Through the Well of Pirene

by Ether Echoes

Chapter 21: Rebellion

Chapter 21: Rebellion

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Daphne

“So the thing that really gets me,” Naomi said as we trailed Twilight and the other mares back up to the main deck, “is that the story you and Pinion told doesn’t really jibe with the evidence. Where’s the billions of years of stellar development and the millions of years of fossils showing a progression of forms? The way you tell it, we declined rather than the other way around.”

“Who is to say that both versions are not simultaneously true?” the Seer asked. He moved more slowly than the rest of us with his hunched, shuffling step, and gratefully accepted the silent offer of Marcus’ arm to help him up the ship’s ladder. “It is true that we call the Age of Chaos the First Age, but even you humans have figured out that time and space are interrelated. We say that we live in a world where effect follows cause, the arrow of time points in only one direction, and the titans are bound into the fabric of the cosmos, but in the First Age this was not so—can we even say that the First Age predates the Second and present Third Age, truly? When the gods brought order to chaos, the universe settled out the details as best it could.”

“So it’s something like… we’re living the version of the cosmos that best fits a causal narrative?” Naomi asked, tentatively. “So there are functions of chaos which still live with us, like… goblin magic, say?”

“And Discord,” Lyra piped in, “and the Morgie-thingie, too?”

“Well-spotted, my dears,” the wizened goblin said, bobbing his head. “One might even say that the titans are simultaneously bound and not-bound, but we are living in the state in which they are more bound than not. There are some creatures from that era, such as the harbinger, yes, who would much desire to return to that existence. It is the only one they understand.”

“It said that it would be there to guide that end and would set a flame that would consume all worlds,” I quoted sullenly.

“Indeed. That is why this turn of events is so dangerous. The power meant to be placed in the hands of the Water Bearer, if used improperly, could cause great damage to the delicate fabric of the worlds.”

Leit Motif’s face hardened. “Discord gave Equestria more than enough of a taste of chaos for me.”

“Could you all stop?” Marcus begged. “This is giving me a headache. I also don’t like the implication that Amy is somehow going to be the cause of an apocalypse where we go to some whacked-out chaos land. She’s not a bad kid.”

“Innocence,” Saria, the Sword Knight, said from the deck as we came up. “It can be the most wonderful and terrible of things. Who can say what she is thinking?” The catlike woman rocked back and forth on her heels. Her eyes, unlike the crew’s, were not fixed on the still-dark eastern horizon but on the Wand’s air fortress. Fires still burned on its bulk; some were old, others new. Someone had managed to regain enough control to level it out, but it still turned in lazy circles. All around our ship, the smaller aircraft of the Sword and Ring fleets had drawn up in a protective squadron.

Twilight was in the midst of delivering orders to Captain Holder, and any prior hesitance on her part to exercise her authority as a princess was gone in the face of the present crisis. “We need to head for Equestria at once, Captain.”

“Aye, Princess,” the salty sailor agreed. His helmsmare had already turned the craft towards the eastern horizon, and the engines thrummed beneath our feet. “I’ve already plotted a course around that great steel beast.”

Empty miles spun by beneath me as I looked out across the bow to the continent beyond. A dark-coated alicorn mare stumbled out of sleep, stricken and terrified. Far and wide the guard spread, but, no matter where they roamed, their quarry was nowhere to be found. I winced as more images flooded in all around me, tiny pony shapes charging into a searing white light atop a mountain like so many moths into flame, with about as much effect. We charged into that light now; heat seared me to the bone and burned our ship to cinders.

“Water Bearer,” the Seer’s voice cut sharply into my haze. “Focus. Do not permit the visions to rule you.”

I felt his hand on my shoulder and gasped as he pulled me back to the world. My chest heaved as if I’d dunked my head underwater and held my breath. “We’re going the wrong way,” I told him as I caught my breath.

“And where should we go?” the shrewd little man asked, his eyes glinting like a pair of garnets.

“I… I don’t know.” I shook my head. I shared a glance with Naomi and Leit Motif and offered them a slight smile to reassure them. The images flitted out of the corners of my eyes; they stubbornly refused to form a coherent pattern. Glimpses and flashes of an ancient city, of girls I’d never met yet strangely thought I knew, of a dark shape looming over all, of the stars unraveling and splitting into infinite mirrors. “I’m not sure I know how. Can’t you…?”

“Perhaps I can.” The goblin tapped his stick against the decking. “I will not be with you indefinitely, however. If all had gone as it should have, I would have taught you to control your gift, how to manage the creative vessel that is your birthright, but one cannot put the tree back into the seed.”

The others who had come to the deck were all looking at me now, including Twilight and Captain Holder. I swallowed tightly and shook my head. “Do we really have time for that?”

“And what time have we, Daphne?” he asked, using my name with surgical precision. He looked out over the storm-wracked night. “It may be now or never.”

It was a very near thing that I didn’t just turn and run back down to my cabin and hide. Damn the little gremlin. He knew, he had to have known how much it hurt to know what I could have been and be unable to touch it. He had been the one to reveal it to me, after all, he had been there to see my face when I’d seen and known.

Of course, both of us knew I’d never abandon my friends, or my sister. Still, it hurt to try and grasp at the tattered threads of a destiny long lost. I wasn’t sure how much of my reluctance was the fear of messing up—and how much was a fear of catching some portion of it and becoming even more aware of how much I would never touch.

In a way, it’s like if I’d been able to go back to Massachusetts and couldn’t step foot over the threshold of my parent’s house. I could look all I wanted, but I could never touch, never be a part of that world ever again.

“How do I begin?” I asked, biting back a sigh.

“You already know the first thing,” he said, pointedly.

I opened my mouth to object that I most certainly did not, but then I frowned and considered. After a moment, I did. I turned to Captain Holder. “Stop the ship. We can’t go back; not yet. If we go back now, we’re doomed. There’s nothing we can do to help Luna, only get swept up in… something that’s coming.”

While the captain went to order his sailors, I looked to the goblin expectantly. “Very good,” he said. “To be an oracle, to receive knowledge from the divine realm, is no easy task, Water Bearer. You will always have more information than you require. The trick of learning what is necessary and what is not is one that will take you, well… a human lifetime to master, at least.”

Naomi gave me an odd look at that comment, but said nothing.

“You have practiced clearing your mind, yes? I’d imagine you have some skill at meditation already.” Without waiting for my acknowledgement, he continued, drawing the tip of his walking stick through the air to make a circle. “There is a reason that the Ring is the Arcana of knowledge. What is new is old, and what has come before will come again in the fullness of time. That is why you know some things for certain even though they are at first glance unfamiliar.”

“I’m pretty sure that doesn’t make sense,” Marcus objected.

“Well, you aren’t a super special oracle and stuff, are you?” Lyra said. “I’m sure this makes perfect sense to somepony with higher dimensional whatsits. That’s the technical term.”

“Shush,” Leit growled and prodded Lyra in the ribs.

“I’m not sure how that helps me,” I admitted to the Seer. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that you already know the answers you need,” he said patiently. “You need only remind yourself. Don’t fight the flow of information, hold your goal in mind and allow yourself to be guided to the answers you require.”

I scrunched my face up. “That’s it?”

“It is a suitable beginning lesson. We can refine your technique when we have leisure.”

“Helpful,” I growled. Still, it was more than I had going for me a second ago. I went over to the rail and emptied my head with practiced ease, shoveling my myriad fears and stray thoughts into a corner

“Come on, everypony,” Applejack said, rounding the others up, “we ain’t accomplishin’ much while we’re lollygaggin’ around staring at her.” Nice of her, though it wasn’t really a serious concern for my concentration. I’d come a long way from the self-conscious teenager I’d been back on the human earth.

Once again, I found myself swept away in a torrent. There was a dead boy with metallic hair staked to a throne, myself and Leit picking flowers in our youth, a tree made of stars splintering and all the glittering worlds ground to stellar dust. I wanted so many things it was a wonder that I had any focus at all, but I concentrated on what I needed, letting the stream carry me on. I heard the birth cries of a people and the death screams of a world, and then it all came around again.

I bit my lip and regarded the others as they busied themselves. Some of them, like Leit Motif and Rarity, did their best to stay out of the way of the sailors and chatted in little groups, while others like Naomi had gone below. I could see her now, tending to the wounded among the pegasi and soothing them, her veterinary experiencing allowing her to at least work alongside the ship’s medic. Even Marcus had craned into a hard-to-reach spot in the engine room and made himself useful. Thanks to the Seer, they were all relying on me now, and I was about to ask a great deal of them.

Incidentally, I also realized at that point that I would have to be careful with my new powers. Peeling through long distances and layers of ceilings and walls is great right up until you start seeing things you really would rather not, and privacy violations are more or less the norm. My hooves took me to a midshipmare attending to the cockpit. As our eyes met, I remembered how she’d wept the day her father announced his lung cancer, how he’d hid it all throughout her engagement and wedding so as not to spoil her happiness until it was absolutely necessary.

“Lieutenant Critical?” I addressed her. “Please call your captain, the princess, and the others, please. I know what we have to do now.” Almost, I told her about how at this very moment her father was in remission and expected a full recovery; I wanted to give her that much for unwittingly exposing her life to me, but somehow I didn’t think she’d appreciate the intrusion.

“Yes, ma’am,” the mare responded smartly before stepping off to bark orders to the ratings and see to the captain and princess herself.

Rubbing my head, I turned and jumped to find Saria inches from my face. Ripe dates, cool shade, a furtive kiss shared behind an old truck. “Gah!” I scrambled back half a pace, tearing my gaze away from her eyes. It didn’t stop the sounds and images coming, but it made them easier to ignore.

“You would be less easy to surprise if you did not become so distracted, yes, Water Bearer?” she asked, and unlike the Seer she spoke the title with something approaching respect. With him, it almost seemed as if that was merely my pony name. I preferred the latter, honestly, even if it was an absolutely terrible pony name. She flexed her gloved fingers around her sword hilt, which was wrapped in leather inscribed with apotropaic verses. Short black hair had been cropped close about her chin, and there was more than a little feline in her mien. “There will be much danger, no matter our chosen course. I am thinking you should endeavor to remain in this time. Of course, a few moments ahead of time may warn you of danger, no?”

“No. I mean, yes. Probably.” I rubbed my temple again. It didn’t hurt, per se, but anxiety fueled high blood pressure, and that could threaten to turn into a headache. The ache became a throbbing of blood in my ears and steadily petered off, though, to my relief. “How much can we ask of you and your people, Knight Saria?”

“Ask us to fight, and we will fight, Water Bearer.” Her tail flicked idly, appearing briefly beneath her pale khaki garments. “Those who live by the Sword are prepared to die by it. It is only just, no?”

“Appropriate, perhaps. I don’t know about just,” I muttered. “Try not to die, even so; in fact, try not to kill, either. Aside from not wanting deaths on my conscience, even justified deaths, we may be fighting those whom we’d rather have on our side. That’s going to be difficult if they’re pissed off at us for spilling the blood of their former comrades.”

