The Immortal Dream

by Czar_Yoshi

Hello There

"You!" Leif gasped, missing her armor and once again a pegasus - a dirty, emaciated pegasus who looked to have been here for quite a while. "Halcyon? What are you doing here?"

"Long story," I said, leaning on one hoof, a tingling sense of irony creeping up my spine. "You?"

Leif grimaced. "Also a long story. Two important questions: are you supposed to be here, and do you have any food?"

I dug around in my pockets, found a granola bar, and tossed it through the cell bars. "Supposed to be here? No idea. I give up on figuring out this place's rules. Nothing makes sense, lease of all you. Aren't you supposed to have goons in Ironridge? Something to do with the Composer? They're here. Working for the mare who owns this dungeon, even."

"Congratulations, you figured it out," Leif droned, eating ravenously. "Or maybe you don't remember how we parted?"

I shrugged. "I remember almost dying when your Whitewing exploded in my house."

Leif winced.

"Turns out the explosion wasn't all that bad," I went on. "What really got me was the crippling exhaustion from getting ditched and stressed out and worried so much before hiking through a blizzard to come kick your tails, and don't forget about the windigo you locked me in with..."

Leif raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "You want me to beg you to free me so you can gloat about the irony of that while you're at it?"

Kitty was watching the two of us with a curious expression. "Who's this lady?" She glanced up at me.

I turned to her. "Someone who got me to trust her, then ditched me and locked me up. And I'm gonna guess she's here now because a certain robot she trusted swiped her from the general prison after Elise shipped her back here and locked her up in its own dungeon, instead." I looked back at Leitmotif. "Or am I forgetting something?"

Leif sighed aggressively. "Nailed it, I know, thank you, moving on. Halcyon, the Composer was a windigo. Do you remember that much?"

I blinked. Actually, that night had been so chaotic that the Composer's true identity completely slipped my mind... but I had known that, hadn't I?

"Lady Catherine Manchester Volkhelm Mk.I, she called herself?" Leif looked intently at me. "Ringing any bells?"

Kitty whistled, which thankfully involved putting her tongue away. "Fancy name, lady! Sounds like it's for someone very smart!"

Leif gave her a disapproving look.

"Yeah, I remember that," I said. "What of it?"

Leif glanced again at Kitty. "...How trustworthy is this mare?"

"More trustworthy than you..." I started, and then blinked, realizing something. "If you're about to tell me something scary to manipulate me into doing something again, it's not gonna work. I will literally go home and magically pry it right out of my brain, and I'll make myself forget you're here while I'm at it and you will squander anything you could possibly have gained by meeting me here. Do we understand each other?"

For a moment, Leif looked at me with dawning comprehension... and then, for some reason, fear.

Her gaze flicked from my eyes to my boots to my coat to my eyes again. "It can't be. That's... why you had colored contact lenses when we went through your things..."

Now it was my turn to be taken aback. "What?" What did that have to do with anything I said? Did she somehow know something about how I worked? Did she-

I physically slapped myself. "Nope. Not falling for it. I straight-up don't want to know while I'm in any sort of position where you can trick me into giving you what you want. You're good, though. Keeping me on my hooves."

Leif gave me a chagrined look. "Fine then. Please get me out of here."

I tilted my head at her. "Are you bonkers?"

She shrugged. "No tricks. No deception. I'm straight-up asking for what I want. You can believe I want out, right?"

I could... Something was definitely off about her, though. She was warier of me than she had been before the remark about me having colored contacts. Probably just an extended ruse to throw me off, but... someone as well-traveled as her, there really was a chance she might know something.

If only I had some kind of collateral. Something she cared deeply about I could use to ensure her cooperation.

"Look, what do you want?" Leif begged. "Other than to gloat? I've been in here for months, and I need to get free! Whatever you want, I can't get it for you myself but I can absolutely tell you how to get it yourself. Contacts, information, dirt on someone, unrevised history, you name it. On the house. Whatever you want for breaking me out of here, I pay completely up front. Maybe you'll get it and walk away, betray me right back, fair's fair. But this is the best I can offer. Work with me, Halcyon!"

I squinted at her. Desperation for her own sake? She was a convincing actor, but it sounded like she had a bigger cause... Of course, if what Mother told me about her was true, she was always devoted to the big picture. "How about your airship?" I asked. "I want that."

Leif sighed. "Wish I could, but that was impounded when we were captured and I have no idea where they took it. I can put you in contact with a black market it might have been sold on if they really wanted to get rid of it quietly, but I doubt it and I doubt you could buy it back if they did. Anything else?"

