> The Collapse of Stolen Magic
>  by Europa
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Resurrection
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Multiverse


It is a place beyond space and time, yet bound by their laws. Here the eleven spacial dimensions are allowed to unfurl and do their work, creating undulating vast spaces, infinite volume in finite room. This place has always existed, and always shall. Its mass is infinite yet it does not collapse into a black hole, its energy unlimited yet it does not erupt into an inferno. There are no photons here, so it is deepest black. This is the multiverse.

In the multiuniversal void, the place between places, two universes approached. They were bloated, unimaginably large in scale, yet in the multiverse none of their size mattered. The two dead universes, long ago defeated by entropy, touched. Like two rippling sheets they touched, and where they did they stuck together. 

They continued to approach, the places where they were stuck rippling with possibilities. They touched more and more, until the spots of potential grew, and grew, and grew, and then...

The universes separated, gone to return to their googolplexes long lives. Where they had touched, the possibilities condensed into a point. That was the one time when matter was created, when something came from nothing. Incalculable power was generated in this universe, and the strength of its various forces and values of its constants were adjusted, influenced by the two that had birthed it. For a quadrillion years, the planck-density orb hovered in the multiuniversal void, gathering and stabilizing until...

It was not a sound. It was not a rush. It was not an explosion. But the tiny little orb grew, just a little bit. A tiny bit less hot, a tiny bit less dense. In the first planck time, nothing of note happened. The infant universe was ruled by a single, overarching force, which had little to no effect in the dense confines.

Planck time passed. The universe expanded a tiny bit and from the superforce, gravity and another split off. Its power would never be greater than then, with all matter and energy in this universe condensed into a space smaller than the atoms-to-come.

The universe continued to expand, and the superforce split again into the strong nuclear force and the electroweak force. Something was happening, but first, a variety of phase transitions occurred, breaking the uniform order into what would eventually grow into the universe's large scale structure. Then, the quarks formed out of the transitions, but not just quarks. A vast number of antiquarks also condensed out of the energy-laden universe. The temperatures zipped them around impossibly fast, and there was still not enough room to move in.

So they annihilated, and it was glorious. The surge of matter turning back into energy drove a wild cosmic inflation, the universe expanding unimaginably fast in only 10^–32 seconds. It was one hundred billion planck times since that universe's start. The explosion-like growth stopped, and normal expansion took over. Dark energy saturated the universe, but it would be billions of years before there was enough vacuum for it to show off its strength.

The early universe, a ten thousandth billionth billionth billionth of a second old, was a hot and cramped place, but structure could be found. In some places, quarks had dominated antiquarks by a small margin, and those areas would come to be filled with matter. In other places, antimatter would rule. In between those areas, in zones that would grow to be billions of light years wide, the two types of substance had nearly balanced each other out and left vast, gaping voids where they'd annihilated, serving to separate the matter portions of the universe from the antimatter portions.

Filaments of antimatter and matter formed under the guiding force of gravity, which would later become vast strings of galactic superclusters. In one little antimatter strand, there was a ripple in spacetime. A tiny little bit of multiuniversal instability and possibility left over from the two dead universes that had formed this one. It was smaller than a quark and fast as light, growing faster. It moved across the universe, waiting to collide with matter of sufficient density. In the meantime, the electroweak force split into the electric force and weak nuclear force.

It was a miracle it didn't collide with any antimatter on its way out, given how dense the early universe was. But it was also hot, and heat drove expansion, so all antimatter it may have interacted with simply moved out of the way. Eventually, it would leave that antimatter corner of the universe, fly faster than light through an obliteration void, and into a matter region. The potential flux would grow, to the size of an atom, a molecule, and eventually, to the size of a collapsed star, just waiting to collide with some form of matter to exert its abilities...


***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***



Cygnus X-1


For a very long time, nothing had happened.

For a very long time, nothing had happened, and that was just fine for Cygnus.

Really, she had had a good life. From the moment her protostar had burst into awareness she'd known her life wasn't going to be a long one. She wasn't a Rasalgethi, or Kepler-9, or even Betelgeuse. Barely more than one one hundreth of a cycle after her ignition, she'd run the length of her nuclear fusion and...

... she didn't like thinking about that. Gravitational collapse into a black hole was the most painful experience in the universe, and she'd gone through it. All that tainting iron in her very core, sapping her energy, then the shockwave and the explosion of nearly all her mass, and then what remained in her core shrunk and shrunk and shrunk, all the mass being compressed, smaller and smaller, until she was smaller than a proton, locked away behind her event horizon forever more. At least her consciousness was not impacted by time dilation, so she had that much.

It wasn't all that bad, after all. Now that she was a black hole, she was indestructible. She could not be shattered, she couldn't be gravitationally shredded. Even if another black hole absorbed her, all that would do was merge their awarenesses into one. Unless an orb of antimatter equal to her mass just happened to come flying by, only time would end her.

Her life had been short, but her afterlife promised to be very, very long.

The main downside was that she couldn't communicate with her companion, 226868 - he insisted on keeping the numbers Lord had given him - anymore. Any neutrino messages she sent out simply didn't get past her horizon, drawn back into herself. She could send nothing out to the universe, but the universe's light still got to her. As distorted as it was by her indomitable gravity, she was able to see the world around her, she could still hear her companion's messages. Endless silence wasn't exactly disturbing to her, but even a one-sided conversation was much preferable.

226868 was old as she was, and Cygnus was already dead. He was less massive, though, so his fusion would burn longer, especially since her own gravity was siphoning off plasma and cooling him. It was mutually beneficial, of course. His supernova would be delayed, and Cygnus's afterlife would extend.

'You have to wonder,' she heard Two-Two say. 'what exactly makes Sol so proud of his planet's organics? They're just organics, after all.'

Ugh, he was always on about Sol. Personally, Cygnus X-1 could not stand Sol. Always going on and on and on about how 'oh, I have eight planets, eight!' and 'I have both a planet and a planet's moon with organics. Do you have that, do you do you do you?'

Yellow idiot.

'Apparently some of his organics are starting to spread beyond their world of origin now, can you believe it? I hope he roasts them with a mass ejection. They get here while I'm still alive, I know I am.'

And if he wasn't alive when they reached their orbit, they'd both be black holes and thus indestructible. Beyond their comprehension, beyond their observation. She was a cosmic being, forever past their ability to envision and control.

Time passed. She and Two-Two spun around each other. Cygnus leeched plasma off of him. He burst forth with radiant light, shining through their small nook of the cosmos as he took hydrogen gas and made it heavier, made it more. He spoke of what was on his mind, and sometimes did not speak, and Cygnus - as if she could do anything else - listened. Her afterlife was good. Her afterlife was solid. It would extend into the long bleakness of the dying universe and she would be among those who saw her universe fall to unfathomable, featureless cold.

They rotated around, and around, and arou -







***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***


-nd!

Everything changed in an instant. One planck time she was in space, crushed by her own gravity, and then next planck time she was... she didn't even know! Everything was so wrong! The black hue of space was gone and her fellow stars had vanished. 226868's radiant blue light was replaced by the dim - but surprisingly painful to look at - light of a yellow star. The temperature was a confusing near-three hundred degrees, and nothing around her made any sense.

Before she could even begin to focus on that, however, a great emptiness manifested inside of Cygnus. She'd grown, she'd grown immensely from her subatomic size and her density had fallen dramatically as a result. But not only had her increased volume lowered her density, but her mass had also vanished! Compared to her immense quantity of matter-energy, she felt like barely a quark. And there was no gravity. None of her immense, space-time twisting black hole gravity, not even her pre-collapse gravity well. She herself exuded practically nothing and describing the field she was in as feeble would be generous. Something was shimmering everywhere.

Cygnus X-1 wasn't sure what had happened, but something terrible had happened. There weren't many things that could just obliterate a large portion of her mass like that, and the ones that could were either so rare as to be inconsequential, or locked firmly outside the universe.

The yawning emptiness was... growing. It spread outwards from her core and through her... protrusions?! She had protrusions? She wasn't a sphere anymore? Not even an oblate spheriod? She tried making sense of her new form, but she wasn't really able. And with a thought... she made part of herself move? How?

The emptiness was now a painful pressure, spreading through her. More, and more and...

She opened and breathed, the pressure vanishing. Gasses flooded into her mouth, cool, thin gasses of oxygen and nitrogen, which likely explained the blue of the sky. Cygnus instinctively began the methodical process of taking in gasses and pushing gasses back out. She wasn't entirely certain of her circumstances, but apparently doing so alleviated some of her discomfort so it was well.

Cygnus X-1 needed to take stock of her surroundings. She needed to know precisely what was wrong with her surroundings. She could move, and her vision was apparently only projected in a cone before her instead of a sphere around her. She needed to move her sight to take in all of her surroundings. The good news was, she could move.

Cygnus moved several of her 'limbs' before finding the one that housed her cone of vision and, apparently, her consciousness. Moving her 'head' around, she saw that she was in a corridor, with tall - compared to her at any rate, they were really quite tiny next to a star - structures on two sides. The yellow star was above her. The corridor ended in a wall at one end, but opened up on the other.

Could she move there? It was possible. First she had to figure out how. Her body had six limbs as far as she could tell, with bilateral symmetry, and the two closer to her head had smaller divisions. After some experimentation, she used her four lower limbs to push herself in opposition to her location's weak gravity. It was a surprisingly difficult task and it left her feeling... was the word tired? She'd only been tired once in her life, when iron accumulated in her core moments before her death, so it was hard to tell.

Once on all four limbs, she swayed and fell.

Cygnus grunted, but continued to breathe. The pain was minor. She pushed herself back up, but then she heard something. Strangely enough, what she heard was vibrations through the thin atmosphere, not the neutrino-speak of cosmic bodies, but it translated to her as noise. The noise was coming closer...


***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***



Vinur


Initially, he'd been out and about in the aerie to enjoy himself before going back home and getting accosted by his sister. Find a tavern, get a good beer in him - not that imported pony cider or minotaur wine - and retire to his house to enjoy his vacation in peace. But as he walked through the city, he heard somebird in the alleyway grunt in pain. Normally he wouldn't put a second thought to it, he wasn't a guard and he wasn't a doctor so it was none of his business. But his conscious screamed at him that somebird might be hurt. Maybe a nice hen who'd thank him, and they'd hit it off and...

Vinur was getting ahead of himself. He moved closer to the alley, flexing his talons in case somebird was dumb enough to attack him. It was squeezed between a candle shop and an ice sculptor shop, and as far as alleys in Piercing Sky went it was very clean. No trash decaying, no rats nesting, none of that nonsense. Just a nondescript corner with a pony struggling to her hooves.

Vinur's eyebrows shot up and he walked forward. Ponies in Piercing Sky weren't unheard of - vacationers or immigrants - but it was still quite rare. "Hello, are you alright?" The pony fell down again, and Vinur decided to get closer. He walked closer to the pony mare, and then his feathers rose, his fur bristled and his breath stopped when he realized that it was not a pony.

It had the body of a pony, for sure. A dark, murky brownish-red coat with a dark tail curling out of the back, hooves black as sin. Despite being large enough to be an adult or at least adolescent pony, there was no 'cutie mark' on the flank. Looking further made him realize why; he was standing before a centaur.

He'd heard the tales of Tirek, the monstrous demon who'd escaped Tartarus. How his silver tongue had reverted the serpent Discord back to his wicked ways, how he stripped an entire nation of its magic and would have gone to other nations if not for the return of the Elements of Harmony. He'd seen sketches of him as well, from weak and defenseless to the behemoth who trampled houses underhoof. What stood before him was undoubtedly a centaur, but also not Tirek.

Its smooth, hairless skin was similar in tone to its coat, a deep brick-brown, and it wore a black vest on its front covering what looked like two breasts. Her face was gaunt and sunken, somewhat rounded. The sclera was a deep black and the pupils - matching the theme of brown - were barely visible in them. Her mane was as black as her tail, messy and short, and the horns were nothing more than two stubs.

Vinur's first instinct was to run. He'd heard the stories, how each opponent Tirek faced simply added to his power, and they suddenly found him with everything and themselves with nothing. How each vanquished foe made the next obstacle that much easier to overcome, in a chain reaction that was nearly unstoppable.

But... this centaur wasn't Tirek. And more importantly, she wasn't draining his magic. She was collapsed to the ground in a tangle of hooves, staring up at him in confusion, utterly still save for the increasing pace of her breaths, and then a new scent reached his beak: fear.

He grinned. This centaur was... afraid. She was afraid of him for whatever reason. Perhaps her magic draining didn't work? If so, then now was his chance. The Griffon Empire had no Elements to defend itself, and by the time the pony Bearers arrived it may be too late. Vinur growled, and pounced.

In a smooth motion he reached the tiny centaur, slamming her sideways onto the ground. She twisted her torso to look up at him, but he grabbed her hands and pinned them on top of each other with one talon, then placed the other over her mouth to prevent any tricks. His amber eyes glared down at her strange, demonic ones and narrowed.

"I know about your kind," he snarled. "I know what you do, and I won't let it happen!" He tightened his grip on her hands, which were weakly moving under him. He felt the hooves scraping against the marble, so he put his lion paws on the centaur's flank to hold her down. He noticed that he'd punctured the hands, and there was some warm, dark brown mist seeping out of the wounds. Not even blood.

He pressed down harder. "I-I know about centaurs. Everybird knows what Tirek did to Equestria. I don't know how you got here, but I won't let you do it, I'll..." He'd what? Despite what some specist ponies and zebras said, griffons weren't monsters. He had hunted, he'd relished in the chase, but he'd never killed an intelligent being before. That would be murder! And now that a fiend was here beneath him, at his mercy, he found he couldn't do it. All he could do was meet her eyes, her confused, horrified eyes, and imagine himself in her position, the fear, the terror as death stared him in the face and Ancestors damn him he couldn't do it!

His nerve fled him all at once and he stumbled off the centaur, who shakily got to her hooves and looked at him. She opened her mouth.

This is it, he thought, icy terror gripping his body, suddenly understanding the magnitude of his mistake. My magic drained, my flight stripped. The beginning of the end...

But to Vinur's surprise, the demon didn't drain his griffon magic. Instead it made garbled noises. She started low and rose to a high pitch. She repeated that, then added clicks of the tongue, chirps, and various other noises. Eventually, the centaur seemed satisfied and looked at him. "I know about your kind," she said in a weak, shaking voice. "I know w-what you do, and I won't let it happen-n-n-n! I-I know abouuuut centaurs," she continued.

Vinur's eyes widened as the she-demon parroted everything he'd said, word for word, albeit with some distortion.

"You didn't drain me," he whispered.

"You diiiiidn't drain m-me," she repeated.

He frowned. This wasn't right. Centaurs were supposed to be evil, magic siphoning warlords bent on conquering the world.

Just like all griffons are bloodthirsty murderers or all ponies are simpering cowards that can't protect themselves, he thought to himself.

No, something about this situation was wrong. He approached the centaur, who backed up. He noticed that the brown mist was gone, and the wound his talons had left was similarly missing. A mystery for another day. "Can you understand me?" The centaur repeated it, and he sighed. "No, I suppose not." He brought a talon to his chest. "Me, Vinur."

The centaur brought her hand to her vest. "Me, Vinuuuur," she said.

"No," he snapped, reaching out and pulling her hand away. He pointed at himself. "Vinur." He held up a pebble. "Rock." Now a piece of paper laying around, with a poorly drawn map scrawled on it in damp pencil, likely a young chick's. "Paper." He pointed at the centaur.

She pointed at herself, but hesitated, then frowned. "No Vinur, no rock, no paper." She frowned. "No."

Alright, that was getting somewhere. She clearly didn't know Avian, so it was no surprise the centaur didn't speak her name. He tried briefly talking to her in Equestrian, but that got just as much mimicry as Avian did. This centaur... did she know any language?

A thought occurred to him. Did she know anything at all? Her motions weren't unlike that of a newly hatched cub. Mimicry of things she saw, a lack of knowledge. Nobird knew much about centaurs; until his discovery the only one known was Tirek, who came from an unknown land with an unknown background an unknown time ago. It was... it was entirely possible that the demons formed like this. Was he standing before a centaur cub? He suddenly felt nauseated about having even considered killing her. That just wasn't something you did.

What should he do? Logically, he should report this centaur to the guard. Let them handle her. Explain the situation, then leave it to them, and he'd go with a clean conscience. But... giving her over to the guard didn't set well with Vinur. She was a cub. That much was evident by her curious movements and noises. What other options did he have?

Leave her. Leave the demon to her own devices and wash his talons of the whole ordeal. What centaur? He'd never seen one before. And she would grow up confused, discover her powers on her own, and quite possibly fall into the same mannerisms Tirek had and it would all be his fault.

Or... take her with him. Train the centaur in the way of griffons, to use her powers for the good of the empire. To visit the savage Diamond Dog packs and steal their geomancy from them. To be the sword of the Empire, leading charges, utterly unstoppable. The golden age would come again.

... okay, maybe not that far, but training her to not use her powers for evil would certainly be a plus. Vinur could mold her in his image. Yes... yes that would be a great idea. Almost as great as turning it in to the guards.

He instantly scolded himself. What was he thinking?! Turning in a cub to the guards? Nothing short of cruelty, that.

Then again, I only think she's a cub.

But what other explanation was there? The only others were amnesia and the centaur playing dumb. Admittedly, if it was anything at all like Tirek that last one was possible, the one other centaur was known to use undertaloned tactics. Amnesia would be much the same in effect as the centaur being a child. Two out of three, not bad.

Taking her in it is.

Vinur realized that the entire time he'd been contemplating his next course of action, the centaur had been just... staring at him. He sighed, and he considered how to go about explaining to her to follow him.

He looked down at the scrap of paper he'd found in the alley, and held it up. With the point of one talon, he traced a very thin line in it, to showcase himself and the centaur, with arrows of motion describing her following him. Vinur showed her it, then she mimed following him with her hands.

He nodded. "Yes," he said simply, only for the centaur to immediately repeat it. Then he considered something else: how the blazes was he going to get this centaur back to his home without anybird seeing them? Sure, there weren't many griffons out and about at high noon, and even fewer in the air...

... oh.

Oh pluck, he was going to have to do that wasn't he?

A few minutes of explanations and parroted words later - it was surprisingly easy, she picked up words fast - he'd seated the centaur on his back. She wasn't that large, especially by griffon standards, and really she wasn't that heavy at all. It'd be a simple task to leap up from the alley, circle over to his home, and fly in without being seen. The higher he went, the less of a chance anybird would see the centaur thanks to the glare of the sun. He gave his wings a few experimental flaps, then began taking off.

The centaur suddenly wrapped her thin, weak arms around his neck to steady herself, bending his orange-tinted white feathers uncomfortably. Vinur tried to keep his flight as even as possible as he spiraled upwards into the sky, high above where anybird else would go. A few other griffons were out and about, but it was his hope that they were too far to see him as anything more than a speck. From so high up, he could see Piercing Sky laid out beneath him. It was arranged like a wheel, with the aerie hall in the middle, spokes coming out and interconnecting with many rings of various size. His home was near the outer edges. Having found the centaur somewhere around the 'middle' of the ring, he had quite a ways to go.

Still, he was quite proud of his flying endurance, and even with a passenger he made it in record time, spiraling down outside his home and motioning for his passenger to get off.

"Alright," he said, opening the door to his brick abode. "In you go." The centaur looked at him blankly, prompting him to facetalon. He made several urgent motions, and then the centaur seemed to comprehend.

