Through the Well of Pirene

by Ether Echoes

Chapter 13: The City

Chapter 13: The City

“The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth." Alfred Adler.

Amelia

Atop a tawdry peddler’s wagon, I entered the great goblin city of Mag Mell.

Its wheels found the paved stones of the road approaching a plaza, and the ride smoothed out at once, making our passage through the gates considerably easier than the country roads that came before. Huge blocks of solid, golden granite arched effortlessly overhead. Though we were one of perhaps a hundred early morning travelers entering or leaving the city, we found our way crowded not at all. Over a hundred yards deep the walls stretched, its gateway a solidly vaulted ceiling. Even here, at the edge of their civilization, goblins clustered; some slept underneath decorative molding with their wings tucked tightly about them, while others set up shop in tunnels racing away under the bulk of the walls. A group of equine foals watched us with bright yellow eyes from between the legs of a woman’s statue, her face marred by scratches and her outstretched hand missing. Electric lights guttered from where they had been crudely embedded into the gatehouse interior.

Wherever they could find space, vendors and merchants set up shop. The glow of an impromptu firepit and a cluster of hungry patrons indicated a hastily erected restaurant. Another vendor slept on a stairway surrounded by his wares, which a pair of foals were gleefully picking over and trying not to wake the owner. Any place a blanket was spread, either goods or a game of chance came with it, and their sharp-eyed proprietors hawked and barked even at this early hour.

“Is this a market?” I called down to the raccoon peddler.

He laughed. “A market? You ain’t seen anythin’ yet if’n you think that’s a market, filly.” The wagon continued forward rather than stop here, our driver shouting deprecations at incautious pedestrians who inattentively or foolishly tread into his path.

Edifices old and new jockeyed for space beyond the gate. A small plaza radiated streets in six directions, and every available space was packed. Eaves hung out over the streets and bridges crisscrossed madly, while dozens of windmills turned briskly in the stiff wind coming from the far side of the city. Drunken goblins spilled out the windows and doors of what had to have been a bar, while other places had been shuttered firmly against the night traffic. In the center of the plaza, a fountain rose high into the air, with dozens of goblin figures holding wands not unlike the one Fetter bore.

“W-we ca-can’t stay here,” Wire stuttered. It seemed that the courage she’d mustered to convince the peddler to take us this far had evaporated overnight. “Th-this is fi-fi-fir-fi—the Wand part of town. Th-they’ll be looking for a wagon. Why’d we come through that gate?”

The raccoon shot her a lidded look. “Oh, hush up. I know well enough. Would have looked odd if we’d gone all the way around the city wall, anyway.” He tapped the driver’s board and the wagon picked up speed again. “You leave the hard work to the professional.”

We rattled across the street, with the slats of lantern light flickering past us. The Crusaders and I clung to the wagon’s cornices. The other girls were enamoured with the surrounding buildings, but my eyes fixed on the starry sky above and searched for trouble—occasionally, shapes moved across the stars, but, if they were looking for me, they weren’t going to have much luck. I’d gone from being a needle in plain sight to one in a haystack—or rather, from a haystack to a stack of other needles.

Dawn chased away the darkness just as we came into view of the city at large, and I wasn’t alone in gasping. Great spires, their towers topped in flame, rose as high as any modern downtown construction. The sun rose from a glittering sea that washed up against the shore, which rose in hills to a great flat-topped rise that overlooked the shimmering blue expanse. At its edge, the statues of four people watched over the city, each carrying a different object. One man held a chalice in both hands, a hooded person held a sword point down, another man held forth a circular pendant. The last, a woman with flowing hair, held something that seemed passingly familiar to me—a sturdy staff. It looked not dissimilar to the ash staff I had seen in the Wand King’s throne room.

Scootaloo craned her neck around. “Sweetie Belle, remember how excited we were to go to the Crystal Empire, even though we were there for like two minutes?” Scootaloo asked. “This is so much more awesome.”

“I don’t know,” Sweetie Belle said, her ears flat against her skull as she watched the goblin city stir around us, awakened from its slumber. “This place seems kind of… dangerous.”

“Exactly. Awesome.”

We transitioned away from the windmills, heavy stone, and raucousness of what apparently stood for the “Wand” part of town as we drew closer to the sea, and found ourselves among narrow, twisty streets between plastered buildings and narrow, paneless windows. At last, the peddler pulled to a halt underneath a covered footbridge. A low buzz filled the air, a hum of distant conversation pierced through now and again by a particularly shrill cry.

“All right,” the peddler said, “that’s as far as she goes. Everyone who is a little pony better get herself off my cart. I’ve got a long day ahead and no time to waste it on the likes of you.”

“Thanks, much,” Wire said as she hopped off. The Crusaders and I slid down the side, one by one, and came to join her. Sweetie Belle walked with her tail so low it was almost between her legs, but both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo practically quivered with the desire to go out and explore.

“Yeah, yeah.” The raccoon waved a paw dismissively. “You weren’t a huge burden, so whatever. Just keep it quiet and we’ll call it tidy. I’m already gonna have to call this trip a loss without pony goods.”

“Well, hope you have better luck in the future,” I told him with a bright smile. He rubbed at an ear and grunted, before going back into his wagon.

Scootaloo unhooked her own little red wagon from the side of the cart. “Where is here, anyway?”

Apple Bloom turned to look at Wire and myself. “Moonlight, you and… uh…” Her eyes widened as she looked more closely at Wire. Belatedly, I realized that she’d never gotten a very good look at our goblin friend—the dark of the Everfree Forest was quite a bit more pronounced than a morning street in Mag Mell.

Wire squirmed and looked down at the bronze-colored fish scales climbing up her belly. “Oh, uhm.”

Apple Bloom looked between us and stamped a hoof. “You ain’ ponies at all, are you?”

“Well, I’m kind of one, and Am—”

I cut her off at once. “Wire’s a goblin, and I’m a pony. From Canterlot, like I said before. I’ve never been out here, either, but it’s like I said—we’re on the run from other goblins who kidnapped me.” My eyes drifted to the ground as I put on a show of malaise. “My parents are probably really worried about me by now. I really just want to get back to them.”

Apple Bloom’s ears fell and she scuffed her hoof. “My family’s probably sick with worry, now that I think about it.”

“Mine, too,” Sweetie Belle added with a further droop of her ears.

Scootaloo grinned. “Don’t worry, Moonlight. We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” She tapped her chest proudly. “We never let anypony down.”

“Really?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I didn’t think that was part of our motto.”

Scootaloo shooed that thought away with a wave of her hoof. “Pft. Words.” She turned back to me. “So what’s the plan, then? We find somepony—err, somegob who can take us back to Equestria?”

“I think that’s the idea.” I nodded. “Though, really? I want to find out what they’re up to. I got some hints that they have plans for Equestria. They kept mentioning the, uhm…” I considered my responses for a moment.

Any illusion is only as good as its weakest point. Maintain consistency in any deception or risk it falling down around your ears. Not that I really needed that advice from Twilight—Twig—but it did come at a good time.

“The Elements of Harmony,” I said, “like Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle.”

The three girls gasped. “My sister, Applejack, is one of the Element bearers!” Apple Bloom said. “And so is Sweetie Belle’s sister, Rarity!”

My eyes widened slightly. I looked at the two of them more closely. Now that I had a moment to look at them in a proper light, there was a definite resemblance to the two older mares, especially around the snouts and eyes. It was a fantastic sort of coincidence to run into these two so accidentally, but then I didn’t really know the circumstances.

“And I’m Rainbow Dash’s honorary little sister!” Scootaloo announced as she pushed in between the two. She puffed her chest out and spread her tiny wings. “It’s all right, you don’t need to be jealous.” She blinked as she caught my eyes. “Uh, are you okay?”

“Me? Oh, yeah.” I glanced away, realizing belatedly that my eyes had hardened at the mention of the name. If Scootaloo wanted a big sister, she could have picked someone a little more constant. “I’m just really worried.”

“What if those goblins who kidnapped you are plannin’ somethin’ awful for Equestria?” Apple Bloom said, half to me and half to her friends.

“Well, their leader, the Wand King, sounded really mad,” I said, “and they really didn’t like Celestia or the Bearers…” I glanced at Wire, who was looking at the girls with a new form of trepidation. She had, after all, just heard that they were related to three of the most feared mares she knew of. “I think they had some sort of plan involving them.”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes widened. “Rarity and Twilight and the others might be in danger!”

Scootaloo snorted. “Rainbow Dash is totally not in danger.”

“If she is, that means you can help her out,” Apple Bloom pointed out.

“Oh, hey. That’s true!” Scootaloo grinned broadly as the realization hit her. “Okay, we need to help, then!”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom agreed with a nod. “If there’s somethin’ we can do to help them, why, we’re obliged to!” She turned to face Wire with the others flanking her. “Live Wire, do you think we can find out more about what’s goin’ on?”

“Uh.” Wire’s wide eyes looked between the three little girls. She might as well have been confronted with three trolls from the look on her face. “I-I-I g-guess you c-could…” She swallowed. “I mean… what the Wand King does is important. If he’s doin’ somethin’ big, t-then there will be goblins out there who know about it, especially the other Courts.”

“What Courts?” I asked intently. I reached forward and tugged the girls back to give Wire some space—the poor thing was starting to hyperventilate.

“Well,” Wire began, breathing more easily, “there’s four of them, see? I’m from the Wand Court. You’ve seen a bunch of us. We’re defined that way because we follow the Wand. The other three Courts are the Cup, Sword, and Ring.”

“What is the Wand?”

“It’s a powerful thing of magic called an Arcana, from ancient times. Long before we goblins came around—it’s a bit like the craft, you know?” She glanced up towards the distant statues on the hill. “We picked it up when the people who started it died out or went away. They’re more than just magic sticks, though. They’re a representation of certain… I dunno, I guess you’d say ideals. Wand represents the power of change, and bridgin’ the gap between different peoples. It’s all about reachin’ out and findin’ things. The King is the one who holds the first one, and there’s three others. One for a Queen, who is supposed to be like a check on the King—though, for the life of me, I ain’ got the foggiest idea where Queen Stylus has gone off to. There’s one for a Knight—that’s Fetter, you’ve met him, Moonlight—who is supposed to go where the King can’t, who quests for the sake of the Court. And there’s one for the Page, who has no role except that she’s supposed to be able to speak freely and act as she chooses, so that she can act like a sort of conscience.”

“Who is your Page?” Apple Bloom asked, her eyes alight as she followed this new information.

“Well, he was Rail, but he had a bad accident a few years ago. No one’s come forward to take his place—or, well, his Wand hasn’t chosen anyone yet, I guess.” She fluttered her wings and looked around, as if sure someone would find her for speaking out. “Last few years or so, we’ve had a big plan in the works that we’re supposed to keep secret from everygob. I know the Elements of Harmony are involved in some way, but I don’t know how. Everythin’s on a need-to-know basis, and I never needed to know.”

