Meta Gamer in Equestria: Champion's Folly

by reflective vagrant

First published 21st of October, 2019

The final instalment of the MGiE, our protagonist now faces his greatest adversary.

(Red tags are for minor presence. They are not the focus but, yes, present.)
Having been freed, Moss now seeks what to do with his life, both as the only legal ape like being from another world, and as a now competent spell caster.
Yet dangers still lurk in the shadows and he can't fully shake off the fears of something bringing harm to this new world he hesitates to call home. The one thing he is still not fully certain of is if the threat he feels is somewhere out there, or inside himself.

Third and final installment of the Meta Gamer in Equestria series. I've tried to make either of the other books decent starting points, both MGiE: Odyssey and MGiE: The Blight of Bane. But reading MGIE: The Blight of Bane will be needed to properly understand this book.

My Last Assignment. (prologue)

As Zecora and the prisoner wrestled on the ship deck, I felt the tinge of hairs standing on the back of my neck, telling me what the prisoner's intent was.

With a quick reach into the component pouch at my hip, I pulled the thorned stem of a rose out. With them rolling towards the edge of the deck. I called out the word "R^ap_to," as quietly as I could manage and cocked my hand back as if ready to crack a whip.

When they tumbled over the side, I flicked my wrist forward and released the spell I held. Failing to grasp the prisoner too, a magically manifested whip lassoed Zecora's barrel and pulled her back to the ship before she could fall overboard. In doing so, however, several painful gashes had formed on her body from the thorns innately on the whip that I just couldn't remove.

Without pausing to explain, I ran to the side of the ship, called out "^He_lp!" to Archimedes to give initial aid to Zecora's wounds and dove into the ice cold northern waters after the prisoner.

Before I even hit the water, I was ready for the cold with a thick white fur coat of a polar bear.

With the innate swimming ability of the polar bear form I was borrowing matching my own, I was easily able to keep up with the human woman doing her best to try to swim away. I knew she was dangerous, however, and I needed to let her tire herself out. So I just kept my distance and followed.

Pretty soon, she had swam to a ridge of ice that had yet to melt in the early spring sun to get away. It was clear that by the time she had reached it, her strength was beginning to wane as the ice water was taking its toll on her far more than it was me.

That's when it got dangerous. Not dangerous so much for me, but for her. She tried to heave herself up on a ledge, but her hand hold broke, making her fall deeper into the ice water.

She found herself being dragged down by the undercurrent without the strength to keep from being pulled under the solid ice sheet she was attempting to clime on to.

She swam as best she could, but it was to no avail. her arms were barely making any headway against the current before I saw her finally collapse from the cold.

Knowing she was going to drown if I didn't act fast, I swam to her, closing the distance the current was pulling her in. As soon as I got to her, I turned her around to get a better angle and gripped the scruff of her armor in my fangs.

With all my borrowed strength, I pushed and pushed to get back to the bottom of the ice that was between us and escape from this cold, watery death.

Transforming back, I quickly shifted one arm to catch her and reached my other arm to the ice above us. With a quick motion of my hand opening from a tight fist to a loose open palm, the ice above us melted and I quickly swam up into it with her.

I gasped for breath from the surface, having no particular desire to breathe the icy water. Meanwhile, I found a grip on the edge of the opening.

I then loosed my grip on her just as I made a swooping motion with the hand that had released her. Like clockwork, instead of falling back under again, she was swooped up with the gush of water that I had motioned out of the hole.

Pulling myself out, I felt the air making the already icy water drenching me suck even more of the heat away from my now exposed form.

In response, I reached back into my component pouch and found my tiny leather baggy of fine sand. With a quick rubbing of the baggy and granules inside between my fingers and a call out of "e_xc^oq_ua^tu_r!" I targeted the water surrounding both of us, as well as hoping I could clear out the water in her lungs in the process too.

Instantly, the cold stopped biting at me and I saw an involuntary and brief gasp from her. When I didn't see any more breathing, I called out to Archimedes again, "Partner, ^he_lp."

As the stamina came back into her from the spell, I could see her start breathing again.

That was good of course, but I had to contend with her suddenly waking up. She jumped at me and nearly stabbed through my scale mail. I could feel the tip of the shiv she had hidden poking through and giving a tickling prick to my skin.

In response, I pulled out the crystal I had confiscated from her partner and called out "_Do^rm_in^o..." with a twist of my wrist and a calm tone.

Instantly, she fell asleep and landed face first into the ice.

I raised my curled fingers in an aggressive form and called out "U^ro!"

With a flame on the ice a few feet away from us, we finally started regaining some warmth. I then grabbed the rope in my pack and quickly got to binding the prisoner's arms. This time, though, instead of tying them up in front of her, like Plasma Wave did, I tied them behind her back.

With the ice melting, I let go of my spell and pulled the prisoner to a safer distance before she woke again. When she tried to kick me, I did another sleep spell and tied her feet up to her hands as well.

