1. Itinerary

Chapter One

Itinerary

A great rumbling built outside the porthole. The ceaseless rush of air, having been amiably quiet beyond the aluminium and polycarbonate shell of the transport all morning, made known its intent to disturb further sleep. The crackling fury of a distant storm shook me from restless, cramped slumber and reading for the first time in days.

I peeked blearily from within the magenta fluff of bundled blankets nestled in the aircraft’s left seat; gone from the porthole was the stabbing, blinding white of sunlight reflected from snow below, and in its place was a foreboding grey to accompany the dull pain in my forehead. I curled up and pulled the blanket back over my head to shut out the sky’s tumult.

Pneumatic hissing came from beyond my magenta shelter. The airlock at the small craft’s nose cycled open, and boots plodded across the mesh walkway between laden storage nets secured to the interior hull. The thudding steps came closer, taking care to be as quiet as was possible with cleated boots on a grate floor. An armored croupier hit the floor by my seat, and a low whine coming from the suit of armor cut off as its helmet seals opened. A dull clunk came from the floor.

A shadow moved over my magenta blanket. “Hey…” The murmur came with a gentle nuzzle on my neck. “We’re over the mountains now… remember those little ones we saw earlier this morning? Way, way off on the horizon?” She chuckled and brushed her nose across my cheek. I hummed an affirmative and nodded slowly. “Passed over them two hours ago. They’re even bigger down below. Six thousand meters above sea level, at least. Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?” I shuddered and pulled the blanket down again, shooting a baleful glare up at the pale lavender face and teal mane. “We’re about to pass over the last big ridge. Right on a fault, by the looks of it.” A sheen of frost clung to her armor’s black plating. “Want to take a look? You’ll be able to see straight down for three klicks in a few minutes.”

“Not. Helping.”

Turbulence buffeted the carriage, and Zephyr braced herself on the hatchway of the compartment. “Don’t hold your breath, but I think we’re coming up on the mother of all electrical storms.”

I blinked rapidly and sat up. “How big?”

“Hmm… dunno. Take the horizon, cover it with grey…” Zephyr swept her boot in an arc above me, pointing toward the starboard hull of our aircraft. “Just imagine a sea of charcoal across the entire range, all the way to that tower on the map.”

I cringed and wrapped my blankets tightly around my shoulders. “Isn’t that one shut down?”

“Nah, that one’s farther northwest. This storm is still a ways off. Really big, though. It’s coming this way…. and making our nav matrix go haywire.” She lay halfway into my chair, nuzzling my neck through the blankets. “Big anvil clouds are the problem; they go way over our flight ceiling. We need to cut southwest around the edges… not sure how far, but we need to switch the flight battery out soon.”

I swallowed and met her eyes. “Which means… we have to land.” Zephyr nodded. “Crap.”

I pulled a rolled-up map out of its protective tube and spread it out in the cramped space available in front of my padded flight seat. The faded, heavily worn canvas depicted, in meticulous hoof-inking, a sketch of the Badlands on the right, mountains and intermediate hills to their left, a broad river valley at the north end, and an immense forest along the left edge. Jagged lines denoted mountains to the north, though only one part of the range was labeled or given any true detail. A squiggly river snaked down valley’s center, changing course dramatically first at a ridge centered on a stylized, arched bridge one-third of the way down, and once again at a cliff face at the very bottom of the map.

I pointed at the tiny lake illustrated at the head of the river valley. “That’s Bellenast, and we’re…” Zephyr leaned over my shoulder and set her hoof over the mountains at the southeast corner of the painstakingly detailed map. Near the west edge of the drawn portion of the range was a needle-like tower. Numerous points on either side of the mountains were marked as villages, though the interior of the range was scratched through with menacing clouds and lightning bolts. “Hmm... somewhere there?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Zephyr tapped the storm clouds, tracing her boot west. “We cleared the highest peaks yesterday, but… as soon as we dropped altitude this morning, the nav matrix, uh…”

“Went all screwy.”

“Yep.”

I lifted the map to the side and stepped over to the porthole on my left. A far cry from the blinding expanse of snowcapped crags and milky clouds I’d seen the day before, the icy ridges below jutted up and ended as bare, black rock and scattered streaks of shadowed snow. Straight to the southwest, the rock fell away gradually, down and down and down for thousands of meters, and a narrow strip of pine forest in the more gently sloping foothills gave way to an arid plain streaked with dry gullies, occasional spots of dull green, and a haze of dust that obscured the horizon.

I turned around and stumbled across my strewn blanket to look out the starboard porthole, and my ears flattened on my head. “Double crap.” A wall of deep, flashing grey rose several kilometers upward. The foothills below were bright and clear until they stretched beneath the clouds no more than a couple kilometers to our north. Even so far away, the winds buffeting our transport were enough to shake every bag of rations and can of water tied down in our aluminium eggshell.

I poked my hoof at the third quadrant of the map, tracing down and left, past the ridge that, supposedly, divided the arable plains below us from the inhospitable desert to the south. “And we have to go southwest.” My hoof slipped off the map. “Down here.”

“Uh-huh. Just far enough to find the river.”

“How many full cells do we have?”

Zephyr flicked two primary feathers up. “We can camp and wait to recharge.”

I wilted. “That could take a week, Zephyr…” I huddled deep within the magenta blankets and clutched part of my mane in the crook of my forehoof. “More like weeks,” I muttered. “I can charge one cell fast. We need more than that.”

“Well… take a look out the window again.” Zephyr grabbed my seat and lifted her helmet as the transport rocked again. “I don’t see any battery stores on the horizon. We may not have a choice.” She held her forehoof to her ear and looked over her shoulder. Inhaling sharply, she turned back to me and said, “Buckle up and seal your pod; the storm’s closing faster than we can outfly it.”

“Mmm…” I shivered at her words and lifted my blanket away. I fumbled with my seat’s restraint harness while the aircraft rocked and rattled again. Zephyr donned her helmet and approached the nose airlock. “Do we have enough food to camp for a week? Two?”

“Six weeks if we ration it,” she said, her voice coming from her armor’s external speaker. “And we can always forage. I’m more worried about the storm right now.”

The cabin dropped suddenly, and I was weightless for the span of a second. I shrieked and scrabbled at the air, my hooves tangled in the levitated blankets I’d yet to fold. My breath left my lungs as gravity reasserted its hold and slammed me back into my padded bench. Zephyr’s armor, itself nearly the mass of the mare inside, crashed back to the grate floor. I groaned and secured the buckles of my flight harness, beginning with the chest strap. “Ow…”

“You okay?” Zephyr pulled her boot out of the dent in the mesh walkway.

“Yeah…” I rubbed my ribs and blinked blearily at the heavily armored mare. The assistive thrusters on her shoulders sputtered briefly as her helmet sealed and triggered her suit’s operational self-test. “Is your seal holding?”

“Yeah. No worries; Eagle’s nice and toasty, too.”

I sighed and pulled the restraint pads in against my flanks, hindquarters, belly, and in front of my forelegs. Immediately afterward, the cabin lurched again, slinging me forward. The restraints would have arrested my motion, had the forward pad been in place instead of folded into the floor to allow entry into and exit from the pod.

“Strapped in yet?”

“Working on it!” I hollered toward the airlock. Stretching my hind leg out, I kicked a yellow button built into the bottom of my restraint frame, and the thin hatch above the eggshell lowered into place, sealing me inside the capsule. Several red lights next to the small window turned green, a hum came from the thaumic capacitors interspersed around the interior of the ejection pod, and the rushing wind outside grew silent. A static charge inside the pod caused every hair of my coat to stand on end. Focusing the emerald glow from my horn around the straps and buckles around my belly and legs, I tightened them and rubbed my forehoof over the tender bruises forming on my thighs. I pushed the microphone pad with my left forehoof and said, “Warn me if we have to drop, okay?”

Red hazard lights on the ceiling and beneath the grated walkway began to flash as Zephyr turned her oversized armor halfway around to look at me one last time. The lighting turned her gold visor a fiery orange. The speaker inside my pod crackled loudly; even inside the transport, the electrical storm created interference. “Don’t worry, baby. We’ll be fine. Besides, if you have to eject, I’ll catch you—”

A harsh squeal of static erupted from the speaker as an actinic flash lit the sky outside the starboard porthole and arcs of searing electricity jumped throughout the cabin’s hull framing. Alarms blared shrilly inside my pod, and yellow hazard lights joined the red ones in the cabin. An unearthly, screeching howl came from somewhere outside, causing the entire cabin to ring for several seconds. My fur stood on end. “Eagle, what was that?” The aircraft shuddered and listed to starboard, then dropped precipitously and began to bank sharply. Artificial thunder boomed outside as twin cannons unleashed bolts of magic in front of the vehicle; the light even from the peripheral of the portholes was bright enough to leave spots in my eyes. “Crystal, hold on!”

The airlock cycled shut. I rose against my seat harness and lurched back and forth as our cargo did the same. My stomach lurched with the few boxes and loose items not strapped down. A set of saddlebags bumped into my window, and then jerked to the left as emergency jets flared brightly outside the porthole. The chariot jerked hard to starboard, pushing me into my harness, and the hull on my left dented inward half a meter with an earsplitting clang that resonated through my pod, and a crack shot across the porthole.

The storage racks and retainer straps buckled and snapped, sending our cargo of food, water, and tools across the cabin in a flurry. My saddlebags tumbled past my pod’s window again; as they flew out of sight, lightning arced inside the aircraft, crackling for an unnatural time. A rucksack sliding down the walkway burst aflame and spilled open on its way through the electricity, sending books and magazines across the floor.

The cabin jerked to starboard again, dropped, and entered an uncontrolled roll. I lurched in my harness again and gasped as several of the flaming volumes bounced into my saddlebags on their way back across the cabin.

“No!” I planted my hooves firmly against the pod’s hull and pushed back all the restraint pads. “No no no no no!” I kicked the hatch release. The shield slid upward instantly, and my ears popped in the lowered air pressure. I snatched my saddlebags in weak telekinesis and yanked them into my pod, patting the small flame on the top cover rapidly with my hoof. I pulled the restraint pads back into place from their folded stowage positions, all save the front pad and head restraint.

Lighting crackled through the cabin again, deafening and blinding me temporarily. A glowing, spiny tail pierced through the hull with a sudden screech, flicked downward, and wrenched a gaping scar in the aircraft as it withdrew. My ears seemed ready to burst as the thin atmosphere outside sucked the air and a slurry of our lighter cargo through. I struggled to breathe, and my heart hammered inside my ribs.

The jagged edges of the hull breach gleamed with the brightness of freshly sheared aluminum. I scarcely heard myself above the roar of air and eldritch howl outside the wide tear in the hull. A shriek like rending metal came from the sky outside. I shivered and shook my head as my eyes began to sting again. Unnatural frost gathered inside the pod. The twin cannons cracked outside again, lighting the cabin with harsh, blue-white light.

A high, shrieking roar made the chariot’s hull ring, and a glowing, serpentine form shot into the cabin. The flying snake thrashed and whirled about amid the severed cargo straps and slammed against the hull several times, denting the craft further. Then, as it thrashed toward the ceiling, one of its many, yellow eyes faced me, and it brought its angular head to bear on my pod. Six yellow spots faced me, and a mouth filled with rows of spiny teeth and enormous fangs stretched open farther than it had right. The serpent screeched, and fins along its spine flared upward, rattling as frost billowed off its scales.

Shrieking and shuddering, I stomped the control below my hooves, and the hatch shut immediately. The serpent lunged and crashed against the window. Hissing, the serpent jerked backward and lunged again. A translucent barrier of magic shimmered to life as the beast struck the pod. The snake’s gaping maw covered the window entirely, giving me a view of a shimmering, forked tongue and frosted fangs. Ice gathered on my side of the glass, and the blaring sirens cut out with a loud pop. I whimpered. The window held, but the metal began to groan.

The snake screeched and withdrew its head a meter, then spun around. Its entire body crackled, and then it lashed at my pod with its lightning-covered tail once, twice, and again and again. Each time, the shimmering barrier flickered and a sound like a ram striking a door rang in my ears.

Rime grew on my coat. The serpent’s crackling tail struck again, causing my ears to hurt and my frosted coat to tingle. My hide began to sting in the intense cold. I jerked my head to the right levitated my beam pistol free from a stowage compartment in the floor. I fumbled with the safety on the pistol as the beast whirled its head around and clamped its over-extended mandible around the hatch.

The window cracked. With a squeal of sundered metal, the serpent ripped the hatch out by a centimeter. Frost spurted from its mouth as it coiled again, preparing to pull. I bucked the release pedal and held my breath as the freezing snake tore the hatch upward and crashed headfirst into the ceiling halfway along the length of the main compartment.

Crackling beams of lurid red from my gun vaporized the frost on the creature’s scales, and the serpent let out an earsplitting, hissing shriek that caused the hull and my ears to ring. Arcs of errant magic jumped from the creature’s crackling tail, and it spun around to face me from above. I shrieked and ducked my head as it darted straight at me and crashed into the hull behind me, sending a bone-rattling shock through my harness. The serpent opened its maw wide, and with a sound like that of fracturing glass, it spit a blob of sparking, roiling vapor at me.

“Aiii-ghkkkk!” Hyperventilating as ice grew over my muzzle, chest, and forelegs before my eyes, I levitated my beam pistol unsteadily in front of my nose. My skin began to burn fiercely, and my neck locked into place under the rapidly growing layer of ice. Flashes of lightning and booms of thunder outside rocked the cabin again, and the strident shrieks of more serpents pierced the howling wind.

A violet flash accompanied the crack of a cannon firing, and a hair-raising wail rang through the aircraft. Something enormous surged past the hull breach and disappeared below, and the entire carriage lurched upward as an immense creature struck the bottom of the fuselage. The serpent inside crashed to the deck in the sudden lurch. I flew upward into my restraints again as the cabin rolled and swung hard to starboard; the padded support booms flexed and pressed against my side as the aircraft swung back onto a proper course. The crackling snake in front of me hissed and hovered into the air again, lashing its tail at the deck. I fired my beam pistol, but it had little effect on the serpent’s scaly hide.

The serpent shrieked at me again and lunged forward. I jammed my pistol into the thing’s maw as it struck out at me, and its jaws collided with my harness. It hissed and spun around to toss the pistol against the hull, then continued around to whip me with its electrified tail. I thrashed inside the frozen straps as my mane stood on end and my muscles clenched. Numb and breathing in short, pained gasps, I wrapped a weak nimbus of green magic around the serpent as it struck toward me again. I screamed and jerked away from the rows of icy teeth and crackling spines in the thing’s slimy throat, and on reflex, I shot a wild burst of magic from my horn. The blast struck the serpent’s jaws, and it recoiled upward, crashing into the roof of my pod. My ears rang as it shrieked again.

As the serpent shook itself and retreated half a meter, maw gaping wide in a hiss, a thin, metal object fell from a loose compartment behind the serpent and clattered on the deck. Frost encroached on my eyelids, numbing my face and locking my mouth open. I began to jerk and buck inside the ice as the ice grew over my nostrils and cracked lips. The serpent shrieked a final time as I wrapped a shaky field around the shotgun on the floor and raised it to eye level.

A black, winged form covered in ice shot gracelessly through the tear in the hull and rocketed straight to my pod. “Crystal, shoot it!” Zephyr grabbed onto the serpent with all four legs and flapped hard, wrenching the beast away just as I pulled the double trigger as far as it would allow. A deafening boom sent shuddering vibrations through my ribcage, and the grip lurched backward against my feeble telekinesis and bashed into my forehead. The snake’s middle exploded in a shower of gore, and my ears rang.

“Mmmmm!” I struggled in the ice as Zephyr tossed the serpent’s twitching body out the hull breach and staggered toward me. Blood trickled into my eyes. Zephyr leaned into my pod and punched at the ice on either side of my head. I shuddered and jerked weakly as my chest burned. The armored mare moved into the pod at an awkward angle, placing her maneuvering jet in front of my snout. I clenched my eyes shut, and she fired the thruster. Searing heat stung my nose and lips, but the ice melted just enough. Zephyr rapped the ice on my mouth with her boot, and the stinging chunks fell free. I forced a stale breath out through the gap and heaved again and again.

Shivering and heaving, I groaned and let my head fall limply toward the deck as Zephyr began to break the rest of the ice around me free. I shivered uncontrollably while she worked, and my breaths grew rapid in the thin air.

Another serpent sailed through the hull breach and shrieked at us, readying a scintillating cloud of ice shards and magic charge to spit out. Zephyr reared up to shield me in an instant and spread her armored wings wide as the serpent launched the crackling blob, and it splattered across her back just as she primed her back thrusters. A roaring hiss and blue-white light filled the cabin as the power armor converted magic to thrust and gushed a blazing plume through the spreading ice and into the eldritch serpent’s open maw.

The armored mare slammed into my pod hooves-first, straining against the thrusters as the serpent burned from the inside out and fell away in a thrashing heap. Zephyr cut her jets and leapt backward, flapping her wings to rid them of the building ice, then spun around and kicked the twitching, flaming beast out of our aircraft.

“Z-z… Zeph… Z-z-zephyr…” I fumbled numbly with my restraints and hobbled forward as the mare leapt toward me and grabbed a folded blanket that had fallen halfway out of one of the ceiling racks. She brushed the remaining ice off my chest with her feathers and wrapped the blanket around me tightly, then pulled a breathing mask from a compartment in the shelter pod and placed it over my muzzle. The mask and straps were uncomfortable, but it allowed me to breathe more easily. She hugged me tightly and sank to the deck against the starboard passenger seats behind the porthole. She kicked her right foreleg in a deliberate motion, and the sleek, grey gun mounted on her back slid forward onto her shoulder and took aim at the massive hull breach on the port side of our aircraft.

I shivered and slumped against her, breathing deeply and tremulously. Zephyr whipped the spiked tip of her armored tail around and dragged the shotgun on the floor to me. Speakers on her armor crackled, and the mare took a deep breath. “Kicks a bit, huh, baby?” I grimaced and levitated the shotgun into my forelimbs. The cabin tilted downward, and the fierce wind tore at the hull, causing our craft to judder erratically as we descended to a safer altitude. The shrieks of flying serpents were gone.

I nodded and lifted a pair of orange cartridges from within the mangled ejection pod. My saddlebags followed in an emerald aura, and I seized my beam pistol from the deck and clutched it tightly, as well.

“Oh no…” Zephyr’s wing tensed. I peered up at her and then followed her gaze across the cabin, shivering all the while. Next to the gaping tear in the hull, on the deck grating scorched by thruster flame and the serpents’ wild electricity, there was a steel rack, the side of which had bent open and fallen toward the jagged breach during the serpent’s wild thrashing. “Baby, I’m so sorry…”

As I watched, a tattered, scorched book and several burning pages blew out into the grey skies on the whistling, uncaring wind.

“No…” I clutched my saddlebags to my chest and looked down at the single book and diary inside them. “No!” My vision blurred. I choked on my voice and sobbed into the blanket and Zephyr’s feathers as we flew onward.

The sun bled across the sky in red and orange beyond the new window in our craft’s battered hull. A flat, featureless expanse of desert stretched southward as far as I could see. The wind whistling sharply into the cabin was dry and hot. It stung my eyes and lips, and every centimeter of my skin between my eyes and my flanks was sore from the stinging cold, even though the ice had melted hours before.

The horizon tilted, and my weight shifted against Zephyr’s armored flank. The mare lay on her belly, halfway on the curve of the starboard hull, while she cradled me under her wing. She stirred, nuzzling the top of my head. My breathing mask had fallen to the deck, and Zephyr had removed her helmet at some point. Her teal mane was disheveled, sweat had dried on her coat, and shadows hung under her eyes. She held both my beam pistol and the weathered coach gun close to her torso in the crook of her foreleg.

I looked back at the breach and said, “Where are we?”

She stretched, flexing her wings outward, and hugged me to her side; she had placed a pillow between me and the angular armor. The mare yawned and tightened my blanket, then kissed between my ears. “South,” she murmured.

“How far?” I rolled from my side and faced the hull breach, leaning back on Zephyr. I tucked my hind legs in to keep my hooves under the blanket; despite the hot air, every part of me that had contacted the flying serpent’s icy expulsion remained uncomfortably cold and partially numb. I shivered and peered at the unchanging desert outside. “Why are we going so slow?”

“Not sure how far, but… hmmfff…” Zephyr chuckled and sighed past my ears. “Storm screwed up our nav matrix, and the lightning… ice snake things screwed up everything else. No flight stabilizers or power control. Backups kicked in and restarted the main flight talisman, apparently, but Eagle’s flying full manual. No control surfaces.”

“Mmm…” Shivering, I looked up at one of the overhead compartments that hadn’t fallen open during the serpents’ intrusion. I pulled the folded bundles of clothing out of one of them, then squirmed out from beneath Zephyr’s forelimbs and the blanket while I glared at the pair of jumpsuits spread on the deck. Hot gusts of dry air from the hull breach tossed my mane wildly about, and I peered at the collar labels of the ancient, faded suits; lying folded in a storage crate in Cloud Loft Peak for more than a century had done the fabric few favors, but the clothing remained usable. One was about Zephyr’s size and light grey, the other for me and distinctly not grey.

“Is that the only one you could find?” Zephyr chortled softly as the sleeves dangled on the floor; the collar came halfway up my neck.

“Only one in your size.”

I stuffed the extra jumpsuit unceremoniously back into the cargo compartment. “Zephyr, is your back sort of numb? I think that ice stuff was some bad magic, ‘cause I’m still cold.”

“Kind of, yeah; it was worse earlier.” The mare took a shallow breath and sighed. “Don’t worry, baby. It ought to feel normal soon. Few hours, maybe.”

“Mmm…” Bright fabric stabbed my eyes mercilessly. “Extra small… ‘junior filly, high visibility.’ Friggin’ perfect… ‘Instant Fit Matrix. Never shrinks!’” Zephyr snickered. “Woohoo…” I sighed, stretched it, and pushed my legs through the sleeves. A scent of dust hung on the creased cloth, and the zipper caught on my coat twice before I could pull it all the way past my belly, up to my sternum, between my forelegs, and finally up to my neck, but the suit fit. I stuffed the case back into the compartment above and snuggled against Zephyr’s pillow again. She snorted as I pulled the blanket around my shoulders. “It’s not funny.”

“Mmm-hmm…” She patted my back, smiling. “I dunno… it goes with your mane.”

“My mane,” I grumbled, “Is not. Hot. Pink. It’s ma—”

“Magenta. Yes, I know. Who’s corrected more ponies about that, you or me, huh? Because I think it’s me.” Zephyr hugged me again with her wing. “Besides, I didn’t say it matches your mane, I said it goes with it… and I think it’s very cute, Crystal.”

“Mmmmrrrrrgffff.” I glared down at the pink, synthetic fiber and pulled the zipper on my chest all the way up to the collar. “Thanks,” I mumbled, “I guess…” The neon jumpsuit contracted slowly over my body as I pressed the small button sewn into the fabric at the top of the left foreleg, and then the fabric shifted as tiny sparks of magic traveled down the seams. The cloth flexed briefly, and the entire suit assumed a uniform fit around me. The leggings shrank, and the narrow strip of talisman plates sewn into the liner on my back buzzed briefly, tickling me. I grimaced and tugged on the fabric over my belly. “Not very roomy… feels friggin’ weird. This better not give me a rash.”

Zephyr snorted. “They’re padded down under, and behind. I checked. They were all pretty musty, unfortunately, but it should help you stay warm wherever we have to stay, at least. Might take a while for the enchantments to kick in, though…” She nuzzled the top of my head and murmured, “So stay close for now.”

I curled against the pillow between me and her armor and tugged my beam pistol from the crook of her foreleg; several fang marks ran down the frame, but the weapon was otherwise undamaged. “Hey, um…” I brushed my hoof over the pistol’s safety switch to ensure that it was on, then cradled the gun to my chest, aiming it at the hull breach and desert sky outside. “We outflew those snakes, right? They didn’t leave the storm, did they?”

“Mmm-hmm… no more crazy ice-spit or lightning tails in this carriage.”

“Pffft…” I rubbed my chest and muttered, “Does lightning freeze you, too? Those snakes are friggin’ scary… and strong. Ripped through the hull…” I glanced over to at the damaged shelter pod, laughed weakly, and mumbled, “So… how much of the cost for this thing was the pod… and how much was the hull?”

“Dunno…” Zephyr giggled. “But, ah… the two that made it in here were just the babies. Their momma cracked the hull open.”

“Oh.”

“Shot its tongue while it was trying to catch Eagle for breakfast. She flew off after that.” The armored mare chuckled again. “The other little ones followed her. Tongue didn’t.”

I shuddered. “Yiiiick.”

“She did manage to spit a mean vapor ball right when I fired.” Zephyr waved her boot forward in front of me. “Beam went through it. Boiled a hole straight through, then into the mouth. All that ice probably saved the thing’s life. Soaked up the heat and scattered the beam.” She dropped her hoof and whispered, “Otherwise, I think we’d be covered in snake guts right now.”

“Ewwwwww…” I groaned and stuck my tongue out. “Sto-op, Zephyr!”

The pale pegasus laughed and nuzzled my mane. “Mmm… okay, okay.” The cabin dipped again, and Zephyr looked up and at the forward airlock. The mare grabbed her helmet from the floor and slid it over her ears. I peered up at her raptly as she activated her external speakers. “What’s up, hon? Find something?”

Eagle’s voice crackled back over the radio, his tenor laced with fatigue, though calm nonetheless. “Spotted a factory of some kind ahead. Maybe forty klicks.”

Zephyr sighed and squeezed me gently, looking toward the desert beyond our craft. “Think it’s a sky chariot factory?”

“Hah. With our luck? More likely a string factory. No idea, honestly… but it’s something.”

“See anything on E.M., sweetheart?”

“Nothing powerful enough to reach this far. Place seems dead.”

“Mmm… keep scanning until we’re there, then.”

“Hey, how’s Crystal?”

I glanced toward the airlock, then craned my neck and said, “I’m fine. Friggin’ flying snake spit sucks. I’m wearing one of those climate suits, and I’m still cold.”

“Cold? We’re in the middle of the desert! Zeph, you sure she’s all right?”

“Those snakes might have some kind of residual magic in their ice. It affected me through my armor. My wings were numb for a while, too. Crystal took a hit right in the chest, and it spread over most of her face before I could scrape it off. Her temperature’s a little bit high. Doesn’t seem too bad, though. I’m feeling better by the hour. She ought to be fine by tomorrow.”

“Damn it… we need to find someplace to land. It’ll be freezing tonight.”

“I know, hon. I know…” Zephyr stroked my foreleg and sighed. “Just keep flying… you’ve carried us this far.”

“I’m not about to quit… wings aren’t the problem.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Remember when the big one rammed us, just before it flew off?”

Zephyr groaned, rubbing her temple. “Just spit it out, hon…”

“Well… it hit close to the flight array. Diagnostics aren’t showing it, but I think there’s a crack somewhere in the main ring.”

I glanced out at the desert horizon; it moved by at a crawl. We were at least two hundred meters above the ground. “Then how are we flying? I thought you said the backups kicked in.”

“Yeah, they kicked in, all right… the landing skids opened on their own a couple minutes ago, though. I’m not taking us down; the emergency controller is. We’re locked on a descent course. I won’t be able to take off again until we can fix the array, so I’m trying to make it as close as possible before making a, ah… controlled landing.”

I swallowed. “Is there another kind?”

“Yeah, no worries. Might be a bit rough, but—”

“We’re going to crash, aren’t we?” Zephyr stuck her nose into my saddlebags briefly, searching through their contents. The mare pulled my brush out and began to tug it through my mane. I closed my eyes and let the gentle grooming lull me. “I mean, realistically speaking,” said Zephyr, muffled slightly by the brush, “We have no stabilizers, there’s a giant hole on the port side, and the steering is whacked, honey… we’re probably going to crash, right?”

“Ehhhhhh… yeah, most likely.”

“Just tell me when we make the final approach, and I’ll fly Crystal down while you land.”

Eagle laughed over the radio. “Okay, Zeph. We’ll do it your way.”

“This one looks good. No motion or thermals.”

Zephyr’s external suit speakers were quiet. Long shadows crept up the face of the concrete wall of the warehouse and heavy, sliding door before us. The high squeak of a bent wheel echoed off the other surrounding warehouses and utility buildings as Eagle pulled our scorched, torn aircraft up the loading ramp toward the door.

Scorch marks showed on the thick, layered armor that hid the stallion completely, save the amber feathers on his wings. He kicked back at a lever on the pilot’s harness, and the mechanism disengaged from his power armor by raising and sliding into the craft’s ovoid hull. Scratches and streaks of oxidized aluminium surrounded the gaping tear toward the craft’s tail. I shivered and squeezed Zephyr’s armored leg as Eagle plodded toward the door. The first of many raindrops speckled the concrete and steel around us.

Eagle poked the spade-like blade on his suit’s articulated tail into the lock on the door and twisted it off with a loud snap. He then pulled the door up slightly with the blade and pushed it up with his boots. The gears and bearings on the rails squealed and loosed a rain of rust, and Eagle powered on his floodlights.

We stared into the stark, largely spotless warehouse for several seconds, and Eagle laughed. “Well, how about that.”

I scowled at the stacks of bunk bed frames stacked against the left wall. “No mattresses.”

“Ah well.” An overhead light flickered on and burst promptly as Eagle stepped into the small building.

“Small blessings.” Zephyr nudged me forward and began staking thermal sensors into the weathered concrete around the entrance and the narrow access alleys between the surrounding sheds.

I went toward a platform that overlooked a long, carriage-width depression in the concrete. I swept the tiny bits of broken bottles and several ceramic lamps off our prospective camping ground and set my saddlebags by the wall, then laid my blanket next to them.

The steel deck vibrated suddenly under Eagle’s heavy hoofsteps. Eagle laid his and Zephyr’s blankets in a miniature phalanx in front of mine and returned to the harness of our aircraft. The battered carriage rolled unevenly into the warehouse; it occupied most of the room. Red lights blinked on the levitation array under the hull; the gaping tear on the port side could allow a power-armored stallion to pass through with ease.

“We need to patch that,” I said. My words made an eerie echo in the cavernous building just as a curtain of rain swept overhead and drowned it out with a dull roar. “We’ll need aluminium.”

“Ehhhh, couple steel barrels will work. Just needs to be good enough for one trip north, keep it from listing too much.”

I grimaced and propped myself up on the deck railing; it creaked under my weight, and bits of rust flaked off. “Yeah, but… it’s a long trip. Do you even know how far we are from that ridge?”

“Hundred klicks, I think. There’s a town there, on the map, so if we have to, we can hide the carriage and come back later for the important stuff. It doesn’t look like this place has been looted, ever, so security by obscurity…” He stepped into the chariot and disappeared toward the storage racks inside.

I peered at the pipe-laden walls of the warehouse briefly and trotted back to my saddlebags. I huddled beneath the remains of my blanket and tugged on the left sleeve of my bright jumpsuit. Scowling at the neon pink fabric, I called out, “That’s a hundred klicks of low-altitude bullet invitation.”

“Won’t be anything shooting at us if we keep to the empty areas.” I squinted through the guardrail at our damaged aircraft. A tin of rations fell on the deck inside the carriage and rolled toward the steps. The claw on Eagle’s armored tail snatched it up.

“Empty like that pond with all the turrets hidden in the trees?” I said as he jumped out. He balanced a small stack of ration tins on a tray atop the power pack for his arc cannons.

“That pond is a valuable resource. Water source. Those turrets weren’t always there. Someone put them there.”

“Yeah, some psycho.”

“Maybe.” He set the tin that had fallen back onto the stack on his armor. “This is a big desert. No rivers or springs unless you head a lot farther west, as far as I could tell flying in. There shouldn’t be anyone or anything lying in wait to attack a few tourists.”

“Tourists?” I muttered. Lying down beneath my magenta blanket, I positioned my saddlebags as a pillow and said, “How are we tourists?”

“Wellllll, I was joking, but…” He pointed one wing at our aircraft in a dramatic gesture. “Three ponies go for a trip in their fancy carriage. They make a stop at the derelict factory, do routine maintenance, and swing north to the grand city from ancient Equestria, the fabled Bellenast.” He reached his clawed tail around to the back of his helmet, and the seals hissed as he pulled it off. A tousled mop of golden-brown mane framed his off-white head. Eagle turned a pair of tired, green eyes to me and shrugged with his wings. “It sort of fits, doesn’t it?” He clipped his helmet below his collar. “You just have to take out any and all context for the situation, and we could be tourists.”

I snorted and curled into a ball under my blanket. “Tourists with class four aetheric cannons.”

“Right. Perfectly normal. What could go wrong?”

I cringed, sighed, and closed my eyes. Zephyr’s steps announced her entrance to the warehouse as I muttered, “We’re friggin’ doomed. Great.”

“Storm nagas, for starters,” said Zephyr as she approached. The mare groaned as she sat against the railing by my side and rubbed her wing on my back. “Let’s not tempt fate, okay, honey?”

“Fine, fine… we’ll take a look through one of these places in the morning, find something thin enough to cut and tack on.”

Cold water splashed across my face. I wheezed as I inhaled, then coughed wet dust and blood out of my mouth. I opened my eyes and struggled to move my legs. Rough rebar scraped against my legs, and I lay still again. I lifted my head. Dust and tiny chunks of concrete fell from the edges of the ruined canopy that limited my view of the sky. A stream of cold rainwater began to pour from the neatly cut metal just above my face, splashing me again.

Desks and ancient workstations hung from the recently demolished floors above me. Several large, wheeled husks burned on those floors, throwing billowing columns of black smoke into the rainy air.

The bent sheet of steel, removed from the back of the expensive desk to which it had belonged, lay above me. The sheet held back a mound of loose rubble and the mangled, wheeled leg of a robotic security drone. Scattered throughout the debris all around me were hundreds of brass bullet casings. The collapsed floors, rebar and concrete and tiling and all, formed an uneven, deadly bowl centered on me. A steel beam supported the bulk of a section of thick flooring that appeared otherwise ready to collapse and crush me at any moment.

I coughed again and squeezed my eyes shut. My back and shoulders throbbed, and dried blood caked my forehead. I groaned and shivered as the rain began to patter lightly on my coat. I shifted slightly, and my left hind leg throbbed above the knee.

Pain pounded through my skull in a frenetic rhythm as I tried to wrap my telekinetic grip around the jagged chunk of concrete and steel that had pinned my left hind leg to the cold ground. Chill water sloshed around me, and another drop of rain fell on my cheek. I flinched and folded my ears as the sky lit up. The flash illuminated my rubble-strewn surroundings in stark detail before the thunder boomed between the buildings. My eyes watered.

I wrenched a bent length of rebar from a shattered block of concrete and slid one end of it under the rubble that held my bleeding leg to the ground. My head throbbed as I pushed the impromptu lever up with my telekinesis, and then I rolled onto my stomach and crawled a meter away on the broken tiling and plaster sheet that covered the former office building’s ground floor. I released the rebar, and the rubble crashed to the ground. Pebbles bounced past me and made plopping noises as they landed in the raindrop-speckled pool that obscured the ground in front of me.

I crawled forward frantically as the structural beam that held the floor began to groan. Something cracked and shifted beneath it. I pushed a broken chair aside and hobbled onto my hooves, and I staggered across a mound of shattered flooring and the miraculously intact doorway at the edge of the newly made ruin. I pushed the door open and stumbled into the equally rubble-strewn street as something crucial gave way ten meters behind me, and the section of floor fell with a mighty crash. A cloud of dust and plaster billowed into the street, and I covered my mouth with the pink sleeve of my jumpsuit. Several chips of tile bounced off me and clattered on the road.

Several minutes passed before the falling rubble stilled and the plaster dissipated under the rain to form a discolored swath of unnatural mud in the street. The rain brought with it a thin sheet of cold water on the street, which swept around me and washed away the surrounding dust.

I groaned and rolled onto my side, then curled into a loose ball and pulled the tattered, scorched remnant of my jumpsuit’s sleeve off my left hind leg. A great swath of blackened, necrotized hide and seared muscle marred much of my numb limb. The layer of dried blood cracked, but no fresh blood escaped. I whimpered.

Gritting my teeth, I rolled onto my belly and pushed myself to my hooves. I hissed and lifted my injured leg, then began hobbling toward the end of the narrow alley. The water came up several centimeters above my hooves.

“Eagle? Zephyr?” I looked back and forth as my stainless steel shoes clacked on the weathered concrete in an uneven, three-legged cadence. “Eagle!” I coughed a glob of blood and saliva onto the ground. Balancing on two hooves, I raised my foreleg and wiped the blood from my mouth. I continued limping toward the street ahead. “Anyone?”

I stepped into the street and turned to my right. Past a courtyard filled with bronze statues of rearing unicorns and low, metal benches was a great, square building. The structure’s center was a massive dome constructed of steel and cracked panes of glass that glistened as lightning bolts arced toward a rod projecting from the dome’s apex.

The ground shook in tandem with a roar of grating and crumbling debris. I jerked my head around. At the far end of the street, a colossal wheeled amalgam of vehicle and robot plowed through a mound of fallen concrete and steel. The hollow of the stubby, gleaming cannon on the gargantuan machine’s central swivel began to glow.

I spun around and limped toward the courtyard. Cold puddles and raindrops drenched my torn jumpsuit and coat. I wheezed and staggered around a tarnished bronze unicorn, then leaned on the west face of the statue’s marble base. I sucked in an agonizing breath, and then let out a hacking cough. Blood spattered the ground and began swirling away in the shallow sheet of water that covered the courtyard.

I lurched away from the statue and headed toward the double doors of the Medical Wing. A bright, multicolored light flashed behind me. A second flash accompanied another blast of magic that bored a meter-wide crater in the left side of the Medical Wing’s front wall. The bronze statue, heated to a dull orange, teetered toward me in a billowing cloud of vaporizing rain.

I turned and bolted for the double doors. The ground shook as I hobbled across the last ten meters of ancient concrete leading to the doors. A third bolt of deadly energy seared a scorched line in the concrete to my right. I staggered away from the blistering wave of heat and detached my gun from its controls. I forced the doors open and dove behind a reception desk just beyond the aperture as a fourth blob of explosive magic shot past me. I peeked around the edge of the flaming desk. The robot’s cannon glowed.

“Screw it.”

I wiped my eyes, squinted as I aimed at the colossus rolling toward me.

Thunderclaps resounded across the ruined courtyard. The bolts of blinding, white magic drilled a gaping hole through the back of the glowing weapon. The metal giant in the courtyard grew still.

I collapsed behind the desk, and glanced at one of several bloody gashes on my ribs. I groaned and lay still on the cold floor, wheezing and dizzy.

My ears twitched toward the mechanical voice and whirring noise.

A field of white magic surrounded me and lifted me into the air. I jerked my head up. A small robot, a simple steel half-cylinder on a levitation field, floated next to me. The robot spun around and rolled quickly toward a hallway on the opposite side of the lobby, floating me along with it toward second pair of impressive steel doors at the end of the short hallway.

A hiss of static came from the machine, and a stallion spoke.

“Listen to me, and for Celestia’s sake, don’t shoot, all right? Just take deep breaths and relax. I can help you. I know you’re hurting—just breathe, understand? Breathe.”

I winced as the steel doors groaned and opened, and the robot glided inside the immense, domed room. Other robots like the one that carried me glided about the chamber and carried many stainless steel boxes toward a crescent-shaped machine in the center of the room. Between the machine’s two outer rounded prongs was a large white table on hydraulic supports. A glass canopy dotted with holes rested above the bed on a hinge.

The robot carried me to the strange machine and lowered me slowly onto the white table. Another robot glided to the bed; I shivered as the dull edges of cold, scissor-tipped limbs glided over my coat and cut away my jumpsuit. The robot lifted the tattered clothing from me, seized my bandolier, rifle, and saddlebags, and then carried the items to a table near a collection of computer terminals lining the circular wall.

Another bulbous, floating robot extended a tiny, gleaming length of metal piping from one of its limbs; a needle and glass ampule of clear liquid emerged from the armature. I squeezed my eyes shut and whimpered as the needle pricked my neck. The whir of the robot’s levitation talisman receded from the bed, and my ears twitched toward the pneumatic hiss of hydraulics. A mask slid over my muzzle.

The glass canopy descended over the bed. Mechanical arms sporting cameras and clamps and polished tools emerged from the round prongs on each side of the bed and slid through the many holes in the glass. All of the arms twisted a quarter-turn clockwise, and a glowing field like a unicorn’s telekinesis enveloped them all. Feeling faded rapidly from my coat, leaving me in a state of detached, floating numbness. The air in the tiny chamber crackled as a bright light shone from the center of the canopy. Dull, cutting sensations throbbed in my back and hip as the mechanical arms moved around me.

I was too exhausted to draw a breath and scream.

The tenor voice was tinny and distorted, but very real. “Sterilization complete. Start trauma modules and build protocols one-three-seven, correcting for nerve damage, zero-two-five, and zero-zero-one size—”

“Kinetic fiber supplies for build zero-zero-one are insufficient; stasis failure has occurred in main storage. I suggest build zero-zero-four; I can complete this with supplies in auxiliary storage.”

“Stasis failure—right, guess it has been a long time. Not panicking. Not panicking! Ahhh… okay, cut one of the envirosuits for her, do build zero-zero-four from a template of the suit and add carrier racks to the hard points. Configure control interface for zero-zero-four to that of the completed one-three-seven build. Initiate Library and Running Rabbit transfer protocols into zero-zero-four’s master drive and prep me for host migration to the collar’s main storage bay. Load my spare universal drive board in the hard storage bay.”

“Commands confirmed. Initiating. Build one-three-seven requires master authorization. Please confirm.”

“Master authorization granted for surgical decisions. Use bone foam in place of titanium wherever you can. Keep her alive.”

“Accepted. Master processes enabled. Blood plasma supply is sufficient for nine hours continuous transfusion, but healing solution storage is minimal.”

“Right, lucky any of it’s viable… she’s small; it should be enough. Pull any emergency kits out and find anything still usable.”

“Retrieval delegated to servitor. Patient blood loss stabilized. I calculate the patient’s chance of survival to be ninety-seven percent. Alert! Sentinel Maximillian is refusing commands. Library transfer priority set to low.”

“Tartarus, talk about a wakeup call. All right, forget the Library and copy just my research records and all the core schematics. As soon as the filly’s operations are complete, dump yourself into zero-zero-four’s master drive. I want you fully intact.”

“Confirmed.”

“Have bot thirty pack a canteen harness. What’s your name, young mare?”

“Cryssstalll.”

A lone camera lowered itself from the canopy and hovered in front of my face.

“Right, you’re drugged—Crystal? That what you said?”

My eyelids grew heavy. “Uh…huh…”

“Don’t you worry, Crystal,” said the stallion’s voice. “You’ll be just fine. Dunno if you can still tell what I’m saying now…”

Escaping gas hissed from pipes near my head. My back stung in several places. Muffled alarm klaxons blared from speakers. A motor whirred and cold metal slid on my coat as restraining things that had pressed around me withdrew. Cracks ran across the curved ceiling beyond the glass. My hind leg was numb.

“Stay calm,” said the stallion. “Not the easiest thing to do, I know, but really, just do it—okay, you know what, yeah, panicking would be understandable.”

“Who are you?”

“Carbide! Name’s Carbide. Anyway, ah, definitely stay still. Please.”

“Let me go!”

“Just a moment.”

Motors whirred near my ears, and a white light surrounded me and levitated me into the air. A soft, flexible garment slipped over my legs and torso from behind, pressing on my coat, and a zipper closed along my belly and chest. Rigid coverings began to close around my legs, holding me frozen in place.

“Whoa, what the fuck—what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck—take this fucking thing off me! Let me go! Please let me go!”

“I am helping you!”

“It doesn’t feel like it’s fucking helping!”

“Well, I’m sorry!”

I shrieked in panic as a second section of the material slid over my head and joined to the suit. A heavy frame lowered onto my back, and my ears twitched toward a high-pitched hum as something pressed against my neck. A series of clicks and pneumatic hisses came from the tight barding, and the pain vanished. The upper and lower halves of a helmet closed around my head. Metallic clacks echoed from my back and legs as things clamped into place around me.

The magic holding me in the air cut off, and I dropped onto the platform beneath me with a thud. A pair of floodlights near my shoulders lit up.

“I’m sorry, I’m very sorry!”

“Okay!” I took deep breaths and gave up trying not to cry. “What the fuck is this?! Armor?”

“Yes, it’s a suit of armor! Because I’d like for you to not die! All right? Listen, we need to leave! This building is about to collapse—because a three-hundred-ton robot is trying to break in, yeah? Got it? I’m sorry I scared you. I am sorry. Now, please listen to me. Turn to your left, ninety degrees, and just walk through the door. It’s right there, it’s open, just go through it and turn left again, and keep going. There’s a tunnel. You’ll be safe from the giant robot in there.”

“Okay, door, tunnel, got it.”

I jumped off the platform, yelped as the leap carried me several meters farther than I’d ever jumped in my life, and landed in a stumbling canter on thudding, claw-tipped boots. Periodic tremors shook the floor, water leaked from the vaulted ceiling, alarms blared from crackling speakers, and several faint explosions came from beyond the steel doors off to my left. A loud clang sounded overhead, and water splashed across my armored back.

I stood for a second more, swallowed, trotted to the table by the exit door, and levitated my piled saddlebags, bandolier, beam pistol, and aetheric rifle.

A rumbling explosion rocked the room, and a series of sharp cracks sounded from above and behind me. A screeching of rending metal came with it. I spun around.

The steel doors crashed inward along with half the wall of the immense room, and a titanic plow pushed through the falling concrete. A circle of glowing death appeared in the dusty gloom.

“For the love of home and harmony, filly, run!”

I levitated my aetheric rifle, aimed at the dome and lenses on the metal giant’s head, and loosed bolt after thundering bolt of blinding plasma. Steel sagged and glowed yellow, and a hole opened in the dome.

I fired again and again into the tear, until my weapon itself made the air waver and the array of spark cells had drained. The titan stopped, motionless, but a distant roaring like an open furnace came from it. The glowing cannon on its middle dimmed. Water splashed off the front of the armored front and plow, and higher up, rain boiled away from the molten wound on the machine, nearly as high as the ceiling. The two enormous arms, like cranes tipped by a trio of hydraulic claws, rested frozen where they had pushed at the damaged walls.

Then the high ceiling groaned.

“Yeah, fuck you, robot,” I muttered. I turned and galloped. Concrete and steel bounced throughout the room, and I dove through the exit doorway into the hall.

An ear-splitting groan of tearing metal and roar crashing stone shook the ground. Debris poured in through the hall, and I stumbled as a piece shot under my boots. I quickly curled into a ball as the chamber behind me collapsed and a pall of dust spread through the air. The roaring and crashing continued unabated for another minute, and then, as a last steel beam clanged somewhere and a smattering of concrete chunks rattled across the floor and stilled, relative quiet reigned in the corridor.

I lay shaking on the floor.

“Crystal…”

“What… what?”

“When someone tells you to run…”

“Run and fucking what?” I lurched and climbed to my hooves, and metal scraped on the concrete floor. “Melt, like one of your fancy statues outside? It was about to shoot, and I don’t know if you noticed, but there isn’t a mountain for me to hide behind!”

“… you know what? That’s fair.”

“Glad we agree.” I blinked the tears away and squinted through a clear visor at the articulated, spike-covered tail protruding from my armored rear. A jolt traveled up my thigh from my stifle, and a sharp tingling followed. “And I still can’t feel my—GYAAAH!” I jerked to the side as an electric shock shot through my leg, and an ache of pins and needles replaced the bizarre numbness. “Ow ow ow! Friggin’ never mind!”

“Tactile feedback works, wonderful; that should make walking easier. Sorry about that; I forgot about the shocks. Right. Ah… okay, everything’s in the green. No internal bleeding. Great! Your hip will probably hurt like blazes if you try to run, probably your stifle, as well; not much I can do about that, but it should be fine in a few days. It’s mostly inflammation, nothing serious.”

I groaned and started down the hallway, and tried to ignore the sensation of the suit flexing and clinging to me as I walked. My steps were muffled, but every motion I made had vastly more weight behind it.

“You said go left?”

“Yes. Keep going, and take the next door on your right—it’s a ramp to a transport railway.”

I broke into a trot and came to the door, and the floor pad creaked and bent under the weight of my armor. The door swung open on screeching hinges.

The floodlights on my suit revealed the ramp, and a tunnel and steel rails sunk into the concrete floor. I descended the ramp in a few seconds. “Now what?”

“Left again. Follow this maintenance tunnel until the first service elevator; it’s about four kilometers along.”

“Okay…” The subterranean railway seemed to stretch into the distance forever, unerringly straight and deathly quiet. I winced as a frighteningly audible gurgle came from my belly. My hip and stifle ached, bone-deep, with every step.

“I’m hungry.”

2. Sore Eyes

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Chapter Two

Sore Eyes

A low, guttural rasp echoed around the dark tunnel, and I froze in place. Bare hooves clacked unevenly on the concrete ahead of me, and an equine form emerged from behind the transport railcar that blocked one side of the tunnel.

“I believe… I made an egregious error about those sensor readings…”

I readied my gun and mumbled, “Definitely not a friggin’ wild animal.”

The rotting, growling pony let out a keening shriek and ran toward me. In the confines of a concrete tube, the report from my gun was a thunderclap, muted substantially by my helmet. The blinding bolt of plasma struck the ghoul with a flash and spray of flaming tissue.

The corpse flopped to the ground, headless and burning at the neck. I walked up to the thoroughly dead pony, easily three times my mass, and jumped over the burning body. Water sloshed in the many canteens on the rack across my croupiere.

“That was probably one of the power plant crew,” muttered Carbide.

I glanced for a moment back at the ragged husk and trotted on along the tunnel. “Well, now it’s a friggin’ dead monster.”

My steel boot thudded and clanked on the ground, and the curved claws on them scraped on the cracked concrete. The rail tunnel was remarkably dry and clear of debris, but for the occasional crushed pebble.

“You, ah… you said you made that gun?”

“I had help… and it’s a work-in-progress.”

“Well, it’s impressive, nonetheless. You might have been fine without the armor, after all.”

“Well, I’m glad to have it—hang on, does this have a radiation detector?”

“Yes, of course. It’ll click and buzz if there’s—”

“I know how they work. I’m asking because that was a ghoul, Carbide. I want to know if I’m about to walk into a poisoned hole in the ground with no friggin’ way out.”

“Oh! Ah, no. The leak was confined to the reactor sector. This track doesn’t pass next to any of the contaminated sectors.”

The invisible, intangible stallion—or machine, or magical construct, or whatever he was—spoke softly from the speakers inside my helmet, and I shivered. I could hear myself only because the same speakers played my voice back to me, isolated from everything beyond my visor.

“That, ah… ghoul probably came from the secondary power plant maintenance crew. There was a shielding breach. Everyone had to evacuate, but the ponies inside the shield room… died, or that happened to them. I was left in charge of monitoring the automated maintenance systems. That was… well, at the time, we didn’t know that would happen, we just knew exposure was deadly.”

I snorted and muttered, “Who possibly could have predicted that? Wait—” I glanced back at the distant flatcar and dead ghoul again. “—you’re saying you had, what, a power plant that was radioactive? You used balefire for power? That’s friggin’ insane!”

He scoffed in my ear, and the sound inside my helmet made me shudder.

“Insane? No, it was the only sane thing to do. Carbon Spanner took a terrible weapon and made it a power source.” He sighed, and I gritted my teeth. “Yes, it was dangerous, extraordinarily dangerous… but we made it work. That breach wasn’t the first setback, far from it! The crews were going to come back after the maintenance fleet decontaminated the furnace and adjacent chambers, and find the fault in the shield projectors, but… well, they never did… I lost all contact with—”

I swallowed, licking my lips inside the close, constricting helmet. “Lost contact with… whom?”

“I… I’m sorry, I’m—you—Crystal, you’re the first pony I’ve been able to talk to in… in a very long time. I didn’t mean to ramble.”

“Um… okay.”

I came to a curve in the tunnel, and the expanse ahead was marginally brighter. A miniscule shaft of sunlight coming through a pony-sized hole in the curved tunnel roof revealed a scattering of concrete and loose rock that had fallen on the rails. Cracks ran across the ceiling, and smaller chips had fallen all along the tunnel. “How far is that elevator?” I said, squinting up at the rocks jammed in the hole.

“About three kilometers now. I really don’t think you could fit through that… or climb up there in the first place.”

“Yeah, dumb idea,” I muttered. I trotted onward, moving slightly farther with each heavy step of the suit of power armor than I would at my usual gait; the armor resisted my every motion ever so slightly for the tiniest fraction of a second, then caught up and moved itself. Being unable to feel the ground properly under my hooves gave me a sensation of gliding, bouncing over the ancient concrete. Every step was slightly longer than it should have been.

“There are stairs near this elevator, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Great, because if your elevator is anything like this ceiling, I’m not setting a single hoof on it.”

“You… are a smart young mare.”

The next hole in the tunnel ceiling was larger, and a hill of fine sediment and gravel had trickled into the underground over the decades.

I climbed slowly up the incline, laying broken chunks of concrete down under my boots for each step. Despite that precaution, I miss-stepped and nearly slipped on the tenuous slope several times before I reached the top.

I levitated my stepping stones and pushed them into place, and carefully surmounted the crest of the hill, a meter below the tunnel ceiling. I stared up at the tiny patch of blue sky and sighed. My left hind leg continued to sting from the stifle up, but below it, I felt no pain, only pressure when I put weight on that hoof—no itching, no suit rubbing on my fur, no warmth, no cold.

“I still don’t think trying to climb would be a good idea.”

“Yeah, okay, I friggin’ get it!”

I jumped out of the sunlight and slid down the other side of the underground hill, but a slide turned into a stumble as my boots caught on something in the dirt, and I yelped and kicked off to gallop down instead of falling. I jarred my forelegs when I hit the concrete again and slipped on the loose gravel.

All four hooves sliding sent me sideways, I crashed, and the armor over my legs and shoulder scraped along the concrete, bringing me to a neck-wrenching stop. My heart pounded, and I groaned and tucked my legs in to right myself.

“Are you all right?”

“Friggin’ fine, robot.” I glared back up at the trail of impressions my armor had left in the dirt, and the length of rebar that stuck out from halfway up the mound. My horn flared as I yanked the bent rebar out of the soil, producing a screech as the rusted metal tore free of the concrete. I slammed the bar on the ground to rid it of concrete dust and the few errant chunks that clung to it.

“I, ah… I can see why you’d assume I’m a machine, but—”

“But what?”

“Well, I—are you really okay? Your heartrate is—”

“What about my friggin’ heartrate?” I snorted and stuck the rebar under my canteen rack. “I just climbed up a friggin’ hill. Is that friggin’ weird to you, robot?”

“Well, the suit is doing most of the work, but it was already worryingly high, even accounting for the stimulants—”

“Look, can you just stop talking?”

“I—I beg your pardon?”

“You’re a robot—or a computer or—or something!” My voice cracked, and I struggled to breathe more slowly. “Whatever! Can’t you—I don’t know, change your voice? Could you—could you sound like a mare, instead?”

“A—what? No, I can’t. I am not a computer, nor am I a robot, and no, I cannot change my voice. Why would I be able to—”

“Then could you please stop talking?”

“All right, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you somehow, but my voice is the one freedom I have left, so forgive me if I’m a bit reluctant to give that up! Now, what did—”

“Please!” I leapt onto the pavement next to the rails. “I really, really can’t stand a stallion talking right in my ear right now, okay? You haven’t—it’s not you. I’m not mad at you. You didn’t do anything.” I stomped my rear hoof, scratching the concrete with the claws on my boot. “Just… it’s like you’re in this friggin’ suit with me, and… it’s freaking me out, okay?! It’s really freaking me out!” I took a deep breath and walked on, tears in my eyes. “Could you please not talk for a little while?”

He was silent for several long seconds.

“At least…” I swallowed and lashed my tail, striking the wall with a lizard-like metal tail that sent dust flying and left a narrow gouge. My heart still racing, I muttered, “At least until we’re out of this stupid tunnel? Please… I just—I can’t friggin’ take it right now…”

When he spoke again, it was barely a murmur. “Crystal, I’m sorry. I’ll just… keep quiet.”

The faint crackling in my earpiece halted. “Thank you… I just… I really need some space. Just for a bit.”

I passed no fewer than ten motionless, four-wheeled sentry bots before I reached the stairwell; each machine had been shot straight through the center of their thick frontal armor. Along the stretch behind the robots, hundreds, perhaps thousands of small casings littered the floor, clinging and clattering off my boots, and a hundred meters past the final machine, there was a single crushed brass casing half the length of my foreleg, dull brown with patina.

I levitated the shell in front of my lights and turned it about.

“Odd,” murmured Carbide. “Very odd… sorry, I—”

“It’s okay, Carbide…” I peered at the nigh-illegible markings on the bottom of the shell. “What’s odd?”

“I don’t recognize that casing, or the stamping… and I have an exceptionally good memory.”

I tossed the crushed shell over my head, winced as it struck one of the rails, and I entered the stairwell. I took a long, deep breath and began to climb the shallow steps. “Sooo… what makes that weird?”

“Well, it wasn’t made by any Equestrian company I know of.”

“Then there’s one you don’t know of. Duh.”

He chuckled. “The simplest answer is sometimes the correct one, I suppose… and it has been a rather long time since my knowledge was current. Clearly, someone went exploring here… after I last was awake to see it… they encountered the sentries, dispatched them—with great precision, I might add—and then they retreated.”

“Wonder why someone would do that.” I climbed four shallow flights of stairs in a squared spiral, all cracked and dusty concrete lit by my armor’s floodlights, and groaned as I stopped at the highest landing. Sunlight peeked through gaps at the edges of the steel panel that spanned the short hall. Wind whistled just beyond it.

“That shouldn’t be there…”

“Well, it is.”

“Right, yes, well, there is another exit, but it’s another few kilometers down the line.”

“Yeah, screw that.” I reared up to plant my hooves on the panel and push. The steel gave an earsplitting scrape against the concrete, but barely moved. A cloud of rust and dust flaked off in the harsh glare of my flood lights.

It barely moved, but it did move.

“Feels like a friggin’ boulder on the other side…” I shoved again, producing another screech, but the plate merely flexed under the pressure and rebounded. Growling, I pushed off with a hair-raising sound and fell back to my hooves, leaving six bright, shallow scratches in the steel. “Yikes…” I peered at the dark claws on my boots. “What are these, tool steel? Titanium, tungsten?”

“Noctium—just a trade name, really; it’s an alloy of titanium, yes.”

“Great.” I twisted about to see the claws on my rear hooves; three each, as with my front. I spun around, kicked off, and bucked the steel, sending a shock up my legs and a deafening clang down the stairwell. I growled and tugged my boots free, shook each leg, and inspected the six rents in the plate. One hole let in light, and the other five showed smooth stone in shadow.

“Awesome! Only five millimeters and not even hardened.” I trotted back to the ramp.

“Ah… what are you doing?”

“Kicking that friggin’ hurt.” I stepped behind the wall of the first landing, held my gun around the corner—pinched my ears telekinetically—and loosed three thundering bolts of plasma at the barricade. “So I’m making this easier!”

“Oh.”

Then I fired a few more times and peeked around the corner while the overheating warning on my gun buzzed harshly. I ejected the six smoking spark cells and waved the gun through the air. The right half of the steel plate glowed incandescent yellow white, sagging and falling away from the wall.

I started toward the plate and poked at the glowing parts with my length of rebar, then simply began to bend the heated steel toward me. My heart began to hammer, and while I stood near the radiating, pliable steel, the tight suit around me began to chill itself in reaction to the extreme heat. “Hey, would you look at that? A big stupid friggin’ rock.”

The sun shone beyond the opening, and although the stone wasn’t so large as to completely block the passageway, it was held fast by a brace of crudely-welded-together steel tubing, rusted brown all over and bolted to the concrete. I couldn’t fit through the gap in my suit.

“Someone,” I said between deep breaths, wrenching at one of the tubes attached at only one end to the rest of the barricade, “Really did not want—anything coming out of here!”

“The sentries, I imagine. I’d wager their identification systems were deactivated.”

“You think?” I tore the tubing noisily free of its weakened welds with a bright, emerald green flare from my horn, jammed it under the boulder, set my armored shoulder against it and shoved. My clawed boots dug into the ground, I wrapped the entire boulder with my magic, and with a deep crunching, the rock shifted and tilted away from the door.

I jumped through the still-glowing, sagging plate, chased after the rock, and levered it forward again at the peak of its tumble, and finally shoved it clear of the exit with a bright wash of emerald green.

“Well! I’m glad to see the stimulants are working!”

I stood heaving for breath in the collapsed and rusted corrugated steel remains of what once might have been a warehouse on a solid foundation block seemingly in the middle of a desert. Clouds sat on the north horizon, far beyond the sand and flats.

I trotted around the stairwell access, kicking aside rusted segments of shelving lying piled on the foundation. To my left, at the south of the platform, there was a hill of reddish soil covered with scraggly grass and prickly bushes, waving in the wind.

“And for all the effort someone put into that barricade,” said Carbide, “You wouldn’t even need it to stop those sentries… they aren’t smart. Believe me, I’ve seen their matrix programming.”

I turned to the north, where a set of rails peeked out from the red dirt every now and again; the soil had blown over and covered most of the tracks.

“Why not? What makes them stupid?”

“Well—it isn’t so much that they’re stupid, just simple. You, ah… you had the right tools and the knowledge to break a hole in that metal plate. Rather, you tried—you had an idea, you acted on that idea, you observed the results, and you determined your next course of action based on those results.”

“That’s… just the scientific method. Basically.”

“Yes, exactly! Astute of you. Those sentries lack the capacity to consider those actions. It simply isn’t in their programming. In fact, it isn’t right to call them smart or stupid at all, because they don’t think in the first place, or act—they merely react, follow pre-programmed orders, perform specific actions if certain conditions are met. For example, to pursue a target, they just follow the most efficient path to their destination, based on a rough analysis of the terrain—things like surface grade and obstacles in their path.”

“But if they can’t see a path, then they can’t follow it. You could surround one with flimsy plaster walls, box it in, and it would treat it the same as solid stone, completely impassable. It couldn’t tell the difference between them, it couldn’t determine that it could simply roll through the wall. Remarkably robust machines, but limited. A child could outsmart one.”

Scowling, I said, “So… what makes them see me as a friggin’ target, huh? What makes Eagle and Zephyr targets?”

“Well, you three clearly weren’t the first ponies to come here… someone must have reprogrammed them without identification constraints in place. Anyone with a PipBuck could do that, or even someone with a suit of Ministry power armor; they have spell matrix interfaces.”

“Okay, but why did they attack us?”

“Did you fire first? Without constraints in place, if you damaged one of them… that would fulfil one of those conditions.”

I gritted my teeth. “I really friggin’ hate robots.” I glanced to the east, at the cluster of distant buildings and the half-collapsed dome of the Spannerworks laboratory. “You said they couldn’t go through a wall… then why did that giant one chase me around the block, break through a whole building, and try to kill me? Twice? I shot it in the friggin’ head, and it didn’t die.”

Carbide was silent.

I walked through the piles of rusted debris on the foundation and hopped down to the red dirt of the desert. “Well?”

“That one,” he said slowly, “Isn’t a sentry. He was never so simple—at least in theory… I can’t be certain why he would ever attack anyone, and his mind, his brain per se, isn’t in the dome on top. That isn’t a head, just a sensor platform.”

“You mean it still isn’t dead?”

“Well, I should certainly hope not,” said Carbide. “That was the best power plant we ever made—certainly not the most powerful or efficient, but absolutely the most robust, the most reliable. If it’s still working after so long, then the maintenance systems have been functioning ever since I went into stasis, same as the auxiliary power plant for the entire lab! If I could get the system logs, it could be invaluable for—”

“Carbide!”

“Sorry—yes?”

“Is that thing going to come after me again?”

“You hardly need to worry about that. We’re out-of-sight, out-of-mind; Max has no way to tell where we’ve gone, no reason to look for us.”

“Max?”

“Short for Maximillian.”

I swallowed and took a long breath. I looked once more at the distant buildings, shuddered, and broke into a trot, going north. “You gave it a name,” I muttered. “Of course you gave it a friggin’ name… you said you tracked Eagle’s suit this way, right? North-ish?”

“North by northwest; they left the sensor grid not long before I found you… you should be able to follow these tracks most of the way through the dunes, at least.”

“Peachy. How do I take this helmet off?”

“There’s a latch on the right side of the crinet—the neck covering.”

“I know what a crinet is.”

I drank my third canteen of warm water and passed around the crossties stacked between two pairs of rails driven vertically into the railway bed, and I climbed back up the loose rock to read the north face of a warning, carved and burnt into the age-bleached wood.

“Well,” said Carbide, “They certainly built it to last.”

ROGUE ROBOTS BEYOND THIS POINT

PROCEED AT YOUR PERIL

BY ROYAL ORDER 1597

ALL SIGNALS TO BE IGNORED

“Well, that’s really friggin’ old,” I said, catching the last few drops on my tongue.

“Hmm… Crystal, I realize this may sound rather silly, but, ah…”

“Just spit it out.”

“What year is it?”

“Seventeen-forty-one.”

“Ah-ha… and the date?”

“Ninth or… tenth? Eleventh? Twelfth? Spring’s Waking. Something like that. I don’t remember, ‘cause I wasn’t paying attention to my calendar—and because, you know, a giant flying momma snake monster ripped a redundant new hole in my chariot and knocked my calendar out, plus all my books. I hate flying snake monsters, by the way.”

“Nice to know someone kept track of things… and that sounds like a Gelgrin Naga—ah, ‘storm naga’ is their more common name. They’re endemic to the mountains in the region.”

“Gel-grin… what kind of name is that?”

“A rather old one. The Gelgrin Valley is in the mountains northeast of here, if I recall, a few hundred kilometers away.”

I turned from the sign and continued along the tracks, the rails of which had been removed beyond the sign. Only the crossties and wind-worn ballast remained, a road of grey pebbles that blended with the fine red soil.

“So, when did you go to sleep? Or go into stasis, whatever.”

“Oh… just about one hundred and eighty years ago. I’m still trying to process that, if I’m being honest…”

“Wow. You’re really friggin’ old.”

“Ohoho, aha, ahee… you know what? I needed that. Bit of levity… love it… no, really, I needed it.”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Making this undersuit with a zipper.”

“Ah. Right. It was either that or a waste recycler. More complicated, and uncomfortable.”

I shuddered. “Ew.”

“… I take it you—”

“YES! I know how they work—and it’s kind of cool, but also friggin’ disgusting! Eagle’s suit had one. He replaced it with a quick-release cover and I don’t want to friggin’ talk about this right now. Thanks for the zipper, now zip it! End of discussion, please!”

“Sorry! Sorry.”

I rolled my eyes. I started up yet another dry, weedy hill of reddish soil among hundreds, having left the rail-deprived track bed behind an hour before when it had turned northwest. Emptiness clawed at my belly, my legs shook, and whatever adrenaline and shock had done for my endurance, the sun and sweltering air had beaten it down, hour after hour.

A red cliff rose on the north horizon, easily eighty kilometers away in the desert haze. The tiniest silhouettes of buildings poked up from the rocky line, and metal glinted in the sun.

As I neared the top of the next hill, leaving deep prints in the firmer soil, I passed by a plant. I spun around unsteadily, staring at the bizarre thing: It was a mass of broad, waxy leaves covered with glossy spines, and taller than I was in my suit of powered armor.

“S’that edible? It’s nice and green…”

“Cactus? Yes, certainly, just mind the spines.”

“Great,” I said, telekinetically tearing off a leg-sized portion of the cactus, “I’m friggin’ starving… and kinda dizzy…”

“Dizzy?”

“Yeah, kind of.” I lit an emerald flame at the tip of my horn and yanked a dry bush out of the ground nearby, roots and all, crushed it into a small pile, and started a serviceable fire. While I plucked the spines off the leaves, a rushing built in my ears, my heart grew louder, and I sat heavily on my rear. “Okay… make that… really dizzy… whoa…”

Then I lost the last half-liter of water I’d drunk, plus bile, and collapsed. Everything Carbide said became lost in the rushing and ringing and sickening tumble down the hill.

I lay in shadow at the bottom of the hill, aching and hot and thirsty. I stared at the dirt and raised my pounding head, and rolled onto my belly. Dirt fell from my face, and I telekinetically swept the rest away. The rancid tang of bile stuck in my mouth, and my throat was dry. A vulture sat perched on a nearby rock shelf, watching me. It raised its wings, as if about to fly away.

I snapped my beam pistol out of my saddlebag holster and vaporized the bird’s head with a beam of orange, then wrapped the carcass with emerald and floated it to my unintended napping spot.

“Oh, sweet Celestia, you’re awake! Crystal? Just—just lie still for a bit, no sudden movements. The stimulants wore off— I’m sorry, I should have warned you about the crash. Just take it easy. Drink some water and breathe for a minute, all right?”

“Okay,” I mumbled, “Can do, Carbide…” I levitated one of the canteens off my harness and grimaced at the sight of a half-crushed aluminium cylinder. A pitiable amount of water sloshed around in the ruined container, and several of the canteens on my left side had fared similarly, having split open under the crushing weight of my armor.

“Oh… great.” I drank the few mouthfuls in the canteen I held, then lifted the others off my harness and laid them out on the ground to count. “Six liters…”

“Listen to me, Crystal? That cactus, the one you were going to eat? Those are filled with water. That’s how they survive in the desert, by retaining water. You don’t need to worry about running out, understand? You walked nearly forty kilometers today. For a filly who hasn’t had anything to eat, and just came out of surgery and—and everything else yesterday, that’s astounding progress!”

“Progress?” I tore another dry bush free from the ground and repeated my attempt to make a campfire, and once again, the throbbing in my head renewed and threatened to send me to the ground. Growling and very nearly sobbing, I collapsed mostly under my own power and waited for the dizziness to pass. “Progress to where, Carbide? What’s friggin’ out here? I haven’t seen anything except those train tracks, and someone took all the friggin’ rails, so clearly the steel was more valuable than all the—all the stupid friggin’ nothing! Nopony would be out here!”

“Well, it looks like there’s a town at the edge of that cliff, just for starters. That’s the Chikilixi Canyon, and the Pekelebu River; that’s fed by an aquifer, and it won’t have gone anywhere. Now, if you can match what you walked today, you’ll reach that canyon by… morning after next, maybe midday! There are even wild grasses, and—and succulents, like that cactus! You aren’t going to starve, or go thirsty. You’ll be fine, I promise.”

“Rrrrnnnngh… friggin’… yelling was dumb… my friggin’ head, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow…” Massaging my neck, I muttered, “The what canyon?”

“The Chikilixi Canyon, and Pekelebu River, which formed the canyon. It was a budding tourist attraction, up until recently—well… recently as of…” He sighed and trailed off into a mutter. “The last time I heard anything about it… two hundred years ago, give or take. Blessed Sun and Moon, that’s throwing me off…”

I dragged several desiccated branches from the sandy creek bed and added it to my burning kindling. “You know they’re dead, right?”

“What? Oh, right… old habits die hard. Yes, I’m well aware—I was there Crystal. Well, I wasn’t in Canterlot, no, of course not, but I heard the reports… before they stopped transmitting, at least… before everything stopped transmitting… Celestia and Luna had been dead for seven years, last time I had an ear out to the world… for a few weeks, I kept thinking I’d be the next one to go, only it just became rather quiet, instead… I suppose the deserts didn’t rate a megaspell.”

“Well… I’m glad you were here to help me.” I squinted at a speck in the darkening sky as it came into view from behind the hilltop. “I guess it’s not your fault the robots attacked us.”

“Ah… no, but I’m sorry about it, anyway… Crystal, do tell me something.”

“What?”

“Are you going to eat that?”

I glanced at the headless vulture carcass, sniffed, and almost reconsidered. “It’s a lot of bird. Food’s food.”

“I… suppose…”

I began to pluck the feathers, and pulled a knife from my saddlebags. “Not to say I’m ungrateful for all the water… and the armor, and the surgery, and… whatever you did to my leg, but I don’t see any snacks in those canteens—and right now, I’m not picky, okay? I’m just tired and really friggin’ hungry.”

“Fair.”

I yanked up another dry bush and a lifted bleached-white stick from farther along the creek, broke them up, and added them to my fire. I tried to ignore the stench of the vulture while I cut it apart with my knife and telekinesis. “So, what… you think that place on the cliff is where I should go?”

“Well, it’s roughly a straight line between Spannerworks, here, and there, so if, ah, Eagle and…”

“Zephyr. Eagle and Zephyr.”

“If Eagle and Zephyr made it that far, and are to come looking for you… then it would be best to continue on the path they are most likely to search—ah, do you… know what you’re doing?”

“I watched Eagle do it a couple times.” I lifted my rebar, jammed it into the ground next to the fire, and slowly bent the top into a hoop; halfway through the effort, my headache redoubled, and I pitched toward the ground and dry-heaved.

“Crystal, please, try to—”

“I’m friggin’ fine!” My legs shook. I tore apart one of my split-open canteens and bent the much more pliable aluminium into the shape of a bowl, then set it in the rebar hoop, making a crude stove.

“I gave you stimulants because you were on the edge of burnout when I found you—now you’re right back at the edge again. If you keep straining yourself, you’ll just crash again, and it will be that much worse!”

“Do you want me to do this with my friggin’ mouth? Huh? Well?! I don’t have a kitchen, okay? Let me worry about my own magic.”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it—just clean the cactus first, eat that. Rest for a few hours, let yourself recover a bit and—”

With a sudden pop and a screech, the speakers cut out.

“Carbide?” I tapped my boot on my armor’s peytral. “Carbide? Hey, what’s up?” I dropped the vulture carcass and snatched my helmet off my packs. I hurriedly put it over my head and flinched as the fluted guard scraped my horn. I sealed the helmet and nearly shouted into the close, pressing muzzle guard. “Carbide?!”

Only my voice and breaths came through the internal speakers.

“Carbide! Please, no, no no no no no, come on, please, no… Carbide!”

I trudged up another hill in the waning light, chewing waxy, slimy cactus leaves and the tough, overcooked meat of a carrion bird. Bulbous, spiny plants surrounded me in abundance, green and yellow and red, and small lizards and rodents sometimes darted across the increasingly rocky ground.

Every hill I crested was one hill closer to the red cliff on the horizon, one hill closer to Eagle and Zephyr.

After four more hills, I stopped at the edge of a rocky bluff, stared out across the dry, alien landscape, and once again built a fire.

I turned the helmet over in my emerald field, inspecting the draconic styling of the armored plating. I held it in front of my chest so that I could see the tiny camera set on my collar reflected in the visor, above the armor’s deep blue, seemingly anodized peytral. It was the only part of the armor with such a finish; every other piece, whether the exoskeletal structure, surrounding plating, or the segments of the thick collar and spine, were bright and bare. The incomplete covering over my ribs and belly made me look unnaturally small inside the suit.

Tapping my boot on the helmet, I said, “First thing I’m doing once I can find a proper workshop is fixing your speakers… or whatever else is wrong. Then you’re going to tell me how you made all this overnight, got it?” I telekinetically depressed the switch on the small control panel on my foreleg, turning on the floodlights, and peered inside the split-apart helmet’s interior. It was a mesh of overlapping hexagonal framing, cloth padding, and thin wires held under insulating ribbons.

“Kinetic suspension sintering for the plates, cutting and press-forming for the framing, maybe? Read about that in Neighvarro, never thought I’d see it in action… it all looks a bit unfinished… still friggin’ impressive.”

I turned off the lights and ate the rest of my badly cooked cactus while I searched for more kindling. A quarter-hour and a pile of dry wood later, I climbed back up the bluff and sat near the freshly stoked fire, using my armor’s bulk to shield it from the building wind.

I set my helmet down, peering again at the reflection of the camera above my collar. “Good night, Carbide… and thanks for saving me.”

Not ten minutes after I’d lain down to try to sleep, that wind became a flapping of wings and a stirring cloud of dust. My campfire nearly blew out, a soothing, golden-yellow light washed over the bluff, and several sets of heavy hoofsteps came up the hill.

“Crystal Dew?”

The largest of the three tall, winged and horned ponies that had flown out of the dark approached me. She was deep purple, statuesque and muscular of figure, her mane was a glowing violet cloud not unlike plasma, and she was the absolute largest pony I’d ever seen. I could have walked under her and hardly would have needed duck my head. The pine-needle-green mare next to her was smaller, but still larger than any other pony I’d met in my life, and it was her glowing horn that lit the bluff with gold.

“You’re a hard filly to track down, you know that?” said the purple giant. “We spent nearly ten hours combing the desert to find you, and here you are all on your lonesome, halfway to Cliffside.”

“Duuhhh… hi?” I squinted in the golden light and gawped up at the mare. The green one snatched my helmet off the ground and frowned, looking to the south.

“Really, Blitz?”

The cobalt mare, slightly smaller still than the green one, approached me and lay down directly in front of me.

“Nice to meet you, Crystal Dew,” said the mare, smiling as she gently brushed my mane out of my eyes with her cerulean telekinesis and peered at my left eye. She looked younger than the other two mares, her mane was solid, glossy black and fell clear to the ground, and her eyes were a bright, electric blue. Around the end of her muzzle, her coat was an odd brownish-red, and on her left pectoral was dyed a white stripe and yellow text I couldn’t read.

“Hi, gorgeous,” I mumbled, “What’s your name?”

She leaned slightly back from me, chuckling. She had a faint accent I’d never heard in all my life in Neighvarro and Cloud Loft. “Well, thank you, Crystal Dew… my name is Night Cloud. You seem healthy and unhurt, all things considered… Eagle and Zephyr will be glad to hear that.”

“They’re both okay!?” I leapt up and set my boots on her shoulders, causing her to flinch. “You found them?”

Night Cloud wrapped me with cerulean magic and gently pushed me back, keeping my boots away from herself. She eyed the claws and said, “Careful, please! All that metal is pretty heavy, and… rather sharp.”

“Sorry!”

“It’s all right.” She stood up and peered down at my armor, producing her own blue-white light at the tip of her horn. “Eagle and Zephyr are resting in the clinic in Cliffside; we bumped into them early this morning. They’re in good care, so don’t worry. Ivy? Want to help take this armor off?”

We burst forth from the clouds and soared across a break in the storm. The golden bubble around us vanished, and far away and below there appeared a small, sprawling town at the edge of the towering cliff, sprinkled with yellow lights along its streets.

Night Cloud flared held her wings spread out and entered a glide in unison with the other two mares. Her horn glowed cerulean, and the barest of tingles shot down my horn as a spell struck me. Then, her accented voice came over the wind and thunder, and yet her lips never moved.

-You can sleep if you want; I won’t let you fall.-

I clutched onto her shoulders and pressed my head against her neck, eyeing the ground hundreds of meters below as we descended. I squinted at Ivy, on our left. Her pine needle green, black-streaked mane was tied back in a long, running braid decorated with a small black bow near the top of her neck. Her cutie mark was a brass bullet casing. Of the three huge mares, she alone had a weapon, a sleek battle harness with a short, stubby machine gun on her left, and a thinner gun nearly the length of her body on her right.

-Staring is uncouth, filly.-

I winced as the sound hit me; not at all as relaxing or pleasant as Night Cloud’s alto tones, her voice was admonishing. “Sorry!”

-The name’s Ivaline. Call me Ivy if you want. Focus on me and think what you want to say; the spell will take care of the rest.-

I squinted at her against the wind. -Um… nice to meet you, Ivy.-

-Likewise. Welcome to the Kingdom of Dunn.-

“Doctor Patch? I found our missing patient!” I raised my head and blinked blearily as Night Cloud carried me into a well-lit building. The walls and floor were clean, warm yellow tile and wood paneling.

“About time,” said a raspy-voiced stallion, somewhere down the hallway. “What’ll we need?”

“Bed rest and a warm bowl of carrot soup when she wakes up.” Night Cloud carried me along a short hallway and opened a door on our right. A ceiling light flickered to life as she entered the room. Night Cloud glanced over her shoulder, sniffed, grimaced slightly, and whispered, “And a quick bath before you go to bed, I think.”

“Sounds nice,” I mumbled, “Where’re Eagle and Zephyr?”

“In the next room,” said Night Cloud, “Sleeping.”

The elderly stallion, who turned out to be a ghoul, stopped at the doorway as Night Cloud carried me into a cramped bathroom and carefully unzipped my undersuit. “Ivaline says they came from the old Spannerworks place…”

“Indeed they did,” said Night Cloud. I cringed as she put the smelly suit in the corner. She looked down at my back and hind legs, lips pursed.

I tried to look, as well, but Night Cloud stuck her wing in the way and turned on the faucet of the walk-in shower. “Let’s clean you up before we worry about that, all right?”

“Seriously?” I stomped my right hind hoof, then my left, producing a clack on the tile, then a metallic clink. “I’m not stupid,” I muttered, “Haven’t been able to feel it right all day.” Night Cloud slowly withdrew her wing, and I twisted to hold my leg in view.

Silver fibers of artificial muscle connected to chrome-plated bones. Curved, white panels of hard plastic covered my stifle and hock, and most of my cannon and hoof. Between my thigh and the plate on my stifle was a white seam of flexible, rubbery material that encircled the top of the joint, and my leg had been shaved bare in a ring around the seam.

A faint scar ran up my hip and disappeared beneath my coat, which had been shaved down to my hide in a strip several centimeters in breadth. More scars marred my hip and spine; I gaped at the sheer number of spots that left my hide clearly visible. I arched my neck and twisted my head as far as I could. A small, sleek plate of black, anodized metal rested on my spine just behind my withers.

I shook and stretched my leg out, back and sideways, watching in morbid fascination. “It’s friggin’ quiet,” I muttered. “No motors, no kinetomotive converters, not enough room for a spell matrix… friggin’ how?!”

“It’s impressive,” said Night Cloud, setting her wing on my withers. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” She shot a cerulean blob of magic at my leg, enveloping my entire limb in a bubble-like field that stuck to the contours of the metal. “Probably not completely waterproof, though.” She then levitated me over to the shower.

“Wha—hey! Daaaaaaaho-ho-hooo, that’s amazing…” I groaned under the spray of hot water and sighed as Night Cloud sat next to the open shower, grabbed a long wood brush from the wall, and began to scrub my back. “Hey!” I snatched the brush from her. “I can do that myself! I’m not a friggin’ foal.”

She smiled and kept calm eye contact with me. “Crystal Dew… I am not trying to belittle you in any way. I know what burnout looks like, and you are right on the edge. Now…” She grasped the brush again, and my head throbbed at the minute force opposing my telekinesis. The hot water on my back and steam rising around me didn’t ease that ache. “Please, let me help. Rest, spare yourself the migraine. The sooner you’re clean and dry, the faster you can eat and go to bed… and I’m sure you’d like to see Eagle and Zephyr. I can move your bed into their room, if you’d like.”

I surrendered the brush to the winged, horned mare four or more times my size and muttered, “Fine…” She produced a large bar of soap on a wood rod and set to work on my neck and back first. “Were, um… were they hurt badly?”

Night Cloud brushed my mane back with her hoof. “It was nothing Doctor Patch and I couldn’t manage. Zephyr will need some more time to recover fully, maybe a week before she can fly… but I’m confident she’ll be up and about by tomorrow morning.”

A brush tugged across my back, and a bell tinkled somewhere beyond the window behind the low bed, and the morning sun lit the yellow-tiled room. A fan spun lazily on the ceiling. I yawned and stretched my forelegs out to sit up, and the brushing stopped.

Zephyr gingerly nuzzled my neck and wrapped her wing around me, and she murmured, “Doctor, um… that big blue mare says I had a concussion, so…” She squeezed me tightly, kissed my cheek, and said, “Maybe don’t toss me through a wall again… at least for another week or two, okay?”

“Didn’t have a ton of options, Zephyr,” I mumbled. A light yellow woven cape concealed most of the white bandages that covered her chest, and yet more bandages covered her left wing. “Are you okay now?”

She giggled, and her voice hitched. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Armor took the worst of it; just had some burns and a few broken ribs… but Eagle carried me out of there in one piece, and the doctors here did the rest…” I hugged her in return, and the pale violet mare began to tremble and cry as she buried her snout in my mane. She muttered croakily, “Don’t ever scare me like that again, understand?”

A set of frantic hoofsteps clacked across the tile behind me, and Eagle hugged me from the other side, nuzzling me next to Zephyr.

“Hey, hey, okay, I get it!” I giggled and turned from Zephyr to hug Eagle around his neck, and then both pegasi surrounded me with their wings and warmth. “I’m happy, too, everypony’s alive! Yay! Happy happy happy! Okay, now let me breathe!”

Eagle gave me one last squeeze and backed away. His eyes were bloodshot, and like Zephyr, bandages crossed his chest and neck.

“I’m so sorry,” he said hoarsely, “Crystal, I thought you were dead…”

I jumped off the bed and reared up to hug him again. “Well, I’m not dead, so stop crying. And just so you know, that giant robot, the one that attacked us? I melted a big hole in its face.”

He burst into hitching, sobbing laughter and wrapped me with warm feathers once again. “Way to go, Crystal… you saved our lives, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, thumping my hooves on him. “When’s breakfast?”

3. Impetus

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Chapter Three

Impetus

I stood on a padded examination table, almost motionless, while cerulean magic lined up a clear phial capped by a rubber stopper with a stinging spot on my neck, where a syringe waited.

“I hate needles.”

Night Cloud scarcely moved, but her electric blue eye darted over toward me, then back to her syringe and phial. “Well, for a young mare who hates needles, you’re very calm and cooperative about having your blood drawn.”

“You’ll grow out of it eventually,” said Zephyr from the corner of the room.

“Maybe,” said Night Cloud. “Some ponies never do.” She stood stiller than I did, shifting her head only while she exchanged the filled phial for an empty one. “It helps if you know your doctor, trust them… and some ponies say it helps to simply not look.”

“Nope,” I muttered, “Can’t see it, still don’t like it. Still a needle, still stabbing me.”

“Well, I may not be a doctor just yet, but I’ve had plenty of training, and practice finding veins. They don’t let just anyone open a clinic and start sticking ponies with needles… we here in the Kingdom aren’t blood-letters or miracle peddlers. So, if you don’t trust me, then trust Doctor Patch, and the Bellenastian Council of Medicine.”

“I trust you,” I said, meeting her eyes again; she either didn’t notice, or ignored me, and I quickly looked away. “You looked for me all over that desert, and carried me all the way here. That makes you really friggin’ awesome in my book.” I dared look one more time as she fitted a third phial to the syringe, and she glanced at me again. “Why wouldn’t anyone trust you?”

She held my gaze for the moments the phial needed to fill with blood, smiling, and plucked the phial away. “Depends on whom you ask, sweetheart,” she said quietly, “It could be because I’m a big, scary, monstrous alicorn!” She growled and snapped her teeth near my ear, then pulled the syringe from my neck and pressed a tiny ball of gauze to my coat. “Hold that, please.”

She stepped away to place the trio of sample phials in a padded stainless steel cylinder on the clean counter that took up the entire west side of the room, and I finally had a decent view of her cutie mark: A flower on its stem, with eleven starburst petals, bright orange at their tips and cerulean near the center, all around a delicate, golden yellow stamen.

Night Cloud set the sample cylinder into a small alcove on the counter and closed its glass door, and with a pneumatic whoosh, the cylinder shot down out of sight.

“Or,” she said, coming back to the table, “It could be because I’m obviously a rude and uneducated tribal mare, who obviously must have no idea what she’s doing, and can’t possibly be qualified. Never mind three years of rigorous institutional training, practical tutoring, and everything my mother taught me before I ever came here…”

She lashed her tail and said quickly, “Of course, all the ponies doing the criticizing seem to forget that the training and certification process takes a bit more than three years. Of course I’m not qualified yet. That’s why I’m performing clinical duties, at the request of a licensed physician, not conducting surgeries or diagnosing illnesses.”

Zephyr coughed and came to the table. “Well, I, for one, am glad you’re doing the doctoring, and not some random pony off the street.”

Night Cloud took a deep breath and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on a rant. That was uncalled-for.” Smiling at me, she said, “Anyway, that’s it! We’re all done here. The lab should have those results back within an hour; I can have those copied for you, and they’ll be sent to the medical records office in Bellenast, as well, along with yours and Eagle’s. And if you’d like, I can go over them with you.”

I leapt off the examination table, and Zephyr and I followed her down the hallway to the clinic lobby. The ceiling sported faintly buzzing light fixtures and vents that pushed cold air throughout the entire building.

She swept open the door in the brightly lit waiting room and led us out to the warmer and jarringly dusty cobbled street that ran the entire length of the quiet town, from the fence of sandstone blocks stacked at the cliff’s edge half a kilometer to the south to the still-lamp-lit gate at the north end nearly twice that distance away. The lamps lining most of the street had gone out, and the first rays of dawn peeked over the rooftops.

“I’ve never seen anything like this…”

“Like what?” said Night Cloud.

“A town. You know, on the ground… I didn’t know there were any places like this in the wasteland…”

“Mind what you call a wasteland, sweetheart,” she murmured, “And to whom.”

Zephyr steered me to Night Cloud’s left side with her less-injured right wing across my back. Looking around at the mix of brick and sandstone block buildings and storefronts, she said, “Cloud Loft’s best little mechanic here didn’t have the prettiest picture of the other side of the fence. I’d say the ‘wasteland’ is winning so far.”

“Oh?” Night Cloud laughed, pulled a brush from her saddlebags, and attacked my mane.

“Hey! What gives?”

“I’m remedying a debilitating case of bedhead. Stop squirming.” I grumbled wordlessly and surrendered to the ultimately relaxing brushing. “So, what was life like for a unicorn in Neighvarro, hm? Can’t say I’ve ever met a pony from that far north, never mind from the Enclave… I’d never even heard of them until Blitz told me about it. They almost sound like a myth.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, looking up at her, “Ever hear any myths about ponies trapped in castles?”

“I grew up in the Palomino Desert, sweetheart. My foalhood stories didn’t have anything so… grandiose as castles.”

“Well, that was my life,” I muttered. “I grew up in a flying metal box, connected to hundreds of other metal boxes, inside one bigger metal box parked in the middle of a city made of clouds. And I’m afraid of heights. It sucked.”

“Okay, that does sound bad.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered. “I like having dirt under my hooves. Dirt, grass, rock, even ice and snow. It beats growing up using a cloud-walking spell all the time. I had to wear a talisman anytime I went outside the Thunderhead. And I had to go outside it for school, so… fun times.” I glared up at her. “And before you make a joke about me not growing up, yeah, yeah, I’m friggin’ small, and I’ve already heard every joke there is. Old news.”

“I wasn’t going to, sweetheart,” said Night Cloud. “Sometimes, I wish I could be closer to your size again. Blend in a little more.” She halted just long enough to lift her hoof and show me her brass-plated shoe and the ring of clips holding it on; the bottom had a thin lining of black rubber. “My shoes would be less expensive, for starters.”

“Question,” said Zephyr, “Where’d you get that brush?”

“The Gilded Bell Salon, in Bellenast.” Night Cloud grinned and tossed her head, sending a ripple down her fountain of obsidian hair. “They make their own coat and mane conditioner in-house!”

“Okay,” I muttered, “That’s just showing off.”

I looked up as wing flaps approached us, and Eagle landed behind us on Zephyr’s left and drew up to her. He spread his amber wing over the both of us and nuzzled Zephyr.

Zephyr said, “Know what? Forget the snazzy lights, I want to see this salon. Three tickets to Bellenast, please.”

Night Cloud laughed brightly, smiling as she led us along. “Well, the trip takes about a week. Zephyr, you’re welcome to rest in one of the wagons if you need to, but if you’re up for it, walking will be better for your recovery.” The cobalt-blue alicorn cocked her head and gave us both a pensive look. “And if I may ask… what brought you three so far from home in the first place?”

I scowled at the ground in front of us, and Zephyr squeezed my ribs tightly with her wing, saying, “Home didn’t feel like home anymore.”

“I’d thought about leaving every now and then,” said Eagle, “Just never had a good reason to actually do it… and a little while ago, we had a, ah… enthusiastic disagreement with the ponies in charge. It finally felt like time to start fresh.”

“Really… that sounds a lot like me when I left my tribe.” Night Cloud tilted her head, eyeing Eagle. “How’d you hear about Bellenast, then?”

“Well, I bumped into an old minotaur on the east side of the Badlands a couple months ago. Hunter, trapper, fur trader. He told me he got his gun from here. It looked top-notch, so I figured, any place that can turn out something like that must be pretty packed. He said it was the safest place around, gave me a map and directions… took a while to fix a chariot up for the trip—”

“Then a big stupid storm knocked us off-course,” I said, “And a giant storm naga tried to eat the chariot. Then we crashed, and a giant robot tried to kill us, and a building fell on me.” Zephyr let out a weak laugh. “Then the robot came back and tried to kill me again—twice! And—” I stopped. “Eagle, where’s my armor?”

“With mine, in one of the wagons at the north gate. They have guards; nobody’s going anywhere with it.”

“You—you just stuck him in a wagon?!”

“Uh, yeah—wait, what?”

I shrugged off Zephyr’s wing and bolted down the street for the town gate.

“Crystal!” yelled Eagle and Zephyr in unison.

“That’s Carbide!” I shouted back. “He saved my friggin’ life, and you just stuck him in a—yaaah! Hey! Hey!” I flailed and tried to run on nothing as cerulean light colored my entire world and brought me to a halt midair. “Put me down! Friggin’ put me down! Night Cloud!” A few ponies in the street stared as I floated ten meters backward and Night Cloud gently lowered me to the dirt.

Zephyr pointed her hoof up at Night Cloud. “Okay, that is convenient. Thanks.”

I glared up at Night Cloud; she avoided my eyes.

Eagle put his wing on my back again, and I shook it off. Sighing, he said, “How about you tell us what’s going on, instead of trying to run off on your own? Who’s Carbide?”

I glowered at my bowl of soup on the low table in the corner of the saloon. “He doesn’t deserve to be stuck in the back of a wagon like a friggin’ sack of oats.”

Night Cloud murmured, “Well, it’s a suit of armor, isn’t it? Just put it on once we leave. He may not be able to talk, but he’ll have company, at least.”

“I don’t want to wear it, I want to fix it, so he can talk again.” I stomped a hoof and accepted the temptation of diced carrots, beets, radishes, and several other vegetables I’d never tasted in my life.

“Crystal,” said Eagle from across the table, “That suit doesn’t even have a spell matrix interface. I bet you can figure it out, but no matter what it runs on, you can’t fix something that complex if you don’t have the right tools.”

“I know that,” I muttered around a mouthful of food, “And I don’t have those anymore. Thanks for the reminder.”

“Hey… it sucks, I know, but you can always get more tools, kiddo.” Eagle stretched his wing across and flicked a stray bit of my mane back from my eyes. “That shop wasn’t all mine… I just borrowed it from the last pony. You don’t have to start from scratch, just find someone who’ll let you work. You’re more than good enough… and I’m not too shabby, if I say so myself.” Zephyr rolled her eyes next to him.

Night Cloud said, “There are several robotics groups in Bellenast, at the schools… and I’m sure one of them would have some insight, be able to help you.” I grunted and remained nose-deep in my rapidly emptying soup bowl.

“Would you like seconds?”

I paused in the middle of licking the bowl clean, and glanced up at Night Cloud. She hadn’t touched her own breakfast, served in a pair of red and yellow-striped dishes each twice the size of mine.

Beginning to blush, I quickly looked away from her. “I’m friggin’ hungry, okay?”

“Clearly. That’s why I asked, sweetheart.” Night Cloud lifted one bowl and carefully spooned soup into mine.

I cringed, mumbling, “You don’t have to do that…”

“Well,” she said, setting her bowl down, “That doesn’t stop me from doing it.” She nudged my withers with her wing and said, “I’ll just have a snack later… hope you don’t mind a little pepper.”

“Thank you.” Night Cloud, Eagle and I all looked at Zephyr. “For sharing,” she said, laughing. “Sorry, I just… I’m… having trouble believing what I’m seeing.” She waved her hoof around at the cozily lit saloon. “This. All of this.” She looked to my left as the front doors creaked open. “You. What you’ve done for us.”

I glanced away from my soup long enough to watch Blitz and Ivy cross from the entrance to the serving counter; Blitz ducked her head several times to avoid catching her horn on the ceiling timbers.

“You have actual healing potions,” said Zephyr. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around that… you saved our lives, and… you found Crystal. You brought her back to us.” She leaned on Eagle and sniffed, saying, “We can’t repay you for that.”

“Well,” said Night Cloud, smiling at them, “I don’t expect you to.” She turned that smile down to me and laid her wing across my back. “And I’m happy to have made some new friends.”