“So…” Scootaloo said carefully. “Your awful Wand King has made two of the other people in the government disappear and he’s got some plan he wants kept secret from all the other goblin countries?”

Wire squeaked. “I don’t know if I’d say he made them disappear. I mean, I know there’s rumors, but no goblin would say such a thing where others could hear. I mean, it’s just not done. You don’t…” She looked at us with wide eyes, finishing in a whimper. “He probably did do that, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, we definitely need to do somethin’ about this,” Apple Bloom declared, standing tall. She looked to her two friends, and they nodded their heads firmly. “You in on this, Moonlight?”

It took me a moment to remember that was supposed to be my name here, so I said nothing at first. The one part of this that confused me the most was my role in these proceedings. It seemed ridiculous, and I wondered what possible use could a little girl be—even if she did happen to be me.

Scootaloo coughed delicately. “Moonlight Glimmer? You’re spacing out on us.”

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, I’m in,” I said. “I want to find out what this is all about, too.”

“Great!” Apple Bloom said, and they turned as one to Wire. “Where do we start?”

“Well,” Wire paused to consider that a moment, “the Great Market is over there. You can find just about anything from anywhere there, including information.” She rubbed her stomach. “Especially food.”

“What’re we going to pay with, though?” Sweetie Belle asked with a little frown. “We have some bits; do they accept those?”

Wire nodded. “There’s moneychangers.”

“How about barter?” Apple Bloom kicked their wagon, rattling the supplies they’d brought. “That raccoon said pony stuff was valuable, didn’t he?”

“Sure did,” Scootaloo said.

“I have a few things, too,” I said, patting my shoulder bag. It was a shame Rarity—Maille—had not altered it into a saddlebag. I wondered if that, too, had a special meaning.

“Great! Cutie Mark Crusader, uh…” Apple Bloom paused, rubbing her chin. “Merchants?”

“Let’s just go already, ugh,” Scootaloo said, planting her scooter on the ground and starting around the street corner with the wagon of goods in tow. “Merchants? Seriously? Gag me with a spoon.” The others hurried after her, with Wire taking up the rear, while I paused to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

It occurred to me, again, that I didn’t really feel all that troubled at the prospect of not seeing my parents for some time. Never had I been away from them for more than a day, and here I was a week and more gone. The part of me that felt homesick was small and not very vocal, while the part eager to see a magical city was about ready to burst.

It wasn’t that I didn’t love my parents. I did. I mean, I do. I still do… anyway.

A pair of glowing blue eyes met mine under the wagon as I stood to get up. I stood stock still, then breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh. Hey.”

“The wee bairn is free of the Wand King, yet still she ties herself down,” the Morgwyn’s sibilant voice whispered from the darkness. “One wonders what for. Surely she has better things to be doing.”

“I want to find out what the Wand King is up to,” I said quietly as I adjusted the strap on my bag, cinching it high enough to be reasonably comfortable. “Besides, they’re my friends.”

The Morgwyn choked a laugh. “Friends? You have one ill-fated chase through the woods and now you are bosom companions?” The bulk of the creature slid out from under the wagon, looking down at me with its bright teeth spread wide. “As you lie to them, hour by hour?”

“It’s not that bad. I’m just…” I looked away. “I don’t want to have to explain that I’m a human. They probably don’t even know what a human is, so there’d be no point.”

“You had friends who lied to you before, didn’t you?” it whispered into my ear. “Six mares. They loved you, but they lied.”

“I’m not like them,” I said hotly. “This is different!”

“Different like… a certain sister, perhaps?”

“What?” I snapped, rounding on the Morgwyn. “Daphne didn’t lie… much! I mean, little things, yes, but she’s just a jerk, not a liar.”

“Mm. So naive you are, wee spark.” The Morgwyn scratched thin marks into the side of the peddler’s wagon with a negligent gesture. “After all, she never told you about the unicorn, did she?”

I froze with my mouth open in aborted protest. My heart pounded as my eyes opened wide. I searched the Morgwyn’s face for any hint of deception—not that I knew what that would look like in such alien features. Its smile widened further still as it regarded me.

“What unicorn?” I asked at last.

“When your sister was a wee bairn herself, she walked the woods as you did. Instead of finding me, however, she found a wee unicorn. A filly, run away from home.” The Morgwyn flicked its barbed tail. “Oh, your sister loved her dearly. The two of them were as sisters. Inseparable.” As if it were savoring its words, it drew the last few out slowly. “It was as if they were meant to be together.”

Each word landed on my head like a bomb, bursting with thunderous impact. Spots appeared in my eyes.

“Indeed,” the Morgwyn went on, “it seems that your sister went into the other world at roughly the same time you did.”

“Wait, what?” My eyes widened further. If Daphne had come into the Everfree Forest, that might mean that she had come after me. It could even be that she was the one who tried to take down Fetter in the woods that night. “But… that would…”

“She went straight into Ponyville, the true Ponyville,” the Morgwyn said, effortlessly cutting through my stammered response. “The last I saw, she was with her dear old friend once again. What’s more, she hasn’t left Ponyville since arriving—rather as if she intends to simply move in and live with the ponies.”

“So… so that’s it?” I asked dully. “She just… I go missing and she just… goes to a happy little village of unicorns and pegasi and regular ponies who love her and that’s it?” My shoulders ached as I shook. “Entered at the same time—I’ll bet that’s what she did after I left. She didn’t even care. She just went off into the woods on her secret little path to go to her secret little friend in Equestria!”

“Does it really matter?” the Morgwyn said indifferently. “She is there. You are here. Free. Liberated. You have the run of an ancient city, full of mystery and power.”

“Yeah,” I said harshly. I pulled myself up straight. “If she can go gallivanting around, so can I.” My eyes blurred. I didn’t want to say anything else and held my jaw firmly shut. I knew if I opened it again I’d say something I’d rather not.

Wherever the Morgwyn went after that, I couldn’t have said. I was pretty sure that, at some point, Wire and the others had started calling my name. I never saw nor heard either. Tears streamed down my face, while my jaw was held so tight it ached.

“Moonlight?” Apple Bloom asked. She eased up in front of me, looking at me uncertainly. “Are you okay?”

Sweetie Belle put a hoof around my shoulders. “Don’t cry. It’s all right, we’ll get you back home.”

“I-I’m all right.” I coughed and rubbed at my face. “It’s just… it’s nothing, I’m… I’m okay. Ho-how about that market?” I put a note of false enthusiasm into my voice.

“It’s amazing!” Scootaloo said. “You have got to come check it out!”

“R-right!” I said, gaining a little more control.

As the five of us walked back towards the noise in the distance, I found my pace again. Screw Daphne and everything she stood for. I didn’t need her. I had friends who I would tell everything just as soon as it was convenient. I had a whole world of adventure ahead of me.

“So, uh,” I asked in the hopes of distracting them from my distress, “what did you guys bring that we might be able to hawk, anyway?”

Apple Bloom tilted her head up, inventorying, “Camping gear. Spare horseshoes. A couple books—”

“Which you should not read because they are terrible,” Sweetie Belle added quickly. “Really, really, terrible.”

“—And, uhm, some stuff we picked up at the old Royal Pony Sisters’ castle…”

Sweetie Belle glanced to the side. “Which aren’t related at all to the books.”

They were very odd fillies. “Just what were you three burying back in the Everfree, exactly?” I asked.

Apple Bloom shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Don’t want to talk about it,” Scootaloo muttered.

“Definitely nothing unwholesome nor against the laws of nature,” Sweetie Belle concluded.

Wire and I exchanged a glance. “Right,” I said. “Sure. So… hey.” I grinned and started rooting through the backpack. “Everypony, gather ’round. I have a plan.”

* * *

“Hear ye, hear ye!” Sweetie Belle cried from atop her barrel. Her voice cut through the thick market din with razor-edged clarity. “Come one, come all! Come own a piece of history! Personal artifacts of the legendary Elements of Harmony available for a limited time only!”

Much as I would have hated to admit it then, there were many lessons that the mares of shadow Ponyville had taught me. Among them was one of Maille’s: presentation is everything.

The Great Market of Mag Mell stretched across dozens of criss-crossing streets, incorporating three stories of shops overlooked by another layer or two of apartments, with rickety bridges made of wood, stone, metal—whatever the goblins had at hand, more than like—built up over what must have been millenia of labor. Every available space was crammed with every manner of hastily erected vending tents, wooden stalls, linens covered in odds and ends, street performers, and food carts. Three times as much traffic crowded the galleries and bridges of the upper levels as they did the lower.

Anyone with half a brain would have quickly realized that there would be no way for a newbie to gain a real toehold in such a cacophony. Merchants elbowed one another out of the way with fierce, even violent, force, and I had no doubt we’d be fleeced out of our skins by experienced, hawk-eyed traders if we tried to sell even one penny of our goods to one of the existing vendors.

Where one greenhorn can fail, though, five clever young girls can—by working together—exploit their strengths in remarkable ways.

“Are these not a little small for a full-grown mare?” a reptilian goblin asked dubiously as he held up one of Apple Bloom’s horseshoes. His accent was vividly different from Wire’s, which didn’t surprise me—most of the goblins here didn’t even seem to speak English, and all around us sung strains of Arabic, French, Mandarin, and other languages I couldn’t even begin to place.

“Well, duh,” I said with a roll of my eyes.”Do you think we could just pry the horseshoes off the Element of Honesty’s feet? We got her childhood horseshoes—the ones she used to crush a whole army of goblins.” The overturned wagon proved a very striking seat. On it, I sat like a human might, with my hind legs down and forehooves free. A canvas robe covered me, and a blue turban, hung with little glass beads and stars, completed the ensemble.

Wire, who “happened” to be walking by, stopped and took a look at the horseshoe as if she were seeing it for the first time. “Wow, look—it even has her actual cutie mark on it. How much?”

“Thirty quarins,” I said, referring to the small stack of shiny, ovoid coins by my side. Not a single goblin currency was a plain circle, I’d noticed.

“That’s a steal,” Wire said, pondering over the set with a thoughtful expression. “Would look proper tidy on me own hooves…”

If your act is a little weak, Twig had said once, don’t be above putting a shill in the audience. Other people around them will fall over themselves to agree so they don’t feel stupid.

Seeing opportunity slip him by was apparently too much for the lizard goblin. He snatched the shoe from Wire and announced, “I’ll take the lot!”

I pushed the box his way and held out my hooves. Glittering coins rained down into them as I watched. “Pleasure doing business with you!” I chirped.

While waiting for another customer, I admired the performing troupe across the bridge from us. They were mostly young girls, humanoid, albeit with the fur or feathers or other strange additions all goblins seemed to have in some measure or another. One cat-like girl swayed acrobatically on her hands while a regal, older girl with lovely dark hair levitated colorful balls that another tried to catch to no avail. I was pretty sure that she was using real levitation magic like Twig had shown me—the one that had nothing to do with unicorn horns—and wished I had opportunity to go over and strike up a conversation.