Saria smiled, displaying rows of sharp teeth. “The Water Bearer asks restraint. She needn’t worry that her newfound protectors are overly bloodthirsty, though. The Sword is best when tempered. Our King Alisha demands that we make conflict a virtuous cycle, to begin only when it is absolutely necessary and end when it is no longer needed.”

Applejack and Marcus appeared from belowdecks, the latter wiping oil from his hands and arms, though he left plenty of splotches on his face and white shirt. “That hasn’t always been the case with past Kings, I take it?”

“Just so, Water Bearer.” Saria rocked on the balls of her feet, peering towards the eastern horizon, catching a hint of light. The crew gasped and a few threw up ragged cheers as the first slivers of a belated dawn touched the world. “Unstable Kings who demand blood for blood and drive wars and feuds without satiation. They do not last long. There are those who are thinking that because conflict is our soul, we must always be at war, but they do not understand that the true purpose of conflict is to end stagnation in tyranny. Kings who forget this also find that we of the Sword Court are less obedient than most.” She smiled again, and this time her toothy grin was distinctly predatory. “Is it not so that constant instability is as stagnant as a slow, stable strangulation? The crops in the field can no more grow if they are burned and trampled than if they are flooded or neglected.”

“I’ll admit, I didn’t peg you for a philosopher, Knight Saria.” I gave her a grin of my own. “You’re not exactly poetic, but you have a surprising amount of thoughtfulness.”

“I?” She snorted. “I am but a poor girl raised from the dust to become somewhat nobler dust. My predecessor was a poet, you must know, and he painted pictures with words as easily as he did with his blade.”

My head tilted to the side. “What sort of pictures does one paint with a blade?”

“Red ones. I think it would be obvious, no?”

I laughed in spite of myself, and Saria laughed with me. She gave my back a friendly smack that nearly flattened me, and then bowed with one hand on her hilt and the other touching her forehead, lips, and heart. “Saria bin Domad will ride to battle gladly with you, Water Bearer. Merely point her to that which you wish destroyed and it shall be gone.”

“I hope it won’t be riding into battle on me,” I joked. Even so, the occasion seemed to demand something a little more courteous; her heartfelt offer to kill whatever I wanted touched me. “I am honored by your trust, Knight Saria,” I said, putting a hoof to my chest. “I don’t know that I’m the Water Bearer you came to fight alongside, though. That girl is gone, before she ever had a chance to live.”

“Yes, it is so. It had been written, yet what is written is not always what comes to pass.” She smiled again, and, though one could never call her beautiful, there was a certain fierce attractiveness about her that arrested the eye. “But you are the Water Bearer we have, no? That which is written can be rewritten, and a new future forged.”

Mine wasn’t the only eye arrested. I saw Leit Motif ‘accidentally’ crunch Marcus’s foot beneath on her return. That started an argument, but it wasn’t really my business anymore. “I hope so,” I told her, and turned to address the gathered ponies and other creatures. Lightning Dust maintained her pony facade and stood alone near the railing, while Pinion wore her goblin shape just as easily as she waited beside Pinkie Pie. “Thank you all for coming,” I said once they’d all quieted. “I know it must be a little strange for all—” I spared a glance for the goblins “—well, most of you to countenance taking direction from an unverifiable source like this. Believe me, it’s weird for me, too. I’ve never been the sort to take things on faith.

“Now, though, I’ve come to understand that the things I see and hear, the visions that have haunted me since I was a little girl, are more than just colorful flights of fancy, or, worse,” I said grimly, “the symptoms of a delusional mind.” With my back to the bow, the sun rose behind me and warmed my back; I let my eyes drift up towards the remaining stars in a sky devoid of its aurora, wondering if perhaps I could spy Pirene there looking down at me. “Now, I have ample evidence that I can and do know things beyond any merely natural ability. And I know that if we charge home blindly we’re going to face a force so terrible that it will consume us without blinking.”

Considering that I was asking them to trust me with not only their lives, but the lives of their loved ones and kingdom, the mares with Twilight were giving me remarkably steady gazes. When our eyes met, I found some crinkling of doubt looking back at me. All of those eyes, though, had seen more in the past few days than they had in years. Twilight Sparkle ruffled her wings and stepped forward. “All right. I believe you, Daphne. I’d like to properly study and analyze this ability, but I’ve had some experience with premonitions already.” She shot a glance to Pinkie Pie, who gave her most innocent gaze back. “Do you have any idea of what we should do, then?”

I looked to Naomi and Marcus. The former pulled her hair out of a bun and let it fall in fiery waves down her back, and gave me a quietly sympathetic look that told me at once that she understood my pain. The latter had long since turned from the scorn of a week ago to a weighing, even thoughtful scrutiny. He gave me a nod, and for just a moment I remembered how we had come together, when we’d built one another up rather than tear each other down.

Leit Motif didn’t even require that. Her eyes burned with silent intensity, and I knew she’d follow me into Tartarus and back.

Lyra, of course, merely grinned and asked, “Yeah, Daphne. What awesome plan do you have in mind?”

I took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Not really awesome, but I’ll give it a whirl…” My eyes turned distant as I looked inward. “I know who we need to fight, now. It’s the very person who I came all this way to get: my sister, Amelia. There’s a darkness guiding her, a creature that I believe is ultimately responsible for all of this tragedy, but even if we could somehow find and stop it, it’s too late for that to make any difference. My sister is growing stronger, gathering power to herself, and by the time we get back she’ll be stronger than all of us combined. We need to level that playing field and change the odds in our favor, and that starts there.” I pointed a hoof over the side of the ship at the listing Wand battleship. A cannon fired uselessly at the island below, as if on cue.

“You’re kidding,” Lightning Dust said acidly. “What the hell are we going to find there?”

“Your friends, for a start,” I said, and the skin beneath her coat drained of color.

“Pardon me,” Rarity said, raising a hoof delicately, “but even if we should be able to recruit the remainder of Flash’s—forgive me, Lightning Dust’s—former sororal companions, what should that accomplish?”

I scraped a hoof along the deck. “I won’t lie to you. I’m not entirely certain—I can’t see the future so well that I know precisely what is going to happen when. I can’t even say entirely why I know what I know. I do know that without their help, though, we might as well pack up and find a place to ride out the coming storm.” I kept myself steady as the doubt multiplied in their eyes. “I know, that’s even less to go on than we all might have hoped. I have to trust this instinct, though; it’s the same feeling that tells me the names and histories of ponies I’ve never met. I know that there’s business with the Wand and that we’ll need them and their allies to help us in a coming fight. I’m sorry; I wish I could offer more.”

“That, Water Bearer,” the Seer said, breaking in before uncertainty could grow, “is more than we had ten minutes ago.” He rapped his walking stick against the planks to ensure he had everypony’s attention. “More importantly, it coincides with my own divinations; the Wand vessel is key to our coming endeavors. Captain, I believe I can help you avoid its remaining cannon batteries. We should plot a course as soon as possible, as we have already wasted enough time.”

I stared at him, slightly open-mouthed. The last part about avoiding the cannons was true enough, but the first part about it coinciding with his divinations had been a complete and total lie. I could see it as plainly as I saw his pointed nose; he knew no such thing.

The others dispersed, all but Naomi, and with a spring in their step that hadn’t been there since we’d come to the island. The Seer hunched his way past me, and his garnet-like eyes glittered. “A little direction,” the goblin said, “can do wonders. Sometimes, that direction includes a little judicious prodding.”

“Duly noted,” I murmured, and shifted to face Naomi. The slender girl slid to her knees and put her arms about my neck. As ever, Naomi knew right how to penetrate to my most vulnerable spots, and I sagged against her, feeling the weight of the past day settle down on my back.

There was no need for words at first. Naomi knew what was eating at me, after all, be it Amelia or my missing past or the terrible fight yet to come. After a few moments, she pulled back and smoothed my mane down the back of my neck. “Are you going to be able to handle this?” she asked. “Your own sister may try to, well… hurt you.”

“She’s already hurt others,” I said, frowning. “I’m not sure what all is going on. It’s… fuzzy where she’s concerned. Like the world—time itself—is twisting around her and making things indistinct.” My eyes slid towards the horizon. “It’s my responsibility, though. I should have taken better care of her. I should have been the one to… well, a lot of things, I guess.”

“There is something else,” she said. “I was wondering… would it be possible for you to see what’s going on back home?” She smiled hesitantly. “We’ve been gone for so long, I’m getting really worried about how everyone back home is holding up. It’s going to be the most miserable Halloween of all time.”

I chuckled weakly. “Yeah. I… well, I guess I can at least try.” Notwithstanding the fact that I’d thus far avoided allowing my attention to drift to my parents. Still, this was for Naomi—I couldn’t deny her anything after what I’d put her through. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift along the currents, letting them take me back across the barrier between our disparate worlds.

“Your parents are angry,” I murmured. “And so are Marcus’. Your families are like… two opposing camps.” A motorcycle flashed at the impound, and the shattered remains of my busted cell phone decorated a desk along with my clothing. “They… they think Marcus kidnapped us, since he took those guns. The police do. Me and you and Amelia. There’s a manhunt going on to find us.”

Naomi’s hand tightened in my mane, her eyes burning with the same shame I felt. “Don’t worry,” she said soothingly, “we’ll clear his name, once we get your sister back and you turned human again. Are our parents all right…?”

Cracked ribs, bruises. Hospital lights. “Your dad fought Marcus’. Or mutually, I guess. Mom’s spoken to them both, though.” I saw her face, tired and worn. She stood looking out the window of her office at the university. “She feels… something, but she doesn’t understand it. It’s dim in her. She doesn’t believe Marcus hurt us, but she’s worried. She’s worried she’ll lose her children forever.” I bit my lip. “They’re… they’re holding a vigil tonight for us. You should see it. There’s candles and they’re floating them on the river.”

“That sounds beautiful. Don’t cry,” she whispered.

This was the main reason I hadn’t allowed myself to look back until now. Seeing would have been hard enough, but it’s never just seeing. It’s hearing, too, and feeling, knowing how our family’s ache for our absence. The terrible gulf of not knowing what fate had befallen their children. The suspicion and rancor. Doubt ate at Marcus’s mother’s heart and she broke down crying every morning she made breakfast for her other boys and girls, wondering if her free-willed son would end his days in a cell.

Naomi let me cry into her shoulder with what few tears I had left to give. “When did I start weeping so much, Naomi?”

“Well, you know, Water Bearer and all,” she laughed weakly. “Don’t kid yourself, though. You’re strong, Daphne, and I’m not just saying that. You saved us, and you’ve come all this way through all these trials. If you get a little heartbroken now and again, well, you’re entitled to it. You’re like your mother in that.” She smiled brightly. “The Seer told me a bit about that, you know. The whole… thing passed down the female line, on and on for ages, all of them determined and gifted. Apparently that’s why things here resemble stuff on our earth so well—because the Everfree Ways have been following your maternal line all across Europe and the Americas, and apparently a brief stop at New Zealand. They were super adventurous.”