I wasn't able to carry her with my own normal arms, so I instead opted to just shift into a polar bear one last time, gripped her bindings in my fangs and meandered back to the row boat that had finally spotted me from the edge of the ice.

I set the prisoner in the boat, letting the guards secure her properly, then shifted back to my normal form.

Zecora, still clearly sore but managing, spoke to me.

"Lost I feared the two of you were, but returned you have, and with her!"

With a skeptical look, I gave a mocking huff, pressed my amulet and asked, "The great medicine mare and tracker, Zecora, wasn't able to keep her eagle eyes on me like she always does?"

She gave a blush and an embarrassed smile. "So my flaw you do now know. In the depths, it is hard to tell where you go."

As I climbed into the boat myself, I asked, "So, do you still think you have dinner in you, or do we need to break out more of what's left of the rations tonight?"

Zecora pulled a pouch from her pack and presented it. "The spell was completed when she first jumped me. Though getting used to these spells, I am, as you can see."

Reaching inside the bag, I grabbed two of the berries from inside. They were pretty generic, not too tasty but not bad either. Most importantly, however, they were filling. One berry could even feed the biggest members of the team for a full day.

"It's amazing, the spells from the Animus Mundi you've been teaching the servants to tap into, battle brother," Speaks with Talons called from the air, "It is a shame that you do not have the relationship needed to cast them yourself."

I turned up to him, then back to Zecora with both a slight scowl, and twitch of my cheek in reluctant acknowledgement. "It does take quite the tax out of any creature trying to cast them without spell slots. It's apparently hard to muster the energy like that without them, especially with healing magic. But I'll keep trying to mind my manners as long as she keeps her deal to help me understand how to cast like a servant. The Animus Mundi pumped another level up into me about three missions ago and I still can't understand what I'm missing."

Zecora shook her head as I popped a berry into my mouth. "You simply need to find what she means to you. My lessons are always the same, nothing new."

I felt the slight easing of my body's pain from the chill as I swallowed. Just as the ship started cranking the rowboat back aboard, I offered the prisoner the other berry.

She just spat at me and called out, my amulet translating the non Equestrian in a thick accent.

"To the deepest depths of Avernus with you, champion! Threaten me with torture or bribe me with luxuries, I will never talk!"

As we were being hoisted up, Tempest and Scraps peeked over the side and called out.

"Moss, there's been a development. We need to talk. It's about your continued participation volunteering in the roundup missions."

An Uneasy Not-Homecoming, Part 1

"So you see, we're the only group who has been having constant resistance from the detained invaders. Every single one of them has instantly recognized you as their opposing champion and started fighting us with a renewed fervor. When compared to the behavior of the prisoners of the other teams, it's far too often for it to be chance."

Tempest took a berry from Zecora, bit down on it once to break it open then immediately swallowed it without further chewing.

"We want to help them as best we can, but there's something about you and how you were sent here that sets them off."

The prisoner was put back down in the hold as we followed.

"We appreciate the help you've provided in understanding how to bring the few mages that slipped through in... relatively unharmed, but the princesses have agreed that you have to be pulled from the roundup missions."

The other prisoner was sitting down, still chained up and gagged. Unlike the first prisoner, he had no armor, but was instead clothed in a fine, if well worn, set of robes.

When they opened up his gag to let him eat, he immediately called out to me. "_Wh^at _is ^yo_ur ⁿa_me?"

I felt a compelling force driving to answer that I could have fought, but chose not to, instantly knowing why he asked.

With a calm turn towards him, I allowed myself to be forced to utter an answer, "@#^$#*Moss."

He grinned a sly and confident grin. "Well then, '_Mo^ss,'-" He mimicked my pronunciation through the language gap while twisting the index and middle fingers on one of his chained hands upward in a compelling manner. "-I demand that you kill these animals and free us."

I once again felt a compelling force, though different and with far more presence than before.

I used my last remaining luck charm to ensure I could fight it. It was only on the slightly fortunate side, but combined with my innate fortitude with saves like this, it was enough to ensure I didn't slip up and fail.

Instead of following his order, I walked straight up to the guard that just removed the gag, grabbed it, turned back to the prisoner and put the gag back in. All the while he looked at me in shock.

"Guys! I keep telling you to keep the gags on, feed them through the straws and keep their fingers bound! He realized I can understand him and used a spell that almost got me to kill all of you."

Tempest lifted an eye brow. "All of us?"

I rolled my eyes and gave a huff in agreement. "Well, to try at least. I think if it weren't for that bewitched effect keeping me from telling anybody my true name, he might have succeeded."

I then wrestled with his curled up hand, exposing the chopped off tongue of a snake that had been soaked in a sweet oil and was bent up and shaped funny like it had been hidden away somewhere for a while.

I then took it and showed it to the guards.

"And you need to take everything from them, not just any crystals or wands you find! Those are the fairly universal things arcane casters can use, but there are other materials they can use to cast specific spells too."

I looked around to find the guards in charge of the prisoner avoiding eye contact and looking embarrassed.