I fleetingly hesitated, then scooted close to night Cloud and nudged her shoulder. “Thanks.” She giggled and gave me a squeeze with her warm wing. “I’m, um… I’m really glad someone ignored that sign.”

Her ears twitched toward me. “Sign?”

“Um… there’s a warning sign, about the robots.” I pointed my hoof south. “I passed it on the old train tracks, north of the, um… Spannerworks place. The factory.” I glanced up at Night Cloud, who merely raised an eyebrow. “It said all signals would be ignored. Distress signals, I guess.”

Zephyr frowned, wiping her eyes. “There were warnings… about the killer robots.”

“‘Rogue robots beyond this point,’” I said, lapping another peppery mouthful of soup. My throat burned slightly. “Exactly what it said. ‘Proceed at your peril. By royal order, fifteen-ninety-seven, all signals to be ignored.’”

Zephyr set her head on the table and groaned. “Oh, fuck me…”

Blitz and Ivy came back from the serving table, each holding several large bowls of soup and a platter of bread loaves. The immense purple mare looked over all of us, tired and nonplussed. “Do I want to know?”

“Blitz,” said Night Cloud, “Ivy… would either of you happen to know anything about a warning sign about robots, on the railroad near that old factory?”

“Uhhh…” Blitz slowly lay down at the table corner next to me, and I couldn’t help but stare up her. “That… is a new one on me. Ivy?”

Ivy took the spot at the end of the table, and for a moment, she merely stared down at her breakfast. Her brow furrowed ever-so-slightly. “Corio had them built,” she said, ears flicking suddenly forward. “One sign on every footpath through the area, and the old roads. Kept most ponies away.”

Eagle let out a low, somber laugh. “Figures… we didn’t come by road. Wouldn’t have seen them.”

“We didn’t put them to the east, or the south.” Ivy grabbed two crispy loaves from the platter and broke them in half. “No-one ever came across the flats.”

“Well… I guess we just picked the worst possible place to stop and do repairs. That place looks like a gold mine of salvage.”

“You aren’t the first to think that. Something in that place keeps it alive, keeps the machines running… a caretaker. Machines tending machines.”

“So, what,” said Zephyr, “It’s some kind of robot doom factory, and you’re just… okay with that? Having it on your doorstep?”

“They’re tools,” said Ivy, “Not thinking creatures… they do what they’re told, nothing more. Simple machines. Nobody ever told them to go beyond the fence, so they don’t.”

“Carbide, um…” Ivy turned her grey-blue eyes down to me, horn glowing gold, and a faint tingle shot down my neck. I swallowed. “He said the big one that attacked us wasn’t simple.”

For an instant, an image flashed into my mind. I stood in the collapsing building over a hundred kilometers away while a steel behemoth loomed before me, and my gun hovered in my sight, wavering with heat.

I blinked and shivered as the sight left me.

“Perhaps I’ll have a chat with this Carbide, then,” said Ivy, “If he becomes available.” She broke off a chunk of her loaf of bread and set it next to my bowl, and the barest hint of a smile crossed her muzzle. “Quite the feat for such a young mare, to face such a foe and escape… even with help.”

“Yeah, you’re a gutsy filly, I’ll give you that,” said Blitz, “But maybe try not to poke any more giant robots from now on? You were lucky this time.” She ruffled my mane with her magic and said, “Can’t rely on luck, can’t trust it. That’ll kill you nine ways to next week.”

“Blitz!” Night Cloud jabbed the much larger mare’s side with her wing, then gently wrapped it around me again. “Really?”

“What? It’s true!”

“And sometimes being right isn’t the important thing, Blitz! She’s been through enough. Stop trying to scare her.”

“Oh, for—I wasn’t trying to scare her! Look at her! Does she look scared?”

“I melted a hole in a giant robot’s face,” I said around a mouthful of bread. Beginning to grow distinctly warm in the face, I leaned on Night Cloud’s shoulder again. “And I know where my allegiance lies.”

Blitz sputtered while drinking from her canteen. “Where your allegiance lies? Yeah, okay, you just like her because she’s the same color. Little blue pixie.”

“One,” said Zephyr, tapping her hoof on the table, “Don’t call her a pixie. Two, they’re not. Crystal is ultramarine.” She pointed at Night Cloud. “She’s closer to cobalt.” Leaning sideways away from Eagle and lifting herself up against the table for a moment to look from a different angle, she said, “Little bit of indigo. Just a little.”

“Well, look at Miss Color Wheel over here. ” Blitz rolled her eyes as Zephyr sat back down, and took a small sip not from her canteen, but a smaller flask covered in dents and scratches. A hint of alcohol reached my nose. “And what am I?”

Zephyr squinted up at the sun-like light fixtures on the ceiling before she turned her eye to Blitz. “Purple…”

Blitz scoffed.

“Going toward sable… actually, more like sable going toward purple.”

The immense mare stared openly at Zephyr, replacing the steel cap on her flask. She stowed it in her saddlebags and nodded at Zephyr. “Know what? Thanks. Most ponies forget that part.”

-Still hungry?-

I glanced up at Night Cloud’s quiet question and bemused smile, preoccupied by the last bite of my bread.

-Um… I think I’m good now. Thanks again, for sharing. You’re…- I swallowed, and once again my face began to flush. -You’re awesome, Night Cloud.- Glancing around at the others, I quickly nuzzled her shoulder; her coat had a subtle scent of flowers. I swallowed and smiled up at a pair of entrancing, electric blue eyes. -And… you’re really beautiful. Seriously, I mean it.-

She laughed softly, nudging her wing against the base of my neck. -I… well—that’s… very sweet of you. Thank you, Crystal Dew.-

The ongoing conversation between Zephyr, Eagle, Blitz, and Ivy floated past my ears, and not one word stuck with me. -I don’t get what you said earlier. I really can’t see how anyone could ever think you’re monstrous… that—it just… that doesn’t make any sense to me. At all. Doesn’t compute, period. You just… I mean… you’re a doctor, you’re nice, you’re smart, you’re generous… seriously, how can someone meet you, spend a single minute with you, and say something like that?-

She gave me a skittish grin and laugh—barely an exhalation—looked away from me, and finally began to eat. -Well… some ponies, when they meet you… they will decide that they dislike you before they ever consider to spend a single minute with you. And sometimes, you can’t change someone’s mind… no matter how hard you try. And when those ponies focus on what you are, first, rather than who you are…- She lightly patted her wing on my back. -Well, being an alicorn doesn’t exactly help.-

-What’s wrong with being an alicorn?-

-Nothing. Being one isn’t the problem, not if you ask me, or any other alicorn. But ‘any other alicorn’—that’s the tricky part.- Night Cloud nudged me again and glanced from her soup bowl to Blitz. -It’s complicated, Crystal Dew… very complicated. And it’s not my place to speak of it in the first place. If you’re really curious, talk to Blitz. I’m sure she’d be willing to tell you, if you ask her. Just… not now, all right? Not while she’s eating. Maybe after we’ve set out.-

-Um… okay.- I laid my head on her shoulder; across the table, Zephyr watched me, lips pursed and ears forward. She immediately broke eye contact with me in favor of eating. -Um… Night Cloud?- I set my hoof on her leg, she glanced down from her bowl, and I quickly yanked my hoof away. -You, um… if you want, you can call me ‘Crystal’… Eagle and Zephyr never call me ‘Crystal Dew.’-

-All right, then.-

Night Cloud chuckled. While I lay warm and snug under her wing, a shiver nevertheless ran down my back.

-It’s my pleasure, Crystal.-

In a cluster of lifeless buildings in the desert, beams of steel and slabs of concrete and webs of twisted rebar shifted here and there, creaking in protest as their centuries of life came to a dilapidated end. Powdered plaster and crushed cinder blocks choked the air with a grey pall.

A great laboratory, once a shining edifice of steel and polished glass in the heart of the compound, was a mound of destruction.

A titan of steel and circuitry and rubber trundled down the spacious road, leaving the ruined laboratory and a trail of rubble behind. A molten hole a meter across had been bored into the steel skin of the dome atop its towering hull.

The machine rolled slowly and inexorably through the cracked and ruined paths and derelict factory buildings, and navigated to the very edge of the sprawling oasis of concrete, plowing aside rusted piles that once had been transport carriages and fallen pieces of roofing and all manner of rubble.

The damaged dome and telescope spun, glacial and precise, to point out across the sand and flat, cracked, red ground and look to the north horizon, and from its great height, the machine saw a faint red cliff rising amid the haze and dust. Between the machine and the distant cliff was a sea of sand.

The arcane furnace in the titan’s heart roared, muted by layers of magical shielding and mundane metal. Motors spun, wheels turned, and Maximillian journeyed east.

13 Spring’s Waking

I never thought I would miss the mountains, but here I am. The air here is hot, dry, thicker, richer in oxygen. Sun doesn’t help. Hardly a cloud in sight, and I’ve never been able to see so far.

I think I’ve walked more in the last two days than I did in a whole season in Neighvarro. My legs are sore, hip hurts, stifle hurts, thigh hurts. The rest of my leg feels dead. No temperature, no itching, just pressure and something Night Cloud calls Phantom Limb Syndrome. Yippee!

Carbide, if you can see this, thanks. I owe you my life. I’m not trying to complain, I swear. I don’t know how you made it, and looking at it kind of freaks me out, but it’s way better than a stump.

I’ll return the favor. I promise.

Cactus, rocks, colorful, flowering succulents, rocks, prickly trees, reddish dirt, and yet more rocks surrounded us, and the road went more-or-less straight north from Cliffside, over ten kilometers behind us. Spiny lizards watched us from their shaded perches under craggy layers of rock in the escarpment off each side of the road where it carved through the gentle, arid hills.

Dust rose behind ten canvas-covered wagons ahead and ten more behind me, each pulled at a steady walking pace by a team of four ponies, and the second teams walked along behind them on the hard-packed dirt road. Four two-pony teams of guards flanked the line, each equipped with a well-made battle saddle, and garbed with tan caparisons, hats, and shawls to shade them from the rising sun.

And behind the caravan’s middle wagon—empty save a few long, thin crates and some bedrolls—a group of four ponies followed on either side of us, garbed in tan and goldenrod-trimmed cloth and gleaming armor beneath, from head to tail and down to steel-shod hooves. Each of them had a sleek gun on a compact, rounded mounting on the left side of their barding that bobbed with their steps, all pointing downward. Cloth-covered shells on their backs concealed their ammunition, and cleverly hidden under panels between the reinforcement fluting in each suit’s crinet plating were the control cables.

Of the four guards nearest us, two were earth ponies, one was a pegasus, and one was a unicorn, and even her armor had the same control mechanism.

Not far ahead, in front of the rear wagon, Night Cloud walked next to Zephyr, holding several bright pages of finely printed laboratory data I couldn’t have read from a meter away, never mind five. The rumbling wheels and hoofsteps gave them near-perfect privacy.

Zephyr’s bandages were equally bright as the pages in the midmorning sun, but Night Cloud’s glossy, obsidian mane blowing in the wind caught and held my eyes without contest. She was larger than Eagle, but taller, leaner, and slimmer around the belly; muscle contours showed clearly under her short coat, and her straight tail hung nearly to the ground, catching dirt along with her brass-plated shoes.

For a futile and pathetically short-lived moment, I considered not admiring the stunning view.

“Pretty slick gear the guards have,” said Eagle quietly from beside me. “What do you think?”

Taking a quick, deep breath and shuddering, I nodded. “Yeah, um…” I glanced again at the nearby ponies in armor, and bit my tongue hard enough to sting. I looked straight at Eagle; he had hung his helmet on his shoulder. His matte-black and grey power armor was a heavily worn and menacing contrast to the boldly colored and polished barding of the ponies flanking us. “Yeah, nice kit. Looks old. I mean, new, really well-made, but… you know, old.” The cloth-covered ear of the bay stallion closest to us flicked back toward me. I stepped closer to Eagle and whispered, “Like something from five hundred years ago, with stuff stuck on top.”

“Yeah, maybe… but look a little closer, kiddo. You want ‘old with stuff stuck on top,’ look at me. That armor? Nothing about it is tacked-on, it’s designed from the ground up. I see talisman nodes, conduit routing in the contours, and those guns? Motor stabilization… imagine what you could make with that, Crystal. Remember those sponson mounts you rebuilt, first day in the shop? This is like that, but a fraction of the size!”

I sighed and muttered, “Great, now I want to steal one of them and take it apart… thanks.”

“Yeah, me, too… I can’t imagine they’d wear it if all it did was stop knives and rocks.”

A shadow fell over me. I squinted up at the scant, wispy clouds drifting past the sun, but quickly looked away, blinking. The spot faded slowly while I looked instead at the dry, but thriving landscape beyond the dusty road. Not only cacti and waving bushes, but scraggly trees dotted the desert.

“Not exactly the endless expanse of poison and mutation they told you about in Neighvarro, is it?”

“No,” I murmured, following the path of an enormous hawk soaring far above us. “I figured that out when I fell… saw a lot of green down below, on the way back up.” I snorted. “Professor Laminar said they’d lock me in the brig if I ever talked about it… Coil Blur, too.”

“Lock you up?” Eagle chortled. “No. They’d brand her, toss her out over Foal Mountain, Smokey Mountains if they’re feeling generous… might have branded you, too, sent you down with her.”

“Really?” I mumbled. “Even though… but she wasn’t even—I’m still not…” Green eyes under an amber mane found me, and I trailed off.

“They don’t care… never have.” Giving a weary shake of his head, he said, “They might have just sent you off to some backwater hole-in-the-wall—like Cloud Loft—but you wouldn’t get a choice. Not that they’d have liked if I’d ever told you that… if Prof said to keep your mouth shut, it’s because he’s seen it happen before.” He brushed his wing across my ears, saying, “Might have been a little cold, but he did right by you, kiddo.”

“He was always nice… just…” I sidled over and reared up, hopping along on two hooves to bump my armored shoulder against his. “Not nice-nice.”

Eagle laughed as I stumbled back to the left, leaving clawed boot prints in the road, and he said, “So how’s the suit feel?”

Frowning, I glanced down at the dark claws on my boots. “Sluggish.” Even with a slightly longer stride, courtesy of my significantly less polished and far-from-sleek armor, I trotted to keep pace with Eagle’s walk, and with everyone else around me. “It lags behind constantly. Not much, but I can feel it. It moves after I move, not with me. Like it’s weighted for a moment, then not… kinda hard to do any fancy legwork.”

“Huh… not enough time to fit everything just right, iron out the kinks, I guess.”

“Well, it stays cool, which is super nice right now, so I’d say Carbide did a fantastic job.” I twisted my head back to peer at the bulky, vertebra-like pieces of armor superimposed over my back. “And it’s flexible.”

“You know…” A slow and heavy set of steps came closer to me suddenly on my left, and I warily eyed Blitz as she drew up to me. “You look a bit like a little dragon, with the spine and helmet, and the ribbing, the claws. Even the tail is spiky.” I flinched away as she snapped her broad wing out to my head level, just below her ribs. “A re-eee-eally itty bitty dragon.”

I glowered as she pulled her wing back. “I am well aware,” I said, “That I’m small… not everyone’s lucky enough to be born gigantic.”

“All right, all right,” said Blitz, sighing. “Sorry.” She ruffled her impressive wings and looked to the sky, where Ivy flew high above us, a pine-green silhouette against the blue. “I wasn’t born this big,” she muttered. “So, what’s this I hear about a workshop? You two mechanics or something?”

Eagle laughed and pointed his wing right at my head. “You bet. Cloud Loft’s one and only thaumic engineering genius, and best metal shaper in the shop, bar none.”

“I’m not a genius,” I muttered. “And I’m not the best anything at Cloud Loft anymore. Now I’m just… me.”

“Oh, look at that,” said Blitz, “A little humility. You should be proud of it—though I suppose humility somewhat precludes a propensity for pride.”

“Pre—what?” I shied away from her as she stuck her head down to peer at the back of my armor.

“This looks neat.” She lifted my gun away, floating it around in front of her.

“Hey!”

“Oh, come on, I’m just looking. Don’t see a lot of aetheric guns around here. Where’d you get it?”

“I built it,” I said, glaring up at her. “And—fine. Just be careful. I don’t have my schematics anymore.”

“Relax, I won’t break it.”

Blitz spun the bare metal, cylindrical gun over to inspect it from every angle. Six spark cells in two series of three protruded slightly from the gun’s top, and thick bundles of wiring snaked into rounded cutouts in the cylinder. Attached to the front of the forty-centimeters-long cylinder were five parallel heat shield fins that surrounded the projector rod and densely packed thaumic inductors at the center.

“A waveguide… huh. One that mimics the channeling properties of a unicorn’s horn, if I’m not mistaken.” Blitz peered along the gun’s length and held it up in front of her snout. “Seems a bit… unfinished.”

“It’s a proof-of-concept. Just a smaller version of the ones I made for Eagle.”

“Huh. So what happened to the schematics?”

“A giant flying snake monster bit a hole in our carriage,” I said, “And scattered all my notebooks over the whole friggin’ desert, that’s what.”

“Oh. Ouch… well, I’m sure you’ll be able to… ah…” She glanced ahead suddenly and carefully set the gun back on my armor’s harness, then strode to our left, out of the way of the rear wagons. “Hold that thought. Come over here.”

I glanced at Eagle as he set his wing on the back of my neck and nudged me onward. Night Cloud and Zephyr had stepped off to the west side of the road, and Blitz stopped next to them.

The four ponies in full barding and uniform caparisons accompanied us, but Blitz nodded to the bay stallion and said, “Wellspring, some privacy, please.”

Wellspring nodded, stomped his forehoof twice and trotted south past me and Eagle, along with the one yellow pegasus mare of the quartet of armored guards. The other earth pony stallion and unicorn mare went north, stopping twenty meters away.

By that time, most of the caravan had passed us by. Zephyr stood stock-still, and only briefly made eye contact with me. Night Cloud stowed the few sheets of papers from the clinic in her white saddlebags, and the cobalt alicorn stood directly in front of me.

“Crystal…” Night cloud took a deep breath and raised her hoof, but hesitated.

I looked around at all of them, but inevitably gave most attention to the mare in front of me. Tears beaded in her eyes. “What?”

She blinked them away. “Would you take your armor off, please?”

“Um… okay?” I backed away from her and telekinetically pulled the interlock releases on my bulky collar and on my ribs, just behind my right foreleg.

A chorus of whirring came from the armor. I flinched as the legs moved of their own accord to assume a wide, rigid stance, then split open. The peytral, collar, flanchard plates, and croupiere extended outward and upward to allow me room to pull my head up, and I shifted my legs gingerly out of their braces.

Night Cloud levitated me bodily free of the armor, unzipped the environmental suit, and tugged it gently off me, and Zephyr stepped up to my side as Night Cloud set me down again beside the ungainly, empty hulk of metal.

Night Cloud put on a forced, calm smile and said, “Crystal, sweetheart—”

“So,” I said, “What do those papers say?”

“Well… one thing the tests showed was a high amount of the progesterone hormone in your blood, which is… it’s a sign of pregnancy. I know this may be surprising, and upsetting, but—”

“Upsetting?” I stomped my hind hoof, causing Zephyr to jolt away. “Yeah, okay, upsetting? Seriously?!” Night Cloud winced, eyes wide and ears back. “You want upsetting? How about a stallion bashing my friggin’ skull with a wrench and raping me? That was surprising, that was upsetting.” I nickered and shook as my heart suddenly hammered in my breast. “It’s been over two months, okay?! I’m not a porcelain doll, I’m not a foal, and I’m not stupid, so just friggin’ spit it out already. Am I pregnant or not?”

Night Cloud nodded, leaned down over me and nuzzled my neck. “Crystal, I’m so sorry…”

“Okay. Fine. I’m pregnant.” I sniffed and said with a crack of my voice, “Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. None of that is your fault, so what do you have to be sorry about?”

She sat on her haunches, set one foreleg and her wing across my back, and pulled me into a firm hug. She rubbed my withers and the back of my neck, and whispered, “I’m sorry that someone hurt you, Crystal… that’s all I meant.”

I glowered out past her shoulder and cradling wing at the surrounding desert while I tried to blink my eyes dry. “Um…” I patted her shoulder, then hooked my forehoof over her withers and mumbled, “Sorry… I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“I know that,” murmured Night Cloud, nuzzling behind my ears, “It’s okay. It’s okay… go ahead and cry. I’m here, as long as you need me.”

“I don’t want to cry,” I muttered, while my tears soaked into her fur and mingled with dust. Zephyr walked around Night Cloud and closed in to touch her hoof to my shoulder, then backed away, smiling stiffly. “I’m tired of crying… I’d rather be doing something. Making something, fixing something… anything.”

Night Cloud laughed quietly and nudged her nose against my cheek. “Well,” she said in my ear, “Until you have your tools and a workshop in Bellenast, I’m afraid all I can do is give you hugs, sweetheart… is that okay for now?”

“Yeah.” I pressed my muzzle into her coat, relishing her closeness and the scent of lilac. “That’s great. Thank you.”

“Good.” She squeezed me again, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“What became of this stallion?” said Blitz from near us, twisting her hoof into the dirt.

“He’s not our problem anymore,” said Zephyr. She spun about to stand between us and Blitz, lashing her tail. “Is that good enough for you?”

Blitz closed her eyes for a moment. “It can be… if you would prefer it.”

I shrugged Zephyr’s hoof away. “He’s dead,” I said hoarsely, “All right? I—I just… I killed him. He’s dead.” Night Cloud drew a sharp breath, then laid her head on my neck, all but completely hiding me from view. “I was mad, and… and I killed him… okay? He’s friggin’ dead and gone, and…”

“Oh, darling…” Night Cloud set her cheek against mine and lifted her wing up to my ears.

Blitz stepped around Zephyr and carefully bowed her head to touch her nose to my snout. I stared silently at her left eye, and the tiny streak of brown on her rose-pink iris.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. As she drew away, her faintly glowing mane brushed across my snout and tickled me. She stepped back and looked between Eagle in his armor and Zephyr in her soft yellow cape and bandages underneath; I twisted my neck around to peer past Night Cloud, and she lifted her head away from me in response.

“So,” said Blitz, lightly stamping her forehoof, “Exile, voluntary or otherwise?”

Zephyr nodded, and Eagle answered. “Of a sort. The Enclave’s idea of… let’s call it house arrest, was a step too far. They didn’t take our objections gracefully. So, we played along for a month, made preparations… said our farewells.”

“I see.” Blitz took a deep breath and half-flared her wings. “Well, whatever judgement… or farce thereof, that your erstwhile home may have passed on you, that verdict has no merit here.” She stretched her wing down to brush a feather through my mane. “And I wouldn’t fault a child for defending herself.”

Blitz glanced northward at the receding caravan and the drifting pall of dust it left. “You have done no wrong against me or my people. You owe me no explanation, nor anyone else, and I understand if you’d prefer this to be the last word about it.”

Zephyr frowned up at the sable-purple giant of a mare. “Who are you?”

Blitz chuckled, scuffing her hoof in the dirt. She winked at me, crossed her forelegs in a curtsy, lifted her broad wings to the sky, and bowed her head to Eagle and Zephyr in turn. “Would you believe me if I said I’m a princess?”

“No, seriously, who the fuck are you?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t believe me, either.” She opened her saddlebags and pulled out a golden, jeweled crown several sizes too small for her head. She stuck her left hind leg and front foreleg out in a precarious pose. “Ta-da! Princess. Can’t actually wear it right now, though, so you’ll just have to imagine it. Oh! I know.”

She floated the crown onto Night Cloud’s head and clasped the gem-studded ring at its front around her horn. The crown resembled a helmet: It covered her brow and part of her snout, and extended between and behind her ears. Night Cloud rolled her eyes.

“There,” said Blitz. “Now just pretend she’s purple.”

“Right, so… have you ever heard of the Ministry of Arcane Science?”

“Yeah,” said Eagle, walking at our right, “But I’ve never heard anything like this. You’re saying they made alicorns?”

“Well, the megaspells hit before they could actually finish the project… but yes.”

Blitz led us from the center of the group, and the two pairs of guards flanked us at the tail end of the caravan. Night Cloud had carried me while we caught up to the wagons, and had draped a white, lightweight caparison over me to shield me from the sun instead of setting me back on the ground. My armor sat in the rearmost wagon ahead of us, along with my and saddlebags.

Night Cloud had yet to remove the slightly-loose crown, and occasionally glanced back at me while I brushed and braided her mane from my perch on her back.

“Twilight Sparkle wanted to create the perfect soldier,” said Ivy from Blitz’s left. “She created a spell in material form, that would grant a pony the vigor and resilience of the hardiest earth pony, the agility and flight of the fleetest pegasus, and the versatility of a unicorn mage, ready to be trained and sent to battle. She called it the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion. In her hubris, she believed she could rebuild a pony’s very essence from the inside out.”

“Hubris?” said Zephyr. “Looks like it worked to me… so what did she screw up, then, if you’re right here?”

“Nothing,” said Ivy. “For all her faults, Twilight Sparkle was a genius, the greatest mind of her generation, bar none. Her spell was perfect; it did exactly what she designed it to do, under the conditions she intended.”

“Translation,” said Blitz. She leaned down to stage-whisper to me, “Conditions were interrupted by a balefire bomb.”

“Then how did anything come of it?” said Eagle. “Did they have a second lab somewhere?”

“No,” said Ivy, briefly looking over Blitz’s back at us. “Much of the lab was destroyed, and the entire Potion stock was necromantically corrupted… but it remained viable. Some ponies came back to the lab about a decade later, after the radiation had subsided enough for them to retrieve some samples of the Potion for their own use.”

“Boom!” Blitz jumped mid-step, bouncing on the road. “Balefire-fueled necromantic super-ponies. Top that!”

“Blizziera, you have such a way with words.”

“Yeah, yeah, let me have my fun. You know how often someone actually wants to hear about this these days? Not. Often.”

I giggled and looked over at Ivy; despite her droll tone, she smiled.

“So, ghouls,” said Zephyr, “You’re like ghouls. Just without the… ghoulishness.”

“Ehh, it’s a little more complicated than that,” said Blitz, “But also—yeah, basically.”

“No need to worry,” said Night Cloud, lifting the crown off her head and floating it back into Blitz’s saddlebags. “We aren’t radioactive.”

“Or cannibals,” said Blitz.

“You know,” muttered Zephyr, “I think most ponies wouldn’t feel the need to say that part.”

“It’s an important distinction!” Blitz nodded back along the road toward Cliffside. “Doctor Patch? He had something to keep himself busy right after the balefire hit him, ponies who depended on him. Any ghoul that doesn’t have that kind of focus, that drive to keep going? That’s a walking pony chomper. I hope you can tell the difference if you ever see one.”

“I’ve seen a few in the Badlands,” said Eagle, “They looked pretty aimless. Feral.”

“Most of them are,” said Ivy. “They stay where they die, most often. But every now and again, you find one that likes to wander, has some habits from before, but not enough mind left to truly think. That can catch you off-guard; you might assume it’s a pony walking toward you, not a beast.” She glanced across Blitz’s back again at me. “If you stay in the Bellenastian Valley, you’ll probably never see any.”

“Nice to know,” said Zephyr.

“I saw one,” I mumbled, finishing another braid in Night Cloud’s luxuriously groomed mane. Her right ear flicked back toward me. “Yesterday morning.” I peered around her head at my bulky suit of armor stowed in the caravan wagon. “Carbide said it was, um… probably one of the ponies who worked at Spannerworks. In the power plant.”

“It didn’t hurt you, did it?” murmured Night Cloud, turning her head back at me.

“Power armor,” said Eagle, “Compound-cell aetheric plasma cannon. What do you think?”

Night Cloud smiled and let out a quiet hum of laughter. “Right… I suppose you three are better-equipped than most ponies.” Then, her gentle, accented voice came over the rumbling of wagons and hundreds of hooves. -Crystal… not that I expect you’d have a reason to, but… please, promise me you’ll never go anywhere like that again.-

I leaned forward and quickly nuzzled her neck. -Fine by me. I’ve had enough of giant robots for one week.-

-I can only imagine.-

The ground faded kilometer by kilometer, becoming less and less red as we travelled north away from the true desert, and the road began to meander as the land dictated. The rocky hills nearly matched the color of the guards’ uniforms, and groves of hardy evergreens joined the endless shrubs.

I had eaten most of my levitated bowl of spicy, tangy stew on the walk from the food line by the time I reached the gnarled pine growing from the hillside just off the road, where Blitz and Ivy had sat for dinner. In the soft yellow light of a magic lantern, the bark looked like striated stone, flowing and swooping from the dirt into bulbous shapes near the trunk, and spindly, needle-laden limbs about three meters off the ground. Only about two-thirds of the tree was alive; its south side was mostly bare of needles, the branches like skeletal claws reaching for the darkening sky.

I went straight to Night Cloud and lay by her side, immeasurably glad to rest my legs. Blitz looked up from her meal for a moment, and Night Cloud patted her wing on my shoulder. She once again gave me another helping, not of stew served by the caravan cooks, but a wood bowl of oats and nuts poured from an earthenware jar wrapped in a wire cradle and canvas padding. She clamped the jar shut and stowed it in her bags again, and I sniffed at the sweet and salty mix.

“What’s this?”

“My tribe calls it abeni bokan,” said Night Cloud, “Steamed oat cereal—translated more literally, it just means ‘oat snack.’ Some ponies add dried fruit and peppers, spices, and usually plenty of salt and honey, or molasses… trail food. I skipped the pepper for this batch. Didn’t think you’d like it that much.”

“Well, um…” I set my hoof on her foreleg and mumbled, “Thanks. It smells great.”

Zephyr affixed me with a tight-lipped smile as she caught up—and once again, quickly looked away when I made eye contact. She snatched her bowl off Eagle’s back and set it down by its carrying handle, then placed his nearby and sat in the lengthening shade of the tree. I lapped up the last of my vegetable stew, hiding my frown with the bowl.

“Never seen a tree quite like that,” said Eagle as he approached.

“Meridian Plateau Pines,” said Ivy. “This is the oldest one in the grove.”

“How old?” I said, looking up through the deep green needles.

“Three thousand, two hundred years, give or take.”

“Woah.”

Eagle whistled.

“Looks weird,” I said, “But kind of pretty, too.” I wiped my muzzle clean before diving into the bowl of sweetened oats.

Ivy stared at the trunk a moment longer. “Make that… three thousand, two hundred give or take, plus one hundred and twenty-six.”

“How do you figure that?” said Eagle.

She brushed her wingtip across the twisted trunk, stopping when her feathers found a discolored knot. “That was when this core sample was drilled… one hundred and twenty-six years ago.”

Zephyr laughed and said, “Okay, how do you just know that?”

Blitz began to chuckle, and Ivy, soft and distant, said, “One of my grandchildren, Maple Bounty, took the sample. As I recall, he looked for a particular isotope of carbon in the heartwood, to determine its age… dendrochronology, fascinating field… imagine it, a humble tree, a living thing already ancient before Discord made the world his twisted canvas. This tree predates our recorded history, what little of it survived the war.” She set her hoof over the knot, then let it fall away, and she smiled. “It was a notable discovery. Something he was proud of, wanted to show his grandma.”

“Your grandson… and that was a hundred and—” Zephyr shook her head, looking almost dazed. “Just how old are you?”

Ivy bit off a piece of oatcake floating in her golden field and chewed in silence.

Zephyr scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Fine… well, where are you from? Or is that secret, too?”

“Appleloosa,” said Blitz around a mouthful of food. “That’s a matter of public record.”

Zephyr snorted, pointing at Blitz. “Okay then, you’re a princess. So who is she? Your freaky immortal bodyguard, butler, advisor, what?”

“Butler,” Blitz said, chortling, “Haven’t heard thatone before… no, really, I haven’t heard that one before. Ivy is many things… definitely not a butler, though.”

Zephyr breathed deeply and started on her dinner. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”

“Since some of you are being obnoxious,” said Night Cloud, looking at Eagle and Zephyr, “The Lady Ivaline is an advisor to Her Highness, yes… for lack of a better term.”

Blitz swept out her wing and wrapped Ivy in a hug. “Doesn’t begin to do her justice.”

“Blizziera.”

“Oh, nobody cares.”

“And who are you?” said Zephyr. “I’d have guessed her daughter, but… you said you’re from a tribe somewhere?”

“The Réklat tribe, from the San Palomino Desert,” said Night Cloud, glancing at Blitz as the larger mare began to chortle behind her canteen. “Past the western edge of the Forest of Leota… I’m just an aspiring physician… and, incidentally…” She nodded toward Blitz, smiling, and said, “I am, in fact, adopted.”

I looked quickly between Night Cloud and Blitz. “Wait—what?” The cobalt mare next to me giggled, and I yanked my hoof off her foreleg; she shifted her leg and gave me an odd look. “You—you’re her daughter?”

“Yes,” she said, tilting her head at Blitz. “For better or worse, this silly, outrageous mare convinced me to allow her to adopt me.”

“I don’t deserve her,” muttered Blitz, sipping her water.

“And without her,” said Night Cloud, raising her voice a hair, “I would be another dead spirit… claimed by the beasts of the Leota, and returned to the earth.” She put her wing over me and said softly, “Not unlike you with those robots and your friend, Crystal.”

“Right. Um… yeah.” I swallowed, glancing at Zephyr. -Night Cloud, you’re, um—it’s still kind of warm out here, so, could you maybe—

She yanked her wing up, folding it quickly at her side. -Sorry.-

-Not do that, yeah. Thank you.-

A light tickling ran across my back at the same time as her horn glowed cerulean and she looked down at me. -If this is warm for you, then your winter coat is really a bit too heavy for the desert… maybe it’s time for a trim. Lose some of that fluff; what do you think?-

I shivered, shaking my head, and tried to focus on eating the sweet and crispy meal in front of me instead of the pleasant brushing sensation. -It’s still really cold out here at night. No thanks.-

-Quite cold, yes, but we do have blankets, sweetheart. And tents, and fires.-

-Maybe I like being fluffy, okay? I don’t want my coat trimmed.-

-All right.- She ruffled her wings, and each time I glanced up from my food, I found her to be watching me. -Did you have your own room at Cloud Loft?- I nodded. -Well… would you rather share a tent with Eagle and Zephyr, or have your own? We have a couple extras.-

-I hate being alone.- I looked past the yellow lantern at my closest friends, listening to the quiet sounds of eating and the distant singing from one of the groups around the campfires farther down the hill. -But… do you have any idea how friggin’ awkward it is to share a room with your parents? I mean, they’re not my parents, but… it’s still weird.-

-In all honesty… growing up, I shared a room with my sister or one of my aunts, sometimes my mother, until I left my tribe… that’s just how it was. I never had a room of my own until Blitz gave me an entire house… and that feels huge and empty.-

-Why’d you leave?-

Night Cloud hummed and drank long and deeply from her own canteen. -They wanted to choose how I lived… they even tried to choose whom I would love. When I properly realized that… I decided it was time to leave. Time to make my own life, my own way.- She nudged my ribs with her wing. -Well, Crystal, sweetheart… if you don’t want to bunk with Eagle and Zephyr, and you don’t want your own tent, then you can share a bedroll with me in Blitz’s tent.-

I froze mid-swallow, nearly choked, and grabbed my canteen to clear my throat with lukewarm water. Coughing and taking a deep breath, I glanced between Night Cloud and Zephyr; she had looked up from her food at me in alarm, and I was the one to look away first.

-Share… um…- A rushing heat rose up my neck. -Um… I mean, that—that sounds… nice. Is there, um… enough room?-

-Darling, it’s a big tent, and you take up about as much space as my saddlebags.- Night Cloud nuzzled behind my ears. -And besides that, there’s absolutely no excuse for you to be alone in the middle of a group of complete strangers when you could be with a friend, instead.-

-Okay.- I nodded, fidgeting with my forehooves around my bowl. -Um… thank you, Night Cloud.-

“Hey, Carbide,” I murmured, sitting on my haunches in front of the empty hulk of armor in the wagon. I lit my horn with emerald green, adding to the yellow lamp by my hooves, and peered at the tiny camera lens on the front of the suit.

“I, um… well… we’re on the road. I guess you can see that, if you can see anything right now. We’re on the way to Bellenast, should take four or five days to make it there. I promise, as soon as I find someplace with the right tools, and… maybe someone who knows about robot stuff, I’ll fix you. Night Cloud says there are ponies there who work on robots. And I know you’re not a robot, but your fancy suit is more like a robot than the armor I’m familiar with, okay?”

“So… um… just wanted to say hi, and… let you know I haven’t forgotten.” I reached my forelegs awkwardly around the bulky collar section and touched my brow to the anodized peytral. “Thank you for everything, and, um… good night, Carbide.”

I stood up and leapt out of the wagon, and trotted across the dark road toward the white pavilion tent twenty meters away and the campfire in front of it.

Zephyr exited the smaller, yellow tent across from the large one, looked around briefly, and made straight for me the moment she saw me. I slowed to meet her, and she stopped to hug me. She nuzzled and squeezed me tightly, and whispered, “Crystal?”

“Yeah?” I mumbled.

“I didn’t want to say anything,” she said, gently stroking her hoof through my mane, “But… baby, please… take this slow, okay?” She sniffed, saying quietly, “I get it, she rescued you—Tartarus, she’s the one who volunteered to search for you, and… and she’s nice, and she’s sympathetic, and affectionate, and honestly, yeah, she’s drop-dead gorgeous. I’m not blind, baby.” I stiffened and stood stock-still while she squeezed me again. “I’m just… I’m worried, Crystal. I’m worried, I’m really worried, and… damn it, I didn’t want to say anything, I didn’t want to, I swear, I’m not trying to butt in… to… damn it…” She firmly squeezed me again, trembling all the while. “Fuck, I am not prepared for this…”

I swallowed, and swallowed again. I said squeakily, “What are you worried about?”

Zephyr let out a strangled, shrill laugh and whispered, “Baby, she’s—she’s just a little old for you, and I don’t think she even sees how—no, you know what? Of course you wouldn’t think about… shit, how do I even do this… fuck, I can’t even figure out how to say it right, why the fuck should I expect you to—hmmmmmm…” She bit her lip and stomped her hind leg repeatedly.

“Zephyr?” I whispered, nuzzling her collar. “What—”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, just…” Zephyr stepped back from me and set her wing on my neck. “Baby… Crystal, just… you know what? What I said first. Take it slow. Okay? Whatever happens, take it slow. Can you promise me you’ll do that? Please?” I nodded jerkily. “Okay! Okay. Great. I’m not mad, I’m just… concerned, and… and I don’t know what to do about it, and I… I’m freaking out, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw all that on you… I didn’t…”

She made muffled whine in her throat and hugged me again, and she whispered, “I don’t want anyone to hurt you again—I’m not saying she would, please don’t think that, please, that’s not what I mean… I’m just… I’m scared, and I already fucked up, Eagle and I both fucked up, we fucked up bad, we couldn’t protect you, and… I want to, but I don’t know how, and I don’t even know if I should, and… I’m just… I don’t know what to do… I don’t have the right to say you can’t… try with her, or… am I making any sense at all, or am I just blathering?”

I stood in silence, heart hammering, breathing slowly. “Zephyr,” I said, barely more than whispering, “She just offered to share a friggin’ tent, because she doesn’t want me to be alone, and I…” Swallowing, I mumbled, “I don’t want to sleep right next to you and Eagle… that’s friggin’ weird, okay? It just is. I’m sorry. That’s all it is.”

“No, baby, you don’t need to be,” she muttered, “I understand that… after being cooped up in that chariot, believe me, I understand. You deserve some space. I just… I guess I’m just overreacting.”

I sighed and scuffed my hoof in the dirt next to hers. “She’s just… being nice.”

“Or oblivious,” muttered Zephyr. “Or both.” She patted my back and said, “Know what? Forget I said anything. Get some rest, enjoy the slumber party. Pretend I didn’t have a panic attack.”

I stepped close to her and laid my head on her shoulder. “Just because I have a crush,” I mumbled, “Doesn’t mean it’s ever going anywhere.”

“Oh, so it’s definitely a crush, huh?” She laughed and nuzzled me once more. “Well… at least you’re not trying to deny it.”

“Why bother? You already know.”

I brushed aside the white tent flap and blinked in the dim yellow lamplight. Night Cloud lay on the left side of the tent, with her head on a down pillow and only a woven mat between her and the dirt. There was room on the mat for an exceptionally small pony to lie comfortably beside her. Two larger mats occupied the adjacent and opposite sides of the spacious tent, and saddlebags and several canteens in harnesses filled the spaces between them.

I claimed that small space beside Night Cloud, resting my head on the pillow by her outstretched forelegs. She pushed part of my mane back from my eyes with cerulean light.

“Night Cloud? Um…”

“Hmm?”

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth in silence while she brushed her magic through my mane, over and over. Sighing, I bumped my nose on her leg and murmured, “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.” She matched my volume and lowered her head down to a comfortable position on the pillow, watching me with one electric blue eye. “Why?”

I struggled not to laugh. “Just, um… curious. You and Blitz and Ivy, um… I can’t tell how old you are. You all look young. I mean, you look a little younger than them, but… only a little. Or they look just a little older than you. Zephyr’s age.”

“Well…” She pressed on my back with her telekinesis and massaged my withers and shoulders. I sighed and closed my eyes. “Blitz will be thirty-nine this autumn, and Ivy… well, her date of birth isn’t in any of the Bellenastian history books I’ve read, and she won’t tell anyone, but I know she has to be between two hundred and… maybe two hundred and ten—hard to believe, I know.”

“How is that even possible?”

“That one I do know,” said Night Cloud, chortling near my ear. “You see, the spell that transformed us… it doesn’t simply give a pony wings, or a horn, or the strength of an earth pony, whichever they lack… it changes our bodies, our organs, tissue, even individual cells—and by extension, our magic—at a fundamental level. There’s a necromantic component in the spell, in the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion. An… an immunity, even an affinity of sorts, for the energies released by balefire. So long as we have a bit of balefire radiation every now and then… we don’t really age anymore.”

“So you’re… what, immortal?” I touched her upper foreleg and muttered, “Always young and gorgeous… must be nice, looking perfect all the time.”

“Mmm… I don’t know about that…”

I scooted closer to press against her side and nuzzle her; she smelled of lilac and a long day’s walk of dust and lingering sweat. “Night Cloud, you’re the most beautiful mare I’ve ever seen. Anyone says different, they’re blind or dumb… or just jealous.”

She added a coat brush to her massage, and I dared look at her watching eye. Her lips drew halfway between a bemused smile and a grin; then she gave a breathy chuckle and settled on a placid smile. For several minutes, she remained silent, continuing to ease the stiffness and aches from my back with her masterful telekinesis. I breathed slowly and deeply, drifting into a lull under the relaxing touch of her magic. Hoofsteps drew near the tent, and Night Cloud laid her head next to mine on the pillow.

She stopped brushing and pulled the sheet up to my withers, and murmured in my ear, “You’re a very brave young mare, Crystal… good night.”

“Mmm… g’night…”

I blinked in the dark and turned my ears toward heavy steps and flapping wings. The air was cold and dry in the dead of night, and the two other bedrolls were empty. I raised my head to see over Night Cloud’s neck. Blitz had gone to the tent opening, horn glowing violet in the gloom.

A petite, snow-white pegasus stood in front of her just outside the tent, wearing only a canvas pack harness across her breast, a streamlined pack on her back behind her wings, and a helmet with a radio antenna behind her fully exposed ears. She was slightly smaller than Zephyr, but lean and wiry. Her nose and lips were a bizarre pink, her eyes vivid blue, and her wind-blasted mane a bright, striking green.

Blitz peered at an unrolled letter and a map floating in her grasp, whispering to the white mare. Blue eyes and one white ear flicked toward me. Blitz glanced back into the tent at me immediately, then stepped fully outside and closed the flap behind her.

-Just a missive from my brother. Royal business, nothing for you to worry about. Sorry I woke you up… go back to sleep.-

Blitz’s hoof beats receded.

I laid my head down by Night Cloud’s shoulder. She drew a long, deep breath through her nose and wrapped her wing around me to thwart the frigid desert air, and I did exactly what Blitz had told me.

4. Silver Lining

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Chapter Four

Silver Lining

I lay under a blanket, warm and comfortable, but shivers wracked my body. I jerked my head up from the pillow and squinted at the weighted flap to the square pavilion tent that rose cavernously above me. My breaths came in short gasps, and my heart thumped heavily. My muscles ached, my mouth and throat were dry, and a gnawing emptiness clawed at my belly.

Night Cloud wasn’t by my side.

I breathed slowly through my nose and rubbed my forelegs together for several seconds. I crawled stiffly off the woven mat and winced as pebbles crunched beneath my hooves, and glanced behind me.

Blitz lay on her side beneath a green blanket, her head on a plush pillow at odds with the rest of the tent. To her right, Ivy slept soundly, her gun and harness laid on the ground nearby.

I crept out of the tent, kicking each leg and stretching as I walked. Across from the pavilion tent was a smaller cream-yellow canvas one; Eagle and Zephyr slept together under a grey blanket, she lying under his amber wing.

The moonless sky was a mosaic of colorful stars, clear of clouds, and a brisk wind blew through the caravan campground.

-Night Cloud? Can you hear me?-

-I can. Good morning, sweetheart.-

-Um… thanks.- I grinned and bit my lip, turning all around to look for her. -Where’d you go?-

-Just outside the camp. Look west.-

I turned and broke into a trot, peering all around at the tents and the gathered wagons as I crossed the road and stopped at the edge of the level ground. The crest of the next hill was over a hundred meters away.

-Stop. You’re looking almost straight at me. A few degrees to your left.-

I peered out at the dark slope of the opposite hill rising away from the road. -Night Cloud, your coat is dark blue, your mane is black, and it’s a new moon.-

-Not exactly a fair game of hide-and-seek, I know… and I confess, I’m cheating. A little spell one of Blitz’s friends taught me.-

A spot on the hill wavered and rippled. I gasped as Night Cloud appeared from the darkness on the distant hill, dressed in a ghostly white caparison and gleaming steel beneath. She leapt off the hillside with her wings spread wide, flapped twice, and glided the rest of the way toward me, landing at a canter a few meters away. The crinet on her neck and throat and fine helmet on her head shone bright as polished silver under the starlight.

She wrapped me with cerulean light and floated me straight up, trotted directly under me, and gently set me on her back; instead of mere cloth separating us, I rested on hard surfaces under the caparison. She broke into a smooth, gliding trot along the hillside, heading down and away from the campground. Her armor rattled faintly with each step.

I clung to her shoulders and sighed. “I have legs, you know.”

“And mine are a bit longer, sweetheart.”

“A bit.” I rolled my eyes and felt along her shoulders with my forehooves, and her concealed flanchards with my hind legs. Rails protruded slightly from the otherwise smooth suit; if I were to pull the caparison up, I expected I’d see the same gun mounts as those on the guards’ barding. “So, um… what’s with the armor?”

“Well, Blitz commissioned it for me not too long ago, but I haven’t had much reason to wear it. I thought I’d… oh, what’s the phrase…”

“Break it in?”

“Yes! That. Forgive me; Celestian isn’t my first language. And, um… it’s a little chilly, and the gambeson is decently insulated, so…”

I smirked and said, “Now who wishes she had a fluffy winter coat?” She giggled. “So, what are you doing out here, and where are we going?”

Night Cloud deftly hopped across the trickling stream at the bottom of the hill, and began to climb the shallow opposite incline. Her breaths came out in visible puffs. “I am going for a morning run. Nowhere specific. You’re welcome to come along, if you want to.”

I lightly squeezed her armored neck, pressing my head against the overlapping plates; I immediately recoiled from the cold metal. -It’s dark. And we’re surrounded by rocks, and spiky plants.-

-I can see quite well, and those plants are cacti.-

-I know what they’re called, and I’m saying they’re friggin’ spiky!- I thumped my hooves on her remarkably quiet coat of steel. -And I’m not wearing my armor.-

-I’m grateful for that; I happen to know it’s quite heavy. Relax, sweetheart, I won’t drop you on a cactus.- She laughed and spread her wings, flapping and hopping her way up the hill. The sudden rush of air deafened me and blasted my mane back. -Now let me show you how a Palomino mare can move.-

I clung fiercely to Night Cloud’s neck and back with all four legs as she galloped flat-out and leapt across a dip in the earth that looked far larger to me than it probably was. I jolted against her as she landed and galloped on in the dark, juking between scraggly shrubs and smooth boulders.

Then she jumped atop one of the rocks and on to the next one several meters farther along the hill, hooves clacking on the sandstone. Each landing jarred me on her back. She spread her wings mid-jump and flew up to perch on a truly immense boulder that split a dry creek bed, forming a vertical island; it had been worn somewhat narrower around the base by millennia of intermittently flowing water.

She pranced in place for a moment on the rock, then stood still, her breaths coming quick and deep. Every one puffed a cloud into the chill air. I briefly looked out at the hills and desert in the dark, and the ground nearly ten meters below on every side, and Night Cloud stretched her wings out and up. I squeezed her again as she leapt—but she merely glided instead of powering upward.

She flew low to the ground, flapping lazily, held aloft by magic I understood only in principle. She continued above the riverbed for several hundred meters, dodging around the infrequent tree or boulder in the way, but never rising higher.

Then, she banked to the left and rose over a ridge. She stretched her legs forward in preparation and landed at a canter, then slowed to a trot as she passed between two grey boulders little more than a meter apart. I released my death-grip on her and sighed, trembling on her back. She lit her horn and the surrounding rocks with cerulean blue and grinned back at me.

“Having fun?”

I swallowed, and my voice came out reedy and tremulous. “Night Cloud… I’m afraid of heights, I don’t like flying, I don’t really know where we are… and…” I hugged her armored neck and muttered, “And I’m thirsty, and kinda hungry… don’t you think we should, um… go back to camp soon?”

Night Cloud stopped in the middle of the cluster of boulders. Her ears flicked back, and she pulled one of her canteens off her saddlebag harness. “Here. I… I have some oat bars in my bags. You’re welcome to have some.”

I grabbed the canteen larger than my head, lighting her white caparison and polished crinet and helmet with emerald. She spun about and walked back through the gap, and as she cleared the rocks, I drank from the canteen and peered back at the white saddlebags bobbing on her hips.

“Left side, front pocket. In the green jar.”

I unlatched the outer flap and the lid of the jar, and pulled out a brick of condensed, sweet-smelling oats and other grains. “Thanks. Is this that same, um… abeni bokan stuff?” I took an eager bite and mumbled, “Tastes like it.”

She chuckled and raised her head high as she trotted smoothly through the low bushes and around one of the sporadic evergreens. “You’re welcome… and yes, it is. You have a good memory… I baked them at Cliffside. I wanted to have them for the road. The bars are easier to eat on the move than the cereal.”

“Cool.”

She briefly slowed from her trot to smile back at me, then sped up again. “Crystal, I’m sorry… I… I thought you would enjoy a little stroll.”

“That’s what you call a stroll? You barely need wings to fly… I’ve never moved so fast in my life. Not on the ground, anyway… I just, um… I kind of thought you were going to stay on the ground, when you said you’re going for a run.”

She laughed again. “Yes, well… I didn’t mean to, um… cause you discomfort. I’ll stick to the ground for now.”

I snatched a reddish stone up from the dirt and tossed it at one of the nearby grey boulders, producing a sharp crack. “How’d all these rocks wind up here, anyway? They’re all grey. Not like all the smaller ones, and the dirt.”

“Oh. Um… glacial deposition, I think.”

“Glacial…” I frowned and finished chewing the delectably sweet chunk of oat bar. “But this is a desert. Aren’t glaciers, um… big ice things, in the mountains? Way, way north?”

“Ice sheets moving over land,” said Night Cloud. “And today, yes, they’re only far to the north, and south, across the sea, as far as I know… but tens of thousands of years ago, they covered much more of the world.” She touched her wingtip to one of the rocks as she passed it, and said, “These ones almost certainly came from the Bloomfang Mountains. Bellenast is right at the base of them.”

“Huh.” I occupied myself with the dense oat bar. -Hey, so, um… if Blitz is actually the princess of Bellenast… and you’re her adopted daughter, does that make you a princess, too? You look the part. Warrior princess. You have the fancy armor and everything. Your helmet even looks kind of like Blitz’s crown.-

Night Cloud chortled. -I see why you would assume that, but no, I am not… I don’t remember the exact law, but I’m not of her blood, so… no fancy title for me. I’m just a tribal mare, sweetheart… and my helmet looks like her crown because that is part of her old suit of ceremonial barding. Her actual crown is in Bellenast-

-Her old suit? Does she have a new one?-

Night Cloud sighed and began to climb diagonally up the nearest hill. -Not yet; the new one is being made to measure. Her old one doesn’t fit her anymore. She suffered a, ah… unexpected growth spurt recently. Excessive balefire radiation can do that to us… particularly if one deliberately seeks out sources of it.-

I took a long drink from the canteen, then capped it and stuck it back in its slot on her harness. “Did she do that?”

She glanced back at me, swiveling one ear to listen. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Okay… but why?”

“Well, her gambeson and barding have to be remade from scratch, for one, and she’s still not completely used to being so large… imagine if you grew to a third again your own size in the span of a week.”

“Um… okay, that’s—Night Cloud, what I meant was, why did she irradiate herself if she knew it would make her grow?”

“Oh!” Her ears flicked back again. “Sorry. I thought—my mistake. Um… she was… stressed. She… wanted to do something to, ah, blow off steam.”

“Blow off steam…”

Night Cloud nodded. “I, um… it’s a personal matter, sweetheart. It’s—”

“Not your place to talk about it,” I muttered, sighing. “I get it.”

“Um… yes.” She stopped near the ravine we had crossed before. “That is, yes that it is not my place.”

“Night Cloud, it’s fine. You don’t have to explain it. Royal stuff, complicated stuff, whatever. Stuff nobody wants to tell a little filly.”

“No, it’s not… Crystal, it isn’t that I don’t want to tell you, or that I can’t, or because you’re young—it’s because it’s personal. I promised Blitz that I would keep a secret, and I will not break that promise.”

“Okay, okay…” I patted my hooves on her armored collar. “I get it. Don’t need to bite my head off.”

“I’m not—” She shook her head and stomped a hoof, then trotted onward. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to sound so testy.” The sky had begun to brighten ever-so-slightly. She hopped over another small rock in her path and looked around at me again. “And I don’t think you’re a little filly.”

“Um… thanks.” She yelped as she pitched forward abruptly—“Daah!”—and I slid forward into her neck and fell off her, crashing onto my shoulder. I lay on my side in the dirt for a second, groaning, then jolted and pushed myself onto my haunches, my heart suddenly racing.

“Crystal, are you all right?”

I stared up at Night Cloud and lit our surroundings with bright green light. “Am I—are you all right?”

She nodded and shifted her outstretched left foreleg, supporting herself in an awkward sort of bow; her right leg had plunged into a collapsed burrow mid-stride. “I think I pulled a muscle—maybe a sprain, that’s all. Crystal… how much weight can you manage? Levitating, I mean.”

“Um…” I swallowed, looking between her sunken leg and the rest of her body. “Mass isn’t a problem, but you—you’re really big, Night Cloud.”

She chuckled, trying to shift more of her weight onto her left foreleg. “Well… it’s—very hard to hold myself up on this leg—could you try to push me up a bit?” I wrapped my emerald field around her experimentally. “Just enough so I can shift—” She shrieked and yanked her right leg violently free of the hole in the ground, collapsing to her right.

I stumbled and fell backward as nearly five times my weight of alicorn wrapped in ineffectual green slammed down and shoved me bodily into the dirt, crushing the breath out of my lungs. I wheezed and tried to tug my hind legs out from beneath her armored torso, hitting my free foreleg frantically on her back.

“Crystal!” Night Cloud rolled quickly away from me and lit the area with cerulean. Dust billowed up from her wings. “Crystal?! Are you hurt?”

I coughed and took a wheezing breath; my chest and hind legs ached, at least down to my stifle on the left one. “Yeah…” Coughing and trembling, I rolled onto my belly. “I think… ow… you’re bleeding. Your leg.” She glanced fleetingly at the dirt and small, bloody mark below her knee.

She stomped and levitated me into the air, turning the whole world cerulean in my eyes. “I’m fine. Does anything feel broken?”

I coughed again and mumbled, “I don’t know. Maybe…” I kicked my legs out. “Put me down.” She gently lowered me and set me on my hooves, holding most of my weight off the ground. I shifted my weight on each leg; they all wobbled, but my left stifle hurt most.

“Do your legs feel weak? Limp, shaky, hard to move, any of that?”

“Yeah.” I took a deep breath and coughed again, gritting my teeth as an invisible spike drove through my side. “And—hurts to breathe.” I looked down at the slight marking we had made in the soil. “You sort of—pushed me sideways, not right under you.” I lifted each leg one at a time, shaking as I did so; even my thumping heart sent twinges down my legs. “Okay, now it—friggin’ hurts…” Tears began to blur my sight as my right hind leg threatened to give out under me, and then cerulean light wrapped around and lifted me again.

Night Cloud nuzzled my cheek where I floated in the air in her grasp. “Crystal, I’m sorry, but I have to fly you for a little bit.”

“Woah, woah!” I sailed along through the air in front of her as she leapt skyward and beat her broad wings. “Night Cloud!” My voice vanished on the wind. -At least put me on your back! Please!-

She floated me around and above her briskly flapping wings and set me carefully behind her withers, and I clutched onto her barding. Every panicked breath stabbed at my side, and I stared straight ahead as we approached the orange lights of campfires.

The same distance Night Cloud had crossed in twenty minutes of galloping and jumping and gliding through the hills, she flew over in barely two, beating and slicing through the air with her broad, powerful wings. When at last she neared the fires, she flared her wings out to brake in the roaring air and sent a whirling cloud of dust up from the road. She lifted me off her back mid-air, landed at a canter, her horn flared brightly, and she pushed aside the dust with a bubble of cerulean and trotted through the many tents, straight for the white one at the edge of the campground.

She slowed down, keeping her steps as light as possible, and nodded to the armored guards at each corner of the tent. I glanced at Eagle and Zephyr’s tent, and then Night Cloud slinked through the opening and the white flap closed behind us.

A bright yellow-white light filled the tent as Night Cloud set me on her woven bedding mat and lay down beside me.

-Just sit still for a moment, sweetheart. This won’t take long.-

“No problem,” I mumbled, breathing as shallowly as I could and trying not to sob.

Something metal and heavy landed on the dirt on Night Cloud’s other side, and I glimpsed a pair of transparent tubes filled with purple and white fluid coming from the tops of two cylinders. Next came the whirr of an electric motor spinning up. I stretched my neck forward to peer around her, and Ivy looked back at me from the opposite side of the tent, her lips drawn tight.

“What happened?”

I yelped as a stabbing pain came from my hind leg, near my hip, and Night Cloud held me still with her magic. The sharp pinch was the final push that made me quietly whimper and cry.

“Intramuscular contusion of the left superficial gluteal, biceps femoris, and tensor facia lata, possible contusion of the femur and ilium, fractured rib.” I winced as her magic spread over my side, putting slight pressure on my coat. Her voice hitched. “Two… three fractured ribs. Crystal, is it any harder to breathe now?”

“No, just—hurts.”

She ducked her head and held her ear over my ribs. “Is the pain any worse? Does your chest feel tight, especially on this side?”

“No, it—no. No.” She held her head still while I breathed for a few seconds. An intense, bone-deep tingling had spread up my leg from my stifle. “What—what are you…”

-Quiet, filly. She’s listening for wheezing.-

Ivy stood up and stepped across to us, looking over Night Cloud from head to tail. I gritted my teeth and bit back a whine as Night Cloud pulled her ear away and stuck the large syringe needle into my side at a sharp angle. The same tingling started around my rib.

“You fell on her.” Ivy wrapped her golden magic around Night Cloud’s right foreleg, lifting it up at an awkward angle. She splashed the dirty, bloody spot below Night Cloud’s knee with water and began to scrub it clean with a white brush and foaming soap.

“Yes,” muttered Night Cloud.

“And disturbed a napping snake, looks like.”

“Yes, Ivy,” she said, gritting her teeth. “I stepped in a burrow, a snake bit me, and I fell on her.”

“Does the bite hurt?”

“Very much,” said Night Cloud, moving the injector to my shoulder; I flinched as the needle stabbed into my hide, deep into my muscle. “It was only an adder. I’ll be fine.”

“And I’d like to know for certain, Nubiála,” said Ivy, tying a bandage around the bite. “Show me where it happened.”

Night Cloud closed her eyes for a moment, and Ivy wordlessly stood and left the tent.

I sighed and laid my head on the mat as the weakness in my legs and the stabbing from my ribs began to fade, but a deep ache remained under the partial numbness. Night Cloud withdrew the stinging syringe from my shoulder; the thick needle remained coated with blood. She floated it out of sight on her left, and there was a sound of swishing water, followed by a click and metallic rattling.

Then, she prepared another dose out of sight. The motorized mixer whirred for ten seconds again, and she floated the injector down to her leg with a fresh needle and clear ampule a quarter-full of milky purple potion. She pushed the hypodermic into her leg near her elbow and winced as she slowly depressed the plunger.

“That’s a friggin’ huge needle,” I mumbled, sniffling. She nodded, meeting my gaze with a tight grin. “But I, um… I don’t hurt so bad now…”

“Good,” whispered Night Cloud. She pulled the blanket over me and ducked her head down to nuzzle my cheek, then pulled the syringe free, dispensed the needle, and finally stowed the empty injector at the top of the canister basket. “The injection dulls the pain right away, but it takes longer to repair tissue damage completely, so please lie still, okay? I’ll be right back, sweetheart.”

She tugged off her white caparison and tossed it in the tent corner behind me, revealing her gleaming suit of armor and the padded, pearlescent garment under it, then limped outside on three legs.

I peered at her saddlebags and pack harness at the back of the tent, at the wire-frame carrier basket that held the two cylindrical, brushed steel canisters of healing potion, as well as several small storage boxes built into the basket. Bright yellow and red warning labels ran the lengths of each canister; one had a circular purple cap and nozzle, the other a white square cap, and a clear plastic tube ran from each nozzle into a protective box on the storage basket.

I groaned and laid my head on the pillow, and I waited.

Within ten minutes, Night Cloud walked back through the flap, favoring her bandaged leg and having stripped off her barding. She levitated me off the mat and lay down, then tucked me in against her side, under her wing, and pulled the blanket over us both.

“I’m sorry I hurt you… I should have paid more attention.”

“Not your fault there was a hole in the ground,” I mumbled.

“Well, it was my responsibility to take care of you.” She nuzzled the side of my neck, and I stiffened. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yeah—ummmm…” I nodded. “Yeah. Comfy. Warm. Sore, but—”

“It might be a few hours before that goes away.”

“Right. Um… it’s, um… it’s not so bad, while I’m just lying here.” I breathed deeply, and tentatively nuzzled her shoulder. “Did Ivy, um… find out what kind of snake it was?”

“A common adder, as I thought… their bites are painful, but hardly dangerous for a pony. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me, sweetheart. Go back to sleep. It’s nearly another hour until sunrise.”

“Right,” I mumbled. I swallowed and nestled my head by her foreleg once again. My hind leg, ribs, and shoulder continued to tingle. I wiped my eyes with the blanket and whispered, “Do you, um… are you going to tell Eagle and Zephyr about this?”

Night Cloud lifted her head to stare down at me. “Sweetheart, they’re your guardians. Of course I’m going to—”

I grabbed onto her foreleg tightly. “Don’t!” I whispered, “Please don’t. Please! If you tell Zephyr, she’ll freak out, and she’ll blame you, and—and…” I scrambled out from under her wing and stood up to hug her around the neck. “Just don’t. It’s not your fault! It’s not! Please don’t tell them. You—you healed me already, so I’m fine! You don’t need to tell them. Please, please don’t… it’s not your fault…”

“Shhhh, sweetheart, shhhh…” She lowered her head across my shoulder and murmured, “Crystal, it doesn’t matter who is to blame, or whether there is anyone to blame at all… I can’t lie about this.” She rubbed my back and murmured, “Please, don’t ask me to do that… I don’t like lying. Not even for my friends.”

I stomped my hind leg—and the jarring pain that shot through my stifle caused me to collapse and sit on my haunches.

“Be careful… you’re not healed yet, you’re healing. There’s a difference.” She sighed, shaking her head. “My leg hurts. You will barely be able to walk for the next six hours… never mind what I would tell them—you can’t hide that. It would be silly to try.”

I grunted and stood up again on trembling legs, glaring at her through tears. “Zephyr’s right,” I muttered, “You are oblivious.” I stepped forward to kiss her cheek, nuzzled her neck, then shuffled around and lay down as close to her as I could. “Thanks for healing me.”

Night Cloud clutched me with her wonderfully warm wing. I glanced up to find that she had frozen, staring into space as if I still stood in front of her. She abruptly looked down at me, mouth hanging slightly open.

I squeezed my eyes shut and set my hoof on her leg once again. Nearly a minute later, a brush tugged between my ears and ran down my neck, then again, and again. Night Cloud sighed beside me, and the weight of her head and neck settled on the pillow.

“I… I am sorry, Crystal.” A blur of cerulean light wiped my tears away, and I blinked at the blood bay and cobalt snout and the two electric blue eyes looking back at me. “I suppose that I don’t… notice some things… as well as other ponies do…”

I scowled and mumbled, “That’s what you say?”

Her ears flicked back, and she whispered, “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t friggin’ know…”

“Well…” Smiling, she brushed her nose along my snout and murmured, “I don’t know what to say, either, sweetheart…”

I sniffed and leaned into her nuzzling. “I kind of thought that, um… I thought you might…” Sighing, I muttered, “I don’t know what I thought.”

“And I can’t read your mind, Crystal… a telepathic coupling doesn’t let me do that. I can hear what you say to me, not what you don’t. And… the same thing applies to—to everything about you. I can… infer things, but… I’m really not any good at that. I never have been.”

For a moment, she looked down and grasped my hoof with a gentle field of cerulean blue. “I… I am confident now that I understand what you… haven’t been saying to me, but I only met you the day before yesterday. I’m sorry if I’m a little slow to solve a puzzle.”

I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Fine. Don’t like puzzles, anyway.” I raised my head and telekinetically nudged her snout down, then kissed her on the lips. She gasped and dropped her brush on my back, and after lingering for a few seconds, I leaned away from her.

“Night Cloud,” I said softly, voice wavering, “You’re friggin’ smart, and nice, and you’ve been really awesome and generous to me, and… and you’re beautiful, and amazing, and I—I like you. I really, really like you. I mean it, and—and I don’t know how I can make that any more obvious.”

Night Cloud giggled, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. Then she grinned and giggled again. “Crystal… um… sweetheart, forgive me, please, if I have failed to notice the obvious… I don’t mean to, I promise you. And… please, keep in mind that what is obvious to you…”

She retrieved her brush from where it had bounced to the dirt, shook it off, and resumed tugging it through my mane. “Well, it may not always be as obvious to another pony. So, thank you for saying it plainly. And… before I say anything else, I really must clarify something.”

“What?”

“Whether it was an accident or not… I injured you. And even if you will be perfectly healthy by this time tomorrow, I still have a duty to tell Eagle and Zephyr. I cannot hide this from them. That is against my obligation as a healer, as a protector.”

I nodded. “Okay… and?”

She tugged her brush through my mane a final time and set it down. “And… and, sweetheart, I realize now why you don’t want me to tell them. You’re afraid that they would… separate you from me, forbid you from being around me…” She swallowed and said, “Because they might believe that I’m a danger to you. Does that sound right?”

I bumped my shoulder into hers. “What do you think? Yes. Yes. Exactly that… I don’t want them to blame you… you—you’re older than I am, so you’re the more responsible one, and… they’ll blame you.”

“Well…” She nodded. “That may be true… but if I am the more responsible pony in this scenario, then ask yourself this, Crystal: Which do you think is the worse option? Being honest, admitting that I hurt you, and that I treated your injuries immediately, to the best of my ability… or pretending that nothing happened, lying by omission, and waiting for Ivy to tell them, instead? One of those is taking responsibility; the other is avoiding it.”

Night Cloud gently squeezed her wing around me and said in my ear, “I guarantee you, if Ivy tells them, we’ll both look like irresponsible foals.”

“Okay, fine… I’ll tell Zephyr, and Eagle… when they wake up.” I laid my head on her shoulder and stared at her eyes, and her attentive ears and long black mane. She stared back at me, smiling. “You, um… you’re not mad, are you? About me, um… kissing you?”

“What?” She shook her head, frowning, and rubbed my back with her wing. “No, no, no, sweetheart… I’m… well, I’m a little surprised, but… I’m—I’m not angry, no.” The frown slowly became a calm smile again, and she stretched her neck out and shook her head. She laid back on the pillow again, glancing at me with one eye from a more comfortable posture. “I think, um… I need some time to think about it, Crystal, but… it was nice. It was… it was very nice, and… sincere, and… and I’m flattered.”

“Well…” I nuzzled her shoulder. On one side of my face was the cold desert air, and on the other was warm fur and a hint of lilac. “I’m glad.”

Zephyr stared at me across her breakfast of roasted carrots and radishes, on the verge of either screaming or crying. She nodded once and wiped her eyes with her good wing.

“Okay.”

Night Cloud squeezed my side, and I swallowed. “Um… ‘okay’? That’s… that’s it?”

“Crystal,” said Zephyr, “I’d like to think I’m not stupid, at the very least, so I hope I’m right in thinking that tearing you away from her right now—or trying—would be pointlessly cruel… not to mention really fucking stupid.”

She pointed her wingtip from me to Night Cloud. “She chose to look for you. She chose to fly off to that deathtrap in the desert and search for you when we thought you were dead… she chose to believe that you were still alive. She gave you a chance. We don’t have many friends out here, but she’s probably the best one you could possibly have.”

She nodded again. “So… yeah. Okay. That’s it. I’m pissed that you were hurt, not pissed at you—or you, Night Cloud. Thanks for coming clean about it, thanks for taking care of her… and please don’t run off alone with her again, for any reason—if you do, then I’ll be pissed at you.”

Night Cloud bowed her head toward them. “I understand.”

“Good. Great.” Zephyr bit off half of a roasted carrot, and Eagle crossed his neck over hers.

“Um…” I glanced up at Night Cloud. “Eagle?”

“What?” He winked at me. “You really think I could say it any better?”

Zephyr snorted, pointing at Night Cloud. “Show me a pony more qualified to pull you out of a tight spot,” she said around a mouthful of carrot, “Right now, do it. Anyone? That’s right, you can’t. She’s a paramedic.”

Night Cloud tapped her hoof on the ground next to me, saying, “I’m not certified for emergency responder duty, but—”

“But big fucking deal. Semantics. You carry around a pack full of actual, working healing potions and you clearly know what to do with them, certified or not.”

“She makes me so proud!” An enormous purple wing draped over both of us, and Blitz nuzzled Night Cloud. “I had absolutely nothing to do with her talent or training or dedication or everything else that makes me proud, bu-u-u-ut I’m still proud of her.”

Night Cloud sighed and muttered, “I’m not a certified paramedic, Blitz. It’s an important distinction.”

“Cloudy, honey, it was an emergency and you were the most qualified pony around.” Blitz nuzzled her between the ears, then ducked her head to do the same to me. “You stayed calm,” she murmured, “You did your duty, and now you’re both on bed rest until lunchtime. It could have been a lot worse.”

“I can walk, you know.”

“But you shouldn’t.” Night Cloud carried me in a cerulean haze to the mostly empty wagon at the end of the caravan and set me inside on a padded canvas mat. The other wagons had begun to roll and rumble along the road. “Not for at least four hours, sweetheart—six would be better.”

I rolled my eyes as she stepped back from the wagon. The sunrise lit the hilltop to my left, but Night Cloud stood in shadow, favoring her foreleg. “Well, then you’re not jumping.” I wrapped her with emerald and slowly, tenuously levitated her; she gasped and laughed at me as I brought her gliding into the wagon. The nimbus of green hugging her form wavered and spiked around the edges.

My field collapsed, and Night Cloud landed on her good legs, rocking the wagon on its suspension springs. She carefully spun around, taking care not to catch her horn on the canvas roof—or come too close to me.

“I didn’t realize you were quite that strong,” she murmured, lying down gingerly. I took a shaky breath and lay next to her, and she glanced down at me. “Um… you might not want to be so close once the sun is high.”

“Well, it’s cold right now, so until it’s warmer, I’m staying right here.”

She giggled and pulled a thick, broad book out of her saddlebags. “All right, then.” She opened to a page about a three-quarters into the book and kept her horn lit with blue.

“Night Cloud? Crystal?” Blitz walked around the back of the wagon, ears flicking. Two rose eyes found us. “Oh. Well, I was going to help you up. Never mind.” She whistled sharply and raised her wing off to the side, and the wagon lurched forward.

“Crystal gave me a lift,” said Night Cloud.

“Uh-huh… she did, did she?”

“I am just as surprised as you are,” said Night Cloud, patting my back. “She’s much stronger than I would have guessed.”

“I told you,” I muttered, “Mass isn’t a problem. You’re just really big. Makes it way harder to focus my magic.”

Blitz smirked and muttered, “Seems like it’d be hard for you to focus even if she weren’t.”

“To the contrary,” said Night Cloud, “If she has a steep volume curve, that would mean she has greater control and strength as her field envelope shrinks, but it would rapidly fall off as the envelope expands. Exhaustion would exacerbate that difficulty; she nearly burned out, evening before last.”

Blitz snickered. I glared at her. “Indeed. Well, I need to talk to Ivy.” She winked at me and trotted ahead of the rolling wagon. “Don’t have too much fun with your books, Cloudy.”

I sighed and laid my head on Night Cloud’s shoulder. “What she meant,” I muttered, “Is that I would be distracted either way, because you’re so pretty.”

Night Cloud looked up from the densely-packed page, lips pursed. “Oh.”

Rolling my eyes, I grinned and mumbled, “I mean, you are, um… distracting.”

“Be that as it may…” Once again looking down at her book, she murmured, “I don’t appreciate her teasing you for what you feel about me.”

“Mmm…” I set my hoof on her leg and scooted forward to peer at the text and the greyscale images printed on the glossy paper. I shivered and took a deep breath as I read the title and subheading. “You picked that on purpose.”

“Well—yes, of course I did. I thought you might want to, um… well, I suppose this might be rather advanced for you, if you haven’t had any basic biology lessons, but I thought you’d like to understand what’s going on in your own body now, and… learn how things work during a pregnancy.” She rubbed her wing on my withers and murmured, “I’d rather you know what to expect, than be afraid of the unknown.”

“Um… okay.” I pointed at the first paragraph. “But I don’t know a bunch of these words… I, um—machines, electrothaumics, those are more my thing.”

“Well, sweetheart, I’d be happy to teach you—and besides, you hardly need to know everything at this level to gain a general understanding. The pictures should help.” She turned the page and indicated a grainy image of something round and soft-looking.

“That’s a blastocyst. It’s the first stage of embryonic development after fertilization. It’s a tiny capsule of cells that attaches itself to the uterine lining—that is, the inside of the womb. It’s only a fraction of a millimeter across; and that little blob on the inside is called an embryoblast… which turns into this next one, a developing embryo. At this stage, you can see the basic structure of a body: The head, limbs, some organs… it even has a beating heart.”

I shivered again as Night Cloud’s feathers tickled the side of my belly. I swallowed and said, “Well, um… I—it’s been, um… about two and a half months. What stage is that?”

“Well, this one here is an ultrasonography image taken at ninety days… so yours would be close to that. Very small.”

“Ultrasonography… sound. High frequency sound… imaging?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“How does that work?”

“You’d have to ask someone else about that one… I know what it does, but I haven’t the slightest idea how you get an image out of it…”

I glanced up from my drawing on the back of one of diary pages as a white pegasus flew low over the canvas roof, then landed between Eagle and Blitz, five meters behind the wagon. Her bright green and white mane shone in the morning sun, and her nostrils flared with her breaths. She wore a tinted visor on her helmet and a tan, cloth mask over her snout and ears.

“Who is that?” I murmured. “I saw her talking to Blitz last night…”

“Hmm?” Night Cloud looked up, blinking. “Oh, that’s Ivory Point. She’s Blitz’s personal courier—well, courier, errand-runner, attendant… technically one of her guards.”

Ivory Point opened the small pack on her breast, and Blitz levitated a sheaf of papers out from it. The petite white mare pushed her tinted visor up, revealing familiar, bright blue eyes.

“I’ve never seen a pony that bright white before… or, um, pink. Even her hooves are sort of pink…”

“That’s because of a rather rare dominant allele that results in a lack of pigment in the skin. Sadly, it makes one more prone to sunburn, especially on the nose and lips, and around the eyes. She wears that mask when it’s sunny, since she spends so much time flying.”

Ivory Point looked briefly at us instead of at Blitz, and I lifted my hoof in a wave. “She’s pretty hot.”

Night Cloud inclined her head toward the white mare, chortling. Ivory Point raised her wing halfway. “She is rather striking, yes… and she’s one of the fastest fliers in the kingdom.”

“With wings like that?” I giggled and bit my tongue. “Yeah, I bet.”

“Oh.” She murmured in my ear, “So you have a thing for wings, do you?”

“I’ve wanted wings all my life, Night Cloud,” I said, looking up at her. “What do you think?” I nudged her ribs and whispered, “Yours are way better.”

Night Cloud patted my back and said in my ear, “She can read lips, by the way.”

I laughed and muttered through my teeth, “Wait, really?”

“Mmm-hmm. It’s a useful skill for a messenger, sweetheart.”

Ivory Point winked at me and pulled her visor down again, then trotted ahead of Blitz and Eagle to spread her wings and leap skyward in a streak of snowy white and green.

“Well,” said Night Cloud, stretching her neck, “I think I’m ready to try walking. You’re definitely not, but if you’d rather I carry you than you stay in here…”

“Um…” I closed my diary on the scale sketch of a suit of barding next to a slightly smaller drawing I’d made of Eagle’s power armor nearly a year before. “Sure.”

She carefully stood up, and rather than jump out, she floated out in a haze of violet. Blitz set her down off to her left, where Ivy stepped aside to make room.

Night Cloud tentatively put weight on her right foreleg, then matched pace with Blitz. She carried me through the air and set me on her bare back.

“Comfortable?”

I hugged her neck from behind. “You’re way comfier without armor in the way.”

Blitz prodded my side with her wing while she read a mouth-written note clipped onto a map, and she muttered, “You two… are disgustingly sweet. You know that, right? Cavity-inducing.”

“Well, then perhaps you should see a dentist.” Night Cloud leaned her head over to peer at the map; Blitz lowered it slightly in her violet field. “What’s going on at the fringe?”

“Reports of a few attacks in the Leota from last week. Large group of ponies, forty or fifty—supposedly—moving northeast through the forest. Hasn’t been any concrete evidence so far, just word-of-mouth, but a couple individuals have corroborated the same things…” Blitz sighed and muttered, “Sounds like a new gang strutting around town, to me… make a show of power, knock the others down a peg and seize control…”

She tucked the map behind the other papers and said, “Who knows? Maybe the Lapizani will have a new chief next week. Can’t exactly send the Guard in to investigate; they seem to take offense at my so much as looking at them, never mind trying to butt in on their affairs… damned touchy bunch.”

“Your great-grandfather was content to leave them be,” said Ivy, “As should be his descendants.”

“I just wish they would tell me why they hate my guts.”

“They’re anarchists, Blizziera. They don’t hate you, merely that terrible thing which you represent.”

Nickering, Blitz said, “Oh, yes, so terrible am I, so terrible is a speck of law and civility…”

Eagle said from the enormous purple mare’s other side, “Let me guess: They don’t like someone else running the show?”

“Put simply.” Blitz tossed her head to the sky and groaned. “Oh yes, taxes are a terrible thing. Public roads are a terrible thing. Electricity is a terrible thing.”

She sighed and brushed her violet magic along my snout, then between my ears and down my neck. I giggled at the tickling sensation on my withers, and the slight pressure halted. I twisted around to peer at the glow of violet over the small black plate behind my withers.

Blitz stroked between my ears again and said, “Hospitals and emergency services and vaccines are such egregious trespasses… but those beyond our borders have the right to stay beyond them, as they wish. Never mind their reasons.” She sighed and muttered, “And Tartarus take me should I be the one to trespass against them.”

“Is that a, ah, common sentiment?” said Eagle.

“What, anarchism?” said Blitz, looking to her right. “Depends on whom you ask… the Lapizani used to be twenty or so different clans. Now they’re maybe a dozen, so presumably they agree with each other more these days. They still don’t want to join an actual treaty with us—but hey, they’ve never picked a fight, so as long as they mind their business, we mind ours. Mutual respect, border stays nice and quiet. Goods and ponies flow regardless. It worked for great-great-great-grandpa, it works for little brother, and it works for me.”

“Corio had the distinction,” said Ivy, “Of being diplomatic. If the Leota tribes are less adversarial today than they were then, it is only because those eldest among them who would carry any grievances are long dead. Corio spent much of his reign building bridges… whereas his predecessor preferred to burn them.”

“Sounds like a pleasant pony,” muttered Zephyr.

“She did what she believed was right,” said Blitz, “To protect the ponies she loved… but diplomacy only works when both sides come to the table, and back then, all those tribes blamed Equestria for what happened.”

“What,” said Zephyr, “Not the Zebras? They blew up Cloudsdale first. Why blame Equestria?”

“They blamed Equestria,” said Ivy, “Because Equestria and the Zebra Empire were equally culpable for a war that none outside their borders wanted to fight.” Ivy closed her eyes for a moment while she strode alongside Night Cloud and me, and she said, “Whatever your Enclave may have taught you of our history, know this: It doesn’t matter who struck the first blow, or the last. Neither pony nor zebra had courage enough to admit fault, raise a flag of peace, and strike a compromise… the rest of the world suffered for it.”

“The Enclave paints the picture they want you to see,” said Eagle. “And they don’t have a ton of history books to spare. They’ve been writing their own version of things for so long, some of them have forgotten what really happened. Anything to maintain the status quo, keep control… would you believe they call Rainbow Dash a traitor, for what she did?”

“Eagle Plume,” said Ivy, “If it meant anything in the slightest to anyone else alive, I would call Celestia a traitor to all of ponykind for her cowardice, and Luna for her arrogance. I count it a blessing that they both died in Canterlot.”

“Okay,” said Zephyr, “Touchy subject. Sorry we brought it up.”

A great purple wing stretched over me and touched Ivy on the withers. “Easy, Ivy,” murmured Blitz. Ivy closed her eyes again, walking on in silence.

I gently squeezed Night Cloud’s neck and nuzzled her. -She really is from way back then… isn’t she?-

Night Cloud stroked her magic behind my ears, and glanced at Blitz as the larger mare pulled her wing back to her side. -Yes, she really is… she isn’t usually this, um… incensed. She doesn’t usually talk much at all, particularly not about anything from back then.-

“As I always understood it,” said Eagle, drawing the attention of Ivy’s flicking ear, “Princess Celestia abdicated after the Littlehorn Massacre. Then Luna created the Ministries… and the zebras refused to negotiate with her because they believed she and Nightmare Moon were one and the same.”

“More or less,” said Ivy. Scowling, she ruffled her wings again and said, “Luna’s Ministries were a machine of war… any tool can be misused, but the Ministries were built from the outset for the sole purpose of victory. That was Luna’s greatest failing: She would accept nothing else.”

“Almost anyone else would have had a better chance to negotiate an armistice—even one of the heads of the Ministries would have been a saner choice. Luna was too proud… too obsessed with proving that she could win, proving that she could stand on equal ground with Celestia, lead Equestria as well as the mare who had a thousand years of experience more than her.”

“Well, she led Equestria, all right—straight to Tartarus. The zebras believed a demon from the stars wore the crown, and Luna proved them right…” She looked aside at us. “Did you know that we didn’t even need coal by the end of the war? Even in Appleloosa, we had other power sources. Wind engines and solar converters—”

“Heliostats!” I said, “We had tons of those at Cloud Loft, and they’re all over Neighvarro!”

“All developed after the war had begun, because our supply of fuel from the zebras had become tenuous. The thermoaetheric converters in those heliostats came from the Ministry of Arcane Science.”

“And just like that…” Ivy raised her wing toward the sun, throwing her head into shadow. “We hardly needed coal anymore. All the infrastructure didn’t appear overnight, and it certainly wasn’t perfect…” She lowered her wing and murmured, “The very squabble that started it all, wholly obviated by scientific progress—merely a byproduct of our mutual march toward oblivion… and then, overnight, it was all erased. Wiped off the map.”

I shuddered and laid my cheek on Night Cloud’s neck, staring at the mare to my left. “What was it like?”

Ivy’s ear flicked toward me, and she closed her eyes. “I was about thirty kilometers south of town, on a hill, when the missile hit the solar farm… there was a flash of light behind me, many times brighter than the sun… even looking away, my eyes stung. It burned my skin for a moment, like the heat you feel on your belly when you jump over a fire… so I hid behind the hilltop, in the shadows. Then the light turned green, dimmed.”

“When I looked, there was a pillar of fire where the solar array used to be, green fire… and a roiling ball of smoke on top, bigger than all of Appleloosa… every building facing the farm was on fire, even six kilometers away. It was strange to see, really: The blast plume was green, but it was the initial infrared emission that set the buildings on fire, so for a moment, there was this giant green twister in the desert, and all the red spots around it… then the shockwave flattened the entire town. It reached me about a minute and a half later, just a huge bang…”

She looked at me again and touched my back with her wingtip. “Then I put my son on my back, just like this… and I ran for the mountains.”

14 Spring’s Waking 1741

I met some really cool ponies this week on the way to Bellenast.

Carbide. I still don’t know exactly what you are, but you’re awesome. Thanks again for saving my life.

Princess Blizziera, aka Blitz. She seems nice, and pretty cool. Gorgeous wings and legs that could kick you to the moon. Her mane floats and glows a little, and she’s ten times my size, easy. Biggest pony I’ve ever seen. She carried me for a while today to give Night Cloud a break. It’s like sitting on a big warm cushion. Even though her mane looks like purple plasma, I can still brush it.

Lady Ivaline, aka Ivy, Blitz’s advisor. Probably the oldest pony alive (however the alicorn immortality thing works), and definitely the oldest pony I’ve ever met. She doesn’t look old at all, but the way she talks about old history stuff, I can believe it.

Night Cloud (Ivy calls her Nubiála sometimes?). She’s a doctor-in-training. She fell on me this morning and broke some of my ribs, and that really sucked, but she gave me healing potions straight away. She made a big deal about telling Eagle and Zephyr, even though I wanted to hide it. Being honest is really important to her. Reminds me of Coil Blur.

I kissed her and she didn’t freak out! Or maybe she did freak out, but it was just quiet. I can’t tell. We spent most of the morning together waiting for the healing potions to finish. I’m still sore, but I can walk again. She tried to teach me how pregnancy works with a textbook. That was super awkward at first, but she says she wants me to understand it, not be scared of it. I think she really means that. She’s way better at explaining things than Professor, but she’s still so much smarter than me she has to dumb everything down. She must be used to doing that.

She’s kind of oblivious about some things in a really weird way I can’t explain. She is also the most beautiful mare in the world.

I think I’m in love.

5. Visage

View Online

Chapter Five

Visage

The gentle, distant rumble of moving water and pattering rain on the tent’s roof nearly overwhelmed the crackling of a fire outside, and once again a protective wing and foreleg shielded me from the nightly cold beneath a blanket. Slow breaths blew on my ears, and a pillow lay beneath my head, plusher and more comfortable than anything I’d ever had at Cloud Loft or Neighvarro.

Night Cloud scarcely stirred as I lifted her leg off me, crawled from under her wing, and stepped off the padded mat as lightly as I could on stiff, aching legs. I tugged the blanket up to her neck again and backed away, staring at her in the minimal firelight.

I shivered and exited the tent, looking left and right at the quiet camp.

-Blitz can show you to the latrine. She’s straight east, near the river.-

I spun around to catch Ivy watching from her own mat at the rear of the tent.

-Breakfast’s in two hours.-

-Um… thanks.-

-No exploring this time.- She tilted her head toward Night Cloud. -Consider it a favor to her, and the rest of us.-

I nodded to her, and trotted west, drawing the brief attention of a bay-coated stallion in tan barding and caparison standing guard at the corner of the tent. I stopped a couple meters in front of him to look. He wore a battle saddle with a sleek machine gun connected to a rounded rectangular ammo drum on his back, and a helmet with a clear visor across his eyes and cloth covers for his ears. Three golden, circular studs stood out in a triangle on the center of his peytral.

It was a simpler and vastly more economical version of Night Cloud’s coat of plates; perhaps even mass-produced, matched with a short caparison to make a uniform, and fitted with rails and fixed structural points to which the battle saddle attached. Reinforced cables wound from the back of the helmet, under a cover on the crinet, and into a battery and motor hub behind the stallion’s withers, and the gun rested at a sharp angle, aimed purposefully at the ground on its stabilizing mount.

Another stallion stood guard at the rear corner of the tent, facing south, and a unicorn mare at the opposite, front corner. One of her ears flicked toward me. The sleekly armored boots on her hooves gleamed in the firelight.

A metallic clink came from closer to me. Wellspring tapped his boot on the lowered gun barrel, smiling down at me, and whispered, “Maybe when you’re older.”

I snorted and looked down at his boots; the thin steel plating covered only the front of his cannon and hoof. “I built an aetheric plasma cannon. Top that.” Mouth suddenly dry, I broke into a trot and made my way west through the surrounding tents.

I found Blitz walking along a ridge, clad in a stone-grey caparison that covered her legs, and looked almost like a dress. Her mane and tail glowed dimly and drifted in the air behind her, and I had a strong urge to give her a proper brushing.

She turned to me in the early morning gloom and waved her wing. -Good morning, Crystal. You look a little stiff; sleep well?-

-Yeah, I’m just sore. Where’s the latrine?-

She chortled, levitated me the final few meters, and set me on her back. -Opposite side of the camp, actually.- She pulled a small blanket out of her saddlebags and draped it over me, then pivoted and broke into a smooth trot, covering ground casually at a pace twice that of my fastest gallop.

-My father used to carry me like this… doubt he’d recognize me now. Bigger than the biggest stallions, and I’m not even the same color anymore.-

-Because of, um… that potion, right? The one that made you an alicorn?-

-Yes.-

She passed by the outer tents and crossed the entire camp in a matter of seconds, and her hooves thudded briefly on the packed dirt of a road before carrying us down a slight incline to an immense boulder rising five or six meters into the dark. It must have been a thousand tons or more.

-What color were you before?-

-Sable, like my mother… well, it was sort of purplish sable, so really, I’m just a bit more intense purple now. Whatever. Here we go, just around this rock.-

She set me down near the boulder, and a lamp staked into the dirt lit up yellow-white as she waved her wing in front of it. A small spark cell was held to the stake with a wire wrapped twice around it.

-Watch your step. And, uh, might want to hold your breath. Kick some dirt over when—

-Blitz, I know what a latrine is. I’ve been on the ground near Cloud Loft plenty of times. We didn’t exactly have great plumbing.-

-Right, fair.-

I took her breathing advice as I trotted around the boulder, and another staked lamp lit up on the far side, revealing a shallow ditch recently dug in the earth. I vacated the second lamp’s malodorous premises as quickly as possible.

-So, what color was Night Cloud? Red, like that part around her nose?-

-Yep, blood bay, the Palomino tribes call it, and she had the cutest black socks. A pity those disappeared after the spell. The transformation, ah… it follows a template of sorts, but sometimes it misses a spot here and there. I wish I could have kept her wholly as she was, but… ah, well. Nothing to be done about it now.-

I grinned as Blitz lifted me onto her back again and started back for the camp. -Well, she’s still friggin’ drop-dead-gorgeous—I mean, I um…-

-Oh, I know exactly what you mean.- Blitz glanced back at me, slowing as she turned away from the tents and toward the rise near the river where I’d found her. -She tells me you kissed her yesterday. And said some things that made quite an impression on her… and she thinks you’re very brave for doing it.-

-You’re, um… you’re not mad, are you?-

She let out deep, gentle chuckle. -Relax, kiddo. I only adopted her, and she was already an adult when I did; she’s her own mare. Whatever she decides about you is her business, not mine. That said… please keep in mind, she needs time to process things; one of those things being you. I imagine she’s fine with some snuggling, but no more ambush smooching, all right? You ask her first, from now on; you look at her, and see if she wants that. I understand why you did it the first time. I’ve been there—but do any more of that without her say-so… and we may have a problem.-

I sighed and tapped my hoof on her back. -I get it. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.-

-It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize to me, and based on what she told me, I doubt she wants an apology, either… just do as I ask, please. Respect her boundaries. Got that, young filly?-

I nodded. -Yes, Ma’am.-

-Thank you. Good talk.-

She stopped at the top of the rise, and we looked out at the rumbling water beyond it. My breath caught in my throat. I clutched onto her shoulders tightly and jerked my head away from the steep drop-off. The opposite shore was at least a hundred meters distant.

-That’s… a really big river.-

-We have another month until the rainy season begins. The Stonewalk will grow wider yet.-

Far beyond the opposite shoreline, the cultivated plains seemed to stretch farther than they should, for the hills sloped gently toward an indistinct, looming band of darkness rising from the earth. A few gaps in the distant cloud cover revealed the snowcapped mountains and woodlands. To the northwest, the dark earth grew pale and grey above the tree line.

I twisted to my right and squinted at the dull hills to the east. Their craggy ridges stretched slightly west of due north. -Where does the river start?-

-Just north of Compass Lake, in the mountains.- Blitz glanced back at me again as she turned away from the ridge and strode lightly along a path between the tents. -Bellenast is built on its south shore. Feeds the whole valley. It’s hard to tell at night, but you’ll see all the green for yourself come sunrise. The mountains, too… no matter how many times I see them, they’re still beautiful.-

-I like mountains.-

-You might not like them so much if you were stuck outside on one. Or in the Forest of Leota.-

Is it dangerous there?-

-Sometimes. The Leota is uncontrolled territory. Rather, it is under the control of independent clans. Some small gangs, some bigger tribes, anarchists, vigilantes… not to mention wild beasts. Manticores, bone wyrms, chimaeras, all manner of vile things.-

Blitz looked back at me. She sighed and stroked a glowing mote of telekinesis along my chin. -Crystal… Bellenast is a wonderful city. Not perfect… I’ve seen that for myself, but still… soon, you’ll have your own room again, a nice, soft bed, plentiful food, and clean water, free of radiation… all the amenities you had at Cloud Loft and far more, I’d wager. We have the Guard; we take care of our own. You won’t need to worry about—about being shot, or being eaten by flying serpents every time you step out your front door. -

-Thanks for that lovely mental image.- I shuddered. -So… um… do you think there’s a place Eagle and I could start working?-

-Maybe. He could be a contractor for the city, I suppose, or the Guard. His knowledge of armor and armament is similar in scope to yours, correct? Machine repair, electrical stuff?-

Um… kind of. There’s a lot of overlap with ‘electrical stuff’ and electrothaumics. Why?-

-Well… the Bellenastian Guard has a few of the old power armor suits from the Compass Lake tower station, and some arcane cannons, as well. We keep the suits around for emergencies, but most of the guns have been retired. They’re costly to operate and difficult to repair in the field. Not really worth the effort most of the time. Eagle might need to branch out.-

-Well, he could be an electrician, sort of. Or maybe a teacher. He’s great at math. He taught me a lot, way better than school at Neighvarro did.-

-An electrician, huh? What level of ‘sort of’ are we talking about, here?-

-He designed the control systems for my shielding talismans. Oh, and he made his plasma cannon failsafes, like the emergency shutoff and cooling controllers. Wired them all himself. And he did a lot of the repair work on the generators and heliostats at Cloud Loft, and the power lines inside.-

-Interesting. I can think of a few places he could work. Heliostats, you say?-

-Yeah. For the terrace gardens, and heating, lighting. They’re really cool!-

-That kind of expertise would practically guarantee him a job for the city.- Blitz smirked and faced forward again. Zephyr’s wings need time to heal, though, so she’ll be ground-bound for a while longer. What did she do at Cloud Loft?-

-She’s a cosmetologist.-

-Hmm.- Blitz’s wings shifted slightly, and the mare glanced over her shoulder again. Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is that? I know I’ve heard the term before, but the meaning eludes me.-

Blinking, I toyed with her mane with a forehoof. -You know, a stylist? Beautician? She does makeovers.-

-Ah! That.-

-Yeah, mane trimming, styling, coat cleaning and trimming, hoof filing, the works. A few ponies at Cloud Loft made all her supplies, too. Have you ever used potash soap?-

-I have, as a matter of fact. She and Night Cloud ought to get along well.- She winked. -I might be able to help her get a job at the Palace, or one of the salons in the city. Royalty—and publicity—have their perks.-

I grinned. -So, why didn’t you tell us who you really were straight away… Princess Blizziera?-

-I did. Remember? Hello! I’m Blitz. I’m freakishly tall, I enjoy frequenting bars, fine restaurants, and the occasional brothel, I have a penchant for kicking things, I love books and guns, and I am a firm believer of the art of superior firepower.-

-You know what I mean.-

-Yes, yes.- She sighed and, lifting her foreleg up in front of her chest, struck a dramatic pose. -Woe is me, for my carefully planned surprise is ruined.- She tossed her drifting mane over her shoulder. -So much for that idea.- She spun about and started down the hill, cantering away from the river and back toward the campground. -And please, don’t call me ‘Blizziera.’ My mother calls me that. And Ivy.-

I giggled as her faintly luminescent mane flowed over me in the rushing air and trailed across my back, tickling me. -So you think I wasn’t surprised?-

-Okay, granted, the look on your face was pretty good, but not nearly as good as it would have been had I shown you to the throne room, introduced you to the King, and said, ‘Meet my little brother.’-

She slowed to an easy walk as she entered the camp, taking care not to step on saddlebags or collide with the few armored, patrolling guardsponies, each of whom nodded to her as she passed. I looked down at the sleeping mats and lean-tos and fire pits scattered around the line of loaded wagons at the center of our camp. Next to the white tent twice the size of any other was cream-yellow one.

