1 - Outcast

Gentle Repose - 23rd of Leaffall, 16 EoH

La vallée-des-Roses - Prance

The ballpoint pen is a wonderful invention. I can’t understand my co-workers opinion on writing implements. We all do mountains of paperwork, and yet the constant scritching and scratching of their quills on parchment is a comfort rather than a source of madness.

More so than the ballpoint’s lack of scraping and scratching, it’s much more utilitarian than a quill. Not only for the fact that one need not redip constantly or purchase an enchanted self-filling quill, but for what the pen can write which the quill can not.

A quill must be held a certain way, and requires each letter be written in a particular order so as not to poke a hole through the paper, or make a cut in it. My pen meanwhile, can be held any way I like and write any character any way I like. I can also write much more quickly, and need not worry about accidentally making a line too thick or too thin.

Which is excellent for when one must write in multiple languages. While the quill is more than suited to writing in Equish, Low Prench, and Canid, it is tricky to write in Neighponese, Romane, and Zebra’lah. Due to the fact that not all languages use the same shapes or even styles of character for their writing.

It’s also tricky to write with a quill in High Prench, the language of Governance. Which is what all of my daily paperwork had to be written in. My coworkers would be maddeningly scratching away for four times as long as I, wasting away the day as they spent unpaid hours finishing their paperwork all because of an insistence on a traditional writing implement.

My pen set me free from work and reprimands for not filing the appropriate papers to register the day’s tasks. I was truly delighted to have lived to see its invention. Before the pen, I was like my coworkers. Trapped in the office by the incessant flood of forms required to notify the all mighty military of every little goings on by our small contractor service.

We didn’t even do combat. It’s not like we had to each file fire reports and mission debriefs. You’d think that the accounting department would have this covered for us, but no.

At last, my silver pen left its final mark on the day’s last DDL-44 forum. The trail of red my magic left as I retracted the pen’s nib brought a small twinge of joy to my lips. I was free! Free to go home and do…

Well, I’d figure something out. Surely something would seem worth doing.

I slid the hood of my cloak over my head with a hoof as I grabbed my stack of paperwork in my magic’s arcane grip. While the short black cloak was perhaps a little dated for a unicorn of my profession, I had a fairly good excuse for wearing it.

The sun and I don’t agree. I want to not be in pain, and it apparently wants me to blister. It wasn’t always this way, we used to be on quite good terms. But at least the simple solution of a nice thick cloak was cheap and easy. As well as quite stylish in my opinion.

Perhaps I should have gone with another color aside from black, but at this point, after the years of enhancements and modifications made, I was quite attached to my cloak. Besides, while my preference for utility trumped my love of tradition, I still had a nostalgia for black.

My father wore a black cloak, and his grandfather, all the way through to the first of the family to enter this business. Sure, blue had come into fashion over the recent years. But I still liked black better. It went well with my ivory colored pelt.

I managed to make it exactly eight steps down the hallway from my cubicle before I was spotted.

“Rushing through work again?” Sunlit Star asked, smirking at me from his cubicle in that condescending and arrogant way of his.

I decided to ignore the pretentiously named bastard. I had two days off back to back starting tomorrow. I didn’t need to taint them by fighting with that purple maned idiot.

I kept walking down the hall.

“It’s not like you have to worry about time. You could just, you know, do the job right. Rot-breath,” he called after me as I walked away.

Alright. That stung, but no need to make a scene. Keep walking.

“See that everypony? He’s just a coward,” Sun called loudly.

I turned around. I shouldn’t have, but I did.

“Sun, the only reason you still live is duels have been made illegal. Were it still legally permissible to defend one’s honor you would no longer blight the lives of everyone around you,” I said in the least aggressive manner as I could. “Clock in, do your job, clock out. Neither of us ever need speak to one ano-”

“Oop! You heard it everypony, he threatened me!” Sun called eagerly.

Sun’s horn flashed silver. A semi-familiar wave of crippling pain shot through my body, forcing me to stagger backwards away from my constant tormenter until I hit the gray fabric wall of the cubicle behind me.

“Piss off, freak,” Sun chided, giving me a proud of himself smile as he turned back to his work.

This happened every day he saw me, but I could never prove he did it. Nopony would ever speak up on my behalf, expecting that was unrealistic. Our boss would never take my word over his. Besides, I could easily fake an attack by walking into sunlight for a moment and everyone knew I hated Sun.

Racist pricks.

I spent the remainder of my limp to my boss’s office concentrating on holding up the stack of papers. The moment I could set those down I could begin working on a spell to regenerate the damaged tissue. All I could do in the meanwhile was limp down the smooth stone hallway and fantasize about the myriad ways I could kill Sunlit if I were allowed.

That would be lovely! It would never be more than fantasy, but sometimes you need those to get through the day. Even if they are violent.

Truth be told, I would never actually do it. Despite his ability to inflict pain, he had no hope of ever endangering my life. Sometimes being a decent person sucks.

With an apprehensive sigh, I pushed the door to my boss’s office open, then simply floated the stack of paperwork over to her desk, setting it atop and hoping she wouldn’t say anything.

“Gentle,” she said coldly. “Wait a moment.”

I took a deep breath, slowly letting it out as I stepped into her overly decorated office. The hoof-carved wooden furniture, illusory portraits of her family and friends projected onto her shelves, and lavish plush rug always seemed too… Homey for a workplace.

But that suited her. The pure satin white fur with its metallic tinge announced her royal lineage to the world. But I knew she wasn’t part of the actual nobility. She was just some lordling’s bastard who felt the need to put on a grand show for the sake of being pretentious.

Ebony Pearl most likely got her position at the company based on her little game. Not that it had ever fooled me. She had the fur and the body language, but not the accent, mannerisms, or education. Though in the end, her sham didn’t matter. She already had her position of authority.

“Yes, ma’am?” I asked, knowing what she was going to-

“I noticed Sunlit cast a Rebuke Spell. I am aware you feel it is your legal right to defend your honor, but it is no longer the year Seventy-five-twenty. That is not a part of civilized society anymore. You have had twenty years to get over the old law.

“Furthermore, even if it were, you are of a lower caste. You have no right to do anything to him until he attacks you. If you don’t ignore his remarks from now on, I will be forced to fire you. Are we clear?” She asked, steepling her hooves as she glared at me with her beady little black eyes.

“Crystal,” I replied.

“Good. Show up early when you return. Cyan is taking a day off and I’ve given you her share of the workload,” Ebony informed.

“Yes ma’am,” I said turning and leaving before she could decide to increase the punishment to a point that would actually be annoying.

I hurried out of work, taking the back stairs so nopony else would run into me before I could leave. All it would take would be one coworker asking me for help with something and I could be stuck in this hellish building for hours more. I never used to hate working here, and I loved the actual doing things part of my job, but times had changed in the last twenty years. Not for the good either.

Fortunately, I made it out of the vaulted stone hallways and into the lobby undetected. The overly grand entryway shot by in a flash as I galloped outside to freedom. Even as a third class citizen, I still had the right to public peace. Not even the company owner could order me to do anything so long as I stood outside of the office while not on the clock. That was one law which stood no chance of changing anytime soon.

With the soul crushing dry heave pretending to be gothic architecture behind me, I felt a small smile part my lips. The sun was still up, mid evening if I was reading the shadows correctly, and La vallée-des-Roses looked as beautiful as ever.

Work did have one good thing going for it. The view from the front doors overlooking the entire valley was truly breathtaking. The Chamfron mountains curved around the village, cradling it with arms made of snow-capped peaks, with a band of green oak, beech, and maple trees that formed a band of red and gold leaves, running just below the white snow, and right above the sea of wild roses that filled the entire valley floor.

Hence the village’s name.

On a day with even a moderate breeze, the scent of the flowers would drift through the streets and provide a cheery atmosphere for everypony fortunate enough to live within this wonderful place. Although, on any day with a stiff wind, the scent of roses are overwhelming to the point of causing a pony to be sick.

That’s simply life, and that’s okay. Every rose has its thorn.

La vallée-des-Roses herself looked nearly as lovely as her land. She was an old village, eight generations of families had made their lives here. She lacked most of the benefits of modern architecture, but the cobbled streets which wound through the stone brick and timber Normane styled shops and homes did create a picturesque version of a Prench village. As they had been so long ago.

A picture complete with a fortified keep atop a hill with peaked tile roofs for its towers, wings, and halls. Encircled by lovingly well-kept gardens, with an orchard out back and a small tournament field on the eastern side of the grounds.

I used to live there.

Until the Emperor’s new Steward came to power twenty years ago, my family had ruled this village and her valley. I once would have been given the responsibility of Lord Mayor upon my father's death. I’d forfeit that inheritance long ago, but my younger sister had promised to allow me to still live in the family home when she was in charge.

Of course, politics are a fickle mistress. I was the only member of our family who still even lived in La vallée-des-Roses. The disfavor of older families with strong ties to His Majesty in recent years forced my family to scatter to the winds. All because my great great great great great great great grandfather had served His Majesty as a general for a few decades.

I lived in a flat now. Funny how life can completely destroy you despite you doing nothing wrong.

But no matter. Dwelling on the past is quite useless. As is moping overly much. Some moping is good, otherwise, how would you keep track of things in your life to work on improving? Right now I needed to focus on the good things in my life. I had two days of freedom, that was a great thing. What should I do with it?

I spent a few minutes standing still, looking out over the valley and village as I contemplated how I should spend the upcoming night.

I hadn’t eaten a nice dinner in a while. It would be fun to cook something nice and have a meal. Especially if I shared it with my flatmate. While I had despised sharing living space with another at first, Felling Axe came to be my only actual friend within two weeks.

Not that I ever actually called him by his proper name, at least not in Prench. I’ve always despised the Equish linguistic rule of also translating names when speaking a foreign tongue. Which meant that Felling was Leagain Tua. Because that’s what he would be called in Equish.

Not that I was trying to be polite by speaking his former nation’s tongue. The truth of the matter is that Tua insisted I use that stupid linguistic mechanism. Ah spite, my one weakness. How I love thee.

It did bother the poor pony, perhaps I should start using the name he preferred. After all, the myth was completely true. Equestrians have absolutely no emotional armor, if they feel it, they express it. Also, they are most definitely overly friendly, but I liked that.

If the ponies who lived in La vallée-des-Roses were as friendly as he was, I wouldn’t be the village outcast.

Yes, on reflection, after nearly two years, the joke was wearing thin. I’d have to find a new way to poke playful fun at Fell. Because that’s what friends do. I think.

The wooden door behind me creaked as somepony left, trotting past me after a moment. A unicorn, naturally. We didn’t employ non-mages. Greenish fur, tanish mane, not anypony I recognized. She had to be new.

The mare turned to look at me with a slight frown before shaking her head. “You know,” she said in a concerned manner, “they told me you just waited outside the door to go back in later but I didn’t believe them.”

Oh! My goodness, I had just been standing there in thought. That did happen quite regularly. It’s easy for me to become lost in thought and let hours slip by. Where was the sun at? AH, good, only minutes had passed at most.

“I was enjoying the view of the valley,” I explained to my new coworker, hoping to make a friend.

“You can enjoy things?” She asked, eyes widening in shock. “But they said you’re-”

I sighed. Nopony would ever understand properly. Unless the laws changed and I could publish my work.

“Yes, I can enjoy things. I can do everything you can and more. It’s an upgrade, not a downgrade,” I said as I watched her face twist into a condescending frown.

Nope, not making a new friend today.

“Well, arcanely speaking, it isn’t. Though intellectual capacity would drop… I’m sorry you think that way. Enjoy your view,” she said, walking off down the street.

Oh, for the love of His Majesty! You’d think I went insane and had gone on a killing spree. If I had, I’d have a whole brigade of knights beating my plot into the earth right now. I’m harmless, sane, and honestly a nice guy if I may be presumptuous. I don’t deserve this simply for having been terrified of dying!

I decided to give the mare a few minutes to get down the street so she wouldn’t think I was following her. The last thing I needed was more bad marks on my reputation. As soon as I felt the coast was clear I began my own walk down the street.

One upside of being a social pariah was the bubble of free space that formed around me as I walked. I never had to worry about pickpockets trying to nick things from my saddlebags or my cloak’s pockets. Not that they could take something from a cloak pocket if they wanted to. Arcane locks are lovely little things.

I generally stayed in my own little world as I walked around town, but I couldn’t help but look at the scenery this time. The sun was at that perfect angle to make the dramatic shadows filmmakers loved so much. Each decorative timber brace on every upper story on each building looked like a place for a camera to pan over before stopping on a balcony where romance or drama would happen.

In a way, that was true. Each window was much like a scrying mirror, providing a glimpse into the story of whoever owned the room beyond. I never used to even think of this fact of existence, but every individual has their own story, and they all feel themselves to be in the leading role.

I had to conclude that most people didn’t care about this, or we would all be far more kind to one another. Perhaps that was the Equestrian secret. They taught this sort of thing in schools. It would explain quite a lot.

At last, came to my usual grocers. It was across town from my apartment, but the owner didn’t care who was giving him his money. Like most of her businesses, Glass Pan’s Grocery was built in a much more modern style to allow the building to be a big box on the inside. The outer walls were little more than plaster and stone veneers to allow the store to blend into the surrounding buildings.

Inside the shop was nothing but tile floors, white-painted wood-paneled walls, rough timber cross beams to support the roof, and then metal shelving units forming a small maze of aisles. A proper modern shop. None of the charm of an old store, but who cares? I’d rather pay two barrels for a kilo of flour than eight.

As I perused the well-stocked aisles, it occurred to me I had not thought of anything to actually make. Was Fell vegan? I couldn’t remember seeing him eat animal products, and Equestrians were largely vegan despite most ponies being somewhat omnivorous. At least, that’s the impression I had from overhearing others talk about it.

I’d never been out of Prance. Legal issues.

While I tried to puzzle out if I’d ever even seen him eat an egg, I felt somepony gently tap my shoulder. Turning around I came face to face with the green apron of one of the shop’s clerks.

“My word, you are tall!” I exclaimed in surprise as I took a step backward to be able to see the olive colored earth pony’s face.

“Enlargement potion didn’t wear off,” the pony grunted, narrowing his pale blue eyes slightly. “Your cloak has magic pockets. You need to leave it up front while you shop.”

I frowned slightly. That wasn’t a policy I was aware of. Perhaps it was new.

It wasn’t too bright in here. The windows had been tinted dark. Yes, I could take it off safely.

“I understand,” I said, unclasping the silver broach with my magic, and quickly folding the cloak into a bundle and setting it on my back. “I’ll leave it at the counter when I pass by it next.”

“Huh…” The stallion remarked, looking at me oddly for a moment. “You look like anypony else under that.”

Oh. I see. Somepony told the new guy who I was so he decides to check things out.

“Of course I do. I take care of myself. Who doesn't?” I asked quickly adding. “By the way, do you know if Equestrians are universally vegan? Is that a culture thing?”

The stallion winced slightly, knowing he’d been caught screwing with me for personal kicks.

“Uh, well, no. I know it’s more common to eat only plants there but my sister went once… They do eggs. So you know, they’re vegetarian not vegan. You can find meat in ethnic food sections, maybe some eat like I do too. I have to go,” he said before trotting off down the aisle.

Great, that answer wasn’t exactly definitive. This entire mess wouldn’t be a problem if his work allowed employees to answer calls on the job. Wait, did he work today? Best assume he did.

Screw it, we play it safe and cook something vegan. It hardly matters in the end as long as it tastes good.

Though that does pose a major problem. What is a recipe that doesn't use milk, eggs, or products that contain some form of dairy? Ponyfeathers.

Ah well, I am certain he wouldn’t notice or mind if I made something a bit out of line with his normal diet. It’s okay to have a little bit of adventure everyone once in awhile, isn’t it? He had to try authentic Prench cooking at some point now that he lived here. Which meant trying a little fish from time to time.

Which meant the shopping list for this evening was one I had memorized long ag-

“Excuse me, please,” somepony said as they pushed their shopping cart past me.

“Oh, sorry,” I apologized, stepping out of the middle of the aisle where I had been standing like a corpse.

Heh. I amuse me.

Deciding to not make any more of a fool of myself than I had, I quickly put my cloak back on and went about picking up everything I would need. One filet of salmon, potatoes, a carton of vegetable stock, onions, olives, hard-boiled eggs, cumin, rosemary, thyme, and a loaf of unsliced bread.

Much to my delight, the absurdly tall cashier chose to simply ring up my purchase without saying anything and let me go on my way. I had figured he might have some sort of comeback for our little spat earlier.

With my goods paid for, I slipped them into an inner pocket of my cloak, the bulk and weight vanishing as they slipped into the magical pocket. I loved my pocket making spell. Reverse engineering that bottomless saddlebag had been worth every last barrel I spent on it.

The walk home was uneventful, and a little dreary. The sun had moved on while I shopped and no longer provided that special feeling of warmth and vibrancy. Instead, the mountain tops were beginning to scatter the sunlight, forcing dusk to come early. And as usual, despite the thin winding streets and the tall buildings, the crystalline magelamps which lit the streets at night remained unlit. Their magical glow reserved for arbitrary times instead of the simple and sane ‘when it’s dark out’.

La vallée-des-Roses couldn’t possibly be so low on finances as to need to cut back mana for the streetlamps. Not with how little energy simple light spells drew. On the upside, if this was the result of financial or infrastructural ineptitude, the new regime would be gone in another twenty years or so.

And I’d be around to see that.

I arrived at my flat just as it got dark enough for a light spell to be truly needed. The old building sat right at the end of a cul-de-sac, the smallest and saddest one ever constructed. The branches of the lone tree decorating the middle of the circle were used as structural supports for the balconies on the surrounding buildings. That’s how tiny the damned thing was.

The building I lived in was pretty ugly. A simple rectangle made of stacked rocks with rough timber floors inside. For being only eighty years old, it was an astonishingly good replica of a terribly made medieval building. Thank goodness Fell was into carpentry. He’d made our floor level, working one day at a time while the landlord was gone so as to not get into trouble.

Fishing my key out of a cloak pocket with my hoof, I unlocked the door, slipped inside, and quickly moved into the stairwell adjacent to the doorway. I didn’t like to bother my neighbors. At least the inner walls were stone under their dark oak paneling. Thick walls make for good neighbors.

My flat was on the fourth floor, not the top floor of the building, but still absurdly high. For whatever reason, the floors had eight meters of vertical space not counting the floor and ceiling thickness. Which made for one long climb.

It’s not like the climb could put me out of breath or make my knees hurt. It was just annoying. Especially because unless somepony needed to stand atop the head of an alicorn or ride atop a diamond dog’s shoulders or something, there was no need for the floors to be as tall as they were. Unless you cut floors out of your building to make it cheaper because you built it to hide some wealth tax haven style.

At last I arrived at my flat’s door, unlocked it with a tap on the enchanted brass plate I had installed, and walked inside.

The main room of the flat was divided into three sections. At the rear was our kitchen, well, our pathetic and tiny excuse for a kitchen that one pony could fit in if they reared up and balanced on their rear hooves every time they wished to turn around. The living room which the door opened into had been split between Fell and I. The right half was my tiny laboratory, completely filled with bubbling alchemy equipment and loose notes. The left half was his workshop, largely filled with wood shavings and cabinetry.

I hoped he could get a business for himself off the ground soon. He deserved that sort of happiness.

Thanks to the high ceiling, I’d suspended a couch and a coffee table in the air a comfortable height above us and locked them in place with a few spells. Fell made the folding ladder to get up to it. That’s where our proper living room was. We had to use that vertical space somehow.

On the left side wall our flat had three doors. Two tiny bedrooms, one tiny bathroom in the middle. I may have grown up in a manor house, but I did have a sense of scale. When the space available is enough for a trunk of clothes, a bed, and you, it is tiny.

Not that I minded too much. There was enough space for the important things. That was good enough.

As the door closed behind me I lowered my cloak’s hood and trotted into the kitchen, emptying my cloak pocket of the ingredients for tonight’s meal. As the salmon filet hit the counter I noticed that it looked a bit old. A closer glance revealed something I had not noticed in the store, a bit of rot starting to set in on one side.

Eh, not a big deal. I removed the salmon from the packaging, cast a simple restoration spell on the salmon to remove the rot, made sure it was properly fresh with a few pokes of my hoof, then cut it into small squares. A few minutes of quick and simple cutting later and I had the ingredients for my stew ready.

I had just finished hollowing out the loaf of bread to make two ‘mugs’ for eating out of when the bell I’d installed beside the door chimed twice, signaling Fell was approaching. I frowned. If he’d been another twenty minutes I could have had the meal ready by the time he arrived home. Oh well.

The door creaked open, and Fell trotted in, tossing his saddlebags onto the table beside the door with a weary sigh.

Fell was a fairly common looking Earth Pony. Brownish red fur, dark blue eyes, a short but fluffy light brown mane and matching tail all held on a somewhat stocky frame. Even his cutiemark was largely brown, being a woodcutter's axe stuck in a log as if it were being used to split the log.

The only surprising thing to me about Fell’s appearance was how he managed to be both the usual earth pony muscular and stocky, but also look rather androgynous. The odd look made him rather cute, which made me feel bad because I knew that him living with me had to be the reason he hadn't found a colt or marefriend yet.

Not that I knew which of those he might want. But he was the sort of good looking and nice that would give a pony their choice of mate without any effort at all.

“Welcome home, Fell,” I greeted, giving him what I hoped was a happy smile as I took care to say his name in Prench.

Fell looked up, ears perking in genuine delight. “Dia dhuit!" He greeted in Equish before blushing at his mistake and switching to Prench. "Oops! Sorry. Hello! I didn’t think you were going to be home this early. I was going to…”

Felling trailed off blinking twice before asking. “Did you just use my name properly?”

“Yes, the joke wore thin,” I explained, rearing up and turning around to stir the stew.

“Huh, I thought that was, you know, a locked in friendship thing. How was work? Starlit being a dick to you again?” Felling asked, genuinely seeming to care.

I’d never told Fell the full extent of the abuse I suffered. He seemed too nice to bog his mood down with things which didn’t matter in the end anyways.

“Nice for the outside portions, absolute Tartarus for the inside portions,” I said, just like I always did. “How was the barbershop?”

Fell walked over to the kitchen island, which wasn’t really an island because it touched one wall, and leaned on it, resting his forelegs atop the cedar surface.

“Boring as always… So, like, did the previous regime you keep talking about base employment on special talents?” He asked hopefully.

I shook my head. “No. As far as I know, only Equestria does that. Which is dumb, it’s one of the good ideas you guys have.”

Felling sighed and nodded. “Yeah. You know, I never wanted to be a barber-”

“You wanted to be a lumberjack, I know I know,” I said hoping to prevent the story from being told again. “Important question, do you eat meat? I can’t remember if Equestrians eat meat.”

“We do. Just not a lot. It’s a culture thing,” he informed. “You’re not cooking for us, are you?”

“I am, actually!” I said happily. “I’m doing a traditional Prench dish, potato and onion stew with olives in a bread-mug. It has some salmon in it… I- I don't know any purely vegetarian recipes.”

“Oh, that’s fine! No pony I know minds fish… Now beef, yeah some ponies will have a problem with that. I know a lot of your dishes have beef. They replace it with tofu back home,” Felling rambled.

“... That sounds disgusting,” I admitted.

Fell’s ears perked as he grinned. “You find tofu disgusting?”

I nodded. “Yes. It’s basically just cheese made from the fluid of crushed soybeans. It’s fake cheese made from fake milk. And it tastes terrible. And feels gross in the mouth.”

Fell giggled. “This is hilarious! Oh man, I wish I could write some friends. ‘Hey guys, guess what? My roomie thinks tofu is gross. Yes, the one who works as a grave keeper.’”

“Necromancer,” I corrected automatically.

Felling tilted his head. “But- I mean, I know that’s legal here, but you tend to the graveyard up on the hill, right?”

“Yes,” I said with a nod. “But I’m not a grave keeper. That graveyard is part of the Iron Line. I attend to the undead knights buried there. Keep them animated, update their equipment as needed, repair damage from insect nibbles. I serve my nation by maintaining our first line of defense. Which makes me a necromancer, not a grave keeper. We do have grave keepers on staff though. They mostly do landscaping and build new sarcophagi.”

“Ohhhh! Gotcha. That just makes it even funnier though,” Felling said with a silly grin.

I still remembered how terrified the poor pony was when he learned I was a necromancer. I’m glad he warmed up to me. Besides, it wasn’t like I was one of the rogue necromancers who popped up in Equestria from time to time. I was a Prench Necromancer, we have morals and standards.

Of course… Felling didn’t know the reason I was an outcast. He probably thought I was hated for being a necromancer, despite that being a state approved job.

Maybe one day I could trust him.

“Um, so, funny thing,” Felling said with a genuine laugh. “I actually just picked up stuff to make dinner for us on the way home.”

That actually was funny. I couldn’t help but laugh for a few moments. “Will it keep?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ll just do it tomorrow. Besides, whatever you said this was it smells awesome!” Felling said happily.

“Does it?” I asked. “Good to know. Most ponies don't like the smell of rosemary. It’s one of my favorite spices.”

“Really? I think I’d smell it more than… Or do you get most of your meals out of the house?” Felling asked.

Oh. Right. I should say something plausible…

“I don’t eat that much. It’s not a problem,” I replied.

“Well if that’s as good tasting as it smells you should cook more,” Felling said decisively. “We could make an evening of it! Like you know, we just cook a meal together once a week. Wouldn't that be fun?”

I thought for a moment then nodded. “Yes, it would be. Let’s do it.”

“Yay!” Felling exclaimed happily. “We don't do enough together.”

“You know, I agree,” I admitted sadly. “You’re quite literally my only friend.”

Felling’s ears drooped sadly. “I know. I’m sorry. I really don't understand why everypony is a jerk to you. You’d never see this back home… Well, um, at least I immigrated here. So you know, it’s not like I’ll ever have to leave if you want me to stick around. Which if you do I totally don’t mind.”

“I’m pretty sure that you’ll have to go one day or another,” I said forlornly. “But let’s not talk about distressing things. Would you please fetch my bottle of hard cider? The one in the green bottle. It should pair well with the stew.”

“Sure thing!” Felling said happily. “Or would you rather have some of the Firebrand I picked up?”

“Ah ha! So you have been learning about Prench culture,” I exclaimed playfully, “and been saving your barrels, I see. You sure you want to share that? Even the cheap kind is-”

“The cheap kind tastes like a Changeling’s dross mixed with water and some mud,” Felling muttered as he trotted over to his saddlebags and pulled out a deep red stoneware bottle full of the rather portant, yet delicious liquor.

Firebrand, essentially what happens when mulberry mead is crystallized and dissolved in one of the several varieties of golden rum, had been the fancy drink of choice in Prance since time immemorial. The cheaply made variety was indeed swill but properly made Firebrand was an entire medley of excellent flavors. So long as you could handle the burning aftertaste which, often likened to licking hot iron.

I squinted at the label. “That’s not top shelf, is it?” I asked.

Felling smiled happily. “It is. I felt like doing something nice for you.”

“Whelp, let’s clear out a space to eat on. This meal just got serious,” I intoned dramatically.

Felling laughed and began to move some of the cabinets he had been working on to make an improvised table out of.

I was lucky to have a friend like him. I don’t know how else I would stay sane.

2 - Exile

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Gentle Repose - 23rd of Leaffall, 16 EoH

La vallée-des-Roses - Prance

As is common with a fine Prench meal, the actual dining was an experience lasting several hours. Of course, being poor, we lacked the proper post-entree nibbles, but we did have the drink. A rather good one at that.

We spent the meal talking about various matters. The topics remained interesting, but the quality of our discussions degraded in sophistication over time, due to Fell achieving the state of ‘properly drunk’ on his sixth glass of Firebrand. Which is why we had moved from the airborne couch to the floor an hour ago.

Personally, I missed being drunk. Not completely inebriated, mind you. Just that light warm feeling from exactly enough of a drink.

Fell lurched a little, giving me an odd little smile and blush before his ears slid down and his face fell flat at the speed of somepony experiencing a flashback.

“Oh yeah…” Fell slurred. “I forgot. My boss is racist.”

I frowned, empathizing all too well. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. Sh- Ji- Li- uh… They! They called me a mud pony. And you know, meant it. Like… Why?” He asked sadly.

“Why are ponies racist?” I asked seeking clarification.

I hoped that was not his question. That’s a huge topic requiring extensive knowledge of political theory, sociology, neurobiology, and behavioral psychology. Frankly, I wasn’t qualified to talk about the subject as a whole like that.

“No, like… Um, no…” Fell mumbled rubbing his forehead with a hoof. “Why does it matter, if I don’t have wings. Or magic. Or fwooshy breath?”

I smiled as Fell mentioned dragon fire. “We don’t have dragons in Prance, Fell,” I reminded. “As for Earth Ponies, you are probably the only one for a few dozen leagues. Not many Earth Ponies of the First Kingdom came this way when it crumbled. Your ancestors all went to what is now Equestria. Your boss has never seen what your kind can do, and probably assumes you are useless. And well, without magic or wings, it’s hard to manipulate scissors. I imagine you work a little slowly.”

If Fell were not drunk I would have mentioned that the Emperor was once an Earth Pony. Racism against his kind was a very recent phenomenon, beginning within the last two generations. I always found it funny when young ponies forgot not only that but his Commands. A shame how they stopped making the young memorize the whole Codex of Honor.

Sadly, eight generations of being basically dead tends to remove you from public consciousness.

Fell shook his head. “No! We stayed put. When it crumbled.”

“Er, Fell, do you think you might be a little too drunk?” I asked in concern.

Fell gave me a confused look, bit his lip, then giggled. “Oop! Um, maybe just a lil bit. But um, It’s more like she’s ter- trara- no… oh! Afraid of me. Yeah, it’s like that,” he exclaimed with an eager nod.

Ahhh. Well, that was far easier.

I sighed and gently gave Fell a quick hug. “Sorry, but if that’s the case, there’s no fixing it.”

“Why?” He asked sadly. “I don’t like the fear all the time. It’s like boiled kale.”

I cleared my throat and with a quick flourish of magic recorked the bottle.

“Let’s leave some for another day,” I said levitating the bottle over to the kitchen counter behind me.

“Okay,” Fell agreed, picking up his mug and finishing it off. “Uff… It tastes cottony now.”

Yes, just a bit too far to the poisoned end of the drunk spectrum. Poor pony, he would have a monster headache in the morning.

“As for your boss, she’s afraid of you because we are a border village,” I explained. “I assure you that those of us living in proper cities are much nicer people. But here, a league from the griffons, one overwhelming push or clever trick away from becoming part of a food raid, many ponies are afraid of anypony who is different. The fear of the Other is great here.”

“Ohhh… That sucks,” Fell said with a frown.

I nodded. “Quite.”

“Is that why they hate you? Cuz you do the dead pony magic stuff? A-a-and they don't. So you’re different?” He asked.

“That is a part of it,” I admitted. “There’s also political reasons. My family is out of favor right now. Oh, and the social reasons. I’m third class. Makes me a public servant, so a lot of them feel like they own me, even though they don’t. His Highness does.”

Fell nodded twice and attempted to take a step forward but wobbled, barely managing to catch himself on the workbench next to him.

“Eep! Uh… Floor…No! Bad! Um, I brain I now should bed,” Fell said in broken Prench.

Truer words had not been spoken in this room for many months.

I nodded firmly. “Yes, you should. Do you need help walking?”

Fell shook his head a little too vigorously, causing his mane to fall over his eyes. “No no no… I’m okay. I’ll bed. But need nice thing first. I d-doo um… Níl mé ag iarraidh dul a chodladh brónach.”

Fells slip back into Equish made me pause for a moment in order to decipher what he had said. I spoke Equish of course, but just because you know a language doesn't mean you are always mentally ready to use it.

Ah, yes! That was ‘I don't want to go to bed sad.’

“Oh! Yes, I can understand that. Is there anything you would like to do?” I asked curiously.

Fell smiled happily again, nodding as he said. “Yush!” Slurring slightly. “Let me go and-”

Fell turned around, and then promptly fell over, forelegs simply folding under him while his rear legs remained straight, causing him to roll slightly forwards, flipping his tail up onto his back, plot as elevated as it could get.

“Oh no! I tripped…” Fell giggled.

I winced. Thank goodness nopony else had seen that. It’s always embarrassing when you trip. It’s rather hard for a quadruped to manage it. He had seven mugs. From now on his cut off was six, if only for the sake of preserving his pride.

“Here, let me help you up,” I said as I gently lifted Fell back onto his hooves.

Fell’s ears dropped as I lifted him, accompanied by a sad whimper.

“It’s okay we all trip at least once. Come on, let’s get you to bed,” I said warmly, supporting him with my magic as I gently walked him to his room.

“Ugh… Fine,” Fell lamented.

“Yes yes, going to bed sad is, uh, sad. But the sooner you sleep the less of a hangover you will experience,” I said soothingly as I pushed him gently into his room.

With Fell hopefully laying down to sleep off his stupor I turned and walked over to my alchemy bench, returning to an ongoing project of mine. I had two days to continue my efforts in extracting arcanite from iridium.

I had managed to produce iridium by reacting copper and nickel ore samples. If I could just find a way to separate the particles of Arcanite from the iridium, I could get ahold of the three kilos of the arcane reactive metal my project required.

There had to be a way to do it. SkyTech Industries was able to produce arcanite in limited quantities at the cost of a King’s Ransom worth of money. So I knew it could be done.

Perhaps this year I would succeed and be able to progress to the next stage of the project. Of course, the whole thing was a fool’s errand, a million before me had tried and failed.

And yet, I’d already done one impossible work of wizardry in my lifetime. How hard could it be to do another? Excruciatingly hard. Which is why it was fun!

Felling Axe - 24th of Leaffall, 16 EoH

La vallée-des-Roses - Prance

Bolts of green rained from the heavens, sending plumes of fire and rubble in all directions as they hit the shining towers of Canterlot. The living projectiles screamed, not with their mouths, but with their movement, like any shell would. The proper screams of terror came from the ponies below.

Smoke choked the streets, pouring out from the buildings lit aflame from the bombardment that was also a deployment. Terrified ponies rushing in all directions, screaming for loved ones, or fighting like geriatric children against the invaders. Cut down as they resisted, restrained mid step in their mad dash in futile search of safety.

They were not our enemy. The great dragon had died, these were her frightened hatchlings.

There was no need for war, food would have been given had she simply asked. These ponies were cowards, pacifists, sheltered by those stronger than them. If they even had warriors, they were not here this day.

There was no honor under her command. This path led to damnation. They were loyal, and so they were lost. But my own course could be corrected.

I wheeled around, smashing a hoof through the nearest changeling carapace, severing his right foreleg, Warsong upon my lips.

“For the grace, for the might of our Lord! // For the home of the Holy! // For the faith, for the way of the sword, // Give your life so boldly!”

I’m sure that everypony knows what it’s like to wake up with a class five hangover. The pressure behind the eyes, that pounding feeling at the base of the skull, the cottonmouth from Tartarus, the joint pain. The way that light strikes for your eyes, lance leveled at your cornea and screaming war cries.

The good news was that feeling would fade over a few hours. The bad news was most definitely the horrible smell that seemed to have replaced all of the air going into my nose. Metallic, also ashy and… Wheaty?

OH BUCK! Did I drink myself into a stroke!?

My head protested violently, detonating stars in my eyes as I scrambled to my hooves. Repose was a necromancer. He had to be able to unkill flesh, right? Maybe he could fix stroke-damaged tissue. I couldn’t afford to-

I frowned, the smell was far more intense now that I was standing on my ‘technically a mattress’. That was a real smell. Repose was doing some wizard shit again.

I sighed, rubbed a hoof gently over my eyes, then staggered out of my bedroom and into the living room slash workshop. The smell was nearly overpowering in here, and yet I could see Repose’s cute, yellowish white, shimmery plot poking out from under a workbench while he looked for… Something.

How the hay did he work with this smell? It had to be from working with dead ponies all the time. Gods only knew what a millennia old corpse smelled like.

“I feel dead…” I announced with a moan as a form of greeting.

“Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as ponies claim,” Repose replied automatically.

I couldn’t help but giggle at his dry wit. Unfortunately, my head decided that giggling was bad and pulsed angrily. “Ow…”

“Sorry, if I knew a hangover cure I’d cast it for you,” he apologized, remaining under the workbench.

“So, um, what smells like you opened a can of concentrated evil?” I asked, hoping the answer wasn’t something beginning with ‘funny you should say that.’

“Sorry about that, I dropped the cork for a flask and the reaction started while I’ve been looking for it,” Repose explained. “I had a breakthrough! But um, it’s a little smelly.”

I frowned grumpily. I’d already known he was doing magey alchemy things. That was entirely unhelpful.

“Okay, but the reaction is… What?” I asked patiently.

“Oh! Sorry. I’m dissolving an anode mud in a mixture of chlorine with hydrochloric acid to separate the iridium from the mud’s other elements. I worked out how to make an arcanite powder! If it’s stable I can- Uh, I can do cool wizard things,” Repose explained excitedly, thankfully curtailing the ramble I wouldn’t have been able to understand.

“Okay,” I answered turning to go and make myself some coffee before I remembered two things.

First, we were out of coffee. Second, arcanite was really bucking expensive.

“Wait! Like, could we get rich off of this?” I asked, turning back around in time to see Repose scoot out from under the workbench and cork the flask atop it.

“No, the amount of capital required for large scale production with this method is too prohibitive. Also, the powder may not be able to be made into a solid bar. But if I can make it into a single piece, then we could make some good money selling small quantities. Aside from micro-enchantment components, most enchanters will need tens of kilos per item. This mostly will be able to supply my own experiments,” Repose admitted with a sad sigh.

I nodded slowly so as not to anger the tiny monsters currently punching my brain.

Ugh, why did I try to get him drunk so he would be more receptive to my offered affection? Why didn’t it work? How much booze could that pony take!?

“Right, so… What are you trying to do?” I asked, genuinely interested despite my pained voice’s indication.

Repose claimed to have been working on the same project for the last twenty years. Most of that until six months ago had been all paperwork, notes, and math. He’d only recently started actually doing things. Which in my opinion was when projects got interesting.

Hoofwork is just inherently more fun to do than bookwork. For me at least. Repose definitely liked them both.

“I’m trying to construct a resonant-” he paused, cleared his throat and slowly turned to face me. “I’m trying to create a techno-arcane device which will act as a stabilizer for a tissue repair spell many thousands of times more complex and powerful than the ones which currently exist. It’s… I’m hoping that I can use it to restore my family to a respectable position. If I can pull this off then- Er, no offense but it’s not prudent to talk about success just yet.”

“Oh, well, okay,” I said with a small frown. “So what’s the arcanite for? I know that it does stuff with magic, but, well, you know.”

No one had actually ever told me what the stuff really even did, despite me having used many things containing the rare metal.

Repose frowned at me in concern. “They don’t cover that in Equestrian schools? I thought they taught basic arcane theory to all students.”

Did they? Buck! Think fast. “Well, they do. But I don’t remember exactly what arcanite does.”

“Oh, yes. I can see why an earth pony would forget that over time,” Repose said with a nod, seemingly satisfied. “Arcanite is a magically superconductive material. Put mana in one end, and it instantly spreads out to all parts of the metal. It’s excellent for ensuring that all elements in an enchanted item get the same amount of energy at the same time.

“In the case of my invention, I need a few kilos of it to use as a mana regulator, and capacitor. It can also store magical energy, see? Arcanite won't let energy leave it unless that energy is made to work via spellcraft or coming into contact with another magical conductor.”

“Oh! Like a mana gem?” I asked, comparing what had to be a super cool mage thing to a common battery.

Well… That made me look stupid. Great.

“Yes!” Repose replied happily. “But with FAR more storage capability than even quartz. If you made an arcanite cylinder and then plated it with zinc to isolate it from the outside world you could store a thousand times more energy than an equally sized quartz crystal, and for, well, possibly for millions of years before thermodynamics did its thing.”

“That does seem handy. I need to change out the gems in my power tools way too much for me to like,” I grumbled. “Thanks for recharging them for me, by the way.”

Repose smiled happily, his odd but still cute bright red eyes crinkling a little from the motion. “No problem. I got magic to spare and I like helping friends.”

Don’t say ‘are we only friends?’. Don’t say ‘are we only friends?’. Don’t say ‘are we only friends?’.

“Are we only friends?” I asked sadly.

Damn it!

Repose frowned slightly, clearly not taking what I said the way a normal pony would have. Thank the Gods! And also damn it…

“Oh! Well, I suppose we would be best friends, wouldn’t we? I mean, I just have the one, which naturally confirms that title onto you. Sorry, I can say that more often if you like,” Repose offered.

“I um… Just call me anything you like,” I replied with a nervous smile.

It really sucks when you like someone you can’t get a read on… Tartarus at this point I was fairly sure that Repose didn’t even think about sex, let alone romance.

“As you wish,” Repose said turning back to watch the blue-turning-into-brown reaction unfold. “Do you work today? If not I can cast a few spells to freshen up the air. The smell doesn't bother me.”

“HOW CAN IT NOT!?” I demanded, yelling mostly due to the hangover.

“Burned the inside of my nose with a heated brass rod before I mixed the chemicals,” Repose replied calmly.

I felt my ears and tail stand on end in alarm. “Celestia’s bucking cake habit! Why the buck would you-”

“It’s not a big deal, I’ll just fix myself later,” Repose said giving me an odd look.

“But that had to have hurt really bad! Don’t hurt yourself like-”

“Meh, it didn’t feel as bad as you think. It’s fine. I do it all the time,” Repose said with a dismissive hoof wave.

I spent a few moments staring at him in stunned disbelief. “I-is this why I never see you like, injured?” I asked after a few seconds.

Seriously, I’d never even seen him with a black eye or bruises, but he insisted that ponies threw things at him frequently.

“Yeah, I like to look nice. I repair any damage my body incurs as soon as I can,” Repose replied, picking up a silver pen in his magical grip and quickly jotting down a note while he stared at the reacting chemicals.

“A-alright then,” I said, a little stunned. “So uh, if your thingie works, what would you do with it? Sell it?”

I couldn’t just head out to work with that as the end of our conversation.

Repose shook his head immediately. “No! If this works I’ll be taking a trip to the imperial city-”

“Um, but I thought you said you’re not allowed to leave this village,” I replied with a frown.

“That is correct,” Repose agreed sadly. “But if I can make this work, I will have a device which can repair an extremely damaged body, despite scrambled tissues and a necromantic induced semi-coma, and also remove residual magic from someone. Meaning I could heal the Emperor, and remove the Stewards from power. I think that’s worth breaking a law or three. Unfortunately, it’s highly implausible I’ll actually succeed.”

“Uh…” I said, honestly floored by the sheer scope Repose’s project.

“I know… I know… Two thousand years of great mages tried and failed,” he admitted. “I don’t think I can do it. But I will try anyways. I have plenty of time.”

“S-shouldn’t like, you have state funding for this?” I asked incredulously. “I mean, like, if Celestia was sick and I thought I could cure her, I would have helpers, money, everything provided.”

“Well, this is mostly just something I do for fun. I don't expect it to work. Additionally, your countryponies have an interest in helping Celestia. The Stewards have ruled over Prance for eight generations. Most of us see them as the legitimate government and the Emperor as a historical figure and a pseudo-diplomat. When he is capable of speaking, at least,” Repose grumbled. “My family refused to follow a Steward's order twenty-eight years ago. It violated multiple sections of the Codex, you see? They responded by breaking up noble families with loyalty to the crown like our own.”

I winced. “Yeah, I remember. You told me the story before. But like, the Stewards are the Prench government now. You realize that this technically makes you a traitor, right?”

Repose nodded. “Yes, in a technical sense. But I don’t care. I may never have met him, but I have my grandfather's stories of our ancestors and history books to tell me that what we need in Prance today is for our Emperor to live once more. This… This is very heavy political topic to discuss early in the day, would you mind if I greatly summarize my position?”

“You don’t need to, I get it,” I replied. “Blind loyalty to authority is bad. Loyalty is something a ruler earns. If you feel the Stewards have not earned the loyalty of your people, you need to act.”

That’s what I did after all. I may be many things, but I’m not a hypocrite.

“Oh thank goodness!” Repose exclaimed with a happy sigh. “Yes, exactly that! The Stewards have spent thousands of years fortifying the inner cities, the imperial palace, and constructing the Iron Line… But have not once ever taken active measures to push back at the Griffons. They bucking eat us. The Stewards literally take no action diplomatically or militarily to stop our people from being eaten whenever the griffons can break through the Line.

“I owe them nothing. But I do feel I owe my nation a debt of honor. It’s hard for we Prench to not be a little patriotic. I obey the laws of the land for the sake of keeping the peace for the sake of my fellow ponies. Things may change one day, and if they do I hope to be a part of it. So I tinker with my projects. But that’s all I do. I don’t really expect anything to come of it, but I have hopes, and I enjoy the challenge.”

I nodded, feeling compelled to give Repose a sympathetic hug. At least I’d been able to leave. If he was able to, I’m sure I wouldn’t have bumped into him while looking for someone to room with when I’d immigrated two years ago.

“What did he do differently?” I asked. “The Emperor, I mean. Also, doesn't he have a name?”

This was finally some real meat behind Repose’s worldviews. I had to know more, especially because they seemed to match up quite a bit with my own.

“Of course he does,” Repose replied with a laugh. “I don’t know his first name, no one outside of his friends ever learned it. But I do know his family name was Prance-”

I cleared my throat and raised a hoof questioningly. “Did he-”

“Yes, he named his empire after himself. But that’s fair. He did start it on his own after all, and there are plenty of towns around the world named after their founders,” Repose said defensively. “As for what he did, according to legend, our Emperor made it his personal mission in life to unify all of ponykind, or should a nation treat its people with dignity, respect, and kindness, ally with them so as to bring an end to all conflict. History backs up that part of the legend, all of Prance’s conquests and attempted conquests were wars of liberation and the conquered lands were folded into the Empire, unmolested save for reworking their local government to match imperial standards.

“The Emperor wanted to make a better world where everyone was safe and could prosper, and thought the best way to do that was to rule over the terrible parts of it himself and fix them. If the stories are true, he was good at it. He could make most people agree with him by sheer force of argument and logic. Even after two thousand years you have people like me who remember their grandparents firmly declaring loyalty to what is effectively a corpse. I think that modern Prance needs that kind of unifier to return to a state of true glory. I’ve personally seen us slide down a long ways over my lifetime alone.

“Other places could use him now too. The griffons are our enemy, but they are carnivores and they need to eat too. Other nations of griffons, Eagleland for instance, they can feed themselves on non-sapient animals. If he didn’t fall, our Emperor would have fixed that for them right after shaking their former leader's blood off his boots.

“Maybe it’s all stories or propaganda. But his body really is still in the Imperial Palace, and he is sometimes conscious enough to act as our chief diplomat, or sign a special order for the Stewards. While I probably am just wasting time trying, there is always the remote chance I could help bring him back to strength. Frankly, the slim chance that I might be able to help the world in some way is all I have to live for. Aside from you, that is. Thanks for being my friend.”

Wow, that got grim! I couldn’t stand the bitter and sad look on Repose’s face. He had been all happy and glowing while talking about the history and then, just, wow. Maybe asking him about some more history would help.

“You know,” I began curiously, “history books do mention your Emperor was mortally wounded, but they don’t really say how. It’s just a footnote.”

That was something I had been wanting to know for a while anyways.

Repose nodded, taking a few long moments to write down a longer string of notes and then turn the page of his notebook to a fresh one before he continued speaking. “It’s not something that the Stewards like to talk about. The whole incident makes them look bad. Because some serious backroom politics and backstabbing happened to set everything up. The Emperor fell in battle at the beginning of a campaign to conquer one of the kingdoms which formed the Griffon Kingdoms later on.

“If you believe the story loyalists have passed down through the generations, Frosted Lake, the First Steward of Prance, hit the Emperor with a curse mid-battle, allowing an arch enemy of his named Dawn to breach his defenses and hit him with a really nasty spell, although it’s said that our Emperor almost killed him before it took full effect. Personally, I think that bit’s just propaganda.

“One thing is for sure, he was hit by a unique killing spell. Nopony I am aware of can ever figure out exactly what it did. All history knows is it killed the Emperor and seriously interfered with his Archmage’s resurrection attempt, leading to the last two thousand years of history.”

I nodded slowly. “Right, so, that’s how he’s been alive this whole time? He’s in an undead coma, slipping in and out of consciousness at random, like you said earlier?”

I always liked learning about history. It was fun. And this particular story had the added bonus of getting to hear Repose talk about something he was passionate about. That was nice. He rarely opened up like this but when he did… Well, beneath his bitterness was a stallion I wanted to be with forever.

Too bad my brain hates being direct when it comes to romance… That’s your revenge for all of the extra hours in the sparring ring. Isn’t it, brain?

“Yes. And also no. Imperial History is long and fascinating, going back to the First Kingdom’s collapse,” Repose informed, stopping to quickly turn down the flame on a small burner. “The legends say that our Emperor knows the alchemy lost during the collapse because he was born just before it was lost. In any case, he is best described as an extremely alchemically engineered pony.

“Again, if the stories are true, he improved himself to a state of near-immortality. Kind of like your Alicorns, but also vastly different. Um, that’s another topic altogether. But it’s likely a part of why healing attempts have historically failed. This is actually one of my favorite historical topics… I could lecture on this. How much time do you have before you need to go? It’s eight in the morning.”

Eight in the morning!?

“Ponyfeather’s I’m already late! I have to go,” I yelped quickly sprinting for the door and immediately tripping over my hooves, which didn’t want to move properly thanks to being stuff.

I landed in a heap on the floor, legs basically all knotted up, and face firmly pressed into the cheap wood floor’s twisted grain.

“Ow!” I moaned painfully.

I felt a warm tingle as Repose’s magic picked me up in a surprisingly gentle grip.

“You tripped last night too. Are you still a little drunk? You did have quite a lot to drink,” he asked in concern.

I groaned, emotional pain reaching critical mass. He thought that had been an actual bucking trip. What would it take to get through his thick skull? A formal bucking proposal?! Bucking backing up under you!? Why are you so cute but so oblivious!?!

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Repose said with a sigh. “I won't keep you from working, but you should ask your boss for a hangover tonic. They legally have to provide them, and if they are out, requesting one will prevent your boss from punishing you for your impairment.”

“Thanks,” I sighed, moving towards the door more slowly this time.

I took my saddlebags off the peg on the wall and tossed them onto my back. There was no time to check and make sure that my entire kit was in there. If I was missing any of the clippers or whatever, I’d just have to make due. Stupid bucking ‘bring your own tools’ policy…

“I’ll see you this evening, we should do dinner again. That was really nice!” I waited, as I slipped out the door.

“Didn’t we already agree to?” Repose called after me.

“Oh yeah. Uh, just making sure you remembered. Later! I love you,” I said accidently while stepping into the hallway.

OH BUCKING SHIT! What if he got mad because he didn’t like other stallions! Abandon life! RUN FOR THE HIL-

“Pardon?” Repose asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Flax juice!” I said quickly. “Uh, I need to pick some up. For woodworking later. I forgot it yesterday.”

Oh, gods, nopony would ever buy that bullsh-

“Oh. We call it flax oil, not juice. Sometimes it’s labeled flaxseed oil. I’ll try and pick some up for you. I’m free all day anyway,” Repose replied turning back to his workbench happily.

Oh my gods that worked! Just back away, do not open the can of bees...

“Thanks, that would be great. I have to run away really fast now,” I said quickly and awkwardly, closing the door behind me before whispering, “Love-you-bye!” Then quickly zipping down the hall in case he heard.

Oh, gods am I awkward... Why is fighting a timberwolf easier than saying you like somepony?

Gentle Repose - 24th of Leaffall, 16 EoH

La vallée-des-Roses - Prance

Fell seemed very out of sorts this morning. I was fairly certain he had been signaling me in some way but for the life of me, I had no idea what it all was about.

One thing was for sure. I definitely had to pick up the flax oil he needed. He was clearly very stressed out today. Nopony should have to go shopping like that.

I should do that now before I forget thanks to getting lost in my own fun.

Like a bolt of lightning from a blue sky, it hit me!

Felling… He was terrified of his boss!

It all made sense. Last night he had said she seemed afraid of him and had been acting in a hostile manner. Of course, he was flustered, he was worried she would fire or otherwise hurt him.

My pen clattered to my workbench as my magic’s grip failed due to my becoming just a little bit absolutely livid.

How dare she terrorize my friend! He was kind and hardworking. Fell didn’t deserve abuse simply for being different. This sort of monstrous behavior was unacceptable. I put up with abuse directed towards me, but this, oh-ho-ho this…

This had to be dealt with immediately!

A thousand separate plans flashed through my mind, most of which involved animating a hoard of the undead to rend her limb from limb, or flay and then throw into a salt mine, or literally beat the witch into a paste, reanimate her, and make her EAT that paste.

But I pushed them aside. They seemed like just a bit of an overreaction. Also, I would be killed for that. I didn’t usually even think that violently. I must like Fell more than I had thought I did.

I needed something untraceable back to him or me. Something which would torment her and draw her focus away from him. But what?

Suddenly I had an idea, a perfect, marvelous, beautiful idea! I would sneak into her office and curse her office chair to make the space around it five degrees colder than everywhere else in winter and ten degrees hotter in the summer. Brilliant!

I dashed to the door and tossed on my cloak, fastening it securely before galloping out the door, slamming it shut with my magic.

Oh, yes! I must remember to pick up flax oil on the way back. I hated it when I was missing something to finish one of my own projects, after all.

3 - Revealed!

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Felling Axe - 24th of Leaffall, 16 EoH

La vallée-des-Roses - Prance

There’s a weird thing that happens to you when you are well traveled. You realize that everywhere looks just like somewhere else. Not exactly, the same mind you, but the cedar forests on mountains in Equestria are basically the same as the cedar forests on mountains in Drake. Most places which you can go to would be indistinguishable from many other places if it weren't for one thing.

Civilizations.

There maybe only be five biomes, with limited sub-biomes that spread out over the world in a semi-regular pattern, but nature is only half of the world. If you were randomly teleported from wilderness to wilderness while sleeping, you could be forgiven for not realizing you had moved until you spotted one obscure species of plant or type of stone you know was “in the wrong place”.

Not so with cities. Sure, some elements of architecture are shared between peoples, but each people still builds their settlements in distinct ways. The way the roads are made, the materials making up buildings, their size, how they are decorated… All of those small things come together to make each place feel distinct.

Which is why even on foggy mornings when I was late for work and a bit heartbroken, I still enjoyed looking at des-Roses while I ran through it. A spruce tree, is a spruce tree, is a spruce tree, but homes come in a billion varieties. Hay, sometimes you can swear you almost taste the faint dregs of love put into a well crafted and cared for home.

Like the very lovely old cottage to my left with its pale pink clay-tiled roof and awesome scrollwork decorated window frames, which had clearly been engulfed over time as the village grew, leaving behind only the vestige of a once lovely garden between the street and the front door.

I bit my lip sadly. I might have given this identity a history as a lumberjack, as I did have some experience in that area, but woodworking was my real passion. If I were not late for work, I would love to get a closer look at those window frames. Maybe do a charcoal rubbing of them so I could replicate the design for some cabinets, or maybe a hoof locker.

Ah, buck it. I was already late. What were another five minutes? I always had some tracing paper and a pencil in my bags. I’d just knock on the door and-

“Sir, are you the Felling Axe who resides at twenty-one Sabbaton Way?” A mare’s voice asked from behind me.

I winced, ears drooping. This was either really bad, or maybe with some luck, somepony saw one of my ads for carpentry services and wanted to-

I turned around and instantly realized this was a bad thing. The gray-maned, citrine furred, unicorn mare addressing me was dressed in the smoky gray double-breasted uniform jacket of a Constable. And the three mage’s rods attached to a quick-draw bracer meant she was the real deal, or stole the jacket to murder me without drawing undue suspicion for carrying weapons.

I took a deep breath. “Yes, ma’am. Am I being accused of anything?”

Her horn began to glow purple as she slipped one of the rods from her bracer, the weapon’s arcane circuitry taking on her aura’s purple glow as it was readied.

“You are charged with being a changeling living in an unregistered from, identity fraud, immigrating under false pretenses, and utilizing forged credentials,” she informed eyes narrowing. “By the authority of the Lord Mayor, you are under arrest pending trial by judge. Will you walk or be carried?”

My heart skipped several beats, only to immediately switch to a study yet elevated rhythm as the adrenaline kicked in.

I’d thought I’d found a new life. I'd never intended on shifting again. I liked being just an earth pony. I had something to live for again. I thought I’d outrun the past. I thought I had a nice ordinary life which would see me dying content in my sleep when this form expired.

Maybe, just maybe, if I went with her peacefully, we could resolve this whole thing and-

The overwhelming need to drop and roll left shattered any hopes of a peaceful resolution.

I went limp, chest slamming into the ground while my hips twisted, sending me a meter to the left in an instant. A small crossbow bolt smashed into the street, my eyes catching the moment of impact which bent the special bolt’s syringe tip in the fraction of a second before I sprang back up.

Airborne snipers. Buck, they were serious about arresting-

I had to jump right!

I jumped as my magic surged, it didn’t happen automatically, I was out of practice. This was bad.

The constable snapped her rod into position, the silver and brass implement pulsing before launching a thick ring of hot purple energy towards me. I felt the energy slap my left ear as if I had clipped it while running too close to a brick wall. The concussive blast exploded with a thunderclap behind me as my hooves hit the street skidding on the cobbles as I fought for purchase on the morning rain damp stone.

“Buck!” The constable exclaimed. “Soldier! It’s a Soldier!”

That’s right. But fortunately for you, I don’t want to kill you. I just want to get away.

I began to twist in order to sprint towards an alleyway I could see out of the corner of my eye.

“Switch to lethal ordnance,” a stallion’s voice called from above.

My danger sense was warning me one second in advance. I would not survive an extended engagement or a fighting retreat on it alone. I needed some equipment, or decent cover, or-

My saddlebags! I had tools!

Back up! Left! The unicorn leveled her rod, a crossbow twanged. I did my best to twist myself to comply with my magic’s warning, but it wasn't enough, white hot pain scythed along my right foreleg as a bolt sliced a shallow gash down the entire length. The unicorn’s concussive blast clipped my left hip, throwing me to the ground with far more strength than I thought possible.

Pain radiated from my foreleg. It wasn’t too bad, I could suck it up. I wasn’t out of the fight yet.

Laying on my side, I reached back into my saddlebags, hoof finding what felt like a pair of scissors. It was time to return fire. Gathering my other legs beneath me, I pushed myself up, turning the move into a rolling pounce, corkscrewing as I flew towards the unicorn.

As I rolled I spotted the constable’s partner, thirty feet up, grimacing worriedly about shooting with me this close to his ally. Using the momentum from my roll I flung the scissors at him, smashing head first into the unicorn’s barrel an instant later, sliding and tumbling along with her over the cobblestones.

As our roll stopped the unconscious mare lay atop me, I heard a metallic clink as the scissors hit the ground, and the pained cry of the pegasi above.

I had never been very good at shapechanging. I’d never had to be any more convincing than ‘looks like a pony to me’. I’d gone earth pony knowing my strength would seem appropriate. Weak even.

I had more than enough muscle to throw the mare away from me with one pump of my rear legs. As her weight vanished I rolled over, seeking to stand up. The sudden motion made me feel sick to my stomach. Hopefully, that wasn’t a sign of injury. I couldn’t risk shifting to heal myself, I’d never learned how to go from one form directly to another…

Glancing up, I spotted the pegasi doing his best to aim at me with one hoof, the other one wiping blood from his eyes. My throw managed to open a large gash above his right eye. With any luck, that was the one he aimed with.

I dove for the scissors, knowing they at least flew well. My dive failed and I landed a few meters from them, a crossbow bolt pinged off the cobbles to my right, so far away I hadn’t even been warned about it. The pegasi was disabled, but he could still track me. I needed to ground him so I could run.

I surged forwards, grabbed the heavy steel scissors, opened them, placed one tip against the ground, and chopped at the center with the flat of my hoof. The center pin snapped with a loud ping, giving me two separate blades. Hardly daggers, but when you need a shiv-

Forward!

I fell into a roll, tucking my head and barrel down, pivoting my hips up and-

IMMEDIATE INDESCRIBABLE PAIN!

My hips slammed into the ground, pulled down by the force of the bolt cutting through me. The literally indescribable pain became worse as the bolt stopped halfway through, sending a jolt through me as the tip struck the stone, stopping dead.

I went entirely limp, unable to control a single muscle for a full ten seconds before my body screamed. I didn’t tell it to. I just did. When it stopped I screamed as well.

I had to. There was no choice except to scream and try to drown out the pain with my voice. A stallion will do that when cold steel pierces a testicle.

Why did I pick stallion? Stallion was a bad choice!

Every last nerve was boiling in Tartarus. I heard the stallion above me groan in sympathy, then laugh. “If you surrender I won't shoot the other one!” He called mockingly.

I had just enough control of myself through the pain to open one eye and look up. Why did they have so many pain receptors!? WHY!?!

I fixed my tear-blurred eye on the pegasus, futilely trying to fight through the pain enough to throw a shiv at him. I managed to get as far as a deep pained, gasping breath before he swung his bow away from me.

“You!” The pegasi called. “Stay back, this changeling is under-”

He vanished into a red streak, smashing into the ground with a yelp and a crunch.

Confused, I turned my head, trying to see what had happened. Hooves clicked against the stone, and a heartbeat later, Repose’s face filled my view.

“Are you?” He asked.

I nodded, whimpering as a fresh surge of agony forced every muscle in my body to clench.

“Okay,” Repose said decisively, nodding to himself.

Oh, gods. He knew. I hadn’t ever told him and now he knew. I’d never see him again...

Repose vanished from my view, black cloak swirling as he turned. “S-so-sor…” I gasped trying to apologize, despair hurting half as much as the bolt as he walked awa-

“OH! That is NOT in your thigh!” Repose exclaimed, voice filled with sympathetic pain. “Well, um… This can't possibly hurt any worse than that. Bite something.”

Bite some-

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” I screamed as it hurt way worse, a throbbing blistering pain joining the indescribable hell in a separate but equal level of blinding agony.

“The bolt is out. Can you heal yourself?” Repose asked.

I whimpered and sobbed, anything on the street.

“Stupid question... Sorry,” he apologized, cool relief starting to flow from my groin outwards.

A few heartbeats later and the only pain left was from the full body cramp clenching from the pain had inflicted. It was nothing. My pain threshold definitely just jumped several notches.

“Is that better? I’ve never fixed a living person before, and that was a tri-bladed broadhead… Surprised it didn’t just cut it into thirds. How big are testicles supposed to be anyway? I wonder if there’s a book on it,” Repose rambled.

With the pain cloud leaving my mind, I was able to pick up on the tinges of shock in Repose’s voice. He wasn’t panicked like I would expect a civilian to be, but he was definitely not okay with the situation at large.

“Much… Better…” I gasped.

Sure, my foreleg was still cut but I honestly could only barely tell.

“Good so umm, what in the actual buck is going on?!” Repose asked.

A mare’s voice bellowed a warcry. With a wet squelch, a purple energy-spear punched a hole through the front of Repose’s barrel. I screamed in horror, expecting my love to fall, loathing myself for not finishing the mare off when we lay in a heap on the ground.

“Ow,” Repose said reflexively, a look of shocked surprise on his face as he looked down at the energy weapon. “There’s a spear in my chest.”

I felt my eyes nearly pop out of my head in shock as Repose turned around, the energy spear being ripped from the unicorn’s telekinetic grasp, the rod generating it falling to the ground, the spear vanishing the moment it left her grip.

“What you did was in error!” Repose irritably announced.

“Ponyfeathers!” The unicorn yelped, ears laying back and eyes widening in horror the moment Repose turned around.

Repose’s red aura seized the unicorn, dragging her forward into an outstretched hoof. The aura flashed black for a split second as she made contact with him before dropping to the cobbles in a limp noodle pile. Muscles curling up into little flesh balls, via a series of agonizingly painful looking shudders.

“Somepony will reattach your tendons later,” Repose said to the mare, his magic stripping her bracer containing her other two rods from her now-floppy leg. “And I’m taking this.”

“H-how?” I asked, quite in shock from...

Well, from the fact that he wasn’t bucking dead!

Repose turned around, sliding the bracer on to his own leg, then knitting the hole through his bucking body back together with a quick spell. To my astonishment, he looked away from me in embarrassment.

“W-well… For now, I’m not mad at you for being a changeling because I am not a hypocrite. We need to flee, we’ll BOTH talk later. Somepony surely ran for the nearest guard station. Oh, there’s another spell rod. Good,” Repose said in a calculating manner before scooping up the spear-forming weapon.

I rolled over, managing to stand up despite my cramped muscles protesting. Repose was right. Act now, talk later.

“I need to leave the country… They found me somehow, so they can do it again. Can you get me across the Iron Line?” I asked hopefully.

He worked on it, surely he could, I don't know, turn them off for a bit? I could run a league pretty quickly. Ten minutes tops. He could do that, right? Oh gods, please be able to-

“Yes. Easily,” Repose said, biting his lip in concern.

“I’ll need to dig up some gear,” I said, suddenly remembering the chest I’d hidden before immigrating. Illegally.

I couldn’t afford to leave that behind. Not if I was going to be traveling again.

“Why?” Repose asked, sounding baffled.

“Because your border guards wouldn’t have let a pony dressed in Sapphire hive wargear cross the border, now would they!?” I snapped, the stress of this clusterbuck hitting me in that moment.

“Ooohhh…” Repose winced. “I-I can’t help you. Not if you serve Queen-”

An indignant surge shot up my spine. “I deserted her army over a decade ago! And she’s dead now!” I exclaimed, stamping a hoof angrily against the ground.

“She’s dead?” Repose asked in honest surprise, his frown visible through his hood’s shadows.

“Yes! I told you months ago! I threw a small party!” I exclaimed.

“Oh yes, you did… I forgot about that,” Repose muttered. “Very well. Unfortunately, I’ll need to go with you. They will be coming to kill me now.”

“So what? You’re bucking invulnerable!” I protested. My heart suddenly tried to leap into my throat. “Oh-my-gosh-I-mean-yes-please-come-with-me!”

My gods, a friend would be the best possible thing to have on the long lonely road to I had no idea where I could even go yet! I NEEDED him with me! What the buck was I even thinking a second ago!?

“I’d love to… But first, I need to retrieve something from the castle,” Repose groaned.

My heart slid back down into my chest and stopped beating for a long moment.

“Wha- why?” I pleaded.

Break into the castle?! Was he mad?

“Because I’m not invulnerable. I’m actually very easy to kill if you know how. A foal could do it. They know that, and as soon as they know I attacked a guard, they will be searching for the way to kill me… And it’s in my old bedroom. More importantly, if I want to move more than twenty-five kilometers from that castle, I need to retrieve something very important from it, which I will explain fully later. Do you understand?” He asked in a serious voice.

Oh. That’s right. Third class citizens were legally bound to work a certain job for the state. They probably had him magically ‘leashed’ to the village.

Barbarians!

“I understand. But do we have time to get it and my equipment?” I asked.

Repose nodded. “Yes. I am very familiar with the entire village. If we retrieve my Phylactery I can teleport us to wherever you buried your gear, and then to the line… But not across it. I… I don't know anything about the lands over the border. I’m not going to risk a blind teleport. Not while carrying it.”

“Then let's go,” I said grimly. “Do you have a plan?”

“I’ll make one on the way. Run!” Repose exclaimed, wheeling around and bolting down the street towards the castle.

I grit my teeth, took a breath, and sprinted after him.

This had turned into a Tartarus of a day. But, at least I didn’t have to go to work now.

Wait a minute… Repose pulled the bolt out of me. Meaning he had to have touched my junk.

Did that count?! You know what, buck it, that totally counted! I lost my virginity today! Yay!

Of course, I was still fleeing for my life but-

NO! Happy thoughts and combat instinct only! Keep calm. Panic and you both die...

Gentle Repose - 24th of Leaffall, 16 EoH

La vallée-des-Roses - Prance

The village’s alarm bells unleashed their warning cries in all directions. The guard was taking no chances today. But of course, they had good reason to be afraid. I would likely destroy most of the village before I was stopped, and they knew it.

What they did not know is, I didn’t wish to do that. My sole focus was getting Fell to safety.

Fell was more than a little fortunate I had set out so soon after he had, doubly so that I had gone the same route as he had. Things could have turned out much differently had one of us merely taken a less direct route to the barbershop.

Not to say learning your roommate is a disguised changeling of the most hated hive in existence is a good thing. Especially not when you learn via intervening in a violent arrest. However, as with all combat, everything is about scale. Losing my sole friend would destroy me.

Even now, a full three minutes after the two of us began the mad dash towards Château les Bruyères, I had no second thoughts about my actions. I was actively committing treason, going as far as to attack a fortified military structure, all for the sake of ensuring a friend would be safe. A thing I perfectly accepted, despite the love of my country.

What use is patriotism when your nation has not earned your respect in a full five hundred years? None. None whatsoever.

But loyalty to those who do truly care for you? That’s worth everything. Fortunately for Fell, my everything was quite a lot. Fifty times more than what my body normally provided, in fact.

I was my father's firstborn son, set to take over his position when he died in the old merit-based nobility. I had spent the last three hundred years doing little else besides studying wizardry, but I still had my other skills. Dull as they may be.

Our assault did not have to last long. Fell needed only to enter my bedroom, a thing which could be done from its window, and retrieve one item from the nightstand. I knew it was there, because my entire room was my old laboratory. It had been locked up pending magical ‘decontamination’ as they put it. And they never got around to it.

As a changeling, he could fly through the window. Wait, can all changelings fly? They have many different varieties, right?

“Fell, can you fly?” I called over my shoulder.

“Yes, why?” He called back.

“Formulating a plan,” I replied.

It occurred to me that we had not yet encountered any guards. They must have assumed we would not head deeper into town. With luck, some of the castle guards would have been dispatched to give chase.

With some ill luck, we might run into them in the street. Fighting off a squad of armored foes would tax me, and prevent me from doing anything of significance at the castle. We would have to evade anyone we encountered.

Now, fell enters the window, to do that requires a significant distraction for the defenders. Wall top and towers alike would need to be focused elsewhere. What could I do that wou-

Oh! Yes, that would work.

The Castle’s granite walls began to loom overhead as we neared the edge of the village. In about thirty seconds we would leave the cover of the streets and enter the killing field between the castle and the village. A literal uphill battle awaited us as we ran up the road to the castle, funneled along by the short stone walls on either side.

Offensive structures would help us as well today. Quite ironic.

“When we near the wall, I will fire a volley of ray spells,” I informed loudly. “The last one will break my old room’s window. As soon as you see the distraction begin, fly in, grab the silver pocketwatch from the bedside table, and bring it straight to me. DO NOT get shot while you have it!”

Given Fell’s previous luck with bolts, one of the damn things would pierce the hoof he held it in and destroy it. I did not want to die today. No day is a good day to die.

“Wait, we’re after a watch?!” Fell exclaimed in disbelief. “I thought we needed like, some kind of magical contract or something like that!”

“It’s not just a watch. You’re a changeling, you’ll understand when you get near it,” I explained wearily. “There is no time to argue… Stay close, I can’t waste much energy on shields.”

The smooth granite castle walls loomed ahead, slender towers placed evenly along the perimeter. Each capped in blue clay tiles. The gatehouse was closed and the drawbridge pulled up. Whoever was in charge foresaw the possibility of an attack. Hopefully, they wouldn’t expect my plan. Another mage could easily counter it.

I heard Fell sigh and gallop closer to me just in time for us to emerge from the streets and begin the run-up hill. To make this plan work I would need to make it look as if I intended a serious assault. Focusing my magic, I conjured a curved shield of magic, making it hover in front of us at an angle which would deflect arrows. I didn’t have the energy to maintain it, not with everything else I had to do.

It was time to announce my presence. Closing my eyes, I readied my first spell. I felt my horn burn as more energy left me in the one spell than all the spells I had cast in several years. I was abysmally out of practice with battle magic!

There had been no need for grand spells for some time. I used to be able to fire two dozen with this. Let’s see how many I could do today.

To the soldier's credit, before I could use my spell, arrows began to skip off the shield. The shield was mostly in place to protect Fell and to provide a big red glowing target to hopefully hide him via sheer misapplied attention.

“They have a bead on us,” Fell warned.

“Get ready to fly,” I countered, and activated my spell.

Under the command of my spell, one of the larger boulders in the stone wall tore itself loose from the structure with a hideous scraping sound, a stream of mortar trailing after it as it shot through the air as if fired from a catapult.

I frowned. Odd… It was supposed to superheat and combust first.

The boulder smashed into the castle wall, forcing archers to duck, but doing little else aside skip off the wall with a flash of bright blue. Thankfully the wall's structural integrity shield didn’t extend over the wall tops. After all, the archers needed to return fire.

I launched another boulder, this one managed to ignite before slamming into the wall, scattering burning fragments of stone along a wide area. Hopefully, any grass fires wouldn't endanger the town.

I got a fourth and fifth boulder into the air, both of them properly igniting, before the archers began to return fire in earnest, bright streaks of light joining the arrows as unicorns began to return fire. I could feel my spell’s energy almost entirely depleted. There was no way I could cast bombardment a second time and still have enough energy to ensure Fell could get in.

Looking over the wall top, I spotted the section of battlements the unicorns had set up on and flung one of my last boulders at them, aiming the others at the towers above the gatehouse. The stones impacted, exploding and sending some of their fragments over the wall top. A pained scream pierced my ears, making me wince.

It would be really nice if there were even a chance to begin with of resolving this peacefully. Of course, even a foal would have known there wasn't a chance in Tartarus of that.

We reached a spot three-quarters of the way to the wall. From here I could barely see the castle itself over the wall top. It was time.

“Marking the window!” I called, firing a volley of ray spells in a line at the wall.

The first three struck the battlements, one nearly clipped an archer’s ear, another hit a crossbow, making it explode into splinters as the bow snapped, and the final ray streaked over the wall top, smashing a window.

I felt my old bedroom window explode inwards in a shower of glass shards. Thank goodness. I hit the right window.

“Got it!” Fell called, a sudden sound like air blowing into a forge punctuating the whistling of arrows and shrieks of spell bolts.

Right, now for the real part of my plan. This could possibly drain too much energy from me. But I could do it. Fell would come back with my phylactery. It wouldn’t matter if I did collapse.

I skidded to a stop, adjusted the shield’s angle with a quick pulse of telekinesis, and then took a deep breath as I prepared to cast a massively upscaled version of an entrenching spell. With any other castle, this would never work. But unfortunately for them, I knew how deep the wall went beneath the earth…

“Go!” I shouted.

Fell took off with a loud buzz. I saw archers take aim as he jumped, and released my spell.

The earth literally trembled as the ground rolled away from the wall along the gatehouse's left side, rolling red-flame like tongues of magic shoving soil, rocks, and stone aside like a foal scooping sand from a sandbox. The massive trench blasted a thick trough from the base of the wall into the moat, the excess earth blocking off one side of the moat, forcing the water to surge down the sloped path and smash into the base of the wall, the wall instantly erupting into a cloud of blue-white sparks and electrical arcs as its enchantments dealt with the impact of several tons of water right at the very bottom.

I sensed someone enter my old bedroom. Good. Fell made it.

If I calculated everything right, the wall would hold.

A near-crippling wave of exhaustion enveloped me. That spell had taken everything I had. I could stand and listen to the soldiers panicking atop the wall, but nothing more.

I felt my heart skip a beat as a crack shot up through the wall, accompanied by a thunderous boom. I dug the trench too deep! I didn’t want to actually endanger the village! Bucking Tartarus, no! Don’t collapse!

Ah, good. Fell had picked it up. Everypony was still fixated on me, he could definitely get back out.

I held my breath in horror as the wall sagged under its own weight, sinking into the now muddy ground enough to visibly sag. The soldiers atop the walls crumbling section began to spring away from it, expecting it to fall. A fresh storm of arrows smashed into my shield and plunged into the soil around me.

I couldn’t blame them. If I were really attacking, I would currently be raising a few dozen skeletons to charge through the gap as soon as the wall section fell.

The sagging section of wall creaked, more cracks radiating out from the central one as the sagging wall’s bricks pulled apart. Then, thankfully, the wall settled. At least my first live fire use of siegecraft hadn’t been too badly botched…

Fell came back over the wall, a black and blue blur moving at what had to be a changeling’s top speed. Several arches noticed as he blew past them, immediately sending a cloud of arrows his way. I held my breath in horror, dreading any of the shots striking home, but thankfully, Fell’s luck had changed.

No… They weren't missing. He was dodging the shots! Fell easily slid up, down, left, and right without changing his forward momentum at all. Taking full advantage of insect flight to dodge the bolts and arrows coming from behind him.

So that’s why changeling soldiers were legendary.

He dove down, taking a ninety-degree turn to do so, and then another one just above the ground in order to shoot behind the cover of my shield and stop with a roar of his wings. Fell held out his left hoof, offering me the silver pocketwatch slash cloak pin my long dead sister had given me for my birthday so long ago.

“Um, h-here's your… Er, you,” Fell stammered uncertainly.

The star garnet set into the watch’s lid shone brightly as I reached for it, erupting into bright red-orange light as my hoof enveloped it. Power poured back into my body as my consciousness was reunited with it. It was nice to be in a single location again.

Except for the fact that a stray arrow might make it past the shield and hit the part of me that mattered… Time to go!

I focused all of my thoughts on our apartment, took a breath, and cast the spell. Immediately the sharp crack of the teleport echoing off the stone walls of a small room filled my ears.

Thank the Emperor! I could still teleport.

With the partial failure of my previous spells, I had been worried.

Taking a deep breath, I slipped my phylactery under my cloak, pinning it to the back of the fabric behind the other broach. It would be safe there for now. Hopefully. Thank the Emperor I learned about the distance restriction before burying it inside a concrete block in the castle’s basement...

“Pack your things! My cloak can contain a small chest of goods. You have one sixth of a cubic meter!” I shouted urgently, immediately spinning to grab my spellbook and notebooks from my desk.

Under absolutely no circumstances could I leave behind anything which might provide them with a way to track me or my phylactery!

“Um, my kit isn’t here. It’s buried, remember?” Fell said uncertainly.

“I know! Grab anything else you think you’ll need,” I exclaimed. “Or just pack food. Frankly, I’m surprised that they haven’t-”

The apartment doorbell rang three times. Somepony I didn’t know was approaching. We had seconds.

I shoved all of my books into my cloak’s right pocket. Fell grabbed a book, a small toolbox, and a small pouch which I knew contained a gem collection. Why he would save non-currency non-valuable gems I had no idea. But that’s what he chose.

I sprinted across the living room. The door exploded inwards with a torrent of emerald flames and a thundering crunch. They were done playing around.

“There!” A stallion shouted.

Fell grimaced, making me realize his pony face had just been his changeling face with fur on it. I wondered if the rest of him looked the same. I honestly hadn't gotten a chance to properly see his changeling for-

THE BUCK AM I DOING!? DANGER! VULNERABLE! MOVE!

A green spellbolt streaked over my shoulder, exploding against the wall. My left forehoof grabbed onto Fell, I pictured the interior of Glass Pan’s Grocery, before it materialized around us with a sharp crack, several cans shaking on the shelves as we appeared.

Humm… My teleports were a bit off too. Great.

“Where do we need to go?” I asked urgently, unsure if anypony would tell the guard this was where I frequently shopped.

“A small graveyard next to the ruins of a chapel in a small grove just across the border alongside the road,” Fell answered.

“A-across the border?” I asked, a feeling of dread filling my chest.

“Yes,” Fell answered with a frown. “Y-you thought it was in town… Meaning-”

“I had planned on you being armed and armored for getting over the Line,” I groaned.

If he had some armor on, I could have conceivably convinced the Knights he was being buried and walked through them unopposed…

“We have to go.” Fell reminded.

“I know,” I agreed with a sigh.

“Can’t you teleport us across the line?” He asked.

“No! I’m out of practice with my spells,” I lamented. “And I wouldn’t feel safe teleporting even if I were in top form. I have NEVER been good at this. Without being intimately familiar with the target destination, I could materialize inside the ground, or a tree, or even inside you. That would destroy my phylactery since it’s on me right now, assuming say, a rock materialized halfway through it.

“Sure, it’s magically protected but it’s not indestructible. Worst of all, unlike a normal litch, if mine breaks I don't get transferred to my body if it’s still intact, I just die! Immediately!”

Fell gasped, taking a step backward in shock. “You’re a litch!?”

Ponyfeathers… I hadn’t meant to say that yet...

“Yes,” I admitted sadly.

“B-but… But you're nice! A-and I can feed off you, I can’t ev-even taste undead-”

I cut him off by holding up a hoof and firmly shaking my head. “I’m not undead. Not right now. I was for a few seconds earlier today when I was stabbed. It’s complicated. I improved the process and fixed a lot of thin- We don’t have time to talk about it now. But in short, my body is a living organism which becomes dead if killed, and I control it, living or dead, like a puppet, from my watch, which is where my consciousness and life force is now housed. Which is why if it breaks, I die. Understand?”

Fell bit his lip, cheeks glowing a pale blue as he blushed, “Um… N-no.”

“I’ll explain it when we’re across the line, I-if you still want my help,” I offered, ears drooping and face falling as I watched Fell’s face flash between confusion, fear, disgust, and once or twice curiosity. “Now that you know. I-I’m nothing like other litches. I’m sane, I have empathy… I do get the violent urges but I’ve never been compelled to act on them. P-please, Felling. You’re the only pony who still treated me like a pony and-”

“I’m still your friend,” Fell said, cutting me off. “I um… I just… T-this is rrreeealy awkward now but um-”

Fell suddenly stopped speaking, shaking his head sharply. “Nope! It would be a bad idea to say that right now! W-we need to get over the Line, then talk. About lots of things.”

I nodded. “Agreed.”

“J-just one thing,” Fell pleaded. “You’re not undead? At least, not always?”

“Er, well, sort of. I’m comparable to a vampire. Equestrians have friendly vampires, right? Assuming you’re actually from Equestria…” I muttered.

“I am. Lived there for a while after I deserted… I was found out so I fled. Didn’t think they would accept a Sapphire even though they accept other hives now,” Fell sighed. “Vampire, huh? W-well that’s okay then. Y-you don’t rot, do you?”

“Only if I stop eating long enough for my body to die and then don’t repair myself with my magic,” I answered. “Why is that important?”

Fell’s blush returned, this time much brighter. “Uhhhhhhh! We should go because they could be setting a trap for us on the border!” He yelped.

I frowned. It hurt to see Fell so stressed out. It had to have been a long time since he last fought too. Poor pony. Bug.