“And if I’d done my job, everyone could have a wonderful taste of divine inspiration like my family has,” I shot back bitterly, but winced as soon as I’d said it. We’d been through this routine before; I rubbed my head against her cheek apologetically. “Pressure’s getting to me. I really, really don’t like being the center of attention like this. You can’t imagine how awful it is.”

“Tell me about it. My best friend is the culmination of two thousand plus year-old prophecies. That’s just revolting.” She stuck her tongue out, and rubbed my side. “Don’t let it get to you, though. You were set up. I know my saying that isn’t really going to help right now, but one day you’ll learn how to live with this. You’ll hate yourself for retreating into that shallow shell, but you’ll get over that, too.”

“When did you get so wise?” I grumbled.

Naomi laughed. “I’m just saying the obvious. If it’s wisdom, it’s only because everypony else is so dense.”

The horizon rotated about us as the ship turned towards the Wand Fortress. The Seer stood within the cockpit, consulting his ring of office as we approached. “What are you going to do once all of this is over?” I asked Naomi as I watched the sailors move into action.

“You’re the soothsayer, you tell me.”

I scrunched my face up at her. “Even if I could see your future—which I cannot right now, if I ever can—I want to hear from you, anyway.” I touched her with a hoof. “You say I’m strong and that you aren’t wise, but you’re stronger and wiser than you know. This whole trip would have ended with me torn apart in the woods without your help, or starved in a tree somewhere. I want to hear you tell me about your plans, because I want to draw on your strength again.”

She smiled modestly and twirled a strand of fiery hair through her fingers. “I want to learn how the goblins change form so I can become a mare and move here to Equestria.” She grinned broader at the sight of my face. “No joke. I love it here. It’s everything I dreamed of and more. I don’t want to just abandon my family and old home, though… I want to be the first to move back and forth between our two worlds on a real permanent basis. I can bring things from our earth here, and teach the ponies all about what they’ve missed. One day, when humans are ready for it, maybe I’ll be the one to tell them all about ponies.”

“That’s… rather ambitious, actually,” I said, eying her closely. “Are you sure you’ve thought it through?”

“As well as I can without the time to really plan. It’s not exactly a hard trip, once you know how to do it. Leit Motif told me all about her shortcut, and I can get people to help protect me from the monsters as I do.” Her eyes lit up as she spoke. “I’ve already planned out the house I want to build here, and the garden I’ll raise, the open range I’ll run on…” Her eyes sparkled. “Maybe I’ll even meet a nice stallion and settle down to raise a crop of foals.”

I blinked. “That sounds awfully… monogamous for you.”

“He-ey.”

“Also surprisingly straight.” I poked her in the ribs. “And don’t you hey me. I thought you were a committed philosophical polyamorist? And more than a little, uh…”

“Bi? I am!” She giggled wickedly. “And I’ll be totally upfront about the poly; that’s the sort of thing you need a lot of trust and understanding for.”

“I was actually going to say depraved, but…” She swatted me and I smiled, but went on anyway. “Are you sure about this?” I asked a little more uncertainly. “I mean, about the whole… thing. For me, being transformed was, well…” My ears fell. “Distinctly traumatic.”

“You had your autonomy and agency stolen from you, Daphne,” she said gently, rubbing one of my ears. “Of course it was traumatic. I’ve spoken to the goblins, though, and they say that it’s different when you do it their way, especially if it’s a welcome change. And for me, it will be. You know me; it will be one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. So, Daphne… whenever you’re feeling ashamed about bringing me here and exposing me to all this danger, try and remember that this is the most incredible, amazing, wonderful gift you could possibly have given me. I don’t care what anyone says—that’s divine intervention enough for me. For what it’s worth.”

I blushed and ducked my head. “Thanks.” I scuffed at the deck. “It’s worth a lot, to me.”

“Oi, ladies,” Marcus called. He stood nearby, helping a unicorn guide a heavy metal plate into place on the rail. All around us, others were erecting defenses to fortify the deck. “You’d better get into cover. We don’t know what they’re going to throw at us as we approach.”

“Don’t suppose you can make a copy of us with some of that sweet green magic, huh?” Lightning Dust asked as she joined her cousin Pinion, bedecked in her goblin armor. She squirmed. “Can you loosen the straps around my hips, Pin?”

Pinion smirked. “What, pony food a little too rich, couz?” Lightning Dust’s hoof caught her in the gut and she wheezed laughter.

“The ship’s too big for me,” I said regretfully, glancing up at the gas envelope. “I don’t have it in me to do a whole field like I did at first.”

Marcus grimaced as the enormous bulk of the fortress filled our eastern skies. Its propellers churned clouds far above and the drone threatened to drown out our own ship’s meager buzzing. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Daph.”

“I do,” I said quietly, “don’t shoot anyone if you can avoid it, Marc.”

He gave me an uncertain look in return. “Trust me, that’s been the hardest part of all this. I don’t need to be told twice. If they’re confused and fighting amongst themselves, they’re going to be dangerous, though; a few warning shots should do wonders to convince them to back off, I hope.”

“I think we’ll be good. Nessus has come and gone,” I said with a sour frown. “I would have felt that one.”

“Call me craven, but I’m glad about that. I wasn’t eager for a rematch.”

Captain Holder’s voice rang out over the low din of ponies readying themselves. “Cut the engines! Pegasi, ready grapnels!” He stalked up and down the fortifications as we stared at the heavy wooden wall before us before grabbing a grapnel in his teeth and rising to join his sailors. Blackened pits of twisted metal marked the places where ammunition stores had been blown to pieces, and the hull bore the ashen scars of recently roused flames.

Collectively, the crew held its breath as we glided by with deceptive grace. Our ship slowed as air dragged against the envelope and hull, and, as we slowed to match the air fortress’s speed, the captain signalled and the pegasi advanced to fling their grappling hooks up into what seemed to be a docking area for smaller ships. The grapnels dug into the soft wood, and, as one, the earth pony members of the crew tugged with all their might to haul the ship in closer.

“Hey!” Applejack shouted in warning. “Heads up, everypony! We’ve got trouble!”

With a screech, a troupe of goblinoid ponies clad in black armor tucked their wings and dove down from their hidden perches on and in the great fortress. Some carried huge axes with which they attacked the envelope, cutting through layers of reinforced fiber to release the precious gas within, while others hacked at the grapnel lines and others still loosed stones and arrows in an attempt to sweep the deck.

“Ice arrows!” Captain Holder bellowed, personally cracking a huge tiger-striped mare in the face and taking her axe. “Up the rigging, you dogs! Drop ballast!”

“Helium! Get those hoses fixed!” the deck officer shouted as well, adding her voice to the others as the crew scrambled into disciplined action. As helium tanks were winched out of the hold and attached to pumps, a spry young mare sliced lines holding bags of gravel to the sides of the ship. Even as the shredded gas bag lost its buoyancy, the quick action of the crew—and the stalwart strength of her earth ponies—kept the vessel moving up.

A group of pegasi carrying curious white bows launched into the air. With their forehooves freed, they could easily string and loose quarrels of pale arrows that instantly froze over anything they hit. Goblin ponies, suddenly weighed down by ice and with their limbs and wings locking up, fell to be caught in nets cast by Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and the ship’s few unicorns.

The Sword goblin crafts cut in then, putting the Wand defenders to rout. Before long, boarding ramps with spiked ends had been thrust out to the deck. Marcus fired his gun at the hatches to discourage a counterattack as ponies poured across the ramps to secure a bridgehead, and then I and the other mares were across.

I looked out over the interior deck and time flowed backwards. A green-clad blond girl ran forward, her cat-like face intent as she raced for the sleek shape of an ornithopter. Above, goblins screamed as they fought with a shapeless form of heat and flame and darkness that came at them from every which way. From a catwalk a silvery-white woman fell and landed powerfully on her dragon-like legs. “Amelia?” she called uncertainly, holding a hand out to the girl.

The little girl’s felid eyes met hers. Grief twisted her features, and tears watered the green of her eyes. “I’m sorry,” Amelia said. I wondered if she knew how heart-broken her voice sounded.

Leit Motif’s hoof shook me back to the present time. I gave a last glance at the empty rail where Amelia had made her escape. “Yeah,” I said as I trotted along beside her, “we definitely needed to come here.”

“Any idea of how we’re going to find what we’re looking for?” she asked.

“Not a clue.”

“Great,” Leit grumbled and tossed her mane. “Because our lives weren’t dangerous enough.”

We came upon Twilight and the others conferring with Captain Holder, who was trying to fend off one of his officers who insisted on fussing with a cut on his thigh. “I think our party will be fine going ahead, Captain. It’s best if you and our, uh—” Twilight glanced over at the Sword and Ring goblins gathering at the far end of the docking bay “—new friends here secured the area behind us.”

“Your Highness, I must—get off, mare!” he growled at the officer, who steadfastly ignored him as she telekinetically threaded a needle with sinew. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you and yours to go chargin’ in ahead like you did on that island.”

“If anything, it’s going to be less dangerous now, if that beastly centaur won’t be here,” Rarity said, sniffing. “We can handle a few unwashed brutes.”

“Uh,” Fluttershy coughed, “can we not resort to violence, like, immediately? We’re just here to save Pinion’s and Flash’s—uh, I mean, Lightning Dust’s—friends. We don’t want to make them hate us for hurting their friends.”

“I’m with Fluttershy on this one, and it’s also a good reason for us to go on ahead,” Lyra chimed in. “It would take your ponies too long to advance and our quarries might go to ground if we come in force. If a few of us go, we don’t look as threatening.”

“Which may just mean that they target you all the more for being vulnera—ow!” Captain Holder yelped, glaring at the unicorn. She’d applied a topical numbing agent, but apparently not a great one, as he’d jumped the moment she touched the needle to tender flesh.

“We’re going, Captain,” Twilight Sparkle said firmly, “also, get that wound treated. We need you, and the ship, patched up for our return journey to Equestria.”

Holder set his jaw, looking as if he might argue, but a glance at the rents in his vessel’s gas envelope deflated him. “Aye,” he conceded, settling back.

“Don’t worry!” Lyra patted his shoulder. “I’ll be with them every step of the way.”

“Somehow, that ain’t fillin’ me with confidence.”

“Let’s go, girls, Marcus.” Twilight turned on a heel and frowned at the various hatches. Pegasi with ice arrows and earth ponies with long Equestrian swords waited at the entrances, alert for trouble.

I stepped forward, then, squinting so as to peer through the layers of wood and metal finishings. Ghostly green gears spun in circles around my vision, locking together into intricate shapes. “We need to head aft,” I said after a moment’s contemplation.

“You know, I’m curious.” Applejack tilted her hat up to look at me. “How do you know that?”

“I dunno. Things just fit together sometimes.” I gave her a wan smile. “I’ve been spot-on so far, though. It’s not been the most pleasant ability to have, but it’s gotten us this far.”

She started forward with an indelicate snort. “Fair enough. I suppose we don’t have anythin’ else to go on right now, anyway.”

