Awake
Dr. Corsica, Chairmare of Environmental Impact
On the Correlation Between Ether Crystal Fault Planes and Significant World Events
Preface
A long-standing mystery in the study of ether is the presence of fault planes within the crystalline structure of ether crystals. The fault planes form on the surface during crystal growth in response to certain magical stimuli at precise points in time, and are visible to the naked eye, appearing within a properly-sliced crystal not unlike the rings of a tree. These aberrations can be found within all naturally-occurring ether crystals, yet their origin in the wild has yet to be explained.
Thanks to our breakthroughs in measuring, it is now possible to date the formation of the fault planes to within a single day, allowing us to know precisely when they appeared. Furthermore, a historical analysis of these dates reveals an unusually high correlation with the dates of significant world events, suggesting that the planes may stem from or even predict occurrences thousands of miles away. The focus of this paper is to provide such an analysis, examining the dates of all fault planes formed within the last century and making a case for further research into why they appear when they do...
My legs dangled off a crystalline ledge as I reclined, proofreading my work for the dozenth time that afternoon. A warm emerald light from my hoof bracelet illuminated the research paper as I flipped from page to page, scrutinizing the writing with every bit of perfectionism I had in me. Had I given too much bias to the section on the Griffon Empire's history? Would that make it obvious that I had written this? Or was that a good thing if it came at the cost of less focus than Ironridge deserved? The whole point was to play into Head Scientist Graygarden's biases, much as I wished I could do legitimate research in peace... I chewed my tongue. Maybe I needed to second-guess my decision to cut the section on-
A loud, grinding clunk of machinery jolted me out of my concentration with a yelp, making me jump and nearly fall off the ledge. My wings snapped out with a clumsy panic as I struggled for balance, and I reached down, snagging the paper I had dropped before it could fall out of reach.
"Oi! Shut it, you!" I grabbed a loose crystal in a hoof and flung it with all my might, earning a metallic clang as it bounced off the tall, cylindrical ether pump that was making the racket, a mess of pipes and bolts and glowing displays rising from the abyss. "Stupid machine! How many times do I have to check your extraction schedule to make sure I can work down here when it's quiet? Now leave me alone, or I'll use the override code I pilfered from Fuel Synthesis and you won't get any work done today... either..."
My face fell as I peered closer: a screen read seven in the evening. Exactly when the pump was supposed to start. Which meant I had been down here for ten hours...
Well, I felt silly. And hungry. Have you ever failed to notice how hungry you are until you're way more hungry than you'd like to be? It's not my favorite realization.
I stood up on the crystal plinth and furled my leathery wings, staring around at my surroundings. Half rock and half crystal, this place was as far underground as anyone could go; the deepest cave in Icereach, and the most beautiful, too. If I fell any further, I'd hit a river of ether, an endless, glossy black plane of liquid that shimmered like starlight and concealed a world's worth of mysteries. It was part of why I loved this place. It was also why someone had installed that noisy pump. Some ponies just had to think ether belonged closer to the surface for experimenting and testing.
...I mean, it probably did. Ether was critical to Icereach's research and the main catalyst that let us produce rocket fuel. But they really couldn't have left this one cave alone?
The crystal spur I stood on jutted out over the ether river from an open cave, which had once been a chapel of some sort. I imagined that whoever built this chapel had appreciated staring into the starry ether river just as much as I did. Within my lifetime, even, this place had been private and quiet every minute of the day, but now it played host to a rack of machinery that took the ether pump's output and stabilized it to send up to the surface. Steel shelves and scaffolding held up modern technology, yet shared space on the rock floor with carvings so worn and intricate, their age was probably better measured in millennia. But no one knew for certain. The Icereach institute was only eighteen years old.
At least the technicians who had bolted them down took care to make sure their bolts didn't crack or damage the rock and its artwork too badly below. I wasn't the only one who still cared for this little church at the bottom of the world.
I glanced back to my manuscript and frowned. There was no way I was going to get anything more productive done on it now that my focus had been stolen by that rude pump, and it was the end of the week... It was turn it in and call it finished now, or sit on it for days on end.
So, I set it down, turned to the last page, pulled out my quill, found the blank spot for a signature, and in a carefully-practiced font, signed, Corsica.
I should probably mention that my name isn't Corsica. Mimicking others' writing is just a thing I do.
"Ouch! Watch where you're going!"
I rubbed my head and grunted, sitting on my haunches after colliding with another mare in a hallway. Nice going, Halcyon. Between her tone and the fact that I actually hadn't been watching where I was going, too busy stewing about the ether pump and trying not to pay attention to how hungry I was, I was pretty sure this one was all on me.
And she was far worse off than I was, the load she had been carrying strewn all over the concrete floor. About a dozen mechanical parts had skittered this way and that, and the mare was crawling about in a panic, trying to find and put them back in their box again. She was a tall turquoise unicorn with a blond mane, and I was certain I had met her before yet couldn't remember her name. Great. I had to deal with that on top of knocking her over? Nothing like the vague, awkward guilt of completely forgetting a pony's name to motivate you to help pick up their stuff...
"Err, sorry. Here. Let me." I swiftly tucked my report under a wing, reaching for a fallen part. Once I got a good look at it, though, I held it up, blinking.
"An inertial stabilizer rotor?" I looked up from the fin-shaped device at the mare, realizing the entire rest of her cargo consisted of more of the same. "These are used to muffle vibrations around the engine. I thought these were stupidly expensive and cutting-edge. What are you doing, running around with a whole box of them?"
The turquoise mare blinked, taking my retrieved rotor in her aura and pushing at the bridge of her nose, like she had recently switched to contacts and wasn't yet used to not needing to fix her spectacles when they slid down. "Yes they are, and that's classified. And I was not 'running around'. Who are you? And how do you even know about these?"
I let out an internal sigh of relief - if she didn't know me, odds were I wasn't supposed to remember her after all. She also didn't sound particularly nice, so I guessed there wasn't any pretense of us being friends. Maybe she was just stressed out, though. Everyone had bad days from time to time. Perhaps I could make this easy for both of us...
"I'm Halcyon," I mumbled, making eye contact with the stabilizers instead of the mare that was carrying them. "You probably wouldn't know me. But I saw these at an internal release! A friend got me a seat. Are you on the kinetics team? By spinning these around a core at high velocities with carefully timed pulses of energy, you can offset-"
"I-I'm sorry, I have somewhere to be," the unicorn stammered, taking a step back in the face of my clumsy curiosity. "I have the communications conference to set up for, high-priority delivery, thanks for your time." She turned and bolted, running hurriedly on her way.