I frowned... and then I got an idea. "When you bagged us in Icereach," I said. "You made up a bogus story about there being a cave you found that went all the way down to the ether river. Do you know if there's any sort of cave like that in Ironridge? And if so, where's the entrance?"

"You're still interested in that?" Leif straightened up a little. "I might be able to help you. I know about one, but it's very old info. And it would be very dangerous."

My ears swiveled in interest. "Spill."

"...Right." Leif pulled herself together. "Right now, we're in a place inside the mountain called the Flame Barracks. There used to be a mining district called the Flame District that was destroyed in the Steel Revolution. They're attached, if the names didn't tip you off. However you got here, you'll need to do it again when you're ready to go down there, or else find a different entrance to the Flame District. Most of the old ones are sealed off because it's a safety hazard. I couldn't tell you which. With me so far?"

I nodded.

"The Flame District core is a very deep cavern that spawns a lot of mineshafts," Leif went on. "It houses a drill that's bigger than anything you've ever seen before. You'll need to go down near the bottom of that, but not quite the bottom bottom. Somewhere there's an elevator shaft - can't tell you where, or which one. It'll take you deeper. At the bottom of that, there's a free-fall. Very deep. No elevator. Too deep for all but the best endurance fliers to get back up, so you'll want a plan for how to get out that doesn't involve your wings. At the bottom of that, there's allegedly some ancient ruins made of crystal. And at the bottom of those is what you're looking for. Got it all?"

I nodded again, focusing as hard as I could to commit this to memory. Long story short: find Flame District core, go down.

"Problems you'll all but certainly face," Leif continued. "First, the ventilation in the Flame District is broken. The air there probably isn't breathable. Smoke, mine gasses, and who knows what else. Second: it's probably flooded, but I don't know anyone who's been down there to check recently. And I have no idea what the temperature is like, either. You might be able to scout it out with just a high-powered respirator, but I wouldn't go down there in anything short of an armored space suit. And finally, please remember that all this information is badly outdated and there will very likely be surprises I know nothing about, and you're probably marching to your death. But I do know that it at least used to be possible to get down there."

Huh. There was a decent chance that information might actually be legitimate, particularly since she was adding so many disclaimers and clearly not playing down any danger. "Any idea where to get an armored space suit?" I asked, aware of the irony given where I was from.

"Two options," Leif said. "One, Cold Karma might have some. Steal one or get close to someone who would lend it to you, up to you. Can't say for sure, it just seems like something they might keep laying around, given certain other interests of theirs. Two, find a mare named Shinespark. Infamous in Ironridge lore, not easy to track down, but she used to be an expert on wearable power armor. I've seen her creations in action myself. I don't know where she is, but some of her friends frequent a bar called the Gates to the Underworld. On the scale of shady meeting places, it's probably unlikely that anything bad will happen to you for snooping around there, but keep your ears open anyway. The proprietor's a batpony, though, so you should be fine. If neither of those pan out, figure something out yourself, though Ironridge is full of powerful folks willing to make under-the-table bargains with anyone who has skill, initiative and freedom. Just make sure you don't wind up like me."

"That's okay!" Kitty chirped, her tongue hanging out again. "If Halcyon gets arresteded again, Kitty'll come keep her company!"

Leif gave her a suspicious look.

"...Thanks," I said after mulling all that over. "You really want me to trust you, eh? If I spring you, what are you gonna do?"

"Look for the rest of my team," Leif answered. "I don't know where they are. If I succeed, or decide it's time to cut my losses, escape. Leave the city. Might try my luck in Yakyakistan, or go disappear in Varsidel."

"Would you really just go away?" I pressed. "Mother knew you. She said you were always fighting for a cause."

Leif shrugged. "Guilty as charged. I'm not telling you what I'd do after I left unless I had a little more reason to trust you, too."

Fair enough. "By the way..." I raised an eyebrow, sensing I was almost done here. "You really messed us up, you know? I spent a long time thinking about whether or not to hate you. If you were evil, you should have cackled a lot hard about it, and if you were good, you shouldn't have mislead us the way you did."

Leif returned the look. "Evil or good. And what if I'm neither?"

I met her gaze. "Then what do you think you are? Be honest, for once."

She met mine. "A necessity. An inevitability. A pony." She flickered with green flame, a hint of transformation magic, as if to remind me she was a changeling. "If you're not going to help me, then get out of here. Go see if you can find your cave, or if it's as lethal as I think it is. I can't prove myself here, in a vacuum."