“Let’s just hope I won’t be wrong where it counts.” I slipped in behind Twilight as we went, with Leit Motif and Naomi not far behind. The narrowness of the passageways forced us to go single-file as we passed through the hatches, but the corridors widened out as we went. Saria led the way with her sword aflame, distant booms and shouts signalling the continuing internal struggle. Lightning Dust and Pinion guided us, convinced that their friends would be wherever the fighting was thickest.

They weren’t wrong at that. Our party came out of the narrow corridors on a walk overlooking huge, humming shafts that rose from the depths of the fortress, up to its roof and beyond, humming like a swarm of impossible insects. Below, great steam engines churned merrily away. Somewhat lower than our position, a group of goblins had erected makeshift barricades around a control room while others were trying to break in without much success.

“How are we supposed to tell ’em apart?” Applejack asked, staring over the side cautiously. “I can’t tell one side from the other. Why are they even fightin’ each other, anyway?”

“My sister had something to do with it,” I said, flicking my tail from side-to-side. I focused my attention on the defensive position and saw the white dragon girl from before, thrusting with a great spear to keep off an ogrish goblin five times her mass.

Pinion drew her saber and grinned. “Let’s find out!” She and Lightning Dust sprang to the railing and dove on the attackers from above, while Saria soon joined them.

“Oo.” Naomi winced and flinched back from the rail. “That’s brutal.”

I declined to observe, myself. There had been enough battles in my vicinity to last me a lifetime. What had me more concerned were the occasional flickers of motion I caught out of the corner of my eye—yet whenever I tried to examine them more closely, they skittered out of sight completely. Even reviewing it in my memory didn’t help, for I could only reflect on something so well if I didn’t pay enough attention to it in the first place.

“I think we’re being followed,” I informed Lyra and Leit Motif. “Wish we’d brought the Page of Rings; we could use some foreknowledge right about now.”

“Says the oracle,” Lyra scoffed. She dodged a kick from Leit Motif and glanced around. “I’ve been watching, but I haven’t seen anything yet. I’ll keep an eye out.”

A ferocious shout and the slam of an armored ogre hitting the floor drew our attention again, and we raced down to find Lightning Dust panting over the limp, groaning body of the large goblin that had been at the forefront of the fight.

Our reception by the defenders wasn’t particularly warm. A hard-eyed group of goblinized ponies stared out at us suspiciously, a suspicion that turned to shock and then fear as Twilight Sparkle appeared in a burst of teleportation magic. They set themselves with their spears and prepared to charge when Pinion sprang in front of them shouting, “Wait! We come in peace! To you, I mean, we kind of smacked these other guys around, yes, but we’re here to help!”

“Pin?” the woman’s voice called, and a beautiful young woman in form-fitting armor stepped from the control room, her silver hair in disarray. There was something of a dragon about her, and her limbs, though svelte, were corded powerfully with muscle. Her eyes swept across the strange party, alighting with increasing shock on the two humans, the alicorn princess, the ponies, and then on Lightning Dust. Her eyes widened even further. “That… that armor… that’s my make!”

Before I could shout a warning, she was on Lightning Dust, one hand grasping the mare by the neck and lifting all two-hundred and fifty pounds of her clean into the air, and the other putting the spear tip just beneath her eye. “Where did you get that armor?” she growled and shook her prey. “What did you do with Flash? Answer me!”

Lightning Dust gagged, unable to reply as she kicked feebly. Instead, she gave herself a little shake and the pony form melted away her to reveal the shock white mane and mustard-yellow coat. She grinned weakly and rasped, “Hey… Maille… nice to… see you… too…”

Stunned, Maille’s grip slackened and Flash fell choking and wheezing to the floor. Immediately, the dragon girl scooped her up and crushed her tightly to her chest, which didn’t do any favors to Flash’s breathing. “Oh, Freya’s mercy,” she whispered, “I can’t believe it. I… I thought you were dead.”

Flash winced and put her hooves against the other girl’s shoulders. She pushed gently. “Don’t waste any tears on me,” she said, and coughed to clear her throat. “I… well, I didn’t…”

“She betrayed us to pursue a life of fortune and glory as a pony,” Pinion explained blithely.

Pinkie Pie grinned. “Oh, she is good.”

Flash pursed her lips, but didn’t object to the characterization. “I’ve been living in Equestria ever since I abandoned you, trying to make a living.”

Turning her head to look at the others, Maille didn’t answer for a moment, though she kept a firm grip on Flash. “I won’t say it didn’t hurt, Flash. It did, a lot. I’m finding it a little hard to blame you right now, though, all things considered.” She sighed. “Everything’s gone to Hel. Ten years of our lives were just… and now it’s as bad as it possibly can be. Maybe you betrayed us, Flash, but we’ve betrayed everything. Every principle I thought I stood for. I’ve raised my hand against sisters-in-arms, and…” She lowered her gaze. “Worst of all, I’m fairly sure I’ve destroyed whatever good faith the Water Bearer had in the world… by not questioning myself sooner.”

“Ah. Well. I have one piece of good news for you, then,” Flash said. She squirmed free and moved aside to sweep a hoof in my direction. “Tadaa.”

“Sorry, what?” she blinked at me owlishly. “Tadaa what?”

I nickered in annoyance and stepped forward. I smoothed my mane back behind an ear nervously and looked up at the kneeling woman. In her eyes I saw the heat of a forge, the resolute strength of steel, and a foundation made uncertain by shaky ground once thought sure. In her I saw how a skittish, wiry girl had been shaped into a purposeful young woman. “Hello, Maille. My name is Daphne. I’m Amelia’s older sister, and I am the true Water Bearer—such as that means anything anymore.”

“Oh, well,” one of the goblin mares watching muttered and rubbed her face with a claw, “that explains a lot.”

“Tidy,” another groaned, smacking his forehead.

Maille, for her part, watched me in tense silence. It stretched on for longer than it had when confronted with Flash’s betrayal. If I reached out I could touch her thoughts, see the parade of failures and guilt with my own eyes. Denial loomed on the horizon like a cancerous welter. One thread was constant throughout, and once again I found myself in the docking bay watching as my sister wept and fled.

“It’s not too late to help her,” I said quietly. “There’s still time to set it right.”

I didn’t need supernatural powers to see her recoil in shock. She fell back as if strings holding her up had been cut, and she stared at me with eyes wide open. “No,” she whispered, and the simple word carried ten years of grief.

Pinion moved up to help her, but I held a hoof out to forestall her before stepping up to Maille’s side myself. I’d hidden behind others too long as it was. “Eight years ago, we missed connections. Some two weeks ago, your Fetter picked up the wrong girl… my sister, Amy. In a way, this may have worked out for the best, because your master Nessus never intended on truly fulfilling the prophecy in the first place, driven by ancient hatreds and revenge as he was. You’ve already experienced doubts about how he was going about it; why did he need a fake set of Element bearers in the first place, after all?” I laid my hoof against her shoulder. “You’re blaming yourself for what happened—is happening—to Amelia, too. You tried to stay true to the vision laid out from your childhood even in the face of your doubts. You told yourself that it was what was best for the world.

“When you got to know my sister, though, you started questioning it more than you ever had, didn’t you? It seemed more than surpassing cruel to lie to her, no matter how much of a pain she could be, and when she slipped your grasp and fled you couldn’t bear the thought of her getting hurt because of your neglect.” I sighed. “When you found her again, and her lies had refined and sharpened, you blamed yourself for making her into something so bitter and hurtful. Any and all harm that’s resulted from her, you place squarely on your own shoulders.” I met her gaze again. She sat there listening to me, too astonished to speak. “That takes real courage, to take responsibility for your mistakes. I wish I’d had someone like you around to show me how important that was before now.”

Flash shook her head slowly. “‘She could see things that no one else could, even things that lay over the horizon or far off in the future. The things she imagined came true,’” she said, echoing her own words from days ago. “I doubted it before, but she’s made a believer out of me, Maille. She brought me back out of despair.”

Personally, I thought Twilight’s offer to forgive her and let her live as a pony had done that, but, in spite of my desire to stay out of people’s lives, I knew it to be at least partially true.

“Be that as it may,” I said, “the prophecy’s dead. No amount of resuscitation is going to bring it back… but we can still pull Amelia from the brink. She has the Bridle, and she’s going to do terrible things with it unless something is done to stop her.”

Maille took my hoof and slid to her knees. Her eyes drank mine in, and she nodded faintly. “I can see it. You are the one we were looking for. I can see her in you, too.” She tightened her grip and her face turned stricken. “If you’re looking to help Amelia, though, you’ve come to the wrong goblin. Everything you said is true. She hates me, and everything I stand for. I can’t help her.”

“You’re wrong,” I said softly, “I’ve seen it. Amy cares deeply, but she’s lost within herself and I can’t bring her back alone. You are a part of that.”

“How?”

That self-same question had occurred to me as I’d asked Captain Holder to embark on this mission, and I’d been flying on faith ever since. Now, though, seeing Maille and how she reacted to my words, I thought I had a better idea. It wasn’t the bone-deep certainty that accompanied my visions—just a little old-fashioned deduction. “Because she needs to see how you’ve changed, and understand that someone acting on the best intentions can make mistakes and still come back. She needs to see people who love her and want her to come back to them.”

I glanced over at Flash, who still remained as her goblin self. “Forgiveness is the most important part of that path, I think.”

Maille’s cheeks reddened, and she turned her head to Flash as well. She held an arm out tentatively.

Most surprisingly, it was Flash holding back. Guilt creased her face and she half-turned, her ears low.

“Starting, I think,” Lyra said, nudging her gently, “with yourself.”

“It’s okay, Flash,” Maille said. “You’re here, I’m here. We’ll face this together.”

“No, it’s not okay!” Flash fluttered her wings and stared at the rest of us, wide-eyed. “I turned on her, on all my friends, because I wanted somethin’ for myself! I abandoned my sister when she needed me most! We ain’t gonna wrap that up all tidy-like!” She shook, but darted away when Fluttershy tried to move near to comfort her.

Maille was more insistent than the little pegasus, and rose to her feet. She went over to Flash and picked her up again, holding her tightly. “Yeah. You’re right, it ain’t tidy. It’s going to be hard putting things back together. It won’t get started unless we do it proper, though, and we can’t do that unless we’re together. So… it’s okay. I forgive you. Just come back to us, Flash.”

“I… I’ve already decided to live in the pony world…”

“Yeah, I can see that. It’s all right.” She smoothed the other’s mane back. “We’ll get through this, and then we can help each other achieve our dreams, whatever those may be. We’ve been held back from them for too long.”

Flash didn’t answer. She was too busy crying into Maille’s shoulder.

There weren’t many dry eyes in the room there, I was proud to note. Even the half-conscious ogre looked chagrined from where he lay, and Saria coughed and pulled her hood up while Marcus affected disinterest. Rubbing at my own eyes, I smiled as I found Leit Motif burrowing at my side, and slid a foreleg around her.

“Oh, oh! Hugs for me, too!” Lyra said, pressing up against Leit’s other side and eliciting a groan—and a hug—from my old friend.

“Heh,” Applejack said, tilting her hat up, “not that I object to a good reunion, but, we’re kinda in the middle of enemy territory right now and all.”