Buggie? Buggo? What is the polite thing to call a changeling? Where is a proper library when you need an answer?

“Let’s go,” I sighed. “Maybe I can control enough of them to make a small opening in the Line we can run through… How fast can you-”

“Ten minutes tops,” Fell replied quickly.

I don’t think I could do that…

“Alright, let’s try,” I said hesitantly.

I reached out and grabbed Fell’s shoulder again. This time, I focused on a small garden right on the edge of the Line, near my office. The line was the thinnest there, thanks to a few of the graves at the far end being destroyed in a battle fifty years ago. They had not been refilled yet. It would save us four hundred meters.

The sharp crack rang out again, the store simply replacing itself around us with the small dead garden, and the league thick line of black ash and marble sarcophagi buried in the ground stretching out in front of us.

As well as a single pony, calmly sitting atop the lid of a sarcophagus, a lit cigar held loosely in his smiling lips.

“Figured you’d come here, Rotbreath,” Sunlit Star smirked.

Then he whistled sharply, and every last sarcophagi for as far as the eye could see began to slowly slide open with the sound of countless screams of rage.

4 - Reunion

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Felling Axe - 24th of Leaffall, 16 EoH

La vallée-des-Roses - Prance

The terrible screech of gods knew how many stone coffins sliding open, sent me back to an ill-fated expedition in search of the Crystal Empire. The long, low, grating rumble, sounded exactly like a calving glacier as it broke off and fell into the sea. The sole difference being instead of a great splash, the creak of uncountable iron plates screamed in unison.

Almost immediately as the lids slid open, a forest of banners erupted from the ground, each trailing unique colors. Without seeing even a single helmet or iron-shod hoof, the forest of unique emblems and heraldries pushed against my soldier's intuition, nearly sending me into a blind panic.

It wasn’t the banners themselves, but the knowledge of what they represented. An elite warrior, born and bred for battle, trained from the first day they could lift a weapon until death. Thousands of them, pouring from the ground as if an underground kingdom decided to invade the surface.

The ground shook as they stood up. A cliche of any historical epic, and yet it happened. The sheer bulk of the Eternal Knights rising from their coffins as one, literally made the ground tremble. Not much, but enough to notice.

Enough to distract me to the point where the next thing my mind took notice of where the sparks as their massive steel tower shields smashed into one another, forming a solid steel wall. Glossy obsidian set in smooth rounded shapes to deflect arrows and melee blows alike. A wall believed a cannon might have trouble penetrating. A shield wall like that would keep ground forces at bay for-

Wait… Those weren't shields! Those were breastplates. The first row of the knights had knelt down.

My ears drooped seemingly of their own accord. Nopony had ever mentioned the Knights size. They stood nearly as tall as a Queen. And had the muscle needed to move while clad in two to three-centimeter-thick plate armor.

The knights had transformed into an iron wall, standing shoulder to shoulder and kneeling in place, allowing their comrades to stand upon their backs. Each of them were unicorns, and their horns were leveled in an obvious firing line. We would be cut down before we closed even half of the distance to them. No single pony could hope to make a shield withstand firepower of that magnitude.

The second rank stood on their rear hooves, forelegs holding pole axes leveled directly at us. All of them were pegasi, their flared wings making their already massive bodies look even more huge, their crimson cloaks draped over their backs and wings, blocking the lines behind them from view entirely.

Making matters worse, the hafts of their weapons had enchantment markings and devices attached to them. They could likely be used to throw lightning. All of that and there was no way for me to see what the ranks behind them were doing...

The formation itself more than scared me. In my heyday, with my brothers at my side, and with all of our gear, maybe we would have stood half a chance at penetrating their line. But just me, out of shape and armed with a shiv made from a broken pair of clippers?

My eye widened in horror as the truth of just how screwed we were hit me.

These ponies were not alive. They would not panic. They would not break. They would not pass out from blood loss or tire. Even if I could penetrate their armor, it would take catastrophic damage to do more than piss one off.

No wonder Prance had managed to fend off the griffons for millennia! If the next few ranks simply fired arrows into the sky…

“So, how about you surrender?” The short brown furred, darker brown maned pony asked, blowing a smoke ring at Repose.

Repose! He worked with these monsters! He HAD to have some idea of what to do. Right?

I turned my head to look at him. Repose’s face was contorted in a mixture of fear and thought. He looked as lost as I was. We were doomed.

I needed to say it before there was no more time.

“Repose,” I called urgently. “I lo-”

“This changeling Soldier is charged with a crime and invokes the right of a foreign combatant to trial by combat!” Repose blurted suddenly, a look of triumph flashing across his face.

The brown pony raised an eyebrow. “That’s horse apples,” he dismissed, waving a hoof at the two of us dismissively before pointing to a random Knight in the line. “You, knight, kill them.”

One of the monstrous pegasi broke formation, crashing into the ground with a screech of iron. The second he hit the ground a pegasi from behind the line jumped up to take his place.

The Knight’s helmet had no eyeholes, it looked like the helmet had been sculpted to show the face beneath it. A death mask.

Despite this blindness, the Knight turned to ‘look’ at the pony who commanded him.

“Necromancer Sunlit Star, an Imperial Citizen has invoked the Emperor’s Justice. You have no authority to order their execution,” the knight said in a thunderous voice.

A distinctly female voice. Only loud, and rumbling, and distorted by her helmet.

Note to self: do not call her a he. She might take offense to that.

Repose frowned, looking at the knight curiously for a moment before shaking his head in quick dismissal.

The brown pony, Sunlit, growled, ears laying back in a rage. “I raised you! You will do as I command!” He bellowed.

“Nopony alive or dead commands me, I answer to the Emperor. His orders are clear. A judicial duel has been requested, and it shall be had,” the knight countered.

Sunlit’s left eye twitched. I could taste the pure hate oozing from him. It was thick and twisted, it reminded me a lot like Chrysalis's, only even slimier. I felt myself instinctively shudder, and took a half step back to try and get out of taste-range.

It didn’t help.

“Your orders, are to protect Prance. That lich is an actual monster, on the border, and has attacked several constables as well as the castle guard! Kill him!” Sunlit demanded again.

“Should you wish me to act as your champion in the requested judicial duel, I shall. Imperial Justice WILL be maintained,” the knight insisted.

“So it was commanded, so it shall be,” the line said in near unison.

I jumped. Repose jumped. Sunlit jumped. Nopony had been ready for the mass oath which they had bellowed.

“What is this shit!?” Sunlit demanded, wheeling to face Repose with a savage sneer.

“Imperial Edict Thirteen-hundred and twenty-nine. All foreign combatants accused of crimes within the Empire have the right to trial by combat,” Repose said firmly. He turned to face me, using his magic to take off his cloak and pass it to me. “Fell, please declare me your champion.”

My ears perked as I realized what his plan was. Repose wasn’t hurt by weapons! A judicial duel would likely disallow magic, so he could let himself get beaten into submission and… Um… Loose… What kind of plan was this?

I looked at Repose with uncertainly for a moment, but with some apprehension, trust won out. “Gentle Repose, I select you as my champion,” I said, taking care to make sure my words sounded formal.

Sunlit took a deep breath, then let it out. “Fine, it’s not like you’ll come out of this alive. Castle walls can’t fight back. You, knight, you’re my champion. Kill this abomination,” Fell ordered.

“I accept your appointment as Champion, Necromancer Sunlit,” the knight informed, armor creaking as she bowed before turning to face Repose. “As the accused’s champion, should you be defeated, what punishment do you deem just for he whom you champion?”

Sunlit’s ears and tail stood upright in a blind fury. “WHAT!?” He demanded. “No! I take it back. Anypony else-”

Two knights broke free of the line and seized Sunlit by his shoulders, dragging him a short ways back from the first knight, Repose, and I.

“The Emperor’s Justice is in progress. None may interfere under penalty of dismemberment,” the knight on his left informed.

I couldn’t help but crack a bit of a smug smile as I saw Sunlit’s eyes widen in terror, then shrink into rage filled slits. And his mouth clamped shut.

It was awesome.

Repose cleared his throat. “Exile,” he answered.

“For what crime is he accused?” The knight asked.

“Living within Prance as a Changeling in an unlicensed form, immigrating under false pretenses, and um, assault probably. As well as resisting arrest,” Repose recounted.

I knew he was missing a few of the charges. I remembered the list pretty clearly. Still, why add fuel to the fire which was cooking yo-

OH! Exile. If he lost, and she agreed, I would be exiled. I had his Phylactery, I had him!

Oh, my gods! This was genius! He’ll lose the fight, because well, no shit! Then we just walk across the border. Ha!

Except wouldn’t it hurt him badly? He said he felt pain… He also said his body could die.

I gulped in fear. Nopony wants to see a loved one suffer. Especially not for them.

“I accept exile as a just punishment for these crimes,” the Knight said firmly. “Should you defeat me, all charges against the accused shall be dismissed by Imperial Decree. Brothers! Give us room.”

The Line stepped backward, forming a u shape behind the lady knight in near perfect unison. Ah ha! So they did have a weakness. As coordinated as their rise and shield wall formation was, they didn’t respond perfectly to other maneuver orders. Interesting…

Gods damn it! Focus!

Repose nodded, sighing fearfully. “I agree to this contract. As we are both undead, shall we fight to disablement?”

The knight nodded. “It is only logical to end combat thusly. Do you stand ready?”

I gulped fearfully.

Repose nodded. “Enguard,” he said with a wince.

The knight surged forwards like an iron shod bear. Repose’s horn blazed, a crimson barrier flashing into existence between him and the knight, angled so as to deflect-

The barrier shattered into sparks of light with a sound of breaking glass, the knight merely powering through the shield, armor crackling and sparking with the telltale pink-blue energy whirls of a dispelling charm being expended.

Before I could finish gasping in shock, the knight’s right hoof smashed into Repose’s face, a sickening crack and splintering sound mixed with a squelch as he flew backward over a meter, smashing into a rod iron fence and collapsing into a heap against the bars.

I felt the watch grow colder in my hooves. The warmth it radiated dropping by at least half.

“N-no!” I gasped in pure horror.

The knight stood still, staring at Repose’s mangled body for several seconds before nodding to herself. “My opponent can no longer fight, this duel is over,” she announced. “I find myself to be merciful today. Accused, your champion is to accompany you into exile, which shall last for no less than forty years and one day from the next sunrise.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. If she hadn’t killed him completely with that punch… We… We…

I felt the instinctive need to shift, and with a flash of emerald fire assumed the simple earth pony form I had worn for so long so I could cry.

“NO!” Sunlit roared, pulling free of the knight’s grip. “You can’t just- KILL HIM!”

“Justice has been served. You will abide by it!” The knight snapped.

“Buck your antiquated justice! The law is the law!” Sunlit bellowed, horn blazing as he fired a crackling ray directly at my head.

Time seemed to slow. Not in the ‘danger sense warning’ way. In the ‘I’m about to die’ way.

There was no time to dodge. He was too close. The blue bolt streaked for me, filling my vision. I had no doubt the spell had been designed to take into account the lack of a central nervous system in changelings. It would certainly fry me complete-

A poleaxe blade plunged down, intercepting the ray in a bright blue explosion of plasma which blasted the steel axe head into glowing shards. The Knight which intercepted the ray jumped down from the line, standing in front of me like a shield.

“Justice has been decided,” the knight growled. “You have just committed attempted murder, Necromancer.”

I couldn’t see a thing around the glossy obsidian boulder in front of me, but I did hear one of the knights near Sunlit bellow. “You have interfered in the Emperor’s Justice. You were warned.”

Some ponies think bone snapping sounds like dry sticks. It does not.

The wet, popping, snap of bone hit my ears just before Sunlit’s agonized scream pierced the air, stopping only as the squelching wet tearing sound of meat being ripped from bone stopped a heartbeat later.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about what I knew had just happened out of my sight.

“Fool,” the lady knight muttered. “I will never understand the dishonorable. Bandage that stump. He did not earn death.”

“Aye, sister,” the knight in front of me said, walking off towards the other two who had left the line.

“Changeling,” the lady knight said in a gentler voice. “Come here.”

I gulped and nodded, walking over to her slowly and apprehensively. “I um, I should be leaving… Exiled and stuff…” I babbled fearfully.

“Aye, and you will soon,” she agreed with a nod. “But first, tell me. The fear in your eyes and upon your face as the duel was called for, and the horror you felt as I struck him down… Do you love him? Not as in your kind typically will, but rather, do you wish to be his mate?”

“I, um, yes. W-why do you ask?” I asked timidly.

“There is more than one code a knight must follow. Should he have been merely food to you, or under your control, I would be honor bound to kill you where you stand, and take the consequences for my actions with all due honor,” she informed.

The knight reached up to her neck, unclasping the bronze brooch that held her cloak around her neck. To my shock, she passed it to me with a wing.

“The road is long, and the Griffons will surely wish to eat you. My cloak will keep you hidden should you feed it magic, Repose will know how it works. For a pony your size, it will make a fair tent,” she said while reaching up to her back.

“T-thanks!” I stammered, entirely confused by her gif-

“And take this as well, you shall need a better weapon than half a pair of sheers,” she said as she held out an odd weapon to me.

It had to be her side arm. But I couldn’t tell for the life of me what it actually was. It must be some form of combination weapon. It appeared to be a double bitted battle axe, with long slender sword-like blades. Not exactly an anti-armor weapon, but definitely an axe meant for battle.

But those bits were hinged at the top, which was collared in bronze and had enchantment marks carved around the hollow end of the oddly curved crossbow like ‘haft’. And it had a tiller...

An axe-bow?

“W-why?” I asked, half meaning ‘why give this to me?’ and half ‘why is this designed as it is?’

The knight leaned down, the carved mouth on her helmet stopping a hairsbreadth from my ear.

“It is a sister’s duty to protect her little brother,” she replied. “Consider this our family’s blessing for your relationship. It’s not as if father can give it anymore. It’s funny, I recall Repose being too oblivious to realize somepony cared for him. It’s good to know he grew out of that phase, though I am sad I can not collect mother’s losses on our bet.”

My eyes widened in honest shock and surprise. But the good kind this time. Except, wait…

Oh, gods! If his sister had known he didn’t notice, how bad could he actually b-

She said his mom thought he would never grow out of it.

SON OF A WH-

“Put his phylactery on his body,” Repose’s sister instructed, interrupting my building angry rant. “It will heal in an hour or two. If you leave that flesh behind he will take a week or more to create a new body. And, do tell him I miss him.”

“W-will do!” I said quickly.

I quickly bundled the new cloak and unusual weapon into my saddlebags, raced over to Repose’s body, and scooped it up, taking care to not look at the completely mangled and shattered face as I wrapped it in his cloak so the watch touched his fur as he lay rather heavily on my back.

“Brothers, let us return to our vigil,” his sister ordered.

“Commander,” one of the knights called. “It occurs to me that this Necromancer has committed another crime this day.”

I turned around, only just now spotting Sunlit’s limp form laying in the dirt a good two meters from a brown furred hood, foreleg, and half an upper leg. Which had clearly been broken then just ripped off by hoof…

“What might that be, Sir Winter Gale?” she asked.

“The battalion was awoken to stop two fleeing criminals, Commander. This is a gross excess of required force. As such, this Necromancer has wasted an enormous amount of spell power, well beyond the permitted amount given the threat,” he answered.

I began to quickly walk away, not wanting to see any more violence today.

“So he has,” Repose’s sister said in cold stony agreement. “But he has already been punished for that action. Correct me if I am wrong, but we can’t punish him again.”

I sighed in relief. Sure he seemed a bit smug, but he really had just been doing his job. You can’t blame a soldier for following-

“Actually, the Steward recently ruled that a criminal must pay for all charges incurred, not simply the actions they have performed,” the same knight replied.

Buck.

“Oh! Very well,” she said terrifyingly happily. “We must obey the law. You and I shall remain animated until he awakens so we may charge him with his crime and then remove another limb. The rest of the battalion is to return to the grave.”

Yeeesh! I’d been told that the Prench military justice was brutal, but that seemed excessive. Let’s just put on a little more speed.

“Commander,” a knight said as I walked through a gap in the line, making a beeline for the other side of the ashen field that marked the edge of Prance. “I owe your younger brother a debt of honor. Last winter he removed ice crystals from my left hind leg, which were causing great pain, despite not being permitted to do so. Might I administer today’s justice?”

I slipped past the wall of iron, realizing just how aptly the Iron Line was named in that moment. As I passed through I could see thousands of knights, the entire group from here for the full league to the end of the border having been awakened.

As I suspected, the rows behind the front line had set up ranged weaponry, including repeating ballista, which they now were taking down. It looked like they set up a series of walls, with the space between filled with siege engines. You could almost call it the Iron Fortress.

“Of course you may, honor demands it,” the Commander answered. “Can anypony think up any other crimes this necromancer has committed?”

“Probably, there are an awful lot of them,” a knight mentioned gleefully. “Oh! He did fire at a foreign soldier who was not attacking the Empire, and did so without orders and therefore committed an act of war against a foreign nation without express permission from His Majesty. That is a fifteen thousand barrel fine, or the loss of an eye.”

“Good! Anything else? After all, this bastard made me punch my little brother,” she asked.

I cleared my throat and progressed into a full gallop, eager to-

“Ordering the death of a citizen who was not actively engaged in combat against the Empire, without trial,” somepony called.

“Repose claimed the accused cast Rebuke spells upon him at many opportunities,” another called. “While we can’t classify it as assault that is vandalism, damaging Imperial property, and interfering with the work of a public servant.”

“Excellent! Has anypony pen and parchment? We need to start writing these down,” she said, the sound of iron scraping against iron reaching my ears at the same pace one would expect a pony to rub their hooves together.

I was glad I wasn’t close enough to know what her vengeful anger tasted like.

Palaisville-de-L'empereur - Prance

24th of Leaffall, 16 EoH

“Are you certain? My mages tell me the Crystal Heart may be my final hope,” the Emperor asked, his voice like silk dragging over velvet. Both in sound, and in volume.

The Emperor was little more than mangled corpse, soul kept within only by force of will and the aid of a dozen mages. For the sake of his guests, a white linen cloth had been draped over his body and the mess of arcane devices maintaining the spells upon it. The only indication of a pony within the obscenely large lump beneath the linen was the outline of his skull, and his eyes.

Two golden points of light, shining brightly enough behind the cloth to have bleached the ivory cloth. They shone like the flames of lanterns, their color matching the flames within the pots of incense spread around the perimeter of the emperor’s resting place. None of his guests wished to smell the Emperor in his present state.

“I’m afraid so. We’re a territory, not an independent nation. I can’t move artifacts of great power out of my borders, even just for long enough for them to be touched. The Treaties that bind Equestria also bind the Crystal Empire,” Princess Cadence replied lips frowning in genuine regret. “What’s more, even if I were allowed, doing so would put the Empire at great risk. Both from monsters, raiders, and the cold itself. And again, even if I could move it without those risks, the cultural importance of the Crystal Heart would result in riots if I took it out of the city, let alone the country.”

The pink princess’s wings shifted in regret as she spent a few seconds in thought. “Perhaps we could arrange for you to be brought to it?”

“Possibly, though such a trip would be at least twenty years into the future,” the Emperor mused.

“How so? I certainly would not mind working the legal side of such a journey into our trade agreement,” Cadence asked politely.

“The problem is technical, not legal. The systems preventing my full death are ancient, those who created them no longer live. While they can be maintained, they would not survive a voyage across the sea. My ‘good friend’, the Steward, has ensured they will be replaced with new enhancements and technoarcane devices, but it will be another ten years before it is done at the soonest, twenty years being more likely,” he explained.

“Mmm… Yes, I can see why you wanted me to lend you the Heart then. Well, perhaps we can collect some of its energy and see if that will work. I’m certain Twilight would be up to the task, and I would be happy to work that into our agreement in exchange for one additional shipment of wool per month,” Cadence offered.

The Emperor laughed. “One every other month. Cadence, come now. Friendship may be magic, but it isn’t economic magic. I can not afford to be overly generous, even for my own sake. Prance is not what she used to be.”

“I’m aware, but you have no idea how much wool a nation with a summer high of six degrees goes through,” Cadence countered.

“One every other month, and I will lower the import tariff on uranium. My wizards have been wanting to use it for various projects recently. I’m told it can be found in colder climates in abundance,” the Emperor countered.

“I suppose some could be safely extracted. I’d need to appoint a safety overseer, but that’s a small matter. A good market for it could create a new mining industry, and we could use new jobs. Very well, I accept this condition of our trade negotiation,” Cadence decided.

“As do I,” the Emperor agreed. “Scribe: Prance shall commit three shipments of wool per month to the as of yet constructed Crystal port, with an additional ship every other month, in exchange for a generously sized amount of energy collected from the Crystal heart, with Twilight Sparkle’s working to form the energy into a suitable attempt at a cure for my condition.”

A small brass and ivory machine sitting atop a dark oak podium in front of the Emperor sprang to life, it’s single bronze arm transcribing the Emperor’s order onto parchment, then adding the order to a second copy of the long scroll-in-progress which was the ruler’s work in progress trade agreement.

Cadence nodded, satisfied with the wording of the order. It had taken her many years to get used to the Emperor’s casual way of giving his orders. They were short, simple, too the point, and written in a way anypony could clearly understand. The exact opposite of Equestrian legal language.

Though he did take up quite a bit of time making those orders. The two of them had spent eight months working on their current trade agreement. That’s not counting the three-month coma in which he simply could not reply to anypony from which the Emperor had just recovered.

In truth, Cadence didn’t mind the long negotiations. She just felt sorry for the essentially dead stallion getting one or two visitors every month at best. It was a lot like visiting an older uncle in an old pony’s home, only with the added bonus of mutual improvements to everypony’s lives.

“Before we begin discussing my proposal to rework the anti-piracy measures, may I ask a question?” Cadence asked.

“You just proved you can. You didn’t need to ask me,” the Emperor countered, his voice containing the smile his face couldn’t show even if it were uncovered.

Cadence rolled her eyes. “Twilight has been begging me to get a definitive answer to this, could you actually cast spells before you were injured?” She asked.

“Yes. I do believe I would have been a match for her as well, assuming the reports of her accomplishments are accurate,” He answered casually.

“And you are an Earth Pony?” Cadence asked conformationally.

“No. I was an Earth Pony. I modified myself with alchemy, I can not be considered the same species I was born as. The changes are too great, despite how I would appear were I whole today,” he continued. “Nor could anypony transform as I have today. The plants used in the potions and serums are long since extinct, or at least rare enough to be believed extinct. Lastly, my spellcasting abilities are not the result of my own work. They were payment for my services.”

Cadence’s ears perked, the simple question she’d agreed to ask for the sake of placating her sister-in-law now interesting her as well.

“Payment?” she asked.

“Yes. Long ago, I helped a magical creature with a task he could not accomplish on his own. In exchange for my help, and since we would greatly boost his own power if we succeeded, I asked for half of his current powers. He had no choice and so he agreed. Naturally, he went back on his deal and attempted to recover his power, even though it was but a fraction of his full strength after the procedure. He failed.

“I nurtured the power he gave me, allowed it to grow, and became his equal in time… At least, in some respects. Unfortunately, I saw the error in what I had done only after the fact. I have since attempted to atone for my misdeed, and so Dawn and I remain enemies to this day.”

“I see,” Cadence said, rubbing a hoof across her chin in intrigue. “Who is h-”

The white marble doors at the front of the hall suddenly creaked open, a light peach mare dressed in a white and blue messenger's cloak rushing through the doorway, gasping for breath.

“Y-your highness!” She gasped. “Important news from La vallée-des-Roses!”

“My apologies, Cadence. I must hear this. They only bother to tell me things if something requires my approval. It would be nice to get a regular newspaper or something,” the Emperor said loudly. “Speak, messenger.”

“Three hours ago, the litch residing within the village finally snapped and attacked the village’s castle, along with a rogue changeling,” the message reported. “The Line was activated but failed to contain him, and he has left the country. The Lord Mayor reports the litch took with him his entire library of necromantic lore. The Steward needs your approval to send troops to retrieve it before it falls into enemy hooves, your highness.”

The Emperor paused for several seconds.

“Shit,” he sighed.

“Shit!” Cadence exclaimed wings and tail flared in alarm. “You were harboring the same sort of monster as Sombra, he broke free of his confines, and all you have to say is ‘shit’?! A FOAL’S curse word!?”

“I was well aware of this particular litch, Princess Cadence,” the Emperor said calmingly. “He was under close observation, and until now, quite harmless. Even kind. I was hoping he actually had succeeded in a permanent cure for the madness,” he lamented.

Cadence slowly shook her head, muttering under her breath.

“Still, five hundred years or so is a long time. Certainly better than the usual instantaneous psychotic break. Messenger: The Steward is authorized to send one Necromancer and two flights of Pegasi from the Air Guard in pursuit. The library's’ contents are to be retrieved if at all possible. They may not pursue him beyond the griffon kingdoms. If he enters another nation, they are to warn the local government immediately.”

The messenger saluted. “Yes your majesty,” she announced, turning and leaving the room swiftly, her white magic aura pulling the door shut behind her.

“Don’t you think you are being a little foolish sending a baker’s dozen ponies after a lich?” Cadence demanded.

“Not at all. Two flights should be more than plenty to completely annihilate his body via saturation bombardment from an undetectable altitude. At which point it will take him days to weeks to reform and do anything in retaliation, making destroying the phylactery a simple matter,” the Emperor dismissed cheerfully. “I love having to authorize troop deployments. Lets me feel like I still do things.

“Speaking of doing things, I will need another moment, Cadence. Scribe: Message empty room. Begin. Request intel on today’s conflict in La vallée-des-Roses. What is the Steward not telling me? End.”

Cadence raised an eyebrow, realizing her friend was working out some sort of scheme. Deciding to let this play out before going to her own channels to stop the impending threat, Cadence sat down and waited.

And waited. Until at last, a half hour after the Emperor had spoken, the Arcana Scribe twitched to life, spitting out a small slip of parchment.

Situation as follows:
Gentle Repose’s roommate, Felling Axe, was discovered to be an unregistered changeling of Hive Sapphire during a security sweep of the lich’s home. Felling resisted arrest, sensing he was in danger, as Soldiers will. Repose observed the arrest and came to his aid. One Constable was minorly injured, another was temporarily killed but successfully resurrected by paramedics and lives once more.
The two then retrieved Repose’s phylactery from his old laboratory in the local keep, damaging an outer wall in the process, and injuring two castle guards minorly. The assault confirms suspicions of Repose sticking to less than lethal force as all injuries resulted from individuals falling from the wall top.
Enroute to the border, Repose and Felling retrieved some belongings from their residence. Repose took the majority of his library with him. Likely via arcane storage. Among the papers and books left behind are schematics showing a project which seems to be a device designed to heal you. It can not be completed with the notes in our custody, but analysis by mages indicate the device would be functional, assuming the missing parts allow for several allegedly impossible feats of enchantment.
Fearing the device could be completed, as the notes are clearly an older draft of a project, your Steward wishes Repose and his journals destroyed, believing his previous ‘impossible’ breakthrough makes it likely for him to have finished, or be able to finish the device.
Felling and Repose were allowed to leave the country following a judicial duel with a Knight of the Iron Line, sentenced to exile lasting forty years and one day. The pursuit of the two is unlawful in light of these facts, necessitating deception on the Stewards part to gain your permission to pursue the two.
- An empty room

Reading the note, the Emperor nodded to himself and passed it to Cadence. As the mare read through it the Emperor ordered, “Scribe: Message Empty Room. Begin. Forces sent after the two are to be unexpectedly delayed by any non-lethal methods deemed prudent. End.”

Cadence frowned shaking her head slowly as she finished. “I see why you want to regain legal control of your Empire so badly… But, are you sure this, Repose is not a threat?”

“He’s as harmless as any other powerful unicorn, as far as I am aware. He comes from a good family, I even authorized his experiment as his hypothesis and mathematical work looked to be sound. Had things gone poorly, he would have been swiftly destroyed. I assure, you, he’s alive, so he is quite safe to be around,” the Emperor said firmly. “As for this treachery… I can hardly send another set of troops after them myself. Not with the Steward able to twist my orders after I have issued them. I don’t suppose your ponies can get a message to Queen Bladestorm? I’ll pay for her services.”

Cadence paused, mulling the thought of employing the bandit queen’s services again. It was often more work than she felt it be worth.

“Humm… Yes. I think that can be arranged. What do you need her to do?” Cadence asked.

“Safeguard them until I can find a place willing to accommodate them for the duration of their exile which will permit Repose to work on his device, and also kill the changeling if he happens to have Repose under his control,” the Emperor stated.

“Mmm, yes, that is probably within her power. I’ll send the message as soon as I return home this evening. And I’ll be back tomorrow with her bill,” Cadence promised.

“Good. Now that we have taken care of that matter,” the Emperor resumed. “Your anti-piracy proposals, are our existing measures not good enough?”

“No, they're not,” Cadence replied immediately. “I’ve found several easily exploited holes in the defenses. They are not too obvious until you begin to think like a griffon pirate, but once you do, you’ll see the problems. Let me show them to you… I’ll need some paper.”

“While you’re fetching paper,” the Emperor began, “let me tell you a story. You reminded me of this time I’d captured some pirates on the southern coast. I was right in the middle of punching their captain using his firstmate as a hoofduster in order to cheer up one of my generals, when suddenly this giant seagull…”

5 - Outset

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Gentle Repose - 24th of Leaffall, 16 EoH

Akabanian Forest - Griffon Kingdoms

I had a small problem with my plan to avoid death. Not with the hastily improvised one to get Felling out of the country, but with the larger ‘don’t die ever because it’s scary’ plan. There wasn’t any literature available to me for comparing my experiences to other litches.

For example, I knew something was not quite right with my phylactery. Not in any important way, but by lore, I should have been able to see and hear everything happening around it. Perhaps the extra work I had mine do caused the problem, but all I could sense around ‘me’ was movement and the vague positions of objects.

Without an intact body, I couldn’t hear, see, or smell a thing. At least I could still feel emotions. I'd taken care to ensure that I would.

Not that emotions were much help when I was draped across somepony's shoulders, being run through what I assumed was either a forest or a large field of upright cylinders, unable to know anything more about my surroundings or situation than those facts. Boredom kept emotions at bay for much longer than I had expected to be disabled. A few hours if I was keeping track of time correctly.

And I was. Because I sort of live in a watch, and could feel its hands move. I'd had three hours of absolutely nothing to do aside from be upset that nopony had told me they returned my sister to her original grave.

Glave had been an excellent commander. She did such a good job for father. I'd always been glad my transformation disqualified me from inheriting his position, simply because of how much better of a Commander Glave was in life.

In undeath that of course remained, and the still living commanders knew it. She'd been taken to a training academy to assist in training around a hundred years ago. I had no idea they put her back. I'd have visited.

Either they returned her this morning, or nopony had bothered to tell me she had been returned sometime in the last month. I had not been tending to the front of my section for the last twenty two days, it was entirely possible they had somepony else put her back.

On a different note, her punches still hurt like nothing else I'd ever experienced. I could remember the first time she hit me. I had asked for it. Literally. I needed to know if my transformation had worked.

It had, and she did punch me, but only because my eyes had turned from yellow to red and she had assumed I was a poorly disguised changeling.

Ow. Great. The nerves were working again. At least my senses should come back soon.

Can I cast spells yet? Finish up the regeneration myself and stop feeling like my face was punched into a crude bowl?

I reached for my magic, but felt nothing. My horn was probably still impaled through the brain someplace. I wish I could punch like she did.

Of course, she’d always wished she could pay attention to texts like I could. We all have our own talents. We all have our own cases of envy.

My hearing came back with a loud pop, Fell’s voice immediately filling them mid ramble.

“... that was the fourth battle I was ever in. First one where things got relatively bad for us.

“You know, when I was younger, I used to believe that headshots were just as dangerous for changelings as they are for anything else. Stupid, I know. But you tell a young adult how to kill other things effectively, and barely cover other changelings and well… I think I’m allowed to misunderstand a few things at first.

“My point is, I took a bolt through my head in that battle and spent the rest of it panicking and waiting to drop dead, only for a healer to call me an idiot and explain that insects don't work that way. But I almost killed myself by scrambling around leaking hemolymph everywhere and making the cracks in my exoskeleton worse.

“Not a good time when it happened, but it makes me smile to think back about how green I used to be, you know?”

I did know. I knew quite well, and this was exactly the sort of conversation I liked to be a part of. Especially when I was trying to ignore the fact that my entire life had just collapsed all for the sake of ensuring the safety of a friend.

Not that I regretted saving Fell, not at all. I regretted the fact that I did not know where I was going to be sleeping tonight, or tomorrow, or for any of the days to come. The loss of what little equipment I had for my craft weighed heavily on me as well. A nice pleasant conversation with the friend I just sacrificed my home and all my possessions for would have been lovely to have.

Unfortunately, my mouth was too damaged to function. Curse the rules of necromancy! If only a basic physical structure composed of organic tissue were not required for an undead creature to possess a particular capability.

“Well, here’s the old chapel,” Felling suddenly mentioned out of the blue. “Bit further away than I remembered it being. But it’s the right one. Caved in roof, soot blackened walls, overgrown with ivy… Huh, I know you can’t speak right now, but can you see it?

“I think you’d like it. It’s a nice old building with that signature griffon ‘cuboid with octagonal spires capped with a dome’ design. I wish it wasn’t so badly ruined. I’d make sketches. I’d bet you’d have fun looking at the inside too. I don’t think many ponies know what the griffons worship. That’s right up your alley.”

It was. I didn’t even know the griffons had a religion. Of course, nothing indicated they didn’t have some form of faith. Yes, some nations lacked a supernatural element to their culture, especially those with unicorns in them, but I’d imagine that superstition would thrive in a species unable to cast spells or sense magical energy.

The world would likely seem much more mysterious and random. Come to think of it, griffons might not understand magic as a natural fasset of the world and think of magic itself as supernatural. This could be quite interesting and informative!

Why did I not think to study non-pony cultures before? Ah well, it certainly was an activity to partake in from now on.

This chapel had to be a fascinating trove of knowledge! Come on eyes, reform enough to work! I’d accept the hazy black and white vision an intact eye socket would provide as well. You can do it passive repair charm!

… It can’t do it.

I should have invested more time and power into the little thing while constructing my phylactery.

“Okay, Reep, I’m going to put you down now so I can go dig up my armor,” Fell informed as I felt myself slowly shifted to one side and then set against the ground. “I’ll keep talking so you know where I am. Um… Unless you can see without eyes.

“I’ve seen skeletons doing construction work before so uh, it would be cool to get sort of an overview of how you work. You know, when you can talk again.”

Mmm, yes he was do one of those anyways. I’d most certainly-

I felt the loud crunch of bone fusing back together just before I could feel my jaw again. The flesh connecting to it was definitely still mangled and detached, but with the jaw itself intact, I should be able to manage.

Doing my best to push the magic animating my body to do as I willed I asked, “Is this comprehensible?”

I would have winced if I were capable. The voice I could manage to produce was oddly warbly and static filled. Like a slightly mistuned radio.

“Ahhh!” Fell yelped, a loud thump following his startled remark. “Bucking ponyfeathers! That sounds nothing like you at all!”

“Of course not. I don't have a working tongue. I have to approximate everything with magic,” I explained.

“Well um… If you’re not dead right now, can you magic it fixed?” Fell asked.

“No,” I answered. “My horn isn’t remotely in the right location to be used yet. You could pull it out of my cranium and into rough place to speed things along, if you don't mind.”

“Er, why don’t you?” He asked, clearly grossed out by the concept.

“Neck’s still broken. I can’t do anything with my body at the moment. I should have anchored myself to the barrel not the head,” I lamented. “I could give you that explanation now, if you like.”

“Please! Just um… Hold on, I’ll help you real quick,” I heard Fell say as he stepped closer.

I heard him take a deep breath, followed by the slight slurp of cranial matter being disturbed. “There. I um, I think that’s better. Is it working now?” He asked.

I went ahead and reached for my magic, not to cast any spell but just preparing myself to cast. “Is it glowing?” I asked.

“A few sparks… But not glowing,” Fell answered.

“Well, it should be working soon, in the meantime… How much do you know about undead creatures?” I asked, wishing I could do my usual ‘professor’ voice.

“Er, that they exist,” Fell admitted, coughing lightly.

“Y-you lived in Prance, and that’s all you know?” I asked, honestly surprised.

“Well, yeah! I’d have learned more if I’d gotten into logging. I mean, I didn't get hired for that because you guys have undead doing all the grunt work,” Fell muttered bitterly.

For the life of me I would never understand why a changeling who liked carpentry would attempt to disguise himself as a lumberjack. I’d need to ask about that later.

“Very well, there are two types of undead,” I said, beginning my impromptu lecture. “The first are Mindless Undead. These are little more than animated remains a mage has created to do a specific task. They do not think or feel, they are magically powered mechanical apparatus which happen to be built from the remains of the once living.

“The other is Sapient Undead. These are magically powered mechanical apparatus which contain the consciousness of a living being, and as you can see in my case, can be almost indistinguishable from a living person at a glance.”

I heard the sound of a shovel biting into dirt. “Like vampires?”

“Well, yes and no,” I said hesitantly, not wanting to get too far off topic. “Vampires are only technically undead. Vampirism is transmissible due to it being caused by a virus which has some natural magic power of its own. Porphyric Hemophilia, to be specific. As the person who becomes a vampire does die and is then reanimated by the virus, they are technically undead, but they are closer to a living organism.”

“But they die, and then come back, right?” Fell asked, sounding very confused.

“The vampire dies briefly, yes, only so the virus can take over the systems their body uses to keep them alive and restart them, causing the person to live again using systems the virus creates. Their ‘death’ only lasts for a few seconds. Like how swapping the managem in an enchanted item for a different one will ‘kill’ the item for a while. Vampires are therefore classified as living creatures, specifically symbiotes, and are the product of biomancy, not necromancy.”

“Well, you seem alive. Soooo…” Fell prompted.

I chuckled. “Liches are proper undead. We are not common enough to be accurately studied. But we are undead. You can completely destroy my body, and I will keep existing. My existence doesn't depend on my biology. This makes me undead. A vampire, however, will die if they do not feed. That’s the difference. Well, the reason for different classifications anyway. I am extremely different from a vampire in lots of other ways too.

“Let’s start with, well, me. This body is a puppet. That’s the best way to describe it. What I am, is the original person who lived in this body. I gathered every thought, emotion, and memory which makes me who I am and after copying my brain’s architecture through arcane means, transfered my ‘self’ into my watch. Uh, I used it because the gemstone set into it- nevermind. That’s not important.”

“Sooo… The watch is you?” Fell asked curiously.

“My watch is me, yes,” I confirmed. “My body is linked to my ‘self’ via magic. It works just like it used to. Mostly.”

“Mostly?” Fell asked, grunting slightly. “Stupid root…”

It was rather embarrassing to admit, but, well, I did owe Fell the explanation. “I-I’m certain you've noticed how I can easily become lost in thought? I’ve always been a thinking pony, my special talent is lateral thinking after all. But… As I am now, I can easily become distracted and forget to make my body do things. I’m sure you have seen me-”

“Stand staring at the wall for several hours then feverishly jot down like five pages of notes?” Fell asked with a small giggle.

“Yes. That,” I admitted, feeling my ears droop.

Oh good! Those muscles were attached again.

“So, if I understand this right, you’re saying that you put your brain into your watch. Right?” He asked.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “And my body is a blank shell which I operate remotely. Not that it feels like I am literally controlling a puppet. See, most liches immediately go insane upon their transformation because it does feel like controlling a puppet for them. I fixed that.

“I- I was very afraid of dying and could find no other easy means of living as long as I wished to, so I did my best to solve as many problems with the phylacteries functionality as I could. It took me twenty years, and lots of custom built enchanted devices to aid in the transition, but I managed to create the current me. A nearly seamless stable link between my consciousness and my body, while keeping them separate.

“There are some major drawbacks. The range limit for one. If I go beyond a certain radius from my phylactery, the ‘link’ breaks down and my body will die as the magic animating it can’t be transmitted that far. If destroyed, or beyond my reach, I take much longer than the other known liches to form a new body. I also am only half as powerful as the one litch I was able to get an actual thaumaturgic reading on. See, the main reason a unicorn might become a lich is the great boost to arcane power.”

“But not you?” Fell asked.

“No, not at all. I was already plenty powerful for my needs. I just don’t want to die,” I clarified.

“Nopony wants to die, but most of us don’t turn into a watch to avoid it… Well, my sister turned into an anvil once. But that’s different. Cuz changebug,” Fell said half to himself.

Ponyfeathers… How to avoid sounding like the biggest nerd in the universe as well as the most pathetic dweeb?

“Um, I thought ‘changebug’ was a racial slur,” I informed wearily, hoping to dodge the question.

“It is if you don’t know us and call us that. Because it’s a term of endearment. It’s rude to use it if you’re not close,” Fell explained. “So, why the extra big fear of death.”

I felt my windpipe uncrush, allowing me to sigh. “Do I have to say?” I asked pleadingly.

“Yes!” Fell practically shouted. “I need to know.”

Tartarus… Even my sister thought I was a total idiot after I explained myself to her. This would not end well.

“When I was thirty two, which was about five hundred and thirteen years ago, the astronomer Star Chart invented the reflecting telescope and decided to look in detail at the wandering stars. Or as you know them now, planets,” I began. “I like to know things. And as I learned there are more worlds than our own, I realized we knew nothing about the new ones.

“Like the big burnt orange one, why is it orange? Is the haze around it a magical aura, or some trick of the light and air? What sort of creatures might live there? Have they invented a better kind of drink than us? Is the airspeed velocity of an unladen pegasus consistent across different planets? Why the buck do measurements collapse a quantum wave function?!

“I-I have too much curiosity to let those questions go. I also realized I would never get to learn the answers to my questions even by reading books. They would not exist before my lifetime was over. That realization snowballed into ever growing dread as I realized I would never be able to sate my curiosity because I would always die with unanswered questions. And that horrified me. So I fixed it.”

“Okay,” Fell said in a normal and accepting tone of voice.

“Okay?” I replied in honest surprise.

“Yeah. I don’t feel the same way, but you were clearly so scared that you carved your brain out of your head and stuck it into a watch. It’s also not just an arrogant power hungry reason… And I don't think I’ve ever heard you swear. So I know you’re serious,” Fell said the sound of a shovel hitting something hard punctuating his sentence.

“Mmm… Yes, pardon my Equish. It’s just, well, have you ever tried to figure out why they collapse? It’s perhaps the single most confusing, infuriating, and yet, fascinating phenomenon in all of nature,” I grumbled.

Stupid waveforms. Not working with any semblance of logic or sense…

“Can’t say that I have,” Fell replied. “Last question for now. Because I imagine you have questions for me. You said that you are not always undead, but that kinda contradicts-”

“Oh! No no no!” I said quickly, hoping to cut him off before his train of thought caused a conflict with my explanation. “I, me, the consciousness, am undead because I do not depend on biology to exist. My body on the other hand, can be composed of living tissue if well cared for. It can be alive if my magic keeps it in good shape and it gets fuel. If it happens to be damaged, or otherwise die, it then becomes undead and animates so I may keep using it, assuming that it is relatively intact.

“I can restore it to life later via repair as well. It’s just meat. I on the other hoof, am technically not my body. And as I am not biologically driven, yet alive, I am undead.”

“Ohhh! Got it,” Fell exclaimed. “I um… It’s hard to think of a mind and a body as separate things.”

“Yes. It is. It’s hard to think of myself that way non-academically,” I admitted. “Well then, your turn. I understand why a Sapphire changeling would not reveal themselves as such, but why are you here? Why are you not-”

“Rotting in the desert with the rest of my mind slaved kin, helping to feed whatever creatures can live out in the sands?” Felling asked bitterly.

“Oh… Yes…” I said timidly. “I’m sorry, I forgot they were killed.”

“It’s for the best,” Fell sighed. “I’m here because very early on, I deserted the hive. I left during the Canterlot invasion. It’s the first thing Chrysalis led us on. And was the first time she used what she called a ‘battle coordination spell’ to ‘enable’ us to act as one. Yeah no, that was a blatant mind control spell. Same one that the Overmind used to control all of our ancestors.”

“Overmind?” I asked curiously. “I’m afraid I haven’t studied Changelings in much detail.”

“Hang on, I gotta pull the bag out of the hole,” Fell said before grunting with effort and then dropping something remarkably light next to himself. “There. Now to make sure it’s all okay. I’ll keep talking while I work.”

“After two years it should be quite rusted. If you wait I can clean-”

“No need, this stuff doesn't rust,” Fell said, cutting me off. “So a long long time ago, back before pony civilizations were a thing. Our species either made or just have always had an overmind. To make a long story short, we used to be way more like ants than ponies. Then a unicorn kicked the Overmind’s ass, not that it had one, and we became like we are now. Independent, free-thinking creatures. Rather than a singular organism made up of lots of lifeforms.

“Chrysalis was old as tartarus. Her mom was one of the first thirteen Queens, and she was the first of the second generation to hatch. She must have learned the control spell back then… Don’t know why she never used it on her own hive though.”

“Her own hive?” I asked. “She wasn’t always the Saphire’s Queen?”

“No,” Fell said flatly. “What color were her shell and eyes?”

“Uhh…” I thought back for some time, eventually deciding on. “A pale green if I was told correctly.”

“Right. She was meant to be the Emerald changeling’s Queen. Changelings are not like ponies. Our colors mean things. A lot of us go a bit nuts trying to work out what pony colors mean when we first leave the hive. I was convinced that teal maned ponies were designated as law enforcers until I saw some working construction… Uh, sorry. Bunny trailed.

“Anyways, our colors are not natural, or rather, original. Old changelings were all black. After Princess Celestia used the Elements to scatter our species thousands of years ago, we developed our colors. And some of us managed to become Queens.

“Our original Queen was nice, her name was Jiira. You can tell she isn't from the original 13 Queen’s family because she has a Changelish name, instead of a Royal name. But yeah, she was cool. Kind, conciterate of everyling. Enjoyed our holy task of guarding the temple-”

“Wait, temple?” I asked curiously, hoping Fell wouldn’t mind the interruption.

“Mhm. We found an ancient temple and made it our new hive after the Dispersal. I’ll tell you more about it later,” Fell said, pausing for a moment as a few things clicked. “Oh good, those were just stiff. Anyways, Queen Jiira welcomed Chrysalis to stay with our hive when she sort of wandered in out of the cold without her hive one day. She claimed they had all died in the desert, save her.

“That was total ponyfeathers right there, but we didn’t know it at the time. Four months later Jiila ‘mysteriously’ is infected with cordyceps fungi and dies. Chrysalis is made our new Queen by vote because she contained the fungi before it spread. A few months later, she proclaimed that our Lord had spoken to her and that we must take back control of the sun from Equestria.

“I didn’t buy it, because as part of the Distortion Corps, I spent a LOT of time guarding the inner sanctum and yeah, the gods may speak through their alter on rare occasions, but noling I know of knows what the buck they are saying because it’s ether gibberish or a language no one alive knows anymore.

“Problem is everyling else did. Well, not everyling. But most of us did. The Amber hive wasn’t too far from us, and we traded with them. Especially livestock they had some VERY well bred po-”

Fell quickly cut himself off with a loud cough. “I um, not that I think you're a rabbit or something. It’s just um… That’s the closest word for ponies we would keep in the hive…”

“Were they mistreated?” I asked simply.

“N-no. Of course not. We eat love. If anything, they were some of the most pampered and cared for ponies who ever lived! Each one of them had to feed at least six of us on their affections,” Fell objected.

“Did they want to leave?” I asked.

“A few were curious about the outside world, but well, they grew up in the hive. Most ponies saw themselves as a part of it. You, you seem okay with this. Are you okay with it?” Fell asked in concern.

“Yes. Everything living needs to eat. It would be one thing if you enslaved them, but I can’t object to a species doing what it needs to in order to live. So long as it’s not hurting sapients,” I said comfortingly.

Fell let out a deep breath. “Oh thank the gods! I-I lost my last lo-friend when he learned our hive didn’t do ‘farming’. Sure, our ancestors did kidnap a few of the starting ponies, but most of them were abandoned foals, homeless ponies who were just happy to not be rained on, that sort of thing… Anyways, the Amber Hive learned Chrysalis planned on attacking Equestria, and since that went SOOOO well for her mom and totally didn’t buck over our entire species they decided to stop her.

“They did not… I herd there is one Amber changeling left alive. I’m happy about that. I like to think it’s the one I let run away. At least they took a lot of us with them, the war was unjust. We deserved the heavy losses. I got hurt bad and was put into hibernation to heal. Cuz we had like, five soldiers left and I was the only elite left standing. So I don’t know anything about the time after that.

“It took our hive a few centuries to build our numbers back up. But once we did, I was woken up and then the whole Canterlot thing happened. Chrysalis used her spell to control us all in the hopes of that lessening casualties, and I broke free of it when she ordered us to begin capturing ponies to take back and use as livestock so we could breed more warriors.

“I-I like ponies. I didn’t mind our hive having pseudo-captives because they didn’t mind feeding us. Most of them were our friends, like, genuinely our friends. But to actually take slaves, and civilian slaves at that… It felt wrong. It went against everything I had ever stood for and loved about our people.

“That shock to the system snapped me free from her control… I went a bit berserk, killed a few of my brothers… Then ran when I realized what I’d done and was happening… I went full red haze, even realizing we were all mindslaved vanished for a bit. And that’s what pissed me off in the first place.”

I searched for the most appropriate wording I could find to lend Fell the comfort and understanding his bitter, depressed, and angry state deserved.

“That sucks,” I said.

Wow. Fail.

“Yeah. It did,” Fell agreed.

Oh thank goodness!

Suddenly, the nothingness around me turned into patches of light and dark. I had eye sockets again. That meant my skull was probably intact enough for my horn to work.

“One moment,” I said, reaching for my magic again.

This time I felt a slight tingle in my horn. It was working. Taking a deep breath I focused myself as well as I could and cast a hooffull of repair and healing spells, sculpting my face back into it’s proper shape.

A few minutes of hard work later, and I could properly see. And feel my legs. And also stand.

It was nice to be able to stand again.

I had fully intended to investigate the chapel as soon as my sight returned, but as I stood up, Fell came into view from behind the mound of dirt he had dug up. And so did his armor.

I’d never seen anything like it. And I worked with military hardware and assets for the last five hundred years.

At first I thought it might be a shed exoskeleton fashioned into armor, because it was mostly composed of smooth black plates which were extremely form fitting. But that was not the case

The sleek plates were metal, flat black with a white stripe edged in blue going up Fell’s right foreleg and stopping on his shoulder. He had a third of the armor on his body, his normal changeling body, and side by side you could tell it wasn’t chitin. The armor also didn’t have straps. It seemed to have a series of locks which provided seamless gap-free protection, while maintaining almost all of one’s natural flexibility.

Whatever that armor was, it was certainly mastercrafted, and expertly designed.

As I realized the armor’s plants were curved in such a way as to optimise the armor for protection against ranged attacks, I knew the chapel would have to wait.

“What sort of armor is that?” I asked.

“Er… I don’t know. It’s really good though. The Gods made it for us. But only one hundred and eighty nine, then they stopped. So only the Distortion Corps got some,” Fell rambled locking the second arm into place. “Seems like everything is still working.”

“Wait, your gods made it?” I asked, brain swimming in curiosity. “How?”

“Queen Jiila asked for protection for her warriors at the altar and these materialised in the armory. That’s not bullshit, they were not there before. We’d already cleaned it out,” Fell answered.

“Wait, that’s conjured armor?” I asked, head tilting. “How old is it?”

“Older than me. It was my mother's before me. And fathers before her,” Fell answered. “Sooo maybe two thousand seven hundred years? Why is that important?”

“Because conjured items should break down into dust within thirty years!” I objected. “The stability of conjured matter has never been known to exceed-”

“Magic didn’t make these,” Fell laughed. “We’re not stupid, or superstitious. The gods made these for us, and they didn’t use magic to do it. Our shamans tried for ages to work out what they do to make items like this without magic, but well… They can’t. Magic isn’t used to do it. But here it is. It’s impossible. So we call their creators gods since they can do things we can’t.”

“Huh…” I said to myself slowly. “Is there any chance I could get to see your old h-”

“Hello the camp!” Somepony called.

I wheeled around. There had been no noise, nor scent, nor anything else to alert us to anypony coming. And yet just a dozen yards away from Fell and I stood a jet black pony pulling a cart. A cart which seemed to be built with a wooden cage in the back, currently covered up by darkly stained tarps, with a few wooden bars of the cage below showing through.

He had one color. Black. Short cropped black mane, short cropped black tail, flat black fur. The only non black part of him were quite literally the whites of his eyes. And even they seemed to be more gray than white. The stallion had the look of a noble, with the smug smile of a salespony spread thinly across his face. The sort of pony you imagine the boogeyman to be.

“Er- Hi?” Fell asked, mildly confused. “You have a very quiet waggon, sir.”

“Of course I do! What traveling business pony working in the griffon kingdoms wants a waggon that makes noise?” The newcomer asked. “If I might say, it’s awfully rare to find a pair of traveling changelings in these parts. I assume you two are heading south for the winter?”

Oh. An enchanted waggon would make sense. I wouldn’t want a creaky wheel to announce my presence to hungry griffins. Still, he gave me the creeps.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Friends call me Dawn,” he replied casually, the smile becoming painfully disturbing as he stretched it further. “I have quite a few friends in these parts. You’re not too far from a few griffon villages, and well, there’s quite the market for food in these parts of the world. Which is why you shouldn’t be heading north.

“You see, during the summer and fall, there is enough game in the mountains and valleys to mostly sate our feathered friends, but once winter hits? Well… The food all goes south, and the griffons follow it. If you are going south, I suggest you come with me. I know the safe routes and can get you where you need to be faster than anyone you know.”

I looked over at Fell, giving him an uneasy look. He returned one just as uneasy.

I nodded. Fell nodded.

“No thank you, sir,” Fell said firmly. “I think we will be fine on our own.”

Dawn shook his head slowly. “I’m afraid you won't be. In a few short days this entire fiefdom will be flooded with seasonal nomads. You’ll be eaten alive.”

“Then we’ll just head north,” I decided. “We could head around the Great Sea and catch a train to Equestria. Shouldn’t take longer to do that then a month.”

Dawn chuckled. “You have never seen a Griffonese Winter have you? You’ll be frozen solid within in a week. Come, hop in my cart. I can take you as far south as Venisneighla.”

Fell reached back into one of his saddlebags, whipping out a combo axe and holding the weapon entirely incorrectly to fire the harpoon. While I stood in shock at him having a Knight’s side arm, Fell growled and pointed with one hoof to the south.

“How about you hit the road, slaver?” He suggested.

Dawn rolled his eyes. “Oh please. No need for that. Well, if you want to die in the tundra, be my guests. Farewell.” The creepy stallion turned, walking away from us and quickly vanishing into the thin treeline.

How the buck… “Good call, Fell. Did you see how that cart just vanished?” I asked.

“Yeah, those trees are way too thin for that,” he said worriedly.

I nodded to myself. “How about you put on that armor and we get far away from this chapel?” I asked.

Fell nodded firmly. “Good idea. How about you also tell me what this weapon is and how I use it?” He asked.

“That’s a combo axe, a model… Goodness sake!” I exclaimed, noticing the little carving of a pegasus holding a heart on the stock. “That’s my sisters!”

Fell nodded. “Yeah she gave it to me. And a cloak too.”

“I-but… Why?” I asked. “She wouldn’t part with her weapon for... Anything! This is an antique. I thought it was a replica of the- It’s a famous model,” I summarized awkwardly.

“Er, she wanted me to keep you safe,” Fell said equally awkwardly.

“You didn’t steal it did-”

Fell laughed loudly. “Buck no! I saw what her hoof did to your face. Now seriously, before that guy comes back with a whole slaver crew, how do I use this?”

“Hold the stock with your fetlock, flex your hoof to pull the tiller,” I explained. “The axe blades will unfold into a crossbow-like shape and it will fire a half meter long harpoon. Should punch through most armor. You get one shot per ten seconds, as it conjures its own ammo and has no external power source. It only charges on ambient magic or the energy your personally feed it. You can also chop things with it like any other hoof axe.”

“So, hit them with it, or point and click?” Fell asked in confirmation.

I nodded. “Yes, all of the Knight class sidearms are simple and efficient.”

“Good. I like that. Keep an eye out while I get the rest of my armor on. Can you run all night long?” He asked.

I nodded. “Yes. Undead do not sleep.”

“Cool. Want to just go north on a zigzagging hard to track route from now till sunrise?” Fell asked.

“Seems like a good plan,” I agreed.

I turned to keep watch while Fell slipped his armor on. It looked like we had a dangerous trip ahead of us. But I’d make sure he got to someplace safe and sound no matter what.

If only I knew why I needed him to be safe and happy in order for me to feel safe and happy.

No! Bad Repose. Don't get distracted, there’s most definitely a slaver about. Eyes open, ears up.

6 - Vengeful

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Château les Épine - La vallée-des-Roses - Prance

24th of Leaffall, 16 EoH

Three ponies labored within a small dimly lit room within Château les Épine. The rising sun’s pale rays barely peeked over the damaged outer wall, slipping through the room’s window and providing just enough light to make someone briefly consider blowing out the candles, but then decide to wait a few more minutes.

If anything, the three unicorns working within the room needed more light. Their task was delicate, easily disturbed by all manner of things, including not being able to tell the colors of the materials they worked with.

As none of them possessed white or yellow magic, nor had yet leaned a proper light spell, any light they made would distort the colors of everything around them. It would only take connecting one fiber incorrectly to destroy all they had worked towards.

The three clustered around the low table which filled the room. No other furniture or decoration lay within the bare stone chamber. This workshop had been set up especially for this job and would be dismantled as soon as it were completed. By order of the Steward, naturally.

The three apprentice necromancers doing the actual work had long since finished talking about the oddity of the job. Granted limb replacements were typically performed in hospitals, and the tissues repaired before attaching them.

But orders were orders. In the end, the three apprentices were happy to accept the job and the fifteen credits towards their journeymare certifications in payment.

With a flourish of teal magic, one of the three unicorns made one final stitch and knotted the catgut suture. He leaned down, checking the seam between the living tissue and the graft which had hopefully just been finished.

“I have finished,” the unicorn announced happily, as he confirmed the graft had been successful.

Despite the abnormal constraints placed on the operation.

“Is that everything?” Another asked her counterparts.

“I believe so, Lady Ebony requested we only do the minimum required for functionality,” the third answered. “We’ve done just a bit more than that… Hopefully they won't notice. Are we ready to bring them in?”

The first of the three nodded slowly. “Yes. There’s nothing more to do without observably violating orders. Shall we?”

The mare nodded and turned to leave, having been the closest to the door. The three workers quickly left the room, wooden door creaking shut behind them. But they did not leave the room empty.

Minutes later, the door creaked open once more allowing two different ponies to enter the temporary workroom. One was Ebony Pearl, Head Caretaker of des-Roses Knights. Her metallic white fur and wavy pale green mane seemed duller than they would normally have been. Dark circles under her eyes and limp ears showing her to be on the far end of exhausted.

The mare, along with every other member of the Necromancer’s Guild in the village had spent two days without sleep rearming, refitting, and recharging the des-Roses’ Knight Battalion. Had they not, a griffon attack may have broken through the Line due to the Knight’s lessened charge. But if the griffons attacked now, the Knights had no support.

Des-Roses sat in danger for the next three days, and the reason for the danger lay upon the table in front of her, and the stallion at her side.

The stallion looked off. Jet black from nose to tail, with an air of superiority and confidence not often found in earth ponies. He carried himself like a noble, the sort who look down upon those below them due to the greater power they themselves possess. Dignified charisma and charm presented themselves in his posture, his dutiful focused expression, and in the purposeful way he moved.

He appeared no different than anypony who might work on the world stage. Those with power to their names would see him as one of their own merely through his force of personality. He belonged in places of power and importance as if he were an innate part of them. As if taking him from those places would diminish them.

Yet anypony without power of their own would see the charisma in which he covered himself much like the poisonous secretions of tree frogs. The same qualities which made him dignified and noble to those atop the pyramid acted as warning signs to those at the bottom. Even if they could not quite place why his mere presence made them nervous. Especially since he was so charming.

“You are certain this is a good idea?” Ebony asked hesitantly, looking at the comatose form laying atop the slab.

“You are not questioning the steward’s orders, are you?” The stallion asked. “The guild is already on thin ice. It would be a shame to get them into further trouble.”

Ebony winced. Giving out the spell commands to raise more than a squad was against guild code. Her scheme to more easily distribute new weapons and armor would have gone undetected if only everypony had followed her orders to the letter. At least, that’s how she saw it.

“I am,” Ebony admitted. “But I don’t want to anger the guild. I’ll follow Imperial Orders, I always have. But I still object to this, and I have the right to say so. He caused far too much damage to be allowed to leave the Empire until his debts are paid off.”

“Trust me, I understand how highly people value their opinions. Unfortunately, the law is the law, and we have all agreed to follow it,” the stallion replied tactfully. “Wake him, it is time to see if he is in working condition.”

Ebony nodded, her horn sparking several times before her magic finally took hold. The mare groaned in pain as last dregs of her mana left her body, all to end the medical coma of the third pony in the room. The moment the spell completed, Ebony staggered, bringing one hoof up to rub her right temple soothingly.

“Bucking headaches… He deserves this,” she muttered.

The stallion rolled his eyes.

The pony on the worktable stirred, one light yellow leg curling towards his chest. Scar-like strips of brown fur ran jaggedly down the leg from the shoulder, bordered by the pale stitches which held the reanimated flesh to the body on the verge of necrosis. A crude, heavy, double tall bronze horseshoe crudely nailed to the hoof.

His other legs were much the same, minus the shoe. That was to make up for the one leg’s shorter length.

The front right a dark green, the rear left leg, the, and plot a light gray, his rear right a vivid amber. The only brown which remained on the stallion was his head, upper half of his barrel, neck, and shoulders. The rest of his body replaced piece by piece, forming a literal patchwork pony.

The stallion screamed in agony, the nerves embedded in the grafted flesh sending signals of rot, decay, and damage from countless tunnels nibbled away by various insects. Not that any scavenging insects remained within him now. But their tunnels remained, crisscrossing the donated parts like a city’s roads.

The Lord Mayor of des-Roses had only ordered him to be repaired enough to function. He would have to heal himself. The smallest part of his punishment.

“Can it, Sunlit!” Ebony roared.

Sunlit Star clenched his teeth, nearly whiting out from the pain. The black stallion narrowed his eyes, unwilling to be delayed. Sunlit’s pain subsided, cooling to a terrible, but tolerable point.

“Can you hear me with those ears, or are they too rotten to work?” Ebony demanded, mocking the mismatched yellow left and black right ears which had been stitched into place.

“What… Did… You do… To me?” Sunlit hissed slowly.

Ebony trotted around to the stallion’s front, glaring into his one remaining eye and empty socket with a fury born of having had to do actual work herself.

“I didn’t do a single thing. If it were up to me, you would have bled out for the Knight’s amusement,” Ebony snapped. “Do you have any idea what you have done? If this village is burned to the ground while we are weak, that will be entirely your fault!

“For an absolute fool, you have far more luck than you deserve. This Steward’s Agent got you to a healer in time, and he was looking for you because, for some reason, the Emperor knows why, the Steward wants your brainless plot to work on some bucking project or another.

“Oh, wait, your plot is fertilizing a patch of grass on the Line. I hope the new one develops crippling arthritis, you-”

“Be quiet,” the black stallion ordered, voice so charged with ironclad seriousness that Ebony immediately stopped speaking.

Ebony’s ears drooped, the rebuke sinking deeply into her psyche. “I-I have the right to discipline my subordinate!” She protested.

“He is not under your command anymore. He answers to me, at least, until he and the flights he is to be assigned to have completed their mission. Until then, you hold no authority over him. As deserved as a tongue lashing may be, it is not yours to give. Explain to him what he must do in the eyes of your law, then leave,” the stallion ordered.

The command was firm and presented with a layer of malice, but delivered with a charisma and weight one would expect from a higher ranking commander such as a Vice General. Ebony gulped and nodded. Not daring to go against somepony who had presented credentials as an Imperial Agent.

Intrigued by the mare’s fear, Sunlit tried to turn his head to see just who the stallion was, but winced, neck seizing up immediately as vertebrae ground together.

“Ahh!” He hissed, biting his lip.

Ebony smiled, watching him squirm in pain.

“Good…” She said to herself, then cleared her throat, and in a clear voice announced, “Sunlit Star, for wasting military resources and endangering an Imperial Settlement, you have been fined two hundred and thirty-seven thousand barrels.

“This is in addition to a death sentence, but fortunately for you, that is being waived if you take a special offer. You are also fired from the Caretakers, and the Guild has officially revoked your license to practice Necromancy.”

“Won't stop me… From… Doing what… I want to,” Sunlit spat.

The stallion chuckled, a look of amusement crossing his face. “Tenacious little thing, aren't you? Then again, you did survive losing a good two-thirds of your body piece by piece.”

Ebony snorted. “No, but constables bolts will when you try, Sun. He’s all yours, Mister Dawn. I don’t want to look at this worm-eaten patchwork anymore,” the mare announced loudly, turning and swiftly marching from the room, slamming the door behind her.

“So,” Sunlit asked as the door slammed. “How bad is it? I can’t see myself… But I can feel it.”

The jet black stallion took a few steps, walking into Sun’s view for the first time. “Personally, I think it’s a work of art. I could hardly call your body bad, this sort of thing is… Well, let’s just say I enjoy a harem of customized individuals, to which I shall be adding someone similar to you. Just for aesthetic's sake.”

Sunlit blinked, confusion filling his mind for an instant. When his eyes opened, the stallion looked entirely different. All of the dignity in him had evaporated. Leaving behind nothing more than boiling dark charisma, and a sadist’s smile.

No. A predator's smile.

Sunlit’s eye contracted, terror racing down his spine, and the other four sections of spine which were now a part of him. Dawn smiled.

“Yes, I think you understand what you are dealing with now. Is that right?” The stallion asked calmly.

“I-I think I do,” Sunlit stammered.

“Good! Except see, you only understand who I am. What I can do, and what I enjoy,” Dawn said conversationally. “You have no idea what I can be to you if you are willing to shall we say, ‘play ball’.”

Sunlit opened his mouth to reply, his jaw pulling loose from his mouth with a wet rip and a gurgle of pain as the poorly done stitches ripped their way clean of his cheek.

Dawn scowled angrily as Sunlit feebly reached up to push his jaw back into place. “Amateurs! I need you to be able to speak. Enjoy this as a sample of my power.”

Dawn waved his hoof over Sunlit’s body, and the pain vanished. The fresh wound knitted itself back together, leaving only a thin jagged scar behind.

“W-what are you?” Sunlit asked fearfully, scooting back across the table he had been rebuilt upon.

“I think it’s clear that I am not a pony. All you need know is that I am whatever I wish to be,” Dawn replied with a slim smile. “Today, I wish to be your friend. I like you, Sunlit. You have such a beautiful ability to truly hate others, and the drive to take whatever you desire. You remind me of myself, which is why it sickens me to see you rotting like this.

“I’m not talking about the undead grafts either. I’m talking about your life. Sitting at one well paying and respected job, in a position of power over a few… Pathetic, and wasteful. Like leaving food out to rot. You could be so much more, with just a little help.”

Sunlit paused, remembering hearing about the draconequus which served the Equestrian Crown. Was this stallion something similar? A secret weapon, held in reserve? It certainly would be a thing the Stewards would have done if they could.

“You’re not… What’s his name? Ah, Discord! Are you?” Sunlit asked suspiciously.

Dawn smiled. “You’re also intelligent, in some respects. For the record, no. I am not Discord. Though we are related.”

“Okay, so, you’re basically all powerful,” Sunlit said suspiciously. “What could you possibly need me to do that you can’t just make happen?”

Dawn smiled and dipped his chin slightly pulling Sunlit closer to him through mere force of will. “My great grandfather has privileges I don’t. For now. Until then, I work through my friends. Until they fail me, that is,” he informed.

“S-so um… What do you want me to do?” Sunlit asked.

“I want you to do what you want to do yourself,” Dawn chuckled. “I want you to kill Gentle Repose, and destroy his work.”

Sunlit’s eye widened in surprise. “Why?”

“Because you despise him in such a beautiful way that I would be doing a disservice to art itself if I didn’t allow you to end his life,” Dawn replied. “I can’t have him unliving for any longer. He’s a nuisance to me, and luckily for you, I can’t kill the undead. That falls under my sister’s jurisdiction and well… Heh, she’s dead.”

“What’s in it for me?” Sunlit asked, a smug smile beginning to form on his lips as he realized the position he was in.

“I take it you’ve realized I don't work for the Steward by now, right?” Dawn asked.

Sunlit frowned. He hadn’t. But he wasn’t about to mention it.

“The truth is, he works for me. I put him on his throne and have permitted him to do with Prance as he wished, so long as he allowed the griffons to feed as they pleased,” Dawn said darkly. “He hasn’t held up his end of our bargain. I have revoked my friendship. If I had a new friend that I liked, well, that throne just might find its way into their possession.”

“Say that I helped you… Would you stab me in the back too? Because I would if I were you,” Sunlit said, letting the other stallion know he understood the threat and hoping to hide the intimidating feeling it left him with.

“No. Unlike those beneath me, I always keep my word,” Dawn replied firmly. “It is too late for my plans involving our carnivorous friends to be enacted. The Steward’s doing. He wanted to be in power and not facing a peasant revolt more than he wanted to remain my friend. I always keep my deals, Sunlit. Including the conditions that apply when you break them.

“Kill Repose, and Prance is yours with no stipulations. This place is nothing to me now.”

Sunlit nodded slowly, the black stallion’s offer breathing fresh life into the flame of lustful greed within his heart. But a small nagging voice in the back of his mind whispered a final warning.

“Alright, and what do you actually get out of this?” Sunlit asked. “What is it that you want to have happen by me killing him for you? I won't do a damn thing if it’s going to go against my own interests.”

Dawn nodded to himself. A pleased look crossing his face. “That’s another thing about you which reminds you of myself. I want what you want, complete and total freedom to do as I please. All I’m having you do is… Weed a garden. So to speak.”

Sunlit nodded to himself, satisfied with that simple explanation. Perhaps another pony would ask more questions, but for Sun, the simple explanation explained everything he cared to know.

“It’s a deal. If you can give me the right tool for the job. I’m not going to attack him if he stands a chance of winning. I’m not stupid,” Sunlit offered.

Dawn laughed, the mocking laughter echoing off the stone walls despite the room’s tiny size.

“I have been manipulating events longer than your species has walked this world. Of course, I will be stacking the deck in my favor. Only fools rely on luck,” Dawn laughed.

“Sooo like… You’re going to give me more power, right?” Sunlit asked.

Dawn smirked, giving Sunlit the look a professor who enjoyed holding their knowledge just above their student’s reach gives everypony in their lecture hall.

“Heh… That never works, you know. Give a mortal power and it always bites you in the ass. No, I won't be giving you magic beyond the imagination of even the mightiest of unicorns. I want friends, Sunlit. Not competitors, and certainly not peers,” Dawn chuckled.

“Then what-” Sunlit asked, thoroughly confused.

“I will teach you a single spell,” Dawn interrupted.

“Unless it’s a bucking megaspell, I highly doubt one spell will make a difference. That abomination does have more raw power than me. Even if it’s unrefined and unfairly his,” Sunlit muttered bitterly.

“As entertaining as giving a psychopath such as you the power to obliterate towns in an instant might be, I have something more…artistic in mind,” Dawn informed, turning to look out of the room’s window. “You’re not the first nation to embrace necromancy. The first great civilization your species founded learned and discovered more in the field than anypony to ever live will again. Because I prevent it.

“You’re so lucky I like you, Sunlit. You see, I destroyed that kingdom due to them creating spells such as these… Now, a simple warning. If you use this spell in any way I disapprove of, or teach it to anypony else, well, I won’t kill you.”

Sun raised the eyebrow over his empty socket. “And that’s a threat, how?” He asked smugly.

The black stallion leaned in close to Sun’s face, his black eyes suddenly glowing with pinpricks of light as if a single coal were set into each socket. His mouth split open to reveal an unnatural smile of needle-like teeth, hot, foul smelling breath oozing between them as pale steam.

“Living is a far worse fate than death for those I despise. I will give you everything you ever wanted, and then rot each of them away, one by one, each perfectly timed and executed to rip your very soul to pieces, each and every time. Then I will give you your hopes and dreams back once again and repeat the cycle until you die alone, broken, and forgotten. Are we clear?” Dawn asked.

“Y-yes!” Sun yelped, realizing at last exactly what he had gotten himself into.

Dawn’s monstrous visage fade away, returning to a normal pony’s face as if nothing had ever changed.

“Come,” Dawn ordered pulling Sunlit to within mere centimeters of his mouth in order to whisper. “This is how you create an undead creature with a unique mind of your own design. Not a mere programmed vessel or someone you need to know will not rebel, but a true creature which can think, plan, and wishes only to please you…”

Felling Axe - 1st of Chillfrost, 16 EoH

High King’s Forest - Griffon Kingdoms

I’d always assumed that a pony traveling anywhere could easily forage for themselves. I mean, they can eat grass if they want to. It’s bland, kinda bitter, and weirdly chewy, but they can live on it for a while. I’d assumed there would be plenty of food on our journey.

While it was true that Repose didn’t actually need to eat, I did need food, and we were unsure if I could feed off him if he was dead. He offered to let me check, but I couldn't bring myself to hurt him.

Unfortunately, we would know the answer shortly. Because the Griffon kingdom was practically badlands.

They had trees. Which technically made the land we walked through for the last few days a forest. But you had buck all between the trees. Just dry, sandy soil. What little nutrients the soil had was going right into the trees.

You could also tell that the trees were artificial. Nature hadn’t put them here. The Griffons had to have seeded the forest. Especially since there was only one kind of tree.

Ailanthus trees. Kilometer after kilometer of Ailanthus trees. Literally nothing but Ailanthus trees for days.

The complete insanity of the trees made sense if you knew anything about wood. Ailanthus trees grow lightning fast, easily hitting fifty meters tall in just twenty-five years. They can clone themselves from root systems left in the ground after cutting one down, and will regrow from the old trunk if cut down. They also can grow anywhere, being basically a weed, and are extremely good as compost.

Repose and I had spent days walking through a massive ecological engineering project. These trees were there to try and breathe some life back into the dead soil.

I didn’t know how to feel about that. On one hoof, it was very impressive that the griffons could think of a massive project like this instead of seeking arcane assistance from another species. On the other, what the buck had they done to need this much compost?

“Fell, look,” Repose said quietly, shaking me from my thoughts.

I turned my head towards where he was pointing. The first thing which caught my eye being a large gap in the trees.

“Huh, yeah… Think that clearing is a logging operation?” I asked, supposing there might be some supplies we could make ‘vanish’.

We needed more than food. There would be snowstorms. We would need a tent. Changelings don’t do well with the cold.

“No, look beyond the clearing to the other side,” Repose instructed.

I squinted, forcing my eyes to change shape. The lenses over my compound eyes refocused, magnifying the view slightly.

“Brambles? That’s interesting,” I said to myself. Then the distinct artificial shapes hidden within the brambles popped out at me. “Ohhh… Now I see it.”

“See what? I was pointing out the anomaly. It’s got to signify something with everything else completely terraformed,” Repose asked.

“It does,” I answered, blinking my eyes back into their normal shape. “There’s a fence hidden inside the brambles.”

“Good thing I spotted them,” Repose said, clearly understanding the significance of his find.

“Yeah. We have some sort of camp, and-”

“And it’s not supposed to be here,” Repose said.

I frowned. “I was going to say that means we can try and pick up some supplies. What makes you say that?”

Repose raised an eyebrow at me. “You are a soldier. Why would you disguise a fence as a three pony high thorny hedge?”

“Oh. Hmm… So then it’s likely some kind of illegal operation. Or they are keeping livestock inside. Brambles would keep rabbits from getting out, and also work as fairly good barbed wire. Could go either way,” I analyzed, doing my best to calculate the most likely option.

It’s a good thing Repose had a little officer’s training. I’d always been an enlisted bug. I preferred being subordinate.

“I’ve never been any good at illusions,” Repose said thoughtfully. “Can you go griffon?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I can’t do specific griffons through. I um, I’m not very good at shapechanging.”

“How does that work? Wouldn’t it be easier to imitate a specific individual then make your own?” Repose asked.

“No, anyling can do a random pony instinctively, but um... It’s sort of a martial art,” I explained. “I practiced ‘pony style’ enough to make myself look any way I like as a pony. I practiced ‘griffon style’ enough to learn to take on a griffon shape. The griffon I do will be a random one every time.”

Repose nodded thoughtfully, then squinted back at the thornwall. “I’d like to know what that is before we sneak around it. Just so we know if we could bump into a patrol or not. Also how big it is. If not all of it is fenced off and we wander into the middle of say, a poacher’s den…”

I nodded. “I can check it out and get back to you,” I offered. “Can you stay hidden until I get back?”

Repose smiled like a school age colt. “Can I?” He asked in a playful voice.

To my horror, with a pulse of red light, all of Repose’s flesh simply melted away. Dissolving into nothing within a span of seconds. Before I could react in horror, he swept off his cloak, skeleton moving with a faint red glow around it, bundled the cloak up, and stuffed it into his empty ribcage before simply falling over.

“I would say this is pretty hidden,” Repose said in a hauntingly distorted voice. “Regenerating all of that mass is going to be tiring, so, feel free to take a while.”

“Uh… Y-yeah. I’ll do that,” I stammered.

Doing my best to just ignore the absolute horror show, especially since he seemed to be very proud of his admittedly ingenious hiding ‘spot’, I reached a hoof down to my abdomen and clicked my armor’s releases. I wasn’t a Scout. I’d have to leave the armor behind.

My armor clicked several times as the latches opened, the back splitting open to allow me to wiggle my way free of the suit. If I had time, I’d have broken it down to hide it more easily, but I had a feeling I would need to get into it swiftly in a few minutes.

“Put this up in a tree or something, please,” I asked Repose as I wormed my way out of the armor, slipping off my helmet and stashing it inside the chest as I snapped my wings open, flying up a short ways to slide my rear legs free, then dropping to the ground.

“Of course. I’ll let it drop back down the moment I see you coming back,” Repose replied.

“You can see like that?!” I exclaimed in honest shock.

“Yes. But not well. At all,” he informed honestly.

“Alright, heading out,” I said as I took a breath to perform the shift.

Griffon. Not a shape I had used very much. A complex form as well. I’d have to be careful.

The body, tail, and back legs of a lion. I thought about them, pictured, them, held the image clear in my mind, then progressed. The head and wings of an eagle with an eagle's talons as the front feet. I focused on those features, picturing them as clearly as my imagination could, and then stuck them onto the other half.

Stage one complete.

I concentrated, instinct guiding my mind as it worked to comprehend the function of each and every part. Inside and out. The instinctive calculations were never precise, always raw, always needing to be trained and refined. A single mistake and the form would die as I changed into it. I could easily kill myself with one stray thought taking on such a complicated form.

But it had to be done.

I took a deep breath, and reached into the back of my mind for my magic, pushing the image I had created along with the mental ‘arm’.

My body erupted into emerald green flames as my magic broke down my body, rearranging each part in gaseous form and then solidifying it once more in that single split second, the flash of green light concealing the transformation itself. Even from me.

But I knew what happened when we’d changed form. Never watch a changeling shift through anything which filters out green light. It’s pretty creepy looking.

I gasped as the transformation finished falling to my knees and talons, coughing, head spinning, and vision grayed out for several moments.

“Are you okay?” Repose asked urgently.

“Forgot… To… Oxygenate… Blood… Properly….” I panted.

“That can happen?” he asked in concern.

I nodded, finally getting enough air to breathe and function properly. Scooping up my saddle bags, half out of habit and half in case I needed some tools, I tossed it onto my back clumsily. Not used to using taloned fingers.

“Yeah, I’m okay now. Be back soon,” I said comfortingly before heading off for the briar fence.

I searched the living wall for several long minutes, wondering if an entrance was cleverly hidden inside the vegetation. But when my search turned up nothing, I broke a branch off the brambles, and lay it on the ground, bent into a v shape to point the way back to repose, then set off to follow the wall’s left side, knowing there would be an entrance someplace.

While a ground entrance for a hidden place owned by a flying species might seem like a silly notion to some, it’s only logical. If you can fly, you can move above a place. If you can fly above a place, it needs to be hidden from above to be, well, hidden. So a hidden compound would have a ground level entrance.

Or at least, that’s what I thought.

After one full loop back to my stick I learned two things. One, there was no ground entrance. Two, the perimeter of the ‘camp’ meant it had to be at least a square kilometer. This was a hamlet.

Or a really bucking huge camp.

Taking a nervous breath, I opened my wings and buzzed them. Which got me precisely nowhere. Because that’s not how avian wings work.

Ponyfeathers! I completely forgot I didn’t know how to fly as anything but a changeling. I had one option.

Backing away from the wall, I dug my talons into a tree and climbed up the side. Fortunately, the tree was much taller than the wall, offering me a view of a small hamlet, tucked away behind the bramble fence and quite open to the air.

The hamlet was built around a literal oasis within the arid forest. A lush green pasture, growing well despite the early days of winter. The pasture was dotted with large plots of land growing random vegetables, and ‘fenced in’ with a ring of large pens filled to the brim with rabbits.

As I was searching for the means by which this possibility could exist, I spotted the slaves. Earth Ponies, a few dozen. Chained to cables with a pulley mechanism permitting them to move in a straight line along one part of the pasture, but nowhere else.

The sight made my stomach turn. It’s one thing to be dependent on other species for survival and so keep them close to you. It’s another thing to treat them like animals.

Bucking savages…

The meat farm occupied the hamlet’s center, with path marked out by stones ringing it and connecting all of the ‘buildings’ in a web-like pattern. Aside from the three dozen small, cabin sized yurts, three permanent larger structures existed, each set on one cardinal direction of the central ring.

The largest one was a big log building which served some purpose I couldn’t comprehend. It must have been important, because it had multiple cables strung up between it and a series of tall poles which ran alongside the path, with one more cable going to each yurt’s roof.

Perhaps this was the means of raising a camouflage net? Their crops may need more light than could filter through the netting.

The next largest building was made of stone, and clearly served as an armory and barracks. It had a shooting range behind it, and several lightly armored guards posted beside the doors. Each of them was armed with what appeared to be short barreled rifles.

