tried remembering what I saw on the mirror before I crashed, the little details and subtleties that made that run possible. Joints on automation, one hoof after the other...the ambling rhythm in my legs. It was all so complicated detail for detail, yet so very simple when put all together... "That's it, isn't it?" I whispered uncertain. No one could tell me I was right or wrong. I had to see for myself.

I pushed myself off with one back leg, wincing in anticipation of the ground. But my hooves had my back, quite literally, because I didn't fall. I was walking now, not thinking about the process and its details. Making a right by the bed, then left and finally, rearing on my back legs. I was in full control!

"Alright, that's what I'm talking about. Almost like riding a bicycle!" The crude comparison made me chuckle at its simplicity. Then the realization struck me. Or rather, it struck me again as I skidded to a halt. I was in control. This was my body. I was a unicorn now.

"No, no, no, no! I am not a unicorn, I'm a human. And when I get Mergo back, I'll have her turn me back and introduce her face to my fist. You hid something from me for so long and you're gonna get it so bad! You hear me!? BAD!!" I couldn't exactly tell if she was watching me somewhere, somehow...but she had better heard me!

"Hmph! Now then, I better eat something before it gets dark." Riding on newly found confidence and my recent remastery over my limbs, I strode into the hallway, quite full of myself. The feeling was set aside though, when I noticed the deadened silence pulled over the once cheery confines of the cottage.

There was no one here. The couch laid bare and unoccupied and the door on the second floor hung ajar. The door creaked slowly as the wind pushed it to a close, as if to drive home my solitude even more. "They must have ran from all the commotion...or when they saw me. I know I would."

From sorrow to hysteria, hysteria to frustration, then frustration to confidence, and finally back to sorrow. Within the span of a short hour, my day had been veritable roller coaster of emotions that had come full circle, and it dug a pit in stomach that overshadowed all other emotion... Suddenly I wasn't so hungry anymore.

A sudden stir from the blankets on the couch gave me a scare. I nearly tumbled back into the kitchen table. The couch wasn't bare, no...there was just something smaller in it.

"Kirk?" I called for my friend, pushing the sheets to the side. He was a pony now, just like me, minus the horn...and still sleeping. Typical.

"Come on, Kirk! Wake up! Wake up!" I tried everything to wake him up. Shaking him, clapping my hooves at his ears, slapping his face silly and red, even dragging him off the couch. Nothing worked, he was out like a light. "Why won't you wake up?"

Hold on a second...if Kirk was still here... "Then that must means-"

My hooves raced into flight from under me, drawing me up the stairs to the master bedroom. Without pause I pushed the door open, breaking the knob and causing it to bang against the wall. Between the blankets and the bed, a lissome body laid there undisturbed through the commotion of the night and hush of the day. Pulling the sheets away, Connie lay there as still as Kirk was, now a horse along with both of us. "Oh, Connie. Not you too..."

One complication after another. A telltale scent caught whiff in my now sharp nose, overshadowing my surprise of Connie's inclusion in the predicament. An overpowering smell. Robust, fuming...and rotten.

Warning bells rang out in my head.

I grabbed hold of Connie by her scruff, throwing her body across my back. Going down the stairs, she fell off and I had to resort to dragging her out of the cottage by her tail. I should have been surprised how she slept through her head banging on each step, but safety came first. Setting her by the lamp post, I remembered the storehouse close to the shed. Zipping around the cottage and past the shed sheltering Kirk's car, four hooves gave speed to my step faster than my own two legs could than ever before. In the open storehouse behind cobwebbed tanks sitting in the dust, the valve jutted up, rusting in its angled anchor on concrete wall. It took me some time, fumbling digitless wrists on the handle, but I finally managed to squeeze it between my hooves and turn it. No more gas, no more danger.

"Connie," I called to her as I came back. She still lay there on brown leaves, not a peep or twitch. As stiff as Kirk was when I found him... "Goddamn."

In another gallop I rushed back inside the cottage. There Kirk still lay at the foot of the couch on the floor, snoring and sleeping like a baby. Like I had any reason to worry about him in the first place! "Damnit... And damn you too!" I yelled, pointing a cursing hoof at his snoring form.

"Keep it down, will you? People are trying to sleep," a voice replied past a mighty yawn.

With hesitation or delay, I threw a slap on Kirk's smug sleeping face. "You idiot! The gas was leaking and you slept your lazy bum through a potential disaster!"

"I slept through what now--woah! Gah! Gaaaaahhh!" His indignation subsided in favor of abject fear and apprehension. "Gah, a talking horse! Tiny talking horse!! I must be dreaming! I must be dreaming! Someone wake me up!" He shouted, the panic that set in him sounding all too familiar. In his growing fit of hysteria, he resorted to pretending he didn't see me, hiding beneath the blankets. All the while his disheveled auburn head peeked a tuft of hair as he fumbling with his newfound form in his impromptu panic room.

"Get a hold of yourself, Kirk! It's me, Agatha!" I shoved the coffee table away to give him some much needed space to breath and move, but the only direction he wanted to move into was back against the couch. Hearing him blabber himself further into hysteria started to grate on my ears, so I gave him another dose of my hoof. "I said, get a hold of yourself!"

"The tiny talking horse hit me twice, and it ate Agatha!" The couch clattered as it hit the wall, causing Kirk to wince in pain for some reason. "Aaahh, that smarts!"

"Hold on a second, okay, Kirk!? Just calm down!" To better help him actually calming down, I breathed in and out in long intervals, motioning for him to follow with my hooves. "Calm down, okay? It's me, Agatha. Breathe in, breathe out."

Fortunately me, he took the cue and chose not to further exasperate himself, winding down his panic and now focusing on his sudden transformation and, to some extent, the pain on his back. "Ow, ow, ow, what's happened to me!?"

"Here, let me get that for-"

He stopped me with a frantic hoof, surprising me for a second that the fact he now had hooves instead of hands now didn't surprise him just yet. "Wait, wait, wait-ow, wait. I didn't say I trust you just yet." He tapped the floor rapidly as he collected his thoughts. "If you're really Agatha..."

"Oh, geez." A particular memory came to mind, one I knew he'd most likely resort to proving my identity.

"Then tell me what happened on the fourth grade, seventeenth of November!?"

"Easy. Vice Principal Gandha was arrested for brokering and organizing a underground disabled midget fight club-"

He stopped me with another hoof, but not before he stifled a chuckle in his throat. "Between us."

There was no helping it. "Hah... I asked you to meet me after class...and I confessed to you.."

"And?" He insisted I go on further.

"Oh, come on, Kirk! I said-"

"And!?"

"And I kissed you...and there was tongue... Happy?"

"And!?"

Oh my god, this was never going to end unless I outright spilled my guts for him, wasn't it? "And then Connie and some other girls caught us together, spread rumors around and eventually, Andy Przewodnik hear about it too, but not before her puritan father, our P.E. coach, also caught wind of it. He heard how you let me down, and that you had your sights set on Andy, so he put a restraining order on you, had Andy homeschooled for the rest of the term, and moved away first thing when the school year ended... Are. You. HAPPY?" I twitched in that one breath delivery as Kirk still writhed in pain.

"You really are Agatha, aren't? You sound too tough to be Agatha, though. What happened to us?" Now relatively calm and not squirming on the ground, the pain on this back subsided greatly.

"Just what are you mumbling about?"