“For now,” Maille said, giving her friend a last squeeze before setting her down. “That might change, but we’ll need the others. Rose, Twig, and…” She frowned “…Kiln.”

Pinion perked her ears up. “Huh? Is something wrong with Kiln?”

“You might say that,” Maille said sardonically, “because she’s on the other side.”

* * *

“That is truly magnificent, if I don’t say so myself,” Rarity observed as we marched along. Our numbers grew as we gathered more of Maille’s stalwarts, though most split off to go face other challenges in securing the oversized vessel. “Not a single hair is out of place. Why, I could very well model my own outfits on you!”

“Thank you, darling,” Maille said as she trotted beside her, tossing a mane as curled and violet as Rarity’s own. “I’ve taken ever so much care in mimicking your mannerisms with our limited intelligence. I’ve studied every public appearance of your work there is, and devoured every op ed published in every fashion magazine to bear your creations.”

“You say you’re an armorer, though,” Rarity said, pursing her lips. “I’ve never worked with a ‘fabric’ quite so obdurate, I must say. Does that not present extra challenges in fabricating my fabulosity?”

“Armor is a canvas like any other. That it must be practical as well is simply another hurdle to be overcome.” Maille smiled brightly. “Of course, I did have to adjust my style considerably to work with cloth. Linen and silk tear far more easily than meshed steel, you can imagine.”

“Oh, well I can.”

“What I want to know,” Naomi cut in, “is how difficult it is for you to go back-and-forth between being a quadruped and a biped like that. Isn’t it disorienting?”

“It can be, at first,” Maille agreed, and in mid-stride she rose up on her hind legs and swelled out to her full height. She shook her long silver hair out and smiled. “One gets used to it after a while, though.”

“Naomi here wants to learn how to become a pony,” Pinion said. “I’ve been trying to teach her, but I’m not very good at anypony who isn’t Pinkie Pie. If she wanted to learn Penetrations or Teleportations or Levitations I could help her, but nope.”

“Half of her reasons are fetish-related, I’m sure,” Marcus muttered just out of their hearing.

Maille assessed the smaller girl curiously. “If you’re really dedicated to the idea, Twig would be an excellent teacher. She’s one of the most gifted magicians of our generation.”

Twilight quirked an ear her way and smiled at Leit Motif awkwardly. “Is it weird if I’m a little nervously excited to meet my own copy-mare? This is all getting a little strange.”

Leit tossed her mane. “Nah. Strange would be if one of them was in love with one of you. Now that would be awkward.”

Strange. I had thought I was the one who accidentally told hidden truths all the time.

“You know, while we’re all asking questions,” Marcus said, “I’m kind of wondering how the heck you mistook an eight year-old for a sixteen year-old.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Pinion said, “you could have asked me that. Goblins don’t age the same way—it’s kinda hard to predict, actually. Sometimes Mag Mell don’t always sync up right with Midgard, either.”

Maille nodded. “Amelia lied about her age, too, and, more importantly, Fetter was desperately eager to believe she was the one we were looking for. He’d spent a considerable time in exile on the Ways.” She glanced at me behind her. “So were we all, in truth. Twig and I raised the greatest objection, but she fit everything we thought we knew. We were inclined to overlook the difference.”

Saria hissed back. “Careful! I sense danger ahead.” Her tail flicked under her robes agitatedly. “The air is charged with conflict.”

“Oh, goodness.” Fluttershy flapped her wings nervously, as if to disperse the charge in the air. “That sounds… bad.”

Our party drew to a ragged halt and we glanced about at the golden wood hallways suspiciously. Saria gestured and jogged ahead as the rest of us trotted after her. We passed another intersection near the rear of the vessel, and a great bellow shivered down the halls. A long, wind-swept gallery overlooking the island greeted us. Gold touched the land and gray the sea as the sun began its belated rise. Standing in the twisted ruins of a cannon battery was a mare seemingly fired from brick and clay, with heavily armored goblins forming a defensive ring around her against a menagerie of black tigers, hissing reptiles, and screeching raptors. Several goblins bled from fresh claw or teeth marks, and others lay behind the lines weak or still. One poor unfortunate had even been turned to stone.

Unlike Maille’s stand, this battle had come to a stalemate. The monsters stalked and hissed outside the circle while spears bristled out nervously. A rose-maned mare stalked behind her creatures, her fangs bared and her eyes alight. The reason for this state of affairs became readily apparent when I saw that the heavyset mare had her hoof laid against someone’s head.

The figure groaned and whimpered, kicking her long, delicate legs feebly. A pair of horns graced her head and her purple bramble-like mane was matted with blood. Twilight drew her breath in sharply and gathered light around her horn, but I put my hoof to her side and shook my head. “Bad idea. This is a tense situation; I can’t see many paths that lead us out of here cleanly and none of them involve hasty action.”

Saria growled at that, but stood her ground. Maille pushed past her, shouting, “Kiln! What in Tyr’s name do you think you’re doing? That’s Twig you have there!”

“Back off, Maille!” the hardened goblin shouted back. “I told Rose and I’ll tell you—no gob needs to get hurt if’n you surrender! I want Fetter’s wand, now!”

“Fetter’s gone!” Maille shook her head. “I don’t know what happened. Nessus came back with a vengeance and we got separated. All I heard is that he got attacked by some smaller goblins and they carried him off. Kiln, please, we’re friends!”

“Friends?” Kiln spat. “What Niflheim ice rink do you think I was born in? ‘Oh, but Kiln, didn’t we play together as bairns?’ Yeah, and then the rest of you went haring off to your wonderful little apprenticeships while I got stuck in a work gang! You and your little cythraul are tidy as can be, just alike.” She pressed her hoof harder. “Privileged lil‘ devil-spawns.”

Rose growled deep in her throat. “I swear, if you hurt Twig, I’ll cut you open and see if’n your guts are as hard as your—”

“Rose!” Pinion gasped.

“What?” she snapped. “Kiln’s right—what did she ever care for us, eh? She’s as bad as Flash. When we told her how the King had us all played for a tidy bunch of marks she didn’t even hesitate before turnin’ on us! Just wanted to lick the King’s hooves and take what she never earned.”

Kiln slammed her rear hoof on the decking. “Oh, sure. Your little cythraul Chosen One is a dab hand at lyin’ and she’s got you all dancin’ to her tune like the pied bloody piper.”

For me, the scene was even more threatening. Streams of thought and possibility wove confusing patterns and knots through the crowd of belligerents. Accusations landed with the force of lead bricks, enflaming tensions and tightening the knots wherever they lay. It needed defusing, and fast, but I couldn’t make sense of anything. “Fluttershy,” I asked quietly, “can you get me closer past those animals?”

Her eyes widened and she stammered. “I-I-I-what?” She glanced over at the gathered forces and swallowed heavily. “I… I guess I could ask the animals to step as-aside, but wh-what about the g-g-g-goblins?” she asked.

“I’ll chance it. Naomi?” I cast over my shoulder. “Put your first aid kit on my bag.”

“What in the blazes do you think you’re doing?” Leit Motif hissed.

I shook my head, balancing the plastic container on my back as Naomi set it there. “Just trust me.”

With Fluttershy at my side, I stepped forward as the insults and diatribes flew over our heads. Fluttershy’s unease faded as she addressed the animals in a gentle voice. Indeed, she was utterly fearless as she tugged on a one-eyed lizard that must have outmassed her threefold. Rose caught sight of what we were doing but gaped silently as she really noticed Fluttershy for the first time.

“Excuse me, would you be ever so kind as to let my friend through?” Fluttershy asked the monster with a warm smile. “She’s not going to try anything untoward, I promise.”

Amazing what a little politeness will get you. The monsters begrudgingly obliged by shifting to form a space—not much of one, especially with the hard-eyed goblins watching for any weakness, but enough that I could squeeze in with scales on one side and a ferocious mare-eating tiger on the other.

The goblins proved a more severe barrier. They looked down at me with stony faces and hard eyes, yielding not an inch.

“Kiln,” Maile’s voice rose, the argument growing ever more heated, “for the sake of whatever’s dear to you, don’t do this!”

“You’re with me or against me, Maille! Twig’s chosen her place, but you can save her! You and yours can tear Rose a new one or I’ll bloody well split her skull!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Pinion said, “let’s just take this down a notch. Kiln, ain’t no gob needs to get hurt.”

“And no gob will get hurt if I get my way!” Kiln said with an increasing bite of desperation. “Can’t you damned well see that lying little witch has gone and blinded you? Y’all are fightin’ for the wrong side! We need to pull together to keep this from spiralin’ into a right tidy mess.”

“It’s already a mess!”

I ignored the fight and focused on the soldiers. As I did, their own needs and wants clarified out of the chaos. “Look… I’m unarmed, unarmored. This hostage thing isn’t going to be resolved any time soon.” I slowly lifted a hoof and pointed between them. “Back there, your friends are badly hurt and you don’t have medical supplies, nor the hands to spare to help them.”

One of the soldiers tightened his grip on his spear and set himself more firmly, but another creased his face and frowned down at me. “You know medicine?”

The first aid book I’d memorized wasn’t exactly field practice, but I knew my way around the basics, so it wasn’t exactly a lie when I nodded. More importantly, resolving this would allow everygob to get treated by professionals like Leit and Naomi.

“It’s a bloody trick,” the other snarled.

I levitated the box in front of me and opened it to display the contents. Only then did I realize that with my gifts I probably could have made anything, including empty air, look like a full first aid kit, but I was new to this sort of thing so sue me. “No tricks.”

“She’s a unicorn. They have pony magic,” the suspicious of the two said more insistently, but I could see I had the others. One of those who hadn’t spoken elbowed the suspicious one in the side and, as reluctantly as the animals had, a chink in their line opened that was just wide enough for me to squeeze through.

Almost no sooner had I’d crossed the threshold than Kiln wheeled to glare at me with her baleful eyes. It was just what I had been waiting for, for all that a slip here would mean it was my head on the block rather than Twig’s. It was the least I could do for her after messing up her destiny.

Pain found me, and not my own. Kiln’s eyes were full of it—an obscure pain that stretched back as far as she could remember, guiding her every step as she was dragged unwillingly down the path of becoming the fake Applejack for a cause she didn’t believe in, in a fortress she didn’t care for, and worst of all performing for a child she thought was kin to demons. Sweating and toiling while the ponies she thought were her only friends went haring off to their own adventures was just a small, albeit not insignificant, part of all that.

None of that actually mattered, though; what really killed her, day in and day out, was the sight of her own self in the mirror. She could have borne any hardship, weathered any insult, and fought any odds if the sight of her own body hadn’t revolted her. It felt like being cheated, like the universe had played some cruel prank on her.

The universe, of course, had done just that. Of everything I saw in her, one tiny, seemingly trivial bit of information was more important than all the rest.

“Marble Stone,” I named her.

“What?” she demanded, an upraised hoof pausing.

“Marble Stone,” I repeated. “That’s your name. Marble Stone.”