Prove herself... She wanted my trust. Suddenly, an idea popped into my mind, the kind of idea that felt like cheating reality and playing by my own rules. But the rules in Ironridge were chaotic enough already, and it already felt like everyone who was anyone wrote their own, so...

Coda said I was special because I resisted her abilities to discern ponies' thoughts and intentions. Unless Leif was special in the exact same way, figuring out what she was up to and whether she would backstab me if I freed her was only a matter of getting her and Coda together in the same room.

Which almost sounded harder than dealing with Leif myself if she did go rogue, now that I thought about it. But it was an option.

"Alright." I straightened up. "I'll be back."

Leif sighed. "Try not to get killed out there, okay? Believe it or not, we were hired to strand you in order to protect you. Someone cares about you, kid."

"If only it was you, when it mattered." I turned my back on her, and started to walk away. "See ya, Leitmotif."

"...Senescey."

"Eh?" I glanced back over my shoulder.

"Senescey," Leif said. "My old name. Before I met the Composer."

I remembered the locket Mother had given me on the day I left Icereach. A small piece of metal with a picture of her and two others, a date forty-odd years ago, and the letters F+S+L. Maybe now I knew what one of those stood for.

"...Right. See ya, Senescey."

"Buh-bye, lady!" Kitty chirped, prancing along at my side.

I didn't look back as we left the holding area, but I thought I heard her call, "I'm sorry..."

This one would sit on my conscience for a while.

---

"Alright, you," I told Kitty once we were a ways away from the prison area. "I could really use a way out of here. I've seen a lot and I need to think about it, preferably somewhere safe. So if you can get me back to the surface and free from trouble with whatever weird privileges and knowledge you have..." I opened a pocket and pulled out my wallet, jingling it for emphasis. "Do it in under an hour, and I will personally go to a bakery, spend all of this on cake, and carry it personally down to your lair in Jamjars' basement. Do we understand each other?"

As I spoke, Kitty's face slowly morphed from a stupid, happy tongue-hanging-out grin to a radiant, ecstatic tongue-hanging-out grin. I had to take a step back to avoid getting licked out of pure joy.

And then she reached into her hoodie, pulled out a pair of pointy rock-star shades, slapped them on, put her tongue away and bared her teeth in a grin. "Now you're speakin' my language!"

I blinked. And then I blinked again. Kitty was talking normally?

"Err..." I narrowed my eyes in concern.

Kitty shrugged. "If you want more serious mode, keep the bribes coming. Freeloaders only get Kitty the clown. Now hop on. Time to blow this popsicle stand!"

I knew, all along, that Kitty had to be the way she was on purpose. And for some reason, it was a lot harder to believe now that I was seeing it with my own eyes.

"Well?" She motioned for me to get on her back. "Time's tickin', tummy's rumblin'! Let's get a move on!"

I climbed onto Kitty's back, mystified as to what this would accomplish and uncomfortable from the contact but willing to follow directions that were so important as to warrant breaking character.

"Hold on tight!" Kitty urged.

I did.

And then she moved. Kitty was suddenly fast, fast enough that it took me a second to process how she was moving, her hooves alternately kicking at and skidding along the ground, like an ice skater. She took corners with wild swings, and I chanced a look behind us to realize that was actually happening: there were trails of frost on the ground in our wake, and a razor-thin rime of ice just wide enough for a single hoof to coast along.

"Hold your breath and close your eyes," Kitty warned. "Air's about to get nasty!"

"Wait, what?" My ears pressed back in confusion.

"You heard the wench!" Kitty said. "Flame Barracks are connected to the Flame District core! Shortest way out, so cover your orifices!" We came upon a mechanical door, and Kitty skidded to a halt. "Ready?"

I nodded and took my deepest breath, not about to argue with such an unpredictable mare.

Ice congealed along the ground, growing and forming in a way that reminded me uncomfortably of how Ludwig had created ice in the hideout... Kitty had the special talent, but she didn't have the eyes, I reminded myself. There was no way she was a windigo.

Crunch! With a shriek of metal, the ice pried the door open, forming inside it and pushing the retracting sides apart. A wave of hot, sticky air hit me, bad enough that I could feel it on my wings as I raised them to cover my squeezed-shut eyes, and I hear the ice shatter and door crash back closed in our wake.

Kitty had stopped breathing, but she was running full burst.