Bingo.
I gave myself a smug smile as she left. One of the perks of being an awkward little nerd who preferred to be ignored by strangers was that you didn't need to put on any acts to get them to do so. A bit of carefully-directed enthusiasm in just the wrong place, and she had gone from chagrined that I knocked her over to perfectly happy to leave me alone. Problem solved... and I had gotten a look at those beautiful stabilizers as a bonus. At times like this, I couldn't complain about the world if I tried.
Of course, then I had to go and do things like forging the signatures of important ponies on reports, and I was right back to pretending to be someone I wasn't. If only my life could always be so simple and-
"Hello there, Halcyon," a mature voice said from over my shoulder. "Looking for me, by any chance?"
By some strange twist of genetics, I had been born with ears that both opened and pointed backwards, but they still managed to stand up straight in surprise as I let out an eep and spun around. A short, older unicorn was walking around me, holding a cup of tea and a clipboard with her horn. As a matter of fact, this was who I was looking for, and the fact that it was that obvious made me blush a little. Sure, this was the administrative level, but we weren't that close to her office... Was there really no one else up here I ever had business with?
"Err, well, you know..." I presented her with my cheeriest fake smile and scuffed at the ground with a hoof, not because I had airs to put on but because I really was getting quite hungry and didn't want to accidentally be cranky because of it. Maybe this would teach me a lesson about spending all day working with no breaks. Never mind that I had been taught this lesson dozens of times before, and never seemed to learn... "I have Corsica's latest research paper. Nearly two months in the making. She asked me to deliver it?"
I held out the paper, and the unicorn took it with a sigh. This was Elise, the most senior Ironridge official in Icereach, representing half of the coalition that sponsored all of our work here. And for reasons that had more to do with Head Scientist Graygarden than her or me, she was on far better terms with me than the Yakyakistan side... That was why my paper submission was going through her instead of the Head Scientist, Icereach's chief administrator and the ranking representative of our other sponsor state.
Elise sipped from her tea as her eyes scanned back and forth over the cover page, her mane blowing quietly in an invisible wind. Whatever magical manecare ritual had given her that effect was a closely-guarded secret, but she wore it magnificently: this mare had practically invented the idea of age with dignity. She had to be in her fifties, yet her fur was immaculate, and she never carried herself with the slightest hint she was aware that the better part of her life was behind her. I couldn't imagine reaching an age where my body started slowing down and being less capable than before, and yet Elise walked with pride and grace.
What I wouldn't give to be able to look the same. And yet, even if I knew the secret to her mane, that look would never work on a scruffy urchin like me who constantly wore boots and a coat to hide her legs and her talent. That fact that I was getting this distracted by it was proof I could never handle a look like that.
How distracted was I? Distracted enough that Elise was telling me something and I was too busy goofing around in my own head to hear it. Whoops.
"Ach, sorry..." I rubbed an ear bashfully. "What was that? I'm, err... I was working all day, and I'm hungry and thinking about food."
Elise snorted. "Of course you were."
What was that supposed to mean?
"Never mind," Elise reassured, giving me a smile that promised she wouldn't mention it even though she very much knew I hadn't been paying attention. She glanced back at my paper, and her ears fell as she skimmed it. "Corsica knows it isn't my job to see these published, right? I understand that she doesn't have much of a choice, but really..." She pursed her lips. "Tell her this is interesting material, but at the end of the day I'll still be passing it on through Graygarden and no amount of research laundering is going to change the way that stallion sees her. I'll do what I can to promote this, but she should keep her expectations down." She sighed again and started to walk away. "At this rate, she's going to spend the next decade hampering her career with petty squabbles. Oh well."
"Hey!" I frowned, taking two steps along behind her. "Can she help it if Graygarden doesn't like her work? She's plenty talented, I'll have you know."
Elise shook her head. "Talented or not, she's made this my problem now, and my problem it shall be. Unless there's anything else, you run along and get some dinner."
"Yeah, yeah... Thanks for taking it to Graygarden for me." I lowered my head, turned around and skulked away, trying to avoid a sudden onset of anxiety now that the deed was done and the paper was out of my hooves. I had made the right call, right? Weeks of work went into making that paper perfect. Surely when Graygarden actually read the thing...
I shook my head, trying to stave off thoughts I knew were pointless. I would find out what happened one way or another soon enough. For now, I needed food and a distraction... and the latter presented itself more quickly than I had hoped, a shiny glimmer catching my eye.
Down on the floor, wedged in a small gap between the chipped concrete wall and a bare steel lattice tunnel support, there was a fallen inertial stabilizer rotor the mare with the box from earlier had missed. Huh. I guess she had been in enough of a hurry to leave me alone that she hadn't bothered to count her wares after picking them up again.
"Well, hello, there," I softly declared, bending down, fishing it out from the crevice and holding it up. "You're a pretty one, aren't you?"
The thing really was beautiful, a collection of translucent, faintly iridescent blades held with a hinge between two strips of silvery metal in a way that reminded me of a folding paper fan, or a futuristic pegasus wing. It was sculpted and nuanced, looking more like an art installation than a machine part, and I imagined that if I used it as a lampshade, the effect would be spectacular. Folded up, it was only a little bigger than a stallion's hoof, but spreading it out let it grow to more than half my length, nose to tail. What a shame something so lovingly designed and crafted was destined to be sealed in an intermediate engine casing where no one could ever look at it.
Or was it? Icereach suffered delays all the time. Things went missing, turned up behind schedule or got flat-out mothballed so often that some scientists complained about poltergeists in the halls between meetings. Time that could have been spent making things functional was dumped into frivolities, like doing visual design for things like this. Odds were, no one had even taken a proper inventory of these before they were shipped out. It made for a faintly depressing work environment, when we had been 'two months away' from a live astronaut launch for more than a year now with no public plan for actually getting there, but that just meant we had to take advantage of the little pleasures in life to cope.
"I suppose I can give you back if anyone comes looking for you," I told the pretty rotor, stuffing it in my satchel and heading off toward the cafeteria. "But who knows where you were even going, and it would be a shame to leave you there for someone less altruistic to find. So you're coming home with me!"