“What? What are you talkin’ about?” Her hoof wavered in the air. Her whole body tensed and relaxed, back and forth. Her confusion and uncertainty gnawed its way into her gut.

Sweat beaded along my brow. I was deeply conscious of the fact that a full complement of well-trained killers stood behind and ahead of me. They were preoccupied, but that wouldn’t save me if they thought I was doing something untoward—to use Fluttershy’s word—to their leader. “You don’t remember, do you?” I asked tightly. “The process beat it out of you. They didn’t just lie to you about what you’d become, they took your name away, too, Marble Stone.”

“I don’t… what are you…” She stared at her own hoof, releasing enough pressure for Twig to breathe readily again.

“It wasn’t her fault,” I went on, keeping my tone even but firm, “the goblin who talked to you, she really believed that you’d be happier with them. She couldn’t have known how they intended to shape you, Marble Stone.”

“Stop callin’ me that,” she said, but it had no force. Indeed, she shook worse than Flash had. A great pile of muscle and hard-skin, she nevertheless seemed to have lost all of her strength.

“Boss?” a goblin asked in concern. One of the injured ones on the ground grabbed her spear.

It was still possible to back out. I could see that option before me as clear as day; all I had to do was shrink back and Kiln would go back to being Kiln. If I did go through with it, though, I knew exactly what was going to happen to me. With a deep breath, I took the plunge.

As my hoof touched the side of Marble Stone’s head, a hot, knifing agony filled my side as a thrusting spear blade bounced off the bottom of my rib cage and dug into my gut. Stars filled my vision and my scream might have rocked the ship. It didn’t matter, though. I felt it as a surge from deep inside me, as if an indescribable torrent of energy had surged through me as a conduit—and with a flash of green light, the two of us vanished from sight.

* * *

The aurora twisted below as milky streams of stars hung in empty space. No matter where I looked, it was always uncomfortably bright and glaring. Shading my eyes with a leg, I spied a small figure laying dazedly before me. Her stone-grey coat contrasted against a straw-colored mane. No pony would ever call her pretty.

“Wha…” She groaned and tried to push herself up on her stubby filly’s legs. “What’s… going on…”

I walked forward, my hooves striking nothing at all without a whisper. “I’m… not sure,” I admitted. I looked around, but no answers fell into my lap. Instead, a lingering sensation of familiarity filled the strange surroundings. I touched my side and marveled at how the pain had gone; I could still feel the wound, but it was as if it didn’t matter just then.

Perhaps it didn’t.

The young Marble Stone looked down at her hooves, at the long strands of plain yellow hair. Her face twisted up. “I don’ understand. Where are we? What’s happened to me?”

As she asked, the niggling sense of familiarity resolved itself. I’d been here before, or else somewhere very like this. This was the realm where Pirene had met me mere hours ago, just in a more elementary astral state. I wondered if my own dreams connected here as well—there was certainly enough strangeness in my memory to make it potentially plausible. It was like an ocean of thought; it felt like home.

“I’m going to show you what happened,” I answered, though not quite to the question she asked. “That’s one of my jobs, I think. Even though the big thing is ruined, I’ve still got some parts of it that were left with me.”

A heavy-bottomed vase appeared before me, a twin to the cutie mark on my sides, and from it windows sprang into being around us, portals to scenes buried deep in the past, to a little filly on a little farm just outside of Ponyville and the hardened goblin mare she grew to be. They papered the space around us until we were surrounded by a wall of flickering images. Marble Stone quivered in a tight ball with her legs over her eyes, refusing to look. “No, no,” she croaked. A window appeared before us, the first time Kiln looked into the mirror and saw herself as she was, misshapen and ill-formed, and her eyes hardened. There her heart first denied that she had ever been Marble Stone.

I set my hoof against her forehead and smiled sadly. “I know it’s hard. There’s going to be things you aren’t proud of back there.” I looked up at scenes of her struggling along in the mines below the Wand Keep, hauling carts of ore and facing the mocking scrutiny of her rough-and-tumble peers. “And things you won’t want to remember. The worst part about all of this is that there’s no going back. There’s no way to prevent yourself from being abducted, and you can’t make the promises that lured you in come real. You can’t take back all the mean and terrible things that happened to you, or that you’ve done.”

I reached into the vase and pulled out the journal we’d found in the Ponyville library. The pages glittered as I flipped through them to reach the empty pages beyond her last entry. “Your story’s not over, though. You can still write it.”

Marble’s eyes peeked out from between her hooves. The empty page shone, brighter and brighter.

Memories of being a child, of growing up alongside Applejack and her family and friends in Ponyville, flooded down from the sky and back into her. I watched each one with her, feeling again like some great conduit for the forces around me, gently guiding them and her.

It wasn’t just for her benefit, either. I let go of my fear, my regret, my shame at being a failure. I surrendered to the truth. I accepted that I, too, couldn’t wallow in regret and uncertainty. I let the tide wash over me and cleanse me as the light filled us both.

No matter that I wouldn’t be the same person destiny had called for, no matter how tainted my memories were, no matter the mistakes I’d made, I was who I was, and only in embracing it could I find peace within myself and help to reach a better future.

I am the Water Bearer. I am Aquarius.

* * *

Our assumption was short lived. The force that brought us into the astral realm deposited us back in a flash. Marble Stone’s sobs filled the air as she wept brokenly. The unfinished-pottery look she’d sported before was gone. Now, she seemed refined, with a smooth coat in the gentle hues of fired clay and a stiff mane and tail the color of spun gold. She cried long and hard.

The other goblins didn’t seem to know what to do other than watch. Twilight Sparkle kept silent as she eased up to my side. “That was, uhm… uncomfortably familiar. Are you okay? Do you feel… especially different?” She gave my sides a pat, looking for hidden wings, it seemed.

“She is,” Saria said, sheathing her blade. “Can you not tell? The numinous spark is kindled. Not as bright as yours, Princess, but it will grow.”

She was right—I did feel different. The sensation of being a conduit, of flowing over with strength and clarity, had not left me on my return. Colors seemed more vibrant, sounds sharper, and even the air smelled crisper. In spite of that, things weren’t quite as overwhelming now as they had been before. The barrage of extrasensory information was easier to control, the haze was clearer, though I still couldn’t look too closely at people without their life stories spilling out.

Ah well. That was just something I’d have to get used to now.

“I feel a lot better,” I said, offering a small smile. “I think we’re done here. How is Twig?”

Twilight nodded her head back inside. “Naomi’s treating her. She should be fine.”

“What about Maille and Rose? I don’t see them.” I started towards the hatch. Just inside, sheltered from the elements, Naomi and Marcus were helping the gazelle-like goblin to stand after having tended to her wounds.

“They went off to round up the rest of the goblins. With our help, the last of their opposition should collapse.” Twilight frowned. “Not that I was really all that excited to order ponies to attack, but it’s the only way to wrap this up in any reasonable amount of time.”

“It’s all right,” I said, glancing up and through the decking to see what was going on in the rest of the ship. “They’ll surrender, and then we’ll be on our way.”

Again, I felt that strange motion in the corner of my eye. I yanked my head around but found nothing. When I returned my attention to the present, Twig and Twilight were standing off, looking decidedly awkward. Unlike Rarity and Maille, or Pinion and Pinkie Pie, this wouldn’t be a celebratory meeting. Still, there was more curiosity in both of them than trepidation.

“Hi, uhm—” Twilight began.

“Well, hi—” Twig said, right on her heels.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you—?”

“Stars, I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“Well, it’s okay, you can—”

“You should probably—”

“Agh!” Twilight growled in exasperation and flared her wings. “Okay, you go first!”

“But—”

“No!” Twilight jabbed her hoof at the goblin. “You start.”

Twig took a deep breath and patted at her wiry mane in a futile attempt to settle it. “I, uh… I’ve always been an admirer of you. Princess. I hope you know I never meant any harm. We were always taught to fear Equestrians. Speaking of, could you please ask Princess Celestia not to destroy our homes in fiery wrath when she finds out about all this…?”

“She, uh—doesn’t really do that sort of thing.”

Twig was babbling on as if she hadn’t heard her. “I understand she will be righteously skeeved off at a plan aimed at supplanting her, and Thor knows she has a right to be. I won’t say it’s all King Nessus’s fault because we were all pretty well on board with it, but, well, he never told us just how far this was all going to go, and now that we’ve met some of you I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Look, it’s perfectly fine,” Twilight tried to get a word in edgewise, “I’ve already spoken to Flash and Pinion about it.”

“The others are really good people, even if we’re a little rough around the edges, and I want to help bring Amelia back safe and sound. I’ll take full responsibility, since I was supposed to be the leader, just like you. And I’m sorry if I ever tried to get between you and Rainbow Dash. It was… it was never going to happen, I know, and I shouldn’t have tried to interfere…”

“Twig, it’s all right, we’re not going to punish you for—wait, what? Me and Rainbow Dash?” Twilight blinked.

“Yes!” Twig threw her forelegs up on Twilight’s shoulders, her face stricken. “I’m so sorry! I couldn’t help myself… you know how she is, all… full of verve and purpose and she’s just so beautiful. I’ve never felt so guilty, I thought that if I could just be you, even an imperfect you, then I might have had a shot, but I-I knew an amazing, heroic mare like her wouldn’t even look twice at an awful goblin like m-me no matter how I dressed up, and… and…” Twig startled to sniffle. “C-can you f-f-forgive me for tr-trying to steal the love of your life, Princess Twilight?”

Twilight gaped.

There was no help for it. I started to laugh.

Rarity, who had been watching from nearby, raised an eyebrow at Twilight. “Yes, Twilight, dear. Can you ever forgive her?”

Twilight’s face turned as red as hot steel. “I… what… I don’t… doesn’t…”

“I think what the Princess means to say,” Lyra interjected, “is that she completely understands how you feel.”

“What?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, in fact, she’s really grown quite distant from Rainbow Dash recently,” Rarity added. “All quite tragic. The news is all the rage in Canterlot.”

“What?” Twilight asked again, aghast. “You… huh…”

Naomi grinned from ear to ear. “She really means to say that she gives you her blessing, and hopes you two have a very happy life together. Isn’t that right, Princess Twilight?” She poked the back of her head and bobbed it back and forth in a nod. The Princess was too stunned to do anything but wobble her head back and forth like a doll.

“Really?” Poor, besotted Twig’s eyes turned completely liquid and tears starting to flow. “You mean it’d be okay if I… and Rainbow Dash…? Oh, thank you!” she wailed and threw her legs around Twilight’s neck, who could only choke in response. “You truly are a gracious princess!”

My laughter died down, and I wiped my own eyes of tears. I wormed a telekinetic thread through Twig’s forelegs and spared the Princess an accidental assassination. “Okay, okay. Twig, we need to get to Amelia…”

“Oh. Yes.” She smoothed her coat and stood up straighter. “What’s our plan?”

“Take all the goblins and ponies we can lay our hooves on and march on Canterlot Mountain. Well, fly—marching would take too long. We have to be there by Devil’s Night—err, the night before Halloween. Or Nightmare Night, whatever.”