A high buzz foretold Scootaloo’s return, and I turned to find her riding the rail overhead. Apple Bloom, clinging hard to her back, squeaked as they jumped and landed beside us. A heavy bag clattered behind her. I gestured to Wire, and she pulled the curtain around our vending tent with a tug of her teeth.

“All right, what’s the haul looking like now?” I asked as Apple Bloom emptied the contents.

“I think we’ve made back twice as much as we’ve got,” she said, revealing a mixed pile of coins in numerous denominations and styles, as well as some odds and ends. “Your idea about Scoot and I goin’ around is workin’ great. We’re findin’ the best deals and hearin’ all the best stuff.”

“It would take a normal merchant months to make a circuit,” I gloated, rubbing my hooves together. “The two of you do it in minutes.”

Wire picked through the stock until she found a bundle of black, flint-like thunderstones. “I should get to charging these. You know she’s offering two free ones with every purchase?” She pulled a device out of her bags with a pedal and a set of wires, attached the wires to the stones, and started working the pedal with her hoof.

“Maybe you’ll get your cutie mark in bargaining, Moonlight,” Scootaloo said with a laugh and flexed her wings.

“I think I might want one in hawking,” Sweetie Belle said as she picked through the goods. “This is fun!”

“Careful,” Apple Bloom said, nudging Sweetie Belle’s hoof back from a set of odd fruit tied together, “we’re gonna resell some of this. I heard a vendor near the water say he needed peppers somethin’ awful.”

“What’s this?” Sweetie Belle asked, picking up a belt.

“That belt makes you really alluring, but only under moonlight.”

Sweetie Belle pouted. “That’s not very useful for sneaking around. Don’t we need stuff to find out more about what those Wand guys are up to?”

“I’ll probably trade it up. This is pretty cool, though,” Apple Bloom said, holding up a piercework metal ball with a wind-up key at one end. She turned the key a few times then watched us with a huge grin.

After a minute or two of waiting, I got bored and opened my mouth to ask her what it was supposed to do. My jaw flapped uselessly, making no noise. The sound of Wire’s pedal had stopped. I tapped Scootaloo’s wagon and heard nothing, no ring of hoof against metal. Sounds from outside our immediate vicinity came in loud and clear, but nothing we did inside it made a single note. When the key stopped turning, Apple Bloom spoke. “Now, how’s that for useful?”

“Not bad,” Wire said. She rooted through the goods with her free hoof. “Nothing for me to identify here. You girls have a tidy eye for value.”

A stiff, cold wind shot through the market, shaking our enclosure and even knocking some tents over. It cut through the stifling heat of my costume and brought a welcome breath of cool air, but I could see others looking back towards the source with trepidation before being jostled back into motion in the crowd.

“What’s going on, Live Wire?” Sweetie Belle asked, unfluffing her coat with a hoof. “Everygob looks so, uh…”

“Winter’s coming,” she said. “It’s always a bit of a, uhm… exciting time to be in Mag Mell, so I hear.”

“Hah!” an upright rabbit protested, pushing through to our spot, evidently taking the blown-open curtain as an invitation. He pulled his paws from his vest and began to poke around our wares. His English—or whatever they called it here—was heavily accented with what sounded like Japanese or a similar East Asian flair. “That’s one way to put it. Me, I plan on getting out of here before then, and you will, too.”

“Why?” Scootaloo asked. “What happens on Winterfall?”

“Winterfall?” He shuddered. “More like winter war. Trust me, you don’t want any part of that, not when the jotnar come stomping over the branch from Niflheim—you ever see an angry frost giant on the war path? Don’t. Especially not with the way Wand is slacking off on their part of the town defense this year. The streets are going to be hip deep in hoarfrost spirits and sea trolls before we’ll be able to beat them back.”

I gave the brown rabbit a closer look. There were numerous metal rings sewn onto his vest, and one of his ears was pierced with more. “Well, we all know the Ring court won’t fail in protecting the city. That’s your thing, isn’t it?” I knew literally none of these things, but a lack of knowledge had never stopped me before.

His ears twitched and he grinned back at me with a mouth full of bright teeth. “Of course. We will not shirk our duty.”

Just like always. Butter someone up enough and they’ll do anything for you.

Wire muttered under her breath. “Maybe your special talent is in lying.”

I shot her a narrow look and returned my attention to the rabbit. “So what’s Wand been up to if they aren’t playing their part in the town’s defense against winter?”

He scratched at his chin thoughtfully. “I know there’s been some tension lately. Some of my friends have been called up to military service. There’s a man I know who works as an assistant to an apprentice of one of the great armorers of the city—Amata Toshiro—who says that one of the master’s former apprentices is returning to speak with him. She’s going to be shuffled right through the appointment schedule.”

My ears perked and I looked at him intently. “Was her name Maille, by any chance?”

“That’s the one.”

“Is she still there?”

The rabbit shrugged. “I can’t say. Perhaps. It was only announced this morning.”

“Great!” I hopped down from my wagon-throne. “Pack it up, girls. We’re leaving.”

“Hey—!” the rabbit protested as Apple Bloom scooped the goods up and dumped them into her—noticeably heavier—camping bag. Scootaloo overturned the wagon and I ditched my disguise in it. Like ghosts, we left no trace of our being there as we took off through the market.

“Almost a shame,” Wire sighed. “We made my entire wages for a month in just a few hours.”

“Was about time to move on, anyway,” I said, squeezed in next to her as Scootaloo navigated the dense streets. She ramped us high and we landed on the residential level, zipping past startled goblins. “I don’t think my act would have held together much longer. We can always set up somewhere else if we need it.”

“Food here is awful, though,” Apple Bloom griped. “Dried produce, all the food is deep fried and covered in grease. Dis-gustin’.”

“I dunno, I kinda liked it,” Scootaloo called back. “So, where are we heading?”

“The greatest forges are all along the waterfront,” Wire said. “They’re big, bulky buildings near the shipyards. You can’t miss them.”

The thought of ships turned my head towards the sky again. Now that it was broad daylight, it was clear that air traffic was a bit of an issue here. Ignoring the minority of flying goblins, there were blimps of all sizes tethered here and there in the city. Rarely, a propeller plane would buzz past one, like insects tormenting a big dog. “You know, if we have to escape the city, we should totally take one of those,” I said. “That would be so cool.”

Wire blanched, which was not a good look with her base color. “Oh. Grand.”

* * *

Even Scootaloo tired out by the time we reached the water, and she dozed in the wagon with her feet hanging in all directions while Apple Bloom took her place in the scooter. The rest of us walked. The docks were quieter than the market, if not by much. Most of the waterfront was taken up by either large, mostly silent warehouses, counting houses, and other sedate businesses, or by noisy taprooms for sailors and disused shanties. It didn’t feel like a terribly safe place to be, to be honest, but we were largely ignored as we walked along. For the time being.

As if to puncture a hole in my security, Sweetie Belle pointed a hoof down one of the larger docks, big enough to have its own shacks. “What’s going on over there?”

We all turned to look. A cage dangled over the water, and a vaguely female creature with a long fishtail pressed herself sadly against the bars, her kelp-like hair damp and dripping. The goblin at the foot of the crane called out numbers, pointing to smartly-dressed goblins in a small crowd. It looked rather distressingly like pictures I’d seen in Daphne’s American History textbook.

I put my head to Sweetie Belle’s behind, grimacing as I pushed her along. “Just keep going.”

Well, Mag Mell couldn’t be completely awesome. Perfection is never to be had.

At last, we came to a long line of enormous structures arrayed in the shadow of the Trunkward wall, as the locals called it, which overlooked the approach to Niflheim. The shapes of gun barrels poked over the enormous stone curtain, and I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “Wire, why do they call it Trunkward, anyway?”

“Because that’s the way to the trunk,” she said, as though it were obvious.

“Don’t follow.”

Wire tilted her head. “What’s not to follow?”

Wary now of being spotted by one of the Wand King’s goons, I gestured Apple Bloom to follow us around the narrower streets behind the row. Smoke belched out of the black forges, rising high into the air before being pushed by the breeze coming from over the walls. Steam gouted from whatever they were pouring into the water, and the sea air here smelled foul.

“Well,” I continued, “what is it the trunk of?”

“The World Ash, of course. Yggdrasil.”

“The tree from Norse mythology?” I asked, boggling at her.

“From what now?” she answered, looking at me with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

“Never mind,” I shook my head. “So there’s other worlds out there, aren’t there?” I glanced up. In daylight, the starry branches were barely visible, but I could clearly see the planets as bright points in the cerulean skies.

“Oh, yes,” Wire said with a nod. “I’ve never had a chance to visit, though I know goblins who have. They can get pretty dangerous. A lot of goblins go that way if they’re trying to practice their art—there’s a few different performing circuits that way. Sometimes, magicians pick pupils if they think they got promise.”

“Is that how Twig did it?” I asked, thoughtful. Perhaps if this whole thing didn’t work out, I could stow away with one of the troupes. That group performing in the marketplace looked like they might be willing to accept a filly if she showed some aptitude.

“Oh, no,” Wire shook her head. “Twig got accepted right away by a really famous magician. Maille had similar treatment from Amata Toshiro. All of the girls were exceptionally talented. Even…” she trailed off and her ears drooped.

Apple Bloom creased a frown at her. “What’s up?”

“Long story,” she said with a sigh. “My sister was one of the Wand King’s closest servants, but she… went away a long time ago.”

“Oh. Ouch. Sorry.”

“Maybe she realized he was a really bad person and took off so she wouldn’t have to serve him?” Sweetie Belle suggested brightly.

Wire said nothing, her head drooping, too.

For my part, I marched on, unafraid of what might lurk among the alleyways and parapets. I knew that if something did leap out at us, the Morgwyn would swoop in and save the day. A monster at your side does a great deal to inure you to the other monsters that might be after you. If it helped me to look more like a leader, well, that was just icing on the cake. Eventually, we climbed up on top of a warehouse roof to get a better look.

“There, that one,” Wire said, pointing a hoof at one of the foundries.

“How do you know?” I asked, looking for any distinguishing marks on the basalt building. “I thought you said you’d never been to the city before.”

“Sure, but this one’s got Wand soldiers around it.” She pointed down at a series of armored carriages in front of the building. “Proper tidy, innit?”

Oh, that was just peachy. “Well, I guess that answers my question.” Of course, it wouldn’t do to endanger the others. Maybe I could lie to them, but asking them to follow me into the lion’s den was rather too much.

After rooting around in our sack of goodies, I pulled out the sound sphere. “Girls? Get Scootaloo up after I’m gone. We may need to make a fast getaway.”

“If you think you’re goin’ in there alone, Moonlight,” Apple Bloom said, setting her hooves, “you’ve got another think comin’.”