Why any species would use gunpowder weapons as anything more than sporting equipment was beyond me. Especially ones with short barrels, given the accuracy issues that would cause. Even without enchantments, a crossbow is still plenty powerful, and far more accurate. If a bit shorter ranged.

Crossbows are also silent! I’d always hated fighting griffons, the noise made it hard to hear orders. A brilliant tactic if it wasn't just as detrimental to them as well. Honestly, even rate of fire isn’t an issue! There are many mechanical designs for repeating cross-

“Hey you!” A voice shouted angrily in griffonese. “I see you in that tree! Fly down here, talons where I can see ‘em!”

Buck! What the hay color was I? How had he seen me so-

Oh, I was bright white with little gray spots. That is not tree colored. Oops.

At least I spoke their language.

Thinking quickly I called back, “I can’t fly. I was climbing up to see it I could jump over your um, well I guess it’s a fence.”

“What do you mean you can’t fly?” the voice called again.

This time I was able to spot the speaker. A griffoness, in a rather good ghillie suit, walking atop a small ledge built behind the bramble fence. I was fairly certain she had a weapon trained on me, but the fact she mostly looked like a slightly higher blob of brambles made that hard to tell.

“I just got away from some hunters who decided I’d be better off as their food,” I replied, hoping it would sound plausible.

Then, a second idea popped into my head. “Look, I don’t want to get into another fight today, and those jerks took most of my stuff. I still got some things you might like. I’d be willing to trade some things. Or I can just climb down and leave. You can even watch me go if you want.”

“Pfff, that’s total dung. You’re a bandit scouting us out. So you can get down here or I can put a bullet through your left eye and out the right one!” She called menacingly.

“Would a scout seriously spy from a tree without any camouflage on when they are not tree colored?” I called back, rolling my eyes for good measure.

“... Okay, fair point, but-”

“Gretchen! He’s got a tool belt, not a holster or scabbard,” someone else chided. “What are you looking for?”

“Um, food if possible, I could also use a tent and a blanket. I’m headed north,” I called back.

“Mmm, so a trail kit. What do you have to trade?” The same person asked.

“This is a terrible idea!” Gretchen growled. “He could be-”

“Unruffle those feathers, Gretch! I’ve been guarding for years, you’ve been guarding for days. Trust me, he’s no threat. What do you have stranger?” He asked again.

“Er…” I said to fill the dead air as I mentally listed off my rather sizable tools. “Well, I’m a carpenter by trade. Quite a lot really. I could afford to part with several hammers, a few chisels, a draw knife, and I do have a few pony made power tools but-”

“Pony tools!? Where did you pick those up?” The second griffon asked suspiciously.

“My dad picked them up as loot in a raid down south a long time ago. They still work,” I lied.

“Do you have a drill and bit set?” He asked after a short pause.

I tried to bite my lip, the gesture not remotely working due to having a lack of lips. I honestly wish I had a mirror because the two griffons below me snickered.

“Okay, yeah, he’s been roughed up,” Gretchen decided. “That has to be a concussion face.”

“Er, sorry, what?” I called, playing into her assumption.

“Do you have a drill and bit set?” The griffon repeated.

I did. I had one. And I liked it. Quite a bit. It was one of the best tools I owned. I’d really rather not part with it…

I sighed. “Yeah… I do,” I answered.

“I can see you’d rather keep it,” the griffon called. “But let me tell you, I’m not going to be interested in anything else.”

But on the other hoof, Repose had abandoned his entire alchemy lab to help me. What kind of friend and one day hubby would I be if I wasn’t willing to sacrifice things for him?

“What comes in that kit?” I asked.

“Tent, canvas rucksack, wool blanket, canteen, two days dried rations, and a tomahawk. In exchange for the drill, and all the bits you have. Take it or leave it,” he answered.

I assumed it was a he. The voice was more rumbly.

Did I really want to part with that drill? It took me a very long time to save up for it and it was extremely useful. I even had a pocket hole jig, and a full set of- No… no. I had to do it. But I also had to bargain.

“That’s not very fair, I have a pretty large bitset. Hundred and twenty pieces. How about we make that two weeks rations?” I asked.

“Holy crap! I mean, um, that’s what I thought you would have!” The griffon stammered in shock.

Heh heh, gotcha!

“You know, Franz, I could just shoot him and we could take it,” Gretchen said, presumably more loudly than she thought.

“It would be worth the bullet…” Franz mused. “Though you could miss and hit the drill if he moves before you fire, and he’s asking for far less than the value of repairing the генератор.”

I frowned, not knowing what the hell that word was. But the low curse Gretchen hissed meant it was probably important to their settlement.

“You have a deal, stranger. I’ll give you a kit and lower it over the fence. You put your tools in the bucket and then be on the way. Try and run without paying and I’ll let Gretchen here shoot you,” He warned.

“Understood. I’ll just hop down and wait at the bottom,” I promised.

“You do that. Gretch, don’t even think about it. I hear a gunshot and I’m eating the next egg you lay right in front of you! Understand?”

“... I’m sterile. I eat them myself. This is not a problem for me. We have this conversation every damn time…” Gretchen muttered.

“I know. I do it to annoy you, rookie. Back soon, stranger,” Franz said, the sound of creaking boards and a rustle of wings accompanying a completely ordinary looking chunk of brambles flying off the wall top.

Okay, note to self, when you go back to changeling form, change your eyes to work in the thermal wavelengths. Eastern Griffon camouflage is scary good! The ones around our hive had never been this good.

Or was I out of practice at literally everything? Probably that one. Buck.

I climbed down the tree and walked up to the brambles as close as I dared. I’d seen how badly furred species could get tangled up in those thorny vines. No sense in getting stuck on the wall of the barely not hostile people.

As I got close, Gretchen reared up on her hind legs to keep her weapon trained on me. I hadn’t fought griffons in a long time, but I could tell they had made some progress with their weapons. The rifle she had looked much sleeker and far more refined than the ones I remembered. It had a lever near the grip which I presumed was to allow the flint to be relocked more quickly, and without the shooter having to remove their tallon from the tiller.

Noticing my staring inquisitively at her weapon was intimidating the Gryphoness, I decided to keep analyzing it. I was confident my danger sense would let me dodge any shot she happened take and well, it took those things ages to reload.

Over all, the weapon was not bad. Likely decent as a long range weapon for picking off a specific target, without an enchanter’s touch the range would be much greater than even a heavy crossbow. Still, you’d get much more rapid fire from a repeating crossbow. Even with a quick way to reset the wheel lock you’d have to…

I felt my eyes narrow slightly as I realized something. That couldn’t be what the lever was for. It made no sense. It would be a total weapon redesign to save about two seconds in a minute long process.

Take paper cartridge, puncture, pour powder in barrel. Place patch in barrel. Insert ball. Ram down firmly. Turn the wheel lock to prime the flint, add powder to the flash pan, lower the lever, fire.

A lever mechanism for just the wheel did nothing to accelerate that process. A full redesign of the mechanism including tucking the flint under a brass plate covering made no sense to shave off a few seconds. What did it do?

Gretchen shifted uneasily, allowing me a view of the weapon’s side for a split second. It had a little recessed bit, with a steel bit behind it. A door?

Ah ha! The lever opened the door, likely also cocking the wheel mechanism, allowing the cartridge to be inserted directly into the back of the barrel. Ingenious! That definitely would save time on the reload! Mabey even enable something approximating rapid fire.

What was the little metal rod below the barrel for? Support? They did do away with a lot of the wood which supported the barrels on older weapons. Ah, right. Those things kicked back when you used them! It must be some weight to prevent the weapon from doing that as badly.

Should I ask her if I can see it? Because I really want to see it.

“Stop staring at me before I let ants eat your brains!” Gretchen suddenly shouted.

“Sorry!” I apologised, looking away. “I like machines is all.”

I always liked seeing technological progress. I’d gotten to see lots of arcane progress since leaving hibernation, which I guess made tech special. More rare.

Just as I was wondering if I should be honestly afraid of the rookie guard actually shooting me, the fence creaked again, accompanied by a thump as something landed atop it.

“I’m back stranger and- Gretch…” Franz sighed.

“What?” she asked.

“Safety's on,” He sighed.

“What?” Gretchen said turning her weapon to one side, closing her eyes angrily, and clicking a small button with a talon tip. “This never happened!”

Ahhh! Yes, that made sense. A small system to prevent the firing mechanism from operating. My old bow had one of those. Lets you keep the weapon ready to fire at all times without worrying about it going off while it’s slung on your back. Too bad we’d already traded. I’d love to get one of those rifles and inspect it. Maybe they had managed to catch up to a light crossbow.

“Oh, it happened,” Franz said firmly.

A rope with attached bucket suddenly appeared over the edge of the fence, sliding quickly down until the bucket thumped to the ground, revealing the medium sized backpack inside, with a rolled up blanket lashed to the bottom and a rolled up canvas tent lashed to the top. The pack’s frame had been cunningly fashioned from the tent’s poles if the metal fixings on the pack frame's ends were any indication.

“Food, canteen, and tomahawk are inside,” Franz grunted.

I lifted the pack out, set it down, and then retrieved my drill from my saddlebags, followed by the bit set, and set them into the bucket with a reluctant sigh. If only I’d kept a bugout bag…

Hehehe, bugout bag!

“Open that box. I want to make sure there are bits in it,” Franz instructed.

I opened the box with a nod, and took out the eight smaller boxes, opening them up to display the bits.

“That good?” I asked.

“You didn’t lie, so yes. Now get going, and if anyone attacks out hamlet in the next week, I will personally hunt you down and use your hide as a new door for my yurt,” Franz warned casualty.

It took me a second to realize that the threat wasn’t a threat, but a standard farewell. It had been said too calmly and formally to be anything other than a ritual.

“Farewell, sir. Ma’am,” I said, picking up the pack, slinging it onto my back between my wings, and then quickly walking off into the forest, making sure to break line of sight at the treeline.

It took me a few minutes to find my way back to Repose. I hadn’t dared look back for my V shaped branch, lurking around after the trade would have been a good way to get shot at.

Sure, I could dodge one shooter’s bullets, those big balls were honestly no faster than an arrow. But as with any ranged weapon and my danger sense, a group of people shooting at me made it exponentially harder to dodge the incoming fire. Warning or no warning.

“Reep?” I called quietly as I entered the place I was relatively sure he was hiding-

A skeleton suddenly rose up from the earth! I screamed like a terrified Nymph, definitely alerting the griffon guards atop the wall! The skeletons’ macabre grin flashing hungrily for the-

“Sorry didn’t see you coming,” Repose apologize horn glowing red as he lowered my armor from the tree above him.

My heart throbbed dangerously in my chest. I definitely had NOT formed it right. I think I was about to have a heart attack!

“Put your… Put it back on. Please,” I begged.

“Oh! Yes. Sorry about that,” he laughed.

A deep red glow engulfed Repose, the translucent aura allowing me to watch as the spell’s energy coalesced into scraps of muscle, ligaments, organs, skin, putting him back into the sexy but now also creepy because he could do this exact thing from that I was familiar with.

It looked like a slower part by part changeling transformation. Ugh.

To take my mind off of that bit of body horror, I transformed myself, making sure to close my eyes as I returned to my changeling body. As I turned back, I did my best to try and make myself look like the pony form I had created. Small, sleek, a little effeminate, not obviously strong.

And like always I failed. Big, bulky, thicker exoskeletal plates. Ugh… Why couldn’t I be a Scout? Their natural forms were cute. Also, I’d be way better at shifting.

“I’m back to normal, Fell,” Repose informed. “You can open your eyes.”

I detected a hint of amusement in his voice as he said that.

“I’m sorry! It’s just really bucking terrifying to see a skeleton move!” I hissed.

“Hmm… I suppose would be if you didn’t grow up with it,” Repose said with a frown, putting a hoof to his muzzle in thought. “At any rate, what are we dealing with?”

“A hamlet. Several slaves, really good camouflaged guards, who totally heard me scream. Uh… We should go,” I said, eyes widening as I realized they would likely be prepping for an attack, assuming the fictional bandits I had mentioned caught up with me.

Repose nodded. “Climb in your armor and lead the way around,” he ordered.

I nodded, shedding the pack and saddle bags as I hopped into my armor. “Oh! As an update, I got us a tent, blanket, some food, water, and a hatchet,” I said, slipping my helmet on, taking care to slide the horn into its sheath properly.

“Just one blanket?” Repose asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, they didn’t like haggling.”

“Hmm… That doesn't seem like enough for a colder night outdoors. I do provide body heat. I suppose we’ll just have to cuddle for warmth,” Repose mused.

I felt my face contort in joy as I realized that yes, we would in fact HAVE to cuddle. Barely containing a squee, I cleared my throat, hoping to ensure the sound wouldn’t come out.

“Yes, have to. Totaly. It’s a shame,” I joked.

Repose frowned oddly. “I assumed changelings would enjoy cuddling.”

I facehooved, the sound of rubber meeting unknown armor plating echoing off the trees. “That was a joke, Reep.”

“Oh. Good. Because I haven't cuddled with a stallion in a long time. Honestly, can't remember if I liked it or not. It will be fun to find out. At any rate, we should get clear of the area. Lead the way?” He asked.

He was into stallions!? YAY!

This time, I couldn’t hold in the squee.

"Nyeee!" I had a shot! It wasn’t all futile!

Repose head tilted. “Um, what was that?”

“Er,” I stammered. “Armor pressurizing?”

“Oh,” he said, genuinely buying that pathetic excuse…

I love you, you oblivious idiot.

“Come on, we need to get moving. We should go west for a while then turn back north. Their compound is pretty big,” I said, starting to move along.

The first night we slept together, I would have to find some way of making Repose take big spoon, and then get him to stay that wa-

NO! Bad Fell! Possible angry invisible snipers within two hundred meters! Eyes open, ears out.

Gods damn my bucking rusty ass! I needed to get my head back into the game.

7 - Snowfall

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Gentle Repose - 4th of Chillfrost, 16 EoH

Pokinutyy Tsitadel' ruins - Griffon Kingdoms

Staring into the rapidly approaching gray-white wall of ice and snow bearing down on us with such weight and terror as to remind me of the memory images of Neighponese tsunami, I gained an immediate love for pegasi. I had loved them before, but now that I saw natural weather rage grinding across the grasslands, eagerly sprinting across the vast distance to smash me aside like mere rubbish atop a desk...

I could feel nothing but empathy for those who had not grown up in controlled weather systems.

“Keep moving,” Fell called urgently. “We can make it to those ruins before the storm hits!”

His urgent words snapped my attention away from the approaching storm, drawing them to the rough spot where Fell was galloping full force towards the crumbling walled fortress in the distance.

As it had gotten colder over the last few days, Fell had complained he didn't’ want to drain the crystals which powered his rather robustly enchanted armor on simple warmth spells. I had offered to cast one on him myself but we agreed it was best for me to reserve all of my magic for when we absolutely needed it. Then I reminded him he had been given a Knight’s cloak, and he had swiftly put it on.

Which made it damn near impossible to spot him. Fell had activated the cloak’s chameleon spell, hoping to hide from griffons to make them focus on me. While that was a wise tactical move which allowed us a counter ambush, the enchantment’s effects made it almost impossible to want to look at the odd rippled distortion around the cloak. Even if you know where Fell was, your brain just didn’t want to let your eyes point at him.

“Are you sure we can make it?” I called fearfully.

“What are you afraid of? I’m the one who will freeze to death,” Fell pointed out.

“While magically protected,” I began, “it is possible for ice to form within my phylactery, damaging it, possibly destroying it, but at the minimum interfering with you know, my soul, basically.”

“Ah… Good point,” Fell said apologetically pausing for a moment. “We can make the gate house for sure. Maybe the keep itself.”

I squinted off into the distance, trying to make out as much of the details about the approach to the ruin as I could.

The fortress sat atop a square mound of earth which had been created via clever landscaping to provide the fortress with an elevated position above the grasslands surrounding them. The walls had crumbled away quite a bit, showing the structure to be clearly abandoned, but also hiding much of the fort’s designs. The gatehouse itself was in far better shape and appeared to have been hexagonal at one point in time but now was a few walls and maybe one intact roof perched at the end of a dry moat, with one rotting but safe enough looking log and plank bridge leading to the gates themselves.

I supposed the griffons needed the gate for cargo, rather than personnel as the bridge and the space the gates would have been were more than wide enough for two carts to come and go at once. That meant there would be a place to store and inspect carts inside. Which meant there probably was some form of shelter in the gatehouse. Or at the very least…

“If we don’t find shelter before the storm hits, we should set up the tent and use one of the walls as a wind block!” I called.

“Good plan, I was going to suggest that myself. Keep moving!” Fell insisted.

The two of us put as much speed into our hooves as we could, the storm inching ever closer. We had about twenty minutes if I was judging distance correctly. Would that be enough?

High King’s Forest - Griffon Kingdoms

4th of Chillfrost, 16 EoH

Twenty kilometers due south by southwest, the same storm bore down on a second group of ponies. Eleven pegasi and one unicorn huddled inside a shallow cave in an earthen hillside. The dark space held enough room for everypony to lay down, and for a fire to be lit within the center of the cave. Finding the old animal den had been a stroke of luck on the part of these Prench soldiers.

The pegasi all wore identical uniforms, the dark olive green, white trimmed, hardened leather armor of the Prench Air Guard protected only the most vital places. A flexible cuirass, marked with the prench flag on the back and each individual's name and rank on the barrel, a padded cap more for warmth than protection, goggles, and a full set of grieves along with tough boots and nothing more. These pegasi were scouts, meant to fly long distances quickly, cover all manner of terrain, and locate anything the Empire wanted to find.

They did not need more protection than their hardened leather provided. No aerial warrior enjoys being weighed down more than they must be, and each scout had quite the arsenal to carry with them already.

Each scout was equipped with a bandoleer, festooned with various arcane grenades, several air to ground bombs, an arcane lightning rod with which to better guide a bolt of lightning, two rapid fire miniature crossbows attached to each bracer, and an entrenching tool. All of that and their field kits, a blanket, canteen, survival pack, and any mission specific gear they had requested.

Not a one of them wished for more armor. Who wants to stand and fight anyways? It’s best to fly past your enemy and leave behind a wall of flames.

The group’s leader, Sous-Lieutenant Blitzwing, walked between his troops, inspecting their makeshift camp as it was built.

“Corporal, dig the chimney at a shallower angle, the wind will blow right down something that vertical,” he chastised. “Sergeant, get that rear wall dug out further. We may be here for some time. It’s unlikely they have gotten any further than this on hoof and this will make a good base of operations to search the area from.

“You, Patches, string a tarp up over the cave entrance.”

Sunlit’s mismatched ears fell flat, lips pulling back in a snarl as he was addressed by the nickname the two squads had forced upon him.

“That’s not my name!” He growled.

Blitzwing rolled his eyes and called, “Does anypony present give a flying buck about his opinion?”

“Sir, no sir!” The near-dozen pegasi called in unison.

Sunlit’s empty eye twitched in rage behind his eye patch, concealing the anger from the Sous-Lieutenant, and likely sparing him a verbal beat down.

“You’re in the army now, Patches,” Blitzwing shouted, switching into the classic officer’s command voice. “You hear an order, you follow it, or Steward so help me, your secondhoof plot will be feeding the grass! If I do not see you putting a tarp up over the entrance in the next fifteen seconds, you’re going to be walking tomorrow, and the day after that. I’ll bet that will make whoever's scheduled to carry your fat plot around real happy. Now move it!”

Sunlit sneered angrily at Blitzwing. Blitzwing scowled back with the full force of a seasoned officer who was many years past taking even a modicum of shit. After several moments, Sunlit’s head tipped down, defeated.

“Yes, sir,” he grumbled, starting for the cave’s entrance as ordered.

As the patchwork stallion awkwardly limped his way to the entrance, the team’s final member swooped into the cave’s mouth, landing on her four hooves so gracefully that her squadmates couldn’t help but to give her a jealous glare.

The newcomer wasn’t a pony, or rather, not completely a pony. She was a Felin, a kind of hippogriff born from a pegasus mother. Nopony quite knew the reason but hippogriffs with pegasus blood always seemed to inherit their father's lion half rather than their avian half, producing what amounted to a pegasi with a griffon’s large powerful wings, a body that while pony in shape moved with catlike grace, along with a lion’s tail, eyes, fangs, and taste for meat.

Like all pony-griffon hybrids living in Prance, Light Step was something of a social outcast. Half of her blood belonged to ‘the enemy’, and as no Prench mare would willingly copulate with a griffon, her very existence was a reminder of the raids carried out on their people.

Which is why she always got stuck with the duty assignments nopony wanted.

“Bucking great… She’s back,” Sun muttered to himself.

“Sir! I’ve found them,” Light reported eagerly, snapping a salute. “I recommend we attack immediately.”

“Settle down, Soldier,” Blitzwing ordered. “Unless you’ve seen the storm decide to turn around and go home. We are staying in this cave until it passes at the very least. Now report. Where were they?”

Light frowned, shaking some of the snow off her sandy coat. “I picked up an aura which matched what we were told the litch’s would be like fifteen kilometers north, then followed it to a ruined griffon fortress some seven kilometers from there.

“It’s very clear that they wish to hole up in the old fortress to weather the storm, sir. But we have a problem. They definitely know they are being pursued because the changeling has an active camouflage spell up and running, and the fortress appears to have spent its last days as a munitions factory. They might be hoping to fortify their position with any weapons the griffons missed when abandoning the possession.

“If we attack now we can get them before they have time to dig in. There are only thirteen of us, sir. Two can definitely hold out in a fortified position against our number.”

Blitzwing frowned, weighing his options. He had never much liked Light Step, but he knew she was a good scout, and fully put her heart into her soldiering. He trusted her. She was also more seasoned than her rank would suggest, having ‘mysteriously’ never been considered for promotion or decoration.

But on the other hoof… “A good suggestion, but our weather magic will not buy us enough time in the storm to fight any extended engagement. Tomorrow, you will lead three others to map the fortress and see if they are digging in. If they are, we’ll come up with a proper plan of at-”

“No, she’s right you need to go now!” Sunlit interrupted.

“What did I tell you about interrupting, Patches?!” Blitzwing snapped angrily.

“I don't give a buck what you said. She’s right. Repose is a necromancer, and that's an old ruined keep. If you give him an hour, it won't be thirteen on two, it will be thirteen on fifty. By morning, it will be thirteen against several hundred.”

Light Step winced. “That’s a fair argument, sir. There will be plenty of bones to work with around any keep. We both know how well an undead blitz works.”

Blitzwing grimaced as his mind flashed back six years to the rebellion of a Master Necromancer who had publicly refused to follow the Steward’s orders. Three battalions died that day, and the only living pony on the other side had been the Necromancer. He’d had only six hours to prepare. Inside of Prance’s largest catacomb.

Blitz doubted their target could raise as many useable minions as quickly as that Master had. But he knew Repose was old, powerful, and habitually collected unusual spells and arcane lore. If he could even work a hundredth as fast...

“Scouts!” Blitz called. “It’s showtime! War gear only. We go in hot and fast. Light Step, you’re marking our target. Everypony else, when she spots them, move in and carpet bomb the area. Zephyr, drop Patches off so he can provide artillery support from the ground. If the bombing is ineffective, stick to strafing runs. If the storm gets bad, hole up inside the keep. We will regroup there after the engagement is over. Move!”

Gentle Repose - 4th of Chillfrost, 16 EoH

Pokinutyy Tsitadel' ruins - Griffon Kingdoms

The first wave of snow fell in a near-blinding curtain that plunged the early afternoon into darkness and was accompanied by howling winds that pushed at my left side, seeking to topple me over. The terrifying part is the storm was not yet fully upon us, this was merely the dregs which blew at the front of the storm. My hooves thumped against the wooden bridge, run slowed to a jog to avoid being blown over by the incredibly strong winds.

Like, insanely incredibly strong winds. I’d tried to put up a shield, but the sheer amount of ice crystals hitting it had ablated the shield away within minutes. It would take far to much energy to keep one up long enough to reach safety, let alone weather the storm.

The two of us had just passed the halfway point, and could now see the gatehouse had half of the lower roof intact. It would shelter us well enough from the blizzard.

Was this a blizzard? I wasn’t sure. I’d never seen one before. Pegasi never let winter storms get that bad.

“Come on! We’re almost there,” Fell urged.

I grit my teeth and kept pressing onwards. The cold bit annoyingly deep into my flesh, combining with the wind’s push to make for a stressful gauntlet to slog through. Each step harder than the last as more and more snow and ice crystals covered the bridge. The wind’s river-like crushing force growing ever stronger as the seconds flew by.

The bridge began to creak and sway. The weight of the snow and the wind’s unrelenting force pushing it side to side. The aged timbers creaking and groaning like a beast in pain.

“Run!” I shouted, voice nearly lost in the wind.

The two of us took off as quickly as the wind would permit. The bridge swaying like a ship at sea, threatening to throw us off. The end of the bridge seemed to grow further away from us as we ran until at last, my hooves touched solid ground once more.

By the time we reached the gatehouse six steps later, the winds crushing force gave one great heave and a sharp crack from deep within the bridge managed to pierce the howling winds before the bridge groaned, leaned violently with the wind, slid down slightly, and then stopped, leaning at a sixty-degree angle.

I turned to Fell, giving him a relieved look. “Thank goodness we weren't thrown into th-”

I stopped dead, eyes widening in terror. The second hand on my watch was moving erratically.

“What’s wrong?” Fell asked urgently.

Not wanting to interfere with any magical process which might be malfunctioning I fumbled with my cloak’s collar with my hooves, pulling the watch out as gingerly but swiftly as I could manage before popping the lid open.

The second hand twitched, jumping five seconds back from the spot it should have been in an odd rhythmic pattern. Please don’t be broken! It’s not too cold yet, nothing should have seeped into the mechanism, the environmental warding I put into it couldn’t possibly be this poo-

Wait a damn second, the pattern of twitches looked familiar. Short, long, long, short, long…

This was code! Morse code. So many questions flashed through my mind. Who could be powerful enough to breach the arcane tampering defenses on my phylactery? How did they know where I was right now? What motive did they have to use this means of communication rather than teleport and deliver it in per-

The buck am I doing!? This has to be important, I should be decoding the damn thing.

Squinting at the second hand I did my best to decipher its movements having unfortunately missed some of the message.

I-N-G-A-R-T-I-L-L-R-Y-S-T-R-I-K-E-R-U-N

I frowned slightly, trying to separate the words from the jumble of letter-

OH BUCK!

“Run!” I screamed, putting all the speed I could into a headlong sprint towards the keep.

“What why?” Fell asked, confusion and panic mixing in his voice as I sprinted away.

“Incoming barrage!” I yelled over my shoulder at the blurry patch of air.

How in the blazes of Tartarus did the knights coordinate when using those things!? I needed to know!

The blurry patch suddenly took off like a rocket, catching up to me in a matter of moments. I felt Fell’s arm grab my back and start to lift me up, arm becoming visible as it left the cloak’s bubble.

Then the gatehouse exploded.

A fiery blue cloud erupted from the ruined stonework, pulsating and growing as the flames filled the crumbling structure. The heavy snow rushed away from the thunderous roar, making the shockwave visible for the split second before it slammed into us, throwing Fell and I several meters.

Then the second hit. The third. Fourth, fifth… An uncountablely rapid series of explosions reduced the gatehouse to a pile of broken stones within less than a second.

Ears ringing, I slowly stood back up, reflexively casting a mending spell to restore my blown eardrums. What in Tartarus had shelled us? I tilted my head back, looking up in the vain hope of piercing the white sheets of snow that had turned midday into midnight.

Eyes straining, I spotted three shapes moving in the skies above. Griffons? It had to be.

“Get up,” I shouted over the winds, pulling Fell to his hooves. “It’s griffons! They are still here.”

Fell popped back up like the explosion had thrown him to his hooves. “Move into the keep! Break their line of sight. They can’t have enough ordinance to level the entire place!” He shouted, turning and sprinting for one of the keep’s boarded up windows.

“Uh, Fell that’s boarded-”

Fell put on a burst of speed, then jumped, twisting to hit the old wood shoulder first. The boards exploded into splinters, the rotten wood not even considering the concept of withstanding the impact, allowing Fell to sail cleanly through the arched window and into the keep.

Just before I could be impressed, a loud metallic clang rang out from the room accompanied by an “OW!” from Fell.

Not wanting to be caught in the bombing griffon’s next pass, I ran up to the window, grabbed the icy ledge and pulled myself through. The room I found myself in seemed to be a large forage. While I didn’t have time to thoroughly inspect the large room’s contents, I did see Fell bent over an anvil, having landed belly first on the steel brick.

“Ooooo!” I hissed in sympathy pain.

The ground just outside the room exploded. The stone wall flew inwards, throwing Fell and I with it in a shower of shrapnel and rubble. I felt my back slam into the opposite wall before I slid down into a crumpled heap.

I immediately jumped up, pulling my watch out to verify it was intact, pure terror washing my mind aside as I realized just how easily I could die here. It wasn’t until I held the watch in my hooves that I realized I was moving, so it had to be intact.

Completely distracted by this miracle, I let out a relieved manic laugh. Fell suddenly pulled me to my left, making me almost drop my watch.

“Get inside!” He bellowed.

“We are!” I dumbly retorted.

“We were, this is outside now. Move!” He shot back, pulling me into the keep’s dark and empty hallway.

Fell continued to half pull half drag me for another few moments until the shock wore off and I pulled free of his grip, falling into step behind him.

“What if they collapse this place on top of us?” I asked worriedly, a series of explosions and collapsing rock structures punctuating my fearful question.

“We didn’t exactly have time for a better plan!” Fell snapped. “Look, we broke their line of sight. We pick a random direction and leave, then just run and hope they don’t spot us.”

“Maybe we can take a few down if we find an exterior window,” I mused, not wanting to just run for the hills and hope we weren't spotted. “No offense, but I don't like our odds.”

“Neither do I! I don't have any weapons designed for anti-air! All I got is this single shot heavy weapon,” He grumbled.

“Don’t you know how to fire a spell bolt, or cast a ray spell?” I asked in shock.

“No! I don’t. I know three spells, none of them are offensive,” he hissed.

Wishing I could see even his body language under the cloak I asked, “Why are you whispering?”

“Because I think I hear hoof steps down the hall,” he warned.

“But that’s ridiculous, we’re being attacked by griff-”

“Doesn't mean they don't have a few hippogriffs,” Fell interrupted.

Oh. Yes, that was a very good point. Not wanting to cast any of the combat spells I could remember indoors, I tried to think of anything I could use as a weapon besides the scintillating ray spell I knew. While a potent weapon, it wasn’t exactly something to use in close quarters.

Of course! The Mage Rods I’d taken from the constable who attacked Fell!

I stopped running long enough to reach into my cloak’s pocket and retrieve the bracer with its attached rods. I should probably have been wearing it this entire time, but it’s remarkably hard to casually bear arms when you haven’t done so in three centuries.

“What are you doing?” Fell hissed urgently, his blurred out shape suggesting he had turned around to look at me.

“Arming myself,” I replied, buckling the bracer into place with my telekinesis and drawing the concussion rod.

“Oh, good plan. You should keep those ready from now on,” Fell urged.

I nodded. “I kn-”

With a chemical hiss, the hallway erupted into flickering red light. I had a half second to take in the sight of a flare bouncing off the wall next to me before Fell tackled me to the ground. The metallic ping of a crossbow rang out just above my ear, a loud hiss and sulphuric stench coming from the wall as the bolt’s head dissolved into an acidic compound, eating a hole in the stone wall.

I rolled out from under Fell as he sprang up, and fired a concussive blast from my rod down the hall to strike-

An Air Guard Scout? What?!

The Scout took the blast squarely in the barrel and collapsed in a heap dazed but not stunned. Fell leveled the combo axe and pulled the tiller. The axe’s head split open, the blades swinging out forming a vertical crossbow head which disappeared behind a shimmering blue aura for a split second as the weapon fired, the sharp metallic sound of a sledgehammer striking iron echoing deafeningly in the hallway.

The flare’s red light shimmered off the half meter long iron spike lodged in the wall behind the scout. Just as I thought Fell missed, the Scout flopped over.

“Medic!” Somepony shouted.

“Target has heavy ordnance!” Another called.

“Horse apples! Run!” Fell barked.

Buck that! They carried grenades!

Reaching upwards with my magic I gripped as much of the hallway’s ceiling as I could and ripped it down. The aged and decaying stonework gave way with a thunderous shower of rubble. A second mighty heave forced the rubble to form a plug in what remained of the hallway, blocking their path.

“We need to get out of here!” I said despite the complete and total obviousness of that fact.

“No! We should make a summer home here,” Fell called sarcastically as he raced down the hallway.

I turned and followed him, progressing through the crumbling gray stone tunnel of a hallway as quickly as the dim light would allow. The howl of the wind outside grew louder and louder as we ran, until we, at last, came upon a crumbled section of wall leading outside. A nearly solid wall of blowing ice crystals making up for the lack of stonework.

“Do you still have the energy for that spell to keep us warm?” Fell asked hesitantly.

“Yes, it should buy us twenty minutes before I’m dry,” I replied seriously.

“That’s it?” He asked in shock. “I thought you were supposed to be super powerful?”

“I am. And so is this storm. I’m giving you the best guess for how long my spell meant to keep you warm on a normal winter's day will last if I push it with brute force in this weather!” I exclaimed, the stress of the situation having gotten deeper under my skin than I thought.

“I never exactly learned a warmth spell meant for negative fifty and winds this strong!” I added. “I’ll have to change things on the fly, waste a lot of mana, and-”

“I understand, just do it. We need to get to the old moat. I’ll dig out a spot for us to stay in there,” Fell promised.

With a nod, I reached for my magic and focused as best I could casting Feltpen’s Thaumaturgic Coat. By the Emperor, I needed to learn more survival spells the next chance I got…

Assuming I got another chance.

The cold keep suddenly felt… Slightly less cold. The spell was not exactly coping well with the environment. But, “Okay, this should buy us a few minutes. It doesn't want to make us any warmer than this.”

“So long as we don't freeze in the next ten minutes it will be fine. There’s no way they can track us in this blizzard. Come on!” Fell called grabbing my hoof and running out into the blinding snow.

The winds almost immediately blew us over, the stiff gust felt like being body slammed by a massive pony. I slammed into Fell’s side, the only thing that kept me from blowing away.

Running wasn’t an option. The best we could manage was to shuffle slowly towards the keep’s exterior wall, which was rapidly vanishing beneath the thick piles of snow. It seemed ludicrous that snow could stick around with these kinds of winds, and yet, there it was. Forming up in mounds and clumps in bold defiance of the winds that could toss a full grown pony.

Time became impossible to track as we staggered forwards. Everything became white, windy, and cold. The only significant marker of our progress was when we found the edge of the moat, even then we only barely recognised even that, as sometime in the past, this side of the moat had collapsed. A mound of earth running down and filling most of the moat up to the point of there being a landbridge.

Unfortunately for our plans, the storm had plastered a sheet of ice over the section of the moat we were on. The ramped section was not exactly easy to dig in ether, and both of us were certain snow would slide down the slope the second it started to thaw. Not wanting to be buried alive, we decided to get as much distance between us and the keep as we could.

After boosting each other up to the ledge on the opposite side of the moat, we kept walking in what was hopefully was straight line. I could feel the cold sinking into my bones despite the spell’s feeble attempts to keep the cold at bay even with me pouring all the energy into it I could. If I was this cold, how cold was Fell?

“I can’t keep walking,” Fell shouted over the winds, appearing in a few sparks and shimmers as he turned off his cloak’s enchantments. “Help me set up the tent.”

I nodded and used my magic to remove his pack. The poles came out of the pack rather easily, allowing me to put the small tent frame together in but a few moments before Fell’s cry of “Buck me!” caught my attention.

“What?” I called.

“The bucking tent ties onto the frame! It will be bloody Tartarus getting it up in this wind!” He called back.

I spent a few seconds thinking about the problem, then remembering Fell’s earlier plan I came up with an idea. “What if you dig a hole down a meter or so and we stick the tent inside it as a roof?” I asked.

“That might help with the wind, but it will still be tricky,” Fell said thoughtfully.

Then with a shrug he started to rip into the ground with his hooves. He made far more progress than I expected, managing to dig a half meter deep pit in only a few minutes.

“You’re good at that,” I remarked reflexively.

“Changeling,” he grunted back. “Let's get the tent up, I’m starting to freeze.”

The tent frame went into the ground easily enough, but the moment we began to tie on the thick triple canvas skin, the frame gained a sail. Every single cord in each and every row became a battle. Pony and bug versus wind and tent.

The canvas flapped and pulled and jumped dragging us across the ground several times. Each time we dug the hole a bit deeper and tried again. Finally, with the tent floor secured to one of the bottom sections of frame, Fell lay belly down on the canvas to help hold it down. Leaving only me to secure our shelter.

By the time I had managed to finally get the canvas wrapped around the frame and secured enough where we didn’t have to worry about it being ripped off by the wind, I had nothing left. I was exhausted. Me. A pony who shouldn’t actually be able to be fatigued.

“How am I tired?” I groaned, flopping down onto the tent’s floor, feeling limp.

“I’m sorry…” Fell apologized. “I needed to keep warm. Felt myself dying. Fed on you a bit more than I meant to.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said, too tired to object.

“Pull the blanket over us?” Fell pleaded.

“Sure,” I said, spying the blanket from the corner of my eye and dragging it over the two of us, using the last of my energy to lay alongside the admittedly ice cold bug.

Poor guy. Hopefully, I’d help warm him a little. And at least the howling winds could only just push in one side of the tent like it was trying to punch us now. Though to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was trying to punch us. It certainly felt like it had.

“Thanks,” Fell mumbled happily. “We'll move along as soon as the storm lets up.”

“Okay,” I agreed, doing my best to hold him in such a way as to contact the most parts of his body to provide the most warmth.

After a few minutes of silent pleading with physics, the tent began to warm up. Fell included.

The warmth coming back was a welcome relief. Was this what cuddling felt like to nonasexual people all the time? No wonder they liked it so much. I could get into the feeling of not freezing to death. It was really quite pleasant.

Not that I ever wanted to do it again.

I decided to think back on what I could remember about how Feltpen’s Thaumaturgic Coat had reacted to the extreme cold. Might as well use the time spent warming Fell up to prevent this problem in the first place. I definitely could improve on the spell with a little work and time.

It seemed like a better thing to focus on than why the bucking Air Guard was trying to kill us all the way out here...

Pokinutyy Tsitadel' ruins - Griffon Kingdoms

4th of Chillfrost, 16 EoH

The arctic blizzard which decided to come early this year bought Repose and Fell all the time they needed because there was no way Sous-Lieutenant Blitzwing was going to order is troops to try and fly in winds strong enough to topple a stone tower. Besides, they would need to dig free of the rubble the towers collapse had created in order to leave the small section of the keep they were currently trapped inside.

Sunlit had wandered away from the rest of the assassination squad. Not only because he’d venomously argued with Blitzwing over chasing them out into the storm and just blasting a hole through the unstable ruins to get out immediately, but also because he wanted nopony to bother him while he worked.

After all, why waste a perfectly good body?

Corporal Zephyr’s body lay on the stone floor next to a hole Sunlit had managed to dig through the floor, in which he was currently working. The necromancer's detection spells had shown him the ground below had once been a graveyard, likely for the keep’s chapel before the building was expanded at some point in the distant past.

Regardless, the rage and fury he felt at Repose’s escape needed an outlet. There were bones below and a corpse above. Everything needed to make a certain kind of creature Sunlit had always wanted to construct, but the Guild prohibited. Of course, the Necromancer's Guild wasn’t exactly watching him anymore.

Sunlit wiped some sweat off his brow, then pushed deeper into the ground with his borrowed entrenching tool. He wanted to conserve his magic for the actual construction and animation, so digging the hole by hoof was his only real option.

His shovel had bit into the ground when suddenly a mare’s voice addressed him.

“Thank you,” Light Step said sincerely. “I didn’t think you cared about anypony enough to bury them.”

“Oh, you misunderstand,” Sunlit replied without looking back. “I’m not putting bodies in, I’m taking them out. I need some spare parts. I have a weapon to build.”

Light’s face twisted in confusion for a few seconds before her teal eyes narrowed in angry realization.

“Like hay you are,” Light objected. “Zephyr is on record as having religious objections to being reanimated! It’s illegal to use his remains in any way. He opted out of the program!”

Sunlit rolled his eye, turning around to hold one hoof up as if weighing something. “One stallion’s personal wishes… Orders from the Steward… Hmmm... So hard to see which one is actually worth something!” He spat.

Light’s eye twitched. Sun’s irreverent, hateful, and selfish nature had been one thing. Him being a general jerk had been another. But completely disrespecting the last wishes of her best friend was simply too far.

Light bared her teeth, the predator's fangs in her mouth making Sunlit just a little nervous as the mare growled. “Okay, that’s it! Buck you, scumbag!”

Sunlit had half second to wonder what she meant before the mare leaped into the pit, grabbing Sunlit but his shoulders and delivering a headbutt that sent the stallion reeling backward, stars exploding in his eyes. Light reared up, throwing three savage crosses’, knocking a tooth free of Sunlit’s jaw before Blitz’s roar stopped her cold.

“What the buck is going on here, Soldier?” The officer demanded, running over to the hole and pulling Light off of Sunlit with one mighty heave.

“He’s going to perform necromancy on Zephyr!” Light accused, fangs still bared in rage.

Blitz’s eyes narrowed as he turned to Sunlit. “Is that true?”

Sun nodded, groaning, spitting a line of blood into the dirt. “Yeah. But I seem to recall our orders being to ‘do whatever is necessary’ to kill that abomination. You guys were sitting on your plots so I’m doing what I can to further the mission, sir,” Sunlit said, being admittedly more honest than he normally was.

“Corporal Zephyr was a follower of the Old Gods, Patches. He did his paperwork. His remains are not to be used,” Blitz said in an iron voice.

“Yeah yeah yeah, it’s a crime,” Sun countered. “But I’m pretty damn sure that the order of ‘Do whatever is necessary’ supersedes that crime. We can’t go out there right now, but I can make something which can, and every second we stay here he gets further away!”

Blitz let go of Light. The mare smiled happily, confident that her commanding officer would do the right thing.

“While you make a good point, It’s still-”

“A fact that they're getting away but can’t have gotten far! I can create and raise an undead creature which will be unhindered by the cold and can just kill them both right now using the corpse I have at hoof?” Sunlit countered.

Blitz sighed, face pulling in irritation. He knew that Sunlit was right, he could solve their current problem. But at the same time… “We need to honor the wishes of-”

“Look, sir, I need a whole corpse and some bones to do this. If we can’t use his body, can we execute the junkie? She bucking attacked me for no reason!” Sunlit snapped.

“No bucking reason!?” Light exclaimed angrily. “You-”

“Quiet!” Blitz snapped. “Patches, what in Tartarus do you mean by junkie?”

Light winced. “Um, sir I can explain-”

“I want him to explain, Soldier!” Blitz snapped, ears laying flat as the seriousness of the accusation against of of his better soldiers boiled behind his eyes.

Sunlit’s lone eye widened in honest surprise. “Wait, you don’t know? Her aura is jagged. You’d see it every time she cast a spell if she were a unicorn. It’s a sure sign of having used a ton of arcane based potions. You know, the addict level. And her necklace, the etchings on it indicate they are there to suppress a potion effect. Obviously, it's there to suppress withdrawal symptoms or some side effects. It’s so obvious, how did you not have any unicorn ever bring this up?”

“The Air Guard are all pegasi…” Blitz muttered in answer before turning to Light. “Light, is this true?”

“Y-yes, sort of,” she stammered awkwardly. “It was an accident, and I haven't used anything in-”

Blitz bit his lip, genuinely heartbroken that one of his trusted soldiers had held a secret from him.

“Light, punishment detail. For concealing information from your superior officer that might affect a mission. You will be cleaning every squad member's gear tonight, and every night we make camp, in addition to cooking all meals. When we get back to Prance, there will be a formal investigation to see if you are still fit to serve,” Blitz sighed sadly. “Patches, carry on.”

Light’s ears fell in despair. “B-but sir!”

“I don’t care about this anymore, Soldier! I thought I could trust you. I obviously can’t. Get to cleaning,” he ordered, starting to walk off.

Sunlit coughed into a hoof. “So um, I can just use this pile of meat then, right?”

“I said carry on didn’t I?” Blitz barked, storming off.

“You didn’t have to tell him! I used to live with a unicorn. I know how your arcane scene works. I know you can see that I’ve been clean for years!” Light sniffled, trying to hold back a complete emotional breakdown.

“No, but you hit me. So I’m going to destroy your life as completely as I can. Because now I hate you instead of just dislike you. You should get to cleaning before I have free time and decide to make things dirty again,” Sunlit said as he turned around and went back to his digging.

Light grit her teeth, tempted to attack the necromancer again, but realizing she was on the thinnest possible ice as it was, she turned around, slinking off into the hallway, wondering how the Prench armed forces came to this.

8 - Mohrg

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Palaisville-de-L'empereur - Prance

9th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Five days after the storm ravaged the western half of the Griffon Kingdoms, the Emperor lay beneath his cloth, his great hall empty as the grave it was. A lump of flesh beneath a tarp trying to find any form of passing time.

The paraplegic pony could not read a book, or even simply watch the clouds go by. It takes lips to make popping sounds or whistle. A nose is needed for someone to hum or even snort in indignation. He could speak and he could see, but it takes another person to be heard.

It would also be nice if the Stewards hadn’t limited his use of parchment after deciding to use the Mechanical Scribe at his hooves to dictate his memoirs to. Though to be fair, he had been using about three feet per minute for several years and only reached his two hundred and fifth birthday.

Entire days would go by in silence, his hall, his tomb. Empty. Alone. As if the pony who had forged the great Empire were no more than a stamp on a shelf. There to be accessed when approval for military action was required, or when the Steward could not be bothered to see a diplomat.

The slight scraping of tiny claws on stone echoing off the stone walls immediately caught the Emperor’s attention. His special eyes turning behind the drop cloth covering him, fixating on a small door mouse scurrying through a crack in the wall.

“Hello, little one,” the Emperor greeted eagerly, speaking softly so as to not scare the rodent away.

The mouse finished scurrying through the crack, slipping into the hall and sniffing the air in search of food.

“Would you like to hear a story while you search this chamber for your supper? I’m afraid all of my stories are old, but I have many good ones,” the Emperor offered.

He knew the mouse could not talk back of course, or even comprehend his words. But that was something he had to ignore for his own sanity.

“You would? Thank you,” the Emperor said quietly, pretending there had been a reply so he could whisper his story to the hungry rodent. “Let me think back… Ah, yes! Just over three thousand years ago, my first son and I embarked on a journey to visit the Neighponese Emperor. It’s really quite the story, you see the journey across the sea itself, while dull and uninteresting, held a surprise for us at the end.

“The sea around Neighpone is filled with all manner of monstrous creatures, and despite the military escort fleet sent to protect my son and I, a great green Kraken burst from the sea as we drew into port, enraged at our blasphemous existence outside of its belly! The beast was huge, easily twice the size of our galleon, and a good deal more ugly too. I swear to you the beast roared as it wrapped its mighty tentacles around our ship, determined to drag us to the darkest depths of the sea as feed for its vile spawn!

“As our ship slammed into the monster’s side I was left standing amidships, staring the beast directly in its purple hate-filled eye. I could tell he wanted nothing more than to eat me, but wasn’t about to go down without a fight. So I grabbed a boarding axe and got ready to chop the beat’s limbs apart. Just as I had the axe in hoof, my son cried out in pain. I wheeled around to find him hanging from one of the beast’s limbs, coiled tightly about his-”

Three loud knocks on the great hall’s twin doors sent the mouse running off in a panic even as they warmed the Emperor’s heart.

“Enter,” he called loudly so his voice would carry through the doors.

The door swung open, revealing Princess Cadence. “Greetings, Your Majesty,” the pink alicorn chirped as she trotted into the hall, leaving her escorts behind and closing the door.

“Cadence! A welcome surprise,” the Emperor exclaimed in genuine delight as his favorite make-believe-niece walked up to him and sat down a conversational distance from his immobile form. “Are you hungry? I’m certain I can convince somepony to bring you something to eat or drink. Snack on. Read. Anything you like!”

Cadence frowned, sincere regret behind her eyes. While Cadence was not a changeling, nopony would have needed arcane empathy to feel the relief at seeing somepony else in the Emperor’s voice.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have much time today. My husband is expecting me to take him to a play in half an hour,” Cadence apologized. “I’m here for some quick business, and then I have to teleport back home. I’m free tomorrow, would you like to do lunch?”

“That would be nice! Unfortunately, I seem to be lacking a stomach,” the Emperor joked. “But please do come over. We’ll call it a diplomatic emergency or something. What is it you need today?”

Cadence reached into her saddlebags with her magic, pulling a large mirror from the bag and holding it up at an angle the Emperor could easily see.

“A friend of ours has a few important questions for you,” Cadence explained. “I couldn’t answer them myself and I felt the simplest way to get a message from her to you would be to let you talk to her in person… Of course, we both know she can’t simply walk into your city.”

“Palace,” the Emperor corrected automatically. “It’s actually all one building. Did you know my old house is in the middle of it? Just kept building add- I’m sorry. That was unprofessional. I presume Queen Bladestorm has questions about her job? Is she waiting?”

Cadence nodded, her horn flaring brightly as she activated the mirror's enchantments. “Yes, just a moment…” Cadence replied.

The mirror turned black, ceasing to reflect as the room it had shown faded away. The blackness too faded away, melting to show a view of the interior of a timber keep, thousands of kilometers away from Prance, and a unicorn.

Queen Bladestorm was a mare, naturally. She had dark Lemon Chiffon colored fur which contrasted sharply with her deep emerald green eyes, and a vibrant yet deep orangish-brown mane and tail. The long flowing locks of her mane had been braided into one larger braid at the back and two smaller braids at the sides. Each braid was held in place by a small scrap of brown leather with decorative silver coiled whips. A symbol which matched the cutiemark stamped on her athletically muscular flanks.

She possessed an overall exotic look, but what made her more than a simple rare beauty was the scars.

The Queen had many obvious scars. Too many to be counted. The most prominent one ran across her nose, between her eyes and over the right side of her forehead, and had most certainly came from the stroke of a sword. The pale yet thick line of scar tissue matched the others on her legs, barrel, sides, and flanks, which crisscrossed her body.

Insane as it might seem, the scars added to her beauty. She wore them like ornaments. Several made more prominent by trimming back her fur or by adding a few piercings to draw the eye to the scars with the shimmer of silver. They were her trophies, and she was a warrior.

“Greetings, your highness,” the Emperor said, offering a courteous greeting even though Queen Bladestorm was a Queen in name only.

There had never been a warrior he did not respect. Not even those who stood against him. Anypony willing to fight for what they believed in deserved courtesy in his mind.

“G’day there, mate!” Blade replied with an eager grin. “I was hope’n ya weren't covered up so we could have a bit of a war wound topp’n match. Sure, you’d win but it would still be fun!”

The Emperor almost managed to make his jaw drop as the sheer unexpected hilarity slipped forth from the Queen’s lips. Cadence politely covered her mouth with a hoof, trying not to laugh.

“You’re from the Outbuck?” The Emperor asked after a moment’s composure, not having expected to ever meet anypony from the south-eastern Zebrican desert.

“Right ya are! Brismane specifically. See this scar on my face? Bloody wanker of Dropbear thought he’d try and take my face clean off. Long story, related to how I got way up here. Anywho, nuff yabber’n! Right now, got a bit of problem with my job,” the bandit explained jovially. “I know you want your bug and litch friend all safe an sound. An I don’t mind bring’n ‘em back to my place for a beer-n-barby till Cadence can take ‘em off my hooves, honest. Thing is though, the Griffon Kingdom’s bloody enormous! Ya know where them blokes got to, mate?”

“Um, yes! Yes, I do,” the Emperor stammered, still quite taken aback by his expectations of a brooding gravely voiced mare with an affinity for bats having been shattered. “According to the last report from my spymaster, Repose and Fell have reached the base of the Kaluga Mountains and are fleeing north from the forces chasing them. They passed very close to the town of Novomoturynisk as of last night, and are traveling relatively straight north.”

“Gotcha! Thanks, been rather hard to find them myself,” Blade thanked, offering the Emperor an extra large smile. “One last thing, those soldiers your wanker of a Steward has chase’n after them, anything you can tell me? I prefer not to be surprised.”

“Yes,” the Emperor answered once more. “The squad has lost three members so far. The changeling is responsible for one. The others died from exposure. There was a very bad blizzard a few days ago. They also have a Mohrg with them. I don’t even know how their necromancer managed to create one.”

Blade and Cadence winced together, their expressions almost identical.

“Ponyfeathers,” Blade cursed, “That’s gonna be extra if you want me to kill that thing for ya, mate! We’re talking at least five barrels.”

Cadence turned her head to look at the mirror and coughed politely. “Bladestorm, that’s only enough to buy a bottle of wine or a pint of beer. The Barrel isn’t like the Bit,” she explained.

“Oye! I know what it’s bloody well worth!” Blade protested. “I feel I’m owed a stiff drink and a naughty or five if’n I take that thing out.”

“You would be. They were banned for good reasons,” the Emperor sighed wearily. “I’ll be sure to send you a drink if you do. Don’t fight it if you do not have to. I doubt even your luck would save you. I‘ve killed a lot of things in my life, but only one Mohrg. And I’ve fought several.”

“Right, right,” Blade said dismissively. “Avoid the danger. Don’t you worry your bedsheet off. I’ll get yer mates safely tucked away in my fort and everything will be just fine. Before I port on over and start comb’n the mountains, is there anythi'n else that might have slipped your mind which I should know, mate?”

The Emperor thought for a moment and then explained. “Yes, actually! I was also told there is a Felin amongst them who is not very well fit with her squadmates. She’s been coming into conflict with the necromancer they brought with them quite a bit. I think she might desert, or be willing to sabotage her flightmates efforts if contacted. I’d rather you not kill her. It’s a shame to waste good soldiers. I can arrange her end easily enough.”

“I’ll play that hoof as it’s dealt, can’t guarantee anything more than that I’m afraid,” Blade apologized. “Right, I’m off. Oh! Right, while I’ve got your ears, Cadence, ye’r not gonna shaft me on my payment, right?”

“Of course not!” Cadence said, honestly taken aback. “I would never-”

“Good! Just checking. I’ll catch you lot later!” Blade informed, her horn lighting up as the mirror faded through black to become a normal mirror.

“What did you promise her?” The Emperor asked curiously.

“I promised to hook her up with a specific sort of stallion,” Cadence giggled. “Normally I’d help somepony find love as a way to pass an afternoon, but she turned down five million bits for an arranged date with somepony just her type.”

“Hmmm, interesting,” the Emperor mused.

Cadence nodded and packed the mirror away. “Yeah, she’s a real character. I’ve known her for years. Rather odd the places your old friends end up when they grow up.”

“That can be quite true,” the Emperor agreed. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yes, you will. Goodbye!” Cadence promised as she stood up, then left the hall with a wave of her hoof. The stone doors slamming shut behind her.

The Emperor spent a few minutes in silent contemplation after Cadence left. Calculating various elements of his plan to at last rid himself of the hell in which he had been trapped for so many centuries.

“Yes… That would improve their odds,” he said allowed to himself as he reached his decision.

Turning to his mechanical scribe the Emperor ordered, “Message empty room. Begin. See what happens if Soldier Light Step learns their mission is illegal. Do so in such a way where if she already knows she will not become suspicious of being monitored. If she deserts the flight, report back to me with details. End.”

The messenger machine whirred to life, quill dutifully scratching out the Emperor’s command. He wished he could smile. It felt good to have the ability to wage war against a despicable enemy once again. If only he did not need to wait several days if not a week to make his next move.

Felling Axe - 9th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Kaluga Mountains - Griffon Kingdoms

The last five days must have been sponsored by Tartarus itself. Repose and I barely had time to even discuss why Prench soldiers were trying to kill us, simply because, well, Prench soldiers were trying to kill us! They were relentless, and worst of all after the brief skirmish in the keep they refused to engage us in direct combat.

The pegasi had a major speed advantage over us and used it to fly ahead and ready traps. Pitfalls, punji stakes, deadfalls, a few rigged grenades, landmines. All of the good stuff. The worst part was they were able to prevent us from deviating from a nearly straight northward route by having some of their troops waiting in ambush. They never let themselves be seen, but they were there, ready to open fire any time we tried to move to avoid the hazard-filled path ahead.

While unusual, I understood their strategy. They didn’t want to face us in open combat again. Who could blame them? A changeling Soldier's danger sense can be hard to beat. They were trying to kill us via boobytrap, but mostly trying to get us tired, stressed, and unable to react before at last coming in for the kill.

On the downside, the two of us were tired, run ragged, and out of rations. Unfortunately, as a litch, Repose didn’t really have much of a ‘reserve’ in terms of stored energy. Within the next day or so, Repose would starve to death, and we’d learn if I could feed off him while he was undead. I’d only gotten about six hours of sleep in the last five days, which was starting to push the limits of my endurance. The Pegasi were close to succeeding at their gambit.

But on the upside, five days of this torment had gotten me back in shape. Not to my peak, not even close, but the soldier's actions had been just the cash course I’d needed to get my brain back into the game. Their unintentional Basic Training and Specialization Course had Repose working in a more military mindset as well. Hopefully, his ancient officer’s training would be enough to outsmart our pursuers and give them the slip sooner rather than later.

“Fell, ten-o-clock, what do you see?” Repose whispered as we continued our slow crawl through the scrubland.

Squinting through the dead, snow covered bushes in the indicated direction, I saw what looked to be a cuboid shape. A quick shift of my eyes magnified the object. Yes, cuboid, regular, largely buried by the snow, clearly a structure.

I shifted again, changing my eyes to look into the infrared spectrum. The structure’s shape was warmer than the world around it. There had to be a fire inside.

“That’s likely a cabin,” I replied quietly.

“Anypony home?” Repose asked.

“Can’t tell at this distance. There seems to be a fire, or perhaps the cabin is well insulated,” I proposed.

“We haven’t faced an explosive trap in two days… They are likely out of munitions. It might provide cover from their bolts. But more importantly, it has to have some form of food inside,” Repose mused aloud. “If we go for it, could you cover me while we loot it?”

“And if it’s occupied?” Fell asked.

“All the better. The Pegasi won't go near it, their uniforms will give them away as Prench Soldiers and thus spark a war. They’d have to kill everything in there and they are already nervous about fighting us face to face. The Griffons living there will attack us on sight because we are made of food. That will provide us with the justification to kill them and take their stuff,” he said decisively.

“It could be a trap,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but I’m at half my reserves. It’s only going to get worse from here. Either we make a stand or we find supplies,” He sighed.

I nodded, everything seemed logical to me. “Let’s go,” I said, starting a long slow direction change.

We walked to the cabin using a large arcing path, hoping our pursuers wouldn’t notice the change. Each step as we approached the cabin brought a fresh bucket of dread to my hearts. They didn’t notice our deviation or they wanted us to go there.

The nervous adrenaline rush activated my danger sense, which surprisingly had nothing to say. Of course, if danger were two seconds away I wouldn’t know for another tick of the cosmic clock.

As we got closer, we could see the cabin in detail. Or rather, the wooden yurt. The squarish shape of the structure had been an illusion. It was actually a cylinder but masked in show with only the front side visible, the curved surface containing the door and a single small window had appeared flat.

The scrub and brush had been cleared away from the yurt, giving it a small yard. A large, long, snakelike lump in the snow at the edge of the yard was the only non-flat part of the cleared area. I assumed it was an earthwork wall to mark the property's border.

The clear view of the yurt showed us things we had been unable to see at a distance. Like the yard full of bright red stained snow. And the six corpses piled in front of it.

A family of griffons. Tercel, hen, four chicks. All very very dead. Even at this distance, the cause of death was clear. Something had shredded them alive. The wounds ripped into their bodies could only be explained by a board covered in barbed hooks being dragged across them like some kind of meat cutter in a butcher’s shop.

More horrifying than their means of death, the matter of their arrangement. Stacked into a squarish pile, sorted by size. Largest on the bottom, smallest atop.

“Nope. We bail, we find another food source!” I said firmly.

“There won't be another source,” Repose said after a moment of silence.

“Griffons wouldn’t do this. They would have butchered the bodies and taken the meat away!” I warned.

“Yes. This was the soldiers or a monster. I know,” he sighed. “But you are my friend, you could starve to death starting tomorrow, and we won't find another place like this anytime soon.”

Buck! Why did he have to be right?

“Fine,” I sighed. “But we do this quick. In out, no delay. And you blast the door open before hoof to check for an explosive trap.”

“Agreed,” Repose said decisively.

I reached beneath my cloak and into my saddlebag, fishing out my bag of crystals. I’d need my armor active for this. It was going to go horribly wrong. I just knew it.

Shrine crystal… Shrine crystal… Dry crystal... Shrine crystal… There! Charged power crystal. The last one… Well, it’s do or die. Maybe I could go back to my old hive and charge a few of them up one day.

Slipping the rest of the crystals back into my bag I slotted the charged gem into the hidden case on my abdomen.

“What are you doing?” Repose asked.

“Powering up the enchantments. Go, I’ll follow and cover you from the door,” I promised.

Repose nodded.

My armor clicked and hummed as the crystal’s stored energy oozed through its ancient components. Something hummed, the pitch rising until it left the audible range. The visor hissed lightly, seemingly upset about activating as the small series of concentric red circular outlines spread outwards, forming a ‘sight’ which would track where my weapon was pointing for me. A half second later and the blue compass markers crackled into existence at the bottom edge of my vision, and my armor began to grow warm.

I felt sorry for the poor thing. I’d have to take it to an enchanter's soon. The poor parts had to be loose, damaged, or just well worn by now. The years in the ground could not have helped it.

Repose dipped his head, firing a bright red ray spell at the door. The timbers smoldered under the hit, blackening as invisible flames took hold. Repose’s red aura engulfed the door, quickly ripping it free from the hinges as he hurled the door into the yard. The wood burst into flames, separating into large burning chunks which belched thick black smoke into the skies.

“That’s our cover, go!” Repose called, sprinting forwards towards the now open yurt.

I pulled my combo axe from under my cloak. A few words in the god’s tongue flashed across my visor in red, and the helmet's sight vanished, aligning to show where the weapon was aimed, which happened to be out of my field of view as I ran forwards to catch up to Repose.

He ducked into the door three seconds before I reached it myself. The yurt was large but made up of a single room like most structures of this kind. It also had almost all of its furnishings intact. Beds, bags, chairs, a table, plenty of the mechanical devices griffons treasure left where a family might set them aside midday. A full family’s home. Untouched.

I found it hard to believe that the soldiers chasing us would have left the interior perfectly intact…

Repose made a beeline for the chest next to the stone oven on the far wall and began digging through it. “Dried food, mostly meat, some fruit too, I think. I’m taking all of it!” He called loudly.

“Grab some of those quilts on your way out,” I asked.

My danger sense hit me like a collapsing building, screaming at me in the most urgent possible manner to turn around! Before I could even respond my armor’s visor flashed a warning, alerting me to movement behind me.

I spun, rearing up in the same motion to bring my axe to bear and support the weapon for a stable shot.

The small earthen wall we had walked over stood up, snow falling off in chunks like clumps of earth. The falling snow revealed a massive centipede-like body made from the bones of gods knew how many creatures. They formed a solid interlocking tube at least eight meters long, an exoskeleton of endoskeletal pieces, held aloft with dozens of legs formed in the same way.

The monsters upper body soared into the sky, the front three meters rising like the tail of a scorpion, but arched away from the body. The bones around the end split open, snapping open to reveal themselves to be massive dragon-like wings, the membranes formed from desiccated rotting skin stretched far too thin, six pairs of long blade-like stabbing limbs, and the monster’s head.

Gods help me, the head alone redefined terror. The monster’s head was formed from a pegasi, the skull acting like a nose and decorated with a glowing red runic circle. The entire ribcage turned sideways to form a gaping maw and teeth, with the entire digestive tract twisted into a braided tongue studded with bone barbs and hooks.

My scream of pure terror drowned out the monster’s delighted roar.

“RUN! BUCKING RUN!” Repose shrieked from behind me.

I couldn’t run. The monster’s dozens of legs had it scurrying towards me, tongue lashing greedily, sludge dripping from its maw. There was nowhere to run to.

My mind shut down and instinct took over. Snapping my weapon up I fired, the harpoon flew into the beast’s skull, missing the circle by just a few centimeters. The monster didn’t care. The iron harpoon had become a decorative piercing.

I jumped backward, armor assisting the leap, allowing me to land a short distance inside the yurt. The monster slammed into the front wall, wood splintered and cracked as the entire wall caved inwards from its bulk. The beast’s tongue whipped through the air, smashing into the floor and dragging backward, ripping chunks out of the wood planks like a plow tilling soil.

Flipping my axe around in my hoof I sprinted forwards, throwing all of my speed and weight into a single chop, aiming for the monstrous tongue. The axe bit deep into the coiled intestines. The beast screamed in rage, curling its tongue upwards and lashing it across my back.

Before the appendage could encircle my waist and drag me into its waiting gullet, something whipped me backward. I shot back like a rocket, slamming into the floor beside Repose as he threw a flurry of spellbolts into the creature’s face.

The bolts slammed home, exploding with sharp cracks, causing some of it’s bone body to flake off and pus to ooze from the wounds like blood. The monster bellowed, the roar shaking the Yurt enough for the fire to go out, plunging the interior into darkness with only a few rays of sunlight which managed to slip around the monster’s bulk and penetrate the splintered front wall to see by.

“RUN!” Repose screamed again. “DON’T FIGHT! RUN!”

“It will catch us!” I screamed back.

I snapped my axe up into a firing position again and pulled the tiller. Nothing. Still creating another round.

I searched the room in desperation. The monster scurried back, seemingly retreating, only to rush forward, and swing it’s scythe-like arms towards each other, slicing the damaged wall to pieces then frenziedly slashing at the air behind the new hole.

Repose fired off a few more spellbolts, turned, and threw one final one at the wall behind us, blasting a pony sized hole through the wall and melting some of the snow behind it. His telekinetic aura blazed, quickly ripping the contents of the food locker from their confines and tucking them into his cloak’s pockets.

My eyes landed on a large kitchen knife. I lunged for the tool, grabbing and throwing it in one smooth motion, missing the monster’s fleshy tongue, but striking the runic circle on its skull-nose. The monster recoiled, bellowing in pain as the knife chipped off a part of the circle.

Actual pain! That hurt it!

“SHOOT THE CIRCLE!” I screamed to be heard over the pained below.

“Won’t kill! Will enrage!” Repose called in a panic, horn blazing as he melted a tunnel through the snow.

I knew Repose was the expert here, but my gut told me it was injured. It had to be. We wouldn’t outrun this thing. It had to die, and now I knew how to hurt it. No Soldier runs when the enemy is wounded!

Gathering all my courage, I ran straight for the monster, screaming as loudly as I could in a mix of exhilaration and terror, axe raised to strike.

I had to jump! Following the warning I leaped upwards, the bottom of my cloak sliding atop one of the monster’s scythes. I landed, rolled and- LEFT!

With a pulse of magic, I cast one of the few spells I knew, changing the momentum of my roll instantly sliding to the left. A scythe-claw slammed into the floor where I had been, blasting a hole through the timber like a cannon shell.

I sprang up, using the second half of my tiny magic reserve to alter my momentum a second time, throwing all of my weight into one giant leap, landing atop the monster’s decaying-corpse head, slipping on a fold of loose skin.

The monster reared up, trying to throw me off. The harpoon! Reaching out I grabbed the rapidly decaying conjured spike, wrapping a leg around it to hold on. Safely hidden from view inside the shadow of the colossus, I managed to cling on as it thrashed violently and roared in furious desperation to find me.

I screamed back at it, mostly out of reflex, then drew back my axe and hacked away at the skull’s dome, gouging chunks out of the circle with each strike.

Back! Unsure of how to follow my senses instructions, I froze. The limp arm attached to the mangled corpse jerked, smashing directly into my gut and throwing me free of the monster’s body to hit the snow and roll, weapon flying away from me as I hit the ground.

Unable to stop myself from skidding across the snow I let myself slide until I stopped naturally. Shaken, I staggered back up to my hooves, unarmed, but ready to run for my dropped weapon-

“Huuuurrrt!” The monster whimpered in a foal’s voice. “Father fiiiixxx… Make better! Then fiiind you! Hurt you!”

What the bucking buck!? Did it just say it was going to get its dad to beat me up!? Back up a bucking second, this thing TALKED!?

It turned, giving me one clear look at the completely destroyed and unilluminated circle for a half second before it scurried away into the brush, holding its body low to the ground, vanishing within seconds.

Don’t question it. Can’t kill it. Get axe. Run. Run very fast. How fast? All of the fast.

I whipped my head around, searching for the axe, only to spy Repose pulling himself out of the snow tunnel into the open air.

“Don’t stand still! Run!” He shouted.

“Drove it off” I announced in disbelief.

“... How?!” He asked incredulously eyes widening as he realized the beast was actually gone.

“Not questioning it. Find axe. Then run. All of the run!” I said, trembling slightly.

“Uh, how gone is it?” Repose asked shakily.

“It said it was going to get its dad to beat me up. So we bucking run!” I elaborated.

“There's more than one Mohrg?” Repose squeaked. “Wait, it SPOKE!?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It did.”

Repose stood still for several seconds, eyes widening in increasing terror. Then he just wordlessly took off, sprinting headlong to the north.

“I agree,” I said as I took off after him at my top speed.

Kaluga Mountains - Griffon Kingdoms

9th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Later that night, the six members of the Prench Scout Wings who were not tracking Repose and Fell sat hunched around the fire at their base camp. Or rather, a fire. A second fire burned at camp, far from the central fire. That fire was the Necromancer’s.

This particular camp was going to need to last a few days while ‘it’ was repared. The pet monster he had raised unnerved everypony in the wings. Not a one of them wanted to be anywhere near it. Especially since it seemed friendly, at least, until Sunlit told it to kill…

“I know, Light, I know,” Sergeant Gale moaned. “What do you want me to do about it!? You saw that changeling take it on. Do you have moves like that? I sure as hay don’t. There isn’t shit we can do to stop that thing. We could kill Patches, but that would piss it off...”

Light sighed. “I know… I know… But, y-you’ve seen how Patches has taken over this operation. We need to-”

“We need to just stay alive,” Gale interrupted. “Look, I’ll talk to Blitz when he comes back. Maybe he will let us bail. I know it unnerves him too. I mean, look how he just let him add Storm and Hail to the damn thing when they froze to death…”

Everypony looked down for several long moments. None of them had objected to the mission until now. But all of them were too frightened, or too duty bound to think of leaving without orders. Besides, it didn’t seem to want to kill them. Or even hurt them.

But it could. Easily. Anytime it liked. And then the Necromancer would just add their remains to his new pet.

“But-” Light began.

“Look, there isn’t shit we can do, okay?” Gale hissed. “It seems… Well, it doesn't seem hostile to us, yet. We can make it through this. I’ll talk to Blitz, his word is final on this, okay? Get back to cleaning. None of us want to talk about this!”

“Yeah!” The other pegasi agreed in unison.

Light nodded and turned away from the fire, walking the several meters to her bedroll surrounded by small piles of various equipment set there for her to maintain. Nervously glancing at the monstrous silhouette near the other fire to make sure it was still there, she sighed in relief and began to look for the next object to clean.

Most things were easy enough, pots, pans, cantines, a blanket that had gotten a bit muddy. Those Light decided to leave for last. Whatever would be the most time consuming would come first.

As she searched the pile, a glint of silver caught her eye. Curiously, Light tossed the corner of the muddy blanket back, eyes widening in surprise as Blitz’s document case stared back at her. It had to have accidently slipped into the cleaning pile.

There was no way the Sous-Lieutenant would ever intentionally allow this case containing the official orders, area maps, and other mission-critical documents to leave his person. Light bit her lip nervously, knowing that by returning it she would likely get into trouble. She knew her commanding officer would assume she had stolen it.

“I-I’ll just slip you into his bags later,” Light murmured to herself.

“Open it,” a voice whispered almost silently.

Light jumped up with a yelp, spinning around and aiming her crossbows behind her, eyes feverishly searching for whatever snuck up on her.

“Soldier, do we have contact!?” Gale called urgently.

Light looked around the empty scrubland before her. “N-no Sergeant, I-I guess I jumped at shadows.”

“Right… At ease everypony. Figures the junkie would see something in the nothing,” she muttered, turning back to the fire.

Light sat back down, turning around to toss the blanket back over the case to hide it, stopping as a small slip of parchment now sitting atop the case caught her eye.

Two centimeters square, crisp and clean, with a wax seal set in the middle and two words written below it. ‘Open it’.

Light gulped and squinted at the seal, eyes widening as she made out the seal of the House of Empty Rooms, a simple empty box with the words ‘The wall’s hidden eyes see all’ written around the edges. This was the calling card of the Emperor's personal spy network.

The calling card of a myth.

“O-okay,” Light said nervously, hoping whatever agent had left the note was long gone but still acknowledging their order, just in case.

Light’s hoof shakily pressed the buttons to unclasp the metal case, it clicked open, springs lifting the lid for her slightly. Pulling the case the rest of the way open, Light saw the topmost document. Their mission orders. Folded not to hide the text, but to show a paragraph which had recently been circled win red ink.

Gentle Repose and the unknown changeling have been pardoned by the Knights post-judicial dual. I do not care, nor should you. However, for the sake of maintaining the legality of this operation should the public learn of it, your troops are to be told the two are smuggling a necromantic library out of Prance with the intention to sell the information on the black market and therefore must be assassinated and the library retrieved or destroyed. The real reasons for their deaths are of no concern to you. I doubt I will be able to get the Emperor to sign off on any further operations, he is not easily fooled. Failure is unacceptable, and for this reason, I permit you to break any conventions necessary to bring about their demise.

Light had to read the circled section twice. Disbelief shaking her to the core she unfolded the parchment, refusing to believe it’s authenticity until the saw the red and black bloodstone patterned wax of the Steward’s seal and his signature on the page.

Even then, the Felin spent several long moments staring at the page.

Shaking her head slowly, still reeling from the revelation she had been provided, Light looked around, knowing she wouldn’t spy the agent who brought the true nature of their mission to her attention.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Knowing if she alerted her flightmates the resulting commotion would attract Patches attention, Light considered her options. In the end, there was only one thing she could do. There was no way in Tartarus she was staying here a moment longer.

Taking the page, Light placed it on one of the cleaning piles, took a pencil from a pouch on her bandoleer and scribbled ‘I hereby invoke Imperial Military Legal Codex Article 8a 72 - Light Step’ below the circled text. She doubted it would prevent Blitz or Patches from hunting her down. Not when he had been permitted to break the law and had already violated one conscientious objection law.

There was no guarantee he would abide by this one and allow her to resign her commission.

With her message in place, Light quietly gathered her gear, rolled up her bedroll, strapped her pack to her back and slunk off quietly into the night.

Knowing full well she would be spotted flying away in the clear night air thanks to the full moon’s bright light, Light made her way on hoof. Sticking to cover, the mare headed south. Unsure of where to go.

She knew she couldn’t return to Prance, her unit had committed a war crime by coming here. To go back would mean death. At least, without her officer’s lies to claim they were on a legal mission.

Light stopped walking closing her eyes in deep emotional pain. Assassinating law abiding citizens on the whim of the Steward. The exact opposite of what she had signed up to do. What was happening to her nation? How had it fallen so far?

Somepony cleared their throat. Light’s eyes snapped open. Before she could react a brilliant green aura blazed to life around a unicorn's’ horn, spreading outwards to engulf eight separate cat-o-nine-tail whips, each tipped with a small dagger blade. Each filament on each whip seemed to be alive, twisting like the limbs of an octopus into position as the unicorn readied an attack.

The bright glow of the mage’s world-class telekinesis lit up the night like a streetlamp, giving Light a clear view of the unicorn mare’s scarred face.

“Ello there, mate,” the mare said with a grin.

9 - Guardian

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Gentle Repose - 9th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Kaluga Mountains - Griffon Kingdoms

A fresh jolt of pain washed across my back, the only sign I received of the third hit I’d taken in the last three minutes.

The sizzle the enchanted bolt made as it melted into acid went unheard over the clatter of hooves on loose stone. More bolts whizzed past Fell and I, striking the surface of the shale hillside we had been forced onto.

The Scouts had finally snapped. They had enough waiting. Seven pegasi, heavily armed, low on ammo, filled with rage. They circled overhead, repeating crossbows shattering the thin stone below us, and occasionally burying themselves into flesh.

The gray stone ahead of us exploded, the crackling boom of a full power lightning bolt reaching my ears only after the blast jolted the hillside, as it sent tiny bits of red hot rock chips spraying everywhere like shrapnel. The chips crackled and sparked, striking my crumbling hole filled shield spell as a second bolt slammed into the ground, this one nearly striking Fell in the center of his back.

They knew their bolts couldn’t hurt him. Their best chance to get through his armor was with their lightning. I’d hoped they would keep trying bolts for just another minute. We were almost there, almost to the safety of the cave. Just another hundred meters!

We couldn’t see the hill above the shale covered slope anymore, but it had been there. If we could just get aerial cover we had a chance! Fell could take them down. He drove off a Mohrg, he was back in shape.

If I only had the strength to stand and fight! A litch’s mana doesn't like to replenish when they are constantly highly active. I had the brittle crumbling glass-like shield, that was it. I should have used the energy to kill one of them instead.

More bolts rained down, this time in a coordinated volley, blasting the slope just in front of us. The white flash blinding me for several seconds. I felt hot needles stab me in the left eye. It stayed dark as my vision faded back in.

I had fallen. Fell Stood above me, holding out a hoof to help me up. No! To take my watch, he thought I’d died. How badly was I hit?

I stood back up, sound coming back to the world with a loud pop and three wet crunches as a trio of bolts sliced into my right flank.

I winced. Fell sighed in relief.

“Come on!” Fell shouted encouragingly, turning and resuming our blind sprint up the hill.

Another coordinated blast of lightning plunged into the ground, blasting a deep hole where Fell had just been a second ago. He lept backwards. The scouts knew about our plot now.

I looked up, seeing a gold furred mare just in time to leap aside as she fired another burst of acid tipped bolts.

The seven pegasi were now hovering in a semicircle, with ‘gold fur’ keeping us pinned. They wanted us to move towards her, away from the cave. Damn their superior maneuverability to Tartarus! We were doomed the moment we left the forest.

If we charged up the hill, they were in position to take us down with whatever lightning they could manage to produce. No pegasi can throw lightning all day, but I expect proper Prench soldiers to manage fifty, they had power to spare for certain. If we turn and and ran down the hill, we would loose our chance at cover and definitely be shot in the back.

My life’s work for a proper army! I was trained to command hundreds who had proper supplies, not a battlemage group of two. Curse my failure to lean small unit tactics! There isn’t much maneuvering two ponies can employ!

A crossbow twanged, my shield exploded into chunks of red hardlight, dissolving into a mist as it shattered, unable to hold up any more.

“Fire!” A pegasi roared from above.

Maybe my watch would survive, fall between some rocks and they wouldn’t find-

White flash! Hideous cackling! Low pitched reverberating humm!

A green and blue aurora-like nimbus rolled and flared around me like a dome made from rolling waves. Was I dead? Yes. I had to be. This was what you saw as your consciousness burnt out.

“You could have used that earlier!” Fell exclaimed angrily.

I spun around, taking in the horrifying sight of the foam-like, blackened, still molten remains of Fell’s helmet oozing down his charred chitinous head.

“I’m sorry we died,” I apologised, saddened yet glad to know he had join-

My ears clamped flat as the sky split, torn asunder by an unnatural shriek terminating in an explosion. The scout's lightning sounded like confetti poppers compared to the rolling boom that shattered the sky. Then the most terrifying display of telekinetic control anypony had ever seen crested the hillside, striding into view with an eager smile.

I honestly didn’t notice the pony. I only saw the forest of whips she wielded. Eight cat-o-nine tails, each multi-tailed whip’s individual strands moving as if they were just another of her limbs, each tipped with a blued steel dart-like knife blade, the glass dust embedded in the leather shining in the sun as brightly as the emerald green aura which animated the terrifying display of arcane might.

“There’s a shield dome over us too!” A pegasi called urgently.

“What!?” Another demanded.

“Yup!” The whip-wielding mare shouted loudly. “An if I get into the center, there ain’t spot in here I can’t reach, ya wankers. Might wana try stopping me before I get there.”

She cracked her brace of whips in unison, the terrible screeching reached a blood boiling volume inside the shield as sound bounced off the interior, merging with the simultaneous cracks to sound like several bombs exploded one after the other.

“FIRE AT WILL!” A stallion shrieked.

Lightning flashed and crackled outside the inner shield bubble which protected us. Our rescuer nimbly and gracefully dodged each bolt, seeming to hanging the air longer than a unicorn should. Each of her leaps and bounds brought her closer and closer to us, the dull yellow mare moving as if she were dancing.

Lightning rained down, the scouts giving their all to kill the red maned warrior. The shale exploded. Craters glowed a dull red. Shards of stone bounced off the inner and outer shield. She didn’t care.

Confused as I was, I couldn’t help but notice that her dodges and leaps did more than merely move her towards her target. Her whips trailed behind her, twisting and turning with each of her movements, forming an odd pattern, like a snake coiling in preparation to strike.

Bending her knees beneath her, our rescuer jumped, clearing the two meters to the top of the inner shield far too easily. The jump screamed ‘magic’. A unicorn should not have made that.

Her hooves thumped against the shield covering. She turned to give the grouped pegasi a confident sneer, and was blown off the shield dome by the gold furred pegasi’s lightning bolt.

Relieved cries of joy filled the air as the pegasi celebrated.

“Fire you fools! The shield’s up! She’s alive!” The same stallion from before yelled urgently, throwing another blast of lightning, this one a feeble sparking yellow bolt. He was running dry… Interesting.

“Oi! That smarts!” The mare exclaimed.

I turned to look as I heard shale scrape. The mystery mare stood up and looked down at her barrel, a fresh scar a hoof wide burnt across her barrel, over her belly and up across her left flank.

“Awww, thank’s, mate!” She said with an honest happy smile. “The one looks lovely. I’ll be sure to remember ya for it.”

Her whips snapped back up into an attack position. She smiled, sincerely happy to have been hurt. As if she were one of the borderline psychotic warriors from the legendary battles of the ancient world.

Two of the Pegasi screamed and turned to fly away, running face first into the shield.

She charged forwards, sidestepping three lightning bolts as the pegasi threw them. Leaping to the top of the shield covering Fell and I once more, the mare lashed out with her whips mid-air.

