The Immortal Dream

by Czar_Yoshi

When the Rush Comes

A splinter of silver flew into the sky, streaking over the western horizon.

Time seemed to freeze. I had begged fate to give me a redo, to prove to myself that I could do better than my last visit to the hideout. I had gotten that redo. I had held all the tools to make a difference. Last time, I hadn't made a difference.

This time, if anything, I had made things worse.

Before I could berate myself, time unfroze. The rocket grew larger at a mile per heartbeat, and all in an instant, it became a fireball and a roar, engulfing the peak of the Ice District. Red and yellow and white seared into my vision, black smoke coiled... but something wasn't right.

Numbly, I focused, and then I saw: beyond the explosion, there was a glimmering, translucent pink dome. A projected shield, fitting smoothly around the building. Inside it, Cold Karma was fine.

I didn't... have the mental capacity to process the significance of...

"My, my," a battered Papyrus said, sounding fake-scandalized. "Have we been boondoggled? Here I was believing we had a legitimate crisis on our hooves..."

Murmurs rose around me as the smoke lifted further and more ponies saw it too: Cold Karma, and Ironridge as a whole, were perfectly unscathed. The shield eventually flickered out, but not before lasting longer than it needed to, ensuring it could be seen, like a thief leaving a calling card at the scene of a crime.

"What happen?" Balthazar demanded, stepping forward, looking much worse than he needed to. "What rocket do?"

"Welcome to windigo town," Valey answered, stepping forward. "Whatever just happened, you can make no mistake they were behind it. Cold Karma is run by them. For everyone new to Ironridge..." Her eyes found Mother, and the entire population of Icereach yaks. "It's pretty hot here, especially down in the crater. Cold Karma is an air conditioning company that sources its coolant - and behind-the-scenes leadership - from windigoes. And if I were a windigo, I'd be pretty happy with myself right now."

She turned back to Cold Karma. "Whether it did damage or not, that rocket came from Yakyakistan. Yakyakistan are supposed to be our closest allies. But this is a declaration of war, and you can be certain it's one the windigoes will be all too eager to answer. Second, if I were a general preparing to wage a war, I'd want an answer to the most powerful weapons my foe has to offer... and this looks a lot to me like a successful test run. Third, and most important: most of you just got scared half to death by what turned out to be a bluff. Whatever you're feeling now, remember it and take it to heart, because it's an important lesson in how windigoes operate. Just know that you can never call a windigo bluff, because they're always set up to be able to go both ways."

Leif gave her a suspicious look. "You talk like you were expecting this to happen."

Valey returned a gaze that suggested they had some long-unsettled business between them. "Not gonna lie, I sort of did. But that's only because I've done this song and dance many times before." She looked away. "You stay in this business long enough, you learn how to quickly analyze situations. Now, who needs medical attention? Fort Starlight-"

I didn't feel anything, and only belatedly realized that was because I was still a ghost. But I saw everyone else, and they certainly did.

Several yelps reached my ears, followed by a low rumbling. Ponies stumbled, including my own body, which was still controlled by the other me. And, finally, I could see the ground shake.

"Is this an earthquake?" Papyrus hovered, looking indignantly at the ground.

"Why ground move!?" Tarkov stared at his hooves, looking deeply disturbed.

"That rocket just hit..." Leif hovered, looking worriedly at the Cold Karma building. "Is this a coincidence?"

"It had sure better be," Jamjars growled, taking a few shaky steps towards the distant building.

Mother tripped, fell over and swore.

Valey hovered too, a look of intense concentration on her face... and suddenly she frowned. "It's getting hotter."

"What heat have to do with earthquake?" a yak asked.

"It had sure better be," Jamjars repeated, notes of warning and desperation in her voice.

"Look!" another yak called out, pointing at the city crater.

The stars overhead were shimmering. Usually, the curtain of heat rising from the city could distort my view of the sky, but that was mostly when looking out from the Ice District in the daytime. At night, it wasn't usually this much, right?

Valey sighed, giving Jamjars a flat look. "What do you know, and what did you do?"

"Why are you trying to pin this on me?" Jamjars asked, trying to back into a defensive position without falling over.

I flew higher, partly because the group's chaos was doing no favors for my beleaguered ability to think, and also because I wanted to see the city floor itself. What I saw nearly made my heart stop.

Down below, Ironridge was littered with flecks of shiny, sparkling pink. As I watched, as the earth continued to shake, more of them appeared, and the ones that already existed grew bigger.