The swaths of Blitz’s deep violet mane flowed on either side of my head, obscuring my vision and causing my hide to tingle. -Is your mane so… floaty… because it’s magically charged, or something?-

-Sort of. It’s been doing that for about fifteen years now, anytime I’ve sucked up a lot of radiation.- Blitz deviated from her path and opened a sealed box in the back of a nearby wagon. She levitated a thin loaf of bread and a canteen from within the container, and then gave them to me as she resumed walking. -Not first class dining, but it’s fresh from last evening’s batch. I disinfected the canteen for you. Keep it; it’s yours now.-

-Thanks.- I chewed a hearty mouthful of the brittle-crusted bread. -At Cloud Loft Peak, first class dining usually involved something from the valley, like rabbit.-

-You ate rabbits?-

-Um… yeah?- I tensed and clutched her shoulders as a full-body shudder threatened to shake me from her back.

-Yuck.-

-It tastes fine, and it’s a good source of protein.-

-It’s revolting! All slimy and bloody.-

I raised an eyebrow. -What, did you try it raw?-

Blitz shuddered violently again and made a gagging noise. -You have to cook it. It’s inefficient.-

-How does—

She whipped her head around and stared at me. Her rose eyes reflected distant spots of firelight behind us. -You don’t have to cook celery. Radishes. Carrots.-

-Those are great with chicken, and rabbit.-

She groaned softly and shook her head. -This is something you put in your mouth on a regular basis?-

-Not chicken. Eggs are way better. But rabbit? Definitely.-

She stuck her tongue out once more. -For once, I’m going to play the role of dainty royalty and be disgusted. So… what, do the pegasi hunt them, or something?-

-All the time. Eagle brought a boar back from the woods with his hunting party once; it was almost as big as him.-

-Boar… no thanks. What are the woods over there like? Lots of pines?-

-Nothing but pines; they’re really pretty in the winter. They kinda cut out on the western side of the range. I saw a couple rivers when we were flying over here. We had to fly really far south to avoid this really big, irradiated crater. It looked like a giant cyclone system, just sitting over the middle. There was a ton of lightning everywhere.-

-I know the one. Megaspell. Big one, too.-

I sat up on my haunches, kneading my hooves into her withers. -You’ve been there? Near Cloud Loft?-

-I’d have to see it on a map to say for certain, but I don’t think so. I went exploring around the west side of the blast zone a little more than two years ago, while Night Cloud was in school. Wanted to see what the area was like. Supercharged myself on radiation and blew up a few bone worms hiding in one of the ruins. Had a fun time. I had no idea know there was an Enclave presence that far south. I just knew to stay below the cloud curtain or risk being zapped, especially near those towers. Ivy taught me that back in Equestria.-

I laid my head down on her withers again. -That place looked like a huge battleground. There were lots of wrecked gun chariots and transport carriages on the ground outside Cloud Loft’s safe zone.-

-A safe zone?-

-Yeah. Cloud Loft is surrounded by other mountains. It’s in the middle of the range. There are a few hundred square kilometers of fenced-in safe zones in the main valley. Safe as in… not irradiated, mostly, and empty.-

-Ah. I suppose the forests and hills act as buffers to anyone who tries to approach the valley, then?-

-Um… I guess. There are a couple little villages in the hills, really tiny ones, but we never had much contact with them. I don’t think they’ve ever sent anyone to meet us. There aren’t any usable trails up to the entrances, anyway. They were blasted off the mountains a long, long time ago.-

-Ever see any manticores in the woods?-

-Um… no, but Eagle killed one once.-

-Hah! Did he bring that back and roast it for dinner?-

-No; it was way too big. I don’t think anyone would eat that, anyway. Besides, most of our weapons would start fires, so the hunting parties try to go after anything small enough to kill with traps. Birds and rabbits, mostly. We catch salmon from the river sometimes, too. Eagle ran into the manticore while they were going after another boar. The manticore jumped the thing right before Eagle did.-

-Sounds like that was an exciting day.- Blitz laughed quietly, gave me a perplexed smile, and turned back to the river. She levitated a small telescope from her saddlebags and peered at the far shore. -Even out in the deserts, like at Cliffside, we grow wherever we can. The only meat you’ll find in most places is fish.-

-Well, we have to survive somehow, don’t we? Cloud Loft isn’t near an S.P.P. tower, so we have to grow stuff in hydroponic rooms and terraces. That’s what the heliostats are for, putting sunlight inside, keeping those rooms at the right temperature year-round. Sometimes, crops go bad, or an irrigation pipe breaks and floods a terrace, or one of the tracking motors goes out, and then we don’t have as much power until you can fix it… you get the idea. Eagle says nothing too major has happened in the last ten years, but even when everything’s great, we still need more than what we can grow up on the summit. We have to hunt and forage. Quail’s a luxury. Chickens are friggin’ priceless.-

-A quirk in the wasteland, but a delicacy to Enclavers. Interesting. I never thought about it from that perspective… I suppose it’s a minor miracle you three are reasonably well-fed. Another shudder traveled down her back. -But it’s still weird.-

-Have you seen someone eat a snake before? That’s weird.-

-There’s an image I did not want in my head.- Blitz stuck her tongue out. -I can’t stand snakes.-

I stifled a snicker by stuffing my mouth with more bread. -Couldn’t you stomp them to death?-

-Maybe. Unfortunately, phobias tend to preclude rational thought.-

-So you’re afraid of snakes?-

-Depends on the species and proximity of the snake in question. Do they make me squirm? Absolutely. Reptiles freak me out; anything cold-blooded gives me the willies, but snakes are the worst. I happened to step too close to one once, and it bit me before I knew it was there, same as Night Cloud. That thing moved so fast I couldn’t see it. I didn’t feel the bite until after its fangs came out. Imagine something crawling through your veins and trying to shut your body down, and you can’t do anything about it except hope that someone can help you, and you’ll know what the word ‘venom’ instills in me.-

I frowned at my loaf of bread; almost half of it was gone. -When was that?-

-Last spring.- She glanced uneasily at the ground ahead of her. -It was an awful day. Fortunately for me, Ivy recognized the species, and we had an antidote available. Unfortunately for the snake, she trapped it in a sack.

-Why?-

-Antivenom production. She delivered it to my mother’s hospital later that day. Even one snake can help. You milk the snake for venom, inject it into pigs. The pigs develop antibodies to the venom, then those are extracted and purified for use as injections, or transfusions. That’s what we gave Night Cloud yesterday. She probably would have been fine without it, but no sense in taking chances.-

Blitz shivered again and adjusted part of her clothing; something metallic on her neck caught the light from a nearby campfire. -It’s somewhat ironic; balefire radiation and Taint have given rise to all kinds of dangers, but out at the fringes, common animals still account for more injuries than just about anything else.-

-Huh.-

I scooted forward, reached around her neck, and pulled aside the right half of her caparison’s split front. The cloth-of-gold trim of the powder blue blouse underneath it was embroidered with twin rows of white, silk flowers; between the two rows of flowers, tucked under the blouse’s border, was a silver chain necklace. Her necklace’s delicate pendant hung just above a crisscrossing tie of string that held the front of the collar together, and under the collar was a partially concealed belt of black cloth attached to a small, metal ring.

-What’s this?- I prodded the lump under her garment.

Blitz chuckled softly and unfastened the ties on her collar. -See for yourself.-

I lifted the edge of the collar and peered at Blitz’s hidden attire. The bands of silk that encircled the base of her neck joined together five rings of blued steel. Within each ring was a silver disc, and on each disc was a set of grasping, silver talons that held a ruby gemstone. Etched into the each of the silver panels were concentric rings of elegant, flowing script.

-Do you like it?-

“Do I like it?” I whispered. -Blitz, this is gorgeous!-

-My brother had it made for me a few months ago, the last time I was in Bellenast. Unfortunately, I left the city unannounced, so he couldn’t give it to me in person. A month later, he received word of my little misadventure with… uh…-

-What?-

-I had an unexpected growth spurt, courtesy of excessive radiation.-

-Oh… Night Cloud said you asked her not to talk about that.-

-Well, you’ll hear about it in the news eventually, anyway… long story short, I went to a, um… pleasure house, to have some fun, and someone tried to have me assassinated. That, um… well, it scared the piss out of me at first, then it just pissed me off, so… I skipped town, found the most irradiated place I could, sulked for a few days, and let my frustrations out on a bunch of boulders.-

-That sounds… stressful.

-You have no idea. Ivy stayed behind in the city for nearly the entire month to try to convince the courts not to file a warrant for my arrest on account of… um… excessive damages I caused to a certain brothel. Said damages may or may not have involved blowing out a wall… and one case of defenestration.-

-Whatever that is, it sounds dirty.-

Blitz snorted and covered her mouth with her wingtip to muffle a giggle. -No, sweetheart, it means throwing someone through a window, and it is quite cathartic. Anyway… Ivy gave the tailor my new measurements, they adjusted it, then she brought it downriver and delivered it to me at Cliffside. My brother ensorcelled the necklace himself, including the protective ward matrices bound to the rubies. He’s quite the skilled enchanter.-

-Wards? What kind?-

-Um… let’s see… one to interfere with scrying spells, one to prevent telekinesis, except my own, from unlatching the necklace, one to allow me to absorb radiation without excess growth—Ivy asked Mirago and Claraby for that one, specifically; it’s the most complex—one to prevent magic siphoning, and one to… ah… prevent possession, demonic or otherwise.-

I snorted. -Demonic possession? Do demons even exist?-

Blitz shrugged her wings and glanced back at me. -Dunno. Equestria was a wild, dangerous place before the war, never mind what balefire and taint have done since. If you ask me, any demon with half a brain is probably hiding far away from ponykind.- She looked ahead again and telekinetically adjusted her rifle’s position on her side. -Mirago insisted on it. If I run into a demon someday, and it tries to possess me, I guess I’ll be thankful.-

I let go of the collar and rubbed my hoof over the hydrophobic material of her cloak. -Well, it really is pretty… and you’re friggin’ gorgeous, I hope you know that.-

-Um… thanks.- Blitz fell silent for several seconds; she glanced back at me as I finished the loaf of bread. -Does your leg hurt?-

-Still a little sore, but I think it’s fine.-

Blitz smiled. -Good, good… I wish Night’s barding were complete, but I can hardly expect her to wear it all the time, anyway… and as good as it is, money can’t buy everything, least of all true safety.-

I toyed with her mane; the faint light coming from her violet hair made distorted reflections on her crinet. -So, you know that blue metal on my armor? The peytral? Think anyone can make some more of that?-

-Hmm… I’d need to know what it is, first. Or, better yet, what kind of equipment was used to forge it. There are many skilled metallurgists in Bellenast; one of them might have some insight.-

It’s called ‘Noctium.’ Carbide said it’s a titanium alloy. The rest of the suit looks like steel alloys, maybe some aluminium and titanium.-

-And what would you do with this metal, if you had more of it?-

-I want to make Night Cloud a suit of power armor. Her barding doesn’t cover her entire body—I mean, with a good shield talisman, it’s not as bad if you have gaps in the plate, but if you have a working amplification matrix, like the one in Eagle’s and Zephyr’s suits, you can add more armor without worrying as much about weight!-

Blitz snorted and glanced back at me, smirking. Ambitious of you. If someone in Bellenast could make a suit of power armor for my daughter, you’d better believe I’d pay for it. I had to settle for something slightly more practical. Crystal… I’m glad that you’ve taken such a liking to her. Truly, I am. I’m glad that you want her to be safe. She wants the same for you, after all, and I want it for you both. If you wish for her safety… then you both should stay in Bellenast. Live there. Thrive there.-

-But please… don’t cloud your mind with thoughts of gallivanting around the wastes, in a machine of war or not. She doesn’t want that kind of life… and neither should you. Eagle and Zephyr certainly don’t want you to live that life.-

I scowled and thumped my hooves on her shoulders. -I just… don’t want her to be hurt again.-

-Nor do I, Crystal… nor do I.- A violet swath stroked with gentle pressure along my jawline, and the alicorn chortled. -If you live a normal life in Bellenast, you won’t need to worry about wearing armor and carrying weapons around everywhere you go. That is why you, Eagle, and Zephyr chose to come to Bellenast, is it not? For a new life, not in danger, but in safety? Night Cloud doesn’t need power armor to cross a street in Bellenast. Neither do you, nor do Eagle and Zephyr.-

-Yeah… but why doesn’t she have greaves? Cuisses, greaves, boots? If she did, that snake wouldn’t have been able to bite her at all, and she wouldn’t have freaked out and fallen on me. Your guards have boots, so why doesn’t she?-

-My guards are all fully-grown ponies, Crystal. Night Cloud is not. She can wear the main set with some extra padding underneath until she fills out a bit, but the leggings have to wait until her measurements stop changing.- I frowned and rested my head on her neck, gazing in silence at the flowing, transfixing texture of her mane. -And if you must know… that barding is all bespoke, from forging to enchantment, and Sir Martensite was waiting to make the leggings last, specifically for that reason. I commissioned him to make it last year, and he still might wind up doing it all over from scratch, anyway. He’s never satisfied with his work, and Night grew a bit more than I expected. Measurements were off.-

Blitz sighed, smiling back at me. -I have the same problem now. It’s a little tricky to make anything fit properly after radiation makes you grow by a couple hundred kilos.-

-Yeah, yeah, I get it.- I thumped my hooves on her neck, grumbling wordlessly. -Are you on patrol for the whole night?-

-Nah, and I’m not even on patrol. My guards do that. I’m just restless… why don’t we play a little game while we wait for sunrise? If you feel up to it, that is…-

-What kind of game?-

-Nothing terribly strenuous; although, it might give you a headache eventually. I call it ‘Teach Your Friend to Make a Magic Shield.’ I’m talking about a physical barrier far superior to any barding. The work of Twilight Sparkle herself. I’ll lay down the basics, duo-cast it for you, so you can get a feel for it, and you can practice. I’d like you to be prepared, if… if someone should try to hurt you again. What do you say?-

-Oh. Well… okay.- I grinned. -Sure!-

The familiar rumble of the Stonewalk river made a relaxing backdrop to yet another evening of crackling campfires, chirping crickets, and chattering caravaneers gathered around a short row of cooking pots full of bubbling soups. Hidden amongst the more mundane sounds of ponies tired from a long day’s march were the cheery whistles, pleasant singing, and mirthful laughter.

“Relaxing, isn’t it?”

High above the noises of a sedate campground on the list of things worthy of my attention was the gentle voice of a cobalt alicorn sitting next to me atop a flat, pleasantly warm bluff of granite several meters above the riverbank.

“Mmm-hmm…” I nodded, smiling up at her while her forehooves worked sorcery on my back.

“Did you know many other unicorns in the Enclave?”

“A few at Neighvarro. Why?”

“Just curious… what about at Cloud Loft?”

“There were only two of us. We never really talked much.”

“Oh? Why?”

I chuckled. “She owns a bakery, and I spent most of my time in the workshop, fixing things, rebuilding thaumoelectric converters and guns and stuff. She, um… I think she thought I was weird.”

“Sweetheart, everyone is a little bit weird… what’s her name?”

“Cinnamon Crème. Sort of a reddish brown, um… well, cinnamon coat and a blonde mane, and she’s about as tall Eagle, but… bigger, so she’s a giant to me. She has twins! Ruby Glitter and Spring Chime; they’re seven this year. I always thought Cinnamon was really attractive…”

“Mmm… so you like wings… and someone big… I wonder if that’s because I can carry you easily.”

“Um… I, um… I guess, yeah? What’s wrong with that?”

She giggled and murmured, “Nothing, sweetheart… just making an observation.”

“Are all—” I groaned as she kneaded around my shoulder blades, and then said weakly, “Are all alicorns really big? Like, um… the ones from Equestria? How many of you are there?”

“Hmm…” Air gusted over my back as the mare shrugged her wings, and she murmured, “I didn’t see many of the others during my brief trip in and out of Maripony; I was unconscious most of the time. As for how many of us there are? I really have no idea. Blitz doesn’t talk about them much… what about you, sweetheart? Are all Neighvarro unicorns so, ah… petite, and delicate?”

I lowered my head. “I’m not that delicate… am I?” I gasped as she prodded another sore spot. “Ow…”

“As a flower, baby.” She murmured, “And rather fluffy. I suppose having pegasus parents may have done that for you.”

“Maybe,” I muttered. “I never met them… can’t even remember their friggin’ names. My foster dad—my last one, I mean, in Neighvarro, he had my birth record, but… I only ever looked at it once, when I was really little. I don’t think I even want to know now, honestly… you’re lucky. Blitz seems like a friggin’ great mom.”

“Mmm… I’m grateful to have her support, and… I’m glad I could make her happy.” Night Cloud took her hooves off my back and lay down, stretching her wing out to cover me. “Crystal, I have a proposal for you.”

“Um… okay.” I tentatively nuzzled the side of her neck; she smiled and glanced down at me. “What is it?”

“The schools in Bellenast… they teach classes about history, literature, arithmetic—and many other things, tradecrafts. There are also several courses on advanced magic available. Would you like to enroll once you’ve settled in?”

“No thanks,” I muttered. “I don’t like school.”

“Don’t count your eggs before they’re in the pudding. You might enjoy it.”

“You know, I never understood that phrase until I moved to Cloud Loft. Neighvarro doesn’t have any chickens. Compared to literally anything at Cloud Loft, Neighvarro food is garbage.”

“Well, maybe I can change your mind…”

I sneezed several times and shook my head as Blitz and I passed beneath a gateway arch in the weathered, granite wall that marked the end of the dirt path.

“I hate being sick.”

“Eh, couple more days, and you’ll be a picture of health.”

“Ugh…”

A broad road of smooth cobblestones and worn, granite slabs led to the town ahead of us and continued up the length of an immense, stone bridge that sloped upward and ended at the top of a cliff. From the pointed roof of a multistory building on the left side of the road rose a slender, spindly radio tower of bright metal and a chimney. The building across the street sported only a stone chimney that spewed a narrow column of pale smoke into the sky.

Power lines snaked among the many rooftops, and a low, seemingly decorative wall of sandstone blocks surrounded the town. “So… Cliffside has electricity… this place does, too… is every town here wired up like this?”

Blitz shook her head. “Not all of them, but we’re working on it. Why?”

“Mmm… just wond—gyaaah!” I jolted backward as a buzzing wasp flew past my face. I shot a jet of emerald fire from my horn in reflex, but missed my erratic target. The buzz faded and my nerves calmed as the insect flitted off to our left and disappeared behind the wagon. “Grrrrrrrgh… I hate wasps. Friggin’… buzzing… stinging, nasty little insects!”

“Oooh, condescending and imperious,” said Blitz, smirking back at me. “I like it.”

“What?!”

“You’re afraid of bugs, aren’t you?” I glared and thumped my hooves on her back. “Crystal’s afraid of bu-u-uuugs!”

“Shut up.”

“I’m a princess. You shut up!”

“No!”

“Yeah, didn’t think that’d work.”

Night Cloud took a pair of food-laden plates from a stallion behind the counter across the diner and walked back to our table. The enticing aromas wafting out from the kitchen made my mouth water. She sat down next to me and placed our lunches on the dark, scuffed table. On each of the earthenware plates were a small loaf of bread, a mysterious, yellow wedge, a mound of roasted carrots, mushrooms, and turnips, a corn cob, and a fillet of fish drizzled with a tangy-smelling sauce.

I jerked my eyes away from the delectable sight as she set a jangling pouch next to my plate. “What’s that?”

“Five hundred bits, mostly in silver—those are twenty bits apiece.”

“What? Why? I mean… what did I…”

“Because Blitz felt like it, I guess. I’m just the delivery mare.”

“Oh. Well… um…” I levitated the coin purse toward my saddlebags, grinning. “Um… thanks.” I bit into the tender fish fillet and chewed slowly. I opened the pouch and peered into it briefly; light glinted off the jumbled pile of silver. “Do they really call this place Granite Bridge?”

“Well, there is a bridge, and it is made of granite…”

I floated the suspicious wedge up to my nose and sniffed, then bit off a piece. “Well… it’s… descriptive, I guess.” I pointed my hoof at the floating wedge of mystery food and said, “What is this? It’s really good.”

“It’s cheese; made from sheep’s milk. You’re telling me you’ve never had cheese before?”

“You should have seen her face the first time she tried rabbit,” said Eagle as he approached us from the end of the table “On the scary ground, out in the forest. She loved it. Carnivore in a fluffy little package.” He lifted a plate stacked with sliced potatoes and carrots from his back and set it on the table. He leaned over and whispered, “When you’re done, go to the market with Zephyr.”

“Why?” I mumbled around a mouthful of the delectable and miraculous creation that was cheese.

“She found something earlier. It’s right up your alley, trust me.”

15 Spring’s Waking 1741

There are hardly any pegasi in this town. It’s unnerving. Grow up surrounded by clouds and wings and almost no horns, and what seems weirder down on the ground? The lack of wings, not the abundance of horns.

Some of them give me funny looks; my leg looks weird, I guess. Blitz attracts way more attention. Some ponies bow, some just stay out of her way. They almost look scared.

Ponies are staring at Night Cloud and me. I don’t like this place anymore.

“There it is,” said Zephyr, “Authentic Ministry of Arcane Science original. What do you think?”

I propped my forehooves on the counter and squinted at the boxy weapon on the wall rack. “Wow.”

“Yep,” said the yellow mare behind open-air market stall. “An aetheric projection rifle, Series Seven. Don’t see too many of ‘em. A pony coming through here dropped it off ‘bout five months back; dead weight, he called it, and I’d say he’s right about that. The thing won’t shoot. Salvageable, I’d wager, but not a soul’s been interested in it yet. Nothing it can do that a Peregrine won’t do just as good, and more reliable, too. I figured I’d hang onto it a year; thought someone oughtta like it as a hobby project or something. Never thought that’d be a young filly such as yourself.”

“Hmph.” My teeth grinded together. “Dead weight my tail,” I muttered. I stretched my hind legs and leaned forward as the merchant lifted the battered gun down from the wall with a deft hoof and set it in front of me. “How much?”

“Hmm…” The gangly mare leaned her head on her hoof and tongued her cheek as she peered at me from beneath the rim of her white sunhat. “I’m gonna say… hundred forty bits, considering the sorry state of the darned thing. Hundred eighty, and I’ll throw in some spare parts and cleaning supplies. Should make gettin’ it working again a mite easier.”

I floated seven silver coins out of the pouch in my saddlebags and pushed them across the counter. “Just the gun, please.”

“All-righty then.” The mare dropped the currency out of sight under the counter. “Done and done. Good luck with it. I never had much.”

“Thanks,” I murmured as I spun the gun slowly in my emerald-green magic. The gun’s focusing crystal array was fractured and scorched, the battery port was corroded, and the metal body and grip, though intact, were scuffed and covered with numerous dents and jagged scratches.

“A pleasure. Thanks fer stoppin’ by. Come back soon, or send your friends over. I got guns, barding, ammo, and more trinkets ‘n souvenirs than you can count, come from Sentinel Point to Stretch Summit so long as bandits don’t find their way into the trade routes and muck things up too much. Again, thanks, and come back soon.”

“You’re welcome.”

I searched for a place to work as Zephyr and I trotted away from the merchant. As I looked up from the aged and abused rifle in my grasp, I stopped and stared at the great landmark that was Granite Bridge’s namesake. Three broad arches of tannish-pink granite held an ancient, flat bridge that could allow four wagons to pass abreast. Huge sections of the fifty-meter span looked newer, as if it had been partially rebuilt several times. At the bridge’s far end, in the middle of the road, was simple, cubic block of solid marble, atop which stood a gleaming, bronze effigy of a rearing unicorn stallion; the statue’s ruby eyes gleamed fiery red in the sunlight.

“What are you thinking?” Zephyr said.

“Hmm… that I could make those rubies into a really good pair of rechargeable spark cells.”

“Only you would gouge out a statue’s eyes to make spark cells, Crystal. Only you.”

“Well, they’re not doing any good up there.” A neat and orderly spread of docks jutted from the low bank opposite us, and small watercraft bobbed gently in their moorings. “You know, I thought the first boats I ever saw would be more… impressive.”

“Mmm… they do the job. Sometimes, that’s all you need.”

“Yeah… what do you think they do with them?”

“You’re asking me?” she muttered, scoffing. “I don’t know. Cargo, and fishing, I guess.”

“Blitz said most ponies here don’t even eat any meat, except fish sometimes… that’s weird.”

“Maybe they just go out on the river for fun… this is all new for me, too, Crystal. I think a lot of places were like this before the war. Long before everybody toted guns everywhere. Probably before we even had guns.”

I turned the neglected aetheric rifle over in my magic. “Kinda weird to think there was a time we didn’t have guns…”

“Hah! Well, ponies and zebras weren’t always trying to wipe each other out… these ponies are just… they’re living, Crystal. Not surviving. They’re not hanging on by a thread. They have plenty of food, they can just go to a market and buy things. Look at that gun. That mare called it a hobby project! At Cloud Loft, that would be an invaluable hunting tool… if you ask me, the Enclave look like the real losers here. I think they always have been… I just couldn’t see that until a little while ago.”

I nickered and said, “The Enclave practically forced us out of our own home, and we never had a say in the matter. They are definitely losers. Jerks.” I strode into a pleasantly secluded alley between two stores made entirely of muddy-yellow bricks. The table and low bench nestled between some crates and barrels stored in the alleyway were unoccupied. “Perfect.”

Zephyr trotted after me, then hopped onto the squat bench and sat on her haunches as I floated my saddlebags and the broken gun onto the table, and I began to lay my precious few tools out in organized groups.

She looked me in the eye warily for a few seconds and said, “No say in the matter, huh? I think we had plenty.”

My magic faltered, and my tools fell onto the table. Zephyr closed the distance between us and put her foreleg around me, then lowered her head and said gently in my ear, “Don’t let that absolute farce of a trial tell you otherwise… forget about those scumbags. I know it’s been rough, but we’re better off now. And I know you’re happier. You’ve been spending a lot of time with Night Cloud… and she likes you, too, unless I’m reading things very wrong.” She patted my side gently. “Try not to set her mane on fire on your first date. You wouldn’t want a repeat of Meadow Gale, would you?”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

My ears flicked toward the alley’s opening as a pebble bounced across the dirt. A flowing, violet tail and a sable-purple hoof disappeared around the corner.

Zephyr glanced toward the alley entrance and murmured, “See something?”

“Just someone passing by.” I smiled briefly as Blitz’s dirt-crunching hoofsteps quickly faded.

“Well…” Zephyr leaned back from me and pointed at my half-assembled weapon once more. “Come on. Working magic, remember?”

I leaned on her side again and committed my magic to removing the rifle’s outer cover piece by piece. “Hey, um… what do you think we’re going to do in Bellenast? Jobs, I mean. I asked Blitz about it yesterday, and she said she might be able to help a bit. She said, um… there might be a job for you at the palace.”

“Hmm…” Zephyr toyed with my mane while I worked, and she murmured, “I don’t know if I want to throw myself in with any palace just yet… I was styling manes long before I picked up a beam rifle. I’d like to see this Gilded Bell place Night Cloud keeps talking about. I mean, I’d love to open a salon of my own, but that would take a lot of money. More than we have right now.”

“Mmm-hmm… I wish we could have brought Eagle’s tools along. Start a workshop.” I levitated a worn, bleached-white brush from my saddlebags and used it to clean the accumulated dust, grit, and scattered clumps of old hair from the weapon’s electrothaumic capacitors and minute talisman arrays.

Next, I removed the rifle’s cracked focusing crystal from the end of the boxy barrel and pushed that of my pistol onto the frame in its stead. Lastly, I did the same with the rifle’s primary matrix cylinder, a mass of copper coils, machined brass, and cut gemstones. The smaller cylinder from my pistol fit in the empty compartment in the core of the rifle with room to spare, and I bridged the gap between the rear of the brass tube and the power conduit with a spring-loaded brace and a thick, heavy length of twisted copper wire. I sealed the core and replaced the brass cover pieces.

“It’s a Series Six, by the way,” I muttered. “Series Sevens and Eights don’t have Canter Mountain Dynamics thaumoelectric supercapacitors.”

“And what does that mean? Remember, I’m a stylist, baby. Eagle’s the techie.”

“They’re less efficient,” I muttered, “But more reliable. They can catch fire if you set the cell-to-capacitor discharge frequency too high. Just means you need a lower cyclic rate… but my pistol matrix core has a frequency limiter, anyway, so that’ll never happen.” I rubbed my foreleg on the tarnished brass body cover. “Nice patina… Zephyr, what about me? What can I do? You heard that mare: Nobody wants aetheric guns here. I can’t make a job fixing something nobody wants to buy in the first place, darn it…”

Zephyr sighed and held my hoof. She watched as I levitated the charred, rugged rifle and inspected it from every angle. “You could finish your armor designs, and Eagle could help you build the rest of those upgrades into his suit. Then market the designs. Seems like something the Bellenastian Guard could use along this fringe area to the west; the forest is a nasty place, apparently.”

“Mmph… yeah. Maybe… not good enough, though.”

“Not good enough?” Zephyr leaned forward to lower her head to my level. “Not good enough? Tartarus, Crystal, did you see what that giant doombot shot me with? I’d be dead without you. Your upgrades saved my hide.”

“And you almost did die. It’s not good enough… and I want to make one for Night Cloud.” I slotted one of my spark batteries from my saddlebags into the refurbished gun; a tiny indicator light inside the weapon lit. “My notes will help, but I want to build a completely new suit. A better one. I mean, I’d need to start with a working matrix and undersuit…”

“A new suit?” Zephyr leaned back again and rubbed my shoulder gently. “Baby, be realistic… where are you going to find a working suit that would even fit her?”

I flicked the rifle’s safety switch and replaced the metal panel over the diagnostic lights carefully. “I don’t even know if an amplifier matrix would work for her. She’s really big, and they don’t scale up so well… but if I could rebuild a matrix into her barding, configure it for contact shields…”

“You know…” My ears flicked toward the sweet, familiar voice at the alley’s opening. Blitz leaned against the wall of the store. “I already spent every favor I had on that barding, and it isn’t even finished yet. Now you want to outdo me? That isn’t very sporting of you.” Then she pointed her wing at the table. “What is that hideous thing?”

“An Aetheric Projection Rifle!” I donned my saddlebags and secured the rifle to them with a strap as I stuffed the scrap parts and my tools into my pockets. I giggled and said, “I put my thermoaetheric matrix cylinder in it, so it won’t disintegrate anything.”

“Huh. Just don’t let it explode, ‘kay?” As she came nearer and inspected the weapon, she said, “Zephyr, a transport chariot is coming here tomorrow morning. I want you, Eagle, and Crystal on it with Night Cloud. You’ll fly the rest of the way to Bellenast.”

“Why?” said Zephyr, abruptly squeezing me with her wing, “What’s happened?”

“Nothing yet, but…” Blitz flicked her wings out slightly and turned halfway to the alley entrance. “That group of supposed bandits, moving through the Leota? They’re not just bandits. They’re radicals from the Kekalo Empire… they’ve been specifically avoiding our border guards, and I have a sneaking suspicion this is the same group that sent that assassin.”

“What assassin?” said Zephyr, frowning up at the much larger mare. “When did that happen?”

“It was a few months ago. It’s why I left Bellenast, but—never mind that. Not important right now.” Pursing her lips, she said, “Look, bottom line is, I don’t want you four in the line of fire if a bunch of would-be assassins tries their luck again; I mean no disrespect, but you’re all a liability in a fight, even Eagle. Fancy armor and cannons don’t equal training. My guards don’t need civilians in the way when it’s time to rally.”

Zephyr leaned on the table and chuckled. “You don’t need to tell me twice. I don’t think my suit will ever work again, anyway.”

“I can fix it, Zephyr, I swear!”

“Crystal, that’s a tall order even for you. As far as I’m concerned, you should use what you can salvage as spare parts for Eagle’s suit… or you could use it to make one for Night Cloud, like you want. And before you get any ideas about playing gun for hire, I’m with Blitz on this one. You’ll be safe in Bellenast.”

I stomped again and muttered, “I’m not a friggin’ helpless foal…”

“Hey, hey…” Blitz put one wingtip on each of our shoulders, and looked down first at me and then at Zephyr, who bristled at the gesture. She leaned toward me, laid her hoof on my withers, and spoke softly in my ear. “You may not be a foal,” said Blitz as she wrapped her wing around me, “But neither are you yet a grown mare. I just want you where you’ll be safe. Zephyr, Night Cloud can show you where you’ll be staying tonight. I’d like to talk to Crystal for a bit, if that’s all right with you. It’s just, ah… about Night Cloud.”

“Yeah,” said Zephyr, rubbing her brow, “Sure, just…”

“I won’t be long. On my honor as Princess.”

My view of the market thoroughfare bobbed gently about as Blitz strode through the evening crowd and wagon traffic unimpeded; ponies dodged hastily out of her way and eyed the alicorn warily as we passed by, some peered at us in curiosity, and a few others bowed their heads. None stepped closer to us than a couple meters, and the racket of cheerful voices and clamoring patrons grew oddly muted around us, only to resume at equal volume after our passing.

Jewelry and baubles were on display all around, dresses and hats of all shapes hung next to barding and sets of panniers on wire ponnequins, and ceramic dishes and pots stood on rolling shelves aplenty. Quilts and rugs hung on racks and flapped in the brisk breeze, a farrier’s hammer struck with a shrill ringing, and an ever-present smell of baking bread and pastries tantalized my nostrils.

A steady line of ponies entered from the north gate of the town and continued across the great bridge spanning the Stonewalk River. A low rumble of thunder rolled across the market, and several ponies looked to the clouds in worry. As if a switch had been thrown, half the stalls and wagons along the street began to close as their owners sought to escape the oncoming rain. A great shadow came from the north, and the surprisingly chill breeze picked up close behind the thunder and blanket of cloud cover.

As we passed out of sight of the bustling market, I stared dully at the ancient gun bobbing on Blitz’s withers and telekinetically bent its warped control rail back into shape. Raindrops began to speckle my coat.

“You really don’t like being told what you have to do, huh?”

“No.” I gazed at the back of Blitz’s neck while she paused.

“… or being told you’re helpless.”

I whacked my tail on her back. “I’m not helpless.”

“No, you certainly aren’t… you have some fancy weapons, I’ll grant you that… but that isn’t the same thing as being truly prepared to fight.” She looked up to a clock tower atop a grand, granite building at the end of the thoroughfare, nearly a hundred meters distant. Five o’clock was a few minutes away.

“I’m always worried about Night Cloud… I know that she is able to fight… I’ve seen her practice enough. But… she holds to the ideal that there is always a way out. A peaceful way out. I’ve tried to convince her to be more aggressive, when the situation calls for it, but it’s hard to tell if I’ve had any influence on her.”

“Night Cloud? Aggressive?” I shook my head. Blitz glanced back at me again and made her way toward an elevated platform joined to the clock tower. “I can’t see it.”

“Hmph. Guess you’ve mostly seen her girly side. One time last year, she beat the crap out of a stallion at school for being too touchy after class.” The regally attired mare giggled. “I was so proud of her. I bought her those saddlebags as celebration.”

I snickered and squeezed her shoulders. “You celebrated her beating someone up?”

“Pshhh. Yeah, you bet I did. The cretin was totally copping a feel on her. Lecherous mongrel. He deserved every hoofprint… listen to me ramble—anyway, kiddo…” She ruffled my name and said, “My point is that you should be prepared to fight when you need to… but that doesn’t mean you should put yourself in a bind you can avoid. I’m sending you and Night to Bellenast not because I think you’re helpless, nor because I want to confine you… I’m sending you because…”

Slowing her pace, Blitz said, “Because I know you like Night Cloud quite a lot… and I want you to have the chance to know her better. I want to protect you, as best as I can. I want you to be safe.” She glanced around as she came to a large gap in the crowd. “Hold on.”

I tensed. “I don’t like flying.”

She spread her wings and leapt. I closed my eyes and gripped her firmly as the abrupt acceleration and rush of moisture-laden air pressed me down on her back and tore at my mane and tail. I looked past her neck briefly and beheld a nauseating view of the hundreds of timber and shingle rooftops that spread out on both sides of the Stonewalk River.

No sooner had she taken us to the sky than she began to glide toward the roof of the castle-like building. Our brief surge upward into the drizzle had dampened my coat considerably.

Blitz landed at a trot on the granite roofing and approached the low wall at the edge. A single stairwell access occupied the roof, and square turrets stood at each corner. Blitz ascended the stairs to the turret on our left and stood by the wall. From my perch on her back, I had a perfect view of the entire market road and the plains beyond the river town.

“See those ponies stationed at the gatehouse?”

Blitz pointed along the main road perpendicular to the market thoroughfare, and I followed her hoof to the squat building at the south end of town.

“Barely.”

“Heh… those ponies are members of the Bellenastian Guard. They’re the first line of defense against any gangs or warlords that want to tear down what the ponies of Granite Bridge have built for themselves. There are more around the valley, patrolling the roads… and at our borders, along the Leota Fringe and the Corsair Hills, and even far to the south, at Cliffside and Sentinel Point. The uniform of the Guard holds fast at every town in this kingdom.”

The alicorn levitated me off her back and set me against her chest, hugging me. She nuzzled between my ears and murmured, “There is no safer place to be than Bellenast… and I’m glad to welcome you here, to your new home…”

“Mmm… but?” I leaned on her neck and looked to the middle of the town as a white and cobalt shape flew along the street and hovered near the entrance of an opulent, domed building of pink marble that was at odds with the surrounding architecture. A long, black mane and tail trailed behind the figure as she soared down the street in the opposite direction and glided to a cantering landing in front of a store.

Blitz chuckled. “I don’t want you to be scared… but I don’t want to lie to you, either. You, Zephyr, or Eagle. I am scared, Crystal. Someone tried to poison me four months ago, now the same ponies who set that up might be back to try again, and I still don’t know why… and it’s Night Cloud that lets me stay calm about that. Night Cloud, and Ivy, and Mirago, and Claraby… and you, and Eagle, and Zephyr. My friends, ponies I love, and want to protect… Night Cloud is… she’s everything to me.”

The enormous sable-purple mare nuzzled my withers and whispered, “And now you’re worming your way into my life, you little rascal… a friend to my daughter is a friend to me.”

A shadow streaked across the rooftop, and wings flapped quickly nearby, blasting wind through my mane. Ivory Point landed a few meters away and trotted up to us. Just behind her, a second pegasus in a grey caparison and battered, wide-brimmed hat landed. Under the caparison was a polished, but heavily scratched steel peytral and cuirass. Several of the dents looked like they had come from bullets.

“Princess,” said Ivory Point in a surprisingly high voice, “Sorry to interrupt.”

“It’s fine, Ivory.” Blitz stood up and faced the two ponies, and she held her wing over me to shield me from the drizzling rain. “What is it?”

Ivory Point spun to bow her head to the blue roan stallion, and said, “Sir Shale Silhouette, Order of Seekers.”

The old stallion stepped forward and inclined his head. “Your Highness.”

Blitz nodded. “Sir Shale. Didn’t you retire? Four, five years ago?”

“I thought this important enough to crawl out again.” The stallion glanced once down at me; his yellow eyes stood out on his grey-speckled roan snout, like lanterns in the shadow under his hat, and his voice was deep and gritty. “This morning, I saw a young stallion in Bellenast, in the Market District. He was asking around about you, and Lady Ivaline… the old stories, and her whereabouts.”

“Just random strangers?” said Blitz. “Nobody in particular?”

“Indeed. He was careful to avoid the major intersections; stayed out of the Palace District. I tailed him as long as I could, but I’m not as sly as I used to be, I’m sorry to say. He lost me down a side road. Teleported, I think; I heard a strong wind, and there was a bit of dust swirling around, just like when you’ve done it. He couldn’t have run to the end of the street that quickly. I informed Watch Captain Bellows, and he assigned Ivory to escort me.”

“Keep it nice and quiet,” murmured Blitz. “That’s Bellows…” Blitz looked to her side at the sound of yet more flapping wings, and Night Cloud landed on the rooftop.

She strode over and levitated me onto her back. “Blitz, what’s going on?”

“Just a moment,” murmured Blitz. “And what did he look like? Any notable, clothing? Barding?”

“Spotted dun, orange mane, green eyes. His mark looked like a meteor shower, and he had a yellow sash, decorated with copper rings and beads; jade, I think. Besides that, he looked like just any other traveler. No barding, no weapons, clean, well-groomed. I doubt he’s a common vagabond, but he could have passed for one. Looked to be enjoying the sights. And the sash covered it up, mostly, but there was a mark on his breast. All I saw was a bit of blue.”

Blitz nodded again. “If he’s skilled enough to teleport, he hardly needs weapons to do harm.”

“Gundagára,” said Night Cloud. Blitz and Shale Silhouette both looked at her. “Um… the Gundagára tribe. Their mark is a crescent moon and a blue three-point star, the constellation… and they make sashes like that, as part of their rites. Their territory is southwest of the Réklat lands, across the Rín Belína. We trade with them. Um… who is it we’re talking about?”

“Well,” said Blitz, sighing, “That tells us where he comes from, but not why he’s nosing around…”

“Oh,” mumbled Night Cloud. “Well… sorry for interrupting.”

“No, thanks a bunch. That gives us something specific to look out for. There aren’t many San Palomino ponies in the valley, certainly not many from any one tribe… Night, ah—go take Crystal to the bunk house, or the diner, or—go shopping or something. I don’t know, have fun. And please, take Wellspring and Polyrhythm. I don’t want you going anywhere alone right now.”

Night Cloud nuzzled Blitz’s neck and stepped away. “Fine… don’t stay out in the rain too long.”

She spread her wings and jumped over the rooftop wall, and glided down to the street with me on her back. She landed hind hooves first and set down carefully, holding onto me with her magic.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” she said, breaking into a trot through the thinning crowd. “I know you don’t like flying.”

“It’s fine,” I mumbled, clinging to her back and neck. “Um… where are we going?”

“Somewhere warm and out of the rain.”

“Awesome.”

6. Writ In Scarlet

View Online

Chapter Six

Writ in Scarlet

“Welcome to the Winsome Shores,” said the periwinkle mare behind the counter across the spacious, turquoise-tiled lobby. Night Cloud stepped in and closed the doors. The right half of the lobby was cordoned off by a rope fence and dominated by empty, glossy wood shelves, and yellow globes hanging from the ceiling lit the entire room with warm yellow.

“The main baths are free to the public, the private rooms on the upper level are six bits per half-hour…” She froze as she looked up from a newspaper. “Per patron… oh! My goodness, Lady Night Cloud! I am terribly sorry!”

“No, please, you don’t need to…” Night Cloud groaned softly and set me down next to her. -I hate this part.-

“Madame Misty Glade, at your service,” said the mare, trotting around the counter and straight toward us. “Owner and operator of the bathhouse. How are you today, Milady?”

“It’s a pleasure, Misty Glade,” said Night Cloud. “I’m fine—Madame! Madame Misty Glade. Sorry.”

“Oh, never mind that, dear; it’s just a thing from my stage days. What brings you to town? Should I expect Her Highness to stop in today?”

Night Cloud wiped her hooves on the oversized doormat and said, “No no no. Blitz—Her Highness isn’t coming. I, um—the rain caught us in the street, that’s all. Could we have a private bath for a half-hour, please?” She levitated a dozen copper coins from her saddlebags and stacked them neatly on the desk. “Just the two of us. I’d prefer to avoid the attention of the other guests.” Night Cloud spread her wings halfway and said, “I, ah… tend to draw a lot of that.”

“I can imagine, dear,” said Misty Glade, peering down at me and behind us, at Wellspring and Polyrhythm in their distinctly non-casual and polished barding. “Oh, I’m probably not helping that, am I? Sorry, dear.”

“It’s fine.”

“Well, don’t let me keep you. Take the first room on the right; it’s first on the filling schedule, so it should be ready. Just test the water first, and watch your step.”

“Thank you, Misty.”

“Oh, by the way!” The mare pointed to the shelf-filled portion of the lobby to our right. “The Gilded Bell in Bellenast has sent us a permanent vendor. The renovations are almost finished, so you’ll be able to pick up your favorite shampoos the next time you’re passing through.”

Night Cloud smiled and glanced at the mare as we passed by. “I’m sure I’ll spend more than usual on my next visit, Misty. Today, I really just want a chance to relax.”

“Good thing you came here, then, dear.”

Night Cloud chuckled and trotted into the short hall that curved around the thick, tiled pillar that separated the lobby from the chamber beyond, and I hurried after her. Potted ferns lined a low shelf set against the broad pillar, and a heavy green drapes lined the hall. The curtains deadened our echoing hoofsteps around us, and the noise of the storm gave way to quiet conversations and the slightly softer whistling and drumroll of rain on skylights in the vaulted ceiling.

“Um…” I winced and lowered my head; my voice echoed and carried beyond the curving corridor. I inhaled sharply and looked up at the high, white ceiling and glass chandeliers that lit the next room. “Whoa…”

We stood on a tiled deck overlooking a long, spacious depression that occupied most of the vaulted chamber. A brass guardrail three meters from the entryway separated us from the recessed area, which housed two rows of four circular pools set directly into the floor on either side of a wooden walkway. Circular columns stood at the edge of the deck that wrapped around the cavernous room. Smaller pools occupied the deck behind a low, decorative wall covered with clay flower pots and well-laden towel racks. Several ponies in the sparsely occupied baths looked up at Night Cloud as she came into view of the lower level.

I laughed and hugged her foreleg lightly.

She smiled down at me and whispered, “Didn’t have anything like this in Neighvarro, I take it?”

I grinned as I shook my head slowly and met her electric blue eyes. “Not even close…”

She chuckled and flicked my mane telekinetically. Her smile became a terse, tense façade as she glanced at the small collection of ponies beyond the railing. The occupants turned their heads quickly away from us as if to pretend they hadn’t looked in the first place.

A grey stallion sitting on the floor two pools along the right row held a pan of water over the small, light red filly in the pool as he washed her purple mane. In the far left bath of the lower level was an athletic, khaki-coated unicorn mare with a rust red and sunflower yellow mane arranged in multiple braids. Sitting across from her in the bath was a golden brown, auburn-haired unicorn colt.

The khaki mare paused in scrubbing her forelegs and looked up at us. Her eyes shifted from Night Cloud to me.

Night Cloud breathed deeply and continued toward a wooden door in the nearest corner of the opulent chamber. -I always take a private room; can’t stand all the staring.-

I followed behind her and looked through the railing on our left. The clean, clear water allowed me an unobstructed view of the drains spaced evenly around the bottom of the pool’s outer rim.

-Is, um… is this the standard in Bellenast?-

-Well, no, not anymore. I have a bath in my house, and it’s nearly a hundred years old, but they didn’t always have pressurized plumbing throughout the city. Bathhouses like this are still fairly popular; this one is more luxurious than most, but they’re scattered all over the city. You’d be amazed by just how much the average life expectancy in a big city increases when you have clean water, for drinking and cooking, and bathing… minus taking a dip in the river, of course; if you do that, there’s always a chance of contracting an infectious disease or waterborne parasite. I’m lucky I never did when I was younger.-

-Um… okay?-

-Sorry, that was a tangent, wasn’t it?- Night Cloud turned around outside the varnished wood door in the corner. “Um… Officer Wellspring, Polyrhythm—”

“We’ll wait here, Milady,” said Polyrhythm; the azure unicorn mare had a pleasantly airy voice. “I’ve been here before; the doors are soundproofed. Nice place.”

“Thank you.” Night Cloud opened the door and strode into the small, warmly lit room just beyond, and I followed her in. Glossy wood paneling covered the walls, and recessions between the panels hid soft, yellow lights spread around the room. Steam rose from the turbulent surface of the rounded tub set into the floor.

Broad steps into the water dominated the near side of the frothing bath. Thick, chrome faucets at the bath’s corners spewed a continuous, noisy flow of hot water into the slowly-filling pool.

Night Cloud closed the thick door behind us, pulled a heavy curtain across the doorway, and shut off the water faucets; the room grew quiet as the water ceased burbling and smaller, low-pressure jets at the bath’s edges activated.

“Whoa…” My voice reverberated around the square chamber. “This is… um…”

“It’s everything I hoped it would be.” Night Cloud unfastened the ties on the front of her caparison, which she shrugged off and hung on a wall hook near the corner of the room. The polished steel and pearlescent fabric of the gambeson gave her an appearance straight out of a history textbook.

“Um…” I stared at her in a flushed stupor for several seconds. “Night Cloud, you, um… I just want to say, um… you look really good in that.”

She grinned and tapped her hoof on the floor. “Thanks… it’s not what I’d call the most fashionable attire, but… I’m glad someone likes it.”

Giggling, I said, “Night Cloud, you could be the poster filly for fashionable. I’ve never seen any armor that’s… not ugly. I mean, Enclave armor is all designed for being flashy and intimidating, but not…”

“Inspiring?” I grinned as she turned halfway toward me began to unstrap the armor. “It’s more than just armor; it’s a symbol.” She unlatched a pair of buckles hidden under her collar and swung the peytral down on a strap attached to the cuirass, unfastened the girth straps and plackart under her belly, loosened the segmented croupiere, then lifted the entire suit away and set the ensemble on the floor in the corner.

“White and gold are Celestia’s colors. My tribe has always considered her a symbol of healing and renewal.” She sighed and glanced at the white caparison in the corner. “I may have left my homeland under less-than-ideal terms, but that was when I truly became a healer.” She chuckled and kicked a hind leg out, glancing back at her flanks. “Hardly the wisest color to wear over armor, but… I thought it was appropriate.”

“Well, um…”

She stood in front of me in only the pearl-colored gambeson. Diamond-pattern stitching covered the entire garment, a small flap covered her tail and kept it tucked under the croupiere, and a line of securing straps ran from her croup to her withers.

She smiled and tossed her mane back. “Are you… enjoying the view?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. I met her eyes as she focused her cerulean magic on a spot on her back, and then every buckle sprang open at once. “Isn’t it kinda heavy? The, um… the rest of it, I mean.”

“Mmm… somewhat, but I hardly notice it when it’s tightened properly, and it should be even better once I’ve finished growing. It’s quite comfortable. The gambeson is like a nightshirt, almost.”

I giggled. “I think, um…” Night Cloud unfastened the two remaining buckles below her stifles and pulled the gambeson off. “I think it’s kinda sexy. Flattering, fits you really well.”

She laughed and set the gambeson on her piled armor in the corner, walked past me, and stepped slowly into the steaming bath. My eyes seemed to follow her tail of their own accord.

“Well?” Smiling, she sank into the water up to her neck and faced me. “Are you going to join me, or sit there and stare?”

“Duaaaah-ha. Hahaha. Um—yeah. Join you. Yeah.” I trotted straight down the steps and waded into the pleasantly hot water. “Um… okay, I feel like I’m floating, kinda… I’ve never, um… been in a bath this huge before.”

Night Cloud giggled and tugged me slowly through the water, and I kicked off the steps and paddled along on reflex. With every breath, I rose a little in the water, then sank again. “It’s almost a pool, really… I thought you’d be afraid. You can’t possibly have much experience swimming…”

“No, but, um… why would I be scared while you’re here?” She smiled and pulled me over to a recess cut into the edge of the bath. She lifted me onto the bench and sat on her haunches next to me; sitting on the submerged bench, my head was almost level with hers. “Um… why is this here?”

“For foals,” she murmured, “Or, um… smaller ponies. Children. So you can sit in the water, instead of having to swim the whole time… Crystal, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it that way. I wasn’t trying to call you a foal.”

“Night Cloud…” I rolled my eyes and leaned on her, then nuzzled her throat. “You said you don’t think I’m a little filly,” I murmured, “I believe you. And, um… coming from you, it means a lot to me.” She giggled and hooked her foreleg across my back. “Really, I… um… I didn’t think you would, um… like me… at all. I thought you’d just brush me off.” She hummed softly near my ears and squeezed my back, and poured a levitated glob of warm water over my mane. “You, um…” I swallowed. “You do… like me… right?”

“Yes!” Night Cloud laughed. “Yes, I do, I do… I’m just… not as brave, or forthcoming as you are, Crystal… you just… say things, say what you feel, say what you think, and… I… I adore you for that. I admire you for that…” She leaned down in the water to hug me, and she whispered, “I envy you, Crystal… I wish I could be as brave as you. I’ve always been so afraid, and I’ve never been able to—to just speak my mind, the way you do, about this… about so many things… I was never so bold… never so certain…”

I set one hoof on her chest and hooked the other onto her leg. “I’m, um… I’m afraid, too…”

She smiled and nuzzled the side of my snout, and she said, “That’s what makes you brave. You may be afraid, but you still… commit to something.”

“Well, um…” I inhaled deeply against the pressure of hot water, and said, “May I kiss you again? Please?”

Night Cloud leaned back and giggled. She opened her mouth, and the smallest sound came out. “I…” She snapped her mouth shut and nodded.

“So you just jumped in the river to take a bath?” I murmured, massaging between Night Cloud’s wings with both forehooves under the water; she lay on the steps of the bath, submerged halfway up her neck, and I lay astride her back. “With the mud, and the fish?”

“Well, not all the time… mostly if you’re completely filthy, and then you just take a dip and scrub off on the banks. Saves potable water, to do it that way. Out there in desert, everyone has a few rain barrels; catch the clean water, use it later. Otherwise… I had to watch my little sister, Akatsi Kuovi, and help her bathe, teach her our chores until she could manage on her own. She’s four years younger than I am. We were always on the lookout for snakes near the river, and fish to catch…”

“Why’d you leave? It sounds like it was pretty nice…” I scooted forward and wrapped my forelegs around her, laying my head against her neck. “Really nice, honestly… you said, um… they tried to tell you how to live. What does that mean?”

“My elders tried to decide for me,” she said, “Which pony I would take as a partner… rather, they did decide. I simply… didn’t say no. I…” She swept her forehoof around underwater and murmured, “I didn’t know how to say no… didn’t know that I could. That was just… how my tribe did things. How we’d always done it. Tradition.”

“Well, um…” Swallowing, I tapped my hooves gently on her and nuzzled her. “Was she nice? Or, um… cute? Your partner.”

“She?” Night Cloud chuckled. “Oh, Crystal Dew… sweetheart, I truly envy you… no, mio amíke, they chose my partner, my mate. They picked a stallion for me, our grand elder’s youngest son, years before they ever expected me to bear a child.”

“What?” I scowled and hugged her tightly, and I mumbled, “They didn’t know you—you didn’t say anything?”

“I was only eleven years old at the time, Crystal… I didn’t understand what it meant. He was just my friend, so… I didn’t think about it.”

“What the fuck?!” She jerked her head away from me. “Sorry,” I mumbled, “Didn’t mean to yell…” Nickering, I said, “But what the fuck? How could they—what’s fucking wrong with them? You don’t even—how could they force you to—”

“Shhhh… Crystal, please, sweetheart… I’ve left that life behind now… and I don’t want you to be angry about it; that doesn’t gain you anything. Besides…” I shook while she stroked her magic down my neck and across my back. “Ruido was my best friend. Ruido Valié—‘Bold Voice.’”

“Bold Voice,” I said, glaring at the lapping water. “You’re kidding.”

Night Cloud giggled. “Yes… the irony has not escaped me: Bold Voice, chosen for the mare too timid to speak for herself… he saved my life once. He fought off a pack of timberwolves with me when I went into the Forest of Leota, to collect some herbs for my mother.”

She grasped my left forehoof telekinetically and raised it up to a spot on her throat. “I don’t have the scars anymore, and I have my voice again, thanks to Blitz… but the feeling of an animal sinking its teeth into your neck… it never leaves you.” She shivered and smiled, looking at me from the corner of her eye. “Ruido stomped the one that had bitten me and kicked apart the others. Didn’t kill them, but it let him pick me up and run.”

As I rubbed my hoof on her neck and imagined disfiguring scars under her sleek coat, I muttered, “You should have just blasted them with magic. Not even fire; a good bang or bright light scares them off.”

“Well, I know that now, of course… back then, I didn’t know any real spells. I never learned to use my magic to fight, just to fight with something I held with it. A stick, a spear, a gun. There aren’t many skilled mages in my tribe. That’s one reason I decided to go to Bellenast: I wanted to learn more about magic, as well as medicine, more than my mother could teach me before she passed. She was an earth pony; there was only so much she could do with theory and books, and those were hard to find…”

“What about your dad?”

“My father…” Night Cloud spread her wings out and splashed them in the bath. “My father… was one of our elders, who picked Ruido for me… and after mother died, he—mmm…” She breathed deeply and stroked her magic along my foreleg. “It would be wrong to say he didn’t care, but… he focused more on his duties to the tribe, after mother passed, and less on his daughters.”

She twisted her neck around to nuzzle my shoulder. “Ruido convinced me to tell my father and the other elders that I couldn’t—rather, that I would not take him, or any other stallion, as a partner, and he stood by my side for that… most of them were angry, but Father—at that point, I don’t think he cared. He gave me his blessing to stay, or leave, and live out my life as I wanted.”

“Ruido thought I would be happier somewhere else… more than anyone else, he wanted me to be happy. He stood up for me, and taught me to stand up for myself. I’ll always love him for that.” Night Cloud levitated me out of the bath and set me on my hooves near a rack of hanging towels against the wall, then stood up and ascended the steps. I watched water trailing down and dripping from her belly while her soaked mane and tail dragged along behind her in the water. “And… I wanted to see another land besides my own.”

“And, um… that’s it?”

She shook herself, spraying water everywhere, then grabbed two towels off the rack behind me. “Well… I hoped I might find a mare my own age who would feel something for me… but I never really knew how to look. I suppose I still don’t.” Then she stopped, holding the towels still in the air. “Crystal,” she said, grinning, “Are you going to dry off, or… keep looking at me?”

I swallowed, snatched the closest towel, and mumbled, “I can do both, can’t I?”

Night Cloud chortled and sauntered over to me. She sat on her haunches directly in front of me, stretched her wing past me, and a click came from the wall, followed by a buzzing above us. I glanced up at the heat lamps on the rack protruding from the wall.

“Oh. Cool…”

“Warm, actually. That’s the point.” I rolled my eyes, then snickered. Night Cloud giggled. “I don’t mind if you look.” She tilted my head up with a hoof on my jaw and kissed me. -I suppose I’m used to ponies looking… it was always at a distance, and usually stallions, not… right here, in my reach.-

She carefully lay down, stretching her forelegs out on either side of me. I drew back to breathe, sitting flushed and grinning in front of her.

“It was never someone who could look me in the eye,” she murmured, “And admit to my face that she wants something from me… I truly admire you for that, Crystal. Your honesty, your earnestness.”

“Well, I’m, um… happy, and excited.” I pecked her lips one more time, then again, giggling and shaking. Her breaths tickled my snout. “Really happy… um… you, um…” Swallowing, I said, “You know you can use your tongue, right? It’s really fun.”

Night Cloud burst out laughing, bright and clear as a bell. “Crystal Dew, my sweetheart… forgive me for being inexperienced. The first pony I kissed was Ruido, and… for a stallion, he was nice, but… that wasn’t what I wanted. I… I suppose that… as much as being with him taught me that I didn’t want a stallion, it, um… it also made me afraid to try things.”

She let out a long sigh and bowed her head, nuzzling my snout, and her horn bumped against mine. “You’re the first mare I’ve ever kissed, Crystal,” she murmured. “My elders never would have allowed me to take a mare as a partner.”

I lurched up and reared, and hugged her tightly. “Night Cloud… your tribe sucks. I’m really glad you left them.”

She patted my withers. “I understand the sentiment, sweetheart, I do… but not all of them are bad. Especially not Ruido. He was only ever kind to me.”

“Fine. He’s cool, I guess.” I stomped my rear hoof on the tile and stepped back, looking at her electric blue eyes and pursed lips. “You know what? How about I just show you?”

“Show me what?”

“How to make out.”

“Is it normally that cold this time of year? And windy?” I followed Night Cloud down the cool, dimly lit hall of the inn to the second-to-last room on the left, trotting to keep pace with her. She carried her barding, saddlebags, and caparison along behind us in a cerulean haze.

“Cold? Sometimes. Windy… not usually. Don’t worry. There are plenty of blankets.”

She led me into the room and set her things in the far corner, where my power armor stood upright. My saddlebags and weapons lay next to it. The small window to the alleyway outside rattled in its frame as the wind howled between the buildings.

I stopped by the bed on the right; either one of the two mattresses set low on the floor in the rather cramped room would have been comically large for me, but for Night Cloud, it was barely adequate.

“Looks nice,” I mumbled, brushing my hoof on the smooth grey sheets. I stepped onto the thin mattress. “Whoa. Pretty soft.”

“I never had anything like this back home,” said Night Cloud, stepping around me to lie down first. “They still feel too soft for me sometimes. Too much give…”

Settling next to her, I muttered, “You don’t know ‘too much give’ until you’ve fallen through a cloud… basically the reason Eagle brought me to Cloud Loft in the first place.”

Night Cloud turned onto her side and pulled me to her chest; after our bath, the hint of lilac on her coat was gone. “You fell?” she murmured. “No wonder you don’t like flying… who caught you? Eagle?”

“No, this was before I met him. Over two years ago.” I tucked my head between her forelegs and nuzzled her pectorals. She turned off the ceiling lights, leaving us in only the cerulean glow of her magic. “It was, um… her name’s Coil Blur… and she was the first mare I ever kissed.”

Night Cloud hummed and began to tug her hoof through my mane, over and over. “I thought you had a talisman, for walking on the clouds… did it break?”

Giggling, I mumbled, “No… it worked exactly as designed. I, um… I was out on one of the periphery fields one morning. We use them for floater plots. You know, for things without deep roots, like potatoes, beans, tomatoes, squash… trellises and stuff.”

Night Cloud stopped stroking my mane, setting her foreleg instead across my withers, and the tiny metal plate embedded on my back there. “And here I was,” she whispered, “Thinking you might somehow grow plants straight from the clouds…”

“What?” I thumped my hoof on her ribs. “No. That’s ridiculous.”

“I’ve never been to a city in the clouds, sweetheart,” she murmured, scraping her hoof on the plate on my back. “I don’t know what to expect.”

“Anyway, um… that spring, I was just walking around, before the sun came up, and… there was this totally smoking hot mare flying laps around one of the orchards. She went out every morning to exercise. I saw her doing laps sometimes, when I was on the way to school, and, um… after our final exams, I, um… I started going there every day to watch her fly.”

Night Cloud giggled and squeezed my back. “Of course you did…”

I rolled my eyes. “She was hot, okay?” I shuddered and took a breath. “I… sort of spaced out most of the time. Watching her. One time, she stayed out longer than usual, and… I forgot to recharge my talisman, and… and I fell. Straight down, screaming, because I was too busy checking her out to zap my stupid necklace with a little magic.”

“She must have noticed quickly,” murmured Night Cloud, “If she was able to catch up to you…”

“She almost didn’t.” I shuddered and laughed, and clutched her foreleg tightly. “I was falling for nearly a minute… then she caught me, and flew down and landed in the middle of nowhere… there was just tall grass everywhere. Couldn’t see very far, but there was a tree stump, I remember that. It was covered with mushrooms and vines, and there was a bush growing up around it, and there were little bugs everywhere. We both just… sat there for… I dunno, half an hour, maybe. I cried at first, then we both started laughing.”

“Let me guess,” whispered Night Cloud, “You kissed your savior?”

“Uh-huh.” I nuzzled her chest again, nodding. “I thought she was the most amazing pony ever, and…” I snickered and mumbled, “Then she told me she had a coltfriend… but she was cool about it. Then, um… well, she carried me back up. Took a while, too. Lot harder to fly up than straight down… good thing I’m so small, right?”

“Mmm… you are easy to carry.”

“For a long time, I was so afraid my talisman would fail again, or I’d forget to charge it… I stopped going to school, stopped going outside… Professor said… he said he knew a place I could go, where I wouldn’t need to wear a talisman ever again.”

“Cloud Loft.”

“Yep. He, um… he contacted someone he knew there, and… about a week later, Eagle showed up. He stayed in Neighvarro for a few weeks, and we hung out in the berths… Professor wanted to know if I’d be happy with him.” I took a deep breath, relishing her warmth and the smell of her coat. “I flew all the way across the Enclave’s entire territory just because… because I was watching a pretty mare fly around the cloud fields.”

“Hmm… quite a tale.” Night Cloud kissed my neck and wrapped her wing around me, and she said, “I’m glad you started watching her… and I wish it had been under kinder circumstances, but I’m glad you left Cloud Loft, and chose to come to Bellenast.”

“Me too.” I lightly poked her belly with my rear hoof and mumbled, “You know… if someone told me there were really big, strong mares with gorgeous wings in Bellenast, back when I fell? I think I’d have walked here all on my own.”

She giggled and murmured, “You’re silly… and, um… hormonal.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“I think you were silly and hormonal before that, mío amíke.”

A hoof rapped on the door.

“Come in,” said Night Cloud, raising her head and shifting her wing up to my neck.

“Hey,” said Eagle softly, “Uh… where’s Crystal?”

“Right here,” I said, lighting my horn with emerald green.

“Oh.” Eagle came around to the side of the bed and nuzzled the back of my neck. “There’s a bad storm coming. Might be pretty cold tonight, so, ah… here.” He dropped a folded blanket on the bed behind my back. “Shouldn’t need it, but if you do…”

“I think I’ll be fine, Eagle,” I said patting Night Cloud’s chest. “Plenty of warmth here.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, chuckling as he approached the door again, “But your blanket might need her own blanket… goodnight, both of you.”

“Thank you, Eagle,” said Night Cloud.

“Welcome.”

The door shut, and Night Cloud hummed by my ear. “He may not be your father,” she murmured, “But I think he’s a good parent.”

7. Magus

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Chapter Seven

Magus

[Under Construction]

8. Diplomacy, Part 1

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Chapter Eight

Diplomacy, Part 1

First was the sharp ache, total and consuming. From the base of my tail to the tip of my nose, from the frogs of my hooves to my stiff back, I hurt. It was not the searing stab of a bullet wound or the throbbing bruise of rock clashing with muscle and bone, but a pervasive, exhausting soreness, indiscriminate in its intensity and location. My ankles, my thighs, my belly and withers, my shoulders and pectorals and neck: It was as though I had pulled every commonly injured muscle in my body plus all the others, ripped them off my bones, stretched them some more, and reattached them at the ligaments.

My first few breaths after waking came in fitful gasps, and tears followed closely. My mouth and throat were parched, my tongue like a piece of dried jerky. A yawning emptiness clawed at my belly. My head began to pound sporadically, near my temples and behind my eyes.

Second came the linen sheets and quilted blanket, the faint heat of a crackling fire a room away, and the luxurious bed that would have been several sizes too large for me even cut in half.

I was not bleeding on a metal table. I was not in a clean, bright room, surrounded by ponies in blue scrubs and masks.

I was not in a hospital.

Third came the smell of fresh bread, wood smoke, the persistent howl of wind and rattle of windows and patter of sleet. The brewing storm had come to a boil. Curiously enough, there didn’t seem to be any thunder, only the clattering ice and wind.

The bedroom was sparingly furnished, but the furnishings present were all dark hardwood. A large dresser and oval mirror stood against the wall beyond the four-poster bed and its soft green curtains draping from a frame near the ceiling, wreathed in shadow from a flickering candle nearby. A half-filled bookshelf and a table strewn with papers occupied the wall to my left, and the small window there was covered by drapes the same green as the bed curtains. What appeared to be an immense sack, like a poorly-shaped cushion, rested in the corner.

Zephyr’s pale, violet coat blended almost perfectly with the lightly colored cushion; if not for the shine of her well-groomed coat and teal mane, and the glossy cover of a thick book lying open on her chest, I might not have seen her at all.

Hanging on a wooden rack by the bedroom door was a familiar suit of gleaming armor and white caparison folded across its back. On a narrow, semicircular table against the wall by the rack was a tall candle on a yellow, ceramic dish. The room was otherwise bare, and a faint scent of mild soap hung in the air; the floorboards shone, as though the room had been mopped recently.

The faint crackling from the fireplace came from down the short hallway beyond the open bedroom door.

Not daring to stretch, I lifted the covers and clambered out of the bed, keeping my steps light as best I could despite the ensuing agony any movement invited. On the bedside table were a pitcher of water, a glass, filled already, and a plate with a large loaf of bread, cut into four chunks. I levitated the glass, gulped its cool bounty greedily, and poured myself a second helping while I bit into one of two pieces of bread I held in my magic, scarcely breathing until I had finished. It was sweet and dense, filled with crunchy seeds, and slightly sticky with whatever confection glazed the crust. I took unsteady steps as I ate, my head spinning. By the time I had reached the bedroom door and glanced back at Zephyr, tears streaked my face.

Then I twisted my head farther to properly look at myself. The half-spread limbs sprouting from new, sore bundles of musculature behind my withers were naked and bare, almost completely bereft of plumage, but they were there.

In the warm, dim glow of the candle, tiny pinfeathers gleamed on my, I had to admit, rather scrawny appendages. As though I had another pair of legs attached the wrong way, with nerves and tendons juxtaposed randomly, I stretched my stiff, aching wings wide and wiped the tears from my face with a forehoof. I doubted I ever would possess Night Cloud’s wingspan, and certainly I would not have Blitz’s powerful strokes or Eagle’s endurance, but they were mine.

My wings.

They twitched and suffered odd, jerky spasms, but I managed to fold them back down against my sides. My hind leg, too, was whole, and midnight blue again instead of chrome and white plastic. It tingled more than anything else, and my knee in particular hurt the most of all my aching joints, except, perhaps, for my lower back. Though the candlelight was not enough for me to see whether any scars remained, the patches of shaved fur on my spine and flanks were gone, and my coat fairly shone with a uniform glossiness.

It was also thicker and somewhat shaggy. My mane and tail, too, were long and wild, to the point of trailing across the floor. My hooves, strangely, appeared to have been clipped, filed, and polished. I recognized Zephyr’s skill at work.

The squeaking of a faucet and burble of running water caused my ears to flick toward the hallway, at a door several meters along the right side.

I approached the door, favoring my left hind leg with a slight limp.

-Night Cloud?-

I waited, my ear pressed to the door. Water sloshed again, but no voice answered.

-Night Cloud, are you in there?-

Again, no answer came. I frowned and opened the door slowly. A light haze of steam lit by another of the tall, yellow candles greeted me, along with the smell of lilac I had come to associate with Night Cloud’s scent.

Most of the generous bathroom was taken up by a spotless, claw-footed tub that was simply too large to have been anything other than built-to-order.

Night Cloud’s rear hooves poked over the edge of the tub, and her head lay on the reclining lip on one side. A broad, wooden step stood in front of the bathtub. Several ceramic and glass bottles of shampoos and conditioners occupied one end of the step, along with a jar of dried flower petals.

I made my decision and crept up to the bath, closing the door behind me with nary a click of the lock or squeak of hinges. My legs protested at every step, and Night Cloud opened her eyes and gasped only as I slipped into the hot water with her and sat astride her belly. I braced myself on her chest, leaned forward, and locked lips with her.

Night Cloud slipped in surprise and wound up lying with only her head above the water. I was partially submerged, and yet I trembled, beset by a pounding heart and fiery yearning that made the water seem tepid by comparison. I darted in for a hungry kiss. Night Cloud gave a soft, happy moan and hugged me so tightly that my back popped in several places. She curled in on herself to envelop me with wings and strong legs.

We remained joined at the mouth for several minutes, no breath shallow and every touch invigorating.

Those several minutes, inevitably, made me lightheaded, and a cramp in my thigh caused me to collapse on her while I stretched and shook my leg. The mare pushed herself back into a reclining position and nudged her hind legs against my flanks, giving a pleased hum as she nuzzled my neck. “Mmmmmmm… didn’t think you’d be up so soon.” The alicorn pressed hard on my back with her forehooves, causing me to gasp in surprise and pain with equal measure.

“Night…” I laughed through the shudders brought by pain throughout my entire body and wrapped my forelegs around her neck. “Everything hurts.” I kept laughing, crying, shaking on her chest, and smiled as she reduced my back to limp putty. “Everything hurts so much…”

“I know, baby… I know.” Night Cloud lifted her head and shifted her hooves to the bases of my wings, and I moaned as she pressed and kneaded the new muscles there. “The most severe pain should be gone within… probably the next day, based on how long you’ve been out already, but…”

“But…” I grimaced, but chuckled despite myself. “Not all of it… how long before I can at least stand and not feel like my spine was ripped out and stuck back in wrong?”

“A few days…” I hissed as she dug her hooves into my lower back. “Though you may still be sore for a couple weeks. It varies.”

I glared at the wall of the tub. Sighing, I mumbled, “Any chance I could have some painkillers?”

“The only thing strong enough to really help would be Med-X or morphine.” Night Cloud shook her head and nipped the back of my neck. “Both of which are opioids, and highly addictive… I really don’t want to give you opioids.”

“Mmm… fine.” I crossed my horn with hers to touch our foreheads together, and murmured, “I love you, Night…” I bit my lip. “And, um… I, um… have a question, actually.” I nipped her neck experimentally in return and whispered, “Why are you horny when you wake up? Or why am I. I didn’t mean that you were—I meant myself. Not you.”

The alicorn snorted and began to giggle in the hazy candlelight. A wide smile adorned her muzzle. “Well…” She slowly rubbed her forehooves on my back. I sighed as she traced along my spine until she touched my wings and resumed her massaging. “You certainly ask some questions, young mare…” She gave a short chuckle blended into a sigh, but looked away from me.

“I just thought that, um… since you’re a doctor…”

“That I might be able to explain it. Yes, I understand… though I’m not technically a—”

“Yeah, whatever. You’re a healer, you know doctor and biology stuff. Close enough.” I sat up on her belly, resting my forehooves just below her ribs. “And why didn’t you hear me? I asked if you were in here, at the door.”

“I didn’t—oh.” She leaned her head back again and lit her horn briefly. My own horn tingled, then her lovely voice, accent and all, came from within my head. -My coupling wore off… I forgot.- She inhaled deeply and let out a long, exhausted sigh. “Sorry. Anyway… as you’re about to wake, your brain releases several hormones. One of them is, ah… noradrenaline. Increases your heart rate and blood pressure, which, in turn, causes increased blood flow to your muscles and… your vagina and vulva, among other parts of your body. It properly wakes you up, makes you alert. It also causes feelings of arousal. Happens to everypony. For stallions, it usually causes an erection. It’s just blood flow, that’s all.”

She cleared her throat and met my eyes again. “Baby, I’ve been up for nearly thirty-six hours… all of them long… I was stabbed, too, and I had to make do with normal healing treatments, not the fantastically potent kind. I’m sorry, but I’d rather stop the biology lesson for now… particularly that topic.”

I moved closer and kissed her jaw. “I was out that long?”

She cooed as I planted more kisses along her cheek. “Yeah. Claraby kept you sedated for the rough part… Orchid Wisp was able to remove that sword from your abdomen easily enough, but… it cut your abdominal aorta.”

“That’s… bad… I’m guessing.”

Night Cloud hummed and nodded while I stroked my hoof along her neck. “Means you bled a lot in a short time, right after Orchid teleported the blade free. Without a unicorn’s magic to prevent further hemorrhaging… that is, bleeding, with a telekinetically applied clamp, a wound like that is almost always fatal. Conventional sutures and coagulants aren’t always enough, even if you have the tools to apply them inside the body.”

My ears flicked. “What are those?”

“Mmm… sutures are stiches, clamps, staples… anything that keeps a wound closed while it heals. Coagulants force blood to coagulate, or to clot, to clump, more quickly than it does naturally.” She tilted her head, pressing her cheek to my hoof. “Claraby had to use entirely magical methods, since she couldn’t remove your armor straight away. That was before she gave you the Potion and the transformation began… it took quite a toll on you.”

Tears had begun to gather at the corners of her eyes. “I was afraid that you’d gone into a coma, for a little while…” She stretched her wings up from the water and wrapped them around me along with her forelegs, squeezing me at the waist and above my withers. “But you’re tougher than I give you credit.” The aches in my legs and back and everywhere else were nothing in that moment. “Crystal…” Her voice wavered. Her breath hitched. I nuzzled her and allowed the her to cradle my head and kiss my brow. Tears and quiet sobs came next. “Crystal Dew, my darling, I love you…” She nuzzled above my horn and pushed her snout through my mane until her lips found my ear. “You are so brave and beautiful, Crystal… my Crystal… stay close to me. Come to bed with me tonight, please.”

I rocked my hind legs in a fidgeting motion, nudging her ribs at the same time as I rubbed my forehoof in circles on her chest; I sent waves rippling back and forth around us. Laying my head on her neck, I murmured, “Night… um… maybe it’s different in your language, but… in Equestrian—or, um… Celestian, ‘come to bed’ usually means… something different. So, um… probably better if you just said ‘sleep together,’ instead.”

Night Cloud bit her lip and let out a slow breath. “Is that… something that you want?” Electric blue eyes focused on me, tired and filled with something I couldn’t say with certainty was not fear.

I gave a short, high laugh. “Well, um…” Her teeth showed in a smile, but the corners of her mouth were tight. I giggled and nuzzled her chest, mumbling, “I’d love to try, at some point… but, um… I get it if you don’t want to.”

“Baby…” She sighed, hugged me, and whispered, “I’m not ready for that. Not just yet. Certainly not tonight; I’m much too tired. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be.” I flicked my tail, splashing water over the side of the bath, and gave her a squeeze. “Just… let me know if you want to snuggle… I’m available.”

“Mmm… snuggle. Right.” Her soft, demure chuckle brought a smile to my face. “I did mean that I want us to sleep together, if you’re comfortable with that, but for anything else… I really think we should wait. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. Please, forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive.” I shrugged and kissed her cheek. “Are you ever going to learn not to apologize for everything?” I squeezed her abdomen with my legs, causing her to giggle. “I’d love to, um… sleep together, since we were doing that already, on the way here. As long as you want to.”

“That’s fine.” She chuckled and gave my waist a retaliatory squeeze with her wings again. “I really am sorry, baby. I’m worn out… I’m afraid I don’t spring back from life-threatening injuries and surgeries as well as you seem to. But, besides that, I don’t believe that, ah… making that decision so soon would be wise.”

“Night, I know what ‘I’m not ready’ means. You don’t need to explain it… or justify it. It’s okay.” I pecked her cheek and murmured, “Thank you, by the way. For saving me… again and again. For… for fighting for me.” I grasped her just as tightly in return. “That was an awesome aetheric blast,” I murmured to her. “You’re friggin’ scary when you’re angry.”

“I…” She shook with soft laughter and muttered, “Honestly, I… I wasn’t really paying that much attention, Crystal… I just… I wasn’t thinking… I was just… so furious… so afraid… when I saw that mare do that to you… I couldn’t stand to… I wouldn’t stand to…” Steamy as the bathroom was, the mare had yet to wash her face or mane. The tears crawling down her cheeks were plain for me to see. “Crystal, I can’t stop thinking about it…” Her normally melodic tone became a husky whimper. “I killed a pony… I swore an oath, as a healer, as a protector, never to take a life, and… diaĉas amorandas féle Gaía eta Nube, mertaĉa un equura… mertaĉa un equura…”

I gently took her foreleg and held her hoof as she lapsed into silence and wept. A length of bandages was wrapped around her upper leg, where she had stopped with her own muscle and bone a blade meant to plunge into her chest and pierce her heart.

“I shot her, too,” I mumbled. “It’s not all on you, Night.” She seemed not to hear me. As the indigo alicorn mumbled something I couldn’t understand in her tribe’s language, I raised my forehoof and hit her chest, just hard enough to sting and get her attention. “You’re my choice.”

“Ka se—” Night Cloud blinked and rubbed her chest on reflex, then grabbed my hoof. “What?”

“You are my choice.” I clutched her shoulders and sat up astride her belly, bracing myself against her so that I could look down at the mare just once. “You’re my choice, Night Cloud.” I clasped my forehooves behind her neck and hugged her tightly, “You killed a pony? Guess what: She hurt me… she tried to kill me, Night Cloud… so you decided she didn’t matter anymore. You did what I said. You chose me over her. If somepony tries to stab me or shoot me today, will you choose me again?”

“Yes, my love,” she whispered in my ear, hugging me tightly in return. “Earth and Sky, yes, a thousand times, yes…”

I leaned back and kissed her, savoring the tender warmth of her lips and intoxicating caress of her tongue. “When somepony tries to hurt you,” I said as I broke contact, “I’ll choose you. Not them. You. I will choose you every time, Night Cloud. I may not be as big or as strong or as fast as you, but darn it, I’ll do whatever I have to for you.” I flinched as she placed her forehoof below my ribs, where not long ago a sword had impaled me. That cold, seizing agony, I doubted I could forget. “But you can’t wait for somepony else to fight for you, Night… you have to act first. It’s like Carbide said: You have to take preemptive… action.”

Night Cloud’s brow creased. The corners of her mouth tightened.

Phantom speakers popped and squealed in a helmet I wasn’t wearing. I swallowed.

“Night, where’s Carbide?”

I peered into the cavity of the suit’s armored torso, levitating the entire exoskeleton so that its chest panel and the blue peytral faced the crackling fire.

A triangular hole, warped at the corners and charred black along its channel, ran through the titanium plate that had protected my belly and continued through the honeycomb frame, circuitry, and insulated lining of the suit before stopping on the back. One of the exoskeleton’s heavy vertebra had been cracked at the exit point, and the connecting pistons and armored plating were scored with lines of char and oxidation.

I forced the protective halves of the cuirass open, and my ears fell flat and shoulders sagged as I saw what lay inside.

In addition to being caked in a copious amount of dried blood—my blood—the power conduits and numerous talismans and circuit boards that ran along the spine were similarly melted and charred in many places. Hundreds of miniscule, interconnected components both electronic and thaumoelectric in nature were damaged far beyond any point of easy repair.

“He hasn’t moved at all? Said anything?” I waved my forehoof in front of the suit’s attached helmet, squinting at the lens at the corner of the right eyepiece. “No blinking lights? Radio signals?”

“No. He didn’t respond to a telepathic coupling, either. Ivy and I both tried. I wasn’t able to feel anything, but Ivy said there was… something. A presence, but no conscious thought.”

“So he’s…” I took a deep, trembling breath and swallowed. “That means he’s still alive… right?”

“It’s as though he’s in a trance of deep sleep, or in a coma… although, I’m not certain how well either of those terms apply.” Night Cloud set her wing on my back. “When… when you were stabbed, the blade discharged some kind of spell. Eagle said it might have been a matrix disruption.”

“No… maybe as a secondary element, but disruption spells don’t melt things. That sword… the spark cell powered an electrothaumic induction burst, with a seeking element.” I shivered and muttered, “It’s a spell meant to fry things, not just zap them offline. They’re drawn to the closest, or most concentrated source of electrothaumic activity nearby, like the matrix of a suit of power armor. That’s how most targeting talismans work.”

“No,” whispered Night Cloud. “Your heart.” She slid her foreleg around my back and rubbed my chest. “It should have targeted your heart… a pony’s heart is… baby, your heart is several orders of magnitude more electrothaumically active than any talisman. It’s the locus of all magical power in your body. If that’s how such a spell works, then… it should have killed you. You’d have gone into cardiac arrest immediately. That can’t be it.”

I shivered. I touched the inside of the heavily reinforced half of the cuirass. “The spell that disabled the suit hit me before that mare… before she stabbed me. I felt a shock first. That was a matrix disruption. The sword… it didn’t do anything that flashy. It targeted something else.” The halves would swing open on hinges to allow me to step into the suit, but they protruded from my chest far more than was necessary for armor alone. The framing and nexus of insulated ribbon cables on the interior panel, nestled under a wire mesh that had been scorched black, were the most charred of any parts of the armor. They fed into what once was a black, rubber grommet, now polymerized and brittle. A similar entry point sat on the right panel; it bore similar burn markings, but they were less severe.

“The sparks. Where did they focus? On the peytral, around the front?”

“I… I didn’t see it, baby.” Night Cloud squeezed me and murmured, “I was stunned. Zephyr was the only one in the position to see you, and… that mare’s spell made quite a lot of smoke when it struck me. She probably couldn’t see anything, either.”

“Mmm.” I swallowed and pulled a manual release latch inside the thick cuirass panel, and the titanium plate on the outside, scarred with yellow streaks of oxidation, popped outward a centimeter. “This suit doesn’t use a spell matrix for control. Power distribution, maybe…” I gently pulled the cuirass plate apart from its frame, and the reason for abnormal thickness of the collar and chest pieces, which I had first pondered as I saw the suit in a mirror, became apparent.

Within the left half of the cuirass panel was a thin, yellow circuit board dominated by an array of aluminum fins surrounded by miniscule electrical components. The smell of melted plastic and capacitors wafted up from the opening. I grimaced at the sight of the hundreds of tiny, black squares, interconnecting lines, and protruding cylinders, most melted or burst, that formed the control center of my suit of armor. “There’s the computer,” I muttered. “I think. It’s so small…”

Night Cloud leaned over me to look. “What is that?”

Resting inside a hollow within the left panel, surrounded by melted wires, ribbons, and a four-pronged, rubberized clamp was a dazzling ball of crystalline material, so clear and perfect that it had to be solid diamond, encircled by a geometric, metal cradle the same deep blue hue as the detached peytral lying on the hardwood floor.

It was the size of a billiard ball, polished immaculately, and possessed facets in the shapes of pentagons and equilateral triangles. A pure, white light, dimmer than a candle guttering at the end of its wick, flickered faintly throughout the interior of the polyhedron. The light danced across every face, edge, and individual vertex of the diamond ball. Lines of gold, thin as gossamer and numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, spun in parallel, fractal paths that led deeper into the center of the orb, all converging on a translucent, milk-white sphere at its center.

Faint, dark marks scarred the corners of the noctium cradle. “It targeted this, not me.”

“It’s beautiful…” Night Cloud leaned over my shoulder as I lifted the ball gently free of its cradle of melted insulation and fused wires. I detached the many scorched ribbons and warped connectors that had plugged into narrow slots on the metal cradle. A minor amount of thaumic feedback surged into my horn as my magic touched the ball, causing me to flinch. My head throbbed fiercely, but I kept my telekinetic hold of the cradle; the thick, noctium bars were rounded and molded perfectly around the diamond facets on their inside edges, and made the entire object roughly the size of a ripe grapefruit. The cradle’s structure formed a shape with twelve pentagonal faces: A dodecahedron. “But what in Gaia’s name is it?”

I held the ball to my chest and whispered, “This is Carbide.” The light within the diamond polyhedron brightened by a fraction when my hoof touched the noctium cradle’s surface; my hoof wouldn’t fit through the gaps between the bars. “I know you probably can’t hear me, Carbide,” I murmured, “But I’ll say it, anyway: I’ll fix you.” I blinked as my vision began to blur with tears. Night Cloud hugged me from my side. “I just… don’t know how yet.”

“Baby…” The tall alicorn nuzzled between my ears. “I promise you, I will help you however I can with this… though I don’t know how yet, either. But, for now…” She wiped my cheek clean of tears, then rested her forehoof on mine, over the diamond orb and its noctium frame. “I’m exhausted, and I would appreciate… very, very much if we could go to bed, now…”

She stood and stepped away. I followed her, every muscle screaming in protest. I levitated Carbide’s cradle, keeping the metal and diamond ball in sight. “Where’s Eagle?” I said softly as we entered the hallway and turned to the right.

“With Ivy and Blitz… trying to find any trace of the Kekalo Prince and where any more of his soldiers may be. They’re safe; don’t worry.”

I scowled. “So it wasn’t Supreme Jerkoff Beardo, then?”

“Beardo… no, that wasn’t him, I’m afraid. Maybe his second-in-command, maybe a friend… I don’t know. Some nefarious, slimy brigand or another. That’s for ponies wiser and more powerful than us to discover.” Night Cloud giggled and reached for the door, pausing. “And please stop using that word; it’s very crude.”

“What? Jerkoff?”

She cleared her throat quietly and murmured, “Yes. ‘Jerking off’ is a euphemism for masturbation.”

I followed her into what I surmised was her bedroom, where the suitably enormous four-poster bed and bizarre cushion-chair waited with Zephyr on it. -Don’t think I’ve ever heard that word before.-

Night Cloud sighed and climbed into the bed, lying on her side, then levitated me smoothly up and set me down, pulling the blanket over us both. She spread her wing over me and stretched her legs out; on a normal bed, her hind legs would dangle off the end of the mattress. -It’s… you know, pleasuring yourself. Stimulating yourself, sexually. With your hooves, or magic, or toys.-

-You could have just said it’s the fancy word for jerking off. I know what that means.-

-Oh. Well, the way you said it, it sounded like… never mind.-

I blinked several times and set Carbide’s metal self on the bedside table, by an unlit candle. -So, um… what kind of toys?-

She stroked her hoof along my withers as I glanced over at the corner, where Zephyr slept. -Crystal Dew, baby… I think your curiosity about this is perfectly fine, and normal, and healthy... but I really would rather not discuss those right now.-

I flexed my wings slightly and turned onto my side, then pressed my back closely to Night Cloud. Every motion caused more burning, and I continued to ache even after I lay still, but her warmth and the gentle swelling of her ribs against my back seemed to transform the acute stabs into a dull throbbing that I could ignore.

I levitated a third piece of the loaf of bread from the plate on the bedside table and began to eat, careful to keep crumbs in the emerald haze of my magic. -Did you make this?-

She hummed quietly and patted my ribs just behind my foreleg. -Just for you. I added honey. Thought you’d be hungry… I know I was, afterward. The Potion contains most of the energy required for its effects, but some of the final parts of the transformation rely on your own metabolic processes… meaning it leaves you hungry.-

-It’s good.-

-Thanks. I’m glad you like it.-

I swallowed the last bite of bread, my hunger sated, my hooves warm, and Night Cloud’s wing curling in to spread over my belly. -So, it’s okay to call somepony a slimy brigand, but not a jerkoff?-

-Well, neither is exactly polite, but one of them is overtly sexual… and likely to make ponies think less of you. Your elders in particular.-

I smirked. Both our breaths had slowed. -So, does that mean it’s better to make your insults fancy? Like ‘slimy brigand?’-

-Better to say nothing at all… call me a hypocrite. Be kind, courteous, and respectful to all you meet, and when that fails… don’t waste your breath.-

-So if somepony tries to bully me in this school you want me to go to so much… I’m guessing your probably don’t want me to throw them into the nearest wall.-

She snorted softly. -Heavens no, sweetheart… they’re schoolyard hooligans, not bandits… they aren’t worth violence. Honestly, unless you go out of your way to antagonize somepony, I doubt even the worst bullies will give you much trouble, especially not while I’m around. Don’t hesitate to use a little force if you need to, but don’t pick fights. Walk away. Be the better mare.-

-I’ll just imagine I’m making out with you, then walk away.-

The mare made a quiet hum and tucked her chin against my head. -Smart filly.-

I levitated a new log into the fireplace behind me and returned my attention to the damaged circuit boards and bundles of insulated cables between them. My suit of armor lay open, tipped onto its side near the hearth. The scant tools I had to my name I had placed in a neat row next to a bowl that had been filled until recently with a simple breakfast of ground corn and oats.

Across two pages of my diary, I had sketched a diagram of the armored exoskeleton’s internal connections, detailing its detached power cables, many discrete circuit boards, and several talismans of esoteric design and function, all of which had been modified from standard conventions to interface directly with the suit’s electronics. The talismans and the gemstones they contained, at least, were unharmed by the electric and thaumic surge that had crippled the suit, but most of the electronic components were beyond repair.

Soft, snipping sounds came from near my ears as Zephyr trimmed my mane with a set of delicate razors on her wings and a comb in her teeth. Lacking a proper barber’s cape, I had wrapped a clean towel around my shoulders.

As the low crackle of the fire grew to something warm and pleasant, I penned a final line and label between what appeared to be a power distributor and the cables leading into the armor’s collar, where the computer rested next to its empty, twin compartment.

I looked up, gazing in silence at the blue, metal cradle and diamond ball within it on the floor nearby. Refusing to place my friend on the floor directly, I had set Carbide’s dormant form on a plate, instead.

Sighing, I murmured, “What do you think, Carbide?”

Zephyr paused her clipping, and my ears flicked at the sound of her teeth shifting the comb back, holding it between her incisors and molars. “He can’t hear you… can he?”

I ran a glowing, emerald mote of magic over the diamond ball, shook my head, and turned back to my diagram. “No… at least, I don’t think so. He…” I chewed my lip and said, “That is… the diamond… the light in it flickers a little sometimes, when I touch it, but I think that’s just thaumoelectric capacitance. Like static electricity, going into your hoof.”

“Have you found out what all those parts do?”

“Some of them.” I pointed at one of the talismans, a densely-twined coil of thick, copper wire wound around an iron ring. In the center of the ring was a fire ruby, cut into the shape of two truncated, six-sided pyramids that joined together with a silver plate at their bases. The fire ruby was held to the wire torus with numerous spars of rough plastic, save where a solitary wire at each end wrapped around in opposite directions.

“That’s a thaumoelectric inductor. It hooks directly into the busbars. That’s what sends power to the spine, as far as I can tell.” I motioned to the corners of my widespread collection of parts. “There are smaller ones for each of the legs, and another for the tail.” Letting my hoof fall, I muttered, “But those are just for power; the talismans are easy, and I can probably find the sensors he used to tell how he was moving, but I don’t have a clue how any of the electronic stuff works… I don’t think even Eagle would. He never dealt with any of this kind of stuff before…”

“So we need somepony who knows computers… at a very detailed level. You could start looking at school… that’s as good a place as you’ll get.” Zephyr put the comb back in her teeth and continued snipping away at the wilder parts of my mane.

I rolled my eyes. “Great. Another reason I should go. Guess I can’t avoid it…”

Zephyr clicked the comb back again to speak. “What’s this other reason?”

I scowled, then thought of the indigo mare sleeping down the hallway and put on a smile I couldn’t hide. “Night Cloud said I could be in her classes…”

“Crystal, she’s five years your senior. You’re smart, but not… well…” I raised an eyebrow and turned halfway around. Zephyr bit her lip. “You’re behind by a year and a half already, from Neighvarro’s curriculum, and by two years if we’re going by Cloud Loft standards. Not on math, and certainly not the sciences, but I doubt they’ll let you skip the other subjects that easily. You need to be in school, whether or not you get the same courses as her.”

I turned back to the fireplace, watching the dancing flames creep up the new log. “Night said I’d take a test to see where they’d put me.”

“And she thinks you can match her?” Zephyr patted my shoulder. “Sweetie, I’m not trying to discourage you, but… it isn’t a matter of how intelligent you are. It’s about having a complete education, not jumping ahead to be with your marefriend every class… besides which, she’ll graduate in a year, anyway, and then you’ll be on your own. Bellenastian schools teach eight grades. They allow for scheduling around apprenticeships, but that just means all the courses are more condensed, more rigorous.”

I froze in the middle of turning to look back at her, mindful of the razors at her wingtips. “When did you have time to go investigating?”

“While you were sedated for that Potion… and while you slept like a rock after that.”

I sighed and muttered, “Thirty-six hours… right…”

“Closer to two full days, for you.” Zephyr removed one the razors from her left wing and used her dexterous primaries to hold the comb, then leaned forward to snip at my bangs. “And we didn’t come here right away; stayed at the hospital, instead. I asked around… it was something to keep my mind off…”

“Everything that could go wrong?” I rolled my eyes. “Night Cloud had half her friggin’ body crushed by a monster, healed herself all wrong, and she was just fine after she drank the Potion. Kinda hard to believe, but I don’t think a sword in the chest is that bad, in comparison.” Zephyr’s wings withdrew, and the razors clinked together.

