Chapter 1: A Stupid Idea
“Just to set the record straight, this is a stupid idea.”
“Yes, we know darling, that’s about six times you’ve set the record already.”
“And I’ll continue setting it until we’re dead, or worse, caught. This is a stupid, stupid, idea.”
Crystal only gawks at my opinion, as usual. Her eyes slide to our pale green brother, who has yet to voice a word on this whole situation. “Turquoise, you’re agreeing with me right? I mean we’re here in the Crystal Empire, we may never get another chance to see the castle unless we get in there now.”
Short breaths come out of his nostrils. His wings flap in what can only be interpreted as an ambivalent shrug.
“See, he understands. Lavey dear, try to be more open minded. This’ll be fun, and we’ll probably never get another opportunity like this again.”
“It’s Lavender! Don’t call me Lavey, you know I hate it.”
“And that makes it all the more fun to torture you with it.”
I seeth out my breath, blowing thin whiffs of smoke out my nostrils. “It’s closed for a reason alright. Every Princess in Equestria is in there now in an emergency meeting. They probably have guards walking around and everything. Do you really want to spend the rest of our lives in a tiny metal cell with chains on our ankles?”
“Oh come now, we’re Rarity’s kids, the guard wouldn’t dare throw the children of an Element of Harmony in prison.”
“Yes, we are Rarity’s kids. So with that fact in mind, I ask again. Do really want to spend the rest of your life chained in a cell with barely enough room to breath?”
She rolls her eyes at me, but her signature smile stays on her face; the sly smirk that can only mean trouble. “Very well, suit yourself Lavey.”
I grind my teeth and open my mouth to reply.
“You can just wait out here while Turquoise and I explore this marvelous castle made of solid Crystal and Gemstone. Did you know they’re starting to call this place the next wonder of the world? Oh, but I’m sure you won’t be missing much. We’ll see you in a bit Lavey, have fun out here all by yourself.”
She strides past me with a sway in her hip, Turquoise tails close behind her and closes the door as they go in. I continue glaring daggers at the door long after they leave. Anger practically comes steaming out of my nostrils. I’m half tempted to follow her in there just to give her a piece of my mind, but that’s exactly what she wants me to do. She must believe I’m stupid or something, thinking she can just dangle a palace in front of me like some kitty toy and expect me to jump. Well she’s got another thing coming if she thinks it’ll work. No way I’m going to fall for it, I’ll stay out here all day if I have to. Alone… in the freezing cold of winter… while they have all the fun… dear Luna why didn’t I bring one of mom’s scarfs?
I stand shivering outside for several moments, anger building in me like steam in a tea-pot, until finally yell out my frustrations and stomp my way through the door.
They’re waiting for me in the entrance hall.
I shoot a death gaze at Crystal. “You know, I sometimes wonder if those are dragon or devil horns on your head.”
“So glad you could join us as well Lavey,” she states with a smug grin. “Truly, it wouldn’t be the same without you.”
I don’t say a word, I don’t even grant her the pleasure of eye contact. I just walk right past her as if she wasn’t even there. It takes a few minutes for me to fully exhale the majority of the seething rage in my body, but once I do I begin to look around and appreciate the castle, and...
Okay, I’ll admit it, this place is absolutely gorgeous. It’s like I’ve stepped into the inside of a mirror, everything sparkles and gleams with such bright colors. Ornate chandeliers hang from the long hallway, at the end which a dual set of crystal staircases lead up further into the castle.
My siblings walk along side me with equally as much awe, their heads sway back and forth in the ocean of beauty before them. Crystal inhales the whole scene,and then walks up right beside me and whispers. “Still wishing you had stayed outside Lavey?”
“Okay, you were right, this place is gorgeous,” I say with an enamored glance at my surroundings. “So, are we done looking around then, good, lets go.”
Crystal’s horns light up with a light blue essence and her magick pins my tail to the ground to stop me from leaving. “I’d say nice try, but that would imply you actually did try.”
I groan silently. “Snide, that’s a new thing for you.”
“You seemed to have so much fun with it, I thought I’d give it a try myself for a change.”
I ignore her smug grin and follow Turquoise down a large corridor with grand portraits on all sides. We walk through this hallway with awed expressions, turning and gazing up at the grand figures, though all I can see is admonishment. Ponies of great stature and importance glare down at me, judging me, silently expressing their disdain for us disturbing this place. I walk past all these angry eyes with my claw in my mouth, my jaw noisily gnawing away at the sharp tips.