"Exactly what I said--Owowow!! God, that smarts..."

"Quit your mumbling, you idiot. And before I answer that question, let's have a looksee at what's making you hurt so much." I nudged the couch away, opening a crack between it and the wall. Seeing him seethe, I lessened my efforts ever so slightly. Eventually a tuft of feathers stuck out, having been pinned against the wall, and obviously lead under the couch. We were both ponies now, so the hunch that popped into my mind didn't seem far-fetched. "Uh, Kirk..."

"What is it?" He replied with a hint of fear.

"If this means what I think it means," I questioningly began, showing him one of the larger feathers that had fallen off. "Then you might not be just any normal pony."

My hooves grasped the bottom of the couch quite easily, to which I was amazed that these wrists had more flexibility than I thought. "On the count of three, I'm going to lift the couch, and you're gonna hightail your lazy bum off the floor. Got it?" He nodded at my instructions.

With a firm grip on the couch, I upended it from its submission hold on Kirk, and he got up on three legs with less difficulty than I did on all fours. The blanket on him fell to the side, revealing the golden summer wings that sprung out of his back.

"You're a pegasus," I uttered disbelievingly.

"I'm a what now?" He asked, still massaging his back with one arm. Only after feeling himself up a bit more did he notice the two new feathery additions to his total limb count. "I have wings!?" The surprise weighed heavy on him, and giving his knees a shake as they buckled under him, much to my satisfaction, I admit.

"Okay, okay. This is great," I chucked, staring at the tangled mess he bound himself into.

"What do you mean, this is great? We've both been turned into horses! This is no laughing-owowowowowowow!!" His wing jerked upward when he stood on it with a hoof by accident, causing his two shoulders to dig into themselves. I almost felt sorry for him.

"First off, I was being sarcastic. Second, ponies. We're not big enough to be horses...and we aren't the only ones that got turned into ponies," I clarified, pulling him up with one arm and pushing one of his wings to a close with my head.

"So Connie and Mergo, too?" He asked, attempting to keep himself upright. Afraid as his elbows and knees rattled under him again, Kirk elected to sit back down instead.

"I'll get to that later. Right now, we need to get you comfy in this new... perspective."

Propping myself up against the wall on my back legs, I nudged the light switches on with a hoof. The place was still so tidy in spite of what happened. "Heh, you really did give her what for, didn't you, Mergo?" I whispered under breath. The thought only made me more curious of what had happened last night, but right now, there was the matter of Kirk learning to walk again which I needed to address.

With the TV and other furniture pushed away to make room, there was now more than enough space to get Kirk acquainted with his new body. It was decidedly more spacious than the guest room where I had first come to. "There. With this much room, you should have it easier than I did. But to get things going a little faster, here's a little demonstration to give a rough picture of how you're going to be walking." I walked-or rather, cantered in circle, made straight passes, going left and right, coming to a stop in front of him. All the while, I remained silent, unsure how to explain the details to him. So I added a bit more to the performance, risking a hop on and off the couch, in which I surprised myself at how deftly I had done so. It had been a little over twenty minutes of all this walking around now, and I took notice of the purple hues creeping across the sky out the window. "Okay, I think that's enough. You go get started."

That shifty gaze of his, biting on his lip and that shaky hoof. He was still too rattled. He just wasn't going to budge an inch without some more encouragement from me. "Alright, what's that matter?"

"I don't think it's enough, maybe you could explain it a bit more?" Kirk weaseled apprehensively, making it quite obvious he wanted me to hold his hand through this.

"Look, I'm not really that good at explaining stuff. I only ever do." Cross teacher and life coach out of my career prospectus.

"Then how about some pointers from when you started?"

"Alright, but the best I can do is three," I insisted, counting with my fingers. Then I remembered I didn't have fingers anymore, which made the gesture moot. Taking a moment to gather my thoughts, I chose my words and kept it concise. "Keep that demo in your head. Don't think too much about the details, just the general gist of it. And treat it like your learning how to ride a bike."

"What about these?" He shook his head towards a wing, opening them slightly.

"Do you see wings on me? They weren't part of the demo, so just keep them closed and don't mind them for now." The advice I gave him threw me back to recent realizations, which would probably help him too. "This is your body now, not some costume." Even if saying such things was wise in our given circumstance, it was strange to hear myself say those words.

"Okay, okay..." That last piece of advice seemed to sink more deeply than the ones before. He took a deep breath as he tried getting up again. "Here we go-"

Struggling right off the bat, he planted his face on the floor with a thud. I couldn't help but snigger at his blunders, mind resting easy as he started off on the same wringer I put myself through awhile ago. With his pride clearly jibbed, he shot me a disdainful scowl. "It's fine, Kirk. I went through this just like you did." I assured, waving off his negativity.

"Well, excuse me, Miss Make-it-look-easy. How'd you get the hang of it so quick?" He asked, sounding quite annoyed as his picked himself up for the umpteenth time.

"I dqon't know whether an hour is quick when it comes to learning how to walk again, but it sure beats crawling on the floor. So if you want to stop looking so pathetic, get back on your feet and hop to it." The night was fully upon us now, and the nearby street lamp where I had left Connie had just flickered to life. "I'm going to bring Connie in. Don't slack off."

"Like I have a choice," he grumbled.

Shuffling of hooves clattered behind me as I fumbled with the doorknob, though recent experience with the gas valve at the back helped with that. Outside under the cold light of the street lamp, a small snowy pony with steel grey hair laid unmoving with errant leaves having fallen and settled on her. Wrapping an arm under her, I laid Connie's limp body on my back. Now free of the threat of a possible explosion nipping at my heels, I measured each step carefully and took extra effort to keep her from falling.

"What? She's still asleep?" Kirk wondered for the both of us as I brought her in and placed her on the couch. He no longer shook standing on all fours, though still had trouble taking his first few steps.

"It could have been the gas," I tossed without much thought.

"Then shouldn't I still be asleep, since the kitchen is just a few steps away?"

"It could be this whole transformation taking a toll on her. She is pretty small for a Cyrilian, and she's smaller than me as a pony. Or maybe sitting for days on end in a train is more tiring than we thought. Speaking of tiring..." On cue my belly grumbled to remind me I hadn't eaten since dinner last night. "I should try to see if I can manage the microwave, and maybe check the stove while I'm at it. Hopefully it won't be as difficult as I think it will be in dealing with it like this."

Prying the fridge open, I nosed my way in to find most of the spaghetti and stroganoff pilfered. But with a bit of shuffling, I found some sitting at the back untouched. The problem now was getting the lids off. Bringing the leftovers to the counter, I noticed the dishes piled in the sink, spotless and dry. "What for, indeed." At this point, it seemed fumbling would become our standard means of getting by and learning our way around things. The thought irritated me like nail over chalkboard. Thin plastic covers proved a greater challenge, but they were duly overcome. I transferred the food over to plates down on the ground, careful not to make a mess as much as I could, and I threw them into the microwave. Behind me, Kirk worked up a sweat bumping against furniture as he learned to walk on four legs. Enthusiasm shown on his face as a grin and shooed away his earlier inhibitions, picking the motion much quicker than I did. Looked like my advice did him wonders, shaving a good ten minutes off my own time when I got started.

"How's it going over there?" He asked while flexing a hoof, intrigued by its strange flexibility as I had been.