"Alrrrright," she parroted. "In y-y-you go." She trotted inside slowly and carefully, her hooves causing an odd clip-clop sound on the marble tiles as she did so. He walked in after her, closing the door. Luckily, nobird had seen them.

"Alright," he said as they entered the living room. "Here you are, make yourself at home. Not too much at home but, yeah." He shook his head. "He said, as if the centaur understood him."

He walked what he hoped was a safe distance, and watched as the centaur meandered around his house. She trotted up to a shelf and pulled off his copy of Griffonian History... and immediately dropped it as the black tome proved too much for her weak muscles, prompting a light hiss from the centaur.

Vinur sighed and walked back over to her. If he was going to start teaching her Avian, now was a good time to start. He picked up the book with a talon. "Book." He placed it on the shelf and took off another novel, a pony fiction novel. "Book." He put that one back as well.

She reached out to one with her freaky, gangly arms, and touched one of them. "Book." She brushed her hand across the row. "Book book book book book book?"

"No. Books."

She ran her hand along them again. "Books."

"Good," he complimented. "Now, if we're going to be keeping you here, we need to - "

Knock knock knock!

"Gah!" he said, jumping. The centaur, startled, fell to her hooves with a light grunt and began to slow process of standing up again. "Plucker!" Without thinking he scooted under the centaur and stood up, resting her somewhat-steadily against his back, then darted out of the room into the next one; the kitchen. She remained silent but made weak, feeble motions in protest when he dropped her, made a motion to stay put, then darted back for the door, cursing at himself the entire way. His sister! Of course he forgot about his sister!

Vinur sprinted for the door and opened it, revealing the hen on the other side. Judging by the way her orange-tinted feathers were quivering, she was pissed. "Alright Vinur, that is the last time I cover for you at work just so you can go gallivanting around Piercing Sky! Do you have any idea how many Equestrians passed through here? You're lucky we didn't get something like Princess Twilight here on vacation!" That's my sister, always exaggerating. Gria pushed forward, but Vinur moved to block her. "What - "

"Look, sis, I appreciate your anger, but I'm busy!" he insisted with wide eyes.

"You know who else was busy?" she asked, pushing her exceptionally hooked beak into his straighter one. "Me, doing your share of tourist guide work while you decided to go play! What were you even doing that was so important?"

"None of your business!" he snapped back, pushing his beak into hers. He couldn't let her come in. If she found the centaur, Vinur knew he would have a lot of explaining to do and none of it would go over well with his older sister. "Why don't you get out of my face and buzz off?"

She growled low in her throat. "Oh, you're - "

Crash!

He froze and his eyes went small. I leave you alone for one minute, he hissed internally.

"What was that? Do you have company over?" Gria asked curiously, her previous anger forgotten. She leaned over his shoulder to try and see, but she saw nothing since the centaur was around a corner.

"No! I mean, no, I don't," he 'improvised'.

Gria didn't fall for it. "Vinur..." she asked slyly, raising a brow. "Do you have a henfriend over?"

Perfect. Roll with it. "No! No, nonono, why would you think that?" he said as nervously as he could.

She chuckled and stepped back, grinning. "Vinur, I didn't know you had it in you! I was starting to take you for a tiercel-tagger." He made to glower at her, but internally he was smiling. So far, she was buying it.

"Get out of my house," he snarled.

Gria chuckled and stepped back, raising a talon to him. "Hey, I get it bro, I get it. Anyway, since you're getting busy, don't let me keep you," she said with a wink.

"Go pluck yourself," he said evenly.

She spread her wings and cawed out a laugh. "Cute. Better get back in there, little bro. Don't wanna keep your hen waiting." Gria raised her right talons, and Vinur raised his left, holding hands with her. They did the same with the other hands. Gria lifted her right, Vinur lowered his right, they switched position, then they cawed at each other and let go, settling to the ground. She gave one more parting wink, then took off.

Once she was safely gone, Vinur slammed the door and slid down against it, letting a sigh of relief slowly seep out of his beak. That was too close. He'd have to be more careful with the centaur if he didn't want anybird to discover her, at least not yet. He liked to think he wasn't an idiot; no way he could keep her hidden forever, but long enough to get things together and at least teach her the damn language was a must. Maybe he could take out vacation time.

Vinur walked back to his kitchen to see what the centaur had done, and groaned. Apparently, she'd figured out how to jump, latch on to one of the cabinets lining the walls, and pulled the entire thing down on herself. The centaur laid in a pile of hooves, hands, and awkwardly confused looks from underneath a mountain of bags holding preserved jerky. One of his eyes twitched.

"I take you in out of the goodness of my heart, then not one minute of leaving you alone later, you go and do this?" he asked in that quiet tone of voice his boss used when he was furious at somebird. The pony-sized centaur simply looked at him blankly. They stared each other down for a long moment, and then...

"I t-take you in ouuuut of the goodness-s-s-s of my heart, then nottt one minute of leaving you alone laaaater, you go and d-d-do this?"

Vinur drew his left foreleg up into a facetalon, then slid it down carefully so as not to scratch himself. A strangled groan escaped his beak, transforming into a half-sob near the end. The enormity of the task he'd so stupidly undertaken squeezed his heart. "What am I going to do with you?"

The centaur didn't repeat him that time.
> Eidetic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------







Cygnus X-1


She was an organic.

She was an organic!

The thought repeated itself over and over in her mind, like a mandate of doom from the laws of physics themselves. Organic. She was... one of those little creatures. She'd never actually seen one herself, but the older and less massive stars had whispered of their existence, Sol especially, so Cygnus had some idea of what they were like. Tiny creatures of volatile molecules, self moving, self serving, brief and minuscule, forever struggling to hold off their disintegration by taking in various chemicals and excreting others. They didn't look at all like what she'd expected, and judging by how many planck lengths across she was, they were... smaller than she expected. And now she was one of them!

She'd gone through the abode of the winged organic almost in a daze, just a small part of her mind devoted to learning its language. Most of her consciousness was stuck in a loop of horror and denial. She didn't want to be an organic. She didn't want to admit it. She couldn't be one. She couldn't be made of flesh, filled with fluids and solids, stuck at a meager three hundred degrees. She couldn't, but she was! Cygnus could feel permanent, true death creeping up on her, the utter termination of all she was or could have been looming over sixty five powers of ten closer than it had prior.

She was terrified. Organs she didn't know the purpose of fluctuated in ways she wasn't sure but was fairly certain that weren't normal. She couldn't die here! Not like this! Not like one of these! She didn't want to die, not yet, not when her afterlife was supposed to have been so long!

How long did she have before failing? What was the organic's health? Cygnus didn't know and not knowing ate at her because for all her life she'd known everything she ever needed. All the laws of her universe and the multiverse beyond were hers to know. The names of Lords and Ladies far beyond her own Lord danced in her mind. But now? She knew nothing of what she needed. She was going to die here, alone and unknown, and - 

Get a grip, she told herself. Panicking will do you no good. You need to make use of these organics.

But that wouldn't work. She was just an organic! Cygnus was utterly impotent, trapped here on this planet who-knew how many light years from Two-Two...

That's not true! The laws of physics allow a method to return to form. You can use it. But was she going to live long enough to invoke those laws at all?

It was when the part Cygnus X-1's consciousness focused on the real world accidentally buried herself under strange rectangular prisms that she jolted back to focus on her situation. Clarity sparked within her like her first fusion reaction. It didn't matter how unlikely her success was. She had to try. And that meant first getting a firm grasp of what she'd need to do to keep her organic body alive. The winged organic with her had proven to be somewhat intelligent. The actual level of it was still questionable, but she could use it as a reference. Hopefully.

She focused on the organic, standing above her with a certain expression on its face. Anger. How did Cygnus know that? Was it organic instinct? Did organics even have instincts? If they did she'd have to pay close attention to them. She repeated its language with poor pronunciation - it had a language? - and made an effort to dislodge herself from the rubble. The surprisingly good smelling rubble.

... smelling?

The organic let out a sigh of atmosphere and moved over to her, using its grasping limbs to move the rubble off of her. Was this what solids felt like? Eugh. Once she was free, it moved a grasping limb to her right grasping limb and made a gesture. A moment later, Cygnus thought she understood and moved her own 'hand' there, and moved the fingers to try and grasp it.

The creature then pulled her up. Cygnus's limbs scrambled underneath her for a few seconds, clacking against the ground, but before too long she'd been hoisted into standing, a head and a half shorter than the feathered creature. Cygnus X-1 wavered a bit, but found her balance thanks to some innate sense of orientation, and stabilized.

"Alright, if you're gonna live here, rules!" She didn't understand a word of what it was saying. "No touching anything unless I tell you. No - "

"Books?" she asked. If these organics had a spoken language, then there was a slim chance they'd figured out recording. Sol had mentioned something like that recently; for all that insufferable gas ball couldn't stop talking about his organics, it seemed like it would come in handy for her now. If she could somehow gain access to their full language, then she could tell them what she needed and they would get it for her.

Assuming they decided to, of course. Organics not doing what she wanted them to could end up being a problem.

"Books," the organic repeated. The two sphere-like objects that she decided were how it saw rolled in their sockets. "You want books?"

She considered it for a moment. "Book," she corrected for singular. Cygnus pondered how to go about communicating it. She motioned to the organic and, with a hand, mimed it talking. Then she gestured to herself, mimed talking, and said, "No. Book?" she asked.

The organic pondered that for a moment, then nodded. It made a gesture to follow it and moved elsewhere in its nest. She followed after it clumsily, carefully putting one limb in front of the other with loud clip-clops, the pressure waves pounding against short, open protrusions from her head.

The room the organic lead her to was, she supposed, slightly different from the others, though she really wasn't in any position to judge them. There were a lot of thin, almost planar rectangular white sheets scattered about, with colored markings on them. Most of these sheets rested on some sort of elevated 'desk', and there were even smaller, cylinder-esque things in various colors.

"Okay, you pick up language pretty quick, let's see if you can't read." It grabbed one of the blank sheets and placed it on the floor, as well as one of the cylinders. The organic marked the paper with a strange, triangular symbol. It pointed at the symbol and made a cawing noise.

Cygnus stared at it.

It made the cawing sound again, tapping the symbol with more force, and comprehension dawned. Cygnus, with some difficulty, manipulated the gasses in her to produce the same cawing noise.

It nodded, then drew another symbol, and made a slightly different noise. She repeated it. Then it drew both the symbols next to each other, and combined the noises in order from left to right. Cygnus X-1 recalled those two noises being used as part of its language, and she understood what it was doing. Good. Exactly what she wanted it to, and she didn't even have to tell it directly to do so. Idly, almost without her say, Cygnus folded her non-grabbing limbs underneath her body and lowered herself to the ground.

The next symbol had a strange, hacking noise. Cygnus tried to replicate it, but then it felt like something got stuck in her neck. Her body convulsed lightly, inhaling and exhaling jerkily. The organic stepped around to her back and began hitting her on the back, which seemed to help clear up whatever irritation had taken place. "Easy, easy. Most non-griffons have trouble with that, don't feel too bad." She tried the noise again without success, though she only convulsed once and didn't need the organic's help to stop. On her next try, she got it. "Right, fast learner. Okay, next is the letter Krat."

The organic continued to bring her through the inscriptions, one by one, until she had learned thirty of them. Then it showed her some combinations of two or three symbols that lead to a different sound entirely. She had repeated trouble pronouncing them properly, however, so it stretched longer than it likely should have. Once it had showed her the ten combinations of such, it wrote a series of symbols.

"Vinur," it said, laying next to her and pointing to them.

Ah yes, that was its name, wasn't it? These organics named themselves. She repeated the name, her pronunciation slightly improved.

It gestured to her, as if to ask her name. Sadly she didn't know how her name would translate into the organics' language, so instead she responded with a negative, "No."

Vinur frowned, but said nothing. Instead, it produced a low rumbling noise and the expression on its face changed. She wondered what the source of the face change was. It stood up and motioned for her to do the same. It was still strange for Cygnus to send what felt like chemical signals through spindly limbs, watching them react and feeling their tiny sensory inputs change as she unfolded her limbs and rose to her full, minuscule height. Cygnus X-1 followed after the organic, slowly and carefully to avoid falling and damaging herself.

They made their way through a corridor, decorated with what she assumed were depictions of other places on the world she found herself on. They were in rather poor detail, if she had to be honest.

Eventually, the organic brought her to a larger room, connected to the one she'd almost injured herself in, with some wooden rectangle protruding from the middle, which in turn circular white objects and metallic weapons on its surface. Vinur made a motion that she interpreted as 'stay in place'. For a moment Cygnus felt anger rise from her depths at the prospect of being told what to do by an organic, but she suppressed it. She was out of her depths on this world. While she was unfathomably knowledgeable about the workings of reality, that did not mean she knew how these organics worked.

She stopped before one of the white circles, looking down at it and wondering what the weapons were for. Meanwhile, the organic went elsewhere and rummaged through what Cygnus assumed were containers. She watched it carefully, intrigued as Vinur emerged with reddish slabs of solid in its grasp. It put them in another box, which glowed for a few moments, and then he retrieved them, pinching the two lightly. It spread its wings and flew towards her, careful not to hit the ceiling, and landed near her. It put one of the reddish slabs on her white, circular plate, and the other one to another plate, which it sat next to.

Cygnus watched it sit in interest. Its forelimbs remained extended, but the hind ones folded so that Vinur's back sloped downwards. Curious. If the organic sat that way, it was possibly more comfortable. Normally, the two main sections of Cygnus's organic form seemed to produce about a half-pi radian angle with each other - more or less - but when she attempted Vinur's method of sitting, her back half sliiiid down to an angle of about five-pi-sixths radians. Being shorter than the organic, she had some trouble viewing the table and her hind limbs almost slipped on the smooth floor thanks to their equally smooth surfaces, but she got herself acclimated and stared at the red slab.

It was fairly irregular in two dimensions, somewhat like the Magellanic Clouds, but its depth was smooth and even. There was some sort of... aroma drifting off of it like stellar wind. Cygnus could feel it triggering something in the beakish protrusion on her face, the one with two holes, and dihydrogen monoxide spilled into her mouth. She lightly touched it with one of her brown hands; it yielded slightly, and Cygnus felt moisture gather on her surface. She drew the hand away and looked at Vinur, unsure as to what she was supposed to do with this new object. Rub it on her face and absorb it through her surface?

It sighed. "You don't really know anything, do you? Okay, watch me." It took the weapons into its grasp and stuck the multi-pronged one perpendicular into the slab, and used the other to separate a small part of the item. Cygnus X-1 paid close attention to the movement Vinur's limbs used, and repeated it. With some difficulty, she cut a small part off of her incredibly smelling blob.

"Good, good. Now, do this." While Cygnus was busy repeating what it said, it took the strip it had cut off and put it in itself. It moved its 'mouth' up and down repeatedly, and then made a strange sound. Cygnus saw something - presumably what it had put in - slide down its throat and seemingly vanish.

Was... that how organics were supposed to eat?

Cygnus grabbed the strip she'd cut off. Despite being only a few degrees hotter, it was warm to the touch. She dropped it into her own mouth and oooh.

What was that? It was incredible. Sensations she didn't know how to describe flooded her awareness, magnified trillions of times to accommodate her vast consciousness. It was joy, it was happiness, it was fulfillment. It seemed to come from a muscle in her mouth that she could move around at will, and Cygnus X-1 felt even more liquid flood into her mouth.

She tried to replicate what Vinur did, and discovered that her mouth housed two sets of hardened structures. She discovered she could cut the 'food' into smaller bits, and spent some time doing that under the organic's full attention. What did she do then? Move it lower? Cygnus pondered how to do that and, once she had a good idea, took a deep breath to get the food down.

Hrk.

The sound of her breathing in cut out as abruptly as it started and a terrible sensation started rising from her core, the same pressure as before. Vinur looked at her curiously, then shouted. "Rotten feathers, you did!" It got out of its seat and moved around to her back, wrapping its forelegs around her.

Fear descended on Cygnus X-1 like a hydrogen cloud. What had she just done? Things felt wrong. Why did they feel wrong?! She'd done exactly what Vinur did so why was she feeling like this? Was this how she was going to die?! She kept trying to get gasses moving in and out of her, that was what she needed to do to alleviate the pressure but it wasn't working!

"Come on, how did this go? Um... this?" it asked. Vinur moved its grasping limbs against the middle of Cygnus's upper body, then pushed against her once, twice, and a third time.

Cygnus X-1 experienced an unpleasant sensation as something inside of her moved up, she felt part of her insides become gaseous for just a moment, and she reflexively spat out something in her mouth. Gasses began moving in her properly, and the pressure faded. Whatever Vinur did, the food she'd eaten came out and landed on the plate, a pile of red mush that didn't look nearly as... desirable as it had before.

Vinur let go and stepped before her, shaking its head. "No," it said, took a deep breath, and repeated the word 'no'. It held up what remained of its own food and repeated the swallowing motion, and said a new word. "Yes."

Yes? So that was the word for positive? Good to know.

A few more motions later, and an up close visual of how organics 'swallowed', Cygnus had a better idea of how to eat as an organic. It was ridiculous, though. Eating, breathing, and communicating through the same hole? That was just a recipe for disaster. Still, she cut another piece from her food, relished in the sensation it sent through her 'tongue', and once it was sufficiently chewed up she carefully swallowed. She felt the wet solid slide down her throat, but no pain came.

After a pause, she decided she'd figured out eating, and methodically finished the rest of her food. At one point Vinur brought her a container holding what appeared to be dihydrogen monoxide, and she 'swallowed' it the same way she had the food. The liquid was cool and rejuvenating as it went down, soothing an ache she didn't realize existed. She finished in about fifty percent more time than her organic host did. After that she stood from where she sat and followed it back to the room with books, whatever they were.

Now that she had some idea as to what the organics' language was like, she could read the inscriptions on the side of the books. High Talon Torekk, Old Tiercel's War, To Serve Equestrians, and a particularly thick one labeled Dictionary of Avian, circa 2495 AD. If only she knew what any of it meant. "Anything in particular you might want to read? Not like you'd know what any of it means..."

Cygnus's grasping limbs moved across the books, and she decided on the thick one, grabbing it with both limbs and pulling it out.

... trying to pull it out. It was too massive for her organic form to move easily. Slowly it started to edge out, but before she could succeed Vinur stepped in, pushed her aside and with seemingly no effort pulled it out in one grasping limb. It motioned for her to follow, and she did, right back into the same room where the winged organic had shown her what she assumed was its kind's language in most basic form.

She wondered why it wanted her there.

It placed the book on the ground, facing up to show its unknowable title to Cygnus X-1. Sitting down, she reached out a limb and felt around.

Interesting. It appeared the book was made of many smaller quadrilaterals, arranged on top of each other and held together by an as-yet unknown mechanism. She gripped the thicker, top layer, and moved it up and over to the side in a circular arc, revealing small symbols on the book's inner surface. Cygnus started flipping through, seeing tiny symbols in bold, with a much larger number of non-bold symbols next to them. The bold ones went in a progression, and there seemed to be an order as to how they were arranged...

A list! she realized. This book was a list of words the organics had. The information it held was invaluable to her; establishing a method of communication with the organics was her highest priority, next to keeping her body intact long enough to return. She began moving through the book, looking at each page once and then moving on.

Vinur made an odd sound. "Are you seriously reading the dictionary? Look, whoever you are, you're not going to learn anything from this. Especially not if you don't actually read any of - forget it. I'll chalk it up to a centaur thing. You just... stay there, I'm going out for a flight. No, can't leave her alone. I'm gonna just, be around I guess and you don't understand a word I'm saying do you?" She looked up at it, then back to the dictionary. "Didn't think so." It left, leaving Cygnus to her memorization.