Five separate strikes, one after the other. Each hitting home and scraping off a ribbon of skin, fur and muscle. My jaw dropped in awe and my knees trembled in honest terror as I watched the scouts fall like targets on a range. Individual whips seized pegasi by their limbs, pulling them into a vulnerable pose before another whip’s blade would plunge into a vital spot for a brief, artful instant, before the fresh corpse was tossed aside without care.

I missed most of the carnage. Thank the Emperor. The four seconds of incessant whip cracks and screams were ones I wished to forget.

“No! Please no!” The last living Pegasi babbled in terror, shuffling back across the ground to get away from what could possibly be death itself made manifest.

The mare popped her neck, horn’s aura dimming slightly, allowing her whips to coil back into a readied posture.

“Don’t worry there mate, I always leave one to tell the tale. Gotta build up a reputation,” she said in a casual happy tone while walking towards the burgundy furred stallion purposefully. “They call me Queen Bladestorm the Awesome, an’ that’s the old meaning of awesome. Not the new one. Incase you were wonder’n.

“Ere’s what happens now, I lower my shield, and fling you down the hill. You walk back up, you join your friends as worm food. You’re gonna crawl back home to your Steward an’ tell him that I won't take any of his shit stains trespass’n on my future lands, and this is his one warn’n. Understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am!” The stallion yelped.

Queen Bladestorm nodded in satisfaction. “Good. One last thing though, see, ya told your soldiers to attack me, and ya tried to kill those two blokes. A certain friend of mine asked me to escort them back to my place safe and sound. I can’t let you go unpunished, that’s bad for my reputation, and well, if you don’t walk away with a scar you won't learn from your mistake, now will ya?”

A single whip cracked, the stallion screamed then dropped limp, passing out from pain.

“Oh hush,” the Queen muttered. “It’s just a gelding. There’s a potion to fix that in every adult toy shop on the planet cuz some of you guys do it as a fetish. I used to date one, an- Oh, ya passed out. Wimp.”

“I will do absolutely anything you want without question! Please don't kill me!” Fell yelped in blind terror.

The mare turned around, looking at Fell with a surprised look on her face. “That melted hat clog’n your ears, mate? I’m being paid to keep your plots in one piece. I ain't gonna hurtcha. In fact, I got dinner and booze at my camp just up the hill. Hungry?”

“What exactly is going on?” I squeaked.

The mare coiled her whips and stored them in her saddlebags, then dismissed the shields with a flash of emerald green.

“Well, short version, good ol’ Steward wanted to kill your undead plot six ways to sunday because he reckoned you could build something to heal ‘Ol Empy Prance,” she said in a serious voice.

I staggered backwards, more than a little confused. “What!?” I exclaimed in shock. “Somepony thought it would actually work?!”

Queen Bladestorm tilted her head to one side, her left eye widening slightly. “You worked on a project you didn’t think would work?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed, babbling in shock at the fact that I had been targeted for death for this invention. “The Resonant Cascade Projector’s means of creating a stable spell matrix is solid but the entire means of creating identical self correcting and overlapping bubbles of arcane effect is so far into Theoretical Thaumaturgics that I had to invent an entire subfield of arcane quanta dynamics just to-”

“Equish, please!” Fell and the Queen asked together.

“What?” I asked with a frown.

But, but the shield and the whips and the ungodly telek-

“How do you not understand what I’m talking about?” I asked, dumbfounded.

I mean, Fell not getting it I understood but-

“I’m not Twilight!” Queen Bladestorm exclaimed. “Ponyfeathers, I’m not even Sunset! I can use some pretty good spells, but I mostly deal in scrolls so I can do all the bloody work ahead of time with textbooks to reference. I honestly don’t know what you mean with that advanced spellcraft.”

Fell and I shared a glance. The thick Outbuck accent of hers had vanished for that last exclamation of hers. Then again, as a bandit she likely wouldn’t want to speak in a way that might let her voice be recognised. I doubted that ‘Bladestorm’ was even her real name. Honestly, who names their filly that?

“Uh… I based the entire project off a hypothesis and have no idea if it would actually work and was in the process of testing it in small scale,” I summarized. “How the flying buck did the Steward find out what I was doing with my free time but not even know I wasn’t even sure if the damn thing would work and create a self perpetuating spell? Tartarus I didn’t even know what to do for the powersource yet, it would take an incredible amount of power to even-”

“He had spies stationed across from you as residents in yer apartment,” the Queen explained, interrupting rudely. “They would search your place every time nopony was home. I honestly can’t blame them though, no pony I know of has had good experiences with liches before.”

Spies eh? That figured… They never seemed happy to see me. And had been awfully nosey.

The way she said liches struck me as odd. It was personal, and darkly bitter. Did she have a problem with me?

“I apologize for any actions my predecessors may have inflicted upon you or those you care for,” I declared. “You have nothing to fear from me. I solved the insanity issue before making the transition.”

“Yeah, well, the big daddy of your kin almost killed my best mate an ‘er better half. Pardon me for being cautious around the super powered undead wizard who I can’t kill with my whips,” the Queen muttered. “I really should invest in a baby dragon…”

Wanting to make peace with the terrifying butcher so she didn’t decide to whip me into paste, I cleared my throat. “Actually, you could easily kill me with those whips. I’m carrying my phylactery and it certainly would be damaged by a magic weapon striking it. That would kill me immediately.”

“Yer what?” the mare asked suspiciously.

“Phylactery, uh, soul jar. Litches just regenerate if injured, and grow a new body eventually if destroyed. We put our consciousnesses into an object, allowing us to last as long as the object does,” I elaborated.

The Queen’s eyes widened. “So, Sombra survived that then, bucking tartarus…”

“Who?” I asked with a confused frown. “At any rate, if your friend is having litch troubles, I could help track down his phylactery for her. If you spare my life.”

Please take that deal!

“Oye! I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to kill things that try to kill you!” The Queen’s horn pulsed as she threw the scattered bodies down the hillside with a strong pulse of telekinesis.

The two of us just stood there in terrified silence, watching the bodies tumble down the slope.

The Queen rolled her eyes in irritation. “Yeah, yeah, I’m scary to watch fight. That’s why they named me ‘the Awesome’. Scarier thing is I use the whips because anyth’n else takes the fun out of it. Come on, you two blokes are fine! If I wanted you dead you’d be rolling down the hill with that lot.”

I cleared my throat. “F-fell. She has a good point there.”

Fell nodded slowly. “She does… Since we’re not about to be eviscerated, will somepony please take this crap off my head?”

Bladestorm nodded, and gently peeled the melted remnants from Fell’s exoskeleton, grimacing all the while. “The hay kind of armor melts like this? Ya take a direct hit there, mate?” She asked as the destroyed piece came off in four pieces.

Fell nodded. “I did… I didn’t think they could break it… Heirloom armor.”

I frowned and walked over to Give Fell a quick hug. “I’m sorry. I know it must have meant a lot to you. Perhaps a new helmet can be constructed?”

“One probably can,” the Queen pointed out. “How about we get back to my camp? I got another escortee up there tending to the barbie.”

“Who?” Fell asked suspiciously.

“One of their mates deserted when she found out the ‘op was illegal,” the Queen replied, nodding down the hillside. “Figured I’d get her someplace safe too since I was here. Hope you don’t mind.”

I frowned deeply, thinking for a few minutes. “I suppose I’ll know after talking to her. What if there will be problems?”

“She’s a Felin, she can just fly on ahead,” the Queen grunted. “Primary mission is you two blokes. If that sheila causes problems she can fend for herself.”

I raised an eyebrow. “A Felin? I’m impressed they let her into the Air Guard.”

“You’re not going to be an ass because of her blood, are ya? Cuz if you are, I can make this into one painful march,” the Queen warned aggressively.

I quickly waved my hooves in a warding gesture. “No! Of course not. I’m merely remarking on the dishonorable state of the average Prench citizen of the modern era. I’m five centuries old, ma’am. I had to commit the Codex of Honor to memory.”

The Queen nodded. “Good… And five hundred eh? Not bad. Is there anything else or can we get back to camp? I’d just cracked open a coldie when I heard your little scuffle here. It’s gonna get flat and warm at this rate.”

“No, no, let’s go, anything you want,” Fell said quickly, his cheeks glowing a light blue as he did his best to not stare at our…

Well I suppose she was our guardian. Interesting notion.

Was he blushing? Why was he blushing?

“Um, one quick last question, if I may,” I asked politely.

The Queen nodded. “Sure, but just the one.”

“Why did the Steward send troops after us instead of just killing us in our sleep?” I asked, needing to know the answer to fully trust the dangerous mare.

“Oh! Right, rest of the bloody story, hang on,” the Queen said closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, and then launching into a rapid fire summer of what I assumed was an ever greater story.

“The yabbo you got on the throne right now I suppose didn’t know how easy you would be to kill. I wasn’t told ot much, it’s not that important to know. But best I can figure the plan was to get you to do something illegal so you could be executed publicly. Then there would be nothing to cover up. Apparently they chose ‘kick your roommate into mulch’ as a means to provoke you.

“When you managed to actually get away with your changebug friend here, getting exiled instead of ordered to be shot, the bastard sent this brute squad after ya. But my old friend Cadence happened to be listen’n to your Emperor ramble on about some old story or another when he found out you weren't actually trying to smuggle necro lore out of the country to do evil shit with.

“He got pissed, and Cadence wound up asking me to make sure you guys wind up safe and sound back at ‘er place so you can finish up the arcanobabble you were working on that started this whole mess. Come on, we rest up, you two get a good night’s sleep and then I’ll start walk’n ya back to my place.”

Fell and I shared one more look, doing our best to silently communicate with facial expressions. Did he trust her? I did. Her story seemed plausible, and she absolutely could have easily destroyed us if she wanted to.

I nodded. Fell paused, then nodded.

“That all settled?” She asked, turning and nodding up the hill.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

“Good, c’mon,” she instructed, starting to walk back up the slope.

Shale crunched underhoof as we silently marched our way up the next few dozen yards of hillside. I still felt my heart pumping extra fast from our attack, and couldn’t help looking up and behind me, checking for anything which might be ready to pounce.

Not that I didn’t trust our new ‘friend’. However, a Mohrg which was more than a mere remotely controlled killing machine had vowed revenge, and a necromancer had to have created it. I suspected we didn’t just finish off all of the troops sent after us. There had to be at least one unicorn near here.

Unless that monster was just a leftover from some ancient war, running on old programmed in instructions because some damn fool decided to make one that could operate on its own. By the Empero,r why did the Guild ever think it was a good idea to allow multi-corpse war machines!?

“Um, so, er…” Fell suddenly stammered as I looked off to the east.

“What?” Bladestorm asked.

“Not to be rude,” Fell said apprehensively, “but you are like, this massive glowing ball of love, and I’m really hungry, would you mind if-”

“Heh, of course, mate! Nibble away. You couldn’t drain it all if you tried,” she replied with a laugh.

“Thanks! But um, I meant, how the hay can you just radiate that much at once?” Fell asked in awe.

“Grew up in one of your kin’s hive,” she replied casually. “Ninth generation livestock pony. It was a good life, but well, the Oatbuck is part of Zebrica an’ they did their whole ‘you guys can live openly with us’ deal, so they didn’t need me anymore. That was alright though, I’d always wanted to explore the world.”

“Oh! Well, damn. What hive? They did a damn fine job with your family line,” Fell exclaimed clearly impressed.

“Excuse me, but you bred ponies!?” I exclaimed in shock.

“Of course they do. But not like how you’re thinking, corpsie,” the Queen chuckled. “They eat love, it was our job to make their food. They picked out ‘kitchen teams’ if you catch my drift. Honestly, I miss it… I‘m sort of monogamous at the moment. Best stallion I’ve ever known, nice an hot, playfull, kindest motherbucker this side of space, and also a huge dork. I agreed to be just his for as long as we're together.

“Er, bunny trail aside, yeah, our friends picked out who we would have foals with, but we were free to love anypony or ling we wanted to. Just you know, there was love make’n for work, and also for fun. No big, just a job.”

I shook my head slowly. “Your people are weird, Fell,” I said with a good natured but honest sigh.

“You’re are weird to us too,” he replied with a laugh. “Did I ever tell you I spent three years trying to work out how your hives worked because of how many colors you have?”

“I think so,” I said as we crested the hill.

The moment we breached the lip of the hill, I saw the camp. Cunningly hidden from the base of the hill by a two pony deep downslope, and hidden from above by a piece of mimic canvas suspended over the large campsite which provided an illusion of the exact shale pile beneath the camp as a disguise.

No wonder the pegasi had not spotted it. I wondered why the Queen hadn’t come to our aid sooner, she would have to have heard the fight since the base of the hill side at minimum.

She must have been assessing the enemy. It would explain how she so readily dodged their attacks. She had known what to expect.

The camp itself was rather impressive. Four thick bedrolls, a nice camp stove grilling up a pile of vegetables, a small chest which seemed to have cooling enchantments on it which I presumed was full of drinks, a weapon rack stocked with crossbows and a pair of mage rods I couldn’t Identify… A proper military camp.

It was even attended by a camp cook. Or at least, the aforementioned Felin was cooking.

The first thing I noticed about her was the fact she had cut the Prench flag off of her armor, but not her rank patches. That interested me. If she was proud of her rank but not her country, perhaps like me she had come to despise the current regime.

Oh… Wow. I hadn’t quite absorbed that information before now. I had hated my homeland for two centuries. What else was I keeping hidden deep down inside and refusing to admit to myself?

Not wanting to fall into an introspective hole, I decided to quickly inspect the Felin mare incase she had any sinister motives.

Her sandy furred body was in peak shape. In fact, her muscles were a bit more defined and toned then a mare’s should be, like she had been compressed slightly. It didn’t look bad, but it was noticeable. She had more muscle density that should be possible. She also had to be a no nonsense type of pony, she left her mane loose and long, the teal locks left to fall where they may, which gave her that messy look of someone who prefered to do things of importance over cultivating their image.

That all lined up well with her background as a member of the Air Guard. She was only a Soldier, meaning she likely spent most of her life patrolling behind the Iron line. Not socializing with the nobility.

I also rather liked her wings. They were in proportion to her body, unlike the normal pegasi wing. They looked very good, and her feathers had a nice red tailed hawk pattern which matched her coat in color.

Her wings made me want a pair… If I found a dead griffon I should totally remove the wings and graft them on. It would take decades to learn to fly if they even worked but still, it would look great!

As we got within a dozen meters, I frowned, as her natural aura entered my sensory range. “Is she using any potions or enchanted items?” I asked looking over to Bladestorm in concern.

“I noticed as well, she seems fine but refused to talk about it,” the Queen muttered before turning to face the camp. “Hey! Light, look who that ruckus turned out to be!”

Light turned her head, looking up from the oven enough for me to see a large chunk of meat also roasting on the fire. How had I not smelled that? Did the camp’s covering also contain odors? My word that was some fancy enchantments!

“I told you we would run into them if we went north and waited. Everypony on the ground has to use the pass ahead,” Light replied before awkwardly turning away.

“Right you three,” Bladestorm sighed. “Kiss and make up so I’m not leading the awkward silence convoy.”

Fell nodded and cleared his throat, asking loudly, “Still planning on killing us?”

Light shook her head, sighed and turned back around, awkwardly running a hoof through her mane. “N-no… I’m sorry. I thought our orders were legal and you were planning on hurting the Empire. I-I’ve deserted, Article 8a 72.”

8a 72? Which one was that? I quickly sorted through the military laws I had memorised, eventually settling on, “Ah! Moral objections to orders.”

She nodded. “Yes. Um… You’re not going to kill me are you? Cuz I shot you once…”

I rolled my intact eye. “It’s just flesh. It grows back. I’m not a violent pony. In fact, I’m almost a pacifist. I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me.”

“Almost?” She asked uneasily.

“Well, apparently, if you try and hurt my friend I’ll outright kill you without thought. I can’t call myself a pacifist in light of this fact,” I explained. “I had a very good record of not hurting anypony before those constables tried to kill Felling Axe here.”

“Ah…” She said slowly. “Um, one last thing. Felling, you killed my best friend. I’m not going to make you apologize. It was battle. I just- He…”

Fell frowned, ears drooping. “I’m sorry. I honestly did not intend to shoot to kill. I wanted to cripple him. This Combo axe pulls just a bit up and to the right. I didn’t know until then.”

Light frowned. “You didn’t want to kill him? But you’re a changeling soldier, don’t you instinctively want to kill anything attacking you?”

Fell nodded. “Yes. I do. But in that situation, crippling one of your comrades would have been tactically better than killing them. Because you can ignore a corpse, but you can’t ignore a friend who is bleeding and crying for help. I wanted to slow you down. I-I know that doesn't help much. But I am honestly sorry I killed your friend.”

By the Emperor, this was the most awkward conversation ever…

“Ah come on, you guys can get along!” Bladestorm exclaimed as she sat down next to the fire and picked up a large pewter beer stein from behind the chest with one hoof. “You’re not fight’n anymore, you lost a friend, they lost their home. It’s all square. Have some chow, talk about each other, you can be friends if ya try.”

Something about the mare’s words hit home with me. We could be friends. For one good reason.

“She’s right,” I said firmly. “Light, I can’t blame you for following orders you believed were for the greater good. I forgive you.”

Fell nodded too. “I agree. I’m happy you refused to follow those orders when you learned the truth behind them. You can’t ask for more out of a soldier… Ponyfeathers, I did the same myself. I um, well you can see my eyes. You know what my hive has done. I deserted my army on moral grounds as well.”

Light raised one eyebrow. “Changeling colors tell you what hive you’re from?”

“Yeah. We’re not like ponies. Our unique appearance traits only show up if you can see into the UV spectrum. I um… There’s maybe only three or four dozen ‘faces’ per caste in a given hive. You can't see it but I have patterns on my exoskeleton which mark me as me. My favorite bit is that I have a heart shaped spot right over my second heart on my barrel,” Fell explained with a smile.

“Like tatoos?” Light and I asked together.

Fell nodded, and I resolved to cast a black light spell to make him ‘phores as soon as I had enough mana to do so. I wanted to see that.

“Cool! I wanted to get one myself but apparently my fur is more griffon than pony and won't take permanent dye. It falls out and regrows. Winter coats and stuff…” Light sighed sadly.

“You could do scars, they look pretty if you treat them like I do,” Bladestorm said through a mouthful of her drink.

Light laughed. “Well, you do look pretty. During the day. Night though, completely different story.”

“Eh, these ones will heal up in a few months and I’ll have to get fresh ones. They only look scary if they are actual battle wounds and not body art,” the Queen replied.

The three of us turned to stare at the warrior mare in shock.

“What? It’s just body art. Zebera’s have a whole tradition behind scars. It’s a language of sorts. You wear your deeds on your skin for all to see,” she explained. “I heal way to bloody well though. So I gotta put mine back on every few weeks.”

That didn’t change the creepiness factor behind her words at all…

“That sounds like it really hurts,” Light said for the three of us.

Bladestorm rolled her eyes. “Magic… I paint them on with transformation magic.”

“Ohhhh! That is way less psychotic!” I said out loud by pure accident.

Bladestorm snickered, then laughed, almost spilling her drink. “I’m not a psycho, mate! I just like a good scrap. I’m a warrior at heart. I love everyone too much to sit around and let good people get hurt. It’s why I’m help’n my thestral and griffon friends out of the jam they are in.

“It’s like the old saying, ‘Two in a hundred warriors shoot to kill. Of those two, one kills for fun, the other for love of their kin.’ I’m the kind who kills because they love their kin more than anything else. I just happen to call everypony I meet who isn’t an asshole ‘my kin’, and I mean it… Yeah, I know I’m weird.”

Clearing my throat, I decided to change the subject. Light’s odd aura had my curiosity piqued.

“Speaking of weird, is that necklace of yours enchanted?” I asked. “If so I don’t think it’s working quite right. I could try to fix it for you. I’d welcome some tinkering after the last two weeks of chaos… I-I’m not a field mage. I’ve always prefered the lab and books to the battlefield and war.”

Light flinched and took a step back from me. “I um… I‘d rather-”

“I understand it might be a sensitive subject, but I don’t judge and if that is a transformation enchantment and it is miscalibrated or malfunctioning, it could kill you in the long term,” I warned.

While true, the odd wavering of her aura didn’t seem too bad. Any enchantment on her was more amateurish than ‘dangerously broken’. Still… I had to know.

“I- Um…” Light gulped.“Well we should try and built trust… Y-you two won’t judge me?”

Fell and Bladestorm shook their heads no.

The Felin took a deep breath and sat down. “Five years ago I went to a party… Crashed it to try and get the opportunity to talk to a few different officers and make a good impression. I got nervous and there was a big bowl of punch, kiwi flavored, my favorite. I um, I kinda drank all of it. Like, the whole six liters.”

“Six liters!?” I exclaimed in shock. “Where did it all go?!”

Light giggled. “I um, I can drink a LOT if I want to. I think it’s a Felin thing. I have three stomachs. Uh, anyways, I sort of did everypony there a favor. Because someone had spiked the punch with a potion concentrate. I guess they wanted to prank everypony by having half the guests or so suddenly grow twice their size for a while. Cuz it was an enlargement potion.

“But um, well, you can’t exactly use a concentrate alone because the dosage gets messed up. I overdosed on the potion, and while I didn’t die, the effects are permanent and my necklace is the only thing letting me be normal sized.”

I winced. While I wasn’t a skilled alchemist by any means, the first page of any alchemy text would have a warning saying to avoid drinking concentrates.

“How large are you without it?” Fell asked curiously.

“Well, I can pick my size actually,” Light explained. “But the smallest I can make myself is three meters hoof to shoulder… And um, it hurts like tartarus when I use the necklace to be normal… And well, um, being that huge is less advantageous than most think. Because nopony makes buildings that size. You can just crush small objects you want to use without meaning too. Also in battle you’re a huge target that nopony makes armor for that all the artillery gunners can clearly see...

“Which is why I appreciate the offer, but the necklace stays on. Um, unless you know for sure it’s killing me.”

The mare’s ears drooped, her face having turned beat red as she explained the problem to us. I felt a bit bad for prying into the matter.

“I could be,” I said honestly. “I’ll need more time observing your aura and an examination of the charm itself before I can say for sure. I apologize for prying, I can tell you are embarrassed.”

“If you don’t mind, how big can you get?” Bladestorm asked curiously. “If three meters is your shortest without assistance, well, that implies-”

“I um… I sort of filled up the great hall the party was being held in…” Light mentioned with an embarrassed kick of her hoof.

“Let’s not embarrass the poor mare further,” I said firmly. “Is that food ready? It smells good.”

“Almost,“ Light said quickly, thankful for the change of subject. “And thank you! I’m usually the squad’s cook. My mom was a chef. So was my dad, just you know, a griffon chef.”

Fell raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like there’s a story there,” he said taking a seat next to the chest of drinks.

Light nodded and smiled. “There is! My mom’s village had been raided in one of the Line Breaches, and she got dragged off to be butchered. While being held in a pantry, mom managed to break loose and kicked the ass of the noble who had bought her.

“Turns out, griffons only enslave or eat those who can’t fight back. She won citizenship from that. Wound up staying in the fiefdom for a while, curious to learn how the enemy lived and all that. She met my dad, and while she you know, really didn’t approve of his career as a chef they wound up having me… Mostly because both of them wanted to try it with a pony slash griffon.

“Turns out they hated it. Mom left, making it back to the Empire, then found out she was pregnant. Had me, and that’s that.”

“You’re not very good at telling stories, are you?” Fell asked sadly.

Light shook her head. “Nope, not my cup of tea. I’m a scout. I like to keep things brief and accurate.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Fell said happily. “I’m a soldier by caste, a carpenter by passion, and a bard as per orders of my Queen. It’s how we kept mentally sharp while not warring. I can tell a damn good story. Want to hear one?”

“Sure!” Bladestorm and I said together eagerly.

Fell hummed for a moment. “The Lost Battalion’s Ballad is fairly short. I should finish by the time the food is done. Let’s see…”

Fell began to tap his hoof against a piece of shell, changing the tempo and rhythm until he settled on a medium paced beat. Then taking a breath he began to sing in a rather delightful tenor.

“Thirty-three eighty-one the great war rages on! // A battalion is lost in the Argonne. // Under fire there's nothing they can do, // there's no way they can get a message through!”

10 - Augury

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Light Step - 12th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Bol'shoy Rynok fiefdom - Griffon Kingdoms

I wasn’t into this whole ‘march for multiple days’ thing. Walking hurts. Not badly, not right away, but after a while, it just wears on my joints and moving becomes irritating. That doesn't happen when I fly. I could fly all day and be perfectly comfortable.

Not here though. Not with these ponies. Stupid grounded quadrupeds… Being so slow I’d have to circle them all the time flying an extra few kilometers per kilo they walked to keep pace. I didn’t have the calories to do that.

It takes a lot of energy to fly. I was pretty sure that Bladestorm could provide the extra food rations for me to stay airborne while they slowly plodded along the ground, but she said she budgeted everything out and what we had is what we could get.

Stupid bandit Queen… Teleporting across half a god damn continent in the mornings to pick up some grub and check on her troops. Of course she never worked out how to transport another living being with her! My knees grumbled in irritation at the fact she could teleport with a pony’s mass of stuff but not move a living thing other than herself.

Magic, if you’re listening, why? Why can’t she do that? I almost wanted to take a class on spellcraft just to know so I could stop being annoyed by it.

You’d also think she could have sent an airship to pick us up. She had airships. She mentioned them when talking about her forces. Though to be fair, I don’t think I’d want to take a gunboat away from the warfront for three or four days when I only had a half dozen or so.

I didn’t mind traveling without a vehicle. Ponyfeathers, that was my job description. A week long hike followed by a short boat ride across the Trader’s Sea was nothing for me.

In the air.

On the ground, after a mere three days, I already felt like I was in my two-seventies with arthritis starting to take hold. Even after waking up a half hour ago to get on the trail before sunup.

Ugh, I needed to think of anything else. Dwelling on the pain just makes things worse.

“Hey, Fell,” I said casually. “Wanna compare units?”

I’d love to learn more about changeling military practices. If only to see if I could one up any of his stories. Because that’s how warrior’s bond. By out badflanking one another.

“I’m a fan of the Equish Standard Scale myself,” he replied sleepily. “What about you?”

“... Nevermind,” I sighed.

I could talk to Repose for a while, but I wasn’t a mage or even an alchemist. And he had long since had enough of the wilderness. Poor guy just wanted to go back to his comfort zone. And nopony here could talk to him about any enchantment more complicated than a magelight.

I didn’t care about him being a litch anymore. That stallion was just a really hard to kill nerd. Harmless, kind of nice, but too nerdy for non-intellectuals to casually chat with. At least, not while he kept mumbling about wishing he could see what potions could be made from the random plants we had passed yesterday.

Talking with Blade was an option. But it occurred to me that I could be using the time to work out what the hay to do with my life now that I didn’t have one anymore.

Five days. I’d been on my own for five days. Homeless, friendless, without any support from people I had known, and on top of it all, a thief. The few possessions I had other than my hat and my knife, I took from the Air Guard. All of my ‘belongings’ were really the Emperor’s. You’re supposed to return equipment… Now I never could.

I didn’t know how to feel about that. I’d happily served the empire for years. I’d bled for the Empire, killed for it, froze and burned for it. Just to belong to something. I’d worked so hard to belong to something.

I’d put in the time and work to ace the Nested Eggs. Seven thin wooden eggs five centimeters tall at the largest, each nested inside a larger egg, and set up two hundred and fifty meters away. Six broadhead bolts, one crossbow without any optics and only the standard marksmare's enchantments. Shoot the top half of each egg off the one under it without touching the egg beneath it in less than twenty seconds.

They say out of every hundred recruits in basic, only three will be able to successfully shoot off a single layer. The rest will hit at least two at once and fail. I finished the challenge. I was the one in ten thousand. I won the gray beret. I had to, or else everything would have been different.

I have griffon blood. I knew nopony would take me seriously unless I was one of those three. I knew I would never be respected unless I became great. That was fine, that was just life for anypony like me. But in the Air Guard I had a chance to be respected. I took it, and made damn sure I walked away a winner so I would be treated like anypony else.

Ponyfeathers, I’d jumped at all of the challenges, and completed most of them. That’s how I wound up in the scout wing of the Air Guard.

My entire life had been in service to the Empire. Every bit of myself went into protecting her and her people. I was a part of the Guard, and that’s all I was. Maybe somepony else would see that as a bad thing. Not me.

I was a part of something. I had belonged. That’s all I needed to be happy.

I’d always known the Empire wasn’t perfect. I’d known there were plenty of problems. But I’d never imagined the Steward would order the death of a law abiding citizen who had already been sentenced for their transgressions.

How could I continue to serve a leader who would turn the Empire’s shield into a sword brandished at the people in his care? Bucking Tartarus! The Scout’s Hymn contains the line ‘First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean.’

The Steward didn’t deserve loyal soldiers. The Empire I had loved died a long time ago. I’d just been enraptured by its gilded corpse.

But I still had my beret. It was a bit worn and a little grungy from all my fieldwork, the silver wings pin on it more than a little tarnished, but still whole. Still a symbol anypony in most militaries would recognize. At least I could still take pride in my skills and personal accomplishments.

Although, I doubted putting my hat on would do anything to earn myself a place with the ponies I had fallen in with.

I didn’t hate them. I didn’t feel like it would be impossible to be friends. But I didn’t feel like I belonged with them, not yet. Not even Bladestorm, and she had treated me like a friend since day one.

I wanted to be their friends, but well, what had we done together? What memories did we share? You don’t just become friends overnight. You need time, events to foster trust in one another.

It takes more than walking for hundreds of kilometers, making your joints sting, because those jerks can’t fly!

“Hold!” Blade called sharply but quietly, bringing my attention to the front of our tiny column.

We had been following a dry riverbed for the last few hours of our journey. The clay covered bottom being essentially a natural road free of obstacles. While I had been lost in thought we had come to a corner and-

I sniffed the air.

“I smell it too,” I said quietly. “Someone's got a fire nearby.”

None of us wanted to walk into a griffon settlement. Or worse, a warlord’s camp.

“You look like a griffon from the ground,” Fell said to me, amazingly not as an insult. That was a first!

“It’s still fairly dark. If you fly up you can get eyes on target and let us know how to proceed,” he finished.

“That’s a good plan. Are you up for it, Light?” Blade asked.

I nodded. “Anything to get off my hooves.”

I unfurled my wings and lifted off, using a corkscrew climb to wind my way up a few hundred meters into the sky without moving too far away from where I had been standing. I was a good flier, but I’d never been able to work out a way to do true Vertical Take-off without pulling both my pectorals.

One thing about my mixed blood which I loved, were my eyes. A pegasi’s vision is very good as is, they have no problem spotting a mouse scampering through the grass a hundred meters away. But my eyes were a griffon’s eyes. I once read a book at a similar distance. A large print book, but still...

It took me almost no time to find the fire. The bed of glowing coals formed a sort of beacon in the pre-dawn light. That wasn’t a poetic metaphor either. The fire was literally there to attract people to it. Because it sat in the center of a ring of large wooden wagons, and had been shaped so a small arrow of embers pointed to each wagon.

An aerial welcome mat. But for what?

I took another look at the wagons, the dim light hid much of the detail from view. I was able to see that many of the wagons had canvas awnings set up on one side, much like a market stall. This impression was greatly aided by the camp’s griffons moving about, prettying up their camp and serving a quick breakfast.

“Ah ha!” I exclaimed softly, rolling my shoulders and tucking in my wings in order to plunge into a dive.

The ground rushed up towards me as I sped back to Earth, snapping my wings open and twisting mid-air to kill my speed and glide safely back into the river bed a short distance from everypony else.

“It’s a small traveling market, they are setting up shop for the day a few hundred meters further down the riverbed on the left hoof bank,” I reported.

Blade’s ears perked with interest. “Wooden wagons? Central campfire shaped like a spoked wheel?” She asked.

“Well, no. The fire’s shape is more like a circle with spokes coming out, like if you took the outer ring off a wagon wheel,” I corrected.

Blade smiled. “Ah! The Brodyaga,” she said turning to start walking down the river bed towards the camp. “We’re going to drop in for a few minutes. I normally only see them once a year when they come up through my territory, and they always have valuable intel.”

“Is that safe?” Repose asked for me.

“Perfectly,” Blade replied. “They are a nomadic clan that’s not aligned with the High King or any particular warlord. Other nomad clans might sell the fact they saw us to someone, but the Brodyaga and I have a few deals in play.

“Just keep close to me until they spot us. They’re sure to recognize me on sight.”

Not sure if I should trust her word that visiting this camp would be ‘perfectly’ safe, but not wanting to be distrustful, I followed closely behind the warrior mare as she walked confidently towards the camp in the middle of the riverbank.

It took less time than I’d expected before two griffons dressed in brightly colored red, blue and orange cloaks calmly stepped out from guard posts hidden in the sides of the riverbanks. If I hadn’t been watching for guards, they might have seemed to simply appear from nowhere instead of from behind cleverly arranged rubble, snow drifts, and dead brush.

The one on the left resembled a sparrow, and his friend had the black shimmering feathers of a raven. I couldn’t help but notice the pair’s cloaks hid their weapons. Older rifles from the looks of the slight bumps in the cloth.

“G’day!” Blade called to the two guards before they could say a word.

“Your Majesty,” both griffons replied, giving her a slight dip of the head each. Clearly surprised to see her.

“What brings you to this part of the world in winter’s firm grip?” The guard on the right asked.

“Just help’n a friend by take’n a job off his plate,” Bladestorm replied. “Are you set up for business today or is this just a trailside stop?”

“We’ve set up to sell our wares, Ma’am,” the raven feathered griffon answered politely. “There is a small village with a fort a half hours walk from here, and they do know we have made our camp here. We’re expecting a good gathering of buyers and sellers after sun up.”

“I believe you’ll have time to conduct business of your own before any of your enemies arrive, Ma'am,” the other guard added.

“Great! Enjoy’n the new rifles? Would your Chief like another few crates?” Bladestorm asked equally casually. “It’s not like my ponies can get a hoof into those tiny trigger guards.”

The two guards laughed, flashing her a smile. “He’ll tell you what he finds fair today. Head on in, Your Highness. But don’t linger over long. We are expecting some soldiers today,” the guard said, repeating his warning.

Blade nodded. “Not too worry, I won't make ya need to do extra laundry today. Come on, we're heading in.”

Blade began to walk towards the sloped ramp-like section of riverbank which led to the camp, Repose and Fell walking past me to follow her. I was just a little weary of walking into a griffon camp, I had no frame of reference for how I would be treated by this half of my hera-

“Hey, miss,” one of the guards said giving me a concerned look. “It’s alright, you can go in.”

“Right, thank you, just… Lost in thought,” I replied. Hoping my accent wasn’t too irritating. I didn’t want to have to go through what my mom did and win respect through punches.

“You should visit Valeria’s wagon,” the other guard called after me as I started walking. “Every young hen deserves a nice bauble or two. That necklace would look better with some silver bangles!”

They thought I was pretty? Huh, well damn. Or were they just marketing goods to me?

Dismissing the warm tingly feeling I followed my comrades into the camp. The last few minutes had made quite the difference in terms of light. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon now providing just enough light to make out how beautiful the camp was.

I’d expected a riot of colors, like something out of a fantasy novel. Instead, all of the wagons shared the same palate of dark green, lighter oak, black, and brown. Despite this, each one was painted in a different way, and decorated with unique carvings. They looked like an older classical era timber house had been shrunk down and stuck on wheels. Including in terms of age, though they were very clearly well kept and maintained.

Aside from the wagons, there were also tents scattered about. Large pavilions which I was certain were shops. Smaller ones for sleeping and perhaps eating in. All of the tents shared colors as well, darker creams, blues, grays, and reds. The colors reminded me of regimental colors in the way they were used. Identifying the clan you belonged to must be important for a griffon.

Especially since all of them had the same thick wool cloaks as the guards, but with the colors arranged differently.

As I caught up with the Queen, several griffons turned and looked, immediately offering a small nod-like bow, a smile, and in one case a delighted cry of, “Hey everyone! The Queen’s dropped by!”

The Camp didn’t drop what they were doing and go full ‘celebrity sighted’ mode like I expected them too. Instead, many of the griffons who were setting up their stalls vanished into their wagons, retrieving locked chests, or emptying out boxes already on display and removing false bottoms to stock their stalls with scrolls and bundles of letters.

Cunning bastards!

Within eight seconds a rather fat older griffon with sharp eyes and a kestrel's plumage fought his way through the crowd and offered Blade a medium bow.

“Welcome, Your Highness. I didn’t expect to see you again until next summer. For what reason have you sought out my humble flock?” He asked in a sincere but silly voice which bordered on being overly dramatic.

“Good to see ya, Chief,” Blade returned, offering a short bow of her own. “I’m just passing through. A friend of mine asked for a helping hoof with these three. I didn’t mean to stumble onto you like this, but well, that’s no reason to not exchange ‘gifts’ with a friend. What’s your flock been up to recently?”

The Chief frowned slightly, making my eyes widen in honest surprise. I had no clue that a griffon’s beak could move like that! The frown was very subtle but it was there, a slight warp of the overall structure. Cool!

What other expressions can they make? How rude would it be to ask?

“A good deal, as always, is welcome here, Your Highness,” he said politely. “Come, let us keep our words to ourselves. There is no need to endanger your friends with knowledge not meant for them. How about we work some extra value into today’s exchange, and allow them to peruse our wares while we discuss business?”

Bladestorm hummed to herself for a moment then nodded. “I think I can do that. Will three crates of ammunition cover two hundred Talons for each of them?”

I frowned slightly, unsure as to how much money that was. Prance didn’t trade with the Griffons at all. I’d never had to learn their currency.

“Your lovely friend seems disappointed with that amount,” the Chief replied, having noticed my frown. “Come, this is one of the finest marketplaces in the northern Fiefdoms! Your friends deserve a little more consideration than a mere two hundred Talons.

“Make it eight crates, and I’ll give them each five hundred Talons in credit.”

Blade shook her head. “You know I don’t recover too much. Old No-Tail’s been short changing his troops on ammo. Six crates for four hundred for each of them.”

The Chief mused for a few minutes. “Very well. Six it is. But I am certain they could use a little more credit. I’ll grant another four hundred credits for six hundred yards of wool.”

“You’re in luck,” Blade exclaimed. “I just secured a fresh source of wool. Done.”

Blade reached out with her left hoof to shake the Chief’s talon.

“Repose, Fell, Light, you have eight hundred Talons each,” Blade informed. “Pick up anything you think could be useful. Weapons, armor, food, better saddlebags. If you have anything after that, it’s your money, spend it how you’d like. Just tell the merchant that the Queen’s paying for it.

“Now then, Chief, let’s sort out the price for anything your flock knows about the usual suspects.”

“Happily, Your Highness,” the Chief said sweeping one wing to point at the largest wagon. “It’s a little early for wine, shall we share a bottle of Absinthe while we discuss things?”

Blade nodded. “Yes, let's.”

The two walked off, leaving us alone with the crowd of griffons. I gulped, expecting them to suddenly attack. Instead, they swarmed around the three of us and launched into elaborately written sales pitches.

The three of us backed up into a dense knot, the overlapping incompressible words melding and tangling together in knots my mediocre Griffonese couldn’t hope to untangle. Griffons began to hold up or shove things into our faces. Crossbows, armor pieces, jewelry, warm clothing, canteens, bottles of spirits and liquor.

Just as I thought we were about to have a bunch of random junk heaped atop us and then be told we totally bought all of it a golden eagle’s cry split the air. The griffons turned to look towards the campfire at an older griffon male who had unleashed the cry.

His pale blue eyes closed sadly as he shook his head in shame. “Friends! Friends! Look at what you’ve done. This is no way to treat a customer. I know the winter is harsh and food scare this year, but we have a whole market ready for today. There is no need to fight for their modest credit,” He called.

The crowd of griffons murmured a few apologies and backed off, returning to their stalls or other business. Repose sighed in relief.

“Thank the Emperor! I thought they were going to eat me!” He moaned.

“You needn't worry,” the old griffin said as he walked over to the three of us. “None of Her Majesty's friends are prey. My name is Makar, please, allow me to help you make your purchases. What is something you want, Master Wizard?”

Repose blinked in surprise at the title. “What gives it away?”

Makar chuckled. “You can move objects with your mind and conjure light. As far as any griffon is concerned, all unicorns are master wizards. I meant it only as a title of respect, but if you are in fact trained as a wizard, Madam Olga trades in arcane items, there may be something to your liking there.”

The three of us exchanged a quick look the nodded in agreement.

“Sounds good, lead the way,” Repose asked.

Makar lead us around the market camp, stopping at any stall containing whatever we said we might be interested in. Then embellishing the quality of the items as eloquently as possible. The old treacle had a silver tongue that shone more than anypony I’d ever met.

He was also one hay of a salespony. Not for me, but for Repose and Fell. Three stalls and their credits were dry.

Fell had purchased a bearded axe, an old but serviceable griffonese officer’s helmet which clashed with the rest of his armor thanks to its blocky appearance. But as he said ‘it will keep the not-die from leaking out’.

He’d also been a little dumb and blown his last two hundred credits on a piece of goddamn wood! Yeah, fine, sure, rainbow eucalyptus is pretty. Whatever. It’s still a one-meter radius, two-meter high log! Thank goodness his saddlebags had that nifty equestrian storage enchantment to reduce the size and weight of things within the bag.

Cuz I sure as hay wasn’t going to carry that for him. Ah well, at least he was excited about making something from that stupid log later.

Repose spent his money better in my opinion. He’d been nonplussed with everything until one of the griffons offered to discount an older alchemy kit. Which turned out to be a full kit, not like, just the basic equipment. Everything a master alchemist could want. Fell had happily spent all of his credit on it minutes after opening up the ebony wood case and inspecting its contents.

I’d asked him why he paid so much for it. Turns out it was a Zebrican kit, which means top quality and according to Repose, “Assuming my estimates of the value of goods here, It’s worth three times that price. Besides, I’ve never gotten to own modern precision equipment.”

As for me, well… I’m a practical mare.

Makar pointed out every last jewelry stall in the camp. Pass. Quality tents? No need. Finest sleeping bag in the north? Tempting, but Blade had given me one that was good enough.

After a long time, Makar simply shook his head and gave me a smile to try and hide his desperate tone of voice. “Well, miss, that’s about everything we have in our market. If there is nothing you need, and again I must say that you certainly could use some jewelry. It’s unfitting for a friend of our future Queen to not display her status. But, of course, I won't pressure you.

“Surely there must be something you want. We have goods and wonders from all nations bordering the Trade Sea. There must be something! Something more for the cold than that scarf and wool lined vest?”

Wool lined vest? This was armor! Not clothing. Then again, I had no idea what kind of girls this old guy had been living with. Maybe griffons wore things like this for high altitude flights. If he did, he must not have understood that I was a warrior.

“One second,” I said, twisting to reach into my bags.

After a few seconds of rummaging through my depleted kit and equipment, I found my beret, took it out and slipped it atop my flight cap.

“Ahhh! I see,” Makar said with an understanding nod. “My apologies, I misjudged you. If you are fine on equipment, may I suggest spending your credit line on amusements? The shopkeepers you are buying from are well, they are going to use the extra income on food for the whole flock later on today.”

Fell turned to look, hearing Makar’s tone go from casual ‘talking with a young maiden’ to ‘talking with a warrior’ and wondering what caused the change. The changeling’s eyes locked onto my cap and then bugged out of his head.

Which made me snort with laughter because well, he’s a bug. It’s funny.

“You actually managed to win that thing!?” Fell exclaimed in shock.

“What thing?” Repose asked looking up from his new treasure only to sputter. “Bucking- Where in Tartarus is your bow?!”

Huh. Well, I guess they did know what the cap meant. My mistake.

“They weren't willing to let me take one out of the Empire. I thought it was weird seeing how handy a good sniper could be but well… I think I know why I wasn’t authorized to take one now,” I sighed. “Upside, um... You two didn’t get shot. Um, well, you know. By me. With a six kilo bolt that-”

“Explodes! Yeah! I know!” Fell exclaimed in terror. “I saw a few practice drills with-”

“Pardon me,” Makar interrupted. “But are you talking about a Prench Marksmare’s Crossbow?”

I nodded. “Yes. And I know there's no way you have one.”

“I’m well aware they self-destruct,” he replied. “But I’m certain you are aware of the envy many people feel for your nation’s precision weapons. There are many copies of their designs from across the years. Most are junk, however… I happen to have an item which may interest you.”

“I used a PGM Hecate III. There’s no substitute for that lovely mare,” I countered.

“Oh, I quite agree. I’m an arbalist and gunsmith by trade,” Makar explained. “Or I was. These talons are too old to do proper work anymore. But you are most definitely right, there is no finer traditional crossbow than a Hecate. But I have a nontraditional crossbow which is much the same. Care to see?”

“Sure,” I said, my curiosity getting the better of me.

Makar led the three of us to the far end of the camp from the entrance to a smaller tent between two wagons. He disappeared into the tent for a few minutes then came out carrying a large steel case.

I felt my face scrunch in surprise. I had not expected a metal case in this part of the world. Or even back in Prance really. Our nation wasn’t especially into the ‘industrial’ look, and the griffons here seemed to share Prance’s love of traditional design.

Which sucked. Because that case was very elegant. Brushed steel surfaces protected by chrome corners. No rivets, all welds hidden. Ponyfeathers, I kind of wanted to buy the box by itself. Even with the sandblasted and weathered exterior.

“This weapon came to us from some griffon traders who ‘acquired’ it in the badlands on a raid into Zebrica,” Makar said, turning the case and opening its two latches with his talons. “I’ve had it for nearly five years, it’s only been fired a few times by myself to ensure it was in working order. They well, they ‘fell off’ a trade caravan.”

He opened the case, showing a folding brushed steel, black enamel coated crossbow. The weapon folded up into a storage position and was engineered to be compact, easily carried on the back, then quickly deploy to full size to shoot. It shared the same elegant industrial design as the box, featured a lovely scope, and lots of enchantment components integrated into the weapon alongside technological solutions.

“This is a-” Makar began.

“A crossbow made for the City-State of Phoenix's Marines Corps,” I interrupted.

Makar nodded. “It is. It’s far more valuable than the credit you have available, but I’ve not been able to find a buyer in years since the stock is designed for hooves, which makes it a little unwieldy in talons. I’m certain you know how key a good grip is when using a precision weapon. I doubt there is a griffon who will appreciate the weapon as much as you. I’m willing to part with it for your eight hundred.”

I took a step back, eyes widening in surprise. “Um, what did you call me?”

“Sorry, would you prefer hen?” Marka asked with a slight frown.

“I-I’m not, I’m a halfbreed,” I stammered.

“Not to griffons you’re not,” Markar said simply.

I stood still for several long moments unsure of what to say.

“I know it’s not exactly the same as your old bow,” Makar continued. “But it’s certainly within the same league. Also, the bolts it spawns catch fire when you shoo-”

Catch fire? Spawns!? Infinite flame bolt, bow! Gimmie! NEED!

“Deal!” I exclaimed, trying to hold back a squee of delight.

I failed.

“Uh, you don’t wish to see if it works?” Makar asked in concern.

“If it doesn't I’ll make it work,” I countered. “I’ll also be very angry.”

Makar laughed. “Good thing it works then!”

I trusted him. At least, I trusted him to be concerned about pissing off a Marksmare. Besides, I could probably fix whatever was wrong with my new marefriend!

Closing the case, he slid it over to me. “Enjoy your weapon, Ma’am. May she serve you well.”

“Oh, she will!” I said with an eager grin.

I was so going to sight this girl in when we stopped for the night!

“Want me to carry that for you?” Fell Offered. “Plenty of room in the bags.”

I paused for a few moments then nodded. “Only until I can sight it in and attach a sling to it. So you know, the next time we stop.”

Fell chuckled. “I understand. I was the same way with my old weapons. I can keep the case for you until we-”

“Pardon me,” an old female voice asked. “Have the three of you spent all your money yet?”

The three of us looked up to see an old griffon woman with a bluebird’s plumage looking down at us from a window on the cart to our right. She looked very old, and had the sort of dulled eyes and dimmed feathers which would have made her look old even without being bundled in two different quilts as defense against the relatively warm winter’s day.

“I’m afraid so, ma’am,” Repose said.

“Oh. I see,” the hen lamented.

Makar sighed. “How badly do you need their business, Yana?” He asked.

“... I’m sure you know already,” she replied.

Makar shut his beak tightly for a moment then let out one long sigh. “If you three want your fortunes told, I’ll pay her fee,” he declared.

Fortunes told? How?

I wasn’t alone in my questioning. Repose raised an eyebrow before looking up at the old hen. “And just how are you able to tell fortunes?” He asked.

Good bucking question. How does a species do that without magic? She was either a charlatan, the world's greatest esthetician, or she had-

“I own an augury deck, dearie,” she replied. “I can no more cast a spell than your feathered companion can. But I have years of experience in using my deck’s enchantments to peer into the future. I can provide you with the means to find the answer for any question you have.”

Fell hummed. “Well, if anything it would be a way to kill a little time,” he said decisively.

True, also the old hen clearly needed the money. Or probably food rather.

“Yeah, why not? Could be fun,” I decided.

“Hold on one minute,” Repose said holding up one hoof. “Not to be rude ma’am, but I am something of an enchanter myself. I know the questions answerable by an enchanted item are limited. You’re embellishing what-”

Yana cackled mischievously. “I make my living as a fortune teller, dearie. I need to attract customers. Yes, you are right. The questions are limited, but few people come to me and ask something the cards can not answer. One moment,” she said before vanishing from the window.

A heartbeat later she returned with a wooden box in her talons and opened it, revealing a deck of a few hundred silver cards.

“Can you see the truth?” Yana asked.

Repose nodded. “Yes, I can. Alright, you do have an authentic augury deck. One about three centuries old and… Germane if the box is any indication. What are its limits?”

“The box is Germane, yes, but the cards are Neighponese,” Yana informed in a ‘mystical’ voice. “My cards are old, they have gained a few peculiarities over the years. The most important one is they will only work correctly if three people ask one question of the cards. Each will get their own answer, but all three must truly wish to know the same thing.

“The only other one you need be concerned with is how they give you your answer. The answers are a little cryptic, almost like a riddle, but still quite solvable. I assure you, my cards have never been wrong. All who failed to answer the riddle given to them before the event they wished to know of came to pass, learned the answer after the fact. In hindsight their messages are unmistakable.”

I frowned. “So we can ask a question, and get a riddle which if we can solve will tell us our answer?”

The old hen nodded. “Yes dearie, my cards can point you to the place you wish to be, the person you wish to meet, or the object of your desire. But they can not take you where you wish to go. You must make the journey yourself.”

“I think can can handle that,” I mused. “You guys want to try it?”

Repose nodded. “Yes, I’m interested to see how the cards work at the least.”

Fell nodded too. “It still seems like fun to me.”

“But what do we ask?” I prompted, hoping nopony had any ideas other than me.

I knew what I wanted to ask. There was only one thing I needed to know right now.

Fell shrugged and leaned over to whisper, “I don’t care. I’m just going to feel bad if she goes hungry…” to Repose and I.

Repose nodded in understanding.

Seizing my chance I said, “We're homeless, broke, and marching across half the continent. I want to know how I can improve my life. I think you two could use an answer to that question too.”

Repose nodded immediately. “Yes! That is a good question. Um, ma’am, can your cards answer that?”

“Yes, it’s a little vague for them, but they have answered that question several times before. Come into my wagon and I will tell you your fortunes,” she said eagerly, shutting her wagon’s window as she pulled back into her home.

“Thanks again for the bow, sir… And for this,” I said to Makar.

He nodded. “No problem. Don’t worry, a reading isn’t very much. I’ll be fine”

The three of us quickly trotted around the side of the fortune teller’s wagon, then up the steps at the back onto the little almost-a-porch. Before Fell could open the door, Yana opened it herself.

“Come in, sit at the table,” she instructed, backing into the cramped and cluttered interior space.

The table in question was small, round, and basically filled the entryway. A piece of bright yellow cloth had been hung to make a curtain and divide the wagon into ‘rooms’, with this ‘reading room’ decorated with all manner of fake arcane trappings. Strings of charms, a crystal ball, a few skulls preserved in wax.

I only tangentially knew about enchanted items from being around them, and even I could tell this was all for show. Then again, she had admitted she did lure people in for her business's sake. Maybe this fooled griffons who’d never seen anything magical in their lives.

Yana took a seat at the far end of the table and set her box of cards down atop the simple hickory plank table top. The three of us gathered around the opposite side, sitting down on the wagon’s floor.

Yana picked up the silver cards and began to shuffle them. The cards sparking and glowing slightly as the moved across one another in a way which clearly showed them to have at least a little magical power in them.

“Ask your question one after the other, as soon as I stop shuffling,” Yana instructed, stopping mere moments later.

“What can I do to improve my life?” Fell asked.

“What can I do to improve my life?” I seconded.

“What can I do to improve my life?” Repose finished.

Yana picked up the deck of cards and quickly began to deal them out. The silver cards were laid out in three grid patterns, three cards across and three down. Nine cards each. Interestingly, the cards had small patterns etched into them which ran across the borders, linking together to form more complex patterns across all nine cards.

When the last of the cards had been dealt, Yana put the deck back in the box and pointed to Fell, and then the grid of cards in front of him. “Touch your talon- er, hoof to the centermost card. But only for a moment,” she instructed.

Fell nodded and tapped the card. The thin lines immediately shown with dark blue light, projecting a pattern of Neighponese characters into the air. Yana squinted at them for a few moments then nodded in satisfaction.

“For a good life, return to your bed and look within. There will you find the path to a happy future,” she intoned, the words vanishing as she read them aloud.

Before Fell could say anything she nodded to me, and out of reflex, I tapped the card.

My grid flashed with an odd black light. Like something you would see at a fancy party for ponies into DJ P0n3’s music. Yana squinted at the text as it appeared, translating for me.

“For a good life, embrace the night beneath the sea of sand. You will find what you have always wanted within the darkness by brightening it,” she intoned.

Yana quickly nodded to Repose, who was already in the process of tapping the card. His grid flashed a bright white, but only for a moment. The text simply appearing all in one go, as if the spell had used a lot of energy at once.

“Odd…” Yana mused. “Your fortune is less cryptic than I would expect. For a good life, befriend the lavender mage and share your ideas with her. Together you can right a great wrong.”

The words vanished, and the cards light faded away to nothing over a few seconds.

“There you are. I can not hope to tell you what they mean, except for you Master Wizard. You had better make friends with the next lavender unicorn you meet. I’ve never seen that clear of a prediction from these cards!” She exclaimed.

Repose coughed. “I Uh… I recharged the deck,” he said.

“What?” Yana asked in confusion.

“I noticed it was almost dead when reading Light’s future, so I recharged it. It’s um- Well, it looks like the cryptic nature was a ‘power saving’ feature. Your business will be a bit more practical for people for at least a few months. Oh! You can get a charged mage's gem and rest it atop the deck. That should replenish them if you can't find another unicorn to provide your with mana,” Repose instructed.

Yana blinked, broke into a grateful smile and quickly wrapped Repose in a hug. “Thank you young colt! I hope you get the better life you asked for.”

Letting go of Repose, she nodded towards the door. “I’ll need to tidy up and change my pitch for today. Tell her Highness I said hello, please,” Yana asked as she ushered us out.

“Will do,” I promised as I stepped outside. “Thank you.”

As the door shut behind us, I turned and gave Repose an irritated glare. “You could have powered them up sooner!” I accused.

Repose blushed, ears drooping in embarrassment. “Um, no. Sorry. I learned how they operated on the first use, understood they were not working right with the second, and only realized they needed more power before touching my own card. I’ll be happy to help you two solve your own riddles… I sort of just fixed them on reflex. I-I’ve been needing something to tinker with.”

“Good!” Fell exclaimed. “Because I have no idea what ‘return to your bed and look within’ means.”

I tapped a hoof to my chin in thought. “Um… Look inside your bedroll tonight?” I suggested.

“Too obvious,” Fell muttered.

“Yeah, also it’s probably metaphorical,” I agreed.

“Ah! Visited Madam Yana, eh?” Bladestorm asked suddenly stepping out of the crowd of griffons.

“Yes,” Repose answered. “Do you know her?”

“Excellent use of your money,” Blade praised. “Back when I first came to these lands, I had her tell my fortune for a lark. I asked where I could find someone I could trust with things I had to keep secret from everyone in any position of authority, even my own husband. She found me just the mare to get me oriented and figure out what to do here. I couldn’t exactly pursue my old career choice.

“Without her getting me started, I’d probably be dead in a ditch someplace, the entire Taldomen Fiefdom would still be under No-Tail the Dickhead’s rule, and I’d never have given him an insulting nickname that even his allies use now. Heh. Ready to go?”

“I sort of promised to help them unravel their riddles,” Repose explained.

“You can do that as we march. Cuz we have to move. Their lookouts have non-friendly griffons about ten minutes away. It’s time to go,” Blade said seriously.

“Why the buck didn’t you lead with that?!” I demanded.

“I wanted you to know that see’n Yana could be the best move you ever made, and it only took twenty seconds to have this conversation. Everypony, march!” Blade ordered, turning and walking towards the camp’s entrance at a swift clip.

“You’re helping us puzzle this out,” I said pointing a hoof at Repose firmly before turning to follow our escort. “Start with that ‘sea of sand’ bit.”

Because I knew what the ‘what you have always wanted’ part was. There was no way in Tartarus I was going to loose a shot at finding a place I felt I belonged in.

11 - Camp

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Felling Axe - 12th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Kontrabandista Lake - Griffon Kingdoms

Despite the terrifying first week of our journey, I found myself enjoying the last few days of hiking.

I’d always loved traveling. They never let me travel much way back when. Of course, that was perfectly okay. As far as we knew, Elite Soldiers just weren't hatching anymore for any hive. You don’t risk losing a trooper you couldn’t replace, to random bandits or inclement weather.

You also didn’t just let them wander about. At least, back then you didn’t. Five centuries ago, any given settlement could be attacked at any time, everywhere, aside from Equestria and Drake.

Equestria was safe within the hooves of the angry sun goddess who had just banished her sister and consequently found out that sometimes, you really do need to use violence to solve a problem. Drake was safe because who in their right mind marches on a dragon settlement? I mean, aside from Haynibale of Crouprage. Who had turned out to indeed have been a bad enough mare take on a battalion of draconic infantry. Twice.

Too bad my old Queen hadn’t let me go see the second Battle of the Cassum. You could have sold tickets to people so they could line up some distance away to watch the battle and have made several dragon’s hoards of gold off it. And they did!

I’d bought one. The city of Crouprage had actually sent out heralds to promote the ‘rematch’ which The Burninator had demanded. Heh, Dragons have the silliest title for their leader.

Not every battle was courteous enough to announce their date, time, and sides in advance of course. Cassum Two was just the best historical example to show how people had become so used to war that purchasing a ticket to a battle had become something which was a bit odd, but not that outlandish of an idea. For everyone, not just for we soldiers.

About half of the soldiers in my hive had wanted to go watch. The other half wanted to go fight alongside the dragons to see if we could get to ride one as a thank you. We can’t help it, soldiers love physical contests. And there had been plenty of those to beat back in the day. Not so much anymore though, and that was a good thing.

The world had stabilized a lot since Chrysalis took over our hive, making travel possible, largely risk free, and enjoyable. Perfect for trade, tourism, and all manner of peacetime activities.

Except for this part of the world. The Griffon Kingdoms were an exception.

Queen Bladestorm and I sat atop a hill overlooking a lake, and the battlefield which engulfed its shore. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just any lake. The lake where we were scheduled to meet up with a boat to take us the rest of the way to safety.

Even worse for us, the two armies crawling along the sides of the lake were not just any two armies. The forces currently massed along the eastern half of the lake flew a gold, gray, and olive banner, which Blade recognized as the colors of her current enemy, Warlord “No-Tail” as she called him. She couldn’t call for a pickup with the battle taking place, and it was far too risky to try moving downriver past the war-camp at the moment.

From the looks of things, it seemed like No-Tail’s troops were attempting to raid the unknown warlord’s camp for supplies. And failing very badly at that mission. Bodies littered the ground around the camp, not a one having gotten within about twenty meters of the rows of white tents.

The war-camp’s defenses included several large cannons and mortars, which they had been using for a steady half hour and counting. Blasting the shoreline and old ruined cobble walls their enemy had taken cover behind to dust.

Fortunately, we were relatively safe up on the hillside. Their forces were outnumbered and under pressure. No one was looking up a few miles away. We could sit here safely.

Even as far away as we were, the sharp cracks of rifles and booming cannons rang out, mimicking a thunderstorm with their constant noise. Blade and I lay a short ways away from our camp, peering into the distance as best we could with the sun setting.

“Mmm,” Blade said as she set down her binoculars. “It’s almost over. No-Tail’s shore side flank is gonna fail any moment now.”

I squinted into the distance, grateful for my changeling eyes. “I see what you mean. Oh, yep. Looks like some of the blue cloaks are charging over the water.”

A few dozen griffons took to the air, arcing out over the surface of the water to strike at the artillery weakened position. Landing on the shelled to Tartarus shoreline, they immediately formed ranks, firing into No-Tail’s forces from the side. There wasn’t any way to make out the details from my position, but it was easy to tell the charge had worked. You could see gold cloaks dropping.

“And that’s that,” Bladestorm said with a nod. “They’ll be routed-”

A loud horn’s mournful cry echoed in the distance. The gold cloaks began to break formation, running flat out along the ground to avoid making targets of themselves in the air. The battle was over. Not that the blue cloaks cared much as they continued to fire on their fleeing enemy.

“-now,” Blade finished with a sad laugh. “No surprise there. I use similar tactics on his griffons all the time.”

“Do you think they thought they were fighting you?” I asked curiously.

“Nah, my troops are mostly thestrals. I don’t field griffons. I’m fight’n to free them, why would I get them killed?” Blade countered wryly.

I shrugged. “They want to fight? Help each other out?”

“Friendly griffons are of far better use as smiths, spies, and messengers,” she replied. “At any rate, our friends in blue will be scaveng’n the battlefield as soon as they’ve chased No-Tail off completely. That’ll keep them busy for a few hours. I need to port back to base and check on our ride. We might be able to sleep while travel’n tonight.”

I nodded, standing up to walk back to our companions. “I’ll keep everypony safe till you get back,” I promised.

Blade nodded, and with a bright flash of green vanished from sight.

Walking the short ways back to our camp, I saw Repose had decided to open up his new alchemy kit. He’d set up a small stove to heat some sort of mixture over the flame.
A few glass containers and opened leather pouches sat around him as he mixed some leaves into his flask of boiling clearish liquid.

“Reep…” I sighed. “We don’t have time for you to brew a potion.”

“It’s for Light’s joints. She said they hurt. This only needs another three minutes of work, and I still hear gunfire. Or are we not safe?” Repose asked in concern.

“The battle’s over, the blues are picking off survivors as they flee,” I said, the bitter taste of their dishonorable actions making me want to gag a little. “Bladestorm went home to see if our ride is ready to get us. So we’ll be walking down river soon.”

“Three minutes will pass before she gets back,” Repose countered.

I bit my lip to try and hold in my frustration. “Yes, but we will need to be ready to move immediately! You’re a smart stallion, you should realize the need for-”

Repose finished mixing the leaves into the flask and turned to look at me, his red eyes holding some irritation. “Ensuring one of our comrades isn’t in pain and distracted when we are close enough to the enemy to hear gunfire? Yes, I do. What if she needs to provide covering fire? Do you want our sniper unable to fire from arthritis?” He countered.

“No, but we don’t need to fight. We have the night, they are distracted. She’ll be fine!” I retorted.

“We still have to run,” he objected. “This is quick and easy.”

“Ugh, yes,” I admitted, ears flattening. “But now you have to put all of your equipment away, and store that kit away again. That’s going to take time, maybe leave some evidence. They will probably send a search team out for survivors and they could track us down!”

“All the more reason to ensure all our soldiers are at their best,” Repose countered.

“But you’re endangering us by leaving behind a possible trail!” I shouted. “Seriously! Why are you so bucking cute but also this bucking thick!?”

EEP!

My eyes widened in pure terror. I’d just blurted it out! Oh gods! What do I do?! HELP!

Repose blinked in surprise, tilting his head to the left. “What? How is my appearance a tactical disadvantage in this case?” He asked honestly.

“Um, I well, I didn’t mean to yell at you like that,” I stammered.

Light groaned from her bedroll, where she had been lying for a while. “By the Emperor! If you two start having makeup sex after fighting about leaving a trail and wasting time, I’m going to smack you right in the dicks!”

Repose’s face twisted with even more confusion as he turned to look at light, ears drooping. “W- what? Why would we do that?” He asked.

I felt my lips pull into a slight frown. How the hay couldn’t he tell she thought we were a coup-

She thought we were a couple! Yay! That means we went nice together.

Light rolled over, her new tech-crossbow held close to her belly like she’d just been cuddling with her weapon. “Wait,” she asked in surprise. “You two aren't mates?”

“Of course we’re friends,” Repose said. “But why the hay would we have sex? Is that normal for friends this decade?!”

“What? No! I meant mates as in lovers. You guys aren't coltfriends?” She asked honestly surprised. “You sleep together every night.”

“We’re not romantically involved. That’s for warmth,” Repose explained. “Changelings don't handle the cold well. Frankly, you should help so his other side isn’t getting cold.”

Feeling a sudden swell of courage, I knew it was time. I had to take advantage of the momentum Light made for us.

“Yeah, well, I wish we were romantically involved!” I blurted. “There I said it!”

Oh, gods, I said it! Why did I say it!?

“Oh,” Repose said, his brow furrowing. “Um… I don’t know what to do…”

My hearts skipped several beats. He… Didn’t know?

I could taste his confusion. That wasn’t good, it’s a difficult emotion to sense. Here had to be a LOT of it.

“What you do, assuming you like other colts, is wait till we have time, then bone him,” Light said crudely. “Seriously, the possible best mate is just a best friend who's okay with sex.”

I blushed, shuffling one hoof along the ground nervously. “Um… If it helps, biologically speaking, we’re all female. Like ants. Our genders are strictly mental. And I won't mind shifting into a mare for you, I mean… You know if-”

Repose bit his lip. “I um… I don’t like anything in that… Sense.”

I felt one of my hearts clench up hard enough to pop a valve.

“W-what do you mean?” I stammered.

He didn’t? But… How? Why? How?!

Repose’s ears drooped sadly. “Bucking hay… I’m sorry you look, um, really bad. I just… I don't really have any sort of … I’ve never thought about sex. Or found ponies attractive like that. Ever. Even before I became… This,” he explained slowly.

Light’s ears drooped sadly. Setting her weapon down carefully she stepped over to me and gave me a quick hug. “Ooo… Looks like your crush is asexual. That’s rough, buddy.”

“There’s a name for my non-preference? Why is it named after a form of reproduction? That’s odd,” Repose mused.

“Yeah, we’ve come up with more than just straight and gay,” Light said, keeping her hug around me. “There's asexual, which is you. And then there’s bisexual, liking both genders within your species. Then there’s pansexual, where you don’t care about sex, species, any of that. Cuz it’s all nice.

“I’m the last one. I think. Haven't met any species that didn’t look cute somehow. Excuse me a second, I think your friend is about to die.”

Light turned to me, finally letting go. I couldn’t really think. Like if my brain just… Stopped.

“Hey, um… I’m sorry. I don’t really feel any attraction for you, but if you just need someone to lay next to, that’s okay,” she offered.

“N-no…” I stammered. “I… I’m going… I’m going over here.”

I walked a few steps away to stand and stare at the setting sun.

I don’t know how long I stood there, but after some time Repose came up beside me.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“You could have said something sooner,” I lamented.

“No, I really couldn’t. I had no idea you liked me,” he tried to explain.

I felt a pang of anger in my chest.

“HOW!? I’ve literally presented for you on multiple occasions! I’ve spent months trying out slightly different plots and other bits to try and find out what you wanted. I’ve done all the romantic gestures, and gifts, and- I… Just… How?!” I begged, wishing I was in a pony body so I could cry.

Crying is amazingly good at helping you get rid of sadness.

“I don’t think like that,” he answered. “I’ve never thought like that. I honestly couldn’t mention any time you’ve done any of those things… Well, I can recall a few gifts. I thought you were just being Equestrianly friendly.”

“They’re not THAT friendly,” I protested.

“Be that as it may, it’s not what the average pony thinks of them…” Repose muttered. “I… I may not think about sex. But I do like you. I care for you. You’re the only real friend I’ve had in hundreds of years… I’m sorry I can’t provide romantic love for you. I- I suppose we could have sex. If you wanted. I wouldn't like it, it’s a bit nauseating to think about. But I’d do it for you.”

“No, no it’s fine. For changelings, it’s the emotional parts of sex that matter,” I sighed. “If I just want to feel nice I can- buck it… I… I need time. You… You were everything my life was about.”

“Were?” Repose asked sadly.

“Oh! Um, no,” I quickly exclaimed. “We can still be friends. I- I think. It’s just… I need somepony to love. You know?”

Repose shook his head. “I don’t know what that’s like. I’m sorry,” he apologized again.

“It’s fine… We'll be fine,” I sighed. “We just nee-”

The brush covered hilltop flashed with emerald green light, the accompanying crackle of energy and smell of ozone signaling Bladestorm had returned.

I turned to look at the scar covered mare and frowned. Gods help me, I was so depressed that even her impossibly huge love reserves seemed smaller.

“Right everypony, pick up is scheduled fo-” Blade stopped speaking, frowning mid sentence as she looked around the camp. “What the fuck happened here?”

Light pointed one hoof at us from her bedroll. “Fell admitted to having feelings for Repose, who turned out to be asexual,” she explained.

“And you’re spooning a railgun because…?” Blade asked, her accent forgotten again.

Wait, she was spooning with her weapon!?

“Because Whisper’s a sexy weapon and she deserves the affection,” Light replied in a deadly even tone.

She named it? And gendered it? Well… That was weird enough to push me a little bit out of my funk.

“Safety on?” Blade asked after a few seconds.

“Yep,” Light replied.

“Um, well then… carry on,” Blade stammered awkwardly.

Shaking her head, the tall mare walked over to Repose and I and offered me a quick sympathetic hug. “Hey, I’m sorry. I know how that feels. I had a crush on a mare for years, Ironically, she was a lot like you Repose. Nerdy, intellectual, a bit out there. Also pretty cute. Loved her mane, rose and violet go well with really dark blue... It framed her glasses well too. She looked great without trying. Ponyfeathers that mare pulled off a bun! I wish I had that kind of talent. Um… She wasn’t a mage though, she was into science. Probably still is.”

Blade sighed sadly. I could sense that she still had some feelings for whoever this mare was. I could also sense that she had accepted it and moved on. If she could, then so could I. As soon as it stopped hurting.

“She also wasn’t into sex, as it turned out,” Blade continued, “And hearing that was hard, and it hurt. But over time, the pain went away. I’m sure you two can stay friends if you try,” she said hopefully.

“Did you?” I asked hopefully.

“Um… Well,” Blade said, hissing slightly. “There was an, incident... I sort of haven’t ever seen her since the night she told me because I got jumped by my do- um, that’s not important right now! The important part is that you two should stay friends. You clearly care for each other. Some relationships aren't meant to be more than what they are. You know?”

“I… I think I understand. I thought you said you have a husband, though,” I babbled.

“I do!” Blade said in quick agreement. “A pony can like both genders you know. I um, I hate to push you to do something during an emotional crisis, but we have a boat coming up the river. We need to be on it in two hours or we will be stuck close to this camp for another forty-eight hours. Is everyone ready to move?”

“What happened to your accent?” Repose asked in honest confusion.

Blade paused and gave him a four second stare. “It’s fake. You couldn’t tell with how outrageous it is? I do it so nopony can remember my voice in case I need to disguise myself sometime… I forgot to do it because well, just, yeah. You try teleporting into this kind of social fallout and not forgetting- Ta talk like a pony stereotype straight outta a movie about fight’n Drop Bears in the Outbuck armed only with a pool noodle an a Knoifie Spoony game, mate!” She exclaimed, switching back into the accent.

“Oh, yes that does seem more logical,” Repose mused.

“So, can we get move’n?” She asked again.

I nodded. “Yeah… Let’s get going.”

Blade turned towards Light. “Have you got your weapon off yet or do you need another few minutes?”

Light laughed. “We can go. I’m not THAT much of a weapons nut,” she giggled. “I mean, it’s not like she’s alive.”

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. I kind of wanted to know what that flavor of love would taste like.

Bol'shoy Rynok fiefdom - Griffon Kingdoms

12th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

An uncomfortably short distance from the lake, the hideous screaming of a pained monstrosity shattered the air like glass. Sunlit’s horn blasted angrily as he sustained the rebuke undead spell he had cast longer than it would normally last, sending icepicks of pain directly into the monster’s amalgamated soul.

“I don’t care!” Sunlit roared at the screaming monster. “You serve ME. We’re not seeing who's fighting!”

“But… Bodies… Stronger…” The monster whimpered, it’s centipede like legs curling up in pain like those of a dead spider.

“We wasted enough time adding the rest of those idiot scouts to you,” Sunlit hissed. “I know you can smell that litch. Get moving!”

The monster whimpered. Sunlit glared at the abomination, staring into its empty voids with his own hate-filled eye.

“You’re right you know,” a voice said cheerfully from the shadows of an oak tree.

“Of course I’m ri- Who's there!?” Sunlit demanded, the patchwork pony turning around, horn blazing as he prepared to fire a spellbolt at the voice.

A dark shadow moved beneath the tree. Sunlit fired, the sickly silver bolt of magic shot forward, striking unerringly towards its target. The shadow calmly reached out, plucked the silver ball of energy from the air and tossed it between his hooves.

“Amusing,” Dawn smirked, red eyes glowing through the shade as he took a half step forward.

“W-what do you want?” Sunlit asked, unnerved at the stallions sudden appearance.

“Who are you talking to?” The monster asked, seeing no living creatures where his father was looking.

Dawn continues to toss the spellbolt, switching to throwing it up in the air and catching it as if it were a simple rubber ball. “Why, to warn my dear friend, of course. You’re running out of time,” he said somberly.

“They have a long ways to get to Equestria yet, and I’m close! They will be dead in an hour,” Sunlit scoffed.

“Really, pony? Did your brain fall out along the road?” Dawn mocked. “I thought you would put my spell to more use than making a single creature, magnificent as it is. Do you think you can take on an entire army with just this one creation?”

Sunlit snorted. “Please! It’s a three hundred skull Mohrg. Most skulls aren’t visible from the outside, there’s no way they can smash them all. It’s invincible.”

Dawn tossed the ball aside. The silver orb struck the tree, blasting a deep chunk from the very heartwood. The mighty oak creaked and cracked, falling over with slow, almost painful shrieking as the tree toppled away from Dawn.

“Well, if you are certain…” He said dismissively. “It would be a shame if we were to stop being friends. Perhaps you should adjust your priorities a little. Kill them before they have a chance to get near the Thestrals. Or worse yet, Fell’s old home.

“It’s rather close by, you know. I’d rather they not snoop around in the basement. If they choose to stop by, well… At least I would enjoy watching you suffer from hubris.”

“Those nobodies will die!” Sunlit roared angrily.

“Humm… Yes, my faith in you seems a bit… Misplaced. You should change my opinion,” Dawn warned, his face splitting into a demonic fanged grin. “For your health’s sake.”

Then he was gone. As if never having been there.

Sunlit took a quick breath and climbed onto the back of the skeletal monster. “Move! Now!” He ordered.

“Who were you talking to?” The monster asked, still quite confused.

“GO! Follow the litch,” Sunlit roared.

Fearing another evisceration of its very soul, the monster’s legs uncurled, it stood, lowered itself to the ground, and ran off in pursuit of the prey its father so desperately wanted to kill.

Felling Axe - 13th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

The Great Trade Sea - International Waters

The thunderclap threw me out of my slumber. The pitching and heaving of the sailboat’s deck threw me off of my bunk and onto the floor. As I hit the wooden deck of the tiny ship, the sound of enraged rain attempting to erode the boat, pierced the deck above me and reached my ears.

We were in the middle of a storm.

The boat jerked and then slammed down, throwing me around again and sending a few crates toppling across the deck.

A storm straight from Tartarus.

They would need help up above!

I made my way up the ladder at the stern, climbing over the top of a loudly snoring Light Step who had fallen onto the deck, yet clearly didn’t even care or notice. Gods knew how she could sleep through this.

When we had been picked up by the sparrow patterned griffon smuggler, his sailboat had a little cabin to steer from which also housed the access to go below decks. That cabin wasn’t there anymore.

It couldn’t be. Because rain poured down through the now hatch free door. Broken hinges flapping in the gale force winds.

I reached the ladder, hissing in pain at the stinging cold ice-rain and pulled myself up the ladder onto a deck amid the ruins of the wheel house. Lightning flashed a few hundred meters from the boat, giving me a good idea of where it had gone.

At least the wheel was intact still.

“Fell!” Repose shouted over the wind, noticing me by some small miracle. “Pull that rope tight!”

Repose, Blade, and our pilot were all busy lashing down the single triangular sail. However, it looked as if even one of them let go of their own lines, the sail would rip out of the other’s hooves.

“On it!” I shouted back, grabbing the dangling rope and hauling down on it with all my might.

“Keep it taught!” Our pilot yelled. “Blade, tie your line down now!”

A few moments later, Blade yelled something lost to the wind.

“Mage, yours next!” The pilot called.

“Done!” Repose announced.

“Why aren't you using magic?” I called loudly.

“What?” Blade replied.

“Why aren't you using magic?” I asked again.

“The storm hit us with multiple lightning strikes when I tried last time!” Blade shouted back.

“It’s a bucking wild magic induced hurricane!” Repose yelled back fearfully.

“No, this is a gale, not the worst I’ve seen. We’ll be alright!” The pilot shouted.

“Don’t use any spellcraft,” Blade warned. “The residual negative charge will rush to you! That’s when lightning will hit us for sure!”

Wait, didn’t she say she didn’t know advanced thaumaturgy?

Before I could follow up on that thought, the boat heaved and pitched, almost throwing me from the deck into the sea.

“By the Old Gods!” The pilot swore. “Changeling! Secure that line!”

I looked around the deck frantically. Seeing no hook or ring to tie the rope too I frantically wrapped it around the rail with my hooves, hitching the best knot I could as the deck heaved, swayed and jumped beneath me.

“Done!” I called as I pulled the rope shut.

“Good! Keep an eye on it,” the pilot called as he pulled himself along the deck towards the wheel.

The winds pounded the boat, tossing us to one side, nearly tipping the sailboat over before the winds died down and we bounced back to vertical. The griffon managed to hold on through the tip, talons digging into the deck. As the ship scrambled upright he bolted for the wheel, grabbing it urgently, and doing his best to steer us to match the wind’s direction.

“We should get to land!” I yelled.

“We should be close to one of the islands, but it’s haunted!” The pilot called back, a massive wave breaking over the deck as he finished speaking.

The wave smashed into Repose, sending him tumbling. My hearts nearly stopped! Blade dove forwards, grabbing him with the crook of one leg, and grabbing the mast with her rear legs, stopping him from being swept overboard.

Oh, thank the gods! My hearts started to beat again as Blade yelled, “It’s alright! I got you!”

“Thank you!” Repose called back. “It’s okay. I can’t drown.”

“Yeah but you can be left in the middle of the sea and never find your way to land!” Blade called back.

“Don’t let go of me please!” Repose begged.

“I don’t care if it is haunted, we're going to die out here!” I said as firmly as I could.

“I know! I know!” The pilot yelled. “Old Hen’s tale. Gale. Bit panicked. I’ll try and steer us towards her. It’s not far. Kilometer windward, tops!”

The four of us held on for dear life as the winds sent the small boat rocketing across the waves. The stressed timbers groaned and shrieked. The stressed passengers also groaned and shrieked. Lightning continued to strike the water as if pegasi were trying to kill all of the fish in the sea.

Then a gray blotch appeared on the horizon. Squinting at it through the dark of the storm and torrential rain, the blotch resolved into a pyramid-like shape sitting atop a domed base.

Oh! That island. Of all the places we could wind up… Well, at least I knew why our pilot thought it was haunted.

Kebiin Vheh'ika, Saphire’s Isle, my old home. I had mixed feelings about seeing it again, but as the saying went, any port in a storm. Especially one you’re in.

I turned to the pilot. “Don’t worry!” I called, “I know this isl-”

The world turned white, banishing sound with one loud ringing flash. When my eyes could at last see again, our pilot was nowhere to be found and the deck had a fresh scorch mark burned into the planks.

Panicking, I jumped for the wheel, hooves scrabbling for purchase on the wet deck. The boat lurched and pulled to the right. I knew nothing about sailing, but I knew we could still make the island if I just held the wheel straight!

“Where’s Eilofvil?” Blade called.

“He got hit! No trace!” I yelled back.

Suddenly something moved just behind my tail. Whipping my head around I saw light poke her head through the former hatch now hole, eyes widening in terror as she took in the gale we were caught in.

“Who pissed off the weather Alicorn!?” She yelled in fear.

“If this is Flurry’s fault I’ll have Cadence kick her plot!” Blade screamed from the mast where she and Reep were holding on for dear life.

Suddenly, a sound like a sheet of paper ripping in half pierced through the gale force winds. Looking for the sound I was horrified to see the sail beginning to rip free of the mast.

“The sail! It’s coming loose!” I yelled in warning.

“Hold it with magic?!” Light yelped.

“Storm throws lightning at magic!” Repose called.

“It needs to hold another two minutes. We just need to get to that island ahead,” I shouted, trying to inform Light of the plan.

If that sail tore free, we were bucked.

Light squinted up at the ripping sail and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. “It won't hold that long,” she said, voice almost lost to the wind. “I got it.”

Confused as to how she had this covered, I did my best to hold the wheel as straight as I could. Light stepped past me, taking care to hold onto the deck as best she could manage, moving towards the mast. The moment she arrived, she reached up to her necklace, and took it off, holding onto it tightly with one hoof.

A second later she screamed.

Gods how she screamed.

Each of her agonized cries made it through the wind’s own howls. Seconds later the cracking, scraping and poping of bone joined her screams as she twisted, twitched and thrashed. The violent spasms hid her growth for the first few seconds, but then her legs began to lengthen in jerky uneven pulses, and it became quite clear just how great her pain was.

A massive wave broke over the bow, seemingly sweeping light overboard. My hearts skipped a beat, but then she stood up, easily three times her old size. She had simply wedged herself onto the deck by jamming her rear hooves against one side of the boat and holding onto the other.