My relationship with machinery was funny. I treated this rotor like a lost little foal, yet was mortal enemies with the pump system down in the chapel. I guess when you live underground for this long, even machines start becoming people to you.
We all had homes, of course, but a good home-cooked meal was something I never could eat unless I made it myself, thanks to an old war injury that gave Mother a lame side and made it hard for her to stir or measure things. Fortunately, Icereach kept a sizable underground food court designed to let all the scientists eat and socialize in a more convenient manner, and thanks to half the colony's population being batponies who could never make up their minds about when to sleep, it had to be open at all hours... I wasn't sure why we kept hours in the first place, when hardly anyone bothered to go up and look at the sun, but all the better for me.
The cafeteria had a high, jagged ceiling that had once been the roof of a natural cave, and apparently Icereach's designers and decorators didn't think it needed renovating. It did make the place feel much bigger. I turned my eyes away from the ceiling, looking for a place to sit.
Blocky, rectangular tables with benches that felt more military than civilian filled the hall, with aisles running through them and food stations lining three of the edges. I paced through them, my eyes flicking between the tables usually haunted by my friends. Aerodynamics? No one I liked from that team. Fuel compression? Also empty. Meteorology? A different squad of ponies sat where they usually were today, all stallions whom I didn't recognize. They must have worked somewhere else.
I wasn't part of a team, myself. At eighteen, I was old enough that no one would ask questions if I tried to contribute or hang out, so long as I had a passing understanding of what I was doing, but also young enough that the higher-ups didn't care to officially hire me or give me important-
"Well, look at this damsel, gracing me with her presence. What have I done to deserve such an honor?"
"Aaack!" I jumped as someone tugged on my coat, whirling to behold a seated earth pony with a dark coat and a blue mane, an eyebrow raised that asked plainly if I had really just spaced out enough to walk right past him. "Ansel!"
"Gray mane, silver fur, dressed like a detective in a noir film..." Ansel gave me a curious look, tilting his head. "Do I know you, little bat? Not every day I run into a cutie like you." He held the look for a moment longer, timing his next words to interrupt me perfectly as I was about to respond. "The pump turned on and kicked you out of the chapel again, didn't it?"
I puffed out my cheeks. "None of your beeswax. And I'm older than you."
"Meaningless semantics." Ansel waved a dismissive hoof, then made room on the bench and patted it. "Still, it's convenient how predictable your schedule is. Here. I saved you a seat, Sis."
I glanced at the invitation. "Thanks. I... need to go get food first."
Good old family. All things considered, mine was pretty alright.
I returned with a metal cafeteria tray heaping with snow potato salad that was drenched in mushroom stew. Not my absolute favorite, but a reliable comfort food, and I wasn't feeling adventurous after turning in that paper. Ansel was waiting with folded legs and a superior grin on his face, as if he couldn't wait to make a show of laziness by telling me everything he had avoided doing today.
Instead, once I settled in, he held his silence, observing me quietly. Eventually: "You look glum, chum. Unproductive day with the history books?"
"Well, wouldn't you like to know?" I wasn't too keen on talking about it, and blocked my mouth with salad and stew. It was more savory than I was expecting... a little over-seasoned, but good. Of course, my silence was less because the day's activities weren't on my mind and more because one didn't just talk about forging signatures on academic research papers in the middle of a crowded cafeteria. I raised an eyebrow, hoping Ansel would get the hint.
I really did want to talk, of course. How Corsica would react wasn't even the issue: I was more worried about Head Scientist Graygarden, and what his opinion on its authorship would be. It was a well-documented fact that he and Corsica didn't get along... And this was hardly the first time their feud had inconvenienced me. If Ansel and I were in private, I could blabber on for hours about that paper like it was the only thing in the world.
"Figures." Ansel nodded, leaning on the table as I ate. "Here, have a pick-me-up. I scrounged up tickets for the three of us to go watch the communications conference this weekend."
I looked up and blinked, my mouth full of potato and gravy. Ansel was holding out a ticket stub. "Oh, the one that's tomorrow? Or the day after?" I asked around my food, trying for a question that would hide the fact I had no idea what communications conference he was talking about. The name did sound vaguely familiar, but I was spacing out on why...
He just laughed and patted my back, tucking the stub back away in his satchel. "Don't look so embarrassed. It's just a monthly demo by the wireless communication team on the state of their technology. Probably won't even make local headlines, but you've always liked the obscure stuff, right?"
"Thanks," I mumbled earnestly, shoveling more food down and trying to quiet my empty stomach. My brother could be a tease when he wanted to be, but we looked out for each other. After all, when I was in a mood, I could be just as bad.
Ansel was content to let me sate my hunger in peace, sitting around like a watchful guardian. But the rest of the world wasn't.
Hoofsteps sounded in one of the entry corridors, amplified by shoes that were designed to clack against rock at the perfect frequency to be audible through the din of mass conversation. They were a set of shoes worn by only one mare in Icereach, a very loud mare who had no problems with all eyes being on her, and I looked up from my half-finished dinner to see that raspberries-and-cream mane and long, slender horn bobbing closer and closer through the crowd.
Corsica came properly into view, noticing me and adjusting her course appropriately. It was impossible not to get lost in her presence. Less than a year my senior, she already had a position of Chairmare and a doctorate within the institute, and she carried herself toward me with all the authority of an avenging angel, her perfectly-striped mane flapping against her pink shoulders and her tiny, ornamental shoes clack-clack-clacking against the hard stone floor. She had small, silver, wing-shaped mane ornaments tucked behind her ears that drew my eyes and almost made her look like she was gliding as she walked. They had to be custom; I had never seen any other pony with the same things. Every month or three she swapped them out with a golden pair, and I could never decide which color accented her better.
She was a mare who cared a lot about her appearance. I was a mare who cared a lot about Corsica's appearance. I wished I could carry myself like her, so I could afford to make the most of my own looks... And even after two years, I still wasn't used to it as she took a seat right next to me.
"'Sup?" Corsica asked, leaning on the table.
"Oh, err..." Internally, my brain raced. Did she know already? Come on, just tell me how it went over...
"Heads up, best to avoid the lab for the rest of the day," Corsica said, nodding back at the door where she had entered. "Old Graygarden's looking for me for some reason. Better not be there just in case he gets off his butt and comes in person for a change."
Okay, so she didn't know. But I had a very good idea what this summons was about... "Any chance it's good news for a change?" I prodded, stealing a glance at her. "Say, maybe he's happy with something you've done, for once?"