I’m constantly looking around, knowing full well that at any time a guard could walk through, or worse yet a princess! Not even our mom’s title will be able to save us if we anger one of them. Why did I follow them in here again?
“Hey look, isn’t that our dad?”
“Where!”
I look around in a panic, but there’s no sign of the lumbering purple dragon anywhere.
“No, no, the painting, look.” Turquoise points up at one of the large portraits, and sure enough there he is. In the image he’s standing next to a pedestal with a large crystal heart floating over it. he looks at us with his arms folded and a bright smile on his face. Beneath the picture is a small gold plaque, which Crystal reads aloud.
“Dedicated in honor of Spike the Dragon, for his unwavering bravery in delivering the crystal heart to Princess Cadence, and stopping the tyrannical King Sombra. “Wow, I knew he was young when that happened, but... he is really young here.”
“I’ll say, he doesn’t even look like he’s out of the infant stage yet,” Turquoise adds.
I have to admit, I didn’t picture him being that young when he told us the story. The painter did seem to capture dragon anatomy pretty well, so I can’t exactly blame it on poor skill. Then again, something does seem a little off about the crystal heart. “Hey guys, correct me if I’m wrong, but is the Crystal Heart supposed to be red?”
“No, it’s not,” Turquoise answers
“How do you know that, you’ve never seen it before?” says Crystal.
“Actually I have.”
“Truly, when was that?”
“Just now, over there.”
He points down the hallway, where a tall pedestal stands, on top of it the famous heart shaped stone recognized as the symbol of the Crystal Empire. I gawk at the incredible artifact with wide eyes. “That’s… that’s actually the Crystal Heart?”
“It appears to be.” Crystal approaches the display with gleaming eyes, staring at the mystic artifact in wonder.
I can’t help but feel some fascination myself, having heard of this stone so much before and all of its tremendous power. “What’s it doing here though? I thought this was supposed to be at the base of the castle, channeling the love of the crystal ponies, or something like that?”
“Perhaps, they took it in for some reason. There is an emergency meeting going on with the Princesses after all. What if the Crystal Heart has something to do with it?”
Her speculation sounds disturbingly valid. The world renown gem looks no where near as glamorous as it was made out to be. It’s color is faded and it seems worn in some places, almost fragile actually. Could something have happened to weaken it? If that’s the case then it’s no wonder why this emergency meeting is taking place. It’s a little disappointing to see it in this state.
This doesn’t stop Crystal from eyeballing the thing though. She walks around the pedestal like a predator circling its prey. The image of the heart reflects in her eyes, a dead star within sparkling aqua blue irises. Slowly, she lifts up a single claw and reaches out towards the sacred stone.
“What the hay are you doing?” I jump in front of her to stop her progress.
“Relax Lavender, I just wanted to see if it… uh, hummed with magickal energy, like I heard it did.”
“Crystal, this is a sacred artifact! You can’t just walk up to it and start prodding away like it’s some childs toy.”
She looks at me with continued defiance, but that quickly melts from her face the longer we stare at each other. She glances back at the Crystal Heart, and then shakes her head. “You know what, you’re right. We probably shouldn’t even be anywhere near this thing.”
Praise the Goddesses, she at least has a lick of sense in her. “Good to hear.”
“I mean this is the symbol of the Crystal Empire after all, the living embodiment of the love and kinship the Crystal Ponies have. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if something were too-”
She throws arm out to gesture towards the heart, so of course it’s only typical that she accidentally smacks it from its pedestal and causes it to fall over. Time itself seems to slow down as it falls, the breaths that me and my sister take in are the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. Horror leaps in my stomach as it descends down, and lands safely in the hands of my brother Turquoise.
We all breath out a relieved sigh in unison. “Nice save Turquoise. That could have been really bad.”
“Understatement of the century right there.” I can actually see my palms trembling after that. “You see why I don’t even want to mess around with this thing, because you never know when-”
“Is that a crack?”
My previous statement falls limp in my mouth. “Que?”
“The-the Crystal Heart… I think it’s cracked,” Turquoise says.