Opening the cupboard by the stove, I found the offending gas pipe that came from the shed outside. It ran from a hole at the back of the cupboard space, breaking into a gash just before the outlet that fed into the stove. Pulling the window took a bit of effort, but I had wanted to check if it was tampered with on the outside too. Landing on the other side, I swept the leaves away and found the gas line intact. Jumping back up the window proved to be easy, likely thanks to my transformation. "Looks like the line was torn into, which explains the gas."

"Still doesn't explain all this," he gestured to all of himself with a cantering pose. "After all the sweat I just worked up, I can't say I'm imagining this anymore."

"Well at least you've gotten the hang of it now. I just hope it'll be just as quick with Connie when she wakes up."

Speak of the devil, and she screamed on cue.

"Oh my gosh... Oh my gosh!... OH MY GOSH!!" Connie shot up from the couch and shouted all of a sudden, sitting up like a human where otherwise her skeleton shouldn't have allowed. Then again, my wrist were as good as they had been before the transformation, so I shouldn't really question it. "Your voices!" She gasped.

It took Connie two seconds to make the longshot connection that Kirk hesitated to make. "Y-y-you're Aggie and Kirk! You're both ponies!" She kept on yelling one observation after another, slipping on her front hooves and falling off the couch.

"Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I'm a pony too! You're both ponies! We're all ponies!"

Kirk and I couldn't tell what spectrum of emotion Connie was projecting. In a glance to each other we both agreed to assume it was fear, and we both shot Connie a wary and concerned stare. "Yes. We've been turned into ponies for awhile now. So why don't you calm down--"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!"

My ears nearly cracked at that scream and I covered them quickly, afraid I might lose my hearing at such an early age. Kirk soldiered through it somehow, and he went over to talk Connie down. "Hey, hey, it's alright. We're all in this together, so don't be scared."

"Scared? Why would I be scared? I'm stoked!"

"Come again?" I asked with Kirk echoing my confusion, uttering the same sentiment.

"Why would I be scared?" She began as if it should shouldn't have been obvious. "Don't you guys remember me going on and on about ponies and horses back in the day? And unicorns and pegasii! Sure the last two are mythical, but they're all so beautiful and majestic. One of the reasons I'm coming back to Cyril for school is because it has one of the best medical and veterinary universities in the country, duh! Or would you forget your own friend's dearest hopes and dreams?"

Though in honesty, I had briefly recalled her rambling about horses and one annoying show that had started airing back in the day, though I also remembered shutting her voice out when she'd talk about them. "Sorry, Connie. Doesn't ring a bell." I said for both Kirk and I, to which he shook his head in agreement. Our blank responses put her off quite a bit, causing her to cross her arms and pout indignantly. Just then, the microwave dinged, pinning the excitement in the air with the smell of hot food. "Look we're both sorry we forgot, but I'm sure it's reasonable to say that we have more to worry about now than our future plans and such. I'll be bringing our food over. While I'm on that, you should help Connie get on her feet, Kirk." They both nodded, Connie begrudgingly so.

Balancing plate after plate between my teeth without spilling anything laid quite an crick in my neck. Meanwhile Connie got along well with Kirk as he got her acquainted with walking in her new body. Even I was still prone to the occasional misstep, but she was pretty much fine now after a short half hour. It made me envious, though I did my best to hide it. What was left of last night's dinner was carefully laid on the floor, and we all dug in quite ravenously.

"Hey, guys," Kirk called, having finished his food first. "Look at this."

He had pinched the TV remote in between his hoof and wrist in a hook, effectively grabbing it in spite of the obvious lack of fingers. "Shame we didn't know about this. Kinda sucks eating with our mouths, right?"

Connie and I imitated his efforts without much difficulty. The revelation all made us feel quite stupid right now.

"You know what we need now? Some mindless TV to get our mind off things." Letting it fall on the floor, he gingerly pressed on it with a fat hoof, pressing the power button by chance. The TV flashed to life with a local news channel set to its screen, but the subject of the report had already caught our collective attention before Kirk could change the channel.

"-But as you can see, the crack is quite pronounced. Satellite images show it opening up as far as the Rhidorana coast, stretching all the way across the Lutia Mountain range and ending just a few hundred meters from this small house just out of the way, you see right here." The announcer was pointing on a fuzzy picture of a cottage in the middle of the forest. As he went about reporting, it was clear to the three of us where this house was in Cyril. "While experts have told us they've predicted the crevice to be a benign branch of the Funebral fault line, the immediate future will definitely prove itself a trying period for Cyril, considering the damage it has caused to the old Lhusu-Centurio line. Which is not only a means of transportation and a route for commerce, but also provides a major source by means of electricity for the region. The few local power stations that precede the region's adoption of the Lhusu-Centurio power agreement have all been recommissioned and put back to work, but have alsonotified the city and surrounding areas that day long blackouts such as the one that ended a few hours ago, will become more frequent in the months to come. Regardless, scientists are heading over to begin studies and surveys of the crevice, along with police who have been dispatched to cordon the area and evacuate residents in the surrounding suburban areas if necessary. They are on their way as we speak. "

A stifling silence descended over us as we continued watching the news. The part about scientists and police coming over laid a particularly heavy weight on us all. Unable to stomach any more bad news, I stepped on the remote and turned off the TV.

"Well, that was a pretty lousy pick-me-up. This is why I never watched news," Kirk butted in, breaking the tension with his blunt and dry sense of humor.

Beams of light glinted from the edge of my vision, coming off from the dirt road that wound around the surrounding woods. The sounds of engines faintly hummed into our ears, causing them to perk up and stand on alert. The sounds drew closer with the light, and at this point it was clear to all of us the police had come to check on the cottage.

"Kirk, help me turn off the lights!" I barked at him.

"We can't let them see us like this! They'll freak out!" Connie yelled, pointing out the obvious. "They have scientists coming with them too. If we hand ourselves over, they could dissect us for all we know!"

"Those scientists are probably geologists and seismologists coming to study the crevice, so they probably won't dissect us. The police will still probably take us into custody and save us later for folk who'll be doing the actual dissection."

"Thanks for clearing that up, Kirk! The first thing I've always wanted to happen after becoming a pony was to get dissected!" If Connie wasn't agitated from her transformation, she was definitely venting it all out now. "I don't want to end up in some secret government facility!"

"I guess we have no choice." I said, catching their attention and looking both of them straight in the eyes. With the police closing in on us and the memory of the portal past the fallen oak, we were caught between a rock and a hard place. And honestly, the hard place was starting to seem more reasonable. "We're going on a road trip."

"But what about Mergo?" Kirk asked, bringing her absence to Connie's mind as well. They both looked to me uncertain.

"She's...actually already ahead of us," I sheepishly explained.

"What?"

The cars were already rounding the bend as their headlights beamed into the house ever brightly, coming to a stop at the driveway. "There's no time, I'll explain along the way! Go gather what stuff you think is useful, and pack light!"

"How are we even supposed to pack stuff? We don't have hands anymore!" Kirk shouted as the sound of car engines died down.

"Stop complaining or they'll find us! Past a line of trees down the path back, there's a fallen oak not too far from here. We'll meet up there!"

Everything after was a rush of movement as my heart raced. Connie beelined for the second floor, while Kirk grabbed his knapsack in his mouth and jumped out the window by the stove. Muffled voices barked orders left and right as the police began securing the premises. By the time I ran back into the guest room, one of the officers was already at the porch. His hand knocked gently on the door.