Corsica looked at me like I had suggested the sky might be green.
"That stinks, chum," Ansel said, his empty cafeteria tray pushed to the side so he could lean across the table toward us. "Did anything special happen to bring down his wrath? Hard to imagine someone like him making house calls for no reason."
"My entire existence brings down his wrath." Corsica rolled her eyes. "Besides, better safe than sorry, right? It's a weekend. Weekends are for relaxing."
I sighed. My ears would have fallen if they weren't eternally in that position already. "Can't imagine avoiding him every chance you get does much to improve his opinion of you."
Corsica raised an eyebrow at me. "What's gotten into you today?"
"Nothing," I protested, leaning my chin on my forehooves and poking at my food with my tongue. "Just tired of your little feud. Imagine how big of a research budget we could be rolling in if you weren't a pariah to the guy? Maybe it's time to... I dunno, extend an olive branch or something. Mend some bridges, or at least try."
Corsica eyed me up. "You know what you need? A vacation. You look beat. Good thing it's the weekend, right?"
"And I'm sure it'll be real relaxing, knowing that you're shirking a summons from the Head Scientist himself," I countered, flipping a potato coin from my salad into the air and catching it with my teeth. "How about this, yeah? You go see what he wants, and give him the benefit of the doubt, just this once. I'll go with you to back you up. Then no matter what happens, we slack off like crazy over the weekend and have a good time. Deal?"
Ansel nodded. "I suppose I could come along too, if it would help. Not that I've got much of a clue what you two have been working on down there."
"Ugh, fine." Corsica pushed herself to her hooves with a huff. "Not like I came here to get dinner, or anything. But who knows, maybe you're right. Let's go get this over with..."
Together, the three of us retraced a path I had walked barely half an hour before, finding our way to the administrative zone of Icereach. This was the layer of government that kept the institute running: Elise and Graygarden were the leading representatives of both nations, but each of them employed about two dozen scribes, accountants and lawyers dedicated to understanding the complex treaty the alliance was founded on and ensuring we stayed in accordance with its many rules and regulations. There was even an 'embassy', though its primary role was to house and maintain a machine that could send instantaneous communications back and forth to Yakyakistan. I had never seen the machine, and its workings were a closely guarded secret, probably due to the fact that Ironridge didn't have one and Yakyakistan didn't want to share.
Treaties were weird. Then again, this was less an anomaly and more a poster child for the reason Icereach never got anything done.
We rounded the final corner before Graygarden's office. Graygarden himself was just closing up shop.
The Head Scientist of Icereach had a round, balding temple and small face and wore an expensive suit, and I judged him to be somewhere around fifty. He was handsome and well-groomed, but in a way that left a vague impression that he was trying not to be ugly. And yet, the attention to detail in his grooming didn't speak of someone with so little talent that they would make that mistake by accident: this was a pony who just didn't care in the first place. He only looked the part because his job demanded it. Part of me suspected he would have been happier as an engineer.
"Corsica," he said in a hoarse voice that sounded overused, reminding me of a dusty clock. "I see you brought your friends."
"I got your message," Corsica replied coolly and with a formality that didn't suit her, yet was very well-practiced. "What do you need?"
"That paper of yours made its way to my desk," Graygarden said, his orange aura fiddling with a key in the door's lock. "Still trying to prove yourself by being unique, I see."
Corsica blinked in confusion. "My paper, sir?"
Graygarden didn't even nod, finishing with the door and walking past her without making eye contact. "Your research seemed thorough, but you forget that Icereach is not a history academy. No one ever bothered to make our library's texts on the subject authoritative. They're just there for pleasure reading when real scientists get bored." He continued down the hallway, neither stopping nor looking back. "Rockets are for going to space, not burrowing beneath the ground. Give me an argument that can convince the higher-ups that there's money to be found in those crystals, get your work reviewed by a historian who can check your dates, and I'll put you in the queue for a patent. It'll be an honor, getting one at your age..."
"A patent?" I ran up beside him, feeling my heart sink. "And what about a research budget? Come on, is that the best you can say? We're literally using ether to make rocket fuel! Don't try to tell me it isn't relevant!"
Graygarden may have had no glances to spare for Corsica, but he did give one to me. "Oh. Were you involved in this, too?"
"I..." I stumbled to a halt. My name hadn't been on the paper. What could I say?
The stallion shook his head. "Just like Corsica to leave her collaborators' names off her paperwork. Well. None of my business. After all, that kid's always wanted to go it on her own."
I sat back in a heap, feeling like I had been sat on by a yak made of irony. It hurt more than I was expecting.
"Well, three cheers for civility," Corsica said with a shrug, watching Graygarden walk away.
Ansel just shook his head. "I'll never get what you did to tick that stallion off."
"Hey, I was a perfect gentlemare. That was all on him." Corsica gave him a look. "You saw how he..." She deflated, then let it go. "Look, never mind. Anyone know what paper he was talking about? I haven't sent him anything in months. I know better than to waste his time."
I slumped. Mission failed, then... and a perfectly good research paper to go with it. At least he said the research seemed thorough, right? We might have gotten dismissed, but it could have been a whole lot worse...
Corsica frowned at me. "Hallie?"
"It was me," I sighed, planting the top of my head against a wall. "I might have... maybe... submitted the fault plane dating paper for you. In your name. And gotten two months of our work thrown out."
Had I been on the receiving end of such news, I would have been mad. I was mad - at myself, but still. And yet Corsica, by means that I could envy and only she could understand, didn't look angry at all. "How come? That paper was supposed to be your ticket to a little more clout around here."
"...Because he's your father," I spat. "You two aren't supposed to be at each other's throats all the time! One amazing genius who can do anything she puts her mind to, one government bigwig who can get all the resources in the world? Just think of what we could accomplish if you weren't constantly giving each other the cold shoulder! Maybe we could even crack the secrets of that chapel once and for all... I thought if I could impress him by making it look like you were giving him an earnest effort, it could maybe rebuild some bridges..."
Corsica just stared at me. "But all we need is one research grant and we can buy airship tickets for Ironridge and never have to think about him again! We were supposed to use your name and keep me out of the picture so his bias didn't get in the way. And we need to travel to get distant core samples and test our triangulation hypothesis anyway. We were so close. Did you forget how much you wanted that?"
I sat in a cringing pile. "Look, I know, okay? But the parents you have are the only parents you've got. I just figured... we've got a lot of years ahead of us. Might be better to gamble a loss of time now to get a better possible outcome..."
