The Immortal Dream

by Czar_Yoshi

You Can't Stop History

I hovered in midair, leaking frost, watching in white and blue as Mother and the Composer stepped away from the wreckage blocking Rocket Silo One.

Embers rose from the crashed airship as flames began to spread, all searchlights from the main airship carrier focusing on us. Voices were shouting below, inside the silos. Mother was already limping toward the second silo - the second of four.

To hear her tell it, she thought Yakyakistan was here to trigger a rocket strike on Ironridge, and that by disabling all four silos, she could protect the city - and thus me, whom she assumed was still there.

I shivered, despite being unable to feel the cold. All stakes aside, that was seriously cool. I had always known Mother could break every limit in my name, and had done so to get us out of the eastern continent, but getting to witness it up close, and this time not through a nightmare...

The twinge in my chest buzzed in excitement. All I had to do was follow and watch, and I'd be treated to the spectacle of a lifetime.

"Windigo sighted," a voice blared on a megaspeaker mounted on the airship carrier. "I repeat, windigo sighted as part of hostile force! All cannons, fire at will!"

"Do your thing," Mother grunted at the Composer, limping doggedly toward the next silo. How was she going to blow up this one? All the remaining airships were high in the sky, and I had never seen her fly on that wing...

Booms rang out across the sky, and flashes of light lit up the cannon decks on the carrier. I watched with a dizzy, rapturous feeling as the Composer spread its wings, drew its blades, launched into the air straight over Mother's head and sliced in half the one cannonball from the volley that would have hit her. Another cannonball, flying at an awkward angle, clipped the lid of one of the remaining silos, embedding itself squarely in the mechanism for opening and closing it.

Help her, I thought, somewhere in the distant back of my mind. But... why was I thinking that? Watching the violence felt too good. I was meant to be an observer and a cheerleader, not a participant. Besides, I wasn't even sure what good a little ice would do.

The cannons reloaded, but before they could fire again Mother and the Composer reached the second silo, dropping down inside. I hovered over the rim, torn between following them down and flying up to scare the cannoneers.

You came here for Mother, I reminded myself forcefully. Stay on track.

But it had been a lot easier to think that before the explosions started, and I felt how good they felt. Every time I passed up a chance to mess with ponies and start a fight before, an ache had been growing in my chest, moving up the scale from an annoyance to a legitimate pain.

"Focus," I growled to myself, hoping saying out loud would help. "Ignore the airship..."

"What was that that I heard with my ears?" Ludwig asked, the familiar light mote bobbing over to me. "Having trouble being me, little cigar?"

"No," I told him flatly, his presence giving me a spike of stubbornness that I turned into focus. I started into the silo, swimming through the air.

"Honestly, friendo," Ludwig said, "you will have, like, this much better of a time if you just go with the flow. Did I ever tell you about the time King Father created us and stuffed us in a box for thousands of years? We were made to do the bidding of some rando, not frolic and do whatever like stupid ponyos. The robobobot is super weird among windigoes because she actually cares about free will and doing stuff purely because she wants to, like a ponyo. But if you are trying to be a windigo for a change, it will drive you insane if you try to see the line between what you want to do and what King Father wants you to do."

I bristled. Obviously, Ludwig would say whatever it took to get me to give his body back, but this really wasn't the time...

"The best case," Ludwig went on, "is that you become all dark and broody and start writing poetry about whether you are writing poetry of your own free will, questioning where your emotions come from and whether they are really your own and all that. I say best case because apparently there are some ponyos who are too dumb to realize they are ponyos and ask those questions too. Philosophicerers, I heard they were called. So if you could find some, you would be in good company! And you could also mess with them because you actually know the answer and are too sad and stupid and ugly to accept it. Have you ever met a philosophicerer, little cigar?"

"And what's the worst case?" I asked, not really wanting to know.

Ludwig bobbed happily in midair. "The worst case is that you waste a whole lot of time trying to kill King Father when you could have just been enjoying yourself, and then you feel like a fraud."

What a terrible fate...

I focused my attention on the floor of the rocket silo. The Composer was finishing off the last of the Yakyakistani soldiers, all perfect, clean kills like the ones on the airship, and I felt a deep spike of frustration and betrayal that it was breaking the ponies rather than playing with them.