"Whatever, I'm gonna go back to the barracks and crawl under a blanket to warm up properly."

---

As the ship made it into port and the crew was working to secure it to the dock, I stood next to Plasma Wave and looked out to the ponies looking to greet their returning family members.

"I'm surprised you stayed with the squad after the fight in the desert."

Plasma Wave scanned the crowd while absentmindedly rubbing his featherless wing, which was rigged up into a mechanical wing with pink wires laced within its artificial feathers.

"Tempest said she could still use me and If I didn't take the position then my daughter would have."

He stopped scratching and looked at the artificial wing. "And I'm glad I could give the new hybrid prosthetic wing design a field test. It's sure a lot smoother and easier a flight than the first prosthetic they tried to give me. This one is so close to being as strong as my other wing that I almost forgot it wasn't real. Who knew a mere colt would be the one to take the prosthetic transference efficiency barrier and just blow it right out of the water?"

He stiffly put the wing back to his side as the gangplank finally was secured in place. "If I could just get the thing to stop being so gosh darn itch..." his words died in his throat as his eyes fell on a pony in the crowd. "Chocolate Dust!"

Plasma Wave dove right overboard, swooped over to the crowd and heaved a dark brown unicorn up into the air, nearly falling into the crowd in the process.

"My beloved wife!" He exclaimed as he did his best to land in the area that the crowd was clearing for him.

Once they landed, he saw the shocked look on her face, which quickly turned into an expression of being impressed as she glanced down at his prosthetic wing.

Their expressions of giddy embarrassment and excitement died down after a few seconds, soon transitioning into a long, intimate and content nuzzling.

The scene I saw unfold as I marched down the gangplank managed to crack the ice around the normally grim demeanor I often found myself having after returning from a mission. At least for a moment.

"There's Moss! That's the one that gave up his home to save ours!"

"I heard he can conjure a giant flame out of thin air!"

"I heard he took on a polar bear solo when it threatened his team, and subdued it without killing it!"

"I heard he can turn into a polar bear now!"

"I heard that..."

I did my best to tune it out. Instead, I looked around for the one pony I needed to find.

"Moss! Over here buddy!" I heard a somewhat familiar pegasus call out.

Looking over, I saw Rainbow Dash waving towards me and pointing to the edge of the crowd, where Fluttershy was eagerly awaiting me.

Stepping off the gangplank, I was immediately swarmed with admirers and paparazzi.

"Mr Moss! Can we ask a few questions?"

"Have you been to the sea pony domain? What is it like?"

"May we touch your head ridge?"

I raised one of my hands and gave them an irritated glare as my other hand pressed on my amulet.

"If you want me to answer your questions, then get a warrant," I stated in a low growl then switched to a more sly, business like tone I had practiced for such a swarming, "Otherwise it's five thousand bits per question, in advance."

The crowd went a bit quiet at this, with about a third of them genuinely weighing how much they had to spare or could pool together.

"Don't have that much on you? Then tough luck. And remember, I said per question."

I gestured to them to make a path.

"Now let us through. The crew needs to unload the haul and they can't do it safely with the docks full of by-standards."

With the crowd backing up, Scraps and Tempest were able to walk of the gangplank too.

"Does Moss really need to take large piles of metal coins from ponies?" Scraps whispered from behind me, though with his way of speaking, I couldn't tell whether he was talking to me or Tempest without looking back to see where he was looking.

But I heard Tempest whisper back to him soft enough to where only we could hear. "No, he doesn't need them. He just gives the bits to me to pass along to a charity. But it's what he does to keep them from asking too many questions and to keep them from liking him too much. I still don't understand why he wants that last part, but he keeps upping it each time they manage to pay. last time it was two thousand."

After finally managing to have the crowd disperse, I was able to reach Fluttershy with Tempest and Scraps.

"As per his work arrangements, I am now returning custody of Moss to you, Fluttershy. And as for when the next mission is, there won't be one."

Fluttershy signed off on my paperwork just as she heard this. Turning her head up from the papers, she gave Tempest an odd look.

With this, I piped up. "Apparently I'm scaring them just by being the guy sent here to oppose them."

Tempest gently shook her head with a frown. "Actually the entire team is disbanding. Zecora and Speaks with Talons need to get back to their duties as servants of the Animus Mundi, Plasma Wave and Iron Bastion got offers as prison guards, having gained experience handling so many of the invaders, and extended combat isn't good for my work with Scrap's rehabilitation and reintegration development, so we have to leave too. With so many of the stragglers rounded up and half the team leaving, we've agreed the other teams can take over from here. It's just time for us to move on."

After a moment of thought from her on this, I saw Fluttershy looking towards the clock at the train station and what I presumed was the train schedule.

"Is it possible to take a detour to Canterlot, Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy turned to me in a mild surprise, as well as a little hesitation to try to read my face and what I was implying.

I explained in my best hodgepodge of broken Equestrian while filling in with the amulet's translation where I had to, "I really want to try to get back to doing my Equestrian lessons, and the only place I can be tutored with a pony that really understands how to tutor me is at the... castle."