Corsica shook her head. "You spent months on that paper... Well, what's done is done. Dinner?"
She had spent months on it too. And yet she cared more that my time had been wasted than hers. What I wouldn't give to-
"Okay, you need to buck up." Suddenly, her aura grabbed me again and set me upright on my hooves. "Work day is over. You were a dummy, but no point in feeling sorry for yourself. Go home and get some rest, and then let's enjoy our weekend before figuring out how to get back on track after this. Remember your promise? We talk to Graygarden, and whatever happens, we slack off like crazy."
The whole time, Ansel had been staring at us with a dubious expression, and now he finally spoke up. "So let me get this straight," he began. "The two of you wrote a paper together, related to that project you're constantly working on down in your lab. Everything's gone belly-up because Halcyon cheated and submitted it in only your name. But your own plan was to submit it in only her name instead?"
Corsica blinked innocently at him. "What's wrong with that?"
Ansel adopted a casual pose, lounging against a steel support girder and whistling. "Oh, nothing."
I couldn't help it. I laughed. Ansel wasn't a scientist like the other two of us, but he knew how to cheer me up, and for that, I loved him all the same.
"That's the spirit," Corsica encouraged, patting me on the back and then starting down the hall. "Now back to the mess hall! Who's down to annoy the powers that be with a cafeteria tabletop karaoke tournament?"
Two hours and a lot of annoying the powers that be later, I tromped through a concrete passage with shabby lighting and water stains. Exposed, uninsulated pipes ran along the ceiling, and tiny stalactites grew from their joints where small leaks had sprung up over time. It was the opposite of lavish, looking more like a seventy-year-old maintenance corridor than the hall in a residential block in a futuristic underground city that it was supposed to be. And yet, it was still the familiar path home.
My determination had slowly returned, now that my stomach was heavy with too many second helpings and my ears were ringing with Corsica's terrible made-up songs, most of which were packed with tech jargon and in-jokes about Graygarden being dumb. I made mistakes a lot, but I was far from stupid. With a good night's sleep to distance me from this setback, I gave myself eighty-five percent odds on being able to find a way to fix it with less than ten days' work. Rough estimate. I'd be able to plan better when I wasn't tired.
"...Stuck as the Chairmare of Environmental Impact," Corsica was complaining, hoarse from singing, her dainty shoes tap-tap-tapping on the floor. "You know, a joke office with no power that's just there to make it look like I get pretty things? The way I see it, I say I was well within my rights to impact some environments."
Ansel raised an eyebrow, walking alongside me with saddlebags filled with groceries - apparently he had gone shopping while I listened to Corsica's party. "In that bald heckler's defense, I'm reasonably sure singing loudly and disturbing the peace wasn't the kind of impact Graygarden had in mind."
Corsica waved a hoof as she walked. "If he's too jealous of everything I do to give me anything that's supposed to be useful, I just have to do what I want with the things he does give."
Ansel snorted and looked to me, hoping to change the subject. "So what's on your mind then, Halcyon?"
"Well, the main issue is getting Graygarden to not dismiss anything straight out of hoof because he sees Corsica's association with it," I replied, wearing a perfectly straight face. "You saw how he shut us down. Now I'm afraid my name might not be far enough removed from Corsica's to get him to hear our work out. Currently, I'm thinking I might be able to make up a fake identity and submit the papers in their name, and see if I can get the institute to award them a research grant instead without realizing they don't exist."
Ansel blinked twice and groaned. Clearly, he expected me to still be berating myself for what I had done with the paper. Unfortunately for him, now I had moved on to thinking about ether crystals at a mile a minute. With an emphasis on fishing for grant money. And I was perfectly happy to talk about what was on my mind.
"A fake identity?" Corsica gave me a concerned look. "Are you sure that's the best course? Personally, I was going to suggest we register a shell corporation to lobby him and make him think there's economic interest in our research."
I guffawed. And then hesitated. I had been joking before, but could that actually work?
My brother hit his head against a wall. "Mayday, this is Ansel, why yes, I'm surrounded by teenage mares..." He got up and gave us the flattest of looks. "Have you truly learned nothing about the pitfalls of academic dishonesty from this?"
Corsica chuckled. "It only went south because we weren't careful. Around these parts, this is par for the course."
"Pretty much," I agreed with nonchalance, straightening up again. "Literally all anyone ever cares about here is patents, patents, patents. Surely you've noticed how rarely they get any actual progress toward a launch around here, right? Always focusing on what would look good in a display case with their name on rather than what'll work in a system." I thought of the inertial stabilizer rotor sitting snug in my satchel. Odds were ten to one that was why it looked as pretty as it did.
"Look, just... never mind." Ansel shook his head, pretending the last three minutes hadn't happened. "What was such an important paper even about, anyway? Or dare I ask?"
I shrugged, happy to have something to talk about that didn't require much thought or focus. "History, mostly. It's all about demonstrating that we can correlate major historical events with ether crystal fault planes."
Ansel gave Corsica a look that said plainly that I was a nerd who didn't remember this wasn't his field. She sighed. "You know those crystals that grow all over the place by the pump in the chapel?"
He nodded, and Corsica watched his expression, continuing. "They're oldest at the center, and grow outwards as new material accumulates and solidifies on the surface. Well, if we put them in a certain kind of strong magical field, it changes the surface permanently. Then that changed part gets grown over and trapped inside. We call them fault planes. It's easy to do in a lab, but no one's ever been able to figure out what causes the layers to form in the wild."
Ansel listened, following along. "So you wanted to see what caused them, then."
"Right. And our paper had a breakthrough," Corsica went on. "Recently, we've gotten precise enough measurements of the rates at which the crystals grow to go back and date exactly when each fault plane formed. They're all the same - something affected the whole cave, not individual crystals at random. Previously, we've looked for numerical patterns with these dates, but this time, we looked for historical patterns instead. And it turns out that more than half of the planes formed on or within a day of the dates of some pretty major historical happenings." Her brows furrowed. "What it means is that there could be a relation between the crystals far underground in Icereach, and places thousands of miles away in the world. What we don't know is why... and figuring that out will take money and travel that we can't currently afford."
"Historical events all over the world," I emphasized. "There was one at the end of the Yakyakistan Imperial War sixty years ago, and two of them eighteen years ago, only a few months apart. In Ironridge during the Steel Revolution, and then in the Griffon Empire when we were... you know... Had to leave."