“I dunno,” Wire said. “I’m perfectly happy to sit around here. Nice and…” She flinched at the sound of a cat shrieking a few buildings over. “Reasonably safe.”

I shook my head. “I really appreciate it, Apple Bloom, but aside from this being crazy dangerous, I don’t know if both of us can sneak through all that successfully.” Digging into the pack again, I pulled out one thing I had made sure to buy: a set of paper tags just like the ones the raccoon peddler had used to get into the city. They’d cost us a goodly portion of our earnings, but I suspected they’d be more than worth the purchase price. “I need you to look after the others.”

Sweetie Belle pouted. “I don’t really need looking after. Still, the part about you two sneaking in is a little, uhm… risky sounding. Maybe we should hang back for this one, make sure we can get away?”

Apple Bloom shook her head. “All right.” She poked me in the chest. “But next time, no talking me out of it. I’m only agreeing because Scootaloo is tired right now and I may need to take over.”

“Deal,” I shook her hoof. “All right, girls. Wish me luck.”

Wire abruptly snatched me to her chest. I yelped as she squeezed. “Please, don’ get caught,” she said.

“Okay,” I wheezed and craned myself off her. “Th-thanks…” I hurried to the edge of the roof, checking to be sure no one was watching, if only to hide my sudden blush. Then, with a few good twists of my teeth, I set the sound sphere as far as it would go and noiselessly slapped the tag on my chest. As it had before, the magical paper billowed out like it was made of vapor, covering me in a foggy barrier. With my hoofsteps silenced, I ran across the street.

The Wand guards stationed at every entrance wore thick, dark plate, their faces obscured by riveted helmets. Not one of them remarked as I passed by in plain view. Rather than try and open a door with them watching, I kept to the side and charged up to the wall of the building. Above, a huge, basalt kiln bulged out of the structure. Placing my hooves against the steeply inclined wall, I concentrated on grabbing the surface and, almost effortlessly, scaled it.

Ponies can give goats a run for their money, apparently.

Towards the top of the structure, part of the interior was exposed to the air. Like some vast dragon’s maw, it sucked air in through the opening, only to be blown out again in a hot breath. Leaping onto an enormous, dormant bellows allowed me to hop down further. I ghosted along the rafters as I looked down on a hellish landscape which was part steel mill, part weapons manufactory. All of it centered around one great furnace, which glowed so bright I couldn’t look directly into the flames. By shielding my eyes, I could just make out a powerfully built, hunched-over figure standing next to it, holding tongs deep in flame.

With two huge stomps, the figure, a vast red-skinned creature with a pair of sharp, curling horns stepped away from the forge. He took the star-bright lump of iron in his tongs to an anvil and began to hammer. Each blow sent a great shower of sparks to illuminate the cavernous armory, a flash of radiant power. Each one starkly illuminated forests of blades and bits of armor, only for them to diminish into half-forgotten shadows by its fading.

For a long time, I waited, wondering whether or not Maille had already come, or if she was on her way, or if this was some other business of the Wand King. Perhaps I would at last be able to glimpse that ruler of goblins. As time passed, however, and the ringing lulled me into a sense of security, I found myself dozing, lulled by the hypnotic pulse of fire and steel. Eventually, the armorer plunged his creation back into the flames. The bellows roared, stoking it to shocking heights once again.

In that brightness, I saw Maille, for the first time since I leapt from the Wand Castle.

This, I imagined, must be her true form. It resembled Rarity very little, yet it was still unmistakable. She was a slender thing, upright, her face and skin pale. Clothed in shimmering maille, she walked on two long, sturdy legs that each ended in dragon-like talons, and a tail trailed behind her, covered in white scales. Her hair was long and white and lovely, with a quality not unlike silver. For all her prettiness, though, she carried herself with confidence and strength, and, when she faced her master, her dark eyes wavered not at all in the intense light.

They remained there for a while, neither saying a word. It could have been a battle of wills, or maybe it was just that neither of them knew what to say.

Little did Maille know that I hovered above, wondering whether or not I could hate her for what she had done, or what she might be about to do.

Amata Toshiro broke the silence first, his rumbling voice carrying even over the ringing of his hammer. “Do you see, Maille, the shape of what is to come?” His accent was not unlike the rabbit’s, if different in some inflections.

Her face turned to regard the piece of metal being pounded. “I claim no special knowledge.” It surprised me, a little, that her voice was so like Rarity’s, if more resonant, less flighty. She couldn’t have been older than Daphne, but her surety spoke of a great deal more maturity.

“Then it is not your hand that strikes the steel.”

The master lifted the steel, which had once again chilled to a cherry red, and placed it within the forge. Wordlessly, Maille moved to the side and worked the billows, her deceptively slender arms surging as she drove air in. I only realized then that the building was empty, despite having work stations for many more goblins. They must have believed themselves alone. I felt at once an intruder, a voyeur into an intensely private moment.

Not that such would deter me, but the power of this meeting was not lost on me.

When the iron was white hot again, the master pulled it out. I’ll be the first to admit that there is little I knew of metallurgy, but it seemed to me that any natural steel should have melted at that point. It was more than abundantly clear that I was also witnessing some of the craft that Wire had informed me of.

Acting again on one of those unseen, unspoken signals, Maille tied her elegant hair back from her head and slid an apron over herself. Grabbing a great hammer that must have weighed twice as much as she herself appeared, she went to the other side of the anvil and, whenever Amata Toshiro struck the steel, she struck it, too, moments later. Their rhythm intensified as they worked together—he turning the steel, she matching his blows.

Back and forth they went, and I watched in silence. In and out of the forge, each working up a great sweat, the heat and exertion melding together.

Finally, he offered the tongs to her, and she took the steel and looked at several barrels along the wall. Selecting, she plunged it in. A great hiss and gout of steam rose up, billowing her trailing silver hair.

“What have you wrought?” Amata Toshiro asked.

She pulled it out and brought it to the fire for a better look. It was laid upon the table, and she looked at it as it cooled. “A piece of something greater.”

Well, to me it looked like a lump of twisted metal, but what did I know?

Her master laid a huge hand on her shoulder. “You know I will not take sides in this. If you go forth from here, you will go alone.”

“I know,” she said, not turning to look at him. “I didn’t come to beg you to change your mind.”

“You came to ask me to change yours. Despite my forging you, you remain unfinished.”

Maille looked down at her palms. “I don’t know what I am doing, master. Another guides my hands.”

“That is a poor way to smith.” He reached down and picked up the still-hot iron in one hand without so much as a flinch. “The hands that perform the work must have clear direction, or the metal is wasted.”

“I don’t believe it is—not yet,” she said, shaking her head. “She’s still intact, somewhere.”

The man looked at his apprentice. “Misplacing your tools? I thought I broke you of that habit years ago.”

She laughed shortly. “More like they got up and walked off of their own accord.”

“Funny. I don’t seem to recall accepting that excuse back then, either.”

“I still stand by my story,” she said, her beautiful smile now in full force. “But… this time, I worry that I’ve botched it. I didn’t have to worry about such things before. The girls and I… what did we know, then?”

“What do you know now?”

“Little enough,” she admitted, so quietly I almost didn’t hear. “Too little. I don’t think I can turn aside, though. What we’re doing… it’s very important. I’ve seen enough to know that. I’m going to have a hand in shaping a world that is to come, Master. How can I pass that by?”

“I thought you said that another guides your hands.”

Maille glanced down at her palms again and curled them closed. “So I did.” She sighed.

He turned and put the iron piece on a shelf. “Yet I already sense you will not be deterred.”

“I must not be.”

“Then your concern lies with your wayward bar of metal.” He turned towards her again and placed his great hands on her arms. She looked up into his face. “You know how I feel on the matter. It is a great crime to waste good metal without purpose, but it is a greater crime still to destroy that which is irreplaceable. Better, I think, to leave the job undone if the doing would mar this creation.” He sighed. “Yet, if it must be done…”

“It must.”

“You have a bright future ahead of you, Maille,” he said slowly. “I see in you a great artisan, one worthy to carry on the legacy I am burdened with. Since the ancient ones crossed the sea of stars to places unknown, we have been entrusted with their art. If you are to do that justice, you must not fail in doing what is right and proper and good.” He released her gently. “Take the hammer in hand. You must decide how best to shape your workings.”

For a moment, Maille didn’t seem to be able to look her master in the eye. “I… I am not sure I…” She went silent, then met his gaze and straightened. “Yes. I understand. No matter the cost to myself, the working transcends me. Such is the curse of all artists.”

“Such it is.”

“Thank you, master.” She curtsied, an act that had him blushing as the fire had been unable to make him do.

He shooed her off. “Enough with that. Go, child. You have duties to attend to.”

“Are you sure I cannot stay a bit? I feel a powerful need to work with metal again,” she said wistfully, looking over the great machines.

“Find your own forge. I am going home for the evening, and no one works here without my supervision.” He gestured her towards the door.

“Of course. Thank you, again,” she said, walking towards the door with her back straight once more.

“Oh,” he called. “Where are you staying? I may wish to send something your way.”

She turned back to face him with a puzzled expression. “You?”

“Is not an old man entitled to sentimentality when he so chooses?”

“Yours is the sentimentality of old leather and ancient steel. It creaks and groans with every motion,” she tossed back.

He laughed. A deep, bellow’s roar. “Then you’ll be sure to hear it coming.”

“I stay on Ivy Lane, in the Inn of Four Seasons, with Rose.”

“Hmph,” he grunted. “Frilly.”

“I am a lady,” she said, pulling her hair free and letting it fall around her slim form. “In spite of your efforts, I might add.”

“Hmph. Begone with you.” He tossed his hammer casually and she dodged it, darting out with a silvery laugh. With a grunt of amusement, he stalked over to the forge and watched it die down.

Carefully, ignoring the pop of my largely unused legs, I walked back across the rafters to my exit. Just as I climbed on to the large bellows, I glanced down, and thought I saw the gleam of a pair of dark, knowing eyes in the growing gloom. With a hop and a jump, I was free and into the sunlight again.

Momentarily blinded, I covered my eyes with my foreleg and watched the street until Maille and her retinue had gone, their enchanted carriages carrying them away. Then, climbing back down, I made my way back to the others where they hid beneath the sheet metal awning of a low dive. The others watched my approach, breathlessly waiting.

“I know where we’re going next,” I told them, looking back at the squat basalt building. “I’ll tell you about what happened in there along the way.”

Not that I really understood it at the time. Metaphors couched in similes. I knew they had been discussing me, but what about I could not have said.

All I knew is that I could not hate Maille.

* * *

Apple Bloom heaved as the wagon rattled fitfully across the stones. Once again, we had transitioned to another part of the city. This one rose in terraces up a massive hill, with stones fit tightly together with only a minimum of mortar to hold their places. Moreover, it, unlike other parts of the city, was given over to greenery that sprouted in great abandon wherever we looked. Trees shaded streets from the harsh glare of the sun and parks replaced plazas. Every building incorporated a garden, or at least a few plants, as far as I could see, and the goblins here, who languidly lounged on balconies and shady spots, tended towards loose garments and bright colors.