"This is the CCPD. Is anyone there?" The officer asked. "We've been asked to have the premises evacuated."

He kept on spouting the same line over and over, slowly pushing me along the brink of panick with each word. I hadn't brought any bags myself, and to rummage through the closet in my state would likely make a ruckus, giving police legal foothold to force their way into the house. I couldn't let them find me like this. I had to act quick, think quick. My eyes darted all over the room till they came upon my black pullover by my bed, sitting under the light of the street lamp from outside. That's it! I slung the garment around my neck and wound it tight. I then grabbed what items I could get a hold of, slipping them into the impromptu pockets on my neck. I hadn't even checked what I took over the sound of the cops banging on the door. Though I was ready to go, however ready that meant, I stopped short of the light that shot through the windows into the main living area as the police began checking the premises. That was close. Pulling myself back into the guest room, I weighed my options. It would be too risky to make a run for the kitchen, so I opened one of the guest room windows as quietly as possible and came out the side of the cottage. Behind me, I could hear them breaking the hinges off the front door as they broke down with a crash. The figurative noose was tightening, and I wanted to run, but I wasn't sure if Connie had gotten out yet.

"Connie! Connie!" I yelled softly in a whisper, looking onward to the second floor and anxious for a response. "Come on, there's no time!"

A tap landed on my shoulder and if it weren't for Kirk's voice, I would have screamed and jumped. "Agatha, let's go." He said, coming out from the bushes with his knapsack around his neck.

"Where's Connie?" I asked as I turned and walked over to the Gazebo with him.

"Making her way to the meet up. Crazy girl jumped from the second floor all fine and dandy! Even brought her luggage with her too."

As much as I wanted to share his sentiment on our friend's reckless actions, I was glad and relieved that we were all in the clear now. And considering the police swarming around the cottage now, I couldn't fault her for doing so. With the old rickety gazebo behind us, and even further back the police conducting a careful and cursory search, we took our time navigating the moss-covered trail in the dark. The path dipped in a shallow angle just as I had remembered, but I had to guide Kirk along so he wouldn't slip. A lonely light shining some ways ahead of us caught my eye.

"What's that over there?" I asked, worried some other search party had cut us off.

"That must be Connie," Kirk clarified as he took hold my hoof. "I gave her my phone and set it to the flashlight app."

Having made some headway from the cottage and the eminent possibility of being found, my stress levels deflated enough that I could engage in idle banter. "Managing a touch screen and a dozen tiny button icons with these fat hooves? How did you get past the lock screen?"

"Well, the strong possibility of winding up on a dissection table was good motivation for starters. I did fumble with it for a moment, but after I sent her off, I was just as surprised. I guess fat hooves are more precise than I thought."

To my relief, I was thankful Kirk had managed things well under pressure. That was one pint of him I admired. "In hindsight, choosing that fallen oak as the meet up at this time of the day was pretty stupid. When I got out myself and saw how dark it was, it only occurred to me then that there was a good chance you two could have gotten lost."

"Well, let's be thankful things end up the way they did."

My grip on his hoof tightened ever so slightly. "I already am."

However, owing to the uneven terrain and darkness, it was arranged that Kirk should simply bite down on my tail and follow my lead, so as to avoid slipping on the path any further. I was glad it was dark out... so he couldn't see in front of him. The rest of the walk went on in relative silence. Making our way past the line of trees, we spotted Connie who had settled down by the roots of the fallen oak. She made the careful decisions of sitting away from the general direction we had come from and keeping the light the phone from reflecting off the stream beside her. The stream itself forged on the same, offering a small solace its relaxing babbles and a drink of water. She was visibly exhausted from jumping off a second floor window as well as hauling her luggage by her teeth. Exhausted as she was, she still looked fairly well off. Not just home and heart, Connie had Cyril well in her body.

"You know, Agatha," she started up as Kirk and I drew near. That was a sign. She always used my proper first name when addressing me seriously, kinda like how parents word out your entire full name to get your undivided attention. I had it coming anyway. "As much as I'm stoked now that my childhood dream has come true, it's obvious to both of us that you're hiding something."

Kirk let go of my tail, and it was his turn to voice concerns that he held back since this all began. "She's right. You said that Mergo went ahead of us. Odds are, however far-fetched it may sound, Mergo has something to do with our transformation."

I wanted to butt in and correct him on a few points, but it was clear that both of them had been holding their concerns back since this began. So I let them finish.

"Oh, I am so with you on that last part, Kirk," Connie added with a hint of disappointment. "She was a cool girl and all, and I was really starting to warm up to her. But she was hiding something. It was written all over her face. And not just her, you too. Don't think being in Balfon all this time has softened my intuition."

Connie had been a life-long friend to me. I always found her close by, like thunder to my lightning, positionally speaking. She had been there from the start, before Kirk and even before Mergo. I couldn't keep this from her. Kirk too…as a good friend. I was furious at Mergo for keeping me in the dark, so it was hypocritical of m to string them along without telling them either. I had to tell them, this much was a given.

"Okay, I'll tell you what I know. But I'm warning you, it isn't all that much to go on." We dimmed the brightness on Kirk's phone and aimed it to the ground to doubly make sure we wouldn't be spotted. Police searchlights swept and hovered dimly far behind us, and whenever I thought their lights caught as a glint in my eye, I was afraid they were closing in on us. But they never came. And so I spilled. I told them everything, what I remembered from yesterday in the woods. The portal Mergo came out of, that girl she was with, and making me forget about it. The pain that woke me up, finding out I had transformed without warning in the middle of the night. And that...being that came for Mergo. What she said to her, and to me. And the rush of memories that followed my groggy awakening. It was all so ominously vague.

"You're right, that isn't much to go on at all." Kirk concluded with a hoof to his chin. "Still even after saying all that, I can't imagine though, what they'd want Mergo for in the first place."

"If you ask me, it's obvious that Mergo's part of some magickal pyramid scheme!"

.....

"That thing came, gave her back her legs, and only that? She obviously has magick powers now, so it's gone and taken her back with them to make her work in their cult or whatever. Lay a left field debt so huge and unreasonable, they'll have her slaving away for the rest of her life, and then some!"

A measured silence passed over us at Connie's dubious speculation. Speculation that seemed less and less dubious the more I considered it, at certain details at least. Kirk however was having trouble buying her theory. "It still doesn't explain what that thing meant about playing a part, though. Isn't your guess a bit too specific, don't you think?"

Connie crossed her arms, annoyed her theory had been deflected by him yet turning gleeful down the line. "Well you can't fault me for coming up with my own explanation. I hate being in the dark as much as either of you, but to be frank, I'm just so giddy I've turned into a pony!"

"Speaking of being in the dark…what do we do now, Agatha?" Kirk turned a serious gaze to me, Connie following suit.

"Mergo's got a lot of explaining to do, hasn't she?"

If three days ago, someone told me I was going to turn into a magick horse, I'd have recommended them to get their heads checked. The weekend had been an ordinary prospect in mind back then. Meet up with Connie at the station. Introduce her to Mergo and have a good time with everyone. Rinse and repeat till the week was over. Then chat for hours on end over social media till school started up and busied our schedules once more. The last leg of that prospect had changed quite fortuitously for Connie and I, upon her decision to return to Cyril. But somewhere along the middle, I had lost track of Mergo. She hid things from me, because she knew it would all be too hard to believe. She suffered alone. But now disbelief was set aside. All that remained was anxious intrepidity that stood on the edge staring down an abyss of unknowns. Kirk and Connie, they had nothing to do with this, yet the look in their eyes told me otherwise. Kicking and screaming, they were just as displaced by this sudden change as I was. Dragged into this mess with neither consent nor control. They deserved answers just as much as I. And hopefully a means to return to normalcy.