I saw her positively glow with pride at my improved understanding of the language and the conviction of my desire to visit the castle again, but I also could see her and Tempest wince at my chopped up imitation of their way of vocalizing their words. I could make my words readily legible without the amulet now, enough to get a message across clearly at least. Yet it had become rather apparent that I'd always need the amulet to not sound like one of their slow children with an impediment to them due to how I'd never catch the subtleties of the way they pronounce their words.

But if I ever wanted to grow and thrive in their world in the long term then learning at least some basic verbal communication without the amulet was a skill I needed to learn, and I needed to go see the pony that tutored me for other reasons too.

Not wanting to make them suffer through more of me butchering their language, I switched back to letting the amulet just do the translating.

"I'm sure Sunburst and Starlight would want to talk to me some more about the Animus Mundi and arcane magics if they have time, and I did give my tutor my word I'd do my best to come visit her again when I got back."

Fluttershy gave a happy smile filled with about as much honey as a bee hive at the end of spring. "I know she'll be absolutely over joyed to see you again."

Canterlot Studies (An Uneasy Not-Homecoming, Part 2)

I stood there in the castle court yard as Starlight lightly adjusted the sensors attached to me and steadily added new ones, which she had been doing for the last ten minutes or so.

"So, how is the sky rift project going?"

Starlight looked up to me, then pulled my arm forward and upward to set the next sensor on the underside of my arm, just past my armpit to where it wouldn't quite get in the way when I would eventually be allowed to move.

With a brief glance of confirmation to Sunburst at the station I was hooked up to, she perked up her ears and glanced at me for just a moment before reaching for the next sensor.

"Its going just fine. Archimedes has been as helpful as always, despite the difficulties we have with communicating with him. We've got a solid fix on the location and why it was invisible when it was open, confirmed it's stable for now and we're theorizing on ways to keep it that way in the future. We know that we can maintain it by getting up close and personal with some well placed clouds and a few cloud walking spells if need be, but we're trying to come up with ideas on how to maintain it from the ground too."

"Owch!" I called as her current sensor dug a bit too deep into my side after she taped it to me.

"Sorry about that," she called out as she adjusted my safety goggles. It was hard to see out of them super clearly, but that wasn't all that necessary for this test. "At least that's the last one."

With this she backed up and set her barrier spell around herself, Sunburst and the equipment the sensors were feeding into.

"Alright then, the targets are set up and you're plugged in. Let's start off with a basic level again, to set a control."

I nodded to her general direction, turned back around and tried to focus my eyes through the slit in the goggles. With just enough vision to see the several simple boards propped up with crudely drawn faces, I selected my first targets, lifted a single finger out in front of me and called out "_Ve^st_ig^o I_ac^ul_um!"

Immediately, I felt three darts of magic burst out of my finger, turn in their paths and actively seek out the boards I had selected.

When they were utterly decimated, Starlight praised me then asked me to cast the magic missile spell a few more times at base level to cross check the readings.

As I steadily increased the level of my casting over the next few minutes, steadily greater numbers of magic bursts came out of my finger and started dwindling the amount of simple props to a mere handful.

"OK, that should be more than enough data." Starlight called out to me as I heard her magical barrier going down. "With this we might be able to figure out how to perform proper up casting ourselves at some point."

With two little boards still standing at the far end of the yard where we had set up, Starlight got a playful smile and lit up her horn.

A single dart of magic not too dissimilar to my own flew out of her horn, zipped across the yard and took out one of the boards. With a quick giggle, a playful smile and a moment to focus, she cast her modified version of the spell again to take out the remaining board.

With a shake of her head to get her playful smile under control, she looked back to me. "It's amazing just how much energy you can pack into those spell slots of yours, even if you have a hard time restoring them."

Sunburst walked up behind her. "I'm sure the princesses will be able to replicate it easily enough, given their raw power, but other than a few ponies like Starlight-" Starlight couldn't help but blush from this. "-most any other ponies will not have the sheer power to up cast any spell even once without completely draining themselves. Normally pouring more power into a spell just makes it more robust and harder to nullify or deflect, maybe even allow them to cover a marginally larger area. Yet this 'up casting' technique not only does that, but also introduces a whole new level of complexity in some spells."

Sunburst then looked at me with glee, quickly adjusting his glasses. "Speaking of new levels, I counted how many spell slots you used. The Animus Mundi leveled you up again, didn't she? What does that make now? Your sixth level as a druid?"

I threw my hands up in defeat. "Alright, yes she did. But it's my seventh level. She leveled me up almost immediately after I saw you last and again a couple missions ago. So I'm two levels higher than last time. If the spell slot count is anything to go by, my multiple classes are totaling a level of ten now."

Sunburst looked up with a focused expression, doing some quick math. With a smile, he brought a picnic basket he had hidden away behind the equipment and settled down. "If my numbers are correct, that means you have access to level four spells through the Animus Mundi now, am I right?"