The rope harness attached to the wagon had begun to dig into my shoulders, and I slumped, panting. “Okay. This officially sucks. I did not sign up for mountain climbing.”

“Well,” Sweetie Bell said, rubbing her own shoulder, “if we’re going to make it to that inn, we gotta go up this hill. I’m pretty sure that’s what the weird snake guy said.”

Apple Bloom shoved the wagon a couple extra feet to put it on level ground, and we all collapsed into a pile.

Scootaloo, having largely recovered from her our earlier travels and her circuits about the market place, winced and gingerly stretched her legs. “We’ve been running around all day. This place is huge.”

Wire winged down from above and landed gracefully nearby. “Well, you know, if’n you’re tired, why don’t you just take the tram up?”

The four of us looked at her. Wire shrank back. “Uhm… you know? Public transportation? An easy way for the masses to get around the city? …Please don’t hit me!” she squealed and covered her eyes with her wings as our glares intensified.

“Just lead the way,” Apple Bloom growled, getting up to start pushing the laden wagon once more.

Our collective countenances were enough that Wire led us across the terrace at a safe distance, far enough ahead of the rest of us that none of us could strangle her. Eventually she led us through a thicket to reach what seemed to be a train station of sorts. Like most of the architecture on the hill, it sat in a vaguely pyramidal shape, with a flat top and broad square entryways, including huge passages for the tram rails. Ahead, tunnels dug into the mountainside or rose up on elevated rails passing between the buildings.

That just figured. If they had electricity and engines, then subways, railcars, and even sewers were not unreasonable additions. That’s what I got for assuming this was some sort of standard-issue fantasy world.

Of course, the last thing I wanted to dwell on was a boring train station. Couldn’t imagine someone who would find waiting around to be picked up interesting.

The rest of our trip up the hill was spent in placidity aboard a tram car. We broke out the rice cakes, baked vegetable patties, cheese, and bread we’d bought from a food cart with our ill-gotten gains and had a much needed late lunch. I watched the city through the windows, not really participating in the conversation. For all its alien exoticness, Mag Mell had a charm about it that reminded me of visiting Boston or New York City. Only it had magic and animal people and other cool things, so it was at least ten times better than either of those.

In other circumstances, I might have loved to go live there.

Ivy Lane proved to be near the flat top of the hill. It was less a single street than it was a collection of covered areas protected against the environment, with stone piercework windows overlooking the city. Ivy flowered all around it, even in the depths of autumn, with lilac and cherry blossoms forming a delicate carpet on the ground. There was a definite flair of India about it, one I recognized from television and movies more than anything particularly wholesome, with domes and pointed archways predominating.

“I wonder why they’re staying here?” Wire asked. “Bloody hell, it’s not like the Cup palace isn’t right there.” She pointed a hoof up a ways, to where a great stepped pyramid climbed up to defy the hill it had been built upon. Two massive stairways converged before the ziggurat, and, even from our distance, we could hear the blare of trumpets and drums as some sort of celebration wound its way up. Huge red banners streamed from the sides of the building, and it gleamed in places with the metallic shine of silver and gold. “Looks like they’re havin’ their Harvest Celebration. There’ll be heaps of food to be had there for the Cup types. Be goin’ on for days, nonstop, wallowin’ in the largesse of the realms. Not that Cups need much of a reason to go on holiday.”

“Big on celebrations, huh?” I asked.

“Oh, aye. They’ll be wanged out by evenin’.”

“Live Wire,” Sweetie Belle said with starry eyes, “your accent is hypnotic. I should practice it.”

“Rarity would wash your mouth out with soap,” Apple Bloom warned with a laugh.

Wire blushed and rubbed her head. “Just talkin’ like myself is all.”

“I think we’ve got a bit of a problem,” I said as I studied the hotel. “They’re not being super obvious about it, but there’s someone at each of the entrances and open windows.” I pointed a hoof, letting them see the robed figures apparently lounging at each spot. Whenever someone came to one of the entrances, they either struck up a conversation or nodded to them.

Wire looked skeptically down at our tags. “Going to be cutting it tight… besides, if they’re takin’ the effort to guard it, they probably have protections against unwanted intruders, especially ones using magic to hide themselves. Folks who go to a high-class place like this are usually wary of such things.” She chewed nervously on her hoof. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this, girls? I really, really don’t wanna get caught.”

“Now just you hold on a minute,” Apple Bloom said. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders don’t give up until the cows come home.”

“Sometimes, not even then,” Sweetie Belle agreed. “They like to come in early if it’s not a nice day, after all.”

Apple Bloom sauntered off towards the inn, taking a meandering route around it, leaving us to wait. By the time she returned, she was grinning ear to ear. “Well, well. They got a bathhouse.”

I waited for a moment. “Yes, and? Can we climb in through a window or something?”

“Nope, too narrow, but that don’t matter. It’s heated.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Hah,” Scootaloo scoffed and patted my head, “leave it to us. Watch and learn.”

* * *

I grasped Wire’s hooves and let her haul me out of the pipe with a sick pop of grease. I stared at the stained girls surrounding me. We were squeezed in between a brick wall and an enormous cylindrical boiler, which churned rhythmically.

“Let us never speak of that again,” I suggested.

“I dunno, it wasn’t that bad,” Sweetie Belle said and wiped her face. That only served to smear her coat more thoroughly. “Those alligators were nice. They could really keep a beat, and their soprano was amazing.”

“Never again. I don’t care—if anyone ever asks, I’m skipping over that whole mess. Eugh, I feel like I’ll never be clean again.” I shivered all the way down to the bone, with my coat sticking up at all angles where sewage and oil hadn’t slicked it. “Where did you girls learn so much about plumbing, anyway?”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Poorly planned attempt at getting our cutie marks. Honestly, we’ve been a little desperate lately. I think we’ve learned enough about carpentry, electrical repair, sewing, sports team management, and interior decoration to last a lifetime without one cutie mark to show for it.” She fixed a crimp in her long tail and brushed at a singed part irritably. “Well, at least we’re in a bathhouse. Cleaning should be the easy part.”

Wire put a hoof to her lips. “Shh!”

Immediately, we all shut up and swiveled our ears. Footfalls and the swish of a robe came and went, and then another. The second set entered the room, and we watched under the boiler as a pair of slippered rabbit feet crossed the floor. They shuffled a bit as the owner fiddled with something on one of the walls before leaving as they’d come.

We breathed a sigh of relief and piled out into the room. “One problem,” I said as we collected ourselves. “How are we going to get out again after? I don’t really fancy trying to squeeze back through.”

Wire rubbed her chin as she considered a metal box attached to the wall, with insulated cables running from the box and into the hall. “I might be able to bang somethin’ up. Give me a moment.” She shook her toolbox out and popped the lid, revealing a mess of electronics equipment that might as well have been a spellbook for all the sense it made to me. Wire, though, navigated it with deft precision. She pulled a spring mechanism from one of her bags and wound it up. “Think a half hour will do us?”

Scootaloo snorted. “If not, we’ve probably spent too long here, anyway.” She held out a hoof. “All right, let’s have one of those magic tag thingies.”

“We’re good now that we’re inside, right?” I asked Wire.

“Yeah, probably.” She nodded. “They usually only secure the exterior walls.”

“All right, remember, we only have one more of these left,” I said as I slipped a tag to Scootaloo.

She swung it around, covering us once more in its billowing protection. Apple Bloom took out the sound sphere and twisted its key until it stuck. So, cloaked in silence and illusion, we crept out of the boiler room and up the stairs, following the aroma of soap and hot bathwater. A doorway flung itself open while we were in the hall, and the five of us pressed to the wall with our chests sucked in tight while a rabbit backed out and, oblivious to our presence, pushed a tea service down another way. She paused halfway down the hall and bent an ear to the wheels. Apple Bloom stretched her foreleg to hold the sphere a few feet further from the rabbit, and, when the servant wriggled the cart again, a squeak and shake met her rather than silence. Shrugging, she pressed on, and so did we.

Lapis and mother-of-pearl shell lent the bathhouse an ethereal grace. Its domed chambers swam with the reflected light of the water below, and steamy air turned everything that might have been sharp and clear into a vague dream. Statues of nymph-like young women stood at the corners, holding up the ceiling as decorative columns. As an afterthought, I stole a set of towels from a service and threw them over us to make two oddly shaped patrons in case the tag wore out unexpectedly, then we crept through. Somewhat to my surprise, we didn’t have to go searching through the inn—our quarry, as it turned out, were enjoying the inn’s cleansing accommodations already. I could just hear Maille’s voice in the final, smallest chamber.

With a gesture to the others, I slipped out of the towel I shared with Wire and stepped into the murky water, sinking in deep. Wire and the others joined me and left their covers on the side, ideally close so we could slip back into them on the way out. We silently glided through the jasmine-scented water to the edge and just poked our eyes out to watch.

The back of Maille’s head sat just above the lip of the neighboring bath. Her shiny white hair had been swept up into a loose bun with the aid of a pair of sticks, and her toned arms spread to either side. “Darling, you are making me feel positively decadent. You aren’t a servant—come, enjoy it.”

Rose stretched her hooves along the tiles at the far end of the pool. Unlike Maille, she at least greatly resembled a pony still, and even paralleled Fluttershy to a great degree. Her mane fell long across her back and sides, a deep red that faded along its length to delicate pink and bluish white tips. “I’m not feelin’ it, Maille,” she said, giving us a clear view of her mouth—which was definitely not like a pony’s, displaying pearly white fangs. She hoofed a cup of tea closer and sipped at it.

“We’re certainly paying enough for the privilege.”

“We aren’t here for privilege,” Rose snapped, roused by peevishness out of her languor. Her face smoothed and she glanced aside. “Sorry.”

“You see? This is exactly what I mean.” Maille flexed her back and lifted a powerful leg from the water, its silver scales gleaming in the soft light. “If you’re this tense, you’re liable to scare off the contact.”

“I’m liable not to care about the contact, nor anything else, for that matter.” Rose set an elbow against the floor and rested her pretty face on it. “How do we even know if she’s here, Maille? We’re wastin’ time we could be using combin’ the Everfree.”

“How you underestimate her,” Maille chided gently. “She had us played from the beginning, or near enough. The only thing that should surprise us at this point is that we didn’t see through it earlier. If the border guards reported a peddler sneaking through the lines, she was on it.”

“One peddler. How could she have found that in the middle of the Everfree?”

“How could she have escaped a castle full of goblins?” Maille ticked off her fingers. “She tricked the mine supervisor, so we know she’s able to manipulate people. She evaded Pinion and an entire squadron, so we know she’s slippery. Wherever she goes, she attracts tools and allies like a magnet does iron filings. And let’s not forget the Morgwyn.”