My brain must not be registering that statement. I know full well what it means, and the implications behind it, but I just can’t seem to get my head to fully comprehend it. I turn my stiff neck to get a look at the heart, and sure enough right in the center of it is a large crooked black line that one would recognize as a crack. One would recognize it as such, but again, my brain doesn’t seem to be responding properly at the moment. My lips form into a wide grin and grab the heart out of my brother’s hands.
“No, no, come on. That’s not a crack, it probably just got dirty when it fell into your hands. I’ll just wipe it off here, and set it back on the pedestal like that.” I giggle quite disturbingly while I do all this. “See, good as new, no one will even know we were here.”
My hysterical grin continues to grow as I stare at the beautifully restored stone, which then proceeds to split in half down the middle, fall to the ground in two pieces and shatter into a thousand tiny shards against the hard unloving floor.
My right eye twitches as I look at the mess. My grin does not leave my face. I begin giggle silently, then laugh loudly, and then sob uncontrollably. I burry my face in the mound of crystal pieces and beat my fist against the floor.
Crystal stands behind me with equally, though much well hidden horror. “Oh dear Celestia, what have we done!”
“Okay, okay, calm down. We can fix this,” Turquoise spouts.
“How! How are we going to fix this?” She grabs a handful of broken shards and let them fall through her fingers in front of him. “Do you even realize how bad this is? No, dear Luna how could you even begin to know. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed right now, but we are in deep here. We are standing at the precipice of Tartarus here ladies and gents, things could not possibly be any-”
“No!” I leap up from my fetal position and grab her by the snout to keep her from speaking. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence, those are the forbidden words Crystal, you never say them, you never even think about saying them. If you do I promise you no matter how bad things are already, they will always, and I mean always get…”
Before I can finish my warning the sound of hoof steps is heard coming around the corner. Somepony is coming this way.
The three of stare at the approaching shadows with raw untainted fear in our eyes.
My sister pries my claws off her mouth. “You know, shouting at the top of your lungs can also make things worse as well?”
“Just shut up and run.”
And we do just that. We break into a sprint, while Turquoise takes flight and follows right along side us on frenzied wings. We take every turn, round every corner we can to shake off our pursuers. No matter where we go through, hoofsteps are right behind us, closing in at an alarming rate. Turquoise suddenly shoots ahead of us, much to our panic.
“Hey, where are you going wait up!”
We rush to catch him, a useless endeavor considering he can fly twice the speed we can run. Never the less, we charge forward at burning speeds, our heads lowered to ramming speeds. We’re so focused on getting away that it’s not until we’re grabbed by the tails and pulled into one of the side rooms that we see where Turquoise went.
Our older brother holds us against the wall, his claws covering our mouths and his own breathing coming to a halt as we listen to the rushing hoof steps pass us by, and fade silently into the background.
Turquoise practically collapses to the ground as he lets us go, looking as though he spent the last three minutes with an Ursa Major on his chest. “You know, I was indifferent about this whole thing at first. Now I can safely agree with Lavender. This was a stupid idea.”
“What’s the words I’m looking for, oh right, I told you so.”
Crystal doesn’t seem to appreciate our comments, giving us a snarl in response. “Well we didn’t get caught, did we?”
“Yet.”
“Shut up!” she yells, letting her anger fly. I’m guessing the stress is finally getting to her. “Okay, we can still get out of here, we just need a plan. Maybe if we’re careful we can sneak out by… wait, is that what I think it is?”
We look in the direction that she points and see a strange looking mirror in the room. It’s a lonely piece of furniture that stands as the only furnishing in the place. It takes less then a second to recognize this as the Crystal Mirror, the infamous device which Princess Twilight used to travel to another universe.
For a moment we stare at the artifact in silence, lost in its majesty.
“Perhaps we don’t have to leave the castle. We could wait it out in there, that is, if it still works.” Crystal ponders allowed.
“I’d rather not find out.” I turn my head back to the door, and immediately notice the creeping shadows moving underneath, coming uncomfortably close to the entrance.
“On second thought, running blindly into a mysterious, unknown, possibly dangerous dimension sounds like a great idea. In fact, why don’t all jump through right now. Come on, onward and tally-ho guys, lets go!”
I charge the portal in a frenzy, duck my head down as I prepare to enter, then crash headlong against what feels more like stone than any kind of glass. My head slides down the surface of the mirror and I moan in pain the whole way.