They were... crystals. Like the ones I had seen when we traveled through the Flame District core, when trying to save Leif from Lilith's school.

I remembered the distinctive shape of those crystals: bent and fluid, always rising, like massive flames frozen in time, as if they were trying frantically to escape from something far, far below. Back then, they had been inert, but now, they were growing.

I watched as a Day District street was pierced, a new spike of pink rising sharply into the air. One of the biggest spires, rising from the Night District, forked and spiraled into incredible patterns, and many smaller ones were beginning to do the same.

It would have been beautiful, if it didn't feel like the end of the world.

I flew back to the group, hoping I could get my other self to warn them. Back in the Flame District, I remembered, there had been the sensation of screaming in the back of my head, a voice I didn't recognize. Now that the crystals were here, I couldn't shake the feeling the screaming was back again.

When I reached the group, the dynamic had changed. Several more figures had shown up, including Braen - the small mare who first led me through Fort Starlight, and always wore a cloak - and two others in identical cloaks, one of whom was alarmingly tall.

My warning, it turned out, wasn't needed. The crystals were growing even faster, and several were now visible above the rim of the crater, twisting together into a spire that pointed straight for the heavens. "What's happening now!?" Papyrus demanded.

A visible, smoky aura was beginning to congeal around the crystals, somewhere between black and purple and blue and green, similar to the night sky at its brightest and most beautiful. A cool wind began rushing towards the crater, everyone's manes and tails beginning to blow, and a core of cold light burned brighter and brighter in the central spire that all the crystals were weaving into.

The light reached a fever pitch... and then it burst, a laser of immeasurable width shooting out past the moon, visible for the briefest of seconds. The laser caught the night sky like a rock thrown at a sheet that had been hung out to dry, and in an instant, it was all over.

The light from the crystals was gone. So was the screaming. So was the shimmering in the air from the heat. So was the shaking. So was the growth that propelled the crystals into the air.

So was the sky.

It was still there, per se. Except instead of black, it was gray, the most lifeless shade imaginable, devoid of both light and dark. The moon and the stars were there as well, but they seemed flatter, and the stars no longer twinkled with life. It was like someone had taken a picture of the sky, and then replaced the real sky with the picture. Except if the picture was gray.

Everyone looked to be in shock. And then my attention was caught by what should have been an irrelevant detail: the lighthouse I had seen earlier, next to the Ice District, the one that didn't show up in photos and only I could see.

The air shimmered around the lighthouse, and for a moment it looked like a shield around it had just fallen.

Valey, I noticed, was looking at it. "We've got a visible lighthouse," she sighed, more to herself than to anyone else. "That's... really bad."

---

"What happen?" Mustafa the yak asked. "What happen to sky?"

"What happen to city?" Balthazar added.

"It's cold out..." Leif remarked, shivering. "Like what you'd expect from mountains like these. It was just getting so much hotter, and then..."

The gray sky didn't seem to be providing any illumination, despite not being dark. If I didn't look at it, I could pretend it was still night out. As much as I could pretend anything, at least, when my train of thought was so smashed to pieces.

Something terrible had just happened. That was all I knew. And no one around me seemed to have even the beginning of answers.

Well... except for Jamjars.

"You!" she burst out, marching to the edge of the crowd and pointing a hoof.

It was Kitty.

"Hiya, lady!" Kitty chirped, wearing her trademark stupid grin, her tongue poking out and a bit of cake frosting on her chin.

Everyone seemed to take notice.

"Your calculations said this point was still several years away!" Jamjars accused, horn glowing, pointing a hoof straight at Kitty's dumb, smiling face. "Why is this happening now?"

Kitty's tongue poked out in an eternal, wordless reply.

"Here's an idea," Valey said, her words laden with menace. "How about, before the blame-trading starts, you two loons tell everyone what happened? Because once we get to the accusations, you're gonna have a bad time."

"Shut up; the professionals are talking." Jamjars brushed her aside with a hoof. "Kitty-"

Faster than I could process, Valey shot a leg out and tripped her, knocked her into the air, grabbed her head, suplexed her and pinned her against the ground. It was, a strange little part of my mind pointed out, exactly the same move Unless had used on her in the hideout, when I was waking up from the stun powder.

"Try again," Valey warned, holding Jamjars' head against the ground and staring at Kitty. "What. Did. You. Morons. Do?"