Rose shivered. “I don’t understand how Fetter could have been so foolish.”

“The creature brought him the child. What was he supposed to do?”

“Kill it.”

Maille snorted indelicately. “Don’t be ridiculous. The Wand King could destroy that creature, perhaps, but I wouldn’t stack Fetter up against it for all the gold in the Nine Worlds.”

“Does the King even know it was involved?” Rose asked. “I confess I ain’t been payin’ that much attention.”

“I can’t blame you, dear.” Maille slid across the pool and rested a hand on Rose’s side. “Come on. Soak a little. Let the heat ease your worries.”

“I spent day and night tramping through that forest.” Rose splashed a hoof disdainfully. “A few minutes of soakin’ won’t cleanse that. Soakin’ won’t bring back a basilisk’s missing eye.”

“No, but I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to suffer needlessly on his behalf,” Maille said, picking up a sponge. “To answer your question, no, I don’t think Fetter has told the King. Now, are you coming in or am I going to get up and wash you myself?”

Rose fixed a rotten glare on Maille, who was unbowed. With a sigh, she pushed at Maille instead, saying, “All right, make room.”

There was a bit of shuffling as Maille returned to her seated posture and Rose slid herself down into the hot water. She sighed and settled herself in, closing her eyes. “Do you remember when we used to do this for fun, Maille?”

“I do.”

“Wouldn’ it have been nice if we…” Rose sighed again.

“If we what?”

“We could have avoided all of this if we’d just told her the truth. We could have taken her to Mag Mell instead of that ancient rock.” Rose shook her head. “She’d have gone to the Well of her own accord, sure enough. It’s in her to be someone special.”

If she had kept that up, I would have started to blush.

Maille was silent for a moment. “Perhaps. It’s not the way things are done, though, Rose. We had a duty. We have a duty.”

“It’s a duty that’s eaten up our entire lives, Maille.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Maille said tightly. “What we do, we do for a purpose. I know it seems bad now, but it will work out. We just need to find her.”

“Oh?” Rose opened her eyes and glared. “Tell me, what part of prophecy mentioned a wild goose chase and eight years of waitin’, hopin’, beggin’ fate to work out? How exactly are we going to fulfill the terms now that she knows it was all a lie?”

Maille rubbed her face. “I don’t know. I wish… well, what I wish doesn’t matter. Thinking that way takes us down an ugly path. It takes us the way it took Flash.”

“Some bearer of the Element of Loyalty.” Rose laughed bitterly. “Ain’t that ironic? We lose a traitor only to get the real thing.”

“Poor Twig.” Maille giggled. “She’s high-strung enough as it is, and now she’s stuck with her almost every minute. She’s going to wind up coming apart at the seams.”

“I keep tellin’ her she should just say what she feels and get it over with,” Rose grumbled. “I’m still blown away; I thought she was Flash.”

“Yes, well—” Maille broke off as footsteps approached, hard shoes on the tile.

A golden-armored woman approached through the mist, with a helmet under her arm and great white feathery wings spread from her back. On her breastplate a grail had been picked out in silver and copper. There was a definite elegance about her, but there was nothing soft in her face.

“Strange,” Maille said as the woman approached. “I’ve always known the Cup to be a great deal more subtle with their agents.”

“Then know that what is said here is not secret,” the woman intoned. “The Cup rejects any and all overtures. King Xerxes is neutral.”

“Your previous King felt differently. This smacks of renegin’,” Rose said in a low and dangerous tone.

The tan woman stared back at her dispassionately. “What King Marduk willed is absolute. What King Xerxes wills is absolute. King Xerxes has willed that the word and deeds of King Marduk are null and void, and thus the Cup has declared neutrality,” she said, each word measured and certain. “Let your King of Wands roll the dice on his own.”

“Strikes me as an irresistible force hittin’ an immovable object,” Rose growled. “Perhaps we should hit him a few times to—”

“Enough, Rose,” Maille said sharply. “Inform the King of Cups that we thank him for his courtesy in informing us of his decision.”

Rose and the armored woman exchanged a final glare before the latter nodded tightly and marched away.

“Well, that was a vivid waste of time,” Maille said.

“Should have let me smack her around.”

Maille shrugged. “What would that have proven? We’d have made trouble and annoyed the Cup King for no real gain. The Wand King can bring it up himself if he feels it is needed.”

“We’d better get back to the ship, then,” Rose said, starting to lift herself up.

“The ship can wait,” Maille said airily. “I paid for this, so let’s just enjoy it while we can. Like old times.”

“Happier times,” Rose sighed.

I looked at my wrist and then realized I had neither a watch nor a wrist anymore. I turned to Wire to mouth “How long?” at her.

Wire shook her head at me, and I swam back over to the towels, feeling frustrated. We’d come all this way, spent so much effort, only to learn so little. So there was some dire prophecy that I was intimately involved in that they were hard up on. There was nothing in there I could use, and it was information I’d already surmised on my own.

Sure, perhaps Maille and Rose did care for me, or cared about me at the very least. Maybe that helped ease the pain of what they did, if only a little. All it meant in the end, however, was that I needed to avoid them and move on with my life.

I didn’t need them. I didn’t need anybody.

We shuffled back into our concealing towels and trooped for one of the nearby doors.

“Hey,” Scootaloo asked quietly from the back of the group, “when she said Element of Loyalty, did she mean Rainbow Dash? She hasn’t been kidnapped, too, has she?”

“I don’t care,” I answered dully. I didn’t bother to look back and see how my words impacted.

We stepped through a curtained archway into a walled garden, with the scented flowers sticking to our hooves, but apparently walking sheets weren’t the greatest disguise in the universe. A hand yanked them off us before we’d gone four steps, both owned by a pair of robed women who stood above us. They had ivy embroidered into their silken garments—servants, no doubt.

One, a curvy sort with a tiger’s striped coat and cat-like features, tapped her sandaled foot and looked down at us amusedly. The other, whose webbed hands and feet and scales spoke of piscine nature, barked at us in an unfamiliar language. The tigress waved her hand, speaking more calmingly to her and then to us in lightly-accented English. “Looks like five little Wandies wanted to enjoy a day at the spa. You girls know how exclusive and expensive this place is, don’t you?”

Wire wibbled senselessly, shrinking down. I rolled my eyes and smiled guilelessly at the girls. “You caught us. I’m really sorry, we’ll never do it again.” The Crusaders stepped up to my side and put on their best innocent faces.

The fish-like woman crossed her arms, but the tigress laughed. “Cute. You’re a slippery one, aren’t you? Well, I see no reason to make a big deal out of this—we’ll just put you to work for the day and call it even.”

Crap.

“Oh! Well, our parents are expecting us back, and it’s already pretty late…”

“Then you can head back in the morning and call it a lesson learned,” she said and smiled so that her sharp teeth showed. There was no overt malice, but she slid a hint of steel into her tone that brooked no disagreement. “I’m sure your parents will be grateful that they aren’t being sent a bill instead.”

Double crap. “Wire,” I hissed, “are you sure that you—”

Then everything went dark. A localized blackout, with all the compound’s electric lights going out at once. Almost on its heels, there came the sound of hissing steam.

The women swore, but we were already moving, galloping at full tilt for the exit. We bowled over the startled guard just as the curtain to the bathhouse was flung open. Maille’s voice rang out into the late afternoon air. “Amelia! I know that’s you!”

“We’re had! Get to the wagon!” I shouted, and we scrambled over a fence. Wire sprang into the air and went ahead of us, her wings flapping in panic. Wherever Maille and Rose’s entourage of Wand goblins were, they’d be boiling over the streets in no time flat. With our hooves pounding, we made it into the street as Wire pulled the red wagon into the open and hitched the scooter.

“Everypony on board!” Scootaloo shouted and dug her heels into the ground, building up speed while her wings kicked into high gear.

Maille, wrapped in a towel and soaking wet, sprang on top of the inn’s garden wall. “Amelia, wait! You don’t know what this is all about!”

I snatched a thunderstone from Wire’s side and flung it up at Maille, coming a foot or two short and sending sparks up from the wall. “Get away from me!”

“Somegob, bring me my cages, or I’ll strip your skins from your bones!” Rose hollered in an indeterminate direction.

Scootaloo tore off, heading first down the street towards the sunset. Already, though, I could see enchanted, horseless carriages wheeling after us. The Wand goblins atop them were armed with nets and catcher poles.

“Right!” Apple Bloom shouted as one bore down on us. Scootaloo took the turn so sharp that the wagon lifted clean off the ground and bounced against a wall. With the street too narrow to follow, the lead carriage waited at the entrance to the alley while others raced off, their wheels rattling across the stones.

Wire whimpered, covered her eyes, and squeezed down into the base of the wagon as if trying to absorb herself into it. “Th-they’re gonna catch and hang me!”

“Get a grip on yourself!” I shouted as I shook her, but it was to no avail. She simply curled up more. Sweetie Belle shrieked a warning and pointed ahead as another carriage pulled up in front of the path. Scootaloo gave a grunt of effort and turned us again, ramping up one of the sloped walls and carrying us over a startled mole-goblin’s garden before crashing down on the far side.

“We need the last tag!” she shouted back, starting to pant with effort as her wings pumped harder.

It was becoming increasingly clear that the Wand goblins had us surrounded. The only way to get out of our area any faster would have been to ramp off the terrace—and our survival then would have been doubtful. Nodding, I reached into the box and pulled the last tag, flinging it over us in a concealing vapor. We raced past an oblivious carriage and started down one of the main streets, juking to avoid the startled and frightened passersby.

“All right,” I said. “We should head back to the market. We can lose them there and—”

An eagle’s scream startled me, and I looked up. There, directly above us, a trio of birds dived towards the wagon. “Agh! Move, move!” I shouted, and Scootaloo jinked hard. Talons snapped at the air just above my mane, and Sweetie Belle screamed as one sliced into hers.

“Some monsters and animals can see through concealment,” Wire whimpered. “The others will use them to track us.”

“Rose!” I spat. “Well, I hope you like your pets being hurt, because I’m not done yet!” I took Wire’s bandolier in my teeth and tugged, freeing it so that I could have a ready supply of electrical ammunition.

“Whoa, Moonlight,” Apple Bloom said. “We need to focus! Where do we go?”

I reluctantly trimmed my destructive impulses and bit my lip, thinking fast. Where could we go that they wouldn’t… “Of course!” I turned towards the ziggurat and pointed a hoof. “There! Full speed ahead, Scootaloo!”

“What?” Scootaloo demanded. “Why there?”

“Because they’re not allies anymore!”

“I don’t think they’re friends of ours, either!” she said skeptically, but she turned down the main street anyway.