Astute, Bag, Bite... Cygnus read through them quickly, analyzing what must've been definitions and storing the sequences away in her unfathomable memory. It relieved her to know that despite being some three hundred octillion times less massive, her mind was untouched by her transformation and dislocation. She continued the monotonous movement of flipping rectangular slices over and over again.

Dapper, Dictionary, hmm, that's also in the title of this book. Dumb, Eager... Cygnus did have a problem, of course. Her current knowledge of the organic language was terribly limited, so while she was making short work of the book she anticipated difficulty arranging the symbols into anything meaningful. She expected there would be a cascade; the more terms she knew the more easily she could decipher other terms. And then again, she had multiple samples of Vinur speaking as a base, so she was reasonably confident in her ability to piece together their language

Xenophilia, Xenophobia, Xylophone...

Before too long, Cygnus finished up her scanning and closed the heavy book. Now all she needed to do was arrange it into something like a language. Most of the words and their - presumably - definitions were indecipherable to her, but that wouldn't be the case for much longer...

If. The. Understand. To. The words circled around in her mind, complete with diagrams next to them. Shared words between definitions branched outwards and back together, looping around and around. Hundreds of terms she didn't know about, such as Art, Murder, Government and many others orbited her. She tried to imagine them, and came up with what were no doubt cheap replicas of their true forms. And she had a sneaking suspicion about the power they called magic.

One word in particular perturbed her; grammar. She had some idea of how to construct sentences in the organic's language, Avian, but she wanted perfection and the dictionary was lacking. Cygnus needed to find Vinur and ask him (Him! The organics had genders) to speak to her a great many sentences.

Or maybe Vinur was a her. But she'd randomized it to 'him'.

Cygnus drew herself up onto all four hooves and left the dictionary behind, heading off the explore the area. By which she meant Vinur's house. She looked into the dining room, then into the nearby kitchen. So many terms, all of which came to her as she navigated the hallways. Plates. Dishes. Cerut steak. It took some time to find Vinur, during which she went through the living room, past paintings. She also spotted a window out into the area beyond Vinur's brick house, and found herself staring outside.

Outside of the window, it was dark. The structures built by the griffon-organics didn't interest her, but the sky did. It was so black, but the stars were unfamiliar and the galaxy structure indicated a spiral galaxy. They shimmered and twinkled in the sky, so close she could touch them, talk to them, ask them for help.

But she couldn't. Cygnus X-1 was on her own. She moved on from the window.

She found Vinur sprawled out on a blue bed wrapped up in sheets with his beak puncturing a relatively small hole in the down-filled pillows. She carefully trotted to his side, almost losing her balance several times. She was short compared to the bed, so she had to rear up and put her forehooves on the mattress to comfortably see the organic who had so generously taken her in.

"Vinur," she said, looking at him. He was turned towards her, breathing slower and more evenly than when she last saw him. Both eyes were closed, fascinating eyelids securely hiding them from visible light inspection. What was he doing?

The word sleep came to mind, and it prompted Cygnus to frown, the motion coming instinctively when she was unhappy. She could wake him up, but there had also been mentions of drowsiness and such in the dictionary. She didn't think Vinur had enough mind power to use proper grammar for her to learn right after waking up. She needed another source of grammar.

She found her way back into the living room, to one of the bookshelves. She looked through its selection of literature and decided she'd start at the top. The shelf was too tall for her to reach the highest books, so she reared up and braced her forehooves against it to elevate her upper body and reach just a little higher. Once that was done, she plucked the first book and settled back down.

Cygnus X-1 cracked open 101 Fantastic Recipes for Omnivores and sat down to begin perusing it, flipping through page after page. Once she was done with that, she placed it back and pulled out the next book, and then the next book, and then the next book.

The organic had exactly two hundred fifty seven reachable books across two bookshelves, some thicker than others. Quite a few were too heavy for her feeble organic form to lift, so pulling them out of place was an exhaustive process, and exhaustion was a relatively new experience that she was not taken with. Especially once they were far enough out and crashed to the ground, her form too weak to fight even the planet's pitiful gravity. But despite those problems she kept reading, devouring every word she could get her hands on. Steadily, Cygnus formed a more complete picture of the Avian language. 

As the hours passed by and the books she had left dwindled, the ex-star was aware of two things. One, there were quite a few books she was too weak to place back, so she arranged them in a ring around herself. Two, there was a slight prickling sensation behind her eyelids. Was it exhaustion? No, she knew what that was like, and what she felt was different. A lack of sleep, perhaps? Did Cygnus X-1 need sleep at all? After all, she did not look favorably on the idea of spending a third of her time as an organic completely helpless. Still, the sensation accumulated as time went on, quite rapidly in fact, making Cygnus's vision blur and forcing her to occasionally take deep, yawning breaths against her will.

But it didn't accumulate as fast as she could go through the books, and it did nothing to impair her memory directly, or so she hoped. The books, both fiction and nonfiction, gave her a good insight into some things the dictionary hadn't covered, with the most recent of events being the return of the so-called Crystal Empire. She kept reading and reading, and by the time Cygnus finished the two hundred and fifty seventh book her head was lolling in all directions. Her eyes stung and she felt a terrible sensation inside of her that she deemed close to 'nausea'.

Cygnus put back the last book, a fiction book titled 'The Last Seapony' and, when she turned around, tripped over her own hooves and fell to the ground. She breathed out a little heavier, but found herself unwilling to push herself back up. 

The feelings that she was almost certain came from a lack of 'sleep' suddenly magnified themselves. She laid on her side and rested her head against the floor. Cygnus X-1 closed her eyes - 


***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***


- and opened them. For a moment Cygnus was startled. Where was she? She felt so unmassive, and HD 226868 was gone and it wasn't dark and her gravity was gone - then she remembered. The sudden, inexplicable transformation. The griffon. Reading through its, his books to gain a firm understanding of his language, the knowledge of which seemed more refined after sleeping. Nearly suffocating herself on meat. Being stranded, all on her own.

Cygnus frowned and made an effort to stand. Her legs were stiff and she had trouble untangling them from where they'd fallen when she fell asleep. While the symptoms from her reading escapade were gone, confirming that it had been a lack of sleep causing them, but now there was a strange lethargy surrounding her thoughts and something in the corner of her eyes. Cygnus lifted her hands and rubbed them, flicking strange gunk away.

As she pulled herself to her hooves, the feelings faded away quickly. She had done it. She knew Avian now, and a fair bit about the world she found herself upon. She could begin finding a way home, but it was a difficult task. There was a great many things she'd need to do, not the least of which was harnessing the greatest magic on the world for herself. Then she needed to design an array that would send her back properly, and do it. All easier said than done, unfortunately. Her organic body may yet have unpleasant surprises.

Cygnus X-1 wandered to a window and looked outside. The sky was that abominable shade of blue that reminded her of where she was, and the yellow star was low on the horizon. Griffons walked and flew around, all in different colors, shapes and sizes, but adhering to a general body structure. She pulled away after a second to take in the scene and looked herself over.

What organic had she become? She'd seen a few illustrations of the 'ponies' and 'zebras' in Vinur's books, and her lower body seemed fairly similar, but her upper body was vastly different, more akin to the 'minotaurs'. Perhaps she was unique? Not out of the question, she was a cosmic being after all. She was also fairly certain that her 'unique pony minotaur organic' body was both hungry and thirsty. Cygnus set off for the kitchen.

Once she was there, she pondered on how to produce the slabs of meat that Vinur had. She spotted the box he had taken them from, so she tried to reach into it. After some investigation, Cygnus found it relied on a latch to open part of itself, which revealed a large amount of 'meat' food and glowing blue markings along the inside. She reached in, surprised when her grasping limb's temperature dropped a few degrees, and that those few degrees were enough to make her feel cold. The word hypothermia sprung to mind, and she was quick with her actions.

She pulled out a single piece of 'Cerut Steak' and carried it to the box that the organic had probably used to warm it. Cygnus X-1 nearly dropped it in the process, but she threw it in and paused to consider how to operate it, or for how long to keep the steak inside.

The definitions she'd read meant that the box before her was almost certainly a microwave oven, which was great insight into its function. Vinur had heated two such slabs at the same time, to a specific temperature, using electromagnetic radiation. Cygnus ran the numbers in her mind, and figured out how long she'd need to heat one slab to that same temperature. She converted the planck time into seconds, put the slab in, and manipulated the dials whose labels she now could understand.

A little over a minute later she pulled out the meat, wincing when it almost burned her hands in addition to how paradoxically heavy it was. She returned to the table - now clear of dishes and utensils - and sat down. A few unhinged drawers later, Cygnus found the knives and forks, so using those she began to eat.

The food felt just as remarkable going down her throat as it had last time. There was, however, the problem that she hadn't paid attention to where the organic had gotten dihydrogen monoxide from for her to drink, so it left her throat feeling painful, thirsty. 

While the former black hole pondered how to go about rectifying the problem, she heard something moving behind her. She carefully maneuvered her hooves around to see the organic, Vinur, approaching. One talon was raised to his eyes, rubbing them. "Oh, you're up already?" He yawned. "Early riser, huh? Or maybe I just slept in. Yeah, that's probably it." He sniffed, gave Cygnus a strange look, and meandered past her.

That's one solution, she thought. Cygnus spent a moment searching for the words and calling up the pronunciation. "I require dihydrogen monoxide."

The organic squawked and spread his wings, hitting them against the wall. He tumbled forwards, fell, then turned around to face her with wide eyes. "You what?!"

"Dihydrogen monoxide," she repeated. "If I am not mistaken, you know it as water. I require water, and do not know where you keep it."

"You're talking," he said quietly. "In complete sentences. What the pluck? Yesterday you could barely even say three words, now you're using, I don't know, chemical formulae?"

"I developed a firm grasp of Avian, thanks to your..." She searched briefly for the word. "... hospitality."

"You expect me to believe you learned an entire language." With each phrase, his pupils and irises contracted a little more.

"Yes."

"From scratch." 

For a moment Cygnus X-1 was confused, but put together the context of the statement and realized from scratch meant from nothing. "Yes."

"Overnight."

"Yes."

"Why would you think I'd believe that?! How did you just learn an entire language in the time it takes me to sleep in?"

"I read your books."

He raised a brow, coming closer to her. Vinur was taller than her, so she had to look up to maintain eye contact. "Which one?"

"Ones. Plural. Specifically, I read the books I could reach, all two hundred fifty seven of them, plus the dictionary." Vinur's beak opened weakly and a wheezing noise came from the organic's throat. "I require dihydrogen monoxide," she repeated.

"Whoa whoa whoa, back up!" She didn't step backwards. "You expect me to believe that over last night you read over two hundred books, and memorized them so efficiently that you learned Avian from it? That sort of memory just doesn't exist!" He was breathing heavily and quickly.

What? Cygnus X-1 felt an eyebrow raise itself on its own. "You mean to tell me that such easy feats of memory are unheard of on this world?"

He nodded, and started rummaging through shelves that Cygnus couldn't reach, pulling out a large container filled with dihydrogen monoxide, a glass, and poured some into said glass. "Yes, they don't happen. I mean, photographic memory's not, I mean, unheard of, but it's pretty rare, and never on this sort of scale." He held out the water to Cygnus, which she grasped and eagerly drank.

"I see." She put the empty cup on the floor.

Vinur was quiet for a while, staring at her. She returned the stare. "This throws out that theory. Amnesia, I guess?" he muttered, then looked intently at her. "Well anyway thank you for, um, not draining me."

That was odd. "Draining you of what?" she asked curiously. And he thought she had amnesia? Which theory was the one he discarded?

"Nothing!" he shouted, backing up and raising his left talon. "Nothing at all!" He sniffed again. "So you made yourself breakfast?"

"I ate recently," she said. "But what was that about draining?"

Strangely, Vinur's eyes flicked left and right. "Drain... my funds. When I took you in, I thought you were going to cost a lot more to keep safe than you did." Oh. It made sense, given the organics' method of assigning value based on scarcity. But...

"Keep me safe?"

He tapped his talons against the ground. "Well, you know, considering you're a centaur and all that. I mean, eventually I'll have to - "

With him calling her a centaur, Cygnus X-1 got an idea and said, "Stop. If you're going to keep me here, you'll need to know a few things to ease the process and minimize problems."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Let's move somewhere where you'll be comfortable, this may be a long story."
> Seeing Stars
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------







Vinur


"This may be a long story."

If Vinur didn't know better, he would've sworn he was dreaming. The centaur was talking to him, in complete sentences too. Just yesterday she'd been all but impossible to communicate with, and now she was effortlessly saying things even he didn't know about; dihydrogen monoxide was water? And when the centaur claimed not to know about draining? That had been a near miss. It at least explained why she hadn't drained his magic for her own. Oh, and the whole plucking 'I learned an entire language in a night' nonsense!

He didn't know what to believe. Was the centaur just playing dumb? Why? What possible purpose could it have for doing that? And if so, why would she tip her talons, er, hand, that she suddenly knew Avian? Was she telling the truth, that a random centaur had the greatest memory in the world? Was it something shared by all centaurs, centaur females, or just the one? Vinur didn't know, and even as she spoke those six words he reeled around, second guessing himself, triple guessing...

"Okay, if it's long then we should probably go to the living room." Vinur urged the centaur to go first; he suddenly felt a lot less comfortable letting her behind him. He followed her, watching the way she walked; he noticed that she didn't wobble on her hooves nearly as much as she had before. He blinked when they reached the living room; about twelve of the thicker books he had bought and then promptly never read were arranged in a circle around a spot before the bookshelves.

Vinur's living room was a nice, welcoming little place if he did say so himself. He'd painted the walls a pale tan and, to compensate for the lack of windows, installed a fireplace and several wilderness pieces by his favorite artists. It was well furnished as well, with couches and soft chairs, covered in leather tough enough to avoid being punctured by talon and claw alike.

"Take a seat, I guess, if you're comfortable that way." The centaur paused a moment, then moved to a brown chair and sat on it. Since it made her equine half slope downwards while her upper body remained upright, it gave her the illusion of being taller than she actually was. Vinur went to rest on his sofa, extending his body like a cat and popping his joints. "Alright, so, whenever you're ready begin with the 'long story'," he declared, keeping an eye on the centaur. If she tried to drain his magic, the plan was to dive behind the sofa to break line of sight. Assuming that even worked.

"You called me a centaur earlier, correct?" He nodded. "This is not my original form. A force I have yet to determine the nature of what took me from my natural form and transformed me into this."

He nodded again. "Alright, that's not out of the realm of possibility. Transformation magic exists, and it's not ridiculous that you could be hexed when your back was turned. But then why dump you in the middle of an alley?"

"All in due time. Now, from what I observed of this place my transformation is the last part of this that may be easy to accept. As for the next, I am not originally from this world. My kind have phenomenal memories, compared to you at least, and it is to my great relief that my mind at least remained intact while my body did not."

Vinur's eyes widened. "You're an alien."

The centaur tilted her head and frowned slightly. "I am not certain, given my true form, that alien is the proper definition, but I suppose it is close enough for now."

Vinur crossed his talons over one another. "Prove it."

"How common are the traits I've displayed among centaurs?"

"Well there's only been one other, so I wouldn't know. Especially since he never stepped hoof in the Griffon Empire."

In response to that, the centaur crossed her arms over one another. "So then how do you expect me to prove my extraterrestrial origins, if any trait I display you can simply write off as a trait of centaurs you are not aware of?" Vinur opened his mouth, then closed it. "Do you believe me?"

"You have to understand that this is pretty hard to swallow. I'm more inclined to believe you're lying to me."

"What motive would I have?"

"I don't know!" he said in exasperation. "It's not as if you'd tell me if it were anything malicious!"

"Then if you don't believe me, I'm sure you'll have no trouble with me telling you what my kind are?"

"Fine, fine, go ahead." No matter what she said, it couldn't possibly be more outlandish than 'I am an alien from another world with impossible memory transformed into a centaur.' Though Vinur did wonder how he'd expected her to prove her story.

"In my natural form, I am a star."

Aaaaand it got even more ridiculous, he thought. Vinur stared at the centaur for a long moment, sighed, and facetaloned. Once done, he said, "Alright, somewhere along the way things have gone terribly wrong. Let's start from the very beginning. Hi, I'm Vinur, and I've decided to take you into my home until we can find out where you're supposed to be living. What's your name?"

The centaur paused for a few seconds. Eventually, she said, "My name, by closest translation to Avian, is Cygnus X-1. It's a poor translation."

What a name. "Okay. Cygnus - can I call you Cygnus?"

"I suppose," she said with no inflection on her voice.

"Great! So Cygnus, you appear to be a centaur. The only other centaur who I know of was named Tirek." He watched for any change in expression on Cygnus's face that would betray connection to Tirek. There was nothing. "He was very much disliked for trying to cause harm to and then conquer an allied species of my species."

"The minotaurs?" she guessed.

"No, actually it was the ponies. He probably would've gone for them eventually, though. He's not a threat anymore, but you're the only other centaur known, so I'm more than a little suspicious about your motives."

Cygnus nodded stiffly. "I see." 

He continued. "But that's enough about Tirek, where are you from? I'm from Piercing Sky, which is where we are now. Hatched and raised," he said proudly.

"I am originally a star, from the galaxy around Lord Sagittarius A-star. I do not know how I was transformed into a centaur or brought here," she said.

Aaaand we're back to this craziness. "Well you see, that makes no sense, because stars aren't alive."

The centaur's face changed in a flash, black eyebrows narrowing and her brown spot of an iris/pupil gleaming slightly. "What?" she growled. "I assure you, we are very much alive. Far more alive than your kind, organic," she said, nearly spitting the last word.

Vinur saw three options: Cygnus X-1 was either deep into the lie, genuinely believed she was a winds-damned star, or she... truly was one. "Listen, I can see you feel strongly about this, but try to see it from my perspective. There is literally no evidence that stars are alive."

Cygnus frowned. "None?" She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at her again. "Well, that's unfortunate for you. To know so little that you do not even realize how we watch the cosmos."

He had the vague impression that the centaur had called him stupid, but besides a slight clenching of his talons and extra bite to his voice he expressed nothing. "Oh? Well then why don't you show me? Explain how something without cells can survive. Explain to me how points of light unimaginably far from the world can possibly think!"

She paused for a few seconds. For a moment Vinur thought he'd gotten through to her, and then, "What happened to Tirek when he was wounded? Did it scar? Heal quickly?"

He had a bad feeling of where the conversation was going. "I don't recall Tirek ever being wounded at all, the stories weren't exactly that detailed - "

"Can you make a good estimate as to what would happen to him, were he wounded?" she asked with no pause.

Vinur sighed, clicking his beak once. "He probably would've bled, or something."

"Then let me show you some evidence." After some fiddling with her legs, the centaur got off the chair and cantered into the kitchen. Vinur got up and followed her, watching as she found a steak knife and faced him. He fanned out his wings, bracing for an attack. "You already saw this early when you pinned me upon first encounter. A reminder seems to be required." She held out her left hand, palm up, and with her right hand cut a shallow gash along it.

Vinur didn't move, he felt as though he'd been frozen. He wheezed out the breath in his lungs and his heart clenched in terror as he gazed upon the long cut on Cygnus's palm, oozing blood and - where was the blood?!