He opened the basket and levitated half of an egg salad sandwich to me. "I'd love to hear more about them while we have lunch."

I closed my eyes for a moment and let out a huff. "You're half right. I can sense them, but still can't cast them."

I then opened my eyes again, took the sandwich half from him and almost sat down before a royal guard flew down and addressed me.

"Mr Moss!" He called out formally, "I have been sent to inform you that her m..."

He scrunched his face as the word he was about to speak died in his throat before it came out. "That your 'tutor' is ready for you and requests your presence."

My body went tense for a moment, but with a deep breath, a shake of my head and a stamping of my foot, I shook it off. Turning away from the guard almost managing to hide his embarrassment and towards Sunburst, I bowed apologetically.

"I'm sorry. It seems I need to get to my lessons."

Sunburst nodded and brought out another sandwich and the other half of my current one to go. With a disappointed but understanding tone, he urged me on. "Another time then. Best to not keep your tutor waiting."

---

I must have been standing outside that library door while breathing heavily for a good minute before I finally knocked.

"Come in!" I heard the familiar voice of my tutor call me with just a tiny bit too much good cheer coming through in her voice than she might have intended.

I gritted my teeth and pushed the door open. I then willed my lead foot forward and stepped through the door, closed it behind me and forced my face forward into the room.

With a face filled with determination, I pried my eyes open.

My tutor sat at the table that was nearest to the door with only the librarian and Sharp Sentry standing to the side. Sharp Sentry sporting his knockoff amulet and all three of them sporting genuine, patient smiles for me.

I pressed on my amulet and called out, "I'm back, like I prom..."

My words died in my throat as the librarian gave me the cue that my amulet wasn't on despite me pressing it.

Realizing I had used up the last of my amulet's charge, I closed my eyes, placed one of my hands on my amulet, fetched the nicked crystal from my pocket and used up the last spell slot I had leftover with a carefully spoken "_Liⁿg_ua^m I_nt^el_le^ge_re," in order to do an emergency self charge of my amulet before another unicorn could be summoned to refill me properly.

Afterwords, I opened my eyes, again, pressed my amulet, again, and looked back to my tutor.

"It's good to see you again..."

I took one last moment to steel myself before finally forcing myself to sit down on the pillow they had set up for me at the table.

"...Moon Beam."

* * *

The lesson carried on smoother and smoother as the afternoon moved on and my tension mostly eased up. It was like a bunny kept in a pin with a person that does nothing to the bunny and doesn't move, letting the bunny get used to them over time.

"No..." Moon Beam shook her head. "That is the word for toilet, not tutor. You'd think you'd learn this one by now. I mean you call me that through the amulet all the ti..."

She looked at me with a bit of frustration but immediately broke when she saw my uneasy mood at her wording. "Nev-vermind. We can move on." She called out apologetically.

She was flipping through the pages of her notes while I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"It's now or never," I thought to myself.

I pulled myself up to my knees and raised my hand across the table towards her head.

She started stating "listen carefully to the sharp nicker of this next wor..." right as she looked towards me again.

She stared at my hand for a few seconds, only eight to ten inches from her face, then towards me in surprise.

"Is it really the... There?" I called out to her in hesitation.

Surprise turned to a bout of disbelief before finally settling into a bittersweet smile.

"Go on. Find out for yourself." She told me as she lowered her head to let me get a better angle.

I paused for a moment then slowly lowered my hand to the thestral's empty forehead.

As I finally touched down, I felt a hard object protruding out of the apparently blank forehead. Resisting the urge to withdraw my hand, I moved a little to confirm that it was an invisible horn I was feeling.

Moving my eyes to the spot that I wasn't seeing the horn that was apparently there to her eyes, I could see tears welling up.

Slowly, oddly without my arm moving, I found the thestral before me growing in size and taking on the form of a dark coated alicorn princess.

I took a deep gasp of air and forced myself to get over the initial shock of the illusion being dissolved. With a strong bout of anxiety, I called upon every fiber I had to remind myself that I knew this all along and was what I had been building towards.

When I didn't turn away, her eyes squinted in a way that complimented her bittersweet smile. When that happened, the tears that had been threatening to bead out finally rolled down her cheeks.

With my hand still on her forehead, I swallowed the lump in my throat for the umpteenth time.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Princess Luna..."

The moment I felt her nodding in response, my nerves finally knotted my stomach over and I was only able to fight it for about two seconds to be polite and nod back before I had to bolt to the trash.

After dumping the egg salad sandwiches from earlier onto the empty bottle of ink and broken quills, I wiped my mouth and headed for the door.

"I'm sorry everypony, but I think the lesson is over. Again, nice to meet you."

Author's Notes:

Because I have to include ties into the next arc in the next chapter that only has had some modest development put to it compared to other item's I've thought ahead on while writing, the next chapter might have some delays.