Ansel's face shadowed. "Most of those events you're talking about didn't go down in the history books as happy or uplifting times. I'll admit that doesn't sound like a coincidence, but what if it's something you don't want to know?"
Corsica just shrugged. "Not how curiosity works, I'm afraid."
"Besides," I added, "a lot of the newer ones, we haven't tied to anything yet. One happened during the eclipse three years back where the Mare in the Moon disappeared, but we're pretty sure that's a coincidence because so many others involve something on a societal level. Although there was also one right after the... er..." I trailed off, having talked myself into a corner. "After the accident..."
"But Ironridge's is the most interesting," Corsica cut in, sensing my discomfort and changing the subject. "Because the same year as the Steel Revolution, their climate permanently changed. We already know an area's latent magical properties can have an effect on the weather it experiences, so this is a sign that there could be other measurable magics at work here. That location is my best bet for where we could make a major breakthrough, if only we could go there and take measurements ourselves..."
Ansel yawned. "Sounds like a passion project. I have to admit, all this mention of wars and catastrophe has me a little turned off. You do remember Mother brought us to Icereach precisely to run away from dirty business like that, right?" He gave me a look that was far more serious than his tone. "Wars are no fun for anyone, Hallie. All this talk of travel abroad and studying the tree rings in these war crystals-"
"They're called ether crystals," Corsica interrupted with a huff. "And so I want to get out of the bunker and away from my big bad dad for a change. Sue me."
I bit my lip.
Ansel shook a hoof at Corsica. "Look, whatever. My point is..." He paused, gathering his words. "Why do we care about the fault planes inside of ether crystals? Are they important? Or is this just curiosity that could be focused on any number of things? Hallie and I might be too young to remember it, but we're refugees, Corsica. And it's because of one of the events you said your crystals correspond to. Frankly, we're ridiculously lucky to be here, because Icereach is one of the safest and most isolated spots in the world right now. Allies to the east, allies to the west, nothing but mountains to the north and even bigger mountains to the south... We're happy here."
"Oh really." Corsica swished her tail, raising a sassy eyebrow. "Sounds to me like someone just doesn't want to admit they'd miss me."
"Tch." Ansel didn't spare her a glance, trotting confidently along. "You and your wily ways can do as you please. I just have this bothersome hunch Hallie would try to follow you."
I glanced over at Ansel as we paced through the worn-out tunnel, a flickering length of strip lighting marking a metal door with metal hinges and a welcome rug out front, no other ornamentation to be seen. "Look, I know there might be bad things out there," I protested. "Believe me, I know. But there could be awesome things too, yeah? I don't wanna grow up to become some patent monger who sits around in a lab coat ruling a world of experiments all day. I don't want the only unknowns in my life to come from me. So don't say it's just a hunch. I know you don't agree with it, but it's my dream."
"Well said." Corsica gave a small nod, her telekinesis forming around the door handle. "Anyway. Guess I've seen you back to your apartment. Wish old Graygarden would give you a place in a nicer part of town. Sleep in tomorrow, got it? It's a weekend. No shirking your slacking off."
I grinned, waved and stepped through the door. "Sure, whatever. Hey, we're home!"
"Hey," Mother greeted, laying on the couch that served as Ansel's bed and giving us a distracted wave. She was a thin, dark-coated batpony who didn't look like she could bench thirty pounds, with an open bathrobe and black eyeliner and an electric-pink mane that showed telltale signs of needing its dye job renewed. The mane was asymmetrical, stiff from bleach and flipped over one eye in an aggressive punk cut, and her good wing nursed a half-empty mug of coffee while her hooves held a Varsidelian espionage novel I was pretty sure she had read at least twice already. She wouldn't tell anyone her age, but a little math based on everything I knew about her said she was a year or three shy of forty. When the war came, she had been barely older than I was now.
Our mother was the spitting image of someone whom life had chewed up and tossed away long ago, and was just as bitter for it as her drink.
"Well, if it isn't my old mare," Ansel swaggered, hanging his saddlebags by the door and leaving his battered demeanor out in the hallway. "What can I do for you, o venerable one?"
Mother carefully turned a page. Even from this distance, it wasn't hard to see her fumble slightly from her tremor, or to make out the tiny look of frustration at her own inability. "I clogged the toilet. And we're out of crunchy peanut butter. Did you bring home any leftovers?"
"No, but that's quite alright." Ansel strolled into the tiny kitchen that only he and I used. "I'll put in a maintenance request and see if I can't burn some orange juice or something. Take it easy, Hallie. I've got this!"
I followed him into the kitchen.
"What's up?" Ansel asked, rooting around in a low-down cabinet for something canned and easy to warm up. "You're not hungry too, are you?"
"Nah." I patted my stomach with a reassuring smile. "Stuffed myself at Corsica's party, remember?"
"Here to help cook, then?" Ansel pulled out a tin of sliced pears and straightened up, acting like our conversation in the hallway had never happened. "I'm afraid our mother dearest won't be getting anything special today. Just garden-variety fruit from Ironridge... Would be splendid if one of us could actually draw a full-time salary for a change."
I gave him a look, my face turning serious, and I chose my words remembering that Mother was probably listening in. "We didn't finish our conversation out there."
Ansel frowned, then lowered his voice. "What more is to say? It's two against one. I know how both of you feel. And democracy is the highest form of government, as the bards sing it. Look, for what it's worth, I appreciate that you're giving me as much thought as you are, and I know it was at least partly for my sake that you did what you did with that paper. Take away Corsica's reason for restlessness, try to buy us some more time that we can all be together here before life takes us its separate ways?" He sighed. "I know you'll be leaving someday or other, and just because I haven't made my peace with it yet doesn't mean I won't get there when the time comes. As long as you promise not to fly off literally tomorrow, or something."
"Promise." I winked. "As long as you can forgive me for being afraid of living out my decades as an unfulfilled number cruncher who will probably die of old age before Icereach gets its game together enough to launch one measly rocket."
"That's a deal," Ansel said, "provided you can forgive me for being downright terrified of whatever gave Mother that injury and imagining it doing the same to you."
I felt just a little cold, and my smile vanished. "Perfectly understandable," I replied, shoulder-squeezing him with a dirty boot to hide my face. As gung-ho as I could be, my eagerness to get away and embrace the world was a reaction to Icereach, and I knew it. A little fear of the unknown could still be very healthy. Mother could attest to that.