His protests caught in his throat. From the long cut came a dark mist, the same brick-brown of Cygnus's eyes, skin, and fur. It seeped out a fair distance, spilling out from the centaur's hands and wafting down to the ground. However, even as Vinur watched, the mist slowed down its fall and slowly, over the course of a few minutes, drew itself back up and into Cygnus X-1's wound, which healed itself as more and more of the mystery gas sluggishly pulled itself back in. Even as it did, it warmed up the air tremendously, to the point where it felt like summer instead of winter.

He'd seen entrails and freshly spilled blood on his hunts, yet for some reason that display made him want to throw up his stomach's nonexistent contents. Vinur looked up at Cygnus's unnatural, dark eyes with an open beak. "Is this," she asked. "something that anything on this world does? Judging from your books, I doubt it."

"Aaaah," he creaked. "Here's what's going to happen. I need to eat a good, hearty breakfast, and take some time to think over what the pluck I just saw. I don't want you to disturb me so just... entertain yourself or something. Preferably away from my sight, but still within this house. I'll come get you when I'm ready."

While Cygnus X-1 stared at him, long and hard, he took the knife from her, prepared a ham sandwich for himself, then went to sit down at his dining table. Eventually, the centaur clip-clopped her way back to the living room, leaving Vinur to eat in peace.

But while she wasn't actively disturbing him, what she'd just done continued to freak him out. Mist. Cygnus X-1 bled a scorching hot mist. And regenerated. Not too fast, given how it took her minutes to heal what amounted to a large papercut, but compared to others it was still impossibly fast! He was in way over his head. Before, he'd thought he sort of could help her. After all, she'd just been a poor little cub, alone in the world. Now though, Vinur's head spun even as he shoveled food into it.

A star. Cygnus X-1 was a star. Or so she claimed. It would've been so easy to claim she was simply playing dumb earlier, and now that she'd built some sympathy with him she was escalating her plans. That had to be what was happening, except she'd been genuinely curious when he mentioned her not draining him. That at least had been a genuine reaction. Or she was a good actor. It felt like he could do nothing but chase his own tail until he felt lightheaded.

The only way 'out' of the circle was to believe Cygnus's story, but that was... that was absurd! A star. Stars weren't alive, were they? No, they weren't. They'd know if they were.

Despite none of them having ever spoken with one.

Because there was nothing to speak to!

Besides, everybird knew that for life you needed to have, he didn't know, cells and other things like that.

And grounded species had once believed the world to be flat.

That didn't prove anything. And that mist trick could just be some sort of complex magic. Vinur certainly wasn't an expert in thaumatology, so he wouldn't know. But weren't stars made of gasses? The ponies' leader, Princess Celestia, had confirmed that much for the international science community. But Cygnus X-1 wasn't a star. Even if she was telling the truth and had been in the past, she wasn't one anymore, so it was more likely than not some weird magic. Or maybe that was even normal for centaurs.

Or she was just crazy.

Vinur finished eating and let his face fall against the table. Rrrgh! I'm never going to figure this out! All he was doing was going in circles, but by his own he was never going to figure out the enigma that was Cygnus. He needed a second opinion. He needed help. But how was he going to get help if Cygnus was in his house? He couldn't just leave her alone!

... or could he?

Vinur backed away from the dining table with a flap of half-extended wings, wheeled around on his hind paws, and sprinted for the living room. Cygnus stood in the middle and had her hands up to her face and was inspecting the fingers, moving them like trees in the wind. However, she was still the size of the average pony, which was to say, rather short. Vinur easily grabbed her under the arms with his talons and hoisted her up; griffon homes were naturally designed to allow some degree of flight, so he had plenty of room.

Cygnus squirmed weakly in his grip but, as he expected, she was far too weak to actually do anything. Vinur flew to his bedroom and plopped her down on his bed. He winged over to some shelves, mostly empty, and grasped the key at their top in his talons. He landed and, before Cygnus X-1 could leave the bedroom he left, closed the door, locked it, then ran out of his house, closed the door, and locked that as well. He took off to the skies, ignoring the looks everybird else gave him in his rush.

The sky was clear and the sun beat down with terrible intensity, but in spite of - or perhaps to spite it - the air was as frigid as it always was in the mountains. Vinur flew past the aerie square, past his parents' house, and soon came across his sister's. 

It was two stories tall - which was more than he could say about his own - and had open balconies where guests could fly in if they didn't want to take the stairs to the second floor. That was all he could see from the outside, but he landed and, key to his house clenched in one talon, began rapping on the door as hard as he could with the other.

The door opened inwards, revealing Gria with a scowl on her beak. "Oh what now?" she demanded.

"Sis, I need your help," he said with deadly seriousness. "Can I come in?"

He must've communicated his distress well, because the sneer melted off her face and she stepped aside. "Yeah, come on in, bro. Don't freeze your tail off." Out of reflex, he flicked his lion tail at the mention. He went in, and Gria shut the door behind him. "Sheesh, you look like Tartarus. What's eating you?" she asked, falling to his side.

"I plucked up," he said simply. "Alright, I'll start at the beginning. So I was out walking, right? I passed one of the cleaner alleys and I heard somebird inside grunt. Figured hey, they're hurt, maybe I should help them out."

"I follow you so far," she said. "Heard somebird in trouble, went to help them. I'm proud of you, bro. Hey come on, lets sit." She led him to her living room. Evidently her tiercelfriend was out, so the house was just theirs. The living room was large and warm, painted with fiery colors of all sorts. Whereas he had well-stocked bookshelves meant to make himself look well-read - to be honest, he'd read some of them in his downtime - his sister and Koril had gone overboard with the paintings, especially the yellow-dominated zebra paintings.

She led him over to a ridiculous looking beanbag chair and urged him to sit, while she sat on the ground.

He flustered a bit. "Right well, the problem is that it wasn't a griffon."

She narrowed her eyes. "Are you being specist?"

"Let me rephrase that; the problem isn't what they weren't, it's what they were." He took a breath to steady himself. "There's no easy way to break this, but it was a centaur."

Gria's eyes went from narrow to comically wide, the irises and pupils collapsed into singularities. "Wait, what?"

"You heard me right," he said. "A centaur. Not Tirek, it was a female and she seemed more or less harmless. I mean, 'couldn't stand on her own hooves' harmless. I figured she was just a child, so I took her home - "

"So it wasn't a hen you had over," she said, then smirked. "Didn't take you for a xeno."

"My love life isn't the point!" he snapped. "She didn't know Avian, just the few words I taught to her like 'rock' or my name, and she repeated whatever I said even though she clearly didn't understand it. So I taught her the basic alphabet, we had an early dinner, and I left her with a dictionary. She said that while I was sleeping, she read all of my books to become fluent in Avian and, here's the best part, she claims that she's a star!"

Gria looked at him incredulously. "Whoa whoa, back up. An entire language overnight?"

He shifted in the beanbag. "Well it's that or she was playing dumb earlier. And apparently she doesn't know centaurs can drain magic. Hey, maybe she really can't and it's just something Tirek learned how to do. But that's not even the deepest this rabbit hole goes! She - she says her name translates to Cygnus X-1, stupid name I know - claims to have been transformed into a centaur by some magical nonsense and then there's the whole 'star' nonsense."

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold up. You mean star like, 'up above the world so high' star?"

"Apparently. The worst part is she put forth some pretty convincing evidence; when she's cut, she bleeds a dark gas, which pulls itself back in so she heals herself. I don't know if she's crazy, or if she really is a star, or if she's just another Tirek playing dumb, but she didn't know about draining, but that could just be her waiting out of some sick sense of 'playing' with her prey, and - "

"Hey hey," Gria said, walking forwards and putting a foreleg around his back. "Easy there bro, easy." He took a deep breath and calmed himself, locking his amber eyes with her similar-colored ones. "Look, what you did was pretty nice... and you were a plucking idiot to do so! She could've hurt you!" He winced. "Listen, let's get back over to your place. I hope you made sure Cygnus wasn't going anywhere?" He nodded. "Okay, great! Now let's go, lemme see her myself."

He stood, his lion paws sinking into the beanbag awkwardly before he pulled them free. "Thank you, Gria. I'm in way over my head with this, so - "

"Hey, it's a centaur right? Gotta check out stuff like this." She headed for the door, and he followed right after her.

Once outside, they took to the air. Since they were headed towards his home, with him as host, Vinur flew forward to let his sister fly in his slipstream. "I don't know if she's crazy, hiding something, or genuine. I've never heard of magic that can change a star into a living being and make it think it always was alive, but I'm no expert on magic! Just be prepared for anything!" he shouted over the wind. He looked back to see Gria just nod. 

Soon, they returned to his home and he unlocked the door. As the one with the key, he took the lead and let Gria close doors behind them, approaching his bedroom. "Alright, here she is." He unlocked the door and pushed it in.

He hadn't known what to expect from Cygnus when he returned, but the door bowling her back and knocking a bent line of metal out of her hands was not among it. Had she... been trying to pick the lock?

Cygnus X-1 recovered slowly, but faster than she had in the past. She stood and fixed Vinur with a dead glare. "I don't like you."

"That's nice," he deadpanned, stepping aside to let his sister through. "Cygnus X-1 this is my sister, Gria. Gria, this is Cygnus X-1."

Gria stepped forward. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she said with the same grin she wore to work. Vinur's sister held out a talon and, after a moment of staring at it, Cygnus held out her own skinny hand and shook it. "So Cygnus, my brother came to me because he's rather afraid of you, and can't decide whether or not he should believe what you say."

"He should," the centaur said calmly as she pulled her hand back.

"Well that's the thing, he's not entirely sure if he can take your word on that." Cygnus frowned. "Has he told you about Tirek yet?"

"He has. Evidently it provides a poor baseline for me to be received by your kind, organic."

Gria took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Right, organic. Now, we're not specists." Her tail flicked sharply against Vinur's back, making him frown. "So there's no innate reason to associate you with Tirek beyond paranoia. But you do have to understand why your claim of being a, um, star is so difficult to swallow."

Cygnus paused for a moment. Vinur tried to see what she was thinking, but her face was more or less expressionless and the centaur's demonic eyes made reading them impossible; if eyes were the window to the soul, Cygnus X-1's windows had been boarded over. "I don't see why it would be," she said. "I've provided sufficient evidence, both in my gasses and in my apparently prodigious memory."

Gria frowned. "Heh heh, right. Those." She turned to him. "Listen, bro, how about you give me some time to work with her? Hen to... female."

Vinur frowned, his plumage drooping slightly. "Fine, fine, I can understand when I'm not wanted." He couldn't believe it, being kicked out of his own bedroom. But the look in his sister's eyes brooked no argument, so he dutifully turned and left, leaving his sister with a supposed star. And besides, it had sort of been his hope that he could dump the whole business into Gria's care and let big sis deal with it.

He made his way to the dining room and started to clean up the utensils he'd left out, setting them in the place he'd dedicated as 'to wash'. As he did, he wondered what they could possibly have been talking about.


***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***



Cygnus X-1


"So you're his sister," she told the organic once they were alone. She didn't fully understand why they had to be alone, but she supposed it wasn't a big deal. She didn't much like Vinur after he'd locked her in the bedroom. Cygnus didn't know how to get out. She hadn't known if he was coming back. The word claustrophobia came to mind, and she realized she didn't much like confined spaces. If he hadn't come back, would she have died a true death in the room?

"Yes, I am," 'Gria' said. "You know, you're pretty lucky it was my brother who found you, not somebird else. I mean, yeah most of us are touchy with specism given we're the main carnivores in the world, but still." She moved her talons so they caught the light of a nearby candle, flashing. "Centaurs have a terrible reputation."

"That's too bad," Cygnus said. "Tirek intended to conquer the nation of Equestria, however I have no interest in doing so. Conquest does not seem to have anything of use to my interests."

"Huh." Gria moved to sit on the 'bed'. "What are your intentions? I mean, if you're really a star - "

"I am, or rather, I was," she interrupted. "I have ascertained that minimal aspects of my form survived the transformation. You can puncture my hands if you wish to see a demonstration."

"Uh, thanks, but I'll just take my brother's word for it," the griffon said. "So, let's say you're actually a star, right?"

"I am," she repeated. "I have difficulty understanding why it's so challenging for you to believe. Then again, given your status as organics it's overwhelmingly likely you do not have the cosmic insight to know how we work, nor the means to pick up on our neutrino communications."

"Okay, okay," the hen said. "I get it. We puny mortals know nothing of the heavens." Mortal? That was ridiculous, they were all mortal in the end. Why even come up with a distinct term? Puny, however, was dead on. "You never answered when I asked what your intentions were."

"I didn't, did I?" Cygnus agreed. "My priority is to return to orbit around my companion. That is all I am interested in on this world. How I am to go about doing that, however, is uncertain as of now. I do not know what avenues I have open to me to do so, nor do I know where I am in relation to my home."

Gria nodded. "Alright well, do you know what a 'job' is?" she asked gingerly.

"I do, it was in the dictionary and careers were mentioned in many of your brother's books."

"Thanks, but I didn't need the explanation," she said with a light glare.

"I was just making sure you had an idea, I don't know if you're intelligent enough to grasp where I gathered the information from."

One of the griffon's eyelids twitched. "Thank you, for insulting my smartness." Sarcasm. Cygnus and Two-Two had sometimes been sarcastic with each other, or with other stars, and apparently the concept carried through to organics. "Anyway, Vinur has a job, and he's going to have to go back to it soon, whether or not you're here. Plus, you're going to need food and water, both of which cost money. So unless you want to go off into the wilds as a Rougher, you're going to need a job, since we can't keep supporting you for free forever."

"Alright," she said, displeased. A job? Was she truly going to have to lower herself to the organics' competitive way of life? "How long will I need to do this?" Cygnus asked warily, raising one of her hands ever so slightly.

"Until you can go back to wherever you came from," she explained, lowering herself onto the bed and making herself more comfortable. "No free handouts here, Miss Star." Cygnus felt her irritation rise and, bizarrely, her body seemed to bristle with the emotion. Organic reactions to emotion were weird. "So anyway, before we can get you a job, we'll kinda need to get people knowing about you, and knowing you don't mean any harm." As Gria said that, the griffon broke eye contact with Cygnus X-1. Curious. "So we'll need to get you citizenship. Luckily it's a pretty streamlined process and there's hardly any red tape to cut through, so getting it shouldn't be the hard part. It'll probably be everybird else panicking the moment they see you."

"Unless they attack me, why should I care if they panic?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"Nevermind that," Gria said. "Now, in order to be a citizen of the Empire you do still need a fairly good knowledge of our history, so I'm guessing we can just toss you a book or two and come back in an hour. However, you'll also need to be able to prove that you don't have any ill will towards us."

"Why would I? You've - "

Gria hopped off the bed to get in range and cut her off with a talon across the mouth. I don't think I like her either. "Save it for the people who actually need to hear it. Okay, now, changing centaurs back into stars and throwing them up into the sky is not at all my area of expertise, so I'll be little help there. You may find somebird who can help, you might figure it out on your own. Then you can leave and we never have to deal with one another again. But first, we need to get you a job. We can not keep hiding you. And to do that you need citizenship, unless we want to hire you illegally and get hammered once you're inevitably found out."

Well, they could, it would just be inconvenient for them. However, given how she was at the organics' mercy Cygnus didn't push on that one.

"How do we start?" As if conjured by her question, there was a sharp pain in Cygnus's body. She turned around and placed a hand on her lower body's back, frowning. "Curious." She winced. "That's actually quite uncomfortable."

Gria raised an orange-tinted white eyebrow, but then groaned. "Oh, great. I think I know what's going on. Another point for the 'really a star' theory, I guess."

"What?" she asked.

Gria sighed. "Follow me." She opened the door and walked out, Cygnus carefully following after her. She lead her to another room and motioned for her to go in. "I can't believe this is happening," the hen muttered.


***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***


Some time later, Cygnus X-1 walked out of the especially-small room and closed it behind herself. At some point Gria had left her alone, looking more green than before, and now both she and Vinur stood in the hallway right outside, looking down at her nervously. She looked up at them and narrowed her eyes.

"So," Vinur said at last, sounding nervous and looking interested in his own talons. "Is everything alright in there?"

"Yes." She walked past them and then paused, turning her head back so she could see both of them and her lower body. "Your kind are disgusting." Then the ex-star continued past, heading back for the living room. Her olfactory sense, which apparently organics used to detect chemicals in the atmosphere, still sent annoyingly primitive messages of bad bad get away to her brain, long after she'd left the room behind. She made her way back to the living room and faced the bookshelves, looking at the sixty-seven books she'd yet to read, too high for her to reach.

Vinur and Gria followed after her, looking at each other concernedly. While Cygnus had been indisposed, she'd heard them speaking with each other but couldn't make out what was said. It was likely the result of them looking at each other.

"Please give me those books," she ordered, pointing up. "Preferably all of them."

Gria flew up and took two heavy novels in her talons then flew down. "Here you go, I guess. I gotta see this." Without acknowledging her, Cygnus grabbed the thicker one and set it to the side. She then sat down with the first and cracked it open, flipping through its pages.

"Listen, Cygnus, I need you to focus on me," Vinur said. "This is important."

"I can multitask," she said, not taking her eyes off the book. "My memory is far superior to your own, remember?"

"The whole 'superior' shtick is getting old fast," Vinur deadpanned. Out of the corner of her eyes, Cygnus X-1 saw him taking to the air and crossing his forelegs. "You could show some gratitude for what we're doing for you."

"The superior shtick, as you call it, is truth. And I am grateful for your assistance; without you, I'd likely be truly dead." She flipped one more page and looked at him, raising one of her black eyebrows. "Can't you tell?" She went back to her book.

"Well whether the whole superior thing is true or not, can you cut it out? It's not something people like to hear. Sounds rather arrogant," he said accusingly.

"Very well." She kept flipping through the book, memorizing it effortlessly. "Now what was the important thing you wish to tell me?"

"I'll need to explain this to you first. Now, illegal immigration is a big deal for the griffon empire, however there are also laws in place regarding unintentional immigration due to magical mishaps, which is what your 'condition' sounds like." Cygnus doubted that the interaction they knew as 'magic' was responsible for her displacement, but remained silent. She finished the first book and took up the next. "Now, I'm going to write a letter to the Department of Arcane Displacement. Hopefully they'll come to us and not the other way around, and then we'll be around griffons who... actually know how the pluck to handle something like this."

"Sure." She kept flipping, feeling the breeze of his flapping wings ruffling her black hair/mane. It was an exceptionally odd sensation.

"So little bro," Gria said, still on the ground. "Remember what we talked about?"

He nodded. "Yes, I do. Don't worry, I'll be at work tomorrow, we can talk about it more then." He looked her way. "Cygnus, you'll have to stay here in the meantime. I'll put out stuff for you to eat and drink; don't let anybird see you, alright? Until the government can vouch for you, let's just not take the chance."

Cygnus X-1 finished the second book and nodded, placing it to the side. "I request the other books." She looked Vinur's way, and judging by the way his eyes were lidded and his beak ground against itself he was rather unamused. She sighed. "Very well, Vinur. I will wait here. It's not so long after all, what's the worst that could happen?"
> I'm from the Goverment and I'm Here to Help
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------







Cygnus X-1


The following few days passed by in... not exactly monotony, but there was a definite structure to each day, which she appreciated. Wake up, take care of her body's needs, speak with Vinur on occasion as he went in circles trying to decide whether or not she really was a star, and sit around waiting while he was at work. Then she'd go to sleep, wake up the next day, and repeat. Of course, that was only the general structure. In the meantime she continued to make discoveries about her organic body, stumbling upon details that were apparently so common that they weren't mentioned in books. The pliability of skin, for instance, was greatly annoying. It caused her already non-spherical form to shift and warp erratically. Cygnus had undergone small changes in her form as a star as her gasses fluctuated, but those were always minor. Nothing that... drastic.