Marcus stared down at me. “What? What do we need so many people for? Amelia doesn’t have an army.”

“Heh. Yeah, about that…”

* * *

“Oh dear,” Twilight said, hours later. We were far above the ground, but even from our height we could see the mile-long scorch marks in the countryside leading up to a small, flat-topped mountain west of Ponyville in the hills. Great twisted, scorched bars of bronze lay scattered across the land, and an enormous cave gaped like a smoking mouth.

“I knew what we were going to see, but actually seeing it is another thing entirely,” Leit Motif said grimly as we stared over the railing. “Tartarus, its gates unbarred and unguarded.”

“Obliterated is more like it,” Maille said, her claws digging into the railing of the Equestrian airship. “Amelia…”

The Seer eased himself away from the side, shaking his head. “The prison that Celestia and Luna used to seal all the titanspawn of the world that they could not otherwise contain. Over a thousand years’ worth of true monsters, beasts from the age of chaos, set free.”

“Why?” Marcus demanded. “Of everything she’s done, why that?”

“The Morgwyn’s doing, no doubt,” the Seer said. “It may be that it convinced her that she needed the additional protection. They would heed the Morgwyn and obey Amelia for as long as it was convenient, most like.”

Marcus looked crestfallen. I wanted to reach out to him then, to let him know that all Amelia did she did because she was scared and alone, but I let my hoof drop and walked to the ship’s ladder. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Leit Motif talking to him quietly, and smiled. Down below decks I went to check up on Marble Stone and Applejack and found them eating together in the mess. Marble’s beautiful new form stood out from the other ponies taking their ease, though she still held herself uncertainly as she spoke to her long-lost cousin. She was still a large, strong mare, but where before she had the look of a poorly made clay figurine, now she was adequately proportioned. Greys and browns swirled in her coat with hints of soft blues and greens, and when she smiled her whole face lit up.

I left them to their own devices and went further back. Twig I found in the library, and I questioned her about Amelia’s last moments on the Wand vessel as best as she could relate them—better, really, since I picked her brain while I was at it. Not something I enjoy doing, but at the present time I needed to make an exception.

What I heard and perceived troubled me greatly. The callous, even brutal way Amelia had manipulated the goblin to enact her mistake confirmed all the signs I’d received so far. If I was going to find Amelia and bring her back, I would need to be prepared to face a veritable mountain of bitterness and regrets. For all that Marble Stone was more than twice her age, I doubted that Amy would be so easily persuaded.

For some unsettling reason, I wasn’t sure that I could bring her back.

On my way back up the ship’s central corridor, I paused, trying to unbox that premonition. Like all of my odd feelings over the trip, it almost certainly had some significance beyond just my fretful heart. Very few of my feelings had turned out to be wrong of late, and, if I could take steps to understand and react to this one, there might be a chance to react to it.

It’s at that point I felt something far more disturbing. It was a creeping, chilly certainty that ran up from my from my hooves and down my spine. Without knowing how, I knew the ship was in danger, and from something terrible—no mere goblin surprise attack, but something from that prison that had been locked away for ages. It whirled like a storm, sucking everything into its path.

My hooves quickened along the wood, but I didn’t get far. All at once, the electric lights flickered and shattered, blowing out in their sockets. Ponies shouted in surprise in nearby cabins, but their voices sounded distant. I lit my horn, and found myself in the center of a whirling pit of darkness with only the island of my light to guide me. I tried to reconstruct an image of the corridor to escape with, only to recoil in surprise and disgust when I found that the darkness came from my mental image.

“Yes, Water Bearer.” The sibilant whisper came from seemingly all around and no where at once. “This one is with you now.” Its blue eyes blazed balefully at me as it materialized as a deeper shadow separating from the rest. “The Morgwyn must congratulate you. It did not think that the Water-Pourer would recover from its despair, no. It didn’t quite believe that she could find her way across time and space to come so close to her goal.”

I glared right back at the monster. Even as it was, a thing of chaos and death, now that we were in such close contact I could see into its mind. I didn’t particularly like what I found there. It wasn’t evil, not as we understand the word—inside itself, the Morgwyn was one long scream, a howl echoing throughout the ages from before time was time. It seemed stable and even germane on the surface, but below the currents were all desperately churning; ultimately, it was a mad creature from an insane world being driven slowly sane. It didn’t hate, it didn’t particularly care to see anyone suffer. It just wanted to achieve its singular goal of returning to its native home.

As for the rest of us, well… It simply didn’t recognize other beings as really existing.

“Fleeting, butterfly lives of little consequence,” it hissed, flicking its tail. A nasty barb gleamed in the light of my horn. “Death and life are states with no boundaries in chaos. Better ended, sometimes, than forced to live in this agonizing cage.”

“Why didn’t you just kill me, then?” I asked, trying to summon up some trick. The Morgwyn dwelt with me, as I should have known it had. Escape seemed impossible. “Why did you take so long before this point?”

“The Morgwyn needed you alive, to provide the catalyst to its designs, and then the Morgwyn could not reach you. Your connection was strong, yes? But not strong enough.” The creature began to circle, cautious even with victory so close at claw. Its voice went on, trying to lull me into letting my guard down. “No, not strong enough. The Water Bearer could think of this one so perfectly as to call it, but only now, with the ichor running in your veins and shining out from your heart could you truly manifest what was unreal into the real.” It stalked a pace closer, closing the circle. “This one could be with its champion, guiding it, but it is time, one thinks, to close off that last flicker of hope.”

“Chopping me down at the finish line,” I growled. “We’ve never met, but you fear me. I could have torn down all your plans, couldn’t I? Amelia isn’t completely lost. She can still come back.”

“The Morgwyn does like to talk too much,” it admitted, flashing its glowing teeth. “This one will take no chance on such a thing ever happening. It has waited too long.” It lifted its head and inhaled deeply. “Do you feel it? It’s a taste right now—through you we are connected together to the chaos-time, and this is but a preview.”

My horn shone brighter, and copies of myself appeared around me, as perfect as the real thing in all but the critical detail of physical force. “I wouldn’t count me out just yet. You little wretch. Do you think I’m going to go down easily? You stole everything from me, you wrecked the fate of untold billions because you couldn’t handle a world that didn’t change.”

“Yes.” The blue eyes flared. “Your unicorn illusions are feeble. This one will not be much delayed in dispatching you. You will not be saving your dear sister.”

“No,” I said, and knew it with dead certainty. “I won’t.”

The Morgwyn came at me, then, from a hundred directions at once, all teeth and claws and whirling darkness. I leapt, sacrificing my fakes to race out into the strange, shifting landscape beyond. Into that unnatural night I sent forth a single, piercing beam of green light. For a few moments it shone desperately through the blackness.

Then it flickered, and died.

* * * * * * *

Author's Note:

It's a shame Pirene is coming to an end soon. I'd love the chance to develop the Faux Six even more than I have. I hope you all appreciate the level of background detail that went into each of them, at least!

This chapter took me a bit to write. I had to bridge together a lot of disparate elements and that took a great deal of tweaking and reconsideration. In part, it's a chapter that pushes the characters in the direction they need to go in a physical sense, but it was more than that – it had to be a chapter about Daphne moving on with her life. It's about accepting who she is, flaws and all, just like Kiln/Marble Stone had to.

And then get herself ambushed.

Something seem familiar about the place Daphne took Kiln/Marble Stone?

Stay tuned for next time when we join Leit Motif!

Remember to like, comment, and subscribe! I eat your comments up I do.

Comments

[Alphaetus_Prime]

Oh man.
There isn't going to be a happy ending, is there?

[Lab]

This is one of the most thrilling stories I have read. Your characters live and breathe, and there's an entire world of epics lying behind the text.

[Ether Echoes]

4364529
Awesome.

4364551
The kind of story where really bad things can happen sometimes.

[Bronetheus]

Kiln is Marble Stone? What an epic twist! And I mean emotionally epic too (which is the best kind), because of her connection to the pony she ended up being forced to imitate. Well played.

I loved the Mane and Faux Six who met their counterparts in this chapter, and I would be thrilled to see more of that. The best was of course Twilight and Twig trying to out-awkward each other, but Maille and Rarity elegantly conversing about armor fashion is really close.

"Speaking of, could you please ask Princess Celestia not to destroy our homes in fiery wrath when she finds out about all this…?”

“She, uh—doesn’t really do that sort of thing.”

Eeeeyeah. Things are going to get super awkward in the near future.

[Ether Echoes]

4364620
Better catch up! You'll get to see for yourself.

4364737
Yup! I planned that one a looooong time ago. It's nice seeing it all drawn together.

We'll get to see a bit more of them and also Rose/Fluttershy... and perhaps even Flash/Dash.
(See what I did there?)

[FlyingSaucer]

Great as usual. Only sad thing is the reminder the story will soon be ending. I like the little reality you have setup here, would definitely have enjoyed it being explored more.

[Ether Echoes]

4364998
All things must end. It is tragic.

[Pinklestia]

Being the Seer or the Oracle just sucks, there is a reason most heroes can't see the future. If you are stuck in a sea of 'What ifs?' You would go insane.

a world that didn’t change? The world is in contact change, in fact the universe is in change, just because most of those changes can be rationalized it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. Maybe it would work better if you said "A world that wasn't in constant change".

[Ether Echoes]

4365027
I'm sorry, maybe you'd like to be the person presently under threat by the insane demonspawn from beyond space and time and have the opportunity to precisely pick your words?

Even if you want to be pedantic, one would point out that the world doesn't change in the way the Morgwyn is comfortable with. It's a difference of magnitude.
To the Morgwyn, that there is a sun every day is intolerable. That there are days is intolerable. That the past always precedes the future is intolerable.

[Doppler Effect]

I think Daphne's meeting with Maille was my favourite part of this. All of the duplicate Elements are interesting, but the genuine relationship Maille built with Amelia while struggling with her own issues about what they were supposed to be doing, and in particular that parting scene with Amelia escaping the airship that Daphne flashed back to, made her seem like one of the heroes who just happened to be on the other side. I liked seeing Daphne recognise what she had been thinking during all this, and the implication that Maille's relationship with Amelia is likely to feature strongly in attempting Amelia's redemption.

I rather like as well the way that a couple of things that came up with Marcus, Daphne ignored it in favour of letting Leit deal with it, and that she seems content to ship Leit/Marcus now rather than obsess over sniping at him. I know that's really something she's grown in througout the story, but it just seemed to peak in this chapter (even though it wasn't anything like the focus), and I think it's a neat little indicator of how much she's changed since the beginning.

"It’s a taste right now—through you we are connected together to the chaos-time, and this is but a preview."

I leapt, sacrificing my fakes to race out into the strange, shifting landscape beyond. Into that unnatural night I sent forth a single, piercing beam of green light.

So.. Daphne just managed to send some kind of magic out into the chaos space that isn't overly concerned with the concept of causality? I think The Morgwyn was right. He does talk too much...

[elmagnifico]

Eh, dying is a common thing for lights, like chicken pox. I have no doubt Daphne's will Get Better. Yes, that includes if her life is tied to that light. Heroes tend to do that.