Suddenly, she stopped, and my ears heard a hiss and crackle before we began to rise with startling velocity. It wasn't a jump, it felt like an elevator... and then it was a jump, the two of us hurtling through the air. I wanted to scream, my mind reached for my bracelet, but I held tight and held my breath and trusted Kitty and suddenly we hit something with enough force it nearly cost me the breath I was holding.

I was vertical. Kitty was somehow holding onto a wall.

And then she began to climb very rapidly, jumping and launching herself up the wall like she was running down a hill. I heard more hisses of ice, felt us rise again, bumps and jolts shaking and disorienting me until I had no idea of where we were, only that we were still going up... and then Kitty stopped, and with a wrenching of metal, I heard some ancient hinges being forced to work.

We were through. Kitty stopped again, and forced the door closed behind us. Then she started jumping back and forth, rapidly gaining height, as if skipping every single step in a back-and-forth stairwell, and the air swiftly cooled off, back to a level below normal.

"Whew!" she eventually panted. "Safe to breathe now. Hard part's over!"

I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, jumping off Kitty's back the moment I saw solid ground to land on. For a moment, I panted too - I could have held my breath a while longer, but this much was still a stretch. The air was far from fresh, and still tasted a little acrid, but I didn't think it would kill me.

Also, opening my eyes didn't seem to matter, because it was pitch black. Not even the faintest trace of light reached them, and I was well-practiced at operating in dim conditions. Using my bracelet for light was a habit I had generally broken when others were around, but here, I felt like I had to make an exception. It lit up, bathing the area in green.

Kitty had lingering trails of frost and meltwater on her hooves, and her mane, tail and hoodie were all stained with soot. She leaned down and sniffed my bracelet. "Shiny!"

"What was that?" I managed, getting myself back together. "How... How did you do that? Who are you? What are you? That was inequine..."

Kitty sat down and smiled, her eyes slowly unfocusing as her tongue poked back out - her shades were gone. "Kitty wants cake," she cheerfully informed me. "Halcyon owes Kitty an whole entire wallet of cake!"

"Yeah..." I looked around, taking stock of our surroundings. "Sure..."

We were still underground. In a stairwell. The one Kitty had been jumping up, presumably. I craned my neck; there was a slight gap between the staircases, and if I held out my bracelet, I could make out the bottom several flights below. Looking up? I had to turn my bracelet brighter, and there was still no roof in sight. The stairs looked like they went up forever.

"I hope you're not tuckered out after carrying me through that stunt," I told Kitty with a firm look, "because there's no way I'm returning the favor."

---

We climbed for so long, I was beginning to suspect this was a magical repeating staircase, but every time I looked back down, the bottom had receded, and eventually the top came into view, too. Kitty plodded onward with her usual naive cheer, the sane - no, lucid - was even that the right word? The other half of her nowhere to be seen. I had my own fitness to fall back on, but it was the only reason I could keep going: I was exhausted. This felt like the Aldebaran incident, where I wore myself out past my limit and all I could do was stumble onwards, except this time I knew I had a home waiting for me outside these tunnels.

Come to think of it... Climbing this stairwell aside, I hadn't really done anything strenuous tonight. Gone for a long hike with Ansel, sure, but I did that every night. And then I sat for an hour in an unusually cozy jail, and had plenty of time to physically rest up. Like I had done with Aldebaran, only there, I had been forced to stay off my hooves for a lot longer.

No, most of the exhausting things to happen to me recently were emotional. Dealing with nonstop curveballs and things not working the way I expected them to, getting in trouble when I shouldn't and then getting a way out when I also shouldn't have, meeting someone I had strong and complex feelings for... I was avoiding thinking about Leitmotif - Senescey, now - until I was safe and could afford to stop and process it, both the way I felt about her and the way I had treated her. Come to think of it, I had bottled up a lot of feelings in the name of survival and being at the top of my game during the Aldebaran incident, too.

And how well had that worked out for me?

A theory quickly pieced itself together in my head, one that felt obvious and like a revelation at the same time: being emotionally tired made me physically tired. And bottling things up in the name of performance in the short run might actually be backfiring.

I wondered if being emotionally strong could make me physically strong, too.

We eventually reached the top of the staircase, at which point I called a rest break and Kitty promptly tipped over on her side. A single door led into an adjacent room, and I poked my head through to get an idea of what was up next.

This next room was a long, long horizontal tunnel. The floor held a large central rail that looked like some kind of track, except not for any train I had ever seen. Beside it and recessed into the floor were belts made of interleaved metal plates that didn't seem entirely fixed in place. I wondered if they used to move in the past, conveyor belts for transporting cargo. Probably not very large cargo, or it would get in the way of whatever used the central rail...