Jamjars growled. Kitty sighed... and put on her shades.

"Fine, cute Valey," Kitty said. "You owe me a cake afterward. At a guess, there's a teensie weensy little chance testing our shield like that may have prematurely burned out our power source. Guess it wasn't as infinite as some would lead you to believe."

She gave the hooded figures accompanying Braen a look that said, your turn.

The smaller of the two, who spoke with a mare's voice and carried an enormous sword on her back that could only be wielded by a unicorn, bared her teeth. "You talk like I ever suggested using a Tree of Harmony like that was a good idea!"

"But you pioneered the technology," Kitty pointed out. "Jamjars and the windigoes were just following in your hoofsteps."

"And not you?" the hooded mare replied, lifting her sword and pointing it straight at Kitty's face.

Only... I saw no glow from her hood suggesting the presence of a horn. Instead, when the sword flew, a disk of runic energy hovered around its handle, and a similar, larger one orbited the mare's barrel, forming outside her cloak. This was a kind of magic I had never seen before.

Everything here, I had never seen before. There was so much context I was missing. So much I should have known if I wanted to play the game, so much I never figured out.

What had I hoped to accomplish? Had I really thought knowledge was my ally? That because I knew more, I knew enough?

"No need for that," Kitty said, not even flinching. "I've always been more interested in observing."

The larger of the cloaked figures, also a mare, spoke. "Whether or not a Flame of Harmony is an infinite power source depends entirely on what you use that power for. That you managed to do this in mere years attests to a willful level of negligence and misuse. Your kind were deliberately trying to break this one."

Kitty shrugged. "Well, if that's true, maybe you should be more worried about all the windigoes in the Cold Karma core than me. They're the ones currently lording over the control room."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jamjars growled. "But if you really think Cold Karma was misusing it, maybe you should have lent us all your expertise instead of hiding in your stupid lighthouse!"

Part of me had an urge to do something. But even if I wasn't a ghost, what would I even do? And even assuming I could find something worth doing, would I be able to do it? Or would I just make a mess of things again?

I could... I could...

Coda.

The little princess hadn't said a word since going through the teleporter. She was sitting off to the side, back to her alicorn self, though apparently everyone had much bigger things to worry about than the presence of a gigantic alicorn filly.

What was it maybe-Chrysalis had said in the rocket silo? That she sent a team down to the hideout, and they somehow got Coda to turn on the Nemestasis machine so they could use it to launch the rocket?

Oh no...

I floated back over to the physical me, who was currently sitting at the edge of the group next to a half-conscious Corsica. "Can..." I hesitated to use my voice. "Can I have my body back? There's some stuff I need to... do."

She got up, nodded to Corsica, and walked out into the rocky wastes.

"Why?" she eventually spat, stopping in a cleft with a puddle at the bottom where no one else could see her. "I did you a favor by taking control and letting you work out your problems on your own for a while. And then you made me use it. I didn't want to have to interact with your friends or use my powers or save ponies. I didn't even want to wake up! Now look what you've done. I... I..."

I could see her threatening to tear up.

"If you haven't figured out what we are from all that, you will, soon enough," Halcyon pouted, sounding just as distraught as I was. "And I'm of a mind to just let you. See how you like it. Not like I can do anything about it if I wanted to. You're far too well-formed for that. And now you want to just take over again like nothing ever happened."

I felt like I had been punched. "What do you even want me to do? I... I had a bad time too, okay? I feel terrible enough already!"

"Yeah," Halcyon grunted. "Guess our feelings aren't so easy to untangle."

Something clicked in my brain. "The way you're talking right now..." I ventured. "You sound like Corsica."

"You think?" Halcyon shook her head. "That little habit of yours, wanting to be like other ponies? It didn't come from nowhere. Just how I used to cope with not wanting to be me."

Oh.

"...I'm sorry," I said. "I did mess up. I... dunno what I should have done. I don't know if there was a right thing to do at all. Maybe I'm just a kid who's messing with things way above her pay grade. Maybe I should stick to holding a normal job, like being a bridesmaid for hire. But every time I try to, I feel like there's gotta be something more out there, some significance that's missing from my life. Why did you make me that way?" I looked her straight in the eye. "If the reason for my existence is to be content in life and keep us living peacefully, ignorant of whatever you're running from... why do I feel so restless and incomplete?"

Halcyon looked away.

I waited for an answer.