"Anyway, I'm gonna hit the sack," I yawned, leaving him to brush his shoulder off with a frown and wandering back into the living room. "Thanks for making Mother's dinner. If the loo is still broken in the morning, I'll try and con a plumber into checking it out..."
The couch's raised back was to us, but Mother's eyes and ears peeked over the rim. "Stop making me sound like an invalid," she grunted. "I'm a vet. I could take you both with one hoof tied behind my back."
"But you don't need to," I calmly replied, summoning back my focus and kindness and turning it all to my only parent. "You won that war when you got us here safe and sound, remember?"
A sound like a bowling ball being dropped rumbled across our roof. Through the apartment's incredibly thin concrete walls, a foal in a neighboring unit began to wail.
"You had better believe it." Mother sounded more like she was the one who needed convincing, and slumped back down again behind the couch rim, returning to reading her book. "We've got the life of the century, right here."
I shook my head. There had to be more to life than this.
In an alcove at the side of the living room was the door to my bedroom. Questions about why I got a room to myself and my brother got the couch certainly existed, but both of us knew they were too much trouble to be worth addressing, and so we were content to let it remain the way it was. Besides, I enjoyed having a bit of personal privacy.
Maybe I enjoyed it a little too much. I had permanently barred the door with a wooden plank from the inside.
Just like unicorns had their horns, batponies like me had a common species magic too. I called it shadow swimming, and it was fairly self-explanatory. The area around my bedroom door was poorly lit, so I pitched forward, meeting the ground face-first and plunging on in as if it was water. I held my breath, didn't think too hard about how wrong the three-dimensional world looked when viewed from inside a flat plane, and swam forward along the ground, stepping out of the shadows again once I had slipped through the narrow gap beneath the door and the floor. The door had passed above my head; I was in my darkened room. And that was all there was to it.
With a rumple of clothing, I exposed the leg bracelet I had used for light down in the chapel, mentally commanding it to glow again and showering the room in warm emerald green. My bed took up a full third of the floorspace, next to a neat little desk with some library books and a chessboard for playing against myself. My vanity sat scrunched up against that, and in the space that wasn't devoted to a small dresser for my coat and other affects, I had somehow crammed a tiny, upright piano for playing when I really needed to have a talk with myself. I only knew one song, and it wasn't a song I was particularly fond of, but there were things music could do that no amount of words could ever accomplish.
Between all that and me, I had economized space to the max. I let myself tip over, falling onto my bed on my back with my bracelet hoof in the sky, bathing the walls in light and casting a giant, vaguely boot-shaped shadow over my poster-covered ceiling. Front and center was a picture of Corsica from two years ago, wearing a then-rare smile yet with her eyes closed, because I wanted to see her but didn't want to feel like she was watching me. I had a few other pictures of my friends, as well as a big print-out of the underground chapel, back before the ether pump had been built. Then there were more normal posters, like one for a science fair I had entered as a filly, and another advertising a Griffon Empire band called the Firefly Sisters that had to be older than I was.
This room was mine. The decorations were mine. Mother and Ansel probably hadn't even seen the inside of it for ages. I had made fun of scientists controlling their worlds of experiments earlier, but everything in this room was exactly as I decreed it. It was the world's only portrait of who I truly was... which made it matter all the more because sometimes I needed a little reminding of who I was myself.
Understandably, it could be a little difficult at times to hold onto my sense of self when my special talent was pretending to be someone I wasn't.
Heavy fabric shifted, and I doffed my signature coat, hanging it where it belonged. My flanks, now bare, showed off my brand - a cutie mark, Ansel called it, though I had no idea where he came up with that name. It was simple, not ornate, and moderately unnerving to anyone unused to seeing it: an upside-down crown. The story, for anyone who needed to know, was that my talent was chess, the crown representing a fallen king after the enemy's surrender. I had even spent a while mastering the game so I could back that story up if needed. And for everyone who didn't need to know, which was most everyone, I had my coat to hide it. Nobody sees, nobody knows. Corsica knew to joke around about fraud and forgery with me, but as far as I knew, even she and Ansel weren't aware of the true function of my talent. The fact that I really was good enough to fool everyone with Corsica's signature in the process of faking that paper probably hadn't even crossed their minds.
Now in just my boots, I stared into the mirror, and everyone but me stared back. Elise, and her ageless grace. Corsica, and her confident beauty. Even Mother, and her eternal defiance. It was easy to say I cared too much about the appearances of others. Certainly, other mares' looks were always something I was keenly aware of, and on more than one occasion I had been caught staring, though I was luckily young enough that no one had started drawing false conclusions about philandering. That would be a world of awkwardness, right there...
No, I cared about my friends' appearances because I wanted to look like them.
But not physically, though. No, that part was easy. I had played with Mother's dye and make-up until I had mastered their usage, could self-style my mane, had learned to stitch and sew my own clothes, owned a kit of common-colored contact lenses for both round and slitted eyes, could throw my voice and was sharp enough to copy a pony's gait and accent with barely a minute of observation... I could even get my weird, backwards-facing, laid-back ears to stand up and face forward, if I used an uncomfortable wire kit I had made that hid in my fur and invisibly braced them in just the right way. Pretty much any skill, I could learn in a heartbeat if it related to hiding who I was or pretending to be another pony. Like chess. Or forging signatures. Or knowing exactly what to say to get out of an awkward situation when I bumped into someone after not watching where I was going.
With enough effort and time to prepare, I could probably even pass myself off as a convincing-enough double of Corsica to flummox a casual acquaintance. And that was saying something, because she was an incredibly distinctive mare.
If only looks and mannerisms were enough. I could copy the accessories and nail the snark and the raspberry mane, but even with all that, I would still be pretending. And what drew me to Corsica, what had made her my idol since early foalhood and my best friend as of two years ago, was that she was utterly unreserved and unapologetic, rarely lost sleep over her problems or things that bothered her, and did everything she did with perfect confidence in who she was. I wished I could have that self-confidence and earnestness. That was what I desired, what I wanted to copy, what I stared at in passing and wished that I could have. But no matter how much my talent let me nail the execution, it wouldn't make it any less of a lie. I would still be hiding, still be moving in the opposite direction of who I wanted to be.