I took a deep breath for what I was about to say. "Yes, she does, Connie. We're going after her."

---

"And then he said he was going to have me reported! The nerve of him, trying to swindle me two fold by dodging my fee AND having me arrested! Next thing I knew, his sorry mug came up on the bulletin a few days later!" Piper guffawed a hearty laugh while downing another swig off her pint.

"Poor sap didn't know safe goods from contraband, so he virtually ratted himself out!"

"Ahaha, hilarious!" It really wasn't. And I wasn’t really paying attention either.

After the stunt she pulled earlier, I couldn't shake off a lingering annoyance. I was never one for merrymaking in the tavern, usually finding it hard to keep social facades up. But where otherwise she would have, for the moment Piper didn't seem to care all that much. Maybe it was the alcohol dulling her senses. Or maybe the mere presence of listening ear contented her...or both.

"And then what happened?" I asked keeping up feigned interest.

"He was an upper crust boy, so his rich lord of a father in all likelihood posted bail. It was a given turn of events considering his entitled and condescending tone. Now were I his mother," she wagged an all-knowing finger as if in her halfway inebriated state she knew exactly what that woman would do. "Were I his mother, I would have let him sit there in that cell and fester a goodly week or two...or maybe even disown him outright!"

I only laughed then receded back into thought as she downed another swig. I hadn't even touched mine yet. Times spent with Piper were times often exasperating, something that made me put my own mental integrity to question.

After that tiring game of cat-and-mouse, she had brought me over to this nearby tavern as both a treat and an apology. Though it was clearly her purse on the table here, I was starting to think more and more that this wasn't really an apology for that fiasco anymore, and was just an excuse for her to imbibe all along. The booth we had acquired was a small and private cubby spacious enough for the both of us. Darkened save for the few candles providing light and what amount of the gray day tumbled in from a small window above, and fenced off by thin rickety dividers, requiring a turn on beer-sodden floor to enter. So for the first time in years, I had removed my mask outside the alley, with Piper having done the same. This privacy was for that precise intent and not some shield to chortle and make a ruckus behind. I just hoped that no one was really listening in on us.

"Aw, don't look so glum. I said I was sorry," she prodded, finally noticing my true disposition. "Oh, I know what'll cheer you up!" If only she had known that about coming here in the first place.

I knew where this was going. Even back then some of the others still had found it difficult to break away from old habits, habits that were never really ours to begin with. "Please, Piper. No more knock-knock jokes."

"Here it is!" She announced after reaching into her backpack, slamming a parcel on the table and giving everything on it a shake. So I didn't know. Burn me at the stake.

"You oaf, they make you pay for damages in this booth--"

Piper cut me off, pushing the parcel towards me. "Aw, aren't you even one bit curious as to what's inside?" This wasn't the first time curiosity overshadowed my anger. It was a commonplace turn of events whenever she was around. She knew how to push those buttons. "Go ahead, have a gander!"

That look in her eye dabbed a twinge of regret in me for following her lead, but the moment the lid came off letting me peer into its contents, that budding regret wilted as genuine surprise sprung forth in its stead. "A horn?"

"Yes, yes, love. One lovely unicorn horn as promised! Don't be so coy, lean in and look closer!" Piper proclaimed with arms crossed and her head held high.

It took me awhile to shake off my disbelief and grasp the reality of it. The spiraling relief ending at the tip. The glossed texture of its surface. Its regal purple hue. The details of the horn locked vividly under my scrutiny. Just like my pen and ink, thoughts invaded my mind as to its origin, but I gave it a nudge to dispel them. The objective implications of having a horn being far more important. It was here alright, bright and lively, as if cut from the unicorn itself not too long ago…but I wasn't too sure just yet. "I don't want it."

Piper threw her arms up in protest, nearly tossing her pint up with it from my blunt comment. "Oh, come on, you're seriously not doubting a genuine unicorn horn right in front of your eyes!"

"That's not for certain though. I know I live in a dump, but rumors of fakes have reached even here. Most of all this wasn't the one I was promised though," I said in recollection of that drab and gnarled thing that more resemble a dying branch from a stunted tree rather than a horn. "Sure, that one had seen better days, but it was one he was willing to part with. And seeing this piece here makes me wonder if that artificer had something up his sleeve..."

Locks of pony hair were invaluable as an ingredient for all sorts of spells and potions. In general parts that could be harvested and grow back, such as hair, feathers and nail clippings too. Ponies were a race favored by magick. Though quality still wasn't guaranteed and largely depended on whether the pony it came from had magick potential to begin with. That was no problem for me, considering my existence as a doll. But horns were a different matter entirely. Garriene and Verdandiel have been hungry for magick well over a millennia now, and that hunger slowly drove the unicorns away out of fear. Demand had only risen since Garriene's decline and the sudden influx of faux horns in recent times only exacerbated the voracious appetite. I wanted away from that scene, that shady market. Which was why I wanted that beat up horn in the first place. A horn that had clearly been floating in market far longer than I lived and breathed. A useless antique by many standards, yet something that pathetic surely had no strings attached. And in spite of its unattractiveness, it would make good as a stepping stone towards better jobs for me. And more importantly a matter of grave safety. Since he would've been getting the better bargain in this deal, it would have been assured he'd have kept his mouth shut about me and listed me as a supplier. More income, more's the happy. But with this fancy looking one, I wasn't sure at all. Was it one of the faux horns floating in the market? Like the elder had told the younger scrapper back at the docks before Piper lassoed me into her rhythm, some opportunities were too good to be true.

"Can I request an exchange? Tell him that I want what was originally promised."

"Can you be anymore unreasonable? I'm just the courier! I've no say in what I do at the sender's behest!" Piper sighed, pursing lips and pinching the bridge of her nose. She had a point though. It was unreasonable of me to have her risk face in the Upper Yard unnecessarily. "Look at it this way. You get to test it first and see if it's the genuine article. If not, all you've lost are a few locks and that you'd have to lay low for a week or two...maybe a month." Another good point. It had taken nearly a fortnight for the package to get to me after sending my hair in that sealed bag, but if the artificer chose to send this instead, I wasn't in a position to make deals. Verdandiel merchants ever rarely interact with lowfolk from the Aerie, or a gutter schmoe like me for that matter. But the latter part of her statement was had been the forefront of my worries, the moment I had sized up this horn.

"Which means that I have to skip work and lose all my potential picks!" It was my turn to get upset, hang my head low and scrunch my brow. “The foreman would have me fired!”

She didn't say anything back at first, only rolling her eyes in a knowing way as if this outcome were obvious from the outset. A grating gesture on her part. "Oh, don't give me that look! Of all the people I know, the last person I expect that from is you. You've fallen for far worse and look where it's gotten us! You know that better than anyone!"

The words struck deep. She cringed back in disgust for a spell, a sullen expression coming and going like a hand through a flickering candle.

"Doesn't make me wrong though...the possibility you've drawn the shorter straw," Piper returned in deadpan, waving a hand toward the horn lying in the box.