"I dunno," she eventually replied. "I didn't try to. Maybe burying our nature that thoroughly just isn't possible. Or maybe, it's because we really are incomplete. You, me, Procyon... Just shards of a split pony."

I hung my head, then eventually looked up. "So. How are we gonna do this?"

"Do what?"

"Live with each other," I said. "I'm ready to take back my... our body now. You obviously don't want to be the one using it. But it's pretty obvious that neither of us trusts me, and with good reason. So what do we do?"

"You could kiss," Ludwig suggested, still a light mote, floating out of a rock. "I hear that is usually how ponyos make up and become friendos after having a fight. But honestly, I prefer the part where they duke it out."

Both me and Halcyon jumped. "Do you mind?" she growled, pointing her bracelet leg and lighting it.

Ludwig bobbed in midair. "If you want my face out of your faces, there is a pretty easy way to do that. And it starts with giving back my body, stupid cigar."

"Your body?" I frowned. "I thought I got pulled out of that. What happened to it?"

Ludwig whistled innocently. "You mean your face does seriously not know? Hoo boy, this is going to be a bit of a doozy to explain."

Halcyon frowned and looked uncomfortably away.

Ludwig noticed. "...On second thought, you look super not eager to explain it yourself, so you get to do the honors. Toodles!"

He floated away.

I stared at Halcyon for an explanation.

She fumbled for words, and eventually just sighed.

Not entirely sure what I was doing, I floated closer, reached out a hesitant, ghostly hoof... and approximated putting it on her shoulder. "It'll be okay."

"Dunno how you can bring yourself to say that," she dourly replied. "And get used to Ludwig, because thanks to you, we're stuck with him for the foreseeable future. If there's a way to get rid of him, I don't know enough about our powers to do it."

"This is..." I wracked my memories. "Back during the Aldebaran Incident. When Ludwig kept daring me to kill him, in our old apartment. This is what would have happened if I had taken the bait."

"I don't know," Halcyon said. "Possibly. Probably something like it. I only know enough about what we can do that I don't want to know more."

A loud shimmering reached my ears, and both of us looked up. It was Coda's airship, converging on the crowd where everyone else had gathered.

"Whatever happened to Coda, they're probably gonna be mad," I whispered. "But I don't feel like running from this. I messed up, and I deserve what's coming. Let me back in. I should be with her."

"...Fine," Halcyon sighed, her horn appearing, then flickering, as I turned from a ghost into a green crystal. "Your funeral."

---

I was... me again.

Sort of.

It was a wonderful feeling, being back in my own body, yet it wasn't quite the way I remembered it. For starters, I was more aware of my emptiness, the blank void that usually waited behind my mask. Now, though, the mask didn't seem to cover it perfectly.

Second, there was a tiny pinprick of wrathful cold in my chest. It sort of reminded me of the spark that had urged me to spread conflict when I was a windigo, only I didn't think it had the power to grow and hurt me like before. It felt contained, held in check. But it was still there.

I wanted it gone.

I didn't give myself time to think further, clambering back over the rocks to rejoin the group. The airship was lowering a lift, and on it were Howe, several of Coda's cultists, and Nyala.

The mare I had met only briefly, with the eye on her forehead. Golden and eldritch, with a slit so vertical it was thinner in the middle.

Yet another mystery I had never solved.

My hooves tried to fail me as I stepped out to meet them, but I pushed past it, striding into the open. I saw Nyala's eyes lock with mine, and I saw that she would suddenly rather be anywhere but here, but this time she didn't run.

The lift touched down.

"Hey, cult buddies," Valey greeted, flying over to the landing site with a commanding air. "Hope your night's going better than ours, but if it is, it's about to get worse."

"Princess!" The cultists - excluding Howe and Nyala - instantly rushed to Coda, bowing in respect. "Ill omens are everywhere! That crystal tower... We must leave this place immediately. Come, hurry!"

"Nay," Coda said, sounding dazed and vaguely shellshocked. "We shall not."

"Your Majesty..."

Coda summoned her focus, fixing them with a regal glare. "I know little and less of the affairs of this surface world, and it is precisely because I have spent too much time aboard that airship and far too little here, among its denizens. But I do know that my own negligence and naivete played a role in the events that are now unfolding, and it would be decidedly unlovely to abandon these ponies in their hour of need. Moreover, our opponents are windigoes, a fell force that cannot be dealt with save for the supernatural, and furthermore, my own mother is a player in this game. Were we to flee now, from a battlefield she may yet take to, what would be the reason for the years of preparation I underwent in the name of defeating her?"