But I hope this chapter has paid off for those that have been following the story for a while. (I'm looking at you, Moonlit Stardust. )

A Mare and Her Dog (An Uneasy Not-Homecoming, Part 3)

Author's Notes:

Minor note I need to correct for people that read the last chapter before this one came out. Due to being a bit on the tired side, I accidentally said "Flash Sentry" instead of "Sharp Sentry" for the guard present at the tutoring lesson.

I don't intend it to come up, but I suppose I could say they are loosely related (like cousins sharing a family name). But it was Sharp Sentry at the library last chapter. Silly mistake but felt that needed corrected.

A few days later, I found myself doing my best to sing my heart out.

"You make me happy, when skies are grey."

I felt so awkward. There I was, sitting in the middle of Fluttershy's chicken pen, singing the most calming song I knew to the chicken hiding and shaking in my lap.

My refinement of understanding my portent good luck trick had gotten good enough for me to almost always put each charge of the trick within a range of one to two numbers on a D-twenty. Knowing I had two pretty good roles, I used the luck to push my performance to what I felt would have been a natural nineteen in the game.

I took a deep breath and put as much feeling as I could into the song. Oddly, I found the tingle on the back of my neck leading me to think of Fluttershy as the luck pushed me to sing as strongly as I think I ever had before.

"You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take, my sunshine, away." Placing the perfect pauses in the beat at the end, I finally felt the chicken stop shaking and calm down enough to look up.

The chicken had no idea what I was singing, of course, but my tone and patience had finally calmed it down while Fluttershy and Tempest were taking care of the rest of the chaos outside.

I heard Fluttershy call from the chicken door of the coop, "That was beautiful."

I quickly had to pull out my fifteen portent to keep myself from jumping out of my seat and startling the chicken all over again. She still felt me tense up, but luckily it was enough to keep her from panicking.

Instead, in response to my sudden discomfort, she calmly jumped out of my lap and went back to her eggs.

I shape shifted into a chicken to fit out of the gate again, then back to my normal form as Fluttershy waited for me outside.

"Sorry to startle you. But that singing was nice, especially right at the end."

I pressed my amulet then shook my head skeptically as I started back to the cottage.

"Thanks for being nice about it, Fluttershy, but we both heard how bad I sing by pony standards at your friend's birthday party. You don't have to sugar coat it for me."

Fluttershy turned to walk with me.

"No, really. Ponies have to put more than rhythm, melody and harmonics into a song. We can also hear the sincerity in the voice of a singer. What you sang just now had the ring of great sincerity to it."

I thought for a moment on this as we walked.

"So ponies can tell when another pony is lying in song?"

Fluttershy gave me that familiar blush that cued me in on how I had guessed something so wrong it seemed silly to her, but she would be patient with me as always.

"No, it's nothing like that. With enough practice some ponies can fake the effect. A few even can use it to lie or deceive. If the message just doesn't resonate with the audience, then they may hear the effect but they likely won't be affected by it."

She looked at me with a somewhat pride filled smile. "It just helps us relay our feelings. What was that song about to let you put so much feeling into it, anyway?"

It was my turn to blush as I walked through the door and saw Scraps still sitting with his nose in the corner as he had been told.

"It was a common nursery rhyme from my home world. One I actually know how to sing decently, given it's flexibility. I just let an old emotional attachment enter my mind as I finished."

"Flexibility?" Fluttershy asked, continuing on to the kitchen to get started on lunch, again.

I nodded as I got the flour out to work on making the cookies to go with the tea that we would bake along side our lunch to conserve on costs. Feeding four mouths on just Fluttershy's income and the modest compensation that Tempest, Scraps and myself got from the missions was quite doable, but we agreed that we needed to try to be economic about it.
"Not all songs can do this, but it can relay a comforting tone when sung in a medium tempo, cheer with a fast tempo or sorrow with a slow tempo."

I lifted my head from the table I put the flour on and looked at Fluttershy.

"Change of subject. I saw some job offers in the trash for some spas. Why were they there and not with the others? Last time I checked, minotaurs with their hands fair pretty good at it and I could be too."

With my fame, ponies had actually warmed up to me, but selecting a long term job had been on the back burner while I was assisting with the roundup missions. Now that I was done with them, the job search had been brought back to the forefront again.

Fluttershy looked at me with an embarrassed surprise, then gave me a very serious face and a tone to match. "Please just trust me on this, Moss. Those are not the kind of spas you want to work at. We'll find you a job that wants you for the right reasons, but I'm telling you now that it's not with them."

I looked at her dumbfounded for a moment before widening my eyes in realization.

Before I could even blush, Tempest came in and addressed Scraps rather loudly.

"Thaddeus 'Scraps' Rex," She emphasized his full name to make sure she had his attention, "I'm too angry with you to deal with you just yet. So keep that nose of yours in the corner until I get back to you."

Scraps had already been hunching over in a submissive pose as he kept to his punishment before, but now he was so low that his nose may as well have been touching the ground. He knew he had messed up big time.

Stomping into the kitchen, Tempest went over to the unlit oven, thrust her horseshoe covered hoof at the solid stone sitting on the floor just in front and called out "_Fo^me_s dⁱs_si^li_o."