That... That wasn't how I wanted to feel. This was not me.

I tried to grind my teeth, but they were too incorporeal for it to work. At first, I thought I had a handle on this new windigo body, but ever since the violence began, it was like my temptations had been supercharged. Stop enjoying this, Halcyon! I... was not... a bloodthirsty windigo!

At the bottom of the silo, sitting on its launchpad, was a gleaming silver rocket. The sight of it almost brought me back to myself enough to forget about the tension in the air: normally, civilians like myself weren't allowed anywhere near the rockets, and the one time I had seen one was from the heavily shielded control room in the middle of the four silos, during a school field trip when I was young.

Curved silver fins formed a tripod that propped up the spacecraft, its body long and sleek and faintly ovular. Near the top, it tapered to a red nose cone that looked faintly detachable. Ostensibly, that cone was the part where ponies would actually ride during space travel, the rest of the rocket consisting of engines and fuel tanks that would gradually fall away as the craft completed different stages of its flight, until only the tip would be left to return to the world below. But now that I had heard the stories, about rockets being used before to deliver payloads of explosives... It sure would be easy to replace that nose cone with a single, giant bomb.

Odds were, it had already been replaced.

Sparks dripped down from above, leaking from the roof mechanism that had been ruined by the cannonball. Mother was scaling a scaffold tower that attached to the rocket, though it looked like most of the conduits and hoses the tower was meant to support had already been decoupled from the hull.

The smell of blood filled the room. None of the soldiers here had been shown any mercy. I struggled to keep my focus.

"There," the Composer instructed, standing on the ground and watching Mother. "You will need the green hose labeled EF3. Detach it from-"

"You're welcome to help," Mother hissed, struggling against the contraption. "This is... not..."

"Easy?" the Composer finished. "Precisely. As with our last meeting, I am far more interested in seeing the lengths ponies will go to to achieve their goals than in any particular outcome. I observe and enable, but to do the work myself would defeat the point. Can your care for your daughter truly-"

A retracting door in the wall slid open, revealing a lone pegasus.

"Not invested in any particular outcome?" she said in a familiar, raspy voice. "How convenient. In that case, would you mind standing down, please?"

My frosty eyes widened in interest. I hadn't seen her all that well last time, and windigo sight didn't make this time any better, but this was undoubtedly the Yakyakistan princess from the Trench. And she smelled like malice.

"Continue with your task," the Composer instructed Mother, before walking up and stabbing the princess in the throat.

My frosty heart raced in excitement.

The princess didn't seem particularly bothered.

"Save it," she said, pushing the blade back out and stepping away, the wound closing in a shower of green flames that burned down instead of up. Then she looked straight at me. "I had expected that my intentions in coming here were clear and welcome, but seeing as you and your ilk have been killing my lovely soldiers, that clearly isn't the case. Perhaps you can clear up this misunderstanding."

Think. Be Ludwig. "Ey, you've got some nice flanks," I told her, feeling dirty even as a windigo for saying it. "My understanding is that I am a spooky windigo who screws with ponyos to see the looks on their faces."

Internally, I winced. Was this smart? I was staying in character, but I was also antagonizing someone who may or may not be trying to start a war... Why was I doing this?

I needed to get out of this body before... before I changed enough that I no longer wanted to.

"Lovely," the princess spat, dropping some of her decorum. "I'll be sure to pass the compliment on to the real owner of this body if I ever see her again. Now I'll spell it out plain and pretty: I want a war. You want a war. So why are you trying to stop me from landing the first strike?"

The Composer shot Mother a look that said Keep working, then gave me a look that said your move.

What? Why was I being put on the spot for this?

"Because I don't like your face," I replied, internally scrambling. This... This wasn't what I wanted to be a windigo for! I needed to lower tensions, not inflame them! Even if it was very possible that I was negotiating with Chrysalis herself...

But that just meant I needed to be at the top of my game. Not tied up in a body that desperately wanted to cause chaos.

Ludwig bobbed eagerly beside me. He, I could tell, was enjoying this.

The princess frowned. "You get your chaos and conflict and whatever else your miserable kind lives for. I get a national crisis to manufacture unity and rally the populace behind their figurehead-"

Something clicked on the platform where Mother was working, and she audibly growled. The princess flicked her ears.