One interesting discovery was that of sleep's mechanics. Vinur didn't have a guest bedroom, so Cygnus slept on the couch. Vinur figured that if she was new to sleeping, she wouldn't mind, and the organic had been right on that count. Due to her body-shape, the only truly 'comfortable' way to sleep was on her side. That often left her hooves dangling over the couch's edge, but that was only the start of the oddness of sleep.

For, starters she had yet to experience a 'dream', and she dreaded the time when she would. Rendering herself defenseless for a good third of the minuscule amount of time that her organic body would live was bad enough, but filling them with hallucinations detached from reality? Even if they'd be memories, they weren't the type of memories she desired. It was also jarring to wake up in a different position than what she went to sleep in, as evidenced by 'tossing and turning'. How did organics put up with that sort of nonsense?

She had, however, noticed something intriquing. Whenever she woke up from sleep, if her head was angled so that her opening eyes saw her own body just in time, Cygnus could see dark brown mist seeping back into her body, reforming her vest and skin. She had several theories about that, none of which really meant anything for her. Save for the fact she didn't need to undergo the rituals of cleaning that Vinur did; small miracles, as the organic saying went.

Most of the 'days' were spent silently waiting for the other griffons to show up and help her. Cygnus didn't mind; it was an incredibly short time to wait, after all. Vinur, however, seemed to take an interest to needling her with questions. After he'd agreed to let her read through his remaining books and promised to take her to a library once it was feasible, she decided to entertain the organic's questions.

'So how old are you? Five million? Plucking... you know what? What ever you say.'

'So where were you in this galaxy? Outer arms? That's, uh, that's nice.'

Eventually, the questions slowed to a stop. On the fourth day Cygnus X-1 was, as usual, sitting in the living room. Her eyes were open, constantly scanning her surroundings, and her mind was a dizzying whirl of worries and curiosity over her form. Vinur had gone to work, which he had told her was to work at a tourism center for other species that visited Piercing Sky. They mostly visited for the great view and hiking trail up the slightly-taller mountain they were nestled next to, or so he said.

On that fourth day, after returning from his work at seven hours, thirty three minutes and seven seconds in the afternoon, he came in and prepared dinner of some unimportant 'bread', 'ham' and 'butter'. As they sat around the dining table, eating, Vinur looked towards her. "So, I have a question."

She looked back at him, slowly chewing and then swallowing carefully. She didn't want to choke again. "Yes?" she asked.

"So, let's assume for a moment that I believe you're a star." Oh, this again, she thought. "What was it, I don't know, like?"

Cygnus X-1 shrugged. "What's it like to be an organic?"

"Well that's the thing," he pointed out. "You know what it's like, and supposedly you also know what it's like to be a star; you can compare them. So... what's it like?"

"Well, my entire body was devoted to housing my awareness," she explained. "As such, my consciousness dwarfs yours. To have the stimuli from such a tiny body, magnified to fit my mind, is somewhat jarring. There's also the gravity of this planet. It's disgustingly weak, I keep expecting to float off."

He raised an eyebrow. "Gravity is weak." It didn't have the inflection of a question, yet he didn't seem to be stating it. Curious.

"Relatively speaking, gravity is over twenty powers of ten weaker than the next weakest interaction, the Weak Nuclear Interaction. To say nothing of the other three," she explained. "Even more than that, in the prime of my life I had over fifteen million times the mass of your planet, and the gravitational field to show it. It became more..." She winced in the memory of her death.  "... evident after collapse."

"Okay, not even gonna ask about what you mean by 'collapse'. So what do you think about us griffons?"

She stopped to consider the question for a moment. "Based on the sample size of two and the various secondhand sources, I am... surprised at your wide range of emotions. Understand that as a star, I had heard tales of organic life, but I did not once seriously consider you would be intelligent enough to be self aware," she said, motioning towards him with a hand. "It never once even crossed my mind you would be capable of experiencing the same range of emotions we can." She wouldn't admit it to Vinur, but they could actually experience a wider range, since cosmic bodies were incapable of romantic love; after all, as far as Cygnus could tell romance was a product of needing mates. "The emotions are duller than what we're used to, or so I suspect," she explained. "All physical evidence points to that."

"Huh," he said, taking another bite of his dinner. "Weird to think I might be talking with a star."

"It is weird that I am speaking with an organic," she countered. Cygnus grabbed the sandwich-meal in her hands and guided it to her mouth, taking a cautious bite. "This entire situation is surreal for me. You have to keep in mind the sense of scale I'm used to operating on." She hadn't been a black hole quite long enough to be used to the compression, and even then her event horizon had still dwarfed the organics. Cygnus was constantly fighting off the urge to squint at the 'tiny' structures. "And there is no 'might' about it. You are speaking with a cosmic object, Vinur."

"Right, right," he muttered, letting his head fall on the table. "Anyway, I got a letter back from the Department of Arcane Displacement. They said they'll have somebird by in three days to see what your situation is in order to decide how they can help you. I mentioned what you were, though."

"Star or centaur?" she asked.

"The, uh, the second one."

"So they know. So they are not surprised and coming to attack, or so they can look over me more carefully?"

"Yes."

Answering yes to an either-or question? It was the sort of nonsense 226868 did - Is that couple still around or have they collapsed? Yes, - and she couldn't stand it. She opted not to speak, and instead kept eating. Cygnus still felt like she needed to respond though, so she snapped her head over to glare at him. 

He noticed and almost choked on his mouthful. After a few coughs he swallowed. "Winds, don't make that face! Geez, your irises are glowing. That's not natural. Like some sort of gargoyle."

Cygnus relaxed and raised an eyebrow. "They are?" She blinked and Vinur suddenly relaxed his grip on his sandwich; she assumed that meant her irises stopped glowing. "How curious. I assume this is not something organics usually do?"

"No it's not!" he said nervously. "Just... yeesh. At least you stopped."

They kept eating. Vinur finished first, since he was less cautious about eating than Cygnus X-1 was, and stood. "Anyway, freaky eyes aside, is there anything you need?"

She took a moment to work through what he meant by 'need'. "No. I will wait the remaining three days." She finished up her meal under his watch and then walked back to the living room. Vinur followed her, talons clicking and paws padding in tune with the clip-clop of her hooves.

Her hooves. Ugh.

"Are you sure? I mean, you've been spending all day cooped up in here with no space to stretch your wi - legs. You're done with the books, and all you do is just sit around, staring at the walls like a statue. You sure you don't to, I don't know, draw or something?"

She returned to the location of the wall near the sofa and sat down, folding her hind legs. She let her upper body sway to the side and rest against the sofa. "I'll admit, this is rather dull - " Which was odd, because in her true form the slowly-changing skies had been far more static and she'd never thought to complain. Were organics more susceptible to boredom? " - but I doubt there is anything you have which is mentally stimulating."

Vinur's eye twitched. "Again with the 'dumb' comments," he whispered. "I'd prefer you didn't. Listen, you can't just... lay there. One, it makes me feel like a terrible host given that you're stranded here, and two, you have to do something."

"I disagree," she said, following the pacing organic with her gaze. "Unless there is some detriment to my health from laying in place - "

"There actually is," he remarked. "It's not just an expression, griffons who live sedentary lifestyles have all sorts of health problems."

Cygnus sat up and clambered to her hooves. Health problems? "What sort of health problems?" she asked nervously. Health was something she needed to pay attention to; the health of organics could vary extremely within terribly short time scales. They were fragile in that sense. She considered the definitions she'd read for a moment, searching for the right word. "It has to do with... exercise, yes?"

"Yes. But there's only so much you can do locked in my house."

Does he or does he not want me to perform activities? she thought sharply. "I'm getting the impression you don't really know what you want me to do."

He sat and threw up his talons in what Cygnus interpreted as annoyance. Maybe exasperation? Body language was tricky at times. "Look, I'm sorry I've been snubbing you these past few days - " He'd been snubbing her? Cygnus really hadn't noticed, engrossed in waiting like she had. She supposed 'snubbing' her was one way to look at it. " - but you have to understand that I am ridiculously out of my depth with this! You're a centaur, and supposedly a winds-damned star! I still don't know if you're playing dumb about your abili - about everything, and you're just waiting to kill me, or worse." He'd cut off saying 'abilities'. What abilities did centaurs have? Cygnus X-1 resolved to look into it. "I just have no idea what to do! I work at a tourist company, working at the lodge that leads to the mountaintop!"

Vinur flopped down on the couch Cygnus had been leaning against a moment ago, prompting Cygnus to stand up and walk to the griffon's side. She frowned at him. Seeing him like that was... difficult. He'd merciful to her after all, kind even. He had spent some of his terribly-short life to help her, and she was making him miserable with her very presence.

"I don't know what I can tell you to put you at ease," she said. "Assuring you I mean no harm would simply let you think I am lying. There is nothing I could gain through your distress though, so I do wish to alleviate it." She tilted her head. "Would performing exercise help in that regard?"

He turned around so he was on his back, talons and claws poised seemingly to defend his stomach. "No," he groaned. "Just... just give me some time to think this over. Again."

Cygnus sighed and stepped backwards carefully. "Very well. I will attempt to exercise while you do so." She trotted away, intent on seeking a place to maintain her health. As she did, she found herself tracing the perimeter of Vinur's home.

From where the door led in from outside, there was a closet that supposedly housed clothes for exceptionally poor 'weather'. It split into a hallway that went to the left and right. Facing in, the left hall lead to the living room she had recently left. The right one passed the 'bathroom', and ended in a turn to the left. If she ignored the turn, it lead straight into Vinur's 'study', though from what she could decide it would be better named as the place he kept his hobbies. The hallway turned and a door to the right led to Vinur's bedroom. From there the hallway continued on to the joint kitchen/dining room, and then circled back to the living room. It created a 'ring' of a hallway surrounding what would be empty space, if the various rooms didn't take it up. It was decorated in bricks, wood, and paint of various light colors, and was lit up by both candles and luminescent rocks of unknown chemical composition.

She made her way to the study. Cygnus found the simple desk pushed against the curtained-off window overflowing with papers laden with all sorts of writing, writing she could now understand. Once there, she closed the door behind herself and reached into her memory of words, dragging up 'exercise' and several other words described as such. She mentally flicked through a few possibilities, and settled on 'high knees' for the moment. Cygnus made to move...

Knock knock knock!

She stopped, jumping slightly in shock, turned her upper body around to look back into the hallway. She saw Vinur roll off the couch, surprised, and spring to his feet. He rushed to the door and opened it. "Hey, how can I... oh. You're here early."

Cygnus raised an eyebrow. Early? Who was early? Several possibilities ran through her mind, the foremost being Gria. The second was the griffon government coming ahead of time. She went to poke her head out of the study, curious.

Griffons stormed in, pushing Vinur to the side. Each one was a head taller than him and had dark brown feathers, dressed in light-gray metal armor. Their beaks were sharp, their talons gleamed, and their claws shone in the light. Holding long, decorated spears in their forelimbs, they were forced to flare out their wings to keep proper balance as they approached her, fitting three across the hall. There was noise from around the house, and another three appeared on the other side, surrounding her and pointing the spears at her.

She lowered her eyebrow. "Hmm, you are early," she mentioned, hiding her unease at the spears. Those could kill her... "Department of Arcane Displacement, I presume?" Cygnus was shaking. Her knees and arms trembled with a semi-irregular frequency. Was that the organic reaction to fear?

The organics that held weapons to her didn't respond, but beyond her field of vision she could hear Vinur speaking with another organic. "Are the guards really necessary?" he complained. "She hasn't done anything!"

"Just a precaution," came another male's voice, slightly higher in pitch than Vinur's. "After what Tirek did, forces above my head decided not to take any chances. Terribly sorry about the deception."

She heard Vinur sigh. "Yes, well... what's going to happen?"

"We just need to move her to a secure location, to ensure she doesn't - " There was a whispered noise. " - oh, she can't? Well... I still think it wouldn't hurt. Let me talk to her."

"Heh, I'm not going to try and stand in your way," Vinur said nervously. "Just, um, oh dear."

Cygnus saw the griffons moving out of the way, and one of them - likely the griffon that had been speaking with Vinur - pushed forward so that two spear-holders were on either side of him. Instead of brown feathers, his were a light gray, with darker 'rings' around his blue eyes. He also didn't have a weapon and instead of armor, wore a blue vest over his front. Said vest had a metallic symbol on its front; a griffon standing before a pentagon, with D.A.D. written beneath it. "Cygnus X-1, I presume?" he asked, looking over her.

Cygnus flicked her eyes up to meet his. Surprisingly, the taller organic wilted backwards. "Yes. What is your n-name?" she asked, trying to keep a tremor out of her voice. She looked at the five spears pointed in her direction with a frown and another annoying vibration in her limbs.

"Please, call me Kristaf. I'm sorry about the Skyguard, but we aren't keen on taking chances. Now, if you'll follow me, we'll escort you to a secure location to figure out how to send you back to where you came from."

"Acceptable. Where is this location?"

"Like I said, follow me." That wasn't a proper answer, and Cygnus got the impression even the organic knew it. He turned around and nodded to the guards, three of whom moved in behind her. An escort, perhaps? They started advancing, and Cygnus was forced to keep a regular pace with them. She didn't have much difficulty with it, only stumbling once on the way to the door, and the griffons behind her kindly stopped advancing  so she could get back to her hooves.

Kristaf led her outside of Vinur's home - he trailed behind the Skyguard, his face contorted in the ways Cygnus had learned to associate with worry - and into the openness of Piercing Sky.

The sky was bright blue, and the yellow star burned with unusual intensity out of the corner of her eyes. There was not a cloud in the sky, but the occasional griffon dotted the sky. Turning her head, Cygnus could see a tall, wide mountain covered in a white substance she assumed was snow, filled with irregular rolls and hills. Through the varying-sized houses around her, which she could now identify with her vocabulary rather than letting them fade into the background as 'organic constructs', a trickle of a crowd slowed around her, watching and whispering. A few took to the skies to get a better look at her, whispering to each other and glaring at Cygnus.

Kristaf and his guards led her through the various streets, and Cygnus X-1 memorized everything she saw; a candlestore, a shop that seemed to hold hunting weapons, a cub peeking out from what she assumed was its mothers leg, other guards trying to keep the civilians away from her, the color of their fur, the tint of their feathers, down to the last speck of color. Vinur trailing behind them cautiously. Nothing she saw was lost, even if she deemed most of it irrelevant.

The journey was quite... long. Cygnus stumbled across a new form of exhaustion and she was not a fan. Her legs felt tense beneath the skin, aching from her hooves up, and it grew worse and worse with every step. She was inexplicably breathing louder. Organics were ridiculous in their responses to stimuli.

The building that she was led to was significantly larger, and located nearer to the middle of Piercing Sky than Vinur's home. It had several stories, the windows were all open, and a large circular, sky-blue emblem stood tall on top of it. What words were written on it were too small for her to read. The doors were wooden and she was led inside, still at spear-point.

Hallways passed into her memory. Doors. Slowly, the guards peeled away and led Cygnus to a door that had 'Director Kristaf' on its outside in bold, black letters.

Kristaf stopped and looked at the guards. He made talon-motions at two of them, and told the other four, "Go to Vinur, tell him to take a seat and wait for me to call him in. Then return to your position." He opened the door and looked to Cygnus. "I'm sorry about the less than friendly greeting, but we really aren't willing to take many chances. Please, come in, take a seat."

The inside of the room was semi-spacious, with a window out into the streets that streamed in sunlight; it was the only source of illumination. The walls were painted a deep shade of purple, and there was a desk facing away from the window, towards the door, with all sorts of forms and writing utensils piled on top of it, in addition to a picture frame facing the plush red seat behind said desk. There was a long, griffon-sized seat facing the desk, seemingly designed for two griffons to be able to lay down on comfortably. Two of the spear-wielding, brown-feathered griffons moved to the inside of the door and stood beside each other, weapons held tight. As they did, she noticed a shiver run through their bodies, making their wings twitch for a moment. She walked in, and immediately her throat felt oddly dry.

Kristaf had told her to 'take a seat'. The ex-star didn't think he meant for her to literally take the giant couch, so she climbed up the griffon-sized furniture and folded her legs beneath her. She grimaced and sighed when their aching muscles pulled against each other as she found a comfortable position to rest her hooves. He moved behind his desk - he went through the same shivers the Skyguards did - and eyed her oddly when she weakly grasped at the tendons in her forelegs. "Something wrong?"

"It was a tiring walk," she explained, releasing her legs and letting them go limp. "Evidently not so for you. A limitation of my body, or do you specifically enhance your endurance?" she asked.

"I don't know about the former, and the latter is neither here nor there." He sat. "Now, I'm sorry about the unpleasant business of herding you through the streets like a criminal, but I suppose you know why we had to do so." She did. "We tried to keep you from being seen by as many citizens as we could, but I wasn't given enough Skyguard for that unfortunately." He rolled his eyes. "Paperwork. I just know that's going to come back and peck me in the tail."

"Your letter claimed arrival three days from now," she mentioned, changing the subject. "You're ahead of schedule."

"Actually, the week-from-now was a lie. We didn't want you preparing to do us harm then. This didn't go quite the way I would've liked to, I prefer us to be meeting at night, but it is what it is." He shrugged.

Cygnus frowned. "I can feel the trust in the air." There was an uncomfortable tension in her lower body, where she estimated her stomach was. Judging by her emotions, it was how 'stress' manifested in her body. "This is the Department of Arcane Displacement, correct?"

"Correct," he said. "Now, Vinur wrote us about how you've been supposedly removed from your place of residence and, even more supposedly, changed against your will into, well." He motioned to her. "That. Is this correct?"

"Yes, it is. This body, centaur as you call it, is sub-optimal. In addition, I worry there will be great difficulty returning myself to what I should be. I assume you can help?"

"That's the purpose of our department," Kristaf said with a wry grin. "But you know, I've been here for quite a long while now. I've never heard of anything even remotely like your transformation. Those are rare enough, and they're usually other races being turned into griffons so they don't stick out. Whoever - "

"Whatever."

He frowned. "I'd appreciate if you didn't interrupt me, Miss Cygnus. But let's take the detour. You say 'whatever'. You mean to say what did this to you you was natural? Can you describe it?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not. I haven't quite pinpointed what could do this yet, I've had more pressing concerns. I know it wasn't a person, however. No organic exists that can do such a thing, that I am certain of. My true form was quite... resistant to outside change."

He tapped a talon against the desk, making an odd click click sound. "I see. Would you mind describing what your true form was? Dragon perhaps?"

She sighed. "No, not a dragon. This is the part where I tell you the truth and, like Vinur, you do not believe me."

Kristaf tilted his head with a slight grin tugging at his beak. "Well, we have all day here, miss. Who knows? It's my job to investigate what you say you used to be," he reminded.

"Very well. In my natural form, I am a star incomprehensibly far from this planet."

He blinked, stared at her for a while, and then sighed. "Hmm. A star you say? That's... rather a tall order to restore. I've read Princess Luna's report on the true nature of stars; fascinating read, though resolving that with what you just said... well. You stars are alive?"

"Very much so," she said calmly. Her throat was still oddly dry. "You believe me, then?"

"Well..." he said, trailing off.

"I can offer evidence. I bleed warm gas instead of blood." She held out a spindly hand to across his desk. "Demonstrate."