“Oh yes, that’s right, I do remember hearing that the portal is only open during certain times of the year. Guess I should’ve brought that up first,” Crystal states.
“Gee, you don’t say.” I roll over on my back and press a claw to my face. “We are so dead, do you know that? Every guard in the castle is gonna be looking around after seeing the heart. It’s only a matter of time before they find us, maybe even throw us in a dungeon. Oh Luna, I can’t go to prison, mom would flip out if she heard I got sent to prison.”
My siblings at the very least seem to share my concerns. Crystal though seems a little more puzzled than worried. She looks at the mirror with a curious eye. “I could try to force it open.”
My eyes go wide and I jump to my feet. “How?”
“Well, I know this spell, that could-”
“No way!” I put myself up as a barricade between her and the mirror. “There is no way I’m letting you cast some random spell on something, when we have no idea how it’ll react to it.”
“Come now Lavey, I know I can pull this off.”
“No, the last time you tried anything beyond a basic levitation spell you nearly destroyed our house.”
“Oh I did not do that badly.”
“You tried to conjure a suite and tie onto dad’s body and then ended up sending him into mad rampage in which he ate, ate, every single dress in the shop. It was weeks before mom could even look him in the eye again, much less speak to him!”
“Alright, so my past experiments with magick haven’t gone so well!” she fumes. “Let me ask you this though. Which would you rather take your chances with? Me, or them?”
She points the door on her last word. I raise a claw to argue, which falls limp after a second in the air. I look at the door, and see a faint shadow moving outside, slowly approaching the door. “Do it, and hurry.”
I back away from the mirror and give her space to work. She stands facing the mirror and stares it down with a focused glare. Her dual horns glow with a faint blue essence. She grunts silently from effort, before firing a beam of light at the mirror.
I’m gnawing on my claws during the whole process. I watch the shadows outside with a knot in my gut. “Hurry Crystal.”
Her grunts become louder with time, sweat forms on her face. Then suddenly a strange vortex like hole begins to open up in the glass. Nothing short of jubilation spreads across my face.
“I-I did it, I think I did it. I actually got it to woah!” She suddenly get yanked forward towards the mirror, getting sucked in by some unknown force.
Turquoise is first on her, grabbing her by the waist and pulling back with all his might. “Hold on Crystal, I’ve got, he-he-hey!”
Now he’s getting pulled in and I panic. There’s nothing I can do other than grab onto Turquoise’s tail and try fruitlessly to pull him back as I get dragged screaming into the vortex with them.
Inside things become strange. There’s not really words in my vocabulary that can describe the sensation. We’re rocketing forward at speeds beyond comprehension, yet we’re not really going anywhere. It’s like nothing exists here, only an empty void of swirling colors and strange shapes. I try to scream, but no sound comes out. There ride continues, and there’s no sense of it ever stopping. The longer it lasts, the more hazy I become. I’m less aware of things the farther I go, until finally my conscience leaves me entirely, and my vision recedes to black.
I never knew it was possible to be this exhausted. I’ve stayed later than I should have a few times, I stayed up all night one time and passed out half way through the following day, into a bowl of cereal as my sister constantly likes to remind me. No past experience however, can compare to this. It’s like every ounce of energy I once had has been physically ripped out of me, leaving me as nothing but an immovable pile of flesh, bone, and scales.
I don’t know how long I sit like this. Minutes, hours, it could be days for all I know. It’s long enough for my muscles to finally regain some of their former strength and my bones to regain the ability to move. I open my eyes first, if only to squint them shut against the hostile rays of sunlight. I groan and then roll over on my side, crunching soft damp grass beneath me. I try to rub the remaining drowsiness out of my eyes to mild success, then slowly rise to my feet.
I yawn and stretch out my sore limbs while I continue in my attempts to wake up. I rub the side of my head that’s currently throbbing with pain, and that’s when I notice my siblings lying in the grass not too far away.
I stumble over to them, weakly stuttering out words. “H-hey! Crystal… Turquoise. You...you guys okay?”
They begin to move slowly, rolling on their sides to get up with tired groans. Crystal nearly falls over again, but I’m there to catch her. “T-t-take it easy… I don’t think any of us are feeling so well right now.”
She moans silently and rubs a claw down her face. “Ugh… what happened anyway?”