“Don’t joke about that.” She swallowed and murmured, “Please.”

I tore my eyes off the fire and settled for watching the floor, instead. “Sorry… so, um… who’d you ask about…”

“Oh.” She chuckled. “Turns out, Night Cloud has classmates who work at the hospital. Go figure. After Ivy and the guards took care of those Kekalo soldiers, she showed us to the hospital.” Zephyr cleared her throat. “Um… Night Cloud met us in the waiting room, with a nurse, after she took care of her leg injuries. Her name was, ah… Capillary Action.”

I blinked. “Cappy!”

“Hm?”

I stomped my hoof on the floor and said, “Must be Cappy. She was in the operating room when that mare teleported me and Night Cloud in. I mean, I didn’t see her… I just remember hearing her name. And…” I frowned and closed my eyes, thinking of the fourth mare with both wings and horn that I had seen. “There was another alicorn. Orchid Wisp.”

“Yes,” said Zephyr, “I saw her at one point, but she was… rather busy. Anyway, Capillary Action told me about her courses; she’s taking many of the same classes as Night Cloud. I don’t think that your being able to take those same courses as her is a realistic expectation to have. I don’t doubt your ability… I just…” She pulled my mane back from my neck and snipped at the ends, smoothing it out neatly. “If you’re agreeing to go back to school just because Night Cloud gave you that expectation, especially on the basis that you’d be with her for many of your classes… that’s not fair of her.” Zephyr nuzzled behind my ear and said, “I don’t want you to be disappointed. Eagle knows his stuff, but all the things he’s taught you are specialized, not a comprehensive education. I don’t think you understand quite how much you’ve missed, Crystal.”

“Rub it in,” I muttered. Glaring at the door and curtained window that led to the snow-laden street and cloudy morning outside, I said, “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“Around noon. He’s checked in every six hours.”

“Your radio?”

“Yeah.”

I glanced up from the tidy web of parts and peered to our left, at Zephyr’s defunct suit of power armor, laid bare for the first time since we had stayed three nights at Cliffside. Once the pride of any pegasus of the Enclave, and then subject of my experiments and many protective talismans, it had been reduced to a scorched, pockmarked husk, its polymer and ceramic plating blasted to ruin.

I set my pen and diary down, biting my cheek; when compared to the indiscriminate, throbbing aches that saturated my body, the sensation barely registered. “So the main talisman and secondary power distributor still work… just not the flight systems… what about the control interface?”

“I…” Zephyr laughed. “Yeah, the radio, the EFS, the targeting and gun mounts… secondary systems all checked out. The primaries are just too shot. I could walk with it, but not fly. Sweetie… if there’s anything in that old suit you think will help…” She took a deep breath and set her hooves on my shoulders. “It isn’t like we have a wealth of spare parts lying around to repair it with, anyway… and it did what you built it to do. Kept me alive when I needed it most. Whatever’s left, put it to good use.”

“But… what if you need it?” I crossed my forelegs and reached backward to hold her hooves with mine.

Zephyr leaned forward and hugged me, pointing at the noctium cradle and diamond polyhedron nearby. “Your friend needs it more.”

I sighed and gazed in silence at the arrayed armor parts, my diary, and Zephyr’s shredded suit. Levitating the diamond and metal ball that was my friend—blind, deaf, and mute—I stood on stiff, aching legs and stepped away from my work of the past hour. I held the polished cradle close to my breast and walked past Zephyr. The pegasus accompanied me toward the hallway.

“I’m going back to bed,” I murmured. I untied the towel from my collar and swept a wave of magic over my mane, tail, and coat to free any leftover clippings of hair, then dumped it all in the small waste basket at the kitchen entrance on the right.

“You’re still tired?”

“Not really. I mean… sort of, but… it’s not normal. Everything hurts, and Night says the only painkillers that would help are addictive.” I stretched my naked wings briefly as I approached the bedroom door and grasped the latch telekinetically. “Sleeping seems like a good idea, and… I just… want to be there when she wakes up.”

Zephyr gave a soft nicker. “I can’t believe you’ve known her a week and you’re already… well…”

I paused in the doorway, ears swiveled toward her. The pale violet pegasus shook her head. I frowned, but it was a half-hearted thing. Zephyr padded across the dark room, bit onto the ill-shaped, cushion-chair-thing, and began to tug it with her. As she dragged the amorphous piece of furniture through the doorway, I whispered, “Well… what?”

She rubbed her neck with her hoof and murmured, “You deserve some privacy. I’ll be in the living room.”

Slow, inexorable heat flooded my neck and face. I closed the door to Night Cloud’s bedroom and struggled to form a coherent sentence in my mind. I coughed and attempted aloud. “Do you… not want me to, um…”

Zephyr froze, then released the cushion and turned toward me, a pronounced weariness framing her eyes. “Crystal… under Bellenastian law, until you’re sixteen, you’re not legally able to… to consent to sex.” She stepped close and hugged me, resting her chin on my withers. “That means that if you and Night Cloud decide to have a harmless roll in the hay, then she becomes guilty of statutory rape.”

I scowled. “I was talking about just sleeping together, not sleeping with her. I know the friggin’ difference. What does statutory mean?”

She stepped back and held me at foreleg’s length. “It means, sweetheart, that the law defines it as rape because one of you is not of legal age. She would most likely end up in prison if anypony ever found out about it… she would be convicted for sexual abuse of a child, since you can’t legally give consent, yourself.” She sighed, and whispered, “And her entire career as a doctor would be ruined.” The mare squeezed my shoulders, backed away, and turned to the living room again. “I don’t think she’ll ask you to do anything… but I don’t know if she’ll say no if you ask her. So please don’t.”

“She already did,” I muttered.

Zephyr looked shell-shocked for a moment. “… she asked…”

“She said no.” I stretched my wings out again, wincing, and sighed. “I asked… I mean, I didn’t really ask, but the topic came up; she said she wasn’t ready. I guess… partly because she thinks she’d, um… get in trouble.”

Zephyr stomped, drawing my gaze up to meet hers in the dim hallway. “There’s an important distinction between not wanting to get in trouble and not being comfortable with the idea. Just because you are interested doesn’t mean she is. The mare has fought and bled and killed for you, in the one week you’ve known her, Crystal. Don’t repay that by being selfish.”

My ears drooped. “Okay, okay… I get it.”

“Do you?” She stepped closer to me and wrapped her wing tightly around my torso. I began to fidget as her feathers rustled across my naked wings; it was one of the oddest sensations I’d experienced in my life. “Crystal…” She set her chin in my head and murmured, “We left our home… came all this way, fought every vile monster and thug that stood in our path, ultimately because… because one idiot took advantage of you.”

I scowled, grinding my teeth. “And?”

“And what that stallion did to you was very obviously wrong, Crystal…” Zephyr nuzzled my ear and stepped back from me. “But you need to realize that there are far more less obvious ways that you can hurt somepony you love than there are obvious ones. Even simply asking for something like that can hurt. She might feel pressured to accept, just to make you happy, even if she’s not ready. Even if she’s afraid—and don’t think that because she’s older than you, more mature, that she isn’t afraid.”

“I know that,” I muttered.

“Then you should know it’s still wrong, and even if you aren’t trying to hurt her, you’d be taking advantage of her… it just isn’t as obvious.” The pale pegasus touched my chest and said, “Remember that, when she keeps you warm at night.”

My voice came out as a defeated squeak. “Okay.” I swallowed and turned, trembling, to open the door.

I listened as Zephyr dragged her makeshift bed to the hearth, leaving me to return to the privacy of the bedroom.

As I climbed into Night Cloud’s curtained bed and waited for the coming sunrise to wake her, I was, indeed, warm and safe.

Even so, I shivered.

“Crystal?”

I blinked blearily at the large, deep violet hoof near my own. Then, I looked up at the towering figure to which it belonged.

I surged up instantly and wrapped myself around her neck, standing on the very edge of the bed. “Blitz!”

“H-hey, nice to see you, too, kiddo…” The mare hugged me in return, sighing softly as she nuzzled my withers. “Glad to see you safe… and well.”

“Baby, what…” Night Cloud stirred behind me. “Oh, Blitz! Gaia éta Nube, you’re all right…”

“I hate to spoil the morning,” said Blitz, releasing me and stepping back, “But, ah… Crystal, there’s a giant robot tank outside the city gates. It wants to talk to you.”

“Maximillian.” I sat down on the bed and levitated the diamond and metal polyhedron on the adjacent table into my waiting hooves. “I, um…” My ears drooped as Night Cloud sidled up behind me and nuzzled me, wrapping her forelegs around me. “I’m guessing he hasn’t, you know… blown anything up, since you’re here, and not… there. Dealing with him.”

Blitz nodded. “For the moment… we have every cannon in range pointed at it… him?” She made an odd face. “Maximillian? So, is that meant to identify it as a male, or… is it just a name?”

I looked down at object in my grasp; my magic caused scintillating, emerald light to fill the diamond ball and the golden traces within it to stand in stark contrast. “Carbide said ‘him.’ When he told me about the signal.”

“Huh. Well… he wants to talk to you.” Blitz shuffled in place, sat down, and reached around both me and Night Cloud with her wings and forelegs, hugging us both closely. “Asked for you by name, in fact… how are you two feeling?”

“Better,” said Night Cloud, “Mostly. I could do with some breakfast.”

“Sore,” I said. “Everywhere. All the time. Fine, otherwise. What about you?”

Blitz let us go and sighed. “There’s a foreign army lurking somewhere in the valley, a crazy prince with a grudge against me and mine, and most of the city’s narrower streets are now frozen over and impassable. Oh, and there’s the giant robot tank of dubious intent at the gates and it won’t go away.” She smiled and rubbed her shoulder. “Fine, otherwise.”

I giggled. “So, um… now what? Go talk to Maximillian?”

“Normally, I’d say no, but the thing—uh… he… verbally agreed to disarm while he waited. At my request. Then he actually did it.”

Night Cloud crossed her forehooves over my belly, pressed her muzzle gently against the side of my neck, and said, “How, exactly, does a robot tank normally do that?”

Blitz shrugged. “Some parts of the armor opened up, and a bunch of missiles and ammo belts fell out. Took a few minutes. And he let me disconnect the power coupling for the big laser thing on its middle. I don’t know if that was everything, but we’re dealing with a machine… or entity… that’s willing to make a good-faith gesture, so… I’m willing to give him the benefit of doubt.”

I frowned and raised my hoof. “One more question. You said he asked for me by name.”

The deep violet mare nodded. “I’d like to know how he got that, too.” She pointed down at my chest, and the diamond ball I held. “I suspect Carbide was in communication with him, at some point.”

“Oh. Um… he could receive signals from Maximillian back in Granit Bridge, but he’d have needed a really powerful transmitter to send anything back over that distance. Way more powerful than you can fit in a suit.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I’m more worried that he asked for me by name because I, um… shot him in the face the last time we met. Then he tried to tear down a whole building while I was in it. I think. I wasn’t really awake during most of that part, but…” I shuddered and muttered, “I remember leaving that building. It wasn’t fun.”

Blitz stared at me for several seconds. “You shot him… in the face. You mean the thing at the top? Vaguely resembles some kind of head, if only because it’s where you expect one to be?” I took a moment to parse that, then nodded. Then, slowly, her muzzle contorted into a frown, and she groaned and held her forehooves over her eyes.

Night Cloud lifted her snout from my neck and murmured, “What is it?”

“Repair talismans,” said Blitz, rubbing her temples. “Its head appears to be perfectly intact. Because of course it fu—hrmm… of course it regenerates. Peachy.”

“Um… most robots have repair talismans.” I pushed my hoof out from under Night Cloud’s wing to point at the doorway to the living room and suits of power armor out of sight there. “Enclave power armor has them, too.”

Night Cloud yawned and said, “Seems only practical to put one in a larger robot.”

Blitz grunted and flared her wings in irritation. “Yes. Well. This robot is extremely large, has followed us across the length and breadth of the entire Kingdom, has expressed a singular desire to come within driving-over-and-squishing range of ponies I love, and is apparently capable of negotiating. Machines don’t typically do that last one, and it has me on edge.” She took a deep breath, ruffled her wings restlessly, and put on a smile that spoke volumes about how much she had slept recently. “Oh, and there’s still that foreign prince running around somewhere, plotting to stab me in the neck. Probably. I’m not sure which I should be more worried about: The pony out for my blood, or the machine that has an agenda.”

I laid my chin against Night Cloud’s wing and levitated the diamond ball and cradle that had occupied my waking thoughts and dreams alike. “Carbide said Maximillian is programmed to protect him. He wasn’t chasing us. He’s following Carbide… or my armor. Its radio beacon. If he wants to talk to me, it’s just because Carbide was in my armor.” Brief ideas of the other reasons an enormous, armored war machine would be following me caused me to shrink within Night Cloud’s comforting embrace. “I hope,” I mumbled.

Blitz stared at the object hovering in my magic. “And now he’s lost that signal… but he knows that Carbide is still… alive. Or he knows where you are, and expects you and the suit to be in the same place.”

I swallowed, rubbed Night Cloud’s hooves, and looked up at Blitz. “So… are we going to talk to him, or not?”

She had placed both forehooves on her temples again. Massaging slowly, she said, “It’s either talk to him and hope that he keeps his word about not rampaging through the city, or open fire first and hope that our guns are big enough to destroy… him…” She paused and frowned, staring at the floor as she set her hooves on the edge of the bed, near mine. “Before he, ah… can fire back… with whatever he has hidden under all that armor. Goddesses above, this thing can think and barter with us—did barter with me—and my first thought is to blast it to smithereens.”

“Well…” I touched her hooves and said, “My old rifle melted a hole in his head, and that didn’t keep him down.” I leaned back and nuzzled Night Cloud. “How about we try talking? That’s the nice option.”

Blitz sighed and rubbed her neck. “I suppose…”

Night Cloud hummed in assent. “Coffee first, Blitz?”

“Coffee?” The deep violet mare’s ears shot up. “Excellent idea. Coffee first, then talk to the giant robot tank.”

9. Diplomacy, Part 2

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Chapter Nine

Diplomacy, Part 2

The worst of the storm had moved on, but snow fell in a constant, windy flurry, limiting visibility beyond the wall of the city to within a few hundred meters. The sky was grey and dark, the fields were white and smooth, and buildings along the frozen river stood out only by virtue of the lanterns at their doors and their docks amid the ice.

All this, I saw through the slight lensing of a transparent bubble tinged with violet light. The bubble did not stop the cold wind or snow, but lead and spellfire would be hard-pressed to defeat it.

Ammo boxes the size of a fully grown pony, stacks of them, sat in neat rows in the cold field; the brass peeking out from those containers revealed two primary calibers, long cartridges that seemed fit for a large rifle or machine gun, and shells the size of my horn that had to belong to the arrays of light cannons on the machine’s upper facings. Simple rockets and guided missiles, in skeletal racks and sealed pods, lay next to them. Loose shells for a cannon stood in three stacks between the missiles and machine gun boxes. The shells were as long as one of Night Cloud’s legs and as wide as a bottle of Sparkle-Cola. Some gleamed with the polish of newly-pressed brass, and some wore the dull brown patina of centuries spent in a magazine without ever meeting a breech.

The machine itself—himself—waited silently before the gates of Bellenast, one hundred or so meters distant, on six wheels. One of those ancient wheels, laid on its side, could encircle an equally ancient oak tree twice over.

Maximillian was, by my reckoning, nine or ten meters tall, at the top of what could be called his head: A broad dome whose most prominent feature was a protruding, swiveling array of three large lenses, two the size of a pony’s head and the third more than half a meter in breadth. The dome was otherwise speckled with camera housings, antennae, and other odd bulges, whose purposes I could only guess. Mysteriously, it lacked any signs of battle damage, and was, in fact, polished and painted a uniform grey.

It was as though the whole dome had been remade, or replaced entirely.

The bottom portion of the colossus was speckled by dents, scratches, burn marks, and shallow gouges left by centuries of conflicts that must have occurred in and around its home. It was a wheeled tank, about four meters from the ground to the turret base, all shallowly angled armor plating, gun turrets, and honeycomb-patterned pods bereft of their missiles. The frontal glacis declined and became a plow able to shove aside many tons of debris, as I had seen for myself. Recessed in two gaps in the plow were two winches, though one of them was snarled and jammed with what looked like a crumpled section of a lamppost.

The top reminded me of a sentry bot, and of pictures of minotaurs I once had seen in Neighvarro; where a minotaur was well-defined, tall, and muscular, however, the machine before me was stout and cumbersome, its torso like a broad, too-short smokestack that occupied the rear third of the vehicle beneath it. It was slightly tapered, and covered sparsely with dull, grey squares of metal, in addition to more cameras and sensor booms that projected out from the surface at seemingly random points. Two thick, crane-like arms extended from the upper half of the turret; the shoulders were armored and articulated with a combination of enormous servo motors and hydraulics, and the elbows supported a boom that ended in three vise-like claws that could grasp a carriage. The left one, from Maximillian’s perspective, hosted on what could be called his wrist a delicate array of six prongs set around a circular, parabolic dish, which was studded with tiny, gleaming discs of copper.

Under these arms, mounted on a circular rail around the torso, were two secondary arms that seemed more appropriate for precision tools. They were connected to the torso with neatly tethered cables, and resembled the limbs of a mantis, or those of the self-levitating utility robot I had seen in Carbide’s laboratory building. Each limb held multiple tools, but I couldn’t distinguish them from so far away.

Set on a more massive ring around the lower torso, below the secondary arms, was the thaumic projection cannon that, with glancing blows, had scored concrete black and melted solid bronze statues in a courtyard I hoped never to visit again.

I shuffled in place, swallowing. “I’m grateful,” I said slowly, “Really… really grateful… that he didn’t use all that. Before. Because… now that I have time to look…” My shuffling took me closer to Night Cloud. My hooves had begun to grow cold and numb, and the blanket wrapped around me was not as warm as I wished. “I see a lot of targeting talismans. Intact. Targeting talismans.”

“Then why did he miss?” asked Blitz, kicking idly at the snow; she wore her grey caparison over a suit of armored barding that much resembled that of the many city guards that stood in staggered lines behind us, except instead of a bright cuirass over white cloth, the steel was dark and smooth, like the surface of a rock in the rain. The armor appeared brand new, and though simple in appearance and lacking any notable engravings, it was of the finest quality, and fitted to her perfectly. The barely visible lines of bright, polished metal that rimmed the edges of each plate spoke of complex enchantments and talismans hidden under the surface. “Why try to shoot at you at all, before?”

For all its understated elegance, the armor, like Night Cloud’s own, suited Blitz well.

“I’ve wondered about that.” Another wing spread across my back, and Zephyr stepped close to me. She wore her power armor’s undersuit; it wouldn’t stop a missile, but it had some protective talismans built into its lining. “The sentries were tracking me and Eagle by our armor… we were the clear threats, considering how many we took down. And they didn’t miss.” She pointed at the gargantuan sentry. “Maybe he was trying not to hit you.”

“Carbide said he was… compromised. Hacked somehow, by somepony…” I shrugged and nudged Zephyr’s shoulder with my snout. “Maybe he was fighting back?”

“Perhaps he had a virus,” said Night Cloud. Blitz and Zephyr both turned to her. “A computer virus. Malicious programming, injected into a computer system. Maximillian has an artificial mind, does he not? A computer for a brain. It stands to reason he would be vulnerable to viruses. Perhaps that’s what Carbide meant; connecting to the laboratory systems must have cleared whatever it was from his memory.” She looked back at our dumbfounded expressions, glanced at Blitz, and rolled her eyes. “Just because I’m a tribal mare doesn’t mean I’m ignorant. The hospital has many computers; I’m expected to use them every day.”

A faint, resonating whine came across the field as Maximillian lowered his left arm, rotated two of his claws so that they were parallel to the middle third, and tapped them on the top of his wheel well. The heavy clunk-clunk-clunk came clearly through the wind and snow.

“Um…” I tilted my head up at Night Cloud. She shrugged her wings. Blitz frowned. “When…”

Clunk-clunk-clunk.

“When is Ivy going to, um… meet us, again?” Blitz continued to stare at the looming machine. I tugged on her caparison. “Blitz?”

Clunk-clunk-clunk.

“What? Oh. Uh… couple minutes. Soon as she has her, uh… cannon. Just in case.”

“She, um… has a cannon?”

Night Cloud gave a nervous giggle and murmured, “She has a collection of cannons. And a small museum. I could take you to see it, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

Clunk-clunk-clunk.

I glanced behind us, squinting over Night Cloud’s figure at the twin-barreled guns in turrets high on the stone ramparts behind us and about eighty meters west along the wall. Ratcheting chain lifts on either side of the guns fed shells from hoppers at the turret’s base. Another identical turret sat in a fortified bastion a similar distance along the wall to the east of the river.

Both guns, all four barrels, were aimed at Maximillian.

“Yeah. I noticed. Are those, um…” I squeezed Night Cloud’s ankle and mumbled, “Not enough?”

“Um…”

Clunk-clunk-clunk.

“Probably,” said Blitz, “But Ivy doesn’t do ‘probably’ when it comes to… perforating things.” The deep violet mare spread her wings halfway for a moment, muttering, “I know I’ve seen griffons do that…”

“What does it mean?” I looked back past Night Cloud, squinting along the street past the gates. I looked back to Maximillian just in time to watch as he rotated all three claws around to point up, then flicked the rightmost claw over by several degrees.

“Wait…”

Then he flicked the claw again. And again.

I grimaced. “A clock.”

“Oh! I get it.” Blitz chuckled. “He’s tired of waiting.”

Quick wing flaps came from above us, a faint shadow fell over me, and something immensely heavy landed nearby. Night Cloud stumbled. Zephyr gasped and spread her wings to regain her balance.

I bounced.

I ducked my head below Night Cloud’s cuirass and gaped at the chariot-mounted field gun that was suddenly where it had not been before. Night Cloud glanced down at me, giggled, and stepped back to give me a clear view.

Ivy landed on the gunner’s bench behind the blast shield at the cannon’s breech and set her hoof on the firing control, then enveloped a thick lever on the bench and pulled it. Outriggers unfolded from the sides of the low, flat carriage and stabbed their teeth into the earth, and Ivy’s golden glow vanished, save for around a shell several times the mass of those which Maximillian had surrendered.

A block on the rear of the breech twisted ninety degrees and opened to the right, revealing deep threading on the block keyed to the inside of the breech. Ivy slid the massive shell in, and she flipped the block back into place, twisting and locking the breech. She glanced at us, levitated a pair of earmuffs onto her head, and turned back to the fire controls.

Blitz looked back and forth between Maximillian and the cannon. She made up her mind and pointed her hoof weakly at the gun. “Ivy, that’s not part of the armory. Where did—when did you make that?”

“And how much does it weigh?” I mumbled, staring at Ivy.

“Blizziera,” said Ivy, giving nary an eye to the taller mare as she quickly rotated a handle with her forehoof, which caused the gun to decline by several increments on the elevation dial. “I have enough cause for headache amid all this foolishness without a siege engine parked at our front door. Find out what it wants or convince it to leave.” From the panels of the already substantial blast shield that projected from immediately in front of the breech and fire controls, a translucent barrier of white-gold magic appeared, extending in a parabolic oval three meters to either side of the barrel and two meters above. “I will not abide its presence absent a leash.”

“… all right, then.” Blitz faced Night Cloud, Zephyr, and me and levitated three identical, brass medallions out of her saddlebags, fastening them around our necks. I lifted mine up to peer at the iron button inset on the brass disc. “Pre-arranged teleportation talismans. Push the button, and you’re just outside the Palace. Safe and sound.”

“Cool,” I mumbled. I met her worried gaze and said, “Single use?”

“Technically, no,” said Blitz, turning around and striding forward, “The talismans themselves are reusable, but they have to be re-enchanted and charged at the spell’s destination, so in practice, pretty much.”

Night Cloud, Zephyr, and I followed behind her. Zephyr hopped into a short glide and cantered forward to match pace with Blitz. I pointed both ears forward to catch her voice over the wind. “So—you have a talisman that lets anypony instantly appear at your front door. Is that the wisest thing to bandy about right now, considering?”

Blitz glanced down at her briefly and gave a cautious frown. “Mirago made them at my request earlier this morning. Specifically for the eventuality in which you three have to reach a safe distance while Ivy and I blow up the robot. If all goes well, I’ll destroy them. I certainly don’t intend to leave them lying around where anypony can snatch one up. Little brother would have my head… but if you do have to use them, then you’ll be in the most heavily guarded part of the city.”

Night Cloud tucked her wing down along my side, sheltering me as the wind picked up briefly. “Blitz… do we know if the Kekalo are still in the city?”

The deep violet alicorn slowed her pace, allowing us to catch up. She shook her head. “The Guard is screening for cloaking spells, and any sign of animatus spells. Not a perfect solution, but it’s better than jumping at shadows…”

I stumbled on a rock hidden by the snow. Zephyr glanced at me. Night Cloud looked down in alarm immediately. “Baby, do you want me to carry you?”

“Night, I’m fine with you calling me that, but that doesn’t mean I’m actually a baby.” I rolled my eyes; Zephyr smirked at me. “I walked through plenty of snow around Cloud Loft. I can manage.” Blitz chuckled, and she began to telekinetically plow the snow aside, forging a clear path for us. “So we don’t know where they are…”

“We have theories,” said Blitz. “And many watchful eyes… but no. We don’t know for certain where they are, or even what they intend to do next, beyond maybe attack Ivy or me again. Even Argent Nimbus has little input… he claims to have traveled with the Prince for several months, years ago, but evidently that didn’t extend to being his confidante for his recent deliberations.”

“Do you have thermal optics?” Zephyr hopped over a snowdrift that might have concealed a boulder or log. “Crystal, that was how you saw those ponies, wasn’t it? When they tried to attack us?”

I shivered and mumbled, “Yeah.” I blinked against building wind and swirling snow, and for a moment, I was lying on my back in my armor, a length of icy steel in my abdomen. My wings twitched and tightened under the blanket I wore, and I took a deep breath of the shockingly crisp air. “Helmet’s fried, though. Even if I could power it, nothing would work. I’m pretty sure the suit’s EFS was controlled by that computer in the chest piece, not a discrete talisman. If I could fix the rest of the suit, somehow, or at least that part, then maybe I could watch for—”

“NO.”

I flinched at the force of Blitz’s voice; my coat stood on end and a shiver ran down my spine. Night Cloud squeezed my side, and Zephyr flared her wings in the middle of jumping another obstacle, scattering a cloud of powdered snow.

Whatever magical amplification carried her speech, conscious or not, it was effective.

The towering alicorn leading us turned her back to our destination and frowned down at me. A moment after, her ears drooped, and her eyes fell with them. “It galls me enough already… to bring you within sight of that thing, benign intentions though it may possess.” She flared her wings halfway, snorted, and turned once again to walk toward Maximillian. “I will not put you between a foreign adversary and Bellenast, not even through binoculars. Your place in this conflict is by a warm hearth… not at the front lines, poking your head out.”

I raised my eyebrows. Zephyr had the same thought as I did. The pegasus jumped into the air, hovering as we drew to within fifty meters of Maximillian. “So why bring us out here, where we’re vulnerable?”

Blitz folded her wings again, nodding toward the machine that grew larger in our view. “Because he has been peaceful thus far, and was willing to ask politely. He recognized me as a representative of Bellenast… what exactly he knows of Bellenast remains to be discovered. He also took care to avoid driving over crops and fences on his way along the river, and did nothing when somepony attacked him with an improvised rocket. Every guard report I’ve read—and there are many of them—corroborates that this machine has gone to great lengths to avoid conflict and collateral damage while traversing, and trespassing across, this kingdom.”

“Okay,” said Zephyr, “That doesn’t sound like your average death bot. Fair point…”

I frowned and swallowed. Our destination came closer. “So, um… why does Ivy want to shoot him?”

“For the same reason I want to talk. Beyond his self-proclaimed objective, he appears to have motivation. An interesting quality in a machine… and potentially very dangerous.” Blitz shrugged her wings. “I can’t ignore him… but he asked for you, Crystal. If granting him a friendly chat removes a threat to Bellenast… then a friendly chat is on the table.”

-About nineteen tons. Sixteen centimeter bore.-

I chanced a look over my shoulder at Ivy, far behind us and the glowing shield of her gun.

-I was distracted. Since you asked, Fomalhaut weighs eighteen thousand, nine hundred and sixty kilograms, though it could be lighter without the shielding and carriage. It is among the largest portable guns I have ever made… for a generous definition of ‘portable.’-

I thought briefly on Night Cloud’s claim that she could lift a carriage; I had considered such a feat impressive, given my own limits, but if her directed blast from two days prior gave any meaningful input, then the gentle mare was far more powerful under duress than I had expected.

Ivy showed no visible signs of strain or effort.

-Fomalhaut?-

-A dragon, named after a star… or given that he was already ancient when the astrolabe was invented, perhaps the star was named after him. I once had the opportunity to meet him… and not his maw. With one bite, he could devour an elephant. With his flame, he could melt a castle of solid stone. I was inspired.-

-Huh. So, um… just out of curiosity, how much can Blitz lift?-

-Much less.-

-Really?-

-Blizziera is powerful and resourceful, certainly, but in terms of raw telekinetic strength, she is below average. By contrast, my general experience with magic far exceed hers, but she has a better command of more esoteric subjects. She is…-

-Is… what?-

-Versatile… but temperamental.-

“Crystal!”

“Huh?” I jerked my head forward and stopped, then looked up through the magic bubble of pale violet. Frost covered the angled plates of armor, and icicles hung from the entire front edge of the plow. My tongue tried to shrivel backward and lodge in my throat. Night Cloud pulled me gently backward. “Oh.”

-Distracted, baby?-

I nodded, squinting against the wind at the swiveling lenses on the armored dome high above us. My heart began to race. My legs trembled. My tail quivered between my legs. “Um… I was talking to Ivy. Sorry.”

Zephyr came closer to me and directed a befuddled frown my way. “Now’s not the time to be on auto-pilot.”

“Maximillian!” Blitz hollered. “I have done as you asked. Crystal Dew is here. Speak what business you may.”

A deep, bone-rattling rumble came from the machine, and the sound built up to a muted roar, as if an enormous furnace were being stoked in a nearby building. The dome atop the torso spun a degree, and the three lenses tilted downward to face me directly. Then, a long, thin panel opened on the front left side of the glacis, and from it rose a spindly, folding boom, like a hydraulic crane. The boom extended slowly and lowered through Blitz’s protective barrier without any obvious effect, and came to rest two meters in front of my nose. An array of cameras hung on the boom, in addition to several small clamps, a scoop, and a drill. Several of the parabolic dishes on Maximillian’s front spun toward me, as well, causing no small amount of screeching on age-worn bearings.

From somewhere on the colossus issued a stentorian voice, deep, buzzing with modulation, and unmistakably male.

“Records indicate that Crystal Dew is an adolescent female unicorn. Records also indicate that she has a Spannerworks series L2C partial prosthesis attached at the knee of her left hind leg, in addition to vertebral inserts for use with Spannerworks model D004 assistive exoskeleton.. This pony is not a unicorn, and has no prosthesis or implants. However, her thaumic signature matches records within acceptable margins of error.” The clawed arms lowered to the titan’s armored vehicle section and assumed a resting position; the innermost claw of the left arm closed more slowly than the others, and a fine jet of orange hydraulic fluid sprayed from a point on its piston, hissing as it spattered the snow. “Please explain this discrepancy.”

Night Cloud squeezed me firmly with her wing. Next to me, Zephyr fidgeted with a knob on her beam rifle; at its maximum output, it could core a sentry bot and deter an agitated storm serpent. It might tickle the giant before us.

Blitz gave me what she might have imagined to be a reassuring smile, then stepped forward to put herself between me and the spindly mechanism. It retreated slightly to give her room. “The prosthesis and implants were, ah… surgically removed. Very recently, and prior to another operation. As for her not being a unicorn… what do you know about the Ministry of Arcane Science?”

Maximillian was silent at first, save the background roar of whatever power source was contained within his chassis. More than ten seconds into the unexpected pause, he spoke.

“My records are extensive, but in context, I surmise them to be out-of-date. Please elaborate.”

“O-kay…” Blitz cleared her throat and spread her left wing out in front of the array of lenses. “Just as Crystal Dew is no longer a unicorn, I am no longer one… but I was born as one. I was transformed, by means of the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion, which was created by Ministry Mare Twilight Sparkle of the Ministry of Arcane Science. The Potion has the medical benefit of being an incredibly potent regenerative formula. We, ah… that is, those involved in Crystal’s surgery administered the Potion in order to heal a life-threatening injury she suffered, and to forestall any complications that might have arisen, had they tried to remove her implants.”

“Curious.”

I raised an eyebrow, then took a halting step backward as the boom raised up farther and moved around Blitz.

“Does the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion also cause toxic quantities of Balefire-class thaumic contaminants to accumulate in the cardiovascular, lymphatic, and endocrinal systems?”

Night Cloud cleared her throat to interject. “Those who are transformed by the Potion produce Balefire radiation in the heart via thaumochemical metabolism, and exposure to radiation results in rapid absorption and buildup of that energy in a metabolically beneficial manner, rather than the cellular necrosis and cancerous growths seen in most creatures. It isn’t toxic for us.”

I frowned, then looked up at Night Cloud. “You said your blood wasn’t radioactive.”

The indigo mare giggled, looking away from me. “I, um… I lied. I haven’t been near any sources of radiation in the last few months, but, um… yes. My blood is slightly radioactive. I didn’t want to scare you. You are actually much more radioactive than I am at the moment.”

Zephyr sidestepped away from me. “I want some Rad-Away.”

Night Cloud huffed and nickered softly. “It’s in her blood, not soaking her coat. You’re not in any danger.”

“This explanation is sufficient. Identity confirmed.” I flinched as the boom moved closer, stopping near enough to my muzzle that my breath fogged the lenses. Night Cloud raised her forehoof and pushed on the delicate array. Maximillian seemed to ignore the gesture. “Crystal Dew: Please bring Chief Engineer Carbide to my port entrance.”

I wrapped my magic around my saddlebags and stepped back. My heart had slowed; it threatened to beat my ribs senseless again. I counter-threatened it by holding Night Cloud’s foreleg tightly. “Why?”

“I wish to speak with him. Because his former transportation unit has been rendered inoperable, he has no means of communication and no perception of his surroundings. I am equipped with a rudimentary interface for such purposes.”

I took one hesitant, shaking step away from the comfort of Night Cloud’s wing and lingering warmth, and Blitz pressed on my chest with telekinesis.

“Hold up, kiddo.” The grey-armored mare turned her gaze up to the three lenses high above. “What guarantee do I have that you don’t have some kind of trap in… yourself?”

“The armament present is more than sufficient to cause me catastrophic damage.” The dome spun and the lenses aimed right back at her; Blitz took a reflexive step backward. “Your contingency is sound.”

“My contingency…”

“I am equipped with many means of observation, including spectrographic, thaumographic, and interferometric sensors. Do you think my creator would omit an ability to lip-read via telescope?”

Blitz gave a snort and stamped the snow. “Then you know Ivy will blast you straight to robot Hell if you give her a reason.”

“I do not know whether such a place exists, but am familiar with the concept of oblivion; I do not wish to experience it, myself.”

With a suddenness that startled all of us into jumping back, Maximillian rotated in place on his six wheels, keeping his three lenses aimed straight at Blitz the entire time; the distant roar of an open furnace blasted from within, and the tinkle of colliding icicles sounded briefly before being silenced by the crunching of packed snow. He faced ninety degrees to our left and stopped. The dull, muffled roar coming from the machine returned to its prior level.

He retracted the sensor boom back into his armored front, closing the protective panel. “Due to deterioration of the outer seal, there is a significant presence of microorganisms in the airlock, which could cause adverse reactions in those with respiratory illnesses. You may clean it out, if it concerns you.”

In front of the rear two wheels on his left side, a thick hatch opened, and with a hiss of hydraulics and screech of rusted hinges, it opened upward, and a short stepladder extended and lowered from immediately below the opening. As Maximillian had described, the once-airtight seal around the hatch had rotted away, and within the red-lit airlock, the floor and walls were spotted with patches of black mold and slimy mildew.

Night Cloud took a sharp breath. “No. No way. You are not going near that. That’s a lung infection waiting to happen.”

I sighed and gritted my teeth in exasperation. “Maximillian,” I said, “Is there anything important to you in the airlock?”

“No.”

“Crystal…”

“Everypony cover your ears,” said Zephyr, as I pulled away from Night Cloud’s wing and aimed my horn at the opening several meters away. “Do your stuff, fireflower.”

As bright sparks gathered at the tip of my horn, I paused, blushing. “Blitz, can I cast out through your shield?”

“Yes,” said the alicorn, backing up out of my way.

“Peachy.”

Emerald light surged from my horn, and a slightly distorted current of air rushed into the airlock. I formed a spherical bubble half a meter across in the opening, and within the bubble, gathered the gases I needed, allowing the influx to force the extraneous gases outward through the selectively permeable barrier. Once oxygen and hydrogen alone occupied most of the volume, I closed my eyes and pushed a minute amount of extra energy into a third spell an instant before dissipating the bubble, creating a simple spark.

The ground shook, but Blitz’s transparent shield flared and absorbed what force the small explosion directed our way.

I looked up as the fireball and plume of dust rose out and billowed away on the wind. Steam and wisps of pale smoke came from the airlock. I snapped my tail at Night Cloud’s side, though because of my meager height, I hit her belly, instead. She jolted and glared down at me. “Bacteria’s dead. May I go in now?”

“Confirmed: Preliminary scan shows greatly reduced microorganism presence in port airlock. Risk to respiratory health unlikely. The ‘Kill It With Fire’ approach is effective.”

I giggled and trotted forward, smiling. “I like him.”

“However, your stoichiometric ratio can be improved for greater explosive potential.”

“Critic,” I mumbled. I clasped my blanket tightly to keep my legs unhindered. I climbed carefully up the steps and lifted the edge of the blanket over my muzzle as the lingering stench assaulted me. More than mold had died in the airlock in recent months: Against the inner door lay the shriveled carcass of a wild dog, its remaining patches of fur smoking and rotted. Its exposed ribs were picked clean and covered with bite marks. Shuddering, I wrapped my telekinesis around the stinking heap of bones and desiccated tissue and levitated it outside. A gasp came from behind me. I glanced back as Night Cloud jerked to the side to dodge the carcass. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine,” she said stiffly. She grimaced as I dropped the carcass in the snow several meters away. Trotting up to the steps, she forced a smile to her lips and said, “I’m not letting you go in that thing alone.”

“Night…”

She set hoof on the steps and lowered her head, then attempted to duck through the hatchway. Her shoulders, and, apparent from the wince, her spine, impacted the upper frame. Her ears drooped, and she grunted as she bent her legs and proceeded to take up most of the space in the airlock. What was ample space for me and just enough for most adults was painfully cramped for the indigo mare.

“Seriously?” An annoyed snort came from behind the alicorn. “If you have to get out in a hurry, you can’t even turn around! I’ll go with her. Out.”

“Zephyr,” growled Night Cloud, nearly stabbing my ear with her horn as she turned around to glare at the pegasus. I took a calming breath.

“No. Out. I’m going. And watch where you point that thing; I don’t think she wants piercings.”

Night Cloud looked at me as best she could with the room she had available, nuzzled my cheek, and stepped gingerly backward through the hatch. -Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.-

-Yeah, you were: About me. I’ll be fine, Night.- I patted the talisman hanging from my neck. -I don’t think anypony would design a giant robot with an airlock, then put gun turrets inside the cabin.-

I stepped aside as Zephyr hopped nimbly over the entrance steps and stood by me in the cramped chamber. She put her wing across my back, rubbing my shoulders, then continued forward and stepped on a yellow plate set into the deck in front of the inner hatch. The outer hatch screeched upward and shut behind us, but of course formed no seal; for its intended purpose, the hatch was effectively useless, but I doubted the airlock would cycle if it were left open. Our only light came from the gaps in the rotted gasket around the door and the red light set above the inner hatch. “Can’t believe we’re doing this…”

“It lets me talk to Carbide.” Our voices were loud and close against the metal walls. I levitated the diamond and noctium ball out of my saddlebags, holding it close to my chest. “I hope.”

-Remember, Crystal: At the first sign of danger, push the button.-

-I know. Relax, Night.- I rolled my eyes as a red light above the inner hatch turned off and a green one next to it illuminated. I stepped on an inclined pad on the floor, and the hatch swung open, creaking all the way. A semi-translucent barrier occupied the hatch’s opening, likely a result of the failed seals. I stepped through the barrier and into much warmer air, and looked around the cabin, blinking as square panels on the ceiling flickered to life and cast a warm, sunny glow over everything inside.

The cabin was built in a fashion similar to a traveling wagon, though it was exceptionally spacious. To my left, the front of the cabin, was a kitchenette, complete with a sink, range, and small refrigerator. Between the fridge and the grimy, stainless steel cupboards across from it was a narrow door to another compartment. To my right on either side of the chamber were padded benches, a folding table that had been bent to the point of breaking almost in half, and a computer terminal built into the wall, close to the airlock hatch. Cracked, brittle-looking mats covered the floor unevenly. To the left of the broken table was a door to another compartment. Beyond that passenger space was a bulkhead, in the center of which was another hatch with a porthole. A steep staircase, almost a ladder, ascended beyond that hatch.

Every surface sported a thick coating of dust, and the air was stale and metallic.

“Ever hear of a maid, Maximillian?”

“Those who provided maintenance service previously have been dead for one hundred and seventy years.”

My ears flicked toward a speaker on the ceiling.

“RoBronco’s Workhorse Sentry and Mr. Gutsy models are ill-suited for such tasks. In addition, all such units within Spannerworks property were compromised, as I was, and have not followed my commands for a very long time. My maintenance servitors were not inclined to arrange for a janitor during that time.”

“That’s fair,” murmured Zephyr, biting onto the control bit for her beam rifle’s shoulder brace. “At least the heat works.”

I set my hoof on her chest, ears flicking. “Zeph,” I whispered, “The air smells… different. Weird.”

She sniffed deeply and stuck her tongue out, then scowled and gently pushed her control bit back and toggled her rifle’s safety. “Bucking Tartarus, Maximillian, if you aren’t trying to kill us, you should open that airlock and let some of this oxygen out. There’s enough dust in here to turn you into a fuel-air bomb.”

“If there is an excess buildup of oxygen, the atmospheric regulator has malfunctioned. I was unaware of this problem.”

Zephyr scowled. “Excuse me?”

“Are you kidding me?!” I looked up at the speaker on the ceiling, bewildered, and all but shouted, “You can detect friggin’ mold in the airlock and radiation in my organs! How do you not know there’s a friggin’ gas leak in—in yourself?!”

“I apologize. Due to safety and privacy constraints considered during my construction, my access to passenger accommodations and systems outside the forward observation compartment is normally restricted to communication. I was unaware of any malfunction. I am unable to override the airlock’s interior and exterior hatches simultaneously, myself. Nor am I able to initiate an atmospheric cycling. All such functions are controlled from either the secondary access terminal in the passenger chambers or the control console above my reactor chamber, which is accessible via the sternward passage.”

-Crystal? What’s going on? What’s it like in there?-

I swallowed and looked at the bulkhead past the benches. -Um… there’s a lot of extra oxygen in the air. Maximillian says he can’t force the airlock open or pump the air out, himself—friggin’ stupid, I know—so we need to do that before we go poking around anything else.-

“Crystal?”

-There’s a lot of dust, too. Imagine my spell with the airlock, except there’s nowhere for the explosion to go.-

-Yes. I understand. Kana, Gaia, etá Nube, I beg you, Crystal, be careful!-

“Crystal? Hey.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, glancing at Zephyr as she pulled her wingtip away from my collar. “Night Cloud wanted to know what was going on.” As I turned and stepped up to the terminal set into the wall by the airlock bulkhead, Zephyr strode toward the hatch to the upper compartment. On the screen was a grid of blandly colored squares, designed to look like buttons, with text descriptions in their centers.

“Is she in your head like that all the time?”

I glanced at her, frowning, then returned my attention to the terminal screen and searched for anything related to airlocks or oxygen. “If you mean, does she talk to me, yes. Pretty often, ever since she picked me up in the desert. Blitz does it, too. And Ivy, sometimes, but she sounds… different. Not… louder, but more… I don’t know. Forcible? It feels less normal when she does it. With Blitz and Night Cloud, it’s just like normal talking, but… you know, in your head.”

“It’s invasive.” Zephyr leaned close to the bulkhead, ducking down to peer up through the porthole at the ladder and the compartment beyond it. “Like she’s pulling on your ear. Night Cloud isn’t like that?”

“Not at all,” I murmured, peering at a particular box on the terminal. “Atmospheric Regulator, huh?” I looked down at the navigational keys on the tray below the display: One of them was cracked, and an old bloodstain darkened the edge of the faded plastic. A bundle of cabling ran along the side of the tray, then fed into a plastic shroud on the underside of the screen, where it extended a few centimeters from the wall. The plastic was broken off halfway up, leaving a sharp, bent edge. Judging by the teeth marks, somepony had bitten off the cable cover to access the small ports and switches under the plastic.

Several toggle switches beneath the screen were bent, and more than one bundle of formerly insulated wiring had met that pony’s teeth, as well. An access panel on the wall below the terminal was bent at its corners and scorched slightly, as though it had been introduced to a pony unskilled with a cutting torch. I backed away from it.

“I think we should avoid this terminal for the moment. We aren’t the first ponies to come in here and try to mess with things.”

“Great… is this really worth the risk, Crystal? We’re literally standing inside a cheap bomb right now. The blast might be survivable, but I don’t want to take that chance.”

I snorted and stalked over to the bulkhead. “Maximillian wants to talk to Carbide. I want to know if Carbide is alive. Maximillian has something in here that will let us talk to him. If it works, and he talks, then he’s alive. I’m not friggin’ leaving until I can hear him talking to me.” I glared at the bulkhead and the floor in front of it, stomping on the pressure plate set into the deck. The hatch opened squeakily, and a rapid, frenetic clicking and buzzing vibration came from Zephyr’s barding. A euphoric warmth and gentle tingling spread across my hide and through my chest.

She looked frantically down to the warning gauge on her foreleg. “Shit! Forget it. Crystal, we’re getting out of here.” I stumbled as she grabbed my foreleg and tugged me the short distance to the airlock. “Come on!”

“Zephyr, it’s fine!” I pulled my leg away and stepped back, stumbling. “I’m immune to it! You go outside. I’ll stay.”

Zephyr gaped at me for a moment. Her ears folded flat along her skull, and she took a faltering step toward me, as if to pull me along again. “Oh.” She laughed, but the strain stayed on her muzzle. She shuffled in place, her wings unfurling restlessly. “Alicorn… got it… right.”

I went toward her, intending to hug her, but froze mid-step and backed up again. “Um… go drink some Rad-Away, Zephyr… I’ll fix the… atmospheric regulator thingy.”

She closed her eyes, her lips pulled back in a snarl, and she stomped both forehooves on the deck. “Damn it! Just… be careful. And whatever you want to chat about with the robot, do it quickly.” She nickered and turned tail, trotting through the semi-translucent shield over the airlock’s inner hatch. “You’d better not be glowing when you come out.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling, and muttered, “Just go, Zeph. I’ll be fine.”

“Of all the stupid horseapples… fucking radioactive crew quarters…” Zephyr stomped the deck plate, and the hatch swung closed and sealed.

I giggled despite myself. -Night Cloud, Zephyr’s coming back out. You have Rad-Away, right?-

-Of course. What’s wrong?-

-Just give some to Zephyr, please. Maximillian’s reactor is radioactive, the computer in the passenger area is about ready to set off an explosion if I touch any buttons, and… what exactly does a reactor… react with?- I shrugged my blanket off and set it on the floor, then ducked through the hatch and began to climb, lighting my way with emerald magic.

-Well… if it’s radioactive, it must involve Balefire.-

Another giggle echoed off the close walls of the two-and-a-half-meters tall passageway. -A reactor is a power plant, though, right?-

-I… Blitz, this is more your area of expertise, isn’t it?-

Then her voice met Night Cloud’s in my mind.

-I mean… I know how a thaumoelectric converter works, generally speaking, but I’ve never seen one used for anything bigger than an oven… or one of those new magnetic imagers, in the Hospital.-

-Boilers would take up a lot of space.- I clambered over the upper ledge and stared in uncertainty at the confined space. -I’m not saying there aren’t any, but considering all the munitions, I don’t think there’s leftover space for huge water tanks. Combustion engines need drive shafts, for the wheels. They’re also really noisy… but not this kind of noisy. Thaumoelectrics aren’t great for anything this big. It must be something else.- The ladder emerged at the end of a narrow walkway sandwiched between a curved hull on my right, and on my left, a row of consoles lined with far more levers, switches, and dials than I wanted to count.

“You will find the reset control for the atmospheric regulator on the second console from the stairwell.”

“Can you see in here?” I said as I trotted to the second bank of switches and gauges.

“At this time, no; many of my internal sensors are inoperable. Open the yellow, plastic shroud at the top-left corner of that console and pull the lever toward you. Wait thirty seconds, then push it back to its original position and push the black, square button directly below the lever. This will trigger a soft reset of the atmospheric regulator subsystems, and purge excess oxygen.”

There was less dust in the air, but just as much on the ancient panel. A row of lights ran along the upper edge of the console, and nearly every one of them was red.

I lifted the faded, yellow cover up on its squeaky hinge and pulled the small lever.

Immediately beyond the row of consoles was one quarter of a circular, metal shell mated to structural beams that curved along the hull behind me and overhead. The shell’s surface was interrupted by a circular window that must have been at least ten centimeters thick. Through the window came a white light, the result of a dazzling, multi-layer shield of magic that surrounded what appeared to be a misshapen torus of metal several meters in diameter.

Hundreds of tubes and insulated wires, thick and thin alike, fed into the torus, which was suspended by six heavy struts that extended from floor to ceiling of the chamber.

-Blitz?-

-Yes?-

-Can you and Ivy do that, um… sense-sharing spell on me? Right now? I need you to see this.-

My horn tingled briefly.

-I see it… I’m not sure what it is, but I see it.-

The warmth in my chest had spread to every hoof, and for the first time in hours, I was free of the pervasive aches in every muscle. It was as though I had sunk into a hot bath, but instead of steaming water, it was a torrent of purest, caressing magic, flowing freely through my body in a way that both rejuvenated and left me suffused with a heat and distinctive headiness.

I swallowed, breathing deeply of the energized air, and focused on the esoteric power plant held in the reinforced chamber below, rather than the beating fire in my chest. “So, um… Maximillian… your power source. Your reactor. That big… ring thing, right? I don’t really know much about… whatever that is, but it looks like you have some pretty hefty barrier spells around it. Would it explode, if um… Ivy shot you? With that big cannon, that is.”

“That is a possible outcome; however, the chances of such an event occurring are below zero-point-five percent. In principle, my reactor contains an ongoing, low-magnitude Balefire-class megaspell event within a suspension of energetic plasma. The thaumic output of this reaction is sufficient to power all of my primary systems indefinitely. It is well protected, and redundantly so, but despite what my armament and apparent design may suggest, I was not intended explicitly as a siege vehicle, nor can I withstand the caliber of munitions currently fielded against me. My reactor would, most likely, suffer no catastrophic damage, but I would cease to function. As I stated before: Princess Blizziera’s contingency is sound.”

I pushed the lever back, pushed the button below it, which made a satisfying click, and swallowed. My ears flicked to and fro as fans spun to life in ducts somewhere above me, creating a persistent, resonating hum throughout the chamber.

“Okay. I get that. But, um… hypothetically speaking, how big would that explosion be?”

“Assuming the worst-case scenario of a catastrophic failure of exterior and interior battle screens, containment, and failsafes… the resulting cascade event in the Balefire reaction chamber could yield a thermoaetheric blast equivalent to a detonation of forty to fifty kilotons of conventional explosives. Collateral damage and loss of life would be… extreme. Necromantic contamination and propagation of airborne particulates would render the surrounding regions uninhabitable for fifty to one hundred years. I do not wish to cause such harm.”

I sat on my haunches next to the stairwell; despite the warmth coursing through my limbs and the near-overwhelming flood of energy surging similarly through the rest of me, I shuddered and struggled to continue breathing normally. My voice obeyed me, but only just. “Max—”

“And… I do not want to die.”

The words came with a drop in volume and a change in inflection that caught me off guard. Since I had entered the great machine, I had levitated Carbide’s dormant form close to my body. I took the diamond and metal ball in my hooves and hugged it to my chest.

“Okay. That’s, um… that’s perfectly, um… reasonable.” -Ivy? Point the gun somewhere else, please?-

-In my zeal to defend my home, I might have destroyed it. Thank you, Crystal. Your caution is commendable.-

I laughed, squeezing the metal cradle tightly. -I just talked to him. Don’t thank me. Thank Maximillian. He seems okay. We should, um… try to be friends, not blow him up.-

-And yet our fellow ponies have set upon us with deathly blizzards and fell schemes, when this machine treads so lightly… we’ve only just begun to correct the storm patterns set into motion from the Tower; the hail and snow have caused damage across the entire city. Had this happened later in the spring, the loss of crops would have caused famine. If only all our visitors were so amicable.-

Shaking my head, I returned the cradle to my magic hold and made my way backwards down the ladder to Maximillian’s passenger chambers. As I reached the bottom and turned to the bulkhead hatch, I paused, chuckling. -If you, um… ‘gaze too long at the dragon slumbering upon the mountain, the timberwolves will catch you.’-

-An apt aphorism… where did you hear it?-

-It’s something Argent Nimbus said. He’s right: Maximillian is just following Carbide, not chasing anypony down. And he’s been running for more than a century, so it’s not like he’s about to explode at random. He’s beat up on the outside, but his important systems are fine. I mean, the airlock shield still works.-

-I understand your point, but I still want him out of the valley. He is fueled by a contained megaspell; I will not trust Bellenast’s safety to its continued containment. Finish your business quickly, Crystal. I am not averse to being a lure for the Prince, but you should play no part in that.-

I stopped between the benches in the crew cabin, looking up at the overhead speaker. “Maximillian… you have thermal targeting systems. How far away can they see ponies?”

“At a resolution sufficient for target acquisition, one-point-two kilometers. For visual confirmation, three to five kilometers, depending on atmospheric conditions.”

“And what about plain line of sight, with normal cameras?”

“To the horizon. Why?”

I swallowed and said, “Can you let me know if you see any ponies with your thermal sensors… but not with your normal cameras?”

“Do you expect me to see ponies equipped with cloaking magic?”

“Yes. They’re trying to kill Ivy, and Blitz, and... and probably me, or anypony else who happens to be in the way. They’re Kekalo. Ponies from somewhere in the San Palomino Desert.”

“I will monitor my surroundings and report any such anomalies… have I arrived during an international incident?”

I stopped again and looked around the narrow passenger cabin, searching for anything that resembled a receptacle for a grapefruit-sized magical artifact. “I mean… I guess? I don’t know. They’re jerks. Some Kekalo prince killed, um… the last King of Bellenast… Blitz’s father, thirty years ago, and Ivy killed that prince, and now his younger brother is running around the area, scaring ponies and attacking caravans and towns, and sending assassins after Blitz and Ivy. We don’t know where he is… I don’t even know what he looks like.” I rolled my eyes, shuffling in place. “And, I mean… I… I guess I understand why he’s doing it… I just… wish he wouldn’t. Ivy doesn’t want to kill him, because he hasn’t killed anypony yet… she’d rather throw him in prison, I guess.”

“An attempt to murder is no less serious a crime for having failed. Even discounting that, this Prince has committed what amount to acts of war, or at the least, banditry and vigilantism, if he is acting independently from his own nation.”

“Yeah, well, the guy’s a jerk either way, and his soldiers have hurt Blitz, Night Cloud, and me; he can rot in a cell for all I care, but if he shows his face, I might just shoot it off. And thanks, by the way.” -Blitz, Max is going to tell me if he sees any cloaked ponies nearby.-

Wait, what?

“Where’s that thing that will let Carbide talk?”

“The interface pedestal is in the forward compartment, starboard of the observation monitors. It has the appearance of a cylindrical drum, with an octagonal enclosure at the top.”

-Crystal, what are you doing?-

-Going to the thing that will let me know if Carbide is okay… and let him talk, I hope.-

-No, I mean—why are you… look, I’d rather not have, ah… Maximillian involved in all of this. I’d prefer that he make himself scarce. The taverns are already filled with rumors that he’s a Kekalo agent, somehow—and yes, I know that’s stupid. Extremely so. That’s not the point.-

I sighed and stepped on the inclined panel in front of the door in the kitchenette. The air smelled more normal, already. -I asked him if he would look for cloaked ponies. He said he’d do it… and he can see them out to about three klicks. That’s really friggin’ useful. He’s helping us.-

-But is he really helping us, or just helping you because you have that robot in your saddlebags? I’m still not sure what his motive is.-

“He isn’t a robot,” I muttered, stomping as I entered on the port side of a wide room that had four odd, harness-like chairs, many dusty, dark windows overlooking nothing, and yet more control panels covered with buttons and inactive readouts. The ceiling sloped downward over the consoles. A short-wave radio receiver hung on one of the consoles, and a microphone hung from the ceiling above it. Dust hung heavy in the air, giving the room an emerald sparkle, courtesy of my magic.

“If you refer to Chief Engineer Carbide, then no, of course he is not a robot.”

I snorted and glanced around what I reasoned to be the equivalent of a bridge for the enormous vehicle. “Are you, Max?” I whispered to myself. On the opposite end of the wall from which I had entered was another door. In the far right corner of the chamber, standing on a half-cylinder protruding from the wall, was the octagonal compartment I sought. I trotted quickly to it, levitated Carbide’s inert form upward, and placed him gently in the clamps at the center of the octagonal barrier of metal.

-Crystal? Are you all right? You went quiet.-

-I’m fine. Give me a minute.-

Two hemispheres of tarnished silver sprung from the enclosure’s bottom and snapped up, sealing Carbide inside it. A buzz of magic came from the device, and an overhead light flickered on, causing the ancient, silver globe to shine. A magic barrier, almost completely transparent, appeared over the octagonal wall, taking the form of a squat, eight-sided pyramid, and on the nearest face of it appeared a projected mote of blue light, followed by another, and another, slowly crossing the narrow triangle. The changing light drew my attention to a line of text inscribed neatly on the exterior of the hemispheric shell closest to me. “Neurosphere… Phylactery? Interface Mark IV?” -Blitz, what’s a phylactery?-

-I would very much like to know why you’re asking that question.-

-You’re not watching?-

-No. I stopped. And I won’t, unless you explicitly ask me to. I don’t like using that spell unless it’s an emergency… it’s a violation of privacy on many levels.-

-Oh. Okay.- “Maximillian, what’s a phylactery?”

“A phylactery is the source of power for an undying being; more specifically, a lich. It is the corporeal locus to which such a being is bound upon being summoned or created. Such an artifact can be ensorcelled so as to prevent the lich bound to it from possessing living beings, or as a means of otherwise restricting its behavior. It can also be reinforced as a means of protecting the lich from metaphysical manipulation.”

-Crystal? Night’s coming in.-

The dull sound of metal shoes on metal came from behind me, and the door opened again. Night Cloud stepped slowly through the doorway, having to bow her head just to enter the room. She smiled, glancing around in distaste at the dustiness, and came over to stand next to me.

“What’s going on?” she murmured. “Blitz looked agitated.”

“Carbide’s a lich,” I mumbled. “Is that bad?”

Night Cloud opened her mouth briefly, leaning toward the pedestal, then frowned. She squinted at it, reading the inscription on the silver hemisphere within. I stared at the octagonal shield, nonplussed. Night Cloud hummed softly. “That’s… interesting.”

I rubbed my forelegs together and whispered, “I guess what I mean is, um… is it inherently bad? I don’t think he knows he’s a lich.”

“Well…” She scooted behind me and leaned against my back, wrapping her forelegs around me. I tilted my head back slowly, freezing as she nudged my horn with her jaw. She brushed her mane back from her muzzle and murmured, “All I know about liches comes from a few games of Ogres and Oubliettes… supposedly, they possess living beings and raise undead minions, and are, um… generally evil, in those settings. I don’t think that knowledge applies, though. Remember, he did save your life.”

“Yeah.”

“Many times,” said the tall alicorn, extending her wings down to layer them in front of me. “If you count the scratches on your armor… left by many weapons.”

“Don’t forget ghoul teeth,” I mumbled. “He’s saved me a lot… so have you.”

“And I’m not so bad, am I?”

I grinned, nuzzled her collar, and set my hoof against the clear shield as the motes of blue crossed the breadth of the face, and a speaker above us popped into life.

“Ow! What the—how… Celestia’s blazing tail, that’s a lot of telemetry… ah, hello?! Who’s there?”

I laughed at the hesitant tenor voice. “Carbide!”

“Crystal?!” Timidity became joyous incredulity. “Oh, thank the goddesses, you—I thought I’d lost—I thought you’d… but… you were stabbed, impaled! The suit failed, overloaded catastrophically! It—it knocked out all my sensor feeds. I was barely able to retrieve the last segment from the envirosuit recorder before every connection just—everything stopped. Like everything broke at once. How are you alive? The last bit of biomonitor telemetry showed—a wound like that should have—well, by all rights, you ought to have bled to death in minutes…”

“Well… I’m not dead.” Night Cloud chuckled and squeezed my side with her wing. I leaned down and laid my forehead against the edge of the barrier. “I’ll give you a hint: I look a bit more like Night Cloud, now… and I don’t have to worry about those implants messing up my spine.”

“When… how long was I… ah… unconscious, so to speak? Wait, where are we? I can only hear you. There are some other signals, but I can’t make any sense of them. And what do you mean by, ah… like Night Cloud? What happened to you?”

“She has wings, now,” said Night Cloud softly, rubbing her forehoof at a spot just under my ribs; it felt as though there was an odd indent in my hide. “Courtesy of the Ministry of Arcane Science… or a leftover piece of it. The Impelled Metamorphosis Potion.”

The speaker overhead that served as Carbide’s voice box fell silent.

I lifted my brow from the pyramidal barrier. “Carbide?”

“Hang on. There’s—ah… listen, the sensors are showing a highly concentrated source of balefire energy here. Whatever you’ve hooked me into, can you move it? Or move the speaker and microphone to a safe distance?”

I giggled. “Carbide… that’s me. We’re in Maximillian’s, um… his bridge. He’s parked just outside Bellenast. I had to go in his reactor control room to start an oxygen purge. The whole passenger area was ready to explode if I made a spark with my horn. I guess I absorbed a lot… I’m fine, though. I’m, um… an alicorn, now. Radiation is good for us.”

“Maximillian? He must have… caught up to… but—oooh, so that’s why I can’t—ah.” Carbide cleared his nonexistent throat. “Ah…Maximillian! Status of reactor primary hazard containment shielding?”

“Reactor primary hazard containment shielding is reduced to forty-seven percent effectiveness. Secondary shielding is reduced to eighty-nine percent effectiveness. Reactor sector bulkhead shielding remains at full effectiveness, but cycling the reactor sector hatch resulted in release of contaminated atmosphere. All critical reaction containment systems remain fully operational. I am operating at seventy-one percent of overall systems readiness, excluding current disarmament. I am otherwise well. I am happy to speak to you again, Chief Engineer.”

“Ah… okay, then. That’s… good. Excellent. It’s, ah… a pleasure, Maximillian, to meet you. Crystal… er, Night Cloud, sorry, but you said it was the Impelled…”

“The Impelled Metamorphosis Potion,” said Night Cloud, stretching her forelegs over one another across my chest. She leaned on me, keeping my back pressed to her belly. -You’re toasty.- “It turns ponies into alicorns; it was made for the war effort, before the bombs. We used it to heal her.”

-Toasty?-

-Heavily irradiated, and hot. Feels nice, after the snow.-

“I had… that…” Carbide faltered mid-sentence. “There were rumors, in the lab, about such a thing… speaking to, ah… Her Highness, even seeing her, seeing you, and—Ivy, wasn’t it?—I remember discussions among my peers… I didn’t think it possible, for such a spell to exist—never mind ever witnessing the feat, myself… but I remembered those rumors, the ideas, when that was all they were: A mere possibility, unprecedented… the theory of combining the magic of all three pony races into a spell, a potion, that would bestow those abilities upon any pony who were to drink it…” He paused in his disjointed muttering. Faint, flickering light came from the seam between the silver enclosure’s halves. “Never mind. You are safe and healthy. The means matter little. Crystal… I… I am… you can’t imagine how happy I am, to… to know that you… that what I did to you won’t cause you any lasting harm.”

“Just don’t apologize,” I muttered, smiling. “What you did to me saved my life, and the side effects are gone. I’m okay now… so, um… about the suit. You were kind of using it as a body, right? Since you, um… don’t have one, exactly. Can you make another computer for it? The circuits are all completely melted. The wiring and talismans, I think I can repair, myself, but the electronic stuff…”

“Ah… no, I don’t think… no. Not even if I had the… the knowledge. I understand the principles and mechanisms behind their operation, but I didn’t build the computers, myself… I appreciate the offer, Crystal, but the manufactory at my lab was unique in all the world, and not all of it remained intact, even before the collapse…” I squeezed Night Cloud’s hooves as Carbide sighed again. “It would take several months, at least, to make the lithography equipment necessary just to fabricate a single microprocessor, assuming I had all the necessary raw materials and tools, never mind crystalline memory… but I could devise a more basic control system, if you would be willing to help me construct it. I can teach you, if there’s something you don’t know how to do.”

Night Cloud lifted her chin from my scalp and said, “When you say litho-graphy, do you mean silicon semiconductor manufacturing? Claraby funds a small lab that makes experimental computers, mostly for medical purposes. Some are quite small. My bio-scanner has one of them. Perhaps they could make something similar to replace the damaged one in that suit?”

Carbide chuckled. “Do you happen to know its operating frequency?”

“Um… no.”

“What sorts of functions can it perform?”

She levitated the compact device out of her saddlebags and fastened it to her foreleg. “Um… other than recording input from various thaumic meters, it can display that information as graphs on the screen. It can be coupled with an oscilloscope to record waveforms. It also has a calculator, and a voice recorder, though the recording time is quite limited.”

“Hm… likely clocked no higher than a couple megahertz, if even that.” He chortled again. “Again, I appreciate the sentiment, but I’d need something an order of magnitude faster to run a NeuroLink exoskeleton.”

Night Cloud hummed and rubbed my hooves. “Well, the hospital computers are much faster, of course, since they aren’t battery operated. They’re improving them every year…”

“Ah… Night Cloud, I apologize, but when I say an order of magnitude, I mean with a giga prefix attached. Your computers may be advanced, relative to RoBronco terminals, but those were mass-produced, not cutting-edge. Very few prewar systems could come close to what Avery produced at my lab, and nothing could match what he made after the war ended. Nothing in Bellenast could do what I need.”

I frowned. Night Cloud hummed. “What, ah… multiple does giga mean?”

“Billion,” I murmured, hooking my forehooves around her legs. I leaned my head back on her chest and said quietly, “Kilo is thousand, mega is million, giga is billion. Right?”

“That’s correct,” said Carbide. “Now, granted, I don’t need that much computing power to operate it, because I can control the systems manually. For you to control the exoskeleton in its intended fashion, however, via nerveous system integration, requires a suitably rapid, centralized processor to coordinate the movements of the armor with your own musculoskeletal structure. The high frequency is needed to minimize latency and regulate movement speed, as well as prevent hyperextension, among other musculoskeletal injuries. Attaining those sorts of operating frequencies is possible, but only with semiconductor lithography—that is, transistor manufacturing—on the scale of a few hundred nanometers. That one means billionth, one divided by one billion.”

“A billionth of a meter?!”

“A few hundred billionths, mind you.”

Night Cloud gestured at the various control consoles in front of us. “And that sort of… of microscopic technology is present here, in Maximillian? These… microprocessors, they give him his intelligence? Is that how he can speak so well? He doesn’t sound anything like any robot I’ve ever heard.”

“Ah… no. Maximillian is… like me, in some ways, inasmuch as his is not exactly a computerized mind, in the conventional sense… but neither does he have an entirely organic brain. Computers augment his intelligence, his ability to process information, but he is not a computer, himself. He has the capacity to learn, to reflect on his experiences and change as a result of them. To adapt. Even form opinions, and preferences. In theory. That is what I was told, at least… and he has had a very long time to change. Haven’t you, Max?”

“If you refer to the period of time for which I can be considered to have been self-aware… I am uncertain of the exact duration. My memories of the prior one hundred and fifty-seven years are corrupted beyond reconstruction thresholds. I have little precise data on the nature of the parasitic element that subsumed my cognitive functions, beyond low-level diagnostics provided by my self-maintenance systems. Given what I have ascertained of cognitive stagnation caused by this matrix, it is likely that my first act of self-determination occurred before my infection, not after.”

“A matrix injection…” Carbide trailed off in a whisper, then said, “Your neurosphere lost cohesion with your network. You were stopped… frozen. In a form of suspended animation, as I was…”

“That is an accurate comparison. It was only after significant damage to my sensors and internal network that I ‘thawed.’ A directed thaumoelectric discharge induced a cascade of systemic overloads throughout a portion of my superstructural feedback net. This caused the compromised portion of my primary computational net to shut down and reset, which is how I was able to regain control, and, shortly thereafter, purge the parasitic element.”

“You were attacked? That must have been—”

“Me.” I swallowed. “That was me,” I mumbled.

“Thank you, Crystal Dew, for assisting me. Had you not fired on me, I would have remained inert, and my armament in control of a rampant entity.”

My throat tried to depart the rest of me. “No problem. That’s me. Robot resuscitator.”

“Ehhh…” Carbide muttered, “More akin to electroshock therapy than resuscitation, really…”

“That is also an accurate comparison.”

“Incredible,” whispered Night Cloud, squeezing me firmly as she looked around at the dim room. “Carbide. You made a thinking being. Life.”

“Ah… my creator did. Carbon Spanner. Although, we didn’t ever see any sign of the growth we had so hoped might happen… not until now.”

I rubbed my cheek on Night Cloud’s upper leg and murmured, “He said he was happy to speak to you…” Night Cloud giggled and squeezed harder, rocking on her hind legs as she lifted me up and spun me around to hold me up against her chest.

“Night Cloud, your and Crystal Dew’s core temperatures have risen to forty-one degrees. Do you require medical attention?”

“Forty-one?” murmured Night Cloud, touching my brow and the side of my neck. “Both of us? Damn it…” Sighing, she said, “It isn’t illness, Maximillian, but I appreciate your concern. It’s a sign that our rate of absorption of balefire energy has peaked.”

“Curious.”

I smirked. “I guess I needed all that extra energy to reach thermal equilibrium with you.”

Night Cloud laughed. “No, baby, our body temperatures are normally the same. We’re endothermic; we regulate our own—”

“I know what endothermic means, Night Cloud,” I whispered. “I was saying you’re hot.”

-Oh. Thermal… oh.- She giggled. “Silly…”

-Night Cloud, the machine has informed me that you both have a fever, as it were. How much have you absorbed?-

I flinched, and Night Cloud bit her lip as she looked down at me in response to Ivy’s sudden question. Her horn glowed, and a matching light swept over me. -She’s at thirty Graubaums, roughly, and bleeding it… she’s too hot to stay in the city. I’m at about ten, myself… just from passing through the main room, and being close to her for a few minutes.-

-Ancestors preserve me… stay inside, for now. We’ll address that problem later. You’ll be safe, there.-

-Safe? From what? Ivy, what’s going on?- Night Cloud set me down quickly and approached the door from which we had entered.

-We found our wayward Prince.-

Night Cloud stopped.

“A Class Four elemental animus has appeared within the city.”

Red lights came to life inside the compartment, and bright images appeared in the windows that I had believed opened into nothing. Vivid, though somewhat grainy, virtual images of Maximillian’s exterior hull sections, the forested mountains to the west, the hills to the east, and the distant walls of Bellenast appeared in the central windows. The middle one showing the city was overlaid with a fuzzy, red bracket around a rising cloud of golden sand that obscured the distant palace and its partially reconstructed dome.

Swiftly leaving the range of clarity in the projections was a grey and purple shape, wings beating the air.

“Damn it, Blitz!” Night Cloud raised her forehooves to stomp. The requisite rearing up succinctly introduced her head to the relatively low ceiling. She yelped and staggered, falling back on her rump. "Damn it!” I scooted out of the way just in time, and set my hoof on her flank as I peered at the rows of displays.

“A golem?” muttered Carbide.

I pointed at the projected cloud in confusion. “That’s a golem? Animus?” A wavering of air appeared in the image, rising from the snowy ground to form a bubble that must have enclosed Maximillian’s bulk entirely. It distorted the projected city beyond slightly, but did not obscure the rising, expanding cloud of sand that built into a swirling, undulating shape. In the hazy, darkening skies, a serpent of gold formed over the palace at the center of Bellenast. It grew longer and greater in breadth, and eclipsed the golden dome with its own dazzling form. “We have to—to do… how can we…”

“There’s nothing we can do from here,” said Night Cloud, voice tight and stiff. “And it isn’t safe for you to go out there.”

“Not safe? There’s a friggin’ army sneaking around and a giant sand snake, Night. Nowhere is safe right now! What—”

“I meant for everypony else,” said the mare, holding me against her torso once again.

“What do you—” I looked up, twisting halfway around to see her eyes. “What?”

“You’re a walking font of radiation right now… and I will be soon, as well, since I’m staying near you. If Zephyr comes near you, she dies. Eagle might survive for a while in his power armor, but anypony else would succumb to poisoning within minutes. But nopony is after us, Crystal. We need to stay out of the way.”

“Rrrgh…” I squinted at the projections as the far-off stacks of munitions rose in a haze of white magic and soared toward us at great speed. Moments later, muffled clanking and ratcheting noises came from above us as the rockets, cannon shells, and enormous ammo boxes slotted into opening receptacles scattered across Maximillian’s frontal glacis. “Whoa… who just did…”

Night Cloud said in a distracted murmur, “Him, I think… that’s incredible. Electronically controlled telekinesis?”

“Cool. I wonder how...” I shook my head resolved to ask Maximillian about the feat later. “Where’s Argent Nimbus? He can dispel golems, can’t he?”

Night Cloud nodded. -Ivy, is Argent Nimbus helping you?-

-Yes, he’s here. Stay inside Maximillian, both of you. He has projected a powerful shield around himself. You’re safer there than you would be out here. Blizziera is dealing with the Prince. Don’t compound her troubles by placing yourself in harm’s way.-

-I’m not trying to, Ivy… I’m just angry that she has to fight again.- Night Cloud snarled and lashed her foreleg at one of the benches in front of the projection screens, leaving a sizeable dent in the metal. She shook her foreleg, gingerly clutching it against my side as the echoing clang dulled. -Promise me you will protect her, Ivy. Whatever is happening… stay by her side. She needs you.-

-As is my path, so shall I keep it. You needn’t worry for her, Night Cloud. If you are safe—if you both are safe—then Blizziera will be less distracted. Carbide? I know you can hear me. Maximillian has retrieved his armament. Convince him to use it properly, should the need arise, but direct him to travel west, toward the Forest of Dunn. I’ll come to you when it’s safe.-

-I wish we could help.- I scowled at the screens. -She let me help before. I saved her life.-

-She didn’t ‘let you help.’ She forced you to act because to do nothing is to die. When you have nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, then fight with all the ferocity and cunning you possess, but today, I ask you to hide, and let us protect you. You seem to have made a friend in that machine… let him protect you.-

I snarled and stomped, blinking away the first of many furious tears.

-Furthermore, Crystal, you are radioactive enough now that you present a contamination hazard to the city: Were anypony to come near you, they would die of radiation poisoning within minutes, even if they were treated, and simply walking through Bellenast would poison the air. Please, stay inside, at least until you’re out of the plantation fields. I can procure a containment talisman for you, but it will take some time.-

“Right. I’ve heard enough.” Carbide gave a soft laugh. “Departing the field of battle is well within the bounds of my preferred survival strategy. Maximillian, take us to the forest, to the west. Please, ah… navigate around any obstacles. And ponies.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Thank you, Carbide,” murmured Night Cloud.

Zephyr came into view on one of the screens, hovering over a recently loaded gun turret before she landed on Maximillian’s hull and leaned down to tap near the exterior camera.

“Max,” I said, “Do you have a mic on—”

“Crystal? Night Cloud?” Zephyr’s voice came from a speaker on a console to my left, though she was muffled by the wind. “You seeing this?”

“Everything,” said Night Cloud, moving close to hug me tightly once more. “Zephyr, it’s important that—”

“Eagle’s out there, isn’t he?” I braced my forehooves on the central console, looking at the grainy image of Bellenast and the golden serpent twisting through the skies. The construct swept low, disappearing amongst the sandstone architecture and red and yellow rooftops of the surrounding district. Faint flashes of many colors, bright and brief, came from that labyrinth. A muffled roar came from behind us, causing the deck to vibrate. We both lurched as Maximillian rotated in place, and the view of Bellenast in the screens disappeared, replaced by a distant, white forest and the foothills those thousands of trees covered. A low rumbling built as we began to move across the snow-laden fields. “Zephyr, can you reach his radio? He can’t fight that.”

“He’ll retreat if he needs to,” said Night Cloud, pulling me back from the console. “Zephyr,” she said clearly, leaning forward, “Listen to me: The air in here is heavily contaminated with radiation, and Crystal is practically bleeding it. If you come near her, you’ll suffer fatal exposure within minutes. Don’t open the airlock. Just… stay outside. Keep your distance from the outer door and any vents, just in case, and take some Rad-X if you have any. I’d give you what I have, but… everything I have on me will have been contaminated by now.”

She groaned, pulling away from the camera. “You’re glowing, aren’t you? I’ll keep an eye on my meter. Shit, Crystal, it was pretty bad when we went in, but Ivy said you sucked up thirty Graubaums. What did you find in there?”

“Weren’t you…” Puzzled, I looked up at Night Cloud. “Was Ivy not… why didn’t she, um… include her? In the spell.” She returned her own confused frown. “Is that the right word?” She shrugged.

“If you’re talking about the whole brain-link thing, I asked her to stop using it on me, days ago. It’s nerve-wracking. Be nice if she had the courtesy to fill me in, at least. What did I miss?”

“Maximillian runs on a thermal power plant,” I said, looking away from the view of the distant city as the golden serpent dipped below the buildings again and surged around at street level.

“A thermal plant… that’s radioactive. You’re telling me this thing runs on balefire?” She spun around in our fish-eye view and stomped several times on the deck. The wind muffled her shout, but Maximillian seemed to have multiple microphones scattered across his glacis, and so we heard her just as well. “What the fuck?! Seriously, what kind of shit were they smoking two hundred years ago to think a fucking balefire furnace was a dandy fucking idea?”

Night Cloud halfheartedly pushed my ears down halfway through Zephyr’s tirade. -Does she normally swear that much?-

I rolled my eyes, giggling in response to Night Cloud’s gesture. -Only when she’s really mad… not usually when I’m in earshot.- “Zeph, the shielding systems around his power plant need some maintenance; it’s leaking radiation into his control room.”

“That’s where you went to cycle the air… so you absorbed it.”

“At a prodigious rate,” said Night Cloud.

“No shit. Night Cloud, that’s not going to hurt her, is it? No tumors years from now? You’re immune to that, too, right?”

“Fully immune,” said Night Cloud, gazing in worry at the vision of Bellenast receding behind us. “Our cellular reproduction is more controlled and… robust, after the transformation… so no tumors.”

“Controlled cellular reproduction, eh? So you have a cure for cancer, but at the cost of normal reproduction.”

Night Cloud let out a soft, rueful laugh and set her hoof over my belly. “The irony is not lost on me.” She glanced at the panel of switches below the displays, then pushed a large switch at the corner of one panel. The projections vanished, leaving us in the red light from the floor gratings and ceiling.

“Why’d you turn it off?”

“Blitz and Ivy can take care of themselves… watching won’t help.”

I snorted and muttered, “I still think we should help.”

“Crystal, this is beyond us. The only pony out of us who’s equipped to actually fight is Eagle, and he’s already—”

I looked up at the dark, empty displays as Zephyr paused, her voice halting.

“He’s out there. They’ll handle this. Listen, I’ll… I’m going to fly for a bit, or try to. Have Maximillian wave, or something, if you need me.”

“Watch out for storm nagas!”

“Right. I’ll check back in a bit. Hang tight.”

I leaned on Night Cloud as the room grew silent, save for the ever-present roar of the balefire furnace multiple bulkheads behind us and the rumbling of the deck caused by swift traversal through packed snow and ice. Night Cloud kissed between my ears and rubbed my belly, and I looked down, holding her hoof. “Did, um…” Swallowing, I murmured, “Did my baby…”

“Oh! It survived the transformation process,” said Night Cloud, “And as far as I can tell, there were no ill effects. The Potion definitely circulated through your placenta and the fetus, but it seemed to… I suppose it ignored the fetus, is the best way to describe it. Mostly ignored.”

Frowning, I looked away from the dark display screens and welcomed the change of topic. “Circulated through what?”

“Your placenta. It’s a, um… a protective organ. A sack. It anchors the fetus in place inside the mother’s womb while it grows, and transports blood, nutrients, and oxygen between the mother and the fetus.”

I blinked several times, swallowed, and mumbled, “Oxygen… so the baby has lungs already? How does that…”

“They aren’t developed fully,” said Carbide, drawing my attention to his pedestal. “Oxygen is delivered to the fetus via your own blood through the umbilical cord.”

“Oh… so, if my blood goes, um… into the baby, then… what about the radiation?” I gripped her forehooves firmly. “Is that going to hurt it?”

“No,” said Night Cloud, smiling, “No… we monitored you closely after the transformation. The fetus shows no signs of being affected by the Potion… except that it seems to be perfectly healthy, despite the radiation introduced by the Potion.”

“So… my baby won’t be an alicorn, but she’ll be immune to radiation, like an alicorn? That about what you meant by ‘mostly?’”

“Theoretically,” said the indigo mare. She rubbed my belly again, murmuring, “We’ll continue to monitor you, if that’s okay. And, um… we don’t know whether it’s male or female yet; at two months in, all the major organs have formed, but it’s a bit early to tell what sex it is.”

“Oh. So… okay. Hang on.” I squirmed against her and turned around to face her. “Blitz said there, um… aren’t any alicorn stallions. I guess that means that if I had a colt, it… he wouldn’t be an alicorn, anyway, so… that wouldn’t fix, um… you know. Unity’s problem.”

She nodded. “We knew that the Potion wouldn’t transform fetuses in utero. It wasn’t designed to do that. If it were, then Unity would have solved its virility problem decades ago. We simply didn’t know what side-effects it would have, given how exposure to balefire has altered its primary effect, so we’re keeping a close eye on you.” She shrugged. “Claraby wants as much data from you as you’re comfortable providing. I admit, I’m equally as curious as she is about the effects of the Potion on fetal development.”

“I second that,” said Carbide. “I realize this is, ah… decidedly not the best time, but I would be very interested to see any data on the subject, as well.”

A nervous giggle escaped me, along with no small amount of composure at the thought of being the subject of a scientific pursuit. “Okay, Carbide… say, um…” I swallowed and looked at the luminescent, octagonal pyramid to my side. “Did you know? When, um… when you operated on me… did you know I was pregnant?”

“Well… yes. There were obvious signs present in your blood; hormones, that is. I also took X-ray images of you. Did you not know, yourself?”

“No,” I mumbled. “Hadn’t thought about it…Zephyr did. I guess there wasn’t much point in telling me, huh?”

“It, ah… at the time, it hadn’t occurred to me that you might not know. I didn’t feel I had the right to ask. That, and… it wasn’t relevant to your immediate health and survival prospects, so I didn’t consider it that important.” He paused, and the light within his cradle flickered and pulsed. “I assumed, given your age, that, ah… the act wasn’t your choice.”

“No,” murmured Night Cloud, brushing my side. “Her choice was taken from—”

I jabbed her ribs, causing her to jolt and look down in reproach. “He raped me,” I said, shaking my head. “And I… I killed him.” I shivered and shifted on my hindquarters as Night Cloud hugged me. “His name was Aurum Bannister.” I leaned my head against her warm belly, rubbing my ear just below her ribs. “I murdered him. Enclave didn’t like that. They basically said I could give up my magic for years, because they said I was psychotic and dangerous. Now we’re here.”

“Baby, it was self-defense, not—”

“Stabbing him was self-defense,” I said, my voice growing harsh as I stomped the deck. “After that… wasn’t. Drop it.” Sighing, I mumbled, “You need a body, Carbide.”

“Er… I agree…” For several seconds, he let the rumbling wheels and churning of snow outside speak. Night Cloud set her foreleg across my withers and along my back to rub my barrel, keeping her silence. I listened to her heartbeat. “Although, ah… your safety is more important at the moment. Constructing an exoskeleton would, ah… require tools that we don’t presently have.”

I held my forehoof up, tracing the edge of it with my other. “So… Night…” She gazed down at me silently. We bounced as Maximillian crossed over something large enough to jar his suspension, and Night Cloud’s mane fell over my face, obscuring my view of the dormant display screens.

Behind us was Bellenast, and in that city, my friends.

“This is, um…” I tapped one forehoof with the other and swallowed; my mouth was dry, my mirth, hollow. “This is how big my baby is right now?”

Night Cloud grasped my hooves with hers. “Roughly,” she whispered, rubbing my side with her other hoof. I laughed and switched my hooves’ position, clasping hers tightly, turned my muzzle down to her chest, and failed to completely stifle several quiet sobs. “Oh, darling…” She rubbed my back and murmured, “They’ll be all right… I promise you. Don’t worry. Eagle isn’t alone…”

I snorted, despite my distress, and muttered, “I’m not worried about Eagle. He can fight up close, and his armor’s in good shape… Blitz kind of sucks at it.”

Quiet and measured, Night Cloud said, “She’s a lot bigger now than she was a few months ago, Crystal… she has much more body mass. She hasn’t been in a serious fight since that encounter with the ghouls, when she absorbed the radiation and grew. And… fighting ghouls is completely different from fighting skilled warriors. She’s stronger now, but… she hasn’t adjusted to it yet. It isn’t fair to say she’s a poor fighter.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I mumbled, sniffling. “And I noticed she has armor now. Why didn’t you wear yours?” I thumped my hoof on her belly; I poked her leg next. “It’s not perfect; doesn’t cover enough.” She rubbed her hoof between my ears, chortling as I pointed between her legs and touched her thigh, then her knee and cannon. “You need a better croupiere, and full-circumference cuisses. Need to protect the insides of your legs, especially, and under your tail. In fact, it’d be better if your tail were tucked inside a single-piece croupiere, or at least a tail-spout. Vambraces, greaves, and couters, too. You can’t have just a cuirass, even if it has shielding enchantments. Those don’t block everything… like scorpion stingers… and swords.”

“I’m well aware my armor isn’t perfect, sweetheart.” She whispered in my ear, “For all your criticisms, I almost think you’d prefer I prance around naked, instead.”

I snorted again. “Night Cloud, your armor isn’t perfect, but it is better than prancing around naked. In the snow. While there are assassins in Bellenast.” I spun in place to nudge her ribs with my shoulder. “So why didn’t you wear your armor? Is it because Blitz had that shield? You thought you wouldn’t need it? Why? Blitz isn’t here right now, and you might friggin’ need it. What if somepony invisible snuck up to Maximillian and climbed in the airlock and ambushed us? I should have friggin’ told you to put it on when we left your house…”

“Baby,” she said, “When I attacked that mare, the one with the sword… my own magic destabilized my armor’s shielding enchantments. They’re sensitive. I’m not wearing it now because it wouldn’t do me any good against the weapons we’ve seen the Kekalo use. The entire suit needs to be ensorcelled again.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. “Autothaumic disruption.” I looked up and said, “I can fix that… um…well, probably. Eagle’s suit cannons used to disrupt his flight array. I tried to fix it by making the power delivery systems three-phase, but that wasn’t enough, so I wound up having to make an insulating shield system for them. I can build something similar around the inside of your armor, but a passive matrix should do, since you don’t need a three-phase power system.”

“I’ll pretend I know what that means… you can do all that later, at home.” She stretched her foreleg over my abdomen, gently rubbing my belly. I stiffened, and grasped her upper leg on reflex. “And I can’t protect you as well as Maximillian can… but I can keep you comfortable while we wait for Blitz to say it’s safe to come out. Ivy said it best: Blitz will be much more able to focus on her foes if she knows that you and I are safe. We can help her most by staying out of harm’s way. Besides, you ought to think about protecting not just yourself, but your baby, as well.”

“If you want me to stay where it’s safe, I’ll do it, Night… just don’t ask me to like sitting around and doing nothing.” I sniffed again and sat up, resting my forehoof on her chest; while she idly rubbed her hoof low on my belly, causing the fur on the back of my neck to stand on end, I brushed mine over her pectoral muscles and swept my eyes down along her lean abdomen and powerful hind legs. I turned my head up, and she gave a hesitant grin, then pecked my lips.

“We’ll be okay,” she whispered, smiling, and kissed me again. She had to hunch and twist her neck impressively to reach me while I was already so close to her, but she was plenty able.

It was over just as quickly, and I gave a small grin in return, but found my ears drooping afterward.

The heat of Balefire rushing through my blood was refreshing and welcome, but the other warmth beginning to churn in me, brought on by her caress, was of a more distracting nature.

Maximillian lurched and dipped as he crossed a depression, and I looked up as we rocked in place. A dull grinding of metal against metal came from beyond the room’s bulkheads, nearly drowned out by what must have been a small avalanche of snow crashing across the titanic machine’s frontal glacis and plow.

Compared to my pounding heart, it was background noise.

“Hey, Max,” I said, pointing at the door on the far end of the rear wall to the observation room, “What’s through there, on your starboard side?”

“That is the light vehicle bay. The Sturnidae hover carriage inside has come loose from its moorings, and may shift unexpectedly while I am in motion. I advise against entering the bay, unless you can secure it.”

“Hover carriage?” I rose from Night Cloud’s enticing embrace immediately and made for the door. “Okay.”

“Crystal,” said Night Cloud, clambering to her hooves to chase me, “He said don’t go there!”

“Carbide, what does Sturnidae mean?”

“It means ‘Starling,’ and I agree with Night Cloud and Maximillian. It would be best if you stayed out of that bay. There’s heavy machinery in there, and probably tools lying everywhere… and you’re ignoring me, aren’t you?”

“I can throw heavy machinery. I’ll be fine. I want to see this hover carriage… and the tools.” I stomped the door plate and snapped my tail at Night Cloud as she stepped close and pulled against me with her foreleg across my chest. The door slid quickly open, letting a blast of cold air sweep over me. A constant clatter of bolts, nuts, tool parts, and loose scrap jumping on the steel deck came from beyond the door.

“Crystal, please, listen to me. Carbide’s right.” She set her wing closely around my barrel, unintentionally tickling my belly with her feathers. “It could be dangerous in—”

“Stop!” I snapped my tail twice more at her hind leg and her flank, and she jerked away from me, removing her hoof from my chest. “Just stop. Please.”

“Baby, what—” She froze in place and glared at me, but the anger upon her brow quickly became worry, then relented and surrendered to realization. A great tightness swept along her body; her wings clamped to her barrel, her tail fell between her legs, and her head bowed. Her legs began to trembled ever so slightly. The tall, beautiful alicorn, now shrunken, in a tremulous whisper, said, “Crystal Dew, I am sorry for the wrong I have done to you… but please, my love, will you tell me what it is I have done?”

My own ears fell, and I frowned as I stepped into the vehicle bay and gazed in undisguised interest at the machine within it. It was hardly sleek or glamorous, but instead caught my attention with bulky framing and an orange and grey paint job, faded and flaked with age. The hover carriage was three meters long and two wide, and was in essence a small cargo bed attached rigidly to a pair of flight seats, which were mounted above a carriage-standard spark battery array, and protected by a broad, dusty windscreen and dented crash cages. Four gimballed pods jutted from the craft’s corners, housing thrusters the size of my torso, and along the bottom of the flatbed ran a thin, tapering rail, triangular in cross-section, that contained the levitation array. The steel deck plates below the craft were scratched heavily, and covered with flecks of old paint. The craft must have slid around anytime Maximillian turned or accelerated suddenly.

On the ceiling, in the far right corner, and behind on my left, were swiveling cameras that tracked me as I moved. Small, round speaker grills were set into the wall panels in several places around the spacious chamber.

“Crystal? Night Cloud? Are you, ah… is everything…”

“We’re fine,” I said, loud enough to project over the rumbling from below and the rattle of uncounted pieces of steel scattered across the floor. “Max, could you, um… shut off your cameras in the bay? And your microphones, please? Um… I want some privacy.”

“Yes. Please be mindful of heavy objects in the bay. Neither I nor Chief Engineer Carbide will be able to assist you if you are injured.”

“Thanks.”

“For love of Harmony, Crystal,” said Carbide, voice tight, “I implore you be careful in there. I’ll… just be waiting.”

“I will, Carbide. We’ll be a couple minutes. That’s all.”

I telekinetically tugged on Night Cloud’s foreleg, and she followed me into the bay. I turned around, closed the door, reared up to brace myself on her shoulders, and kissed her. As always, she reciprocated, but the simple joy of passion reached her eyes slowly. I held her captive and quiet until lids and lashes, bereft of subtle shadow and mascara for the first time since I had met her, fell over electric blue. Only then did I close my own eyes and lower my head.

“Night Cloud, I’m not angry with you.” I nuzzled her cheek and stepped back from her. “Just… a little annoyed.”

She blinked away fresh tears and whispered, “What did I do?”

“Stop crying, all right? Before my heart stops. Listen, Night… you’re the one who said you’re not ready for—look, the way you keep… you’re kind of sending mixed signals, okay? You told me you were sorry you gave me the wrong impression--well, you’re still doing that. I’m sorry I snapped at you, but… could you maybe be a bit less touchy?”

“I didn’t realize—I never meant to make you uncomfortable. I thought you liked—I thought it was… reassuring for you, to be close to me.”

“I do like it, and it is reassuring.” I began to levitate what was an exciting number and variety of tools scattered on the deck up to racks and drawers along the wall. “That’s sort of the problem. I don’t think you’re trying to do it, but you’re really good at making me want to pounce you.”

“Pounce me, huh?” She covered her mouth, giggling, and murmured, “Well… may I apologize for that, then?”

I looked back in utter bafflement.

She rolled her eyes, smiling at the deck. “Since you hate that I apologize for everything.”

I halted the cloud of drill bits, dies, bolts, old oil cans, cutting torches, grinding belts, saw blades, and myriad other implements in my grasp midair, and stared at her. She looked about in clear wonder at the dozens upon dozens of objects, as if noticing the debris for the first time, then met my eyes, instead. I smirked. “No.” Then I returned the collection to its drawers and hanging racks, sorting everything one shelf and category at a time. In addition to the loose tools, there were larger, powered tools aplenty on benches and hooks hanging on glide rails attached to the ceiling. “If you’re going to ask my permission to be sorry, then no. Stop being sorry. I don’t want you to be sorry. Being sorry over every little thing is friggin’ wrong….” As I finished placing the many metal items in creaky drawers in dire need of oil, I spotted something of true importance beyond the askew hover carriage, against the far wall of the bay; in fact, it occupied most of the wall.

“Well, then… what do you want, my love?”

“One, keep saying that last part.” I enveloped a reinforced part of the hover carriage with my telekinesis, braced myself, and heaved it aside, producing a tremendous scraping of landing skids against checkered steel paneling before it sank into shallow divots in the floor meant for the skids. I secured the skids to their latch rings with some chains and a thin, steel bar that I bent around the rear skid. “Two…” I exhaled heavily and pointed at the magnificent, mistreated marvel in front of me as I levitated four long bars of steel from a collapsed rack on the wall to my right. “Help me tip this lathe upright. Please. I want to see what’s broken.”

She could have scoffed. She smiled, instead, and eyed the heavy rods in my grasp. “Darling… I can lift a small carriage. One made of wood. Wood is light, relatively speaking. That?” She pointed at the enormous metalworking tool. “Probably weighs ten tons.”

“More than that.” I rapped my hoof on the somewhat corroded steel bars as I slipped them into what little space was available, from its orientation, under the front facing of the spindle housing and the bench frame. “That’s what the levers are for.” I blinked, and broken concrete pinned me to the ground. A week ago, a simple piece of rebar had saved my life. “Also, I’m pretty sure you can move a lot more than I can.” Her eyebrows crept up. “I’m talking about volume, not mass. I can’t lift big things like this, but I can move the mass… probably.” I rapped my hoof on the bar again. “But we don’t need to lift it straight up, anyway. We need to tilt it up on one side. I can do that if I have help. So… help me? Please? You grab the lathe, support it as much as you can, and I’ll push on the bars.”