Extinguished lights lined the ceiling, and two walkways ran along either side, so I'd be able to steer clear of the contraption either way. I couldn't see anything but darkness in either direction, but a very faint breeze blew from my left that smelled of fresh mountain air.

I sat down next to the entrance to the stairwell, since the air was better on this side of the door. The door itself was laying on the ground, I noticed; the hinges looked like they had rusted over long ago before being cut with something impossibly sharp. Even the lock was severed. The door had a dead bolt, but the head of it was still stuck in its slot in the wall, as if someone had stuck a blade in the crack and chopped it off. Working at it for a minute with my wing spokes, I was able to get the bolt head out and examine it. It was sturdy. What had done this?

...Also, there was a faded sign next to the door reading Emergency Exit. Odd that an emergency exit would have been allowed to rust, and then locked. Maybe whoever cut the door open was using it for its intended purpose.

"Hey," I said to Kitty, letting my mind wander. "How come you're so strong?"

Kitty looked up, laying sideways, flat against the floor. "Kitty gots strength," she told me. "It's her dancing game! Gives Kitty super muscles. Wanna play?"

"Maybe I'll give it a try when we get home," I said, turning back away. Focus. Relax. I wasn't in danger, just very lost. Even if I didn't know the rules, my home had a matron who had a say in writing them. I didn't need to be at the top of my game. Just... breathe.

And the thoughts started coming.

The first thing I realized was that if Kitty had a hidden side to her that could run through a cloud of toxic fumes in pitch blackness while performing inequine gymnastics and climbing a huge distance while holding her breath and with someone on her back, there might be a legitimate reason why she could push around Lilith and the police. I didn't know what that reason was - it could just be that she was absurdly strong, but that was probably only part of it - but it was very plausible that Kitty was spooking the executives on her own merits, and not just because of her connection to Jamjars.

Which meant Jamjars telling everyone that Kitty got away with it via her connections to her was a front. And that meant Jamjars and Kitty were coordinated partners.

A lot of things suddenly made sense, and I quickly put together a hypothesis to test that: Jamjars knew I got arrested and sent Kitty to keep an eye on me and chase off any untoward advances. Whenever we got home, I'd watch their interactions and see if they conformed to my suspicions, or if something still didn't seem right. But I had a hunch I had just figured out one of the secret rules to how Ironridge worked.

That led to a second realization: even if Jamjars and Kitty were powerful enough to scare off other powers by confronting them face to face, the fact that they had to confront them displayed a limit to their influence. These two were far more influential than they should have been, but they weren't omnipotent, and if I relied on them to be, then this sort of thing would probably happen again. And quickly, too, now that both Lilith and the police were curious and felt the stakes tightening.

Third: Samael and Estael, I was all but certain, were interested in me for some reason relating to my emptiness. Frustratingly, I was at a disadvantage here: I didn't know how I worked myself, which limited my ability to guess at what anyone else might know about me. So the smart decision might be to accept my losses up front and assume all the Cold Karma tycoons knew everything about me from the start.

...Did that include Jamjars? Did I want to assume she volunteered to take me and my friends from Icereach because I had something she wanted to exploit, the way Leif had lied and captured all of us with the express interest of stealing Corsica's identity? Not counting her recent admission that she abducted us for our own protection, which I was disinclined to put stock in.

Jamjars, betraying us like that... I tried to imagine it. Maybe it was true. Maybe I was destined to get betrayed by everyone I trusted. Maybe there was something about me that attracted traitors, be it magical or mundane. Although Jamjars seemed generally more interested in teaching me than using me... Maybe she knew things about me, but was also legitimately interested in my well-being. Whether for my sake or for the detriment of someone I might someday become an obstacle to, it was certainly a possibility.

I didn't want to be a pawn in anyone's plan, though. I wanted to see the world and be free.

Such a simple goal to articulate, and yet such a hard one to realize.

It might be the case that I couldn't get away with not playing this game, though. Not for as long as I was in Ironridge, at least. And there was clearly a game afoot. The city did have rules, even if they were hidden or counterintuitive; I was certain of that much. Rules that were probably being made by the rulemakers as moves in that game.

So, my moves... As tempting as it was to ignore the game and live my life, that was going to get me right back where I was again, and I hated being stressed, helpless and confused. At the very least, I was going to play it enough to learn the rules, and that involved getting my hooves dirty. To do that, I'd need to learn to cool my head and keep from breaking down under situations like these.