Before I could congratulate her brilliance, she grabbed the sail from the front, with a forehoof, braced herself on the deck, and reared up, holding the sail in place. With her positioned at the front, the winds filled the sail instead of hitting her, and the boat sped up with a noticeable lurch.

I watched in awe as she held the sail in place, massive teeth clenched under the strain of the winds. Her weight just barely able to keep her grounded thanks to the amount of purchase the wind had to push against her.

The island seemed to fly towards us. Closer and closer with each passing second. Until with one last violent jerk, the boat stopped completely, the bow striking land. The beachhead’s snow had been blown away completely, leaving behind patches of ice which flashed and glittered as the lightning continued to blast into the sea.

“Everypony off!” Blade called, jumping over the side onto the pebbly beach. “There has to be some shelter inland!”

“Don’t worry, I got this!” I called back, jumping off as well, Repose following alongside me.

To my surprise, Light stayed aboard, bent over the deck looking frantically for-

“I dropped my necklace!” She called in panic.

“I’m sorry, it’s gone! There’s no way it stayed on deck,” Repose replied loudly, voice barely piercing the suddenly higher wind.

Light’s curses became lost in the wind as she stepped off the boat, waded into the ocean, and putting her shoulder to the stern, shoved the sailboat up onto the beachhead, pushing it well above the tideline.

Running up beside her I called, “It’s okay! We’ll make you another one. Thanks for saving our lives. Now it’s my turn, I know a safe place here.”

“How?” Blade asked, frowning suspiciously.

I pointed to the large almost perfect pyramid shaped mountain in the center of the island.

“That’s the old Sapphire Hive. No other mountain looks like that,” I explained. “Don't worry Light, you’ll fit and have head room.”

Even with the storm furiously raging around us, I still couldn’t help but notice just how huge she was even at three times my height. The square cube law is a hay of a thing. Gods, I could scarcely imagine her at her full size…

“I doubt it,” Light muttered.

“Come on, before anyone else is hit by lightning!” I called, running up the beach.

Even in the dark of the storm, I could easily tell where we were. I had every last inch of the island memorized. I knew where every last escape hatch and back entrance sat. I’d guarded all of them at one point or another. The problem was Light would only fit inside two entrances. The front door or the big airship dock halfway up the mountain.

Fortunately, we’d landed not too far from the main door, just a three-minute sprint. Easily managed in in this hellish weather. Unfortunately, I doubted the door would be openable with noling having been here in gods knew how long. But at the very least, the cave entrance would be dry, wind free, and safe.

We made it to the cave without incident. The gaping hole in the mountainside could have fit Light even if she were another meter tall and had another pony to walk along side her. We raced into the gaping granite tunnel without second thought, immediately feeling warmer as the howling winds could no longer batter our drenched bodies to the core.

“Much better,” Blade sighed in relief.

“You can say that again,” Light said, shaking water out of her fur and feathers. “Also I’m sorry for doubting you. This is pretty cozy, but yeah, I can move in here. Why did you dig the tunnel this big?”

“Because the door is just a bit smaller than this,” I replied, walking further into the darkness of the cave.

“Door?” Repose asked curiously.

“Yeah, it’s just a bit further,” squinting into the darkness I searched for any sign of-

There they were. Dim red lights, glowing to form sigils of the god’s language.

“Huh, well good news! The door still works. We can get inside the actual hive. I figured we would just have the entrance.”

I heard everypony get up and keep following me as I made my way to the sigils. Feeling the wall below them, I found the hidden panel and popped it open. White light immediately illuminated the small rune covered grid, each square so small you had to use a hoof point to press one at a time. Focusing my mind, I tried to remember what each of the glowing sigils demanded I enter.

“Let’s see… I think the response to this sequence is… Tango, hotel, echo, papa, alpha, sierra, sierra, whiskey, oscar, romeo, delta, india, sierra, alpha, mike, alpha, tango, alpha,” I said out loud to help me think as I touched the proper runes.

The white light went out as I entered the final code, the sequence of sigils flashing green as the rune code was accepted before changing to an entirely different code. One I also fortunately still knew the reply to.

“What did that do?” Blade asked curiously.

The door hissed, the sound of steel grinding against steel echoed throughout the cave as the door pulled back into the wall, followed by a loud wine and creak as the massive block of steel lifted upwards, and light poured out of the growing crack.

Light? But…

“How the flying buck are the lights still on?” I asked myself in shock as the door slid completely open.

The view ahead… The arched steel hallway. The cement flooring. The dross patches covering unused doorways and improvised containers lining the main entrance we would use to transport goods in and out… It was like I’d come home from a guard duty outside only to simply find everyling missing.

“Stay close,” I instructed, slowly walking inside. “Something is wrong!”

12 - Homeland

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Palaisville-de-L'empereur - Prance

13th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

“She and I fought each other to a standstill. The Emperor and the Queen, locked in one on one combat for the sake of sparing our armies that day,” the Emperor said to the empty room, not realizing that the janitor he had been speaking at had finished his duties and then left mid story. “I’m afraid the story gets a little, childish from here. My ponies didn’t want to see me forfeit the duel and began to yell encouragement, and I am told her hive did the same telepathically.

“But it just didn’t matter. She was out of mana and almost out of love. I was out of stamina overall. I’d never expected any changeling to be able to drain me like that. Even exhausted as we both were, we couldn’t stop fighting. The problem was simple, we had been at war for a full eight years. You don’t put aside that sort of rivalry because of a single nine hour duel.

“I demanded she step down as Queen and give the lands which became northern Prance to me. She countered with a ‘Why don’t you go buck yourself?’ to which I retorted ‘Why don’t you buck me instead, lust bug!’ She decided to snap back, ‘Of course you’d confuse love and lust. You wouldn’t know love if it bit you in the ass!’ So I retorted, ‘That’s because you lick an ass, stupid.’

“You can see where this went from here. Two great world leaders of the age, squared off in a foalish insult match which degraded into ‘Buck you!’, ‘No, buck you!’ ad infinum. Well, not truly forever. One can only yell buck you at a hungry changeling for so long before the obvious in hindsight reply she gave, me is spoken.

“I still remember how she frowned, held one hoof to her belly like a starving pony and then when ‘Ugh, fine! But I’m top, and only so we can get back to a proper fight!’ Before I could finish my shocked ‘What, what?!’ she’d jumped my bones, as it were. While this was quite literally a rape as I had no intention of copulating with my sworn enemy, I must admit, she was VERY good. It’s also good she didn’t choose to attack me, as I was unable to fight her off at this point.

“Of course, that simply meant I would have to hunt her down later and display her head on my wall for a time. Which I did manage to do in time. But what I did not expect from that defeat arrived on my throne in a bucket several months later.

“Queen Elytra had no intention of caring for our foals. In hindsight, I’m glad she gave them to me instead of killing them. At the time, I was greatly angered by the unwanted responsibility fostered upon me, and ashamed that my heirs had been created without my consent. Ah, but within days that mattered little to me.

“My sons prospered thanks to the Changeling blood in their veins. They looked like any unicorns to the untrained eye, and did well. It was my daughter who had a hard time. She did share a relation to me, my mages were able to prove that, but she was a pureblood changeling. In that age, she was greatly hated, and allowed to live only by my will.

“She loved me as any child loves their parent, and in time she became a Queen herself, the need to stick to the shadows and remain unseen influencing her and her hive’s culture. She gave me my most valuable asset as a ruler. But that, is a story for another day.

“I- oh… You’ve gone.”

The Emperor took a few moments to silently wish he could fire palace staff, before sighing and attributing the Janitor’s rudeness to one of the Steward’s ever growing pointless work quotas.

He had just enough time to consider waiting for the next cleaning detail to ask them about bringing the last one back so he could finish the story, whether that pony like it or not, when a faint arcane current caught his attention.

His eyes fixated on the space before his throne where the faint energies sparked and twitched, dancing in broken patterns which became ever more whole with each iteration. The Emperor had never been schooled formally in magic, he had no need to pursue the arts formerly, nevertheless his experienced eyes identified the patterns as a teleportation attempt.

A teleportation attempt which was close to breaching the ancient and powerful wards placed upon his palace. A feat which had never before been achieved.

The pattern suddenly stabilized, immediately bursting into a flash of violet light with a violent shower of sparks and smoke, overloading the local wards an instant before two ponies materialized in front of the Emperor's cloth covered form.

“Good job, how did you do that?” The Emperor asked before the light faded enough for him to see who had teleported into his throneroom against all odds.

“It wasn’t easy, but old wards have flaws,” a mare said, coughing lightly on the smoke as it cleared.

The Emperor mentally squinted, seeking to pierce the smokescreen and-

“Ah! Cadence,” he greeted happily. “Is everything alright? I presume my guard would not let you visit at three in the morning?”

“Actually, they wouldn’t let Twilight come in,” Cadence replied, nodding her head towards the other mare. “So we… Made a door.”

“I see,” the Emperor said sadly. “I’ll do what I can to ensure you may bring guests, Cadence. Now if you don’t mind, Princess Twilight Sparkle, it is an honor to meet Equestria’s Archmage. What brings you to my lonely chambers?”

Twilight looked up towards the Emperor’s voice, her face barely managing to hide her awestruck feelings as she took in the sheer size of the Emperor’s diminished form. While Twilight had seen, fought, and beaten far large creatures in the past, this was still the largest pony she had ever seen. Or even the largest horse.

“I want to know what Princess Cadence sees in you, Emperor… Um… What is your name?” Twilight asked frowning in concern.

While she was not here for a friendly visit, she still did not want to be rude.

“It’s not important, you my address me by my title,” the Emperor answered.

“I insist,” Twilight pressed firmly.

Cadence sighed. “Twilight has… Some problems. This is serious, please, for your own sake, let's keep everything friendly,” she pink alicorn urged.

The Emperor paused for a moment. “Problems? What problems? Ah! Yes, we included you in our trade agreement, I assume you object to-”

“I do,” Twilight said closing her eyes for a moment. “I have had a very bad year, your highness. Despite my husband getting ill, an assassination attempt that led to me miscarrying, losing my library in a fire, and a lot of other disasters, I haven’t had a single great monster or evil overlord attack Equestria. It’s been peaceful.

“I don’t want to break this record and become the cause of anypony’s suffering. You want my help, and I read up on your history. Please, tell me your name so we can sit down and talk things out. I’m not the sort of pony who won't give others a second chance.”

The Emperor paused for a few moments. “I don’t understand,” he said at last.

“I want to talk with you pony to pony, not Princess to Emperor,” Twilight explained. “Please, what is your name?”

The Emperor whimpered slightly, making Cadence wince in empathy. “Twi,” she began, ”he’s really embarrassed about-”

“I know, this is about trust. Why should I trust a long ‘dead’ monarch who won't tell me his name and has a list of assassinated nobles that fills an entire book with nothing but names?” Twilight demanded accusingly.

The Emperor sighed forlornly. “I can explain those, and my name is Swift Prance,” he mumbled.

“What’s so bad about that!?” Cadence and Twilight asked in unison.

“It’s just so… Dumb!” The Emperor exclaimed miserably. “I keep it only to honor my parents memory. And because I’m terrible with names. Hence why my Empire is named ‘Prance’s Empire’ if translated into your tongue. Ponyfeathers, I allowed my people to vote on my children’s names so I didn’t name them ‘Colt one’, ‘Colt two’, and ‘Adorable Buggy Filly’ or something even more stupid!

“The word Prance on can be taken to mean ‘walk with grace’ in the context of a nation’s name, but when you know my full name- Who would follow a stallion named ‘springs about like a hyperactive filly’?!”

Cadence’s wings twitched as she did her best to ignore the Emperor’s distress. Not out of malice, but to resist giving him an apologetic hug during state business. Twilight likewise, won her mental battle and managed to contain the giggle which had been building since the Emperor had insisted his name was silly.

“If I’m not mistaken, Twilight,” the Emperor continued, “your name means ‘the last glimmer of sunlight before nightfall’. Cadence, your name is ‘the composition of love’ which is at least an accurate name for you as well as poetic. Both are fine names befitting of a pony who commands power and respect.

“But ‘springs about like a hyperactive filly’? No! There’s no dignity there. Please, call me Emperor, Prance, Empy, Uncle Prance, or even ‘The Old Bonepile’. Anything but ‘springs about like a hyperactive filly’. And never tell a single sole my name so long as you live. Please.”

Twilight nodded, blushing lightly as she realized how much mental anguish the stallion’s name caused him definitely had been at the level Cadence had warned her of.

“I’m sorry for prying, Mister Prance,” Twilight apologised. “But I noticed you didn’t object to me claiming you had your own nobles assassinated. Which goes a long way to confirm my suspicions about you.”

The Emperor wished he could nod as he replied to the lavender mage. “Of course I didn’t object. I absolutely did have several thousand nobles executed over the course of Prance’s eight millennia of history. I am not sorry for my actions related to their deaths, nor will I ever be.”

“Then you are another Sombra,” Twilight said bitterly, ears laying back. “I won’t help you.”

“Do you trust Cadence?” The Emperor asked.

Twilight nodded.

“Cadence, would you please do your Alicorn thing and tell Twilight what my greatest passion is?” The Emperor asked politely, seemingly unconcerned by Twilight’s refusal to help.

“Twilight, above all else, Uncle Prance wants everypony to be safe, happy, and fulfilled. We’re friends because we share the same overall goal,” Cadence explained.

Twilight frowned slightly. She believed her old friend, but at the same time. “But you feel no guilt over killing others?”

“No, I do. I regret killing many people. But not the nobles you found mentioned in whatever old tome you dug up. I take it the book did not explain the workings of my Empire. Many smaller kingdoms used to create propaganda pieces to demonize me. I can’t blame them, they needed to rally support before I crushed them and liberated their people. Would you like to know why they died by my hoof or order?” The Emperor asked.

“You have made me curious. Please,” Twilight said after a moment’s deliberation.

“You are young, Twilight,” the Emperor began, “I presume you have an understanding of your nation’s laws and the behavior of your nobles and other leaders. But I doubt you truly understand politics yet. Celestia, she understands. As do Luna and Cadence.

“For all of your power, victories, and responsibilities, this is only your thirteenth year of holding power. Please, listen closely. I am going to summarize the work of the great philosopher, C. P. Graymane.

“Most look at the world’s leaders and see fools, incompetent, and greedy people. Why would this be the case? Why are they not the smartest people in the nation? A trick question, they are quite intelligent. The impression of most leaders as evil, or inept is simply the result of how social interactions work and the true nature of politics.

“There is one foundational truth to being a leader. You can not do anything without power. You may wish to build shelters, hospitals, and schools for ponies to use, but if you don’t have the power to do so, your wishes are meaningless. How do you get power? You get people to agree to support you as the ruler.

“No one can rule alone. Everyone on a throne or behind a podium needs people to carry out their designs. The power of a ruler is not to do things, but to get others to do things for them. How do you get people to follow your commands? You please the people who can do what you need.

“There are not many ways to do this. The biggest exception is Princess Celestia. She spent millennia forming a pacifist culture which wishes to be good children for their great mother. An impressive and delightful means of ensuring that small favors here and there keep your houses loyal to you. The second biggest exception is my friend Cadence. She can directly sense the desires of those around her and use their passions to shape hearts and minds. Her supporters are not mere political allies-”

“They are my family,” Cadence interrupted, “It's why Celestia trusted me to reestablish the Crystal Empire as a protectorate. Anyone I put into power is a pony who is wholly a part of my family. What he’s trying to say, Twilight, is that all politics boils down to keeping the people who keep you in power happy. For kingdoms without a culture based on harmony and respect for others, or without well, me, what they have to keep their supporters happy is wealth and favors.”

Twilight nodded, frowning slightly. “I get that. But how do you justify murder?” She asked.

“I need wealth to stay in power,” the Emperor replied. “All rulers do. Infact this is your true work as a ruler, figuring out how to raise and spend resources. No land has unlimited wealth, which means every coin spent on the people is a coin not spent on loyalty. Every program to feed the hungry is wealth spent on something which might allow a rival to take away one of your supports.

“Doing the right thing, spending the wealth of the nation on the people, is to give power to your rivals and enemies.”

Twilight frowned, believing she understood what the Emperor meant. “So you just killed everypony who could possibly take your power?”

“NO!” The Emperor snapped angrily. “Do not accuse me of evil before you understand my actions! Yes, I killed many nobles within my Empire. But I did so to ensure the source of Prance’s wealth remained the people themselves! I spent three thousand years creating this nation’s system. The wealth comes directly from the people, who benefit the most from the wealth in ways which increase how much wealth they produce.

“I did all of this without creating a republic, my Empire can act as immediately and decisively as a dictatorship. A thing which a democracy simply can not due thanks to the hundreds of hooves grabbing for power within those sorts of nations. Yet she also is accountable to the people, like a democracy, requiring those with power listen to and work for them if they want to keep the wealth flowing.

“Every rod, cog, and spring in that great machine is a law I fought for, bled for, and propped up until it was accepted as ‘the way the world works’ by the generation to come after its passing. But this machine has flaws. Not every pony wishes to better the lives of the people, most who seek power are truly greedy. So I set spies in every noble house, and the minute any form of corruption entered my system I made sure it was snuffed out, and the broken part of this great machine replaced with a new one.

“Everyone I ever had executed died for intentionally acting in a way which hurt the public. In the Prance I ruled, the nobles were servants, not masters. Beneath the people they worked for socially, but with authority over them ONLY in order for them bring the people greater prosperity.

“As the actions of a Corrupt leader could harm hundreds, or even thousands. All nobles took their offices knowing that to act against our masters was to die. The People would never suffer under a corrupt leader so long as I drew breath. The Law has this clause for all nobles, including myself. If I ever to act in a way to intentionally harm my subjects, I fully expect my knights to immediately fall upon me.

“Do you understand now? Yes, my method of ensuring the prosperity of the people is violent and brutal, but only towards those who intentionally seek to rig the system for their own gain. The brutality is also necessary, it’s a warning, a reminder of the fate awaiting the greedy, the power hungry, and the wicked.

“Those who were simply incompetent were fired and replaced. Which… Well… That mercy is what allowed my Steward to gather enough support to put me here. But I would not change how I did things if I could. I accept the consequences of my actions, as all rulers must. I only wish that I had not fallen in battle, because killing for crimes other than Corruption is simply wrong.”

Twilight nodded slowly, her fear of potentially reviving a dark lord leaving as understanding filled her mind. But there was still one pressing question she needed answered before she could feel safe proceeding forwards.

“But why kill anypony? You could imprison them, and try to reform them into a useful member of society. Many of them had to have good leadership skills, because it sounds like you appointed them on merit,” Twilight asked quizzically, unable to understand why anypony would do otherwise.

“For starters, I’m really, really, really old,” the Emperor laughed. “How old? While I never saw it myself, my Alchemy instructor watched the First Kingdom fall with her own two eyes. The world was very different back then. More violent by necessity. Holding a prisoner just meant their allies would break them out as soon as possible. The laws of my Empire reflect these times as they are also nearly that old.

“Second, our cultures are quite different. Equestrians at a base instinctive level love your country and its Princesses. They can act against you, or your nations naturally. But you still have the seeds of loyalty planted in their young minds to shame them into returning to good. What I’m saying is, your culture creates people who can be reformed.

“The Prench people are different. Our traditions and culture are very old. We are focused more on honor than harmony and community, and we are quite militaristic. It’s harder to reform a Prenchpony once they go astray than an Equestrian. If not impossible.

“Lastly, because I have no room for error… I didn’t start this Empire because I wanted to rule. I started this Empire because I made a grave mistake and allowed a great evil to walk the world. Its name is Dawn, and it thrives on pain, misery, and suffering. He tricked me into helping him back in my youth. It is my fault that he gained more influence over ponies lives. I must atone for that sin, and to do so I need to bring about world peace and prosperity, I need to diminish his power as much as possible. Then, I can destroy him.”

Twilight took a step back in surprise. “Wait, what? Are you talking about Discord?”

“No, a similar creature to be certain, but not Discord,” the Emperor sighed. “Discord is playful even when being malicious. He’s not… The foal who smiles as they pull all but two legs from an ant then toss it into a rival colony simply to watch the butchery and laugh. That is who my archenemy is.

“My methods may be ruthless and brutal in certain areas, but… I’m not saying I am right for using them or even if it’s the best approach. Merely one that worked well. I am fallible, but I have only ever acted to ensure as little misery as possible occurs within the lands I control. That is the punishment for my crime.

“If I had not had to become a monarch, I would have been an alchemist with a little shop in some quaint village. I… I… I’d rather not think about my former dreams. It’s rather distressing to do when you are paralyzed.”

“And that, Twilight, is why I’m helping him,” Cadence finished, giving Twilight the most serious look her face could provide.

“I understand,” Twilight said with a small nod. Her reservations having been more than dealt with. “Mister Prance, if I were to help you, and I was able to restore you to proper life, would you be open to some reforms to your government?”

“I would be willing to discuss reforms, my system was never perfect, though it did work better than Equestria’s when I was in charge, if I might say so. Of course, there is the gaping flaw which put me here… But there is only room to gain from cooperating with another prosperous and honorable nation.

“If I sit upon my throne again Equestria will be as a sister to Prance herself. I will not relinquish any sovereignty, but, I will take the Equestrian Crown as my official advisers, so long as you swear to advise, but not interfere without my request.”

“You’ll stop murdering nobles?” Twilight asked hopefully.

“Yes, if we can find an equally effective and more practical solution which will ensure they can never do what they tried to do again, nor ever come into any ounce of power again,” the Emperor agreed.

Cadence decided against telling Twilight that the Emperor’s reply was effectively a ‘no’.

Twilight nodded to herself. “Alright Mister Prance. You have my help. I’ll start thinking of a way to cure you in my free time… It’s a busy year, I’m learning a dead language, and helping a friend with her own political goals. But I’ll help you. Can I scan your body? Get a copy of your aura?”

“Of course,” the Emperor agreed. “And thank you. As for how you can help, due to some backstabbing, a mage who was working on an artifact to heal me was recently exiled. A friend of Cadence has been escorting him to the Crystal Empire. When he arrives, working with him will be your best bet. Cadence can fill you in on the details.”

Cadence nodded, giving Twilight a happy smile, glad that her sister-in-law was now a part of the team. “I could also set up a lab in the Spire for-”

“No!” Twilight yelped. “I am NOT going into your castle for any extended period of time again!”

Cadence giggled, the Emperor hummed in confusion. Looking up at the Emperor, Cadence gave her friend a smile. “What can I say? I’m the Alicorn Princess of Love. My house is a place of passion, love, and fun!” She said with a grin.

“In that case, why wouldn’t she want to go there?” The Emperor asked.

“I’m married to her brother,” Cadence explained. “And while my staff, husband, and I use illusion spells to give outsiders a normal and clean looking place to do their business or visit-”

Twilight eeped and quickly covered both her ears with her hooves. The cultivated image of a dignified ruler vanishing instantly, replaced by a somewhat dorky but kind, and currently alarmed mare.

“Not listening! We’re not talking about this! It didn’t happen!” The young Alicorn shouted.

“-Twilight was there when the illusions failed thanks to a freak accident and-” Cadence continued.

“For the love of Celestia! Don’t remind me! Please!” Twilight begged.

“-Twily is very vanilla in her preferences, and a bit sheltered,” Cadence continued, enjoying teasing her sister-inlaw a bit too much. “Whereas Shining, myself, and my staff, are the exact opposite. So when she ran to our room to report my staff’s ‘inappropriate’ behaviors-”

Twilight gave Cadence a pleading look. The pink Alicorn giggled and shook her head. “Well… I’m sure that no sibling likes walking in on their sibling’s passions,” she summarized.

The Emperor was silent for several moments. Then in a sympathetic voice he asked, “Twilight, I understand your feelings. If she ever teases you like that again and you need a place to forget about it, please come here. I can’t do much, but I can tell stories.”

“I’d like that… I’d like that a lot,” Twilight replied with a shaky smile. “And as for you Cadence, you promised not to tell anypony that I walked in on you to doing... Doing... THAT!”

“Sorry, you just get so cute when you’re flustered! And I needed to show Empy here that you’re not some uptight noble. He’s seen how you are without your crown on now. We can all act as friends,” Cadence apologise with an honest ear droop.

“I’m still upset…” Twilight mumbled kicking one hoof against the floor.

“Go back home, I’ll be there soon, okay? I’ll get a pizza and help you work on that language homework Jade gave you, just like old times,” Cadence promised.

“Okay,” Twilight reluctantly agreed. “Goodbye, Mister Prance.”

“Farewell, Miss Sparkle,” the Emperor replied as Twilight vanished in a flash of light, easily able to come and go now that she had found the chink in the palace wards.

“Alright, well, that problem’s solved,” Cadence said happily. “Good news, I got Celestia to agree to hear their case and give all three refugee status… Assuming she doesn't find any reason not to accept them.”

“Good, how soon should they reach your lands?” The Emperor asked.

“You don’t know?” Cadence asked in surprise.

“No, my agent lost them in a storm over the Trade Sea several hours ago,” the Emperor admitted.

Cadence frowned, her face flashing with extreme concern, as if she learned a lover was in danger. “I-I’m certain Blade will have been able to keep them safe despite that. I’ll see if she’s checked in and get back to you as soon as I can,” she promised.

The Emperor’s words carried with them a trace of suspicion. “You and Bladestorm are more than just friends, aren’t you?” He asked.

Cadence bit her lip. “... Not unless Shining allows it, or after he has passed on in the far future. I promised him monogamy, and he will have it. He’s earned my love a million times over,” she answered. “Till then, we are friends. I have to go.”

“Goodbye, Cadence,” the Emperor said dolefully, never happy to see company leave.

“Goodbye,” Cadence said, turning and walking out the throne room doors.

Alone once more, the Emperor pondered just what Bladestorm was, if Cadence expected her to be around a lifetime from now.

Gentle Repose - 13th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

The Pyramid - Sapphire Hive

I’ve never been in a place which felt so alien before. Angled hallways stretched forwards from the cave, turning the organic rounded shapes into a half squashed pentagonal pipe. The harsh white lights inside the structure were few and far between, casting thick black shadows on every wall and floor due to the light catching on countless protruding pipes, cables, and odd lumps of glass too industrial in appearance to be decor.

As if that were not an alien enough vistage, hard greenish clay-like patches stuck to the walls, floor, and ceiling. Some seeming to patch holes, others forming shelves, or boxes. Each patch looked like some sort of Tartarian growth, bringing to mind the legend of the HIMS Tigress.

Had this place been sucked into that nether realm and spat out again? I’d believe it if somepony said it.

“Let’s get inside,” Fell said apprehensively as he took a step inside the steel tunnel. “We can stay in the entrance till the storm dies.”

“I don’t know… The cave isn’t too bad,” Light said apprehensively. “I mean, what if the door gets stuck?”

“That’s a good question,” Bladestorm agreed with a worried frown.

“If it gets stuck, there’s a button that opens every door inside the Queen’s Chambers,” Fell replied. “It’s in the middle of the Hive, but not too hard to get to. Worst comes to worst, we go out the side door at the top by the airship dock. There’s lots of exists… Um, Light, you'll only fit through this one or that one though.”

An impossible thunderclap exploded, the sound rushing through the cave pushing ahead a visible wall of raindrops. Everypony jumped, pure panic rushing through their veins like ice water. The storm still had worse to give. The cave might not be safe…

We had to go inside.

I turned to look up at Light, the mare’s face had pulled into an uncertain frown. Knowing I had to do something, I took a deep breath and focused on my surroundings. Trying to memorise every last detail of the cave entrance as completely as I could. It wouldn’t be much… But it might be enough.

“Light, if there is no other option, I’ll try and teleport you out,” I promised.

“Oh so you can teleport multiple ponies but she can't?!” Light muttered angrily, giving Blade a mildly upset glare.

“He can? Cadence’s Love! How the hay do you keep your mind separate from their own? Can you do more than two?” She asked, honestly impressed.

“I’ve done three, but that almost killed us all and I won't do it again,” I admitted. “To answer the question, Light, teleporting multiple individuals is hard because teleporting yourself is already hard. The greatest danger is messing up and merging your mind with the other minds, causing one body to die, and the other to gain multiple personality disorder.”

“Ooohhh… Um, let’s NOT teleport me then,” Light said with a sharp frown.

“It’s safe for me to do two,” I reassured.

“He did teleport the two of us safely,” Fell said, walking into the alien structure. “The door will close itself in a minute.”

The four of us quickly scrambled inside, the moment we had moved away from the door the glass orbs set into the walls flashed yellow, and the massive steel block of a door creaked, slowly lowering into place.

Ah! So those were caution lights. Sensible.

“Right, we just sit here and don’t question how the lights are still on,” Fell said, sitting down on the eerily pristine sheet metal floor next to a panel with glowing runes similar to the one on the outside of the door. “The storm can’t last for more than a few hours. There’s ventilation in here. We can cook a meal, sharpen blades, or just sit tight and wait.”

Light nodded before laying down on her belly, resting her head on the floor to put herself on eye level with everypony else. Amazingly her body only filled a third of the hallway. What was this place built for? Dragons?

“That’s a good plan. I’ll need to eat more like this,” Light admitted, looking down at the floor in foalish embarrassment.

Feeling a pang of empathy for a fellow outcast, I trotted over to her side and gave her the best hug I could manage. “I’ll make you a better charm as soon as I can. Enchanting has always been my greatest passion,” I promised.

“I thought that was Alchemy,” Fell said, ears drooping sadly.

Ah. Yes… If my limited knowledge of relationships was correct, he felt like that meant he didn’t truly know me due to what could conceivably be called a breakup.

“Admittedly, I have been focusing on alchemy for the last few decades, and due to taking a job as a necromancer I haven’t been able to do as many enchanting projects as I like, but I’m really more of an enchanter. I needed to be one to make my phylactery,” I explained. “Overall, I would call myself an Enchanter and a healer. Most of my Necromancy being focused on tissue repair rather than say, corpsecrafting, or-”

“The hay is…” Blade muttered to herself.

Worried she may have seen something evil lurking in the blanket like shadows, I snapped my head around to look in the same direction as the yellowish mare.

Nothing. Only the empty tunnel leading to another large metal door. Empty spa-

Then I sensed it. A faint few shreds of thaumaturgic current, drifting lightly in the air down the tunnel. Nothing visible, without a unicorn’s arcane sense it would be undetectable. A stealth field! It had to be!

I was surrounded by my own shield spell before I even knew I had cast it.

“Fire at will!” I barked, pointing one hoof down the tunnel.

Blade and I filled the tunnel with a hail of green and red spellbolts. Firing at random angles to try and prevent any possible shelter. The bolts tore into the walls, floor, ceiling, the doors. Scorch Marks, pitted metal, the stench of vaporized rubber. No cries of pain. Not one spark of a shield.

Blade stopped firing, her frown deepening. “Right, we didn’t hit a damn thing,” she said prompting me to stop as well. “And it’s still there.”

“What’s still there?” Fell and Light demand together.

“A few scraps of magic,” I answered. “Too orderly to be random background energy, but not a spell.”

“You thought it was also a cloak?” Blade asked.

I nodded.

Fell sighed in relief, sitting back down. “Oh, don’t worry. That’s just left over from the lights and stuff. Everything here was working except the big ass mage gems that power this place. We adapted the mana system to accept magic directly from a changeling or pony, our Royals found those things all over the place. They don’t do anything,” he explained.

“Oh,” I said, dispelling my shield spell.

Then I saw the floor flowing back together into a smooth sheet of metal. Scorch Marks simply fading, pits and holes oozing closed like watching organic tissue heal.

“THE WALLS ARE ALIVE!” Light screamed, noticing the same eldritch manipulations.

Blade, Light, and I lept to our hooves, turning as quickly as we could towards the door. Hooves scrambling on the floor to-

“It’s enchanted! The hive fixes itself!” Fell shouted in amusement over our panicked scrambling.

The three of us stopped scrambling and shared a look.

“I still want out,” Light insisted a worried look on her face.

“What else does this building do?” Blade asked in a curiously calm manner.

“I’m with Light,” I added. “The magics on display here are- Well, no, a building wide propagation grid and- No, no, not even that complicated.”

I puzzled out the mechanics of such a spell to myself for a few moments. It wasn’t impossible to engineer a spell to automatically fix things within its area of effect. Something this size would be tricky, but doable. And quite advantageous in a fortress, which this building had to be.

“Light, it’s fine. I’m fairly certain I understand how such magic could work. We’re all just on edge from the storm,” I said soothingly. “And… Also from this place… Is the architecture disturbing to anypony else?”

“I’m fine with the architecture,” Light said between nervous breaths, her chest heaving from the effects of an adrenaline rush. “It’s these shadows! The place is so bright, but those shadows… They’re too dark!”

Blade nodded in agreement. “The shadows are weird. I can see the shapes bothering a pony, you can feel this place isn’t built for us.”

Fell frowned sadly, eyes looking down slightly. “Sorry, I didn’t think this place would be uncomfortable for you. I grew up here. It’s comforting to me. It’s nicer inside, more like a pony made building. The wall shapes here are so you can get the vehicles out.”

“Vehicles?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, about fifty meters to the left and right are large garages. They mostly just had a lot of scrap in them when my grandparents found the Pyramid, but the one on the right has a few large armored vehicles. Not quite tanks… Um, imagine a tank, but with a cargo ship's container on the bottom, and a boat-like bottom.”

“Boat like?” Blade mused. “Do they float?”

“Probably, noling ever got one to run,” Fell replied casually, frowning as he finished. “Well… At least, not that I know of.”

“I still want to get out! Can we just make sure the door still works?” Light pleaded every last bit of unease in her eyes magnified by her increased size.

I also couldn’t help but notice her teeth were pointed. I mean, she had only eaten meat for the entire time I’d known her, I already knew she was carnivorous. But it’s still a little uneasy to see a mouth that large filled with teeth that sharp. Even if it is frowning sadly.

Fell bit his lip uncertainly, mulling the idea over for a few brief moments. “I can, but I don’t know how much power is left, or why we have power. If we use it all up somepony will need to restart the collectors and give up a lot of mana. I’d rather not.”

“What kind of system is used to provide the energy?” I asked curiously, needing to know why Fell was worried about the lights being on. “Chrysalis had been dead for a few months now, right? You said that this fortress uses mana crystals. A large industrial power bank should provide energy for a few years to a large facility like this, assuming it’s only used for lighting and climate control.”

“Um, well, no,” Fell replied with an embarrassed twitch of his ears. “I’m not exactly good with magic. I can’t tell you the details. But I do know that mana gems didn’t work with this place. The royals who first found this place worked out how to literally pump mana through the pipes or whatever is used to move mana around.

“A changeling or unicorn has to just dump their manna into a collection… Thing. Without a few hundred changelings charging the systems every day-”

“Okay, that’s really bucking creepy!” Light objected, wincing at the realization. “That basically guarantees somepony is here. And I can’t use my bow right now.”

Light lifted a wing, showing her bow to be hanging by its carry strap from the base of her right wing, tucked safely beneath her rusty colored feathers.

“Yeah, these shouldn’t be on,” Fell agreed. “Maybe there’s enough to run the lights left, but I don't want to press our luck with the door… And I’m REALLY hoping nopony has moved in. Upside, if they have you could just step on them.”

Light snorted and rolled her eyes dismissively. “Yeah, no. Not in a space this tight. Too easy for them to dodge, to hard for me to move freely.”

I frowned, at last understanding exactly why Fell was worried. Any system which required daily recharging from a few hundred changelings would be drawing around six hundred and thirty therma per day. Given the apparent size of the mountain, if that energy were powering mage lights like these ones all throughout the fortress…

“There should have only been enough energy for two weeks of light as most,” I mused out loud, rubbing a hoof to my chin. “Perhaps the generators self repaired?”

I figured I could try and be optimistic.

“I don’t think they can. They would have been working when my grandparents clutch found the Pyramid. Besides, our old Queen said the crystals they used were unique,” Fell countered. “I talked with her about them once. I thought maybe we could mine for some. But they are too heavy, or something.”

Fell frowned, brow furrowing in concentration. “I’m trying to remember exactly. It could be important we know everything about- Oh! Um, apparently they weigh a hundred and fifteen… something. Bucking hay, I never thought that might be important!”

Fell groaned, sitting down and covering his eyes amid an ashamed sigh.

“Huh… Are you putting raw magic into the generator, or the wiring?” Blade asked curiously.

“Er, the wires?” Fell asked uncertainly.

“Either way, you shouldn’t be getting those wavy patterns,” she said decisively, still staring at the odd arcane current. “It’s like a decaying spell just froze.”

“Something might be broken along the line,” I proposed optimistically.

“This place fixes itself,” Blade countered, voice laden with worried intrigue.

“Good point…” I admitted reluctantly, turning to stare at the odd mote of energy with her.

It had to be something. With today’s luck, it would likely turn out to be a budding portal into the depths of Tartarus.

“How about we just take our chances in the cave?” Light proposed, looking at the two of us with an uncertain.

“Yeah, that might be a good idea,” Blade said with a slight nod.

“Poor enchantment design causing some light wild magic effects?” I proposed, still wanting to solve this mystery.

“Can’t be. Wild magic always has a positive charge and is always in the lowest energy density the matrix can allow. We both know this is negative and high energy, with no intact matrix. This shouldn’t be able to exist without something keeping it here,” Blade said with a dismissive hoof wave.

Son of a- I sighed and closed my eyes tightly and let out a heated breath. I had to get something off my chest.

“I thought you didn’t know advanced thaumaturgy!” I accused, eyes narrowing. “I know you’re a bandit and want to keep your real identity a secret. It’s one thing to hide your real voice, presumably name, and appearance-”

Blade’s ears stood up in alarm. “How-”

“Your eyes are a slight different shade of green every morning,” I countered. “It’s ether illusion for vanity, or disguise. I’m okay with that, based on who you are. You have enemies.”

Blade paused for a moment, during which Light and Fell studying her intently, seeking out anything unusual in her scarred and pierced body.

“If she were using illusions, couldn’t you sense them like whatever that is at the back of the hallway?” Light asked me suspiciously. “Shouldn’t you just know?”

“No. An illusion spell blends into their normal aura. All magic will, unless it’s very shoddily done,” Blade sighed, dropping her accent. “Alright, I admit that this is a disguise. I knew it would be hard to keep the deception running if I stayed around anypony long term… I have warlords after my head, you know. It’s not a good idea to just be my real self when out and about.”

I nodded. I understood her point, I really did. I honestly didn’t care about that deception. She was here to help us. However…

“Like I said, I don’t blame you for hiding your real identity,” I reminded. “That’s fine. But it’s not okay for you to hide your capabilities from us. If we have to all work together for any reason, how can we help you if you lie about your abilities?”

Blade cleared her throat. “Uh, well, to be honest, knowing what I can do could lead back to someone learning who I am behind this mask. Sorry.”

I hummed. “It’s safe to say you’re a decent mage?”

She nodded, letting out a slow breath. “Yes,” she answered hesitantly.

“What schools? That’s all I need to know,” I promised.

Blade bit her lip nervously then slowly answered, “I’ve mastered Illusion and Evocation. I’ve also got a solid grasp of Alteration, and I’m currently learning Psionics as well.”

Four schools? I raised an eyebrow, thoroughly impressed. Most mages never mastered more than two.

“Thank you for sharing,” I said. “I won't bother you for more.”

“Sooo, we’re just staying here then?” Light asked, her voice sounding normal once more. “Because I’m fine now. It’s all good.”

I had just enough time to turn my head and ‘look’ at the odd patch of energy before Blade decided, “We’re camping out here.”

The patch of energy pulsed slightly.

“Wait, what?” I asked with a frown.

“It pulsed, right?” Blade asked.

“Yes,” I said uncertainly, trotting forwards towards the anomaly. “What is this thing?”

“I don’t know, but I both want to poke it with a stick, and not poke it with a stick,” Blade mused aloud. “It seemed to be reacting to words… Meaning this might be mental magic, or some explicit spell trigger.”

The door rang like an anvil as something massive smashed into it.

Every last light in the hallway blazed to life, shining with dull red hazy light. Whatever lurked on the other side, smashed into the door again, even harder than before. A siren set into the ceiling began to scream in warning.

Light lept to her hooves, smacking her head and wings on the ceiling with a loud crash. The noise prompted a flurry of scratches and smashing impacts from the thing outside. Blade and I whirled around towards the door. Fell turned towards it as well, fear oozing from his very being, caught in the primal terror that comes from knowing a predator has you on its mind.

The door rang again, this time the steel shrieked and groaned, as if something had clawed a good chunk from the metal. The alarm changed pitch, becoming more urgent.

A garbled voice from above shouted a warning an an alien language. “ Warnung! Xeno weorcnes tôgêanes ôr port! Dor forwordenes toward... Fîftig brecnes!”

“WHAT!?” Blade yelped, looking up towards the ceiling where the voice had come in shock.

“That’s the gods,” Fell explained. “Maybe they’ll hold the doors!”

A patch of light shimmered into existence beside the doorway, resolving into a monochrome green tinted image of the monstrosity which was burrowing into the door with it’s scything talons.

The Mohrg. It’s massive centipede’s body filled the cave entrance, thrashing furiously as it clawed at the door in a frenzied rage. It knew we were in here, it had to. Nothing else would explain the hatred and malice in its every motion.

And riding on it’s shoulders, a single unicorn. Stitched together from at least a dozen different undead grafts. But the face… I knew that face. Sunlit Star.

My ears fell in horror. He had gone this far to kill me? He’d created and given proper life to a Mohrg?

“RUN!” I yelled, turning to sprint down the hallway. “We won’t fight it off again!”

“Is that-” Blade began.

“Yes, that’s it, and I don’t think we can stop it!” Light shouted in terror, turning herself around and joining me in my run for the doors at the far end of the hall.

The main door shrieked and groaned under the undead monstrosity’s assault. The volume even louder as the shredded outer layers no longer blocked as much sound.

“The voice said we have fifty seconds until the door’s breached,” Blade called, running to catch up to us as we shot down the steel corridor, hoof steps echoing maddeningly.

“How do you know?” Fell demanded in awe. “No ling speaks-”

“Emeralds do! How do we open the inner doors?” She demanded.

Fell raced ahead of us and almost tackled a small panel next to the door, another shrieking crunch echoing down the hall as the monster dug deeper into the metal.

“I’ll take point!” He exclaimed, touching the flat of his hoof to the small square.

The square flashed green, and the doors slid away from each other into the walls with a low hiss. The corridor beyond was twice as wide as the hall we had been in, and stretched out to the left and right. Small alcoves along the walls suggested doorways, but in the harsh red lighting it was impossible to see more than the odd angled walls and ink-like shadows.

“You said there was a button in the Queen’s chamber to open all the doors and also a back entrance, right?” Light asked urgently.

“Yes! We go out the back, get the boat in the water and get the hell away from here,” Fell exclaimed decisively.

It was a good plan. If I had any sort of area denial spells I would feel we had a chance at fighting that monster off, but as far as I know- Wait!

“Blade, do you have area of effect spells?” I asked as we rushed into the new hall, following Fell as he turned right. “Whips won't break bone.”

“Will fire work? I focus on Telekinesis and fire,” she replied.

“Maybe, to kill one, you need to break all the skulls inside it,” I explained, trying to form a plan, “They could be protected against fire-”

“Everything burns at a high enough temperature,” Blade countered. “That said, I don't want to incinerate us along with it!”

“I’m with Fell on the running plan!” Light said firmly. “Lightning or no lightning, I can fit you all on my back and we fly out of here. Screw the boat!”

I liked that plan, that was a good plan.

“Do you have any pegasi magic to deal with the-”

“That boat is two hundred meters from that bucking thing!” Light exclaimed urgently.

“Right, folow me!” Fell called. “Lefthoof turn!”

We turned left, pushing into a more narrow corridor. Light grunted, pulling her wings tightly against herself. Her tail lashed in irritation behind her as we squeezed through the thinner passage, her hunched body barely slipping through the narrow section into a once again wide and tall corridor.

“Right, then up the stairs,” Fell called.

“Bucking... Will I fit!?” Light demanded angrily.

“Yes?” Fell replied uncertainly.

A horrendous shriek and crash echoed through the empty corridors, followed by the enraged hissing roar of Mohrg. The unholy stench of rotting meat drifted through the air, brushing against my nose like a distant mound of garbage.

The monster screamed in rage even in its triumph as the door crashed open. What they buck did Sunlit do to it!?

Light forced herself into the stairwell with a grunt, jamming herself up the staircase. The oversized steps fitting her hooves almost perfectly as she scrambled through the stairwell, sequencing upwards like a terrified mouse through a crack in a baseboard.

The stench of rotting meat grew more powerful, reaching the point where my nose wrinkled in disgust, instinctually.

The rest of us followed Light upwards as fast as we could run, only to be blocked by Light’s massive plot as she struggled to pull herself around the double corner to continue up the stairwell.

The clatter of hundreds of bone legs filled the air as the monster entered the hive.

“Smmmmellll you…” It’s abominable voice hissed.

“Hurry the buck up!” Fell yelped, pushing hard as he could against Light’s left flank.

“I’m trying!” She whimpered fearfully.

Blade pushed past me, her horn blazing green a she grabbed Light with her magic, forcing her up through the stairwell with a mighty telekinetic heave. Something snapped, Light yelped. I winced, figuring it had been Light, then a metal pipe clattered down the stairs.

“AH! That was caught on my wing!” She hissed in pain.

“Broken?” I asked urgently, eyes widening in panic as our aerial escape-

“No,” she panted. “No, I’m fine.”

“Get off on this floor, right, then left two doors down!” Fell ordered, pushing past Light into the hall at the top of the stairs. “Reep, Blade, try any magic to make a barrier.”

Light pulled herself up, running down the hallway after Fell. Revealing another of the odd shredded and mangled patches of mana, drifting in the air.

“I’m going to try and overload this and collapse part of the hallway,” Blade decided.

Well, it couldn’t hurt to have an unstable arcane maelstrom at the top of the stairs.

“I’ll pull you away from it,” I decided as I sprinted up the last few stairs and into the hallway, continuing to run, while looking over my shoulder so I could grab Blade magicly and drag her to me the second she-

Blade’s horn burned green as she pushed energy into the anomaly. The spark of magic flared brightly, shimmering and twisting until it burst. The flash of light stopped moving as it radiated outwards, forming a ghostly green threedimentional image which faded from existence slowly, loosing detail every instant as it ghosted away.

For the split second we could see the image, Blade and I saw a group of soldiers, each clad in armor matching Fell’s equipment. The squad was frozen in time, posed behind a barricade atop the stairs. Two changelings stood beside the doors, horns blazing as they maintained shields around five tall bipeds, their features completely hidden by their armor.

The frontmost soldiers were firing some sort of rifles into a mass of muscle and fangs which ripped and tore away at the barricade, one massive dragon-like taloned arm reaching outwards towards them. The other three were firing weapons down either side of the hallway, with one crouching over an injured changeling, stuffing something into a large hole in the changeling’s armor.

Armor identical in heraldry to the other soldiers. A unified force between the changelings and the other species.

Before I could absorb anymore of the ghostly scene in front of me, the image faded away into nothingness, the anomaly vanishing completely.

Blade and I stood stunned, staring at the spot where the apparition hadn been.

“The buck was that?” Fell called his voice wavering.

“They’re psionic echos! A picture held in the background thaumaturgic fields,” Blade exclaimed, accent forgotten in her awe. “When did that happen? How long ago?!”

“Never!” Fell answered, shaken to the core. “The hay were those creatures?!”

The Mohrg interrupted with a chillingly eager laugh. “Close! So close!” It moaned, voice echoing through the steel corridors.

Blade and I looked at each other, knowing we had to do something, anything to distract the Mohrg rushing towards us. I had nothing, none of my spells would reshape steel, and it showed on my face as dread.

Blade frowned, closing her eyes in intense concentration, building a fire-like aura of crackling green energy around her horn. The spell leapt from her, forming four pony sized balls of flickering energy which scattered down the hallway, transforming into ghostly outlines roughly mimicking each of our shapes.

Her spell cast, Blade nodded in satisfaction. The Mohrg hissed, the sound coming from incredibly close by, just down the stairs!

I acted on instinct, I grabbed Blade with my magic and swiftly pulled her to my side. The instant she passed the door, I let go, accidentally throwing her across the floor. We quickly ran down the hall, barely managing to spy Fell and Light lurking around a corner, waiting for us in the shadows between the dim red lights.

We ran around the corner. The monster surged into the hallway with a clatter like hail on a tin roof, then stopped. It groaned, and a sickening scraping of bone on steel sent a shiver down my spine as its putrid stench filled the corridor almost like a thick fog.

“Move!” Sunlit demanded.

“There are… More…” The monster said in confusion, the scraping sound sliding down the corridor like blood across ice.

“I don't care about anyone else, find the litch!” Sunlit ordered.

“There are… More…” the Mohrg repeated.

A crackle and pop accompanied an unearthly howl of pain and rage, bone thrashing and crashing against steel as the Mohrg writhed in agony.

“FIND THE LICH!” Sunlit ordered.

The monster growled, bone claw tips clattered against steel, moving away from us.

Everypony breathed a sigh of relief. Fell stepping slowly into the hallway, taking point once more.

“Okay… Be quiet, so it can’t hear us, and we’ll just slowly walk to the Queen’s chamber,” he said decisively.

Blade shook her head. “It’s chasing an illusion spell. I gave it something close to our scents, but that false trail won't last long. We have five minutes.”

“Can you do that again?” Light asked.

“It knows what the fake trail smells like. Won't fool it twice,” she admitted. “So, go, double time.”

We quickly but quietly proceeded down the hallway, and up two more flights of stairs. The Mohrg’s rotting stench faded and strengthened, the scratching and clicking of its legs echoing down the endless maze-like hallways. After a few minutes, it's frustrated screech boomed down the corridor ahead of us.

Fell’s ears drooped in terror as the monster's claw clicks began to move towards us.

“This way!” He hissed, ducking into a side alcove.

“Maybe I can wrestle it,” Light mused worriedly.

“Bad idea! Back route, through the nursery,” Fell urged.

The door flashed green, sliding open amid creaking steel. Immediately, the abomination bellowed triumphantly, the sound of it’s steps increasing to a maddening pace. Fell bolted through the still opening doors, Blade following along pausing only to help pull light through the opening doors with a pulse of telekinesis.

I saw the beast as a silhouette, piercing the dim red light at an ever increasing speed. There was no way to hide from it. We had to stop it, or slow it… But how?

I ran after the others, stumbling over a thick cable stretched across the floor. Pushing myself up, I noticed the room was huge filled with large cylindrical racks which in turn held two meter tall glass jars. Some jars were filled with a yellow liquid, others with small green-white spheres, others empty. All joined by cables, most with flickering panels of light displaying all sorts of information next to them.

The others were already halfway across the massive room. The Mohrg’s thundering steps and stench seemed ready to reach out and grab me. I sprinted towards my friends, chest heaving as my body gasped for breath.

That wouldn’t do. I couldn’t afford to run myself to the ground! Not here! Not now!

Gripping my head with my magic, I wrenched it around as hard as I could, snapping my neck with a loud crack. Undeath welcomed me back, and the burning in my lungs became meaningless.

“What was?” Fell demanded urgently, reaching the door on the other side and slamming his hoof against the panel.

“Couldn’t run more! Broke neck. Undead don’t tire. It’s fine,” I insisted, taking the delay to pin my neck in place with a quick spell.

Wait a moment… My body is meaningless!

The doors hissed open, the mohrg surged through the doors behind us, screeching happily as it spotted prey.

“Run! I have a plan,” I shouted.

Fell winced. “But-”

“Just do it!” I yelled, turning around and training my eyes on the Mohrg as it surged through the other set of doors, Sunlit sneering at us from it’s back.

I heard the floor creak as Light shifted her weight. Fell yelped, the giant mare simply picking him up.

“He said run!” Light exclaimed urgently, rushing down the hallway on three legs.

I heard Blade get up and sprint after them. Realizing my opportunity was slipping away I stepped into the hallway, yanked my cloak off, carefull to keep my watch pinned to it, and shoved it into her face.

“Take this! It breaks, I die!” I yelled loudly.

I felt Blade’s magic take the cloak and watch from me, the enhanced magic reserves it gave me vanishing as it left my person. Did I have enough mana to do this on my own?

“Understood!” Blade called, vanishing down the corridor.

I closed my eyes, centering myself as best I could. I had never been a warrior. I could have filled that roll, but one on one battle was not something I ever felt affinity for. But here, now, I was the only hope we had.

I wasn’t sure if I could do it, it would take a lot of energy. So much that I knew I couldn’t have done it last time. I was too exhausted then, but now, if I timed it just right-

The monster’s legs clattered against the floor, its overpowering stench almost obscuring it from view as my eyes immediately began to water. Its gaping split-open ribcage maw seemingly materialized from nothing as it burst out of the nursery.

Time slowed as it lunged towards me, maw opening to reveal a blender-like arrangement of barbed tendrils at the back of it’s throat.

Now!

I lanced out at the Mohrg with my magic, the red ray striking the monster in the back of the throat. I felt the energy drain from my body as the spell connected, immediately staggering as the monster’s complexity drained the majority of my reserves in one greedy gulp.

The Mohrg jerked to an immediate dead stop, red energy crackling across its body in a fractal wave as my magic sunk into the monster’s body. It’s head and shoulders thrashed violently as if it were having a seizure, throwing the patchwork pony violently back into the nursery.

Sunlit shouted angrily in surprise, spitting a garbled curse at me which was cut off by the thunderous shattering of glass and a loud splash. His creation shuddered, and dropped limply to the floor with a loud crash, unable to move.

I’d done it!

“Ha! Your work was always half assed!” I yelled mockingly into the room.

By the Emperor that felt good! But I had a few minutes. It wouldn’t take Sunlit long to unscramble the monster’s motor functions. And there was no way on Equis I could do that again today.

I turned, limping my way down the corridor, legs shaky due to the magical drain. I’d completely forgot that as an undead creature, I needed magic to move too. I still had some mana left but the rate that spell drained me at would definitely bring on some mana burn later. And I was going to be useless in a fight now.

Buck.

I could see everypony fifty meters down the hall, stopped in front of a doorway. Fell rapidly hammering on the panel beside it. I limped towards the group, hearing Sunlit’s wrathful curses echoing from behind me.

“I will rip off your head and buck the stump!” Sunlit roared in blind rage.

Guh! Right, so, he’s completely insane. How powerful a mage is he?

Maybe Blade could get those whips into range before he could get a shield up. Or Fell shoot him. I was spent.

Ponyfeathers! My watch only amplified what I had… Which would give me barely enough to-

Blade turned, hearing Sunlit’s depraved scream, her face twisting in concern as she saw me limping up the hallway. Her green aura enveloped me, pulling me rapidly to her side just as I had pulled her to safety moments ago.

“How bad?” She asked as she suspended me in the air before her, her tone suggesting she thought I was injured.

“Fine, just out of mana… I scrambled its motor functions, we have a few minutes,” I explained.

Blade set me down, immediately filling the hallway completely with an emerald green shield.

“That mage, how good is he?” She asked urgently.

“I don’t know, but I’m useless against him. He can cast rebuke undead spells,” I admitted, ears drooping in defeat.

A flash of green and a sharp chirp caught my attention.

“Got it!” Fell exclaimed in relief. “This is the Queen’s chambers. I think there’s a safe ro-”

The door hissing open to reveal a short corridor leading to a… Barricade?

The doorway at the corridor's end had a large metal desk overturned to block it off, but otherwise remained open. The room inside was massive, round, and clearly once some kind of meeting room as the round table in the center, above which floated a magical projection of a globe formed from bright blue lines, dotted with red triangles, and other red colored runes, some of which blinked, some of which were hidden by the static distortions in the over all projection.

Hanging from the ceiling in the center of the globe was a large changeling pod, like a cocoon. The translucent material provided a partial view of what looked to be a large changeling, suspended within the pod’s center, unmoving as if asleep.

Huddled on the opposite side of the room in a terrified bundle were at least six dozen pale colored androgynous ponies. The sea of soft pastel colors filled an eighth of the room so tightly that you honestly couldn’t tell which horn or wings belonged to whom.

The details of what lay in the room became extremely unimportant the second I noticed the two fully armored ponies with weapons trained on us from behind the barricade. One an earth pony dressed in solid olive green bulky armor, face concealed behind a reflective gold visor. The other a unicorn, her armor more streamlined, save for extra large pauldrons, her own armor colored mostly orange, with a distinctive red breastplate and green visored helmet.

And both of them had arcanely enhanced tech based weapons pointed directly at me.

Ready to fire.

“F-Fell!? Wait! Don’t shoot!” A trembling voice called in surprise from the back of the room.

The green armored warrior tilted his head to one side, glancing at his partner. The orange armored warrior nodded. He looked back at me.

“Civvies,” he ordered in a gruff stallion’s voice. “Get out of our shooting gallery.”

“Pack in with the others, we’ve got you,” his partner said in a soothing female changeling’s voice.

13 - Doom

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Light Step - 13th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

The Pyramid - Sapphire Hive

Felling, Repose, and Blade sprinted down the hall, easily clearing the improvised barricade with a swift leap.

I frowned bitterly. Yeah, there was no way I could squeeze through the doorway and the desk without them moving the desk back into place after I pushed it aside inadvertently. We didn’t have time for that.

My friends raced into the room, stopping just in front of the round table beneath the arcane projection. I’d figured they would scramble to get alongside the wall on either side of the door. Come to think of it, why weren't the ponies covering there? Was the table magic proof or something?

“Need a forcefield?” Blade offered turning to face back out the door.

Ah, she was getting ready to provide extra fire support. That made sense. Oh! I could throw Fell my bow and-

“Cover the pod and those ponies,” the armored stallion ordered. “We’re fine.”

Blade’s horn began to glow, but the magic dimmed, her spell canceled as she noticed me still filling the corridor.

“Come on!” She pleaded. “I have to get this up quick!”

Yeah, that wasn’t happening… Bucking Tartarus I was screwed! Maybe those two could move up to the outer door?

“I uh, I can’t shrink. I’m not going to fit through the barricade,” I said with resignation.

Stupid bucking jerk…Who spikes punch with potions!? Let alone a concentrate...

The green armored stallion nodded, just a simple head dip, like anypony making a plan might. “Can you fight?” He asked.

“I’m a Prench Scout, but I’m not sure I can fight this thing, not in a place this small,” I replied irritably.

I mean, maybe if I had room to maneuver or get into the air. It didn’t seem more maneuverable than me. Stronger yeah, but with a little luck, I might be able to do something to it.

“Got it, you’re drafted into my little merc crew for this fight, sister,” he casually informed. “Block them off and we’ll fire around you. Don’t worry bout a thing, you’ll be okay.”

I pursed my lips with worried uncertainty. Blade gave me a sympathetic look, then cast her spell, the emerald green shield forming a translucent wall to protect everypony inside the Queen’s Chambers.

“I’m sorry…” She lamented.

“It’s fine,” I dismissed with a hoofwave. “I’ll help as best I can.”

The changeling mare stood up slightly, peering out from behind the barricade into the hallway.

“If you four are the group who broke in… What’s roaring?” She asked curiously.

“A Mohrg, massive undead thing, also the necromancer who made it,” Repose panted, shoulders shaking with fatigue.

“Right, two hostiles,” the armored stallion noted. “How big is this thing?”

“Really honestly terrifyingly big!” I warned urgently. “Twice my size! It’s a centipede with huge bat wings and preying mantis scythes made from bones and rotting flesh.”

Of all the possible responses to the knowledge of the monster which even now I could hear starting to stir, I did not expect the two to squee like fillies at a colt band concert.

“Dibs!” The stallion and mare exclaimed simultaneously.

Followed instantly by a shared “Buck!” as they realized they’d called it at the same time.

I felt my eyes widen as the flood of surprise washed through my brain. I could see the mare’s over zealously eager grin behind her tinted visor. Just who the hay were these two!?

“Hoof, Horn, Wing, loser stays to guard the package?” The changeling proposed.

The stallion nodded and lifted his left hoof. The Changeling did the same, the two quickly throwing a round of the schoolyard game. He threw wing, she threw hoof.

“Yes!” He exclaimed, pumping his hoof once before hopping over the barricade, armor shod hooves crashing against the steel floor.

With his body in plain view, I got a rather good look at his armor. The plating wasn’t covering as much as I thought at first. It was more like half plate, held on by an undersuit made from a black and orange material. Most of the plating covered the vital areas and featured odd runes carved into the metal. For whatever reason, his rear legs also had thick plating, unlike the thinner protection on his forelegs.

It reminded me of older knight’s armor, just made from more recent materials and styled in a manner similar to my crossbow construction.

“Buck!” The mare swore bitterly. “Ugh, fine… Film it for me?”

“Sure thing hun!” He promised eagerly. “Separate and annihilate?”

“Yeah. I’ll get the mage,” she grumbled unhappily.

The Mohrg’s slow scraping and scratching stopped, the monster bellowed angrily. A sound like metal scraping glass stabbed my ears, and it’s hundreds of legs began clattering.

“Big girl, turn your plot around and grapple that thing when it comes in,” the stallion ordered.

What? So he could get a clean shot? From where?

Oh, buck! That wouldn’t work!

“The skulls! You need to break all of its skulls! You’ll need more than one shot!” I warned.

“Awesome! Grapple it. I need it to stay in one spot and that’s a bit big for me to pin. Just ten seconds, then let go,” he ordered with an adamant voice.

Hold it for ten seconds? I could do that. Probably. If it didn’t impale me in three places… But I had to try.

“Yes, sir!” I exclaimed, turning around in the tight quarters as best I could.

Wait, the hay was I doing? He wasn’t my CO! I didn’t have to-

The Mohrg rushed around the corner like a tsunami. Its breath burned hot against my face, the lashing tongues sliced the air in front of me, the patch of rotting fur below its gaping maw crushed my heart. A winged cloud cutiemark, worn like a flesh necklace.

I’m so sorry Zephyr… I didn’t stop him from doing this to you. Please forgive me.

Or, I could stop being a scared little filly and rip his remains out of this monster!

I drew back my hoof and threw it forward with a scream of my own. The Mohrg ducked, its serpentine body easily sliding down below my strike. Patches shrieked in terror, his monster’s dodge putting him right in line-

The wet crack of my hoof striking his body and the crash he made hitting the wall seemed to happen at the same time.

Huh, I didn’t know I could punch like that. Alright, maybe there is one perk too-

The Mohrg hesitated, recoiling slightly as if to shield its master, then launched towards me, tongues lashing, splitting apart into three separate strands arcing out to grab me around the head. The barbs bit into my skin, dragging and scraping until they caught, and the beast could drag my head towards its maw.

I slammed my forehooves into its shoulders, pushing as hard as I could to keep myself from being pulled into it’s gaping maw. The slashed ribcage teeth spread wide, revealing another skull placed at the back of its throat, it’s own jaw opened grotesquely, set as if taking a bite out of the heart held in its teeth.

The Mohrg growled, pushing towards me in a desperate attempt to get its maw around my face. I felt my hooves scrape along the floor, unable to get enough traction to stop the monsters advance. But I could keep it here.

A stallions pained scream slid over the Mohrg’s growls and groans. “Ahhhh! Send that scum straight to Tartatus!” Patches ordered, voice dripping venom.

“That’s the plan!” The stallion called from beneath me as he ran into position.

Heh, well, I guess that’s a way to mock the enemy.

I spread my rear legs, trying to jam my hooves against the walls. The Mohrg took its scythe-like claws and dug them into the steel floor, using them as levers to drag itself forwards. My rear hooves gripped at the walls, but the monster didn’t care. It kept pushing me back centimeter by centimeter.

Lowering my head to try and get my nose away from the smell, I saw the armored stallion grab the monster by two of it’s legs. The runes carved into his armor began to glow as if they were being heated in a forge.

“Let go, now!” He shouted over an eerie shrieking howl which sounded faintly like a distant mare screaming.

No chance! If I let go for even an instant, the monster would bite my head off! How the hell was he going to hold it if I could barely do-

His armor erupted with orange light, the shriek morphing into a roar as the maelstrom was born Crackling bolts of black lightning arced around us. The light formed into a thick screen in the hallway, almost tangible. My guts lurched towards the light and suddenly I was falling forwards into the blazing light.

“NOOOOOO!”

Felling Axe - 13th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

The Pyramid - Sapphire Hive

The short-lived hellish gate vanished in a matter of seconds, leaving behind a jagged scar in the corridor. I stood petrified in horror as Light vanished into the orange portal, sucked into it like water into a straw. Anything touching it just flowed inwards like a liquid, including chunks of the floor, walls, and ceiling.

“Ponyfeathers!” The changeling mare cursed. “Keep her safe Red…”

“Worry about your own problems!” Sunlit growled, staggering down the corridor, brass hoof clanking against the floor, blood pouring from a literally flattened muzzle.

How the hay was he speaking coherently? That seemed impossible with his mangled muzzle.

“Well, you’re clearly an asshole and an idiot,” the mare sighed wearily. “Be smart, walk away. Wait outside for your little friends and fight them there. But cross that threshold or endanger anypony in the room behind me, and I’ll use you as a slipper.”

Sunlit’s horn boiled with silver magic as a thousand shards of silver crystal exploded from the tip, embedding themselves into the walls, floor, and ceiling with a horrendous shriek of punctured metal.

“Heh,” Sun smirked. “Am-”

The changeling mare, who hadn’t moved at all until now, stood up from behind the crystal perforated barricade, balancing on her rear hooves, and sighed. “Yep…”

She snapped her right arm forwards, the hoofcap springing open to reveal integrated arcane weapons. A blue beam lanced out of her hoof, slamming into Sunlit and dragging him down the hall where his face connected with the warrior’s left hoof right at the end of a straight punch.

The instant the punch connected, she drove her knee into Sun’s guts, held him out at length, and then drove a sharp kick directly into his plot. The kick landed with an ungodly squelch, and before Sun could even scream she let go with her foreleg and slammed her hoof down, smashing his back and neck into the floor and-

I winced, backing up on instinct. She’d literally jammed her entire lower leg into him, and ACTUALLY used him as a slipper!

“AH!” Repose, the entire group of livestock ponies behind me, and I cried in terror and disgust as one.

“Awesome!” Blade squeed in awe.

Sun spat up a wad of blood, mouth open in a silent scream.

“You wish I was a liar now,” the mare asked while reaching into a pouch on her belt with a hoof. “Don’t you?”

Slapping a small silver disk to Sun’s chest with her left hoof, she turned around, ripped her leg out of Sun’s body with a sickening squelch, and kicked his body savagely down the corridor into the the hall. A half second after his body crashed on the hallway floor, the disk flashed red and then exploded into a bright fireball.

“Well, that’s that,” the mare sighed sadly. “At least everyone here is safe.”

I winced, her drooped head, the dejected tone of voice… She was honestly sad the fight was over. We changeling Soldiers loved a physical challenge, but she seemed… Psychotic.

She turned around and walked up to the force shield, which Blade lowered as the armored mare drew near.

“What’s your name?” I asked nervously.

I saw her smile behind her helmet’s visor. “Hey, you’re okay, everyone here is. Except for that asshole,” she joked, pointing one hoof over her shoulder down the corridor. “I don’t kill willy nilly. I’m a professional who is at work. Admittedly, work I enjoy... Sorry for the rocky introduction, I’m Sa’mas and my husband Red should be back in a few minutes.

“We’re a merc crew, and while I don’t mind you poking around, I’m going to have to ask you to leave this room. We’re guarding that package up there until our client can pick it up, or we can get it delivered.”

“Is Light okay? What happened to her?” I asked urgently.

“Uh, well… She’s probably fine. Physically at least. As long as they aren't gone too long it will be okay. As for where they went, Red can get a bit too far into things. Usually when protecting civvies he takes bigger threats into Tartarus so he can cut loose,” she explained by raising a half dozen more questions.

“WHY!?” Repose, Blade, and I asked together, jaws dropping.

“So shrapnel doesn't hit any of these poor little dears,” Sa’mas said with a frown, pointing with a hoof towards the small herd of pale ponies. “We were going for a simple seek, smash and grab, but these poor guys just needed so much help! Besides, they’ve been keeping queenie here alive. We might need them to move the pod.”

I felt my hearts skip a beat in despair and shame. Who had been abandoned here long enough to begin to undergo metamorphosis into a Queen?

Turning to look at the huddled crowd I asked. “How long have you been on your own? Chrysalis came back here after Canterlot, right?”

One of the ponies, a pale lime green and pink pegasus stallion, not that you’d know it without looking beneath his tail, broke away from the herd and zipped over to give me the tightest and yet softest hug anyling had ever been given.

“No! Everyling just left!” He sobbed, leaning into my shoulder. “We were locked in and things started to break and we couldn’t fix them and then we started to starve and there's been noling around who's needed anything and-”

Oh gods!? It had been years alone for them!?

I returned his hug, letting the poor guy just sob in relief. I had too. I should probably go give everypony else a good hug too.

Our Livestock ponies NEEDED to express affection. We’d bred the instinct into them, ensuring their mental health depended on, well, giving others love. While I had been perfectly fine with that concept before… Without anyling around to care for, it was wrong.

I could see that now. We shouldn’t have gone further than the normal breed for increased love output and better flavors. How any of them were more than just depressed apathetic bags of bones was beyond-

The fortuneteller! Return to your bed and look within. Your bed, not literally but metaphorically. The place you make your bed is your home! Return home.

This is what I had to do. I was a soldier, and these were members of my hive in need. It was my duty to help them.

Yes, there is was. Purpose. Duty. It had been a long time since I felt those loving bonds.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Chrysalis is dead now. I’m the last Saphire left as far as I know. I’ll find all of you a new place to live,” I promised. “What’s your name?”

“Juniper,” he answered happily, refusing to break the hug now that he was happy.

They did that. Random hugs. I’d missed the random acts of affection.

Oh gods! As soon as everypony here wasn’t spooked we were probably all going to be buried alive!

Better cut that off at the pass...

“Right, well, I want you to go and get everypony organized. Pack any belongings you have. We are going to find a way off the island for everyone,” I proclaimed decisively.

“We can’t!” Juniper exclaimed, ears standing up in alarm. “We need to keep the Queen alive!”

I frowned. “Okay, what Queen?”

“Yeah, I second that,” Blade added. “They tend to be important.”

“Jiila,” Sa’mas replied.

“What?!” I exclaimed, eyes almost popping out of my head. “She didn’t die!?”

Oh gods! Of course she didn’t. Chrysalis never produced the body. She said she burned it, as you would if someling was infected by cordyceps so it wouldn’t spread…

“Almost,” Juniper admitted. “My grandma found her almost dead and put her in a stasis pod. We um… We think the fungus is going away.”

I had to smack a hoof against my barrel to get my hearts beating correctly again.

“That lying-” Closing my eyes I tried to suppress my rage, but I couldn’t. “Why didn’t you show anyling this!? We could have done something! Saved the hive!”

“Um, because if we open it everyling nearby would be infected too?” Juniper asked, letting go of me and looking a little hurt.

“Look, kid,” Sa’mas said with a sigh. “She’s barely alive. Comatose with a little brain activity. She could be slowly recovering, I don’t know. What I do know is that something important is in there with her, and my husband and I were hired to get it before this asshole by the name of Dawn does. If you care about her, stick around with us until we can get her, and these adorable little guys out of here.”

That did seem like a good idea. The last of the threats facing us were dead now. Presumably.

Blade cleared her throat. “Um, about that. I might be able to get an airship here.”

I looked over at the yellow mare and frowned. “You said your ships were too busy to pick anyone up,” I protested irritably.

“No,” Blade denied. “I said they were too valuable to the front to waste picking up four people. But for evacuating a good… Sixty or so, plus a Queen, and also a valuable object? Different story. Where do we need to go?”

“The pod is to be delivered to Twilight Sparkle, we’ll instruct her on what to do with it from there. You don’t need to know anything else,” Sa’mas said appreciatively. “And thanks. We were having problems getting any vehicle here to even get enough power to light a cig-”

A pale silver ray struck Sa’mas in the back, scorching her armor.

My head snapped back down the hall, hoof reaching for my combo axe to return fire. Sunlit stood in the hallway, looking perfectly intact, as if he hadn’t been exploded, or punched by Light in the first place. Sa’mas turned as well, rearing up again to aim her leg cannon.

“You didn’t die?” Sa’mas asked in honest surprise. “Inconceivable!”

“HA! It worked! Who's stupid now?” Sunlit sneered.

“You, ‘cause I love to solve puzzles!” Sa’mas giggled happily, leveling her weapon.

I leveled my own weapon. I had a room full of my family to protect.

Light Step - 13th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

The Bloodspires - Tartarus

With no time to react, I fell through the screen into open air. Black air. Beneath a shifting void filled with a magma like glow, and above an infinite expanse of dark purple rocky spires. The air, thicker, hotter, and more humid than I’d ever known, felt like grease against my fur as I fell.

Despite any sun, the world was lit brightly, and I could see the stallion falling a short ways away from me, and the Mohrg below him.

Instinct opened my wings and set me on a gliding trajectory. Fear produced a startled yelp from my lips, a full scream held in by a nagging voice in the back of my mind which begged me not to make any loud noises.

Where they flying buck were we-

My eyes widened in horror. ‘That’s the plan’. Oh dear sweet Faust!

Tartarus. Literally.

I fell into a cloud, sliding right through it like I’d fallen into a vat of slime. The cloud exploded, dripping rancid pus-like raindrops.

“AHHHGH! WHY!?” I screamed in disgust, spitting violently to try and get the filth out of my mouth.

It wasn’t working. Not even a bit.

The stallion’s head snapped upwards, faceplate fixing on me. “Oh, come on!” He shouted faintly, my ears barely picking up his angry cry.

The Mohrg’s wings snapped open, flapping frantically before they caught the air and the beast lurched upwards, bellowing a roar to the heavens.

“With ya in a sec, big guy,” the stallion yelled holding his forehooves out in an odd way.

A flash of orange light exploded at his hoof tips, materializing a pair of black twin-barreled guns over his gauntlets. Flexing his hooves, the leg mounted weapons fired, the thundering cracks accompanied by a pained screech from the Mohrg.

The weapon’s twin barrels hinged open to throw a pair of shells away. Four smaller flashes of orange conjured fresh ammunition. The barrels snapped shut. He flexed his hooves, the guns thundered again, ripping large gashes in the beast’s wing membranes.

The Mohrg’s movements slowed, it’s monstrous form lurching in the air, the large gashes preventing it from getting enough lift to ascend.

The Stallion nodded in satisfaction, then twisted to lay parallel to the ground, spreading his legs wide to slow his fall. Ah! He wanted to meet up.

I banked towards him, doing my best to judge how close I could get without hitting him. I hadn’t flown at this size in a long time. His body shot towards me as he caught the air, drawing alongside me in a matter of moments thanks to our combined efforts.

The stallion twisted again as we drew near each other, easily maneuvering close enough to me to grab hold of my left foreleg and climb up onto my neck.

“You should have let go!” He roared urgently. “Please tell me you're mental fortitude is legendary!”

“I have no idea!” I replied, teeth gritting nervously. “This is Tartarus, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but it’s fine. You’re with me. Don’t let it get into your head and you’ll come out alright. Are you hearing its voice?” He asked urgently.

I frowned. No, no voices aside for that single one.

“Just something saying not to scream,” I answered.

“That’s instinct,” he affirmed. “Nothing else? No voice laughing and saying it’s going to eat your soul? Or telling you to go stick your snatch into one of the blood spires?”

My eyes widened in terror. “S-should there be?”

“Yeah, there should be. Unless you’re immune to this place’s influences like me,” he said with relief oozing from every last word. “Good! So, you won't go mad and eventually turn into a demon. That's the good news. The bad news is this whole dimension hates you and wants to kill you after you’ve been used to spawn more demons. Then eat your soul, which will be trapped here.”

“Um, what if I just stay in the air?” I asked apprehensively, noticing the ground below seemed to be crusty and well, bleeding.

“Bad idea, I need to kill that thing and I’m your ticket out of here. There are portals out of this place. Not just to the Equestria you know, but to everywhere. That thing might reach one, but you’d be eaten alive,” he grunted. “And I m-”

Everywhere? Like, everywhere everywhere? As in, other possible realities!?

I tucked my wings into my sides and pointed myself down, angling to intercept the falling Mohrg.

“You don’t need to fight it, just stick close,” he reassured.

“It could go anywhere from here, and my best friend was used to make it!” I growled in rage.

“Ha! You remind me of my daughter! I hope you fight twice as well as she does,” he laughed. “Call me Red.”

The Mohrg approached rapidly, if I twisted just right I could slam my rear hooves into its face and crush the skull on its nose. Then-

The crackling shriek of Red’s magic shattered the alien sky. A loud thump and roar deafened my left ear, the Mohrg’s left wing exploded into a cloud of blue flames and shards of bones. The monster screamed, plummeting downwards like a rock.

“Keep it busy, while I carve us up some undead cake,” Red called jumping off my head and entering a swan dive after the Mohrg, a large tubular weapon vanishing in a flash of orange as he fell.

“How the buck do you do that!?” I demanded, desperately needing any kind of anchor for reality.

“I summoned it from my closet back home. Wait, how I can do that at all being an earth pony?” He asked.

“Yeah!” I demanded.

“Uh, tell you what,” he called. “If we find a greater daemon on the way out, I’ll kill it and you can eat the heart to absorb its magic. But for now, just pile drive this little bitch, or something!”

He was right. Focus on killing that damn thing. I nodded, turned, and banked slightly, moving into a more controlled descent. We had a kilometer to go till the ground.

He wanted me to keep it busy while he smashed the skulls… I could do that.

Felling Axe - 13th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

The Pyramid - Sapphire Hive

The combined firepower of Blade, Sa’mas, and I had forced Sunlit out into the hallway. Repose managed to shield my hive mates from Sun’s assault, but the first opportunity he had, the bastard hit him with a spell that sent him screaming in a heap to the floor.

Repose couldn’t help us. Not against a necromancer. It was up to us.

Blade’s whips cracked and snapped, the points cutting into Sun’s silver barrier. Blade wasn’t wielding them as well as she had before, or maybe she couldn’t use them indoors very well. Regardless, she was able to keep nearly constant pressure on Sunlit who turned out was one hell of a battlemage.

Droplets of molten metal rained down from the ceiling in front of me, sun’s spell having melted the steel panels overhead. I dodged to the right, moving around the burning drops, snapped my weapon up and took a shot. The harpoon smashed through Sun’s shield, deflecting as it broke through and struck the wall.

Immediately Blade’s knife tipped whips sliced in, striking Sun around his remaining eye. Sun hissed in pain, his eye closing tightly. This was my chance!

I sprinted forwards, axe raised in one hoof. The distance between us shrank. He opened his eye, the pupil twisted towards me, no way he could react in time!

I swung my axe at Sun’s head, the axe burying itself in his skull with a solid crack. YES! It was finished!

A spear of silver light slammed into my gut, punching through my armor, exoskeleton, and guts with one sickening crunch. The blast threw me back a dozen feet into the puddle of molten metal. I felt my armor begin to heat up, but couldn’t move. Paralyzed! But, how!?

And how was he still moving with an axe lodged in his head!?

Sa’mas’s leg cannon’s rumbling ‘thooom’ shook the hall, sending a massive blue plasma ball screaming towards Sun’s face.

His horn flashed silver. The ball slowed as if moving through rubber, then snapped back, flying back down the hall. Sa’mas’s cry of pain mixed with the crackling sound of the ball detonating.

Sun sneered, ripping the axe out of his head with a squelch. The gash not even hindering him for a second as he put his shield back up.

“Ha! It worked! There isn’t anything you can do to even hurt me!” Sun cackled. “I can toy with you all I like!”

“Funny,” Blade retorted, lashing out at Sun’s shield with her whips, seeking to wear down his defenses again. “I thought you despised litches. Never figured you’d become one.”

I had to move! I had to help! Come on body, obey!

“Oh please,” Sunlit laughed. “I’m superior to Rotbreath in every way. I’m not a puppet living in some jar on a shelf. I’m beyond litches! I’m far above that silly idea. I found a very very old spell… and a friend was right. I wasn’t using it properly, so I cast it on myself! Cut me into any number of pieces you want, it won't matter.”

Sunlit’s magic solidified in the air, forming a cloud of daggers before flying down the corridor. A half dozen skipped off my armor, dissipating a second after impact leaving a slight gouge in the metal. Thankfully none pierced through.

“Everyone who thinks they are indestructible is wrong,” Blade replied adamantly.

I heard her whips clatter to the floor. A second later she shot past me like a fireball, surrounded in a nimbus of emerald flames. She slammed against his shield, vaporizing it immediately and throwing Sun backward a few meters. Then the air she displaced rushed back in with a loud crack, slapping me in the back of my head hard enough to make me see stars.

Sunlit simply stood back up, head hanging awkwardly from his neck. A mist of silver energy built up around Sun, his wounds knitted back together, neck popping as it ratcheted back into place.

“Your pathetic excuse for a soldier is paralyzed for an hour,” Sun taunted. “Your ally is unconscious, or maybe dead, who can tell with that tin can she’s in. And you just hit me with everything you’ve got, and I stood back up.

“Maybe something can destroy me, but not any other unicorn. I’m above all of you pathetic wastes of life now!”

Blade lowered her head, horn sparking slightly. She was building up for something… But what?

“I used to be pretty arrogant too, let me teach you a valuable lesson in power,” Blade growled.

“Please, I can see your aura. You’ve got so many enchanted doodads and spells going to buff yourself,” Sun said sinisterly, a twisting, corkscrew wrapped beam lancing out from his horn in punctuation of his sentence.

Blade had no room to dodge. The spell hit Blade squarely in her barrel, splitting into a million tiny strands which wrapped around her, digging inwards before exploding in a flash of silver.

“Or should I say, had! HAHA! You were so easy to dispe-” Sunlit stopped mid-sentence, eye widening in horror.

Repose had been right. Blade did use illusions. He had been wrong too. Because it wasn’t just her eyes. It was her everything.

Her entire body was scar tissue, with not one patch of fur, scrap or mane, or tail left. Every last inch of her had been burned, badly. Her hooves were shod with orange-bronze horseshoes etched with what even I could recognize as arcane runes, the kind ancient archmages used as a maker’s mark.

Blade’s face was hidden behind a porcelain mask which covered everything save for her eyes, and her horn. Without her illusion, her eyes were a beautiful cyan color. Her horn provided the only hint of her former colors, a pale amberish yellow. Her cutiemark still graced her flanks, looking as pristine as if whatever injury had befallen her simply ignored the orange and red burning sunlike-orb mark.