Kristaf seemed to consider Cygnus's words. The griffon looked behind Cygnus at the two members of the Skyguard and nodded. "Alright. Please hold still, this will just hurt for a moment." He held out a talon to the palm of her hand and poked her with the sharp point. Cygnus involuntarily winced; the pain was unusually precise compared to what she had known as a star. Kristaf pulled back and watched as the tiny puncture in Cygnus's hand bled mist; she cupped her hands to keep it in place long enough for it to pull back and the injury to heal.

"There you see it," she remarked, not breaking eye-contact with the griffon. "The only visible evidence of my true nature. Do you know of anything that can return me to form?"

"Not off the top of my head, no," he remarked. "This does raise interesting questions, but let me return to what I was saying before you interrupted me," he said accusingly. Cygnus's left eye twitched a little at the tone. "I've never heard of anybody transforming into a centaur. Understand, permanent transformation spells like what seems to be your case requires intimate knowledge of how the new species works on a biological level, and that's simply not information that centaurs have. Either you're lying about not being a centaur, or someone out there knows a tremendous amount about Tirek's species. Neither of which are particularly comforting."

"There is a third option; that which transformed me was not magical. I can think of a dozen other events in the universe capable of doing such a thing, which one however..."

"Well, are any of these anything we can help with?" he asked hopefully.

"No." The possible events were utterly beyond their ability to measure up to or replicate.

"You're not giving me many options here, miss."

"I do not know what options you are even capable of. All I am aware of is that you have the ability to expedite me getting citizenship, which I can use to independently research a way home, and sustain myself with a job in the meantime."

He nodded slowly. "I see, so that is what your intention is with me and my department."

"I don't have many other avenues to take at the moment," she explained. Cygnus paused for a moment. "Sorry if this feels like I'm using you," she added as a half-sincere afterthought.

Kristaf sighed, resting his head in one talon. "No, no, this is my job after all, in a sense. Now, I doubt the situation will remain under our control for too much longer, but I need to speak some more with Vinur, then report to my superiors. Until then, I hope your form isn't causing you too much pain?"

"No, but it's disorienting to have so little mass in so little gravity."

"Right, right. Star, massive, I understand. So." He glanced down at the papers, then back up at her. "The Department has a few guest rooms, for individuals who, for a variety of reasons, cannot be relocated instantly. The guards will show you to one while I speak with Vinur, and depending on what I learn you can either spend the night there or go back to his house."

"Acceptable," she said tersely. Cygnus slowly shuffled off her seat, wincing when her still-sore legs were forced to support her mass. She instinctively clenched a fist when the pain flared up, but forced herself to relax. "Where is this room?"

"Follow them." Kristaf then started speaking with the Skyguards. "And please, show Vinur in here so I can speak with him."

Cygnus nodded and turned to the Skyguards. The one on her left stepped forward. "Right this way, ma'am." He turned around, and as his tail swung idly she noticed there was a tiny, tiny sliver of metal in the tuft, probably a weapon of some sorts. As she trotted after him, the other Skyguard followed behind her and she heard Kristaf shuffling his papers. When she got far enough away, the ache in her throat vanished and the griffons' wings twitched again.

Curious.

She found Vinur laying on a couch, holding a newspaper in his talons, with his eyelids lowered in phenomenal boredom. He looked up when he heard them approaching, stifling a yawn.

"Oh, hey," he said, putting the newspaper away and standing, giving his long wings a brief stretch. "Is everything alright?"

The Skyguard in front of her nodded. "Yes, we're just bringing your guest here to a room for a brief while. Director Kristaf will see you now, sir."

"Alright, which door is it?"

The Skyguard behind her stepped around her. "Follow me please," he said gruffly.

"Okay. Cygnus, is everything okay?"

"They're better than before," she admitted with a slight nod. "Please try and convince Kristaf that establishing my citizenship is high priority."

"Uh, sure." He flicked his eyes to the Skyguard. "Lead the way."

The two griffons, one a noticable percent large than the other, left. The Skyguard by her silently led Cygnus up a series of stairs - that was an adventure and a half - and then through a hallway into a side room with a wooden door. When she entered, her throat dried up again. What was causing that? If it started happen with increasing regularity it might turn out to be more than a mere nuisance...

The room itself was somewhat reminiscent of Vinur's bedroom, but smaller. The Skyguard remained behind as she stepped inside, looking around. There was a bookshelf on the side, lined with books she would tear into. There was no window, but there was a painting of a tiercel and a hen playing a game in the cloudy sky. The walls were painted so as to resemble wooden planks, and the bed's mattress was quite thick. There was just enough room on either side of it for a griffon to walk, but not much more. 

It was enough for Cygnus X-1 to tolerate. She grabbed the books off the shelf, arranged them on the bed, then pulled herself up onto it. Getting on the bed was clumsy, though; it felt like her hooves kept getting in the way of her arms. What sort of organic would evolve like this? There was no benefit to it!

She sighed and, after creating a psuedo-nest in the sheets, sat and began leafing through the books and booklets. They informed her slightly about the Griffon Empire, however none of it was anything she didn't already know. There was a rather large book on building specifications, which took her a few minutes to flip through and then arrange the information in her mind. Meanwhile, the Skyguard remained by the closed door, watching her sternly. Cygnus would've been lying if she said he didn't intimidate her; his talons were sharp, his spear equally so, and that combined with his armor and relative height made it quite clear she could do nothing to stop him from killing her if he so wished.

Luckily for her, he didn't seem to wish to do so. 

The black hole remained on the bed, her hind legs folded beneath her as she looked down at the books, occasionally tapping the small gray horns jutting from either side of her head. Before too long she finished the bookshelf and found a comfortable position on the bed, laying on her side, and waited for Vinur to return.

He took longer to return than it had for her; Kristaf must've had more questions for him, either that or Vinur took longer to answer each one than Cygnus did. Perhaps both.

At one point, the door opened and Cygnus snapped her gaze over to it, hoping that they were done, but instead it was an organic female bringing in some food. She left it for her on the bed and left, closing the door behind her. She eyed the plate carefully; it matched what Cygnus knew to be a 'sandwich' from her reading, with various condiments and ingredients. Her stomach had started rumbling and, while the 'flavor' was revolting, she forced herself to eat it.

After two hours waiting, the door opened and Vinur came in. He closed the door behind him, took a glance at the Skyguard, and shuffled to the side of the bed nervously. Cygnus pulled herself up and stood on the bed, watching him. "How has the situation evolved?" she asked.

"Well for starters, you need to stay here overnight," he said worriedly. "They're gonna get a magic specialist over here by tomorrow afternoon to take a look at you, see if they can't get started on returning you to form. They also let me stay around here when that happens, is that okay?"

"Very well," she said emotionlessly. "You are familiar enough. So long as it won't interfere with the procedure." She narrowed her eyes. "You won't, will you?"

He smirked. "I'll stay out of the way Cygnus." He glanced at the books on the bed. "Do you, uh, want me to go to the library, get you something to read?"

"That would be ideal. Any astronomy, mathematics, and physics books you can find would be appreciated." She needed to know where she was in the universe. If the organics had some idea of where they were, it could save her a lot of time. "What did Kristaf ask you?" she asked, tilting her head at him.

He rubbed the back of his head with a talon. "Well, I'm not really allowed to say. But rest assured, we're going to see what can be done to help you, Cygnus. Whether or not you're lying about being a star."

She sighed. "I'm not."

"Okay, okay," he said smugly, backing up slightly. "So anyway, are you sure you'll be okay here?"

"I am," she said, shuffling her forelegs against each other. "Your concern is noted." She paused and considered how many planck times they had been in the building. "I should begin to sleep, it's night isn't it?"

"Might not be a bad idea," he agreed. "Well, if you're sure you're alright, then I'll just go home. See you tomorrow, Cygnus."

"Probably," she agreed. Cygnus laid down and closed her eyes, engulfed in near total blackness; the only light sources were multicolored flickers from outside light sources interfering with her eyelids. She heard Vinur's talons and paws on the hardwood floor as he left, the click of the door, and reluctantly began the ritual of falling 'asleep'.

She chuckled internally at how much the organics were aiding her. A magic specialist coming by the next day, hmm? It was certainly a start.

But her throat was still dry...
> Flare
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------







Celestia


Princess Celestia went through her daily rituals: get up, stretch her wings, flare her horn to warm up her magic, raise the sun, and then head to breakfast. As she walked out of her chambers, she levitated her regalia on seamlessly. She slipped her peytral over her neck and fixed her crown atop her head. As she walked, she stepped into her horseshoes. She reached out and pushed open the doors with a foreleg, then closed them behind her with a hind leg. She gave a warm nod to the two guards standing at attention outside of her chambers, and made her way to the private dining hall she shared with her sister.

As she walked through the endless corridors, she gave greetings to the servants cleaning the castle, which they returned. After a few minutes she reached the room and found that her sister was already there. Said sister was busy feasting on pancakes and syrup like she was possessed.

Lulu looked up at her with tired eyes and said a few words muffled by her full mouth. "Mmo, Mmia!" She swallowed her bite. "Hello, Tia! I trust you had a good night?"

She nodded. "Very nice, thank you." She took a seat next to her sister and began nibbling at her pre-prepared salad. "Was there anything important overnight?"

Luna's face tightened. "As a matter of fact, there was. My night guard are discretely increasing their security in the city as a result. There's been a spot of news from the Griffon Empire."

"What is it?" she asked, taking a bite of tomato.

"You might want to swallow that first, sister." Celestia did. "Alright. No official word yet, but there are rumors that one of their border-aeries discovered a second centaur."

Celestia's eyes bugged out and she nearly choked on her own spit. "What?!" she asked incredulously, fixing her sister with a collapsed-iris look. "I beg your pardon?!"

Luna nodded grimly. "For the time being, it seems that the griffons have the situation under control; the Department of Arcane Displacement is handling the case, since she claims she was turned into a centaur." A female centaur? Celestia briefly wondered what that would look like. Her mind dredged up images of Tirek and changed several features, but none of it looked quite right. "Evidently, the centaur also does not know of the ability to steal magic. Let us pray it remains so for the time being."

"You said she was turned into one," Celestia said. "What was she before?"

"That, the rumor mill couldn't say," Luna said. While she was speaking, Celestia took more bites of her salad and raised an eyebrow. The rumor mill? "Oh do not give me that look, sister! I have gotten word from reputable sources as well. Needless to say, I am quite worried about this." Luna ate another piece of her pancake. "The course of action seems quite hidden."

Celestia had to agree. On one hoof, a centaur was a matter of global importance. The chain reaction they could create with their dark powers was unspeakably horrific, and even if Discord or the Bearers managed to contain the centaur and strip her of her stolen magic, she could do immense damage in the meantime. A centaur required immediate action.

... but on the other hoof, if Luna was to be believed, the griffons had her under control. It was none of their business to be so involved in foreign affairs. Especially not when this centaur was not Tirek. Scorpan had come from the same lands he did, after all, and in the end he did them no harm. If this new centaur wasn't even a centaur originally, Celestia would do herself a terrible disservice to condemn her despite having committed no crime. What would it say of her if she sent ponies to investigate this centaur, in another nation, with no reason besides being changed into a species whose one known member had been a maniac? That was not a road she wished to travel down...

"We should leave it to them," she murmured. "The centaur is on their land, it is their responsibility. Yet I still do not feel quite right with simply doing nothing in regards to such a large potential threat."

"Perhaps we should send an envoy as a show of good will to her?" Luna suggested. "Or perhaps we simply wait to see the situation evolve, but prepare some safeguards in the process?"

She took a deep breath, reviewing her options. "The Griffon Empire does not need us to hold their talons," Celestia said. "Nor have they for a very long time. They are capable, and it would be remiss of us to act as though they aren't. We should make sure the Elements are safe, in case worst comes to worst, but beyond that let us trust the griffons' abilities." She did wonder, however, how the other nations would react.

"Agreed," Luna said. They returned to their meals.


***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***



Cygnus X-1


She could not feel the rotation of the planet, but it rotated all the same. One interval the organics knew as a 'day' passed, and Cygnus awoke slowly from her deep slumber, and wiped the annoyingly common crust from her eyes. The room was dark, since there were no windows, but a flickering candle provided the meager photons she needed to be able to see.

She was still in the D.A.D. room, which was no surprise. Flicking her eyes at a wall-mounted clock - which used, of all things, base eight numbering - told her it was still 'early' in the 'morning'. She rolled around in the bed until she was upright with her legs folded beneath her. It made the sharp edges of her hooves press against her body enough to be noticeable, but not enough to be truly painful.

Cygnus X-1 looked to her left and saw a plate of various pieces of 'meat' had been laid out, along with a cup of some tinted liquid that a moment of memory searching labeled as orange juice; one of the less creative organic words. After some maneuvering she got into position to eat and drink, and cleaned the plate in record time; she was getting better at coordination. Only to be expected, of course. Cygnus finished her meal and relaxed on the bed again, patiently awaiting the 'magic specialist'. At one point she had to go relieve herself, which went without incident, but beyond that she remained in the room.

A magic specialist. She wondered how much they truly did know about magic, that they could have specialists in it. Was it the blind leading the blind? Or was Cygnus not giving them enough credit? The organics had surprised her before; they were, after all, intelligent enough to be self aware!

The fact that they could manipulate the magic field at all was very... worrying. Such a thing was not possible within billions of light-years from home. She was so far from home she probably wasn't within observable range... how was she ever going to get back? Could she?

The clock ticked on until the door opened and Vinur walked in, looking around nervously while his wings gave a single twitch. "Um, good morning Cygnus."

She looked up at him, shifting her black hooves on the bed. "I suppose," she said. "I had not expected you would be here. You are not a member of the Department of Arcane Displacement, are you?"

"No, but they said I should be here since I know you better than anybird else." He ruffled his wings. "So, here I am, getting compensated and everything. Have you had breakfast?"

Cygnus nodded, a weak smile tugging at her mouth. "Yes, I have. It was already prepared for me." She frowned. "Though I am worried about the abilities of this magic specialist. I have doubts that I am anywhere near what they have encountered before in their short lives."

He rolled his eyes, hopping onto the bed and making her lurch with the movement. She toppled over onto her side and propped herself up with shaking arms, glaring at him. Vinur held out a talon and helped her back up. "Thank you. So no, I'm not particularly confident in their ability to return me, but if it brings me closer to having freedom of movement upon this planet, I shall endure."

"Well, that's good to hear," the organic said, patting her on the lower back. She flinched at the contact and pulled away. "So, how are you planning to get back?"

Cygnus X-1 sighed. "To be honest, I'm not sure where to start. First thing I need to do is find out where in the universe I am. I could be seventy billion or five trillions light years away, and both my velocity and acceleration are unknown. Then I have to acquire a power source that can send me back..." She saw a shiver run through Vinur's body at her mention of a 'power source'. Why? "And the energy required to restore my mass and send me back is likely far beyond what can be acquired on a mere planet."

He looked at her oddly.

"Don't get me wrong," she backtracked hastily. "I have nothing against planets, but they're much less massive and hold far less energy than us, especially stars of my mass, so I find it unlikely that - "

"Cygnus," he said dryly. She looked his way, and he had the 'grin' that was indicative of delight. "Calm down. Planets are alive too?"

"Of course they are," Cygnus X-1 replied. "Any cosmic body massive enough to become spherical is aware. Debris like comets and asteroids usually aren't." She sighed. She missed her comets, they were beautiful in their streaming colors. It was a shame her death had destroyed them. "Planets though? Easily." She hummed, looking at the floor beneath the bed. "I wonder what this world thinks of all of you."

"The world's alive," he breathed. "That's... incredible to imagine. Wow."

Three hard knocks came on the door. They were oddly loud, compared to what Cygnus had seen griffon talons capable of. "Can I come in?" came a voice with the low-wavelength- it registered to her ears as high pitched - noise that seemed to be typical of females. "I'm coming in." The door swung inward to reveal a... what was that?

Its coloration was the bright red known as 'pink', for the most part, and seemed to be covered entirely in the same fur that made up Cygnus X-1's lower body. It stood on four legs, but unlike the griffons which had two different endings, this organic's legs all ended in hooves. A fibrous... she decided the word was hair colored bright blue, with nearly-white streaks of yellow through it.

Cygnus frowned when the organic stepped in and flinched, tapping their pink horn with a hoof. She began running through her words to identify it. But before she could speak, the new organic did. "Cygnus X-1, I presume?" she asked, looking at her with strange red irises fluctuating in size.

"Correct. Are you a pony?"

She raised an eyebrow. "... yes? Never seen a pony before?"

"No," Cygnus replied. "I have not. You are a pony in the Griffon Empire; are you an immigrant?" Vinur watched the two of them from the side.

The organic chuckled. "Actually no, that's my folks." She tapped her chest with a foreleg. "Born and raised Griffonian here. Now, let me just get started with the checkup."

While the pony-unicorn trotted around the bed and bent under it, fussing with something, Cygnus was confused. The concept of organics immigrating to live among another species was confounding.

A faint pulse rippled through the air, and the dryness scratching at her throat all at once vanished. Vinur looked over at his left wing, briefly extending it and then folding it back. The pony shuffled back out from under the bed, inhaled, and exhaled suddenly. A sneeze, perhaps? She looked up. "Alright. So, first I need to - oh! How inconsiderate of me! I know your name but you don't know mine." The unicorn hopped up onto the bed; Cygnus took note of the four-pointed bright blue shape on her flanks.

"What did you do?" Cygnus interrupted. "My throat feels better now. What was that?"

The pony blanched, then chuckled nervously. "Oh, nothing important right now. Anyway, my name's Tola Insight, I'm here to investigate the magic that turned you into..." The mare gestured at Cygnus with a foreleg. "... this."

"You won't find anyth - " She cut herself off when the organic's horn began to glow bright red, and a flat ray shot at her. Cygnus X-1 recoiled, but relaxed when she didn't feel it doing anything. Still, was the red glow her magic? Her magic glowed? How inefficient was it, to waste so much energy in the production of light? 

The scan started at the top of her head, moved down her torso, then finished at the bottom of her forehooves. The pony trotted around her, scanning Cygnus's entire body. As she did, Tola's muzzle turned increasingly scrunched.

When the red beam finished scanning her black tail, the pony stepped back and eyed her curiously. "It doesn't make sense," she whispered. "There's no transformative magic at work." Her eyes widened and the irises shrunk. "That must mean you're really a centaur," she breathed.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Vinur said, climbing over the bed to reach Tola. "Miss, Cygnus was explaining to me earlier that it wasn't necessarily magic that did this to her."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really? I'm sorry, but what else could do this?"

"Quantum incident, at least that's the closest translation. My particles could've spontaneously teleported here in such an arrangement. There is also a multiuniversal ripple left over from the universe's formation encountering me. Possibly a string vibrating in one too many dimensions in my vicinity. Any one of those events is overwhelmingly unlikely, but I'm here so one of them must've happened."

Tola's eyes briefly crossed. "Strings - nevermind." She shook her head. "Is there any way you could demonstrate these events?"

She frowned instinctively. "No, I'm afraid not. Multiuniversal ripples are impossible to generate from within, teleportation via quantum uncertainty is just shy of impossible, and I doubt your control of the magical interaction is refined enough to influence strings. It's possible that the magical interaction in its simplest form could help me return, but..."

The pony frowned and tilted her head. "Then I suppose we're all just going to have to take you on your word that you aren't originally a centaur?"

"There is the mist thing," she mentioned.

Vinur groaned. "Enough with the 'mist thing'. It's not proof of anything!"