Above, the eagles dove again, and Sweetie Belle put her hooves to her head and shouted, “I can’t take this anymore!” She snatched the bandolier from me with a furious effort and started throwing stones as fast as she could, peppering the air with them and shrieking like a banshee the whole while. With singed feathers, and perhaps more than a little fear of the terrifying little creature, the eagles broke off their attack and scattered across the rooftops.

The goblins, however, had all the information they needed to close in on us. Armored goblins hanging off their enchanted rides readied their implements as fully a dozen carriages raced onto the main boulevard. Scootaloo yelled and threw everything she had into her tortured wings. Every little bounce in the road knocked us several feet into the air, and I clung to the others and the wagon desperately as she turned off the road, hit a sloped wall, and arched us high over the palace’s curtain wall.

With deceptive grace we soared. The wagon came out from under us, and Scootaloo let exhaustion take her. I managed to hold onto the other girls as we plummeted, but even Wire’s desperate, last-minute flapping couldn’t arrest the fall.

A wagon, a scooter, and five fillies came down hard in the palace courtyard with a series of sickening collisions.

* * *

Pain lanced through my chest as I stirred, there in the shadow of evening’s last sunlight beyond the wall. My vision swam into clarity, and I perceived the wagon as a crumpled mass of aluminum fully ten meters away, with our belongings scattered about it. Standing was a labor, and so was breathing, but I ignored both as best I could.

But Sweetie Belle’s crying drew me, stumbling and quaking as it was.

She kept trying to stand, but her left hindleg bent at a very unfortunate angle. I pushed her down and buried my face in her mane, wetting it with my tears. “I’m sorry,” I breathed. “Just hold still. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Scootaloo limped over, favoring one of her own hindlegs. Scrapes and bruises covered her, but it seemed her helmet had taken the worst of it. A crack split it nearly in two over her left ear, which was stained noticeably, and she discarded the broken helmet as useless. Apple Bloom bit back her own tears as she pushed herself up, only to fall when her forelegs refused to cooperate. Only Wire seemed free of anything past minor bruises, spared by her own aerial gifts.

“It’s all my fault.” I sobbed. “I… I’ve dragged you all out here, and, and…”

“Moonlight,” Apple Bloom said, her voice tight with pain. “Don’t. We’re in this… ow… together.”

Scootaloo looked at the splintered and shattered wreckage of her wagon and scooter. “Uh. Yeah. Right. Together.”

Wire perked her ears and listened to the sounds of the Wand forces pulling up at the wall behind us. Their angry shouts reached us, and she shivered.

Scootaloo walked over and put her shoulder against Sweetie Belle’s other side, helping the injured girl to stand. “Come on. Moonlight. We need a plan. I… I know you’re upset, and maybe you’ve got a good reason to be, but those guys are going to figure out a way to get us if we let them. We need a plan, and you’re—” She stared at her ruined scooter again “—usually pretty good at those.”

I wiped at my face with a foreleg, making no headway against the tears. “A plan… I… yeah…” I sniffled and tried to collect myself. It took a while. Long minutes ticked by as the sun’s light rose higher and higher, chased by shadows.

“Wire,” I said at last. “Does the Cup have airships here?”

“Uh…” She looked up at the sky thoughtfully. “Yeah. They should.”

“Let’s go, then.” I said. “We’re going home.”

* * * * * * *

Author's Note:

This was easily one of my most favorite chapters to write, and not merely because I got to heartlessly break one of Sweetie Belle's legs. (I'm sorry, Sweetie! Please forgive me! )

It contains many of the things I love about writing Pirene: Amelia being herself, intricate world-building, plotting, the Crusaders, and a heaping dose of personal drama delivered by the most evil cat in the universe.

I was originally hoping to do two chapters in Mag Mell. Sadly, the content would have been stretched and largely plotless, especially due to some changes that came along the way. Still, Mag Mell is very much in the vein of a City of Adventure as I've always adored the trope, full of strangeness that Amelia in her brief visit only touches on.

We also get to see, in detail, the true forms of all of the remaining Faux Six aside from Twig, who will be revealed soon. Maille is the biggest divergence from the form of a pony, as you can see, being both humanoid and very different in general. Morning Angles wants much fanart of her~!

Stay tuned next week, to see what news Leit Motif returns to Daphne and how they go about their search, now that they know things are more serious than ever before. Daphne will discover something very important about herself, and a new direction will be gained.

When next we convene with Amelia, we'll get to see the inside of the Cup Palace, and all its strange and terrible wonders.

Happy Holidays! I'm vividly secularists, but hey, we all need a break from a trying year. We've seen Pirene go from Quiet to explosive in the course of this year, and we may see its end in a few short months.

Comment below! I love comments.
I also love Favs and Follows~

Comments

[Manes]

Why are you so awesome!

[MD Webster]

An eagle’s scream startled me, and I looked up. There, directly above us, a trio of birds dived towards the wagon.

Eagles! The eagles are coming!

Now this is getting more interesting with the goblin society. But...

WHAT ABOUT RAINBOW?!

[Ether Echoes]

3588156
*dangles Rainbow Dash on a hook*

[MD Webster]

...

(Really?)

[James Washburn]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!
MAG FUCKING MELL! BEST FRICKING MUNICIPALITY EVER.
It's just... just... beautiful... I want it... All of it... the people, the noise, the... the...
ACH. I can't handle it.
So yeah. Good chapter. Really good. Shame about Sweetie Belle, but then again, the Morgwyn turned up, which is worth any number of injured urchins. And the Cup King business. And Maille and Rose off-duty. I would pay good money for more of it. Like, just a grab bag of "stuff that happened in Mag Mell today" and I would weep with joy.

[Ether Echoes]

3588377
Who knows? Maybe one day there will be sequels.

[James Washburn]

3588454
You don't understand how important it is to me that there are.

[ferret]

You uh... might want to reiterate just what the girls are trying to do a bit more. As is, it's briefly mentioned once in the middle of the process of reminding Amelia of what Twig taught her about lying. It was really easy to miss because just as she said "I want to find out what they're up to" suddenly we the readers are remembering how Twig helped her out, totally forgetting what Amelia wanted to do above the way in which she was smooth talking. At least have some of the others agree (and rephrase what they're agreeing too) or something.

[Flash_Magnus]

Crazy good best way to spend the late Friday afternoon into early evening by reading this update

[Ether Echoes]

3588711
Can you clarify your question to me a bit more?

[Cold in Gardez]

This was easily one of my most favorite chapters to write, and not merely because I got to heartlessly break one of Sweetie Belle's legs. (I'm sorry, Sweetie! Please forgive me! )

Don't feel bad. Suffering builds character.

[Ether Echoes]

3588504
Perhaps you should write a sequel.

3588963
Way to call my chapters fat.

3589039
Yes, excellent point. In that event, Pirene must have more severe injuries to pre-adolescents!

[Flash_Magnus]

3589131

Lol

[ChaosDX1]

Did you just reverse-engineer a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment? Nice.

Amelia's Silver Tongue. Just... It's good at what it does!

[Ether Echoes]

3589223
Oooh, you spotted it~!

[James Washburn]

3589131
Is that a challenge, or a threat?

[Ether Echoes]

3589413
A challenge!
wpromote.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/stinko.jpg

[hay]

I'm amazed.

In this chapter you've really made Equestria, which is a huge world full of canon and fan-lore, seem like a little sheltered suburb of The Big City. A backwater, halcyon section of the real world out there, a childhood place that seems huge until one day, we grow up enough to realize what lay beyond. A perceptual bubble bursts and though just a moment ago we knew everything, now we realize how little we really do.

It's not lost on me that our beloved Equestria came from childhood daydreams, either.

Yet even as I'm trying to smooth over my horribly inarticulate expressions of gratitude for the time and effort you expend to write this little gift for us, dear author, a thought comes to mind:

While Daphne and her human friends, who are more or less grown up, are lollygagging in a pastoral childhood paradise that is no longer part of their (mostly) adult lives but is safe and comfortable;

Amelia and the CMC are rushing headlong into the big world of grownup danger, trying to break out of their confining universe that is childhood.

Isn't that just like most of us? We want to grow up so bad! Yet once we get there, with car keys in our pockets and bank loans on our backs, wives and husbands, children, bosses we want to bury in an ant mound and slather with syrup like a pancake effigy of our failed dreams... we just kinda wish we could go back.

We even love to watch the ponies.

BTW new episode tomorrow!!

[Ether Echoes]

3590583
Every damned word you said is correct.

You've hit every nail squarely on the head, with every little implication.

[hay]

3590702

I really like your story, can you tell? :)

[Always Breakfast]

“It was as if they were meant to be together.”

mint.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Free-Shipping.jpg

So Mag Mell is basically the Booty Bay of the multiverse. There's rather little plausible way the world junctions will stay under the radar once the girls are done causing plot chaos.

The Faux Manes are getting a nice amount of actual depth. Maille is coming off like Celes. This will either end in heartbreaking tragedy, or a Fire Emblem / Suikoden plot where knocking sense into her acts as a vector to bring in the other Fauxs.

“Those alligators were nice. They could really keep a beat, and their soprano was amazing.”

Aww, did we miss a mildly racist and homoerotic New Orleans voodoo gator doing an Esther Williams show?

[Ether Echoes]

3590799
Even the Morgwyn ships Leit/Daphne! How can they not see that it is true love?

So Mag Mell is basically the Booty Bay of the multiverse. There's rather little plausible way the world junctions will stay under the radar once the girls are done causing plot chaos.

I can't make any promises, but I can say that I am very much a Consequentialist. Things happen, and their effects won't just be swept under the rug. Change is coming.

The Faux Manes are getting a nice amount of actual depth. Maille is coming off like Celes. This will either end in heartbreaking tragedy or a Fire Emblem / Suikoden plot.

Ooo, referencing three RPG series in one swoop, nice.

Aww, did we miss a mildly racist and homoerotic New Orleans voodoo gator doing an Esther Williams show? :(

I'm sure Sweetie Belle will be happy to talk about them! They were quite entertaining, if you're into that sort of thing!
Amelia's the narrator, though, and she's not having any of that.

[MrRidley]

It wasn’t that I didn’t love my parents. I did. I mean, I do. I still do…

For some reason I am getting interesting implications about this, like Amelia is going to stay a pony or something.

[nightmaster0]

Just found this story today and i love it. I really look forward to reading future chapter's in the future.

[Ether Echoes]

3590927
Damn, neighbor, you must have plowed through the story to get so far today!

3590860
d2tq98mqfjyz2l.cloudfront.net/image_cache/1346724000736537.jpg

3590583
I just have to come back to this one to address how spot on each of these is. We'll see Daphne is stirred out of her complacency next chapter, of course, but it's interesting you mention these things, because I think I've been pretty subtle about them so far.
There's a very important hidden theme to Pirene that I shouldn't talk about directly because it would potentially foreshadow too much at where things are going. Suffice to say that the story has a layer or two left in it.

Now, I wonder if you can make any guesses about what is going to happen when their worlds finally collide.