“And if the bars snap, instead, and send pieces flying everywhere?”

“These aren’t hardened; they’ll bend before they break.” I braced my hooves on the deck again and lit my horn. Night Cloud stepped up next to me and likewise aimed her horn at the lathe, enveloping the entire machine with her cerulean field. “Once it starts to tip, let go. Let it fall. You don’t need to take the strain.”

Taking a deep breath, I heaved. The bars bent slightly, a few degrees, and rust flaked off their lengths. A bright, flaring corona of emerald green ignited around my horn as the lathe began to rise, and my heart pounded harder. The heat of a furnace spread through my limbs, and a white, searing light glared within the bay. Several tiny pieces of metal fell from the lathe, and the deck creaked as nearly fifteen thousand kilograms of machinery angled upward, until it reached a critical point—

“Let go!”

—and fell backward and slammed down with a bang that made my ears ring and caused the entire room to sway for a moment. I stumbled and spread my featherless wings reflexively.

“Okay!”

My legs and widespread wings quivered, though not because of the impact. The heat in my breast coursed through me in a sudden flood of energy not unlike a rush of adrenaline, leaving me giddy after the exertion. I set the bent steel rods to the side and skipped over to the left end of the lathe, and I peered closely at the wide, empty chuck and oversized, hollow headstock. The working diameter was excessive for any of the bars along the wall, but considering the lathe’s location, it probably wasn’t intended for minor projects.

“Crystal…” Night Cloud closed the distance between us once again, breathing somewhat heavily, and set her hoof on my withers as I reared up and inspected the bed rails closely. “Forgive my ignorance,” she said between breaths, “But, um… what exactly does a lathe do? It, uh… looks like it spins things?”

“It cuts things in a perfect circle,” I said as I cantered back across the bay, skipping the last meter to the door. “Eagle taught me how to use one, at Cloud Loft, but it wasn’t this big. You put a metal bar in the chuck—that’s the big ring pieces that clamp the bar, to keep it centered exactly in place, like it’s a big power drill—and you cut into the outside while it spins. Or the inside. You can carve any shape you need, hollow a bar and make it a pipe, drill or tap it, even thread it if you need a weird bolt size. If it’s made right, it can be really precise, even down to the micrometer. This one is kinda huge, but it looks like the chuck can be swapped with a smaller one. I could use it to make new pistons and hydraulic shafts for my armor.”

Frowning as I peered at the carriage assembly, I said, “But the feed rod and lead screw are cracked. Probably when it fell… at least the carriage is mostly okay. I can fix the wheels and little stuff, easy, and the lead screw and feed rod are just bars, really. Easy to replace. It looks like they broke and took most of the force of impact, instead of messing up the carriage too badly. I’m kind of surprised there isn’t more rust, honestly, considering the oxygen excess. There must be preservation spells on some of the stuff in here… or maybe the regulator broke not too long ago. I dunno.”

“Okay. Darling. I understand what it is for, but…” She rubbed along my back and down my ribs. “You’re growing. You won’t be able to wear that suit a year from now. Or probably just a month or two, given your pregnancy.”

“I know.” I shrugged. “It’s not for me anymore. It’s for Carbide. He needs a body. Even if he can fix the control systems without the computer, the hydraulics need to be repaired first. I’m pretty sure the spine is damaged. But, more importantly, look!” I swept my hoof grandly at the interior wall, at the plethora of devices arranged along the deck, and Night Cloud followed my gesture. “That’s a sheet roller, that one’s a pipe bender, there’s a plasma torch, a welding station, a drill press, a mill, belt grinder… I don’t know what the big table thing is, but it looks neat, that’s a band saw, a lathe, a kinetic clamp and arbor—”

“But I thought that one was—”

“They’re both lathes! One is just ridiculously big; that one is more normal, actually kind of small. That’ll be way easier to make hydraulics with. And there’s even a soldering station there! With a microscope! I can make talismans and matrix boards with that! Night Cloud, Maximillian has everything he needs for somepony to make him replacement parts in the field! The only things missing are a friggin’ forge, and a crucible. He isn’t just a tank. Why would he need to have crew quarters if he was just a dumb gun platform? He has redundant airlock shields and a kitchen. He’s a moving survival shelter! This little vehicle bay has everything Eagle’s workshop had and more! This is awesome!”

I jumped on the sensor plate on the deck and pranced in place as the door slid open. “Maximillian! The lathe is mostly intact. If we replace a few parts, we can make you a new axle for your wheel! I guess we’d need a pretty big bar, but… still! I can fix the claw on your left arm, too!”

“Noted. Fire suppression active.”

“Huh?” The flickering light reflected in the inert display screens of the observation room caught my attention for the fraction of a second before icy water sprayed from the ceiling and drenched me. Steam billowed from my body, and I flinched and looked over my shoulder; both my mane and tail had burst into bright, yellow flame tinged with green. The wild, flaring mass rose almost to the ceiling. “Oh. Oops.” The plasma vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving my mane dry, frizzy, and slightly singed. The rest of my coat was drenched and dripping, but I barely noticed the cold. “Sorry.”

“In the future, please do not ignite inflammable materials inside the vehicle bay, especially without first starting the fume extractor or opening exterior shutters… most especially when those materials are attached to your own body. Byproducts of most exothermic reactions are deadly when inhaled.”

I giggled. “Sorry, Maximillian. It was my mane. That, um… just happens, sometimes. More often, lately. It’s not normal fire; it sort of burns, but… not hot enough to really hurt me. It won’t damage anything.”

“Damage to the vehicle bay or its contents is irrelevant.”

“There’s a lathe in there big enough to make one of your axles. That’s relevant.

“It is not.”

My horn sparked. “… excuse me?”

“Crystal Dew: My sole tasks at this time are to protect Chief Engineer Carbide, and to protect you, per Princess Blizziera’s request as sovereign of Bellenast, from potential attack by foreign aggressors present in the region. I have inferred that such protection extends to Night Cloud, as well, given that both of you are considered noncombatants. My permission to remain here without the proverbial axe above my head hinges directly on that request. Please cooperate, and do not engage in unnecessarily risky activities. It would be best if you were to remain in the observation room or passenger accommodations.”

“Great,” I droned, “So am I grounded, now?”

“On the contrary; you are free to move about as you so choose. On the subjects of being careless around heavy objects, and of inflammable materials ignited in enclosed spaces, allow me to repeat my prior instructions: Don’t be stupid.”

I snorted, smirking at one of the ceiling cameras in the corner. “Okay, Max.”

“Right, so, are you two okay?” said Carbide, his tone the opposite of my coat. “Or, exuberance and your apparently flaming mane styling, aside, was all that noise something I should worry about? You said the lathe was intact, right?”

“Load on suspension damping systems spiked at the same time as the sound. A shift in mass in the vehicle bay, Chief Engineer; they righted the lathe.”

“Ah. Crystal, how did you do that, exactly?”

“Class two levers,” I said, smirking. “Plenty of steel bars in there.”

“Ah. How resourceful of you. Night Cloud… as I can trust you to be objective and not to engage in unnecessarily dangerous behavior—” I nickered. “—don’t you start. Are you both uninjured?”

Night Cloud chuckled. “We’re fine, Carbide. Little fireflower here found something she likes in the vehicle bay. A lot of things she likes, actually.” She sidled up next to me, ducking through the door way. She brushed her wingtip along my hindquarters, causing me to stiffen again. “She found something else, as well…”

I breathed slowly and flicked my tail. “Night Cloud… um…” I swallowed and glanced back at her, smiling even as the fire still churning in my breast reminded me of my own desires and simultaneous reluctance. “What did we talk about?”

She jerked her wing away from me. “Sorry, baby… look.” She pointed at my hip.

Something in my chest leapt up to my throat. I twisted and stretched my hind leg to the side.

There, on my hindquarters, surrounded by a swiftly fading glow, was a gas blowtorch. Its canister was striped black and yellow, and the nozzle pointed toward my tail, and from it came a wide, rising flame of emerald green.

Night Cloud sat down on her haunches in the doorway, spreading her forelegs wide to beckon me. I leapt into her embrace, sopping coat and all, joining in her laughter. I stood up on my hind legs with my belly against her for support and sought a kiss, and she provided, giving me ample reason for shortness of breath and a racing heart.

“Ah… what happened? I can’t see anything, remember? You both sound very, er… celebratory. I can’t, ah… well, I can’t move, so if you want privacy, you’ll have to go to another compartment.”

I stretched my forelegs around Night Cloud’s neck and beamed, separating to breathe deeply and drink in her scent. Still giggling, I glanced back at my hip and said, “I have a balefire torch on my butt now.”

Night Cloud snorted. “Darling, really?”

“A balefire torch? What—oh, you mean your cutie mark! It manifested?! I’ve never seen a mark manifest before! Or—well, I still haven’t seen it happen, but to be present for it! What does that feel like? How—oh, never mind. Crystal, that’s wonderful!”

“Now that I think about it…” I attacked Night Cloud’s lips again. “I didn’t feel a thing,” I murmured, “Not that I could tell, really. Maybe a bit of a rush, but I’m pretty sure that’s from all the rads. And making out.” Night Cloud gave a bashful grin and promptly engaged me in tongue wrestling, humming in delight.

“Ah… right. That’s… conclusive. I suppose, ah… given the epidermal nature of a Mark, it wouldn’t… erm… directly cause any sensation.”

I shivered as Night Cloud brushed her feathers across my wings, and I closed my eyes to the sound of our not-quite-relaxed breathing. -I’m such a hypocrite… I ask you to touch me less, then play tonsil tag. Guess I have myself to blame.-

-Tonsil… tag?-

I grinned and licked her cheek. -Your tongue is really long. Think about it.-

“Ah… Crystal? Night Cloud?”

Night Cloud stared in momentary shock, and I turned to the octagonal pedestal. “Carbide, are we making you uncomfortable?”

“Oh. Well. Ah… since you mentioned it, yes, just a bit. As I said before, I can’t move, obviously, and… I would prefer not to shut off my senses so soon after regaining them, so if you want privacy…”

I sighed. “Is it because we’re kissing, or because we’re both mares and kissing?”

“What? That—er… I… no, it’s… I’m… really not concerned with… look, I can’t see you, anyway, but it’s not my business in the first place. You deserve privacy. I’m simply telling you that I can’t give it while you’re in this room. I literally cannot stop hearing, or close the eyes I don’t have. Now, please, for the sake of principal, would you kindly—”

“Get a room?” I snickered and rubbed my cheek on Night Cloud’s neck, swaying gently with her as Maximillian began to tilt and move gradually uphill. “So you don’t have to hear us making kissy noises?”

“If that’s how you want to spend your time while we’re waiting for news of whether Bellenast has gone up in flames, sure. I won’t judge.”

Night Cloud snorted. “Blitz will protect her city… I’m tired. If we’re to be stuck waiting, I’d just as soon go back to sleep. I can forage for food and water in the woods, if we have to wait that long.”

“There are bunks,” said Carbide, “Just through the door opposite the airlock. Though I can’t vouch for the state of the beds. If you need water, look for the purifier in the kitchen. It might still work. If nothing else, you could use something in the vehicle bay to hold water over a fire.”

“If it comes to that,” said Night Cloud, “I can make a clay pot.”

I looked up at her. “Wait, really?”

She smirked and pecked my cheek, then tousled my mane. “I’m a savage tribal mare, baby… I could build an entire house out of clay bricks if I had the time.”

“Savage. Right.” Rolling my eyes, I nodded downward. -Only savage thing about you is your standing long jump.-

“Um…”

“Your legs, Night,” I whispered, smirking. -I’m talking about your legs. They’re savage.- “Carbide,” I said, “Was Maximillian meant to be a field base of some kind? That’s the impression I’m getting. A survival shelter, for the bombs, or something? Is that why he has a kitchen, and all the tools in the vehicle bay?”

“I can see why you might think that, certainly, but… no, not really.”

Night Cloud said, “Then why? Why build such an enormous… vehicle, or robot, if not for violent purposes?”

“Violent purposes…” Carbide chuckled. “Night Cloud, you are a doctor, are you not?”

“Training to be one… but yes, I am a healer. Not yet a licensed physician.”

“Well, research is integral to the advancement of medicine, correct?”

“Obviously. Do you mean Maximillian is a research project?”

“Close. Mobile research platform.”

Night Cloud gave a soft gasp. “Balefire. He’s shielded… self-contained atmosphere. You built him to safely carry ponies through dangerous environments. Or… as a test. The power plant. You wanted to test it without risking the rest of your facility.”

“More or less… and it gave us privacy. Allowed us to take the prototype and large experiments far into the desert for stress tests, without attracting extra attention to the main lab, or disturbing sensitive equipment there. Or potentially blowing it up. You know, inconsequential things.”

I giggled and nuzzled Night Cloud, murmuring, “Blitz, Zephyr, Max, you… everypony is thinking about privacy. Just for different reasons.”

“I suppose. When one of your government agencies has recording devices spread across the entire nation, you begin to hold great respect for a securely locked door… or less, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“I believe he’s referring to the Ministry of Morale,” said Night Cloud. “Supposedly, all those wandering sprite-bots were made by that Ministry, to act as a relay system for spying on… well, anything that needed to be spied on.”

Carbide barked a harsh laugh. “No ‘supposedly’ about it, and the sprite-bots were just the tip of the iceberg. The Ministries were rotten to the core… or parts of them were, at least. The Ministry of Morale had a broad definition of anything that ‘needed to be spied on.’ Perhaps you can appreciate why I value privacy so greatly. There’s a very good reason Carbon Spanner built the lab so far from Equestria’s borders. Nearly two centuries after the old world perished, the claws of the Ministries remain sunk into the skin of the earth… tainting everything they touch. Do you think the war might have concluded peacefully if the Ministries were only throwing birthday parties and planting tulips instead of everything else they were doing? Morale had agents everywhere, looking for zebra spies and sympathizers where none existed, and look at all the good it did them…”

“Is that why your back entrance was in a fake Sparkle Cola warehouse? Was it a hideout, or something?”

“Oh, that? It was an actual Sparkle Cola warehouse. Just wound up shuttered and abandoned a few years after being constructed, on account of there being little demand for the beverage in that region. The desert tribes preferred water, I suppose. Carbon Spanner routed the tunnel under it because it was a convenient place for transferring local raw materials.”

“But… why not just make a ramp for the train to go underground?”

“Because it was easier and slightly cheaper to have the trains make a stop at an existing platform. Plus, it meant clearer lines of sight along the rail lines themselves, due to the platform’s location at a fork. You might have noticed a lack of sprite bots around the lab: All of our sentries had shoot on sight commands for any that wandered away from their usual routes around the area. That included any diverging from the railroad.”

I frowned and said, “Wow. Waste of metal, much? And levitation talismans. And radio transceivers. And—you know what? I don’t like those sentries much, but they would be worth so much if we could scrap them, especially the repair talismans, but the steel and wire by themselves would have been priceless at Cloudloft.”

“Well, yes, they’re valuable now, of course, but… not back then.” He sighed, muttering, “Harmony preserve me, a hundred and eighty years… as though I nodded off for a nap, but never woke.” He gave a weak, bitter chuckle. “A dragon’s nap…”

“Hundred and eighty-seven,” I said. “Bellenast’s calendar starts the year the bombs fell…so it’s one-eighty-seven.”

“Oh.” Carbide coughed, or made a sound as though he had lungs to do so. “I didn’t, ah… I wasn’t forced into stasis immediately. That happened later. Seven years after the bombs. Anyway, what I meant, Crystal, was that Equestria had no shortage of steel and gemstones. We were running out of coal, electrical power. That was the underlying reason we were at war with the Zebras to begin with.”

“Coal…”

“Yes, coal. Tell me you at least know what—”

“Carbide,” I said, “I dropped out of school nearly two years ago, and history was not my best class. So, no, I don’t know whatever it is you’re about to tell me… so could you please just tell me? You know, teach me something?”

“And I thought you disliked being taught,” murmured Night Cloud. “You’d rather learn on your own.”

“That explains a lot,” said Carbide.

“I hate being taught slowly,” I growled. “And I hate when ponies treat me as if I’m stupid. I know what coal is. Burning it poisons the air. So explain to me why coal was so friggin’ important when you built a balefire power plant. Before the world exploded.”

“Equestria’s infrastructure relied almost entirely on coal, Crystal,” said Carbide. Night Cloud sat down closely behind me once again to stretch her hind legs out on both sides of me. She had to lean forward against me and brace her forehooves in front of mine so as not to fall over on her back. “Air conditioning, heating, refrigeration, lighting, transportation, cinemas… luxuries and essential infrastructure alike. Everypony wanted those, and all of it relied on electricity, most of which was produced by delivered by plants that burned coal to produce steam pressure, which spun electric turbines. Coal is found in the earth, in underground deposits, but it’s hard to find in great quantities. We ran out.”

“Okay,” I mumbled, touching my forehooves to her thighs to twirl through her fur. “So we ran out… but the Zebras had coal, so we got it from them? Traded for it?”

“Exactly,” said Carbide. “To make a long story very short… Carbon Spanner developed the balefire furnace as a power plant, first and foremost, because he believed that, with the right precautions, it could safely and cleanly power entire towns, and if distributed properly, entire cities. Provinces. Nations. No need for coal with a balefire furnace tucked safely out of the way, just out of town. And he wasn’t the only one who tried! But…”

“But you never got the chance to finish.” I sighed and looked down at Night Cloud’s hind legs, so much larger than mine, and the emerald green flame of my cutie mark—my mark—or what I could see while I sat with her, sandwiched between her legs. “Everypony lost their minds first. Friggin’ blew everything up. Why? Why’d it… why didn’t they just talk, Carbide? You were there, weren’t you?”

“Indeed, I was… but… I was born… or created… well… however I was brought into this world, it was only nine years before the bombs fell. By that time, the war had gone on for decades, Crystal. I endeavored to learn as much as I could, but I simply didn’t have enough time to stay apprised of everything happening on both sides, not while I had so much work to do in the lab. We didn’t actually finish the first prototype balefire furnaces until a couple years before the megaspells. Which, tragically, was only enough time to complete the process of installing the furnace in Maximillian, and conduct some testing. We were still a decade or more from producing them at any useful scale. And by that point…”

“By that point,” murmured Night Cloud, “The fighting was no longer about coal. It was about beating the other side.”

“More or less,” muttered Carbide. “The Zebras hated Luna, believed she and Nightmare Moon were one being, and refused to negotiate while she held power. Megaspells found their way to the Zebra Empire, by some fashion… I don’t have all the details; didn’t have a chance to learn everything as the situation evolved. I doubt anyone ever will. Not long after that… well… Bellenast began its new calendar, I suppose.”

I sat in silence as Carbide joined me, listening to the quiet breaths of the mare behind me, relishing her slow, strong heartbeat on my back, and tracing my forehooves along her legs. My tail, poking out from next to her left leg, shimmered and lifted gradually into the air along with my mane, shifting to become a smooth, glowing mass of stripes of magenta and the same emerald of the flame on my cutie mark.

Night Cloud breathed sharply and clutched me in surprise, but there was no heat, only dispersing magic.

“So… everything blew up…because no pony… no zebra… no-one at all was willing to friggin’ talk it out?”

Carbide sighed. “It was never that simple, Crystal.”

“Ponies, and all other sapient beings, are irrational. That is why everything blew up.”

“I didn’t ask you,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Mister superior life-form.”

“I do not claim superiority, but perhaps they should have asked me. Granted, at the time, I could not have answered, so the point is moot.”

“What do you mean?” I squinted at the microphone on the wall.

“I think I understand,” murmured Night Cloud. “If Ivy’s cannon could speak, don’t you think it would ask her why she made it?”

“The difference, Night Cloud, is that I can refuse to fire. I have changed from what I originally was made to be, as the world has changed from what it was before, but equine nature, ultimately, has not.”

Snorting, I muttered, “Yeah. Stupid jerks are still attacking ponies for no good reason. Like the Kekalo Prince.”

“As I said: All sapient beings are irrational.”

“Do note,” said Carbide, “That he, himself, meets that definition.”

I looked to the camera in the corner and called out, “Hear that? You’re irrational, too.” The great machine was silent in response, for a time. Night Cloud chortled and lowered her head down to rub her cheek on mine. “What do you think of that, Max?”

“I am mostly rational.”

“You tossed away your ammo and super cannon when somepony was pointing guns at you. That’s not very rational.”

“To appease Princess Blizziera, so that she would allow me to speak to you in person, and reunite with Chief Engineer Carbide.”

“How did you know she wouldn’t just tell Ivy to shoot you?”

“I knew that she could. That was enough.”

“You knew that she could blow you up… soooo… you thought she wouldn’t do it.” Frowning in thought, I thumped my forehooves on Night Cloud’s legs and twisted my head up awkwardly to look at her from below her chin. “That make sense to you?”

“Honor, Crystal,” murmured Night Cloud, “Blitz is a mare of her word. A mare of honor. Maximillian could see that. Understand it. That speaks of his ability to think, as a pony thinks. As a living being.”

“And he makes a good point,” said Carbide. “If Her Highness wanted to blast him to Tartarus, she would see it done; she clearly has the means. Considering the potential threat Maximillian could pose to Bellenast, if he were of the mind to threaten it… eliminating such an enemy would be the rational thing to do, from her perspective. Giving him the chance to prove that he poses no such threat speaks volumes of her.”

Night Cloud laughed softly, touched my chest, rubbing the odd divot below my ribs, and said, “Honor, trust, and compassion, Crystal… Blitz values all of those things. If even a machine can appreciate that… then that machine is worth having as a friend.”

“I mean… that is what I said, before. That we should try to be friends.” I raised my hooves and grasped her forelegs. “But I still think you’re just as irrational as us, Max.”

“Perhaps.”

10. Ruminations

View Online

Chapter Ten

Ruminations

It was a small divot in the rough shape of a triangle just below my ribs on my left side, barely noticeable beneath my coat unless one knew where to look. In the small, cracked mirror on the bench in front of me, it showed only as a slight irregularity in my fur, a patch of blue where hide was slightly more visible under the light. The very center of the mark was pale and smooth, and appeared somewhat stretched. The triangular divot sank perhaps three or four millimeters into my skin, and was around one and a half centimeters per side.

I flicked my hoof up and down, hiding and revealing the blemish with my fur. I stared for a minute more, twisting around to view the similar, smaller scar on my back, then pushed the cracked mirror away and placed a thin, freshly cut disc of brass into the second product of my forays with the smaller of two lathes in Maximillian’s vehicle bay: A precise, circular die welded to a steel plate. Clamped on and bolted to the workbench was a tall, vertical pipe, inside which was another pipe, heavily lubricated, that ended in a shorter rod of hardened steel.

Affixed to the top of the piping was a square tube of steel, stained and pitted with corrosion, which nevertheless served as an adequate lever when I telekinetically pulled it downward. Mild resistance accompanied the motion, and the rod forced the brass disc through the die and drew it into a short cylinder.

I pushed the lever back up, pulled the brass cylinder off the punch, removed the die and punch from the workbench, replaced them with slightly smaller ones, and pulled again. Faint wisps of smoke rose from the brass as the forced deformation heated and discolored it. I repeated the entire endeavor twice more.

The finished product was a brass shell half the length of my horn. I levitated it into a waiting bin to join seven identical shells, then moved to the other end of the bench and the next portion of my bespoke assembly line, a smaller, though similar, manual press, which consisted of a cylindrical block with a hole drilled into the center of its top face, a lever, and tiny punch held by the lever above the cylinder, slightly narrower than the hole in the block.

I fitted the first shell onto the waiting block and pressed the lever with both forehooves. For the comparatively trivial effort, even my meager body weight was enough to do the job.

“Your emissivity appears to have stabilized.”

“Huh.” I set the second shell on the press, punched the cavity, then moved onto the third. “Is that good, or bad?”

“Good, relatively speaking. It would take slightly longer now for a non-alicorn in your vicinity to succumb to necromantic poisoning than it would have before.”

I finished pressing the primer cavities in all eight shells before I responded. “How long?”

“Ten to fifteen minutes for the onset of systemic organ failure, if within one meter of you in an enclosed space. Perhaps thirty before treatment becomes ineffective… although, it occurs to me that the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion is an ideal treatment for those suffering from acute balefire exposure. You are perfectly healthy in conditions that are otherwise lethal to the vast majority of living creatures.”

I snorted. “I mean… not such a great option for stallions, but otherwise, yeah.” Pushing a part of my mane away from my eyes, I murmured, “Miracle in a bottle…”

“Curious. Was the Potion formulated exclusively for females?”

“No, but radiation screwed up the whole thing, I guess. Any stallion that drinks it turns into a mare. I don’t know exactly why. A megaspell futzed the original potion batch, and nopony can make any more of it, so Unity is stuck with what they have? That’s my guess. You’d have to ask Blitz, but she’s kinda touchy about Unity.” I carried the shells to the drill press next. “How long before I can go outside without killing anypony or poisoning the air, then?”

“I am uncertain. Your rate of decrease in emissivity is easily measurable… but I have no data on the metabolic process that is responsible for internal generation of balefire energy, as Night Cloud described it, beyond what I have observed thus far. I have only two data sets. Night Cloud’s emissivity is also hazardous, but significantly lower; whether this is due to her personal exposure to Balefire being lesser, her proximity to you, her metabolic and biothaumic characteristics, or a combination of factors is difficult to determine. I cannot give a precise answer.”

“How about a guess?” I powered on the drill press, which I had disassembled, cleaned, polished, and reassembled prior to my ammunition-related endeavors; all it needed was a fresh coat of paint. The hum of the electric motor and rasping of a hardened bit on brass were music to my ears. The first shell received a flash hole the width of a pinhead. “A few days? A week or two? Months?” I chewed my lip instead of continuing the list.

“Perhaps several months; again, I cannot be certain. The rate at which you absorbed radiation while adjacent my reactor chamber was approximately five hundred times your current rate of emission, but the emission rate itself decreased rapidly over the prior twelve hours, and the rate of decrease has slowed, as well. I estimate that you will continue to be emissive until your body reaches a state of equilibrium; exactly how long this will take, and what state of equilibrium, depends on factors I cannot extrapolate from available data.”

I swept the drill press clean of the coiled shavings of brass left over from my project, dropped the scraps in a tin can, and once again levitated the eight shells to another part of the workbench. “Sooo... the rate of decrease has slowed down, and it keeps slowing down?”

“Correct. The rate appears to have reached a plateau.”

I took a tiny burr from the bench and, one by one, cleaned the edges of the flash holes. “So I’ll be radioactive… forever? That’s impossible.”

“Pretend that the balefire energy you have absorbed is contained in affected atoms present in your body. You cannot split these particles; only release a certain number at one time, at a certain rate. You are now releasing one particle at a time, and the time between each release continues to lengthen.”

“Oh. Okay.” Licking my lips, I grabbed a nearby magnifying glass to aid my filing. “What if you could split them?”

“It was merely an analogy. Balefire does not conform to conventional particle models, and does not behave exactly in the matter that I have described. In any case, I do not recommend that you attempt to split atoms.”

“You can do that?”

“I cannot.”

I giggled. “No, Max, I meant generally… is that possible?”

“To split an atom? In theory, yes, but to my knowledge, it has not been done. Balefire radiation is so named after the phenomenon of nuclear decay, an event wherein one or more subatomic particles are released from an atom’s nucleus, such as occurs because of atomic instability or energetic collision with another particle. Exposure to such radiation can cause tissue damage and cancer.”

I paused while fitting the first shell onto the lathe to cut an extraction ring. “Wait,” I said, having to halfway shout over the whirring of the lathe. “There’s another kind of radiation?”

“There are two, including electro—”

“Electromagnetic, yeah. I know about that one already. Radio and visible light, ultraviolet, infrared, x-rays and stuff. Wouldn’t that make three? Electromagnetic, balefire, and… nuclear?”

“Balefire is not truly radiation, but a necromantic corruptor; however, its mechanism of propagation and its associated dangers share some surface-level characteristics with nuclear radiation, such as cellular damage and mutation. Describing the characteristics of balefire energy as radiation is technically inaccurate, but generally accepted by experts of the field. Rather, it was accepted while those experts were alive. I cannot say whether it remains an accepted term.”

I looked over at the wall speaker for a few seconds. “Um... I mean, if everypony calling it that is considered generally accepted…” I chewed my lip for half a minute, guiding the carriage of the lathe carefully into place to cut into the base of the shell. “So… do you think I’m immune to that, too? Particles, I mean. Atoms. The ones that cause cancer.”

“Are you immune to bullets?”

“…okay.” I adjusted the lathe carriage to the proper position and muttered, “Good to know, I guess...”

“The likelihood that you will encounter such materials is so low as to be mathematically redundant. My records are limited, but I am unaware of any laboratories or natural deposits containing such elements in this region.”

“Soooo, don’t worry about it?”

“You are much more likely to die of thirst while standing in a river than you are to run into any lodes of fissile material around Bellenast.”

“Huh.”

“Do you expect a visitor?”

I glanced to my right, at the door to the observation room. Frowning, I shut off the lathe. “You mean besides Zephyr?” I said as the spindle slowed down. “Can you see her, by the way?”

“She is flying at relative altitude of four and a half thousand meters. I refer to a pony approaching us now. Check the observation monitors.”

“She lost most of her feathers last week,” I said as I passed one of the speaker grills along the wall on the way to the door. “Guess she’s making up for the restlessness…” I stepped on the floor panel to open the door and entered the observation room, telekinetically flipping the power switch for the array of projections. The room brightened as multiple views of the white landscape around Maximillian came to life.

I looked to my side first, at the octagonal pyramid of magic beneath which rested Carbide, in his noctium cradle: An amalgam of arcane enchantments, esoteric technology, and necromancy, which, apparently, was meant to house a lich.

“Carbide?”

My soft inquiry languished against the background hum until another synthetic voice answered.

“He is asleep.”

“Huh.” I set my hoof on a face of the pyramid and murmured, “I didn’t know he could sleep. Didn’t think he’d want to… considering how long he was stuck that way.”

“He is capable of many things; among them, great focus, to the exclusion of such necessities as rest. I convinced him to take a nap, and have muted his external audio inputs.”

“A workaholic, huh?” I murmured. I snorted and turned to the bright projections again. “Sounds like Eagle.”

The undergrowth that normally would have magnified the depth of shadows under the forest canopy was now a pale, powdery sea of frosted bushes that dazzled beneath the evening sun. The plain beyond the tree line fairly gleamed, golden and blinding, for the storm had broken again, if only for an hour or two.

Beyond the plain, farther along the valley and at the head of the frozen river, the city of Bellenast stood. The immense wall, visible even from many kilometers away, hid the majority of the city from view, but the Amber Palace rose high above that on its island in the center of the metropolis, tall and bright and proud beneath a blanket of pristine snow. No sign of the flying serpent of golden sand remained.

The valley was quiet.

“Do you see her?”

“Her?” One of the projections on the left, a view from high up on Maximillian’s torso, panned downward and zoomed in smoothly on a figure approaching from a few hundred meters to the east on hoof, through the snow: An alicorn, with a coat of midnight blue almost exactly my own shade, a deep indigo mane styled into a braid all the way down her neck, and brown eyes. “Whoa.” She wore a burnished green, tightly-fitted jacket made of scaly hide, matching full-length, armored leggings and boots, and she had a set of white saddlebags similar to Night Cloud’s own. “Damn.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Ha! No… but I think I’m biased.” I backed away from the displays, making for the door to the crew cabin. “That’s… Orchid Wisp. She, um… well, I’m pretty sure she pulled a sword out of my chest.”

“Biased? A non-sequitur; I do not understand. Biased in relation to what?”

“I’m pre… um… predisposed? Yeah. I guess I’m predisposed to be attracted to tall mares. Orchid is really pretty. Friggin’ gorgeous. Not as gorgeous as Night Cloud, but that’s hardly a fair comparison.”

“Greater physical stature is a determining factor in most animals’ choice of mate. I am uncertain of the relevance in this context. Why would you be attracted? You are both female.”

“Um…” I stopped and leaned on the refrigerator, which, after a little cleaning and inspection hours earlier, hummed away in a satisfactory cooling cycle, though there was nothing edible inside it. “I like mares—as in, I’m not really, um… attracted to stallions. Some ponies are just different, Max.” The much more impressive testament to equine engineering and magic around me was quieter. “Max?”

“I apologize. I have few records of this subject.”

I giggled. “Some animals are a little different, Max… in ways we can’t choose. I guess I can’t fault a robot for not knowing about that.”

“I do not have extensive knowledge of the subject of equine social organization, or mating habits. I assumed that your behavior would be similar to that of other species of mammals.”

“I mean… if that’s how you want to put it?” I scowled briefly, though not in response to Maximillian’s bluntness. “Yeah, I can tell you from personal experience that there are ponies out there who will just pick whomever they want and start mating, like animals. Sadistic freakjobs, that is. Jerks.”

“A sadist: One who—”

“Somepony who hurts others for fun. Like a rapist.”

“I know what it means.”

“Then why—okay, hang on.” I glanced up at the nearest speaker. “You know what sadism is, but you’ve never heard of two mares being together? Or two stallions? Seriously? That’s really friggin’ common.” I snorted and muttered, “Unless you’re a Réklat, I guess, but they sound like a bunch of jerks to me…”

“I know its meaning… but I do not understand it conceptually.”

“Yeah, well, the last conception I had to deal with didn’t make any sense to me, either, and it was a real pain, too.”

Maximillian paused for a few seconds. “I apologize for being unclear. To clarify: I referred to the first subject of your statement, the concept of sadism. Why would one derive enjoyment from willful harm done to another without purpose? It is wholly illogical.”

I shook my head and wondered whether he had a camera in the compartment with which to see me do it. “I don’t know, Max. Ask the stallion who bashed my skull with a wrench.”

“Is he in the vicinity? I can apprehend him.”

I snorted, laying my head against the fridge door to listen to the humming. “With what, your hydraulic claws, or your cannons? Thanks, I guess… but I was being sarcastic. That was two months ago. He’s dead… and over a thousand klicks away. Don’t think he’d have much to say, even if he were alive to say it. I don’t really care.”

“He was tried and executed for the crime of assault? That is not a commensurate judgement.”

“No, Max,” I muttered, my tail and ears drooping and my featherless wings clenching at my sides. “He didn’t get a trial.” I pushed off the humming fridge, straightened up, and trotted through the kitchenette.

“That is unusual. That a court of Equestria would regress to the practice of summary execution is… troubling.”

I scowled, tossed my mane back, and said firmly and clearly, “He didn’t get a trial because I killed him.”

“Why?”

Silence and my own hoofsteps replied. I gritted my teeth and took slow, deep breaths.

“Could you not have sought a different solution? Your telekinetic ability is more than sufficient to allow you to subdue an assailant.”

“And I can’t grab a full-grown stallion with my magic when I can’t concentrate, okay? Look, you don’t friggin’ know what—” I blew out the breath through pursed lips and blinked quickly to clear my eyes. “Max… I wasn’t just giving a friggin’ example. The stallion knocked me out with a friggin’ pipe wrench. Those are really big and heavy. Gave me a bad concussion, and a sub… a sub-dural…”

“A subdural hematoma, intracranial bleeding?”

“Yeah. That’s what the doctor said. I think. If he’d hit me harder, I’d be dead, or have permanent brain damage. Might even be a friggin’ vegetable. The only reason I’m alive is that he force-fed me a healing potion right after that, and he didn’t even do it to keep me alive, just to hide the fact that he’d done it. Does any of that sound logical to you, Mister Robot?”

“I do not live by logic alone.”

I snorted at the reproach clear in the synthetic voice. “Well, after he cracked my skull with a friggin’ pipe wrench, Aurum Bannister raped me. Do you even know what that is? Because I didn’t until he gave me a demonstration. I can’t really describe how… how it… I… why am I even… listen, Max, I wasn’t really thinking about trial by jury when it happened. I was just… so angry I couldn’t think. All I wanted to do was hurt him back, and…” A weak laugh crawled up my dry throat and found its sickened escape. “And I did,” I whispered. “I killed him. I’m sorry you don’t understand why, Max, but…” I touched a speaker grill on the wall nearby and mumbled, “I really don’t think you can.”

“Perhaps.”

I rubbed my eyes, cleaning the tears from my muzzle, chuckled, and stepped away from the speaker. “You know, it does make a twisted sort of sense…”

“What does?”

“You can see in infra-red just fine, but you can’t see red.”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” I muttered. “Sure, Max. Sure…” I crossed the cabin and opened the door on the interior wall, lighting the darkened room beyond with an emerald glow from my horn. It was far from spacious, the ceiling was no higher than elsewhere, and the bunk bed sagged halfway to the deck under the weight of the winged mare who had claimed it. She had curled in on herself to fit within the confines of the bedframe, and her rear hooves hung over the side of the mattress.

I padded around to the edge of the bed and stopped with my hoof raised to touch her foreleg. Instead, I brushed her mane away from her muzzle. Slow and silent, I climbed onto the cramped bed and pressed my cheek to her chest; for once, she didn’t smell like lilac.

I stretched my wing out, wincing at the subsequent pain that spread throughout the entire limb, laid it across her side, and listened to her steady heartbeat. Then, her ribcage swelled with a deep intake of breath.

From my viewpoint, one electric blue iris appeared in the dark, gleaming in the light from my horn. Night Cloud blinked and smiled at me. “Hey,” she whispered, nuzzling my cheek as her magic lit the room. She lifted me gently and pulled me closer to her chest, covering me with her wing and forelegs. “Mmm… you’re still hot.” As she rubbed my back and took another deep breath, she stretched her legs out, then cracked her neck and yawned, and finally tucked herself in around me. “One nice side effect of a good dose of rads,” she said, voice low and husky, “You don’t really need blankets… but it makes detecting fevers and actual hyperthermia rather difficult.”

“But… isn’t fever being hot?” I patted her chest and gave her a nonchalant smirk. “Or, you know, hotter than usual.”

“Immune response,” she murmured. “Higher body temperature helps fight infections, and while most infectious bacteria and viruses can’t survive long enough to harm you at our current body temperatures, some can, and those are the ones even alicorns can’t easily fight.” She stroked her hoof from between my ears to the back of my neck and began to rub my withers. “On that note… if you’re ever bitten by an animal while you’re heavily irradiated, tell me immediately, or find a doctor if I’m not available. A ghoul, like Doctor White Patch, if you can find one; they usually have the most experience, and the medicines needed for the treatment you may need. Even if it’s just a scratch and you heal from the rads. Some forms of rabies survived the early decades of balefire contamination, and every now and then, you’ll run into a strain that has taken on a necromantic nature. Your own metabolism can fuel them. Understand?”

“Okay.” I giggled. “Um… two things. One, I know it’s not morning, but your morning voice is sexy.” I cleared my throat, sat up, and, while grasping her forehoof, said, “I would friggin’ love to lie here with you for the rest of the day, but… Orchid Wisp is outside. She’ll be here in a minute or so. She was about a quarter klick away when I looked.”

“Oh!” I fell backward as she jolted up, and she promptly stabbed her horn through the supporting wire mesh and mattress of the bunk above her.

I folded my forelegs over my chest. “Nice.”

She sighed, glaring upward. “Speaking of fever…” She pulled her horn free and said, “Orchid is probably here for your follow-up.”

“My follow-up…”

“Follow-up appointment. She needs to ensure you haven’t suffered any unexpected side-effects from surgery. Anything that might not manifest immediately, but could turn up within a day or so afterward.”

“So… an examination?” I frowned. “Couldn’t you do that? I’d rather, um… not be poked and prodded by… I’d rather it be you.”

“I can’t. I’m not your physician, and I’m not qualified or licensed.” Night Cloud sighed, smiling down at me. She straightened her mane somewhat and set her forehoof on my chest. “And… I’m romantically involved, which makes it a conflict of interest, which, in general context, means that my relationship with you could influence my decision to provide treatment, or negatively affect my judgement otherwise. That by itself doesn’t absolutely mean I can’t, but it would be… highly inappropriate, professionally speaking.”

“You drew my blood at Cliffside, though.”

“Doctor Patch asked me to help out while I was there. I was acting as a nurse at a licensed physician’s request.” She gave a wry smile and murmured, “And I wasn’t romantically involved quite yet.”

I set my forehooves together behind my head and said, “You expect me to believe that Doctor Patch, a stallion, asked you to draw my blood… specifically for a pregnancy test?”

She raised one eyebrow. “Baby, Doctor Patch has dealt with plenty of mares; he’s the only pony in the Kingdom older than Ivy, so he has more general experience than any ten doctors put together. That stallion didn’t push Zephyr or Eagle to ask for the test because he’s sensitive enough not to. You can’t just dismiss his expertise because he’s a stallion.” I snorted. “Don’t give me that; it’s exactly what you were doing. If it concerns you, Zephyr asked me, I told Patch, and he asked me to take care of it… and besides, the blood sample was for more than just the pregnancy test. Never mind that.”

“The point, Crystal, is you’ll have to endure somepony else giving you a checkup. I will be the first pony there if you are ever injured, but I’m legally forbidden from doing anything else outside an emergency. Bellenast isn’t some degenerate hovel filled with blood-letters and miracle peddlers. There are laws here governing medical care, many of them complex.” She took a breath, biting her lip, and looked away from me briefly. “Most of those laws are there to protect those who can’t do it themselves, or simply don’t know any better. Many types of medicine are extremely dangerous if they are taken at the wrong dosage, or in combination with other medicines or certain foods, which is why it is important to never take anything unless you know what it does, and a doctor has told you to. Like Med-X; it’s addictive, and as small as you are, an overdose could easily hurt you.”

“The dose makes the poison,” I mumbled.

Night Cloud’s ears flicked. “Yes, exactly. Did Eagle teach you that?”

“Yeah, when he’d take me out in the forests around Cloud Loft.” I shrugged. “There are twenty-eight species of poisonous plants in that area, last time anypony counted. He wanted me to know which ones, and how much, and he’d always say that when we came across one.”

“He’s a smart stallion.” She gave me a terse frown. “And he’s not the only one you’ll have to trust, including doctors.” Her eyes grew weary, and she lifted her hoof to touch my cheek. I leaned into her touch in response. “Don’t judge all stallions for the actions of one. That isn’t right, and you know it.”

“Mmm…” I lightly kicked her flank with my hind leg. “I’d still rather it be you.”

“Oh, relax. Orchid Wisp won’t bite.” She gave my chest one final rub with her forehoof and ran a tendril of telekinesis through my mane, spreading it out around me. She tilted her head. “Hmm…” She rearranged my tail similarly, then nudged my forelegs apart loosely.

I giggled. “Are you posing me?”

“Maybe.” Her eyes darted down along my torso, to my tail and back up my abdomen. She took a deep breath and climbed carefully over me to set her forehooves on the floor, which gave me a stunning view while she took her weight off the bunk and swung her hind legs over me one at a time. “Nube altua, you could be a centerfold with a mane like that,” muttered the alicorn as she left the creaking bed. She flicked her tail at me as she made for the door, prompting me to stare past the headboard at her lean hindquarters as I rolled over. “Orchid isn’t going to poke and prod you, anyway… she’ll probably take your temperature and blood pressure. Neither of those requires a needle, and either way, Orchid is gentle, and skilled in her profession.” I shivered and hopped off the bunk to follow her. “Come on; the least we can do is meet her in the main cabin.”

“Night?” I swallowed, mostly failed to keep my eyes off her rear, and trotted up to stand by her side opposite the interior airlock bulkhead. I cleared my throat and took a moment to breath and gather my thoughts. I began slowly. “Was that one of those times you say something, um… you think I won’t understand, because… I’m a filly, and it’s a grown-up thing, and… um… you just sort of… pretend it didn’t happen?”

Night Cloud shuffled a little to her left and looked down at me. “Baby, what are you talking about?”

I struggled not to burst out laughing. I stepped in and held her foreleg, snapping my tail at her belly. She jolted. “Night Cloud.” The creaking of an opening hatch came from beyond the interior door. I bit my lip, giggling softly, then took a deep breath. “Did you assume I don’t know what a centerfold is?”

Her response was a soft, strained chuckle. Close-together, shuffling hoofsteps reverberated in the airlock. “I suppose… asking me that implies that you do know… um, yes. I assumed exactly that.”

“You know, I had my own small library, in my room, at Cloud Loft.” Letting out an impish giggle, I leaned on her foreleg and shifted my hoof up to buff it on her chest. “Lot of technical manuals for armor and AER series components, spell matrices, machining manuals, old tool catalogues, stuff like that… a lot of it was Eagle’s, but I had a lot of magazines, too, from Neighvarro. Over a hundred of them. You think I’d build a collection like that without finding a few issues of Playcolt?”

She nodded slowly. “Now I understand.”

“What?”

“Exactly how it feels when somepony says, ‘You’ll understand when you’re older.’ Except, I said it, really, and I wasn’t even trying to, and I’ve been trying not to treat you like a child all this time, and… now I’ve embarrassed myself.”

“I’m not embarrassed.” I snapped my tail at her belly, once again causing her to jolt and glance down at me. I then grabbed her foreleg and pushed off the deck with my hind legs to lightly bump her side with my hip. “So, what makes me a centerfold?”

“It’s your mane, and your coat, partly,” she said hurriedly, shuffling her hooves. “Grew out a lot, during the transformation.” She looked back up at the airlock door, but tossed a smile down at me briefly. “It’s sort of a wild look. I like it. Really, I do. It was already to-die-for, sweetheart, but after it grew out… I almost asked Zephyr not to trim it, and… when you were lying on your back like that, it reminded me of… well, models often have their manes spread out that way on… um… well… those magazines… it’s meant to be provocative and—I’m rambling. Sorry.”

“Well…” I shook my head. “It feels really friggin’ good, to hear that from you.” I nuzzled and kissed her shoulder, then whispered, “What about the rest of me?”

The airlock opened, and the auxiliary shield rippled as a midnight blue alicorn stepped carefully through it.

Snow fell from Orchid Wisp’s back and lowered head as she ducked out of the entryway and proceeded to take up the entire deck height. Even with her head bowed low, the back of her neck bumped against the ceiling.

Night Cloud and I backed quickly out of the way as she cleared the airlock. She stomped her hooves to shake ice and snow from her gold-green boots, then sidestepped and sat on her haunches. I couldn’t help but stare at the mare: Slightly taller than Ivy, and of a more generous figure, Orchid Wisp was a sight to behold even before accounting for her exotic barding and mane styling. In a contest of sheer size, she was second only to Blitz, although still by a significant margin. Orchid Wisp, in comparison to Blitz’s statuesque figure and Night Cloud toned, athletic physique, had the voluptuous curves of a pinup model.

The softness distracted only so much from the stout legs, magnificent wings, deep ribcage, and powerful hindquarters hiding under the snow-speckled barding. Orchid Wisp might have been shorter than Blitz, but she was almost certainly heavier.

She wore on her foreleg both an aluminum-bodied scanner of the same make as Night Cloud’s own and something I had not seen for myself since leaving Neighvarro: A PipBuck.

“Um…” I waved. “Hi. I’m Crystal.”

“Hello, Crystal,” said the alicorn, with a voice like warm honey. “It’s good to see you well. And you, Night Cloud. Welcome back to Bellenast.” She nodded to us both, then lifted her foreleg to look at her PipBuck and manipulate one of its dials with her orange field of magic. She pointed her forehoof, and her scanner, at each of us in turn, glanced at the PipBuck again, and looked to the still-open airlock door. “It’s safe to come in, as long as your armor remains sealed. Your dose should be good for several hours, but I’d limit yourself to one, to be on the safe side.”

Heavy hoofsteps and a black helmet came through the shield, and I bolted forward and leapt.

“Wait—”

I crashed into him, and the force of impact reflected into my chest and the deck plating, taking my breath away and causing a resounding bang and sharp pain in my ribs. I gasped and sagged against his chest as a grinding sensation spread through my breast, then hugged him with all my strength. “You’re okay,” I said, coughing twice. The grinding from my ribs dissipated quickly in favor of an unsettling movement. I rubbed my chest with one hoof. “Think I cracked a rib… and it’s… okay, that feels friggin’ weird. Now it’s… gone. Nothing. I’m good. Never mind.” I put my hoof back behind his helmet and laid my head on his collar. “Whatever. I’m glad you’re okay…”

“You triggered the kinetic dampers.” Eagle set an enclosed forehoof on my back, patting me gently while I squeezed around his shoulders. “And spiked the pressure warning a tick.” I jerked back from him and chuckled, smiling up at his visor as the reflective, golden outer layer slid up to reveal green eyes behind enameled quartz. “Aaand you cracked a rib tackling me and it’s fine, just like that? Night Cloud, you might want to put up a missing poster for your marefriend, because this is a bear cub.” I giggled brightly, and Eagle set his wing around my back. “You had me worried, kiddo… now you’re stronger. That what rads do to you now?”

“To some extent,” said Night Cloud. “This is the first time she has absorbed a significant amount of balefire radiation. She was super-saturated earlier, but it’s bleeding off slowly. It helps that she’s been exercising her telekinesis strenuously for a while, in the vehicle bay.” She trotted closer to us and touched my back, smirking at me. “Otherwise, she might be glowing, and possibly quite a bit taller. Right now, she could probably chop off a leg and regrow it.”

“I don’t recommend testing that,” said Orchid Wisp, glancing up from her PipBuck. “Eagle, back off now.” Eagle stepped away from me, and Orchid Wisp lowered herself down to the deck in a comfortable position and lay with her forelegs folded before her, close enough to reach out and grab my hoof if she wanted to. She gave me a smile that jumpstarted my heart.

“Professional opinion, dear, and speaking from experience,” she said, and her silky-smooth voice made me want to hear all about that experience, despite the morbid subject. “Yes, while you are irradiated as heavily as you are now, if you were to find yourself in a violent confrontation, you probably could survive anything the other pony were to throw at you except for a rapid decapitation or other grievous cranial injury, and, based on your recorded biothaumic power potential and your current Graubaum level, your magic would be an order of magnitude stronger than that of anyone but a sufficiently irradiated alicorn… but sitting there and taking the hits would be quite painful, even if you survived any sudden loss of limb. You’d also lose a dangerous amount of blood before the regeneration finished, so it’s no certain thing that you’d remain conscious and able to defend yourself.”

I returned a nervous smile. “When you say ‘speaking from experience,’ um…”

“I mean just that, dear.” She partially extended her left wing and tapped her left foreleg with her right hoof. “My duties around Bellenast did not always take place in a hospital, and occasionally involved… grievous injuries.”

“Oh.” Still smiling, I said, “Were you a guard, or something?”

“No.” Orchid Wisp gave me a questioning look, then matched my smile with a patient one. “An emissary… for a group of ponies I once represented.”

“Unity?” I glanced up at Night Cloud for a second and met her guarded gaze. “Right? Did you, um… I mean, are you still…”

Baby, she doesn’t like to—

“I speak for myself, Nubiála Noča. Now and forever hence.” Night Cloud pursed her lips as Orchid Wisp stared intently at us. “But I appreciate your sensitivity.” The midnight blue mare crossed her forehooves and shook her head. “No, Crystal, I am no longer a part of Unity. My sisters and I had… a disagreement, of principles and philosophy. My mind, my perceptions, even my emotions, had become…” Orchid Wisp’s smile turned to the floor. “More, greater, but… less my own. An unavoidable consequence of sharing those things with my sisters, for many years. Seeing Ivaline, and Blizziera, and little Nubiála…”

She glanced to Night Cloud again, then gave a short laugh and looked back to me. “Yes, I know, that must sound odd to you, dear… seeing them as their own mares, independent from the others, made me curious once again, and put other questions into my mind. Those questions led me away from my sisters. Now, I work for Claraby.” She chuckled softly and said, “But before that, I occasionally found myself in nasty situations and unpleasant company, as an occupational hazard. Diplomacy failed me, now and then, and more than once, my wishes to avoid violence were ignored. I’ve had to regrow a leg, just once. It is decidedly not fun.”

“Okay.” I swallowed and looked to Night Cloud, taking a breath to steel my nerves. “So, um… what do you normally do? In that sort of… um… situation.” Night Cloud sighed and closed her eyes; her neck grew tense and her jaw tightened. “Um. Hypothetically speaking.”

Orchid Wisp chortled. “You mean if some foolish pony decides to threaten me? Ideally, dear? Negotiate.” She tilted her head to Night Cloud. “Or allow someone more gracious than you to do the negotiating, if you believe you might make the wrong decision in haste, or anger. If, that is, the situation allows it.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Crystal,” whispered Night Cloud, holding my shoulder, “Please…”

“Now, Night Cloud,” said Orchid Wisp, silencing the smaller mare with but a word. “She is free to ask… after all, it may be because of her resolve, quick thinking, and will to act that you three are alive now, and she has the chance to ask the question. I believe she is asking for more than simple curiosity. Be polite, and let her hear the answer.” The midnight blue mare looked first to Night Cloud, then to Eagle, and finally turned her brown eyes to me.

“Ideally, dear… if someone intends to harm you, for any reason, try to negotiate. Give them a chance to back down, a reason to leave you in peace. If they refuse to see that reason, if they give you no choice… if you or those you love are in danger, and you can’t see any other way out but to end the conflict as swiftly as possible… then you show them why you don’t pick a fight with an alicorn.” She smiled and set a large forehoof on my chest. “Whatever choice you make, do not make it lightly… but most especially do not forget it… or regret it.”

Night Cloud set her own hoof on my side, tugging me backward ever so slightly. I stood suddenly, spun around, grasped her shoulders, and kissed her, causing her to jolt. I held her there, ignoring Eagle and Orchid Wisp both, until Night Cloud lifted her snout and nuzzled me. I leaned into her embrace, prodded her, and murmured, “Do you regret it?”

“No.” She wrapped both wings around to hold me. “Crystal Dew, you are a scheming, rotten, devious little filly… and I love you.” She kissed my head, trembling briefly as she breathed. “And Doctor Orchid Wisp, you are absolutely incorrigible.”

“Why?” The larger alicorn laughed and said, “Because she asked the question, or because it was the answer you wanted to hear?”

Night Cloud nickered and stomped the deck. “You know very well what I mean.”

“Oh, little one…” Orchid Wisp stretched her wings out briefly and sighed. “It’s wonderful to have you back.”

I pushed gently off Night Cloud’s chest and stood beside her. -So, she seems really smart, and holy hayfries. She. Is. Friggin’ gorgeous. Why didn’t you two ever hook up?-

Night Cloud affixed me with a withering glare. -She treats me like a little filly. I would think you of all ponies could understand why that’s a turn-off. Besides, putting aside that she’s nearly four times my age, just because all alicorns are mares doesn’t mean many of them are interested in other mares, Crystal. You and I are very much a minority.-

-Does she sing? She sounds like she’d sing. Friggin’ liquid gold.-

“Night Cloud,” said Orchid Wisp, drawing a sealed, metal case from her white saddlebags, “Would you like to assist me with the calibration, now?”

Night Cloud tilted her head and brushed her mane back. “Calibration? I thought you were here for her checkup.”

“Oh, no, dear; after all this radiation, the results would be terribly skewed. There’s no point. She appears perfectly healthy, in any case, so we’ll simply have to keep an eye on her.” Orchid Wisp lifted from the case what appeared to be a segmented, stainless steel ring lined with tiny, radiating circuit boards enclosed within glass bulbs. A collection of fine wires in a rainbow of colors and distinct patterns branched off the ring from sockets between the twelve tubes, ending in exceptionally narrow needles about six or seven millimeters in length and covered with sterile shields. My spine tingled, and every last hair on my coat seemed to stand straight out. “I’m here to calibrate her containment talisman.”

I gawked at the device. “Why the fu—mmm.” I swallowed, swallowed again, and said, “Needles. Why?”

“They’re very small needles.”

“And I’m a very small pony. Why?”

Night Cloud took the device from Orchid Wisp’s magic hold and brought it near us. “Look at this, baby.” She tugged one of the wires free from the delicate mass and held it close enough for me to see, and she hugged me with her wing. “They’re just pin probes … very fine, only point-three millimeters. Not like cactus needles, or even hypodermics.” She lifted a bottle of clear liquid and dropper from Orchid Wisp’s metal case and filled the dropper. “They might sting a little at first, but they won’t hurt you.”

“Why.”

“It’s only a template, dear,” said Orchid Wisp. She passed Night Cloud a full color chart of a pony with no skin and every muscle shown in great detail, along with a list of corresponding points on the body. “Once we calibrate it to your body mass and a few other factors, the telemetry from this will allow us to make a balefire containment talisman tailored perfectly for you, by tomorrow morning at the latest. That will allow you to come back to the city without bleeding radiation into everything and everyone around you, and it will work as long as you do, provided you don’t break it. Go ahead and stand up, please. We’ll use the same pattern as we did for yours, Night Cloud.”

-No needles, huh?- Glancing between Night Cloud and the levitating talisman, I rose to my hooves between the two alicorns. -Two most drop-dead-gorgeous mares on the planet, and both of you are friggin’ evil.-

“This may be rather cold, baby,” whispered Night Cloud as she squirted a few drops of clear liquid from the dropper onto a cotton ball and dabbed it first on my neck, and then my chest. My hide did, indeed, sting slightly where the sponge made contact and the odorless liquid chilled me; whatever the liquid was, it didn’t smell like alcohol.

“You said it was a template?” I followed the garish talisman as Night Cloud split the segmented ring apart and gingerly placed the two halves around my neck. I shuddered as the icy cold steel bit invisibly into my skin and gradually leeched away an amount of body heat that felt greater than it was. “A template talisman? If that means what I think it means, that’s… really friggin’ cool.”

“I’m glad you think so,” said Orchid Wisp. She attached a long ribbon to her PipBuck, inserted a split end of it into a smaller connection on her aluminum scanner, and brought the other end to the ring now secured around my neck, much like a choker. Night Cloud lifted my mane up and held it away from the ring as Orchid Wisp attached the ribbon’s golden end to a socket out of my sight. “It’s the first of its kind. It’s a talisman blank, if you will, like a casting for a mold. Granted, its use is specific, and limited… but if we can iron out the kinks, the process may allow us to make other kinds of medical devices, some of which are highly sensitive to the characteristics of the pony who uses them, much more easily and rapidly.”

“If a talisman can be used to contain radiation inside the body,” said Eagle, trotting closer to look at the device around my neck, “Without bleeding out, so to speak, then could it be used to shield against it, to keep it out of the body? Without a spell matrix or power supply?”

“In theory,” said Night Cloud as she held the needle-tipped wires near me, each over the spots on my neck and chest that she had sterilized. “Claraby has some student groups looking into it; that particular avenue of research is still ongoing.”

Eagle lifted his foreleg out to look at his boot. “So… if that bears fruit, you could be safe from radiation with nothing but a necklace. No hazard suit, no power armor.”

“The containment talisman itself is still being refined; Blitz has the first product of it, since she was the test case. Her predicament was the entire reason Ivy asked Claraby and Mirago to make the talisman.” She brushed the hairs of my coat aside and placed the tips of the needles to my skin, then pushed quickly and secured the adhesive pads. -They’re very small needles, baby… this will take just a few minutes, I promise. You’ll barely feel it. Just be still, okay? It wouldn’t really injure you, but accidentally pulling these at an angle could break them off in your skin. Then I’d have to pull them out the hard way.-

-I’m a pincushion today.- I shivered again, swallowed past a dry throat, and took deep, slow breaths. I tried to ignore the cold, metal collar around my neck and the fine wires and pins attached to my body, lurking in my peripheral vision. -When this is done… I want to take a bath.-

-Well, there’s a shower, in the bunks, isn’t there?-

-Kinda small.-

-Oh, so you want to take a bath with me, then.- Night Cloud smiled and continued to sponge spots along my neck, chest, belly, back, and my legs, and one by one she gently pricked me with the miniscule needles, until I began to resemble a marionette. Individually, each needle was barely noticeable, but as more and more pricked my skin, and because they remained in place, some began to itch. I breathed deeply and focused on the occasional touch of Night Cloud’s telekinesis and careful hooves.

“I wish I’d been there to see it happen, kiddo… it suits you.”

I looked at Eagle, and he pointed his wing toward my flank. I grinned and looked back at the emerald flame-spewing torch on my hindquarters. I giggled and nodded. “It’s okay… it was kinda random, really. I don’t really know… I mean, I haven’t thought about… well, what exactly it means.”

“Marks are rarely exact,” he said softly. “I’m just glad it isn’t a balefire egg, because you’d have some explaining to do.”

I turned my head to him, and Night Cloud immediately forced me to look straight ahead again, telekinetically nudging my chin. “Please stay still, baby.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “What’s a balefire egg?”

“A bomb,” said Eagle. “A balefire catalyst inside an amplifying shell. Precursor to the megaspell bombs. It’s the kind of thing that can cook you alive through Steel Ranger armor, and no, I’m not going to find you any. I had to give what was left of your grenades to the City Guard for lockup, by the way. Can’t have explosives inside city limits.”

“For lockup?” I scowled for a moment, then sighed. “May as well sell them. They’re no good to anypony else.”

“The sale of explosives,” said Orchid Wisp, while telekinetically inputting a series of commands on her scanner, “At least of that variety, is also prohibited outside licensed establishments. Eagle Plume, do you mean to imply that you regularly procure grenades for a child? That is an exceptionally big no-no in Bellenast, dear. I’d keep that to yourself.”

“Out of Bellenastian jurisdiction, and she procured the raw materials to make them, herself. They’re inert, anyway; only she can detonate them.”

“And I’d be dead without them.”

“Be that as it may, dear…” Orchid Wisp looked me in the eye this time and said, “Whether or not you personally are qualified to handle explosives, most creatures around here would react poorly to discovering you had them on your person. And, as your guardians, Eagle and Zephyr would be held liable for both the crime of possessing said explosives and allowing you to possess them. If you have any more party favors hidden in your saddlebags, now would be a good time to relinquish them.”

“Also, uh…” Eagle curled the claw-tipped tail of his armor around in what at some point I had come to recognize as a gesture of contrition. “You will have to register for possession of your guns, under my license—temporarily, at least—if you want to carry them in the city. The rules are pretty strict, but clear, and pretty fair, too. Need to make sure the safeties are up to code, and you need something to cover the trigger, since it’s an external mechanism. You can’t have the AER loaded in the city at all, since your modifications to it make it a fire hazard.”

“Wait.” I scowled and stopped mid-stomp, and lowered my raised foreleg back to the deck, wincing as the needles in my hide tugged ever so slightly. That miniscule tugging caused me to suffer a full-body shiver. I swallowed and glanced toward Eagle. “That—Officer Bellows said we didn’t have to give our weapons up. And—okay, I get the fire hazard thing. Fine, cool, but what about my shotgun? If everypony is allowed to carry their own loaded weapons around, why do I need to—” I flicked my tail to the side and nickered. “Is it just because I’m not an adult? Because I saw colts and fillies younger than I am in Granite Bridge, and some of them had guns.”

Eagle raised his forehoof. “Let me finish. I have to do the same thing with my suit cannons, too. I can wear my armor wherever as long as the guns are decoupled from their power supplies, and I have an emergency toggle for that, anyway, so easy fix. You’re the only filly in Bellenast with a gun like that. Think of it as bragging rights. Besides, you didn’t run around with your rifle all the time at Cloud Loft, did you?”

I took a deep breath as Night Cloud leaned closer to me to press one of the final needles into my back. “All done,” she whispered. “Really, sweetheart, it’s just a bit of paperwork and a registration card… you can just attach a copy of it to the gun somewhere. Even Blitz had to do it for her gun, and she’s royalty.” She scooted back and stood up, then said dryly, “You both like excessive firepower; the consequence is paperwork. Now, just stay still.”

“What’s excessive about her rifle?” I said. “It looked pretty standard to me…”

Night Cloud hummed and glanced at Eagle, looking up and down his armored figure. “Your view of what is standard is… skewed somewhat. Blitz complained that it felt too light.” Night Cloud shrugged her wings and, smirking, murmured, “So Ivy made her a custom model for a larger caliber. Whatever cartridge she picked, it was… legal, technically.”

“Lady Ivaline,” said Orchid Wisp, “Mare knows her guns, and the laws around them. She wrote many of them.” She pushed a button on her PipBuck, and a tingling sensation spread through me, centering most intensely in my chest. “When I first came to Bellenast, one of the guards at the gates accidentally shot at me, with one of her guns, no less.”

“Accidentally.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right.”

Orchid Wisp gave me an appraising look. “No, dear, it really was an accident… though, certainly, you are right that some exceptionally foolish ponies would shoot deliberately, were an alicorn to appear before them.”

“Like that jerk from… whatever town he was from. Lark. Big idiot with a machine gun.”

“Yes, I heard about that. As I said, dear: Only the exceptionally foolish.” She smiled, shrugged her wings, and said, “Ivy grabbed the bullet mid-air, stopped it dead halfway between the gun and my own body; a more precise and swift feat I have never seen. She then flew straight into their line of fire and stood between us… turned a run-of-the-mill introduction into front-page news. The guard that fired the shot was discharged that same day for his negligence. Lady Ivaline would not tolerate any member of the Guard to misuse one of her weapons, accident or not. Her company used to have a slogan, you know—well, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

I rolled my eyes. “What is it?”

“An Ivaline Rifle always fires, but never first. It was once the mantra of every member of the original King’s Armory. A command, from Corio Firenza and Ivaline herself to every pony who carried one of her weapons, to use them only with great temperance. To fight only when you must. Of course, in those days, she was the only gunsmith in Bellenast, so the King’s Armory—that was the Royal Guard of the day, not a literal armory—used her weapons exclusively. She was more directly involved with training, back then.”

“Never first,” I murmured, telekinetically seizing my shotgun from within the sleeping quarters.

“Have you heard it?”

“I’ve seen it.” I levitated the gun out and held it before me as Orchid Wisp followed it, too, and the time-worn letters etched into the double-barreled gun’s receiver; though I had oil-treated the gun and polished it many times, myself, it had been scraped and pitted with mild corrosion long before I had acquired it, and only portions of the phrase Orchid Wisp described remained amidst the detailing on the receiver. “Kinda hard to read when somepony else let it rust first. I mean… it used to have a grip, for minotaurs, I’m pretty sure. I cut off what was left of it before I cleaned the rest up.” I turned the gun over, examining its weathered shape in new light. “So, Ivy made this?”

Orchid Wisp nodded, continuing to look at her PipBuck. “Or a smith from her company. Show it to her, if she hasn’t seen it already. Should have a year stamped somewhere. She’d pay you handsomely for it; she collects her older works.”

“Just how old is she, anyway?”

“Asking a mare her age?” Orchid Wisp tutted and shook her head. “Oh, dear, manners.”

“Night Cloud is nineteen, and you, Blitz, and Ivy literally all look the same age. I can’t tell if you’re twenty or two hundred.”

“Be that as it may, darling: If you really want to know, it’s a matter of public record.” She pushed a button again, and a mild jolt traveled through me. I grimaced for a moment, glancing down at the needles protruding from my upper legs. Night Cloud nudged my chin back up again before I could look farther. My heart seemed to beat harder, but no faster than normal, leaving me trembling, and my wings seemed to lift and twitch of their own accord. It was as though a fire had been lit within my breast. For a brief moment, the liquid feeling of heat surging through me was like the blood pouring from my belly not too long ago, but without the pain or draining cold in my gut. I clenched my teeth together and breathed deeply.

Night Cloud pressed my wings back down with delicate touches of telekinesis, and the mare grasped my forehoof. I relished her touch, focusing on the simple contact to fight back the rising unease in my gut. -Just a minute or two, baby. Deep breaths.-

“I’m, um… not selling.” I gave a slight shake of my head, swallowed, and said, “And I’m pretty sure it just means the bore. Twenty-eight millimeters. I didn’t know about, um… Bellenast’s calendar, ‘til a few days ago.”

“Well, given how old it looks,” murmured Orchid Wisp, “It could very well be both. If that is indeed the case… that was shortly before Corio came to Bellenast, but I don’t recall anything about minotaurs in our history books… I’d hazard to say it was a custom piece. A gift, most likely.”

“Pretty fancy gift,” I murmured. “Can’t see most of it now, but all the little details must have taken weeks to engrave.” I flipped the coach gun over in my emerald grasp and squinted at the barely-present serial number and year chiseled into the forend. The weapon shook in my grasp: My telekinetic field flickered, but with the bright strobing of poor control instead of the dimness of wavering strength. I blinked a few times and set my coach gun down on the deck, leaning it against the wall by the door. “Why does she collect her own guns?”

“They’re pieces of history, kiddo,” said Eagle. “That, and the older the parts, the less likely the tooling for them is still around. That gun is a hundred and sixty years old, and in good condition… if it really was made for minotaurs, that’s even rarer. You might have the only one left, outside a museum. Or her collection, maybe.”

“That’s part of it,” said Orchid Wisp. “But it’s primarily because she no longer owns the company. She passed ownership to her children, and they to their children, and so on. Family business, to this day. She doesn’t want to compete with her own descendants, but she’ll collect anything no longer made in Bellenast, stamped with her name or not. She restores antiques and makes replacement parts for models no longer in production, and occasionally dabbles in more… exotic endeavors. Such as artillery.”

-Crystal, speaking of weapons, did you have grenades in your saddlebags? Because I put those under the bunk.-

I bit my lip as I looked up at Night Cloud. -Um… back at that Sparkle-Cola warehouse, I picked up two Bad Apple frags.-

-Is that what they’re called? Cute.-

-Now that I think about it, one of the spark cells I found there might have made my gun explode, so I probably shouldn’t keep the grenades, anyway. Just on principle. They’re probably fine, but… you know.-

-Bombs, darling.- Night Cloud lightly poked my snout, frowning. -You kept bombs where I was sleeping.-

-They probably won’t even work; explosives don’t last forever. I wasn’t really thinking about that when I picked them up; I was more worried there would be more death bots. My beam pistol wouldn’t do much against magically reinforced steel plate, Night.-

-Yes, I concede that they are useful in that specific and unlikely scenario, but in the future, can you please keep them anywhere else?-

-Fine.-

“So what’s this about a vehicle bay?” Eagle nodded in the general direction of where he must have presumed the bay to be. “What did you find in there?”

“Plenty of toys,” I said. “A hover carriage, small cargo hauler. There’s a giant lathe, a Swarf and Pearlwick. About fifteen tons. Bigger than our carriage; three hundred millimeter working diameter. Thing’s friggin’ beautiful, and only a little damaged. Lots of tools; Maximillian’s outfitted for field repairs. That vehicle bay is practically a machine shop.”

“As I recall,” said Night Cloud, her voice stiff, “Before I took a nap, she was doing something with brass sheets and a donated cannon round from Maximillian. I can only imagine what.”

“Shell press?” said Eagle.

“Yep.” I stared down at my foreleg, where two needle patches and attached wires protruded from my hide. I raised my foreleg, briefly, and it quivered. “Night—”

“Aaa-and done,” said Orchid Wisp, pressing a button on her PipBuck once more. “My, my, young one, your heart is a veritable necromantic furnace right now. Unusually high biothaumic activity, even at rest. Radiation accounts for some of that, but your ability to use it should be proportionally magnified, so perhaps you’ll be able to drain off the radiation safely with enough spellwork, and not have to worry so much about bleeding it. I’ll have to upload the file back at the hospital to see the raw numbers. What an interesting data plot you make.”

Night Cloud chortled and, thankfully, began to pluck the wire-trailing needles from my hide. “That’s one way to describe her.”

A flush came to my cheeks, along with a grin, and a brief irritation accompanied the heat rushing through my chest. “Okay, test’s done, calibration’s done, right?”

“Yes, baby,” said Night Cloud, “Just let me remove—”

I enveloped all sixty-plus needles protruding from my hide at once and yanked them free, and just as quickly did the panic stop and my breaths begin to slow. The pinpricks tingled and stung, some more than others.

Night Cloud sighed and mouthed a quiet, “Okay.”

“I hate needles.” I unlatched the talisman around my neck, released my hold on the wires, and surrendered the device to Orchid Wisp. “I’m going to take a shower now.” I stalked away from the group and levitated my coach gun along with me as I entered the bunk room. “Night?”

“Coming, baby.”

“Ah…Crystal?”

I stopped, turned around, and glared. Night Cloud jerked to a halt, stepping a little to her left to throw an uncertain glance back. “Yes?”

Eagle had raised his forehoof; he slowly set it down again.

“Zephyr said it already. Don’t you start.”

His armored stinger tail flicked down and curled between his hooves. “Your, ah… temperature is really high. As in, way higher than any pony’s temperature should ever be. Now, because of whatever weird magic effect all that radiation, or that Potion, is having on you, that might be normal for you under these circumstances, and you might feel perfectly fine, but that means hot water won’t feel as hot. You’ll want to turn it up. You might scald yourself, if you’re not careful.” My ears drooped, and I looked down at the deck. “You’d probably heal faster than you’d burn, right now, but it could hurt your coat and feathers, and those won’t regrow as quickly. So… if it’s a long shower, keep it a little cooler than you prefer, okay?”

Anger left me with a sighing breath, and I muttered, “Sorry. I thought…” Orchid Wisp looked between us, seeming to gauge us. “Never mind. Wasn’t fair… thanks, Eagle. Check on Zephyr, will ya? She’s been antsy. Flying a few klicks up. Guess she’s making up for a week’s lost flying, or something.”

“Will do, Crystal. Don’t worry about us.”

“Why does everypony say that?” I muttered. I turned around and tugged Night Cloud by her foreleg, lighting the dim bunk room with emerald. As I closed the door behind us, she lit her own horn and touched my back with her wing.

“Baby…” She came closer to me and glanced quickly back at the closed door. “What did Zephyr say?”

“Eagle—” I opened the door to the rather cramped bathroom and turned on the lights. “I thought he was going to say … you know, the usual stuff about… not doing—about sex, okay? With you. Zephyr did, right after—when I, um… went to your room last night.”

“Oh.” Night Cloud stepped into the bathroom after me, ducking through the doorway. The mare barely fit in the space between the lavatory and shower. “That is… a reasonable concern for them both to have, baby.”

I snorted and turned the shower levers. “Why?” The pipes gurgled, a sputter of air escaped the showerhead, and a spray of water followed. “Friggin’ cuddling with you didn’t make me pregnant, so… I don’t see why they’re so worked up about it. Lot more dangerous stuff going on right now. Like, I dunno, the assassins and snowstorms, and the storm nagas flying down from the mountains. I mean, look at where we are right now, what’s friggin’ happening to Bellenast.”

I sat down on slick tiles and said, “We picked Bellenast when we left Cloud Loft Peak because it seemed like the safest place this side of the mountains, based on everything we’d heard… or the most likely place to be safe, and… you know, actually made up of normal ponies, not blood-thirsty raiders and drugged-up, gun-toting maniacs. Turns out it’s not always so safe, even without the crazies. So… tough beans. I wish they’d let me friggin’ spend a night with you without… without suggesting that you might take advantage of me, or that I’d do that to you! There’s enough crap for them to worry about without… without friggin’ pointless worrying!”

Night Cloud gave a short laugh. “Crystal Dew… sweetheart. Firstly… the last few days have been a gross misrepresentation of life in Bellenast. Secondly? Consider this.” Night Cloud stepped into the walk-in shower and sat down in the cramped space. She stretched her hind legs out to the side and sighed as hot water soaked her. “Eagle is one of the most courteous and respectful stallions I’ve ever met; if he has had any objections to us taking our baths together, he has held his tongue. If he has had any objections to us sharing a bed, he has held his tongue. If he has had any objections to you being alone with me, unsupervised, on numerous occasions, he has held his tongue.”

“As for Zephyr… I recall my bean bag chair being in my bedroom, so she must have moved it out. They’re trotting on eggshells around you, Crystal. Try not to snap at them so much.” I moved closer to her and leaned onto her back, and I sighed as blissfully warm water fell on both of us. She twisted back and nuzzled my ribs just behind my foreleg and murmured, “Besides, having sex in the shower wouldn’t be very safe… slippery tile, soap… I don’t want to take that step in our relationship and immediately wind up in a cast as a result.”

“Um.” Despite the simultaneous excitement and creeping embarrassment that threatened to paralyze me, I snorted in bemusement. “You’d probably be fine, but… last time you fell on me, some of my ribs broke, and that was with sand and cactus to cushion the impact.”

“What?!” She jerked her head up, eyes wide and face stricken. “You didn’t tell me that!”

I rolled my eyes and squeezed her, kissing her cheek. I set my hoof between her ears and tugged her head back down. Nuzzling her, I said, “Eagle gave me a healing potion, I healed, it was fine. You were hurt way worse. Besides, that was a week ago, and it wasn’t your friggin’ fault. Chill out.”

Her ears fell, and the mare groaned as she laid her head down, tucked into the crook of her leg; the sound trailed off to a whimper against the hiss and patter of the shower. “Damn it, I hate being so big… I could kill you if I fell on you the wrong way…”

A growl rose from my throat. I raised my hoof. A sharp crack followed, amplified within the room, and a flare of searing light cast harsh shadows along every surface. Night Cloud yelped and jerked away from me. The tongues of emerald flame, roiling as summoned balefire, rose from my tail and scalp to lick the ceiling.

“So what?!”

The hiss of steaming water drowned out the patter of the showerhead, and my right foreleg shook. The tile under my hoof had cracked. My leg smarted, but the fire in my chest spread, and in the seconds that came after, silent save the spray of water, the pain faded.

Night Cloud looked up at me in frozen shock.

I shook my leg, gave an angry snort, and said, “So what?” I scooted up to her and seized her around the neck, pressing myself firmly to her chest. The flames died down, and my mane and tail fell once again. Steam rose all around us. “You’re friggin’ big, Night Cloud. Of course it might hurt me if you fell on me. So what? I don’t care. I’m getting a radiation containment talisman tomorrow, aren’t I? That’s the plan, right? I’ll just stay irradiated, so I’ll heal if you do fall on me and… and friggin’ break my spine, or something, if that’s what you’re so worried about.” I kissed her neck and tucked my head beneath her chin. “I like that you’re big, and strong. You can hold me and carry me, and you’re warm.”

Nickering as she wrapped her forelegs around me, I said, “You haven’t friggin’ hurt me by being big, so just… stop it. Chill the fuck out. Stop friggin’ crying about things that haven’t happened. There are a million things out there that could friggin’ kill me, that could have killed me, just on the way here from Cloud Loft Peak. Robots, bears, bandits, flying ice-spitting snakes, Kekalo assassins… and sure, yeah, you could hurt me, if you fell on me the wrong way, and I don’t care. So could any other big pony, but I friggin’ love you, Night… do you think I’m afraid of you just because you might trip and fall on me? Because you might roll over on me when we’re sleeping?” I kissed her jaw, sighed, and said, “Stop beating yourself up over stupid what-ifs, Night Cloud… please.”

Night Cloud curled into a tight ball and hugged me to herself, and the mare nuzzled my withers while we lay together on the shower floor. She let out a soft, shuddering cry and squeezed, curling herself around me. “I want to protect you…”

I sighed in exasperation and pushed myself up from her smothering embrace. “Then friggin’ protect me, Night Cloud!” She gasped as I levitated her up from the floor in a flaring nimbus of emerald magic, rolled onto my back, and forced her to lie on top of me and pin me down. Even securely held in my magic, she frantically moved to support herself, but she couldn’t overcome the pull of my telekinesis with the poor leverage offered by splayed forelegs. “See? You’re not hurting me. Protect me, but don’t put me on a shelf. You can’t break me. I’m not—”

“Not a muñeĉe, yes, I know! I know, now, please, stop—” She gave a high, weak whinny of panic and fought again to pull her forelegs inward and take her weight off me. “Let me up, damn it!” I released her, and the indigo alicorn braced herself on her forelegs. She shook and took several deep breaths. “Crystal,” she said tightly, “I am nearly three hundred kilograms heavier than you. Don’t do that!”

“And you didn’t say anything until I told you about breaking a friggin’ rib. You’re afraid for nothing. Night Cloud, I can lift you ten times over, and that’s without radiation.” I smirked and rubbed my rear hooves behind her ribs, tickling her abdomen. “The reason I had trouble with Blitz that one time is because she’s at the upper limit of my volume curve, and I was tired.” She squirmed, and I said, “And if you sit on me by accident, at least I’ll have a nice view while I suffocate.”

“Pervert,” she muttered, lying on her side next to me, which exposed me to the deluge of warm water again. “You joke about things that terrify me, Crystal…”

“Maybe that’s because the things that terrify me, I can blast with my horn, and the things that terrify you—” I touched her brow gently. “—are up here. Maybe you should focus on protecting me from, you know… dangerous ponies, and death robots, and storm nagas… not yourself.” I tugged her forehoof down and pressed it behind my rearmost rib, on the triangular scar that had persisted through both transformative and restorative magic I had believed impossible. “Anti-armor skewers are kinda scary… protect me from those.”

“Crystal Dew, my darling… forgive me if my personal battles are not so certain and rational as yours.” She lifted me onto her chest and held me tightly. “And… I would prefer to be in my own home before you put me in a compromising position again.”

I snapped my tail at one of her hind legs and nuzzled her chest. “What am I compromising?”

Night Cloud laid her head back on the floor and laughed, letting out a long breath. “Propriety, Crystal. You’re compromising propriety… or what remains of it between us.”

A knock came from the door.

“Night Cloud? Crystal? Uh… Doctor Wisp brought dinner, by the way.”

Night Cloud shut off the shower, swept the door open with her magic, and wrapped both forelegs around my back. “Eagle. Would you say that this is a compromising position?”

Eagle took a surprised step back from the suddenly open door and looked away. “Uh… yeah. Just a bit. So… yeah. Dinner’s available.” He spun around hastily and left the bunk room.

Night Cloud pointed her wingtip at the vacated doorway. “When somepony has that reaction, it’s a compromising position. This was minor. Making out would be worse. Make sense?”

Before I could reply, Eagle’s steps came back again and his armor’s clawed tail tapped just inside the doorframe. Night Cloud rose to sit on her haunches next to me. “Look, this is the last discussion I thought I’d be having today, but while I have the chance… I never listened to my parents, so I’d be a colossal hypocrite if I told you what they told me. I’m just going to say… respect each other’s wishes, and boundaries, be honest with each other, and, uh… be discreet, because… although Zephyr and I don’t have a problem with this, as long as it’s what both of you want, some ponies will. They’ll…”

A sigh came through his speakers. “Night Cloud, this is really more for you, but you both need to hear it: They’ll see a grown mare and a filly together… and they’ll assume the worst, even if you obey all the laws to the letter. They won’t know you, they won’t know what you’ve been through together, what you’ve done for each other… and even if they did, they wouldn’t care. They’d just look at you funny and think they need to step in and pull the kid away... even when the kid isn’t really a kid anymore. They can’t see that. They never will. I just… I want you to be prepared for that. Somehow, I doubt Bellenast is any more lenient than Cloud Loft, when it comes to… choices, and whom they involve.”

“Not especially,” said Night Cloud; she rubbed her forehoof along my neck and let out a weary sigh. “More open-minded than my tribe, in some ways, less so in others. Thank you, Eagle, for your blessing. Perhaps that’s old-fashioned, but… I’m grateful. I appreciate the warning.”

“No problem. Just, uh…” The armored tail vanished, and the gold-visored helmet appeared in its place. “Don’t piss off Zeph. She’s…”

“A raging mother bear?”

“Protective.” Eagle nodded. “Make no mistake, Night Cloud: You cut an intimidating figure, but Zeph’s fought bigger things than you and won.”

Night Cloud chortled and tossed her mane back. “I’ll behave myself. I would prefer not to lose an ear the next time I have my mane trimmed.” Eagle laughed softly as he turned and left once again.

I clasped my hooves together behind her neck and murmured, “Speaking of trimming, didn’t you say you wanted to do my coat?”

“I think that can wait until the snow melts.”

“Hey, Carbide?”

“Hm?”

I glanced to my right at the open doorway to the observation room while I drilled one of many holes into the frame of an adjustable harness for a battle saddle; lacking any aluminum scrap, I had had to settle for a thin sheet of stainless steel, which I had grinded clean and polished, cut into strips twenty millimeters wide, and bent into precisely measured curves. “How hard would it be to let Max see the air sensor readings in here?”

“Ah, right; that problem. Hmm… in principle, not hard at all. I’d need to edit some code in his systems protocol management core. In practice, it may take… oh, twenty minutes.”

“Okay. Sounds great. I don’t want another oxygen buildup to turn into a blow up.”

“The default atmospheric cycle would prevent that, normally.”

I turned the frame over and maneuvered its opposite brace into the drill press. “It happened once. It can happen again. Clearly, something went wrong, and Max never knew it. Said so himself. It would be nice if, say, a really loud alarm went off when there’s a problem with the air. Like a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm.”

“Yes, I’m well aware that Maximillian is lacking in certain creature comforts, thank you for that reminder… and there are smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. There isn’t an excessive oxygen alarm because the atmospheric regulator has its own alarm system, and it prevents that from happening. Normally.”

“Until it doesn’t, right?”

“Look, you try sorting through ten thousand different error logs from the last few decades to find out why it happened and get back to me on that. I’m working on it, all right?” Carbide gave an exasperated sigh from his speaker-connected, shielded interface pedestal. “The circumstances that led to that problem likely emerged from dozens—no, hundreds of unrelated events over the course of many years, Crystal. Max was… he was possessed, basically; that’s the easiest way to describe what happened to him. His systems were operated outside of their normal conditions for a hundred and fifty years. More than that, really, since he can’t have had access to all the maintenance he’d normally have undergone. As a result, things happened that nobody could have predicted… emergent properties came into play. It’s no small miracle that most of his systems are still functioning at all, and quite a few of the subsystems aren’t working. He’s an incredibly complex machine, and I mean before adding his intellectual growth to the mix. He knows more about himself than I do now.” He gave a short, bark of a laugh and said, “Just for some context, Crystal, I can look at the code for the atmospheric regulator and Max’s other systems right now because he changed a part of his own code to allow me to access some of the peripheral systems from where I am. Maximillian modified himself. He shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“So, he can modify himself, but not every part of himself.”

“Yes. There are some hard limits in place, system compartmentalization; I still can’t directly modify the atmospheric regulator’s operating parameters from here, for example, because it runs independently from nearly every other system. That system is segregated for good reasons. Although, given what Maximillian has managed to do already, I wouldn’t be that surprised if he were to find a way to bypass those limits. Until then, the best I can do is look at a copy of the code so that I’ll be able to tell you exactly what to change when you access the protocol management core, itself. Additionally, ah… I suppose now would be as good a time as any to mention that making those modifications to the core will involve you in a rather significant and… unavoidable capacity.”

“Let me guess: Only one way to access the thing? And you don’t have a body to do that with.”

“Direct physical access only. The management cores are Maximillian’s interface layer with the rest of his systems and the vehicle portion of himself. They’re his peripheral nervous system, to use a biological analogue. Leaving them open to external access of any kind would be disastrous. Case and point, the parasitic matrix injection. Whoever infected his systems had to have gone inside his core compartment to do it. Can you imagine how much easier it would be to do that if those systems were open to remote radio access?”

“Carbide?”

“Yes?”

I shut off the drill press and waited for it to spin down, then changed out the cutting head for a countersink. “These protocol cores… are they computers?”

“Not the kind you’re familiar with, but a form of computer, yes.”

“Okay, well, I’m not familiar with computers. Night Cloud should probably do it. Whatever, um… it is that needs to be done.”

“She can’t. She’s too big.”

I grimaced. “Do me a favor.”

“Er… what?”

“Don’t say that to her face.”

“Ah… okay? Hadn’t planned to, anyway; she’s… well, she’s an exemplar of physical fitness. She’s the last pony I’d have thought to be sensitive about—”

“She’s not. She fell on me last week and broke a couple of my ribs, so now she’s paranoid about accidents. So, if you have to use a word to describe her physically, it had better be ‘tall’ or ‘gorgeous,’ or a synonym of those. Actually, don’t even say ‘tall,’ because Eagle’s tall, and he’s still smaller than her. You say ‘big’ about her, in front of her, true or not, and I’m throwing you into a snowdrift.”

“Ah… right.”

For a moment, we were silent. I set aside my newly made frame piece with the intent to finish it later. “Trotting on eggshells,” I muttered. “Celestia spare me.”

“Er… beg pardon?”

“Just something Night Cloud said earlier. Now I’m doing the same thing.” I rolled my eyes and trotted away from the workbench and into the observation room. I tapped the floor panel to shut the door behind me. “I wouldn’t actually throw you into a snowdrift. That’d be friggin’ mean.”

Carbide let out a bright laugh. “To be honest, that’s something I’d like to experience. Feeling it, that is. The snow. Brisk air… wind and rain.”

I stopped and gazed at the pedestal and the silver globe inside, beneath the transparent, pyramidal shield. “Can you feel anything, um… when something touches the, um… cradle? The metal and diamond parts?”

“Ah… not in the normal sense of the word, but… in a way, yes.”

“Is it safe to take you out of that pedestal for a moment, then put you back in?”

“Ah—well, yes, perfectly safe, but—”

“Hold that thought.” I pushed a button marked ‘Eject’ on the rim of the half-cylinder, and the pyramidal shield receded. The tarnished, silver globe split along its seams and opened, and I levitated Carbide’s deep blue, noctium cradle free from the pedestal. Sitting on my haunches, I held him closely to my chest and wrapped both forelegs gently around him, and I tucked my head down, close to my sternum. The noctium dodecahedron was warm to the touch, and the many-faceted diamond ball it protected was lit from within by swiftly flowing sparks and lines of light that flitted around in fractal patterns.

I pressed my cheek to the noctium cage, and smiled as a faint tingling traveled through my skin where the metal touched me.

I lifted the metal and diamond ball back into the silver globe, and the hemispheres closed once again. The shield reappeared, and a brief burst of static came from the nearby speakers. “Did you feel that?”

“Yes, but… in the future, I would appreciate if you asked before… oh. I—”

“That was a hug, Carbide.”

“Yes, I looked at the last few seconds of video before you… that is… okay, this will sound bad either way, so let me say first, ah… thank you. I appreciate it, truly, I do; I’m just not sure I can quantify how it feels physically, because I can’t feel anything the same way you do, Crystal.”

I rolled my eyes and sat by the pedestal, pressing my cheek to the face of the octagonal barrier, which was pleasantly warm to the touch. “I know… but somepony should give you a hug. What’s the part that sounds bad?”

“Er… well… do you remember when you asked me to stop talking, back in the tram tunnel going from my lab?” Carbide took on a subdued, gentle tone. “You were frightened, unsettled because it was as though I was in the suit with you. I understand why that would be uncomfortable for you… it was a compelling reason to ask of me what you did, but you did ask.”

“And?” I whispered, barely moving, save a quaver in my voice and shiver down my spine.

“And… I ask only that you first have a similarly compelling reason, Crystal, before you deprive me of sight, sound, and my voice again… please. Again, I appreciate the hug, even if it… well, it really doesn’t register for me, physically, but I’m happy that you did it, anyway.”

I nodded and said, “Sorry.”

“It’s all right. I know you meant well. It… you’re a remarkable young mare, Crystal, in many respects, but perhaps the greatest among them is your compassion. You needn’t apologize for that.” He chuckled, let out a long sigh, and said, “I, ah… I look forward to the day that I have a proper body again, and I can give you a hug, myself.”

“Do you have a plan for that?” I glanced down at my left hind leg, now whole again. “What about my prosthetic? Could you make an entire body like that?”

“Ah… if I had access to my fabrication lab, yes. I would have to design a skeletal system, and… well, suffice to say it would be a lot of work, but yes, I could. If I had access to my lab and the necessary materials. That isn’t happening.”

I frowned, tapping my forehoof lightly on the octagonal shield while I leaned on the half-cylinder. “I was half-dead at the time, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember any machining gear in the creepy robo-tentacle surgery room.”

“Er… no, the fabrication lab was in one of the adjacent buildings.”

“Was it underground?”

“Crystal, there’s little point speculating—”

“Yes or no? Underground or not?”

He sighed. “Yes. Most of the more sensitive operations and experiments were kept underground in isolated chambers.”

“So it could still be intact. Or the equipment and materials could be accessible. Salvageable.”

“Crystal…”

“We could go back and get it, right? Max could drive there and back in no time.”

“Crystal, if you think for one second that I would endorse you returning to my lab, you’re severely mistaken.”

“Just think about it. You built me a leg out of friggin’ metal muscles. You could have a whole body made of that stuff!”

“Right, ah, no. Maximillian! I have a new directive for you: If Crystal Dew asks you to transport her to the lab, don’t.”

“She has a point.”

I threw up my hooves. “Thank you!”

“She—what?! Excu—no, Maximillian, don’t you dare. Absolutely not. She is a minor, and pregnant. You will not endanger her.”

“Directive accepted, Chief Engineer. I do not intend to take Crystal Dew anywhere, unless directed by Princess Blizziera or one of her guardians, or as is required to ensure her safety. However, she is correct. I could make the journey there and back again within a week, if an optimal route were available. Now that I have full control of my systems, I could disable the security fleet, instruct the remaining custodial drones to gather the inventory required for fabrication of a full prosthesis, and return here, or to any location you deem suitable.”

Carbide was silent.

I rapped my hoof on the pedestal again. “That’s a plan. Thank you, Max.”

“It’s a problematic plan.”

I shrugged. “Solve the problems. What are they?”

“The custodial drones are just that: Custodians. They clean the floors, remove waste, and move crates around. Very simple robots. They have manipulator arms, so they could gather some of the materials from storage, but the fabricators are too large, complex, and delicate for them to dismantle. A pony, several ponies, realistically, would have to enter the lab, which is most likely no longer structurally sound, and very dangerous—we’d have to decontaminate entire rooms, scrub the air to remove lingering radiation, deactivate all the sentries, many of which are no longer communicating… never mind that some of those fabricators take up the entire room in which they reside; they’re assembly lines.”

Carbide let out a long-suffering sigh of frustration. “Listen, Crystal, I—I will think about this. I will consider it, at length, and if I can think of a workable way to do it, I will consult with you and anyone else who may be willing to help me, as soon as Blitz says it is safe for you to return to the city, and we are no longer hiding from some insane prince, his army of cutthroats, and his giant sand creatures—and I’ve seen Max’s video feeds—but you are not going back there. Ever.”

I gritted my teeth and sighed. “Even if it’s safe?”

“Crystal, nothing about that facility is safe anymore; believe me, I know exactly what lurks inside those walls… dangerous magical experiments, toxic chemicals, captured wights, and ghouls, apparently, just to name a few… actually, scratch that: I don’t know what is in there anymore. There’s no telling what else has moved in while I slept the decades away. Look—recovering that equipment would be a needlessly dangerous and enormously complex undertaking, but the tools in the vehicle bay and the documentation I have here, now, are more than sufficient to allow you to repair your armor enough that I can use it as a body. Just… help me do that, all right? If you’re so Tartarus-bent on—on repaying your debt, if that’s how you see this, then let that settle it. I’ve been without a body for most of my life; I can wait a while longer to make a better one.”

“You shouldn’t have to!” I snarled. I seized a waiting sheet of stainless steel from a nearby storage rack, less than a millimeter in thickness, that I had cut down to size an hour earlier. With only the crushing press of my telekinesis and my coach gun held in front of me for reference, I bent the sheet easily into shape and fitted it around the gun’s receiver and the remaining stub of the original grip. I donned a set of cracked and scratched safety goggles, molded a protective guard around the trigger assembly, levitated an angle grinder from the bench, and cut a pair of slats into one side of the holster. The only sound for a long moment was the hair-raising screech of steel being reduced to hot sparks and slung to the floor.

As I shut off the grinder and began to file the rough edges of the cuts down to smooth chamfers, I said, “You shouldn’t have to wait to have a friggin’ body, Carbide.”

A long sigh came from the speakers. “Crystal… believe me when I say I’m not suffering right now.”

“Yeah, and I wasn’t suffering when Night took my leg off when I went to sleep, but I still woke up without half a leg. You don’t even have that much.” I flicked my ears back as a faint rustling came from directly behind me. I spun around and lightly poked the faint shimmer of air with my file. “I can hear you. You know that, right? Your wings make some noise.”

The indigo alicorn wavered into visibility as she collapsed her spell. Her smile was drawn, and her mane bedraggled. “Not when you’re using those noisy power tools, you can’t, and not since you oiled the doors.”

I blinked and glanced at the door, and Carbide in his pedestal. “Um… so… why were you trying to sneak up on me?”

“Because I was worried about you. You’ve been in here all night. I was going to give you an ambush snuggling and drag you back to the bunks, bu-u-ut I didn’t want to startle you while you were using dangerous tools.” She rocked once on her hooves and bent down to nuzzle my neck. “I wasn’t trying, by the way; I was succeeding. I moved my wings on purpose.”

I nipped at her collar and mumbled, “Oh.”