But what terrified Sunlit, were her wings. Her large, flesh, actual bodypart wings which were spread open intimidatingly, the tactic extra effective since each individual feather looked to be made from frozen fire. The air around Blade’s head and plot shimmered, before long, flowing a yellow and red mane and tail of fire blossomed, literally growing and spreading like a flower.

“You bucked up HARD!” Blade growled in rage.

“Oh no!” Sun squeaked.

“Those were power LIMITERS!” Blade roared, walking forwards, each syllable taking her another step. “Do you know how hard it is to be an alicorn and NOT serve Equestria as a ruler!? I don’t WANT to rule Equestria. If this structure can’t hide my arcane signature, Celestia might sense me! I don’t hate her, but I refuse to be chained to a throne! I may have to kill an entire identity because of you!”

The air around Blade shimmered and rippled with heat, sparks formed, drifting off her body as she advanced on the rapidly retreating undead unicorn.

“I LIKED being Blade,” she screamed. “We had a good thing going as her! I got to help my best friend liberate a people she saw suffering. Your actions have just sentenced an entire nation to starve and DIE under the talons of sadistic warlords. All because of some stupid bucking grudge! BURN!”

I felt the heat char my face as the hallway erupted into a solid wall of pure white fire. The flames churned and roared for a full minute before dying down, leaving the hallway empty, but glowing white hot, molten metal dripping down the walls, floor, ceiling… and entire ten-meter section of hallway gone.

Blade remained.

“If your scattered ashes are undead and can hear me, if you regenerate from this and I see you, next time, I’ll do more than incinerate you. Spacetime itself burns you know, and NOTHING survives that,” she warned.

The alicorn turned around and walked over the molten pools of metal with casual indifference. Stepping onto an unslagged section of the floor she sighed sadly, folding her wings to her sides. Her horn shone a light cyan for a moment, and I felt control return to my body.

“Stand up, it’s alright,” she said morosely.

I stood up. Blade cast a second spell, putting the illusory from I was used to into place, her wings vanishing as if they weren't there, expertly hidden with the spell.

“I won't tell a single soul,” I promised.

Blade smiled slightly. “You’re a good friend, Fell. I wish I was with you more than half the time,” she lamented.

I frowned, head tilting in confusion. “Ummm… What?”

“‘I, am two ponies. We share the disguise… Helps build alibis. Celestia and Luna were certain that Ca- um, my friend was Blade. So I… Helped. Can we please forget all of this? Please?” Blade begged, eyes pleading with me for mercy. “I-I can’t get tied to a throne! That's not my destiny. I need to remain at my friend's side.”

There was one last thing I needed to know, and I would never have another chance to ask. “Only on one condition,” I said firmly.

“Name it,” Blade said equally seriously.

“What the hell can burn the bucking Alicorn of Fire!?” I asked fearfully.

She blushed, and gave me an embarrassed grin. “That happened slightly before ‘ascending’ as you’d call it, I sort of materialized in the air and fell into a vat of acid in an old wizard’s lab. I-I know somepony who could heal me, but that would involve getting a DNA sample taken, which would mean he’d know what I am, which means the Equestrian Crown would know…”

I frowned sadly. “I’m sorry… But shouldn’t ascending have healed you?”

She shook her head. “Not the way I did it. I um, I climbed out of the acid and stepped into those horseshoes while running, screaming, and trying to find a base to neutralize the acid. Then the wings happened, and no, I can’t take the shoes off. I think they are some kind of defective prototype, because I’m… Flawed. End of discussion about actual me. Come on, we need to see if Sa’mas is alright.”

“Fine,” the changeling warrior moaned. “Just came too… Did he dump acid on you? Do you need a med kit?”

“Don’t play coy,” Blade warned. “If you tell anyone-”

“Heh, ma’am, we all have our secrets. So I say again, you got burned by acid in the current fight, and never ever before, right? So you need a medical kit, right?” She elaborated.

“Ah… Thank you,” Blade sighed in relief. “But I’m fine.”

“Don't worry, I hate being nailed down in one place too. After this job, my husband and I need to go pick up our Daughter and her marefriend. You just can’t have freedom to travel like that if you're nailed to a big chair,” she said pushing herself up slowly. “Man this hurts! I’ve gotta see my weapons mare about finding out how he reflected my shot… Is Red back yet?”

I shook my head, “Not that I know… Will Light be okay?”

She nodded. “As long as she doesn't go mad in Tartarus, Doom will keep her safe. They are afraid of us.”

Looking back at the three hundred meters of melted, shredded, crystal shard perforated, spellbolt scorched hallway, and given the twenty-two times we’d killed Sunlit, most of them being her doing, I could believe that.

“Doom?” Blade asked curiously.

“My pet name for him,” she giggled.

“Well, let’s get back to the Queen’s Chamber and wait for her. Blade, you were going to get an airship for us, right?” I asked hopefully.

She nodded. “Yes… I’ll need to talk to my friend, find out if I was noticed while my limiters were down. I didn’t think any unicorn would be able to disrupt them.”

“I don’t think any of us expected that,” I laughed.

The post-combat triumph rush was starting to come in, soothing the pain from wounds and-

Why were my guts burning?

“Oh… Yes. I have a massive gaping hole in my chest.” I remembered. “Um, help?”

Sa’mas picked me up, setting me on her back. “Don’t worry soldier, I’ve got you.”

Light Step - 13th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

The Bloodspires - Tartarus

Absolutely nothing about this place was okay. The air felt like an oil, the ground felt like glass, and shattered like it when anything heavy slammed into it. Then the ground would bleed.

Everything reeked, my eyes watered and burned. I’d thought the Mohrg smelled bad. Now it smelt fine. The razorblade-like flowers I landed on when after the monster threw me off its back were my new standard for bad smells.

Ponies throw around the saying ‘I’d rather die then do that again.’ In this case, it was true. I honestly would rather die than ever smell these rotting meat colored buckers ever again.

I rolled out of the flower patch back onto the grassy ground, springing upright, blood from a hundred little cuts and several larger wounds dripping onto the ground.

The Mohrg snaked towards me, dragging the scything claw I’d nearly snapped off limply behind it, the other limb raised to strike. I braced myself. It lunged.

The claw spiked towards my skull, I raised my right foreleg, smashing the claw aside like a club. Stepping forwards into the opening, I dug my left shoulder into the monster’s chest, and snapped my right leg back down, pinning its arm across my other shoulder.

“GO!” I yelled, hoping Red was in earshot.

The stallion replied by revving a chainsaw. I swear the sky darkened as if recoiling from the sound of the tool, but then the Mohrg screeched as the saw ground through its bony hide. Cutting away at whatever part of it Red had chosen to slice into.

I had been afraid of this thing. Now I knew it was an idiot. It fell for this trick a full five times so far.

The Mohrg’s tongues whipped out of its maw, sliced deeply into my right side. I screamed in pain as one of its barbs bit into one of my ribs. Bracing my rear hooves as well as I could against the glassy ground, I twisted my hips and shoulders, bones creaking under stress from the motion.

Slowly, carefully, pushing against the Mohrg’s thrashing motion, I managed to lift it up enough to push myself under its front half and throw it away from me.

The monster smashed into the ground, the crust cracking, forming a pool of blackish-red around the mangled beast.

“Hey, dumbass!” Red called.

The Mohrg looked over at him just in time to see the armored stallion playfully toss a skull between his forehooves then smash it to dust on the ground.

Yes! One more, probably! We’d destroyed fourteen. No way it had more than that. Not with how many holes we’d put into it.

We’d destroyed the skull on its nose first. I had no idea how the beast saw anything, but it did. And it was pissed. The Mohrg unleashed an unholy scream, louder and more bone chilling than any I’d heard it make before. Its centipedal body coiled up, bringing it’s mangled form into as much of a fighting position as it could take.

A second monstrous roar thundered across the infernal landscape from my right.

“Looks like someone thinks our toy is challenging him for territory,” Red said eagerly.

I looked right, not wanting to be blindsided by something horrible. Clinging to one of the massive bleeding spires was a beast I could only describe as a hideous dragon. Wingless, grotesquely over-muscled, with elongated limbs too thin for its body despite the muscle on them. Its horns, claws, and fangs were black like dry blood, and it’s fish-like bruise purple scales oozed and dripped what I assumed was a poison.

“A Hell Barron, eh?” Red mused. “Take out bony over there, kid. I got this.”

“That thing is three times my size! How do you ‘got this’?” I asked, turning my eyes back to the Mohrg.

Its head had turned, taking in the daemon which began slowly pad forwards like a tiger stalking prey. The Mohrg stepped backward, clearly thinking of fleeing. Interesting…

“You’re not in frag range from it,” Red informed. “Ready? GO!”

Red galloped off to my right, screaming a wordless challenge to his new target. I took a breath, steeled myself, and charged the Mohrg.

I had no idea where another skull could be. Its body had been carved full of so many holes… Whatever magic kept intact when it looked like Drakeish cheese was beyond me. But if it needed a skull to work, all that meant was I had to disarm it and crush every last inch of the bucking thing.

The Mohrg whipped around, hearing me run at it. It hissed angrily, remaining legs clattering as it charged as well. The uneven glassy ground closed rapidly. It opened its maw, tongues sliding out, ready to rip more chunks out of my hide. I grit my teeth, Readying my own plan.

The Mohrg suddenly spat, tongues launching forwards an extra three meters. I jumped, snapping my wings open and pushing down as hard as I could. My wings caught the heavy air, and the single flap carried me up and over the lashing barbed tentacles.

I twisted, spinning around to face the same direction as the Mohrg, and closed my wings. I dropped like a rock, falling atop it’s back, smashing the beast flat against the ground hard enough to crack it. The Mohrg screamed. I sat up, keeping it pinned under my rear legs, drew back my forehooves and threw a flurry of punches against its spine.

Bone cracked and splintered under the assault. Chips of bones flew as three explosions thundered in the distance. The beast beneath me shook and screamed, trying to throw me off. I felt the layer of magically hardened bone give and my hoof, and then my hoof plunged into something soft.

The Mohrg shrieked loud enough to make my ears ring, it’s front half dropping to the ground, and ripping away from the rear, pulling away, leaving behind a trail of rotten flesh strings.

Buck! The skull wasn’t in it’s mid back!

The beast wheeled around, visibly flinching as Red’s chainsaw screeched almost louder than the other monster’s angry bellow.

Ha! Distracted, and I know where the last skull has to be!

I jumped, left hoof drawn back for one final punch, hoof point lined to focus all my strength right on the chisel point-

The Mohrg wheeled with lightning speed and stabbed it’s remaining talon through my right flank. I felt it's talon scrape along my hip bone as it punched clearly through easily as a lance.

I screamed in agony, giving the Mohrg all the time it needed to wrench me into the ground, twist, and sink it’s teeth into my shoulder. Blinded by pain, I reached up with my left hoof, grabbing the mohrg by its bottom jaw, and ripped its teeth from my shoulder.

If I didn’t finish it now, it had me. That realization blanked out my mind. There was only me and the enemy. Buck pain! Buck wounds!

I forced my injured shoulder to work, jamming my right hoof against its upper jaw, and with all my remaining strength, shoved my hooves apart. The Mohrg gurgled, bone cracked, it’s carapace split like a log down half of its body, revealing a single skull buried deep within the desiccated monsters carcass.

The Mohrg thrashed violently, barbed tongs slashing my neck and back to ribbons. I drew back my left hoof and slammed it into the skulls red glowing runes. The monster froze, and then fell to pieces, each bone parting from the others, the rotting flesh dropping as limply as uncooked steak.

I’d done it. It was dead. I wanted to scream my victory to the heavens, but I didn’t have the energy.

Where was Red? Did he need help? Maybe I looked dead, would be ignored, and could get a second wind. Then go over and help.

I lifted my head, panting heavily. The only thing I could see was the draconic demon, bleeding from a half dozen gaping wounds, walking towards with a hunger in its eyes and a sickening smile on its lips.

My eyes widened in terror. No way I could take on that thing even if I were fresh out of bed, fed, and healed! Oh buck! It killed him, he didn’t have that, why did I trust-

The demon lumbered to a stop, hissing angrily. No, wait, it wasn’t hissing that was-

Blood sprayed from the demon's chest as a screaming blade erupted from within the monster, slicing a line down its barrel and chest. It dropped immediately, falling onto its side in the grip of its death throes. Two hooves pried the folds of flesh aside. Red walked out, reached back in,and pulled out a large jet black heart, faint glowing orange lines shimmering between its fibers.

He looked over, squinted at me, and waved. “Good job, kid! Funny thing about these big ones. They always forget to chew thoroughly. Heh… Hold on a sec.”

I lay in stunned disbelief as Red calmly walked over to the beast’s horns, revved his saw and calmly cut each of them off, banishing the removed horns with a wave of his hoof and a few orange sparks.

Red then walked over to me, carrying the thing’s heart with ease. Which was impressive considering it was the size of his own bucking barrel and chest.

“Man I wouldn’t mind drinking a cold beer and watching some wrestling right now. Doesn't that sound great? Perfect cool down to a great morning’s work,” he said happily, dropping the heart to the ground and stretching his neck and back.

“I’d rather go for a medic,” I groaned, the pain coming back now that my adrenaline wore off.

“So… You’re covered in blood, fair to say you’re wounded?” He asked me evenly.

I nodded. “Yeah, in a lot of places.”

“Well, that’s good! You’re lying in a pool of Tartarus’s own ‘blood’, it’s seeped into you for sure, and you’re not a demon. Congrats! You’re immune to corruption,” he exclaimed in honest relief. “You should still stand up through. Tartarus might decide to sprout tentacles and cram stuff into any orifice it can reach… You don’t want to crap out hellspawn later. Trust me. That’s why my armor covers the plot.”

Despite the bone claw impaled through my flank, I stood up. There was no way I was going to go through that! Thank you adrenaline.

“Can we leave before anything else happens?” I asked. “I like a good fight, but I’m spent. And it looks like things here are out of my league.”

Red nodded. “They are. But not by much. You show potential… I was joking earlier about maybe getting you some magic, but well, damn kid! You did great. I don’t suppose you need an Uncle do you? I think with a little work you’d make for a good apprentice slayer! And I need one of those, this place is ruled by an asshole called Dawn and- Uh… Well, I can tell you everything later. Want the job?”

I’d make for a good apprentice? Huh?

My surprise must have shown clearly because Red laughed. “Hey, not just anypony can come here and not go insane within a few minutes. Let alone bleed here and not mutate. You’re a rare person, you could eat this thing, gain some of that demon's magic, and have nothing bad happen to you.

“Most ponies would do that and just revive the damn thing by becoming it… Which is why my wife and I haven’t let our daughter in on the family business. She's not immune.

"Tell you what. How about we go back to Equis, I’ll preserve this thing, we can talk about a proper apprenticeship and job offer? Part time to start. I’m too busy to do daily training right now.”

I paused for a moment, thinking carefully about his offer. In the end, it wouldn’t hear to at least listen to him in full. Right?

“Sure, no harm in hearing you out. Can we get medical attention first, please? I don't know how much back I have left.” I asked politely.

Red nodded.

“Of course. Sam’s got a full surgical kit. Hold on tight, kid,” Red said as he reached out and grabbed my leg.

His armor burned orange again, shimmering and crackling as the portal formed around us. The sharp tug on my guts felt agonizing this time like the realm didn’t want me to go. But despite its wishes, I fell forwards, sliding into the portal. We were going home.

As I fell into the portal one thing became very clear. Before talking to Red about that job offer, I needed a nap.

14 - Plans for the Future

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Solar Court, Canterlot - Equestria

14th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

The sun shone through the stained glass windows, projecting images from Equestria’s past onto the highly polished marble floor. The pillars holding up the massive vaulted roof were fashioned from perfectly clear quartz and decorated with intricate carvings. Between each window hung finely woven silk tapestries, bearing the crests of the families who ruled Equestria’s various provinces.

The raised dais upon which the throne sat had a plush red carpet leading straight to it from the doors, and was paired with two large red and gold tapestries on other side of the throne which hung down to the floor, providing the impression that the carpet was some sort of silken river pooling around the throne, which sat between two ‘waterfalls’.

But the crown jewel of Celestia’s throne room was her throne itself.

The throne’s shape was reminiscent of a fancy high backed dining table chair. Were it not for the gold leaf covering its entirety and the quilted red silk lining the back and seat, the throne could almost be called simple. Instead the small embellishments, the gold, the silk, the small white diamonds inset into the intricacies of the decorative carvings, they made the throne into a piece of artwork.

Celestia sat on her throne, her ethereal mane flowing regally in the soft white light, looking as close to the sun as anypony could hope to become.

Before her stood a pair of ponies. The first was Princess Cadence, who was looking a little nervous at the moment. The other was a slightly tall unicorn mare with a pastel washed out purple coat, and a slightly pink pearl colored mane. She was Cadence’s chambermaid Sunset, a personal assistant of sorts to the Princess of Love.

Celestia nodded at the two mares as they approached her throne. She couldn’t help but frown at Sunset. While the mare had a common name her flawless memory reminded Celestia a lot of her foster daughter who had also been named Sunset. Their cutiemarks were similar as well, but the Sun Princess’s ‘identify’ spell always listed her as Sunset Breeze, and it had never been fooled before.

Of course, the pale purple pony was also creepy for not seeming to have any sort of personal aura, yet still being capable of magic. Presumably, her talent rendered her aura invisible, but Celestia always assumed there was more to oddities than the obvious explanation.

“Is something wrong, your majesty?” Sunset asked with a polite yet concerned frown.

Celestia pursed her lips, mulling the idea of confronting her over for a few moments. “I’ve suspended court for one hour to address your proposal, Cadence. But please let me have one minute. It’s time I asked something. Miss Breeze, why don’t you have any personal aura?”

The mare’s ears drooped in alarm, but her face remained static. “Er, beg pardon?”

“I’m sorry, perhaps I should have provided some context,” Celestia conceded politely. “Every time I see you, you seem to have no magical aura at all. I have known a few unicorns who had no aura, but they were magically dead, and I have seen you perform basic spells before. Are you intentionally concealing your aura? That is a crime, in case you are unaware.”

Cadence cleared her throat. “Tia, she doubles as my bodyguard. Her lack of an aura is a combination of her special talent and an enchantment we co-designed. We wanted it to only mask her active spell effects and enchantments, but well, we couldn’t achieve that level of precision.

“As she can’t go around the palace heavily warded and not disrupt diplomatic functions, we decided it would be best to keep possible attackers worried and guessing at what she could have than knowing what she does have. She has my authorization to use Cloaking charms… Does she also need your approval? I’m sorry if that is the case. I thought my authorization would be enough.”

Celestia nodded slightly, turning her head to face Sunset. “Is this true?” She asked.

“Yes,” Sunset agreed immediately.

“Alright. I’m satisfied. For the record, Cadence, your authority is more than sufficient to authorize a pony to carry a weapon. You can appoint knights, after all. IF you wish to update your enchantment, Miss Breeze, I can provide you with a similar Cloaking Spell used by my Guard which works as you intended,” Celestia offered as she settled comfortably back into her throne.

“Now then, Cadence,” Celestia continued, turning back to face her old friend. “You want to convince me to grant asylum to a litch, a Sapphire changeling, and a Prench deserter. I’ll happily allow Light Step to immigrate, anypony who leaves an army over moral concerns is, of course, welcome in Equestria.

“But the others? I must admit I laughed at your letter, but you did seem quite serious. Written words are not suitable for this matter. Convince me.”

Cadence nodded. She’d known that it would be a hard sell to bring Repose and Felling into Equestria itself. What’s more, she didn’t want to essentially keep them prisoner in her castle for the next four decades.

“Celestia,” Cadence began, “I am aware of how insane it must sound for me of all ponies to ask you to grant asylum to a litch. However, despite Gentle Repose’s undead state, I assure you he is quite sane. The mercenary I have employed to escort him checks in with me daily, and she has been very consistent in her reports.

“Gentle Repose is indeed a litch. But he is absolutely harmless. While the technical details went over my agent’s head, it’s very clear that Repose solved some major flaw in the spells and enchantment which creates a litch. He has retained his personality, emotions, memories, and possesses no malicious intentions.

“In fact, he has been consistently described as ‘Twilight if she preferred enchantment to evocation’. An assessment I agree with based on the data. He’s a tinkerer and a nerd. The only difference between himself and anypony else is he is exceptionally hard to kill.

“What’s more, as he is over five hundred years old, it’s clear his sanity is stable and will last. But the most convincing fact I can share with you his reason for seeking to become a lich in the first place. He was afraid of missing out on new discoveries.”

Celestia blinked, a frown parting her lips. “He became undead so he could see the march of technological progress?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Cadence confirmed. “He has no desire to rule, and even as a litch he’s only in pre-alicorn Twilight’s league as a mage. He’s not dangerous.”

“At the same time, a walking corpse would frighten anypony enough to attack him. Would he remain peaceful in such a situation?” Celestia asked.

Cadence smiled, shaking her head. “Actually, you’d never know he wasn’t alive. He keeps his body in pristine shape. In fact, he’s rather cute. If I was into necrophilia and didn’t have Shining in my life, I wouldn’t mind a few romps with him.”

Celestia nodded thoughtfully, trying to think of any other major issues with allowing an undead temporary citizenship. “Very well… How hard would he be to destroy if we had to fight him?”

“Fairly easy,” Cadence soothed. “Again, he’s not stronger than Twilight used to be. Additionally, he’s not a battlemage, though he does apparently know a few field artillery and fortification spells. However, I know his weakness. As it happens, what makes a lich a lich is binding their consciousness to an object, and controlling their body from it like a puppet.

“Repose is bound to a pocket watch. It’s magically protected from accidental damage, naturally. But it's still just a watch. Smash it, and he would die immediately. Furthermore, I have it on good authority that he can not leave an area of a few kilometers around that watch. If he does, he would drop dead and have to reform a new body, which takes several days.

“If you wanted to contain him, you, I, or Twilight could simply keep the watch on their person. However, I personally see this as cruel since again, he’s just a nerd who likes to tinker.”

Celestia hummed to herself and then nodded once more, her eyes softening. “Alright. Let’s move on to Felling Axe. Why should we allow him in?”

“Because he’s not one of Chrysalis followers, and should be treated like anyling not affiliated with her Warband,” Cadence answered instantly.

Celestia sighed in frustration. “If that’s true, then he’s welcome,” she said, shifting forwards in her throne to look Cadence in the eyes. “However, while you did say that in your letter, I need proof. The Sapphire Hive is an official enemy of the state. We are in a state of war with them.

“Yes, still. I’m not entirely convinced Chrysalis is dead for sure. Maybe I’m just being silly, but someling that old had to have a contingency plan or two. Which is why I am still holding the Sapphires captured in the battle of the badlands in military prisons.

“What is your proof that Felling is not affiliated with his family?”

Cadence gave Celestia a thousand yard stare, looking directly into the off-white alicorn’s eyes with all the incredulously her mind could muster.

“He’s an individual,” She said incredulously. “He’s got a personality. He’s a people.”

Celestia frowned, her brow furrowing at Cadence’s tone. “Cadence…” she warned.

The princess had always hated feeling mocked.

Cadence’s face scrunched up in confusion. “How- I… Nevermind. You forgot. That’s fine. Chrysalis used some kind of spell to turn her entire army into drones. Remember? They would atrophy and just kind of drop dead within a few days of being too far from the swarm?”

Celestia opened her mouth, shut it again, and slapped a hoof to her forehead in embarrassment.

“Faust’s mane… you’re right. Since he’s still an individual he couldn’t have taken part in the invasion,” she groaned. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long, long day. I had to explain to a Duke that his threat of ‘leaving the union’ is empty because it’s illegal for a province to leave Equestria, and that his soldiers would probably not continue to follow him if he succeeded because I refused to allow him to annex part of Zebrica…”

Celestia sighed and rubbed her temples. “I’m starting to wish I had made it a crime to threaten to leave. Then I could just replace that idiot. His daughter is a much more stable and kindly mare.”

“Er, well…” Cadence began, suddenly shaking her head. “N-nevermind. Back to Felling Axe… he did take part in the Invasion. However, he claims to have deserted during it after being ordered to attack civilians. He even took out many of his own hive before leaving the battlefield. I think that’s worth a pardon.

“Especially since we have another Sapphire soldier serving in the Wonderbolts.”

Celestia nodded. “Granted,” she admitted. “That is commendable and deserving of a pardon. For the record, Lightstride is mentally ill. She may have been a Sapphire, but as of today, she’s 'always' been a pegasus. And don’t say otherwise around her. Didn’t Twilight explain Kriit’s Syndrome to you?”

The pink alicorn shook her head. “No, this is the first I am hearing of this,” she informed with a concerned frown. “Is she getting medical care?”

“No, there isn’t a cure,” Celestia replied. “Kriit’s is a post-traumatic disorder for changelings which occurs if something happens to them which is so heinous they can’t bear the thought of being a changeling any longer. They abandon their identities and fully fall into a completely new non-changeling persona. As far as Lightstride thinks, acts, and dreams, she is a pegasus. Ponyfeathers, she’s so convinced she’s a pony that her cutiemark works!

"If she ever remembers her true identity she could die due to subconsciously willing her body to self-destruct. Let me be clear, there is no Sapphire changeling in the Wonderbolts. There is simply a new pegasus member. And if we can ever get her to visit Doctor Lily, there will be no trace of changeling left in her. Understood?”

“Understood,” Cadence agreed with a sharp nod. “Back on topic, what is your decision?”

Cadence stood still while Celestia rolled her lips in thought, eventually nodding to herself.

“I think I will allow them temporary citizenship, for the duration of their exile from Prance,” She decided. “However, before I do I want three things to happen. First, they are to be delivered to your keep as soon as possible. I want you to personally read each of their hearts and send me a letter giving me your personal assessments. No third party info. Your mercenary could be wrong in her judgment.

“Second, I want Twilight to confirm your assessment. I’ll have her travel to the Crystal Spire as soon as she can. Yes, I know she is uncomfortable there, but I am sure she will understand this is important.

“Third, I want you to tell me why you are helping them.”

“That’s all reasonable,” Cadence agreed with a polite nod. “I was going to pick them up personally on the border, but I can have the airship they are using arrive at the Spire instead. As for Twilight, she should come to the Spire anyways. Because of the ‘why’.

“I’m helping these three because Emperor Prance asked me to. Repose was exiled by the Steward because he was working on a possible cure for the Emperor’s condition. I was promised a very favorable trade deal in exchange for assisting the Emperor in this way… and he’s my friend. Why wouldn’t I help somepony who is likely to have a way of healing an injured friend?”

Celestia sighed, closing her eyes tightly. “Why wasn’t this in your letter!? That’s worth some risk. Cementing a stronger tie to Prance would solve so many of our international problems. Do it! Tartarus, I’ll set up a credit line from the treasury for the project.”

Cadence coughed into her hoof. “I didn’t mention it in writing in case the letter was intercepted… The three of them are still outside our protection. Oh yes! I was also promised that Twilight would be given access to the Emperor’s personal library of First Kingdom tomes if he is healed with our assistance.”

“He promised what?” Celestia asked, eyes widening.

“He’ll let Twilight read preserved, readable condition, First Kingdom era books, including spellbooks, which he has kept preserved since his colthood, if we help him return to his throne,” Cadence repeated.

Celestia waved a hoof at her throne room doors urgently. “Why are you still here? Go! Housing a pair of unusual ponies and a changeling is a small price to pay for that! I’m assuming she will be allowed to make copies? … It won’t matter, she’ll remember them.”

Cadence smiled happily. She had hoped she wouldn’t need to use the fact they were being paid handsomely to help in order to convince Celestia to do the right thing. Which is why she saved that card for the very end.

“Do you still want me to go through with conditions one and two?” Cadence asked happily.

“Yes! Just to be safe, we need to still be absolutely certain they are all good ponies. Or bugs,” Celestia agreed. “However, if the reward for helping them is priceless knowledge made accessible to our greatest wizard, some leeway in just how good they are is acceptable so long as we can control them.

“I have to return to my duties. As soon as you get a budget for their work send me a letter by dragonfire. I’ll have a credit line available and ready to be opened by moonrise.”

“Of course, Tia,” Cadence agreed with a smile. “We’ll get right on that. Come on Sunset, we need to get to the Spire and talk to Blade. Get her to change course.”

Sunset nodded, speaking for the first time since the conversation began. “I’m sure she’ll understand, Cadie. Farewell, Princess,” she said, giving Celestia polite bow before the two mares teleported away.

One going to the Crystal Spire, the other returning to the pirate airship, the Kestrel. ‘Blade’ already had her orders.

Light Step - 14th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

The Kestrel - In Flight Above the Trade Sea

I’d been on a lot of airships in my day. The Kestrel was one of the worst. Big canvas balloon, sides made of scrap steel, overlapped to form crude armor… It looked like a literal flying junkyard.

It also flew like a junkyard. The rough timber deck shuddered and shook even without winds blowing the hull about. The whole thing creaked and moaned.

Blade wasn’t joking when she said she sent a crippled ship to pick us up. I wasn’t even a Sea Guard and I could tell this heap was limping along after being battered to hell and back. I remember somepony mentioning something about this thing having fought a Griffonese flagship. It seemed beaten and battered enough to have just barely limped its way to victory against something like that.

All that said, it was still fairly fast, I didn’t have to walk, and I fit comfortably into the rear cargo bay. Also, somepony had thought to bring me something to eat. It was a sweet thought, but two chicken breasts are half a mouthful when I’m not normal sized. Thankfully, we would be landing soon.

Blade came back from checking in only to report that plans had changed and we were being taken straight to the Crystal Empire. Why? Turns out that the Emperor heard about Repose’s attempt at a cure, and went over the Steward’s head to get Celestia to agree to construct the device and shelter us in exchange for something pretty big.

Which meant we were heading to work as soon as possible. Because Celestia really wanted whatever her reward was.

With any luck the Crystal Empire would have enough food to keep me going until somepony could shrink me. Mabey Repose could make a charm before being put to work? If not, surely someone else could help. I heard a rumor that the Crystal Empire was the transformation capital of the world.

The timber door leading into the airship’s main deck creaked open. Red’s boots thunked loudly against the floor as he stepped in and closed the door behind him.

This was the first time I’d ever seen him with his helmet off. He was a pretty handsome stallion, dark chestnut fur, a sandy tan colored mane given a short cropped military cut, and emerald green eyes.

He’d kept the rest of his armor on, which made me wonder how a jawline could look more chiseled than plate steel. And also what exactly he had in that full saddlebag and rucksack kit lashed to his back.

“Red,” I greeted with a hungry nod.

“Hey there, kid,” Red greeted with a smile. “Finally have a little time to break away from everything. Sam needed a pretty damn good nap and a hearty meal to get her head back on straight. Are you ready for that explanation I promised?”

I nodded. “Yes. Please.”

Red slid the bags off his back and sat down next to the door, facing me as I lay between two stacks of crates. “Where do you want me to start?” He asked plainly.

I didn’t even need to think for a second. “What is Tartarus? Why do ponies think nothing lives there? How do souls get trapped there? What’s supposed to happen to a soul after you die anyways, I thought they just burned out unless a Necromancer preserved it.”

“We’ll start with souls. This all comes down to souls, so they are pretty damn important,” Red said with a grim frown. “Your soul isn’t what most people think of when they think of the soul. It’s not the force that animates you, it’s not your consciousness. It’s a metaphysical record of you. A copy of your consciousness, with a flawless memory. They are like books that record everything about you.

“Normally, when you die, your soul would… Well, to stick with the book analogy, when your body dies, your soul is read on a higher plane of existence where the gods live. Your consciousness pops back into existence as it's 'read', emerging from your ‘book’. You would then be ‘read’ by Dusk, the goddess of death, and you would be judged by your deeds in life, and your soul would be placed into an afterlife constructed expressly for you. It could be a paradise, it could be a copy of the world you knew, it could be a pit of despair. Depends on what you did in life. You're your own measuring stick.”

“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “But this is just the Old Religion… Is it right? My best friend was a follower. I know a lot of it.”

Red shook his head quickly. “No, most of it is wrong. Anyway, that’s what normally happens to a soul. It’s put into a place made just for you, shaped by your actions. You live there for the rest of eternity.

“But, souls can be burned. Not you know, actually lit on fire, but there isn’t a better word for it. The consciousness can be awakened, recreating the being who ‘wrote the book’, and they can be dismantled slowly to create vast amounts of energy. More energy than any of us mortals can comprehend.

“This is what Tartarus is for. It’s a huge trap meant to drag people, ponies especially, inside. There are portals across dimensions leading to Tartarus from everywhere. Every reality you can imagine. Why? Because if you die there, your soul can’t leave and just drifts around the realm until a demon eats it and burns it for power over the course of eons.

“That’s what demons are for. They are batteries that store the energy of dying souls, as well as warriors under the command of Tartarus’s creator.”

I realized I had been holding in a breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, okay. So. That entire universe is artificial. It’s creator made it to burn souls for fuel to power an army of super-monsters… Having been there, I believe you. That place... It’s not right. Why is the ground alive!?”

“Oh,” Red said, changing conversational gears to a more ‘talking about my adventures’ grandsire tone. “The entire universe is one singular living organism. It took me a long time to get an answer, I had to track down a motherbucking demonic myth to-”

“Wait, wait, what? Myth? They have Myths!?” I demanded incredulously.

How the flying buck could that screaming monster have been smart enough or social enough to have myths!

“Demons are sapient lifeforms. The big ones fear little ones ganging up on them and killing them to steal the souls they stole for themselves so the little ones can become bigger ones. The smaller ones band together and form tribes. They are fairly civilized when they are Imps and other younger daemons. They get brutal as they age and gain power,” Red explained. “Anyways, I had to track down a myth of theirs. A succubus who has free will, I didn’t think one could exist, but she does! She’s also nice. Fell for a young colt in this world actually. Apparently, she likes being a housewife…

“Er, bunny trail aside, Tartarus is one giant living organism because that makes the realm metaphysically ‘life’. Which is why the demons leader can go there. Normally, Dawn can’t leave this universe. He’s chained to it like any other God. But because that universe is nothing but his own domain, he can enter it. It’s a sanctum.”

I frowned, tilting my head in confusion. Which I swore leveled my head relative to the ground.

“The god of LIFE made Tartarus?” I scoffed.

Red nodded. “He did. He’s evil.”

“How can life of all things be evil?” I asked with an eye roll.

“Botflies,” Red answered immediately.

“Huh?” I asked.

Red sighed. “We have a lot more to get to. I’m only going to say this once. Dawn is evil. It's not living itself, or the concept of life. It's the asshole in charge of it. Think about how life is for a moment, really think about it. Botflies, big fat bucks that reproduce by laying eggs inside a pony’s skin. A pony feels a small sting and then a week later has maggots eating them alive for a month until they have grown so big they leave tunnels through the flesh, dig their way out, and then go to pupate into flies and infest others. Oh, and they prefer to lay their eggs in your eyes.

“There are hundred of foals born every year with bone cancer. Cancer which despite magical treatments, mundane treatments, and even alchemy once you get it, it can always come back even if fully removed. Love, the greatest pleasure we can experience can also be the worst pain imaginable to go through, even retroactively under commonly occurring conditions. There are entire species of fungi whose entire life cycle revolves around taking over the bodies of living changelings and using them to spread the fungi to the entire hive so it can eat all of them from the inside out.

“Do you need me to go on? There are countless ways life is cruel, downright evil, and vile seemingly at random. Now remember, there's a guy in charge of all this shit! And the most insidious thing is that despite all of that, no matter what cruelties which you can think of that exist in the world you still want to live.”

“Of course I want to live,” I exclaimed with lips pulling to one side. “Why would I not? There’s a lot of good in life too! It’s worth all the pain.”

Red nodded. “Yeah. That is how every last living thing feels. We also all fear death. We all hope. That’s the point, that’s what he wants. It’s no fun for him if his playthings give up, lay down, and die.”

“But life is about more than just avoiding death!” I protested. “Everypony wants to… start… a… family. Oh.”

It clicked. It really finally clicked. Life was harsh and unfair, that was true. And there were just enough things good about it to keep you hopeful and going on long enough to make more life. Which would also inevitably suffer and spend most of their lives doing everything it took to avoid hardship and pain… and fail. Because everypony experiences some torment.

Red nodded solemnly. “Mhm. What kind of god would make a world like that? Sure. If you let creatures have free will there is going to be pain and suffering. I accept that. But why botflies? Why birth defects? Why can giving birth kill the mother? Why all those ways the world itself can torment you for no reason? Whatever god is in charge of life is either incompetent, or cruel.

“In this case, he’s an asshole and does all of this because he likes it and can get away with it.”

“You’re gearing up to kick his ass!” I exclaimed as the pieces fell into place.

“Yes. I am,” Red confirmed with a proud smile. "Don't get me wrong, someone has to be in charge. But this guy needs to be fired, and since I don't know how to talk to his boss..."

“But, like, wouldn’t that kill everypony? I mean if he is life then-”

“No. That’s the best part, it won’t. If we kill Dawn, his godly powers will not be destroyed but instead, will find another consciousness and latch onto it, making a new god of life. We kill that asshole and someone else gets the power to govern how life works. I don’t want that person to be me, but well, anyone will do better than him,” Red said, spitting in disgust.

“Well, sure… Life is kinda cruel,” I agreed. “But what if someone even more malevolent gets his powers and-”

“The point of Tartarus, the Demons, and luring ponies to die in that realm is to gain enough power so he can kill every other god take their power for himself and become the all powerful overlord of this reality. To have enough power to do that, he will need to kill off a number of people equal to the current population of Equis. I know for a fact he has done this three times before in the past. Oh, and that whole ‘torment’ thing, yeah turns out you get more power out of a soul that suffered in life,” Red said in disgust.

“Ah,” I said, closing my eyes. “Okay, and the good news is… What?”

“Well he hasn’t done that yet because he’s mortal,” Red said happily. “In order to gain enough free will for himself to enact his plans he had to give up some of his power. The downside for him is he can be killed by anything with enough power. He’s not truly immortal anymore.

“If he opened up the gates of Tartarus right now and stormed the world, the combined power of a few alicorns might be able to take him out… if they got very lucky and were very skilled and he slipped up and gave them an opening. But more importantly, the other gods would see him working against the universal order and just annihilate his ass.

“He can’t do shit yet. Not until he can attack without just being insta-killed. And he gains power from his demons. Who can also be killed. With mundane weapons, even. Oh, and when you happen to kill one you can take its power for yourself and well… That power doesn't go to Dawn anymore.

“Kill enough demons, especially the elder ones, and we postpone his planned armageddon. Gain enough power and one day, one of us will get to march up to his fortress and learn if he has a soul that can get sent to his sister. That’s what the Slayers mission is. Delay the inevitable Armageddon, kill Dawn, make life better for everyone, and save the harpies.”

I nodded slowly. With this revelation, I didn’t have a choice. I had to take his job offer. But I still had a few questions.

“Harpies?” I asked seriously.

What the hay were those? A kind of demon? Was there a field manual for them? Some kind of bestiary?

They gave us a bestiary for Prance's monsters. Where else are you going to learn how to identify the different kinds and where their vital areas were?

“Peaceful sapient species native to Tartarus. Extremely kind, but their souls don’t provide much ‘fuel’. Dawn didn’t create them they sort of just sprang into being. They don’t go mad there, but Dawn loves to torment them. The sickest part is that they instinctively want to come to the mortal world, and Dawn lets them. He waits until they are happy and feel safe for the first time in their lives then sends a few demons over to drag them back…” he muttered darkly.

“How big is your organization?” I asked, mentally cringing and raging at that little tidbit.

“Just my wife and I right now. People like you are extremely rare. Despite the small size we’ve set him back three decades so far. Every Elder killed is a serious delay for him,” Red answered.

Okay. Victory was possible. Good.

“How did you learn about all this in the first place?” I asked suspiciously.

“My best friend, a harpy, escaped Tartarus through a portal which happened to be under my bed when I was a colt,” he replied. “I thought she was a monster, she insisted she was running from a monster. She did look really really scared, and dad alway said it was good to be brave so you can be a role model for young fillies needing someone to look up to.

"So I stole my dad’s chainsaw, went through the portal myself, killed the monster, and earned my cutiemark. Been trying to give her a happy life ever since. I am failing. She lost her wings to parasites.”

“I’ll help,” I promised. “When is doomsday? How long do we have to get ready? A week?”

Red shrugged.

“How can you not know that!?” I demanded, ears flying back.

“Sorry, but I don't know. I do know we pushed his planned invasion back thirty years, but I don't know exactly when he planned to attack originally. We have between twenty and thirty years from now before he can attack, assuming we don’t do anything more to slow him down,” Red grunted. “It’s not an immediate threat. We can cool our hooves and train you up. This is something that will happen one day in the far future. If we can’t stop it that is.”

I sighed in relief. “Good! Good… So what do we do then? Do I follow you guys and learn on the job?”

“Hay no!” Red laughed. “You stay in this universe for now and keep an eye on it. This world is Dawn’s second target… he um… he already destroyed one.”

“What?!” I eeped. “But if he-”

“No, no, he didn’t conquer it, he destroyed it. He let out an arch-demon named Grogar to see if he could use his toughest demons to destroy gods. He could. But yeah… that literally destroys the entire universe the tactic is used in. False vacuum collapse. Poof, everything gone. Deleted forever. That was my homeworld too. I liked it,” Red sighed.

“Okay, so he won't do that here because he wants to rule this place, not destroy it,” I said to confirm things to myself.

Because fighting something which once destroyed a universe is more terrifying than I could imagine, WHILE BEING TERRIFIED BY IT!

“No, he won't. And we have at least two full decades to plan and train you. So you just get set up in this universe and act as our scout. When he makes a move, you call us and we come running!” Red said with a grin. “Sound like a plan?”

“You want me to sit on my plot while there’s a bucking doomsday on its way!?” I demanded incredulously.

“No, I want you to train too. I’ll come by whenever I can and teach you everything you need to know. It will be a slow process, but we’ll make a Slayer out of you between missions. And when the shit hits the fan, whenever that may be, then you’ll fight with us,” Red declared as he gazed into my eyes, sealing that promise with a single steely gaze.

“Good… Wait a minute. You said there was a friendly demon,” I said with a frown. “Are there more? Do they all serve him?”

Red nodded. “Yeah, there’s one more besides Helsea. Speaking of that succubus, I promised her I would never tell anyone or thing her pony form’s identity. I can judge hearts now, it’s a skill I learned and can teach you. Despite her origins, she’s on the side of good. Permanently. Because um, well, she’s insane. For a demon. Which makes her safe, nice, kind, and also apparently the best at making chocolate chip cookies. She also thinks souls are gross and doesn't eat them. Completely harmless, since there’s no way to ‘cure’ her, nor does she want to be ‘cured’.

“The only other deamon I found with a good heart didn’t start out as a daemon. They were a filly who got trapped in Tartarus along with their guardian, who was able to shield her mind from the realms mutations, but not her body. Meaning there’s an imp with a pony’s mind out there. That’s all of them I know of, and I’ve seen probably a million.”

“You got her out of there, right?” I asked with a worried frown.

“Who, Helsea? No, she just left,” Red chuckled.

Just left? That seemed too easy. A question for later.

“No! You didn't leave a filly in Tartarus, did you?” I asked pleadingly. “Sure she mutated physically but-”

“Oh! No. Earth Cloud is still in Tartarus for all I know. She and her guardian refused to let me lead them to the nearest portal. Said they were on a mission to find something. They were fine, so I offered to help, they declined, I left them to it,” He explained with a shrug. “Some ponies… am I right?”

That didn’t quite satisfy me.

“What about her guardian? Are they immune?” I questioned.

He nodded twice. “Mhm. The undead can’t be corrupted by Tartarus, and even if she was alive her armor had some really bucking important enchantments on it. Especially that mask… I wish she was evil, I’d have taken it off her corpse.”

“Okay… I um, I guess I’ll have to take your word on that,” I sad.

I was about to ask another question, but then a more important one slammed through into my mind.

“Wait! If demons eat souls, and those souls are tortured people, and that’s where their power comes from, and you’ve been absorbing demons power to get your own power, you’re a demon too!” I accused.

Red rolled his eyes. “No, I’m not! I’m not absorbing the souls. I set them free and absorb the energy created by burning them which had yet to be consumed. You know, the already destroyed parts which sadly, you can’t put back. It's why I’ve killed several hundred thousand of the damn things but am only just now as powerful as a Hell Barron. A mid-tier demon. I get very little power per kill.

"And I don't get demon's powers, the magic I get from them is the same kind harpies have. Mildly enhanced senses. The ability to summon items, change effective mass, speed, and density, and teleportation... Although, porting takes a while to earn. And I've never met a harpy that can do it.”

“Prove it!” I insisted.

I wasn’t about to help until I knew for damn sure that I was doing the right thing.

“Of course,” Red agreed. Reaching into his bag he pulled out a bundle of cloth, unwinding the cloth to reveal the demon heart he’d retrieved the other day. “Touch it. The second you do, you’ll sense all the souls held captive in this thing.

“They will beg you to release them, you can. Just will it and they will be free. The leftover energy is yours to keep. Since you’ll be using it to kill their tormentors, they don’t mind. I’ve had several ponies ask if they could give me all of their power, but I’ve always turned them down. I recommend you do the same.”

I looked at the heart, the odd orange lines glowing within its cracks and crevices made the organ look like it was full of lava.

Should I do this? It could be a trap. An elaborate one meant to trick mortals into getting trapped in some other demon's heart somewhere. Maybe even Red’s.

I knew nothing about him, except that he was ‘at home’ in Tartarus and could use a magic of a kind I’d never seen before. He could easily be a monster pretending to be a friend.

On the other hoof, if he was telling the truth then I had to help. Nothing was being asked of me right now other than to agree to be trained for a new job killing monsters. That’s what I’d done for most of my life so far. The Scouts mostly work on taking down the bigger more dangerous creatures roaming the Empire’s wilds.

Could I trust him? If he wanted to corrupt me, he could easily have done so back in Tartarus. He could have tricked me into eating that heart then and there by saying I had to in order to go home. I’d have bought that.

And this whole spiel. Yeah, it seemed like an attempt to coerce me by using my sense of duty and honor to lever me into doing what he wanted. But while he knew I was a soldier, he knew nothing else about me. He didn’t know my personality at all.

Yeah, this was probably legit. But what happens if this is a trap?

I get used as demon chow.

What happens if this is a legit job offer, and I turn it down?

I just might doom the world to a fate worse than death.

Buck. That’s not much of a choice. Not for me. Needs of the many and all that.

“Alright,” I said with a nod.

I reached out for the heart and took it from his outstretched hoof. It was warm, weighed a surprising amount, and-

<Free us!> A thousand voices cried within my mind.

I dropped the heart in shock. It hit the deck with a meaty thud.

It was all true. No doubt about it.

“How do I-”

“Just will it,” Red repeated.

I nodded, took a deep breath and touched the heart again.

<Please! Mercy!> the voices screamed.

Doing my best to ignore the bubbling mixture of fear and rage the screaming pleas for death, mercy, and freedom, I focused with all my will on the voices, willing them to go where they wished.

<Thank you…> The Heart flashed a bright white. The voices grew silent. The orange glow dimmed, fading until the bright magma-like glow became a mere candle inside a paper lantern.

I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. It didn’t help untangle the knots in my stomach.

“That… I… I don’t-” I stammered, unable to put my emotions into words.

Red stood up and nodded solemnly. “Do you understand why we have to kill those things now?”

I nodded. “I do. So, I just eat this thing? What happens after that?”

“Well, your flight will improve a bit,” Red mused. “You’ll also gain the harpy's most basic ability, summoning. Any object you mark with your name can be summoned to you, and banished back to where it was previously. You need to mark your name in Tartaran runes… Which would be um…”

Red looked around the cargo bay, spotted a wooden crate, walked over and casually ripped a plank off it like tearing a sheet of parchment in half. He then took his hoof tip and scratched three curved, claw-shaped singles into the plank before holding it out to me.

“There you go, it’s Light Step, right?” He asked.

I nodded. “Yeah… Gonna make a joke about my name now?”

“Why? Because you’re a giantess?” Red asked with a laugh. “Nah. Too easy. Well? Going to take my job offer or not?”

I nodded once more, picked up the heart, and sniffed it. It smelled like a burnt potato soaked in urine. This was going to suck…

I ate it. I did my damnedest to blank out the entire experience. The taste, texture, and knowledge of what might go wrong is not something I want to remember.

But the power… Oh, the power!

An overwhelming rush of energy shot through my entire body and STAYED THERE. It was like that feeling of being completely pumped after hearing the greatest motivational speech of your life and then getting to punch your worse enemy in the face!

I had thought I would feel dark, tainted, corrupt, but no. I felt alive! More alive than I had been. This was the greatest I had ever been.

“Holy bucking crap!” I exclaimed in shock as the feeling just refused to go away.

Red’s ears perked in alarm. “What is it? Throat contracting? Guts rolling?”

“No! I feel bucking amazing!” I said with a happy laugh. “Is this what magic feels like? Is this what I’ve been missing my whole life!?”

Red smiled in relief. “Probably, I couldn’t tell you. Earth pony.”

I looked around the cargo hold. My vision seemed sharper and clearer. I could still see shadows but they didn’t hide as much detail as they had a second ago. I could smell ponies two decks above me. I could hear the couple in the cabin above having a bit of adult fun… Ew.

That sounds really wet and sticky. Take a shower break, assholes!

“Right,” Red said to himself. “Feel up to learning how to summon? It’s pretty easy. I can probably teach you before we land.”

“Yeah, let’s get this training started. We may have decades but why waste time?” I asked rhetorically, laying back down to get down to his eye level.

He nodded. “Exactly. Now, to summon, you need to learn how to access your magic. Luckily as an Earth Pony, I had no active magic and had to learn this too. I’ve been where you are and trust me, it’s not too hard to learn. This isn’t unicorn magic or mortal sorcery. First, close your eyes...”

15 - The Spire

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Gentle Repose - 15th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Crystal Spire - Crystal Empire

I decided to stand on the side ramp as the Kestrel descended to land at the Crystal Spire. At first, I had been very irritable that I was being granted a safe place to stay only because somepony wanted my work. But well, how was that different from normal life? I hadn’t had a choice but to work for the Iron Line back home.

Once I’d realized that, and Blade had reminded me that Princess Cadence wanted me to do enchanting work for her, well, that was different. I’ll happily take my hobby as a job in exchange for a warm dry place where colossal skeletal horrors aren't trying to eat me.

I just hoped I’d have enough time to make a new amulet for Light. I could tell she was uncomfortable in the cargo bay. As astounding as it was to see a pony that big, she definitely needed some means of entering areas meant for the normally sized.

But she probably wouldn’t need help entering the Crystal Spire! I could see how massive it was even from up here, several kilometers away.

I had not thought for an instant that the Crystal Spire would literally be a spire made from crystal. It wasn’t even a tower. It was just a single massive spire sitting atop four massive legs, tapering upwards into the sky like a pyramid someone had stretched to an unimaginable height. Sure, it had a few smaller towers built on it, but the main structure itself was a single spire.

Made from what looked to be a single massive block of quartz. That thing would make for the world's largest managem if the quartz was properly cut and shaped.

By the Emperor! It had to be. The building had to be a massive battery to store arcane energy. The arctic ice and snow just stopped at a bubble around the developing walled city. The spire sat in the center of a calm bubble of green, warmth… A near tropical climate, all within a prefect circle of that keep.

That would take an insane amount of energy to maintain all day every day. Which is why pegasi normally handle weather control. What the hay were they doing for power? It had to be putting out more power than anypony could feasibly use!

“Heh, that’s what I looked like when I saw it the first time too,” Blade said as she walked up behind me.

“How can they generate enough power to keep the land green despite the… Meters of snow!?” I asked in awe.

Blade’s hoof steps stopped, a soft questioning sound escaping her lips before she chuckled. “An artifact known as the Crystal Heart. It radiates seemingly infinite power. The Spire is one big managem, soaking up some of the energy it puts out the rest is just… Lost. There’s no way to use it all.”

“Ah! Some kind of self-sustaining mana generation system. Perhaps a PosNeg Thaumaturgic Collider? No, no… That has a limit to- Hmm…” I rambled still trying to work out how what I was seeing was possible.

If I had to take this on faith I would be extremely disappointed in myself.

“I meant the Spire, not the eternal summer,” Blade said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “It’s an amazing place. Isn’t it?”

I nodded, looking over the soaring crystal building once more. It stretched higher into the air than we were flying.

“Yes. It certainly is,” I agreed.

“You’ll want to do yourself a favor when you arrive,” Blade warned. “There are illusion spells on everything. Don’t peek under them. I know you’re able to spot them since you found mine. Trust me, you don’t want to peek under the ‘table cloths’ Princess Cadence drapes over things for her guest’s sake.”

I frowned suspiciously. What was going on here?

“What is she hiding?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

“Nothing sinister,” Blade giggled. “Princess Cadence is the Alicorn Princess of Love. All kinds of love. But she treasures the physical expression of romantic and sexual love the most. Her home is a reflection of this, as are her servants.

“The illusions are well, censors. Meant to prevent outsiders from seeing something they would rather not. I poked one time and well, I’m no prude, but I regret doing that.”

“Ah,” I replied with a nod. “I understand. Thank you for the warning. While I hardly care about that sort of thing I wouldn’t want to upset anypony.”

“Good, just stick to doing what you’re here for. Once you’re done with it, I’m certain that you’ll be put up anyplace you like. Cadence is a good pony. You can trust her to act in your best interest,” Blade said comfortingly.

“I know she hired you, but how can you know that?” I asked curiously. “You implied you used to know her but haven't seen her recently save for well, work. Do you two have more than an old friendship and some work together in the modern day going on?”

Blade laughed, and I turned around to see her flashing me a huge smile. “You’re not exactly well versed in Equestrian history, are you?” She asked with a shake of her head. “Princess Cadence is an alicorn. All of the Princesses are-”

“Bullshit!” I objected. “Merging the three tribes magics into a singular individual is an impossible feat of magic. The whole story has to be Equestrian propaganda. No offense meant to you, but-”

Blade rolled her eyes. “What rock have you been living under? Princess Twilight’s photo was in international newspapers after her ascension. Oh well, you’ll know it’s true when you land. You can’t fake an alicorn’s aura.”

I spent the rest of the flight to the Spire trying to process how you could create an Alicorn. I couldn’t formulate any sort of basis for doing anything other than grafting on some wings. Then again, I was a necromancer and enchanter, not a transmuter. Still, the entire idea seemed like one of those things smaller kingdoms did by calling their leaders ‘god-kings’ to seem more important and imposing.

That said, Blade had seemed very confident, and I didn’t really read any news simply because it wasn’t relevant to my interests. Perhaps it was tr-

SWEET FAUST, WHAT THE BUCK IS THAT OVERWHELMING AURA!

It had to be the artifact generating all this power. That was the only explanation that made any sort of se-

Nope. It was coming from a landing platform which we were headed towards. More specifically from a pony standing on it. It’s always hard describing your arcane sense to a nonunicorn, even though it works just like sight. But this was different. This was like looking directly into the sun when most ponies were like campfires.

Staring at the mare’s aura was already causing my head to pound. In order to avoid a migraine, I stopped paying attention to my arcane senses, which normally dimmed everything until it wasn’t even noticeable. Her aura was still very bright. Thankfully not painful to look at now but still, just how much power did that one pony ha-

Oh. Well I’ll be damned. Blade was right.

The balcony-dock had a small reception party set up on it. Six guards armored in ceremonial crystalline looking armor, a few servants waiting with what looked to be trays of snacks, and of course… Two winged unicorns.

Or well, Alicorns I supposed. No normal pony would ever have this much arcane power. The taller of the two was pink, with a tri-color purple, pink, and blond mane, and looked oddly happy. Her aura was almost completely hidden, only a few sparks visible without my attention focused on searching for arcane energy.

The shorter of the two had a deep lavender coat, a purple main with a magenta stripe that made me jealous thanks to its striking look, and was definitely the mare who appeared to be an unshielded arcane reactor core. She seemed nervous. Which made me nervous. Because she could definitely level a small mountain with a simple spell bolt if she wanted to throw half her energy into it...

Wait a minute, lavender mare. The fortune teller said to befriend the lavender mare!

I waited as calmly as I could while the Kestrel drew up alongside the balcony. The battered airship’s timbers groaned as she slowed to a stop, and the side ramp lowered transforming my ‘window’ into a doorway. While I had been waiting and watching, everypony except for Light had lined up behind me to disembark. Meaning I would have to be the first pony off.

Pulling my cloak tightly around me, I stepped off the deck and into the exceptionally bright sunlight. As soon as the three of us set hoof on the balcony, the taller pink alicorn offered us a polite short bow and stepped forwards.

“Welcome to my city,” she greeted with a kind smile. “I am Princess Cadence, Mistress of the Crystal Empire. You are welcome and safe in my home, and after a few short weeks, that welcome will be extended to the whole of Equestria. I’m sorry, but your visas are… Tied up in bureaucracy at the moment.

“Um… One moment. Wasn’t there supposed to be three ponies? Blade, did something happen to somepony?”

Princess Cadence’s concerned frown astounded me. It was genuine. She was actually worried about the safety of the random refugee she had offered to shelter. A noble who gave a rat's ass. There’s something you don't’ see every day.

“She’s fine, Cadie,” Blade said with a smirk. “She just won't fit in the living quarters. Give us a moment to turn the ship around and drop the cargo ramp. The friends I picked up have a package for Princess Twilight, we need to deliver that anyways.”

The lavender mare frowned, her lips pulling back and down into the most confused expression I’d ever seen. “She can’t fit? But that’s a Bastion-class airship. It’s an Equestrian design, meaning it has to comfortably fit Celestia,” she protested.

“Heh, yeah… She’s taller than old Sunbutt,” Blade snickered.

My eyes widened in terror. That could NOT be a good thing to call the High Queen of a nation!

“If I may,” I said quickly, hoping to defuse any potential hostilities Blade may have caused. “While I am only now aware that alicorns are not mythical, and only have you two as a sample size, it is abundantly clear that you are quite a bit taller than the average pony.

“Light Step is three times taller than I am at the most conservative estimate. She apparently was tricked into drinking a potion concentrate, and now suffers from gigantism. I have promised to make a charm to allow her to easily and comfortably assume a normal pony’s size, as otherwise, she is very massive.”

Princess Twilight winced. “I see. Could we get her here as well so nopony misses out on the introductions?”

Blade nodded and turned to yell into the airship. “Oi! Turn ‘er around.”

The airship groaned and lurched as it backed away slowly to begin its turn, the ramp closing with even more protest and the creak of iron chains as the ramp was drawn up.

As the ship finished turning Princess Cadence hummed to herself. “Oh yes! You mentioned you were also picking up a small remnant of the Saphire’s livestock ponies. Are they also aboard?” She asked Blade.

Blade opened her mouth to reply, but Felling cut her off. “Yes, Ma’am. They are. If it is not possible for them to be safely housed here, I am afraid I must go with them. They need someone to protect them.”

“I assure you that I have a place ready for them, Felling,” Cadence said with a kind smile. “There are plenty of empty homes in the city. They will all have homes, jobs, and citizenship here by the end of the week. I take it you feel responsible for them?”

Felling nodded. “I do. I should have returned to the hive to make sure they were okay years ago. It’s my fault they are in this mess.”

“I’ll arrange for you to have quarters near them. But that will have to wait for a while. There are some matters to attend to immediately. But, we need to wait for your large friend…” Cadence trailed off and coughed into her hoof in embarrassment. “I- I didn’t intend for that to be a fat joke. I apologize.”

I couldn’t help but smile just a little. I liked Princess Cadence. She seemed nice.

Twilight, on the other hoof, seemed like a duty bound stick in the mud. Standing as rigid as a soldier on a parade ground, staring intently at the cargo ramp.

Why?

The Kestrel drew near the balcony again. The cargo ramp lowered with a shuddering groan, making everypony wince.

“Time to retire that ship,” a guard on the left side of the balcony mumbled.

I had to agree, but kept silent.

As the ramp lowered, and the extra bright sun lit up the cargobay, one of the guard ponies squeaked excitedly before returning to a dutiful and focused pose. Twilight’s jaw dropped in amazement, and Light timidly pulled herself out of the airship, testing her weight on the balcony before she stepped on it.

“Woah!” Twilight exclaimed in what I could only think of as ‘delighted shock’. “What kind of concentrate were you poisoned with? I’ve never seen anything enlarge a pony that much. Do you know the recipe by chance?”

Light and I shared a moment of stunned disbelief as the Princess’s rigid dutifully stance revealed itself to be the focused attention of a geek waiting for something cool to happen.

By the Emperor! She sounded just like I did when I got to examine a new arcane gizmo.

Light blushed in embarrassment and stammered for a moment before finally managing. “I um… I don’t know… They just used a lot.”

“I can see why you want to make a charm for her,” Princess Cadence said to me before turning and looking at Light with an honest glee in her eyes. “Miss Light, I am Princess Cadence. I will do everything in my power to keep you comfortable while you are here. I’m afraid you won't fit through the balcony door, so while Princess Twilight takes your companions inside after some formal introductions, I will fly down with you to the front door. I have a small welcome dinner planned, and I am certain a pony of your size must be very hungry.”

Light blinked and took a half step back as a wave of confusion crossed over her face. She seemed surprised to be treated nicely.

Oh. Yes. Felin.

“Your tail is adorable!” The same guard from before blurted.

Light’s confused blush deepened.

Cadence turned and shot the skinny tan colored mare a stern but kind glance. “Lilac, you’re on duty,” she reminded before turning her attention back to us.

“Now, as I was saying, I am Princess Cadence, and this is Princess Twilight Sparkle. Twilight will be staying with us for the week, partially to assist you, Mister Repose, with your work but also to help evaluate the three of you for obtaining a more permanent visa. It’s nothing personal, Princess Celestia simply prefers to have first hoof knowledge of any powerful individual seeking to stay within Equestria. While I fully trust Queen Bladestorm’s word, I am sure you can see why some may not.

“Until then, you are welcome to stay in my keep as my guests. My chambermaid, Sunset, is currently arranging guest chambers for each of you.”

“Is that where she is?” Princess Twilight asked. “I thought she would be a part of the welcome party.”

“She will be. There was simply a… Mess made in one of the guest rooms. As it will take too long to clean, she is working to get another room ready,” Princess Cadence explained.

Something didn’t sit right with that for me. I didn’t know why… Just a hunch I suppose.

“As I was saying, the three of you are my guests. I’m sorry that my liege has asked you to work in exchange for her protection, Mister Repose. I would have taken you in simply because you have need of shelter. However, I am certain you will enjoy the laboratory I have prepared for you to work in. Princess Twilight is rather excited to watch you and help if necessary.”

Princess Twilight nodded eagerly. “I’ve never gotten the chance to see Prench enchanting up close! I am aware of the technique differences between our two nations, but I’ve never quite understood the reasons behind the differences. I hope you don’t mind being asked questions while you work.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Despite her intimidating power, Princess Twilight’s smile and friendly manner were quite disarming. “I will happily answer your questions, Princess. However, I am not a teacher and may not explain myself as well as you would like,” I warned.

She seemed like a pony who you didn’t want to disappoint.

Twilight nodded understandingly. “I’m fairly certain that won’t be a problem… Before we go inside can I ask one question?”

I nodded.

“She means six questions,” Princess cadence warned with a smile.

I frowned. Not because of her words, but because of her smile. That was Blade’s smile! But blade was standing to my right. What?

“You are supposed to be undead,” Twilight said, snapping my attention away from my suspicions. “But the scanning spells I’ve cast show you to be, well, alive. How is that possible? Is it an illusion of some kind?”

“Oh, no,” I explained. “At present, I am alive. I prefer to keep my body whole and working. As an undead pony, this is an option for me. If injured I can keep functioning just fine unless a body part is too greatly damaged to resemble what it is supposed to.

“I’d rather not spend a good portion of my daily manna on animating myself. So I keep my body alive as much as possible. But I don’t need to. I don’t live in this. Additionally, I find that other ponies react very poorly to a rotting corpse trying to speak to them.”

Twilight pursed her lips and nodded. “Good point. Um, is it rude for me to say I didn’t expect you to be this polite?” She asked.

I shook my head. “Not at all. I am very well aware of the admittedly deserved stigma against litches. Might we begin this tour? I am eager to see the lab Princess Cadence mentioned. And I imagine Light would like to own a shrinking charm again.”

Light cleared her throat. “I um, yeah. I really would. Especially one I didn’t have to take off to, well, deactivate. That’s how I lost my old one,” she said, burying a request I’d anticipated in her words.

“I had already planned on that,” I said politely.

Princess Cadence nodded in satisfaction. “Well, I believe everything is in order. Twilight, would you lead our friends to the dining hall while I take-”

“One sec!” Red Granite's rough voice called from inside the cargo bay.

Cadence and Twilight looked up, peering into the cargo bay in surprise as Red and his wife pushed the large wooden crate they had placed the changeling stasis pod into down the ramp onto the balcony.

“What’s this?” Cadence asked before Twilight. Eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Sorry, Princess,” Sa’mas apologized with a short bow. “My husband and I are mercenaries, unaffiliated with Queen Bladestorm other than she offered to give us a lift. We were hired to find this package here, and deliver it to Twilight. I know now isn’t the best time, but we are already late due to deciding to try and help Felling’s family out around their home.”

“We just need Twilight to sign this parchment saying we delivered it to her so we can get paid,” Red added. “We’re just trying to skip a trip to your home, Ma’am. Won’t take two seconds.”

As he spoke Red took a sheet of parchment out of his saddlebag and held it up along with a sealed envelope.

Twilight shrugged. “Sure… I can’t detect any active magic in there other than a stasis spell. What is it?” She asked stepping forwards to take the page.

“Afraid I can’t say, our employer insisted it’s for your eyes only. But it is harmless. Any of these four can attest to that. It’s hard to keep something secret from others when they stumble into it,” Red admitted. “The envelope contains instructions on what our employer would like you to do with this package. I have no idea what they are, or what the overall plan is. I’m just the delivery stallion. But tell you what, if whatever’s in here somehow hurts you, give me a call and I’ll go exact revenge for you. Deal?”

Twilight smiled as she took the page and signed it with a quick flash of purple magic. She thought Red was joking. That was probably a good thing.

“Sure,” she said with an amused smile. “Don’t worry Cadence, I’ll open this with all proper safety later and for now…”

Twilight horn burned a deep purple for several long seconds as her magic’s touch brushed over the crate, trailing like paint being brushed on with the lightest possible touch, until the whole thing was covered in her magic’ purple glow.

“And for now, I’ll put my own stasis spell on it. Could somepony deliver this to my room, please?” She asked looking at the pairs of guards.

Two of the guards saluted and moved forward, lifting the crate between them and quickly marching it inside.

“Thanks for signing, Ma’am,” Red said with a polite nod.

“You’re welcome,” Twilight replied as the two mercenaries walked back onto the Kestrel.

Turning back to everypony else Twilight nodded. “Shall we?”

“Please,” Felling asked. “Oh, um, when will everypony else be getting off?”

Two guards bit their lips, holding back a laugh. Why? What was the joke?

“This is a secure dock,” Princess Cadence explained politely. “They will be ‘disembarking’ at the commercial air port. Dont’ worry, I have an escort waiting to bring them back here. There are a few unused barracks on the first floor where I will be housing them for the next few days, until a proper apartment complex can be found and the proper paperwork filled out. I’m well aware of how changeling bred ponies prefer to stay in groups. I grew up as one myself.”

“It’s true,” Twilight confirmed. “I didn’t believe it myself but well, it’s actually true.”

Holy bucking… I was right! She was blade! The smile, having apparently grown up with changelings, her general body language. But how? Blade was just over there.

“Well, I’m going to head out. You’ll send my payment along the usual way, right Cadie?” Blade asked as she turned to climb back into the airship.

“Of course, Blade. Thanks for the help,” Cadence said giving the bandit queen a wink.

A wink they shared.

It suddenly clicked. Those devious bastards! They were both Bladestorm! I knew ‘Blade’ used illusions, and her colors had been slightly different every day, but always in the two different sets… Princess Cadence and whoever that mare was shared Blade as an alias!

But why? Obviously, so Cadence could do things without getting Equestria into international trouble… But to what end?

While that was a mystery I wanted to solve, at least I knew that I could trust Cadence now. She’d wanted me to come here from the beginning, and based on ‘Blade’s’ combat performance, I was willing to bet she had been the one who saved Fell and my plots from Light’s former comrades.

I would work out the larger schemes here in time. But anypony who saved my life was worth helping a little bit in return.

The airship’s cargo ramp began to creak shut. I turned around and looked into the open doorway into the Crystal Spire’s interior. While the purple crystal walls were not at all to my liking, the plush red carpets, and warm-looking tapestries gave the palace a homey rather than a regal interior. It felt inviting and safe.

“Well, I for one would like to get started on repaying this hospitality,” I requested as politely as I could. “Princess Twilight, would you mind showing me the laboratory on the way down to dinner? That way if any critical equipment is missing it can be brought in while we have dinner and I can begin work right away.”

“Of course!” Princess Twilight exclaimed with a smile. “Oh and please, just call me Twilight. As the Princess of Friendship, it doesn't feel right to make everypony use my title all the time. Ready, everypony?”

Felling nodded. I nodded.

“Then let’s go,” Twilight said with a smile, trotting into the palace.

As I walked after her, I couldn’t help but feel that I had perhaps the easiest fortune to follow along with. That made me feel bad I couldn’t repair and recharge the fortune teller's deck for everypony else’s fortunes as well. Fell was certain he knew what the cards had been talking about now, but Light was still lost.

And who could blame her? Her fortune had been extremely confusing and seemed to use cultural idioms we didn’t know a damn thing about.

We walked through the spire for a short distance before entering an elevator and moving up three floors. Twilight explaining the laboratory was a bit of a detour from the Dining Hall, but it would take a little time to get Light into the Dining hall and comfortably seated since Cadence would want a higher table set for her and therefore would delay slightly.

The laboratory was only a short walk from the elevator, and to my surprise it had a pair of large sliding doors made from steel with decorative glasswork laminated to the face.

“Why metal doors?” Felling asked.

“Incase of fire,” Twilight and I answered at the same time.

We shared a brief chuckle at speaking in unison as Twilight opened the doors herself. “Right, this is Princess Cadence’s laboratory. It was originally only set up for alchemy, but I helped her get it set up for enchantment. I’m pretty sure we’ll have everything you need, but if we don’t I’ll definitely get ahold of it.”

I mentally sighed and stepped into the lab to inspect it. While alchemy was one of my hobbies, and quite useful to know as an enchanter there were highly specific tools you needed for enchanting which an alchemist’s laboratory would lack. Something would be missing for cert-

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Corrosion resistant tile flooring. Stainless steel workbenches. Plural. As in several. Each set up for a different alchemical task, and all of the equipment first rate pyrex containers. Built in bunsen burners! With regulated gas burners!

Oh my goodness! The magelights in the room were the same color as sunlight! You wouldn't accidently judge a color wrong because of the lighting. Was that a petri dish incubator?! And a centrifuge!? And a motherbucking compound microscope with a thaumaturgic recording device and display?

It was beautiful! I wouldn’t have made enough to afford half of this set up in two centuries! I could almost cry. Not from my financial situation, but at this artwork laid out before me.

I gasped as I saw the other half of the room. “I-Is that a full micro soldering and brazing station with a thaumaturgic current multimeter?” I asked Twilight while I looked at the three benches set along the far wall.

“Yes. Why what do you normally use?” She asked.

I felt a tear slide down my cheek. “A blowtorch and careful measurements combined with precise calculations…”

“I used to do that when I was a teenager,” Twilight commented. “My parents wouldn’t let me buy-”

My eyes snapped to one work table dominated by a large brass plate topped with a domed quartz lid interlaced with an intricate series of silvery hair-thin wires.

“Is that a motherbucking spell matrix capture device!?!” I squeed, zipping over to the exotic instrument as fast as my hooves would let me.

“I know right!” Twilight laughed gleefully. “I don't have one of those. I can’t justify it, not with how little enchanting I do personally.”

“What’s the big deal?” Fell asked. “You know, for those of us with no idea what it does.”

“You cast a spell under the dome and it prints out a schematic for you which shows you how to build the thaumaturgic circuit to make it work as an enchantment!” I squeed.

Ohhhh the things I could do with this! So much time saved! So much higher level math unnecessary to prototype and develop absolutely anything I could ever want!

“I could make a spoon that would move as much earth as a full sized shovel! Just for fun! Right now!” I giggled, blurting out the first idea that popped into my head.

“Hehe! We totally should! That might be pointless over all, but the concept is pretty funny! Oh, but the cooler thing, is over here,” Twilight said eagerly. “This mirror is enchanted to let you draft any schematic and see how you can fit it into the design of the object you want to build and test things before physically constructing them.

The hay was this feeling in my chest? Oh! Joy. Hello, joy! It’s been some time. Welcome back, I missed you!

I trotted over to Twilight and gripped her shoulders with my forehooves so I could look her in the eyes as seriously as possible. Which was very very hard to do with the huge grin my face refused to stop making.

“Twilight, I have become horribly violently ill,” I said with a coy wink. “I won't be able to make it to dinner, and Princess Cadence doesn't have to check up on me. I’ll be fine in the morning. Just tell me where the lab’s stock of brass and arcanite is kept!”

Twilight’s ears drooped sadly as she kicked one hoof against the floor. “It’s an official welcoming function… We can’t skip it,” she lamented sadly. “I know… I wanna play too.”

My ears drooped too, and for the first time in five hundred and twenty years, I gave somepony puppy dog eyes.

“I-I’m sorry… But we have to,” Twilight apologized, equally upset we couldn’t just tinker with things.

“Reep, mare who is probably his female clone, let’s go before you two get any more sad and I vomit from your negative vibes. Please,” Fell pleaded.

Twilight nodded. “Yeah… Dinner will only be two hours. And I already cast an alertness spell on myself. I don't have to sleep for the next thirty-six hours! We have plenty of time.”

She turned and began to walk towards the doors. “Come on, we’ll be back soon.”

I sighed and trotted along after her, ears plastered firmly back in a mixture of sadness, annoyance, and plain old upset.

“Stupid bucking living pony necessities… Keeping me from having any fun… I don’t need food… That was half the point of this whole thing I’ve got going...” I muttered, looking back longingly at the laboratory set up one last time before following along after Twilight. Keeping my grumbling up for good measure.

Light Step - 15th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Crystal Spire - Crystal Empire

I watched as everypony walked inside, ears drooping sadly as the doors closed behind them. It would have been nice to keep as a group… But then again they couldn’t fly.

As the doors closed, Cadence slipped a small gemstone out of a concealed spot on her person. Just as I recognized it as a messenger Gem she whispered into it. “Sunset,” a moment later she continued. “Sunset, one of our guests is a real giantess. Could you please get some kind of taller table set up for her? There’s no need to make her stoop.”

“Of course, ma’am.” the voice on the other end said.

Putting her gem back Cadence gave me a smile that I just couldn’t understand.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked in honest confusion. “Is there something you need?”

Cadence took a step back, eyes widening in honest horror. I took a step back, eyes widening in honest shock at her reaction.

“I- I- Faust’s mane!” Cadence exclaimed. Clearing her throat she gave me a sympathetic frown before asking. “Do you know what Alicorns are able to do, Miss Light?”

I shook my head no. “I-I know that Celestia can control the sun. And that you are very powerful. But that’s it. We um, we have no plans for fighting Equestria, so our guidebooks don’t include Alicorns.”

Cadence nodded slowly. “I am the Princess of Love, I can see into a pony’s heart. It’s not mind reading, but I can know what kind of person they are, their passions, and their pains.

“I’m sorry if that feels intrusive, but I can’t help but do it when there is an overwhelming amount of emotion tied up behind someone's feelings. I… How you have been treated by most everypony you’ve ever met. I need you to know that it is loathsome and abhorrent. I can’t conceive of anypony striking you simply for being half griffon.

“The ‘kindness’ I am showing you is what we Equestrians would refer to as ‘common courtesy’. But I see now that you are in dire need of some actual love. Please, let me talk to you. You can’t go around carrying this kind of pain.”

Cadence said, looking pleadingly into my eyes.

I sat down. Unable to process what she had just said. “I um, er… What?”

“Please let me help you. Let’s just talk for a little bit. Five minutes is all I’ll need. You have a good heart, and my magic can help soothe those pains as long as you are willing to talk through your problems with me. I can’t just wave my horn at you and make the pain go away, but if you are willing to work with me, like a therapist, I can help you get over this very quickly, and I can feel how you hate yourself right now and want so desperately to fit in.

“While I agree that gaining control over your size has utility and is good, you want it for the wrong reasons. I can help you be happy, being yourself, no matter what. If you would like me to.”

I shook my head, scooting back as my wings fluttered distressingly. “Are you saying you want to mind control me!?” I demanded.

“What?” Cadence asked, face twisting into a horrified gasp. “No! That’s not remotely what I- Right… You’re not an Equestrian. Please, let me explain.”

“It better be good!” I insisted, giving her a slight glare.

“As the Alicorn of Love, it is my duty to help everypony who is miserable due to a lack of well, love,” Cadence explained. “If a couple who have been fighting come before me and are willing to talk, I can guide their hearts with my magic and repair their emotional bond.

“There is no mind control involved. I can only fix existing bonds, I can not make them, and I can only fix them if all parties are willing. If they are unable to reconcile themselves, I am able to help. I can do this for individuals too. You have been beaten and battered into a state where you are incapable of loving yourself. I can feel that, and that you hate it.

“If you talk through your problems with me, and let me use my magic to help, we can change that in minutes instead of months or years, and you can be happy with being yourself.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “I doubt that…”

“Will you let me try? Please?” Cadence begged.

I thought about it for a moment. What did I have to lose? Nothing. I guess.

I sighed. “Fine. We can try.”

“Excellent! It will take about ten minutes for Sunset to get the dining hall set up for you anyways,” Cadence said with a happy smile. “Okay. Let’s get to work. Your greatest passion is to be accepted by others. Why?”

Cadence’s horn took on a light blue silvery sheen, and I could feel something gently brush against me, like a caring it felt nice but… Weird.

“Isn’t that obvious?” I asked bitterly. “I’m not a pure blooded pony. Prance has been at war with the griffons since, forever! Every time anypony looked at me they just see the enemy. Even my mom had problems not treating me like an enemy sometimes…”

“And so you see yourself as the enemy too,” Cadence said with a sad frown.

“Well, yeah! I mean, what else am I?” I countered. “It doesn't matter if I go out of my way to help others. I’m still the ‘lion-tailed freak’. It doesn't matter if I become one of the top marksmares in Prance. I’m still ‘birdwings’. If nothing I can do ever lets me be more than tolerated, I’m just the friendly enemy, aren't I?”

“Light,” Cadence said soothingly. “Think back on everything you ever did to gain others approval. Please.”

Tartarus… Did I have to? I probably did.

I thought back as far as I could remember. Keeping the house spotless for mom so she didn’t have to. Taking the time to do my absolute best on every last school assignment to try and impress my teachers. Working out what my classmates favorite snacks are and giving them to them hoping to show I was friendly only to be accused of trying to position them.

Taking on the workload to do all the planning for the party where I’d been poisoned… Lying about breaking into the base’s pub to cover for some squadmates to try and win their respect. Always taking the late watch so everypony else could get a full night of sleep.

Refusing to take credit for monster kills so somepony else on the fireteam could get the award for it…

“Are those things that an enemy would do to their enemy?” Cadence asked calmly.

No.

“Um, no… Not really. But, you know,” I stammered awkwardly.

“We both know that those are the actions of somepony who cares deeply for others,” Cadence stated. Correctly. “How did they respond to your acts of kindness?”

Insults. Racial slurs. Occasional beatings. A few nights locked in the stocks for covering for a squadmate’s crime only to be insulted by them later. Not one word of thanks for forgoing claiming a kill everyone knew I made.

“Like a bunch of assholes,” I answered bitterly.

“See? You know the truth. You were not the enemy. They were the enemy. Of course you didn’t fit in with them! You’re a pony of moral fiber, and they had no compassion for others,” Cadence said supportively.

“They were my peers, my countrymen, my people,” I objected. “What kind of pony can’t belong with their own nation?”

“Not everypony belongs everywhere, Light,” Cadence soothed. “My city here is a refuge for those Equestria finds distasteful. Not murderers, thieves, or other such ponies. But those who simply love odd things which others frown on them for. Their place is here. It’s not where they happened to have been born and raised.

“Sometimes, the place you are born is not your home. Sometimes you are destined to find it for yourself.”

Find it for yourself? That did ring pretty true. Wait a minute...

For a good life, embrace the night beneath the sea of sand. You will find what you have always wanted within the darkness by brightening it.

Find what I always wanted. I wanted acceptance. And she was right, sort of. Home was a place where people accepted you for who you were. This wasn’t the whole package promised, but it would be a start, right?

“You’re right,” I agreed, nodding with a small frown. “Prance was never my home.”

The odd hug-like sensation became oddly warm for a moment, and I felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders.

Prance had never been my home. Screw what those ponies thought about me! They never cared!

“That’s right, they didn’t care about you. But you served them loyally, if not gladly,” Cadence agreed. “You are better than they deserved, and whoever you wind up spending your life with when you at last find your true home, those who share it with you will be honored by the kindness you show even to those who don't give a flying buck about you.”

“Yeah!” I agreed with a nod. “That’s absolutely right. I’m not a piece of shit, how can I be? Look at how I treated ponies who treated me like a piece of shit!”

“You’re a beautiful mare, Light,” Cadence said honestly, smiling happily. “Can you see that now?”

“Yeah, I guess I do have a kind hearted personality,” I agreed with a nod.

Cadence nodded, and smiled a bit wider. “No silly, we’re not quite done here. Your body, it’s great! You're not ugly. In fact most equestrians like larger wings. And that tail? Well, you saw how Lilac liked it so much she flirted with you while on duty.”

I blushed deeply. “T-that was flirting?”

Cadence nodded and giggled. “It was, silly! What else would it be? Equestria has many griffon citizens. And plenty of hybrids living with them. You’re beautiful, exotic even. And not in the bad way.”

I felt my ears droop. “Y-yeah, okay… Maybe… If I want ginormous,” I grumbled.

Cadence rolled her eyes. “Light, everypony loves something others find strange. Just watch this.”

She looked up, squinting into the sky for a moment before whistling sharply and yelling, “Hey! Rays! Check this girl out. Is she hot or what?”

I blushed with embarrassment and turned to look where Cadence was yelling in time to see a distant blue and orange Pegasi drop into a hover, look at me and smile, then yell back, “Looking great stranger! My sister’s an alchemist. If you run out of that potion her shop is on main street! It’s ‘Fun Draughts and Charming Tinctures!’”

“... What?” I asked of reality.