I did a quick self-check, and didn't feel all that bad. I was less tired than before. Maybe digging through all these thoughts instead of running and hiding and trying to stay strong was the right way, after all.

Options, though. First, I could formally throw in my lot with Egdelwonk. From what I had seen of Ironridge's top brass, he felt like the least-likely employer to subject me to bodily harm, the most-likely enemy to annoy me during my day-to-day routine, and also he already had Corsica and if I was going to pick a corrupt, bizarre team to join, it would probably minimize the ways things could go wrong if I was on the same side as my best friend. Or at least avoid a host of potentially unsavory scenarios I didn't want to imagine, were we ever asked to work against each other. And on the plus side, I could talk about this with Corsica first and get her opinion on it.

Second, and not mutually exclusive, I could dedicate a lot more time to Coda. She had not-so-subtly offered me an airship, and felt like an easy target for manipulation to boot. And while I wasn't about to pull a Leitmotif on a lonely child, an airship was a no-holds-barred ticket to freedom. If I got one, I won the game. Not to mention, she had powers that could be useful. And even if I was uneasy about how easily she was trusting me, I really wanted more ponies I could trust, too.

Other things... I could formally abandon my interest in the Earth District. Night District, whatever. I didn't have any reason to go down there aside from curiosity, it was hard to go down there thanks to the weather, and it didn't seem like the safest or nicest place to be. And going there had gotten me in this mess in the first place. I kind of wanted to investigate and learn the reason Barnabas and Piano Mare had jumped me, because right now that incident stuck out in my mind like a black eye, but it wasn't that important. I had bigger things to worry about.

And then... Leitmotif.

I sighed. I had no idea what to do with her, or what to think of her, or how to feel. She was visibly underfed, and the first thing I had done upon seeing her, before any of my emotions got in the way, was give her food.

Was she untrustworthy? Absolutely. Was she a villain...?

I didn't know. I never found out her real intentions. Eventually, I had made an uneasy peace with not knowing, just so I could sleep at night. Now, it mattered again. Was I just as bad as she was, leaving her down there when I could have helped? Was there a chance I was worse? If I knew the full details of her operation in Icereach, what if I decided she was fighting for a noble cause? What was Lilith doing to her down there... Or what was the Composer doing? I wondered how I had traipsed through Lilith's entire underground base and not seen the Composer anywhere, given that they were in cahoots.

Leif seemed so desperate, though. Was it selfish desperation, and she wanted to get free for her own sake? Or did she know something important? Even if I didn't trust her enough to listen, there were things she hadn't trusted me enough to tell me, despite the hope that she could have swayed me to listen.

Maybe she was an utter cad, and was working with Lilith in a good-cop-bad-cop routine to get me to do something, but... she wouldn't. Leif hated authority, I remembered. That part of her, from back in Icereach, I couldn't see as a lie.

And she was Mother's old best friend. If I had a falling-out with Corsica, someday, and then I had a kid, how would I want them to feel about each other?

I swallowed. I was talking myself in circles, using logic to forestall an inevitable conclusion: I should have let her go, consequences come what may. I was a pony who followed her heart. I wouldn't be able to hide from that forever.

A tear touched the corner of my eye, and I wished I had sat down and had this talk with myself half an hour ago.

"I'll be back," I whispered, too quiet for Kitty to hear. "Give me three days. I'll need to find a normal way in that doesn't involve toxic fumes, and a way back out again. But no more than that. I promise, you hear?"

The world had no response, but my body did. I could physically feel that I had made the right decision. My legs felt stronger, like I hadn't just climbed a five-mile staircase or been emotionally squeezed through the wringer. A rush of determination pulsed through my chest, and my bracelet sparkled a little brighter.

"Alright," I told Kitty, peeking back through the stairwell door, "break's ov-"

Kitty was fast asleep on the floor.

"Fine." I rolled my eyes and reached down, hoisting her onto my back. "Guess I'm returning the favor after all."

Comments

[Boopers]

Oh well, I guess I wasn't quite right, but also not entirely wrong about that, but having a changeling Senescey, who wants to be a pony is even more interesting.
But I'm even more excited about that colored contact lenses thing. All the implications of that...

[Thunder twister]

wew, one hell of a chapter for lore drops - very excited for the next few chapters

[PropsValroa]

That was a deep dive into the surreal.

[Alchemik]

Hm. Kitty is the new Valey in town, that's for certain. I'm extremely curious about what Valey thinks about things, given it's been mentioned she was still in town. Both Kitty and various other goings-on.

Granted, I'm curious about most of this. The adage holds true.