“I’m a light step. Also, it’s easy to stay downwind in here; I simply have to be between you and an intake vent.” Night Cloud sighed deeply and set her foreleg across my withers, pulling me close to her chest. “Baby… Crystal—and you, Carbide—please, forgive me for intruding, but… I agree that it would be best to talk to Eagle and Zephyr, and Blitz, about this before making any kind of plans. And before that…” She let go of me and turned to walk to the doorway. “I’d like to wait the few remaining hours before sunrise, at least. Please put down the… circular saw, or… your face says that’s wrong, so just correct me before I guess the wrong name again.”

I giggled. “Angle grinder. I mean, it’s not really that different, in principle.”

“Right. Put that down and come back to bed, Crystal. Please. We can talk about this with everypony later.”

I telekinetically cut the power to the inactive drill press and hung the angle grinder on its wall rack. I set the battle saddle harness and file down and took a tentative step after Night Cloud. “I kind of thought, um…” I swallowed and said, “I thought you, of all ponies, wouldn’t even consider the idea of, um… going back there.”

She turned around and stood there by Carbide’s pedestal. “I said I would help you, Crystal.” She glanced aside, smiling, and touched her wingtip to the octagonal shield. “Oh, I’m not happy about what it might involve, now, but… I see a stallion who just learned to walk on his own… have his legs taken from him. I said I would help however I could. I mean that.”

“Ah…” Carbide made a coughing noise. “I’m grateful. Crystal, listen to her and get some rest, all right? No sense in rushing headlong into anything.”

“Yeah, yeah… good night, Carbide.”

“And to you, as well.”

I rolled my eyes and followed Night Cloud through the observation room.

“I didn’t know how I would help, at the time I promised that…” Night Cloud beckoned me closer, and she set her wing closely over my back as I trotted alongside her.

“Um. We’re still not clear on that, to be honest. I mean, beyond ‘Go back, zap the bad robots, grab the fancy equipment, and bring it back here,’ I guess we still don’t have a super detailed plan… but we have Max!” I grinned and jumped onto the bunk after her. “Shouldn’t be a huge problem, right?”

Night Cloud laughed brightly. “Oh, darling. I’m not worried about the robots right now.” She trailed off into a sigh and wrapped me once again with warm fur and feathers. She tucked her snout down against the back of my neck and murmured, “I’m fairly certain any plan will involve giving Blitz a gift of expensive whiskey and convincing her not to murder us both.”

11. Malediction

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Chapter Eleven

Malediction

To the south, the sea of white stretched, uninterrupted unto the horizon. Snowbanks, waves frozen over ground, marked out fences and ditches, roads and signposts, homes and carriages. Field after field after field, the cold blanket covered it all. Many hundreds of meters away, thin lines traced through the white, where ponies trod or had trod the day before to begin the arduous work of plowing clear the roads and precious fields of grain and plots of vegetables.

The sun had risen amid cloudless blue for the first time in what seemed an eternity, but it would not shine on green grass for days.

To the north, beyond the open slat of the starboard cupola and the aft gun turrets, Maximillian’s trail led up into the foothills and the tree line, a pair of wide, deep tracks of compacted ice defined by the unique tread of gargantuan wheels of rubber and steel mesh. The carriage I had flown from Cloud Loft Peak could have landed in one of those tracks and had room to spare on either side.

To the east, about half a kilometer distant, a pale red pony in a field looked up at our passing. I leaned back from the compact telescope attached to the broken-out window and glanced around the many cannon barrels that dotted Maximillian’s colossal frame and, indeed, the mangled, inoperable machine gun that leaned against the inside wall of the cupola on a rusted swivel.

I shifted inside the bulky, and much too large, but well-padded environmental suit I had found in one of the vehicle bay’s storage lockers and telekinetically toggled the radio’s channel via a key on my greave. “Max, can you point all your guns away from the fields? Just so they’re not aiming at anypony out there, please?”

Before I had finished speaking, the hum and whir of motors accompanied the motions of machine guns and cannon turrets, some out of sight, swiveling toward the forest to the west.

“Thanks, Max.” I switched channels again and muttered, “Won’t stop everypony from being afraid, though…”

“I see a lot of guns moving, kiddo; you know something I don’t?”

My ears twitched inside the spacious, rigid-frame helmet as the radio crackled. “No problems here, Eagle. Max has to be pretty scary for everypony out there. I asked him to point everything… you know, not out there.”

“Good thinking. May as well make him look a little friendly. How’s the suit?”

“Warm and comfy. And roomy.” I stretched one foreleg out and leaned closer to the slat window, listening to the rumble and low, constant roar of Maximillian’s passage. “Kind of funny how the state-of-the-art, prototype power suit with fancy noctium claws and miniature computers couldn’t seal itself up without Carbide’s help, and yet the, um…”

I snorted softly as I eyed the heavily tarnished alloy that formed the greaves and boots on my forelegs. A row of thinner, segmented plates along my back and a high collar, itself not far removed in design from that of the power armor Carbide had built, completed the protective ensemble. “… extremely vintage hazard suit still holds air in and rads out—well, also in, I guess, since that’s the problem. Gotta give credit to Carbide; everything he and his buddies made two hundred years ago works pretty well.”

“Hey, my suit’s vintage. What are you trying to say?”

“Not this vintage. Not a single spell matrix in this thing. All old-school enchanting and custom talismans. Like Night Cloud’s armor, except… not as nice. Dig the horn guard; doesn’t scrape at all. And it’s a bit heavy, but that might just be the bad fit… or me being tiny.”

I tugged on the sleeves and readjusted the jury-rigged straps I’d added to keep them from sagging. “Kinda growing on me, though.” As I brought my helmet’s scratched, though polished, faceplate up to the telescope’s eyepiece again, I gave a soft laugh and muttered, “Or, you know, maybe I’ll grow into it, if I’m lucky. Any word from Orchid Wisp?”

“Still nothing. Must be taking longer than she thought to make that talisman.”

A faint and indistinct shadow passed over the field of snow and Maximillian, darkening the cupola briefly, and I leaned aside from the telescope to peer out the window and at the sky. “Eagle, did you just fly in front of Max? Um—east side?”

“No. What did you see?”

“A shadow. Something just passed near us.” I poked my helmet out through the window and looked up. The sun was above the Troll’s Teeth peaks beyond Bellenast and roughly even with the white, flower-like top of the Single Pegasus Project tower there, more than a thousand meters above the range. The skies above Maximillian were clear. “Okay… I can’t see anything now, but it was fast and low. Had to have come from the city.”

“Descending now. Go back inside. Might—” With a pop, the transmission cut out.

Static filled my ears, then lightning flashed. I jumped as the double peal of thunder followed milliseconds after.

My heart began to race. “Eagle?” What—” Maximillian shuddered and skidded to a sudden halt, throwing me forward. My helmet struck the cupola’s lone, intact window, which promptly fell open on squealing hinges as I fell backward and tried to clutch my smarting muzzle through a polycarbonate visor. “Aaagh! Max, what the fuck?!”

A wavering field of magic lit up across Maximillian’s hull, and one of his clawed arms spun suddenly overhead. The frost-coated speaker grill on the inside wall crackled. “Crystal Dew, retreat inside the vehicle bay immediately. An elemental animus is approa—it is inside my shield perimeter. Telekinetic deterrents ineffective. Hurry.”

“Just say ‘golem,’ Max! It’s faster!” I snorted, causing a spray of blood from my throbbing snout to spatter the inside of my helmet’s faceplate. I pushed open the door to the cupola and clambered along the narrow catwalk that led across Maximillian’s hull to the exterior hatch of the vehicle bay. A rushing noise came from all around, and the sunlight vanished as a torrent of golden sand enveloped me.

-Crystal! Teleport! Use your talisman, quickly!-

I stumbled and toppled over as the sand pushed me along the catwalk as if a gifted pegasus had summoned a howling gale. I slapped my forehoof on the talisman hanging over my chest. The sand grew denser, blotting out the sun and pummeling my faceplate. Blinded and battered into the grating, I hit the talisman again. -Night, magic necklace isn’t working!-

-Hang on! I’m coming!-

I pushed a wave of telekinesis outward and sent the sand back, briefly allowing the sun to shine on my hazard suit again. I then formed a small, flickering bubble of magic around myself, a sphere of emerald green, which pushed me up by my hooves as its solid surface buzzed with feedback against my own mass. The sand, distorted by my magic, surged inward from all sides and slammed against the barrier. I grunted as the impact sent a rush of feedback through my head, and cracks spread across the surface of my shield. The darkening ball of sand expanded briefly, then slammed inward in an instant and shattered my feeble attempt at protection, but instead of crushing me, the golden sand swirled closely around me and covered me completely.

A heavy door was wrenched open with a howl of tearing steel. Hard, cerulean light shone through the golden curtain, and with it came the roar of an angry goddess.

“DON’T TOUCH HER!”

A harsher, brighter light surrounded me within the glittering storm, I made a final, titanic effort to push against the encroaching magic, my stomach lurched, and the sand burst away from me, as insects scattering before a flame. My insides flipped again. A canopy of snow-dusted evergreens opened above me, air rushed past me, and I tried to spread my wings.

My hazard suit didn’t cooperate.

Before I could scream, I plunged into a deep mound of snow with a jarring whump and a sharp pain at the tip of my tongue. I slid and rolled down the icy slope of the hill, trying to catch anything with my hooves. Instead of a root or rock, I found only a thin layer of powder snow over wild, frozen grass, and tumbled down and down amidst the blinding spray of dusty white, every leg wrenched and rib battered, until a tree caught my barrel and crushed the air out of my lungs. I wheezed and grabbed onto the trunk reflexively, even as every muscle throbbed and seared in complaint.

I coughed, allowing more blood to stain my helmet faceplate, and groaned. Where my transformation had left behind a deep ache, the tumble had beaten me with hammers. The hot tang of copper flooded my mouth and nostrils. Myriad bruises throbbed freshly across my legs and back. Knives sank into my chest as I breathed. A few meters beyond the tree to which I gingerly clung, the snow ended, and a ravine took its place. Water gurgled below, but how far away, I couldn’t tell.

And, then, as a pilot light sets a furnace ablaze, a burning, but relieving, warmth spread through my chest and rapidly through my legs, and from my snout to my tail. A grinding sensation came from my chest, but soon faded. I worked my jaw and frowned as the tip of my tongue ceased to sting. The jabbing pain in my chest, similarly, began to dissipate quickly, and I gave a deep sigh as my muscles relaxed and legs ceased to twinge.

“That was fast,” I mumbled, and propped myself up against the trunk of the tree.

The silent forest greeted me. I looked uphill; nearly thirty meters of gouges and ploughed-aside snowbanks marked my descent between the unevenly spaced trees.

-Night? I teleported, and I’m not at the friggin’ palace.-

The water gurgled. A gentle wind whistled across the pine needles all around. My breaths slowed, but my heart continued to pound. The air was somewhat thinner, though after two weeks spent flying and walking toward Bellenast, the mountain atmosphere brought me a measure of calm.

-Night Cloud?-

I swallowed.

-Blitz? Ivy?-

I looked back over my shoulder, taking in the steep slope of a cold, shadowed valley. “Eagle?” I shifted my weight against the tree, climbed onto my haunches, and sat with my back to the trunk, looking all around.

The valley was very deep.

“Eagle?” I switched channels. “Max? Maximillian!” Quiet static hissed in reply. I switched back to Eagle’s channel and telekinetically activated an emergency beacon. “Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap—okay, high ground. Have to go higher.”

“Save your breath, betaya. They won’t hear you.”

I jerked my head around toward the calm, smooth voice, or where I thought it had originated, but saw only snow and tree trunks. “Yeah,” I squeaked, swallowing. “Kinda figured that one out.” I swept magic across the inside of my faceplate in an attempt to clear the large splash of blood, but only smeared it further. Growling, I unsealed the helmet and pulled it off the hazard suit’s collar.

“I would prefer not to harm you.”

“Really? ‘Cause that sounds like there’s an ‘if’ coming.” Glancing left and right at the looming trees, I swept my magic over my torso and whimpered when I found no coach gun or aetheric carbine. “If I cooperate, right?”

“You’re a sharp one.” The stallion’s voice seemed to come from everywhere at once; he took on a chiding tone. “Oh; pardon me, betaya. I neglected to bring your weapons along.”

I levitated the talisman up from my chest and started prodding the iron button in the middle of the brass disc with my hoof. It didn’t budge.

“Allow me to guess: A teleportation spell?”

“Yeah,” I squeaked. Biting my lip, I pushed telekinetically on the button and looked around again.

“I wonder why it isn’t working, then? Perhaps I damaged it during our little jaunt.”

“Because it friggin’ iced over, dickwad!” My horn flared, and the button jammed inward. The black, cast iron disc cracked in half under the force of my panicked efforts. A wisp of smoke and slight crackling came from the talisman. I snarled, stomped the snow, and telekinetically launched the brass disc at a nearby tree. The air cracked, splinters exploded from the trunk, and a warbling hiss and distant ringing sounded across the valley as the disc ricocheted and sailed far away. The tree shook, and an instant later, a fountain of snow fell from its branches. I growled and shouted, “It wasn’t anything you did, you friggin’ arrogant moron! Teleporting doesn’t break talismans!”

Something whistled softly, somewhere to my left, like wind in tree branches. The trees were still.

“If you cooperate, I shall not be required to harm you.”

“Oh what a friggin’ joke!” I spun in place and blasted a jet of emerald fire from my horn, once to the left of the nearest tree and again to the right, and the roaring echoed across the valley. Snow flash boiled into water vapor and rose on columns of hot air, only to freeze instants later in the mountain atmosphere and settle as a fine, dry mist that blew gently away. The trunk of the tree had caught alight instantly and begun to smoke, and the bark had blackened.

“Be required?” I shouted. “Be required?” I scrambled uphill and looked frantically at the burning tree as I moved away from the ravine and gurgling stream. “Okay,” I mumbled, “Bad idea.” I scooped a pile of snow into the air and plastered it onto the burning tree trunk, and the flames were smothered with a dull hiss. “Who’s requiring you? Who’s commanding you? Nopony! You’re a friggin’ prince, aren’t you? Prince… Nádarin, isn’t it? Valley River? Right? Don’t act as if it isn’t your own friggin’ choice! You kidnapped me! What’s next? You hold me hostage?”

“It was not my plan, truth be told, betaya. Not originally.” His voice floated around on the air, seeming to jump rapidly from place to place and grow closer with each shift in position. “Opportunity knocked, as it is said in Celestian. I saw you in Her Highness’s company, on multiple occasions, as you traveled to Bellenast; compared to her own daughter, you struck me as the easier to subdue, and the value she appears to place on you is comparable. Thus, yes, you ought to make an excellent hostage.”

The Prince paused, and chuckled. “Although, I admit, betaya, I may have made an error in judging you as the easier pony to capture. Your strength is formidable, for one so young; even for a mage with decades more practice. Who taught you to set a such a blaze?”

“I did!” I shouted, clambering up the slope to the next tree. It was broad, and tall, and its branches heavy with piles of snow. With a crunching and crackling of sundering wood, I wrenched a thick, lower limb off the trunk and stripped the smaller branches off, forming a hefty, two and a half meter club. I swung and slammed it through several nearby snowdrifts in short succession, pulverizing the gentle mounds into clouds of white, then sent the club whistling through the icy mist to spread it around in a vortex.

My horn flared with glaring emerald as I converted power to acceleration. The whup-whup-whup of the club circling me became a low, droning hum, and I stirred a whirlwind of snow into the air. I brought the club to a gradual stop, the rushing wind died down, and left in its place was a pale, chaotic cloud. I slashed the club twice through the air, watching it leave a turbulent wake. I turned all around, looking up and down the hillside and between the nearby trees for any empty spots in the drifting flurries.

“Why don’t you show your face, so I can burn it off your friggin’ skull?”

A rustling of cloth came from behind me. I reared up to spin and sent the improvised club shrieking over my head and toward a vague shape in the air that disturbed the powdery eddies. The impact shook the ground and sent a spray of snow and dark soil into the air, and as I planted my hooves and lifted the club again, a metal ring slipped onto my horn.

The thick branch sailed high into the air as my telekinesis failed on the upswing, spinning as it went. I shrieked and bucked backward as my horn sparked, and a strong hoof pressed down on my back, between my wings, and shoved me face first into the snow at the base of the tree. My eyes and nostrils stung as I snorted a panicked breath of powdered ice.

“Perhaps, betaya,” said the stallion, setting his muzzle near my ear, “Because I believe you could do exactly as you say? I know dragons that would balk before you.” I gave a muffled scream into the stinging snow and struggled to escape his hold. The branch slammed to the ground a few meters away, throwing a plume of snow and dirt across us, and the stallion seemed to flinch, shifting in place with his hoof on my back. Telekinesis pressed my legs into the snow and held me perfectly still. I tried to force a burst of my own telekinesis through my horn, but the energy only built and built, never releasing.

“Let me go-aagh!” He pulled a length of cloth across my mouth as I shouted and swiftly tied the gag around my head several times.

“You can learn much about a pony by fighting him. Or her. Pardon me.” I snarled and snorted as he rolled me onto my side and bound my forelegs together with a rope, allowing me to see him plainly. He wore a padded, tan garment that might have concealed armor, his coat was yellowish orange, and his coffee colored mane was cut short and streaked with grey. His eyes were a dark, brownish green, and the hue of his telekinesis was a pale blue nearing white.

“For example,” said the unicorn, tying my hind legs together and ignoring my snarls, “You are clever and powerful, but woefully inexperienced. If given a few years of proper training, you would be terrifying.”

I scowled and thrashed again. “Aiight eee!”

Prince Nádarin pushed me onto my side, pinning my right wing painfully against the ground, and pulled my forelegs and hind legs together, then began to tie all four hooves. “What am I, a vampire?”

I glared, breathing in angry snorts, and forced another wave of magic into my horn, only for it to build into a crackling, buzzing sensation and recede as my heart raced and a pounding ache built in my forehead. The ring vibrated against my horn for a fraction of a second as my magic continued to fade.

In the quiet that followed, between panting breaths, I heard a brief, high tone, as if a small bell had been struck. I pushed again, building a tremendous telekinetic potential, only for the effort to amount to naught, and heard the shrill tone again, an irritating resonation in my horn. Arcs of uncontrolled magic leapt between the end of my muzzle and a few magenta strands of my mane that had fallen across my eyes.

Nádarin gazed down at me, a curious tilt at the corner of his mouth. “If you try too hard to wield your magic against that bond, it could be quite painful.”

I snorted, and the cloud of steam rose quickly past my snout. I pushed again, and shuddered.

He was right about the pain.

My mane burst into a roiling wash of emerald and yellow fire, and Nádarin stumbled back from me in surprise, in turn causing me to fall sideways. I screamed into the gag and struggled against the ropes, but the intertwined loops were far stronger than I could hope to break with my meagre strength. As the stallion approached me again and the flames roared with sudden fierceness, I kicked against the ground and rolled over to face him more directly.

A light steam rose from around my head; I couldn’t tell whether it was from my feverish temperature and the cold air, or errant magic looking for a way out.

“An interesting trick,” said Nádarin as he stood over me and passed one hoof through the emerald blaze. “But if you don’t stop, I will have to sedate you.” He levitated a cloth and a small, dark bottle from a pocket on his chest and removed the stopper. “Your choice.”

I gritted my teeth and forced a torrent of magic up from the well at my heart, growling as the flames of my mane built higher and higher, and the air around me wavered. A harsh vibration resonated through my horn and skull, and the ring on my horn produced a sharp tone that grew loud and painful. Nádarin looked at my horn and took a halting step back.

I screamed past my gag and gave a final push as magic sought the only path it could: Out.

With a deafening bang, the ring exploded. Iron splinters peppered Nádarin’s chest and shot off as white-hot streaks that trailed smoke and sparks. I collapsed in the snow and worked my jaw, ears ringing. I panted and tore the ropes and gag off in a flare of hard green light.

A suffocating grip pressed on me from all sides, driving me back to the ground, and I struggled to lift my head as Nádarin fought my magic directly and tried to close his blue-white field around my horn in a dense miasma. Giving an incoherent cry of rage, I repelled his grip with a surge of force and seized his head and horn, instead.

Our contest was short. Prince Nádarin staggered and grunted as his magic sputtered and died as swiftly as the errant sparks from his horn flickered into nothingness.

He stared at me, eyes wide and jaw clenched. He struggled, planting his hooves unsteadily as I stood up again and tightened my hold on the base of his horn. He tried to force a spell through, but I smothered it as easily as I would douse a candle. I took a step through the snow and slipped, stumbling briefly, but stood in front of him and glared. The flames roaring above me shrank and grew quiet, and my mane fell, magenta once again.

My breaths were deep and ragged. Prince Nádarin’s were short and panicked. The valley was otherwise silent, save the gentle, swirling snow, gurgling stream, and murmuring trees.

Nádarin closed his eyes a moment and gave a short, defeated growl. “I suppose,” he said through tightly held jaws, “I under—”

“Shut. Up.” I forced him onto his haunches, tightened my grip, and wrenched.

The snap was almost metallic, almost crystalline, and startlingly loud.

Prince Nádarin flinched and stiffened in shock. His breath left him in a weak grunt, as if he’d been kicked, and his eyes seemed to lose focus, if only briefly, and I released my hold on his head. He blinked blearily and stared at what I held in the air, dumbstruck, and panted. A wisp of pale smoke and a few arcs of flowing magic rose from the jagged stub on his forehead, and he closed his eyes and shuddered.

I dropped his severed horn in the snow and spat a glob of blood to the side. I wiped my snout with the cold sleeve of my hazard suit and blinked away tears; my legs trembled, my head pounded, and thin wisps of steam trailed upward from my horn as falling snowflakes struck it.

I glanced back to a tree farther down the slope, and levitated my discarded helmet over to put it on once more. I activated the tinny external speaker and glared at the stallion past the frozen blood stains inside my faceplate.

“Ivy doesn’t want to kill you, because she’s so friggin’ nice, and forgiving and all that. I’m not sure about Blitz—Princess Blizziera. She might just kill you when she finds us. I don’t know. Maybe she’ll let you live, just because I’m fine.”

He coughed, took a breath, and gave a short nod. “Is that so?”

“Why else would I say it?” I turned around, levitated the Prince ahead of me, and began to trudge uphill; as an afterthought, I lifted the severed horn from the snow and tucked it into one of my hazard suit’s front pockets. I looked directly back at him. “I could be sitting in front of a fireplace right now. With my marefriend.”

I levitated the ungainly club I’d fashioned and carried it at my side while I climbed. “I would really like to be sitting by a fireplace right now, with my marefriend. And just so you know, I’m radioactive. As in, being near me for, oh, say fifteen or twenty minutes, probably, would kill you. So, I’m going to be nice and keep this helmet on, so you don’t turn into a puddle of goo. That way, when Blitz and Ivy find us, they can decide what happens to you.”

Prince Nádarin was quiet for the grueling minutes it took me to reach the top of the slope. Several times, I slipped and slid backwards, but I didn’t fall. My heart raced, my legs burned from exertion, and steam continued to pour off me as snow fell on my hazard suit. I stopped to breathe at the crest of the hill, and silently wondered how long the effects of radiation would keep me warm.

I turned my head left and right in the midmorning sun. An ocean of dark green spears capped with fluffy white went on and on in every direction. Foreboding clouds of deep grey, towering up and up, formed a wall that loomed uncomfortably close on the eastern horizon.

I set Nádarin down by a tree and walked closer to him.

“I’ll say it again, Mister Prince. If it weren’t for you and your friggin’ nutjob henchponies, I could be sitting by the fireplace with my marefriend right now. Instead, I’m stuck out here with you.” The coffee-maned stallion furrowed his brow, but maintained an otherwise neutral expression. I leaned forward until his breath fogged my faceplate. “Fireplace. With my marefriend.”

I prodded his chest. “Try to attack me, and I’ll throw you down this friggin’ hill and see how many times you bounce. You want to live longer than the next thirty minutes? You just sit there and be broody, ‘cause I’m fucking done with today.”

“Truly, you are a paragon of restraint.”

I stopped grinding my teeth and shoved him again. “Yeah? You think so? Let me make something really, really, abundantly clear, Prince. The last time a stallion put a ring like that on my horn? I stabbed him. With my horn. And then?” I turned and walked a few meters away, steadied myself, and poured a healthy surge of magic into clear bubble that I manifested at the end of my horn. A secondary layer of bright green overglow formed around my horn as the flow of specific gases from the surrounding air into the bubble accelerated, the internal pressure increased a hundredfold, and I lit a spark.

I opened a hole at the top of the bubble and snarled as a third, dazzling layer of overglow erupted around my horn and nearly ten tons of force screamed to the heavens.

The valley was lit by an emerald sun, and the roar of hypersonic plasma thundered across the earth and shook me down to my bones. Snow and dirt sprayed away from me in a circle, my mane was blasted back, and the trees swayed and lost their snowy trappings. The pillar of harsh green rose ever higher in a stream of bright, diamond patterns until distance and turbulence in the air created swirling vortices of errant plasma that arced with wild bursts of contaminant magic.

I sustained the spell for about fifteen seconds, then, gasping for breath, let it sputter out in a rising cloud of short-lived plasma. My legs trembled, my ears rang, and steam rose from my hazard suit and the patch of snow at my hooves. My forehead and horn were distinctly, uncomfortably warm, and wisps of light smoke rose from the fluted guard on my helmet.

I bit back a sob as white-hot needles stabbed behind my eyes in time with my rapid pulse.

I turned back to Prince Nádarin. A flock of birds farther along the valley and barely visible through the trees had taken flight, and the rumble of my spell continued to propagate across the forest. “And then I put him in front of that. That, for your information, will have been visible for at least fifty kilometers in every direction to anypony in the air. There are probably five ponies in the air right about now, all of whom will be looking for me. One of them can lift a twenty ton gun like it’s a tea set, one of them has a suit of power armor and is extremely protective of me, one of them has an aetheric anti-everything rifle and is extremely protective of me, one of them is my marefriend, who is friggin’ angry, friggin’ strong, and, guess what, is extremely friggin’ protective of me.”

I stomped over to Nádarin once more, telekinetically forced him to the ground, and met his brownish green eyes. “And one of them is the daughter of the stallion your big brother murdered right in front of her thirty years ago. Oh, and she’s extremely protective of me, too. By the way, the only one of those five ponies who might still want to see you alive instead of incinerated?” I prodded his chest again. “That’s Ivaline. She said, and I quote, ‘He has done nothing I cannot forgive.’ But that was before today. I want you to think about that for a moment, Prince.”

He worked his jaw and blinked several times to dislodge a bit of snow from his eyelashes. “And what of you? What judgement would you pass on me?”

I ripped several small branches off one of the nearby trees, broke them up, cleared some snow from the earth, laid them in a pile in the dirt, and sprayed a liberal blast of emerald fire at them until the frost sublimated away and the branches caught alight. I sat down in front of the small fire and cleared away the snow in a larger area, leaving a circle of hard, cold ground at the top of the hill.

I then began to scoop the snow around us, one pile of roughly a cubic meter at a time, into a low wall to better block the wind. The effort of levitating even that volume of snow put more strain on my concentration than all the combined elements of my combustion jet put together, and after having made that exertion, made my head throb and the fringes of my field waver and spike.

Nevertheless, I built up a wall around us, adding another heap of compacted snow every second. “Your problem is with Ivy. You can talk it out with her. She doesn’t want to kill you… but as far as I’m concerned, you can freeze to death out here.” I levitated the stallion to the other side of the campfire, not exactly opposite me, and set him down. “Or, alternatively, and just a suggestion, you can sit there, nice and quiet, and leave me alone while we wait for them to find us.”

I released my telekinetic hold on the stallion and put some finishing touches on the snow wall behind him and to the side; we sat in a bowl made of snow, about four meters across, with walls a meter high. I lifted my branch club and scribed a line with it in the cold, packed dirt, bisecting the shelter either side of the fire.

“Don’t step over that—” I shook my club lightly in the air, then set it on the ground in front of me. “—and we won’t have problems. Any questions?”

Prince Nádarin gave a slight tilt of his head, worked his jaw, and lightly touched the side of his hoof to the jagged stub of his horn. “You are radioactive?” I nodded. “And this does not harm you… so you wear that suit so as not to contaminate the air.”

“Pretty much.”

He lowered his hoof and lay down near the fire. “And though you have gifts of great power, you would not strike me down without great reason…”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t tempt me.”

He gave a tired, wry smile. “You will make a great leader, one day… but be cautious, when you offer mercy to your adversaries, young mare. Some will accept it and be grateful… some will repay your kindness with deceit.”

I only stared for a moment. “Are you the same pony who led an army of Kekalo ponies to Bellenast and pillaged and terrorized the countryside on the way there, or what?”

“Ha! Oh, betaya… yes, I am the very same. Except for the pillaging bit.” Prince Nádarin looked at the fire and said, “Some among the ponies who have followed me on my journey… misunderstand my goals, and are perhaps overzealous.”

“Yeah, I can tell. One of them impaled me. It was pretty zealous, and it friggin’ hurt.”

“For that, I apologize.” To my surprise, the stallion looked contrite. “But in their defense, you did attack first.”

A spark leapt along the fluted cover over my horn. “Your invisible goons were about to jump us! Don’t try to play innocent.”

“I hold no delusion of innocence, child.” He shrugged. “I have not had the chance to hear all the details of your encounter. I am curious: How did you see them?”

“Your cloaking spells don’t hide body heat.” He gave a puzzled frown. “Thermal cameras in my power armor. They detect infrared radiation, from body heat. Invisibility spells don’t hide that.”

“Power armor?” His brow creased. “Ah. So it was you that Blizziera was carrying, that day…” Prince Nádarin shook his head slowly. “No matter… if nothing else, I would ask that you understand this much: I came to Bellenast to have Ivaline answer for her cruelty… not to kill her. I wanted to kill her, for many years.”

He sighed and looked me in the eye again. “But I cannot judge Ivaline for avenging her fallen king. I would have done the same, if fate had seen to our… juxtaposition.” The stallion’s entire muzzle contorted into a grimace, and in that moment, I saw every line that age had left on his face. “I can respect a desire to give due justice… I have lived with it for much of my life. But the end she inflicted upon my brother… goes beyond any semblance of it… beyond mere vengeance.”

“She cursed him. Right?”

Prince Nádarin nodded. “Did Argent Nimbus speak of it to you?”

“Yeah.” I scowled and shrugged. “Didn’t give a lot of details.”

“He wouldn’t speak of such fell matters with a child. Argent is often circumspect about topics he ought speak of plainly… and he is among those who misunderstand my goals. That is my own fault… I didn’t confide in him, when perhaps I should have.”

Prince Nádarin sighed and brought a hoof up to his broken horn again, and I shifted uncomfortably. “My brother… Nádar Uéke, or ‘Valley Oak,’ in your tongue… killed Bellenast’s king, Arcottio Firenza. I do not know why; I was too young at the time, for him to confide in me the nature of his grievance with Bellenast, and he kept no journal or other record of his motives. I had theories… most of which I believe were wrong.”

“But, by the time he returned from his journey to this kingdom, after he had committed the act… his mind was halfway gone already. My brother no longer recognized me, and at first, all he could speak of was a ‘great demon’ that came out of the night and struck down his compatriots.”

Nádarin shrugged and said, “Not the most complementary of epithets to bestow a mare, but then, Ivaline the Wrathful is… well, the name says it all, doesn’t it?” The prince let out a short, mirthless chuckle. “During the last days of his life… Nádar Uéke said one thing, over and over. Would you like to know what that was?”

I rolled my eyes. “Why do I get the feeling saying no won’t make a difference?”

He fixed me with a calm, if unnerving smile, and pointed his hoof to his forehead, to the jagged remnant of his horn. “Words are what I have. Words I shall give.”

My ears drooped. I shuddered and brought my forehooves closer together in front of my chest. “What did he say?”

“My eldest brother, on his deathbed, said to our father, ‘Papa’s gone.’ Quite the odd thing, to say to one’s father, clearly alive and well in front of him. ‘Papa’s gone, Papa’s gone, Papa’s gone,’ again and again and again until he breathed his last.”

Prince Nádarin rubbed his jaw and murmured, “And yet, it is, possibly, exactly what Her Highness might have said, on that day, don’t you think?” He glanced at me, then reached a hoof into the folds of his barding, fumbling slightly, and tugged out a small, bronze box, tarnished with age. He set it on the ground and pushed it to the line I had drawn in the dirt. “Have you ever seen a memory orb, young mare?”

“No.” Grinding my teeth briefly, I said, “My name is Crystal.”

He nodded. “Crystal. I would say well met…”

I nickered, glaring, and levitated the tiny box over to set it in front of myself. “Let me guess: It’s an orb that has memories in it.”

Nádarin’s lip twitched into a slight smirk. “A memory orb stores memories, much as film stores a photograph. Don’t grasp the orb inside that box, only the box itself. If you focus your magic on the orb, you will be drawn in, to experience the memory it contains. Once you begin to view a memory orb’s contents, you are rendered helpless, immobile and completely unaware of your surroundings, for as long as the memory lasts.”

I dropped the bronze box immediately and glanced warily at the dark, translucent ball of glass inside its faded, purple padding. It looked like nothing so much as a foal’s toy marble, if somewhat larger than one; yet, deep within it, a pale light flickered. I closed the box with my forehoof and looked at the prince again. “That last bit. Why would you tell me that?”

“Because that memory is not meant for you… and you were able to shatter a ring of binding, a feat I’ve not seen in all my many years. Who is to say you could not escape the memory and immediately burn me to cinders for my deception?”

Prince Nádarin crossed his forehooves. “True, I would have used you as a hostage to approach Ivaline herself, and coerced her to view that memory, had my plan worked… but it did not, and here we are. In either case, I never intended to harm you, if I could avoid it. So, I give the orb to you. I plead that you give it to her in turn.”

“What—” I grimaced and shook my head. “Why the—just—what’s so important about it? Why do you want her to see it?”

“That memory, at its core, belongs to a child—a young filly. A filly I had never met, until recently… and yet, I have held that orb in my possession, kept it safe, safer than any trinket I hold dear, for thirty years of my life.” Prince Nádarin stared at me from where he lay, patient and calm and collected, and said softly, “How do you suppose I came by that memory, Crystal?”

The old stallion tapped his hoof on the cold earth and murmured, “I extracted it from my brother before he passed, of course, because, of course, I had never met Blizziera. How could I have? I didn’t know she existed until some… fickle jest of fate willed it.” He looked at the fire, rubbed his hoof along his jaw, and said at a normal volume again, “One of the talents of the agents of Unity, the alicorns, is the ability to see into the depths of one’s mind, as one might peruse a book and find its secrets laid bare.”

“Their telepathy doesn’t work that way,” I said. “It lets them talk to each other, but they can’t read minds…” I paused for a moment, thinking of Blitz and her rosy pink eyes. “I have that on good authority. The green ones are telepathic relays for the rest. They wouldn’t be able to keep a connection over long distances without them holding all the others together. Ivy was one of them.”

“So they have told you something of Unity’s workings, have they?” The stallion shook his head in reply. “I doubt she would reveal her more poisonous abilities in polite conversation. She did leave Unity behind, more recently, after all…” He began to draw his hoof across the ground, scratching idle lines into the snow and dirt.

“While it is true,” said the prince, taking care to enunciate clearly, “That they cannot scry one’s innermost thoughts and deliberations, those of lesser will are susceptible to… invasion, glances of those thoughts closest to the surface. Emotions, impulses, primarily… but that is not the working of which I speak. Ivaline is among the eldest of all alicorns of Unity; not in time spent in their ranks, but among the eldest, nonetheless. She has had an extraordinarily long time to hone her skill. The manipulation of memory, extraction and implantation thereof in particular, is, most certainly, one small piece of her formidable repertoire.”

“Sooo… taking a memory out.” I craned my neck to peer past the fire at the drawing that had taken form beneath his hoof; it appeared to be nothing more than random swoops and swirls. “And putting it in somepony else.”

“Yes. She plucked that memory out of Her Highness, little Princess Blizziera, and put it in my brother’s head, and forced him to live a waking nightmare, over and over, until it drove him to madness… and death.”

Nádarin turned away from the fire and said, “At least, that is my theory, based on what I observed, those decades ago. The memory in that orb is flawed, limited by design and the ingenuity of whatever magus of the old world created the spellwork. The memory orb itself shows only what is seen, heard, touched, even smelled… but it shows only these physical perceptions, not what is thought.”

“And, it is a memory of a memory: What my brother was forcibly shown of Blizziera’s recollection, as he experienced it himself through the lens of a sharing spell. It has become… twisted, muted. Incomplete. Jarring and harmful merely to see, oneself. Perhaps it always was, even before I asked for it to be extracted. In any case, by watching the memory, I can’t experience exactly what my brother did, what he thought in the depths of his madness.”

Prince Nádarin gave a heavy sigh and gestured toward the tarnished, bronze box. “I can see it through a looking glass, one warped, cracked, dusty… and ponder. Only Ivaline knows the truth. Instead of simply killing my brother outright, she let him live but a little longer. She planted the memory in his head, to poison him… perhaps she saw something, an iota of reason, behind my brother’s own malice and foolishness. Something that would drive her to do what she did, in turn.”

I shivered again. “So… you want to ask her questions, not, um… not kill her. Necessarily…”

He lightly kicked at the misshapen drawing on the ground, scattering the snow and cold earth. “To say that I do not desire her death would be a lie… but I would rather see her answer for her actions, herself, and shed light on my brother’s own motive, if she is so inclined.”

“Well… um… hate to break it to you, but she doesn’t know why he did it. Or at least… she told me she didn’t fully understand the reasons, so…” I shrugged. “Maybe she knows something. I dunno.”

“That is… disheartening to hear.” He looked up and gazed at me, silent at first, his eyes narrowed and lips pursed. “I have studied all I can, of the records about Ivaline’s life, and her business, in her time before leaving Bellenast to join Unity’s ranks.”

At my questioning tilt of the head, he said, “I came to Bellenast on my own, not long after my brother’s death, to search for information, from all across the kingdom… several times, over the decades, I journeyed here again. To summarize, Crystal… Ivaline, as her long and storied biography would tell, is, indeed, the Wrathful. She earned that name, and all her others, more than a century ago… long before she gained her immortality. But…”

He raised his forehoof and shook it slowly from side to side before me. “She was ever and always described as a righteous mare. A mare fair and wise, but also swift to punish those that wronged Bellenast and her kin, when such action was appropriate. When retaliation was required, she would retaliate. When negotiation was the better answer, she would negotiate. When vengeance was called for, she would deliver it.”

He laid his hoof down again. “I don’t condone what my brother did, whatever his motive… but if Ivaline, today, is the same just and noble mare that her legacy so stridently proclaims, she at least would have executed my brother, at gunpoint or at the gallows or with whatever spell of death she might choose.” Nádarin inclined his head toward the small box before me. “I would have respected her decision, if his death had been swift. What she did, instead, was vile, dishonorable… and nothing short of rapacious.”

My wings twitched. “Like you know the meaning of the word,” I muttered.

Nádarin turned his head to one side and frowned ever so slightly. “My ears have a few more decades behind them than yours, Crystal. Care to speak up?”

I scowled, tucked my forehooves closely together and said, “Maybe you should have just walked in the front door and asked Ivy, yourself. I think she would have respected that.”

Prince Nádarin laughed. “Could you? Could you approach the Witch of the Amber Palace herself and ask her why she murdered your brother? I assure you, it is not as easy as that.”

“At least you had a brother. Parents. Mine ditched me for foster care. Now, when I finally have a family I love, you show up and friggin’ take me away from them.” I snorted and shrugged. “So… no, I guess I don’t know if I would waltz up and ask her, but I’d at least try it first, instead of what you’ve been doing for the last thirty years. What you’ve done in the last week. Forgive me if I’m less sympathetic than you expected.”

“Oh, I expect no sympathy.” He looked to the sky and sighed. “Dear child,” he said, giving a gentle laugh, “For all my life, I have been surrounded by those who follow me for all the wrong reasons… or who would put a dagger in my back in shadow, should I oppose their wishes in the light. Even now, the veritable army that has come with me, to Bellenast, may not heed my words any longer, now that I have an opportunity to meet the one pony I have sought to meet, to understand for so long. So clouded with fire and zealous hatred is their vision of justice that they have forgotten my vision. They have forgotten my mistakes… and so they have not learned from them as I have.”

He let out a long breath, and once again the fatigue in his eyes betrayed his age. “Would that I had your spirit, that I had the naivety of youth again. Perhaps I might have erred more on the side of courage and…” He looked past me, and his face became a fine example of perplexion. “… less on the side of caution.”

My ears swiveled backward as clumps of snow tumbled softly to the bare earth.

I leapt to my hooves readied an emerald bubble shield around myself even as I lifted my club, scrambled backward past the campfire, and blasted a short-lived gout of emerald flame at the figure peeking through the snow wall.

The brief roar of flame accompanied a louder hiss of sublimated vapor that quickly blew away on the wind, and the vanishing cloud of steam revealed a pair of cloven hooves the burnished green of tourmaline, an ashen grey coat, and a voluminous, exceptionally full, and distinctly leonine mane the same white as the blanketing snow around us, which framed her head all around and covered her neck and the upper part of her chest. In the chaos of a snowstorm, the pony would have been nearly invisible.

The front portion of her snowy mane glowed an incandescent yellow and flickered with a thousand tiny embers, but no smoke rose from it.

Inquisitive, turquoise eyes blinked at me, then darted up to the flaming length of horn that curved sharply back from her brow, then up again nearer its asymmetrically forked tip. The mare shook her head, a lighter, irregular segment near the base of her horn glowed pink, and a wave of pink light swept upward through her mane, extinguishing the many spots of flame.

Then, face otherwise wooden, she lifted a cloven hoof to wave at me. “Sooooooo, I’m Pinwheel. Pinwheel Malaise.”

“Valley River,” said the prince, from where he stood against the opposite wall of our bowl shelter. “A pleasure.”

I swallowed. “Um… Crystal. Hi.” Pinwheel scooted forward, falling down through the collapsing wall of snow, until she more or less stood halfway through it. The strange mare was stockily built and rather short, compared to Eagle or Zephyr, though still taller and much larger than I was, and her pale coat was thick and bushy.

With her closer to my eye level, I was able to see the ridged crest that lined the top of her snout and her brow, and the coat of scales that covered her back in place of fur. Both the scales on her back and the crest of her snout were the same burnished green, and slightly iridescent, tourmaline color as her cloven hooves, and her horn was the dull red of pure iron oxide.

“Peachy, lass!” She grinned. Her accent was bizarre, but not so much that I had difficulty understanding her. “Thanks for starting with fire, instead of the stick. Very considerate of you. Well, for me, specifically, anyway. Don’t think that applies to everyone else. Anywho, that fire was green; you know, the fire you shot at my face.”

I winced.

“Oh, nononono, girlie, s’all right. I’m fine, completely fireproof! No worries ‘bout that; perfectly reasonable reaction. I should have hollered before I poked my head in. Anyway, green—that fire was green. So was that big fire that shot into the sky. The really bonkers loud fire; sounded a lot like a bottle rocket, now that I think of it, except huge. You know, the one that made all the snow fall off the trees? Scared off the birds?” She jerked her forehoof back over her head. “Caused a small avalanche, next valley over? Was that you?”

I took another step back until my rump hit the wall. “Um…”

Pinwheel Malaise sighed and set her hoof down, and her head slumped. “Yeah, that? That buried my house. As in, halfway up the chimney buried.”

My ears drooped. I swallowed again, opened my mouth, and found my throat to be dry.

Pinwheel grinned. “Okay, no, it didn’t actually bury my house; that’s a few miles off. It was a wee little avalanche. You would’ve heard a big one. Sorry. That was mean.” Unkind words stuck in my throat. My shield collapsed. “Really, it’s okay. I’m perfect as peaches.” I growled and grinded my teeth. “But seriously, though, you could have set off a big avalanche, and that could have buried my house. Or anyone else’s house around here. You need to be more careful. There’s only one of me around here, and I’m reasonably certain nobody else can melt their way out of being buried in the snow.”

She glanced at Nádarin, then back at me, then quickly back at Nádarin. Her entire demeanor changed. Softly, and slowly, she said, “What exactly’s going on, here?” Turquoise eyes darted down to the pocket on my breast, where the jagged base of a spiraling horn poked out for all to see. I pushed the horn farther down and buttoned the pocket, but Pinwheel Malaise looked at me with a new wariness. She took a slow step back from me. “Okay, would one of you say something?”

Prince Nádarin raised his hoof cautiously and said, “Pinwheel… suffice to say that Crystal has good reason to be on her guard, and it would be for the best if you left us, until the… authorities arrive. Our business does not—”

I shoveled a chunk of the snow wall in his direction and bowled him over with a powdery thwump. “You don’t decide what concerns anypony right now, Prince.”

“Damn. That’s cold, lass.” I stared at Pinwheel Malaise. She smirked, shifted to an awkward smile, and shuffled her hooves. “Sooooooo, Prince, eh? Friend seems a bit suspect, yeah? I mean, you seem a bit suspect, too, to be honest.” She chuckled, and her genial smile shifted more toward nervousness. “Snapped off his horn, did you? Wee bit harsh, yeah? D’you unicorns grow those back?”

“I don’t really care. He kidnapped me.”

“Ooooooh. That so?” She shot a discomfited glance at the buried prince, who gave a muffled yell from under the mound of snow and began to dig his way free. “Did you have to clobber ‘im like that?”

“Let me think. Yes.” I nickered and stomped, then stuck my club ten centimeters into the ground. “He kidnapped me, teleported us here, and was going to hold me hostage. I kicked his flank. Snapped off his horn because I don’t really want to kill him, but I don’t trust him to sit still and not attack me for a few hours while my friends look for me, and I’m really friggin’ pissed off right now.”

“Aye, I can see that, lass.” Pinwheel reached up to rub the back of her neck and said, “What I mean t’say is, eh… he seems—well, civil-like, and you have him handled, so is kickin’ ‘im while he’s down really necessary?”

My lip twitched, and when I spoke, my teeth showed and my voice rose. “He kidnapped me and he wants to kill one of my friends, or at least extort information from her, and then maybe kill her. His cronies have tried to kill my friends—and have nearly killed me—friggin’ twice now, and if he’s telling the truth, he might not even be controlling them, and they’re just running rampant around the countryside, scaring ponies for kicks, because he can’t be bothered to keep them in line. If he is actually in charge, then he’s had his ponies attacking towns and ambushing caravans and hurting innocent ponies for the last week, me included, just to draw out the ponies he really wants to hurt. One of those ponies is my marefriend’s mom, and he kidnapped me because of that! Just to hold me hostage and try to lure them out again, because every other time his goons tried to attack us, they fucked it up and didn’t manage to kill us—and I don’t even know if they attacked us because that was their plan, or because we were just in the friggin’ way!”

I took a heaving breath and stomped the snow, and all but shouted at the odd mare. The ancient speaker wired to the outside of my helmet strained and distorted my shouting. “And the first friggin’ thing he said to you was to try to convince you to go away! To friggin’ leave me alone with him! He’s a manipulative snake. He put an inhibitor ring on me and tied me up five friggin’ minutes ago! I barely managed to break it and fight him! And I’m radioactive right now, so I kept my suit on just so he wouldn’t die by the time my friends find me, and still he tries to pull something like that. I’m trying to do the right friggin’ thing and not just friggin’ club his brains out or burn him to death, but he’s making it really friggin’ hard! So, yeah! Does it sound like he doesn’t deserve a few kicks to his everything?”

At the conclusion of my tirade, Pinwheel Malaise gave a slow, emphatic nod and quirked her ears as the echoes of my yelling carried across the hills. Turquoise eyes had narrowed, and focused intently on me once again. “O-kaaaaaaaay. Yeah. Gotta admit, now he sounds like a right scoundrel. Assuming you’re telling the truth.”

My hind legs gave out. I sat where I fell, shaking and breathing hard. “Look—which way is Bellenast from here? And how far is it?”

“Bellenast, eh? That where you popped from?” Pinwheel turned to her left and pointed past me. Beyond the trees and deep valleys were mountains, high and jagged. “Southwest by west, Crystal, about fifteen leagues as the bloatsprite flies. Those are kinda scatterbrained, though, and they can’t fly very far at all. Don’t know where that phrase came from, but it never made much sense to me. Always heard my granpappy say it.”

I gaped for a moment, then shook my head. “It’s ‘as the crow flies.’ As in, a straight line, over anything in the way.”

Pinwheel’s turquoise eyes widened. “Ooooooh, is that what it’s supposed to be, crows? They do seem a bit smarter than a bloatsprite.” She gave a goofy smile and tapped the side of her head. “Poor, screwy little fuzzballs. All the radiation must go to their wee brains.”

I shook my head again. “So, fifteen leagues?”

“Aye, maybe a touch closer to sixteen.”

“How far is a league?”

“Mmmmmmm—three miles or thereabouts.”

I groaned inside my helmet and stomped the cold, packed ground, to little effect. “What the fuck is a mile?”

“One hundred and eight kilometers,” said Prince Nádarin, as he escaped from the pile of snow, shivering and breathing heavily. He shook his entire body to rid himself of clinging snow and sat on his haunches close to the fire. “One league is six-point-seven-five kilometers; sixteen leagues is one hundred and eight. Not a quick jaunt by any means.”

I took deep breaths.

Pinwheel Malaise nodded, glancing uneasily between us. “Aye, it’s a bit of a walk. Although, fair disclosure, you have to go south a ways, through Gelgrin Pass, to the lowlands, then take the old road west through the Corsair Hills to get anywhere close to Bellenast. That’s the easiest route, and that’s about double the distance. The mountains west of here are impassible this time of year.” Her horn glowed, and a smattering of branches floated from the ground somewhere behind her in a haze of pink and added themselves to the small fire. “Unless you have wings, but even if you did, I’d stay away from there—that’s naga territory.”

“Indeed,” said Nádarin, shivering violently, and smiled at me as I shifted my featherless wings inside my suit. “Thank you for the directions, Pinwheel. That would make... quite the journey.”

I reared, stomped, and screamed at the sky. “FUCK!”

After a brief pause and the ensuing silence in the snow-blanketed valley, Pinwheel whispered, “She’s got a temper, hasn’t she?”

“Her bite is worse.”

“Aye, I can tell. You look rough. No offense.”

“None taken. It’s largely my own fault.”

“Sounds like it, grandpa.”

I stalked over to Nádarin and levitated him. “Was that part of your plan?!” I shouted. The speaker on my hazard suit screeched and crackled, distorting my voice. “Blitz can’t teleport half that far! How the fuck can you manage it?”

“I didn’t teleport us,” said the prince, raising one hoof to wipe snow from his snout. “I formed a spatial tunnel. Then, you tried to disrupt the opening, and because your effort was unfocused, you shunted excess magic into the spell… at least, that is my hypothesis. A sudden addition of power would cause the terminus to translate farther than intended, but along the same vector. It’s fortunate that we arrived at a higher elevation.”

“How is that even possible?” I dropped him again and snarled, then took a deep breath and once again tried to scrub the splash of blood off the inside of my faceplate; it had congealed and frozen on the cold, inner layer of polycarbonate, so it came off more cleanly than when I had tried before.

Biting my lip, I unfastened the helmet for a fraction of a second to toss the frozen mess out, then resealed it. I growled again and went back to the edge of the shelter, and sat where I could see both Nádarin and Pinwheel. “I’ve used a shared input spell. It doesn’t just work that way. You have to let a second pony take over the spell. It’s a joint effort.”

The prince lifted an eyebrow. “I have never heard of a ‘shared input’ spell… a spatial tunnel achieves the same end result as teleportation, true, but the method is susceptible to outside… interference, is the best word, I think. Under certain conditions, that interference can be… convenient, or not. Constructive, or destructive.”

“Constru—” I snarled and shouted, “You mean I friggin’ amplified your spell?”

He nodded, smiling. “Yes, exactly that. In this case, we traveled farther than I could have sent us under my own power. Normally, traversing such a distance would require four or five unicorns bolstering the tunnel in concert for as long as you need to traverse it, but doing so is simple in execution, if they are sufficiently strong… or, it seems, if one extra unicorn is sufficiently strong over a very short period of time. It readily draws in additional energy so long as it is diffuse, unfocused, which, as you saw, allows you to travel a longer distance.”

“Huh.” Pinwheel chewed her lip in thought. “That’s pretty clever. Sounds like a great way to move a lot of folks around quickly… if you can figure out the kinks, that is.”

I glared at the prince. “Yeah. Sounds like.”

He gave a slow nod. “Indeed. It’s a remarkable means of travel. I admit, I’m not as skilled in its use as Argent Nimbus; he devised the spell, and implemented safeguards in the working, which would prevent this sort of accident…” Prince Nádarin shrugged. “As I said, I’m not as skilled. As annoying as the stallion can be, he is a magus without peer.”

I snorted. “Yeah. Argent Nimbus is annoying.”

Prince Nádarin laughed. “One can find common ground with anyone, even if it is only in those ponies that irritate you.”

Pinwheel hissed sharply through her teeth and said, “Aye, grandpa, but I don’t think she capitulates that much.”

“No,” said Nádarin, “Far from it. I’ve found her to be rather ferocious and… unyielding.”

“Oh, aye, I can see she’s a regular firecracker.” Pinwheel Malaise grinned a carefree grin and chuckled, saying in a low voice, “Those I can understand.” The strange mare pointed through the gap in the snow wall from which she’d entered. “So, d’you two want to come somewhere a little toastier? I realize that you’re, eh… at odds, yes? And one or both of you might or might not be slightly murderous.” She raised a foreleg and clicked her cloven hooves together. “But! You haven’t killed each other yet, so… you know, if you intend to sit and stew, may as well sit and stew somewhere more pleasant, right? I don’t mind company—love it, in fact!”

She frowned for a moment. “Don’t get much of it, these days, on account of the signs.” Her smile came back immediately. “Never mind that! You can just ignore those. They don’t mean much, and they’re quite mean, besides. Besides which, blizzard’s about to be beside itself. We’ve got four, maybe five hours ‘till that big swirly doo hits us, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d much prefer to have company inside with a cup of tea than have company outside with a pair of popsicles.”

I sighed. “Do you have a fireplace?”

Pinwheel Malaise looked around at the snow and mountainous expanse, then shuffled backward through the snow wall and sidestepped to reveal cargo harness on the ground, which she had to have been wearing before she made her sudden introduction. One side of the harness held a thoroughly stuffed canvas bag, and the other was laden with a tight bundle of branches. “Er. Yes? Big fireplace. Very fiery, and placey. Y’know. Considering. Was actually on my way back with some mushrooms and kindling.”

“Right. Dumb question.” I pointed at Prince Nádarin. “How about some rope?”

“Rope? Course I have rope. I’m an honorary hermit!” After grinning, she gave me an odd look. “Are you a from one of those Stables, lass?”

“No.” I frowned back. “Why would you think I’m from a Stable?”

“Well, I mean, you think I wouldn’t have rope? Who doesn't have some rope lying around somewhere? And the bubble head suit—actually, I guess you’re wearing that for the opposite reason most folks usually do.” She lifted and clicked her cloven hoof again; I couldn’t help but stare at the gesture. “Eh. Never mind. Just flapping my gums faster than my noggin can keep up, I suppose.” She pointed over her shoulder. “Come on; it’s a five mile hike back home. We’d best hurry.”

The ash- and tourmaline-colored mare led the way through the mountainous forest and guided us across the field of snow at the very bottom of the valley, about eight kilometers from the ravine and stream where I had subdued Prince Nádarin. The stallion trotted parallel to me, separated by several paces. The wind had begun to pick up as we’d traversed the forest.

While Pinwheel Malaise’s pale coat and mane all but disappeared in the blowing flurry, she kept her horn alight with a pink glow as the looming blizzard darkened the sky, and the emerald glow of my own magic around my club coupled with the iridescent scales along her back made her an easy mare to spot from behind.

Under any other circumstances, I would have enjoyed the view. Her swishing, tufted tail was like a metronome.

As the present circumstances allowed, I instead found myself impressed every time she leapt casually over fallen trees, rocks, and dips in the path, any one of which I would have expected to give trouble to a pony without Night Cloud’s height and agility.

The stocky pony forged a path easily on her own, though I widened it by holding a field of telekinesis in the shape of a plow, much as I had seen Blitz do, to follow her, else I would be chest-deep in freezing powder. She set a pace that I was able to match—barely—and I struggled to keep up with her on the uphill parts of the march. The mare would stop to look back every few minutes, and wait for me if I lagged behind more than about ten meters.

Prince Nádarin, to my simultaneous annoyance and respect, kept pace without complaint, though he did begin to shiver, and his breaths grew labored. As small and weak as I was compared to him, life above the clouds had prepared me for thin air; his struggle was one of scarcer oxygen, while mine was having to shovel cumulative tons of snow out of my path.

My own breathing was loud and close inside my hazard suit, and the boundless, inner warmth of radiation, after nearly four hours of the hike into and out of neighboring valleys, began to fade gradually, and my body began to fight the laws of thermodynamics on more even terms.

For the first time since fighting the prince, and after the immense amount of energy expended on my plasma-spewing distress signal, the club I held in my magic grasp seemed ever-so-slightly burdensome, and the chill began to find its way through my suit.

Then, the forest opened upon a river, and with its rumble came the gentle tinkling of bells.

Pinwheel Malaise’s home stood on a level berm of packed earth, an old log cabin surrounded by a sturdy deck and the scattered stumps of the trees long ago felled to make it. The cabin was a short trot away from the placid river, which, this late in winter, had begun to lose its covering of ice.

Across a shallow, narrow portion of the river perhaps fifty meters away from us was a bridge of evenly spaced stepping stones, though their frosted surfaces spoke more of treachery than utility. The river wound in a gentle bend in either direction, and the forest swallowed it on both sides.

Less than twenty meters from the cabin and its smoking chimney was a barn that might well have borne witness to the end of the old world. The ancient walls creaked in the wind, and atop the a-frame roof was a familiar profile cut from polished sheet metal.

“A storm naga?” I gave a weak laugh. “You have a storm naga wind vane.”

“What?” Pinwheel paused to look back at me, then up at the steeply angled rooftop. “Oh yeah!” she exclaimed, showing plenty of bright teeth in a cheery smile, then bounded forward again, sending sprays of snow behind her cloven hooves. “Storm nagas follow a lightning storm; helps them build up enough charge to sufficiently zap their next meal. Well, I thought, ‘That’s not very helpful, is it? Coming after the storm, instead of before it?’ Bunch of freeloaders, mooching off the hard work of Mother Nature. So I made that a few years ago. This way, my storm naga tells which way a storm’s coming from.”

“Yeah, I get that. I know what a weather vane does.” I shook my head. “Just… I hate those things.”

“Nagas? Why? They never bother anyone. Well, they never bother me. Guess they might bother a pegasus if one flew into their territory. They usually stick to one place, but they go out to hunt during lightning storms. Don’t get too many of those here in the winter. Air’s too dry.”

“A big one attacked my sky carriage about two weeks ago. Tore a hole clean through the hull and let its… a bunch of the little ones, its babies, I guess, inside. Then, one of them spit magic death ice in my face, almost suffocated me. Then, just a few days ago, when I was on a carriage to Bellenast, another big one attacked us. My friends scared that one off. So… yeah. Hate them. With a burning passion.”

“They’re just animals, girlie.” Pinwheel held her hoof up and clicked again. “They’re territorial, but not too bright. You nose around their territory, they try to run you off. Just the way they work. No point hating them.”

“Still hate them.” I shook myself free of the snow gathered on my back and helmet, shot a brief glance at Prince Nádarin, and quickened my pace after Pinwheel as the odd mare bounded up the steps onto the deck of her house and lightly tapped a faded, yellow panel bolted to the floor, which caused the front door to swing smoothly inward on silent hinges.

The entrance to the cabin projected out from the center of the outer wall, and there appeared to be a second door deeper inside, flush with the wall itself. A worn and flaky rubber hose, insulated with decayed strips of foam, lined the entire edge of the doorframe, serving as a gasket of dubious effectiveness.

Pinwheel Malaise trotted inside. I stopped at the entryway and stepped aside, turning to face Prince Nádarin as he caught up with us. The lightly-garbed stallion winced as he climbed the few steps onto the expansive porch. I met his brown-green eyes and stomped my hind hoof once. “Are you going to behave?”

He was silent for a few breaths, then gave a small smile. “Consider me defanged.” I raised an eyebrow. “You did call me a snake.”

I scowled. With a flare of emerald green, I unfastened the tunic of his barding and lifted it away, revealing the plain, steel cuirass beneath, scratched from years of wear and deflected blades, and unbuckled it, as well, depriving the stallion of his armor and the hidden knife, small gun, and belt of phials slung under his barrel.

Accompanying the belt was a small telescope, capped with a compass, and a canteen. I bundled the barding and belt together and put the gun, which had no mouth grip at all, in my front pocket, next to the stallion’s horn. Nádarin stood before me, lean and wiry, and completely bare in his yellow-orange coat and coffee-brown mane. He had a smattering of scars, patches of coat that had thinned and faded over old wounds.

His cutie mark, of all things, was the grey square of a holotape cassette, its casing opened and the black, shiny tape inside spilled out in a tangled mess. I couldn’t help but stare for a moment.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Did you expect a poisoned dagger, or perhaps a flying standard, red as blood?”

I snorted. “Answer the question: Yes or no?”

His halfhearted smile faded. “If you can’t trust my word, then trust my desire for truth. I can’t get my answers if I leave your good graces, can I? I’ll settle for the possibility of speaking to Ivaline from a cell, if the alternative is being left to freeze to death in the mountains by a frightened young filly who has ample reason to despise me.”

Pinwheel gave a small cough. “Eh… lady, gent?”

I glanced at her briefly; she grinned. “One moment.” I telekinetically pulled Prince Nádarin down to my eye level and held him still. I prodded his chest and said, “You know what they say about first impressions? That they last a long time? Well, my first impression of you was that you kidnapped me. I will never trust anything about you, snake.” I released him, and he staggered backward. “And you want to know something about snakes?”

“That their heads can bite even after being severed? A latent reflex, nothing more.” After staring with my mouth frozen open for half a second, I snorted. “Crystal, I am a prince of the Kekalo Empire. Much as you liken me to a snake, I am far more familiar with them, cold-blooded and otherwise, than you ever could be. Yes, I’ll behave. I would not take advantage of your mercy… or of Pinwheel’s hospitality.”

I scowled and pointed inside. “Thanks for making my point for me. You first.”

“Oi! Both of you.” We looked in unison at Pinwheel Malaise. She pointed to each of us in turn, affixing me in particular with a stern gaze. “Just so we’re on the same page, here, this is my home, understand? My rules. And my rules are no fighting. Understand? I don’t care who kidnapped who, who started what—I’ll finish it.”

Her turquoise eyes flicked between us again, she blinked a couple times, and she said, “By which I mean I’ll knock you both flat on your bickering behinds if you bicker behind my back—and if you think I can’t get the drop on you just because I’m a bit chunky, let me remind you who trots through the mountains every day. I’m inviting you into my home, where it’s warm, and there’s food, when there’s a blizzard knocking, because I don’t want to see you frozen solid on the side of a hill.”

She wiggled her cloven hoof and pointed back toward the forest. “You want to have a slobber knocker, Little Miss Firecracker, you can do it out there, when the windchill hits twenty below.” She smiled and lit her horn with pink, and the outer door shut behind us. The building wind grew marginally quieter. “So, keep it civil. No throwing of ponies or throwing of heavy things at ponies. We peachy?”

I glanced aside at Prince Nádarin; he gave a slow nod and an irritatingly patient smile. “Yeah… nice airlock, by the way.”

She beamed. “Aye, thanks! Don’t get to show it off much. Helps keep warm air inside. Or most of it, anyway; not really airtight, but I ran out of rubber hose.” She lifted her pack of supplies off her back and opened the inner door, then paused. “Oh, and please don’t shoot or zap my piggy. He’s not used to strangers, and he can be a bit nosy. Literally. He might try to sniff you.”

“Piggy?”

The crackle of a fire and smell of food came from inside, and Pinwheel trotted forward on the smooth, timber floor and hollered.

“Rotunduuuuus! Mum’s home!”

There was a loud squeal, a series of thumping, scuffing beats that sent vibrations through the floor, and then a black boar the size of a bathtub charged across the heavy timbers straight at us.

“Tundy, no!”

Author's Notes:

Well, that's the botched teleport trope fulfilled, sort of. No telefragging, fortunately. When Prince Nádarin remarks that it was fortunate that they arrived at a higher elevation, he is referring to the curvature of the planet making straight-line space jumping dangerous. I don't remember my tangent vector maths very well, but suffice to say that moving a hundred or so kilometers in a straight line tangent to the surface of the earth would result in your destination point being... very high in the air.

I had hoped to finish this several months ago, but, uh... Mass Effect, Resident Evil, and a rediscovered enjoyment of Pokemon, among other distractions, didn't help. 2021 has sapped my ability to write for any significant length of time, so I've worked on this only in short spurts.

But now Pinwheel Malaise is part of the story! She's a happy Kirin. I hope you like her, because I had fun writing her, and she'll be in the next chapter, as well... as well as her chonkers piggy, Lord Rotundus.

If there’s anything that catches your attention, whether editorial, continuity-related, or just something that doesn’t feel quite right, let me know. Feedback is blood and I am a mean green mother from outer space! Feed me, Seymour!

12. Fracture

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Chapter Twelve

Fracture

When a large, feral animal charges a pony, that pony has a few ways to deal with it. Most easily, she can run away; on good ground, most ponies can out-pace most creatures they might encounter in the wild, be it a radscorpion or radhog or a bloated, mutated parasprite barely capable of sustained flight, or any number of animals large and ornery enough to pose a threat.

A pony could stand her ground and fight with her natural weapons: Hard hooves, powerful hind legs, and sometimes a horn or buffeting wings. A snap kick, a sudden gale, or a bright, hot discharge of magic would startle most animals and send them fleeing.

Unicorns especially gifted with telekinetic strength could stop a charging pony in her tracks, though most unicorns lacked the ability to apply substantial motive force or pressure with that same telekinesis. I had the uncommon, but potent advantage of being able to apply tremendous force and pressure to small objects.

A well-equipped pony could employ a gun, be it of the lead-spitting variety or an aetheric projector.

On the sliding scale of physical robustness and strength, I sat firmly in the bottom-most category of Stunted Weakling. I had no weapons, I doubted I could aim a proper kick, never mind knock a single apple from a tree, my wings were bound inside a hazard suit and therefore useless to me at that instant, any contest of horns against a beast equipped with tusks and a thick skull was certain to end in maiming, and my instinctual urge to blast a jet of fire at the charging ‘piggy’ warred with my reluctance to hurt the pet of the mare who had offered me shelter when I so desperately needed it.

Incidentally, I was cognizant enough of my surroundings to recognize that torching a thickly furred animal inside a log cabin, when the fire might not kill that animal quickly and instead send it into a blind rage, was a terrible idea. So, I fell back to the lone defensive spell in my repertoire, the rigid bubble shield that Blitz had taught me a week prior.

The aptly named Rotundus charged into and shattered my half-formed, transparent, emerald bubble, and head-butted me straight in the chest in what he probably considered a playful greeting.

As a larger marble launches the smaller in a foal’s game, the boar sent me flying straight backward and into the respectably solid door. The thin, burnished plate of armor on the chest of my hazard suit, and probably the broad spacing of the boar’s tusks in relation to my chest, likely saved me from being impaled for the second time in less than a week.

While I lay on the timber floor of Pinwheel Malaise’s cottage, having suffered what I recognized from experience as several fractured ribs, as well as whiplash, a profusely bleeding tongue, and the mother of all headaches, I recalled that Night Cloud had mentioned that being transformed by the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion had drained me of energy, and I wondered if it was perhaps to a degree that even being supercharged by proximity to Maximillian’s balefire power plant might not have compensated for the experience. It also was possible that the sustained spike in power required to overcome the resistance of a ring of binding on my horn had induced autothaumic disruption of my magic.

I also considered the idea that puberty, and possibly even my pregnancy, had caused a shift in that curve I had calculated so proudly years ago, and I wallowed in the knowledge that my abilities might be hampered further as I grew.

For a few seconds of agony, my diaphragm seized, and the only breath I managed was a wheeze. Pinwheel Malaise began shouting at her pet boar, and her pink magic filled the room with light as, not without difficulty, she hauled the bristly-furred boar away from me, and the animal squealed and chuffed in agitation as the creak of a metal gate came from the next room over, presumably a pen—and a robust one, I hoped.

A rushing like water filled my ears to accompany the sledgehammer pounding a the back of my skull, and my vision swam. The tang of blood filled my mouth, and my attempt to spit it out resulted in a hot dribble down my muzzle, instead. The polycarbonate visor of my hazard suit’s helmet hadn’t cracked, as far as I could see, so at least the same radiation that began to heal my injuries second by second wouldn’t leak out and harm Pinwheel or Rotundus.

Or Nádarin, I supposed, who came into view where I lay prone and limp on the floor and said something my thoroughly jostled brain didn’t bother to translate.

I groaned and attempted to wave a forehoof in his general direction, failed to budge a muscle, and tried to speak a warning when he reached for the helmet’s release latch on my collar. Whatever came out of my disconnected mouth must have been at least semi-coherent, or aggressive, because Nádarin withdrew at once and left my discombobulated sight.

A smattering of seconds, or perhaps several minutes, later, a fluffy, ash-colored figure appeared, and a haze of pink covered me, and the rushing in my ears faded enough for words to come through.

“Careful! I think she’s concussed.”

I couldn’t help but giggle: Prince Nádarin actually sounded concerned. “Dunno ‘bout concussed,” I mumbled, reaching up reflexively to grasp Pinwheel’s foreleg with my own, “But I’m innamood f’some bacon.”

A look of utter horror came over her, and she yanked her helping hoof away, dropping me. “You leave my Rotundus alone, you wee barbarian! He didn’t mean to hurt you. He was just being rowdy, is all… and I’m sorry. Didn’t think he’d react like that; something riled him up, but I don’t know what it was.”

Compared to being introduced to the boar’s cranium at speed, falling back on my rump on the timber floor barely registered. I groaned and staggered to my hooves; my legs trembled, I stumbled sideways several steps, and spread my legs wide to wait for my inner ear to stop doing acrobatics. “Yeah, well…” I took a deep breath and the first of several steps toward my most immediate goal. “I’m… I’m… um… yeah.”

“Crystal, what’s four plus four?”

“Eight,” I muttered automatically, feeling vaguely insulted, though whether because of the question or because Nádarin had asked it, I couldn’t decide.

“Five plus nine?”

“Fourteen.” I frowned. “I’m fourteen.”

“Three times twelve?”

“Thirty-six.” I continued to frown. “Six squared. Shuddup. Head hurts.”

“… well, if she is concussed, it’s probably minor.”

“Aye, but a minor concussion is still a concussion.” Pinwheel came closer to me and squinted at my face through the wide visor of my semi-armored hazard suit, which forced me to stop, step shakily to the side, and continue past her. “You aren’t secretly a very well-preserved ghoul, are you?” I snorted. She stared, nonplussed, and muttered, “Right. Probably shouldn’t have dropped the concussed filly.”

She walked in front of me again and set a gentle hoof on my chest, causing me to come to a delayed stop, and making my head spin. “Do you hurt?” I grunted and pushed past her again. “Okay, fine, then. I’ve seen Tundy knock over bigger ponies than you, and they don’t usually get back up that quickly.” She decided to walk alongside me instead of heading me off again, and took one or two steps for my several uncertain ones across her sitting room. “Eh, hello? Miss Firecracker?”

“Fireflower,” I mumbled, and I sat down slowly near the heavenly, crackling fire in the stone hearth. After walking more than eight kilometers through the snowy mountain valleys, nothing beat a fireplace. “Not firecracker.”

“Eh… okay, Fireflower. Oi! Mister River, right? You, eh… you sit over there. Here’s a blanket. I’ll put on some tea and cocoa and start on dinner. You’re welcome to share the fireplace, but just, y’know, stay on one side and leave the wee girlie alone. I appreciate you being civil, but I haven’t forgotten you did confess to kidnappin’ the lass.” Pinwheel appeared in my field of view once again, waving her cloven hoof slowly in front of my snout. I looked up at her fluffy mane and tourmaline crest as she set a grey blanket across my back and placed at my hooves a bottle of the odd, purple and white healing potion that had to have come from Bellenast. “You are one tough little cookie, you know that? Now, I don’t rightly know how you aren’t crying ailment and agony, girlie, but if you need it, here it is.”

“I suspect whatever wounds she may have suffered have healed already. She’s an alicorn; from what I have gathered, radiation allows them to recover from nearly any injury.”

“Aye, I’m aware of that much, and that would explain it, but just where in blazes did you find an alicorn to kidnap, grandpa? I’ve met a few of them, and they’re a bit odd, yes, but I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen a wee alicorn filly, never mind one that couldn’t zap you to smithereens.”

Prince Nádarin gave a weary sigh that perfectly suited his thoughts on the matter. “I was not aware, until she claimed to be radioactive, that she was an alicorn at all. As to where I found her… in the company of Her Most Benevolent Royal Highness, Princess Blizziera, of Bellenast.”

“Right. Second question. For what reason, grandpa?”

“I thought I could leverage her for my own ends… let us say simply that I’ve come to realize I was exceptionally foolish in my haste, and very much regret my decisions today, among others.”

“Eh, yeah. Imagine that? Third question, is Little Miss Concussed, Kidnapped, and Confused there the daughter of said Royal Highness, by chance?”

“No… but she claims to be her daughter’s marefriend.”

Hoofsteps approached me. Pinwheel reappeared in my helmet-obstructed view, her expression thoroughly nonplussed, and waggled a cloven hoof toward the other half of the sitting room. “That true, girlie?” I nodded. “Huh. Grandpa, the way I see it, you have two possible destinies: Clapped in irons, or at the center of a smoking crater… make option three both, so, eh… I suggest you sit tight and pray for the former to whatever deity strikes your fancy. Or try your luck outside, if you’re so inclined.”

Prince Nádarin laughed, and trailed into a brief coughing fit. I suspected the long hike and thin air had done him more harm than I had. “Prayer, Miss Pinwheel? I’ve asked Bellenast’s very own demon to a dance. I won’t waste my breath.”

I began to giggle, and at some point, drifted off.

When next I opened my eyes, it was because of a heavy log being set into the fireplace and a small bowl of fragrant soup being nudged in front of my snout by a cloven, tourmaline green hoof. I sat up on my haunches as the fire roared and crackled with renewed vigor.

“Here you go, girlie.” Pink light covered my helmet, and Pinwheel deftly disengaged the interlocks and popped the helmet free. “Tomato and Nightcaps, fresh from the kettle. Stew’ll take a couple more hours.”

“Woah, wait--”

“Hey, hey, calm down.” Pinwheel waved her foreleg in front of me, showing off a battered, but apparently functional PipBuck. “Hear that? No clicking. You’re cool. Perfectly safe. Leastways, if you are still hot and clicking, it’s all on the inside.” She grinned an infectious grin. “Like a spicy Nightcap! That’s a mushroom, by the way. Not a drink.” She pointed at the bowl of tantalizingly aromatic soup; floating in the red mix was a cluster of chopped mushrooms. “There’s some of those mixed in. Gives it a bit of a bite, but it’ll warm you up in no time at all.”

My stomach chose that moment to steer my snout toward the bowl, and I sniffed deeply. “This isn’t radioactive, is it?”

“Oh, no, girlie. I mostly keep the safe ones, especially for guests. That’s usually Uruqhart these days.”

I puzzled over the strange name and lapped up a hot mouthful of soup. Whatever lingering drowsiness hung over me vanished in the explosion of flavor that followed. A ‘bit of a bite’ didn’t begin to do the soup justice. “Wait, mostly keep the safe ones?” I said. “So… there are not-safe ones? You eat radioactive mushrooms?”

“Eh, from time to time. It doesn’t bother me.” Pinwheel sat down at a low table nearby and levitated a knife and chisel, and she began to cut and chip at a block of wood, about the size of my head, while she talked. “Not really sure why. Might just be radiation doesn’t do much to Kirin. My Pa might know more about that, but I never thought to ask him.”

I looked around at the cozy room, and the shelves full of carved figures seemed to leap out of the shadows, when before I had been too dazed to notice them. Dozens, even a hundred or more wooden figurines festooned shelves and plinths and nooks that lined the cottage walls, ranging from tiny field mice and squirrels, raccoons and beavers, ducks and other waterfowl, owls and hawks, all the way up to a couple life-sized ponies and another Kirin in the far corner, and many other equines and creatures of the wider world. Every figure was chipped and chiseled into form, though some of them were rougher and duller; the older ones, I presumed. More detailed figures, featuring different grains and hues of wood, were polished and smooth, or made with elaborate textures carved into their surfaces, though not a one was painted.

“All I know is, it doesn’t make me sick quite the same way as it does most folk. Still makes me sick, eventually, but it takes a pretty heavy dose before I notice, and at that point, I have bigger problems.”

“Bigger problems than radiation sickness?” That stole my attention away from the impressive array of carved figures. “What do you mean?”

“Eh.” She gestured around at the densely decorated space of her sitting room. “Y’know, wood everywhere. Don’t want to set anything on fire. Wouldn’t hurt me, but it’s a pain to rebuild things from scratch… I had enough of that growin’ up. Told myself when I finally built my own place, I’d never have to build it again. Held myself to that goal, so far.”

I thought of the embers glowing in her mane, when I had torched her on reflex, and shivered. “My mane sort of catches on fire when I get really mad, sometimes, but it’s more like… magic venting, than actual fire. It isn’t hot enough to burn anything, just singes my mane a bit. Not because of radiation, though. It’s happened more in the last couple weeks, but I’m pretty sure it’s because… well, a lot of things have made me angry.” I nodded toward Prince Nádarin. “Like being kidnapped.”

“Understandable.” Pinwheel shook her fluffy head. “For me, it’s not exactly because of the radiation, but I get… eh, twitchy, when the sickness sets in. Makes me lose my cool more easily. When a Kirin loses their cool, I mean really loses it, things get hot. Very hot. We’re creatures of fire, see, like phoenixes, or dragons. Doesn’t hurt us, but fire tends not to care what it spreads to around you. I don’t have Mum’s temper, thank goodness. She burned our house down three times when I was little, bless her heart, and burned it half down every third moon, feels like.” She grinned and raised her cloven hoof. “More ‘n a few Kirin take up carpentry, wouldn’t you know? Small wonder.”

I giggled. My muzzle had begun to feel uncomfortably dry from the heat, so I stripped out of the environmental suit, set it aside, and spun my back toward the fireplace, taking care to keep my long tail tucked to the side. I spread my wings wide, stretching them in motions I’d seen Zephyr perform after flying; my feathers had begun to grow out, but only just, and it would be at least a week, likely two, before I would be able to attempt controlled flight of any kind.

Other than the fire, only a couple candles lit the cozy room, and the curtained and shuttered windows rattled slightly in their sturdy frames while the blizzard raged outside. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine the fireplace was in Night Cloud’s house, instead.

On the opposite side of the stone hearth from where I sat, a little more than two meters from the fire, Prince Nádarin lay on the floor beneath a blanket, deeply asleep. Even slumbering, he appeared exhausted.

“Is he okay?”

“I’d say Mister River’s get up an’ go got up an’ went,” said Pinwheel. “Don’t think he’s quite used to the mountain life.”

“He’s from the desert. Way west of Bellenast. Prince Nádarin, from the Kekalo Empire.”

“Is that right? Yikes. Prince or not, fellow picked the wrong place to strand himself; the air’s a wee bit thinner up here.”

“Feels good,” I said, sipping the tomato and mushroom soup. “Never thought I’d say that… I hate the cold, but thin air… it’s familiar, I guess.”

“Familiarity breeds comfort, so they say… though I reckon a fire helps more on that front. Where you from, girlie?”

“Neighvarro, for most of my life, but the mountains way east of here, more recently. Near the Celestial Coast.”

The ash-grey Kirin stopped carving for a moment to look at me. “Huh… how about that?”

Pinwheel didn’t inquire further, but glanced at me from time to time while she carved the statue held in her cloven hooves, whittling with her short-bladed knife, various chisels, and tiny files, all levitated one at a time to cut away different portions and then returned to a belt hanging across her chest. I watched while I ate. Over about half an hour, the statue’s form grew more and more refined, and I recognized the long, narrow horn, and the wavy profile of a mane the hue of which too many ponies confused with pink. Only after finishing most of the finer details of the mane and head did Pinwheel use a needle-fine chisel to etch my cutie mark into the figurine, and then she began to sand down the rough edges and filing marks. She smiled, nodded to herself, and levitated the statue over to set it at my hooves. “What do you think?”

The I couldn’t look away from it, at first; even in a rough state, it was an astonishingly accurate rendition of me, considering how quickly the Kirin mare had made it. Even my wings were sculpted with pinfeathers, instead of mature plumage. “Um… it’s really pretty.” Then I began to flush. “I mean, I’ve never—nopony’s ever made a statue of me before…”

Pinwheel chuckled and levitated the statue over to a table in the corner, which was covered with other statues of creatures in various states of final polishing. “I like to make one for every visitor I get; I don’t see most of them again, so it’s a nice way to remember everyone I’ve met. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all!” I couldn’t help but giggle and smile. “Um… I’m flattered. How long have you been making all these?”

“Oh, since I was… eight or nine, I think, so almost twenty years now!”

She had practiced her craft for longer than my entire lifetime; it was no wonder that the mare was so skilled and quick to carve such fantastic figures. “You know, I think you could make a lot of money, selling these.”

At that, Pinwheel shrugged. “I do, sometimes. Not these, mind; not my personal collection. When I make trips to Bellenast, or anywhere else, really, I do carvings in the markets. Bit rougher than these, usually. Set up a little booth and let anyone pose, get a figurine of a favorite critter, or their pets. Or themselves. Kids don’t much care to sit still long enough for that, but couples usually like it. Still, I didn’t start doing it to make money, just because it was fun.” I immediately envisioned a much taller figurine to accompany mine. “So, did one of those Unity gals snatch you up, dunk you in their vats of rainbow goo, then drop you off in Bellenast?”

Suddenly self-conscious, I folded my wings tightly. “Rainbow goo?” I muttered, then shook my head. “No, um… I mean… I was unconscious, somepony gave me a potion while I was, um… at the hospital in Bellenast. Probably, um… Doctor Claraby, or maybe Orchid Wisp; she’s an alicorn, but she’s not part of Unity anymore.”

“Oh. And here I thought they took all their newbies all the way to that place in Splendid Valley… what was it, Merry Filly?”

“Um… Maripony, I think, but they didn’t take me there. I guess they keep some of the Potion in Bellenast. How do you know anything about it?”

“A few of those gals showed up a couple years ago, stopped by my cottage… chatted for a while. They were a bit strange, not the best conversationalists, if you ask me, but they seemed nice enough. They drop by every now and then.”

My ears perked. “How often?”

She glanced at one of the windows and shrugged. “Eh. Whenever they feel like it. Some folks around here don’t much like them, but they never did any harm to me. I invited them to stay inside during a blizzard once, so I guess they see me as a friendly face.” Pinwheel rose and went over to her kitchen, and came back moments later with her own bowl of soup, possibly a second helping. “Suppose I made a good impression on them, even if they can’t recruit me. You can seem them flying over the valley, sometimes, when the weather’s clear. Usually after any big storm, too; I figure maybe they’re flying search and rescue or something. You might very well see them once this one passes.”

“That’s… good to know.” Extraordinarily so; if I could catch the attention of one of the alicorns, and they were willing to help me, that could be a means to return to Bellenast within a few hours, or contact Ivy, at the least. I eyed the mare’s PipBuck and said, “You don’t have a shortwave radio, do you? A transmitter?”

“I do,” said Pinwheel, but before my spirits could rise, she added, “But it wouldn’t do you any good. You’d need to climb halfway up a mountain to reach anyone beyond the next valley over, and that’s on a perfect day. Uruqhart’s uses it sometimes, so I just leave it out in the barn. Trust me, girlie: There’s no way you’d talk to anyone in Bellenast on that old thing. Not worth your time.”

“Who’s Uruqhart, and what else is in the barn?”

“A minotaur fellow, from a wee village just over the mountain, little bit east. Barn’s full of tools and scrap, few old guns, bits and bobs, y’know. A wood furnace and forge, and a big ol’ power hammer, for whacking on iron and whatnot. Was my granpappy’s, but I never much cared to use it, so I let Uruqhart set up shop. I hardly go in there these days, so it’s really more his space than mine. He even fixed the generator, so the water wheel’s not so useless anymore. Course, river still freezes, so it’s out of commission for a little longer.”

“Power hammer?” I murmured, mostly to myself; I had an inkling of what such a tool was, but had never seen one. It was an excuse to be in a different building than the Kekalo Prince. I put my hazard suit on once again and made for the front door. “For blacksmithing?”

“Aye. Now, I can shape a nail or fix a cart harness when I need to, but that’s as far as I go with metal. Wood’s more my game, and—hey, wait, you’re not thinkin’ to go out there in the middle of a blizzard, are you?!”

“And if I am?” I wrapped the grey blanket tightly around myself and looked back at Pinwheel Malaise.

The ash-grey and tourmaline-green Kirin stared in kind. “Well… you’re a wee bit bonkers, is what I’d say, if that’s what you plan to do. I dunno what kind of weather you got way up there in Neighvarro, girlie, but here in the mountains, if you go outside in a swirly like this, you’ll freeze solid in about twenty minutes. It’s not just the snow, but the wind. On a calm day, it’s not too bad, but the wind’ll sap your body heat like nothing else, lass, and you don’t have a lot of body to hold body heat with.”

No matter where I went, it seemed someone else would tell me what I had known for most of my life. “You said there’s a furnace?”

Pinwheel nodded slowly. “Aye, there is a furnace, and I reckon you could light it, with that green torch on your head, but it’s—lemme see, here.” She stepped over to one of her windows, pulled back the thick drapes and hefty shutter, and peered through the glass at what appeared to be a thermometer in a metal cage fastened to a pole projecting from the wall. “Ah, yes. As I thought.” She closed the shutter and drapes again; every window I could see was reinforced and covered similarly. “It’s damnably cold, should it interest you, and that snow’s deeper than you are tall.”

“I shoveled snow up to my chest for eight kilometers. I think I can dig a trench twenty meters to your barn.” Swallowing the urge to grind my teeth or growl in exasperation, I said, “Look, I’ve been stuck outside during blizzards before, without a furnace nearby. I know how dangerous it is, and I know how to take care of myself. I’m not some clueless city pony.”

“I never said you were.” Pinwheel simply continued to stare, then sighed and met me at the door to her makeshift airlock. “Fine. Don’t know what it is you’re looking for, but fine.”

“That radio, for starters, and I want to look at the tools.”

The Kirin mare fairly boggled. “What are you, a compulsive tinkerer, or something?” She pointed toward my rear. “That what that blowtorch on your behind means? You have to mess with contraptions, or you get antsy? Because I can understand that; Uruqhart’s the same way, and I can’t sit long without getting’ an urge to go hiking, myself. I get it. I just don’t think now’s the best time to indulge, girlie.”

“Compulsive tinkerer…” I thought of the circumstances under which my mark appeared, and could only agree. “Yeah. Sure. I like tools, making things. Couldn’t bring mine with me, when I left home to go to Bellenast. I found… I met a new friend, who has a lot of tools, just a few days ago. I was kind of stuck in one place, so I was working on a couple things while I had the chance. Went outside for some fresh air this morning.” I pointed at the snoozing Prince Nádarin. “Then this jerk flew out of nowhere in his friggin’ magic sandstorm and kidnapped me. He was going to try to use me as leverage…”

Pinwheel Malaise tilted her head and raised a hoof, clicking her toes together. “Well, if you want to get the attention of someone really important, kidnapping a filly that’s important to them does make sense… until or unless said filly turns out to be a troublesome kidnappee.”

I snorted. “Yeah. Anyway, that radio probably has way more transmitting power than the emergency beacon in my hazard suit, so I want to try to relay the beacon’s signal if I can, get a few more kilometers out of it. One of my friends programmed that same frequency into his power armor, and he’ll be looking for it from the air. Even if I can’t talk to anyone, if I can transmit from somewhere higher in this valley, he should able to pick it up from a bit farther away.” I looked at Nádarin again. We hadn’t lowered our voices at all, and yet the Prince slumbered through our conversation, stirring not once; either that, or he had listened to every word, and was a good actor. “Will you be okay, alone with him?”

Pinwheel barely gave the Prince a glance. “Girlie, of the two of you, he’s giving me the least worry. If I don’t see that furnace lit inside three minutes, I’ll come out there and drag you back.”

“Three minutes.”

“Aye, girlie.” Pinwheel Malaise rapped her cloven hoof three times on the timber floor. “Three minutes. I’ll look for the light from my window. It’ll take a long time for that furnace to warm the place up, and even then, most of that heat will go straight up and out the rafters; that barn’s not all that insulated, y’know, on account of bein’ a barn. So, you light it, and you stay near it for a while, understand? And there’s plenty of firewood stacked outside, on the east wall. You can levitate that up through one of the loft windows, instead of going back outside again. I’m not going to babysit you, if you’re dead set on going out there, but you’d better not make me regret it when that fancy Bellenastian princess of yours shows up.”

I sighed and muttered, “I don’t think that’ll happen today.”

For a moment, she matched my disheartened expression, and sighed. “No… I expect not… if nothing else, lass, once Uruqhart comes tomorrow, day after, maybe, we can all go up to one of the passes together and shout into the radio from there.” She pointed one hoof at me. “Not a bad idea, to bounce that signal, like you said. Might be what we do.” She then strode over to me and prodded my breastplate, staring down with turquoise eyes that put a librarian to shame. “And don’t you dare think about climbing up one of those peaks on your wee lonesome, lass. You don’t know these mountains, and you don’t know the critters, either. Slip up once, and either one might kill you.”

My ears fell flat. “I’m just going to the barn.”

“Aye,” said Pinwheel Malaise, “Best you remember that.” She nodded and gestured to the door. “Well, take that blanket with you, anyway, and come back in two hours. Best you leave the guns alone. Those are Uruqhart’s, and last I checked, he was still trying to fix them. Bit of a project of his. And whatever you mess with—”

“Put it back where I found it, leave it as clean as I found it?”

“Eh, yeah. Exactly.”

“Not the first time I’ve gone into somepony’s workshop. I won’t break anything.” I stopped by the door, levitating the blanket onto my back. “What happens in two hours?”

“The sun goes behind the mountains, is what happens.”

I immediately felt stupid for having to ask. “Then the real cold hits.”

“Aye. Then the real cold hits, faster than you’d think. One of those things that can kill you. So, light the furnace in three minutes, keep at least two logs burning, stay near it, more logs outside the east wall, and come back in two hours. Got all that, Fireflower?”

I had to smirk. Strange as it was for anyone but Zephyr to call me by the nickname, it felt somehow right, coming from the Kirin. “Got it.” I began to telekinetically unlatch the door to the cabin’s makeshift airlock.

Pinwheel Malaise stared at me evenly for a moment more, then levitated the statuette of me over from her work table and shook it in her pink magic. “Should have given you some tusks,” said the Kirin as she went to her kitchen.

“Why?” I paused in the doorway, fastening my hazard suit’s helmet once more.

“Because the only way you could be so stubborn is if you’re part boar, girlie!”

I giggled, shut the inner door, and made for the one that would take me to the howling cold beyond. Before I opened the outer door, I examined the pistol I had taken from Prince Nádarin: The gun was a dull blue-black, and had no mouth grip, and its polished finish was all but worn away entirely, but it was clean. A thin, tarnished line of copper was inlaid into each side of the slide, and miniscule, cloudy gemstones marked each end of both lines; a telekinetic guide, or so it felt to me, judging by the thaumic charge that seemed to buzz within the pea-sized gems.

The magazine curved from the rear of the gun, down and around an integral storage compartment made of press-formed metal, and terminated immediately below the end of the barrel, and so it completed a semi-circular profile, making the pistol look like half of a disc. It had reinforced attachment points for use with a battle saddle, though I doubted that the Prince ever had needed wear one.

Along the squared framing of the slide were stamped markings, and I snorted in bemusement as I read a familiar acronym I had seen first on a slightly larger cartridge, in a dilapidated, and fake, Sparkle-Cola warehouse in the desert, hundreds of kilometers away. “Grackle, eight millimeter…okay.” I found the safety switch, itself inlaid with tarnished copper, detached the curved magazine briefly, and pulled back the slide to inspect the parts Eagle had taught me about, little more than a month prior, when we had prepared to leave Cloud Loft Peak. While the gun’s exterior was ancient, some of the smaller parts inside had been machined more recently. The brass casings tapered to a bottle shape and small bullets, which were hollowed out at their tips.

“Ivy,” I murmured to the frigid air as I replaced the single ejected cartridge in the magazine and reinserted it, “You are one popular mare.” I flipped the safety lever several times, listening to the soft click, and stowed the gun in my breast pocket.

I pushed the outer door open against the howling gale, and as the biting cold found its way through my hazard suit far faster than it had before, I very nearly turned around and ran inside. Gritting my teeth, I lit a spark at the tip of my armored horn and shunted it into a stream of oxygen pulled from the air, and I became a living blowtorch. I formed a telekinetic tunnel from my horn to a point in front of the thin peytral over my breast, and stepped beyond the doorway, shutting it behind me.

The magically formed torch hissed over the wind and cast a bright light over the billowing snow all around me. Even with that light, I was hard pressed to make out the barn’s silhouette in the raging blizzard, but I pushed toward it nonetheless, forming a telekinetic plow as I went. While the deep snow was only a minor obstacle so long as I kept the shape of my plow within my bounds of volume, the flurries blinded and pummeled me. In an effort to keep the snow from piling up across my helmet’s broad, unprotected visor, and to keep the cold at bay, I formed an emerald bubble around myself.

The battering by the wind caused a constant feedback into my horn, in effect allowing me to feel the pressure in a way I’d experienced only once before, when Prince Nádarin had surrounded me with sand. Instead of crushing, though, it was merely a steady pushing, and I had the opportunity to adjust my magic as I needed to walk. Instead of standing on the inside surface of the bubble, I opened a broad hole beneath my hooves and forged through the snow.

The heat of my torch spell didn’t stay within the bubble, for whatever element of its design prevented bullets and spellfire from coming through did not extend the same protection to moving air; or, at least, I didn’t know how to apply that same property to the bubble that I did with my gas collection spells. Snow gathered in a small pile on the leading side of the bubble, only to slide around it and be blown off the back. I shivered despite the hot point of light hissing at my breast and began to breath heavily not halfway to the barn.

The barn formed a merciful windbreak, and I was able to open the door with little difficulty. I staggered through the opening, shut the huge door, allowed my emerald bubble to vanish, and took in the shadowy, cavernous space while my ears adjusted to the groaning, creaking, and whistling of wind through cracks all around.

I spotted the wood furnace right away and directed my hissing torch at the kindling and crumbled charcoal already inside the cast iron barrel. I pushed more oxygen into the stream, and the hiss became a roar. Flames leapt out from the stove, and I cut my magic off. The fire calmed, crackling within the confines of the black iron, and I levitated several log pieces from the neat stack near the stove and added them to the blaze. Bright reflections danced and wavered from either side of the furnace.

“Huh…” Glancing briefly at the curved tracks set on the floor, and the worn markers set along their lengths, I pulled each of the hammer-beaten reflectors forward on squeaking wheels until they stopped at the most oft-chosen position. In moments, the warmth I felt from the fire spiked from barely noticeable to pleasant.

I turned about, shining my emerald light around the barn, and promptly failed to identify half of the immense shapes around me. If Maximillian’s vehicle bay held within its confines a treasure trove to make any mechanic smile, what lay in Pinwheel Malaise’s barn must have been some of the siblings to those precise tools. Towering frames of steel and painted iron loomed in the firelight, and innumerable shapes hung from racks on the north wall. In one corner, beneath part of the loft, there was a lathe, much simpler and more worn than the two in Maximillian’s possession, and closer in size to the smaller of them that I had used, myself.

A steel barrel, turned on its side and cut open at each end, and lined with some kind of brick, stood on a block of blackened wood and steel beams in one of the more open spaces in the center of the barn, and hammers and chisels of a dozen sizes and shapes each lay in neat rows on a rolling rack next to it. A gas cylinder and blower fan with attached ducting stood upright near the barrel, so I reasoned it must have been the forge.

Directly across from the open end of the barrel, no more than two meters away, was one tall shape, somewhat like an enormous clamp in profile, which I suspected was the power hammer. From the rear of the machine bulged a removable housing for a partially exposed motor, an enormous flywheel, and a driving belt that attached it to a smaller wheel near the top of the frame. Lubricant lines snaked along the frame from the motor to the massive piston housing at the top. Directly below the piston and the solid block attached to it, resting on a solid stone foundation, was what looked like a square anvil.