Immediately, the horseshoe she wore was entrenched in a bit of green flame, which added to the scorch mark on the stone set aside for it, then immediately hopped to the tinder inside the furnace, getting it started.

"It's my fault, I taught him how to use magic."

She solemnly started loading the oven with proper logs.

"Hey, I had a hand in it too." I called out to her from across the room. "His style is more like mine than yours anyway. Aside from the tricks you picked up mimicking my style to cast without using your horn, I mean. And technically it was the spell that he learned from me that he spooked the chicken with."

She turned to me with a bitter glare. "You're right, it's all your fault." She then rolled her eyes and let out a bitter sigh to show her sarcasm.

"I mean it's my fault for teaching him so much about warfare. I'm his Rehabilitation and Reintegration Escort officer. I'm supposed to be teaching him how to get along, not how to fight. Now he's worse than before, knowing even more things that could get him in trouble."

I spoke up with my counterpoint as I mixed my dough.

"Those three little spells of his and the maneuvers prince Shining Armor's personal instructor taught both of you have saved our butts on multiple missions. I still can hardly believe you managed to parry that axe that was already digging into your chest before it hit your heart."

Tempest stopped loading wood at Fluttershy's signal and rubbed her barrel self consciously. "Thanks again for the quick heal back then. Don't think I could have kept going for much longer with a wound that big and only one functioning lung."

She shook her head and looked back at Fluttershy and me. "But it's still drawing him away from what I'm supposed to be teaching him. I mean look at you."

She gestured towards me.

"You're going to be able to be declared to be fit to stand on your own any week now. Scraps..."

She looked at Scraps still cowering like a child despite being a full grown adult for his kind.

"He's going to need at least a couple years to get anywhere near where you are. I'm a former soldier of one of Equestria's enemies. When I was accepted back, I abused the system with your Astral Judgement. And now as his RRE officer I've taught him more on fighting than getting along. I should be the last pony assigned to help him."

Fluttershy stopped in her preparations and came over to Tempest.

"Tempest, you grew up in a situation similar to how Scraps grew up. You understand his reasoning for why he does what he does better than anypony. You were the only guard that saw past the label of diamond dog and treated him with respect when you worked at the prison. You also were the only one that saw something worth defending in him when you were made into his cell mate as a prisoner."

Fluttershy looked at Scraps for a second, then back to Tempest. "You're the only pony he ever formed any kind of positive bond with, and it has grown quite deep. For all of your shortcomings, you are the only pony that can help him."

This was why I cared so deeply for Fluttershy. Seeing her set her own needs aside, regardless the inconvenience, and being willing to help another creature with that sheer, raw passion couldn't help but move me. Ponies, while still flawed, had proven to be far more harmonious in general than my own kind had ever been. Fluttershy, however, took it to a whole new level. She could touch hearts with her kindness but still be able to dip deep into her inner strength and stand her ground when creatures tried to take advantage of that kindness.

To me, such a combination of traits was something so rare that I never thought I'd find somebody like that. Most people I met who tried to be like that were often corrupted or broken in a world that wanted to take advantage of such people. I wanted to be something not too far off from what she was, growing up, but just learning to survive among my kind made it so hard to even hold onto the seed of such a concept, much less let it grow.

Her coming into my life was like being allowed to finally come in from a lifelong snowstorm to a warm fire.

Tempest took a deep, stoic breath and then calmly called out, "Scraps, come here."

Scraps quickly came into the kitchen with his head and posture as low as possible while still moving.

Anticipating Tempest's question of "How was what you did wrong?" Scraps spoke up.

"Using practice magic that friend Moss teach to make sparks that scare animals out of hole is not-"

Scraps was cut off as Tempest pulled him into a tight hug.

"Yes, yes, yes. You're right on all that, Scraps. But I'm so sorry."

Scraps simply stood there in the embrace, stunned.

"Why is boss Tempest sorry?"

Tears were rolling down Tempest's normally stoic, bordering bitchy face as she hugged him tighter.

"I'm sorry for not teaching you better. I've taught you too much on how to fight your way out of trouble, and not enough on how to avoid trouble in the first place. I'm a terrible teacher."

Not fully getting the point, Scraps put his paws around her and hugged her in return. "Boss Tempest best teacher Scraps ever have. Boss Tempest almost as protective as big brother Nicknack, but teach Scraps so much more. Scraps know how to fight for Scraps now. Scraps never able to do before."

Tempest pulled back a little to look Scraps in the eyes with a pained expression.

"Scraps also love playing gentle with tiny ponies. Scraps love learning how to make friends by not taking what Scraps want but trading small coins in market to ponies for what Scraps want. Much less scary. Boss Tempest teach Scraps these things."

Upon hearing this second part, Tempest squeezed him tight to her barrel again and broke down into a sobbing mess.

---

Hours later, Zecora and Speaks with Talons came to visit. I was sitting in Fluttershy's flower garden with Zecora, trying to get one of the early buds to bloom as one of our lessons.