[hay]

3590948

I find that good writing and good art in general, like good cooking, has these layers that you speak of.

That doesn't mean that "one note" stories aren't enjoyable... I think of my late night destressing sessions reading fimfiction rather like hiding under the covers as a kid consuming illicit Hershey bars where mom and dad can't find me, really, and there's nothing too gourmet about a Hershey bar. But they're sweet and tasty and a bit decadent and sometimes that's exactly what you want or need.

I knew this story was a bit different from the outset with the everfree hidden in plain sight of any adult but no one finds it; character names like Leit Motif which obviously had a deeper meaning, and a dozen other subtle things it's way too late and I'm way too tired and lazy to shake out of my mental tree and try to bake into a coherent pie to serve right now.

So yes you've been subtle, but unconsciously I've been trying to tune into the theme (motif?) you've been weaving
away while just trying enjoy a story as a story as well.

I guess that just means I've had my eye on this story because I expected it to be more complex from start.

I'm not going to think too hard about where it's going because I still like to be surprised by the ride, but I do know when you try to be something you're not, it never ends well.

[MrRidley]

3590948
Fans will speculate.

[Parametric Ponymorphism]

3590583

In this chapter you've really made Equestria, which is a huge world full of canon and fan-lore, seem like a little sheltered suburb of The Big City. A backwater, halcyon section of the real world out there, a childhood place that seems huge until one day, we grow up enough to realize what lay beyond. A perceptual bubble bursts and though just a moment ago we knew everything, now we realize how little we really do.

To be fair, our not very halcyon seeming Earth could be accused of being even more of a clueless backwater. Idyllic qualities aren't bad in themselves!

[ferret]

3588983
It wasn't a question. I know that they're trying to find out what the Wand's plans are. I just had to read the chapter twice in order to pick up on that. So it was a suggestion, if you don't want certain distractable readers wondering why the heck the kids are throwing themselves in danger while reading the whole chapter.

[Ether Echoes]

3593172
"Apple Bloom's never really felt like she needed a reason to be in danger..."
"That's because she doesn't!"
*thud* "Girls. I think we gone too far this time."

[hay]

3592106

Oh totally. I don't mean that really. What I found impressive is that ether took a world that's huge and effectively, to my suspended disbelief anyway, made it seem like a small town I'd never left until this story.

Suddenly Equestria seems more special to me because of this, and an allegory to youth. I love that. Especially since my youth is far enough away that it seems a lot shinier than it probably really was.

No, I love Equestria even more for it. And I appreciate the masterful artistry used in tickling my nostalgia bone.

This is a f* excellent tale. With a lot of depth most writers don't manage to achieve.

My 2c anyway. I don't usually comment a whole lot unless I have something nice to say. Words are not my art.

[MrRidley]

What sort of accent do the goblins like Wire have anyway? What I am imagining doesn't seem to fit Wire very well, so I feel like I've gone wrong somewhere.

[Ether Echoes]

3595567
It's a Welsh accent, with a smattering of the other British Isles.

Her sister Flash and the other Fake Six can slip in and out of it pretty easily, as you've seen.

[MrRidley]

3595568
Cool, thanks.

[Seven Seas]

This is not the most substantive comment on the page, but I just wanted to say that I'm getting all kinds of warm fuzzy squee-ey feelings about Wire. She's starting to come into her own, isn't she? Little bits of personality flashing everywhere, glimmering for an instant then gone, now that she's no longer scared off her rocker of Amelia. But she's still shy, and she's still self-conscious, and these are the moments that make her adorable.

I'm a little mad at Amelia, though. There's clever, and there's too clever for your own good, and all these lies to her new friends might end up hurting them more than her. They're already starting to.

[Ether Echoes]

3595653
It's almost like she's manipulative and self-centered.

I do love Wire, though. She is in desperate need of hugs, a warm blanket, and a long vacation away from anything remotely resembling danger.

[Lamplighter]

The way you described Mag Mell, you could almost see it, all splendor and squalor and everything in between. Most authors just rush out a few details about the scenery like some hack DM, and move on. How can you love or hate a place, or even feel anything at all unless you know it intimately. World building isn't all about what's obviously put in front of readers, but also about how being in this city made you feel, and what you felt about how the characters felt. And if that's not meta enough for you, you can think about what the writer felt, thinking about how the reader would feel, while thinking about... Wait, I can't remember where I was... Lots of feels, I think

In this chapter you've really made Equestria, which is a huge world full of canon and fan-lore, seem like a little sheltered suburb of The Big City. A backwater, halcyon section of the real world out there, a childhood place that seems huge until one day, we grow up enough to realize what lay beyond. A perceptual bubble bursts and though just a moment ago we knew everything, now we realize how little we really do.

I don't usually comment a whole lot unless I have something nice to say. Words are not my art.

Words are not my art

The fact that your own words, that you so eloquently put down contradict this is... art?
You managed you put into words what was at the tip of our minds all along, and you did it with such adroitness and ease that the rest of us feel slow and half witted. The best I had was an odd sense that Amelia was put in danger of a fantasy variety -Goblins, magic kidnappings, and a dastardly plot- Whereas Daphne is shoved into the world of adult fear and all the fun that comes with that.

Now I'm at an impasse. I love this story, and I can't wait for it to finish, to see if what I think is going to happen will be anything like what actually dose. Or if like I hope, this story will take me somewhere I can't even imagine yet. But at the same time, I'm in the middle of 47 updating stories just on this site, I just lose track of the details after time. Every new chapter that comes out makes me want to start from the beginning just to make sure I'm not losing the thread of things. Not so much the plot -which is unique enough not to be mixed up- but the the emotional state of the story.
I'm wondering if I should simply come back after all is said and done, and read it then.

As an author and reader, what would you do? You can only read it for the first time once after all.

[Ether Echoes]

3595726
I'm not the one who said that "Words are not my art" line, notice.

As an author and reader, what would you do? You can only read it for the first time once after all.

I've always been able to pick up disparate threads long after I've read them, so it doesn't bother me at all to start reading a new chapter of something after a break, at least if I can refresh myself on the details.

If it suits you better to wait, go ahead.

[hay]

3595726

Well thanks, that was kind of you to say! The reason I said the "words are not my art" line is my grammar, punctuation, tenses, POV, etc are not just bad, but absolutely horrid. I was too busy scratching rock band names into my desk during English class to pay attention to that stuff.

Your conundrum over waiting til the story is complete is understandable as I'm following a few things myself and know what you mean. Fortunately I find this story updates regularly and honestly I don't think I could wait. It's not any worse than Saturday pony, really.

I really should go back to the start and re read however, because I know I've missed things. That would help.

[Breaking News]

Nice of the Morgwyn to give Amelia a report on Daphne's status. Interesting to see what he "selectively left out" to spin the story so it looks like she doesn't care when nothing could possibly be further from the truth. Every reporter spins a little but you don't do it for no reason. It'll be interesting to see why he is misleading her so radically...and if Amelia and Daphne's reunion will be a happy one when it occurs (this doesn't seem like a dark fic where they wouldn't)

The titular well finally got mentioned! Looks like more questions will be answered in the next chapter so perhaps we'll finally find out what it is, is the Golden Bridle there, and just why they need some formerly human unicorn to get it.

[Ether Echoes]

3597497
The Morgwyn sees you when you're sleeping, it knows when you're awake. It knows when you've been naughty or nice...

[Solitair]

Hooray for Tarot symbolism! I've always had a soft spot for that sort of thing. I probably won't see the Major Arcana making an appearance here, but they hog enough of the spotlight as it is.

3588156
RAINBOW WILL LIVE

3590816
One of my favorite things to happen in any sort of story is the part where some sort of magical masquerade or conspiracy to keep something hidden from the rest of the world breaks down and the genie gets let out of the bottle. I would love to imagine the changes that would result from, say, muggles finding out about Harry Potter's wizarding world.

3590948
You know, as much as I hate Daphne and Amelia's parents for the neuroatypical shaming that they did to Daphne (or whatever you call that), they still don't deserve to have their children vanish out of their lives forever with no idea as to what happened to them. Just saying.

3595653
I can appreciate an author who remembers the ways in which children can be irresponsible and awful instead of constantly lionizing them and how innocent and pure they are.

3597530
I'd like to know what that thing's playing at. I'm reminded of Discord now.

[Ether Echoes]

3599172

Hooray for Tarot symbolism? I've always had a soft spot for that sort of thing. I probably won't see the Major Arcana making an appearance here, but they hog enough of the spotlight as it is.

In Pirene, the Major Arcana are more... floating. That's a complicated subject, though, and SPOILERS.

One of my favorite things to happen in any sort of story is the part where some sort of magical masquerade or conspiracy to keep something hidden from the rest of the world breaks down and the genie gets let out of the bottle. I would love to imagine the changes that would result from, say, muggles finding out about Harry Potter's wizarding world.

Yeah, me too.

You know, as much as I hate Daphne and Amelia's parents for the neuroatypical shaming that they did to Daphne (or whatever you call that), they still don't deserve to have their children vanish out of their lives forever with no idea as to what happened to them. Just saying.

They weren't aware of the fact that hallucinations are actually pretty common in the general populace, to be fair. They were wrong, though.

I can appreciate an author who remembers the ways in which children can be irresponsible and awful instead of constantly lionizing them and how innocent and pure they are.

Innocence is ignorance, as Amelia is finding out.

I'd like to know what that thing's playing at. I'm reminded of Discord now.

All will be revealed in due time.

[Firebirdbtops]

OK. There were so many of my theories confirmed today, that I actually need to come up with new ones to maintain a comfortable level of confusion! Honestly, I have a somewhat accurate vision of Alice in wonderland, facing the red queen, but replacing the deck with tarot, rather than playing cards. So, we have moved on to cups, huh? I'm intrigued by the lack of diversity of the origins for the actor 6. Wand must have pulled some serious strings to get all six representatives. Inter-political wrangling, or subtle menace? if it was just an assigned duty, then it shows that the child's favor has little to do with the results, beyond being an expedient way to get them. Not a pretty picture that paints.Does Switzercups have a good infirmary?

[MD Webster]

3599172
Wahhhhhhhhh... Okay seriously, I think that joke is getting a bit old.

[Ether Echoes]

3600623
Correct, sir!

[Sir Walter Hairgel]

3600630
And right there it says it in the chapter itself.
I really need to get out of the habit of commenting before I finish.

[Ether Echoes]

3604262
Glad to hear it! I really put an effort to give this really powerful and interesting characters and emotional depth, something I feel is missing in so many other cases.

[Alondro]

*eye-narrows at the Morgwyn* Hence why I am distrustful of anyone who speaks to me of people whom are not present and of whom I cannot directly confirm the information. I learned the art of half-truths when very very young. I truly became as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove... before I also learned to fight like a lion... and dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee...

Ok, I just lost my serious face.

But imma still smack that damned demon cat and its evil plans.