"I'm sorry... It's just..." It was my turn to rock the table with an angry fist. "But it was a simple plan...how could it fail?"

Piper reached across the table, laying a consoling touch on my shoulder. "Pones have the worst luck in all of Garriene. Even worse off are us dolls. So even the most well thought out plans can blow up in your face. After all, I know that better than anyone."

I hated how she knew how to talk around me. But when she was right, she was right. "I suppose," I answered, head held low for my uncalled lash of words.

She stood up and cricked her neck, arms and whatever bones she could crick. A habit of hers that sorta creeped me out. The worrywart face I cast over her disappear with a self-slap, replaced by an eager grin. "So, what's say we have you give it a burl?"

"And where do you suppose we do that?"

"The colosseum grounds, where else?" I had figured as much. Though as much I had kept my distance from that place, I couldn’t deny her a visit there. And in all honesty a part of me had become curious. We made our way out of the cubby booth, and true to her word she footed the bill. I had almost thought she would hightail it and leave me there, sandwiched between the tavern's menacing bouncers, a hefty minotaur and a burly griffon. But she didn't, much to my relief. Having finished paid the bill, she told me to wait outside which was odd. I waited nonetheless and she eventually came. Probably wasting her time bargaining an unreasonable discount.

It was mid afternoon right about now. Though with the eternally gray sky up above, it was hard to tell. In all honesty, I would rather have stayed in the Aerie and soldiered through my day job than slog through the cloying landfill of a path we had set out to trek through. But were I to somehow blink back into the middle of work at this hour, the foreman would not only dock my wages but surely have me penalize for not making my quota for good measure. Something he would likely do anyway the second I show my face tomorrow. As ganked as he was with the reek of alcohol and the vice of rigged die, he was polarizingly no-nonsense and strict at work. And at such a mood he found himself especially so the day I returned from the island that popped out of nowhere on the abyss. The island whose uncharted ruins draped in that beautiful maple afternoon sun I wandered nearly lost a fortnight ago...that day I had met them.

No matter now, it was too late to turn and punch back into the clock. Might as well take leave for the day and see this through to whatever outcome. The colosseum was a long way past the slums I called home, easily four times the distance of my commute to the docks. So rather than bother ourselves and head off at a quicker pace, we decided to take a more sedate stride to our going.

It was an old moldy road as destitute as I had remembered, one of the main arteries of the city, now covered by layers and mounds of filth flanking us on either side. Since the decline, people had become virtually superstitious of these parts through which our road cut across. So much so that even cutthroats and vagabonds dared not come and make havens of its empty streets. However, what people did use it for was as a long and winding dump. Hearsay and superstition granted their legs haste whenever they came to discard their rubbish, and when they finished, as quick as shadows they would leave. Partly for the unbearable smell that had settled in the few years this dump had grown, but mostly out of fear. The smell was manageable through our masks, but no fear struck me nor shivered up my spine as we walked further down into the heart of the Aerie, only morose ponderings. For I had no fond memories coming down this road...a march that began a long ways out of the city, a cruel, tiresome one lead in indifferent chains and egged by a unfeeling whip.

Making past the telltale half way point marked by a large once extravagant welcome sign that fell to the wayside, one that no longer saw visitors, the trash began to peter down from high mounds into small piles. Eventually it receded completely giving way to empty streets once more. Cleaner and easier on the nose, but it didn't make the walk any less destitute. The rest of the way was a silent walk through abandoned thruways of a once bustling section of the city. Fifteen thousand people used to live here. If they only they could see it now, the ghost town it had become. Oh, they would cry rivers for it. Cry for the city their kin happily lived and busied themselves in. The ivory streets they once ran through and laughed in, returned to their once decayed state yet ever more moldy and haphazard than that. Cry for the derelict shops that turned golden and filled with light at the wave of a wand. The wares and coin piled in avaricious hoards, wasting away behind broken windows that shielded them from the elements no longer. Cry for the amphitheatres that sprung out tall and majestic from empty lots overnight. Its halls, where once regaled epic of grandeur and comedy echoed on for days on end without pause, now sat empty and mute. Cry for the colosseum whose expansive design and scale bloated with their pride. Its structure having crumbled into a horseshoe and left to hang as an open wound with a barren scab of a sinkhole in the middle of its field, accented by a pervasive scent of iron and rot that lingered faintly to this day. Cry none for the unwitting dolls they had fooled into their demise. Not even a dewdrop in the corner of the eye for their unwilling sacrifices, those who had so elevated their lives and brought about the city’s mayfly golden age.

Melancholy thoughts once locked tight and stowed away by the passing of doldrum days crept out distastefully as each sight sidled into view on our way to the colosseum. I did my best to suppress them. I was past all of that now… I was, truly.

“Hey there, everyone!” Piper greeted out of nowhere.

We approached a high mound of rubble by the base of one of the large broken columns halfway past the field, opposite the large sinkhole on the farther end. Her words surprised me. I almost thought that some people had settled down here, but none came forth as a silence greeted us with a drawn out reply instead.

“Look who I’ve brought with me!”

To my subdued surprise, hidden behind the mound, which was actually a thick facade wall, was a makeshift shelter coming into view as I rounded the column. “So this is where you’ve been living, alone in the middle of squalor and ruin?” I asked in a pitied demeanor, glancing over the place and taking it in.

It was a nubby-looking hole size-fitted for the largest minotaur in my memory to walk in snuggly. But to petite-sized folk like Piper and I, the spaciousness was luxurious. It had been carved out of the huge column that held the roof of the colosseum. Planks of wood had been cobbled to form the shelter's own smaller roof, hastily stuck to each other by way of rusty nail. Propped up by three bundled beams of creaking wood, it covered the small yard afforded by the enclosure and two evergreen herb bushes sitting by the base of the facade which hid the shelter from plain sight. In the company of stained cooking ware, a doused fire pit greeted us next shortly after the entrance with an ashen cough, while a simple clothesline fit to be anywhere else stood meekly by the herb bushes, swaying gently in an addled breeze. The shelter itself was an open room, furnished with a ragged cot fit for the petite. As such that left room for other things to occupy. The likes of which included a small worn shelf and dresser set by the cotside, set with endearing-looking trinkets on top, and a notched bowl holding a bundle of incense sitting atop a rugged-looking strong box kept shut by a rusted lock that miraculously held together. Its strong aroma hung in the air as bits of ash fell to a lazy sputter on the ground, masking the faint yet sluggish smell of wax that snuck in from I don’t know where. The place was a spotlight of respite in the vast and desolate necrohol that had become the center of Garriene. Yet a sorry sight, nonetheless. I knew she had been coming here for years, but I didn't know she actually lived here.

“I thought you had gone to join the courier’s guild based at Ronsenburg… What exactly have you been doing all this time?”

“Well to the first question, that stint quickly fell apart along with the guild shortly after I arrived. One particularly nasty raid was all it took to do it in. The guild masters had been implicated of treason and possession of sensitive contraband,” she answered, making light of a distressing revelation with a chuckle.

She opened a barrel by the fire pit and had herself a refreshing splash of water. But as mundane as this all was to her, I was both concerned and reluctant to learn how things had come to be as so.

“And I'm still a courier by the by. Well, most of the time. I just work with someone else now.”