"You don't look like a windigo," she said, a horn materializing on her head in a gout of emerald flame. With a too-thick aura that looked worryingly like the one my other self had used to ghostify me, she grabbed Mother, yanked her from the platform, and held her in midair. "Ah... I know you. You're the one the fools in the Trench came here to save, aren't you?"

I wiggled, generating a small bolt of ice that encased the princess's horn, snuffing out her aura and freeing Mother. "Eyy, no messing with my toys, runt!"

"Halcyon is here?" Mother stumbled for cover, giving the Composer a piercing look. "She's not in Ironridge?"

Deep in my head, behind the bubbling excitement that I wished I could sweep away, I saw my chance. Get Mother. Get out. That was all that mattered...

"Negative," the Composer replied. "She is in Ironridge at this very moment. Near the top of the Ice District, where I am given to understand you desire to strike." It turned to the princess.

"Actually, robobobot," I cut in, "your face is wrong about that. She took the teleporter to my hidey hole over there." I wiggled in an eastward direction, then at Mother. "If you want to see for yourself, I will give you a free ride by my very own self! What do you say we ditch these losers and go check it out?"

The princess chuckled. "By all means. I could care less what you do, so long as you stop wasting my drones and stop trying to damage my new toys." She gestured at the rocket. "Halcyon... I know that name. Lilith gave instructions that we were to leave someone named Halcyon alone. Although, I've never been known to be a team player. And if she cares about you enough to come all the way out here, you might make a decent hostage..." She rubbed her chin. "I was thinking of stalling until I can launch this rocket right here and baking all of you alive in the exhaust, but that's a much more interesting idea..."

"Back off," I growled. "Halcyon is my toy! What are you interested in with her, eyy?"

Internally, I panicked harder. This was Chrysalis... or at the very least, a bishop I hadn't met before. I needed to be at the top of my game right now and I wasn't, because this stupid body kept interfering with my emotions! How could I do this!?

"Halcyon?" The princess looked up. "Oh, I know nothing about her. But from the sound of things, everyone here considers her valuable... You there!" She snapped her feathers at Mother. "Ten seconds to explain to me what makes this Halcyon special and why I should care."

Gambit time.

"Her face is stronger than yours," I said, vibrating. "I am not even kidding, friendo. She is also super emotionally insecure and easy to manipulate. Also she really loves rockets and if you shoot one at Ironridge, I am like fifteen entire percent sure she will think it is so cool that she won't run for the hills, so you should definitely do that if you want to make her easy to find. I heard she is even good in punching fights!"

The princess gave me a look that accepted that I was messing with her, and was pondering whether to be entertained anyway.

"...Interesting," she eventually said. "I'll take that under advisement. But since she's currently in a satellite of Icereach that is under my control, I suppose I don't have to worry about that for the time being." Her horn flickered. "My scouts report efforts to use the filly to activate the targeting system were successful. I've stalled for long enough. I think I'll use this rocket first, now that you've gone and broken the silo lid. If you have any interest in being my hostage, try not to be here when it goes off."

A circle of green flame rose up around her, and the ground inside it became shadowy and textureless, the princess sinking down inside. Immediately, the door she had entered through rolled closed, and an array of warning lights began to flash.

Mother swore.

"It seems your efforts were in vain," the Composer remarked.

Mother swore harder and punched a wall.

"I recommend you flee," the Composer said, spreading its wings. "Ride on my back if you must. This chamber is about to become unsurvivable for both of us, and I am not inclined to sacrifice such a useful body for the sake of dawdling."

"But... Halcyon...!" Mother turned back toward the scaffolding tower. "There's still time! I have to...!"

"I lied," the Composer smoothly said. "Halcyon is in Icereach, in the hideout where she was previously imprisoned, as are the closest friends she made during her stay in Ironridge. Understand that my assistance in your quest was born not of a desire to prevent this attack, but of a desire to see the lengths to which you would go to protect your own. As payment, I took it upon myself to shelter those you care about in advance."

Mother stared at it with a desperate expression.

"It is true," I added, wiggling. "But let us blow this dump and go see for ourselves! Of all the bad ideas I have seen ponyos come up with, staying here is definitely a bad idea."

"You wanted for them to bomb Ironridge," Mother said, focusing on the Composer.