What made it doubly frustrating was that I didn't even need a talent like mine to look good in the first place. My body was hardly Corsica-tier - admittedly, a huge bar to clear - but I went about my daily business wearing a coat that belonged in a comic book, all so ponies would think I was trying too hard to get attention and summarily ignore me entirely. If I stopped trying to be invisible, ditched the costume and brushed my mane like an ordinary mare, I'd clean up well enough to turn heads and maybe even take some names with my looks. At least, that was what I told myself in the shower.
A talent for external looks was wasted on me. What I wanted was the authenticity, to be able to walk around without feeling safer when I wore a disguise, to be free from the mental block that made me freeze up when I contemplated being without a way to hide. I wanted to look any hypothetical consequences of my actions in the eye, shrug, and do what I wanted anyway. Corsica and I could swap bodies and lives, and practically nothing would change. It was all in my head.
"Sorry, Ansel," I told my pillow, pulling off my boots one by one and then faceplanting into my bed. "I'm trying my best to keep things smooth between you and Corsica, and your plans for the future. But I have hopes and dreams too, and finding out how to make myself who I want to be? I don't think I'm going to find that in Icereach..."
I thumped a foreleg, and my bracelet turned off, bathing the room again in comforting darkness. I closed my eyes, said a little prayer, and let myself drift off to sleep. I would find a way to make up for losing Corsica that research grant in the morning.
Stats
Page generated in 0.024 seconds
Total duration
676 users online
946,870 hits today, 2,139,894 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
It's been a year, but I'm back! This story has undergone an extensive amount of work between The Olden World's conclusion and today, and it's both nerve-wracking and a huge relief to finally put it out there. As was mentioned in the description, this story can be read standalone: it's a sequel that will give closure to a lot of TOW plot arcs, bring a lot of characters back for round 2, and eventually see Starlight return to the north in search of her old friends, but it's also written so that it can be fully understood without any of the previous story's context. Didn't read TOW? Started but didn't finish? Did read it, but forgot all the lore? Won't matter a bit.
Happy reading.
Is this story going to be as long as The Olden World?
Huh...changelingy without being a changeling. Wonder what her cutie mark really means...
I wonder if we know 'Mother' from TOW.
Also if she'd get some'a them thar patents that she's so derisive of, that could probably open doors to getting enough money for all that travel they want to do. Gotta play the game!
Exciting!!! I can't wait to get going on this one. It's awesome that this is a sort of spiritual successor to TOW but doesn't rely on a reader knowing TOW to get into the fic.
And so, we begin. Quietly, unassumingly, and yet, intriguingly.
an upside down crown, shapeshifting.... I have my theories.
for now though...
And now the speculation begins
Collaboration with KMRA? Or an independent and/or parallel line of research?
Now that I think about it, I wonder how separate/integrated Icereach's rocket development is with previous Yakyakistani efforts.
What would a communications conference need inertial stabilizer rotors for?
Really curious who Mother is. IIRC there's really only one candidate we know of from TOW, and some things match (dark coat, mane color (sort of), weakness (?), able to fight (?), Hallie's age, the term "cutie mark"), but others don't (Hallie, Mother's apparent age, thinness, type of injury). I'm leaning towards someone we haven't met yet, but that raises more interesting questions (in particular, how does Mother even exist?).
inb4 it's a pebble sitting on a table
Wonder what happened to Howe/Neon Nova's sound stone. Seems Shinespark had it last; seems Ironridge didn't get to figure out how it works in the meantime?
Hrm... So no blue-sky research at Icereach? That's mildly disappointing, though not wholly unsurprising.
Like a changeling in all but name, at least in terms of raw abilities.
Ok, this is certainly interesting so far.
I can only imagine the kinds of trouble Halcyon will get herself into... On to the start of a new book!
I just woke up and what is this? It's finally out?!
And Halcyon is already rivaling Valey for best pony?!
Preemptively liking and favoriting this for later.
10718201
Well, if you read TOW, she may not be as "un-changeling" as you think...
Congrats on being featured!
Excitedly looking forward to more.
A considerable amount of getting sidetracked later, I return with questions! And, as usual, find more of those, rather than answers. Excellent.
Cool to get a better look at the insides of Icereach. My memory is admittedly fuzzy on the fine details of TOW, but it seems to have expanded significantly in the eighteen years since. And simultaneously not actually gotten much work done, which checks out.
Halcyon is a fascinating main character to start out with. Interesting family, cool friend, a solid plot-hook of a dream, a curious special talent, and a very odd name, considering.
I look forward to seeing where this goes. I'm sure I'll have many questions and few answers.
The thick plottens!
I am back! After some lengthy consideration, I elected to read this before rereading TOW- mostly because I thought it might be easier for me to get through its ending again if I had the information in this sequel.
I can already tell that these much longer chapters will be the death of me. I have so many thoughts, and I’m only a single chapter in…
Where to begin. Well, first off, Halcyon is delightful, and her starry-eyed excitement is a hilarious contrast to TOW’s Gay Trauma Squad (I’ll probably spend a lot of time comparing this story to its predecessor, even after I get independently emotionally invested in this one. If you wanted me to think about other things, you shouldn’t have written something so good). The premise of a scientist in a largely isolated bunker is very solid.
This presumably takes place eighteen years after TOW; I am curious how long after Starlight’s storytelling it takes place, though. Presumably not very. Either way, the north seems to still be almost entirely isolated from Equestria, given the lack of knowledge of what the mare in the moon’s disappearance meant. Unsurprising, but still good to note.
The fact that we don’t get a name for Halcyon’s mother makes me immediately suspicious that she’s somepony we already know, though I suspect that’s probably me being paranoid. On the other hand, from what we know, it’s surprising that she’s even alive, given that she was presumably north of the Aldenfold during the Chrysalis Sucks Up The Bats incident (what she references fleeing from, I assume). Then again, we only really saw those events from the perspective of ponies who immediately ran away, so perhaps it wasn’t as catastrophic as we thought.
I will say, I hope we don’t spend too much time having characters do detective work around events we as the readers already know. Obviously the story is meant to stand on its own (though I am absolutely fascinated as to how you’re going to manage that), but I always find that sort of thing tedious. Still, you managed TOW’s mysteries and reveals very well, so I’m confident you’ll do the same here.
Hopefully my future comments will be shorter. They won’t be, but hope is a virtue. I look forward to continuing, and off we go!
HA HA more great story. After binging the last novel i cant wait for more of this one. And ill be 100% less rude with my comments in this one, i went a bit crazy with my comments in the other novel before and it was out of line.