What happened? What did happen? I think back for a moment, my memory hazy and unresponsive for a moment, and then it all clicks in like a lightbulb.
“The mirror!” I drop my sister flat on her face and press my claws against my head in shock. “We went through the mirror! Oh Celestia we just jumped into an alternate dimension! This is soooo not good. Be prepared guys, there’s telling what we can expect to come across here.”
I scan our surroundings carefully, twitching my eyes at a any threatening leaf or hostile squirrel that runs through the grass. I blink a few times as everything comes into focus. “Then again, I’m not sure I remember hearing that this alternate world was supposed to look anything like this.”
“And I don’t remember hearing that everything was supposed to happen this way,” Turquoise states, looking down his claws and giving his wings a flap. “Didn’t Princess Twilight change shape when she went through the mirror?”
“‘m not sure, and at this point, I don’t really care,” Crystal grumbles as she pulls herself off the ground. “I’m just relieved that we’re away from the Crystal Castle, and out of that dreadful situation.”
I blow out an irritated sigh, though I really shouldn’t be surprised. It’s just like Crystal, freaking out one moment and then referring to the whole thing as a ‘situation’ the next. I shake my head and then look around again. “Where are we exactly anyway.”
“You… may not believe it,” Turquoise states.
I scoff at him. “Yeah, after everything that just happened, try me, I’m waiting for it.”
My brother shrugs and then points out towards the horizon. I squint my eyes in the direction and spot a small, familiar settlement with miles of farmland, a bustling town square, and a large library built into a tree on the outskirts.
I blink my eyes several times just to make sure they’re working properly. I give them a rubbing for good measure and then exhale my shock. “Okay, you win, I don’t believe it.”
“We’re back in Ponyvill? But why, how, I thought…” My sister stops talking a second, the gears can visibly be seen shifting in her head. “You know what, perhaps it’s best we not question Celestia when she has presented us a gift from on high. Come on, let’s hurry into town before anyone sees us.”
“Crystal wait!”
My cry doesn’t dissuade her, and we’re soon chasing her down through the long grass fields on on the outskirts of the town. It’s only when she slows down that we’re even get within speaking distance, and by then we’re so out of breath that it’s Crystal who speaks first.
“Okay, so here’s the plan. We’re going to head back into town, send mom and dad a message telling them where we are, and we’ll never speak of this day again.”
I glare at her under heavy eyelids. “Do I even need to tell you just how many problems there are with that plan?”
“Cross that bridge when we get to it Lavey. Right now lets just… wait a minute.” She squints her eyes ahead of ehr towards a structure in the distance. “Is that… Miss Fluttershy?”
Me and Turquoise both jump at this. “What? But wasn’t she in the Crystal Empire too?”
“Yes she is, so that can’t possibly be…” She walks forward a bit and squints her eyes in the direction of the house. “No, it is her. That must be Fluttershy, I wouldn’t mistake that shade of yellow no matter where I was.”
I’m more than a little shocked to hear this. “I hope nothing serious happened. She never struck me as the kind to leave her friends unless something important came up. You don’t think one of her animals was hurt or something?”
“Well, I guess we’re gonna find out.” Turquoise raises his hand in the air and waves to her. “Fluttershy! Excuse me, Fluttershy!”
She turns in our direction, raising her hoof to block out the sun. We approach with friendly smiles on our faces, silently praying that she somehow doesn’t know that we disappeared from the Crystal Empire. We close off the distance between us until we stand right in front of her.
Crystal is the first one to speak. “We’re happy to see you again Miss Fluttershy, though we have to ask, what are you doing back here so early? We believed that you were arriving back with the rest of us tomorrow morning?”
Fluttershy doesn’t answer the question. She doesn’t have any reaction beyond standing completely still and staring at us with distant looking eyes and a jaw that hangs loosely from her skull.
The response is a little concerning to us, to say the least. “Um, Fluttershy, is everything all-”
She screams.
She screams so loudly that I think it’s still going to be ringing in my ears tonight. Fluttershy backs herself against the wall of her house and stares at us trembling in huddled mess on the ground. “Dr-dr-dr-dr-dr-dr-dr-dr-dr-dr-drag-dragons! P-p-p-please! Please don’t eat me!”
“Eat you!?”