Says the organic who's never even set claw in the void! she thought with a spot of frustration. "Fine then. Let's say I am truly a centaur who was simply displaced. How much does that change?"

Tola nodded, bouncing lightly on her hooves. "Alright, we're getting somewhere. Now, Vinur's story about your appearance checks out with known teleportation spells, and you haven't committed any crime or drained any magic - " Tola cut herself off and her eyes went wide. Vinur's eyes also expanded, and the pony shoved a hoof in her mouth.

"I can drain magic?" she asked. "That's rather contradictory." Wait a moment. She thought back to one of her conversations with Vinur. He'd hastily mentioned that she was draining his 'funds', but in light of the knowledge that she could supposedly drain magic - which was ridiculous, how did you 'drain' a fundamental interaction, so it must've been a contraction for something similar - then that meant what he'd actually meant was...

Cygnus locked eyes with Vinur. "You lied to me?" she whispered. Her next breath was surprisingly strained. "You... lied to me?" she repeated softly. Her eyes went down to the mattress as she processed the implications of the broken trust. The organics had the intellect to lie...

"Well I - " the griffon began.

"Oh pluck me," Tola whispered. "Me and my big mouth. T-That's it then, I'm done. I-I'm done..." 

"Why?" she asked. "Why would you conceal this information from me? This is something I could possibly use to go home!" Her voice steadily climbed in volume. "You could've told me this earlier! What right did you have?!" she shouted, standing up on the bed so as to be slightly taller than Vinur, who shrank back. "Well?!"

"W-Well," he stammered. "What was I supposed to tell you? I didn't exactly have many reasons to trust you at the time! So sorry for trying to keep myself safe, and you from doing anything stupid!"

"Anything stupid? What could I possibly have done with this knowledge that qualifies as 'stupid'?"

"Getting the attention of the Elements of Harmony for one!" he shouted back. "You go around draining magic, either you're beaten down before you get too strong or Equestria brings their harmonic magic to bear against you, and that is something you cannot fight!"

"The Elements of Harmony?" she asked. "I doubt they can do much. After all, I am a - "

His wings flared out. "Oh enough with the whole 'I'm a star' crap! Look at yourself Cygnus, look at yourself! It doesn't matter whether or not you used to be a star, you aren't one now!" he shouted.

That hit her hard. She recoiled and the fusion-heat building within her vanished into vacuum. She fell onto her haunches and raised a hand to her chest, where the faint ba-bump of her 'heart' resided. Cygnus looked down, her eyes feeling strangely hot and itchy. "You're right," she muttered, looking over herself. Cloven black hooves attached to legs, covered in red-brown fur. Spindly arms with fingers. "I'm not a black hole anymore." She looked Tola's way; the pony had been watching the back and forth warily. "What do we do from here?"

"Well," she said. "You have to understand, there's no evidence you were transmuted, and all we have is your word that a nonmagical, undetectable force transformed you. Aside from me getting tried for incompetence, what's probably going to happen is you'll be released into someone's custody to keep you safe. Whether that's somebird else, or the higher-ups decide Vinur's familiarity with you is enough, I have no say in."

"Why would you be tried for incompetence?" Cygnus asked.

"Because," Vinur explained. "She wasn't supposed to let slip you can drain magic."

She took a moment to think it over, realizing that from the organics' point of view she just made a potential enemy more dangerous. "Only if they know you told me," Cygnus said. "You have opened a potential avenue for my reconstruction, as such the least I can do is ensure you are not penalized for doing so."

The pony shook her head. "No, I plucked up, and I need to face the music for it."

"That is incorrect," she said, carefully climbing off the bed. "You do not need to. It is perfectly viable for all three of us to keep our mouths shut. Should I ever need to demonstrate the ability to 'drain magic' - " They blanched. " - I am certain it can be excused as me reading an account of Tirek's abilities."

Tola looked down, frowning, then sighed and looked back at her with eyes slightly coated in dihydrogen monoxide. "Oh... thank you. I don't know what to say."

"Then figure it out," she said.

Tola raised an eyebrow, confused. Why was she? Was 'don't know what to say' one of those idioms? "No but really, thank you. Now, if you'll let me scan you again, for good measure?"

"I am in no position to stop you," Cygnus said. Not unless I figure out what 'magic draining' is, and then learn to actually use it, she thought.

"Alright, hold still." The mare's horn glowed bright red again, releasing a second ray that scanned over Cygnus X-1's body. It tickled this time around, an odd and unpleasant sensation that had her squirming to get away by the time the unicorn was finished. Tola frowned. "Hmm, still nothing." She tapped her one, singular horn. "Really strange. I mean, my gut's telling me that you're lying to me, but if you're not, then this is really, really strange." The organic grinned. "Hey, maybe you should write some papers about those other events you talked about."

"Why?" she asked.

Vinur stepped in. "It'd give you something to do, and if you contribute to the world's knowledge of how the universe works then hey, that's brownie points." Cygnus stared at him, unblinking. "Um, brownie points. It means more people will have a good opinion of you, in this case."

She nodded. "Ah. Perhaps I can do something along those lines. It may be tricky to adapt to your symbols of math though."

"Alright well," Tola said. "I need to go and deliver my findings. Um, thank you for... you know, keeping this quiet." The pony blushed, red showing through her pink fur.

"Why thank us? It takes literally no effort to do so," Cygnus told the retreating pony.

"It's just - " The pony raised a foreleg and waved it at her. " - nevermind, Cygnus. Anyway, goodbye to you two, thank you for your cooperation, and we'll see if we can't get you sorted out quickly, yeah?"

"Yeah?" she asked, and the pony left, closing the door behind herself with 'magic'. Once she was gone, her throat dried up again and she turned back to Vinur. "So, draining magic," she said.

The griffon looked a lot more uncomfortable. "Well, yeah."

She threw up her hands. "How does that even work? Draining a fundamental interaction like that?"

He tilted his head. "A fundamental what?"

"You know, fundamental interaction?" A blank stare was her response. "Oh for the love of - okay. You know what a force is?" He nodded. "Okay, well, in the universe every force can be reduced to being caused by a combination of five interactions. You should know what they are, they're in your dictionary."

Vinur frowned. "Most people don't have a vocabulary the size of an entire dictionary."

"Then what's the point of having - nevermind. So the five are gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear, and the phenomenon you call magic, which is more field-based than the others and only interacts with - nevermind. Which is why the concept of draining magic is such a ridiculous one, so it would be appreciated if you elaborated." Cygnus narrowed her eyes.  "Unless you feel like keeping something else from me on the assumption that I have not the intellect to defend myself?"

"I'm not entirely sure I want to explain it to you," he said, flapping his wings to get on the bed and look down at her. "I mean, if I tell you how, what are you going to do?"

"Analyze it to see if I can use that ability to return home," she explained briskly.

"See that's just what I'm worried about!" he said, pointing at her. "What if you need to hurt others in order to go home? Hmm? I can't just let you do that!"

"So, what?" she demanded. "You're just going to keep me here? The little centaur-star that you keep around as a trophy?" she spat. Heat was rising inside her body again. "Is that what you'll reduce me to, Vinur?"

"If it means keeping everybird else safe then yes!" he roared, flaring out his wings.

She drew her hands up and inhaled. So, that's how it's going to be? Cygnus X-1 ground her teeth together, the fangs poking her gums hard enough to draw mist. "Fine," she said simply. "Then I'll just stay here." She lowered her body and sat, crossing her arms. "I'll just stay here and die."

"You're not going to die, Cygnus."

"Of course I am!" she snapped. "Even if I don't age, do you know of any living being more than ten thousand years old? No? I don't think so! With my abilities I may be able to extend that to one hundred thousand at maximum!"

"Oh boo hoo," he said. "You'll only live a hundred thousand years, that's so short of a time!"

"It is for me! I'm five million years old, and still young! I may as well tell you you're only going to live another half a year, at the absolute most!"

"Enough with the five million years old! Nobird's buying it!"

"So what, you want me to start pretending my origins are something they aren't just for your sake? To soothe your precious, sensitive organic mind?!"

"You wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for me!"

"You have no way of proving that!"

Knock knock knock. The door pulled open and one of the griffon 'Skyguards' poked his head in. "Is everything alright?"

"No!" she shouted out of reflex. "It's not! I'm going to be stuck on this planet until I die!"

The organic raised an eyebrow, then looked at Vinur. "Sir, if you're causing our guest distress, then perhaps it'd be better for you to go home."

"Maybe it would," he agreed snappily, stomping over to the guard. She glared at him as he retreated, but he didn't so much as glance back at her. The Skyguard stepped back and Vinur shut the door briskly.

Cygnus X-1 clenched her fists and shook in impotent rage. Summoning all the chemical force her body could she jumped upwards onto the bed, beating at its pillow fruitlessly with her hooves, a surprisingly cathartic venture.

It's just like an organic body to get relief from causing physical damage, she raged. Once her meager strength was expended she flopped down on the bed, waiting patiently and mulling over her next course of action.

She could leave. She could get up, walk out the door, and search for another organic nest to aid her. She would also have to acquire food and water on her own, as well as shelter, and bypass the organics keeping her there, and rely on her less than stellar strength to move a comparatively large distance.

She could play along with the organics. She would be shuffled into some home somewhere and be reduced to working at their levels, until she could somehow cobble together a way to reach higher levels. Assuming they meant her well.

The problem was, all her plans came down to one problem; Cygnus X-1 was helpless on her own. Whatever mechanism had plucked her from her galaxy, it had landed her not only in a fragile, tiny organic form, but one that was weak even by the standards of other organics. Which led her to be completely at their mercy, led around as if she belonged to them!

You haven't committed any crime or drained any magic, she remembered the pony saying. Draining a fundamental interaction was absurd, but connecting the points and some definition searching led her to the conclusion that whatever the 'magic drain' actually did, it stood a decent chance of making her stronger, since the organics would not have been so worried about her being a 'second Tirek' if he weren't dangerous. It would probably not return her in and of itself, but it would be a step in the right direction to 'drain magic'.

If she could only figure out how. Cygnus X-1 wasn't trusted by the organics, that much was apparent, so they'd be reluctant to give her the information she needed. Which just meant she needed to play along and, when she had the moment, figure it out. Maybe she could even try to figure out what it meant through trial and error.

It was decided. Cygnus X-1 would learn how to drain magic.
> Reignition
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------




Vinur


Early-Bird Vinur was not a happy griffon. He had to wake up long before the sun rose, alone in his cold house, hungry and thirsty. To compound that, his thoughts buzzed with Cygnus X-1. The tepid-mannered delusional centaur who'd come into his life, who'd just casually used his kindness for her own ends, who'd... who'd... !

"Gah!" he shouted, tossing his pillow into the wall with a disappointingly soft sound. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

He walked around his house early in the day, muttering to himself. "Can't believe her. What right do I have? I have every right. And she accuses me of that after all I've done for her! Take her in out of the goodness of my heart and all she does is..." 

He stalked out of his bedroom and into the kitchen. He fished around in his icebox and pulled out a few choice cuts, then stuck them into the microwave. Vinur glared at the box as its dial ticked down and finished with a ding, then pulled out his breakfast. After tossing it back and forth between his talons to cool it down, he began tearing it into strips with his beak and swallowing them whole.

He was still pissed at Cygnus. The nerve of that centaur! He'd graciously led her into his own home, at great risk to himself, and his species, and the world, took care of her, fed her, sheltered her, and that was the repayment he got from her? Whining about how 'oh woe is me, I'm only going to live another hundred thousand years' and shouting at him that he had no 'right' to keep her abilities from her? He had every right not to want her to drain the flight from his bones! Or did little miss special think she was just so much more important than him?!

After finishing off breakfast, Vinur walked out of his house and took to the air, grumbling to himself all the way through the dark and frigid sky. Work was going to be torture, he could tell already. His job was mind-numbingly boring, and the whole situation with Cygnus was going to make him molt, but he didn't have a choice; he had to go. At least his coworkers were bearable and the pay was alright.

He flew away from Piercing Sky, heading towards the mountain overlooking it. At the very base of the mountain, right beneath the snow, were a series of wooden cottages. Vinur flew in behind the largest one and touched down, walking in through the back door. Inside were stacks of trail guides and warm gear for people - not just griffons - who wanted to climb the icy slopes. Personally, Vinur had seen it many times before when he was a cub and it had lost his appeal, but hey, whatever got him paid.

Pushing into the backroom, which contained emergency equipment, a time table, and a map, Vinur found his sister in the middle of taking inventory. 

She saw him and put the pencil in between her feathers. "Hey bro. Any news with Cygnus? I hear that she was seen out in the open, what's that about?"

Walking over to the sign-in sheet and signing his name with the pencil provided, Vinur looked over at Gria. "Yeah, the government messed up there and led her around in open daylight."

She snerked. "Wow, great idea."

"I know, right?" He opened a nearby closet and slipped on a blue vest. He adjusted it with a talon and then walked back into the room, where Gria was looking over some harnesses. "Anyway, I'm gonna go hold the counter. You good back there?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it bro. I'll be out in a bit, you just hold down the fort."

He nodded and went through another door to the front of the building. It was here that visitors bought tickets to the top of the mountain - named Piercing Heavens - and maps to guide them along the paths, as well as distress beacons in case something terrible happened. A few posters showing the view from the top of Piercing Heavens were hung here and there. There was also a window that showed the slopes of the mountain, revealing how the greenery down below slowly dwindled with height until there was but stone and moss at Vinur's current height.

More griffons trickled in, going around to other counters for when customers trickled in. Vinur greeted Grizelda, Terol, and Kaliv as they took their places, ready for the people who came to marvel at the mountain's enormous heights, or to come and conquer the slopes. Before long, the sun came up, and business was open.

The sun's rays streamed through the windows and lit up the inside of the building with the orange of morning. For the first hour nothing happened; nobird in their right mind would come to climb a mountain in the early morning. That left nothing for everybird to do but stand around, making idle conversation about how-was-your-day and how-are-the-kids or, in Vinur's case, to mope around and play with the cash register's buttons.

It wasn't the most busy season, but eventually some people began to trickle in. First was a small pegasus family, speaking with each other in Equestrian and colored in various shades of blue: sky blue, dark blue, glacier blue. All three of them carried saddlebags, no doubt filled to the brim with water, food, and maybe a camera. Vinur forced his emotions down and adopted a welcoming smile.

The mare clip-clopped her way to Vinur, with a glum colt and her husband in her wake. The pony cleared her throat and began speaking in Avian, her accent making the sounds longer and smoother than they should have been. "Hello, we're here to go on the Arctic Trail, we'd like tickets for two adults and one minor."

He wondered whether or not to respond in Equestrian, but decided it was not in his best interest to humiliate customers, and spoke in Avian. "Alright." He did a quick calculation in his head, and then a currency conversion. "That'll be eleven bits please," he replied, and sure enough the stallion reached into his saddlebags and pulled out a small bag, impossibly balanced upon his hoof. Vinur fought to keep himself from staring; adhesive magic was a pit of a thing. He gave him eleven bits, which Vinur took and put into the register. 

"Thank you," he said, reaching under the desk and pulling out three slips of paper, one of which was smaller than the other. "Here are your tickets, see that counter over there? She'll give you the flare equipment in case you need help, and he will give you a map. Enjoy your stay,"

The stallion nodded, taking the tickets in his hoof. "We will, thank you," he said, and then the family moved away to Terol's stand to look over the various trails they could take. Vinur was left to wait for the next customer.

Slowly but surely, the number of people increased into a light trickle. Vinur let thoughts of Cygnus X-1 fall from his mind and devoted his thoughts to his work, smiling happily at the customers who came for a few hours on the mountain. He felt the tension in his limbs drain away as he did what he loved.

He tried to imagine what each of the groups who came by were like. The group of young unicorn, earth pony and pegasus stallions were probably on break from their educations. The family of reindeer coming to see just how cold the Griffon Empire could get, and probably laugh about how 'little cold the griffons could stand'. The lone tiercel was from somewhere else in the Empire, and wanted to see the slopes. Vinur tried to put himself in their shoes, to imagine where they were from, what light they saw Piercing Heavens in, what they thought of his home, what they thought of him, what they thought he thought of them...

Then his lunch break came, and his mind snapped back to reality. His replacement, a pretty hen who went by the name of Hevanna, took over the register and he took off to the nearest café. It was technically also a part of his workplace, but they had good coffee so he wasn't complaining. Before he went there he walked into the storage room to take off his vest — since he wasn't on the clock during his lunch break — before flying out the back, looping around to the front with a bag of crowns in his talons. 

The Hot Cup café was a warm, homey building where the smell of pastries and coffee wafted into his beak. Several customers were about, enjoying some warm beverages before heading back out into the snowy weather. Vinur walked in, purchased some vanilla coffee, a bacon sandwich, thenpicked a table to sit down at to enjoy his meal and watch the crowd.

To no surprise, Gria soon came by, ordered, and sat with him. "So," she asked. "Any news on you-know-who?"

Vinur groaned. "Please don't remind me about her. I'm trying to pretend she doesn't exist."

"That bad, huh?"

He looked around, and leaned in to Gria. "Don't panic, but she's figured out that centaurs can drain magic."

His sister's eyes bugged out and she briefly choked on her food, but she balled up a talon and whacked herself in the chest and looked at him with wide eyes. "Pluck. Well, let's face it, she was gonna figure it out sooner or later."

"I'd prefer it to be 'later'. She's so stupid about it too, because somehow it's my fault for not telling her she can go around sucking out peoples' souls!"

"Yeesh. Where is she?"

"The government's holed her up in one of their... I don't know, departments? She's supposedly still there while they're trying to figure out what to do with her, and I have a feeling that even though we had a little shouting contest, she's gonna be landed with me."

Gria rolled her eyes. "Right, because it's ridiculous to assume there's nobird better suited to taking care of a centaur than you."

"Well she already knows me! Sort of. She's more familiar with us, and depending on how she acts that may end up counting for a lot. Ugh, she's gonna get nested with me, knowing the D.A.D."

"Hey, maybe the whole 'letting everybird know about Cygnus' thing was a fluke?"

"That'd be nice," Vinur sighed. "I don't think I can handle taking care of her. She hates me."

Gria took a sip and then raised an eyebrow. "Really? What for?"

"Remember how she knows she can drain people now? And how it's my fault for not telling her?"

She grimaced. "Oh, ow. Have you tried talking it over with her?"

"Of course I have!" he exclaimed, then quieted down when he remembered they were still in public. "And it's the same story as ever. I had no 'right' to keep it from her, she's going to live 'only' a hundred thousand years, bullshit like that. She's completely uncaring of the rest of us, a damn sociopath!"

His sister frowned as he took another sip from his cup. "I don't know if I'd go that far. You have to look at this from her perspective. Imagine, you've just been turned into a centaur, something you have no idea of. You're in a strange place, you don't know how to communicate with the natives, or what the natives are, or if they mean you well. The world treats you like a natural disaster waiting to happen due to something you have no control over. There is no way home, and all you can do is be shuffled around by the people treating you like said natural disaster, assured that they'll 'eventually' find a way to send you home."

"I can't believe you're taking her side!"

She held up her talons. "Whoa there, easy. Nobird's ganging up on you, bro. I'm just saying, try to see it from her perspective."

"Her 'perspective' is that we're so tiny and insignificant that we can't possibly comprehend her 'perspective'."

Gria narrowed her eyes. "Vinur. Cut it out. She's scared and afraid. Who knows what's going through her head right now? She probably has no idea what's going to happen to her, or even what to do! Have some sympathy."