The rocket's engine started to flicker.

I wasn't waiting any longer. "Out we go!" I proclaimed, summoning an ice pillar beneath Mother and the Composer that shot both of them high into the air.

The rocket's engine started to spark... and quickly, I got an idea. Pushing Ludwig's powers to the max, I jammed as much ice as I could into the silo. This would hold, right? It would prevent the rocket from-

As the ice materialized, the pain in my chest returned with a vengeance. I had almost forgotten about it while relishing the conflict and the tension... or maybe it had actually gone away, but it definitely wasn't gone now. I winced, struggling to stay aloft, and my control of the ice faltered, everything I had just summoned shattering to pieces.

Why? What was going wrong? Why couldn't I do this?

The bottom of the pit lit with an unholy glow as Mother and the Composer landed on the surface, a safe distance back from the rim. I was halfway to the ground, struggling to right myself. "Urgh..."

"Ludwig?" The Composer watched me with its monotone eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Eyy, friendo, you are not looking so good," Ludwig added, bobbing closer. "Tip from a pro: whatever you just tried doing, if it was to stop anyone from fighting or to be nice to anyone? Do less of that. It is maybe not the super smartest thing in existence for a windigo to be doing."

I ignored him, focusing and trying to resummon the ice.

Too late. The rocket fired.

The heat of its engines forced me back, scattering me like dust as it rose, a trail of white plasma in the air beneath it that faded to red as its nose broke the surface, then its body, and finally its fins. In a few short seconds it was high overhead, sitting on a tower of smoke that continued to expand, and it was rapidly accelerating.

Mother stumbled, her fur blown back, parts of her bathrobe smouldering from proximity to the fire plume. "Halcyon. Take me to her. Now."

"I have other work to see to," the Composer announced. "Cold Karma has already been evacuated in preparation for this strike, though its employees know it not. This war will, after all, be pointless without ponies to fight it. However, this body's control terminal is on the premises, and I will be needed in person to steer the situation." It turned to me. "Ludwig. You are to escort Nehaly to the hideout. From there, let everyone do as they will."

I trembled in relief. There was no way this could be described as going well, and yet... I had yet to lose. My own victory condition was right in front of me.

If only I could have afforded to be a little more ambitious in what that victory would look like.

---

I wasn't quite sure what the Composer's idea of escorting Mother to the hideout looked like. I wasn't sure it was a safe place to go, either - had the princess I met down there been real, or this same fake? But she mentioned a targeting system and a filly - ostensibly Nemestasis and Coda - and what that told me was that there might be a fight and I would be backing up my friends, windigo body or no.

Eventually, we closed in on the entrance, using a hollow ice cube as a transport to protect Mother from the elements that I pushed along an ice ramp I built as I went. The twinge in my heart was still there and still dangerous, but meditating on how I would take sides in a coming fight soothed it a little, and got me through the journey.

I needed to be myself again. Maybe being in my right mind would have caused me to collapse from a panic attack and get paralyzed again, but I didn't care. Better to suffer my own faults and failings than those of an insane windigo.

Inside the hideout, there had clearly been a battle. Operative word: been. Stun powder nets littered half of the entrance room, however, and snared within them were no less than four dozen unconscious, untransformed changelings.

Unless and Papyrus were guarding the door. The latter had clearly been in an epic scuffle. The former looked basically fresh. Unless raised an eyebrow at us. "Gonna guess you're not a changeling, frosty?"

I dropped Mother and floated up near the ceiling, not particularly wanting to subject my friends to Ludwig's weirdness - even if it was an act, and not the real thing.

Mother struggled to her hooves. "Where... is Halcyon? Tell me she's here..."

"Back room with Corsica," Unless said. "You want more intel, pony up some of your own first. What's going on out there?"

"It is pretty gross, friendos," I said, compulsively answering for her. "There was a super nasty changeling who just fired a rocket. I am pretty sure Ironridge is completely doomed."

"The Composer..." Mother coughed. "Implied it would only hit Cold Karma... Please, take me to Halcyon..."

"Oh, badness." Papyrus flicked his tail, looking actually mildly concerned. "Guess taking down this many here wasn't enough, was it?"