The mood among the cultists hit a brick wall. "You found Chrysalis," one said.

"Perhaps." Coda scowled. "I was certainly deceived by someone who might have been her, because I was not worldly enough to sense anything amiss. But wherever she is, she has a hoof in this, and it is your duty to help me resist."

"What's resistance entail, dudette?" Howe asked, looking more to Valey than Coda. "If you've got a plan, ol' Howe's all ears."

"Nice to see you too, Pancake," Valey replied, using a nickname that was lost on me. "Short version: windigoes in Ironridge. Changelings in Yakyakistan. Both sides are hankering for a fight. The spooky sky is probably a lost cause, so with that out of the way, the plan is to storm Cold Karma and attempt a coup. Make no mistake, this is a bad idea: we're perilously low on anti-windigo weaponry, will probably all get ice cubed and might all kick the bucket. But we've got an extra army of yaks here to add to my own to deal with the flunkies, and if we can take over Ironridge by force before the first Yakyakistan warships arrive, we can at least make it so one of the sides in the coming fight are good guys."

Howe whistled. "You haven't changed a bit. The Howenator's not much for combat, but he might make a fine decoy, if you'll have him."

"What about the heat?" I asked, stepping forward. "If you remove the windigoes, won't everyone down in the city...?"

Valey sniffed the air. "They'll be fine," she said. "Got a good hunch that heat wave is gone for good. But if not, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. And by we, I mean not you." She pointed at Fort Starlight. "Halcyon. Corsica. You're sitting this one out."

I felt my fur bristle in surprise and shame. "What?"

"I second that!" Papyrus cut in. "What do you mean, our good buddies in the trash corps or whatever can't come?"

Valey gave him a look that said watch it, but my mind was too slow to read the significance of it. Though, speaking of the Junior Dumpster Despot Corps, I hadn't seen Unless anywhere since we got back... What had she gotten up to?

"Just like I said. You're staying here." Valey turned back to me, since Corsica needed no encouragement. "The two of you are obviously exhausted, and just because you've done it before doesn't mean it's where you belong. Besides, you've got a family reunion to get to." She nodded at Mother, who was limping closer.

I worked my jaw. But... I needed to redeem myself for...

"No buts," Valey said, reading my look. "I have a reasonable idea of the stunt you pulled back in that cave, and you are neither physically nor mentally fit to fight windigoes or anything else with us."

"Yes I am," I insisted, showing her my bracelet, feeling like I had nothing left to lose. "You just said you're low on anti-windigo weaponry, didn't you? I'm not. This works on them. You need me, and I need to be needed! Please, let me help you!"

Valey gave my bracelet a worried stare, and then met my eyes again with legitimate concern. "You've done all that you've done, plus however much else I'm not aware of, and you truly don't know how that thing works?"

I winced. Why did everyone but me...

"No I don't!" I shouted. "Because no one tells me stuff like this! It's why I always feel like I can make a difference and then I never can! If you're not going to let me help, at least help me!"

Valey looked conflicted, then glanced at Mother, who seemed confused.

"It's a deal," Valey promised. "If you sit this one out, in Fort Starlight, with Corsica and your mom, and if I survive and don't have an angry god monster on my tail forcing me to worry about other things, I'll answer whatever questions you want. I'd do it now, but we don't have the time." She pointed at the airship lift, which was currently hoisting a yak. "Those dudes have offered us a ride we'd be fools to turn down. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

"You sure about this?" Corsica called as Valey turned to leave. "I dunno much about your... capabilities. But the odds aren't in your favor."

Valey shrugged. "It would be nice if we had a little more on our side, but I've made miracles out of less."

Corsica nodded, then swallowed. "I wish... you succeed."

Valey saluted. "Bananas, I can't let you down when you ask like that. Just take care of yourself, okay? The last kid I knew who could do what you do... didn't deserve the life that she had."

I felt a lump in my throat as I watched the ship load up, Valey zipping off to coordinate. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to stow away, not to just let someone save me again, or die trying. Not to live with my failures.

But... I didn't.

In fact, with how tired I was, even just fulfilling my end of the bargain and getting Mother and Corsica to the fort would be challenging. I forced down my disappointment, tried not to dwell on that tiny, frozen spark of anger in my chest, and focused on getting to safety.