***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***



Cygnus X-1


Cygnus X-1 knew exactly what to do.

Sort of. Mostly.

In addition to all the other tasks needed to keep her organic body together, she needed to figure out how to 'drain magic'. There were several methods by which she could accomplish that. She could ask the griffons how Tirek drained magic, but they would just lie to her and she'd then operate off of false information. She could also go to a library and seek out records of Tirek's rampage, but Cygnus wasn't sure if the organics would let her get her hands on the required books.

Which left the third option: figuring it out herself. She didn't have any idea where to start, unfortunately. 'Drain magic'. What did that mean? It couldn't mean actually reducing the value of a universal constant; that wasn't something that happened to constants. Cygnus referred back to the dictionary definition of magic, and a brief comparison with dialogue in and out of books suggested that their idea of magic was just the act of a living being manipulating the magical field. So... what did 'draining magic' do? Drain their ability to manipulate the field? Their stored magical potential? Their impact on the magical field?

That was what she needed to figure out.

Whatever the mechanism was, it was bound to be something within her body's mechanisms. Which meant she had to keep trying until she found the organ that let her do so. Unicorns had horns. Pegasi and griffons had feathers. What part of her body allowed manipulation of the magical field? Her cloven hooves? Her black, glossy tail? Her dry throat? Her dull horns?

Cygnus faced one of the random walls and held out her hands, focusing on... something. She clenched the muscles in them, hoping that maybe she'd activate the magic-draining mechanism on her own. She focused harder, her face contorting on its own, and she had to fight to keep a growl from rising in her throat. But absolutely nothing happened.

With that having failed Cygnus X-1 turned to her plate, which she had cleaned of lunch not long ago, and repeated the process. First she tried each forehoof, then the forelegs. Then she tried her hind hooves, then her hind legs, then combinations of all four hooves and legs. Then her tail, then her lower body, her upper body, then various parts of her head. Then she tried combinations of those.

Nothing worked.

The collapsed star continued cycling through the room, attempting various ways of draining magic. She didn't really know what she was looking for, and as a result she didn't know if she was even close to figuring it out, but she had to at least try. It beat sitting around and twiddling her thumbs.

Though twiddling her thumbs was oddly comforting.

Come on, body, she thought to herself as the ceramic plate refused to give her anything. Come on. I'm not asking for much. Work, damn you!

Another problem was that she couldn't let herself be caught attempting to drain magic; it was clear that the griffons had a very, very poor opinion of that practice. Luckily for the moment she was alone -

Knock knock knock!

Cygnus closed her mouth and put her right foreleg back on the ground, turning to face the door. "Come in," she called.

The door opened and admitted a griffon hen, who smiled at her lightly. "Miss X-1, we've reviewed your situation and decided that, for the time being, you are to be given a temporary citizenship pass until such time as your homeland is located."

Ha! she thought. Good luck!

"So in the meantime we've arranged for you to stay at the home of a citizen. Now, understand we only want to help you." The organic stepped closer, making Cygnus raise a foreleg briefly before putting it back down. She stared up at the dark-colored hen. "With that said, I know you and Mr. Vinur had an argument yesterday. Would you mind talking about it?"

Her face turned grim. "There is nothing to talk about. He withheld information from me about how I can go home, thinking he was protecting me. He didn't consider that perhaps I am not a cub, and am intelligent enough to care for myself, yet when I presented this information he somehow made it out to be my fault." Comprehension dawned on her and she tightened her fists. "No, you aren't thinking of - "

The organic cut her off. "Mr. Vinur has a very clean record, not so much as an airspeed ticket. His income is stable, his housing is in a safe part of the aerie, and he already has a rapport with you."

"Except I can't trust him to be forthcoming with me," Cygnus said. "What else about my abilities is he hiding?" She narrowed her eyes. "What are you hiding? It's clear you all think I'm another 'Tirek' waiting to happen."

The griffon didn't give any hint that she was worried about Cygnus, though even if she did Cygnus probably wouldn't have picked up on it; organic body language was stupid. "I'll admit, there is concern about your abilities, however as long as you don't hurt anybird then there's no reason to, um, actually inhibit you."

Cygnus nodded. "Is there an option besides Vinur? I am not fond of being close to him."

"One small argument isn't enough to give a real perspective. I'm sure that Mr. Vinur had his reasons, if you would hear him out." Cygnus glowered at her. "If you truly can not handle being with him, then all you need to do is file a request and we can have you moved."

Did they think she needed special treatment? That she needed to be handled gingerly because one organic annoyed her?! Cygnus was about to open her mouth to refuse, but the words 'reverse psychology' came to mind.

... still, the organic had a point. Organics were volatile, so as long as Vinur corrected his behavior she could tolerate being around him. She sighed. "Very well."

The hen smiled. "Good to hear. From what we can tell he's out in work right now, but he'll be back home in a few hours. In the meantime, did you perhaps want something to keep you occupied?"

"No thank you," she refused politely. "I am fine. Thanks for telling me ahead of time, though."

"No problem. Are you sure you don't need anything?"

"Perhaps more water. Beyond that, I can entertain myself."

The hen nodded. "Alright then, I'll be back with your water momentarily."

The griffon turned around to head to the door, and Cygnus began trying to 'drain' her magic. First she held out her hands at her and clenched them, then as the griffon was leaving the room Cygnus X-1 opened her mouth and imagined sucking magic into her throat. Nothing happened, and the door closed without incident, leaving her alone.

Returning to her business, Cygnus kept cycling through the many combinations of ways she might have been able to drain magic. She repeatedly tensed and relaxed various portions of her body in search of the one arrangement that would work.

Against all reason, she yawned, her mouth stretching wide and her eyes closing as she did.

Time kept passing, planck lengths leading into seconds leading into hours. The hen came back with a glass of dihydrogen monoxide, which Cygnus gleefully drank. With that done, she returned to her search.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. Time passed and Cygnus X-1 assumed that, judging by the clock saying it was seven in the afternoon, it was night. She'd had no success in figuring out how to drain magic, and the faint hollowness in her body that indicated hunger was returning. So it was to Cygnus's fortune that at that time, the griffon from before returned to bring her elsewhere. At least that was what she assumed when the hen came in. Interestingly enough, she had a pendant around her throat with a green gem in the middle.

"I take it you are here to escort me to Vinur's residence?" the star asked once the door was halfway closed.

The organic paused, then chuckled. "Very perceptive, Miss X-1. Unless you feel you can't handle being around him?"

Manipulating her tongue and lungs, Cygnus managed to scoff. "Reverse psychology noted. I'll be fine; where is he anyway?"

The organic motioned with a wing for Cygnus to follow her. "Right this way, please." The griffon turned around and Cygnus followed after her, continuing to make attempts to drain her magic: all without success. Cygnus X-1 stopped when they left the hallways and entered the main lobby of the building. Vinur was there and seemed even more puny than he already was when compared to the bulky Skyguards flanking him.

Vinur looked up from the clipboard in his talons, on which he was writing with a pencil, and she looked back at him with a frown. His face was - so far as she could tell - neutral. She stepped towards him and looked up to meet his gaze. "Vinur."

"Cygnus." He sighed. "Listen, I owe you an apology, but now isn't the best time. How about we discuss it over dinner?"

She raised an eyebrow. He wanted to apologize? Just as well, even though it wouldn't actually accomplish anything. "Sounds agreeable," she said, watching as Vinur handed the clipboard to the griffon who had guided her to him.

Said griffon nodded. "Alright, everything's all set, sir. Don't forget." She reached over to the necklace around her throat, pulled it over her head, and gave it to Vinur. Cygnus raised an eyebrow out of reflex. Hmm? "Now, make sure to help get her employed somewhere, alright? And if any clues come up about her area of origin, let us know immediately."

"I will, thank you." He turned back to her. "Alright Cygnus, I was talking with my sister over lunch and once my shift was over, I went to buy some pasta and stuff like that." At her confused look he continued. "You can't live off of just meat. We can, but you can't. Now come on, we need to get going before it gets even darker."

Waving goodbye to the government-griffons, though being tailed by the Skyguards, Vinur led her outside and through the streets. She did wonder how Vinur knew what she could eat, but decided to chalk it up to organic instincts.

The night was bright. Homes had light streaming out from their windows and into the skies, choking the faintest of the twinkling stars into oblivion. The planet's one moon appeared to rise in the sky, half of its surface darkened. As she walked beside Vinur, she noticed that his pupils slightly reflected yellow-wavelength photons.

Odd, she thought, wondering if her eyes did the same.

Her legs soon tired from the constant motion of moving one in front of the other. To make matters worse, the slight burning sensation nipping at her eyelids had returned, indicating she was sleepy. Still, she pushed past the sensation of tension and pressure beneath her surface and kept pace with Vinur. Of course she kept trying to drain his magic, or the Skyguards'. At one point she tried looking at the back of his head intently, as if she could drain him through her pupils. Once or twice she yawned as well; exhaustion was ridiculous in organics.

By the time they got back to Vinur's home, Cygnus X-1's legs shook with each step. She stumbled inside after Vinur opened the door, made her way to where she remembered the living room to be, and fell down on the couch with a groan.

"You okay?" Vinur asked, following after her.

"Tired," she huffed into the dark room. "Even such a short, ha, walk does this to me."

"Well, you just rest there a bit while I get dinner ready." She heard him go back, exchanging muffled words with the Skyguards that she couldn't make out.

How many secrets are they keeping from me? she wondered.

There was the click of a door closing. Vinur came back to the living room, lighting some candles with a match he'd apparently gotten while saying goodbye to the guards.

Cygnus fixed a glare in his direction once he was done igniting the candles. "You still had no right to keep knowledge of my abilities from me."

He sighed. "Look, can we just talk about this over dinner? We'll be more reasonable on a full stomach."

"Really? Is that another quirk of organic biology?"

The griffon rolled his eyes. "Sure. Come on, I'm not waiting for you."

"I need to rest my legs!" she complained.

"No you don't, you just want to," he said with a smirk.

Cygnus growled low in her throat by reflex. She so wished he was wrong about that. But he wasn't, he was right, so she stood and followed after him as he led her through the house's familiar halls into the dining room. The table was already laid out with food, the chemicals wafting off of them and into her nostrils, giving her primitive good good eat this signals. In front of Vinur's plate were yellowish strips of meat with black flecks on it she guessed to be seasoning.

On her plate was a tangled mass of off-white strands, covered in a thin red dust. Is this pasta? she wondered, sitting in the chair given to her. Her legs trembled with the exhaustion of the day, seeming to vibrate beneath her. Disgusting.

Still, she took the fork and stabbed it into the food, twirling it and watching the pasta collect around it like an accretion disk. Eventually she looked up at him. "Is there anything else you wish to tell me?" she asked, flexing her left hind leg and right foreleg in an attempt to drain magic.

Vinur tensed with a slice of meat in his beak. He swallowed it and look at her. "Would you just drop it? I said I was sorry."

"That does not mean you may not be withholding more information from me." She grabbed a nearby cup of dihydrogen monoxide and drained it halfway. "Whether or not you are 'sorry' you may simply think it for the best. So." Cygnus narrowed her eyes at him. "Anything else you want to mention?"

He groaned. "Okay, fine. This pendant is a magic suppressor. The gold chain works to suppress magic in an area, and they want it around you at all times to keep you from draining anybird."

She raised an eyebrow. "You organics want me to get a job and all that, don't you? Did it not occur to you that I am extremely weak? I am not capable of anything on my own. I need some source of strength, whether by magic draining - " She still wasn't entirely sure how that worked. " - or some other method."

"Let's stick with 'some other method'," he said. "Maybe you could try working out?"

"Perhaps." She lifted the fork and stuck the gathered pasta in her mouth. The red dust on it had a sharp taste, making Cygnus reflexively wrinkle her nose, but she went through the motions of chewing and swallowing with practiced ease. "I assume you legally need to keep that suppressor around me?"

"With some exceptions, such as when I need to fly." Flying was an exception? Why, did it suppress flight as well? Now that she thought about it, Vinur's wings were too small and beat too slowly to provide flight purely on aerodynamics.

"Interesting." She devoured a few more strands of food, then fixed him with another glare. "I'm still mad you kept it from me."

He threw up his talons. "I already said I was sorry, what more do you want? And what was I supposed to do? I knew nothing about you! You could've been playing dumb to get on my good side. You could've gone mad with power when you learned. You could've done any number of horrible, long-reaching things if I told you about the ability to drain magic and, what? You expect me to just 'trust' you with that knowledge when I don't know anything about you?"

"I'm a star, you have no right to keep it from me!"

"Prove it!" he snapped. "Prove you're a star, right here and right now!" Cygnus blinked, then hunched down on her seat and simmered quietly, resolving to pick up another forkful. "Exactly!" Vinur said, before turning back to his own dinner.

Prove it. Prove she was a star. That was the problem wasn't it? He didn't want to believe her. She could show him her endless memory and the organic would just write it off as her having a good memory. She could show him her complete knowledge of how reality worked, and he'd simply say she was making up the parts he didn't know. Nothing she did could possibly convince him that she was what she said she was...

Cygnus made several more attempts at 'draining magic' as she ate. Eventually her plate was nearly clean, and she drained the rest of her drink. By then the pain in her legs had subsided to a gentle throb and she stood. "I am tired, I will go to sleep n-now... noooow," she said, trailing off into a wide yawn. But as she was doing so, her jaw opening wider and wider, suddenly something happened.

Something in her skull clicked and shifted, and her mouth opened almost twice as wide as her jaw unhinged. The dryness in her throat, persistent despite drinking, tingled. Cygnus X-1 looked at Vinur in confusion, and then she felt a ripple in the air. Vinur felt it too, as his eyes went wide and he gasped, falling forward onto the table and scratching at it with his talons. A pale blue aura, bright in the dimly lit room, flowed off of his wings, joined together into a single stream halfway to Cygnus, and wound towards her with a ghastly noise.

Her throat clenched in instinctive effort and she tried to work her jaw to close it, but then the blue vapor reached her mouth and she wanted more, she wanted all of it. It was light and... and puffy, it made her head swim and her legs shudder. Everything about the light was remarkable and she didn't even want to consider stopping the process, she wanted to take more and more and more until there was none left because it felt so amazing as it flowed down her throat and throughout her tiny organic body. Around her form, tiny arcs of brown psuedo-lightning flickered in and out of existence. She kept the process going, even as Vinur's pupils grew cloudy and he wheezed out 'Cyg... Cygnus...' quietly, even as the necklace's metal warped and the crystal shattered, not stopping until the light flowing from his wings ceased, and the tail end of the stream vanished down her throat and she managed to close her mouth...


***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***



Discord


"So Discord," Fluttershy began, taking a little sip from her teacup. "How was your day?"

He floated down into the bendy-straw seat he'd conjured up and curled his long body around its legs. "Oh, charming, thank you. Got to oversee some lovely political discourse between the penguins. You know about the penguins, right?" He was never quite sure how much ponies knew about the outside world; a small town like Ponyville, smack in the middle of the country, was pretty isolated all things considered.

The little pony looked thoughtful. "I... think so, they're the ones living far south, right?" She picked up the pitcher in her mouth and poured some of her tea in another cup, then offered it to him.

"Yes yes yes, them." He made the cup grow wings and fly up to his side. "So I was in the middle of Anarctia, not like this obviously, I was a random snowflake, and apparently there's a new craze where they slide down the side of glaciers, and into the ocean! Apparently it's all the craze amount the younger penguins!"

Fluttershy marveled at that. "Oh, really? That sounds dangerous."

"Oh, foo." He caused several cubes in the tea to solidify and jump out into his mouth, where he chewed the crunchy tea up with his fangs. Delicious as ever. "What's life without a little - " He paused as one of his ears flicked. He looked towards the north, frowning. He could've sworn... bah, he was being stupid.

His little distraction hadn't escaped Fluttershy's notice. "What is it, Discord?" she asked, looking up at him.

Discord turned back to her and waved it off with his lion paw. "Oh, nothing, just thought I felt something. It's probably nothing."






Cygnus X-1


The crackles of looks-like-lightning, having gone from brown to red, finally stopped. Cygnus stumbled about on her forelegs as her upper body wobbled, disoriented from her sudden... growth.

Before she could look herself over, there was a crash as Vinur slipped out of his chair and crashed to the ground. Cygnus ran around the table to see him. At the same time she noticed that she wasn't tired anymore, nor was her throat dry. The griffon had collapsed, as if his supporting bones turned to dust. His pupils were fogged over and he moaned weakly out of his beak.

"Oh," she said. "I think I figured it out."

He looked up at her and his pupils shrunk. "Cygnus... no..." he whispered.

Cygnus X-1 took the opportunity to look herself over. She had grown slightly so that, instead of being even height with a pony, she was as tall as Vinur. Her brown skin and fur had brightened to a fiery red. Her mane, tail, and the vest on her front had all gone from black to dull red. Reaching up with her left hand, she felt like her horns had gotten just a tad longer and sharper and her arms were a little thicker in proportion to the rest of her. Then there was the slight hollowness in her body. Not hollow like hunger, but as though she were empty of flesh and filled with a buoyant substance.

Vinur gasped for breath. "Cygnus, you've gotta... how could... I thought you didn't know how..."

"I didn't," she said, turning her hands over and over to look at them from every angle. "I've been trying to figure it out, but that was actually an accident. Hmm. I appear to have grown quite a bit. The implications on mass-energy conservation are... interesting." She looked down at the still recovering griffon, and her face softened. "This hurt you, didn't it?"

He barked a laugh, raising himself on his forelegs to look at her more easily. "Hurt me? I'd bet that's what getting impaled feels like! Oh winds, I feel so heavy."

As he kept struggling to get back to his feet, Cygnus X-1 winced. She hadn't intended to hurt him. Sure, if it meant getting back to her orbit it was worth it, but... in a way, Vinur had already made up for wronging her with his explanation of the magic suppressor. Though it seemed her magic draining had overpowered it anyway...

... all the same, the thought of having accidentally hurt the griffon made Cygnus's core churn uncomfortably. But she couldn't just give him back his magic, she needed it! Or at least, she needed whatever she'd actually taken from him, rather than 'his' magic.

Vinur got up to all fours, looking notably smaller than he had not long ago. "You've gotta give it back," he demanded. "Please." He got closer to her and grabbed Cygnus's right arm with his talons, looking her in the eye. "Please! You're just proving everyone right about their fears about you."

"I didn't even know how to take it, let alone give it back!" Whatever 'it' really was in physical terms. She tried to pull away from Vinur, but his strength must've been returning quickly and he just dug his talons in deeper.

"No! Figure it out! I can't live without my flight, you have to give it - " As his talons were getting painful, Vinur's eyes suddenly widened in shock and he reeled back, letting go of her. "AAH!"

The sudden noise made Cygnus jump back as well, and the reason for Vinur's release soon became apparent; the mist that appeared whenever she was wounded had seeped out of where he'd gripped her. Except this time, instead of murky brown, the gas was brilliant, glowing red, scorching the room with its temperature before it rapidly - more rapidly than before, in fact - sank back in her and healed her wounds. But it didn't just vanish, she could still feel it within her, churning just beneath her skin.

The star's eyes widened as realization hit her. Hydrogen gas. It was hydrogen gas, now heated to a bright red blaze. Focusing on the writhing sensation inside of her, Cygnus forced it to move. It felt like moving any other part of her body; her forearms blurred and dissolved into the gas, searing the dining room until Cygnus relaxed, pulling the gas back inside and looked at the panting, dull-eyed griffon.

"Do you now believe me to be a star?"