“Light, some ponies find giants sexy,” Cadence said seriously. “There are whole shelves of potions designed to change one’s size. It’s a common kink, probably because of how big Celestia is, and her cultural importance combined with how she’s believed to be the most beautiful pony alive. I’d bet that a sixteenth of my subjects think your size just makes you even prettier. You may not have asked to be like this, but it’s useful for many things, and for some ponies it enhances your beauty.

“Your size is nothing to be ashamed of. Once your friend has enabled you to control it, you should embrace it as a part of who you are. It’s something that makes you unique and special. And you know what? Because of it, you could really make some mare or stallion extremely happy. Because I honestly don’t think a normal potion could get anypony as large as you.”

I blushed deeply and squirmed a little, wings fluttering awkwardly. “A-actually I can get bigger… This is my minimum size…”

Cadence laughed. “You should show me how big you can be some time! I don’t personally find giants to be extra sexy, but it certainly doesn't make you unattractive. In fact... One moment.”

Cadence fished out her message gem again and instructed. “Enable visual link. Shiny.”

A millisecond later a white furred blue-maned unicorn stallion’s face appeared as a projection in the air over the gem.

“Hey, sweetie! Is something wrong? You should be at dinner right now,” he said with polite concern.

“I’m just trying to help a nice mare out,” Cadence explained. “Light, this is my husband Shining Armor. Shiny, this is Light. Now, Shiny, is she hot or what?”

The stallion turned, looking at me for not even a split second before agreeing, “Yep. Hot… I’d approve the threesome but I think she might crush the bed. Offense not meant, Light. Can you give me a day or so to get a steel frame on the bed? That’s the only thing making me say no, by the way.”

I felt my mind break a little. That hadn’t been insulting, he said it eagerly. And I could tell he was genuinely concerned for his property, but was otherwise on board.

Hopefully he wouldn’t be upset when I said no...

Cadence giggled happily. “Ha! I knew you’d approve a threeway if it was with a giantess! He loves the concept of somepony like you, Light. You don’t have to do anything with us. I’m just trying to show you that your size isn’t something to be ashamed of.”

“Wait, she’s ashamed of her size?” Shining exclaimed in shock. “Ma’am, you’re beautiful. And whoever you eventually wind up with is extremely lucky. I apologize for offering a threesome, it’s clear Cadence is trying to help you with some issues and that was out of line. I thought she was remembering a particular fantasy of mine. Do you forgive me?”

I nodded, blushing shyly. “Y-Yes… I um, I didn’t expect that at all. But thanks! It- it means a lot.”

It did. I could see it, he genuinely thought I was amazing. But not as amazing as Cadence. I could see that in his eyes too.

“Thanks, I always hate making an ass of myself. Uh, once you get to know Cadence, you’ll probably see why I made that assumption,” Shining laughed. “Um… So, that’s a no on adult fun, that’s okay. But would you mind letting me ride on your back while you fly sometime?”

I blinked at the odd request. “Is that a sex thing?” I demanded.

“No. That’s a fantasy nerd thing. Ever read Daring Doo and the Kingdom of Giants? I’ve wanted to ride a giant pegasi since I was nineteen. Would you mind?” He asked hopefully.

I smiled. “Sure. We can do that after this whole dinner thing.”

“Awesome!” Shining exclaimed with the biggest smile I had ever seen. “I need to see why Sunset is moving a huge table into the dining… Oh! That would be for you. Duh. I should go anyways. I’ll see you later sexy. And you too honey.”

I triple blinked at his compliment, honestly shocked but also delighted.

“See?” Cadence said as the gem went dark. “Your size is a perk. Once you can control it, well, what’s the drawback?”

I had to admit, she was clearly right. At least here. Things were WAY different in Equestria. Better different.

“Yeah. I think I do,” I admitted. “Heh, Tartarus, once I can control it it’s kind of a superpower, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Cadence agreed with a happy nod. “There! Heart’s all better. How do you feel? Are you happy being you?”

I thought about it for a second. Yeah. I was I really was!

“You don’t have to say anything. Your smile and body language speak volumes,” Cadene said with a happy sigh. “My work here, is done! Oh um… You aren't’ planning on accepting Shiny’s proposal, are you?”

I shook my head. “No! He’s married. And while you are pretty hot, and he’s cute… Eh, just not feeling it.”

“Darn…” Cadence lamented, ears drooping. “Ah well. One of these days I’ll get him to open up and realize that others won’t make fun of him for being a bit girly in private. Especially not here.”

“Wait, really?” I asked in surprise.

Then I blushed, starting to realize what Shining ment by ‘once you know Cadence the assumption will make perfect sense.’

Cadence nodded and flashed me a smile. “Yeah. He’s a great commander, so everypony thinks he’s super masculine. But he really isn’t. He cries at weddings, he was the damsel in distress twice, he always thinks about others emotions. He likes pretty things, and if you spend any time with him while he’s not trying to act masculine you’ll sometimes forget he’s a colt. I’m a tomcolt, he’s a… A… Um, whatever the male equivalent of that is. Janemare? Anyways he’s also a total geek! I love him to death for it.”

I shook my head slowly, a smile still on my lips. “He sounds fun.”

“He is. Make no mistake, he’s still a stallion. His personality is just not typical at all. He’s very fun to hang out with, as you’ll learn after letting him have a ride. … Can I go after him? That sounds fun!” She admitted with a playful wink.

I snickered. “I can take you both at once. But um, don't we have dinner to do?”

“Oh! Yes, we do,” Cadence said standing up and spreading her wings. “Come on! Let’s get there before Twilight eats half the buffet table.”

Cadence jumped off the balcony, letting her wings catch the air as she glided down towards the courtyard below. I stood up and carefully stepped off into the air, flowing down as best I could. She was able to make much tighter spirals than I could.

Not that I cared much. My own flight was good enough because I was happy with myself. Wow, that felt so weird but so good at the same time!

Thank you, Cadence. I owe you one.

16 - Progress

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Felling Axe - 16th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Crystal Spire - Crystal Empire

I had a hangover.

Not a bad hangover, but a full head pounding dizzying hangover. The sort you know will go away after a few hours. For once, I was happy to have one.

The last seventeen days had been absolutely horrible. Nothing more than a life or death run with a monster waiting for me at the end.

No, there was more than that. I had to be honest with myself.

In addition to the seventeen days of misery, I’d lost my home, as well as a lot of tools and a ton of projects that I had been looking forward to finishing would now never be done. Then, of course, there was the cherry atop the shit sundae. My love was asexual and probably aromantic as well.

I could deal with monsters. I could deal with fleeing for my life. Tools could be replaced, and I could build new things. But as far as I was aware, nothing would get me together with Repose.

The old changelish saying is right. Love is like drugs. It can make everything better, but it can still make everything the worst it can be.

But I was still happy I had a hangover. Because it meant all that was in the past. I had been in a place last night safe enough to drink in, that had also given me access to some form of booze. That was something good.

I sat up, the bed I had somehow arrived in after whatever happened at the end of the night creaked in protest. Giving my temples a rub, I tried to figure out what I should do now.

The only reason I had stayed in Prance was because I thought Repose was cute. The original plan was to go to Neighpon after smuggling my armor across the border piece by piece. Then that plan was tossed out the window because I liked that adorable cloaked doofus.

But he would never be mine. He didn’t do that kind of relationship. And I should have known that.

The only way he could have possibly not noticed my advances is if he literally never even thought about sex. I guess I had known, but just ignored reality. That ship sunk before it left the harbor, and I’d just kept treading water ever since.

The hay do I do now?

Three sharp knocks clacked loudly off the door, each one feeling like a slap to the back of my eyes.

“I’m awake,” I groaned, blinking several times.

Hold on a minute… My voice was female! What?

As the room came into proper focus and I was able to see everything I noticed that I was currently shape changed, taking the form of a bright cobalt blue mare with a silver and black tail. Which was all stuck together into a single strand… And most of my fur was plastered together too.

I grimaced and sniffed myself. Nope. That wasn’t sex mess. It was… Peach scented?

My ears drooped so fast they almost dented my skull. What the hay did I do last night!?!

“Hey there, sexy!” A short coppery colored earth pony mare greeted, beaming me a huge smile from her face mostly hidden behind a long messy blue-gray mane. “Good to see you’re awake. A friend’s looking for you.”

“Who are you?” I asked timidly, feeling a blush wash over my cheeks.

The mare giggled. “Copper Kettle,” she answered. “I figured you wouldn’t remember. You got drunk last night and were sad you couldn’t get with some colt so I asked if you wanted to go a few rounds. You were great by the way! You should come back tonight.”

I slowly shook my head and blinked some more. That didn’t seem like something I would normally do. Not for a mare. I never liked mare made love’s flavors.

“Um, well normally I don’t do mares,” I explained slowly. “Why am I covered in peach juice?”

She laughed. “I’m not a mare where it counts, silly! And the sticky is probably because you had me give you a tongue bath to clean up a flavored lube spill. I guess I missed… A lot. Sorry.”

Ah. Confusing comment aside, that would explain that. I felt my ears droop in embarrassment as I realized exactly how drunk I’d gotten.

“And why am I a-”

“You offered to shapechange into all of the crushes I had pictures of, your Blue Skies right now. High School crush. Wanna shift back, talk to your friend then go for a quickie before I have to go to work?” She asked hopefully.

I slipped out of her bed and quickly changed back, letting the arcane flames burn off the gunk while I shifted. I gave Copper a polite smile and shook my head. “I-I don’t normally hook up with anypony at a bar or anything like that-”

My emotional scenes suddenly cleared. My god, I was totally full! And she actually tasted nice.

My ears perked instinctively. “- And while I can’t remember anything, your love is pretty tasty… I’m not up for sex right now, but we can talk this evening. Where do you work?”

“I’m Cadence’s butler,” she replied with a happy smile.

“But you’re a mare…” I protested. “Butler is a male title.”

Copper rolled her eyes and gave me an affectionate pat. “Trans-stallion is trans. If I didn’t have to go visit my parents sometimes, I’d be a stallion all the time. But permanent genderswap spells and potions are expensive. I do have a stash of temporary ones though. Too bad you don’t remember, you thought I was hot stuff! Heh,” he explained.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” I apologized with an embarrassed blush. “You seem interesting, how about we share dinner this evening and see how that goes?”

Copper nodded eagerly. “Please! I think I’ve acquired a taste for cute changelings… Uh, no offense but what is your normal sex? I had you as mares all night… Sorry.”

“Changelings are complicated,” I replied with a dismissive hoof wave. “I prefer being male, but we’re shape shifters. We choose our sex, and lots of us change it up day to day.”

“So jelly,” Copper sighed. “Oh! Right, your friend. He’s just outside.”

I nodded, blinked in pain as my head protested the movement and trotted outside, vision blurring again and making me walk directly into a wall of pale pastel green floof!

“Hi!” The wall said as it resolved into an androgynous pony.

Oh! Right. Juniper. The colt who had been leading the surviving livestock ponies.

“Hey, sorry, hangover,” I groaned, taking a half step back. “What do you need?”

Juniper immediately pulled me into a hug, giving me comforting pats on the back. “Awww! I’m sorry. I think Celery Sticks knows a hangover cure charm. We’ll go find her in just a little bit, okay?”

“That sounds amazing,” I agreed.

Juniper let go of me and took a few steps back to get into a polite conversing distance. “Princess Cadence wants to talk to us in an hour. We get to pick out an available building or lot and she’s going to have an apartment built there! I was thinking about what we can do for a living because I remember that non-hive ponies do more for their communities than just love buggies.

“I’m sure we'll figure something out, but more important is that right now everypony wants to know if you’ll be staying with us or not… We um, it’s not… Comfortable to not have anyling around.”

I felt my cheeks pull downwards as I frowned sadly. “I’m sorry… The fact you were left there is a shame on our entire hive. Of course, I’ll stay with you, I already promised I would,” I said as comfortingly as I could.

Juniper’s eyes lit up happily. “Yay! Um… You’re not a Queen, but maybe we can save our old queen and she can help us restart the hive. Cadence said we could dig under the city to make one if we can get her back on her hooves. Or if you don’t mind helping to repopulate. Um… Wait, can soldiers reproduce by themselves or was that-”

“Everyling can reproduce asexually and sexually,” I corrected. “That includes Elites. But if I do it, we won't get any drones, just more soldiers. It’s best to get the Queen healthy again. But that could be a long term project. Right now let’s focus on getting everyone a home… How do I look? AM I okay for meeting with-”

Juniper covered his mouth with one hoof and giggled. “You’re fine! The Princess let us all see past the illusions spells hiding everything. EVERYPONY here is a bit messy. It’s a fun place!”

“What illusions?” I asked with a suspicious glance around the crystalline hallway.

“She hides all of the fun things from anypony who doesn't like that kind of stuff,” Juniper explained pointing to a tapestry showing a map of Equis. “That tapestry shows a group photo of the Princess, her husband, and their entire staff. It’s done like a family portrait, with everyone happy and all looking like they love each other, and everypony is in either fetish outfits or bondage gear. What is it for you?”

“... A map,” I answered after a moment of stunned disbelief. “Are you joking?”

Juniper shook his head rapidly. “Nope. Cadence said she likes things most ponies don’t like, and so she made this city to be a home for everypony like her, and then her friend made her hide it all from other ponies. If you wanna see everything you just have to ask her and she’ll do a magic thing and then you’re not affected by the spells anymore! Everything is waaaay prettier looking, and also more fun!”

That would explain why there was way more ambient love in the air than normal…

Before I could think of a response, the door to my back creaked open and a decidedly male voice said, “Hey, just going to work, but I thought I’d show you how I looked last night.”

I turned, tail immediately lifting slightly as I saw a pony who was most definitely Copper, only male, two hooves taller, well toned, and dressed in an adorable tuxedo.

I felt my jaw drop. He gave me a smile and a wink. “I drank a potion before dinner service last night. Things make more sense now?” He asked playfully.

I blushed deeply and nodded. “Yes!”

“And we’re still on for-”

“Yes!” I agreed.

“Excellent,” Copper said happily giving me a short hug. “I’ll be a mare again by then, is that okay?”

I nodded twice, shuffling my hooves in embarrassment. He was so handsome and I was pretty much a mess and needed to brush my mane, and I probably didn’t burn off all the gunk, and-

“See you then,” Copper said happily before trotting down the hall, whistling happily.

“Woah! Lucky!”Juniper gasped.

“I don’t remember anything. I was too drunk!” I lamented, ears falling sadly.

“No, I mean you’re lucky he likes you that much. Because you definitely like him!” Juniper said with a sly grin. “Don’t screw up dinner and you might have a mate in a few weeks! I remember soldiers like having a single mate. Want help getting ready for the date?”

Oh. Right… The livestock ponies inherited our emotional scenes…

“Um, let’s find some place where I can clean up and then get to that meeting,” I decided.

“With the princess or with that hunk?” Juniper snickered.

“Er, well, both…” I admitted.

“There’s a shower room in the barracks everypony’s staying in. Come on, it’s this way!” Juniper exclaimed eagerly before zipping energetically down the hall.

Gods damn! I forgot just how hyperactive they were. Smiling, I ran along after him.

I was home.

Gentle Repose - 16th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Crystal Spire - Crystal Empire

“There we are, it’s finished,” I said happily as I lifted the small silver and brass medallion from the workbench with my magic.

“Wait, already?!” Twilight exclaimed her ears perking in shock. “Did you have all of the plans in your head? I thought it would take a month to finish whatever healing device you-”

I laughed, making Twilight blush deeply.

“What?” She asked timidly.

“Twilight, this is the charm Light asked me to make for her,” I explained, grinning in amusement.

I always loved the humor resulting from a failure to communicate.

Twilight blinked then laughed as well, shaking her head side to side in embarrassment. “I was wondering why you were working on something so small. I thought that was just a part.”

I turned the medallion over to inspect it. The silver caught the light, glinting nicely. The brass backplate carried all of the enchanting etchings, which I’d hidden behind another layer of brass, and the silver Fleur-de-lis emblem concealed the small managem hidden inside to power the spell.

I was proud of my work. The charm would expand or shrink with her, along with whatever chain or strap it was mounted to. I’d even gotten the control down to a command word which the user thought of instead of spoke. It should allow her to shrink or return to her true size six thousand times before needing to be recharged. Far superior to her crude, ‘cram my volume into one-third of the normal space’ filly’s first enchantment science project grade charm, which she had lost.

“Well, this could be just a part,” I mused. “What if we build a collar that allows it to recharge on ambient magic?”

“Why a collar?” Twilight asked curiously. “Why not a chain? Isn’t that more in line with jewelry?”

I nodded. “Yes, for the feminine among us. Prench jewelry is divided into masculine and feminine forms. The kind you choose is meant to be a way to express your identity to others. Light is a tomcolt, she would prefer a masculine fastener. Originally I was going to give her the charm and let her sort it out… But we could improve this just a bit more and put it on a nice leather collar with matching silver and brass decoration.”

Twilight pursed her lips thoughtfully for a moment, tapped a hoof to her lips, then nodded.

“Why not? We have time,” she decided after a few minutes. “What will the decorations do? The average collar’s size would mean only a third of the studs going around would need to be occupied for the charging enchantment.

“Is there anything else she might like in an enchanted item? Perhaps some basic wards? Maybe an extra-dimensional pocket?”

My ears perked as she mentioned extra-dimensional pockets. “Yes! We should put a pocket in it for her, that would be very useful. And speaking of pockets, I have some in my cloak!”

I set the charm down on the workbench and reached into my cloak’s pockets, slipping out the books I had saved. There was my personal spellbook, naturally, along with my copies of The Nitwit's Guide To Talismans, The Essential Guide To Magical Crystals, the Advanced Guide To Spellcasting, De Vermis Mysteriis, The Book of Eibon, the Unaussprechliche Kulte, and of course, my copy of Abdul Alhazred’s translation of the Necronomicon.

Twilight trotted over with an excited smile to inspect my books. Then tilted her head as her face took on a confused frown as she looked over the selection. “Half of these are first year books, and the other half I have never read, or even heard of,” she said to herself.

“I kept the books I used to learn new fields of study, my notes in the margins are far more valuable than the books own contents,” I explained.

Twilight’s face pulled in an odd way. She took a deep breath, pulled one hoof into her chest, and then exhaled while extending her hoof. “It’s okay… They are common books. Not valuable…”

I felt my ears droop. “My apologies. I assure you I take great care of my more important books,” I consoled as I picked up my copy of The Book of Eibon. “This book is the last known copy as far as I am aware. The Necromancer’s Guild had all known copies burned. Nopony thought I might have a copy as I was alive with it was first written, and I didn’t tell them I had one.”

“Why did they burn it?” Twilight asked suspiciously. “Normally I would be horrified at the thought of a book burning but… That is a necromancy tome, right?”

“Yes. It is,” I answered with a firm nod. “And I am a Necromancer. The Art can be used responsibly and for good, you know. As for the reason, it was burned, it includes some of my work which the author stole. It includes the modified version of the ritual and enchantments I used to become a lich.”

Twilight frowned. “Mmm… Yeah, I can see why it would be burned. Um, if you don’t mind me asking, how come you are not evil?”

I had been expecting this question from her. Fortunately, I had an answer that any wizard would accept.

“The initial transformation is highly flawed,” I began. “A lich who ascended via the traditional method created by Maelstrom the Mad will manage to attach themselves to their phylactery, or soul jar, but they do not complete the transition fully intact.

“Maelstrom believed emotions to be largely useless, and so his version of the spell removes everything but anger, as he believed it played an essential role in survival. This part of the spell is not something you would notice if you weren't reading it carefully. Say, if you were power hungry and seeking undeath as a means of securing your rule forever.

“Once they had transformed, a traditional lich can no longer feel joy, happiness, or anything. Only anger. Eventually, in desperation to feel anything else they become sadistic, it’s inevitable given the infinite lifespan. Nopony’s willpower is that expansive.

“Before I transformed myself, I thoroughly inspected the spell and discovered that flaw in its design. Unlike every other known lich, I have all of my emotional capacity from before. I did have to sacrifice much of the power-enhancing properties of lichdom in order to fit my full self into my phylactery, but I managed.

“There are some other downsides for me as well. However, my primary purpose in becoming undead is fulfilled, so I am happy.”

“And what is that primary purpose?” Twilight asked with an intrigued expression.

“Oh! Well, I don’t want to miss out on future arcane and technological developments. I realized, five hundred years ago, that I will be very sad if I died before we could learn about the other planets, and all of these other amazing things which were being discovered back then which I dearly wished to know about. How can I die when there is so much left to learn?” I asked with a wistful grin.

Twilight returned my smile. I could tell she liked me just by her look. Then my mind flashed to Felling.

Oh no! Did she like me romantically!? I had to cut this off before someone else had an emotional meltdown.

I quickly held up a hoof. “Just in case that is a look of love or lust, I am asexual. I don’t do those kinds of relationships.”

Twilight triple blinked, then broke out into a grin and laughed. “No, you silly! I can just relate to you is all. I’m an Alicorn, I’m also eternal. But before I was, I was worried about missing out on cool discoveries when I died too. I think we could be great friends!”

Her face suddenly fell, ears drooping as a sad frown parted her lips.

“But um… Despite the information in these books being mostly harmless… You do know that necromancy tomes are banned in Equestria, right?” Twilight asked, her hind legs shuffling nervously.

Ah, now this was an easy far to fix.

I nodded. “I do. But would you really destroy knowledge instead of safeguard it and regulate it so it stays out of the wrong hooves? Honestly, aside from the fear that all liches go mad and become serial killers resulting in my work getting this book destroyed, nopony in Prance would object to the rest of its contents.

“The majority of this book deals in how to disable and deconstruct various undead creatures. It also includes a section on medical applications for the living, including reversing gangrene and other rot, grafting dead tissue into place and reanimating it, and a resurrection technique which works as long as the corpse has been dead less than ten minutes. Would you like to see them? You can judge for yourself.”

It wasn’t the Necronomicon. Nothing especially objectionable. All beginner and intermediate Necromancy. A good place for a pony already skilled in the arcane arts to beginning learning the art.

“You make a good argument,” Twilight decided with a nod to herself. “I may not have known you for long, but Cadence didn’t have a bad reaction to you, and you remind me a lot of myself, at least, with what I’ve seen of you. I will trust you.

“As such, you have my authority as the Princess of Magic to keep the necromancy books currently in your possession. So long as you do not allow anypony to read them who doesn't have the approval of a princess… And also, you go over them with me at some point in the future.”

“Certainly!” I agreed happily. “I’ve been enjoying working with you so far. I would enjoy teaching you any necromancy spell you find useful. But for now, I believe we have more important work. Shall we finish this collar and then get onto the reason we’re here?”

Twilight nodded firmly. “Yes, a simple leather strap won’t take long to make. I’ll do the charging enchantment and the pocket enchantment on the studs. You’ve got way better craftsponyship than I do, so you get the leather looking nice and stick it all together. We should be done in half an hour.”

Twilight’s estimate was quite accurate. A mere thirty-five minutes later the finished collar rested on the workbench. I liked how it turned out. Having to work with crude homemade tools allowed me to create true works of art with a proper laboratory at my disposal. The collar still looked hoof made, but in the classy way which denotes an expensive item which had been custom made.

Light would love it. I would deliver it to her at lunch. Meaning whenever Twilight got hungry. Because now it was time for the real work to begin.

Walking over to my spellbook, I opened it, flipped to the appropriate page and spread out my notes over the table to reveal the blueprints for the invention which had gotten me banished from my home.

“This will be difficult,” I warned as I pushed the last page into position. “I will likely need some help. I know you are not an enchanter, but can you see what this is? We should begin by debugging this schematic. This is the first draft.”

Twilight reared up and rested her forehooves on the table, looking down over the blueprint. Her eyes roamed the pages. She nodded to herself, hummed, then raised an eyebrow.

“This is a resonant cascade matrix amplifier, isn’t it?” She asked with a weary sigh.

Oh boy… Here we go.

“Yes, with a thaumaturgic cage built in to limit the effect to a specific area. I already thought about a runaway thaumaturgic effect,” I said quickly, so as to not seem like an extra mad mage.

I was just a normal mad mage after all.

“I’m sorry, but this won’t work,” Twilight said apologetically. “You were exiled for nothing.”

“It will work,” I said having expected the protest. I pointed to one part of the schematic, and then to a page of my notes. “See this? This part is what makes it work. The waveform amplifier is composed of arcanite, and uses this specific frustum shape-”

Twilight held up a hoof. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that word means. What is a frustum?”

“Oh! That’s not an enchanting term. That’s just the name of the shape you get when you cut the upper part of a cone or pyramid,” I explained. “In this case, the specific shape of the frustum is vital to the successful workings of the device. Instead of bouncing the mana’s waveform around inside, it sends it along a predictable vector with a predictable delay, meaning each time the spell matrix pulses and casts the spell, the matrix amplifier will send the thaumaturgic current out where it then hits the cage and runs along it.

“When the next pulse fires, it comes out along a slight difference vector, which ensures that the new pulse’s waveform aligns with the peaks and troughs of the previous pulse exactly. It took a great many years to calculate the precise shape needed but I have tested it in the small scale and it works.

“This design actually will take multiple low power castings of a spell and ‘stack’ them into a single more powerful spell later. The small scale version was able to stack fifteen pulses before burning out. This version uses arcanite components to avoid that problem.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Twilight exclaimed, waving her hooves in disbelief. “You built this in small scale, and it WORKED!?”

I nodded, then paused and shook my head. “Well… No. I built the previous iteration of the design in small scale. I was trying to make a small scale version of this design when I had to flee. But it will still work. This is simply an upgraded version. It should stack up to three hundred spell effects and apply them to anything within its area of influence.”

Twilight shook her head firmly. “I don’t believe that this will work. Resonant cascade matrix amplifiers violate the fifth law of Thaumaturgic Physics. Can I see your calculations?”

“Of course,” I said as I flipped my spellbook to the right page and passed it to her with my magic.

I should have simply shown her my notes before and skipped this whole conversation. Why didn’t I think of that?

Twilight took the book gently and squinted at my admittedly small spiky writing. Her eyes flicked back and forth over the page, frequently returning to earlier positions to re-read segments. As she read her skeptical frown softened, slowly transforming into a beaming grin.

“You see the loophole in the Fifth Law now?” I Asked with an equally large grin.

“I do!” Twilight confirmed. “This… This is big. How did you find this out?”

“This is my life’s work. I became a lich and the first thing I decided to do with immortality was to cure the Emperor. You are looking at the result of five hundred years work. I have done nothing else but this since a week after my first deathday,” I answered with a proud smile.

“You need a hobby,” Twilight said with a chuckle. “But this is beautiful. You know how many other devices can be built using this, right?”

I nodded. “I have an idea. But right now, we have this one to build. Hopefully, we can find somepony to test it on first. Just because it successfully stacks simple healing spells doesn't mean it will brute force any given healing and cure any ailment.”

“Is that what you planned to do with this?” Twilight asked in shock. “That would never work! You want a rejuvenation spell instead. Normally such a spell is impossible, but with this, you could get it to work and-”

“Force everything in the bubble to be restored to an earlier temporal state!” I exclaimed excitedly. “That’s brilliant! You’re brilliant! So long as we could get enough energy to stack as many rejuvenation spells as possible we could-”

“Brute force the change past any resistances in the way save for of the flow of time itself. Now THAT will heal your Emperor from whatever curse he has!” Twilight finished with an excited hoof clap.

Our eyes met. I nodded. She nodded. It was time to work.

“It will take a month to build this,” Twilight estimated. “We give Light her necklace now, I’ll arrange to have meals delivered, move a cot in here and we get her done as soon as possible.”

“Agreed!” I said with a firm nod. “The fewer distractions the better. Who knows, maybe if I heal His Majesty I’ll get a pardon and can have my apartment back.”

Twilight shook her head. “That’s a stupid idea. You should be my court enchanter. Want the job?”

“I’ll think about it,” I said before realizing what she had offered and feeling my head try to explode in surprise and delight. “I’ve thought about it. Yes!”

“Great!" Twilight laughed. "I don’t think I know of anypony more qualified for the position than the stallion who just bucked thaumaturgic physics right in the ear. Um... Sorry for being crass, but you just punched a hole in the base model of physics here sooo…”

“Heh,” I chuckled, “Given that phrasing of what my discovery does, it’s actually kind of apt this is being built here.”

Twilight’s ears drooped. “You looked under the illusion spells?”

I nodded. “I looked under the illusion spells.”

“Sorry. Let’s science! That always helps me get rid of that squicky feeling,” Twilight said comfortingly as she went to start preparing the workbench.

“You know, I think we’re going to be good friends,” I said as I walked over to join her and make sure we had enough materials to begin working.

“We are good friends. There's no ‘going’, to be done. Here, let me clean that soldering iron,” Twilight said casually.

I had another friend! Yay!

Life was looking up again.

Light Step - 16th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Crystal Spire - Crystal Empire

There are many things you can do to make somepony smile. My personal favorite to be on the receiving end of is free food. I’d asked a guard where the mess was and when we could get lunch at around noon, turns out that Princess Cadence ran an open buffet.

I’m not a glutton, but when told that ‘All staff and guests may eat their fill in the casual dining hall, ma’am,” I knew it was time to treat myself.

And what a treat I had found! The Princess had two young adult dragons in her guard, and that meant the buffet served draconic food! Which meant I got to try Parrillada.

What’s Parrillada? A glorious mix of grilled wild boar, chicken, rabbit, alligator, wild boar, dire bear, Neighponese Kaiju, and more wild boar. The grandiose one-course feast is a meat log that’s best described as a brick of meats half the size of a pony’s head that’s made from strips of meat cut from all over each animal and pleated into layers, then glued together with tangy sauces.

The two dragons noticed me taking one and bet me I couldn’t eat it properly. Traditionally, you are meant to cram it into your mouth and swallow it whole. I was pretty sure I could do it. They put down money saying I couldn’t.

So I did.

Those two dragons did not expect me to triple my size and scarf that thing down. I almost regret doing it but, it’s a buffet, so I decided to have another and just chew on it for a while. I deserved that treat. Because I just made seven hundred bits on that whole ‘bet you can’t eat it properly!’ thing.

I had to remember to thank Repose. The collar he’d made for me didn’t even remotely hurt when I used it to take on a normal pony size. Which is why I had been okay with growing to win the bet. Nopony had made fun of me for my size here, and well, I was broke. And I like showing up smug people.

Admittedly, I’d rather have had a simple leather cord to hang the thing from instead but I did appreciate the extras. The collar charging the spell for me and also having a little mage’s pocket was really handy.

I’d stuck my winnings in it.

I had decided to remain full size so I could fit the second Parrillada in my mouth and slowly chew on it like a big juicy steak. It felt weird being able to be comfortable like this, but on the other hoof, delicious pleated meat log!

Heck, this thing even made hunching over the relatively tiny long ‘picnic table’ endurable. I could probably undergo surgery with one of these things as a substitute for anesthetic.

“Oh my gosh!” A mare exclaimed suddenly from over my left shoulder.

I turned curiously peering through the fairly crowded lunchroom. I was just in time to see a kinda fat yet very cute light gray furred mare with a long flowing pale pink mane and tail zip through the crowd to take a seat next to me.

“Hi!” She exclaimed with a happy grin. “I’m Moon Dust, Lilac told me about you. Is it okay if we eat together? I don’t get to meet many ponies who have also been extensively modified!”

“Um, what?” I asked one ear drooping as I spoke around a mouthful of delicious bliss.

She tilted her head as well, nose and cheeks scrunching up. “A-are your wings, tail, and eyes natural? I’m sorry. I thought you got them cosmetically altered,” she stammered in embarrassment.

I laughed, almost slipping off the tiny bench attached to the table. I loved this nation! Where else would a pony assume I’d used super advanced transformation magic to look like this?

Shaking my head I suppressed my laughter and gave her a smile to let her know it was okay. “No, I’m a felin. You know, a pegasus-griffon hybrid. Like how a half earth pony half griffon is a hippogriff,” I explained, turning back to the meaty goodness on my plate.

You know what? The plumber was going to work extra hard tonight. I was gonna have to do a third one after this.

“Oh! Sorry. I’ve only seen hippogriffs before,” Moon admitted. “Uh, is your size natural? Ooo! Is there a colony of giant ponies somewhere? I swear I can remember somepony said Rainbow Dash said that Daring Doo is a real pony so-”

I shook my head. “No, this was a potion accident. But I’m starting to like it.”

It was true. Cadence’s therapy spell really did help. I wasn’t completely okay being this size in the middle of all these ponies, but well, here I was. I could do it. The mental blocks were gone.

And also it helped a lot that it didn’t feel like all of my bones broke when shrinking back down…

Swallowing the bit of meat I had been chewing I realized that Moon had said ‘also’ in her statement about modifications. Squinting at her carefully, I tried to make out anything she might have done that was, well, something transformation magic would be responsible for.

Nothing. Huh.

Well, the culture here seemed very relaxed about this sort of thing. Why not ask?

“Hey, um, I hope this isn’t rude, but you said ‘also modified’. What did you get done? Wing or horn removal? Sex change? Because I can’t see anything odd,” I asked carefully.

Moon looked up at me in surprise. “W-wait, you’re not seeing through the illusion spells? But you’re a giantess! Cadie didn’t-”

“Wait, illusion spells?” I asked, raising one eyebrow in alarm. “What illusion spells?”

Moon blushed. “I um, well, I just figured since… Um, well, Princess Cadence runs this city as a refuge for ponies with m-more odd passions and desires. But since foreign diplomats and other non-residents come here too, the whole place is made ‘presentable’ with a series of illusion spells.

“I thought you were told about them because lots of ponies like being extra big as a fetish. But I’ve never seen anypony near your size… N-normally Cadie tells guests who have similar tastes to her about the spells and lets you see through them.”

“Really!?” I asked, face going blank as I sat there stunned.

Moon nodded in embarrassment. “Y-yes, please don't make a fuss about it. This is our home and-”

“Make a fuss!?” I exclaimed with a snort. “Are you kidding? You’re telling me that this whole place is a fetish zone, and that I don’t get to see it because of illusions? I’m definitely going to make a fuss! I want in on what I hope is a real life version of an erotic fiction novel’s setting.”

I mean, I wouldn’t want to live here if that were true. But as a vacation spot, buck the hay yes!

Moon’s worried and embarrassed blush quickly sprang into a relieved smile. “Oh good! We can find my marefriend later. She can put you on the permissions list so you aren't affected by the illusions.”

“Cool!” I exclaimed giving her a nod. “So, now that we have that cleared up… What’s your deal? I guess I’m seeing you with ‘censorship’ in place.”

Moon nodded and blushed cutely. “Y-yes. I have an udder. Like, a cow udder. I like making milk and I heard that there was a biomancer in Ponyville who could do way more than transformation magic can, and also permanently. I um, I had a lot saved up and I like to make my own butter but that’s hard because a normal pony doesn't make enough to get much butter. I figured I could be jealous of my cow friends, or I could spend some of my savings and out do them. Hehe!”

“Oh yeah, Equestria has a pretty large cow minority,” I mused out loud. “I’ve never actually met one.”

“Oh? Prance doesn't have any cows living there?” Moon asked, ears perking curiously.

“No, we do. Just not very many. Besides, I used to be an Air Guard Scout. I haven't spent too much time in cities,” I explained taking another bite of my meat log.

Mmmm! Meat log. It stays just as good despite the previous bites!

“In that case, you should go meet a few,” Moon said as she picked up a spoon in one hoof to begin eating her soup. “They have a very cool culture, at least I think they do. I grew up near one of their reservations. Sunset says your immigration visa should be here in three days, you should totally go on a trip!”

“How would you know when the visa comes in, but I don’t?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

“My marefriend, Sunset. She’s Cadence’s chambermaid. You know, personal assistant,” Moon explained.

“Ah! Makes sense,” I said as I thought about her suggestion. “You know, I might visit a reservation. If I happen to be near one. This place seems pretty fun, but I’m not planning on staying. I had my fortune told once, and I need to find a place that’s ‘beneath the sea of sand’. Pretty keen on finding it because I think it’s where I’ll feel the most at home. Um, you wouldn't happen to know a place called that, would you?”

Moon shook her head. “No, but if you know that it’s in Equestria, the only sand is in the south. On the Zebrican border. It’s mostly badlands but you get some real dessert right on the edge,” She answered with a helpful smile. “Sorry, I can’t do better than that.”

“That’s fi-” I started to say.

Somepony to my right cleared their throat. “Not to barge in, but that's the nickname for the desert on top of my home,” a stallion’s voice informed.

I turned in surprise to see a burnt orange pegasus with an electric blue mane standing near the table holding a large, brown paper wrapped package with one leg.

“It is? Where do I need to head to?” I asked eagerly. “Wait, on TOP of your home?”

The pegasus nodded. “Yeah. It’s an underground city. Take a train to Appleloosa and ask anypony which way it is to Pheonix and then just look for the huge hill shaped like a big triangle with a lump in the middle. Someling will show you the door as soon as you land on the hill.

“Now then, big girl, could you stand up for just two seconds, please? I can hear Moon Dust on your other side and I need to give her this package.”

“Oh, sorry,” I apologized as I reared up, head brushing against a chandelier as I awkwardly stopped to let him pass the package beneath me.

Moon tilted her head in confusion as she saw the pegasus. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you. Are you new to the post service?”

The pegasi’s ears drooped in irritation. “... Y-you don’t recognize me? That’s okay. It’s not like I’m pretty well known or anything. And also friends with your marefriend. And a pony who you’ve met at one of her birthday parties before. Anywho, that box is for Sunset. Fresh from SkyLabs, one set of replica Yamaha dirt bike fenders and matching engine cover. Make sure it gets to her.

“I was going to be nice and hoof deliver it since I was in town to install Cadence’s new lab equipment, but It’s been two hours and I still can’t find her, and not to be rude, but I don’t like being here for long periods. Oh, and tell her Sky says hi.”

“Alright! Thank you very much,” Moon said as she slid the package into the seat next to her. “I’m sorry I don’t recognize you. What’s your name again?”

“Trigger,” he said with an odd inflection. “Sky Trigger.”

Moon’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. “Oh, my Luna! I’m so sorry I forgot! I feel so stupid… I use SkyTech products all the time!”

“Woah, wait, THAT Sky Trigger?” I asked, eyes widening in surprise. “Multinational corporation owning Sky Trigger!? What are you doing delivering packages!?”

Sky laughed and shook his head. “Saving a friend shipping. Besides, everyone should do some of the grunt work once in awhile. Keeps you from getting detached from your employees.

“Anywho, whenever you can travel, you definitely want to go to the Phoenix to fulfill that little fortune of yours. Remember, Applooza, ask for directions to Phoenix from there. It’s a half day long trip, not counting the train ride. Maybe I’ll see you around when you get there.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that!” I exclaimed eagerly, committing the directions to memory. Suddenly I realized he might know what the other half of the fortune meant. “Oh! Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know what the fortune could mean by ‘embrace the night’, do you?”

Sky blinked and held up a hoof in a warding gesture. “Woah, woah, woah! What is the entire fortune?”

“I asked how I could have a good life. The divination spell told me to quote ‘For a good life, embrace the night beneath the sea of sand. You will find what you have always wanted within the darkness by brightening it’ unquote,” I replied doing my best to remember the exact wording.

Sky coughed as if choking on something then shook his head. “Uh, I do know. But I’m pretty sure if I say anything I’ll ruin it. Just get there before the end of the month and when you arrive go hang out in the civilian quarters on deck four. Everything will sort itself out. See you around,” he said giving the two of us a wave as he walked off.

I debated for a moment whether or not to press for details. My curiosity was more than a little piqued. But on the other hoof, anypony smart enough to run a global business was also smart enough to know when they shouldn’t say something.

Besides. I had a meat log! Mmm... Meat log!

“Well, that was interesting,” I said as I sat back down and returned to my delicious meat log.

Moon nodded in agreement. “Yeah I wonder what he’s not saying… Also how much of that are you going to eat? You’ll be sick at this rate.”

“Nah, I’m a carnivore,” I countered with a smile before taking another bite of the meat log. “I’ve got a griffon’s digestive system. I needs the meats. I can do some grains too, but not much else… Anyways, how about we finish eating, find your marefriend, and get me in on this whole awesome kinky resort?”

Moon giggled playfully. “Sure! I’m glad that when well with you. I- I’ve made a few mistakes with telling others about our lifestyle before.”

I snorted playfully. “It’s fine. I feel good about myself for the first time in my life, and um… I uh, I actually haven’t gotten to well, you know…”

“Y-you’re a virgin?” Moon asked, eyes wide.

“N-not if sleeping with my weapon counts…” I admitted with an embarrassed ear droop. “Uh, anyways… Before I head over to that Phoenix place, well, might as well use this opportunity of a bunch of laid back ponies to work out what I like, right?”

Moon nodded. “Yeah, the Crystal Empire is very good for that sort of thing. We’ll have to go on a tour after lunch. Sunset knows a few of the most fun places but um… Doors. Can you fit through a normal doorway?”

I nodded and with a quick thought, activated my necklace, shrinking down to a normal pony’s size. “Yep!” I exclaimed before frowning.

It felt oddly uncomfortable to be small right now for some reason. Wierd.

Moon’s eyes widened in awe. “Oh wow! That’s so cool! Can you become any size you want!?”

“Nah, just normal pony, what you saw before, and then three times that size if I want to… But I’d rather not. Because I’d fill up the room,” I admitted in embarrassment.

“Awww!” Somepony exclaimed in disappointment. “Get big again! You’re prettier like that!”

I blushed, and let the necklace return me to my true size. Yeah, this place was exactly what I needed right now.

Besides, I’d never finish a third Parrillada with a smaller mouth than this! Make that a fifth...

17 - Resurrection

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Gentle Repose - 22nd of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Crystal Spire - Crystal Empire

“There is no way it’s finished,” Twilight protested, shaking her head in disagreement.

“I can’t believe it either, but we’ve checked each part four times. All of the components work, there’s nothing left to do but connect everything and see if it works,” I said with a weary sigh.

I had done literally nothing over the past six days save work on the Matrix Amplifier. Twilight had to step out a few times to take care of things but had otherwise put her considerable arcane talents to work helping me as only another well educated mage could.

She’d picked up on my enchanting techniques within three days. Perhaps that is what made the difference and allowed us to get this far so soon.

Or maybe we really underestimated the capabilities of two wizards in a laboratory full of rapid prototyping tools, trying to make something which they had blueprints for.

Come to think of it…

I shook my head slowly. “Twilight, honestly, our estimation may have been slightly off. First of all, this is not a finished device. We’ve simply finished each part for the device. Any one of them could be bad or not work well with the others. It’s not Firebrand time yet.

“And even if we are finished as soon as we put these parts together, you are the one who estimated it would take us a month. Did you factor in the fact that we are really just building a device from an existing blueprint, rather than making everything from scratch based on some calculations? What’s more, you yourself admitted to not having much of this laboratory's equipment.

“In short, we had plans to work from, an excellent laboratory, two very experienced mages working as a pretty effective team, and I am undead and was able to put the last one hundred and fifty hours into nothing but constructing these components. If we include the marehours of labor you contributed, that’s about two hundred and thirty five total hours of work put into the project. A reasonable amount to get the first testable prototype. You just didn’t have all the data points required for accuracy when you made your estimation.”

Twilight blinked as I finished my brief rant. Slowly shaking her head she gave me a smile. “That’s right, you don’t need to sleep. Or eat. Or use the bathroom… Wait are you still alive? Or did you just let yourself die of thirst?”

I frowned. That was a good question. Reaching up to my barrel I attempted to feel around for a heartbeat.

Ponyfeathers! I had. Well, this was embarrassing.

“Uhhh…” I felt like I should be blushing with embarrassment, but no warmth spread through my cheeks. “Yes, I seem to have done that. I’m sorry, I must be starting to smell. I’ll clean up a little and we can put this thing together and try to test it.”

“I can’t smell anything yet. You can probably save a shower for later,” Twilight said diplomatically. “But you should at least drink something. Here, have the rest of this lemon water.”

Twilight passed me half a bottle of water with her magic, which I took and drank as quickly as I could. I never liked getting this sucked into projects, but at least I could produce results.

“Hmm, you know… We don’t actually have anything to actually test this out on,” Twilight mused as I gulped down the bottle’s contents.

That’s right. We didn’t. Horseapples!

Wait a minute, Red and Sa’mas delivered the Sapphire Queen’s remains to Twilight for… Whatever reason. We could see if we could reverse some of the tissue decay!

“Actually,” I began, “we do.”

“Do we?” Twilight asked with a frown before her eyes widened in horror and her mouth twisted in disgust. “Um, I’d rather not injure you and see if it puts your parts back together…”

“What? No. That wouldn’t be a sufficient test. I’m already undead. It’s easy to repair me,” I dismissed with a hoof wave and a shake of my head. “The crate Red delivered to you. It contains the remains of a Changeling Queen-”

“WHAT!?” Twilight yelled in shock, eyes nearly popping out of her head.

What did she mean what? Had I not been speaking loudly enough?

“I SAID,” I yelled as loudly as I could in case I was thinking I was speaking more loudly than I really was. “THAT RED’S PACKAGE, CONTAINS THE REMAINS-”

“I heard you! Why the flying buck did nopony tell me that it- That letter has to be extremely important! We need to take care of this NOW! Follow me,” Twilight ordered turning around in a heartbeat and practically running for the doors.

You know, come to think of it, yes. Yes, it had to be important. What was I thinking? I should have spoken up when she received it. I can be a colossal idiot, it would seem.

“As far as I’m aware, the package contains a changeling pod which has been preserving their Queen prior to the last. The ponies living in the hive seemed to believe she was still alive, but I highly doubt that. With a changeling’s regeneration, if she were alive in that pod the affection showered on her by those preserving her remains would have been enough for her to heal. I have no idea why someone would send mercenaries to find you and give you a cordyceps riddled corpse,” I explained as we ran for the door.

“Because right now Equestria has several hundred quite insane Sapphires kept in a military prison who could conceivably helped by being exposed to their Queen’s pheromones, which her preserved corpse should still give off. This is probably the work of a noble who wanted to remain anonymous for political reasons,” Twilight rationalized as she opened the laboratory doors and stepped through practically in the same instant.

I closed the lab door behind us, making sure to lock it. I was certain the Lab’s wards would keep intruders and snoopers out until we could return with the stasis pod and the Queen within.

“Hey!” A filly’s voice called eagerly as we stepped into the hallway. “Have you seen my mom? We’re supposed to be doing fencing practice.”

Turning my head I saw a young alicorn! Who the hay-

Ah yes! Flurry heart, Cadence’s daughter. I remembered her from dinner, sort of. We hadn’t spoken.

The poor young mare was a riot of colors, I imagined she would opt to dye her coat as soon as she was out from under her parent's hooves. Although, come to think of it, maybe her pink and purple hues were dyed. Princess Cadence didn’t seem like the kind of mother who would limit personal expression.

Revision: Hopefully one day, Flurry would learn basic aesthetics and stop dying her fur like that.

“I’m sorry, young miss. I have not seen Princess Cadence today,” I said to her as politely as I could manage.

Flurry’s face scrunched in confusion. “What? No! I said mom, you know, Prince Shining. Are you new?”

“He’s a guest,” Twilight said oddly quickly. “Repose, this is Flurry. Flurry, Repose. Flurry likes to swap her parents titles as a joke, that’s all. Sorry Flurry, I haven't seen my brother today.”

Flurry rolled her eyes in annoyance. Not at Twilight’s statement about not having seen Shining today. But when she said ‘joke’.

“Yeah, sure… Thanks, Auntie Twilight,” she sighed in annoyance with a clear distaste for her aunt in her voice and body language before trotting off down the hall.

Before she left, something hit me. “WOW! This is the worst possible place to raise a foal. Is she able to see through the illusions?” I asked Twilight as the realization made me unable to keep my mouth shut with the pure shock.

“I can see everything,” Flurry called down the hall.

“She can, it’s not normal to raise a foal like this…” Twilight grumbled, ears flattening angrily.

This made Flurry stop and turn around. “Normal for a spider is chaos for a fly, Auntie,” Flurry said calmly.

“Your mom told you to say that, didn’t she?” Twilight asked irritably.

Flurry nodded. “Yes, he did! Because it’s true! When I’m an adult I’ll be used to how adult life really is without all the dumb stuff they try to teach you as a foal which dad says you need to unlearn to be happy with yourself. So they are not teaching me those dumb things, to begin with. Because they are good parents,” She rambled ears laid back in actual anger. “Stop calling them bad! Cuz I know that no matter who I like when I get old enough to do adult things, mom and dad will always love me, and love them too, and I know how to do adult things safely, and when it’s appropriate to do them, and-”

“Ugh!” Twilight groaned rubbing a hoof across her eyes. “Fine… Look, let’s stop having this argument. We do it every time I come over. And can you please stop calling my brother your mom just to get under my skin?”

I watched with amusement as Flurry’s angry face melted into stunned surprise. “Um… That’s not why I call him mom…” She corrected.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. It is.”

Flurry rolled her eyes again and turned around. “Okay. Bye Auntie Twilight… I won't argue again if you don’t call mom and dad bad ponies,” she promised, trotting off down the hallway.

I shook my head slowly. “You know, considering your sister in law’s lifestyle, I don’t think Miss Flurry is joking,” I said casually.

“YES! SHE IS!” Twilight insisted super defensively while giving me a death glare.

Ah. I see. Well, let’s not push that button.

“Yes, you must be right, I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said diplomatically, clearing my throat for good measure. “Shall we continue to your suite to retrieve her Highness?”

Twilight nodded and began to trot down the hallway towards the stairwell.

I bit my lip uncertainly as a thought came into my head. Should I say that? Mmm, yes. This event did call Twilight’s character into question.

“Specific issue aside,” I said as casually as I could manage. “I must admit that it’s rather funny to see a grown mare argue with a twenty-two year old filly.”

“She’s eleven,” Twilight grumbled, ears flattening.

“There’s no way she’s eleven years old!” I scoffed.

She had been too tall, to mentally developed, her wings had grown in fully. There was no way she was a mere eleven.

“She is. As far as we can tell, Alicorns develop about twice as fast as normal foals. She should be an adult by age fifteen. She’s the only pony to have been born an alicorn. The science is new,” Twilight rambled.

“If that’s true, it’s rather upsetting to know you would argue so bitterly with somepony so young. Why the bad blood?” I asked firmly giving Twilight an upset stare so she would know I was serious.

Catching my state, Twilight sighed and stopped walking, before turning around to face me. “Look, we all have our button issues. I don’t hate Flurry, we used to get along very well. But she’s in that rebellious stage where you get resentful of others, you know, like a twenty year old.

“I swear she intentionally tries to piss me off everytime she sees me. And while I could handle that, what I can’t handle is she knows that calling my brother’s masculinity into question gets to me. And that’s what button she will push every, single, last, time. I know that Flurry and her parents have their cute family joke, and that’s fine, but every single time I talk to her, Flurry insists it’s not a joke just to get under my skin.

“Why? Because she asked me what I thought of her parent's parenting style. I decided to be honest and said that Cadence was a bad influence on my brother in terms of parenting and that Flurry should never have been exposed to the adult world at all, ever, and should find out about it herself naturally. Because that’s normal.

“I know that my behavior isn’t excused by that, and I’m trying to become better. But it’s hard. I hope that I’ve at least explained myself.”

She had. Quite well in my opinion, too. Not only her own issues, but why this place even existed at all. It would seem that normal Equestrian culture was a tad prudish overall. Not that I cared personally, but I could see how many people would prefer a place to go with a different culture, one more suited to them, which was still a part of their own nation.

Come to think of it though, I hadn’t seen any other children here… If they were banned, or sterilization was required since this was clearly a city for adults rather than families, then Flurry should not be raised here. Though the city should remain as is an unaltered, I suppose. It seems rather unfair to force people to acomidate those under thirty for their entire lives in every aspect of scociety while ignoring their own prefrences.

Put that way, it's a bit tryannical. But such is life. And even so...

“I do understand. Nopony is perfect after all,” I said after a moment’s silence. “You still shouldn’t argue with a foal. It only serves to solidify their rebellious feelings during that phase. Next time, try simply disconnecting your auditory nerves and continuing about your business.”

Twilight triple blinked, face scrunching up in horror.

What?

“OH! Right, you’re not undead,” I laughed, smiling at the humor of my mistake. “My apologies. Now, shall we get this done? I’m eager to return to my own project.”

“Yeah, I can’t just plug and unplug body parts…” Twilight said with a twinge of horror. “Let’s see why someone shipped me a changeling queen’s corpse.”

The two of us ran through the crystalline halls, speeding up the stairs as Twilight decided the elevators would be too slow. When we at last arrived at her suite, Twilight practically burst the door down, almost ramming it with her shoulder in her haste to get it open.

I must admit that I did enjoy the dark purple shade of crystal which formed the walls. It went well with the black painted furnishings and hot pink upholstery. The brass accents on furnishings and light fixtures was equally pleasing. Whoever decorated these rooms had excellent taste and a passion for interior design.

I hadn’t seen any of the guest rooms before now. I’d just sort of not gone to mine. I regretted it just a tiny bit.

The crate lay in the middle of the room, hastily placed as if it were meant to be moved into a proper location later. Twilight clearly hadn’t touched the box since before the welcome dinner. At least I was not alone in ignoring things for the sake of personal projects.

Twilight rushed to the crate, snatched the letter off the top with one hoof and to my amazement, closely examined the seal instead of just ripping it away. The seal was formed from a green wax and had a stylized three leaf clover stamped into it, along with some writing around the outer edges in a language which I could not identify.

Twilight eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Hmm, Ancient Changelish. I’m still learning this language. Kar'tayl vencuyanir vencuyot… Information preserves time? No, no, word order matters… Ah! It’s ‘Knowledge sustains the future’,” she translated allowed to herself. “I don’t know any noble’s house which uses that motto… Or ancient Changelish. Jade might.”

As Twilight retrieved a messenger gem from a pair of saddlebags resting beside the room’s bed, I tried to remember if any house I knew of used that motto in any language. It seemed like the sort of motto a line of Wizards would use, or perhaps librarians. But I didn’t know of anyone who would use a long dead language to conceal their crest.

Of course it could be made up.

“Jade,” Twilight instructed.

A moment later a changeling mare’s voice asked, “Um, hello?”

“Jade, it’s Twilight. This is crucial. Can you recall any house, family, or organization which uses a seal of green wax, a clover emblem, and the motto ‘Kar'tayl vencuyanir vencuyot’?”

Jade was silent for several moments, but then, “No, sorry. Why?”

“I’ve gotten a letter, it’s sealed with that crest. Since your hive was the last to speak the language, I was hoping you would know something. Are you certain you can’t remember anything?” Twilight pleaded urgently, frowning deeply at the glowing gemstone in her magic grip.

“Sorry, Twi. I don’t. If I remember anything later, I’ll call you. Okay?” Jade asked, sounding truly sympathetic.

“Okay, thank you. Goodbye, Jade,” Twilight said, setting the gem down as Jade also said her farewell.

Twilight carefully opened the letter, using her magic to peel the seal away from the paper without breaking it. Inside the envelope were two folded sheets of parchment. Selecting one of the two, Twilight opened it and read the letter the sheet happened to contain.

She then proceeded to go as white as a sheet, read it a second time, then a third, and then promptly lit the letter a flame with a pulse of her lavender magic.

I yelped in alarm as the flames consumed the page. “What are you doing!?” I demanded incredulously as she held the burning page aloft so it could not catch anything else on fire.

“Destroying the message as instructed,” Twilight said, trembling slightly. “We need to cast the spell on the other page on her, and then try to get her back on her hooves. Now.”

“Why?” I asked. “What could possibly warrant this kind of reaction?”

“Instructions sent forward in time by Clover the Clever as a means to avoid a disaster Starswirl foresaw,” Twilight explained urgently.

Clover the- Seriously?

“And how do you know you’re not doing somepony’s dirty work by falling for a hoax?” I asked skeptically, raising one eyebrow.

“I have Clover’s spellbook. I know her writing, her manner of speech, and it was written in a dead language, which as far as I know, only Clover’s last living heir speaks fluently. Furthermore, it is exactly like her to not give away anything but the bare minimum details of ‘terrible disaster. Cast this spell on this person, do best to revive.’ She was very paranoid and used puzzles to hide… Everything,” Twilight said as the letter finished burning.

“Furthermore,” she added. “Starswirl, her husband, is the undisputed master of time magic and could easily have gotten this to me, which they did, because the letter states I’m likely the only one in Equestria who could cast the spell required. Which is highly plausible.”

“That’s very convincing, but are you absolutely certain?” I asked hesitantly. “Assuming we even can revive a changeling Queen, that is not an idea to be undertaken lightly. Especially if she was alive during the last days of the Changeling Empire, which she could have been.”

“The letter said we’d need her as an ally, to avoid the unspecified disaster in the near future. Which has to be terrible, otherwise the two greatest Wizards in Equestrian history would not have tried to meddle with it. They didn’t warn us about Tirek, or Sombra, or that Kaiju that got lost while migrating, or Discord’s return…

“Take the crate to the lab, put the amplifier together. I’m going to get Cadence as backup in case things go bad,” Twilight ordered firmly. “Please, I’m trusting you. Trust me too. My life has been one crisis after another, and this is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been afraid would happen for a year, because it’s that weird to go a year between crises for me!”

Twilight’s face bordered on the edge of terror and duty. She was thoroughly convinced this was a thing we had to do. The shear amount of urgency which bled from her tensed body was more than enough evidence for me to believe her.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I agreed, snapping a salute on reflex, before lifting the heavy crate with my magic and backing up into the hallway, pulling it as quickly I could manage with the growing mental strain keeping it aloft put on my shoulders.

“Thank you,” Twilight exclaimed urgently, vanishing in a flash of lavender light with a crack.

I paused, setting the crate down. If this was as urgent as Twilight believed, then lugging this heavy crate down the hallway would simply take me too long and consume too much energy for me to hope to attempt a revival.

In fact, it would be more energy efficient to teleport, crate and all. Could I take that much mass with me? It was a corpse, so I wouldn’t have to worry about safeguarding another mind… Yes, I could manage this.

I reached out and set a hoof on the crate, focusing my mind on every last detail of Cadence’s laboratory, fixing it in my mind as I reached for my magic to initiate the telep-

Sweet Faust… She wasn’t dead!

I recoiled in shock, concentration broken by the touch of the very faint dying ember of a mind as I had readied my teleportation spell.

The Queen was alive. Barely. Literally on her very last spark of life. Legally, she would be considered a corpse, but as a necromancer I could she was still holding on.

Doubt vanished from my mind. That letter had been authentic. Nopony without divination magic would know that she yet lived unless they were able to check for themselves. And if they could, they would not have hired mercenaries to find and retrieve ‘her remains’.

I ripped the crate apart with a pulse of telekinesis, throwing the unnecessary mass across the hall in a cloud of shrapnel. I had to save as much mass as possible to pull this off. The Queen was much larger than a typical pony, and the pod added a lot of mass as well…

The crate was not enough. I needed to shed three more pounds. I had to ditch my cloak.

“Woah woah woah! What the buck are you doing?” A tall, pale washed out, purple furred unicorn mare asked.

My racing mind took a second to process who she was. Recognizing the mare as Cadence’s personal assistant Sunset, I stripped off my cloak, taking my watch and looping it around my neck by the chain, and tossed her the cloak.

“This is an emergency! Take my cloak down to the laboratory, and find Cadence. She needs to be there. Twilight’s looking for her as well,” I explained as I grabbed the now bare pod and refocused on teleporting.

“Emergency? How?” Sunset asked seriously.

“Letter from an ancient wizard in the past saying wake this actually somehow still alive changeling up to avoid impending disaster,” I summarized, gritting my teeth to refocus after speaking.

“Shit!” Sunset cursed in some language or another. “I’m going with you. That’s a big load for one pony to teleport.”

Sunset crossed over to the pod and grabbed it as well. I immediately felt the load I was trying to carry lessen, and released the spell. The hallway melted around us, dissolving into the interior of the laboratory as Sunset and I materialized alongside the pod thankfully with nopony stuck halfway through a workbench.

“Ugh…” Sunset groaned, wiping her forehead with the back of a hoof. “Your teleports are a bit sloppy… That or undead teleport weird.”

“We teleport weird. Negatively charged mana rather than positive, making the difference,” I quickly explained as I wheeled around to face the bench the amplifier’s parts lay on.

I had just barely attached three of the five components when twin cracks signaled the arrival of Princess Cadence and Twilight.

“Good! Sunset, you take position by the doors and cloak. If anything goes wrong, put the Queen in a force cage,” Cadence ordered immediately.

“Good plan,” Sunset agreed her hooves clicking as she moved into position.

I carefully set the next component into place atop the small power core, and began to fuse the parts together.

“Um, Cadence, she has almost no aura,” Twilight said uneasily. “With magical power that low on the scale, Sunset won’t be able to contain a Queen for more than a second or two.”

“She’s more powerful than you could imagine, Twilight,” Cadence corrected.

“It’s called aura-cloaking,” Sunset added. “It’s just that unlike you, I don't have so much raw power that I can only dim it. I can hide all of it.”

“Ah! Surprise bodyguard. I understand,” Twilight said with a relieved sigh. “Repose, are you ready?”

I shuddered involuntarily. Twilight was that blindingly powerful and had an aura-cloaking spell running? But she was STILL afraid of facing a Queen? What happened to make that possible?

On second thought, I didn’t want to know.

“Not yet,” I answered. “This can’t be rushed.”

“Let me know when it’s time to power it. I’ll take care of that,” Twilight instructed.

“Understood,” I replied, focusing entirely on my work.

If I messed this up, it might just disintegrate everything inside the field due to becoming a wild magic storm generator. There was no room for errors.

“Okay… Spell…” Twilight murmured to herself. The rustling of parchment pierced my ears are I carefully finished soldering the last of the tiny pins.

No, don’t focus on what they're doing. Next part. It’s important. It’s the field limiter…

I carefully positioned the small cage-like carved diamond over its connector and began to fuse each of the hair-thin links one by one.

“Wait, what kind of spell is that?” Cadence asked curiously. “It looks like it’s meant to separate a foreign arcane signature from somepony.”

“It’s probably a curse or hex removing spell,” Twilight said agreeingly. “Which makes sense. Chrysalis had to take over the Sapphire hive somehow. If she disposed of her… Yeah this is probably meant to remove some kind of hex meant to kick in if she’s revived.”

“What are we planning on doing about that cordyceps infestation?” Sunset asked urgently. “We have changelings living here, you know.”

“If Repose’s invention does not remove the fungi, I know a few treatments. As for the spores it will release, we are in a sealed lab. The decontamination button is the big blue one right next to the door, Sunset,” Cadence replied calmly. “I set this place up as a hazmat chamber, just in case I messed up a potion.”

Well, that was good to know. I’d hate for Fell to be mind puppeted by a fungus because I bucked up putting this thing together.

The field limiter hummed slightly as I finished connecting it. Good, the mage gems were properly powering the basic enchantments. All that remained was the spell matrix receptacle.

“Okay, here goes,” Twilight warned.

I heard a slight scintillating melodious sound which reminded me of wind chimes in a blizzard. A bright lavender flash of light flashed, reflecting off the wall in front of me and leaving spots in my eyes. Everypony gasped loudly.

“The fuck was that!?” Sunset swore.

“No idea!” Twilight said in awe. “Please tell me this lab records spells cast in it!”

“Sadly no,” Cadence admitted. “But you know what that flash reminded me of? Discord’s magic. We’ll ask him about this as soon as possible.”

“Agreed!” Twilight exclaimed decisively. “Ready repose?”

“Nearly,” I grunted.

The receptacle clicked into place. The small blue gemstones around its base glowing green to indicate readiness.

There!

“I’m ready,” I announced, taking a step back from the workbench.

Everypony grew silent for a few moments.

“T-that looks like a fez with a propeller on top attached to a tiny radio antenna attached to the propeller’s shaft,” Sunset said after a few heartbeats.

“I know what it looks like. There’s a structural reason it looks like that. Trust me, I’m an enchanter,” I grumbled.

I did NOT want to explain why it had to look like that right now.

“Do you want to set it up?” Twilight asked. “I’m not certain I remember how it works.”

I nodded and carefully picked up the delicate device with my magic’s grip and set it down atop the changeling Queen’s pod. After carefully folding the stabilizing feet down from the chassis so it would sit atop the pod properly I stepped forwards and carefully turned the ‘propeller’ to the correct position to adjust the side of the effect field to be just slightly larger than the pod itself.

Stepping back, I nodded to myself. Everything seemed okay.

Except for the third of a changeling I could see through the translucent green pod. That did not look okay. Because of the mess of white tendrils erupting from all of the rest of it.

That would look less horrific if she were all dead, instead of mostly dead.

“Alright. Twilight, cast your spell on the crystal in the center of the bowl. And don't step within two meters of the device. The area of effect is a sphere,” I warned.

Twilight nodded and stepped up to the edge of the invisible field, close, but still outside of the zone. Closing her eyes, she focused on her spell, horn glowing dimly at first but then brighter and brighter until I had to look away from the welding torch like blaze surrounding her horn.

The blinding beam of magic finally surged from her horn and connected with the crystal. The twisting and arching trace-lines of magic scattered and raced over the gem like mini-lightning bolts, but otherwise remained confined to the gemstone instead of moving on. Instead, it simply stopped arcing. Seemingly dissipating harmlessly.

“Did it work?” Twilight asked as she stopped casting her spell with an uncertain frown on her lips.

“It should have,” I said with a weary sigh. “At least it didn’t explode. I think we might have not quite gotten something up to sp-”

The amplifier suddenly began to hum, quietly at first but with increasing volume as a bright golden glow began to creep over its copper and brass surface like the device was being dipped into paint. The propeller began to spin as the glow overtook it, white-hot lines tracing down each blade as the spell circuitry powered up.

“Duck?” Cadence asked uncertainly.

“No! It’s working!” I exclaimed happily, a smile erupting across my face before I realized that there shouldn’t have been a delay. “Actually um, duck anyways!”

I ducked behind one of the workbenches just as the three quartz emitters on the sides of the fez pulsed, each sending out a beam of white-hot light making the device look to be spraying liquid metal before the limiter field lit up a bright orange-ish gold, blocking out everything within the bubble as the glow became painful to look at.

A jolt of primal fear shot down my spine as the hum grew to a full roar which made tools vibrate atop the workbenches for one brief terrifying moment. Then the light vanished. Instantly. As if somepony had snuffed out a candle.

Everything was still. Everything was calm.

I peeked out from behind the workbench. The Amplifier's glow faded away completely, allowing me to catch the last fleeting bits of power as the left the slightly blackened but seemingly okay device.

“Clear!” I called loudly.

Cadence peeked up from behind one of the filing cabinets, a pink force field rippling as she dismissed the shield.

Twilight stepped out from a utility closet, nervously looking at the device.

Sunset looked at all of us and shook her head slowly. “Did you guys seriously think it was going to explode? That reaction looked perfectly controlled,” she said with a smirk.

“Not all of us have an innate sense of thermodynamics,” Cadence mumbled, glaring at Sunset in response.

“What?” Twilight and I asked together.

“Special talent,” Sunset countered with a grunt. “So, who's checking to see if it worked?”

Oh! Yes. We had turned it on to do a thing. I’d forgotten for a moment. Being fairly certain you’re about to be vaporized will do that to you. Good thing I hadn’t eaten in awhile. That could have been embarrassing.

Clearing my throat I carefully moved the amplifier from the pod to the top of a workbench as gingerly as I could, then stepped closer to the pod, placing a hoof on it and readying a teleport so I could extend my magic to check the Queen’s condition.

The first thing I noticed was none of the stalks of fungi which had been erupting from her body like needles in a pincushion were visible. But that didn’t mean any wasn’t still inside her.

The second thing I noticed was that spark of life had been fanned into a decent bed of coals. The spell worked! My amplifier worked!

“HA! Yes!” I exclaimed with every last ounce of joy I could muster. “She’s unconscious, but we could wake her. Woo!”

I spun around, holding up one hoof exuberantly for Twilight to bump. The lavender mare smiled and gently bumped my hoof. “Good job,” she said with a proud smile, which quickly faded. “Um, anyone know how to check for cordyceps infestations? She looks clear but… You know.”

Cadence shook her head. “Sunset? Teleport to Canterlot Royal Hospital and tell them to get a biohazard room ready. As soon as the doctors are inside and the room is sealed, teleport back here and we’ll move her directly from this sealed environment to that one. Twilight, you and I will wake her here to make sure she’s no threat, then as soon as she’s in the hospital we both go get Celestia.

“Repose, as soon as we go, you hit that blue button to sterilize this room. Don’t worry, it will only get rid of dust, spores, and other contagions. It’s never damaged dead matter, plant or otherwise. After that, get your device ready for another use. Because as soon as it’s ready, we’re going to break into a certain room in Prance. Understood?”

Break into a certain- OH!

I nodded adamantly. “Understood, princess!”

Cadence nodded in satisfaction.

“Right, moving out,” Sunset agreed with a nod, vanishing in a flash of cyan light.

Odd… She didn’t have cyan eyes or a cyan cutiemark. Maybe she used vanity spells? Bah, whatever.

As she vanished, Twilight’s horn blazed lavender as the alicorn cut the pod open with a thin purple ray of magic. A thick blue slimy liquid spilled out from the cuts covering the floor tiles as the pod was cut open, immediately making the room reak of extra sweet honey. A moment later and Twilight lifted the ‘lid’ off the pod and set it aside.

The Queen lay still, looking dead for a few short moments. Her dull, unhealthy looking chitten contrasting with her soft looking features and long bright sky blue mane and tail.

“Are you certain she’s alive?” Cadence asked with a frown as she trotted up to the edge of the pod.

I barely had time to nod before the Queen’s dark sapphire colored eyes flew open and darted between the two alicorns who were leaning over her.

“I’ll beat you each apart!” She yelped in a startled but melodic voice. “I’ll take you both together! Back! I’m warning you!”

Twilight immediately took a step back. “Woah! Easy! We’re not going to hurt you. We’re here to help,” she said as soothingly as she could.

“That’s right, we’re on your side,” Cadence agreed. “If you’re not going to harm anypony, that is.”

The Queen frowned, a twinge of fear flashing across her features as she tried to look down but could not. “Why won't’ my legs move?” She asked.

“You’ve been mostly dead all- For a long time,” I said in as medically professional of a manner as I could. “We just removed you from a stasis pod.”

The Queen’s frown deepened. “Stasis pod? Who are you? Are we enemies? Why am I outside my hive? Oh, Tartarus! Where’s Chrysalis! She has a jar of cordycep spores!” She screamed in alarm.

“Let me explain,” Cadence began before pausing and shaking her head slightly. “No, there's too much. Let me sum up. Chrysalis is dead. She exploded.”

“Twice actually,” Twilight added. “I was there when it happened. It’s been a very long time since you’ve been awake. We’re fairly certain that Chrysalis infested you with cordyceps and left you to die.”

“Oh,” the Queen said, her voice ringing hollow with defeat. “Is my hive dead?”

“Not completely,” Twilight said soothingly. “We can talk about them later. Right now we have no idea if our means of reviving you removed all of the fungi from your body. Is it okay if we move you to a hospital for treatment?”

The Queen snorted. “Oh please, no physician can treat a cordyceps infestation. Besides, what pony doctor would even know how to treat a changeling?”

Cadence smiled and gave the Queen a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Equestria has changed a lot in recent years. We can treat you, and we want to help. Will you let us?”

“Yes,” she agreed after a few moments. “I’m paralyzed, you could have easily killed me if you wanted… I trust you. My name is Jiila, who are you? I don’t recall any Alicorns other than Celestia and Luna, and you are not them.”

“I’m Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s former student,” Twilight introduce with a polite half-bow. “My friend is Princess Cadence, she rules the Crystal Empire, which you are in now. Our friend over there is the enchanter who brought you back. His name is Repose.”

I gave her a happy nod. “Thank you for proving my device works,” I said, still happy with my success.

“No, thank you for saving me from… This…” Jiila winced. “OW! That was a heart! I’m not okay! A hospital would be lovely because I am not regenerating at all.”

A cyan flash lit up the room as Sunset popped back into existence. “They are ready, is she safe?” She asked quickly.

Cadence nodded. “Yes, Jiila is not hostile and seems to be in critical condition. Jiila, this is my assistant Sunset. She will be teleporting you to the hospital. Twilight and I will be there with Celestia as soon as we can get her attention. Is that okay?”

“I don’t care! Physician now, please! I can feel another heart starting to choke!” She yelped.

Sunset jumped landing atop the pod in a display of catlike grace, grabbed Jiila by her barrel and teleported, the two vanishing in a flash of light that left sports on my eyes for a few moments after their departure.

Twilight sighed and let out a deep breath. “Okay. Good. That went well. Unexpected, given the letter,” she said, her body relaxing as relief washed over her.

“Don't relax yet. We need to tell Celestia that we revived a changeling Queen,” Cadence reminded with a serious tinge in her eyes. “Let’s go, the faster the better. Repose? You remember what to do?”

I nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good!” She exclaimed in satisfaction. “Ready, Twilight?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, let me go ahead. That way you can be certain the decontamination system worked properly.”

“Good idea,” Cadence agreed.

Twilight vanished with a crack and a flash.

I trotted over to the door and pressed the large blue button next to it as firmly as I could. Immediately a bright red ray of light swept back and forth over the lab, making several passes. I felt an odd itching as the ray swept over me and the smell of burnt something filled the air, vanishing as the ray flickered out.

“Are we good?” I asked hopefully.

Cadence nodded. “Yes, that’s what it’s supposed to do,” she said with satisfaction. “Get that thing repaired. As soon as Twilight and I are free again, we’re going back to Prance.”

“Of course,” I said as Cadence’s horn began to glow. “Wait! One thing before you leave.”

The glow vanished. Cadence frowned. “What is it? Do you need more money for parts?”

I shook my head. “No. I may not get another chance to ask this, as Twilight will be present next time I am with you. We ran into your daughter and-”

Cadence facehooved. “They argued again? I’ll have a talk with Flurry… This has to stop. What’s the question?”

“Is her calling Shining her mother really a joke?” I asked with a slightly embarrassed blush.

Cadence flashed me a grin. “It’s more fun if I don’t answer that,” she giggled. “And even if I wanted to, now is not the time. We have a rather pressing matter at hoof.”

Evading the question eh? Well…

“Oh come on, you said you owed me one after I showed you how to bake bread over a normal campfire, Blade,” I said with a sly wink.

Cadence immediately frowned. I held up one hoof defensively. “It’s okay, I will never tell a soul. I’m not blackmailing you, I’m calling in that minor favor. Mostly because I want to get to know the real you. I consider you a friend,” I explained.

Cadence sighed and shook her head. “You’re lucky I can see your heart and know you’re not lying to me,” Cadence said before giving me a friendly smile. “Alright. No, it’s not a joke. Shining is a rather effeminate stallion in private and talked me into letting him try being our foal’s mother.

“He thought it would be fun for him. It was not fun for him at all, but he stuck through it. I’m very proud of him for that. We remained mostly isolated for the duration of the pregnancy and used illusion spells to make everything seem normal. Because well, sadly our family is a political issue for many. Meaning we can’t be truly free. That’s one reason I share in the Blade identity. For freedom to act as I see fit to help others.

“You’re the only one besides the three of us and Twilight who knows about Flurry’s actual parentage. She walked in on her brother and I during the ‘making of Flurry special’. But she refuses to acknowledge that happened. It’s a bit sad but also kind of funny.

“Is there anything else? Oh, and this stays private. If Flurry chooses to leave the Crystal Empire later I don't want anypony knowing her parentage so she will not be teased or mocked.”

I nodded firmly. “My lips are sealed. I just don't like not knowing things for certain. Um, one last thing. Do you really not shelter her from anything at all?”

Cadence snorted, holding back a laugh. “Oh Faust no! There are plenty of things she doesn't know about, like almost every extreme kink. She has limits. She just thinks she knows everything. Which is the best way to hide the things which can actually be bad for a foal to experience… Or hay, even for some adults to experience.

“I’m not stupid. I simply let her know about tamer things so she doesn't wonder if there are other illusions. Like the ones hiding certain doors. Look, I need to go now. We can talk more later, if you like.”

I nodded. “I’d like that. Good luck!”

“You too, Reep,” she replied before vanishing in her own flash of light.

My curiosity sated, I trotted over to the work bench and began to examine the amplifier. It seemed to be fine, but a full component by component examination was needed. Especially since this was, after all, a prototype.

A prototype which had some major work ahead of it.

18 - The Hive

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Canterlot Royal Hospital, Canterlot - Equestria

25th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Equestrians take pride in elegantly and lavishly decorating their homes and workplaces. The CRH was no exception. Most of the hospital had a soothing Neighponese theme to its decor which gave the place the calm, soothing, and relaxing atmosphere Equestrian hospitals were famous for.

Except for its isolation rooms. Those were undecorated sadly, by necessity. For while a bamboo plant in a terracotta pot can go a long way to make a room cheerful, it’s also an excellent place for all kinds of nasty things to hide from the eyes of the unicorns in charge of sterilizing the room pre and post use.

Celestia, Twilight, and Cadence had spent three hours sitting outside the plastic curtain which ringed around the operating table, quietly waiting for the surgeons to finish extracting the fungi, and sterilizing each wound before healing it.

It wouldn’t have been so bad to sit and wait for the operation to conclude if changeling exoskeletons didn’t require power tools to make an incision. Twilight had always hated slasher stories, and it sounded like one had just taken place behind the barely translucent plastic veil.

A veil which was swiftly drawn back by a blue scrubs clad unicorn making all three princesses jump.

“She’s stable, your Hignesses. You can talk to her now,” the unicorn mare said through her surgical mask. “Her regeneration is functioning again, she will be okay to leave within three hours.”

Princess Celestia stood up from the steel bench, stretching her wings to conceal the flank-wiggle she used to try and shake the fatigue out of her plot with.

“Thank you, Doctor Silver Leaf,” Celestia said with a small hint of praise on her face. “Do you know if she is okay to speak now?”

Silver’s eyes rolled, then nodded. “Yes, Ma’am. Nopony is picking up any spore or mycelium left inside her, nor is any machine we have. She’s clean. All of the extracted material has been confined… But we’re still going to decontaminate the room before anypony leaves. You’ll want to talk to her now, she’ll need a nap before too much longer.”

“Thank you, and don’t worry. I don’t plan on this to cause her any stress,” Celestia said soothingly as she stepped past the doctor and walking along side the bed.

As she approached the operating bed, the battered changeling queen turned her head, exoskeleton scraping as she moved due to the surgical cuts made in it which had not yet regenerated. The Queen smiled slightly. “Ah, Celestia. Now there’s an Alicorn I recognize. I thought you were sterile, good job!” She said with a wink followed by a pained flinch. “Ow.”

Celestia’s wings flared open in alarm. “Polygyne!?” She gasped incredulously. “But I killed you!”

Twilight and Cadence gassped in shock, Twilight remaining frozen while Cadence jumped forwards, horn blazing as she readied herself for battle.

The Queen laughed wetly, instantly hissing in pain from her barrel contracting.

“AH! … Man, I am out of love. I should have healed enough to laugh by now. Could somepony give me a kiss, please? It’s for medical purposes,” she asked of the room before her eyes focused back on Celestia. “No? Well, anyways, Polygyne was my sister, we were twins. I used to be called Formicary, I go by Jiila now.”

Celestia sighed in relief. “Stand down everypony, it’s alright,” Celestia said as she folded her wings. “If I’m not mistaken, Jiila is Changelish for ‘Kindness’. Why did you choose to change your name? Did you prefer to use the name as a descriptor tradition of the peasant castes?”

Jiila nodded slowly, her lips parting in a frown. “Yes, my brood gave me the name since I didn’t tell them my old one. I consider my status as a second generation Imperial Queen to be of no consequence. How do you know our culture? How many years have passed since Chrysalis took my hive?”

“At least one point seven millennia,” Twilight chimed in, clearing her throat as she trotted closer to the ancient changeling. “Equestria has integrated two changeling hives as citizens or protectorates in the last fourteen years. Your people are welcome here now, so long as they don’t harm anypony.”

Jiila whistled as she gave the lavender Alicorn an impressed nod. “Damn, what let us go from ‘hide so we aren't all exterminated like rats’ to ‘neighbors’?”

Celestia’s ears drooped as her eyes softened with remorse. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to your species in the past. You gave us little choice but to try and wipe you out. I have since learned that our species can exist in harmony as symbiotes. You are not the parasites I once believed you were. I- I’m sorry about your sister.”

Jiila blinked before looking at Celestia with a stunned incredulity equivalent to that of an astronomer witnessing a black hole transform into a main sequence star.

“What?! No! Why!? She was crazy and needed to go down. My hive celebrated her death day like your Hearthwarming,” she exclaimed, face frozen into a confused contortion.

The three princesses and ever a few of the doctors stared at the changeling, jaws hanging open in shock.

“Don’t look at me like that! Especially you, Celestia! You know what she did,” Jiila protested.

“What did she do?” Twilight asked, frowning as she tried to comprehend any reason someone would be happy over another’s death. Let alone their own sister.

“Oh nothing much,” Jiila said with an almost artful casually sarcastic eye roll. “She just turned the entire northern half of Equestria into one single continuous bed of ASH! Didn’t even drain the inhabitants dry of love. Just burned them all. Total war policy of ‘Buck you, your mom, your sister, your cat, and what the hay, buck your motherbucking couch too!’ Her army starved to death because she refused to not literally level your entire kingdom! She brought surveying tools to ensure things were actually motherbucking leveled.”

“Faust’s blood! That’s beyond insane!” One of the doctors exclaimed in unison with Twilight, their voices tinged with terror.

“Damn straight!” Jiila agreed with a nod and a gasp of pain. “Absolutely no one should be sad she’s dead! Tartarus, many of us hailed you as a hero, Celestia. With my sister as the High Queen our species would have gone extinct within the next century. Scattering the hives across the world with your Elements of Harmony honesty is what saved our species from self-annihilation.”

“Wait, what?!” Twilight exclaimed, eyes widening as her eyes darted between Jiila and Celestia, lips pursed in confusion.

Noticing her former student’s confusion, Celestia cleared her throat. “That’s true, Twilight. I did scatter their Empire across the world. I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now, I need to learn what Jiila wants,” Celestia said.

Jiila chuckled. “I’m no threat to you, or your ponies. Especially not if we are allowed to feed openly,” the Queen said with an honest smile.

“Be that as it may, you have a high chance of disturbing the international community’s affairs,” Celestia said with a weary sigh. “We’ve been in a rather nice, stable, and peaceful period for the last few years, and I don’t want that to end because one Queen decides to go nation building.”