---

I made it.

It didn't feel like an accomplishment. Corsica had passed out on the way and forced me to carry her, and Mother, after giving me a stern one-winged hug, did the same - though at least she had the decency to wait until getting to our room. And she also had the excuse of everything she had done crashing airships and trying to disable a rocket, all while being crippled.

And then there was me. Ostensibly fine in body, not that I felt that way, but emotionally spent. Past my limit. Finished.

Again.

I went outside and climbed up on the wall of broken airship hulls framing the central camp. Fort Starlight was almost deserted, the entire resident army having been packed into Coda's airship to fly off to battle. How they had fit so many yaks and ponies aboard the ship was summarily revealed when I saw a literal mountain of gold on the ground: Coda had emptied out her hold full of griffon money to make room for new passengers.

Smart. But it sure did make all that gold look worthless.

I could relate.

Everyone else was flying off to what might as well be the final battle, and I was... here. Spent. Having accomplished nothing at best. Or maybe I had just made things worse.

I climbed down to the gold pile. It was big enough that I could scale it like a hill, coins ringing around my hooves.

Some ponies, I heard, lived their lives for money. Amassing a pile like this was probably a feat only an emperor could manage... or a goddess. This gold had, I remembered Coda telling me, once belonged to Garsheeva, goddess of the Griffon Empire.

I flopped over at the top of the pile, making a bed of gold, hoping that whatever meaning anyone could derive from money might somehow seep into me, leaving me feeling less empty inside. Less like I was missing my purpose, or couldn't live up to the ones I chose.

Months ago, I remembered being terrified of pushing my limits, afraid that I would find out I could do something I didn't want to be able to do. What a silly fear. What I should have been afraid of was learning I couldn't do something I did want to do.

"Enjoying yourself?" a voice said.

I started, the motion sending out a shower of gold. It was one of the cloaked mares whom I hadn't met before. The bigger one, who had to have a custom robe and stood twice as high as a full-grown adult.

"...No." I laid back down. "I'm not."

She didn't press, so I continued. "I just wanted to feel... you know... It's hard, but..." I swallowed, seeing the gray sky reflected in a golden mirror. "I can't do it. The things I want to do, the pony I want to become. Maybe I'm holding myself back, or maybe I'm just not all that in the first place. It's just, I tried so hard over the past half year, and I thought I grew so much, and then it still ended the same. No different. Everything I did was..."

I trailed off, the words tasting bitter in my mouth. Why was I explaining myself to a complete stranger?

Something about her felt right, though I couldn't explain what. Although maybe she just felt normal, which seemed like right when everything else was messed up.

"Do you want to say 'pointless'?"

I lifted my ears.

"It is a frequent fate to spend effort on a goal and then fail to achieve it," the hooded mare told me. "That is something every creature that lives has in common."

I watched her curiously. Where was this going?

"But not all goals are equal," she went on. "Making a new friend. Passing a test. Getting a promotion. Winning a war. Bringing back a deceased loved one. Learning the meaning of one's existence. Or, in your case, wishing a dead god would return. Ponies say all sorts of things at my altar, but more often than not they come to confess their struggles and beg assistance."

"Your... altar...?" My eyes widened a little, remembering the one and only time I might have said something like that: while praying to the Dusk Statue in the Gates to the Underworld. "You mean the statue in the tavern? Barkeep?"

"That's the name I gave you," she said, pulling her hood down. "But you already know it wasn't my real one."

The face looking back at me was definitely not Barkeep's.

Nor was it equine.

The slitted eyes matched those of a batpony, but this creature had a full set of interlocking razor teeth, and a whiskery muzzle. And her ears, rather than being equine, were round like paddles.

It took my brain a moment to connect that I was talking to a real, live sphinx. Another moment later, and I realized who this sphinx likely was.

"Garsheeva?" I whispered.

"That's what they used to call me," she said, lifting a leg through a fold in her robe and showing off not a hoof, but a griffonlike paw. "You'll have to forgive me for using a physical alias as well as a different name. It's hard to keep a low profile with these... features."

I stared. A real, legitimate goddess. The one Coda wanted me to be finding all this time.

And somehow, instead of finding her, she had found me.

"Where were you?" I whispered.

Garsheeva shrugged. "In a lighthouse on the mountain north of the Ice District, controlling my sarosian body by remote... not that you'd have been able to see it. Until tonight, it was protected by a ward that's only passable by someone who's used a Writ of Harmonic Sanction."