I sighed, took a breath... and forced myself to drop the Ludwig act. That rocket was flying, and for once, time was a lot more valuable than any of my secrets. "Look," I said. "Does anyone here know anything about rockets? How much time we have, whether we can do anything? I'll power the teleporter and can get us back. Halcyon has a key that'll tune the teleporter to Fort Starlight, which is hopefully outside the blast... Never mind, you already know about that. Is it worth it? Is there anything we can possibly do?"

Everyone squinted at me... and a faint flicker of understanding sparked in Unless's eyes.

"Fort Starlight is pretty far away from the Ice District," Unless said. "I've seen how big of booms these rockets make before, and unless they've juiced them up big time in the last twenty years, it should be safe there. Dunno if there's anything we can do, but we're not doing anything at all from here. What about Icereach? Anything to know about there?"

It was hard for me to think. "Look, just... get everyone who's a good guy and take them to the teleporter room. I'll turn it on. Details later."

Get Mother back to Ironridge. Writs of Harmonic Sanction for her and Corsica. Steal an airship - I wasn't even sure we had time to buy one anymore. Get across the border and away from all this. That was all I could think of anymore.

"You heard the freezebag!" Unless barked to everyone in the room, mostly other yaks. "Stories, catch-up and explanations can wait. For now, we clear this joint!"

I floated my way to the possession circle room, which I was pretty sure was also what Ludwig used to power the teleporter. The circle lit up as I drifted inside. I could feel... something... being borrowed.

No, the twinge in my chest protested, why are you helping everyone run away? There's still fighting to be done! Don't get rid of one of the armies!

I growled. My senses were clouded with blue and white, and I could feel my perception of time starting to slip. Something pulled on me, and I intrinsically knew the teleporter had just activated.

It happened again. The pain got a little worse.

"This isn't going to end well, little cigar," Ludwig told me, bobbing out of a wall.

"Shut it," I commanded, not in the mood.

"I am serious and stuff," Ludwig insisted. "Windigoes do not save ponyos. Or hairy things. They make them fight. Has your face forgotten for realsies all the important stuff I told you way back when?"

I tried to close my eyes and focus, but I had no eyelids. The pressure in my heart wasn't letting up.

"There is an ancient windigo artifact called the Lovebringer," Ludwig narrated. "And to make a really long story short enough for your piddly ponyo brain to remember, anyone who has it can say whatever they want and all windigoes have to do it. Otherwise they will be cursed with a super bad curse and stuff. And the only person to ever have the Lovebringer wanted us to make mortals fight..."

"Yeah?" I grunted, wishing I could sweat. "What about it?"

"Well, friendo," Ludwig patronized, "you are doing a pretty good job of invoking that curse."

"Knock it off," I growled. "You yourself promised to run this teleporter for me, didn't you? That means it's totally... possible..."

"Oh, that?" Ludwig did a loop, as a glowing mote of light. "I lied. Or maybe I misrepresented it. I seriously do not remember, little cigar. I say stuff without thinking it through all the time. Like, have you even met me?"

The teleporter yanked again... and suddenly, the pain reached a crescendo.

My senses fuzzed and blurred. It felt like my heart was pumping spikes through my incorporeal body, and I hit the ground in a puff of fog. My own thoughts suddenly sounded distant, so distant in my mind, replaced by a trio of shouting, singing voices exalting conflict and violence.

They didn't have control over my body either, though. It felt like no one did. I almost braced myself for Ludwig to swoop in and take back control, but the light mote seemed content to float and watch, one of the few things I could see at all anymore as bursts and bolts of pain wracked my body. I wanted to scream, but it felt like my jaw was detached, and when I tried to open it, the song I heard threatened to leak out instead.

The teleporter tried to pull again, but I had nothing to push into it.

No... I had to... had to...

The back door creaked open, the one to the secret passage that led to the bathroom. "What's going on?" said a voice I would have been able to identify if not for the pain.

With my last bit of energy, I focused. Corsica came into view... as did a body that was supposed to belong to... me.

I thought, and could think no more, my mind slipping into a sea of song-

Emerald flared in my vision, cutting through the blue and the white in a way that, I realized, the flames on the Yakyakistan princess had done as well, back in the rocket silo. And then my emptiness was there.