Another potential flaw to Morgy Porgy Pudding-Pie's plan, is the problem with trying to keep change constant is it'll produce things you don't want just by law of averages.

Blah-blah-blah, awaiting update with bated breath, blah-blabbity-blah, keep up the good work, blah-blah, you get the idea.

[Ether Echoes]

4365106
I'm glad you noticed both of those things, Doppler. They are quite important!

4365129
I'm just going to repeat what I've said several times and leave it at that: if the Morgwyn wins and gets what it wants, it will be satisfied. It is not confused about what chaos is, it knows exactly what it is doing.

[TheStratovarian]

One thing I wonder, and its almost a perception thing. The morgwin isn't actually something that can exist in the world as it is, can it? When you look at it, its an abstract, a force of concept. It can trick someone to believing reality and then reality changes for it, but it can't actually exist yet, can it? Its why it needs amelia to break those last few seals, that bar its passage. Why now, that its gone after daphne, that she is projecting into its realm fully once more. Potential and reality to balance.

[Ether Echoes]

4365167
Pretty close, yeah.

[Bronetheus]

So, you're getting Clancy Brown to voice the Morgwyn in the audio adaptation of this, right? Whenever he shows up, I imagine the demon cat from Adventure Time.

"I have approximate knowledge of many things, bairn."

[Ether Echoes]

4365246
I wish I could get THE KURGAN to voice THE MORGWYN.
You have more comment, right Bronetheus?

[MD Webster]

Okay, I think I better re-read the fiction.
It just seems I got lost.

However, Did that beast just died?!

[MD Webster]

4364491
Hang on.
I to believe that there might be a happy ending.
Or it just might have a bittersweet ending.

[Ether Echoes]

4365309
The Morgwyn is still kicking.

[MD Webster]

Oh, one question, how many chapters left we're looking foreword?

[Ether Echoes]

4365332
Unless something dramatic comes up, 2 more chapters and an epilogue of indeterminate length.

[MD Webster]

4365328
Maybe the bucket.

But seriously, I reread the last part, What is Morgwyn doing?

[Ether Echoes]

4365358
Attempting to murder Daphne. What did you think it was doing?

[MD Webster]

4365362
I'm sorry, I'm just confused with the last part. My thought that Morgwyn is left abandoned and dying.
So Daphne uses the illusion to confuse the beast then she ran away.
Right?

Maybe I should pay attention a little more. By starting reading it all over again.

[Charedfirescale]

Well I knew that Kiln was Marble Stone.....well for awhile. Also, just because DAPHNE can't save Amelia, doesn't mean others can't. She might be the Water Bearer, in some such form or what not, but that doesn't mean her friends aren't any less important. You know, it might be Amelia who will save Daphne.

[Ether Echoes]

4365389
Daphne is still trapped in Chaos.

[justintym4fun]

I have to say that I'm new to fimfiction, and this was the second story I came across after "Anthropology" first drew me to the site. I can't tell you what a great read this is. I think I may be enjoying it even more than "Past Sins," which was really good. Your plot development is great, but you also remember not to rush through it, spending time in relationships and character development as well. I like the little quotes that you put at the beginning of the chapters, which give a theme and something to think over. (Even the quote by the "unknown goblin" :-D ) Something tells me that, aside from mythology, you are also into comparative religions.

On another note, I have to say that I really hope Amelia can be redeemed. At much as she drives me nuts with her decisions, I can't help but notice the tiniest flicker of light in her still. She wants to take it all back, but doesn't think she can. Even with the damage that's been caused, I think her finally coming to the light would make a great ending, and could even be reminiscent of the salvation given to humans by Jesus Christ. But then, you're the author, which is a good thing. :) Eagerly looking forward to the next chapter, (and sorry about the wall of text. :-\ ) :-D

[Ether Echoes]

4365788

Something tells me that, aside from mythology, you are also into comparative religions.

I totally am. Mythology and comparative religion are two of my favorite topics.

Also, what possibly led you to think that there might be a broader message of buried within this cute story about ponies.

It's not like I've heavily implied that or anything!

I like my version a lot, too, because it's not about being saved by some external force - it's about pulling together and saving yourself.

Glad to see you're enjoying it much. I hope the pacing has been to your liking~

[CDRW]

I'm constantly amazed at how much you've developed this world, and at how much knowledge you have to have of mythology to create it. How much of this did you know beforehand and how much did you find out in research while writing?

[djthomp]

Hmn, more discussion of timey-wimey and spacey-wacey issues.

“Could you all stop?” Marcus begged. “This is giving me a headache. I also don’t like the implication that Amy is somehow going to be the cause of an apocalypse where we go to some whacked-out chaos land. She’s not a bad kid.”

Yeah, we've got some bad news for you, Marcus.

Oooo, a small bit of vision handling training for Daphne. Better late than never I suppose.

I think I like Saria, she and her people seem to have a decent philosophy on being the Sword people.

The new plan is to pull the Wand goblins in on the proper side of the conflict? Decent enough idea, at the very least they have a powerful warship if Daphne & Co. can deal with the problem that it's currently on fire.

Nice use of the ice arrows.

“She betrayed us to pursue a life of fortune and glory as a pony,” Pinion explained blithely.

Heh, pursue is definitely the right word here considering the hole they found her in. I'm loving the reunion with Maille, Daphne is really stepping up in a big way. Also, Rarity talking shop with Maille may be the best thing ever.

“Marble Stone,” I named her.
“What?” she demanded, an upraised hoof pausing.
“Marble Stone,” I repeated. “That’s your name. Marble Stone.”

Ah hah! That missing filly from way back when!

It occurs to me that this thing with Kiln is exactly the sort of self sacrifice that would have been in the Water Bearer's original destiny.

Wait, I was wrong, the conversation between Twilight and Twig, that's the actual best thing ever.

“Speaking of, could you please ask Princess Celestia not to destroy our homes in fiery wrath when she finds out about all this…?”
“She, uh—doesn’t really do that sort of thing.”

Holy crap, Amelia broke open Tartarus? And that ending with the Morgwyn? Yikes.

[Ether Echoes]

4365984
Virtually all of it. I can't think of anything specifically that I didn't know beforehand.
I might have done some review of Nessus and other minor points.

Oh, I did have to research the location of Mt. Azazel and locate it on Google Earth.

4365994

Yeah, we've got some bad news for you, Marcus.

Nice use of the ice arrows.

Yeah, you can tell how recently I wrote from there in!

Wait, I was wrong, the conversation between Twilight and Twig, that's the actual best thing ever.

I was watching you go "this is the best thing" and I was like "this guy is gonna loooove Twig/Twilight" and I wasn't disappointed.

[Ether Echoes]

4366189
Fixed!

And look forward to the next chapter.

[Goldfur]

I am constantly amazed by the complexity of the story that you have been weaving, and it puts my own story-telling skills to shame. I will be awaiting the next chapter eagerly, and dreading the end to this magnificent tale.

[HazyDaydream]

Why can I only fav this once!!!??

I'm not good with words but I love reading them.. together... in your story! Errr, All I am saying I really love this story and your writing and I can't wait for the beginning of the end as it were.. perhaps.

[metallusionsismagic]

More Pirene! I do love what we've seen of the faux six so far. Maybe there could be another adventure for them after (or before) this?

My predecessor was a poet, you must know, and he painted pictures with words as easily as he did with his blade.”
My head tilted to the side. “What sort of pictures does one paint with a blade?”
“Red ones. I think it would be obvious, no?”

Waaaaait, this guy sounds awfully familiar...
cdn.iclanwebsites.com/forgottenandreborn/SigImages/1392926026_2172814.jpg

Every principle I though I stood for

thought

“Oh, oh! Hugs for me, too!” Lyra said, pressing up against Leit’s other side and eliciting a groan—and a hug—from my old friend.

Oh Lyra, youuuuu silly pony you.

Indeed, she shook worst than Flash had.

worse

This was the realm Pirene had met me mere hours ago,

Realm where Pirene?

[DoctorDerpy]

You update so fast!
Found some mistakes in "Aurora" that need to be rectified:

I felt like pricking my ears, only to realize I couldn't here.

Hear!

The nymph me a gentle push with her head as she turned back to face me.

"The nymph gave me"?

I love the story so far!

[ferret]

To be fair, getting ambushed by a creature that can teleport, disincorporate, and remain unseen until the very moment of attack isn't something you can really hold against her.

[ferret]

4366730

You update so fast!

DON'T JYNX IT

[Always Breakfast]

Daphne gets kidnapped into a realm of timeless primordial chaos, and then shoots a light of strange magic out into it...

And that's how Equestria was made!

And yes! Suikoden moment! Faux Six get! I'm cautiously optimistic the bit at the end about Daphne knowing she won't save Amy means Maille will.

I have to say, this is probably the best execution I've ever seen of crazy seer-vision in literature. It's a wonder those guys have any brainpan left if that's the sort of thing they see all the time.

It also means the usual Narrator Assurance of Continued Existence may not exactly apply though...

[Topaz Moon]

Very nice chapter update.

[Keiger]

I want an epilogue, and a post-epilogue slice of life. These are my demands; if they are not met, then I will eat my cereal for breakfast as I usually do. Have at thee.

[Ether Echoes]

4366228
4366287
Glee~

4366562
Don't encourage him.

4367722
Daphne is sure having problems enough keeping sane with her visions.

4368781
There's at least ONE epilogue planned, we'll see how it goes. It's of "indeterminate length."

[Charedfirescale]

So....will we see Leit & Marcus moments in the next chapter?
It's kind of funny, Naomi, Lyra....maybe a few others will probably have a field day over her crush on him. I wonder if he'll get turned into a Pegasus just to move it along.

[Firebirdbtops]

So... doppel6 are meeting their counterparts. I would quite enjoy the one on one between Fluttershy and her own goblinganger.

[Ether Echoes]

4369621
We will see some, aye.

4370100
Eeyup

[Ether Echoes]

4371792
Amelia must bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

[MemeticHazard]

It's a shame Pirene is coming to an end soon. I'd love the chance to develop the Faux Six even more than I have. I hope you all appreciate the level of background detail that went into each of them, at least!

I'm sure others have already voiced this sentiment, but: you say this like a sequel to explore the ramifications of all this upheaval and change isn't a possibility.

[Ether Echoes]

4372694
We'll have to see.

[Pinklestia]

4365031

I was referring to the fact that one of the versions of Captain Marvel (The Marvel comics one) went insane due to being able to somewhat see possible futures. And really, when it comes to super powers, being a powerful Seer ends being awful. Basically, due to the butterfly effect, you may end causing several self fulfilled prophesies or just making things worse. As the saying says “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” hindsight is 20-20 after all.

And in fact, if you have read a lot of stories with prophesies in them, you will find out that at least haft of them are self fulfilled. Basically they are situations where had the seer not said anything, it would not have happened in the first place, like with Oidípous. Seers and prophesies are awful things after all.

[Ether Echoes]

4374180
In Pirene, all prophecies are self-fulfilling. That's the point! Of course, you want them to fulfill in a particular planned manner.