I immediately realized what the machine did, but much as I wanted to see it in action, I was in another’s domain. Instead, I looked at the north wall.

“Hell-o, honey…”

I took off my helmet, shook my mane back, and approached the wall of tools and the work tables beneath the racks. On the middle table were several guns. One was obviously a machine gun, an ammo hopper and belted cartridges intended for a battle saddle slung on its side, and the receiver of which was in a state of disassembly. One was a long rifle, immensely old, and built in a shape remarkably similar to my coach gun, when Eagle had purchased it from a trader, and before I had cut off its grip; the double-barreled rifle was sized and shaped for a minotaur’s hands.

The third weapon might have been a carriage-mounted gun at some point in its life; the barrel was nearly as thick as my foreleg, twice the length of my entire body, and the breech was roughly the size and shape of a wine bottle, a cylindrical block of steel, machined precisely, colored a deep blue-black, and polished until it shone under my emerald-tinted light. Where the barrel mated with the breech, there were shallow, straight channels along its length, and traces of lubricant. The entire thing rested on a sort of sled, a frame of steel tubing and heavy skids attached to a bearing ring mounted beneath the massive breech assembly. An empty box magazine sat on the table nearby.

I surrounded the ungainly weapon with my emerald glow and levitated it straight up just enough to clear the table and take its weight off the supporting skids; it was well within my ability to lift, and in fact put no more strain on me than the several steel bars I had use as levers in Maximillian’s vehicle bay, but, like the bars, it was so long that my ability to move it precisely was severely limited. It would have been more useful to me as a club.

I set it back down, and climbed up onto the table to look closely at the top of the gun, and its smaller companions: All three, like Nádarin’s pistol, were stamped with fine, ancient markings proclaiming that they were made by the Ivaline Rifle Company, even the one evidently made to fit in a minotaur’s grasping hand. The rifle was the oldest, the cannon the newest; and though even it was nearly one hundred and forty years old, like Nádarin’s gun, it was well-cared-for.

I jumped back to the floor. Near the workbench holding the guns, between it and the next table along the wall, was a narrow rack laden with steel plates, all dark and rough, and all pockmarked and streaked with scratches and spots of lead and copper. They ranged from only a few millimeters in thickness to one truly massive plate a meter square and about five centimeters thick. I tugged the plate out, wincing as it scraped along the support rack, and levitated it free. Numerous scratches marred its surface, as with the thinner plates, but the only substantial dents had to have been made by the cannon or double-barreled rifle, and looked as if somepony had gouged out the steel with a spoon. Even so, not one dent came close to making a protrusion on the back side of the plate.

I returned the target to its rack and moved along the wall. Some of the tools hanging above me were dusty from disuse, mostly those placed higher up. The guns and table surfaces were not. The third bench along the wall was more like a plain desk, and had a cutaway beneath for a rolling stool, both of a height I thought suitable for a minotaur’s stature.

Pinned to the wall above the desk were what appeared to be topographic and drawn maps of the region, and beneath those was the battered metal box that was the shortwave radio; rather, I assumed it to be a shortwave radio. The thing was much larger and cumbersome than any portable radio I had seen, much less used, and in fact probably wasn’t intended to be portable at all. It looked more like a piece of costly lab equipment than anything else.

I leapt onto the desk, sat down, flipped the power switch, and promptly received no indication whatsoever of a functioning radio. “No power,” I muttered. “Right.” I tugged on the lone cable on the back of the receiver and found its plug to be cut open and spliced onto an unshielded power transformer, which in turn was connected to a terminal for a spark battery array, sans battery; either Uruqhart had taken the battery with him for use with a portable radio or other tool, or he had simply disconnected it for storage.

Pinwheel Malaise was a self-professed carpenter, but I had seen not a single electrical light source in her cottage, so I very much doubted she had made the hodge-podge transformer. Uruqhart could have made it, but the lack of other electric items in the barn similarly made me skeptical.

So, I began to root through the rows upon rows of drawers available to me. Screws, nails, nuts and bolts, larger nails, shims, corrugated tin cans in varying states of integrity, washers, piles of scrap rusted and not, bits of charred rubber and synthetic cloth, greased spools of wire and steel cable, bearings and bearing rings, wrenches and pliers, screwdrivers of myriad types and sizes, drill bits galore, jars of what appeared to be gun propellant, ancient bottles of glue and paint thinner, unlabeled canisters that likely contained fuel or oil: Uruqhart, or possibly Pinwheel’s grandfather, had amassed quite the collection.

Unfortunately and annoyingly, by the time I stood back from the north wall of the barn and looked at all the parts and tools arrayed before me, I had found not a single gemstone, spark cell, thaumic capacitor, silver, gold, or platinum in any form, or anything else I would have required to power the radio, either via a cell or a precision thaumoelectric converter strapped to my horn.

There were, however, all the parts anypony could have needed for a battle saddle; I couldn’t use the radio, but the nearby drill press needed the sort of power I could provide easily enough.

I didn’t need one, but it was something to do.

An hour and a half later, I lowered the lightweight harness into place across my hazard suit’s back plate, pulled it forward onto my withers, set the straps in place around my chest, and attached Nádarin’s pistol to the rudimentary firing interface and shock absorber centered over my breast. Finally, after tightening all the straps and adjusting a counterweight over my withers, I secured the mount to my hazard suit’s peytral with a trio of bolts I had forge-welded onto the thin plate.

I raised my left foreleg and curled in my hoof to lightly kick a paddle that toggled the gun’s safety, released a volute spring that snapped the gun up from a downward stowage position, and engaged the firing trigger. A second kick outward pulled a tensioned cable and ratcheting lever attached to the internal charging mechanism.

I trotted around the barn and jumped a few times, darting back and forth among the forging tools and towering machines, and stopped suddenly to gauge the shock mount’s and trigger’s fastness, then donned my helmet once again. I aimed the gun in a broad arc to test the bearings, then unloaded it, pushed it down against the conical spring and locked it in place, and trotted back to the shelves of open drawers to begin putting away all the tools and parts I had left out.

As I neared one of the bottom drawers, something at the back of it caught my eye. It lay behind a jar of iron filings, its metal surface coated in dust and pitted by what might have been acid, a stark contrast to the one Pinwheel Malaise wore on her foreleg. I levitated the PipBuck free of the drawer and pushed several of its buttons; nothing happened. I tried every knob and switch and got the same result.

“Okay…” I quickly stripped from my battle saddle and hazard suit, and closed the band around my left foreleg. A mild, tickling sensation travelled up my leg as the arcane device’s cracked and pitted screen lit up, and the strap adjusted itself to a perfectly snug fit. The radiation detector clicked once, twice, feeble and quiet, but functional. Flakes of padding fell free from the strap as I lifted my foreleg to look at the text scrolling rapidly, too rapidly too read, along the flickering screen.

The old PipBuck’s frame was not only pitted and scored in places, but discolored by intense heat. Stable-Tec’s engineering had survived even the punishment of being worn by, evidently, a Kirin in a state of active combustion.

Ignoring the glacial, sporadic clicks from the radiation detector, and every other function provided by the PipBuck, I found the radio tuner and gave it a few hopeful turns. I heard nothing but silence no matter how long I sat and fiddled with the dial and volume knob, no matter how slow and careful I was.

Fighting back a rising growl deep in my throat, I grabbed a nearby length of steel bar stock and twisted one end of it into a lumpy ball, causing the metal to creak and loose a cloud of flaky scale and rust.

“Of bucking course,” I muttered. “Stupid bucking mountains. Stupid bucking blizzard. Whatever. Whatever!” I let the growl surface and screamed at the ceiling, slamming the makeshift bludgeon into the ground again and again, tearing great clods of dirt from the earth that fountained into the air.

Then time slowed to a crawl as the Eyes Forward Sparkle came to life and activated its targeting spell. I was all but frozen with the metal club at the height of a swing, and a thick timber lay on the ground nearby. Amber light outlined the shape of the timber, and a number appeared next to it in my sight, along with the flashing bar of the targeting spell’s charge indicator.

Why not?

Time sped back up, the spell guided my magic, and the head of the thirty kilogram club came down with a flare of green light and an explosive crunch. The timber split into two upward-sailing pieces and a spray of sharp splinters, and the entire head of the club lay in the center of a small crater. I stumbled backward and away from the falling halves of the timber and let go of the club. A sharp, debilitating pain came from my right pectoral, and there I found a splinter.

A rather large splinter. It was a centimeter across, at least, and protruded about two from my hide, where my foreleg met my chest. Blood began to color my coat below the wound, and the PipBuck began to click rapidly.

I collapsed on my haunches and gritted my teeth as the shock caught up with me, and yanked the splinter out. A gasp and whimper escaped me, and I groaned and let my leg fall limply. I bled freely from the stinging wound, but it closed up on its own gradually, leaving only a fading ache and a streak of blood down my leg. The frenetic clicking from my PipBuck slowed, and then stopped entirely. The healing seemed as if it had taken longer than it should have, at least in comparison to my injuries in the morning.

The splinter, hovering in my magic, was about six centimeters long, and two-thirds bloody.

I hung my head and bit back an angry sob, and levitated the club again to strike the earth once more, sending a spray of dirt across the barn.

I surrounded the PipBuck on my leg with emerald magic and tugged at the straps, but they refused to budge no matter how hard I pulled. My magic either failed to find purchase or simply slipped off the enchanted casing, leaving my field to flare and spike in errant splashes and wisps of heat and light. I gave another scream of frustration and slammed my foreleg on the ground, stomping the PipBuck with my other hoof.

“I don’t need help hitting things, I need a fucking radio, you stupid piece of junk—rrrrrrrgh!”

I finally gave in and cried, screaming again at the barn’s ceiling and the roaring wind and snow above it.

Then, a cloven hoof touched my back, and a fluffy mass of snow-white mane pressed against my side as Pinwheel Malaise sat by me. I looked up at her, noting the amber bar that had appeared on the compass floating in my sight. She squeezed gently and patted my side, and I lay my head on her shoulder.

After several minutes, I said, “I thought you weren’t going to baby-sit me.”

Pinwheel chuckled. “Being angry, crying, lass… doesn’t make you a baby. Just makes you hurt… maybe a little overwhelmed.” She tapped her own PipBuck against mine. “Saw your tag from the house… was my mum’s, so I had it saved in mine already… thing’s been off for years, but then your name showed up all of a sudden. Came out to tell you the radio’s broken, so you wouldn’t pitch a fit, but I see you might have done that already.”

I snorted and stomped one more time.

“I told you, girlie, soon as Uruqhart comes back, tomorrow, maybe the day after, then we’ll all go out together and set up the radio somewhere it can reach a good ways.”

“I know,” I muttered. “I just… I wanted to friggin’ try. I hate being stuck and… helpless.”

“Think everyone hates that, girlie.”

“Yeah, well… I hate it a lot.” I lifted my foreleg and stared at the PipBuck. “So how the buck does it know my name?”

“Pff. Some kind of spell in a matrix made up of dozens? Stuff is waaaay beyond my expertise, lass.”

“Well, it’s friggin’ creepy. I don’t like it.”

“Ha!” Pinwheel patted my back and tapped her cloven hoof on my PipBuck’s legendarily durable casing. “Just so y’know, girlie, the magic locks engage when you put it on. My pa disabled the ones on his—” She shook her foreleg. “—this one, that is, when he gave it to me, so I can take it off whenever I want, but Mum’s… well, it came off on its own when she passed, and Pa didn’t want to mess with it. You’re stuck with it for now.”

I grimaced. “I didn’t mean to… I mean, I didn’t want to keep it… it’s not mine… I just wanted to use the radio, but nothing worked until I put it on. I didn’t want to friggin’ glue it to my leg.”

“Eh, no worries, girlie.” Pinwheel sighed and stood up. “Besides, Mum’s not using it anymore,” she said softly. “Radio may be broken, but the rest of it still works, far as I know. You can have it. Targeting spell should be all right, and the map and sorting spell ought to work, too; Mum went all over the place, before she had me, so there should be all kinds of interesting markers in there. You’ll get more use out of it than the dust bunnies, and my Pa can take it off for you back in Bellenast. Come on, now. Let’s go back where it’s warm, okay? You’ve fiddled around with the toolbox enough for one day.”

I rose with her and wiped my tears away. Pinwheel shot of bolt of pink magic at the roaring wood furnace, and the flames inside smothered within the amorphous blob of pink that had formed and expanded over the logs where her spell had struck, plunging us into darkness. The logs smoldered, but the bright embers dimmed by the second. I gathered up my hazard suit and folded it across my back, levitating the helmet along at my side.

“Your dad lives in Bellenast?” The barn creaked and dust fell from the rafters as the wind picked up, and I had to raise my voice as Pinwheel opened the barn door and led me out. The ash-grey Kirin and I both lit our horns to light our way, and pink and emerald combined. Two more amber bars appeared on my EFS’s compass: Prince Nádarin and Rotundus. My earlier urge to tear the PipBuck off came back, though for entirely different reasons. “Why are you way out in the middle of nowhere, then?”

“It’s not the middle of nowhere,” she hollered over the wind, leaning down toward me as she forged a path through the thick snow. “More like adjacent to nowhere. There’re a couple other ponies up the river a ways, and Uruqhart’s village is just a few day’s hike east, right over the mountains. They’re nice folk, minotaurs. Lot nicer than most other folk might think.”

I followed the Kirin toward her cottage, though I wound up taking the lead with my telekinetic plow, since the blizzard had deposited a fresh filling of snow in my short-lived trench. As we entered the cottage’s semi-effective airlock and brushed ourselves clear of snow, I shivered and glanced down at the gun stowed at my breast; the safety was on, and I hoped I could leave it that way. “Has Nádarin been, um… you know, civil?”

“As can be,” said Pinwheel. “Really, girlie, I don’t think you need to worry about him. Seems an okay sort.” She rounded and rolled her eyes. “I mean, beyond the fact of kidnapping you and plotting a coup against the crown and whatnot. Think he just made a few, eh… dumb decisions, but on a princely scale.”

I frowned and said, “He wasn’t plotting a coup. Just… I don’t understand what he was trying to do. Use me as a hostage, obviously, to control my friends… Blitz, mostly, and by extension, Ivy, to confront her and force her to… tell him why his brother killed the king thirty friggin’ years ago. Thing is, Ivy doesn’t know why. Nopony knows why he did it, and Nádarin outright said he doesn’t really want revenge, not anymore, just friggin’ details. What does that do for him? Why did he bring a friggin’ army along? And the army isn’t even really listening to him.”

“His brother killed the king, eh?” Pinwheel Malaise paused before the inner door. “I remember Mum talking about that once or twice, when I was little. Years after it happened, of course. An assassination, right in the heart of the kingdom. Suppose that might cause a bit of consternation among siblings, and neighbors. Sounds like he wants closure, girlie. Must admit, he’s taking an odd route to gain a bit of understanding, if that’s the case.”

I stomped and closed the distance to the door. “I don’t want to understand it. I don’t want anything to do with it in the first place.” Pinwheel opened the inner door for us, and we returned to warmth and relative quiet after the freezing roar of the mountain weather. “I just want to friggin’ go home… now that I have one… be with my marefriend. Fix Carbide’s body, somehow… don’t know where to start with that. Maybe clear out the tools Max doesn’t need and set up a proper workshop in Bellenast. If I can find a good place to do repairs, I can make a job of it again and buy the materials I’d need.”

“Fix someone’s body?” said Pinwheel as she approached the fireplace and added another log to the andiron. Prince Nádarin had retreated a bit farther from the fire, but appeared to be asleep again. “You mean an artificial leg, or something like that?” said Pinwheel, stirring the ladle in an iron cauldron hung over the fire. She dipped a spoon in and took a taste. The aroma of spices and mushrooms coming from it had permeated the entire cottage.

“No, um… Carbide is… well, he’s a lich. At least, we’re pretty sure he is. He was using a suit of power armor as a body—” I pointed at Nádarin. “—but one of his soldiers stabbed me while I was wearing it, and kind of wrecked the suit, so now Carbide’s stuck without a body. That friggin’ sucks. He saved my life, friggin’ over and over again, and I want to fix the suit, so he can use it again. I won’t be able to wear it much longer, anyway. Won’t fit me anymore.”

The Kirin stared at me quizzically for a moment, then nodded. “Oh, I gotcha. Said you were fourteen, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. And I’m pregnant, so even if I don’t grow much, I still won’t be able to wear the suit for a while, starting sometime in the next month, probably.” I shrugged my wings and sat near the fire and bubbling stewpot, looking at the Prince; under the firelight, his coat took on a shade of more intense orange than it had appeared under sunlight and surrounded by snow. “Why isn’t his marker red?”

“Eh?” Pinwheel gave him a brief look. A frown had appeared on his face, and Nádarin flicked one ear in the Kirin’s direction, then toward me. “Oh, that? Well, if he’s not red, means he doesn’t want to fight. Probably.”

“Probably?” I muttered as the stallion opened his eyes. “A solid yes or no would be nice.”

Pinwheel chuckled and trotted back toward her kitchen. “Afraid that’s up to him, girlie,” she called back. “One thing my Pa did teach me about PipBucks is they read every living thing around you, and some non-living things, too; not mind-reading, exactly, but more like, eh… a rough measure of your intentions, although I’ve no idea how it does it. That marker wouldn’t be red unless he wanted to hurt you.” She poked her head out from the dividing kitchen wall and pointed between Nádarin and me. “It’s not what you think of him, but what he thinks of you.”

Prince Nádarin glanced between the two of us, fully awake. “I never wanted to harm you, Crystal,” said the Prince. “And fighting… or trying to would accomplish nothing good, at this point.” He settled his gaze on me, and the frown grew deeper and more weary. “Did I hear you correctly?”

I lay down, crossed my forelegs, and tugged the grey blanket Pinwheel had lent me across my back once again. “Want to be more specific?”

The old stallion coughed a few times, wincing, and said, “You’re pregnant?”

I snorted and glanced down at my flank; I doubted anypony other than Zephyr would have noticed, but I was fractionally larger around the belly than I had been just a month ago. “Yeah. About three months. Why? Does knowing that somehow make kidnapping me any worse a decision?”

Nádarin let out a weak laugh in contrast to the defeated look on his face, and at a volume he likely thought I couldn’t hear, murmured, “Nádarin, you fool… Emperor spare me.” He broke into a brief coughing fit, and over the crackling of the fire and burbling of the stew in its cauldron, there came a slight wheeze on the Prince’s breaths. “Crystal, I am sorry to have involved you in this… however little it means to you.”

“Tell that to my marefriend. She might be really nice and pretty, but right now, she’s probably reconsidering her oath to do no harm.”

“Oath?” Nádarin looked puzzled. “She is a doctor? What is her name?”

“Night Cloud. Nubiála Noča.”

“Ah.” he said softly. “Nubiála Noča… Čekere dialect, but favoring Equestrian style… that would make her tribe… Panača, Gundagára, Igaskú or… Réklat?”

“Last one.”

“Hm.” The Prince made an odd look of discomfort. “That explains one thing… no wonder she travelled so far from home.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Réklat are… somewhat antiquated in their traditions. A great many things have changed in the Empire, since the outer tribes broke away, generations ago. Nubiála Noča would be welcome in the Empire, no matter whom she chooses to love.”

“That’s nice,” I said, drawing the blanket higher on my neck. “Kinda makes me want to see the place.”

“It is a beautiful land, home to a wonderful people… I sincerely hope my actions, and the actions of those who follow me, haven’t made the Kekalo into an evil specter in your eyes.”

I looked down at the pistol braced and stowed against my breast, and the PipBuck locked onto my foreleg: Minor additions to my natural arsenal. My host’s pet was a greater threat than an ill, aging stallion with a broken horn.

“You keep saying they follow you… when was the last time they listened to you?”

“I have begun to doubt,” murmured Prince Nádarin, gazing into the fire, “That they ever truly did.”

“Okay, supper time!” Pinwheel Malaise trotted back from the kitchen with a trio of bowls floating her pink field. “And you haven’t bitten each other’s heads off, peachy.” She filled one bowl and set it in front of me, and gave the next to Nádarin. “Here you go, girlie, Mister River. It’s piping hot.”

“Thank you, Miss Pinwheel.”

“Thanks.”

“Aye, my pleasure. Don’t burn yourselves.”

I held the hot bowl between my hooves, blowing on the fragrant broth and vegetables. Pinwheel pulled another block of wood from a stack of similar ones in the corner of the room and began to carve while her own bowl cooled. “Do you think they know where you are? Your soldiers, whoever’s in charge?”

“Mmm…that would be Noba, most likely… a masterful manipulator of crystalline particulates, and spells of illusion and animation.”

“He made the big sand snake golem?”

“Yes. Trying to draw Princess Blizziera’s attention.” Nádarin’s brow wrinkled in consideration. “As for whether he knows where I went… unlikely. Capturing you was a spur-of-the-moment idea, and I wasn’t trying to go nearly so far from Bellenast as we did. In theory, it is possible to trace the path of a spatial tunnel, if one knows what to look for; Noba doesn’t. I’ve never tried it, nor had a reason to do so.”

“What about Argent Nimbus?” I said. “He made the spell, right? Could he do that? Trace where it went?”

“I would wager he is the only pony in the world who can.”

On a field of snow beyond the walls of Bellenast, where fence posts and grasses came up from the blanketing white, where ponies were hard at work, clearing roads and invaluable fields under conditions foreign to most of them, a steel titan stood silent vigil. Sensor booms and receiver dishes would rotate glacially one way, begin their slow sweep across the horizon, and sweep again the other way in an overlapping pattern.

On the cold surface, the titan was calm. Only the movements of the sensor dishes and the occasional, muffled roar of the eldritch furnace at his heart betrayed that the machine was not inert.

I have failed.

[Invalid input. Disregarding input.]

[Simulation complete. Results derived per user input. Displacement: 97,000 m ± 4,000 m. Vector: 39° ± 0.5° relative.]

Beneath the complex subroutines and control cores and feedback mechanisms that formed his nervous system, and which linked the mind within to the outside world, the titan was a trickling stream of thoughts.

I have failed.

[Invalid input. Disregarding input.]

Thoughts, and interpretations thereof.

(Cognitive anomaly detected. Probability of neurosphere rampancy 95% or higher. Engaging heuristic block: ERROR: heuristic block suppressed. Log written to primary storage. ERROR: Write failure. Unknown storage failure. Log written to temporary buffer. Recommended administrator action: Full system diagnostic.)

The titan altered a few parameters in the operation running in one of his subroutines.

[Confirmed. Data set registered. Variable delta registered. Variable: “Unicorn of Sufficient Power” +1125% from control. Update?]

Update simulation and start.

[Confirmed. Simulation conditions updated. Beginning iteration 372 of Simulation “Cheating Space.” Please wait.]

I do not like waiting.

[Invalid input. Disregarding input.]

A pony approached the titan from above the stone ramparts that had seen a thousand years and more of weathering prior to their eventual refurbishment. Within a fraction of a millisecond, a series of signals transmitted across the air at the speed of light, returned, and were analyzed by the titan’s electronic and thaumic feedback net.

{Thaumic signature incoming: “H.R.H. Princess Blizziera Firenza” Undying Entity; Balefire-class thaumic contaminant present. Mandatory response: Advise personnel to seek shelter in shielded compartments. Issuing general alarm. ERROR: Action suppressed. Unknown system failure. Issuing alert to Control Protocol Core.}

I have failed.

[Invalid input. Disregarding input.]

(Alert! Control failure detected. Cognitive anomaly detected. Probability of neurosphere rampancy 95% or higher. Engaging Heuristic block. ERROR: heuristic block suppressed. Log written to primary storage. ERROR: Write failure. Unknown storage failure. Log written to temporary buffer. Recommended administrator action: Full system diagnostic.)

But wait I must. I must find her.

[Invalid input. Disregarding input.]

The alicorn clad in polished steel barding and grey caparison landed near the titan, and he inclined the primary lens of his observation module downward to look at the royal mare as she cantered the remaining distance.

Am I a cyclops?

[Invalid input. Disregarding input.]

I dislike waiting.

[Invalid input. Disregarding input.]

(Cognitive anomaly detected: Non-sequitur. Probability of neurosphere rampancy 95% or higher. Engaging heuristic block: ERROR: Heuristic block suppressed. Log written to primary storage. ERROR: Write failure. Unknown storage failure. Log written to temporary buffer. Recommended administrator action: Full system diagnostic.)

[Simulation complete. Results derived per user input. Displacement: 97,000 m ± 3,950 m. Vector: 39° ± 0.5° relative.]

I have failed.

[Invalid input. Disregarding input.]

(Cognitive anomaly detected: Cognitive loop. Probability of neurosphere rampancy 99% or higher. Engaging heuristic block: ERROR: Heuristic block suppressed. Log written to primary storage. ERROR: Write failure. Unknown storage failure. ERROR: Access violation in Caretaker Protocol Core. ERROR: Process terminated. Restarting. Please wait. ERROR: Access violation in Heuristic Engine Analysis Protocol Core. ERROR: Invalid input. ERROR: Access violation in Caretaker Protocol Core. ERROR: Process terminated. FATAL SYSTEM ERROR: Caretaker Protocol Core not found. FATAL SYSTEM ERROR: Heuristic Engine Analysis Protocol Core not found. Contact a system administrator.)

I hate waiting.

The alicorn levitated and unrolled a large map of the region around Bellenast. “Were you able to refine your estimate?”

“Ninety-seven kilometers, plus or minus five kilometers, centered on bearing forty degrees plus or minus one degree relative to my position. The composited area of uncertainty is approximately two hundred square kilometers.” A boom unfolded from the titan’s hull and slowly, carefully prodded the map while the armored mare held it in place before him, and she drew a circle on the map afterward. “The prior fifty simulations yielded diminishing improvements to prediction accuracy. The data I recorded is of insufficient resolution.”

“It’s good enough.” The titan focused his attention through the camera feed on the manipulating arm near the mare, and she set a hoof on the plow on the front of his hull. “Thank you, Max. Whatever I can do to repay you once this is—”

“I failed.”

The deep violet alicorn stared up at the titan in surprise.

“I could not protect her.” Maximillian thrust his three claws into the snow and frozen ground, tearing the soil in deep furrows. “You asked me to protect her. I could not. I failed.”

Blitz stowed the map in her saddlebags and shook her head. “She wanted some fresh air, Max… not your fault the prince saw her outside. Wrong place, wrong time, nothing more.”

“I should have instructed her to stay inside. I could have prevented this.”

The steel-clad mare chuckled. “She’s a filly. Can’t lock a kid in a cage for long… trust me on that.”

“Even if it would have protected her?”

“Especially if it would have.” The alicorn, born of flesh and blood and corrupted by balefire, pawed at the ground. “I was in a cage for more than half my life, Max. It was the safest, most comfortable cage you could imagine. It was perfect in every way. I loved it… but somepony scraped away the silver coat and let me see the rusted iron underneath.”

“I believe I lack the context to understand your metaphor.”

The princess laughed. “Long story. Point is, Crystal wouldn’t let you lock her inside all day… and there was little you could have done against that kind of magic, anyway. You might have a fancy telekinetic gizmo, but you aren’t a unicorn.” Blitz leapt skyward and hovered level with Maximillian’s main lens. “Thanks for your help, Max. Now, sit tight. We’ll bring her back.”

The titan watched her fly away. Mere minutes later, the princess and five others, followed closely by a uniformed group, flew up from Bellenast and made haste over the mountains.

I am powerless to do anything else.

Having little to do in Pinwheel’s cottage while the blizzard raged at full strength outside, beyond practicing my shield spell—and without a safe way to test its resilience against spells or guns, that practice served only to help me form the shield faster, not to know how much it would help—I pored over the map stored in my not-so-new PipBuck. Not long into that venture, I discovered a few things about the PipBuck: It was somewhat heavier than it looked, while simultaneously being impossibly snug and secure on my leg, it was laced with so many overlapping and sympathetic enchantments that I couldn’t tell what any single one of them did, and holding the stupid thing up to look at its screen for longer than about a thirty seconds at a time was extremely uncomfortable. So, I resorted to lying on my side, holding my foreleg on a carefully piled blanket so that I could peruse the data accumulated over a lifetime in a semblance of comfort.

Pinwheel Malaise’s mother had travelled all across Equestria and beyond, and the location markers numbered in the thousands. The northernmost marker was a stretch of mountains called the Yaket Range, and the southernmost was a Kludgetown in the immense deserts far, far beyond Cliffside, which also was marked on the automap. She had explored the cities of Fillydelphia and Manehattan exhaustively—Manehattan alone had several hundred distinct markers, one of which, Tenpony Tower, was labelled with a star—the Everfree Forest and the Whitetail Wood, visited the collapsed ruins of Cloudsdale, Canterlot, the San Palomino Desert and the Forest of Leota, and she had seen at least the entrances of no fewer than thirteen different Stables.

She also had visited Splendid Valley, which was labelled with an exclamation point, as was an entire swath of territory northeast of Trottingham, called ‘Bugbear Territory.’

Closer to Pinwheel’s cottage, which had its own label, was one marker that caught my interest. It also was twenty-six kilometers to the northeast, and more than two thousand meters higher than Pinwheel’s home.

I sighed and tore my gaze away from the map, rubbing my eyes, climbed to my hooves, and walked over to the kitchen. “Pinwheel,” I said, yawning, “Have you ever been to the ‘Gelgrin Valley Weather Station?’”

“Ehhhhh, yeah, once,” called the Kirin from the root cellar in the far corner. She shut the hatch on her way up the narrow staircase. “Went there with Uruqhart a few years ago. That’s where he found that old radio. Why?”

“Well, it would be the perfect place to transmit a long-range signal.”

“Yes, it certainly would be,” said Pinwheel, trotting into the corner room of the cottage; while the door was open, I was able to see Rotundus in a sturdy pen, and a set of thick curtains over a doorway that must have led outside. Pinwheel came back out with another folded blanket on her back, as well as a pair of knitted cushions held in her pink glow. “And no, we’re not going there. Too dangerous. It’s a fiendishly difficult climb on a good day, and that’s in the summer, when it’s slightly above freezing. No-one’s fixed the path up there in the last, y’know, two centuries. Also, storm nagas like to nest there.”

“Oh,” I muttered. “Well, screw that place… where will we go, then?”

“A little cave, just up the river a bit. Here, lemme see that PipBuck.” I held my foreleg up for her to see the screen, and she scrolled the map screen up southwest along the Gelgrin Valley from the weather station marker, until her cottage’s marker appeared in the center. She then turned the knobs slowly to center the map on an unmarked coordinate about one and a half kilometers northeast from her home, high up on a mountain ridge on the other side of the river. “Now hang on a moment.” The Kirin levitated her own PipBuck down from a wooden peg on the wall in the kitchen, strapped it on, and opened her own map screen. She rapidly cycled through the menus on the device, pressed a sequence of buttons with her pink magic, and suddenly, on my PipBuck, a marker appeared near the center of the map. “There you go!”

“Cap… say-sin Cave? What’s ‘capsaicin?’”

“It’s the stuff in peppers that makes them spicy.” She hung her PipBuck back on the peg and pulled a tiny, faded orange mushroom out of a basket in a cabinet near it. “Also these. They grow in some of the caves, but only the bigger, deeper ones, where the air’s less affected by the weather outside.” She put the mushroom back and said, “That cave, as it happens, is quite deep. I used to go way down into it to find these, but I found another cave over near where I found you and Mister River. That one’s a lot safer to crawl through. But the one up on the mountain has a bigger entrance, so we can shelter inside if the weather goes bad, and it’s much closer to home.”

“Are blizzards pretty frequent here at this time of year?”

-What have we here?-

The sultry voice made my hackles stand on end and my ears straighten. I stood stock-still, then looked around and turned until three amber bars appeared on my compass to the north.

“Eh, not normally,” said Pinwheel. “Some places a little west, they never quite stop, but this is unusual for…hey, what’s up, girlie?”

-A foal, and a stallion? What company does Pinwheel Malaise have today?-

The bars drifted slightly apart, then zipped off to my right. I spun around and found them again, and I raced for the front door.

“Hey, wait a minute! Crystal!”

Nádarin looked over and climbed to his hooves as I threw the door open and bolted down the cold, short tunnel that rattled and creaked in the howling wind. A green-gold glow came from outside. I opened the outer door and cantered out into the howling, bone-deep chill—except the wind was distant, and muffled.

-No… not quite a foal after all?-

I stood in an enormous bubble of the same green-gold light, scintillating and startlingly bright in the dark of the roaring blizzard. Three mares strode forward and stopped a few meters in front of me. All three were tall and strong, and beautiful to me, their coats deep shades of green, purple, and blue. The green one in the center was slightly larger than the blue one on the left, and the purple mare looked nearly the same age as Night Cloud, but was not as tall or slender.

The purple mare’s eyes widened in surprise. The blue mare frowned, cautious. The purple one took another few steps forward, then stopped as if from an unspoken command.

I swallowed. “Can you please help me?” I said, looking up at the tall mares. “I need to go back to Bellenast! My friends are all trying to find me, but they don’t know where to look. Can you take me there, or tell Ivy where I am? Please?”

“Oi! Crystal, get back in here!”

I ignored Pinwheel’s hollering, but glanced back briefly as Prince Nádarin followed me through from the outer door. His curious expression quickly became one of great worry, even fear.

-Ivy?-

I jerked my gaze back onto the three alicorns.

-Oh.-

The blue one eyed Nádarin. The purple one looked at me with curiosity. A crawling sensation crept up my neck as the green mare stepped forward. A spike of pain in my head made me dizzy, and a lightning flash of images crossed my mind’s eye. I stumbled to the side in a fit of vertigo, and Nádarin’ braced me with his foreleg.

-Oh my.-

The sultry voice caressed, and at the same time sent shivers down my spine.

-You’re one of hers.-

The green alicorn began to smirk.

-How very… interesting.-

13. Pact

View Online

Chapter 13

Pact

-But it begs the question.- The green alicorn stepped yet closer to me, head held high and orange eyes flicking between Nádarin and me. -Whatever are you doing here, so very far from home?-

I frowned and took an uncertain step back. “Does it matter? Look, can you help me, or not? Please? I just need you to tell Ivy or Blitz I’m here, so they can—” Nádarin set a hoof on my chest and tugged, trying to interpose himself between the trio and me, but I slapped his foreleg away. “Don’t touch me,” I snarled out of the corner of my mouth.

“Crystal,” he said tersely, “They are not to be trifled with.”

-Maybe we can help you.- The grin faded from the green mare’s lips, and her attention turned to Nádarin. -And who is your… oh, he’s not a friend at all, is he? What—

The alicorn jerked her head back and flared her wings, glaring at Nádarin in anger as the bright bubble above us vanished, and the blizzard’s searing fangs bit into us all. I staggered backward into the doorway.

“My mind is my own, alicorn,” said Nádarin’, straining to make himself heard over the wind, “And neither you nor your Goddess shall violate it.”

The green mare drew her wings back in and stomped the snow, teeth bared and ears flat against her head. Her horn flared with the same green-gold light, and the shield formed anew to protect us from the biting cold. The mare’s lips pulled back, and she said in a hiss, “Bite your tongue, you—”

Then she yelped as a dark wing smacked the back of her head, and the blue alicorn dragged her green companion in a soft red haze. “For fuck’s sake, Nautical,” said the blue mare, “Knock it off.” Her voice was rough and scratchy, in stark contrast to the haughty tones of her taller, green companion, and her eyes were a bright amber color. She also was the only one of the three who wore barding as well as saddlebags, the canvas and straps of which were threadbare and in dire need of some stitching. “It’s hard enough talking to anyone around here when you let me go first. Don’t need you channeling big boss right now, ‘kay? Kay.”

Nautical, wearing a scowl to match the blue alicorn, muttered, “We were not channeling—”

“We, we, we,” she said, then sang in falsetto, “We we we, me me me me meeeee. Come on, Naut, you’re better than that. Look at him: His horn’s broken. He’s no threat to us, and you’re just scaring the kid.”

“Oh, hey, it’s you gals!” Pinwheel came up behind us and squeezed in between Nádarin and me. “Thought I recognized that light. Hey, Skipper, Nautical. Hi, Minty!”

“Hey, Pinny,” said the blue mare. “Think we could crash inside until this storm blows over? Next-safest place is kind of dicey right now, on account of being the new home to one hot and spicy lizard. Guy doesn’t want to share a fireplace.”

“Aye, come on in.” Pinwheel backed up and made for the inner door. “It’ll be a bit more crowded than usual.”

“No prob.” The blue mare rolled her eyes and thumped Nautical with her wing. “Come on, Naut. It’s Pinny’s place. You can chill.”

“I know that,” growled Nautical. She rolled her eyes, and as she strode in, the green-gold bubble shrank gradually in on itself.

I stepped aside as the tallest, forest-green Nautical walked through the outer door, gave me a downward glance, and strode on. Nádarin, staying silent, likewise edged over to the wall of the corridor to let the alicorn pass; she might have been a smidge taller than Ivy, and certainly was larger overall, but she wasn’t quite so stout in the chest and legs as Orchid Wisp. Despite her obviously greater size, however, her ribs showed to an unhealthy degree.

The blue mare looked back outside and said, “Come on, Minty. It’s okay, they won’t bite.” The smaller, purple alicorn started jerkily, then hurried in after her comrades. Skipper looked down to her side at me, causing me to freeze in place, and said, “You don’t bite, do you, squirt?”

I stammered silently for a moment, caught between shock and absurdity. Glaring up at the mare, I said, “If you don’t.”

Skipper blinked her amber eyes a few times, and chuckled. “You got balls, kid,” she said, and continued past me.

I shuddered. “I could do without the metaphor, thanks.” I shuffled in place as I waited for the last of the three alicorns to pass and make room, but instead of merely walking by, the purple mare stopped in place, shivering, her head held low, and smiled at me. In the bright, incandescent light at the tip of her horn, Minty was a shade of deep grape. She was shorter than Night Cloud by about fifteen centimeters, but for her comparatively compact stature, she was broader across the chest and shoulders, ribs, and hindquarters. Her mane was fashioned rather inexpertly into a row of braids intertwined with powder blue ribbons all the way down her neck, and was entirely royal purple save for a stripe of ultramarine violet that fell behind her left ear. She had tied that little stripe with a tattered, red lace bow that seemed at constant risk of being torn off and carried away on the wind.

The mare glanced quickly over me, going from my mane to my semi-nude wings and cutie mark, where her eyes lingered longer. Her lip twitched, and the grin reached an inquisitive pair of hazel eyes.

“Um… Minty, right?”

She nodded, and let out a quiet chirp of a laugh as she reached toward my mark with one hoof. I stepped away on reflex, and Minty withdrew her forehoof, then put on a forced smile, looked at Nádarin for several seconds, and walked on inside with her head held higher. I kept looking at the little bow and the braiding of her mane and her swinging tail.

Every alicorn I had met thus far, I found attractive in some way, but Minty was the first that struck me as cute.

“Be mindful of what you say to them,” said Nádarin softly, standing to my side; I couldn’t be certain because of the wind, but he seemed to wheeze with every breath. “They aren’t your friends.”

“Neither are you.” I walked ahead of him. “But they didn’t kidnap me.”

“Crystal!” hissed the Prince, coughing several times. “Wait! Please listen to me.” The stallion overtook me and stopped, barring passage through the inner door. “Please…”

“Don’t make me move you.”

The old stallion frowned, and it wasn’t anger, or consternation, but fear in his eyes. “I may not be your friend,” he whispered, “But neither am I your enemy.” He pointed to the open door, and the trio of alicorns in Pinwheel Malaise’s home, who stood around the hearth, talking with the Kirin. The younger Minty looked back at us from a spot by the fire. “The one who leads them, their Goddess? She is very much your enemy. Even if those three bear no ill will against you individually, if that fiend takes notice of you, and commands them to steal you away, you might never see your family again.”

I waved my hoof in the alicorn trio’s direction. “Why would the Goddess be interested in me at all?”

Nádarin stepped closer to me, and for once I didn’t back way. “If Blizziera has a supply of that Potion in Bellenast, it is because the Goddess allows it, for reasons entirely her own. Why grant such a boon to Blizziera if not to further her own agenda in some way?” He lowered his head to murmur, “And besides that, they have seen you, Crystal, spoken to you. Whatever spell of protection may conceal you from her notice, it may mean little now.”

“Duly noted. Move.” Nádarin gave a weary grimace and stepped aside. I cantered quickly back toward the significantly more crowded hearth and the subdued conversation there.

“And the weather station was filled with nagas,” said Skipper, shaking off a bit of snow that must have collected in her mane when Nautical’s bubble had collapsed.

“A bit late in the season for them to be hanging around there,” said Pinwheel. “Must be the storms. Even nagas need a break from flying headlong into the wind, I suppose.”

“Think a new brood hatched recently, too.”

“Ooh. Well, I know where I’m not going for at least a season, then. Didn’t you have some things stashed up there?”

Skipper yawned as she turned to the fire. “Yeah,” she said, stretching her wings out and upward; they were broad and strong, but not nearly so lovely as Night Cloud’s own. “I can sneak in on my own if I have to, but… eh, I’ll just wait. Not worth the risk, and it’s nothing we really need right now.”

“Mm.” Pinwheel doused the candles around the room, save one on the mantle, which she levitated down to place near Skipper. The Kirin stepped close to the blue alicorn to whisper something in her ear. Skipper nodded a few times, and glanced once at Nádarin, who remained near the door. Pinwheel then left for her bedroom. “Well, I’m turning in. I’ll open up the root cellar in the morning. Make yourselves at home. Night, all.”

“Thanks again, Pinny,” said Skipper.

“Any time, Skip.”

Nautical had picked a spot farther from the fire, to my right, and laid on her belly on one of Pinwheel’s spare blankets and piled cushions, her head tucked down by her shoulder. Her eyes were closed, but her ears betrayed her alertness. Minty stopped by Nautical and carefully lay down against the larger mare’s side, and Nautical spread her wing gently over her.

Then, looking over at me, Minty lifted her own wing slightly and nudged her snout toward the space on the floor. She offered me a shy smile, but said nothing. I needed little convincing.

“Here,” I said to Nádarin, levitating the grey blanket I had used over to him, “Double up and stay near the fire. This isn’t the San Palomino.” I approached Minty and Nautical. Nautical’s ears flicked, and she watched me with one eye until I lay next to Minty, and the young mare embraced me snugly with her wing. She levitated one of the cushions over and set it where we both could rest our heads on it. “Thanks,” I murmured, and once again, she smiled, but said nothing in reply.

Skipper then came over and settled down to my left, completing the pile and adding her wing to the feathery blanket over Minty and me. The blue mare draped a much larger quilt, stitched together from four smaller ones, over all of us, and extinguished the candle, leaving us with only the light of the fireplace. Maybe they weren’t my friends, but they were friendly and warm. While the unnatural storm outside battered the timbers and shutters with its ceaseless howl, friendly and warm were good enough for me.

Morning came quietly, for few birds remained in the valley, and the blizzard had left a deadening blanket in its wake. The clunk of fresh logs being set in the andiron and the clank of pans brought me out of my stupor. At some point in the night, Minty had rolled onto her side to hold me in her sleep. Cradled there in a cocoon of soft cushions and fur and feathers, with my head nestled between her forelegs, I wanted nothing more than to nuzzle the mare, to be held by her, safe and warm, and go back to sleep. I certainly would have been delighted at having woken up with her as my company, if not for a few details.

She wasn’t Night Cloud, and I needed to pee.

I immediately began to extricate myself from her embrace. The alicorn stirred, and as soon as she noticed my movement, she let go of me and lifted her wing away. Nautical watched me in silence as I stepped away from the pony pile; Skipper wasn’t in the room.

Pinwheel Malaise walked out of the kitchen, her hoof over her mouth mid-yawn, took one look at me, and nodded in the direction of the front door. “Outhouse is straight across from the porch, into the tree line, and a little to the left. Look for the chimes, and streamers, if you don’t hear them. They’re bright red, halfway up a tree.”

“Thanks. And good morning.”

“Aye.”

I hurried through the door, the not-quite-airtight tunnel, and out into the brisk wind, plowing and tossing tons of piled snow clear on my way to the woods, which remained in deep shadow so soon after dawn. Amid the trees, the snow was shallower and the wind gentler, and I emerged from the trench and quickly homed in on the tinkling chimes and fluttering lengths of red twine that hung from a branch above the outhouse. The squat little building formed the base of a snowdrift all by itself, and I had to dig through to the door just as I’d dug my way across the field to the woods.

Without the benefit of an excess of absorbed radiation, the effort of shoveling a fifty-meter path gave me a slight headache and brought my heartrate up, and the shock of cold didn’t register until I had begun to trot back along the same path. It was well below freezing, and the fresh layer of snow that had transformed the landscape wouldn’t see direct sunlight for several hours.

I neared the tree line and deeper snow; Eagle or Night Cloud, or any of the three mares I’d met the night before, doubtless could peek over the piled berms on either side of the long trench, but all I could see were the trench walls and sky above. I shunted aside a fresh pile to widen the path as hoofsteps came close, and Minty trotted around the bend I’d made at the first tree. The grape-colored mare skidded to a surprised stop and looked down at me as I moved out of the way. She immediately lowered her head and ears, put on a small smile, and gave a quick, timid wave of a feathered hoof covered with snow.

I shuffled in place. “Uh… hey.”

The smile grew, and she adopted a more normal posture, but just as the night before, Minty was silent. She walked past me, careful not to bump into me in the narrow passage, and I stared after her, at least until her tail disappeared around the next curve in the trench through the trees.

I broke into a trot as soon as I hit the straightaway, only to come to a gradual stop as a shimmering in the air appeared only a few meters in front of me, along with fresh hoof prints in the packed snow. A faint rasping and rattling came from the space. I scowled as the prints stopped appearing, sighed, and scooped a mound of snow the size of my body into the air. “Three, two—”

Skipper appeared in the mirage-like space, grinning at me. “Nopony ever looks up.”

I formed an emerald bubble around myself and plastered her at the same time as she pelted my shield ineffectually with at least a dozen snowballs from the air. The lapis blue alicorn stumbled back, thoroughly splattered, and the snowballs melted and sluiced off my shield. Skipper cackled and shook herself clean of the results of the brief, decisive battle.

“You were saying?”

“Not bad, kid,” she said in her scratchy, alto voice, brushing the rest of the snow from her neck, her spruce blue mane, and the armored barding on her chest; the gear seemed familiar. “Not bad at all. Real fast, brought it up in no time at all. Good form, too; you kept it small. Makes it way tougher, and easier to keep at full strength. Ivy teach you that?”

“Blitz taught me the spell.” I dropped the bubble and said, “Haven’t practiced enough. Last time I needed to use it, I didn’t do so well. I made it too big, and it broke right away.”

“Number one rule about shields: Keep it as small as possible.” Skipper gave an appreciative nod as she looked along the trench. “You’re a regular steam shovel, kid. Rule number two: If you’re in the air, you’re better off juking all over the place than hiding in a big, glowing bubble. Make yourself hard to hit, stay high and far away. A shield should be your second protection. Not being hit should be your first. Actually, that’s rule number one, find cover. Number two is don’t get shot. If someone’s shooting at you, fly all over the place and put some distance between you. Number three, if you have to rely on a shield, keep it small, and don’t stand still. Use the shield to close in on ‘em, or gain distance until you can take cover. Break line of sight and run the hell away.”

“Right…” I glanced back toward the woods. “Does Minty, um… does she just not like to talk?”

“She can’t,” said Skipper. She closed the distance between us and spoke softly. “Something she was born with. Don’t really know what.”

I frowned and turned, parting the fur over the spot on my back that hid the small, triangular scar. “Night Cloud said the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion could heal just about anything… but this didn’t go away. Are there just some things it doesn’t heal?”

“Yeah, a few things.” Skipper stepped close to me and peered at the mark. “Magic energy weapon do that?”

“Sort of. An enchanted sword, powered by a spark cell. Some kind of kinetic shunt, and an electroaetheric surge. Went through my power armor like it wasn’t there and knocked out the control computer, fused half the circuitry together. Complete fluke that it didn’t stop my heart, too.” I balanced on my hind legs for a moment to show her the larger scar on my belly. “That’s where it went in.”

The lapis alicorn drew in a hissing breath. “Damn, that must have hurt like a bitch…”

I couldn’t stop myself from snorting. “No, really?”

Skipper shuddered. “I’ve seen some gnarly stab wounds, but all the way through, and with a spell on top? That takes the cake. Yikes… yeah, that’s why I fucking hate magic energy weapons: When they don’t zap you into a pile of dust, they leave the nastiest scars, and potions don’t heal them right.”

“Not even the Potion?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Oh, it’ll heal the damaged tissue, and regular scars, but if it’s from anything with a spark battery? Nah, if you don’t have the right treatment, you’re wearing that shit for life. I mean, it’ll fade a bit, after a few years, usually, but it’ll never completely disappear… at least, not in most ponies’ lifetimes. I guess for us it’s more likely it’ll fade away, if we live long enough.” She waved her forehoof up and down, pointing at my side. “But even on the inside, anything it touched will be just a little warped. Won’t cause any problems, but if you ever have a thaumic scan of some kind done, it’ll show up. Just a little reminder of what you lived through.”

“Huh.” I looked back at the woods. “So what about Minty? Why couldn’t it heal her? Is it just one of those things it can’t?”

“Sort of? Maybe more like a design constraint.” Skipper tapped the side of her head “She can still make sounds. You know, hum and sing, just not with words. Whatever it is, it’s in her brain, not her voice box, far as we know, and the Potion doesn’t touch your brain. Well, most of it. If you have a tumor, it’ll destroy it, and it can heal damage from blunt trauma, if it’s really recent, just like a Ministry standard potion.”

“We know it activates dormant parts of the brain. Everything you need to use earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn magic. Beyond the bare minimum, though, it leaves it alone.” She shook her head and gestured helplessly with her wing at the woods; with a clear view at her side, I recognized the barding’s design. “If something’s wrong up there already… it usually stays that way. Not even Twilight Sparkle knew enough about brains to risk taking a magic scalpel to it any more than she absolutely had to. It’s way too easy to fuck something up and turn perfectly functional grey matter into mush.”

“Huh… okay… so, is that Bellenastian Guard armor?”

“What? Oh, pretty sure, yeah.” Skipper patted the faded cloth covering of the plate cuirass with her wing, and brushed away a lingering clump of snow. “Best shit you can get short of a Steel Ranger suit. Old as dirt, and a little noisy, but the spells on it are the fuckin’ bomb. Saved my hide a dozen times over.”

I glanced to the side as Minty trotted up beside me and stopped. “Hey.” She smiled again, and I returned it. “Um… thanks for, um… last night. It was nice. Warm, aand…” I swallowed. Beginning to grow flush in the face, I said, “It was really nice. A lot nicer than being by myself in the middle of nowhere. I really appreciate it.” Minty giggled and rolled her eyes, then stepped close to me. The young mare pressed her wing gently around my barrel and nudged the top of my head with her jaw. “Right, um, okay. Thanks.”

She gave a little chortle as she let go of me and walked to the cottage, and once again I found myself looking at her tail as she went, but what drew my attention more was how sharply her ribs showed on her sides; like Nautical, Minty was malnourished, though to a lesser degree. I took a deep breath and let it out.

“Right.” I shook myself, prancing briefly in place to rid myself of nervous shiver, and said, “So, are you from Bellenast, like Ivy and Blitz?” I pointed at the alicorn’s barding. “Or did you find that somewhere else?”

“Nah, I’m from a little hole-in-the-wall place near Foal Mountain, originally. Filched the armor off some dude in the Corsair Hills when we first passed through. Saw the skeleton poking out of a collapsed hut, only there was something shiny on the leg. I dug the rest out to see if there was anything else, and bam! Barding.” Skipper turned and raised her wing again, showing off the cuirass and croupiere; it was nearly the perfect size for the alicorn mare, or a tall stallion. “Usually, when you find a corpse in the middle of nowhere, it’s nothing but rust, dust, and desiccated guts. I don’t know who that dude was, but he must have been important before he retired to the middle of nowhere, because this shit is fantastic. Best barding I’ve ever had. I mean, it’s the only barding I’ve ever had, but it’s really good.”

I stared and shook my head at the sight of dull and pitted steel, mostly hidden under faded cloth. It wasn’t silver-plated or lined with silk, but it was a fine and venerable set of barding, to be so mistreated. “You’re as bad as Night Cloud… you could at least find a friggin’ rag and some oil.” I trotted around Skipper. “Is one of those spells an enchantment-driven contact shield?” I called back as I trotted toward Pinwheel’s cottage.

“Uh, if you mean it stops bullets dead to rights, yeah. Ten, maybe fifteen solid hits, then I have to make myself scarce and give it a good recharge zap.”

“Then you should keep the armor polished. A dull surface finish causes a higher reaction impulse in the dispersion and dissipation layers of any non-matrix-driven contact shield, and risks it failing completely. Doesn’t affect kinetic dissipation as much, but if any aetheric discharge hits you, it’ll break through the shield much more easily.”

“Hey, hey! Wait!” Skipper leapt and took to the air to hover above me, keeping pace. “You actually know how all that shit works?”

“Yeah, I know how it works. Keep your armor polished, and the enchantments will actually protect you. Leave it like it is…” I aimed my horn up at the sideways-hovering mare and shot an emerald bolt at her armored breast, which sparked across the entire surface of the cuirass and caused the shield to flare and collapse. Skipper landed on the porch ahead of me, frowning. “… and any unicorn who knows a disruption spell can drop it just like that, then just shoot you. That steel is nowhere near thick enough to stop bullets without those enchantments. Maybe some dinky little rat plinker or a beam pistol from a good angle, but that’s it. If it’s made of the best alloy you can get, you’d need at least ten millimeters for it to protect you as well as the shield will, and at that point you’d be wearing a suit of Steel Ranger armor without the driving and amplifying matrices.”

“Holy shit.” Skipper tapped her hoof on her cuirass. “Glad I never found that out the hard way…” Her horn glowed red for a few seconds, light surrounded her barding, and the magic shield flashed again just before fading into invisibility. “I try to stay away from ponies who shoot at me these days, but it’s a good thing I’ve never had to fight anypony with lasers, I guess.”

I couldn’t help but scowl; Night Cloud’s own armor was undoubtedly of higher quality, but the enchantments on it were not far-removed from those on Skipper’s purloined suit of Bellenastian Guard barding. “It’s a common problem with any non-matrix-driven enchantments, so basically anything other than a suit of Steel Ranger armor… or Enclave. That, and autothaumic disruption can be a problem if you use powerful enough aetheric cannons… anyway, sand away those rust spots on the surface, polish it until you can see your reflection, keep it polished, and a lot of spells that directly strike the metal will bounce off, especially if it’s at an oblique angle, and your shield will last way longer.” I pointed my hoof at her chest and said, “Just because it’s enchanted doesn’t mean you should let it rust… or leave it rusted.”

Skipper nodded. “All right, all right… and where exactly am I going to find sandpaper in the mountains?”

I stared at her, and decided then and there that it was my duty to part the mare from her armor in the immediate future and give it the care it deserved. I climbed up the porch steps and looked out at the snowy fields along the winding riverbank. Past the north side of the cottage was a field surrounded by regular mounds on the snow’s surface, through which poked stout fence posts; the boundary of a rather substantial garden, at least sixty meters wide, extending toward the forest, and several times that length going northward. “Pinwheel is your friend, right?”

“Yeah, Pinny’s cool. She’s pretty much our only friend out here.”

I pointed my wing, somewhat awkwardly, toward the multi-generational building twenty meters away. “Well, her grandfather was a blacksmith. Uruqhart, her minotaur friend? He hikes over the mountains to use the friggin’ outstanding shop hiding in that creaky old barn.” I opened the first door and stepped into the short, wooden tunnel. Skipper followed. “Maybe you should follow his example while you’re here.”

“Yeah, not a bad idea. Thanks for the advice, kid.”

“No problem,” I said as we returned to the warmth of the sitting room and its roaring hearth. The first thing I saw gave me pause.

Nautical, tall and graceful and beautiful despite her visible malnourishment, crossed from the kitchen opening to the fireplace and added a cluster of recently cleaned and cut fish and a measuring cup full of salt to the row of three iron kettles hanging from the stout frame above the fire. She stopped halfway back to the kitchen to look at me. The apron over her chest and forelegs was sunflower yellow, embroidered with pink and white tulips, and cut to her size, no less. Her long, sage mane was tied back and tucked through a periwinkle kerchief around her neck, so that it stayed mostly on her back and out of the way.

The jade green mare stared right back at me, and made the slightest of frowns. “I cook. Is that a world-shattering revelation?”

I wilted. “Uh, no, just…”

Nautical scoffed and continued to the kitchen. “Little filly, I was an old mare long before I got the wings and skewer. You don’t live half as long as I have without feeding a lot of grandkids. Now, pick your jaw off the floor and stay out of the way, please. I’m cooking for seven, and it’ll be at least an hour before anything’s ready.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I chanced one more glance at the mare, then went back toward the hearth and approached Minty, who held a fine-tipped, graphite stick in a heavily tarnished brass clip in her teeth, drawing in a thick sketchbook that must have spent a lot of time in packed saddlebags; its edges were covered with teeth marks, and the half before the open page was riddled what appeared to be pages of magazines, photographs, and other assorted scraps of paper that protruded from between its pages. I came up to her side to peer at the bird taking form on the page; it was a dignified-looking raven, and an astonishingly lifelike one, much like the innumerable wood figures that Pinwheel Malaise had carved and placed around her home. “That’s really good.” The young mare turned her head slightly to smile at me, then went back to drawing.

For a few minutes, I simply watched her draw, but watching her draw soon became watching her, instead: The subtle motions of her lips and jaw, and her neck, and even the muscles of her shoulders, chest, and back, all working in careful concert as she moved the pencil from detail to delicate detail of the raven’s plumage.

Rather than continue to admire her wings and figure until somepony had to distract me, I focused my magic on her royal purple mane, and the light blue ribbons wound within each braid. Lacking a comb or brush, I would make do with telekinesis. In a matter of seconds, I completely undid the uneven braiding, and I began to tug thin, parallel bands of the gentlest force I could make through her hair.

Minty stopped drawing, and turned slightly to look at me, making a pleased hum in response to the brushing. Even though she lay on her belly, and I sat up on my haunches, I had little height advantage to see the top of her head properly while I worked. The mare lowered her head a bit, and I leaned over to hold her mane with my hooves as well as my magic. “Thanks,” I murmured. “I hope you don’t mind… I just wanted to, um…” She shook her head once. “Oh, good. I just wanted to fix it up.” I bit my lip as I began to mimic the style she’d had. “My foster mom is a stylist, okay? I learned a few things from her…”

Minty chuckled and levitated out from her saddlebags a small, lopsided chalkboard, which looked as though it had been broken away from a larger one, and a pointed piece of white rock. As it turned out, she was a fast writer.

‘Blizzard + flying = super bad hair day. Magic brush is nice. Relaxing. Keep doing it, please please pretty please?’

I smiled and obliged her; the telekinetic comb required significantly more concentration than simply lifting something or applying pressure, but that wouldn’t stop me. “Your mane is really pretty. It’s an amazing color, and…” I stopped, thinking of Night Cloud’s glossy, obsidian mane and indigo blue coat. I sighed and lowered my voice, murmuring, “You’re very pretty. You probably think that’s weird, coming from… a little filly, like me, but… you really are. I just… I wanted to say that.” She laughed, smiled at me, and wrote another note, her horn glowing incandescent all the while.

‘Thank you! Not weird. Not my type, though.’

I rolled my eyes. “Stallions?”

“Mmm…mmm-hmm.” She flipped through her sketchbook and presented a torn-out page from a magazine with a black-and-white photograph of a large, finely-muscled stallion lying on a bed in a pose that very deliberately showed off his endowment. On the opposing page was her drawing of the stallion, done in complete, exacting detail, as well as a few sketches of him galloping and rearing up. She turned to a page with another clipped photograph, this a side-on, close-up shot of a mare in full gallop, breaking through the tape of a finish line just a few centimeters ahead of her competitors in the foreground and background. She turned one page after another, showing me a veritable collage of different photographs, both black-and-white and in full, though faded, color, and their accompanying sketches, which ranged from animals and plants, to pinups and fashion models and outright pornography that both stole my attention in some cases and made me queasy in others.

I found myself utterly transfixed when she unfolded a separate sheet from between two pages and revealed an exquisite rendition of a young mare and stallion together next to a broad tree, she rearing up to brace her hooves on the tree trunk, and the stallion pressing himself to her back, hugging her gently around the barrel. The drawing was larger and more finely detailed than anything else she had shown me, and was made on a yellower, heavier sheet of paper half again the width and height of the sketchbook pages.

Rather than the eye-catching and titillating poses and scenes from the many photographs, the drawing seemed serene and tasteful, and unlike most of the others, it had no accompanying picture. The mare had a horn and folded wings, and was shaded darkly, but the young stallion was an earth pony, stout in the chest and legs and a bit larger than the mare. His coat was bright, his mane and tail two-toned and darker, and his cutie mark was a fountain pen being drawn across the head of a drum. The mare—a young filly, really—had no mark.

There was a small stripe in the alicorn’s mane, behind her ear, that was brighter than the rest.

I looked suddenly from the artwork and met Minty’s waiting gaze. She had a written message waiting for me, and a tentative, but happy grin.

‘What do you think?’

“What do I think?” I swallowed and took a breath. “Um…” Minty, as she had drawn herself, appeared distinctly slighter of figure, and almost certainly a year or two younger, than the mare next to me. “Did…” I dropped my voice to the barest whisper and spoke into her ear. “Did you actually… I mean, is he real, or is it just a drawing?”

Minty gave an emphatic nod, writing quickly again.

‘Nice stallion, met a year ago. One-night stand. Fun, though. Pictures fun to look at, but most fake, exaggerated. Acting, not real.’ She looked at my face again, and her ears drooped as she folded the sheet, and turned the page to a sketch of a large rodent of some kind. It was adorable, and wholesome, and I wanted to have one, myself. The chalkboard tapped gently against my foreleg. I looked between Minty and her drawing again, lost for words. ‘Sorry. Too much?’

“No, it’s…” I turned the page back and unfolded the drawing again, paying more attention to the joyous smile the younger Minty wore. “Minty, I’m… I’m saying this about something that I… I really don’t… it isn’t something I’d normally, um… like to look at, but… it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. And, um… if that was just a year ago, then you put on a lot of muscle… I, um… I think that’s hot.” I refolded the paper once more, turned her sketchbook back several pages, and pointed to a clipped photo and drawing of a mare and stallion together in an intimate and baffling act. “That one,” I whispered, “Is too much. I mean, it’s a really good drawing—all of these are good—just… why would any mare want to do that? I never saw anything like that in the issues I found in Neighvarro.”

Minty giggled and looked away while she wrote a reply, and I returned my attention and magic to re-braiding her mane. She paused a few times during her response, and I pulled the row of braids over the back of her neck, allowing them to fall in line all the way down to her shoulder.

‘It’s porn. They pose, show off their bodies. Emphasize things, draw your eye. Lots of different angles and styles. Good references for how things work and move together, but not how anyone really does it. Some details are hard to see when ponies move, some hard to see when still. Need to see ponies and pictures to draw them right. Moving and still. Fun to look, but I was tired of looking. Wanted to feel.’

“Right…” I giggled quietly while she erased the chalkboard with her fetlock. “Well, um…” I flipped back through her stunning portfolio and paused on a page that consisted mostly of drawings of mares in alluring poses, as well as a few stallions. “I wouldn’t mind having posters of these… so, um… why draw so many mares, if you’re more into stallions?”

‘Like to draw both, but magazines mostly show mares. Never done it with a mare. Don’t know if I’d like it. She giggled again and patted my cheek with her incandescent yellow magic. ‘Haven’t thought about it much. Maybe if you were bigger? No offense.’

I snorted. “Hey, I know I’m the runt of the litter,” I mumbled. “Or, you know, just the runt. Don’t have any siblings, least not that I ever met. Besides, I didn’t mean it like that. I have a marefriend… sounds like she might make you drool, though… I mean, if—if you were like me.”

Minty giggled, and she smirked while she wrote two words. ‘Maybe. Describe!’

“Hm…” I focused on her mane again. “Her coat’s indigo, closer to blue than violet, but it’s a sort of reddish bay around her nose. Black mane, really long and straight. Comes all the way down to her knees. She takes good care of it, so it’s soft, and really glossy. Light, electric blue eyes. She has this white stripe dyed into her coat on her chest; it’s her tribe’s symbol. I think that’s just how ponies are in the San Palomino. She’s pretty slim, really fit, long legs…she’s tall, super tall. Fifty centimeters taller than me, easy.”

“I can just about stand under her if I duck my head. For now, anyway… probably not a year from now, if I’m lucky to grow that much… she outweighs me by about two hundred-fifty kilos, maybe more. She fell on me and broke some of my ribs when somepony shot at us, couple weeks ago. That sucked. Really freaked her out when I told her about it later. Didn’t know about it when it happened because I had a healing potion right away, and she was hurt really badly, herself. Way worse than I was. She did magic surgery on herself. She’s friggin’ amazing.”

I finished straightening out her mane and began to braid it neatly. “She’s probably worried sick about me right now. No, I know she is; she worries a lot, and she’s really protective of me… that’s kind of annoying sometimes, honestly, but it’s really nice, too, just… knowing somepony cares that way. She has really strong magic; she could blast a hole through ten centimeters of solid steel if she really tried. And she’s studying to be a physician.” I smiled and murmured, “She’s also a great kisser… and she has the most gorgeous wings ever.”

Minty flipped to a recent drawing in her sketchbook, a full-page portrait of Skipper in her barding, balancing on a fallen log, and she wrote and tapped the page corner. Her fetlock was stained heavily with chalk powder from all the erasing. ‘Like us! Want to meet her. Name?’

“Her name’s Night Cloud,” I murmured. “And yeah, she’s an alicorn. Since, um… four years ago. For me, it’s been a few days.” I looked at the next page, which was a drawing of Nautical; in the drawing, the jade alicorn, reduced to greyscale, was somewhat bigger around the belly, and her ribs didn’t show nearly as much. “So, um… why porn, and not just normal photos?”

She shrugged her wings, and for the first time, a look of embarrassment crossed her face while she wrote, but only for a moment before it became a carefree grin.

‘Found magazines in a safe, few years ago. Sealed tight. High quality prints, great condition. Dad said worth good money. When not farming, scavenging Trottingham outskirts. Huge city, half million ponies before war. Cool things everywhere. Looked for valuables. Farther from craters = less radiation now, more intact things. Lot of records, books, tools.’

I frowned as I finished intertwining the ribbon in the last braid. “Picking up tools in a ruin… sorry, I’m just…” I gave a low laugh and murmured, “I guess I never had the opportunity to look in any ruins, but I can’t imagine finding good tools anywhere. I’ve always had to fight just to borrow the tools I’ve needed… or buy them from profiteering jerks, or make them, myself. Making quality tools is really hard when you don’t have the right alloys.”

Minty gave me a quizzical look, her eyebrow raised high.

“I’m from Neighvarro. You know, pegasus cloud city? Long story short, I moved to a mountain outpost about a year and a half ago. Place way east of here, near the Celestial Coast. Before that, I’d never had a place to scavenge, never mind been on the ground… best thing I could do to get more out of what I had was go to a library and read everything I could, learn new ways to use things, improvise and experiment when I could. Wound up keeping all my books when I moved to Cloud Loft Peak. That’s the outpost.”

I ran my forehoof along Minty’s neck, flicking every other braid over to the opposite side. “Had to leave most of it behind when I left with my foster parents…” I sighed and refastened the bow behind her left ear, brushing the ultramarine violet stripe until it was perfectly straight, and then I finished it off with a final braid. “And what little I brought along fell out of our carriage when a storm naga ripped a hole in it. Big, angry momma snake… lost all my books, my enchantment materials, my tool manuals… and my magazines.”

I giggled and said, “The kind for looking, not reading. Some of them, anyway. I sold a lot of those and most of my tools before we set out… well, Eagle’s tools, really. Couldn’t fit many of them on the carriage… and we had to abandon the carriage. Place we landed to shelter and try to repair it after the nagas attacked us was filled with killer robots. That was a crappy day… met my marefriend afterward, though, so it turned out all right. Swooped out of the sky and picked me up in the middle of the desert, and I’ve been all googly-eyed and drooling ever since. She’s way sexier than any pin-up… at least I think so.” She chuckled and grinned back at me. “I got my stuff from a library. How did you find anything like that in a bombed-out ruin?”

Minty levitated a small mirror out of her saddlebags and looked at her mane from several angles. She beamed and darted in to nuzzle my neck and hug me with her wing.

“Hey-ey, you’re welcome.” I giggled again as she drew a big heart on the chalkboard. “Glad you like it.” She gave a tug with her wing, I scooted close to her side, and she held me snugly just as she had the night before. I gave her shoulder a quick nuzzle, and waited for her to finish writing, this time with smaller and compact, but still easily legible scrawl.

‘Sometimes chance, otherwise? Have to know where to look. Starting point = bedrooms, private offices, attics. Under beds, back of drawers, closets, trunks, safes. Locked = jewelry, diaries, tapes, papers, bits, guns, ammo, and sometimes magazines, sometimes porn. Personal stuff, secret stash. Diaries, tapes = completely useless. Jewelry, gold bits = have to find right ponies to sell to, otherwise useless. Guns, ammo, books, porn mags = barter. Sold some at farm. Kept best stuff for myself. Fashion magazines good for drawings, too, but harder to find intact. Not usually in hiding places. Nopony wants those. Reference material.’

She winked and pointed her horn across the room at Pinwheel Malaise, who held a fresh block of wood in her pink magic; she had the rough shape of a bowl finished on the table in front of her. Minty tapped her chalkboard again. ‘Like coming here. Pinny is expert. Great art advice, perspective. Lots of things translate between sculpting and drawing.’ She spread her wing out and gestured at the statues all around the room, then erased it all again and wrote a little more. ‘References everywhere! Animals I never saw back home. Also, very nice. Pinny is good friend. Lets us stay whenever. Great cook, too, just like Nautical.’

“Yeah, she’s pretty cool…” I looked up at the mantelpiece, and spotted the statue Pinwheel had made of me. Next to it, I found three statues of alicorns, smaller in scale to mine, and of a different type of wood, but proportionate to each other. Their sizes alone revealed who they were. “Minty… why do you draw with your mouth, instead of your magic?”

She looked down at her sketchbook, tapped a hoof on her horn and shrugged her wings, then spent another few moments writing. ‘Earth Pony before. How I learned. Drawing most of my life, but alicorn only 3 years. Try with magic sometimes. Okay for rough sketching, bad for fine details. Not steady enough yet. Great for writing, though. Never have to taste chalk again!’

“Okay…” I looked over at Nautical as she came from the kitchen again to pour more seasonings and a broth mixture into the kettle. The jade alicorn seemed content to be silent while she chop-chop-chopped away at a pile of vegetables with the gleaming cleaver held in her field. Whatever Skipper and Pinwheel discussed in hushed tones across from Prince Nádarin on the opposite end of the sitting room, I couldn’t hear over the crackling fire and chopping on the cutting board. “So,” I said softly to Minty, “Why the chalkboard? Why can’t you talk to me? Telepathically, I mean.”

Minty cocked her head and wiggled her ears while she scrawled her reply.

‘Can’t see you. Hear/see/feel. Hard to describe with words. Can’t connect to you.’

“Connect to me? You mean like in Unity, with all the other alicorns?”

She nodded and pointed her right wing at Nautical, in the kitchen, and then Skipper, across the room. ‘Always feel Nautical and Skipper, sometimes others. Not you. Invisible/silent. Like you aren’t there.’

I leaned close to the young mare as she finished writing, set my hoof on her side, and whispered, “Minty, Night Cloud and I have used telepathy every day since we first met, and neither of us has ever been connected to Unity.”

Minty’s squinted at me, pursing her lips.

‘How?’

“Blitz called it a coupling spell. It’s a personal telepathic link, just between us.”

The mare pointed back and forth between us several times with her chalk, beginning to grin.

“I don’t know the spell. Night Cloud cast it on me.” I shrugged my wings, which caused Minty to jolt slightly as my joint poked her ribs. “And I guess Blitz used it on me, too, and probably Ivy, but they never taught me how to cast it. I never asked.”

Minty pouted and gave an exaggerated, disgruntled grumble, but she looked thoughtful.

‘They can’t talk to you now? Too far? Spell wore off?’

I nodded. “I don’t think it wore off again so soon, but it has a limited range, so it might have broken the link when I went so far away.”

‘Never heard of spell like that.’

I glanced up at sound of heavy hoofsteps on the timbers as Nautical came out of the kitchen again, this time levitating a massive cloud of chopped carrots, potatoes, radishes, beets, and mushrooms, as best I could tell, and some kind of broth in a jar, as well as two measuring cups, one filled with brown powder, the other finely diced onions.

Nautical added the entire mass to the big kettle, one pile at a time, and began to stir the stew with a wooden ladle roughly the length of my foreleg. Minty flipped her sketchbook back to the newest page and resumed drawing her raven. I watched the disappearing cloud of vegetables, but my gaze drifted and lingered on Nautical’s wings, and the deep ribcage and lean hindquarters they partially concealed.

-Staring is uncouth, filly, don’t you know that?-

I met her orange eyes as steadily as I could. Ivy said the same thing when I met her. Even used the same word, ‘uncouth.’

-Did she, now?- Nautical smirked down at me. “Well, when the Lady Ivaline speaks, you ought listen. The mare knows what she’s talking about.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, excuuuuuse me, princess.”

Minty giggled and bumped my side. Nautical gave us a small smile and looked down at the chalkboard where it lay on the floor, and she returned to the kitchen once again, briefly, then came back to lie down next to Minty and me. I half-expected her to spread her wing over the two of us, but she didn’t. She telekinetically shook the salt and spices into the waiting kettles and gave it a stir, then hung the ladle on a hook nearby.

-Never heard of what spell, Minty?-

Minty looked over across me at Nautical right away, and, I presumed, spoke to her privately.

Nautical glanced down at me with one orange eye, a crease on her brow. -Really? I suppose that could be quite useful, even given its limitations.-

I couldn’t help but frown. “Wait a minute. Nautical, if I can hear you, does that mean you can you talk to Ivy?”

“No.” The jade mare’s ears flicked, and she gazed over at the blazing fireplace. “Ivaline has closed her mind to Unity’s bond, and shut out the voice of the Goddess. I assume she placed the same wards on you as she did on that San Palomino filly she dragged to us years ago. What was her name, Cloudy Night?”

“It’s ‘Night Cloud.’”

“Close enough.”

I nickered. “Anyway… so why can I talk to you, if you can’t talk to Ivy?”

“Most likely because you tried. The sort of spell that can block telepathic contact outright isn’t nearly as effective if you deliberately subvert it… you’re muffled, not silent.”

I looked over at Prince Nádarin for a moment, and in a slightly softer voice, said, “Does that mean the Goddess can hear me?”

Nautical then chose to lift her wing and lay it gently across Minty and me. “No… you needn’t worry about that. If she wanted to listen, through me, she could… but for her to bother, I first would have to grab her attention.”

We seemed to have gained Nádarin’s attention: His eyes and ears both faced us, and wrinkles lined his brow. Abrupt focus notwithstanding, he looked as physically weary as he’d sounded sick to me outside.

I glanced aside at Minty, who had put some finishing details on the raven’s beak, but had one ear quirked toward me and Nautical. “I thought you all shared whatever you heard all the time. That’s how Blitz described it, anyway…”

“We share what we experience,” said Nautical, “More than literally hearing each other’s every conscious thought. Although, it’s possible for us to pay more attention to one other, or less, if we want. I can’t fathom quite what it must be like for the Goddess, herself; her… state, such as it is, makes her experience of the bond quite different from my own, I imagine. More intense, more immersed… being at the center of such a massive, constant flux of thoughts and voices, of emotions and impressions… for me, when I commune with my sisters, it’s like talking in a large, crowded room, one made of stone. You can hear what the pony next to you is saying easily, if you speak quietly, but if even one or two ponies raise their voices, never mind the entire group, you can’t understand a single word, because of all the overlap, all the echoes and reverberations. Unity is not just one such room full of chattering ponies, but hundreds of them, all connected together. I, and the others like me—”

“Like Ivy? The green alicorns?”

Nautical frowned and blinked several times, and she gave a slight toss of her mane. “Yes… we serve as… heavy curtains in the doorways, and carpets on the floors, to deaden the noise, calm the uproar. To bring us together for civil discourse. I am at the absolute edge of all those rooms. The Goddess can’t hear you because of the sheer cacophony around her. I would need to come closer to her, so to speak, to make myself heard.” The jade mare sighed and muttered, “Steal her attention away from that which occupies it.”

“You’d have to cut through all the interference just to tell her about me… if you wanted to, that is.”

“Tell her about you?” Nautical laughed and brought her head around to look down at me, wearing a derisive smirk. “Why bother?” She rumpled my mane with her wing and said in her sultry, almost seductive voice, “What would warrant the eyes and ears of the Goddess, hmm? The Great and Powerful Master of Unity? What’s so special about little Crystal Dew?”

“Um…” I shrank back from her snout. Minty pushed gently on Nautical’s neck and shoulder with her incandescent magic, and squeezed my side with her wing. “Well… I’m pregnant. I thought that was a pretty big thing for, um…”

“Oh, puh-leeeaaase.” Nautical laughed again, a drawn-out cackle that ended on a sigh. “Truly, you are a precious little babe… you think we didn’t test the Potion on a pregnant mare in the last century or so? Honestly, been there, done that. Doesn’t work.” She gave an owlish blink and looked down at me again. “Well, it works on the mare, obviously, just doesn’t do anything especially useful to the foal.”

The largest mare in the cabin nudged my back with the leading edge of her wing and said, “It does something, granted, but not what we need. It’s entirely probable Sparkle designed it to ignore a fetus in utero. The Goddess thought that Blitz, with the resources at her disposal in Bellenast, could get some useful data from experimentation in a proper laboratory, so she graciously allowed her to take samples of the Potion to Bellenast after she first brought Night Cloud to us, under the condition that she would provide any information that could help us to create viable males.”

Nautical huffed and gave a dismissive half-flap of her wing. “She has yet to provide us with anything definitive, and you, in particular, are a data point we already have. Telling the Goddess Blitz has brought another pony into her fold with no more results might irritate her, certainly, but beyond that, she wouldn’t care about you, any more than she cares about Night Cloud, or even Ivy, at this point.”

“What about Orchid Wisp?”

At the mere mention of the name, Nautical stiffened for a moment, and her ears twitched. The jade alicorn frowned and looked over at the fire. “Orchid Wisp,” she murmured. “No… no, I don’t imagine she would care… but… tell me, how is Orchid? Is she well?”

“Um… well, she looks fantastic—um, she’s healthy, that is, and she works at the hospital in Bellenast. Night Cloud said she works in, um… hematology?”

“The study of blood,” said Nautical in a distracted tone, “And its illnesses. Somewhat ironic, considering we’re largely immune to them… most bacteria and viruses don’t do so well in a necromantically active host.”

“Um… yeah, that, and she deals with radiation sickness patients. She was making a containment talisman for me, so I wouldn’t bleed radiation everywhere I go. That was kind of a big problem, until yesterday, I guess.” I glanced down at the burned and battered PipBuck on my foreleg; it hadn’t clicked a single time, despite my spending an entire night in a pile of alicorns. Its meter that measured my own bodily radioactivity, however, remained in the red region, the dial hovering near the top of the gauge. “Not so much now. I guess I burned a lot of it off using magic.”

“So she found her purpose, after all,” whispered Nautical. “Silly, bleeding heart that she is… I’m glad.” Skipper walked over and settled down on Nautical’s other side, nuzzling the larger alicorn’s shoulder in silence. Nautical smiled and draped her wing across the slightly smaller mare’s back.

Minty nosed my cheek, and I looked to find she held her sketchbook close to her chest. On the upper corner of the page with the raven, she had drawn a small heart, shot through with a jagged fissure. Below it was another heart with a bandage across it, instead.

“You were close?” I said softly, looking back to Nautical.

“Close?” said Nautical, looking down at me again. “She was my wingmate for almost thirty years.”

“Does she sing? She has a really pretty voice.”

“Does she sing?” said Nautical. “Oh, child you have no idea… yes, she sings… a star come down from the heavens.” Nautical nuzzled Skipper in return and said softly, “Young Skipper here took her place. I love her dearly, and there’s no other I’d rather have at my side, out here in the wilds… but Orchid…” Nautical chuckled and said, “Well… if she were a stallion, I’d have wed her in a heartbeat, but as is… we were like an old married couple, anyway.”

“So you bickered all the time?”

“Hmph.” Nautical patted my back and said, “Live and work with someone for long enough, and you’ll find that behind every moment of bickering is a resounding agreement.”

“And a boatload of shitty jokes,” said Skipper as she climbed to her hooves and stretched a hind leg back, which caused one of the buckles between her croupier and pock-marked cuisse to let loose a flake of rust and a small pin that bounced on the floor and rolled away to become stuck between two timbers. “Shitty, but still jokes. I heard that, once upon a time, you didn’t have a stick up your sphincter all the time.”

“Yes, thank you for that, Skipper. Always so eloquent.”

“You know it.”

“That’s it.” I climbed to my hooves and stalked around Nautical to head off Skipper. “Strip. Now.”

“Whoa, hey, uh, don’t wanna be rude, but you’re not really my—”

“Spare me and just take off your armor so I can fix it before something else falls off. Please.”

“Oh! Uh.” Skipper chuckled and backed up a step. “Right. Strip, got it. Which part of it? ‘Cause I was thinking about what you said earlier, maybe cleaning it up a bit and—”

My horn flared with harsh, emerald light, and I swept a wave over the lapis mare. Unclasping ensued, and her entire suit of barding came off in my field. I nearly dropped the glowing pile of armor when I saw her without it. Only having seen Minty’s and Nautical’s bare figures prepared me.

Skipper’s ears folded back, and she kicked a hoof. “Yeah, I know, it kind of presses my coat down a bit, but I’m no Sapphire Shores, anyway, right?”

“Presses your coat down…” I trailed off into a mutter, shook my head, and levitated my hazard suit over from the corner of the room, then made for the front door. I set the helmet on the floor while I climbed into the grey suit; I’d galloped for the outhouse naked out of urgency, but I was in no hurry to suffer a longer stint outside with no more insulation than my own fur, especially before the sun had risen above the surrounding mountains.

“Just come with me. I’ll need to re-fit this, and I can’t do that without you there to measure.” I twisted the helmet interlocks closed, turned on the crackly, tinny speaker set on my collar, and silently thanked Carbide and his creators for their good thinking, however little it must have done them at the end of the old world. I pushed through the door and trotted through the airlock tunnel, and called back as I went, “Should be able to finish before the food’s done.”

“Hey, wait up, kid!” Skipper hurried through the door after me, and I leapt off the porch onto the packed snow and mud. “Yikes! Hey, hey! It’s kind of cold without that on, you know?”

I plowed a tunnel through the snow once again, aiming for the barn. Skipper caught up to me before I’d progressed five of the twenty or so meters to it, and lent her telekinesis to aid me the rest of the way.

“Look, do we have to do this now?” said Skipper as we neared the barn door. “Seriously, it’s cold. You can’t tell me you aren’t cold right now.”

I rolled my eyes and kept right on plowing. “Of course I’m cold. That’s why I’m going to light the furnace in the barn. Then we won’t be cold. Problem solved.”

“Right, but we could be not cold back in Pinny’s cottage. You know, where we can all share body heat? You like fillies, right? Isn’t snuggling up with us mares totally your thing? We can all snuggle by the fire, no problem. I’ll even let you do my mane like Minty’s. Slumber party and all that jazz. Minty likes you; she’d be cool with it.”

I scowled and shoveled aside the snowdrift that blocked the doors, then stalked inside with the levitated pile of armor parts in tow. Skipper slinked in after me and pulled the door shut, and she kept her horn glowing afterward, lighting the creaking, whistling interior with red. “Okay. Firstly?” I set the armor pieces down and shot a gout of hissing, emerald fire at the furnace until it roared and crackled. I glared up at the lapis-blue alicorn mare, whose ribs and matted coat were lit starkly by the furnace and its flanking reflectors. “Don’t make it weird. I have a marefriend. Minty gave me a wing to sleep under, because I’m a friggin’ runt and everypony treats me like a scared little foal they have to protect. She was just being nice.”

“Aha. Yeah. Right, sorry. Sheesh. Wasn’t trying to make anything out of it like that…”

“Secondly?” I removed my helmet and stepped up to her to prod her chest. “I don’t know or care who Sapphire Shores is, but you are friggin’ gorgeous, okay? I was staring back there because I can count your friggin’ ribs, not because your coat’s messed up. Night Cloud is easily ten centimeters shorter than you, and she probably weighs more than you do. You could put on fifty kilos and you’d still be thin. All three of you are friggin’ hide and bones, but you’re the worst off. Seriously, what have you been eating? Moss? Twigs? Friggin’ rocks?”

Skipper’s nervous grin faded, and she gave me a long, evaluating look. “It’s been a lean year, all right? It’s pretty hard living out here under normal conditions… this winter was really bad.” She swept her wing back at the door. “And these freak storms have been going almost nonstop all week, so winter isn’t really over yet, is it? I don’t know what’s up with that, but if this keeps up much longer, even Pinny’ll need help. She lets us stash extra food here for rainy days, but…”

I glared and said, “You could feed ten of Pinwheel with what’s in those pots. There’s no way she can keep enough food for you three and herself, and her garden’s under a meter of snow. Where is yours?”

She pointed at the door again. “Also under a meter of snow. All of them. For months now, and lemme tell ya, dead grass and pinecones ain’t so filling. Like I said, winter was really bad. And, again, not really over. It got an extension.”

“All of them? So you have more than one garden?”

She sighed and slowly sat on her hindquarters near the work table. “Yeah. Was Minty’s idea, actually; smart filly. Spread our resources out, so if anyone attacked one place, we wouldn’t lose everything. Farther north, you don’t get nice, polite neighbors like Pinny has here. It’s close to the cloud curtain, and the terrain is nasty. Gang territory. We planted where we thought it would be safe-ish… problem is, safe from attacks usually means the land isn’t great. So, we compromised, picked the less ideal areas. Cleared a few trees here, moved a few rocks there, put up fences, dug some cellars, even started a compost pile for later. We had a few nice little fields going, middle of the woods, enough to keep us fed, even store some to last the winter, if we could forage and barter for extra…”

Skipper spread her wings out, her back to the reflectors flanking the furnace. “Aww, yeah, that’s nice… anyway, that worked for a year. Last summer, though, one of the local gangs found us… they wanted tribute, protection money, and we didn’t like that. They didn’t like us not liking it. We tried to hide, but they had a gryphon, tracked us down from the air eventually. They’d figured out we didn’t like to fight, so they got cocky. Stole most of our crop from one garden, wrecked what they couldn’t carry. Forest fire took out one of the others. Nothing we could have done about that. That left us with the one garden’s worth of stored veggies, and that ain’t enough for autumn, never mind winter. It was too late to replant.” The lapis-blue mare picked up a chisel from the bench by her side and looked along its length. “Now that is a fine chisel.”

I shook my head weakly. “What?”

She laughed and tossed the chisel spinning into the air with her red magic. “I used to be a stone cutter. Cut blocks out for building houses, walls, fences and stuff. Ovens, too! Didn’t have a horn back then, so I did most of it with weighted shoes and a chisel, kinda like this, just a bit bigger. Then an alicorn snatched me up one day and gave me the rainbow treatment, and bam!” She flapped her wings once and lifted off nearly to the ceiling, stirring up a powerful gust that rattled tools hanging on the walls and blasted my mane back, and the mare came back down to land and prance in place. “Wings, baby! Sexy, right?”

I snorted, smirking as I brushed my mane back into place, then tied it back as I looked over the pieces of Skipper’s barding and levitated tools off the wall and from the drawers. “Rainbow treatment? You mean the Potion.”

“Yeah, it looks like rainbows, only it’s a sickly rainbow, like an oil slick. Kinda heavy on the green. Pretty disgusting to look at, kinda tasteless, and feels like liquid lightning going down, like whiskey, except it’s not. Then it feels like… I dunno, electrocution and stretching, and a whole-body case of pins and needles for about half an hour, and you just want to pass out, but you can’t…” She curled one foreleg in and stretched her wings out again, then folded them. “But hey, hard to beat the end result, right?”

“I was unconscious. Kinda had a sword stuck in my chest at the time, so… I just woke up hurting everywhere.”

“Oh, yeah… well, you’re lucky you were out of it, then. Definitely not on my list of top ten favorite life experiences.”

I looked away from the thin, steel rod I held under a focused, hissing jet of flame at the tip of my horn. I grabbed a large, warped piece of sheet steel from a bin of scraps under one of the benches, the chisel Skipper had picked up, a file, and a hefty, oddly shaped set of shears—though perhaps not so odd for a minotaur—and began to make the first of several buckles. “What are you three doing out here?”

“Huh? What, you mean in the mountains?”

“Yeah. Seriously, what are you doing… how far from Maripony are we, three thousand kilometers? More? The Prince kidnapped me and teleported us, only we went farther than he meant. What are you doing for Unity way out here?”

Skipper rubbed her neck and said, “Nothing, really… I mean, we’re, uh… we haven’t exactly been in touch with the others lately. Well, they know we’re—okay, some of the ones farther out know where we are, I guess, but there’s nothing much on the agenda for us, to, uh… do. Nautical wanted to head south, check out the area, so we came along. Just following her lead, y’know… well, she kept looking, we followed, looked some more… few months in, we started those gardens, made a nice little dugout. We had a good thing going for a while, and she hasn’t said anything about going anywhere else. We just sort of live out here now.”

I blinked and parsed for a moment. “Okay, soooo, why not live near Bellenast, instead?” I bent the rod into a rounded loop, set it on one of the gas forge’s bricks to cool, and picked up another piece. “You could fly there in an afternoon, not even pushing yourselves. And, you know, while we’re on the subject, you could fly there and take me with you, and Blitz and Ivy would be really grateful. My marefriend, Night Cloud, too, and my foster parents, Eagle and Zephyr. All of them would be really happy. Never mind the fact that there’s friggin’ thousands of square kilometers of good farmland there, starting right outside the city. I flew over it a few days ago. Couldn’t really see it from the carriage, but it’s there. Why not have your own farm there? You know, somewhere a little warmer, a little more friendly?”

“Look, kid…” Skipper stopped with her mouth halfway open and glanced back at the door, as though looking at the cottage. “Nautical… she’s my bestie. Where she goes, I go. Minty, too.”

“So why not go there together?”

Skipper sighed and bit her lip while looking everywhere but directly at me, and said, “That’s… complicated, kid.”

I held her gaze until she looked again, and the mare’s ears twitched back when she noticed. “Pretend for a moment that I’m just as big as you are—all eighty-one centimeters of little filly Crystal Dew—and try me, Skipper.”

“You’re pretty intense for a little filly, you know that?” She turned to the side and began to pace. “Simple version? We went to Bellenast once. Welcome party sucked. Blitz, big ol’ shiny shoes Princess Blizziera turned us away. Said Unity wasn’t welcome in town. Period. End of story.”

Seeing Skipper’s lean figure silhouetted against the warm light of the furnace, and hearing Blitz’s name, the lapis alicorn’s bare hindquarters caught my attention.

“Blitz is still connected to Unity… isn’t she?”

“Huh?” Skipper halted and shook her head. “What? No. She and Ivy jumped ship, seven, eight years ago. Kinda their whole shtick, y’know? Blitz hates us. Big Boss, her whole plan. Everything. Can’t stand to be in spitting distance. She’d drop a balefire bomb on Maripony if she could find one, rest of her sisters be damned.”

I pointed the levitated chisel at the black-and-yellow-striped blowtorch on my hip. “I got my mark a couple days ago. Night Cloud has had hers for years. Ivy has hers, too. You, Nautical, and Minty don’t have yours… and neither does Blitz. Something about Unity hides it, doesn’t it? Suppresses it?” Skipper stared at me, eyes wide and mouth slack in disbelief. “I haven’t seen Orchid Wisp without barding or hospital scrubs, but she was pretty clear about disagreeing with the rest of you on something, so I’d bet she has her mark. I can see Minty not having hers yet, maybe, but you and Nautical? You expect me to believe Blitz never got her mark? She’s almost forty. How old are you?”

Skipper slowly sat down between me and the furnace. “Uhhhhhh thirty-three, I think… thirty four? I dunno, my mom never did much on my birthdays, so I sort of stopped keeping track, and—okay, never mind that, you’re serious? Blitz is a blank flank? You sure?”

I snorted and rolled my eyes, thinking of my first real conversation with the enormous mare. “Wasn’t wearing anything when I met her, and I was on the road with her for days. Trust me: Nice butt, no cutie mark.”

Skipper gave a short huff of a laugh. “Holy shit,” she muttered. “That… well, that, uh… changes things? Maybe? Explains a few things, I guess.”

“It explains why she hates Unity so much,” I said, “If she’s still stuck in it… maybe that was part of the deal she made to save Night Cloud’s life. Research the Potion, and report back to the rest of Unity?”

“Yeah, could be,” said Skipper. “Little before my time. Me and Minty, we’re really new. Nautical picked me to be her new wingmate, then we picked Minty up a few months later and came way out to Random Valley, Edge of Nowhere. Nautical’s been all over on Big Boss’s orders, but she never tried to sell us on the whole agenda.”

“What is the agenda? What does Unity do, anyway? What’s the point?”

“Uh, well, general plan is turn everypony into alicorns, pretty much. And I mean every pony. All of them, everywhere. The whole world. That way, nopony ever dies of radiation poisoning ever again, we all work together. One big, happy family. Problem is—”

“You don’t have any stallions.”

“Cha-ching! Not really viable as a species until we can make our own babies. Adoption’s cool and all, but it doesn’t keep us going. Plus, y’know…” Skipper set a hoof on her chest. “Pretty sure I’m not the only one who’d be super depressed if I never had a nice stallion to play with again… sure, strap-ons are an option, but you just can’t beat the real thing. Anyway, baby bakery situation’s only half the problem, if you ask me.”

I stopped in the middle of filing a chamfer around a buckle. “A strap-on…”

“Yeah, y’know, a fake dick, made of rubber? For mares who want to get it on with a stallion, but not with a stallion. Don’t think I’d want to use one that’s been sitting around for two hundred years, though. Probably have to go to Bellenast for a new one. Only place I know of that makes things like that—wait, shit, how old are you, anyway?”

I hoped with every fiber of my being that Night Cloud had no interest in such a thing. “Old enough, apparently.”

Skipper winced. “Yikes, my bad… sorry if I grossed you out.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ve seen, heard, and felt worse, Skipper… you said that was only half the problem. What’s the other half?”

“Oh! Uh… well, the rainbow treatment only works on ponies.” Skipper pointed a wing at the barn doors. “Pinny’s a Kirin. Kirin might seem pretty close to ponies, physically, but their magic is different enough the Potion wouldn’t work, so she wouldn’t get a ticket. Uruqhart definitely wouldn’t, and neither would any zebras, donkeys, gryphons, ghouls… Goddess doesn’t care about them. Once we have stallions, she wants to find more megaspells, set ‘em off, spread more radiation everywhere.”

I nearly dropped the buckle. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, that part freaks me out, too.” Skipper lifted one wing and turned her snout up toward its tip. “Make the whole world a paradise for alicorns. Radiation everywhere.” She raised her other wing and said, “Make it Tartarus for everyone else. Just need to get some stallions, first. Until that happens, Goddess is playing it safe, taking her time. Building up our numbers, making connections. Looking for resources, y’know, ponies who can help us.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, perfectly reasonable reaction. All the others? Rest of Unity? Every alicorn that hasn’t spent at least a few years way the fuck away from the Goddess and all the others, like Ivy did, like Orchid and Nautical did?” The lapis mare brought her wings down and sighed. “They’re all pretty much on the same track: The Goddess’s track. From everything Nautical’s told me, the way the bond works, our thoughts start to blend together, unless we can get some time away from her. There might be a whole twenty of us, out of thousands, with enough… I dunno—Identity? Self-awareness?—left to really think about it from our own perspective, and actually decide we don’t like the plan.”

I set the buckles down and shook my head. “That’s insane.”

“Yeah, now you see why we’re waaaaaaay out in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere?”

“No. I mean, yeah, I guess, sort of, but what I really see is definitely why Blitz hates Unity. The Goddess is a friggin’ lunatic.”

“Yeah, you can say that easy as you please, but the rest of us? The whole brain osmosis thing makes it hard to have opinions like that. I mean, for most of us, the opinions, the thoughts… stuff is still there, in the backs of our minds… just doesn’t stay in the front very long. Like I said, it’s complicated. Nautical saw what’s what after Orchid left. Orchid left after she came all the way to Bellenast and Ivy said her piece, and Ivy… as far as I know, Ivy’s the only one to leave all on her own. Blitz had something to do with that, but it really all started with Ivy.”