Shock and confusion clouds my head. Is she serious? No, no way, she can’t be. Miss Rainbow or Pinkie had to have put her up to this, it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve talked her into a prank. Yeah, that’s definitely it, Fluttershy is putting on a good show to throw us through a loop that’s all.
I roll my eyes and then cast a smirk with mock malevolence. “Oh yeah, we’re going to eat you Fluttershy. We’re going dunk you in hot sauce, roast you on a skewer, and have us a good ol’ Pegasi shish-kebab.”
She stands straight up at this. The sound that comes out of her mouth could best be described as a mixture of a squeal, a scream, and squeek. She spends a few moments making these awkward noises and then looks straight up at the sky before falling over with her legs standing straight up in the air.
She doesn’t move at all after that.
For a moment there’s complete silence as we stare at the motionless body. The smirk I had a second ago is shot dead and buried under horrified scowl. I take a step forward. “Um, Fluttershy?”
Crystal smacks me across the face. “Ow, what was that for?”
“You know what that was for!” She blares in my face. “Lavender, what in Celestia’s golden sun possessed you to say that!?”
“I thought she was joking, I didn’t know she was for real?”
Crystal roars out in frustration and then turns her attention to the downed Pegasus. “Oh, I really hope she wasn’t injured in any way. Poor dear.”
“You don’t have to worry, it looks like she just passed out,” Turquoise states as he examines her. “Although, is it just me, or does she sort of look a little, what’s the word… less old?”
“Turquoise!”
“What? I’m just pointing something out, I didn’t mean to be rude.”
Crystal continues to glare at him until she walks up next to her, then her eyes go wide. “Now that you mention it though, she does look younger, a lot younger. Do you think she’s trying some new cleansing mask, because I have to say the results are absolutely remarkable.”
Of course leave it to my sister to focus on facial products at a time like this. Now that I think about it though, there’s quite a few details here that seem… well, off. The house doesn’t look anywhere near as worn and beaten in as I remember it. It’s actually kind of clean, though you can still tell it’s been home to a whole zoo of animals in the past few years. The window sills aren’t faded, the paint looks sorta new, and there’s hardly any signs of structural damage.
I continue examining the cottage, eventually making my way to a window and peeking in. The inside is picked up and clean, so at least that much hasn’t changed. There doesn’t seem to be nearly as many bird nests or animal shelters as I remember. It almost seems like the number of animals she’s been housing has been cut in half all of a sudden. It’s a little disturbing actually, almost as if… wait a minute.
I spot something inside that makes me shake my head in disbelief. I walk to the front door and turn the handle.
“Lavey, what are you doing?” Crystal grabs my tail with telekinesis. “We can’t just barge in there without being invited.”
I give her the darkest glare I can muster. “Now why didn’t you think of that before we broke into the castle.”
I yank on my tail, pulling her forward in the process, and landing her in a nice mud puddle. I proceed inside and walk to the far wall. I almost don’t believe what I see.
“Oh Lavey,” my sister chimes wiping mud off her cheeks. “Would you care to give me a good reason as to why I shouldn’t maul you after that kind little display?”
Her statement doesn’t register to clearly in my head. I’m not too sure I would care even if it did.
“Feeling silent are we? Just going to going to stand there and take it? Well, it certainly works for me.”
“Crystal, please,” Turquoise says. “Just let it go.”
“No, no, no, she decided to act very unlady like towards me, so now I believe it’s only fair that I return the courtesy. And if she just wants to sit there and take it, I have no qualms with-”
“Crystal,” I start without even sparing a glance. “Is it possible that the mirror could’ve sent us somewhere other than an alternate universe?”
“Darling, I believe we proved that just a few minutes ago. Now do be a dear, and don’t stall this.”
She grabs me by the chest with one hand and unfurls her claws in the other.
“Could it have sent us back in time?”
That causes her to pause her actions. She blinks at me twice, and then leans in close. “Why?”
I point to the object I’ve been looking at; a calendar with a date that’s a little off from the current date. Thirty years off, to be exact.
Crystal releases me from her grip and gapes open mouthed at the hanging pages. Her eye twitch and her rump hits the floor. Turquoise scoots in next to her, looking at the calendar with equal shock. We sit there staring at it for what feels like a full minute, before Crystal slowly turns her head to me with wide horror filled eyes.
The look I give in return has no sympathy. “Yeah, did I mention before that this was a stupid, stupid, stupid idea?”