One step forward and three steps back. Normally Piper could try to run circles to confuse me, and I would just shrug it off, not caring. But three years of who knows what, I shuddered to think what she would go on to reveal. “Someone else? What contraband? You didn't mention these in your letters!" We had kept in touch with the grand total coming to one hundred thirty seven letters against five in my favor.

Piper tsk’ed as she picked up a few garments that had fallen off the line and tossed them on the bed after patting them of dirt and leaves. “You really weren’t listening were you?” She turned a disdainful look at me. “Ah, no matter. Now why don’t you say hello to everyone else? They’ve been wondering why you’ve been ignoring them and keeping mum.”

“What do you mean, everyone else? This is no man’s land! We’re the only two here!”

“It’s really disrespectful.” She crossed her arms, shaking her head in disapproval.

“Gah! I’ll go see for myself then!” I turned and turned, looking for the things I didn't catch. I even ran over the entire field to verify her claim. The sinkhole was a caved-in chamber forever fluttering with dust from the debris. The other columns were vacant apart from the rubble that collected at their bases, lacking anything that resembled furnishings or that which hinted to a lived-in presence. A quick duck into the interior hallways that lead to the field revealed they were as ghostly as when we had walked through them not ten minutes ago. There really was no one there. Her sudden strangeness took me for a loop of paranoia, and I had winded myself own in the process. “That’s…that!...We’re…completely…alone!” I managed between breaths with finger pointing to distant evidence.

She snortled at my obliviousness. “You really didn’t have to do that. You could have just asked me, you realize…” Piper caught hold of my arm as I was halfway from collapsing to the ground. She made efforts to keep the corners of her mouth from curving up. The subtle act made apparent the pleasure she took from seeing me run around like a headless chicken.

“Buck…me,” was all I could manage.

Stepping beside me to steady my stance, she took my head in her hands and pointed my gaze to the stones of the facade wall. Just as she did so, an odd tumbling of pebbles sounded off behind us. However, her sudden jerking of my head far overshadowed my curiosity of that sound with annoyance, one even more so amplified by my exhausted state. So rathe that turn to say my curiosity, I humored her instead. “You think these stones stacked themselves by this column so meticulously, love? Go have a closer look at the ‘wall.’”

Was it something I had missed, like a riddle or a punchline? I never did take well to either those or jokes anymore.

Taking in the ‘wall’ with a little more scrutiny in my gaze, I had finally realized the blended details that sat in plain sight. I had only been paying attention to her domicile and the furnishings, not noticing anything else till she pointed them out. Blocks of stone cut in roughly similar in size stacked upon each other like the bleachers of the colosseum. Doused candles made from dirty wax adorned each one of them, their gray color blending into the rock. From them their sluggish scents wafted, no longer feeling as formless shackles and weights, but as warm and cold undertones to a picture that emerged from the haze of my mind. It was a scene set by a scruffy band of unlikely hoodlums gathered around a small roaring bonfire. The flame roared and danced as they ate and talked, and when they slept, the fire smoldered as cinders from the brittle wood it consumed, fading quiet in the cold night. Running my hand over their surfaces, I could make out names scrawled onto the slabs at the bases.

“Petra, Paz, Penelope, Pilliane, Pearl, Petula,” I read out loud, the names sounding affectionately from the crude etches and off my lips.

“Pyria, Parda, Pleajune, Priscilla, Palomina, Paige.” Tears welled in my eyes to roll down my cheeks, bidden by memories long forgotten and buried. Dear memories close to heart. My friends…my family. They were all here.

Piper drew near and placed a hand on my shoulder. “After all this time…this is how they end up?” She didn’t reply at first, silently recounting the names herself in her own bout of nostalgia.

“Such was a bother sifting through tons of rubble all by myself. Ah, well. Them’s the breaks!” She turned to look at me, as if an invisible weight had been lifted…and a new heavier one had taken perch on her shoulders. She was hiding something. “You have no idea how long it took to find them all. The scars and broken fingers under these gloves, all worth it,” she recalled fondly, letting out a sigh. With a kick to its door, she opened a nearby closet to reveal the worn out shovels, pickaxes and other digging implements that lay within, all covered in dirt. The ones in front maintained a so-so condition, while those at the back, clearly of cheaper make, had their metals warped and mauled by relentless work on the hard stone of the magicked arena.

That explained why she had been coming here so often. Then I turned back to one more grave, the last of the slabs at the base, and saw another name. One more doll whose name I held just as dearly as theirs. "Piper!? What's the meaning of this?" I yelled in askance after reading the name aloud.

She didn't say anything first, an unfocused gaze looking for something latch onto. Piper shook her head. "As I've said, you've no idea...what troubles plagued my waking mind as I dug everyday...what nightmares haunted my dreams...the dark thoughts that whispered..."

The words she spoke sent shivers down my spine, and I covered my mouth with a hand.

"I had nearly given up...and then..." She trailed off.

"And then what?"

She look at me with the most sincere smile I had even seen. An unmistakable smile I would have seen on anyone of us...on myself. I was taken aback. But that shouldn't have surprised me, as we all shared the same face.

"Some kind passerby gave me words of encouragement. They told me to think of the loved ones I had put to rest...the ones who were still with me. They gave me hope...and peace."

The thought alone, of her carrying such a yoke by herself. I found no words...but then, these untouched graves that bore no names, “Who are these others, the stones stacked above them?”

“Ah, them.” Piper ran a hand across their unadorned surfaces with a hand, her brow scrunching together and a wistful curl pointing the corner of her lips down ever so slightly.

“They’re the others, basically. Dolls like us.”

“If they’re dolls like us, then—“

“Then, it took more than just a measly dozen dolls to rouse all of this from nothing!” Her arms raised and spread wide open, the exact meaning of 'all of this' being apparent to me. One revelation after another, yet not a single one of them happy. And by the tone and expression Piper struck, she wasn’t done just yet. “You think only twelve of us crawled out of that blasted pool? There were hundreds of us! And we didn’t even know they were here before us! That they were—!”

She held words back with her hands, unable to speak any further on what she found. The weight of this particular revelation struck like a boulder, though I reasoned that such implications weighed more heavily for Piper, who had suffered it all alone. On my own shaky feet, I approached her, taking her into my arms and comforting her as best I could. “I’m sorry, Piper. I should have come with you. I shouldn’t have let you shoulder this burden alone.” We stood there for a while not saying anything. In our silence, more memories crept out from the back of my mind. A desperate escape led by a kind and courageous hero. A fevered quarrel amidst the wrecked outskirts of the heart of the city. And an angered parting whose finite words drove us apart. Dust and time settled over all of those things. Even… even I eventually came to grips with the decision made and the outcomes that came of them. But it was clear that Piper herself wasn’t.

“I seem to have doured the moment. We came here to test something of yours out in the first place,” she perked up to say, ending the embrace. Now we were talking! Whether or not my sly deal on the side was a bust, we were going to find out. “Some simple ballistics will do. You remember how to do those, don’t you? I’ve prepped you some practice dummies beforehand.”

“Of course, I remember. I pinched those scrolls off that mage myself. Didn’t sleep a wink till I got one sigil right!” I pumped a fist, feeling stoked. “So where are they? The practice dummies?”

“Well, one’s right behind you, love.”

At her words, another voice butted in, its gruffer tone joining the conversation and sending a chill down my spine. “Practice dummies… Ehehehe, right.”