“I never was interested in conquest. Don’t worry about me causing a fuss,” Jiila dismissed with a feeble hoof wave. “That’s why I didn’t get crowned High Queen. I wanted to make peace, and noling believed that would generate sufficient food for us… Despite how much you ponies seem to enjoy bedding non-ponies. We could easily have just integrated with each other if all the old people could just fucking stop bitching and throw out their unscientific opinions. Idiots, the lot of them.”

“Not really one for tradition, I take it?” Cadence asked with a curious frown.

The Changeling Queen shook her head. “Nah. Scientifically speaking, traditions are an idiot thing.”

“Excuse, me?” A baffled Celestia asked as her head tilted and face scrunched.

“Er, well, I’m not calling you dumb for having them,” Jiila backpedaled. “I’m just saying that all traditions do is make it harder to change your people’s ways as you learn more about the universe and discover a better way to do something. Maybe some traditions are good, if they bring people comfort and don’t impact the way things work much.

“Maybe things have changed since I was out, but as I remember, most traditions serve as chains to keep you down. Do you know how long we knew about passive feeding but refused to use it? And n fact, they taught nymphs that if you used that method you’d drop dead after convulsing in agony simply because ‘tradition good! New bad! YAY STAGNATION!’? A REALLY long motherbucking time.

“So yeah. Buck tradition.”

Taking advantage of the stunned Princesses moment of silence following her statement, Jiila continued.

“Look, I just have one thing I want to do. All I need is to return back to my old Hive. It took for bucking ever to find that place, and I was pretty close to finishing up. See, I’ve always felt that we Changelings have a purpose that’s been taken from us. It’s… I can feel I’m meant to do something, but I can’t tell what. It’s a changeling thing. Everyling I’ve ever asked also has that empty feeling and the vague sense of an unfulfilled purpose.

“It’s one reason why Queens can command so many of us. We all feel a missing sense of duty and purpose. Personally, I believe the overmind deleted the purpose from our instinctive memory. You know, back when it was a thing. The prick.”

“Instinctive memory?” Twilight asked curiously.

“You know how a foal can stand up and walk within a few minutes of being born?” Jiila asked Twilight before coughing violently into her right hoof. “Oh. Good. Right side air sacks are working now.”

Twilight winced at the cough and then slowly nodded. “Yes. Do changelings have similar innate knowledge?”

“Yeah,” Jiila said after a few short breaths. “We can dig as soon as we pupate, and several other things too. Rarely, some of us know more. Things we frankly shouldn’t know. We called it ‘the knack’, a rare condition characterised by an extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical. Along with a large degree of social ineptitude.

“Other Queens considered them freaks, defective. Like anyling who didn’t fall within their castes average, genetically speaking. You know, greater than five percent divergence from the baseline? My mom and her sisters used them along with all the other hive’s so called ‘defective’ members to create the Emerald Hive, when we needed to make a new thirteenth hive. Too bad I didn’t get to rule them. Maybe if enough of us got together we could just verbally sort it all out. Ah well.”

“And you think that the Overmind deleted information your species somehow stored genetically?” Cadence asked curiously.

“That’s right,” Jiila agreed. “I know it sounds insane. But the more I’ve learned about my species, the more I reflect on what we can do and how well suited to countless applications we are. I don't think our species is natural.

“Think about it. We apparently store data, passing it on to offspring even. We require only water and the affection of other species to survive. We self replicate in large numbers. We can communicate silently. We can shapechange to assume any form needed, even inanimate objects with practice…

“Nothing else on this planet has similar capabilities to us. If we evolved, then we should expect other creatures to be similar to us. And yet, we are out of place here. I believe we were designed by an unknown species. Possibly as companions, perhaps as slaves.”

“That seems unlikely,” Celestia said with a dismissive shake of her head. “I know that the First Kingdom made a few creatures, but nothing like your species. Not even any other sapient species.”

Twilight frowned, shuffling her hooves for a moment before clearing her throat. “Actually, before you asked me to assist Repose, I was studying the Mimic Ponies native to Shorefall. They might actually have been created by the First Kingdom. But I can’t say for certain.”

“Regardless, changelings have oral history going back forever,” Cadence pointed out. “Some stories date back tens of millions of years. Even with exaggeration of time for dramatic purposes… Changelings are definitely older than Pony Civilization. You just need to see the old Changeling Empire’s ruins to know that.”

“I had evidence to back up this claim,” Jilla insisted. “My hive was really an archeological dig. I believe I have found our birthplace. If that is indeed what the Pyramid is, then it stands to reason I can learn what that missing purpose is by exploring, restoring, and examining the ancient structure. Although, frankly, it might be to repair and construct things because I don't have that empty feeling while I’m working.

“If you allow me to leave, I will never bother you again. I will go back home, grow an eggsack, lay a few thousand eggs, and hope that this new brood turns out less feeble minded than the last brood’s bloodline was… If not I could just instruct the drones to stop breeding on their own. It would be easier to manage myself and a few of them instead of a mostly useless for my plans. My ‘intelligent’ offspring are not that intelligent.

“I had to convince them the mechanical intelligence I restored was a god so they would not be frightened by its voice, and convinced them that simple maintenance work was ritualistic appeasement to keep ‘them’ happy. They honestly couldn’t understand what to do any other way. They also couldn’t be happy working on things… They needed a sense of duty, physical challenges like combat. So I invented some bullshit for them to form a culture around.

“Hopefully my new brood will be smart enough to be of more use than janitors and excavators, and not be a load of dimwitted jocks. Then maybe I could learn why we exist inside the next thousand years. Buck… Please don’t be some kind of reproductive disorder on my part...”

The Princesses remained silent for a moment as they shared a look between themselves.

“The Sapphire Hive was an underground city filled with ancient machinery?” Celestia asked at last, her eyes holding an odd glint to them.

Jiila nodded slowly. “Yeah… Why?”

“The Emerald Hive is also an underground city filled with ancient machinery,” Cadence mused. “There might be something to your theory. I always wondered how they managed to fix that ruin, and if your hive also achieved the same thing…”

“The Emeralds are alive!?” Jiila exclaimed, jaw dropping open. “But Chrysalis told me they died!”

“Think about that for any real amount of time,” Twilight said to Jiila with a smirk.

The Queen’s ears drooped in embarrassment. “Point taken. Say, how hard would it be to get a few Emeralds to come help me? You think I could get them to work for gizmos? I repaired a machine that makes stuff for you before Chrysalis tricked me into a coma. Ooo! I got the hanger’s manufactorum working. Computers and all! I never used it before, too many things to repair, but I could probably manufacture-”

“That wouldn’t work. The Emeralds already have a small fleet of aircraft,” Cadence said helpfully.

“Really? Cool!” Jiila exclaimed with a genuine smile. “But I wasn’t talking about air-”

“Wait!” Twilight interrupted. “You said your hive couldn’t help, meaning you fixed everything in there yourself. Repose told me how the hive looked, and that it fixes itself. Your story doesn't add up!”

“The superstructure is self repairing, as are critical systems like the power distribution grid, but everything else is not repaired by the self-repair system because it’s broken. Or rather, I didn’t fix it completely because I don’t know where it’s control systems are. I think they are still buried. There’s a lot of unexcavated levels down below, and a lot of systems to bring online on cleared levels. I can only work so fast after all,” Jiila explained with a twinkle of pride in her eyes.

“Sooo… You did all of that,” Cadence asked.

“Yep,” Jiila replied with a simple nod.

“By yourself?” Twilight asked uncertainly.

“Pretty much. A few of my brood occasionally were intelligent enough to learn how to help. But never more than a dozen at a time,” she sighed.

“I assume that your mother missed one of those changelings with ‘the knack’ as you called it, while she was rounding them up. Right?” Celestia asked with a knowing smile.

Jiila nodded. “Yeah. She did. I have a general sense of how one specific style of machinery should function. It doesn't work for everything, I can’t tell you how that heart rate monitor works, it’s alien to me. Just like any pony-made device is.

“But certain ancient relics, notably everything in my hive, I just sort of know how they should work and what to do to fix them. Well, not all of them, just a good chunk of them. But seriously, the Emeralds are still around? They were riddled with genetic issues… Poor little guys. Them dying off seemed plausible.”

“They are still alive, and are currently the most prosperous Hive in terms of economy and general happiness. They’ve become an industrial power most small nations can’t contend with,” Cadence reported. “However… Some Sapphires still live. We have a few hundred imprisoned as prisoners of war, we’d let them go but Chrysalis's did something to them they are… No longer people. If you can heal them, they are free to go.”

“I probably can’t,” Jiila spat bitterly. “Chrysalis was drone born. That means extreme psionic abilities. She probably just deleted their personalities. I’m worker born. I can control a few hundred drones at once, but sapient changeling’s minds are not accessible to me. But you have my word that I will try to help them.”

“There’s some good news to!” Cadence said with an exaggerated smile in the hopes of softening the blow Celestia had just struck the recovering Queen with. “I am currently sheltering one of your Elites, he’s fully sane and is currently caring for a small number of your Hive’s pony heard. They have begun to create a brothel and seem rather happy where they are. If you wish to join them, I can easily establish a room in their complex for you as a diplomatic suite.”

“I’d like that, but I think I should leave them alone,” Jiila decided after a few moments. “If they are happy, healthy, and fulfilled then I will not disturb them. They do not need me, and I have no reason to take them away from their new lives. I can and will begin my quest anew.”

“I understand,” Celestia said with a satisfied nod before turning to Cadence. “Cadence? What’s your opinion?”

“She’s not lying and she has a good heart. We can trust her… But her Hive is within spitting distance of griffon territory, it’s not safe for her to return without help to secure it,” Cadence admitted with a slight frown. “Queen Jiila, once you are ready to move again, if you wish to leave you may leave. However, I am friends with the Emerald’s Captain. I would be happy to introduce you and help you get their help securing and repairing your home.”

“Help sounds great,” Jiila decided after a few moments of thought. “Though the thought of meeting with changelings I can relate to is pretty kick ass. Would it be possible to stay with them for a time? I think I need a short vacation. Or at least enough time to find another mate. I need to eat after all.”

Twilight giggled. “If you fixed a bunch of old technology by yourself, they will definitely like you. Also, I’ve been thinking about that ‘missing purpose’. I don't seem to recall any Emerald Changeling feeling that way. They all seem fulfilled. Maybe you’re right. You should ask them if they know what it is, or see if they just lack that ‘hunch’.”

“Excuse me, Princesses, and Queen,” Silver Leaf announced politely. “But Miss Jiila should get some rest now, and we are ready for the decontamination process. You need to close your mouths now. This stuff isn’t toxic but it does taste, appropriately enough, exactly like death.”

Celestia nodded. “Understood, Doctor. Please give me two more minutes,” she ordered politely. “Cadence, when we are finished, Introduce Jiila to the Emeralds, get her situated as a guest, and then return to our prior project. Twilight, head back as soon as we are clean.

“Lastly, Queen Jiila, if you are willing to wait a month or so with the Emeralds, I will be unoccupied with state business and will look into any way I can help you. You’ve intrigued me. I want to know about your species history as well. Can you do that?”

Jiila nodded. “I can do that,” she confirmed with a smile.

“Excellent,” Celestia said before giving the Queen a nod. “Doctor, go ahead.”

Light Step - 25th of Chillfrost 16 EoH

Emerald Hive - Citystate of Pheonix

I could see the heat rippling atop the dunes around me. I really hated the desert. Of all the environments I’d trained to fight in, deserts were the worst. Absolutely no moisture at all, and not even one square centimeter of shade. Just you and the sun with nothing between you and the angry heat laser of doom.

Even two hundred meters up the air was still hot as balls. But at least I could fly. No trudging along on hoof because I had to stick with friends.

”You’re leaving?” Repose asked, not surprised but rather simply seeking confirmation.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I have to move on. This place is fun, but I still have to find my fortune. I might comeback after I do. I’ve made a few good friends.”

“If you come back to town, have somepony fetch me. We’ll get a drink and catch up,” Repose promised. “Now I’m sorry, but I am extremely busy. A few of these components need to be totally replaced.”

”Oh… I’ll miss you. I know we didn’t get to know each other much, but you saved my plot on that boat. I owe you one. Come back soon, alright?” Felling asked with a shy smile.

“I’ll come visit,” I said giving him a light hug with one foreleg. “But hey, at least you got that hot stallion to keep you happy. Lucky bastard…”

“Heh, I know, right?” Felling giggled bashfully. “It’s so much better when they like you back!”

Um… Well, come to think of it-

”You need to keep your wing still or I’ll mess it up,” Shining said politely before returning to carefully preening my right wing.

“How come you’re so good at this? You’re not even a pegasus!” I asked in amazement as I watched him carefully realign each feather into an artful and elegant position of beauty which my crude ‘function focused’ methods never got even close to.

Shining kept working for a few more minutes, his mouth being occupied with positioning each feather. He only answered after he was satisfied with how my primary feathers were positioned.

“Well… There was a very good chance that my little sister was going to be a pegasus, and what kind of big brother can’t help their little sister out with mare things? A terrible one. So I learned how to do stuff like this. It’s fun! More so when I use this sort of thing on myself. I have no idea why they don’t each stallions how to look pretty,” he rambled in between nudging some stray feathers with light pulses of magic.

“We’ll need to wash your mane too, you can’t go on a date like this.”

“It’s only a practice date,” I laughed. “Besides I washed my mane this morning.”

“With what? Rocks and bar soap!?” Shining exclaimed as he recoiled in horror.

“What else do you wash hair with?” I asked with a confused frown.

Um, okay so-

Jackolantern giggled naughtily atop my belly. While we hadn’t planned for the practice date to be more than her showing me what to do while on a date, I was more than happy it turned into an actual date. Or at least that I got laid.

“Damn, girl. I thought you said you’ve never done this before,” the sleek orange and brown pegasus praised as she bent down to kiss my neck.

“I haven't,” I admitted. “I just read a lot of erotic fiction.”

“Sounds like you’re a good learner then,” Jack sighed happily, laying down atop me.

I didn’t mind. At my normal size I was basically a Princess size mattress anyways.

“Sooo… We’re you born with both bits, or what?” I asked, figuring that it would be okay to ask now that we’d been intimate.

She shook her head. “Nope! Just a potion,” she explained. “And the size is from saline injections. Oh hey! Wanna try out having stallion parts for round two? I’ve got extra.”

“Um… Sure, I guess. It’s temporary right?” I asked with a worried grimace.

“Yeah, but if you like it we can go pick you up a permanent one from the shop down stairs. Just give me like, five minutes to catch my breath! Also um… You should stay with me till you leave,” Jack asked pleadingly.

I snickered. “Why, because you like big mares?”

“Nah, your size doesn't do anything for me. But I like all your stories! Don’t get me wrong, the sex is great, but you’re a sniper and that’s awesome! Could you teach me to shoot sometime?” She asked excitedly.

“Uh, sure!” I answered giving her a happy smile.

Bucking tartarus… Yeah I missed having friends. This was a terrible idea. The Crystal Empire may be one big pile of kink but I’d been making friends there and that’s where my old friends were and now I couldn’t afford to get back there until I made some cash here.

I could afford lunch, a hotel, and maybe some saline solution…

No, bad Light! Jack may have shown you just how fun that is but let’s not get addicted to it. There’s a time and place for the fun stuff. Besides, you already picked up the one permanent mod.

Besides, the saline just gets absorbed in a few hours… I should go see that Doctor Lily and get some kind of permanent solution done someday.

Too bad Jack only did friends with benefits. She and I had been into the same stuff, apparently. She would have been a great marefriend.

I flew out from behind a plateau, suddenly seeing the desert stretch out endlessly before me instead of having only the rock to look at. Immediately a large triangular hill came into view, the hillside had a small tent city set up on one side of it. The colorful blankets and canvases which made up each tent formed a sort of mosaic on the sand below.

Squinting at the tents I saw, they were arranged in a small market place, with several hundred assorted changelings and ponies working the stalls, or loading and unloading wagons with all kinds of crates, barrels, and… Huh… What do you call spherical shipping containers?

What do you even ship in a sphere?

While I squinted at the cart which was being loaded up with the mysterious steel spherical boxes (and they were boxes I could see hinges and a latch), a short dark green shelled changeling with a short cropped gray and peach mane basically materialised in front of me.

I yelped, almost falling out of the air, only barely managing to catch myself and enter a hover on instinct.

“Ooop! Sorry,” the changeling said with an apologetic frown as she dropped into her own hover. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just as security officer and you’re an armed felin I’ve never seen before. We don’t mind people coming through our airspace armed, this is the Badlands after all. But I’m going to need to escort you to the other side. Is that okay?”

While the demand was reasonable, I shook my head. “Actually, I meant to come here. This is the Emerald Hive, right?” I asked with a hopeful smile.

“Sure is!” She confirmed with a wider smile. “What are you looking for? Oh and your weapon will need to be on safe or unloaded before you land.”

I nodded and slung my crossbow off my back, flipping the selector switch to safe and locking the trigger.

“No problem. I’m looking for work, actually. And a place to stay. Currently broke, homeless, and I was told this place was accepting newcomers,” I explained, hoping the simple explanation would be enough.

I wasn’t going to lie to her or anything. It just took a lot of energy for me to hover like this.

The changeling nodded to herself and hummed. “Literally broke? No cash at all?” She asked.

I nodded. “I have enough for a room for the night and some food, but that’s it. Is that a problem?”

“Nah,” she said with a dismissive hoof wave. “It just means I take you to the immigration office to get setup with a work visa. As for work… Well, we have job placement programs but that will take a week to get you settled.

“In the short term, if you don’t find it objectionable, anypony here is allowed to sell ‘changeling food’ if you catch my drift,” she finished with a playful wink.

I smirked. “That’s weird, I thought I left the Crystal Empire,” I joked.

“Heh, we’re not them, but we’re still a changeling hive. Everyling’s gotta eat, and fun fact, different sources of love taste different. If you don’t want to sell sex, you can also work in the cafeteria for a few days and just give out hugs and chill. Or go watch a movie with someling. We actually pay for stuff like that. It’s literally food for us.”

“Could I really house myself doing that?” I asked curiously. “It sounds great. I don’t fancy selling sex but getting payed to hang out sounds like a dream come true.”

Especially since I was missing my friends a lot already...

“Awww? Really?” The changeling asked, her ears drooping sadly. “I love carnal bliss… Easily my favorite food. Not to be rude, but I did just fly up from beneath you and let me just say that, well, herms are rare. And you guys taste awesome! Ah well.

“Um, but yeah. Selling your time and friendship can be a career here. It’s not going to make you rich and few find it fulfilling but you can live off it.”

We tasted good!? Oh, right! They eat emotions. I guess physical sex factored into taste. Huh… I guess trying this out for a month was a good idea. Maybe I’d keep myself like this. I wasn't disliking anything about it so far.

“Sooo um, I can’t hover here forever. My wings are starting to burn,” I pointed out.

“Oh! Right,” the changeling exclaimed, cheeks glowing a pale green as she blushed. “Follow me, I’ll take you to customs and we’ll get you set up.”

My guide led me to a large cave in the side of the hill, and then into the hill itself through a large steel door I found to be quite familiar. The Emerald Hive was the spitting image of the Sapphire Hive!

Except cleaner, more lived in, and populated.

But the architecture, general floor plan, lighting, all of it was the same. That was extremely interesting to me. Were the two structures old First Kingdom ruins? I’d never seen one. Or even read much about that lost civilization.

I considered asking my guide about it, but I waited too long and wound up being left at a customs desk as she had to return to work. Though she did give me her name, a ‘comm number’, and asked me to call her if I went into cafeteria work so she could order a hug and a shooting match for dinner.

The fact that I could literally make a living by showing off my marksmare skills blew my mind so hard I almost went through the customs check like a zombie. I completely forgot to mention I’d met Sky Trigger and he said that this was the place I was looking for. At least, until I got into immigration.

And that was a major headache. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I’d said I wanted to stay permanently. A two hour interview just for a permit to live and work here for a three year period was insane. But on the upside…

“Wait, you’re a Prench Scout?” My interviewer, a tall blond maned pastel pink unicorn pony asked in surprise.

“Yes, ma’am. I know it says Corporal as my rank, but I have forty years of service time. I was simply never offered a promotion… Racial reasons,” I answered honestly.

The mare nodded. “I’m sorry. I can imagine griffons and half-griffons face a lot of prejudice there. WOAH! Wait, what?!”

I frowned as her eyes bugged out of her head. “What?”

“Are you bullshitting me?” She demanded. “Or did you actually beat that absurd shooting challenge?”

I laughed, reached into my pack and pulled out my beret and set it on my head. “I did. Why?”

And that’s how I was immediately redirected to their Marine Corps recruiting center. Where I had the same exact interview. Again.

But this time, I got to finish. And finally, finally, I had not only a work visa, but a job lined up. While I didn’t want to serve in another military right now, apparently these bugs needed some whipping into shape in terms of their shooting skills. And ‘Civilian Contractor’ turned out to pay a damn good salary.

Room, board, and a salary. All for a two weeks on, three weeks off job teaching new recruits how to shoot properly. Not a bad deal! An excellent deal to be honest. I expected daily work, low pay, and having to pay for my own food and shelter.

I wasn’t about to argue with the old changeling though. If they ran a sniper academy for two weeks every other month due to low recruitment numbers but still felt the need to keep instructors on a retainer, I was fine with that.

It left me plenty of time to find a hobby. Or whatever it was I was supposed to do here.

Well, one thing I was supposed to do here was pick out an apartment. When I’d been passed a list of places my housing grant would cover, one place had popped out. Deck Four, Civilian Quarters. The place Sky had told me to hang out at.

After asking why exactly everything here was labeled with a naval term, and processing the fact that this mega-city sized place was the buried ruin of an ancient ship, I’d picked out an apartment on the deck, number Four Two Four Three to be specific, and went to explore the new section of the city I would be living in.

I expected tight quarters, proper ship dimensions. Instead I got large tall rooms, wide hallways… I could be comfortable living here in my normal size! As I explored the hallways, changelings would occasionally pass me while driving large vehicles laden with cargo down the hall ways. I passed multiple retail sections with stories that had three stories all on the same deck with windows looking out into the small ‘courtyards’, formed simply because the buildings built into a room didn’t fill it completely, so someling planted a garden or built a place to sit, or a plaza between them.

That’s right. Buildings built inside rooms. The sheer size of the City of Phoenix could not be understated.

I spent the afternoon locating a market, my workplace, the mass transit systems, getting glomped by an earth pony mare who mistook me for their changeling mate who happened to frequently use a shape much like my own as their ‘body to live in’, getting apology ice cream, and ogling the single most sexy set of body armor I had ever seen in my life through a shop window until the shop owner felt bad and let me buy it on a payment plan with the last of my cash as money down.

I walked out with her in a custom storage box. So sleek, the shiny plates were modeled after a changeling’s exoskeleton but held the most beautiful streamlined shapes, perfect for flying in! And the colors! That glossy black with the yellow highlighting, mmm! And of course, the fact that it was a set of class five full plate body armor which only weighed in at six kilos! So dreamy!

I named her Luminous Iron, and I was gonna sleep inside her tonight. Because buck the hay yes!

It was time to find my apartment.

Consulting a wall map, I made my way to the civilian quarters on the deck. They were easy to find, and when I arrived, my Jaw dropped in amazement. Even after seeing so many other parts of the ship, this part still managed to be amazing. The entire residential area had a huge triple wide hallway running down the hull for the length of what would be a city street in most cities, and almost all of it was set up as a common room, with patches of plantlife and parks dividing sitting areas, game arenas, and even a few small restaurants.

On either side of the hallway, smaller halls ran off like ribs connecting to a spine. These had small signs on them which listed room numbers, and seemed to hold forty eight apartments each. The system was elegant, efficient, and yet they still managed to make it look beautiful.

I was beyond impressed.

I made my way down the common area hallway, looking from side to side happily for my room number while drinking in the sights. It felt so odd to see interspecies couples happily enjoying each other's company, but it was a good kind of odd. Watching a changeling and a pony play with a foal and whatever a baby changeling was called brought a smile to my face.

This was definitely a place to live! Too bad I didn’t have any friends here… Yet. I’d have to do something about that.

Suddenly, I spotted my room number on one of the wall signs and turned to enter the hallway, only to stop walking as i noticed a changeling with a toolbelt around his waist clinging to the wall above the hallway, his head deep within whatever lay behind the steel panel which had been removed.

A construction worker? But why?

“Hey,” I called up to him, or her. I wasn’t sure how to identify changelings yet. “Is it okay to walk through here? Or is this hallway closed for some reason?”

The changeling pulled their head out of the space and looked down at me, then spoke in a male voice. “You can go through. I’m just fixing the ventilation duct. The damn thing cracked and dropped down a bit… Do you live here? It will be a bit noisy for a while. I’m going to have to get a hydraulic jack to lift this damn thing into place so I can weld it.”

My eyes sparkled as I had an idea. What better way to start making new friends than to help out the local repair stallion? Especially since everyone likes to have a friend who can fix stuff.

“How heavy is it? I can probably lift it for you,” I offered. “At least long enough for you to tack weld into place.”

The changeling flashed me a grin and laughed. “Sure! Let’s just warp spacetime so the distance between the floor and ceilings a meter and a half,” he snickered before shaking his head. “Thanks for the offered help though.”

The repair stallion leaned back into the hole, grumbling something about the long walk to the maintenance store room.

I smirked, set my saddle bags down by the wall, gave Luminous’ box a loving pat, trotted into the entrance to the hall and popped my neck before dismissing my collars spell. The distance between myself and the ceiling shrank rapidly, and as I arrived at my full size I gently tapped the changeling on his right flank.

“So I have this whole ‘use a collar to shrink to normal size’ thing,” I said with a wink. “Sure you don’t want me to-”

The changeling pulled his head out of the hole, blinked once and then almost fell off the wall. “Holy crap!”

I frowned, taking a step back and bumping against the wall.

“I’m sorry!” I yelped as I felt a wave of sadness start to build up in my chest. “I didn't mean to scare you! I-I’m only recently okay with being my normal size and- I just-”

“Woah! No! Don’t be sad! I just didn’t expect this is all!” He said gesturing to me. “I didn’t know you could ACTUALLY reach up here and lift this if you wanted, sir- uh, ma’am… Which of your genders do you prefer to be called by?”

“I’m female, I’m just trying this out for a while. I like it so far… Is it that obvious?” I asked timidly.

“Yes. To changelings at least,” he explained. “Your scent is completely female, but your emotional flavor is a mix of both… And it’s a pretty nice flavor, or at least I assume it is when you’re happy. Please stop being sad. I can taste that and it’s not good.”

I nodded and did my best to forget what just happened. “Alright, do you want my help though?”

“Absolutely!” he said with a happy smile before pointing to the section of ceiling which sat a mere meter above my head. “See that duct in the section of ceiling I’ve taken the panels off? Push her up four centimeters on the left hoof side and six on the right. I’ll crawl into the duct and tack weld everything into place and you'll have saved me a two kilometer walk.”

“Sure thing,” I said as I got into position to rear up and level out the duct. “What’s your name? I’m new here.”

“Oh, no name yet. Sorry. Call me Five-zero-three,” my hopefully new friend said casually. “I’m hoping to earn a name related to repairwork. So let's make sure this gets done right.”

They earned their names? Nest. “Sure thing, Five-oh,” I said grimacing at the way the number sounded as a name.

I’d think up a nickname for this guy soon enough.

I had to get into the hallway to get a good angle to brace it properly, and the duct was a little heavy but I was able to get it into position and hold it in place while Five tacked it back into position. The procedure took about five minutes, and when he was done, Five crawled back out of the vent and looked down at me with a grin.

“Thanks! Go ahead and let go. If she’s sturdy enough for me to stand in I can finish the welds properly and you can go do your thing, miss… um…” He frowned, searching for my name which I totally forgot to give him.

“It’s Light Step,” I replied as I let go.

The duct creaked as I returned to standing on all fours, but stayed in place.

“Cool, I’ll remember that,” Five said with a nod. “Well, looks like this is stable. Thanks a bunch!”

“No problem,” I said returning his smile then turning to retrieve my bags.

“Hey, Luna! I thought you left for the month,” somepony called as I stepped into the hallway again.

I frowned in confusion. Was there another giant sized pony here named Luna? Searching for whoever had mistaken me for someone else I felt my heart skip a beat.

An Alicorn stood in the hallway. Her back to me. Her midnight blue back. Her ethereal star filled mane flowing as she waved to a random changeling who had called her name.

Holy bucking crap! Princess Luna! One of the big two! What do I do!?

While I remained frozen, not knowing what the buck to do Princess Luna replied to her apparent friend. Who spotted me, ears drooping as she stared down the hallway at me.

“Hello, Ka’ra!” She greeted cheerfully. “Celestia actually wants me back here for a work assignment. Apparently somepony important might be staying here for a while and she wants me to keep an eye on her since I have my vacation home here… What are you staring at?”

The princess turned around, immediately spotting me. How could she not? I was huge!

By the Emperor, this was embarrassing! Cadence was one thing, but this… This was the pony who had made Equestria the empire it was! A military legend was standing right there and here I was huge, and under the effects of a gender altering potion to something non-binary!

I was not remotely presentable! What do I do!?

Luna’s eyes widened, and dilated. Her wings snapped open reflexively, and her jaw dropped as she tipped her head back to look up at my face.

Oh Faust no! No no nononono! I could have made a good impression on a legend! WHY!?!

“I- I- I, um, er… H-h- S- Oh, geeze!” Luna stammered awkwardly, her cheeks turning a bright pink as she… Blushed?

“I’m sorry!” I eeped, ears drooping fearfully. “I- I’ll go shrink and never bother you again.”

“N-no!” Luna yelped, her face twisting fearfully. “Please no! Faust's blood no! I um, just… Stay like that! P-please.”

Wait. I felt myself frown as the wheels slowly turned and-

Oh sweet bloody Hearth's Warming, I think she liked me!

Luna cleared her throat, awkwardly scratching the back of her head with a hoof as she kicked one of her rear hooves against the deck. “S-sorry. I’m not normally… Um… You’re really tall!” She said dumbly.

I felt a blush spread across my own face. Oh my god she did like me. A bucking living legend thought I was hot! Quick brain, what do!?

I DON’T KNOW HELP!

“Dinner!” Luna yelped suddenly.

“W-what?” I asked.

“Diner, later. You, me… Please?” Luna asked, eyes pleading with me to say yes.

I felt my heart flutter. “Yes!” I agreed immediately.

How could I possibly turn down a meal with motherbucking Princess Luna! Oh my gosh, I totally had to ask her about the battle of Thermain Pass! Nopony in the Air Guard had ever heard the whole story and here was the source of the legend!

Who was also the source of a delighted squee and a little happy hopping hoof dance. And then a mortified facial expression as she realized what she just did in full public view.

“Ka’ra, help!” Luna squeaked.

The changeling zipped forwards, and pointed to me. “What’s your name, giant mare with the cute tail?” She asked.

“Light Step,” I answered.

The changling snickered. “Really? With your size? That’s hilarious!” She giggled with a good humored smile on her face. “Right, so, what’s your room number?”

“Four two four three,” I answered.

“Oh, well holy crap,” Ka’ra said with a baffled blink. “This is going to be easy. Luna, go get presentable, work up the courage to talk to her normally, and then just go next door to pick her up. Light, you should go to your apartment so Luna can compose herself… You literally push all of her ‘this person is attractive’ buttons.”

I tilted my head. “Seriously? All of them?”

“T-tall, teal mane, half-griffon, female but with extra stuff, s-soldier…” Luna said bashfully.

Soldier? Oh right I had my hat on.

Oh my gosh! Embrace the night! It all made sense! I knew what I had to do!

I dropped to my knees so I could give the alicorn a gentle hug. She eeped and stiffened up, making me pull back, fearing I had over stepped my bounds, only for her to dart her head forwards to give me a quick kiss on the shoulder.

“I’m-sorry-I’m-not-used-to-talking-to-hot-ponies-I-need-to-go-compose-myself,-I’ll-pick-you-up-soon-I-know-a-great-Neighponese-place-on-deck-three!” Luna shouted rapidly before bolting down the hall, trying to hide her face in her wings.

The second she disappeared into the hallway, her changeling friend gripped me by my collar and looked right into my eyes. “For the love of the Hive, please tell me you like her back, that was bucking delicious!” She pleaded.

“It’s motherbucking Princess Luna!” I hissed back. “I’m in shock myself!”

Ka’ra let go of my collar and took a deep breath. “Sorry, really sorry. Luna needs a real lover a lot right now, her emotions overwhelmed me. Please, give her a real chance, okay?” She begged, giving me puppydog eyes.

“GIVE HER A CHANCE!?!” I exclaimed. “I had a poster of her as a filly that I tore out of a textbook from school! What kind of insane pony would turn her down!?”

I felt my heart skip a beat as I just realized that she had asked me out.

“I need to shower! Where is the nearest bathhouse!?” I eeped.

“There’s a bathroom in your apartment... Are you new here?” Ka’ra asked.

I nodded twice.

“Ah. Makes sense. I’ll show you how it works. Let’s get you cleaned up. Luna will be at least an hour,” Ka’ra giggled.

“Really?” I asked.

She nodded firmly. “Yep! Trust me. I’m a scout. That’s the kind of attraction that takes a while to let you think clearly again. Come on. I’ll get you showered, shampooed, and in return you let me tag along on your date, just out of obvious range but where I can still get a bite for myself. Deal?”

“Deal! I um, I’m terrible at grooming. I had a friend show me how to do my mane but uh, I’ve never actually done anything with my fur and that was motehrbucking Princess Luna nd I need to be prefect so-”

Ka’ra laughed. “Light, she’s a soldier too. We just need to rinse that sand off you and brush your mane nicely. Come on, I’ve waited for YEARS for somepony to catch her eye. Poor thing’s needed a good date for a literal thousand years you know.”

“She has?” I asked in shock. “Ho- Oh, yes… That whole banished thing… I shouldn’t mention that, should I?”

Ka’ra shook her head. “No, just treat her like a normal pony, enjoy her company, and please please please be romantically compatible! Now come on, time’s wasting.”

One extremely quick shower later, before my fur even had time to dry, Luna picked me up. The stammering awkwardness was gone, replaced by shy but happy normal-ish speech. We spent the walk to the restaurant talking about each other. The simple questions. Hobbies, friends, memories, that sort of thing. The boring stuff.

Then we got to dinner and the real conversation could begin. Favorite weapons, debating the merits of halberds against crossbows and appreciating the other’s accomplishments with their chosen weapon. Discovering each other's mutual love of shock and awe tactics. Listening to her talk about the time she killed six owl bears by herself before becoming an Alicorn. Her actually being impressed when I told her about my three and a half kilometer shot that killed a crocodile.

I thought she would be cool, an element of living history. I didn’t expect her to be a person I felt myself falling for. Likewise, she seemed to be delighted that we had so much to relate to each other with. Crappy childhoods, both banished from our homelands…

But the most amazing thing was Luna liked me. The more we talked, the more she liked me for well, me. Not just because I was hot in her opinion. She had more of me to like than my body.

That was the single most flattering thing I had ever experienced. It won her my heart.

The evening flew by. And before I knew it we went back to my apartment because Luna wanted to snuggle up and watch something together. I’d told her I didn’t have anything to do that with and so we should use her apartment.

She’d replied, “I have too many valuable things in my apartment which may get damaged if I ‘cuddle’ with you at your full size and frankly, Light, that’s what I intend to do… If you’ll let me.”

I woke up the next morning in my apartment with a loving glowing feeling in my heart and Luna curled up on my belly under a quilt. Nothing I’d ever experienced had felt better.

I gently nuzzled Luna's mane, hoping to wake her up. “Hey… Are you awake?” I asked quietly.

“Shhh… Comfy,” she mumbled sleepily. “We’ll go to breakfast later. If you wanna.”

That sounded like a wonderful plan. “Sure! Want to go out shooting after breakfast? I bet I can out shoot you. I’ll even use the bow of your choice.”

“Heh,” she snickered. “Deal… But not yet. You’re too comfy of a mattress. Seriously, you’re like a cloud bed.”

Some day I needed to find that griffon fortune teller again. I needed to give her the biggest thank you card ever made. And I needed to make another one for destiny itself. I owed them both everything.

I was home.

19 - Sovereignty

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Gentle Repose - 1st of Snowfall, 16 EoH

Crystal Spire - Crystal Empire

Standing at Princess Cadence’s war table was easily the least intelligent thing I had ever done. Not in and of itself, I did have some training in commanding large forces, and a little experience as well. In theory, I could be a good addition to a war plan meeting.

What made this the single most foolish act in my life was the target of choice.

La Palaisville-de-L'empereur. They say its construction on the palace never stopped, when the outer wall is finished, a new wall begins. The official measurements show the fortress as just over three square kilometers of fortifications given the facade of a palace. Prance began its construction six thousand years ago, and simply have not stopped, electing instead to built up more layers of defense just like adding more clay to a ball.

And yet Twilight, Cadance, and Shining Armor were casually making plans to assault a place the combined might of every griffon clan could reach, but not touch. They simply couldn’t know. That had to be it.

“If I may interject,” I interrupted with a frown, urgency compelling me to voice my warning. “La Palaisville-de-L'empereur is-”

Shining coughed in embarrassment, giving me an apologetic frown. “Mister Repose, I’m afraid I don’t speak Prench. Would you mind repeating that in Equish?”

“I didn’t teach you my translation spell?” Twilight exclaimed in surprise as her cheeks pulled up into an awkward smile.

“No, you did,” Shining replied. “I don’t use it unless I have to. I’ve been learning languages for myself. And I have not yet learned Prench.”

“I apologize, I’m used to saying the fortress’s name in Prench,” I said with a diplomatic dip of my head. “The Emperor’s Palace-City is perhaps the largest fortification in the world. Presuming there are no other major landmasses on our world, then it most certainly is. Need I remind you we are discussing an assault on Prance’s greatest fortress? I know my homeland is supported more by magic than technology but these forces are after all, equivalent to one another.

“You seem to be planning a small tactical insertion on a physical and metaphorical labyrinth. The layers of physical defense alone would be a challenge for an army of battlemages to breach. And-”

Twilight laughed, her small giggle sounding almost mocking. “Repose, Everypony here except for Shining has been to the Palace. The anti-teleportation wards around it are based on Sky Chaser's work. They are about two hundred years out of date, and while quite functional, you can easily breach them with a few small tricks assuming you have enough power to do so.

“I was able to teleport myself inside a few days ago. I can take us all right to the Emperor’s room. The real problem will be getting him to his throne. Because the Steward will not likely step down peacefully.”

Ah, well… True. I am talking to a pair of Alicorns.

“Alright, we can get inside,” I conceded with a flick of my tail. “But we have more problems than wards and walls. The Emperor’s Palace-City is the home base for the Imperial Knights. I’m certain you have heard of our Iron Line? That is what becomes of the Imperial Knights upon their death. We don’t train, kill, and then bind them to a sarcophagus. They live a full life, and forsake a true death so as to guard the nation eternally.

“While alive, they are honestly more dangerous, we can rarely reanimate one to their full capabilities as they were in life. And the entire Palace-City is guarded by six of their Legions, with additional Shields of Guard Ponies, and the mage’s auxiliary… As well as a few Master Necromancers, provided by the Necromancer’s Guild, if I am remembering correctly.

“A small force simply can not pack the firepower to survive. Not that I am calling you two weak, far from it. I am simply calculating the numbers and-”

Twilight rolled her eyes. Her horn pulsed with one singular flash of lavender light. The air around Twilight rippled like the waves of heat above the sands of a desert. Tiny motes of light blinked in and out of existence around her, making the air sparkle like glitter.

“Did you factor in my actual power level?” Twilight asked with a bashful smile.

I was forced to close my eyes as her blinding aura blotted out my visual senses. How much bucking power did that mare have!? Her thaumaturgic aura leaked into the visible spectrum!

“Guh!” Shining yelped. “Sis, please… Stop that. Repose does not need to know exactly how powerful you are to calculate the numbers game. One powerful foe can easily be overwhelmed and destroyed by mere peasants if you have enough of them.

“It’s called a Hound Rush. Very popular tactic amongst the Diamond Dogs. I’ve seen it work too. If they outnumber your force twenty to one, it doesn't matter that they have clubs and pointy rocks on sticks with leather shields while you have proper weapons and battlemages. There are simply too many of them to kill or disable before they reach your position and then drown you in sheer numbers.

“It would be one thing if you had any proper combat training to complement your seemingly infinite reserves. But raw power alone will only carry you so far. Even if you are the Alicorn of Magic, Twily.”

“True,” Twilight admitted, her overwhelming aura vanishing, leaving spots in my eyes as if I had decided to look into the sun. “But I’m as powerful now as I was when I fought Tirek. And that’s just with my own power. I think I can handle myself.”

“Yourself, yes. But a group of us must go, and friendly fire is a definite concern. You do remember making Ponyville’s new lake, right Twilight?” Cadence asked as my vision finally returned to normal.

Twilight blushed, and nodded meekly. “Well, I mean, of course I do. That was thirteen years ago, before I grew into my full power and lived with it every day. I had no idea how to manage it back then. I do now,” Twilight said adamantly. “But… You do make a good point. I could easily injure somepony on our side if I simply didn’t notice them.

“Not that it matters. It’s dumb to talk about fighting! We just teleport in, Repose and I fix the Emperor, and we bring the other Elements along too. We all go Rainbow Form, zap the current Steward, and he steps down peacefully. Problem solved!”

Twilight finished her proposal with a huge grin, clearly proud of herself. As I was I. I’d entirely forgotten about the Equestrian superweapon.

“Granted, if we can deploy your super weapon that will really even our odds. Assuming you can’t actually defend against it, as the legends say,” I admitted.

“Can you teleport seven ponies into the Palace, Twilight?” Cadence asked with a thoughtful expression.

Twilight nodded, still smiling. “Of cour-” Her face suddenly fell, a thoughtful frown overtaking it before she was forced to shaker her head, ears drooping. “No. The distance, the number of minds… I could do four safely, five if we wanted to risk things. Can the wards be taken down? Perhaps I can teleport in a few agents who can-”

“No. The wards do not turn off, they are also built between the layers of concrete which make up the walls,” I interjected with a defeated sigh.

“Could we take two trips?” Shining suggested. “Or do all forces need to be deployed at once?”

“We won’t get a second chance if we fail,” Cadence said bitterly, stepping forward to look at the map atop her table. “If we fail, Prance will declare war on Equestria, because we just tried to assassinate their ‘rightful’ leader.

“Just because they didn’t notice Twilight and I teleport in doesn't mean they won't notice if we take a large group inside, or move in multiple small groups quickly. We only know they did not detect a pair of ponies teleporting inside one highly specific room.”

“Ponyfeathers,” Twilight sighed, sitting down as a dejected look overtook her face. “So… Only Repose and I can get in safely, and we have to go to setup the device and work it.”

“That seems like how it has to be,” Cadence admitted. “We could risk sending three if we can’t think of any other options. We have a little time to plan, let’s use it. What can we do with just you two?”

I frowned, brow furrowing as Cadence’s words stuck in my mind. Just two? There wasn’t two. There would be three. Assuming we revived the Emperor, while I hardly expected he would be able to do much more than walk surely he would have a plan. Or perhaps… Yes!

My ears perked as I looked back up to speak to everypony. “His Majesty has had little else to do but plan. I am certain he will know exactly what to do once we revive him. If he has no plan, nothing says he has to retake the throne right away!

“We can evacuate him and then figure out how to get his throne back. Though I expect if he simply walks into any Prench city he would get their immediate support. Um, assuming that he could prove he is the Emperor. Which shouldn’t be hard if he can do what the legends claim he can.”

Twilight’s ears perked excitedly. “He’s right! Nopony will have a better plan than his. I’ll bet he’s done nothing but plot his return since he was put into that room!”

Shining hummed then nodded to himself. “That’s certainly true, and assuming he has no plan that you can enact, it doesn't matter if they spot you leaving. Because you’ve gone. Yes, this is the way to do it. The return point should be this room. Cadence and I can wait here for your return, or to be fetched as backup if something goes horribly wrong,” he decided with a satisfied nod.

I nodded in agreement, then hesitated. I would have to take my watch with me. I would need to actually risk my life for this.

It had been one thing to need to flee the country. There is only so much which could happen to you in the wilderness after all. But to take it into an area where battle mages would be using area denial spells if we were caught? Was I able to justify with risking myself to-

Oh, shut the buck up you overthinking coward! You’re the only pony who can help, and so you will!

“Let’s go. We are only wasting time,” I said with a determined expression.

I turned around and gingerly picked up the Matrix Amplifier and floated it over to hold it close to my body.

“One moment, there’s still one thing to plan,” Twilight said cautiously.

“What?” Cadence asked her lips parting in confusion. “The plan is fairly solid.”

“When we arrive in the Emperor’s room, what exactly do we do?” Twilight asked. “I think that for the best chance of success we should do everything exactly the same as we did with Jiila. I should first cast that hex remover, and then use the same restoration spell on the amplifier as soon as Repose has configured it-”

“Um, why would we do anything else?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “For all we know, it only worked last time because of that spell!”

Twilight blushed, then laughed, ears flopping with her embarrassment. “I keep forgetting you’re a scientist too!”

I nodded. “Clearly. We can’t change any variable in a working system without testing to be sure they are needed or not, after all. Shall we?”

Twilight nodded and trotted over to me. “We shall,” she said, then her horn burned lavender.

The world was consumed for a moment in purple sparks and clouds. They parted as soon as they came, depositing the two of us onto a sandstone tile floor amid a crackle of purple lightning.

Sandstone? In the Palace? What?!

I took a quick look around me, not believing we had arrived in the right place. We couldn’t have! The room had two oversized doors made of white marble, but sandstone walls which weren't even covered in plaster or painted. Just bare bricks with the odd shelf cut into the wall and some large timber beams holding the roof up and-

“Hello,” a quite silken male voice said happily.

I turned around. My heart stopped dead. Literally.

The Emperor was massive, exactly like the legends said. The white sheet which covered the small dais he rested on had small lumps in it which certainly were made by arcane machinery, but his skull was clearly outlined, as was the arch of his spine and together those features meant he had to be bigger than Light Step by about a third of her own size.

And his eyes. They really did burn like two golden lights. They seemed to look you directly in your soul, not with violence, but with compassion. Somehow that was so much worse than hostility.

Those two golden lights sat behind the sheet which did nothing to diminish their brightness. They lit up the smoke from the bowls of incense laid around his hooves. It was like looking at the remains of a god.

Hence the heart attack.

“This room isn’t suited for you, sire,” I said stupidly, too afraid to give the proper ritualistic greeting.

“That’s because it’s supposed to be a pantry,” the Emperor said with a chuckle. “Hello again, Twilight. Who is your friend?”

TWILIGHT WAS ON FIRST NAME BASIS WITH THE EMPEROR!?!

It’s a good thing my heart had already stopped. That one would have triggered a proper heart attack. And those really hurt…

“I thought you were keeping track of Gentle Repose,” Twilight replied as I forced my ears to stand back upright. “This is him.”

“I’ve never seen him before,” the Emperor explained bashfully. “Good day, Master Wizard. I assume you are here to try and heal me?”

I nodded, gulping nervously. “Y-y… Affirmative!”

Faust’s bloody tears, I need to pull myself together!

The Emperor laughed. “There is no need to be nervous, I can’t bite right now,” he joked.

He cracked a joke. I need to laugh!

I erupted into nervous giggles awkwardly trailing off to rub the back of my head with a hoof.

“I see,” the Emperor said knowingly. “Twilight, can you smack some sense into him for me?”

“I’d rather not…” Twilight admitted with a distasteful grimace. “Repose, please. We have a job to do.”

“It’s the Emperor,” I hissed quietly.

“Yes. I’m me,” he agreed with a snort of laughter. “Come on, son. Use that… Magical fez?”

Fez… Ugh! I was sick and bucking tired of everypony calling it a fez!

“It’s not a fez!” I snapped, ears flattening in anger as my invention was once again mocked. “The base has to be cylindrical to house the inner arcanite coil and the primary spell matrix for the field modulator! The propeller is there to spin and spark each gemstone on the top face six and one-third times per second to modulate the thaumaturgic current to the correct frequency for resonating with the amplifier, and has to be a propeller so the device has a means of cooling via the airflow to ensure it won't melt, and also serves as a dial for selecting the size of the effecting field! The antenna has to be on top of the device or it looks really stupid with it sticking out of a side!”

My eyes flew open in terror as I realized who I had just snapped at. “I’m-so-sorry! It’s-just-everypony-says-that-and-it’s-really-hurtful-to-have-lifetimes-of-work-mocked!”

“I have an affinity for silly hats. That was a compliment,” he replied in amusement. “But please, get on with it. Twilight’s departure last time was noticed, and while the hole couldn’t be patched, there is an alarm ringing in the nearest guardpost. We have-”

Twilight spun around, her horn flaring magenta as she placed a large flat shield over the doorway.

“That will buy us time. Repose, do the thing!” She ordered, turning back to give me an urgent look.

“You need to cast that hex removal spell first!” I reminded.

“Right,” Twilight said taking a deep breath then focusing for a moment as she readied the spell.

The urgency of the situation having pushed aside the shock of actually seeing a childhood hero, allowing me to turn the amplifier’s dial, setting the bubble to cover what I hoped was more space than the Emperor’s body occupied. With the dial turned I carefully levitated the amplifier onto his back, carefully balancing it atop him.

The second I let go, the space around the Emperor warped, bending and twisting in a way completely alien to my mind before snapping back into normality with a flash of white light.

“Spell cast!” Twilight called from behind me.

“The buck was that!?” I asked, jaw hanging open as I tried to work out what school of magic that had even been a part of.

“Oh, Equestria decriminalized the use of Divine Magic? Interesting,” the Emperor mused.

“Divine Magic?” Twilight and I asked together.

“Ah, you didn’t know? What you call the ‘old religion’ taught a unique form of magic. That seems to have been a Light Magic adaptation of- Horseapples! Forget I said any of this. Just drop it. All of it.

“Almost every nation, and the church itself agreed to stop teaching those spells. They are what made the Thaumaturgy Wars so bad. I can’t help talking about things. I’m very very lonely and I’ve lost my brain-mouth filter entirely. Otherwise, you’d never have heard a word of that for the sake of world peace, understood?”

“Well, that proves the letter came from the past then,” Twilight mused with a concerned frown. ”Repose… Um, are we ready?”

I nodded. “Yes, all set. The amplifier is on His Highness's back,” I confirmed.

“Alright, here goes,” Twilight said with a nervous grin. “Mister Prance, in case something goes wrong, I apologize in advance.”

“Oh no!” The Emperor gasped sarcastically. “I could wind up horribly disfigured and paralyzed for life, then stuck under a bedsheet inside a disused cupboard!”

I couldn’t help but smile, the sheer absurdity of the Emperor of all ponies making a sarcastic joke now of all times. I really needed that.

Twilight on the other hoof, rolled her eyes in irritation, closed them, then charged her spell.

Her beam of magic lanced out, connecting squarely with the crystal set in the amplifier. As before, it cracked, sparked, shuddered, then stopped. I took a nervous breath as the device seemed to just die again, only to release it as the golden glow began to wash over the amplifier’s surface.

Whatever that delay was caused by, it didn’t seem to hurt things.

The three thaumaturgic beams lanced outwards, striking the edges of the field like white-hot spears, their light slowly filling the much larger field. A drum like crash boomed out from the doors as something heavy struck them. A second loud crash following the first almost immediately. He had been right!

“Twilight! The doors!” I called urgently.

“Already on it,” she replied, having turned to face the doors, her eyes carefully monitoring her forcefield.

The rear half of the room was washed out by blinding white light as the amplifier reached full power. The room’s doors cracked, marble flaking off the doors showing dark oak timbers beneath the stone veneer. The amplifier’s hum rang throughout the room, building to the same terrifying shriek from before just long enough to send a chill down my spine, before vanishing along with the light.

The ponies on the other side of the door stopped trying to break it in. A few snippets of fearful murmurs slipped through to door, reaching my ears as Twilight turned around to see if our work had borne any fruit, hope, and dread hanging in the air in equal measure.

“Take your artifact off my back, please,” the Emperor asked, the soft silken voice was no more.

While pleasant to the ears, and similar to the voice he had been speaking with, the Emperor’s new voice was fuller and richer, with a slight bass rumble to each word.

I gingerly lifted the amplifier up with my telekinesis, moving it to my side by reflex. The white sheet pulled and ripped, and was then thrown aside as Emperor Prance stood up for the first time in two thousand years.

As the sheet fell aside, the Emperor was revealed. He was four meters of sandy brown fur covered muscles, chiseled features, all packaged into the absolute ideal form any stallion could ever hope to achieve. His mane and tail were cut short and colored a uniform shade of teal that went amazingly well with his fur, and also gave him an oddly familiar look.

I almost placed who he reminded me of, save for noticing the Emperor lacked a cutiemark, which I swiftly forgot as I noticed his eyes. They remained unchanged. Each was still nothing more than that bright golden glow.

The Emperor popped his neck, grunted, and then scratched his nose with a savage fury before sighing in relief born of ages of torment.

"Ah! Thank the gods! That was two millennium overdue. And now begins a certain asshole’s savage beating," the Emperor announced, lips parting in a cathartic smile.

"You're huge!" Twilight exclaimed, ears perked and eyes wide. “I thought that was all arcane machinery under the tarp! And a decorative skull!”

"Hmm?" The Emperor asked looking down at the comparatively tiny pony. "Oh, yes. Reiechk Brine allergy. Turns out enlargement potions never wear off if you're allergic to their base ingredient. Runs in the family. Both my sons had it. One moment, be right with you."

The Emperor tapped his auto-scribe. "Scribe: Message Empty Room. Begin. I'm on my hooves again. The Steward will be dead in five minutes. Go ahead and head home. Message your hive, have them check and see if any of your brother's descendants survived her purges. If so, have them brought to the palace with you for the celebratory feasts. It's okay if they don't find any, I expect all of my pony heirs to be dead. Love, dad. End."

“Now, you two, don’t panic. I am doing this myself, and on purpose,” the Emperor said as he closed his eyes.

Before I could question what he was doing, his body twisted, bones scraped, tendons popped, and within the span of a few moments he had shrunk to stand about a pony and a half high.

“Hmmm… That’s all the spellcasting I could muster for now,” the Emperor mused, a look of displeasure crossing his face. “No matter. I have other weapons in my arson-”

“Holy cow! You actually CAN cast spells!” Twilight yelped, her jaw slack in awe.

“Yes, I can, Miss Sparkle,” he replied calmly. “Or at least I am able to. It seems my mana reserves are empty, though I do feel my original Earth Pony magic working at full capacity. I’ll need a few weeks to regain the rest of my magic. As such, I will need you to focus on casting shield spells, Miss Sparkle.”

Right! No cutiemark! That’s important.

“Um… I uh, speaking of a lack of magic, I think we didn’t regenerate your cutiemark, your highness,” I admitted slowly, ears falling nervously.

“Don’t worry, son. I turned it invisible it ages ago. Being Emperor is special enough for one pony. I don’t also need to brag about my skill in alchemy,” he said with a polite smile before nodding towards the doors, taking a couple steps towards them, slowly testing his body with each step. “Yes… This will due for now. Twilight, please remove that forcefield.”

“Are you sure?” Twilight asked with a concerned frown. “Can you fight? We don’t have to, we can teleport aw-”

“There will be no retreating today, Miss Sparkle. Not until I’ve got my hat back,” the Emperor said adamantly. “Please, remove the forcefield.”

Twilight nodded and the magenta shield vanished, fading away in a heartbeat.

“Mister Repose, open the doors please,” he asked, taking a few more steps forward. Stopping a short distance from the double doors.

“Are you sure?” I asked hesitantly. “You’ve only just been revived we don’t know if you-”

“I have my earth pony magic. Not the watered down passive variant modern Earth ponies have due to mixed bloodlines. The active kind. I will be fine. Please, open the doors,” he asked again.

I nodded and pulled each door open with my magic. The moment the doors opened, six red coat-clad Land Guard soldiers snapped their loaded crossbows up, their two ranks of three blockading the door, ready to fire at the oncoming enemy.

Their ears fell and eyes widened in unison, as if they were one singular organism.

“Do you recognize me?” The Emperor asked.

One of the soldiers nodded slowly.

“If you want to shoot your Emperor, here I am,” he said plainly.

The soldiers gulped nervously, sharing a look before slowly lowering their weapons.

Twilight and I let out a breath the two of us didn’t even know we were holding.

Emperor Prance nodded in satisfaction. “Stallions, and Lady, I walk once more. The Steward is thus no longer your ruler. You are hereby ordered to proceed to the dungeons and release every political prisoner held therein. Leave other prisoners in their cells, you are to only release the political prisoners, and nopony else. Have them gather in the courtyard adjacent to the throne room and wait there along with any other soldiers you encounter. Go.”

“Yes, your Majesty!” One of the soldiers snapped, throwing a salute nervously. The rest of the group followed suit, then bolted down the hallway to obey their order.

“H-how did you know that would work?” Twilight asked, doing her best to hide her nervous stammer.

“I’m a figure out of the legends they heard as foals. They all know what I am capable of doing to bigger and stronger creatures than them,” Emperor Prance said matter of factly, pausing for a split second before adding in a jovial tone. “And my eyes are bucking terrifying to look into.”

They were. But I wasn’t about to say so.

“Why are your eyes like that?” Twilight brazenly asked, her face twisted into an inquisitive scholarly expression despite the danger we were in.

“I lost the original ones and ancient ‘prosthetics’ were not aesthetically pleasing,” he replied with a shy dip of his head. “Now then, Twilight, you’re on shields. Protect myself and Mister Repose. You need not attack, I will handle that. Mister Repose, do your best to cover Twilight. I am primarily worried about the two of you.”

Twilight raised a hoof questioningly. “Um, sir, what exactly is your plan?”

“Go into the hall, take a right, head straight to the throne room, kick in the doors, give the opportunity to step down which will naturally be rejected, and then eliminate my enemy before he has a chance to dig in making taking back my Empire into a costly civil war,” Emperor Prance answered simply.

“But how are you going to do that with just Earth Pony magic?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow. “Which of the bonds do you have? Are you planning on your influence causing the water in his drink to turn poisonous, or something?”

The Emperor raised an eyebrow of his own. “Um, no. Why would I utilize our passive magic to attack something?” He asked, ears lowering slightly.

“Because that’s what Earth Pony magic is?” I asked with an uncertain frown. “Oh! Of course, you mean the enhanced strength!”

The Emperor looked at us both in complete confusion. “Y- you guys don’t know what… Oh, come on! There were thousands of monasteries! Do you mean to tell me that an entire people’s magic is completely unknown? Oh for buck’s sake!”

“What are you talking about, sir?” Twilight asked, her face scrunched into a confused ball.

The Emperor slapped a hoof to his face. “I know that the less earth pony blood you have the harder it is to use your powers actively but it shouldn’t ever be removed entirely! Gods damn it, Twilight! Cadence fondly refers to you as ‘the Book Princess’. How can you not-

“Okay, look, Earth pony magic can be manipulated directly. We used to be able to just know how and do it via instinct, just like unicorns and telekinesis. But the more tribes interbred, the harder that became. Then it started taking meditation and training to do it.

“It’s impossible to dilute it enough to remove the magic altogether. Modern Earth ponies should be able to actively manipulate their nature bond. And it looks like an entire species has forgotten that… Somehow. So take some bucking notes, because I’m going to need help reteaching an art that should have been bucking impossible to lose!”

“But… They don’t have active magic,” Twilight and I protested together.

“It’s in the bucking name!” The Emperor grumbled eyes closing tightly in frustration. “Unicorn, old Equish for ‘magic pony’. Pegasus, old Equish for ‘sky pony’. Earth Pony, the name’s simply been translated. I… Buck it, I’ll just show you. I need to pray anyway.”

Before Twilight or I could question him further, the Emperor slammed a rear hoof into the sandstone floor. Immediately a pony-sized section of floor shot upwards in front of him, forming a crude table. He raised a foreleg and smashed it down on the jagged section of sandstone, causing portions of the rock to drop away, forming a neatly tapering stone slab that may as well have been chiseled.

“There! See?” He asked, giving the two of us a frustrated glare. “Any pony bonded with stone should be able to do th-”

“HOLY BUCK!” Twilight exclaimed in awe, jaw hanging limply.

“How the hay did you do that!?” I added incredulously.

Emperor Prance made a sound I had never heard before, a long, slow, quiet, nasty moan.

“An entire people literally forgot how to use their magic properly, probably because they couldn’t be bothered to go join a monastery for a few years and learn how to access their power and didn’t bother to tell their foals they could go train if they wanted to... The stupid. It hurts,” he groaned to himself. “I’ll tell you all about the methods later, Twilight. On the condition you IMMEDIATELY begin to teach ponies how to do this. I was wondering why we were only having two harvests a year… We’ve been relying solely on the passive positive influences… Bucking Tartarus!”

Twilight nodded eagerly, eyes still wide. “I will! I promise! I had no idea that this was a thing that-”

“Enough idle chatter, it’s time to go. Ready yourselves,” he ordered before sitting in front of the stone table he had just made.

Assuming he meant mentally prepare yourself for battle, I stowed the amplifier away in one of my cloak’s pockets, then took a deep breath, remembering my orders to protect Twilight. Hopefully, I could-

“Arcos,” Emperor Prance intoned quietly. “Exceptional of strength, world-shaker, golden-helmed, various and wrathful, shield-bearer, savior of cities, destroyer of worlds, oh defender of the Heavens from that which lurks beyond the heavens borders themselves; hear me-”

“What are you doing?” Twilight asked uncertainly.

I gave Twilight an incredulous look of my own. “He’s praying, you have to have religious ponies in Equestria.”

“Yeah, but you don’t just speak aloud to empty space!” Twilight protested.

The Emperor gave the two of us a glare of annoyance. “Hear me,” he continued. “The game’s on! Get yourself a beer and watch this shit.”

I blinked. Twilight blinked.

“What?” We asked together.

“It’s going to be a good show. I wouldn’t want War to miss this,” the Emperor said, explaining nothing as he stood up and trotted out into the hall.

Twilight and I shared a quick look as he left the room.

“Um, that’s not how the Old Religion is supposed to work, is it? We don’t practice it anymore,” Twilight asked with a frown.

“Uh, no. It’s not,” I confirmed, ears drooping.

“It is when you don’t want to be a dick and demand help from them just because you presume they owe you a damn thing. Come on. We got to put on a good show if we want any kind of favor. Quit slacking, you’ll bore him!” The Emperor called urgently.

The two of us left the room. The hallway outside stretched off in either direction seemingly forever. Rows of white marble doors blended into the white marble floor, and contrasted with the black marble walls and the ebony ceiling adorned with crystal chandeliers every ten meters or so.

The hallway happened to be filled with all manner of servants nobles and diplomats. It definitely had to be close to the throne room, as the shocked crowds had benches to wait on lining the hallway on either side, and servants had been pushing carts of food and drink along, serving a rather good looking lunch.

“This is an emergency! Everypony, move!” The Emperor bellowed, the crowd immediately clearing a pathway, in all likelihood assuming he was a knight outside of his armor due to the Emperor’s size.

We ran down the hall, pursuing the Emperor as he jogged down the long hallway, leaving a visible trail behind him as the crowd parted. We caught up in a few moments, and began to rush towards a massive set of golden double doors in the distance.

Snippets of conversations reached my ears as we ran.

“What’s going on? Is there a battle someplace?”

“Wait, was that an Alicorn!?”

“Faust’s blood, did you see his eyes!?”

“Wait! That’s the- Uh, guys I just remember I need to be anywhere else right now!”

We reached the doors sooner than I thought we would, and immediately slid to a stop. I almost plowed into the Emperor as he planted all four hooves firmly against the ground.

“Twilight, shields now. Repose, get ready to provide cover. She won’t surrender,” he warned.

I raised an eyebrow. “She? The current Steward is a stallion, sir,” I explained.

“Yeah, no. There’s only been one of them,” he replied cryptically.

What did he mean?

“Are you sure we can’t solve this peacefully?” Twilight asked hesitantly.

“We can if she surrenders,” the Emperor promised. “But that is highly unlikely. I killed her mother back in the day and she’s kind of pissed about that.”

“Sir, the steward is a stallion,” I repeated.

“No, the steward is a changeling Queen shape changed to look like a stallion. Are you ready Twilight?” He asked again.

The world tinted pink as a shield bubble engulfed me.

“Yes,” Twilight answered firmly.

“Excellent,” the Emperor grunted in acknowledgment.

Rearing up, the Emperor moved both his forelegs to his sides and the thrust them upwards towards the doors. The floor heaved, cracking and sending marble tiles flying as the flagstones below leaped upwards, forming into large draconic talons that ripped the massive doors apart, slamming into the mangled metal into the walls before smashing large chunks out of the stonework with a sound like hooves on a chalkboard during a thunderstorm.

The gathered nobles behind us screamed and ran off, a wave of panic spreading back down the hall.

The brightly lit throne room lay before us. The polished white quartz walls, floor, and ceiling draped with blue and gold silk tapestries and red rugs. The large elaborately carved gold throne sat directly opposite the doors atop a raised dais where a stocky, crimson furred, black-maned unicorn stallion sat, eyes wide in terror, flattened ears hidden beneath a dark brown tri-corner hat as he stared into the gaping wound which had been ripped from the wall in front of him.

Court had been in session and six knights, a dozen Guard ponies, along with a group of seven Nighponese Samurai dressed in formal kimonos, who had been facing the throne now looked at the three of us in a mixture of surprise, urgency, and duty.

“You’re in my spot, Queenie. Get going, or get rotting,” Emperor Prance said turning his wrathful gaze onto the throne.

“FIRE!” The Steward ordered, voice cracking in terror.

The throne room erupted into chaos. A rainbow of spell bolts and energy rays scorched the air, reflecting off the mirror-like walls and floor, creating the illusion of a million blasts heading towards us from every angle.

“Ten'nō o mamorou!” Somepony bellowed in Neighponese.

The Samurai grouped around one of their number in a ring, the shriek of their arcane energy blades joining the crack and screech of the spells being thrown our way as they ignited their weapons, leveling the blades at the three of us.

The Emperor slammed his forehooves into the floor, cracking the quartz as large flat sheets of rock flipped up from the floor, walling off the Guards. A second quick twisting motion with his forehooves and sections of the ceiling peeled away, burying two of the knights in a shower of rubble.

“This is between me and the changeling, stand down!” Emperor Prance bellowed.

The Steward cursed, jumping off the throne and encasing himself in a dark green shield before firing a volley of crackling green bolts into the three of us. The spells slammed home, sparking against Twilight’s shields.

Dark green. All changeling magic was dark green! Could- Oh yes, it easily could be.

The knights seemed to have the same idea. The armored colossi stopped their barrage looking at each other for an uncertain moment.

The Steward switched to a single ray, firing directly into the Emperor’s barrel. Twilight shield warped and buckled. She groaned, stumbling slightly as the shield began to drain more and more energy.

The Emperor walked forwards. Each step slightly quicker than the last until he entered a full run, charging directly up the beam to shoulder check the Steward. The smaller ‘stallion’ was bowled over, shield sparking and hissing as the Emperor simply trampled over it, then turned around, whipped one foreleg in a motion as if crushing an egg, wrenching a slab of the floor out from its position and slamming it flat over the steward.

The slab broke into shards, collapsing the shield with a sound like shattering glass as the Steward stood up, immediately getting hit with a savage straight punch from the Emperor. Something snapped with a sound like a dry twig snapping. The Steward shrieked in agony, staggering backward several long paces, bright red blood quickly starting to drop from his face.

“You know I can just take that body apart,” Emperor Prance warned darkly, throwing something aside. “And you know unicorns need a horn to cast spells. How about you change back and we continue this little fight… Or would you rather keep up your deception and have me rip you limb from limb?”

“Imasugu!” The Samurai suddenly bellowed.

The group reared up, lunging forwards in a singular wave.

The Emperor ignored them. He didn’t know Neighponese blades cut through shields!

“Sir!” I screamed, “Behind-”

“Fine!” The Steward spat through a mouthful of blood.

His body vanished behind a wall of crackling emerald flames. The Samurai lurched to a stop, blades raised in preparation to strike, halted only by the revelation unfolding before everyone.

The flames burned out, revealing a tall, platinum-maned blue-ish purple shelled changeling Queen. She sneered at the Emperor, enraged enough for her eyes to glow with an arcane light. She grit her teeth, chitten shining beneath the light of the mage lamps.

“I should have you taken apart centuries ago!” She spat. “When I’m done with y-”

The Emperor casually stabbed upwards with a foreleg. Several needle-like spires of rock lanced upwards from the floor impaling the Queen through her back, barrel, and head with a sickening crunch and squelch.

“No, you should have kept moving and not shape changed back,” the Emperor countered, giving the thrashing corpse a condescending pat on the shoulder. “You forgot I could do that, didn’t you? Ah well. Everypony has something slip their mind sooner or later. Everypony here knows exactly what you were this entire time. Thanks for that.”

“Big guy,” the short pink furred green kimono-clad unicorn mare in the center of the Samurai's formation called, looking at the unfolding scene with a critical expression. “Can you explain what is going on to me?”

Emperor Prance made two swift motions with either foreleg, forcing large pillars of stone to slide out from the floor and arch over the dead Queen’s back, holding her in place on the spikes.

“For the love of Celestia! She’s dead! Stop it!” Twilight exclaimed in disgust.

The Emperor turned and looked at her, shaking his head. “No can do, Miss Sparkle. See the thrashing? When that stops there is no more magic left in her body and she can’t regenerate. If I removed the spikes now, her wounds would seal and she would stand and fight once more. Of course, you could incinerate say, sixty percent of her body, if you wish. That’s more than anyling can regenerate on their own. Then I could remove the spikes.”

I winced slightly. “Still, Your Highness, it is gruesome,” I had to admit.

“It is, but Queens are extremely hard to kill and keep dead via physical force,” the Emperor said with a shrug before turning around and smiling at the pink mare. “Ah! Empress Mitsuki. I remember you from a few years ago, how did the mutual shipping lane defense treaty work out?. Do you recognize me? The eyes are the same.”

The mare’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then her ears stood up straight. “Tatsu!” She ordered, giving her Samurai a firm and commanding look.

“Ten'nō, anata wa kakushin shite imasu ka?” A red kimono-clad samurai asked uneasily.

“Hai!” She replied immediately. “So, how are you alive again?”

“That stallion,” the Emperor said as he pointed a hoof at me, and gave me a respectful nod. “And a little help from Princess Twilight.”

Oh my! He was proud of me! What do I do!?

Ask if he can suspend my exile! Duh!

“Y-your highness,” I stammered nervously.

“One moment, Mister Repose,” the Emperor said politely. “Misuki, the usurper is dead, and I intend to take my throne once more. I am sorry but I am going to have to ask you to return in three months to finish whatever business you were here for. I will make the date a priority and push aside anything else happening to meet with you. However, as of this very moment, the entirety of my nation’s bureaucracy is about to be incredibly busy. I do hope you understand.”

The Neighponese Empress nodded. “You bet your flanks I do. But we can solve this problem right now. Your ‘Steward’ was using our defense treaty to put a suspicious amount of armed warships within firing range of my cities.”

“They will be withdrawn immediately,” Emperor Prance replied without hesitation.

“Thank you, send a message when everything is stable. I want to see exactly how the land will lay once you’ve regained full control,” she asked before nodding to her entourage and walking out of the room.

The Emperor nodded and walked over to the left hoof wall and with a quick swipe of his hoof pulled it down into the throne room. Twilight and I coughed as the dust from the collapse filled the room. Squinting through the haze I was able to make out the Emperor as she ripped the impaled and pinned changeling corpse from the floor with his magic and slid the body into view of the hole.

On the other side of the wall lay a large indoor courtyard, filled with a hundred or so ragged ponies, and at least five hundred guards ponies, all of whom were staring at the hole in shock.

“Citizens!” The Emperor called. “I am Prance, and this is my Empire! This changeling you see dead before you was your Steward, and your father's Steward, and his father's, all the way back to the treachery which struck me down. Knights, stand as a witness!”

The six knights, who had unburied their comrades from the rubble, realizing they had an order, quickly moved to the hole. One of them calling, “He speaks the truth. I saw the steward transform with my own eyes.”

The crowd erupted into a mixture of worried and excited murmurs as the gathered ponies began to talk with one another trying to work out exactly what was going on.

“There is no need for uncertainty, my friends,” Emperor Prance announced. “I will tell you exactly what is going to happen over the next several months. I have returned, and this monster’s reign is over. You are not to bring harm to any changeling within my borders. As you may recall that I have one for a daughter. There will be no witch hunts, as this individual is solely to blame.

“All laws enacted by any Steward are suspended pending my personal review. The Codex of Honor is to be immediately read and memorized in full by every single citizen starting tomorrow morning. The rules of conduct within its pages are once again Imperial Law. There will be a two-decade grace period for everypony to make the social transition.

“From this moment on, every last pony here who was held as a prisoner is now an Imperial Herald. You will receive uniforms within three days, along with employment instructions. As of right now, there are three critical announcements which all of you are to carry to every corner of the Empire.

“First, your Emperor walks amongst you once more. The Stewards have no authority and are to be forgotten. Second, miss Twilight, please step forwards.”

Twilight nodded and stepped forwards to stand a slight distance away from the Emperor.

“Second,” he resumed. “My return would not have been possible without assistance from the Kingdom of Equestria. They are now our sworn allies until the end of my reign. Lastly, Master Wizard, come forward.”

I frowned and turned around to try and see who the Emperor was looking at.

“Repose, I’m talking to you. Please, come forward,” he repeated with a chuckle.

W-what!? Me! Stand in front of hundreds of ponies all of whom would be looking at me!?

I gulped, ears drooping nervously as I walked up to the hole, timidly pulling my cloak’s hood down over my face.

So many ponies… Help!

“This is Gentle Repose, without his lifetime of work I would not be here today and you would still be under the hooves of a Tyrant,” the Emperor announced. “I want every last member of our Empire to know his name for he is a hero of our nation. Guards, escort our new Heralds to a dining hall and give them anything they wish to eat. Then carry my words throughout the entirety of the Palace. We have a nation in dire need of healing and have no time to waste.”

The crowd erupted into cheers. The Emperor stepped back into the throne room, and began to look around the floor.

I stood there nervously. I’d never liked crowds and now I was going to be known by everypony ever and-

“There’s my hat!” Emperor Prance exclaimed happily.

I reflexively turned my head just in time to see him reach down and scoop up the tricorner hat the Steward had been wearing and set it atop his head.

“Good, it still fits,” he said happily before turning to Twilight and I.

“You don’t use a crown?” Twilight asked with an amused smile.

“No. They’re tacky,” he replied with a laugh. “Well, Twilight, I believe I promised you some books as a thank you. In a moment we will go and collect them from my library. But right now, Mister Repose, I can not thank you enough. I will ensure you are treated kindly throughout the Empire for the rest of your days.”

I felt a spark of joy in my heart. Which made me remember I was still dead at the moment.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said, bowing politely. “That means a lot to me.”

“I’m glad,” he continued, his tone shifting to a more somber one. “Unfortunately, you did kill a constable, and were sentenced for that crime. The law doesn't permit me to pardon somepony after they are sentenced. Meaning you will have to-”

“That’s stupid!” Twilight exploded angrily. “He saved your life! He deserves his home back!”

“He does,” the Emperor agreed. “And he can have his family estate back in forty years. In the meantime, Repose, you must claim a primary residence somewhere outside the Empire. Naturally, you may visit anytime you desire. So long as you do not stay more than a month at a time.”

“Wait… Exiled individuals can visit the Empire!?” I asked, jaw dropping. “Since when!?”

“Since forever,” Emperor Prance said firmly. “I struck down the Stewards laws, remember? Exiled individuals are allowed to return to the Empire for up to one month every six months so they may visit family. I would happily pardon you, but doing so would show that I value you more than the law. Right now, I can not afford to do that.

“However, I can give your family back their estate, and make you the head of your household, if you wish. We are immortal, you and I. What are four decades? Not that much, not really. If you like, I will buy you any home of your choosing anywhere you wish in the world to wait the time out.”

Twilight blinked, then nodded. “I get it! If you pardon him after reversing all of those laws just now it will how you’re willing to bend the law. If that happens then-”

“I’ll have to put up with noble after noble demanding special favors. Because nopony understands that great rewards are to be given to those who have done great deeds. Not merely because you feel you are great,” the Emperor lamented. “But I do value the gift you have given me, Repose. You may live in my household once you return, should you wish.

“Or as soon as your exile expires, I could build you a manor house attached to say, an arcane university, and put it at your disposal with you as the Director of Research. Were you not undead, I would happily make you my heir… I don’t have one anymore. Changelings and the undead are not allowed to hold noble office within the Empire, and as far as I know all of my bloodline were purged over the years. While my Daughter still lives, unfortunately being my Spy Mistress is the highest position she may hold. Because the law is the law and must apply to everyone fairly, without exceptions. Fortunately, she and her hive love that kind of work.”

I nodded. I understood I really did. And I believed the Emperor. His eyes, while frightening, held honest sympathy. He honestly felt he could not violate the law, which I had to be honest, was a good thing. Nopony should be above the law.

And I did kill that constable. I hope sompony reanimated him…

“Um, did anyone reanimate the constable I attacked?” I asked with a worried frown.

The Emperor nodded. “They did. In addition to knowing that starting right now I will house, feed, and provide for you for so long as you wish, I would like you to name anything at all you would like as a reward which I can give you right now.”

I didn’t know what to ask for. I had no idea of what to say. And yet I answered as if on autopilot.

“Frankly, your majesty, all I’ve ever wanted was to feel useful and have a sense of purpose,” I answered. “Before reviving you, Princess Twilight offered me a job as her court Enchanter and well… I like that idea.”

The Emperor nodded. “As you wish. Write me for absolutely anything you need for your work, and you will get it. Well, assuming Twilight still wishes to offer you the job.”

“I do,” Twilight said with a laugh. “Are you sure you want to take that offer still, Repose? While irritating you can’t go back to your family home just yet, he’s offering to give you a home anywhere you like where you could just sit and do as you please.”

I nodded. “Yes. But I like to do things that matter. I’d rather make things for you, if I can’t be home and helping my family and friends.”

It was true. Working with Twilight had been the most fun and fulfilling thing I had done in ages.

“Then it’s settled,” Emperor Prance said with a pleased smile. “Repose, my boy, go and live with Twilight. I’ll find whatever you need. Provided of course that I can do so. Naturally. The two of you should head home, the next few months will be really rocky here.

“You’re always welcome, of course. But I doubt you’ll want to experience the political turmoil.”

“Yes, we should go. There’s so much I imagine you would like to do, Miss Sparkle,” I said happily.

“As soon as I get those books,” Twilight laughed. “Um, but you’re certain you’re happy with everything? I think I’d be a bit more mad about not being able to live-”

“The location isn’t important to me,” I explained. “I enjoyed working with you, you want me to keep working with you, and together we just changed the world for the better. What more could I want?”

Home. What a strange word. It can be a physical place or a feeling you have. A sense of purpose, of belonging. Of satisfaction with your life.

I could feel it. I was home.

Unknown - Unknown

1st of Snowfall, 16 EoH

A jet black stallion paced the floor of an obsidian room angrily. Each hoof fall sent sparks flying, despite nothing being present which should have caused such a phenomenon. He moved back and forth in a rage which boiled and churned almost visibly under the surface.

“How did an afternoon of fun turn into this?” Dawn demanded with a sneer as his eye twitched. “All I wanted was a brief afternoon of relaxation to celebrate taking my sister out of the picture. That was a huge milestone for my conquest, you know!”

He continued to pace back and forth. Passing behind a large desk made from burnt oak. The stallion made several laps before continuing his tirade.

“Take a thick headed kind fool, and his infinitely cruel rival and use them to cause some havoc for my own amusement. A simple plan that I’ve pulled off a million times before in the last age alone. But no, this time it goes wrong. I fail to scare the fool into traveling in the direction I want, and his rival is too much of a self-centered idiot to ever think his ideas are those of a damned fool!” Dawn raged, eyes burning a bright red as he paused taking a breath to contain his anger.

“And now, impossibly, Dusk’s mantle is no longer split into two and hidden away. No, because that ‘fool’ is actually an idiot savant!” Dawn growled clenching his teeth. “I couldn’t absorb her powers over death. It’s not like I wanted to split it up and stick those halves into the only receptacles could. And now they are free and that mantle is whole again and drifting through the ether.

“Dusk could reincarnate now, for all I know. Because clearly, the information I got on divine powers was completely wrong!”

A faintly pained gurgle echoed through the room, causing Dawn’s ears to swivel in its direction.

“Humm… As much of an idiot as you are, you have a point,” Dawn mused. “Dusk is dead, and this plan was completely foiled. I had my guard down. I thought the force working against me to be destroyed. Clearly, it was not. Good catch.”

Dawn turned and stepped behind his desk, sliding the chair out to take a seat, wood creaking as he sat down.

“It can’t be another god. Only Dusk was weaker than me. If they had more power than I, or more respect and value in opinion than Dusk had, and also knew enough of my plans enough to foil them, I would have been destroyed by now. It must be a mortal, and not Swift Prance, he was also effectively dead… A puzzle to be certain. But a puzzle with only one solution necessary to solve it,” Dawn said to himself, his voice oddly calm, and his body relaxing as well.

His eyes narrowed. “Advance my plan’s timeframe, and launch a true invasion as soon as possible. Humm… I’ll have to clear the way first. I can’t just wing this, I’ll need several plans of attack. My hidden opponent can’t possibly counter everything I could throw at them.”

Dawn reached down to a small cabinet set into one of the desks’ two legs and opened it. Inside the small space, a mangled pile of patchwork fur, bone, muscle, and entrails sat heaped and molded into a set of shelves, small drawers, and desk organizer cubbies.

The Dark God retrieved a pen and a stack of paper from the living organizer before shutting the cabinet door.

“You know Sunlit, I’m fairly certain your real special talent is organizing office supplies. You’re remarkably good at that. Keep up the excellent work, and I'll consider promoting you to a clothing organizer after a few eons!” Dawn praised as he sat down, pen beginning to scratch out his first plan of attack.

THE END

Exile’s Journey

by Meep the Changeling

1 - Outcast

2 - Exile

3 - Revealed!

4 - Reunion

5 - Outset

6 - Vengeful

7 - Snowfall

8 - Mohrg

9 - Guardian

10 - Augury

11 - Camp

12 - Homeland

13 - Doom

14 - Plans for the Future

15 - The Spire

16 - Progress

17 - Resurrection

18 - The Hive

19 - Sovereignty