My eyes widened... but that wasn't what I was interested in. "No, I mean, where were you?" I insisted, sliding down the mountain of gold until I was at the goddess's paws. "Your continent collapsed. Everyone needed you. Ponies like me have..." I swallowed. "I don't care about your rivalry with the Night Mother, or about Chrysalis, or about anything. You're a goddess. You could do something. Why weren't you there when ponies needed you?" I pointed in the direction of Cold Karma. "For that matter, why aren't you there, helping out, right now?"

"Because I failed," Garsheeva said simply. "I founded an empire, slaughtered thousands and manipulated millions, held in check my own worst nature, unsealed technology that should have been forgotten and empowered tyrants and despots. I ruined your mother's life, and her mother's life before her. For two thousand years, I dedicated myself wholeheartedly to a single goal, and in the end, I failed. Everything I had done was..."

She looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to finish for her.

I knew what to say, but I didn't want to say it. Unfortunately, she was very patient.

"Pointless," I croaked.

"What even were you trying to do?" I asked, after she responded with a nod.

"It doesn't even matter," Garsheeva replied. "Better that it be forgotten. However, I've done my time. Fate decided that I should survive, stripped of millennia of acquired power and set back to square one. But now all debts are cancelled. Anyone who owed anything to me is now free, and I no longer owe anything to anyone. The question is, are you the same?"

I recoiled. "What kind of question is that? You're a goddess. You're supposed to be better than everyone, an example everyone else can look up to! Why are you asking me to be the bigger pony?"

Garsheeva shrugged. "Reasons are nothing but dressed-up excuses. I certainly wasn't created to be perfect, and neither were the sphinxes I created to serve as my empire's royal family. In fact, we're a lot closer to the opposite of perfect than ponies are."

"That's not how it's supposed to work!" I insisted, bristling.

Garsheeva didn't seem bothered. "So you say. But there's only one question right now that matters." She flicked an ear. "You don't think giving up suits me. Are you the same?"

I stared. "But there's nothing I can do. Everyone else already flew off! And everything I've done before has only made matters worse! What are you even suggesting?"

"Is the world perfect?" Garsheeva pointed at the gray night sky. "Is this your idea of paradise? If not, there's always something to do. Pick a problem you can see, right now, and decide what better suits you: making an effort, with no positive outcome guaranteed. Or living with it."

I looked at the sky. I looked at the crystal tower, a luminous spike of pink protruding above the Ironridge crater, held up by numerous crystal filaments that fed into its midair base.

I remembered the voice I heard screaming.

No one was doing anything about that. Maybe there was nothing to be done, but were they certain? Had they tried going to the ether river to see what it was those crystals looked like they were running from? Maybe they already knew what was down there, and didn't think there was any point. But... had they tried?

"I see you already know your answer," Garsheeva said, pulling up her hood and turning to leave. "In that case, my work here is done."

"Wait!" I called, lifting a hoof to stop her.

She turned back over her shoulder.

"...If you've really given up on everything, and think everything you do is pointless," I said. "Why come talk to me? What do you think you've just talked me into, and why?"

"Nothing that exists is perfect," Garsheeva said, turning away again. "Not me. Not you. And apparently, not even my ability to give up on a principle."

I didn't press. An unspoken message lingered in the air, though maybe it was just one I wanted to hear and not one that had been intended: If I can try again after suffering a two-thousand-year setback, you can too.

That was a good takeaway. I nodded, satisfied with myself, and set about looking for one of those gas masks.

Time to break my promise to Valey, put myself back out there one more time, and try again.

Comments

[Boopers]

If I can try again after suffering a two-thousand-year setback, you can too.
💚

[KMCA]

good to know she has a future as a motivational speaker... and why we could see the lighthouse. Jamjars could too

[Zapdroid]

Somehow every chapter is better than the last! Things are really heating up and I’m excited to see what Haly finds…

[ZanyZapper]

Fantastic chapter! Some more answers, some more questions. Things seem to be kicking into high gear now.

And I keep racking my brain feeling like there are a lot more things being hinted at from TOW that I've forgotten just on the edge of my memory.

[RoboRed]

That was....a lot to take in all at once. And I have so many questions.

Looks like the next stage of the game is set.

[Venlinelle]

Well that was a lot.

I love that Cuddles/The Composer/Kitty still calls Valey “cute Valey.”