"This has gone on long enough," Halcyon's voice said, cutting through the song, a desperate, blank hunger beneath it, unfathomably deep and empty. The emptiness gripped me, needed me, longed for me, and I felt myself pulling apart, as if two halves of me were held together by wet paper, physical and incorporeal...

FLAAAASH!

My senses returned like a fog rolling in, replacing a visage no mortal was meant to see by sights and sounds that fit comfortably within my brain. I was tired and dizzy and aftereffects of the pain were still rolling across my body, but the song was gone, as was the pain in my chest. Most importantly, I was me again.

...Sort of. Halcyon was standing in the room across from me, and I realized with a start that I was still a ghost.

Ludwig's body, oddly, was nowhere to be found.

"You're going to regret that," the light mote said, sounding legitimately ticked off. "Little cigar..."

Corsica ignored it, her mane frayed, looking almost dead on her hooves. "You sure about this?" she asked Halcyon.

Halcyon nodded, closed her eyes... and lit her horn, which was already summoned. Part of me felt an unpleasant shock: wasn't that my secret to reveal? On the other hoof, I really wasn't feeling up to anything at all right now...

I jumped a little harder when her horn lit not with green, but a windigo-colored teal.

The circle reacted. I saw her react just slightly, as if she had just been pulled.

"What's going on?" I asked in a daze. "Corsica? Me...?"

"You're an idiot," Halcyon replied. "I can't believe I let you go off on your own. I'll clean this up, and then... I don't know. But you'll owe your friends a talk."

I'll clean this up, she had said.

This... it was...

It was the same as it had been before. Exactly the same. I hadn't done anything. I wanted a redo, and... once again, I was being saved by the actions of other ponies.

I didn't know how this made sense. Where was Ludwig's body? Why was the light mote still here? How was Halcyon powering the teleporter? What was Corsica doing here? What had happened while I was gone? Where was Coda?

Had I messed up? Should I have stayed here and focused on the princess and her entourage who I met out with Balthazar? Mother had done all the actual doing at the silos, Kitty had saved her, I had done...

I had done nothing. Again.

Maybe, if this was really my destiny, having another me to clean up after my messes when I failed wasn't so bad.

---

I let myself lose track of time, but it couldn't have been more than a minute. All I knew was that I should have done more: gathered more information, better understood my abilities, better controlled my panic attacks, lost less and won more. But, eventually, Halcyon stepped away from the circle.

"Just us left," she said, nodding to Corsica. "I've charged it up for one more burst. Let's get back to Fort Starlight."

Corsica looked like she could barely stand. Whatever had happened here, she had definitely been using her talent.

I swallowed, hovering alongside her. If I was going to tell her my story after this was said and done... Which, who knew, maybe would actually help me for a change... she deserved the chance to repay the favor. Maybe now I could finally learn what my best friend had been through on her half of the gauntlet, what her own self-destructive talent was actually good for.

The teleporter was charged and waiting when we got there. Halcyon and Corsica stepped in, and I felt myself dragged along in a flash. When I regained my senses, we were in a stony field in front of Fort Starlight, with a perfect view of the Ironridge crater and the old dam and the Ice District.

"That everyone?" Valey said. I saw a lot of yaks, but was too spent to take stock of everyone myself.

"Anything left to..." Corsica stumbled. "To do? That we can...?"

Valey frowned. "Cold Karma's already been evacuated. That dumb windigo is making a spectacle for the whole city out of this. Look."

I focused. The Cold Karma building was lit up in the night, a giant runic symbol projected over the top that I couldn't recognize from this angle. Where was it coming from? What was making it? Either way, it was eye-catching...

"Can't miss it," Valey said. "The Emblem of the Nine Virtues, if you're curious. Church thing. Dunno why Yakyakistan uses that as a marker for their rockets to target, but they've done it before... and don't even think about asking how they put it up there. Some spooky machine in Icereach."

"We could..." Corsica struggled to say. "Make a decoy? If I'm reading you right and the rocket tracks the symbol..."

"Thought of that," Valey replied. "Not as simple as it sounds. I'll explain later. Time's up."

From the west, high in the sky, a glint of silver streaked through the air.

Comments

[Numinos]

Interesting chapter... Halcyon is getting more and more interesting : )

[sploopy slooder]

to be fair to halcyon, even if this entire situation is borked all to hell, she did the best anyone could reasonably expect her to do.