Turning around, a bangaa had appeared out of nowhere, having somehow perched himself on the wall of gravestones behind me without a sound. And not just any bangaa, it was Tanzan, one of Sandata’s cronies! A lanky example of his kind, he was tall in many proportions and certainly taller than the average bangaa.

“The lot of us, we’ve deliberated for the longest time and we’ve decided. You’re it.” As she spoke, the sound of pebbles shifting underfoot caught my attention.

“I’m sorry, Parnella. But this is for your own good.”

Tanzan tensed feet in preparation, and at the drop of a pin, he sprung into a pounce straight for me. And he would have caught me too, were it not for Piper and her theatrics. All it took to dodge him was a simple duck of my head. He had also overshot his jump, flying right over me as I took to a knee. The bangaa crashed into the cot, but began picking himself up quickly as if the impact was nothing. Without pause or second guess, I got up and made a beeline for the exit.

Piper yelled at the bangaa behind me as I passed the sinkhole. “You idiot! How could you waste your chance!?”

“Shut yer trap, you doll! We’d have had her, were it not for you sentimental spiel. But that won’t change a thing,” Tanzan replied confidently. At that middle statement we both were at an agreement, and I still had a chance to run. However the banga himself had entered a run of his own after saying his piece, quickly closing the distance on nimble yet supple legs. For someone of my stature, I placed a great deal of confidence in my running, but try as I might, in a chase of speed and endurance, he bested me in spades, or any bangaa of his build for that matter. It didn’t matter though. The gates leading into the colosseum was just a stone’s throw away, and while he was decidedly faster than me, its interior was a wreckage, riddled with all sorts of nooks and crannies to lose him in. If I could just reach it.

Just as I ran the last leg of this sprint, I skidded to a halt, spotting another figure who showed himself past the corridor. A looming and bulking outline belonging to none other than Sahmad, another bangaa but a head shorter than Tanzan. Hauling a rope net with weights dragging behind him, he tossed it over me. Too high in fact, or was it because he had overcompensated for the weights? Either way, his efforts sent the net soaring over me and ensnaring Taznan who had entered a course to pounce on me again from behind. Needless to say, I was able to roll out of that impending mess just in the nick of time. Another chance at escape handed to me by their own overestimations. With Tanzan caught in the weighted net behind me, the only thing standing between me and the exit was Sahmad. The brute was too big for me to handle and would decisively win confrontations with anything not approaching his size. Fortunately for me, he wasn’t as agile as his partner and his hulking arms proved sluggish enough for me to evade as he swung them around with the intent of catching me. In an opportune moment, the bigger bangaa lost his balance, and that was my chance to make it inside of the colosseum.

“Idiots, both of you!” Piper shouted as she caught up from behind Tanzan, still struggling in the net. “Quit your dawdling and just catch her already!”

“Don’t you worry your pretty head off, doll. Like Tanzan said, this one is as good as caught,” Sahmad declared triumphantly.

I went on running without a care, not thinking what sort of plan they had in store. If I could put enough distance between me and them, then there were all sorts of hiding spots I could scurry off into. With this colosseum being as huge as it was, I could wait them out and sneak away in due time. But running far enough down the hallway, the reason why the two bangaa both held great confidence in catching me so easily made itself apparent. They had walled off the hallway completely with a wooden blockade hastily nailed together. Forget the windows leading back to the arena, they were barred shut by metal, the gray light passing through it casting a dismal outlook on my hopes of escaping. My back was against the wall as they drew near.

“You won’t get away this time, doll!” Tanzan spouted, visibly upset about the recent blunder from which he picked himself up.

“Give up. There’s no escape this time,” Piper said as she approached with them, leading the two bangaa in cornering me.

I didn’t want to give her dignity of a reply. I was just too mad at the moment to talk to her. I only wanted to get away. But like she had said, there was no escape. Unless…the horn. I still had the horn! Pulling it out from my pocket, I pointed it at them, causing the two bangaa to reel back as I did.

“She has a horn!? Where did she get that from!?” Tanzan cried out, taking a step back for once in this encounter.

Sahmad looked equally as panicked, shielding himself with his hands as I pointed the horn at him. “You didn’t tell us about her having one! The boss will have your head if she escapes!”

Piper on the other hand looked as calm as ever, a neutral expression on her face with arms crossed. It was almost as if she was daring me... No matter, they wouldn’t catch me. I wouldn't let them!

In days long past when the others went to sleep, I spent many a night instilling the shape and mark of sigil in memory. The task was arduous beyond compared to neophytes without talent, yet I proudly wore the badge in mind for memorizing a handful of symbols from the scroll when it was yet in my possession. But I had only just gotten the horn from Piper recently. Using a horn was a whole different matter, and I would need lessons from a local mage to properly utilize it. I had garnered what I could from that scroll, but manipulating magic without the proper experience was whole ‘nother bag of spoiled beans, a reckless and foolhardy endeavor likely leading to injury in the best of cases, and at worst… I still had to try if I wanted to stand a chance.

The horn was warm to my touch, fitting snuggly in my grip. I could feel the magick deep within. If I could just tap into it—

At the mere thought, a power surged out from the horn and fed into me. Filling my body and pouring out from my fingertips, I was ready loose a torrent at them. The mere sight of me was enough to contort the faces of the two bangaa in fear. And I would have grinned ear to ear for how quickly the tables were turning too, were it not for Piper still maintaining a stoic face belied by the worry on her brow. When she was right, she was right. It was the reason I still had the horn. She had known it would come to this. Rather than give me the power I needed to overcome my pursuers, the power that surged from the horn gave me the shock of my life. My senses fizzled and blurred as the pure aura from within the horn radiated as blinding light and seared as an ethereal fire. When it ended, breath left my lungs entirely, my legs gave under me like pudding, and my vision swam in a black tunnel.

Piper approached me in her sweet time with the two bangaa in tow, surely taking in the smoke that rose from the smiting I gave myself. The two bangaa stood behind her as drew near me, guffawing at my sheer stupidity. “I didn’t want it to come to this. But there was no other way, Parnella,” Piper consoled with gentle hand caressing my charred cheek.

What as sick joke. I had lost the bargain of a lifetime, gotten lured a place with no chance of help, and been betrayed by family, all in one day. What's more was fat chances of me dragging my well-done remains back to the Aerie and salvaging what was left of my sorry career as a scrapper.

Gray morning… A fine gray morning, indeed.

---

Author's Note:

AN[170709]

*So yeah... this chapter took way longer than expected and turned out 7k longer than it should have been. The last segment of an earlier version was a lot more direct, but something about it felt meh. Also I had an epiphany and created Piper's character out of inspiration. The next chapter might take a bit longer too, so sorry in advance.

*The gimmick with the last words matching the chapter name seems to be getting stale IMO. I might drop it sometime in the next chapters if I can't keep it up, unless you guys think it's fine.

*As usual this in not the final edit, I'll be going over it for any hiccups in the next few days.

*Mugshot of Parnella.

AN[170802]

*Made some changes, adding in new snippets of detail/dialogue after having a realization. It will ripple into future chapters.

AN[170826]

*Changed the time between Parnella meeting Midlight and Mergo in chapter 1, from 3 days to 2 weeks.

Comments

[SilverStarApple]

How did you get so few likes/dislikes on a fic with so many words?

[Blankscape]

8286100
Flying under the radar, I am introvert as fuck...Like lvl50 maybe? That sounds about right...