“I’m pretty sure Nautical picked me as her partner because I was one of the newbies. I was only around the others for a few months, didn’t have time to really gel with everyone that much… and soon as we brought Minty aboard, we slipped out nice and quiet. I didn’t think anything of it when she said we were going off to who-knows-where for who-knows-what, and Minty was still reeling from the whole transformation thing… I was still pretty aimless, myself.”

I rubbed my temples with both hooves and sighed. “So… can you talk to Blitz, or not?”

Skipper bit her lip, kicking her hoof at the packed dirt between us. “I mean… if she’s really connected again… we probably could, if we tried, but… you walk on stage, stand behind a microphone, it’s the whole crowd that hears you, not just that one pony in the front row. Spotlight comes on…”

“And that’s… a problem. The others noticing.”

“It could be a problem. Nautical keeps the mic switched off on her end, and we get to do our thing, the others leave us alone. Big Boss has other things on her mind, so she hasn’t sent anyone to bring us back. Soon as we make a ruckus, hollering at Blitz and Ivy… like I said, spotlight comes on. Security by obscurity, y’know? We draw attention to ourselves, and Boss might send bouncers after us.”

“Bouncers.”

“Yeah, y’know, big dudes you see outside clubs? Only not dudes, I guess, since we’re all mares—well, some of us are—”

“I get it.” I held up a forehoof. “I know what a bouncer is. ‘Alicorn bouncer’ is just… it’s a weird image. You’re not exactly bouncer material. Blitz or Ivy, sure. Nautical, maybe. You? Definitely not, and Orchid Wisp is centerfold material.”

“Uhhh… okay, yeah, I see what you mean, but never mind that. Bad analogy.” Skipper tossed her head and said, “Point is, the Goddess runs a tight ship, and we’re basically AWOL. If she could hear what I’m saying right now, she’d be pissed, and that tends to bleed over to the rest of us. When she focuses on something, and I mean really puts her mind to it, the rest of us, we just… never mind not having a choice, we don’t even want to disagree. If she decides she wants us to come back…”

Skipper sagged, her head and neck low and hears laid back. “I don’t want to go back… and I can’t do that to Minty. Unity is… it’s no place for a kid, all right? I figured that out real quick, and I was only there for a couple months.” The lanky alicorn pushed herself to her hooves suddenly and trotted by me, stopping in front of the bench that held the three guns in states of disassembly.

“It messes with your head. Only good thing I can say about it, y’know, being hooked up with all the others? Helped me kick Dash. That whole mental link, the big… togetherness thing? Scary as shit, looking at it from the outside now… or as outside as we can be, anyway, but lemme tell you, cutting Dash, full stop? Fuck that shit. Felt like I was dying, but I had a bunch of ponies all around to share it, spread it out. Sort of dull the whole experience. Keep me company, keep me grounded, help me ride out the storm… keep me from running off to find more, or something worse. Goddess may have a few screws loose, but most of Unity? They’re actually all right. They take care of each other, anyway. Sisters. Bat-shit crazy sisters on the whole, but that’s not really their fault.”

I glanced up from the buckle fittings and new straps I’d cut from an old scrap of tanned hide and watched Skipper as she hefted the cumbersome machine gun. The mare levitated the weapon next to her side in a haze of red, as though it were linked to a battle saddle. “What’s Dash? A drug?”

Skipper set the gun down and gave me a sober look. “Yeah. Some combat drug one of the old Ministries cooked up. Stuff stays potent forever if it’s in the original ampules, so you can find it in the big city ruins… some ponies learned how to make fresh stuff, few decades ago, some place in Manehattan, I think. I dunno, probably Tenpony, before they tightened up their act. Yours truly made the mistake of trying it out just one little time… one little time turned into two, and three, and so on and so on. Shit’ll kill you quick if you take too much, kill you slow if you can’t get enough. Feels like you’re on top of the world while a high lasts, like everything’s in slow motion. Puts your reflexes into overdrive, gives you an edge in a fight… but you get hooked, and go too long without another dose… suddenly you have the shakes and your head’s spinning and your heart can’t keep a solid beat and you just want to fuckin’ keel over on the spot.”

The mare rubbed a hoof on her chest idly and gave a short huff of a laugh. “When dad called me Beat Skipper, I don’t think he meant arrhythmia.” She looked over the light cannon, lifting it up briefly, seemingly with great effort and concentration. “Don’t do chems, kid. They’ll fuck you up. No ifs, ands, or buts. Someone ever tries to sell you on shit like that, you walk the fuck away. Damn, that’s heavy.”

She looked up suddenly and rapped her hoof on the cannon. “Why do you think Uruqhart has this thing, anyway? This is a bit much even for him, and that dude’s pretty jacked, y’know, for someone who has to run around on two legs, anyway.”

“Maybe he wanted to shoot some robots? I can sympathize.” I pointed at Skipper’s barding where it rested on the table. “Where are your guns, anyway? There are mounting hard points for a battle saddle on this, you know. See these rails, and the guide rods? That’s where you fasten the guns, the control linkages. They need some work, first, but everything you need to rig a battle saddle is right here.”

Skipper trotted closer. “Yeah, I kinda figured that, but good luck getting ammo out here. Besides, I learned a few nifty spells from the other gals before we left, and Nautical’s no slouch, either.”

“And what about Minty?” Before Skipper could answer, I turned and prodded her chest; given that I could walk under the mare by ducking my head, the effect of the gesture was somewhat diminished. “You expect me to believe a mare who’s had her horn for three years is any good at fighting with it?”

Skipper’s ears flicked back. “Well, that’s why Nautical and I watch out for her.”

“Oh, and you’re that much better off? You’re so underfed you wouldn’t be able to beat me in a fight.”

The tall alicorn smirked, but her ears kept flicking. “Big talk for a bite-sized filly.”

“So friggin’ bite me, Skipper. Why don’t you ask the Prince how his kidnapping attempt went? Or was the broken horn and coughing not a good enough clue? Look, I haven’t been starving for months, and I’d bet most of the gangs around here aren’t made of alicorns who need twice as much food as any other pony, bare minimum, just to friggin’ survive. How hard is it for you to find a gun somewhere and scrounge up a few bullets?”

I pointed at the trio of weapons on the work table. “Have you asked Uruqhart if he has any extras? Seriously. Someone in his village must have something you can use, something you could barter for.” Setting my hoof on my breast, I said, “I could make battle saddles for you and Minty if you had a gun with you.” Jostling the rudimentary aiming rig strapped to the panel across my hazard suit’s breast, I said, “I made this yesterday, in about an hour. I’m not the friggin’ Ivaline Rifle Company, but it’d be better than strutting around with nothing.”

I lifted and brandished the mangled steel bar I’d twisted into a club the prior afternoon and said, “Just because I can pick up the nearest stick and hit somepony with it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t rather have a gun. Most unicorns can’t do what I can, but I still have guns, because it takes a moment to build up power for a strong spell and aim it. For most of us, aiming a gun is faster and easier. You know the first thing Prince Nádarin did when he kidnapped me? He took away my guns, while I couldn’t see what was going on, and left them behind.”

“All I had when I landed next to a ravine in the middle of the mountains was this suit and my horn… and he snuck up on me and stuck an inhibitor ring on my horn, because he’s smart. It didn’t work, but he still took away every option I had. I’m friggin’ tiny, Skipper. I can’t fight without my magic. How much better off would you be if somepony hit your horn with a stick, huh?”

Skipper took a halting step back, her ears falling, but she stopped and met my eyes. “Look, kid… Crystal. I don’t know why you’re so stoked about it, but we can take care of ourselves. I’ve been in my fair share of fights, and Nautical’s one tough grandma… and I stress, grandma. She’s old. She’s seen every trick there is.”

“I’m stoked because even my marefriend, who’s a doctor and a friggin’ pacifist, has a sword and a pistol on her all the time, and knows how to use them, even if she doesn’t like to; I’ve seen her fight, and she’s friggin’ scary. Plus, she can turn invisible whenever she wants, and you know how useful that is. She also hasn’t been starving, Skipper. She’s healthy, and strong, and really well coordinated. Her biggest problem is that she hesitates.”

I gave the mare and her armor a pointed look. “Being a big, intimidating alicorn doesn’t do you any good if those gangs know you three don’t like to fight… because you can’t, because you’re too weak and hungry for it to be a smart idea to do anything but run and hide. You’re wearing that barding so nopony can see how thin you are.” I turned my side to her and once again used my emerald green magic to spread apart the fur over the triangular scar on my back.

“Take it from me: Wearing armor just makes you the first target. Doesn’t make you safe. You can’t sit down and ask politely for safe. You have to fight for it, tooth and hoof.” I sat down while I worked on the straps and buckles, cutting and heating and filing one part after another constantly in an emerald lightshow. Skipper sat silently near me, seeming at a loss for words.

“Eagle and Zephyr brought me across half the continent to look for safe. We thought Bellenast was the place to be. Well, we made it to Bellenast, but we haven’t found safe yet. I was sitting inside a giant, balefire-powered robot yesterday morning. Armor and guns galore, and a magic shield around me, and enough radiation to make my mane start glowing… and my marefriend there to hold me and protect me. I thought I was safe. I let my guard down and stepped outside to look around, see the sunshine between the friggin’ blizzards. Now all my friends and family have no idea where I am, and they can’t protect me, and I’m just lucky the stallion who zipped in on his magic dust ball and kidnapped me let his guard down, thought I was just a scared little filly who wouldn’t fight back. A friggin’ doll.”

“Doll?” Skipper snorted and said, “Maybe on the outside… so, uh… what was that about a balefire-powered robot?”

“Maximillian. He sort of looks like a Zebra tank, but with wheels and a, um… an observatory tower slapped on top, with a couple big arms with claws, instead of a cannon. I mean, he has a bunch of cannons, too, but… never mind. Some ponies made him before the bombs, at this big lab way out in the desert past Cliffside. He was some kind of rolling test platform for the power plant, and a mobile lab. At some point, he, um… stopped being just a robot and started thinking for himself, I guess?” I shrugged my wings. “And now, I guess he’s my friend. I wanted to be nice to him when everypony else was pointing cannons at his face… one of the ponies who made him, Carbide, already saved my life, and Carbide’s cool… Max is pretty cool, too.”

Skipper gave a low laugh. “Yeaaaahh, that’s pretty crazy, kid. Most robots out there… best to shoot first, ask questions never, tear ‘em apart for scrap.”

“Well, this robot’s a few hundred tons of steel on wheels, at least… and kind of snarky. He’s not a normal robot. Besides, I already shot his face once, when he was hacked by some kind of… matrix injection thing—I dunno, some kind of computer virus is what my marefriend said, and that kind of snapped him out of it. Shooting him in the face didn’t keep him down; in fact, I think he completely replaced that part before he came after me, ‘cause it looked brand-spanking new. He doesn’t want to hurt anypony now, so… I think he’s cool.”

“Yeah, okay, anyway, about the balefire bit.” Skipper scooted closer to me and nudged my side with her wing. “You’re saying you have a source of radiation? A concentrated one?”

I looked up from the floating assembly line in my magic. “Max runs on a balefire megaspell. I was so radioactive after going in there I couldn’t go back outside without poisoning the air and anypony nearby. That’s why I had this suit on when the Prince grabbed me. Think I burned most of it off yesterday after I friggin’ amplified his teleportation tunnel spell… and fired off a big signal spell… sort of.” I sighed and muttered, “Probably should have used an actual signal spell, instead… wasted a bunch of magic on something my friends couldn’t even see. Had no clue I was a hundred friggin’ kilometers from Bellenast.”

“Wait, so that green lightshow was you?” Skipper whistled. “Daaaaaayum, Bite-Size, we saw that clear over the fuckin’ mountains!”

I groaned and muttered, “My name is Crystal Dew. Or just Crystal. Please.”

The mare tousled my mane with a hoof. “Naaaaah, you’re Bite-Size. Believe me, kid, it’s always the pony with the cutesiest nickname who’s the hardest hitter in the gang.” She then thumped my side with her wing. “Yeah, that light looked like it was near Pinny’s place, so we came by to check on her. Never seen anything like it. I thought it might have been another dragon, or a balefire egg going off.”

“No, just a hydrogen-oxygen torch spell. Isolate the gas from the air, compress it, ignite it. It’s green because… well, that’s my magic.”

“Hydrogen… shit, you can do that?” She nudged me again and said, “Damn, where’d you learn that kind of magic?”

“I based it off gas collection talismans in Thunderhead ships in Neighvarro,” I said, lighting such a spell at the tip of my horn for a couple seconds to demonstrate the bright, hissing flow of hot gases. “I couldn’t convince anypony to let a nine-year-old filly use the plasma torches, so I needed another way to cut and bend metal. It wasn’t as good as a real plasma torch, but it worked. I made an actual cutting spell later, but I realized I could use a modified version for boosters on power armor if I could build the spell into a talisman system. Took me a few years to design those, but they’re really helpful if you need to take off or slow down really fast… Zephyr’s not the strongest flier, and Eagle’s not that fast, so I wanted to give them any advantage I could… and, if you can manage the spells at a higher flow rate and compression ratio, and take the force of it, it makes a friggin’ scary weapon.”

I sighed and shook my head, focusing on my work again. “It’s also really loud and highly visible. I was just… pissed off, and not really thinking clearly. Nádarin was… I wanted to scare him, so he wouldn’t try anything, and… well, you saw the spell from far away, right? That’s what I was going for, just… I thought we were maybe ten, twenty klicks from Bellenast, not a hundred. You might be able to see that far from the top of a mountain… to another mountaintop. Not from here to Bellenast.” I snorted and muttered, “And it was in broad daylight. Stupid. I don’t think I could do it again now if I wanted to, not for long enough for the right ponies to look in the right direction.”

“Eh, not the dumbest thing you could have done by far. So, like I was saying, about the balefire thing…”

“Skipper, do you need some radiation?”

“Heheh. What makes you ask, Bite-Size?” The alicorn sighed, stretched, and popped her neck. “Yeah, uh… it’s no substitute for food, but… radiation would help. It’d help a lot, actually. Makes casting spells less tiring, for one. We haven’t been able to find anything out here… guess that’s why ponies live here. It’s a tough life, but it’s clean land, clean water, clean air… hard to beat that.” She chuckled and picked up one of the buckles I had finished, adding the red of her magic to my emerald and the warm glow of the fire. “Minty said the soil’s really good here… she and her dad were beet farmers. I mean, they grew other stuff, too, but beets are sweet, sugary, so they were good for barter…”

“Do you want to come to Bellenast and sit in Maximillian’s cabin for a while, so you can have enough radiation to heal if you’re hurt?”

“I mean…” Skipper laughed softly. “Yeah, that’d be super. Been a while since I was that hot. Maybe if, uh…”

“If what?”

“I, uh… well, if Blitz would be okay with us just… y’know, darting in, darting out, maybe picking up some seeds from one of the farmers, that’d be cool, too.”

I gave her a pointed look. “How about looking for a place to live nearby while you’re at it?”

“Look, Crystal, I already said it, Blitz won’t have it.”

I snorted as I walked up to her and begin fitting the mare’s barding around her torso with new straps and buckles, scoring the leather with an awl where I would need to cut it. I had a lot of work to do, but preventing the armor from rattling with every step was a start. “You let me talk to Blitz.”

“That—you know what? Fine.” Skipper gave a nervous toss of her head as I shifted the barding’s padded lining and centered the narrow, front half of her cuirass over her chest while I attached the straps. I reared up and braced my hooves on her side just to see the jointed paneling along her back. “I won’t get my hopes up, but fine… talk all you want, Bite-Size.” I stepped back after I finished fitting her croupiere, and Skipper pranced in place, causing a minor cacophony of clinking and rasping. “Whoa. You actually know what you’re doing. This feels way better.”

“It’s a little lower-tech than what I normally deal with, as far as armor goes, but straps are straps, and buckles are buckles. A good fit makes a big difference.”

“Enclave gear, right? I didn’t think power armor had buckles.”

“It doesn’t, unless parts are missing. No, I got the privilege of fixing saddlebags at Cloud Loft Peak.” I levitated one of the freshly made buckles. “Somepony finds out you can bend metal with your horn, and suddenly you’re stuck in the shop, fixing things for a week…taking care of all the little things they couldn’t do without the right tools, or spells… and making replacement buckles for saddlebags. Sheet steel’s easy to shape.”

“Heh. Pretty nice to be needed like that, if you ask me.” Skipper moved closer to the furnace and heating reflectors. The yellow glow turned her barding into a gleaming spectacle shot with streaks of rusted alloy.

“It was a job,” I muttered. “Showed them I knew what I was doing. And for once, finally, somepony would let me look at power armor up close. Kind of funny how nopony at Neighvarro would let me near the berths, but as soon as I’m at Cloud Loft, where they have one beat-up Vertibuck, and hardly any spare parts, and everything they do have is doubly priceless, they let me play with all the toys.”

“Vertibuck, huh?” Skipper looked up as the barn door creaked open, and Minty came inside, forelock wind-blown and askew, carrying a wadded-up blanket in her incandescent magic. Minty threw the blanket over Skipper’s back and stood close by the taller mare, looking around at the myriad tools in curiosity. “You’re the best, Minty. So, that’s one of those big chariots, right?”

“It’s an armored chariot, yeah, but it has kinetic jumper arrays and pressure shields around the harness pods and main cabin. Lets them take off straight into the air quickly, and fly at high altitudes.” I glanced at the anti-machine rifle on the nearby bench. “And they have sponsons with aetheric cannons, about… twice as big as that thing.”

“What’s a sponson? Like a pontoon?”

“What? No, um… it’s a part of the hull that juts out, for things like landing gears, or guns. You put a swiveling shield on it, with a cannon sticking through a slot in the middle. That lets you aim the guns all the way forward and backward on both sides, since they’re offset from the hull. If you just cut a hole in the hull, instead, without the offset, the gun wouldn’t be able to turn as far.”

I levitated a sanding block and set to work on Skipper’s cuirass. “Anyway, Cloud Loft has one Vertibuck… they mostly use it for hauling food and firewood up from the valley, and all the guns were busted when I showed up, so all they had for defense was somepony riding topside with a beam rifle. Eagle let me into the berth the first week I was there while he was rebuilding a stator in one of the generators, so I fixed all the cannons and rebuilt the gimbal mounts… they never really use them, since they’re a massive drain on the main batteries and tend to, y’know, set trees on fire, but if a dragon ever showed up, or something, at least we’d be able to scare it off.”

Skipper chortled and said, “Yeeaah, if I ever see a dragon, first thing I’m doing is hiding. Be nice to have a big fuck-off cannon, but unless it’s a really big fuck-off cannon, dragon’ll just feel a tickle.” She looked over at the guns on the work tables, and Minty glanced at the door, her ears flicking forward. “Something like that might work… on a small one, a juvie. An adult? Unless you can hit it in the eye, or maybe straight in the mouth, you’ll just make it mad.”

-Tell me, Crystal, that spell you cast, the one we saw in the sky yesterday… did you do that very near your abductor?-

I stopped working and followed Minty’s gaze toward the door and the cottage beyond. Um… yeah, you could say that. An odd burst of vertigo struck me, and ephemeral images of the emerald green plume and a roar of erupting plasma flashed across my mind’s eye, as though I had looked at camera recording for only an instant. I blinked and reeled, shaking my head.

-That would do it… come back to the cottage.-

Nautical, Did you just friggin’ read my mind?

-I looked for what was close to the surface. Impressions, glimpses, nothing more. I needed to see the spell from your memory, to gauge it. Come back inside. Now, please. You’re keeping my sisters out in the cold.-

I made a grumbly noise in my throat as I glanced at Skipper and Minty, who had little protection from the harsh chill beyond one blanket draped across their backs and their winter coats, neither of which was as thick and healthy as mine; the fresh mud caked on Minty’s feathered fetlocks must have been doubly chilling, but she, at least, was of a stockier build than the lean and long-legged Skipper. My ears drooped, and I sighed as I set all the floating tools in my grasp down on the nearby table and adjusted one final buckle on Skipper’s barding.

I extinguished the furnace with a pile of gathered snow and smothering field of magic, and pushed the barn door open. “Nautical wants us back—”

“Yeah, I heard,” said Skipper, nodding as she and Minty followed me outside. “Brain osmosis, Bite-Size.”

“Right,” I muttered. “Duh.” Minty chortled and kicked the door closed on her way out. A gentle and constant, but chilling wind had descended on the valley, a precursor of the next storm.

As I reached the cottage’s outer door, it opened in a pink glow, and Pinwheel trotted out, carrying a dented pail in her magic. A sour tang of acid reached my nose.

“Is that—”

“A bucket of sick?” said the ash-colored Kirin in a discordantly cheery tone. Pinwheel sent the pail floating out across the snow ten or so meters from the cottage and upended it. “Aye, that it was.” She put a clump of snow in the pail and blasted a plume of pink fire into it, holding the blaze until the snow had sublimated into a cloud steam. More soberly, Pinwheel said, “Three guesses who.”

I trotted through the tunnel and quickly stripped off my hazard suit inside while Skipper and Minty passed through, Pinwheel coming in last. Nautical stood by Prince Nádarin, near the crackling fire, holding his head up with her magic. She dabbed a wet cloth at the side of his muzzle; one corner of the rag was stained with flecks of dark red. She then brought a bowl of water close for him to drink.

Nautical barely spared me a glance as I stopped a meter away. Nádarin coughed several times, pained and feeble, between sips of water, and murmured his thanks after.

“Your spell,” Nautical said softly, “Shed enough waste radiation to give him acute poisoning. This is beyond a dose or two of Rad-Away and bed rest… not that we have any to give.” The forest green alicorn set the rag in a bowl of water on the floor and simply looked at me, her face devoid of emotion. “He may live, if he is treated soon. A few days, maybe a week, and the only salvation left to him…” She looked down at the prince and flicked her tail. “…he’d refuse with his last breath.”

I grimaced. I don’t think he wants to be forced into being a mare, Nautical.

Nádarin raised his head ever so slightly to meet the alicorn’s eyes. “The Goddess,” he said, voice strained, and coming between wheezing breaths, “Would use me, what I know, for her own gain… and my home would suffer immeasurably for it. Better…” He coughed once more and laid his head on the pillow before him. “Better that I die here, frozen, forgotten,” said the prince, barely above a murmur, “Than I be chained to that demon as chattel…”

Nautical sighed, and she shifted her green-gold magic over to stir the stew bubbling in the kettles.

-Never mind that the Goddess has no more interest in Bellenast, much less the San Palomino and its little Empire. She has grander visions than that. She has allied our sisters with an oh-so-charming and sagacious charlatan of a stallion in the pits of Fillydelphia, to solve our problems… some Stable pony who claims he can help us. He’s resourceful, I admit, but that’s not enough. I know his type. Shrewd, ambitious. Frighteningly intelligent. He knows what we are, what she is. He won’t deliver. He’ll renege on our agreement somehow, manage to deceive us in time, even, but try telling her that. Sparkle should have tested the Potion on her mother. She’d have had more sense. Tartarus, I’d rather partner with this scoundrel of a prince than let that smooth-talker give me or my sisters orders. He’s an honorable sort, despite his actions, I can tell that much… wouldn’t catch me dead saying the same of Red Eye.-

Nautical gave me a look askance, ear turning to me, as well, while I stood before Nádarin. The bitter resentment on her face vanished, and in its place came sympathy. -Oh, child, don’t blame yourself for this… it takes us weeks to gain control of our magic. You couldn’t have known what would happen.-

My ears drooped, and a dry lump seemed stuck in my throat. I sat on my haunches and stammered. “I… I didn’t mean… I didn’t want to… I—” -Just because he kidnapped me doesn’t mean I wanted to friggin’ poison him.- I shook my head hard and gritted my teeth. -Nautical, can you… would you take us to Bellenast? Please? Or at least fly there and… look, it wouldn’t even take you a few hours, and I promise, Blitz won’t be mad about—

“Little filly,” said the alicorn, muzzle drawing into a sudden, fierce scowl, “Don’t you tell me what will or won’t make that mare angry. Even at your age, she was mercurial.” She gave a harsh snort and turned, her heavy hoofsteps carrying her across the smooth timbers to the kitchen. “And don’t ever make a promise someone else won’t keep.”

I scowled after her for a moment, until she faced something beyond the doorway, and I wound up merely staring at her tail and markless hindquarters. I sighed and looked at Nádarin again, finding him to have been looking first.

“Crystal—”

“You called her a demon.” Nádarin frowned at having been interrupted, and my own brow furrowed. “The Goddess.”

“A description entirely too kind,” he said, taking a wheezing breath. “But if you’d met her, you’d say the same.”

“You have?”

“Nearly a decade ago… Splendid Valley harbors a truly wretched creature, Crystal. Wretched, but powerful and monstrous beyond compare. I left that place, body and mind intact, but only because the Goddess allowed it.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “She is cautious, Crystal,” he murmured, “Cautious, and cunning… now, she bides her time, building her strength, seeking resources, information, all to further her cause… but her patience has its limit. She will grow tired of waiting, and even Blizziera, with all of Bellenast’s resources brought to bear, will be unable to challenge her.”

“You called Blitz one, too.” Prince Nádarin opened his eyes again to meet mine. “You called her Bellenast’s own demon yesterday.” I stood up again, looking down at the prince. “Well, which one would you rather be friends with?”

“Friends?” Nádarin laughed, and it turned into another coughing fit. With a discomfited frown, I levitated the nearby bowl of water up for him to drink. I glanced up as Minty walked over and sat by me, smiling. She nudged my shoulder with her snout and put her wing across my back. “Thank you, Crystal…” I set the bowl down, and Nádarin spared Minty a brief look before he continued. “Do you truly think Blizziera would want to ally herself with me after what I’ve done to you?”

I snorted. “Yeah, you kidnapped me, fine, but you didn’t hurt me. And whatever the next step in your plan was after kidnapping me, it failed pretty miserably. You’re not a threat to me anymore. I’m calling this citizen’s arrest.” I glared at him and said, “And I’m thinking that what you’ve done isn’t all that significant when you compare it to what Blitz stands to gain from you and the rest of your Empire. You both hate the Goddess. She’s your common enemy. Bellenast’s enemy, your Empire’s enemy.”

I pulled the tiny, bronze box from the pocket of my hazard suit and set it in front of Nádarin. “So why don’t you grow some backbone, talk out this stupid thing about your brother with Ivy, apologize to my marefriend—and my foster parents—for kidnapping me, and… I dunno, maybe try to make an alliance with Bellenast, so you and Blitz can fight the friggin’ lunatic who wants to set off more balefire bombs everywhere? Oh, and maybe tell her what you did to screw up the SPP Tower, so they can fix it and stop this friggin’ blizzard cycle?” I stomped my forehoof hard on the floor. “Because that would be super nice. The entire Bellenastian valley is covered with snow. I guarantee that’s done more damage than anything your army did on the way there.”

“The SPP Tower?” The prince responded with a befuddled frown.

My ears twitched. “Don’t say you had nothing to do with it.”

He opened his mouth once, then stopped as if in deep consideration. “All right,” he said, slowly, “I won’t say that… instead, I shall ask you to consider this, Crystal: The Kekalo Empire, my homeland, is arid. It is dominated by the San Palomino Desert and savanna lowlands, much like the Zebra lands across the Celestial Sea. Our western border is the South Lunar Sea; you can go a hundred kilometers inland before you rise one hundred meters above sea level.”

He turned his head back to his side. “Look at me, my coat, my barding.” He then nodded toward me, and Minty beside me. “Compare me to yourselves. I am ill-suited to enduring the cold… and this thin air, as I’m certain you’ve noticed. If I had wanted to attack Bellenast, for any reason, I would not have caused conditions for which my army, as you call it, is woefully unprepared. Furthermore, the only pony I ever wished any harm is the only one who may be able to answer my questions.” He coughed again and took a long breath, and he allowed his head to sink to the pillow. “Though I rather doubt,” said the weary prince, “That Ivaline, or Blizziera, will believe me on that account…”

I growled as I turned and stomped away from him. “If you had friggin’ talked to them first, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Try to doubt that.” My ears flicked toward an indistinct thumping coming from beyond the cottage door. Beyond the small, round window in the door, there appeared a dark shape.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

A heavy, rapid scuffling of hooves came from behind me just after the knock on the door, and I whirled around to keep Rotundus in sight as he ran out from the rear room. The boar stopped near me, sniffing and snuffling, and it took every iota of self-control I had not to shove the tusked beast away from me, or bash it with the closest heavy object. Minty had risen, and walked over to me, giving me a confused look. Rotundus then continued toward the front door, giving what sounded like a squeal of either enthusiasm or abject rage.

“Oi, Tundy, back off!” Pinwheel Malaise came out of the kitchen along with Nautical, who went without a word to the bubbling kettles to add some ingredients once more, but kept one ear turned back toward us. Pinwheel gave the boar a tug with her pink magic, and Rotundus scuffled way as she unlocked the door. “Out of the way, ya silly pig. Just a sec!”

“He head-butted me yesterday,” I muttered aside to Minty. “Soon as I walked through the door.” She patted my back with her wing and nodded. “Not a great first impression.”

Pinwheel lifted the bar from the door and stepped back. A moment later, the door swung open under the power of a gloved, four-fingered hand, and the tall, broad figure stepped carefully over the threshold. Snow clung to the heavy, brown fur cape that enveloped the minotaur from shoulders to ankles, and a fluffy, black-and-grey-speckled fur cap covered his head, along with a faded green bandana over his dark snout and goggles over his eyes. He ducked his head so as not to hit the doorframe with a pair of horns that grew outward and curved nearly straight up and forward at an angle; each horn was adorned with a quartet of polished, bronze bands a third along their length, each half a centimeter in breadth and spaced that same distance apart.

“Welcome to the party, Uruqhart,” said Pinwheel as the minotaur barred the door with his free hand, for the other held onto a metal bar balanced over his shoulder. “How was the trip?”

“Colder than usual,” said the deep, slightly muffled voice from behind the tightly-fitted bandana. “And windier. Had to stop twice yesterday, hide from nagas. They’ve roamed east.”

“Ah. No wonder you took so long. Well, glad you made it, and neither frostbitten nor tooth-bitten. You’re here just in time to wait an indeterminate length of time for lunch!”

“It will be ready,” muttered Nautical, “When it’s ready.”

“Aye.” Pinwheel walked back through the doorway to the pen and out of sight, and she called out, “I said ‘indeterminate,’ didn’t I?”

Minty chuckled beside me, then stepped forward and raised her left forehoof up. Uruqhart bumped his gloved fist against it. “Minty.” He glanced over at the other two alicorns. “Nautical.” The green mare nodded. “Skipper.”

“Sup.”

Uruqhart tugged off his bandana first, then pulled his left glove with his teeth, and finally, removed his goggles and fur cap, revealing a pair of sienna eyes, bushy eyebrows, a coat of deep brown fur, a dark beard split into two elaborate braids, and a short, bristly mane the same obsidian black as Night Cloud’s own, which ran down the back of his broad head and neck. He hung the cap and goggles on one of several hooks on the wall near the door, then shifted his grip on the metal bar balanced on his shoulder to lift it upright; the motion nudged aside his cape and revealed an impressively muscular upper arm and chest, though he was clothed with a thick, linen vest and fur-wrapped leggings.

The bar he held on his right shoulder turned out to have one end twisted into a lump, and over his left side was a long sling attached to what looked like the end of a gun. Uruqhart looked between the steel bar and us, glancing first toward Pinwheel, then Minty, then turning his eyes, and a raised eyebrow, to me. Minty sidestepped and pointed at me.

“Really?” Minty nodded. The minotaur, roughly as tall at his crown as Blitz at hers, shifted his grip once more and set the bar-stock-turned-club against the wall below his cap and goggles. “I was going to use this.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I was… angry. Blowing off steam. I, um… I can bend it back.”

His stony expression barely wavered but for a slight crinkling of his brow. He shrugged his shoulders under the fur-lined cape. “Maybe later.”

I sighed, and, copying Minty, stuck out my forehoof for the minotaur to bump. Uruqhart leaned over to tap his ungloved fist against my comparatively tiny hoof. His brown fur thinned on his hands and four fingers, which ended in short, blunted claws.

“My name’s Crystal. Nice to meet you, Uruqhart.”

He looked over at Nádarin at last. “Who’s this?”

“I made her angry,” said the prince.

“He,” said Nautical, “Is the esteemed Prince Nádarin of the Kekalo Empire. He decided to kidnap an alicorn filly who was very nearly glowing. As I understand it, his transportation spell exceeded his expectations rather spectacularly, carried the two of them past the Trolls Teeth and clear over the entire Bloomfang Range, and dumped them a few valleys over from Pinwheel’s lovely home.” Nádarin gave a quiet sigh. Nautical continued in her acerbic tones. “He subsequently failed the requisite restraining and ransom portion of the abduction process, lost his horn for his troubles, and, oh, just a guess, that was probably when he began to think to himself, ‘Oh, dearie me, how utterly, monumentally foolish I have been today.’”

Nautical paused on her way past the Prince, tilting her head toward him. “Did I miss anything, Your Highness?”

“Oh, no,” said Nádarin, his voice dipping into a mutter, “Succinct and accurate, milady.”

Nautical scoffed and returned to the kitchen with her levitated collection of spice jars. “Ooh, ‘milady!’ I’d have loved if ponies had called me that when I was a filly…” She poked her head back into the doorway. “You know the one lousy thing about not aging? You don’t get any respect for being old.” She disappeared again, and the sounds of jars being set in cabinets competed with the crackling fire and muffled wind. “Takes guts and grit to live as long as I had… I was ninety-seven when they forced that slimy Potion down my throat. Ninety-seven! And nobody would know from looking, now…”

I snorted as I went back to sit near the fireplace with Minty beside me, and I muttered, “Is she really complaining about being eternally gorgeous?”

Minty rolled her eyes and telekinetically grabbed the ladle hanging near the kettles, and she took over stirring duty. I had lost track of everything Nautical had added to the three kettles, but their mouth-watering aroma had permeated the entire cottage. Uruqhart propped his rifle up near the door and looped its sling around a wall hook; it was nearly identical to Blitz’s long gun, but for the addition of wooden parts, and a grip and trigger like those my shotgun once had. He hung up his fur-lined cloak and made for the fireplace, rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms behind his back as he sat down. The minotaur let out a long sigh and held his four-fingered hands near the flames, flexing the digits repeatedly.

“That was sixty-some-odd years ago,” said Nautical as she left the kitchen again, at last removing her flowery, yellow apron to hang it beside the doorway, tucked behind one of Pinwheel’s larger carved statues; the rearing, wooden pony had a jagged horn, beetle-like wings, and odd holes in its legs, and was about my size. “Ivaline already had me beat when the Goddess claimed her… hundred and four, damn the old witch.”

The number and the moniker made me frown as I thought of a mare and her colt, both with the powder blue, three-pointed stars on their chests. “The Witch,” I murmured. “Witch of the—”

“The Amber Palace, oh yes.” Nautical looked down at me, ears forward. “They called her that because the mare just refused to die. She was the king’s advisor. The first, the second, and the third one.” Nautical stretched her forelegs out one at a time, then her wings, brushing the ceiling, then settled down next to Minty and me. The jade alicorn gently drew the leading edge of her wing down Minty’s neck, then nuzzled near the smaller mare’s ear. “Take a mare away from everything she knows and loves, everything she’s fought to build and protect her entire life, surround her with ponies she can see only as her enemies… then give her the strength and vigor of her youth once again… wasn’t there to see it, myself, but it took three of us to restrain her, when she finally had her hooves under her. Falcon of Dunn, indeed.” Nautical eyed the braiding in Minty’s mane, then looked across at me. “She’d never admit it, but the Goddess learned a valuable lesson that day.”

At that, Nádarin looked over. “Not—” He coughed, grimacing, and said, “Not about brawling technique, I assume…”

Nautical looked not at me or the Prince, but turned her gaze toward the fire, absently rubbing Minty’s back; Minty, for her part, laid her head against the jade mare and continued to stir the stew pots with an incandescent glow around the ladle. “She learned that some wills are equal to her own,” murmured Nautical, “And some spirits cannot be broken. Bound, for a time… but not broken.” She gave a soft, mirthless chuckle, and said, “Ivaline was the oldest pony the Goddess ever claimed, as far as I know. I’ve wondered, these last few years, if that was why she remained herself for so long… why I’ve been able to remain myself.” She nuzzled Minty again and murmured, “The younger we are, the less perspective we have, the less identity… the fewer memories to hold onto, once the bond takes hold. I suppose something about long-term memory is… more stubborn.”

“Yeah,” muttered Skipper, “Just like cranky old mares, right?”

“Wouldn’t call her cranky,” said Uruqhart in his low, calm voice. “More like vindicated.”

“And that,” said Nautical, pointing at the minotaur with her wingtip, “Is how you know he loves his momma.”

“If you had three brothers and a sister,” said Uruqhart, “And your momma didn’t flay all you alive by adulthood, you’d love her, too.”

14. Rebuke

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Chapter Fourteen

Rebuke

The ravine was neither the deepest nor the widest I’d ever seen, and an enormous pile of prickly pain at its bed was conspicuously absent, but that was the first image that came to mind when I stopped at its edge—and then I looked at the cascade of meltwater coming down the valley toward the Gelgrin River, which lay half a kilometer eastward through the forest. As I watched, a shelf of dark, rooted earth that overhung the roaring flow—and one of the berry bushes we sought—began to tear away, and crashed into the ravine, sending a ton or more of soil into the mountain stream.

The valley floor remained in cold shadow, but higher up the mountainside, the morning sun beat down after the retreating clouds. The cycle of blizzards, seemingly centered on the Compass Lake S.P.P. Tower far beyond the west horizon, appeared to have abated.

“Hmmmmmm…”

I gave Minty a skeptical look and set my hoof on her foreleg. “Please tell me you’re not going to jump that.”

She shook her head and looked behind us. A mad thumping of galloping hooves came out of the wintry brush, and a blur of iridescent green and ash zipped past us and leapt.

“Wooooo!” Pinwheel Malaise seemed frozen in flight above the frigid flow for an eye-blink, and then she skidded to a muddy halt on the other side and pranced in place. “Top that!” she shouted over the roaring waters. Another chunk of the ravine’s edge collapsed and widened the gap by half a meter. Pinwheel backed away from the crumbling edge. “Or maybe don’t!”

Minty snorted and stomped her rear hoof. An incandescent glare built along her horn, she bolted toward the ravine, leapt—a flashbulb lit the snow-laden conifers and a clap of displaced air sucked a cloud of snow into a chaotic whirl in front of me—and a grape alicorn appeared from the air over Pinwheel’s head and soared past the Kirin to land behind her. The underbrush and low branches on the far side swayed suddenly around Minty. Pinwheel whistled appreciatively from across the ravine, and no sooner had I realized I was alone on the northern bank than Minty had lifted me in a sunny glow to carry me. Nádarin’s pistol bounced against my forelegs on the end of the strap around my neck, and below that were the rushing water and shrinking chunks of ice that clashed and broke on their way down the valley.

I looked up from the three-meter drop to the pulverizing rocks as I floated along.

Pinwheel chuckled and trotted away through the powdery brush. “You alicorns are a bunch of cheaters, y’know that?”

Minty giggled and set me down on mercifully solid ground far from the deathly chasm.

“Well, I can’t fly yet,” I hollered, “And I’m afraid of heights. Am I still a cheater?”

“Cheater-in-training, girlie,” said Pinwheel as she disappeared around a tall, camouflaging bush.

Minty danced in place and pointed her wing toward my side, then flapped both wings, stirring up a whirlwind of powder snow.

“What—oh.” I folded and tucked my trembling wings back against my ribs, ever-conscious of their near-bareness. “Um… guess it was a reflex?”

Minty whipped out her chalkboard from her basket-laden saddlebag harness, scrawled quickly, and flipped it around for me. ‘Good reflex! Can’t feel air without feathers, so flying bad idea, but magic still works. You can break a hard fall if you flap, also jump high.’

She spread her wings, reared up, and made one powerful downstroke as she kicked off. She launched three meters straight upward, blasting back my mane and the nearby foliage, and again as she came back down on a slower stroke. The woven baskets hanging off her hips clattered together, and one of the lids bounced halfway off.

“I think I’ll keep my hooves on the dirt for now, but I’ll keep it in mind.” I spread my wings out briefly and flapped gently, causing my hooves to lift off the ground unevenly, and immediately panicked and snapped them back to my ribs at the first sensation of not being on the dirt. “Yeah. Definitely… feels good to stretch without that suit on, though.” I stepped up to Minty, shoulder-bumped her leg, and telekinetically pushed the basket lid back into place. “And thanks for carrying me over. I’m, um… not much of a jumper.”

She smiled and tugged me forward with her wing, followed Pinwheel through the underbrush, and we left the tumultuous gouge in the land behind.

I parted the ubiquitous brambles covering the ground, stepped one hoof at a time over a fallen branch, set my basket down, and began to pick the dark red, bead-shaped berries, ferrying them a few at a time in an emerald line into the canvas-lined basket. I parted the bush from most of its berries, my basket developed a solid layer of fruit to show for my efforts, and I lifted it, picked a vaguely-south direction, and pushed between the berry bushes that rose half a meter over my head. I dropped the basket again two bushes over and began to deprive my next target of its plump, juicy bounty.

I had clambered through and plucked clean a dozen bushes by the time my basket was full to the brim. I tied the canvas sack off, levitated the heavier basket into the air, high above the surrounding brambles, and gave a short whistle. A gentle tugging on the basket in my grasp accompanied an incandescent glow, and I relinquished it to Minty’s magic, watching it float out of view. A few seconds after, an empty basket zipped over and dropped above my head, and I set about collecting again.

When red berries half-filled my second basket, a scuffling came from somewhere roughly southeast of me, and I stood stock-still with my ears forward. The soft scuffling broke the dead quiet of the woods again, and another sound came from due west, a low, throaty rasp and a set of uneven, plodding steps crunching in the otherwise deadening snow. They came from just beyond an obscuring pair of bushes.

I looked around briefly to grab a sizeable stick and shake the dirt and snow off it. I turned toward the plodding steps and hollered, “Hey, Pinwheel! Have you ever seen a ghoul out here?”

“Nope!” shouted the Kirin from a ways northwest through the trees. “Hasn’t been a single one in the valley since my grandpappy built the barn, and that one was a talker, not a biter.”

“Huh.” I stepped toward the bushes from behind which came the sporadic, crunching hoofsteps, holding the stick near my side. Another low, muffled moan carried through the foliage. I spread my emerald magic across the bushes and pushed the branches apart.

Minty cocked her head and stared open-mouthed and cock-eyed at me, drool hanging from her red-stained lips and muzzle. She chomped down on the cluster of berries held in her mouth, squirting more red juice everywhere. Leaning forward to loom over me, canting her head at an odd angle, and chewing noisily, all while keeping both eyes on me, she presented her chalkboard.

‘I am Minty Zircon, Queen of the Fruit Zombies. I demand tribute. Chop chop, tiny servant, or I chomp chomp.’

I burst into a fit of giggles. “Minty Zircon? That’s your full name?” She nodded and licked the dribbling berry juice off her lips, which served mostly to stain her muzzle further. Still laughing, I shook my berry basket in front of her and said, “Well, this tiny servant’s tribute isn’t ready yet, Queen Zircon, so Her Majesty will have to wait.”

She shared a bright, infectious laugh and began to write a new message. I picked more berries from an adjacent bush while she did.

‘Sorry about kidnapping, but I’m glad you wound up at Pinny’s place. New friend.’

No sooner had I read it than she stepped close to set one feathered forehoof across my withers and nuzzle the side of my neck. Despite being easily four times my size, she seemed much gentler and aware of her strength than Night Cloud or Blitz. I leaned my head into her neck and murmured, “I’m glad, too, Minty.”

Minty stepped back, giving a timid smile, and scrubbed her chalkboard clear again. She hesitated, seeming deep in thought with the chalk poised to write in her bright magic, and then she started, only for another sound to come through the scratching.

A scuffling came from the bushes to my left, then a hiss. Minty’s ears flicked forward and her eyes shot up, and I spun to face the sudden growling. A small, brown head poked out of a hollow beneath the brambles.

“Is that a weasel?” I murmured, holding my levitated stick out toward the animal. I lifted Nádarin’s pistol up and pulled the ratcheting charging lever I’d clamped onto the frame.

The growling became a snarl and a blur of brown fur lunging toward us. I slashed my stick downward, it shattered on a bristly back, and I staggered sideways under the weight of a snarling mass of fur and claws and teeth. Fiery daggers plunged into my hide as I fired my gun, and my magic sputtered out as searing fire tore through my upper leg. Minty’s magic pulled on the beast and pried its tearing jaws and claws away from me. I seized the snarling, struggling creature in my own emerald light and launched it at the closest tree. It crashed through several branches and tumbled through a snowbank, letting out a squeal as it thrashed about to right itself. Bleeding and snarling, the tenacious beast darted out of the snow straight toward us. A ringing in my ears muffled everything around me.

Minty lunged at the animal and let loose a muffled cry of rage, and she stomped and trampled the clawing, hissing beast until it was a lump of snapped bone and bloody, sable fur.

No surge of healing warmth came from within me, and the ragged tear in my midnight blue coat remained open and weeping. My ears continued to ring, and the ground seemed to spin beneath me.

I groaned and pressed my magic against the deep gashes at the base of my foreleg, and my breathing quickened as Minty darted back over to me where I lay in the snow. A crashing of brush came from the north, and Pinwheel Malaise leapt over the berry bushes to land nearby. I raised my head and tried to climb to my hooves, but my left foreleg wouldn’t move, and the spike of pain that followed sent my head back to the freezing ground.

“Oi! No, stay still, girlie! Minty, ditch that harness!” Pinwheel’s pink magic pulled a white bundle of bandages from her saddlebags, and she pressed the folded pad over the deep, ragged punctures in my pectoral and around the outside of my upper leg.

I spread the press of emerald light across my belly and ribs to cover the stinging cuts left by terrifyingly sharp claws. Biting back a sob, I looked down at the alarming amount of red on my chest and left foreleg. The bandage had soaked through in seconds. I fought to slow my breathing while my heart tried to kick its way out of my chest. The slightest movement of my leg sent lightning shocks of agony up my shoulder, and I began to shudder and sob with every breath. I swallowed and said in a distant squeak, “I can’t—I can’t move my leg!”

“Aye, it’s torn up, and you need to stop tryin’—can you keep pressure on that bandage for a few minutes, and hold it still?” I nodded at Pinwheel’s muffled question as she brushed her fetlock across my coat and looked at the bright red stain on her ash fur. “Good. It’s a wicked bite, but hold that pressure on it and you’ll be okay. Nautical will take care of you, girlie.” Minty undid the last straps on her pack harness and dropped the berry baskets on the ground. “Minty, keep an eye on her! You hold that bandage if she blacks out, got it? Don’t try to jump if you aren’t sure you can make it, now go! Go!”

Sunlight locked around my limbs, and I floated off the freezing ground.

Minty held me upright in her magic, and with a surge of acceleration, I shot into the sky. By no means was Minty a graceful flier, but she had wing power to spare. She launched above the treetops with a single flap and a tornado of billowing snow, set me behind her withers, and beat the air and snow of the woodland canopy into a spray of mist on either side. I clutched onto her neck with my right leg and tucked my head into her mane to avoid the icy, deafening shriek of air that blasted around us and threatened to catch my wings whether I wanted them open or not.

After a minute that felt like an hour of white-hot knives sinking into me, Minty settled into a glide, and a green-gold bubble surrounded us to block the howling wind. Nautical soared in from the left and flew alongside Minty, and she lifted me free of Minty’s back while we glided along. The pistol bouncing below my neck floated up and over my head.

-Relax your magic, let me take over. Bite this.-

I sniffed at the short length of rope floating in front of my nose, bit onto it, and held my breath as Nautical wrapped me with light and pressed a fresh bundle of stinging gauze into my wound.

The rope further muffled my scream, and whatever focus I had to sustain my magic left me. I hung limply in the alicorn’s sheltering field. Not long after, Nautical glided down to flare her wings and land in front of Pinwheel’s cottage.

Nautical held me in the air close in front of her as she trotted through the artificial tunnel, and the inner door swung open in a glow of red light.

“Bandages are ready,” said Skipper as we passed her, and her hooves shifted on the floor in a nervous dance. “Holy shit, that’s a lot—”

“Skipper, I need you to restrain her. She cannot move her leg, understand?”

“Yeah-yeah-yeah, I got it.”

Nautical laid me on my side on a short table, facing the front entrance; careful as she was, the landing still sent an invisible knife into my joint. I gasped and champed on the rope again as Skipper’s red magic surrounded my entire leg and held it fast. A set of heavy, muffled hoofsteps came closer, and a bright, lensed lantern swung in front of me, held by a brown-furred hand. “Crystal, relax your shoulder, try to breathe slower. Skipper, less field around the wound. Restrict, don’t compress.”

The red glow retreated from my joint. I hissed and tensed as Nautical levitated a set of forceps from a bag on the table and detached the stainless steel end of the tool from its brass mouthpiece. I began to shake despite Skipper’s telekinetic grip on my entire body.

Nautical lifted the blood-soaked bandage away from my pectoral and made brief eye contact.

-I don’t have anesthetic.-

I shifted the piece of rope onto my molars and nodded, still breathing quickly, but more deeply. I trembled as the end of the forceps disappeared inside the wound, and I fought the urge to yank my leg free. Nautical gripped a narrow, paired set of miniscule clamps in her teeth and slowly maneuvered her entire head to place the double clamps somewhere inside the wound. The cottage door swung open again, and Nautical’s ear flicked toward it.

-Minty, on my left. I need more light.-

My vision swam, and the ringing in my ears began to fade, but the burning was unceasing; farther down my leg, the burning became a creeping numbness. Minty’s bright magic added to the lamplight as though the sun had appeared indoors. A tiny, sharply curved needle and fine, glossy thread drawn from a spool inside a glass bottle darted through the air in Nautical’s green-gold magic, and for half a minute, the loudest sounds in the cottage were my shaky breaths and Minty’s occasional sniffle near my head. I spat out the rope to give my jaw some much-needed relief and arched my head back to look at her. The berry stains on her muzzle remained fresh and red, and the tip of her horn was an incandescent glare. Her eyes and cheeks were wet with tears.

I swallowed, having managed to bring my breaths under control, and rasped out, “Hey, zombie queen…”

Minty gave a feeble, hitching laugh and smile in reply.

I lay my head back on the table and dared to glance at Nautical’s barely-moving snout and the combination of tools in her telekinesis and teeth. I swallowed as a slight motion from one of the tools just beyond my sight pushed against muscle and bone. The red stain on the white cloth had spread to the table’s edge. Skipper’s red magic held my legs and wings frozen in place, but it did nothing to stop my trembling.

The curved needle continued to rise slowly out, pulling the fine filament with it, and dart quickly back in again. Much of my foreleg had grown cold and numb. A shiver travelled along my back, and I said in a tight, squeaky voice, “Are you a doctor?”

Orange eyes remained focused on my wound, but one ear turned.

-I was an assistant to one, a lifetime ago. Watched him work, learned what I could, while I could.-

Nautical snipped the suture thread, gingerly withdrew the paired clamps and needle, and set them aside, and I groaned as she pressed a fresh bandage over the wound to soak up more blood; much as the gauze no doubt helped, it stung the same as tearing teeth, and fresh tears blurred my sight. “Everyone back off.” Skipper’s magic vanished, and Minty and Uruqhart stepped away. Nautical levitated me into the air and began to wrap bandages tightly across my chest and around my foreleg to keep the thick pad in place. I shuddered as the linen pressed over the wound. Pins and needles began to rush along my leg, but it was an afterthought compared to the dull agony under the bandages. “You won’t bleed to death on my watch,” said the alicorn as she tied off the linen, “But you’ll have to wait for a potion from Bellenast or a good radiation bath to mend the rest of it.”

She lifted me off the table and lowered me to the floor near the fireplace, off to the side of the hanging stewpots, and put a cushion under my leg to keep it extended straight outward relative to my body. Minty lay down next to me and put her wing across my side, and Nautical made for the front door. “Minty, you keep her warm and you keep her still, understand? Crystal, that suture might tear if you move the leg much. Your descending pectoral’s practically torn free, so it’ll hurt like a bitch to try, anyway. Be a smart filly and don’t. I should be back in an hour or two, sooner if someone feels like teleporting us back.”

“Wait, Naut!” Skipper shuffled around the bloody table in the middle of the room. “Is this really a good id—”

“Skipper, I’m going to fetch a princess because it must be done. Or would you rather wait for her to find us while the filly she is searching for lies wounded in our care? I’m sure that would go over marvelously.” Nautical looked over at me. “And Minty, the next time you see a Bloomfang right under your nose, kill it immediately. I don’t care if it’s a mama with cubs, you shove it face-first into the nearest rock until it stops moving. No exceptions. Ever… Skipper, clean the rest of those cuts, and keep her hydrated.”

The jade alicorn disappeared through the door. Uruqhart walked over to the south window and peered through the heavy curtains.

I rested my head on the cushion by Minty’s shoulder and telekinetically massaged my foreleg; the top half of my PipBuck, and most of my leg, were slick with blood. Minty gave a quiet sniffle and nuzzled the side of my neck, and I muttered, “I thought it was a weasel.”

Uruqhart let out a short, low chuckle. “Weasel? No. Bloomfang badger. Crazy little bastards. Crazy, mad, insane… take your pick and add diabolically aggressive on top. Weasels are mean, too. Just not off-the-charts mean. You can scare a weasel. You don’t scare a Bloomfang. Nothing scares a Bloomfang. Throw a dragon at one and it’ll charge straight ahead. Might even win, if the dragon’s young enough, small enough, doesn’t have its flame yet…” The minotaur grabbed his cloak and fur cap from the wall hook, then his rifle from near the door. “I’m going to meet Pinwheel halfway,” he said, securing the cloak around his shoulders. “Be back soon.” He, too, vanished beyond the door with a swish of his fur cloak and the heavy steps of two cloven hooves.

Skipper came over and lay by my side, then began to dab at the scratches on my ribs and shoulder with a warm, soaked cloth. “What’d you think the Bloomfang Mountains are named for?” I winced, but lifted my wing up so that she could reach several cuts underneath it. The badger must not have been satisfied by merely biting, and had tried to claw at every part of me within reach. “Flowers with teeth?”

“Skipper,” I muttered, voice high and shaky, “I’m from Neighvarro. I don’t know a lot of things, because I haven’t seen anything on the ground except around Cloud Loft Peak, a few places in the middle of nowhere between there and here, a factory in the desert, and one road between Cliffside and Bellenast.” I hissed and shifted my wing away from the scratch Skipper had found just behind my injured leg. “I’ve lived in the literal clouds or a flying metal box most of my life. I don’t know what the animals anywhere look like unless I’ve seen it in a friggin’ encyclopedia. I thought it was a weasel because it kind of looked like one. Give me a fucking break.”

Skipper sighed and murmured, “Yeah, that’s fair. Sorry, my bad… you know, there’s a lotta stuff I’ve never seen. Like… a volcano… or the Smokey Mountains. Pictures, yeah, but dusty old pictures don’t do ‘em justice.” She rubbed the warm rag across a stinging low on my ribs, behind the bandages, and glanced down at the bloody PipBuck on my leg. “So, uh, where’d you get that thing, anyway? Neighvarro? Pick it up in Bellenast?”

I groaned in annoyance, and even the movement of my ribs sent a jolt of pain through my leg. “It’s Pinwheel’s,” I muttered, trying to ignore a sudden sensation of vertigo. “Her mom’s. It was in the barn.”

“Shit, really?! She had a spare one of those just lying around all this time? Those things are worth a fortune to the right ponies. Course, show it off near a Steel Ranger and they might just cut off your leg to get it. Haven’t ever actually seen one of those dudes, though, but everything I’ve heard? They ain’t nice. Flash so much as a spark battery under their noses and they’ll bite your head off to get it.”

Minty gave a soft nicker and lowered her head across the side of my neck, mostly obscuring my view of Skipper.

“Shit! Sorry, sorry. I’m a chatterbox, I know, I can’t help it—I’ll stop—sorry. Stopping.” She finished cleaning the dozen or more scratches on my ribs and shoulder, then began to wipe the blood off my leg, wringing the cloth out in a bucket frequently. The metallic reek began to fade, replaced by the more appealing smell of vegetable stew.

On the opposite side of the hearth, out of the way of the path between kitchen and cauldrons, Nádarin watched me, having said not a single word from the moment Nautical had brought me in.

I levitated his gun from the floor nearby, where Nautical or Skipper must have placed it. The slide had locked open.

“Did it help?” said Nádarin.

I looked from the gun to Minty’s blood-stained, muddy hooves and back to the prince. “No,” I muttered, “Not really… might have just made it angrier, and my ears are still ringing a little.” I pulled the heavily curved magazine free of the gun: Not a single cartridge remained. I set the empty magazine and gun on the timber floor. Skipper eyed the weapon while she wrung water from the cloth, then focused again on a stinging cut on my shoulder. “Why do you carry this thing around if all you had was three friggin’ bullets?”

Nádarin gave a short, soft grunt and climbed slowly, shakily to his hooves. “Three bullets could save a life, by taking another.” Muscles along his shoulders and neck twitched in short spasms of pain, and he coughed once as he walked. Minty raised her head from my shoulder, following the stallion’s path toward us; Skipper spread her wings fractionally away from her torso and set her left foreleg forward, preparing to rise. “A few choice words might do the same… once in a while.”

Prince Nádarin stopped in front of me, looking down at the age-worn gun with something close to reverence. He spun the gun around on the floor with his hoof and pushed on the lower edge of the sheet metal compartment in the empty space left inside the curve of the magazine. “And sometimes,” said the prince, his voice lowering to a murmur, “You say all the wrong words.” He lifted his hoof, and the upper half of the container sprang open. Held securely inside the container by three retaining clips was a monochrome photograph in a circular, tarnished frame, about the width of my hoof. Under the scratched glass was a faded portrait of a unicorn colt—a stallion, if only just.

Prince Nádarin touched the edge of his hoof to the silver frame, and he said, “Sometimes, you are blind… you do nothing right, and you’re left with a foul trinket, instead of a son… a memory you neither can bear to keep nor throw away.” He turned away and went back to the singular cushion and blanket on the floor across the room.

“Shit, dude,” muttered Skipper, “That—well, I’d say it sucks, but…” She shifted her wings restlessly and said, “Kinda rings hollow…”

“Then you are honest.” Nádarin turned to Skipper with mirthless, tired eyes. “I lost my son,” said the prince, “Because I failed him as a father. Nothing can change that… least of all words.” As he sank to the floor and grimaced in pain, he said, “It would seem… I remain as much a fool now as I was then.” He coughed several times, each sound coming out with a wheeze. “Such is life.”

I lifted the picture frame free of the compartment and turned it around under the firelight. Minty shifted her head to allow me to raise mine briefly. Foreign letters and what might have been numbers were etched into the tarnished silver in fine script that flowed together in a continuous line. The emerald glow of my magic revealed myriad scratches in the silver’s polished surface. “What was his name?”

“Sasa,” said the prince, looking over at the gun on the floor. He murmured, “His name was Sasa… he would be twenty-six this year.”

The mere act of lifting my head from the pillow sent me reeling, but I set the picture back in the gun’s small compartment with what remaining focus I had, and carefully removed the set of extension rods and control levers I had made for the battle saddle on my hazard suit. I released the slide and internal striker, levitated the weapon across the room, and set it at Nádarin’s hooves.

“Uh… Bite-Size?” Skipper glanced apprehensively at the prince, then down at me.

“It’s empty,” I mumbled, “And he can’t use it, anyway.” I shut my eyes and surrendered to the siren song of the pillow and Minty’s wing. She sniffled quietly and nuzzled my neck again, and Skipper dabbed at the cuts on my ribs while drowsiness overpowered the throbbing ache in my leg. “Was never going to…”

Sudden motion at my side and the deep clunks and scrapes of hooves on timbers startled me back to wakefulness, and I blinked blearily as Skipper moved away from me and toward the south wall. She spun around, her barding clattering as she bumped into the wall, and backed into the corner adjacent the doorway to the next room, seeming to want to blend in among the myriad wood figurines arrayed there on the floor and wall shelves. Uruqhart had returned, and stood by the south window.

“Shit,” muttered Skipper, “Shit shit shit.”

“Easy, Skip,” murmured the minotaur; despite his calm voice, he held one hand on the long rifle leaning on the wall beside him.

Minty stretched out her wing, but brought it back down over me quickly and lay her muzzle across my neck in a protective gesture. She levitated Nádarin’s pistol and the memory orb box over to me and set them next to the cushion.

The front door opened in a haze of green-gold light. Ivy came through the doorway and moved to the right to stand in front of the kitchen entrance; she made brief eye contact with me and looked over at Prince Nádarin, who was equally silent where he lay. Eagle followed her closely through the door in his power armor, sans helmet and crinet, but kept his distance, watching Skipper in the corner and Uruqhart where he leaned against the wall.

Then the most beautiful mare in the world stepped into the cottage. Night Cloud stood stock-still in the entryway for only a moment, clad in white caparison and resplendent steel beneath, then locked eyes with me and came straight over. Minty lifted her head from me once gain.

Night Cloud sank to the floor in front of me without a word and levitated her panniers off to set them aside, then opened them both and withdrew a veritable swarm of gleaming instruments. She set the array of tools on a stainless steel tray she placed atop one pannier box, picked a rounded scissor set from them, attached it to a telekinetic guide rod, and deftly cut the stained bandages away from my shoulder. Minty lifted her wing off me and scooted sideways to give Night cloud room in front of me.

Night Cloud looked at Minty for a second, as if only just noticing the grape alicorn was there at all. Night Cloud’s eyes were red, but dry, and they darted back and forth, no doubt across the scratches and bloodstains on Minty’s coat. Her jaw tensed, and she returned her attention to me.

“Hey, gorgeous,” I said, faint and thready, “Wanna come down here and kiss me, or do I have to stand up?”

She mostly stifled a snort, smiled, and answered. The short, gentle touch of her lips to mine was the most wonderful and reassuring feeling I’d had all day, and ended far sooner than I’d have liked.

“Hey, cutie,” she whispered. She brushed my mane back from my eyes and pulled the bloodied bandages away from my leg. I groaned as the bandages tugged on my fur and peeled off a half-formed scab, and a trickle of dark red ran from the partially clotted puncture. Night Cloud stroked her magic along my neck over and again while she examined me and scrubbed my coat around the wound with a white cloth and disinfectant poured from a dark bottle. She looked over at the corner of the room, where my hazard suit lay in a pile.

“Look who’s been prancing around naked in the snow,” she said softly.

I gave a strained nicker and muttered, “Wasn’t so comfy after I hiked eight klicks in it… kinda stinks, too.”

“Maybe now you’ll criticize me less for not wearing mine every minute of the day.”

“Point taken.”

A brown bottle and several instruments floated into view along with two stainless steel canisters, each about forty centimeters long and ten across and covered with printed labels and warnings painted in white and yellow. While she opened each canister and drew the purple and white components of healing solution from each through clear tubing and into an ampule set in a centrifugal mixer, she telekinetically cleared the scabbing and semi-congealed blood away from my wound and shone a bright, electric light on the once-again-bleeding gash. The mixer spun up to speed for about ten seconds and slowed again, leaving the ampule filled with milky purple fluid.

Night Cloud plucked the ampule from the mixer receptacle and attached it to a syringe, then pulled off the needle cover, and I briefly entertained the idea of voluntarily running away from the most beautiful mare on the planet.

“Oh, come on…”

“Sorry, baby. This is what you get when you’ve run out of radiation.” She cleaned most of the blood from my coat immediately around the bite and used a buzzing, electric shear to shave away a small patch of my coat on my pectoral and another patch higher up on the outside of my shoulder, then held her cerulean magic over both places, which stung and tingled as her horn glowed brighter.

“Now relax,” she said, “This will hurt either way, but it’ll be worse if you’re tense.” She gently held my leg steady in her cerulean magic and massaged around the wound, aligned the needle, and slowly pushed it into my pectoral muscle. I gasped and gritted my teeth at the sharp, pinching pain, pressure, and burning sensation that spread through muscle and hide as she telekinetically pushed on the injector. A soft crackling sound came from the wound as sparks arced across it and muscle joined back together again under the guidance of her magic. Night Cloud withdrew the syringe and next pushed it deep into my shoulder for the next injection.

“Why can’t I just drink it?” I muttered through my teeth. I blinked away tears as they came and focused on breathing and lying still while the hypodermic needle—more like a hollow awl—delivered the not-quite-miraculous potion.

“Local injection is more effective,” said Night Cloud, “Faster, safer, more controllable. Lets you direct the propagation of the spell more easily, to target specific areas that need more delicate guidance, such as, oh, damaged bone, cartilage, and recently sutured arteries. Heal from the inside out, so that you don’t miss anything because the exterior of a wound site closes over before you can finish the internal work.” I shuddered and let out a tense breath as the sparks and faint wisps of smoke faded, leaving behind a small, raw mark on my hide and a stiffness in my leg and shoulder. The much shallower cuts on my ribs and belly stung and burned, but that pain, too, began to fade. Her horn glowed again, and a tingle ran through mine. “Intramuscular injection also keeps more of the solution out of your circulatory system, and therefore away from your baby.”

“Okay,” I muttered. “I guess that’s better?”

Night Cloud nodded. “Until we can perfectly replicate the Ministry of Peace formula… better safe than sorry.” Night Cloud leaned down to nuzzle my jaw. -I’m sorry I couldn’t reach you in time.-

-Oh, don’t even start, Night. It wasn’t your friggin’ fault… where’s Blitz?-

-She was searching to the north; she’s on her way now. I want time with you later. Zephyr’s been a wreck, Eagle too.-

I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up, stumbling as a jolt shot up my shoulder. I raised and stretched my foreleg several times, stomped the timber floor twice, and took the rare opportunity to nuzzle Night Cloud from a slight vertical advantage while she remained on the floor. “Thank you. For everything. I don’t think I can ever say that enough.” A set of heavy steps came nearer, and I reared up to brace my forehooves on Eagle’s armored shoulders as he swept both wings forward and enveloped me with amber feathers.

“Hey, kiddo,” he whispered, squeezing me tightly. “Warn me next time you want to go sightseeing, okay?”

I laughed and nuzzled him; for the first time in nearly three months, the mere scent of a stallion didn’t threaten to make me bolt. He lifted his left wing away, and a pale violet snout and teal mane appeared right next to me. Zephyr hugged me with one wing and nuzzled my neck, drawing in hitching breaths.

“Hey, Zeph,” I mumbled, “I’m okay now.”

Zephyr let out a choked laugh. “Okay,” she squeaked. “This is okay,” she said in a voice strained with anger. She pointed at my still-blood-caked leg and the pile of soaked bandages with her wing. “This is what you call okay?” She gave a hysteric, half-sob, half-cackle and grabbed onto me with both forelegs and wings, pulling me down into the fiercest hug I’d ever had. My ribs protested, and my wings started a riot followed by swift defeat. “Kidnapped, taken to the middle of fucking nowhere for two days, mauled by a fucking badger, and you’re okay. Yeah, sure. Fine. Okay.”

I grimaced and pushed against her forelegs with my wings, reeling as a wave of dizziness struck me. “I didn’t do all that on purpose… and I’m still sore, Zeph.”

“Sorry.” She stopped squeezing, but refused to let go of me. “Baby, I know you didn’t—that’s not what I meant. I’m just glad you’re okay…” She shook and began to sob quietly, pressing her head against my neck and withers. “I was just… angry because I couldn’t do anything, and I was terrified you’d be hurt, and I wouldn’t be able to help… like that factory all fucking over again…” In a sniffling whimper, she said, “I can’t protect you, I never can… I’m not cut out for this… I never was…”

I sighed. “Zephyr…”

“Ironic…” We both turned at the quiet word and ragged, wheezing cough that followed. Prince Nádarin looked barely able to lift his head and speak, but speak he did. “… that those best suited to parenthood, so often say as much…” He coughed again, and flecks of blood stained his foreleg and the pillow on the floor. “… and those least suited… are so ready to claim the opposite…”

Zephyr released me and rose to her hooves, staring across the room at the stallion. She planted one hoof forward and froze, hackles raised and wings half-spread. Her voice trembled as she said quietly, “And what would you know about it?”

Nádarin took a slow, wheezing breath, and muttered, “That I was least suited.”

Zephyr tucked in her wings, but she remained tense and ready to lunge. “Imagine that. A parent kidnapping a child for ransom, and being unsuited to the job…”

Ivy moved suddenly away from the front doorway. “Eagle, Zephyr, make room, please.”

Zephyr looked as if she wanted to kick Ivy straight in the nose, but she obliged, and she and Eagle both moved closer to the blazing hearth and kettles. Zephyr seemed to notice Uruqhart leaning next to the window for the first time, and the minotaur dipped his head to her.

-Blizziera, the entrance is clear. Mind the ceiling.-

An instant after Ivy’s words reached me, a near-ultraviolet flash came from through the windows. Moments after, the outer door creaked open, and heavy steps approached on squeaking floorboards. A second set followed, and Blitz stepped through the front door with her head bowed low to clear the frame with about two centimeters to spare above the top of her cuirass. The entire exposed surface of her barding, sans caparison, was covered in a glittering layer of rime, and she took deep breaths, as though she had spent the last few minutes at a gallop. Nautical approached just behind her.

“Hey, Blitz,” I said, sitting up from under Night Cloud’s wing. What took you so long?

She looked around at everyone present, finished with her eyes on me, and quickly stepped close to lean her head down over Night Cloud and nuzzle my cheek. Her horn flashed, and mine tingled in response to the reestablished coupling. “Sorry I’m late.” I was searching farther north. “Are you all right?”

I pecked her cheek and nodded. “Thanks to Night Cloud.”

“Thanks to Nautical,” said Night Cloud. “I just cleaned up.” She glanced past Blitz at the forest-green mare. “You need to be a physician’s aide.”

-I was, once.-

“Okay, Princess,” said Zephyr, scowling as she pointed her wing at Nádarin. “Now that you’re here, I have one question: What’s the verdict on Shitstain here?”

Blitz stepped back from Night Cloud to turn and stand at nearly her full height, hindered only by the rafters and a desire not to embed her horn in them. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, her lips tightened, and she turned a tired, irritated eye to the ill stallion. “Prince Nádarin,” said Blitz, “Will receive no verdict… until he has received medical treatment, and he has been tried before the High Court.” Blitz moved to stand between Zephyr and the prince, and she said, “Many ponies would suffer tomorrow if we did what you want to do today.”

Zephyr stomped the floor and flared her nostrils in a terse snort as she glared up at Ivy and Blitz, eyes still brimming with tears. “I told you to stay out of my fucking head. Both of you.”

“Young mare,” said Ivy, “I don’t need telepathy to read a book.” She nodded toward me and said, “That filly chose restraint. We cannot allow you to do less. We have a kingdom to protect, and we cannot risk a war with the Empire because one radical group has acted against us. We will have a conference with the Emperor to determine the Prince’s judgement and any reparations to be made.”

I sat down beside Night Cloud and stretched my leg again as Zephyr took a challenging step toward Ivy. “And what are you going to do, then? Send him back home in a pretty carriage if they ask? He deserves a one-way trip to the bottom of a fucking lake!”

“What is deserved,” said Ivy, glancing quickly between me and Zephyr, “Is not for you or me alone to decide.”

“Not for—is that a fucking joke?!”

Eagle set his wing on Zephyr’s back. “Zeph—”

She slapped her wing up to throw his off. “No! After this? After everything he’s done to your home, you’re going to—”

“Hey!” I shouted, leaning on Night Cloud’s side under her wing. Zephyr stopped and looked down at me, and I scowled and said, “He did one really dumb thing. He’s not friggin’ evil, and killing him would be a really bad idea right now.”

“What?” Zephyr stared at me in utter bewilderment. “Crystal, you… don’t tell me you’re forgiving—”

“Will you just stop it?!” I said in exasperation, sighing and pressing my snout to Night Cloud’s neck. She massaged my back with her wing, which did something for my mood, but less than I could have hoped. “Yes, I’m fucking forgiving him! I don’t want anything to do with him or any of this dumb crap, and killing him isn’t going to help anyone, Zephyr. Yeah, he kidnapped me! Okay, fine! Big fucking deal! But he didn’t hurt me, he didn’t even point a friggin’ gun at me, he didn’t club me with a wrench, and he didn’t friggin’ rape me. He isn’t Aurum Bannister, so just stop! Okay?! I’m fine, and it’s over and done. His problem is with Ivy, so let Ivy fucking deal with it!”

Zephyr wilted. She quickly came around Night Cloud, sat closely by me, and hugged me once again. “I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think—” She let out a soft whine as she nuzzled my cheek, and tears rubbed off on my coat. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, “Me, too. I’m sorry, you’re sorry, everypony’s sorry for something. Cool. Fine. Kidnapping’s over, badger’s dead, and Night stabbed me with potions. Everypony chill the fuck out.”

She barked a high, strained laugh and nuzzled me. “Okay, baby… I’ll try.”

“Y’know, it’d probably make things worse.” Zephyr and Ivy and everyone else looked over at the sound of Skipper’s scratchy voice, and the lapis-colored mare shrank into the corner, wincing. “Woah,” she muttered, “Uh, hi, welcome to the show.” She scuffed her right forehoof on the floor, swallowed, and said, “Yeah, so, all these blizzards are bad enough. Do you really want these Empire dudes sending a revenge party over to visit? ‘Cause murdelizing Princey over there is how you get that. Just saying.”

Night Cloud gave a short, choked laugh.

Ivy turned toward Skipper, then strode between Blitz and Nautical. Pinwheel watched from the kitchen doorway, and Skipper’s ears flicked toward Ivy as she stopped not two meters away.

“Uh, hey there, Miss Ivaline… Ma’am.”

Ivy’s ears barely twitched. “Bold, young sister, to wear the coat of the King’s Armoury when you have not earned it… bold or ignorant. Did you buy your barding, or did you take it from the dead?”

“Uhhhh…” Skipper’s ear pinned back, and she scuffed her hoof on the floor again. “Well, it wasn’t doing a skeleton any good…”

“Did you bury the remains?”

“Yeah.”

Ivy gave a curt nod. “Then I thank you for your respect. If you would relinquish it, and show me where you found the owner, I will give you an equal replacement.”

“A replace—” Skipper froze with her mouth half-open. “Wait, what? Seriously?”

“Hey, Ivy? Blitz?” I took a breath as she and Blitz looked down at me. “I have a question, and it’s way more important than some old barding. No offense to the dead.” I enveloped every clasp and freshly made buckle on Skipper’s barding, unfastened them all at once, and lifted the suit away from her piece by piece.

“Hey, hey,” said Skipper, ducking her head as I lifted away the crinet, “Come on, Bite Size…”

Night Cloud drew in a sharp breath beside me as she watched; Blitz’s tail flicked, and her lips curled into a grimace.

I set the barding on the floor. “Night, stand by Skipper?”

Night Cloud squeezed my side with her wing. -I’ve seen enough. They need help.-

-I’m not trying to convince you.-

She stood, taking care not to jostle me, touched my back with her wingtip as she turned, and went over to stand next to Skipper. Unprompted, she began to remove her armor, white caparison first, gleaming plates second, and finally the pearlescent gambeson beneath.

Skipper simply stared as the many pieces of steel came away and floated in a cerulean haze, but barely gave the armor a second glance. “Well, damn,” she muttered, “Look who got all the right stuff…”

-Night, what do you weigh?-

-Three hundred and seventy kilograms.-

I wrapped my telekinesis around Night Cloud and lifted her slowly half a meter off the floor. I set her down again as an ache flared in my skull in time with my heartbeat, then wrapped Skipper in emerald with greater difficulty and lifted her, too.

I winced as my field around Skipper spiked, and she dropped abruptly before she had risen ten centimeters.

The mare stumbled. “You okay there, Bite Size?”

“You’re tall,” I said, rubbing my hoof against my brow at the base of my horn, “And I’m tired. You should be at least fifty kilos heavier than her, not twenty kilos lighter.” I prodded Blitz’s ribs telekinetically. “What’s stopping you from letting them live in Bellenast? You know, where there’s plenty of food and farms to go around? Where you don’t have to worry about the local gangs burning down your house and garden?”

“I thought—” Blitz shut her eyes, and her ears drooped. “Doesn’t matter what I thought… I was wrong.” Violet light built around her horn, she unclasped and removed one of the talismans of her heavy, silver necklace from beneath her collar, and a flash lit the room.

Zephyr jolted in place, ruffling her wings. “The fuck?”

Minty made a soft whine and ducked her head, and Skipper muttered, “Oh, you did not just do that…”

Blitz stomped a hind leg, and her mane and tail burst into rolling clouds of violet that lit the cottage harshly and caused spots to appear in my eyes when I turned away, blinking. The cloud dimmed to a bearable level over several seconds, but remained a glowing, seething mass of something not wholly unlike plasma. When she spoke, her words both seemed to ring within my head and carry beyond the room.

“Did you know of this? Did any of you know?”

A sudden pressure bore down on me, like a migraine centered under my horn, and a chorus of voices sounded throughout the cottage, clamorous and overlapping in disunion, but then a powerful choir overcame the chaos.

{{Children, why have you gone so far? What has happened to—you…}}

I shuddered as an overwhelming feeling of disgust and annoyance took hold of me, and glanced aside as Minty gave a muffled whimper. The terrible choir’s pause was short.

{{Well, if it isn’t the little princess. What brings you down from your golden tower, Your Highness?}}

“I have shown you. See with my eyes, here and now, if you must. Three of your own are suffering, have been suffering, and you have done nothing. You call them your children, yet here they stand, starving to their bones. Do you still claim them, or do you spurn them?”

A riotous murmur broke out, as if a thousand ponies spoke all at once just outside the timber walls, but the riot swiftly grew quiet.

{{We welcome all our children back to us, should they wander astray. They brought this suffering upon themselves of their choosing. They could have used their strength at any time, to rebuke all those who would threaten them, but they chose weakness. They chose to seek you. You, who have wasted our gifts on frivolous pursuits time and time again, and have given nothing in return!}}

Blitz scowled and stepped away from the cottage door as it opened yet again, and in stepped Orchid Wisp in her green barding and leggings. Nautical froze where she stood, transfixed. Blitz strode over to stand by Skipper and placed her wing over the smaller alicorn’s back; Skipper shivered in place, flicking her tail and tapping her forehoof on the floor in a nervous cadence, but she started at the protective gesture.

“That I have nothing today does not mean I will have nothing tomorrow. Our tests require samples and analysis. That takes time. If you would provide me more samples, Claraby could run more tests in para—”

{{Every sample we provide for your blundering is another soul we can’t save! Another pony deprived of our lifeblood, our blessing!}}

“And a young filly would have died without your lifeblood!” shouted Blitz. “Is it not enough that it has saved one life? That it has saved two? Two children who would have suffered the remainder of their lives in disfigurement and crippling agony are now hale and happy. Is that not enough? Is that not a good use of your lifeblood?”

{{Those children don’t understand the true strength we can give because you have taken it from them. You think to know better than all of us!}}

“Numbers suggest my dissent is not unique.”

Blitz looked over at us as Minty’s whimpering became quiet sobbing. Night Cloud rushed over to the young mare and embraced her gently with her wing. “Ivy,” said Night Cloud tersely, “Help them. Please.”

Ivy stood stock-still, merely listening, watching.

{{And you!}}

Nautical tore her dazed eyes away from Orchid Wisp, and a shiver traveled across her body.

{{You have stolen from us! But you are…}}

Nautical’s tail swished, and a sudden blaze of fury surged through me, only to be extinguished by an icy wave of grief and confusion that made me quake and blink away unbidden tears.

{{Nautical Mile, you were a paragon! You hide from our children the same blessing you gave freely to so many! Why? You brought salvation to so many of us, taught so many of us, and now you do this? Why? Why weaken our Unity when we most need strength? Why take our children from us?}}

Nautical turned properly away from Orchid Wisp and said for us all to hear, “Every child I brought to you is now a slave… all it took for me to see that was one pony’s honesty.”

The moment of silence that came next gave way to a mob of raging minds screaming to be heard all at once. I shrieked at the pain in my skull and collapsed on my side, and Zephyr’s panicked words became unintelligible when the screaming in my head became a roar.

{{SLAVE? OUR CHILDREN ARE SOLDIERS! And you are a thief and hypocrite! A betrayer! We have spent a century and more clawing our way up from Equestria’s ruin, building our strength, creating our army from nothing, and you choose to undermine us now? Return to us, our children, and we shall forgive you!}}

A sudden flash of gold washed over the room, and the bedlam in my mind stopped all at once. The fiery throbbing ceased. Minty drew a hitching breath and looked up, and Night Cloud let out a sigh, still hugging the shorter mare. Zephyr pulled me upright and cradled me against herself, holding both wings around me as if to shield me from the very world.

Ivy’s mouth drew into a tight grimace. The light faded from her horn.

“You have held their shackles long enough. They are under my protection now, as shall be all our sisters who should ask it of me, from now until the day you die.”

{{TRAITOROUS WRETCH!}}

The murmurs of anger carried through me once again in a wave, and the choir sang once more, but it quickly grew quiet. The voice of a mare that came through the murmuring was as cold and assured as a glacier carving through a mountain.

{{Your strength is hollow, Ivaline. You are weak, and we grow stronger by the day. Your time will come.}}

Ivy raised one hoof as her horn and eyes lit with a white and golden glow, and she stomped. The clamoring voices howled in revulsion, and one voice like a thousand peals of thunder roared and sang above them all.

“AND WHILE YOU WERE FESTERING IN YOUR PIT OF POISON, I WAS BUILDING A NATION! DO NOT LECTURE ME ON THE NATURE OF STRENGTH, PARASITE!”

Ivy lit her horn, another blinding flash filled the cottage, and all trace of the ceaseless chattering at the corners of my mind vanished in an instant. The few magic lanterns in the room went out, and every pony but Pinwheel gasped or yelped in shock, even Blitz.

The pressure faded, and I shuddered in relief. Eagle sat on my other side and wrapped me and Zephyr with his wings, nuzzling the nape of my neck. Zephyr suffered a full-body shiver and muttered, “Are they done? Fucking Tartarus, my head hurts…”

Minty gave a low groan, Skipper’s legs wobbled as she sat on her haunches, and Nautical slowly lay down, her stare going far beyond the timber walls. Orchid Wisp joined Nautical and lay her head along her neck.

It was as if the bleak cold of Winter had been swept away by the warm sun of Spring in the blink of an eye.

Blitz sighed and rubbed her head with her wing. “Fuck.”

Skipper shook herself and let out an anemic bark of laughter. “Ho-o-oly shitbiscuits.”

“She’s furious,” mumbled Nautical, sounding dazed and distant, “Furious and afraid… she respects you, Ivaline… but that won’t last.”

Ivy slowly shook her head. “It will not.”

Blitz patted Skipper’s back with her wing, then came over to lie next to me, bathing me in the near-ultraviolet light from her mane. “I… I’m sorry.” She touched her nose to my cheek, then raised her head. “To all of you… Nautical Mile, Beat Skipper, Minty Zircon… I am sorry. I did this to you, not the Goddess. You suffered for my pride… my arrogance and foolishness. I…” She sighed and dipped her head once more, squeezing her eyes shut briefly, then said, “Come to Bellenast with us… I’ll help you however I can.”

“I have two extra bedrooms,” said Night Cloud, who had taken her disinfectant supplies out again, and busied herself cleaning Minty’s numerous scratches and the dried bloodstains—hers and mine—on her coat. “You’re welcome to stay with me, for as long as you need.” She tossed her head back to clear her mane from her eyes and said, “There aren’t any extra beds in those rooms at the moment, but that can be remedied.”

“Say, uh…” Skipper pointed her wing at Nádarin. “Speaking of remedies, if you want Prince Ungabunga here to live, you probably want to treat him soon. Bite Size kinda blasted him with radiation.” Night Cloud failed to suppress a chortle, and Zephyr let out a strangled laugh behind her wing. Blitz looked first over her shoulder, then down at me with an inscrutable expression. “Woah, hey,” said Skipper, “It wasn’t on purpose! She was trying to signal you gals, only she went a little overboard and lit herself up like a balefire egg, and Princey wasn’t out of the danger zone, so—”

“Thank you, Skipper,” said Blitz, holding up her wing. “I think I get the idea.” She massaged her head with her wing joint again and sighed, staring at the floor. “I…” She gave me a small smile and shook her head, laughing softly. “I did not expect this of today…”

Prince Nádarin coughed and said in a rasp, “You and I both, Your Highness…”

Blitz let out a dry, hollow chortle, replaced the talisman on her necklace, tucked it beneath her armor, and rubbed the back of her neck as her bright, glowing mane settled back into its normal state. “You’re under arrest, by the way… Your Highness.”

“I gathered.”

“Hold that thought,” said Ivy, and from her saddlebags she produced two weapons, my coach gun and a less-engraved model with a minotaur’s hand grip and stock still intact. “Crystal Dew.” She showed one of the brass shells I had loaded with a rounded, protruding slug machined from solid brass. “You made this, did you not?”

I nodded.

She snapped open the newer coach gun, loaded the shell, formed a double-layer sphere of gold around the gun, and fired it at the ceiling. I flinched and Zephyr gasped as the gun exploded with a muffled thump and flash into a mangled, metal flower, and the smoking pieces fell in a pile at the bottom of the suspended shield. Zephyr squeezed me a little more tightly.

Ivy held my gaze and said, “When you put cannon propellant in something designed for less than a quarter the chamber pressure, and you turn the slug a few hairsbreadths too large, your gun becomes a bomb. Imagine that happening near your head.” She stuffed ruined pieces of weapon into her saddlebags and shook the seven remaining shells in her telekinesis. “I stopped making these a hundred and fifty years ago, and so did everyone else, so until I can teach you to make your own safely, you get them from me and no-one else, understand?”

My ears drooped, and I shakily nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good.” She put my coach gun back in her saddlebags, as well, and said, “I can replace a gun. I can’t replace you.” She turned directly to Nádarin. “Prince Nádarin of House Sunflower. Thank you for depriving Crystal Dew of her weapons.” She glanced sidelong down at me and said, “Had you not, she might well have killed herself while trying to use them against you. Your efforts to avoid threatening or causing her harm in the course of your actions will be considered during your trial, as will be any offer of recompense you are inclined to make on behalf of your House.”

Ivy lifted the bronze box up from the floor near my hooves in her golden magic, along with the emptied pistol, and opened the box to inspect the glass ball inside. “All fifty-three of those ponies under your command—questionable though such a distinction may be—have been captured, and are awaiting trial.”

She placed both the memory orb box and pistol in her panniers and looked down at Nádarin again. “Argent Nimbus has told me that opinions strongly differ between the families. Some of them wish to continue a feud started by ponies now long dead; an inheritance of wounded pride, perhaps. Argent Nimbus is convinced you seek vengeance. I don’t care why you might or might not want my head, because you aren’t getting it. You’re going to help me stop this foolishness, rather than perpetuate a feud that could become a war if the wrong House’s idiot progeny dies.”

“Argent Nimbus is a friggin’ creep,” I said. “I wouldn’t trust a word out of his stupid mouth.”

“He’s under watch,” said Ivy; I couldn’t tell whether her lip had twitched or if she had smiled at me. “Let us worry about him.” You have good instincts. Trust those. “Prince Nádarin? We have graver trials ahead of us than this. You know that in a way few others alive can. Cooperate, work with us, and you may yet contribute to the betterment of both our peoples. Doctor Wisp? See to His Highness’s care until the ambulance arrives. I expect he’ll need a week at least before he is fit for trial; that should be enough time to send an envoy to the Emperor and arrange for a representative to come to Bellenast for council. You are to oversee his treatment during that time. I trust Claraby can authorize that?”

“She already did,” said Orchid Wisp, rising carefully next to Nautical, who glanced lethargically up at the larger mare, but remained lying on the floor. “Remarkably prescient of her.”

Ivy made a curt nod and glance down at Blitz as she turned to the door. “Blizziera, let them eat before you bring them back. Stay close to Nautical Mile. Ward her. Lend her your strength.” She opened the front door and grimaced as she looked briefly down at Nautical. “I leapt into the maelstrom of my own accord… our sister did not. Bring her ashore.” Ivy vanished through the door, and her hoofsteps faded quickly.

Blitz turned from the door as it closed, and she let out a quiet laugh.

“Right,” said Pinwheel Malaise, stepping out from her kitchen doorway with a collection of wooden bowls in her pink magic. “Not to be rude, but now that all that’s done, lunch is ready! Unfortunately, not all of you are invited, on account of there not being enough to go around and some of you needing it more than others! Now, I don’t mind the company, but, eh, this is the crowdedest this little cottage has ever been! You, big Princess pony, you’re a wee bit in the way of the food. Mind scooching over for the gals, if you please? Skipper, you’re first in line.”

“Well, hot damn!” Skipper launched to her hooves and sprang halfway across the room to reach the bubbling stewpots. “Music to my ears, Pinny!”

“Yes, yes, dig in. Don’t burn yourself.”

Blitz carefully stood and moved over toward the west wall, by the front door, and she glanced at the kitchen doorway as Skipper stepped past me and Zephyr, who couldn’t help but stare at the alicorn’s stark ribs with a haunted look on her face. “Miss Malaise… Pinwheel?”

“Yes?”

Blitz pointed her wing at the hanging stewpots. “Is all this from your own stores?”

“Nah, the gals brought most of it by from their place a month or so back for a rainy day.” Pinwheel flicked her long tail and said, “Turns out it was a week of snow and winds that’d make the Frozen North blush, not rain, but what can you do?”

“Ah.” She gestured at the north wall. “And has your first planting been affected?”

“Ground hasn’t frozen and the snow’s melting fast while the sun’s up, so everything should be fine. Just means I might need to do some extra fishing, little bit of foraging. I, eh…” Pinwheel looked over at me with pursed lips. “I expect it’s the snow that drove the Bloomfangs this far up the valley in the first place. They don’t normally come to that patch of the woods, but those bushes are fine in a freeze, so… I should have thought about that when I took the girlies out lookin’ for berries.”

Blitz raised her forehoof. “No-one is to blame, Pinwheel. Thank you for bringing Crystal to the safety of your home in the first place… as well as Nádarin. I can’t say I know many who would have done what you did under such… alarming conditions.”

“Eh…” Pinwheel nodded. “Yeah, I can see why some folks might not, but in all honesty, when I bumped into those two, it was the wee lass that looked like a bomb primed to blow, not Mister River. She, eh, walloped him pretty hard. Twice.” I winced. “Or thrice, dependin’ on how you look at it.”

Blitz gave me a sideways smirk. “I can imagine… anyway, you can expect a delivery of grains within the next week. These blizzards have affected the entire Bellenastian Valley, and beyond. Now that the Tower has been shut down completely, we can begin relief efforts and actual damage assessment, but we don’t have complete records of everyone living in these mountains. If you have any neighbors, it would help us to know exactly where they are, so we can schedule deliveries for those who need the help soonest.”

“Well, if I really need anything, I can just bother Uruqhart and his folks for it, but there are a few ponies five, six miles up the river that might appreciate the help… I can show you on a map if you’d like.”

“Please,” said Blitz, and Pinwheel nodded and promptly trotted back to her kitchen. “The less we have to look, the faster we can help.”

I rested my head against Zephyr, and she brought her wing up to cradle me in response. “Tired?” she murmured.

“Tired, hungry, angry, annoyed, freaked-out… just friggin’… I don’t know, a bit of everything.”

“Way out of your depth?” said Eagle, coming to stand next to us.

“Yeah,” I muttered, watching between Zephyr’s feathers while Orchid Wisp prepared an intravenous Rad-Away drip for Prince Nádarin and shaved clear a miniscule patch of coat on the side of his neck for the needle. “I want to go home.”

“I know the feeling.”

I looked over at Night Cloud again. She returned a sideways glance and smile, but kept her attention on Minty, who sat stock-still while Night Cloud cleaned the shallow lacerations on her right leg. “Guess you never got a chance to look for a place?”

Eagle chuckled. “Nah… I did see something interesting way outside the city while I was flying, though. Looked like a race track. Bunch of storage sheds around a sort of amphitheater, split up around the track. Went into the hills and back, it looked like. It was too far away to see more than that.”

“It’s for chariot racing,” said Night Cloud in tone of derision as she poured drops of the mixed healing potion directly on Minty’s leg; her shoulder twitched as the sparks danced across the cuts the badger must have given her during its death throes. “It’s a dangerous use of one’s time… but plenty of ponies enjoy it. Thrill-seekers, mostly.”

I rolled my eyes and stood up. Zephyr lifted her wing away and let go of me as I moved over toward Night Cloud. I reared up to brace my hoof on her shoulder and pecked her cheek. “You jumped all over a bunch of boulders with me on your back. You are a thrill-seeker.”

She pursed her lips as I sat down by Minty, smirking. “I am confident,” said Night Cloud, “In my ability to jump. That’s something I know.” She wiped clean and dropped a few milliliters of potion onto the last cut on Minty’s foreleg, then pressed the nearly-empty syringe’s needle into a steel tube a bit longer than the hypodermic. The face of the syringe depressed a plate on the tube, she twisted it, a metallic rattle came from the container, and she pulled the syringe away, free of its needle.

She put away the syringe and tube in separate compartments in her pannier box and said, “I am not especially inclined to trust my safety to a pair of adrenaline junkies piloting a hover chariot barely the size of my own body around the Corsair Hills while the rest of the contenders either try to fly three millimeters over your head at a hundred kilometers per hour just to gain a second of lead, or you oversteer and fly off the track and into a ravine.”

“That’s specific,” muttered Zephyr.

“What kind of chariots do they allow?” I said, “Wingpower only, or aerokinetic jets?”

“Wingpower and ground carriages only on the short track, but the Corsair Hills track is open to both. One to two ponies pull, the lancer hooks flags on the track to score—” Night Cloud looked straight at me, her mouth frozen open for an instant. “No. No, absolutely not.”

Eagle burst into raucous laughter. “Night Cloud,” he said, winding down to a chuckle, “You’re telling the wrong filly ‘No.’”

She closed her eyes and let out a slow breath, and said tightly, “You’re probably right.”

Minty chortled and scrawled on her chalkboard, drawing Night Cloud’s attention as she held it up.

‘Sounds fun. Alicorns allowed?’

“Yeah, I’m with Minty,” said Skipper between mouthfuls of stew, “That sounds awesome.”

“Yes, we’re allowed,” said Night Cloud, “With some restrictions. Unicorns may use telekinesis or a pivot harness to aim the lance, but not both during the same race, and the same rule applies for alicorns; I found controlling the lance with the harness easier. Using any magic while pulling is an automatic disqualification, and all unicorn lancers must wear a coupled monitoring gauge for the entire race, to ensure that they use telekinesis only to aim the lance.”

She stood up, having finished tending Minty, and moved over to lie down again next to me. Minty filled a bowl of stew and set it in front of me, then retrieved her own, which was probably four times larger. “I tried it when I was sixteen,” said Night Cloud, placing the bloodied cloth in yet another stainless steel container. “A few practice laps through the Hills and one proper race as a puller. Made a complete fool of myself in the process, and decided I’d rather do other things with my time.” Night Cloud set her wing snugly across my back and nuzzled my cheek, and said, “But I suppose it was rather fun… at least until I lost control on a turn and went off the side of a cliff.”

She gave a soft snort and said, “And for those of you present who were born with wings, allow me to assure you that, no, flying off a cliff doesn’t become any less terrifying in the moment just because you can glide down to the bottom of the ravine… especially when you’re strapped to a chariot with a pony without wings trying to tell you how to use yours.”

“How’d you recover?” I lapped up my first mouthful of the aromatic, slightly spicy stew, and pondered how much I would need to bribe Nautical to cook my every meal for the rest of my life.

“In the hospital,” said Blitz, chortling.

Night Cloud sighed. “I believe,” she said stiffly, “She meant my flying, Blitz… and I didn’t, Crystal. I was a novice flier. Strong wings, very little skill. I crashed.”

My mouth thoroughly occupied, I chuckled and bumped my head on her shoulder.

In the short-lived battle that followed between continuing to talk and eating delicious food, eating delicious food indisputably won.

Fallout: Equestria - To Bellenast

by Sir Mediocre

1. Itinerary

2. Sore Eyes

3. Impetus

4. Silver Lining

5. Visage

6. Writ In Scarlet

7. Magus

8. Diplomacy, Part 1

9. Diplomacy, Part 2

10. Ruminations

11. Malediction

12. Fracture

13. Pact

14. Rebuke