"I still don't see how I'm going to-"

My words stopped as I felt my mind whisked into the familiar fog like state that the Animus Mundi would take me to when she would infuse me with another druid level.

Indeed, I felt the magic of two new cantrips and the secrets needed to cast the speaks with animals spell on my own flying into me. What was more pressing than the Animus Mundi calling to me based on my actions in the past as she infused me, however, was the fact that I could hear another voice calling to me.

"Son of Gaia," I heard from a less imposing, but still potent presence.

I saw flashes of several scenes of Zecora tending to the needs of multiple zebras, ponies and I could have sworn I saw her tending to a minotaur with a bottle of smelling salts at some point.

"Godmother of Lost Souls,"

I saw a young griffin moving protectively over another, smaller framed griffin of similar age, fighting off what looked to be a larger adult griffin who was clutching a bleeding arm. Another scene showed that same protective griffin moving his talons to cast a spell in front of a dog that was tied up and suddenly perking his head up at the griffin, listening.

"Speaks with Talons."

Countless other names could be heard being called at the same time, but they were faint, as if being called over a great distance.

With each of us addressed, the lesser imposing voice called out to us in an urgent cry.

"Disaster Bringer. Oncoming Storm."

Pictures of a den full of creatures that looked like Scraps appeared with a hazy spot in the fog that couldn't form properly. That absence of a clear picture, however, was the point that a sense of dread was coming from. A familiar castle appeared, with the scene zooming into a room made of crystal with a large circular table. A sense of urgency to gather there imposed itself upon us.

Just like that, I was back in the garden with Zecora, only surrounded by fully blooming flowers.

"Oh my..." was all I could think to say as I saw Zecora and Speaks with Talons come out of their own trances.

"That was amazing!" Fluttershy called out to us before seeing the sudden worry on our faces.

"Wait, what's wrong?" She asked before the cutie marks on her and Tempest's flanks started pulsating.

With wide eyes at seeing this, Fluttershy gently declared, "Oh my..."

Stemming the Tide, Part 1.

Scraps, Zecora, Speaks with Talons and myself were told to hold tight in a waiting room of the local castle while Tempest and Fluttershy spoke with the princess, who was already slightly panicked when we had arrived, in the central meeting room.

The little dragon I had seen around the castle before was kind enough to wright down and flame deliver a letter to the princess in the capital that Archimedes had been assisting. This let me briefly explain the sudden urgency and ask them to get ready before blindly calling my partner back to me.

He might have been as scrawny as any old owl, but his insight in a situation as uncertain as this one might prove useful.

All would have been fine as we waited except Scraps was in a bit of a panicked whimper and I could swear I could feel my magic pulsating weirdly.

We waited with the tiny dragon for several minutes, just trying to stay calm.

Finally, the dragon flame-burped out a scroll and read the white princess's reply of how Archimedes understood and was ready to be summoned back as soon as I was ready.

I pulled my arm forward as a perch and did a two step process of willing Archimedes to his pocket dimension then summoning him directly to my arm.

"I am here, partner," he mentally called to me with a far less amount of disdain in his words than his usual levels. "And thank you for checking in before summoning me."

It was another several minutes of my magic pulsating inside me before the princess that Fluttershy and Tempest were meeting with summoned us.

We entered the room with the large table we had seen in our vision. I had seen the table once before, during the rift war, but I think it was at least Scraps's first time in the room.

The two things I noticed immediately as I entered was that my pulsating magic finally died down and that two other servants of the Animus Mundi were present. Specifically, the pony, Tree Hugger, and the dragon, Wild Storm.

"Scraps relieved!" Scraps called out. "Scraps's teeth not pounding!"

With this, he ran over to Tempest's side.

The princess looked back at me and asked, "What about the rest of you? Did any of you feel something when you got here?"

Zecora and Speaks with Talons glanced at each other.

With a nod from the zebra, the griffin spoke up. "Zecora and myself felt a rhythmic throbbing in our bones that stopped when we entered this room."

Looking at me expectantly, the princess asked, "and how about you?"

I nodded in kind as I pressed my amulet. "If I focus, I can feel a kind of pressure from what I can only describe as a sixth sense, which tells me how much magic I have left. Normally I only notice it without focusing when I expend some of my magic, but it was pulsing from the same time Fluttershy's cutie mark started flashing until just now."

A meek voice spoke up from behind Wild Storm, "That confirms it then."

That's when I noticed the small grey changeling, Mandible, hiding behind Wild Storm.

The dragon gently put a claw on the changeling's head. "That it does."

When he saw the confusion in my face, he nodded at the princess to explain.

In response, the princess brought up the illusion of a crystalline tree.

"You may recall that Fluttershy, myself and a few other ponies are called element bearers. Well, these elements came from a tree created by the pillars of light over a thousand years ago."

When she saw me doing the math in my head, she lightly tapped the floor to get my attention.

"Before you ask how they could be alive today, they were suspended in time for most of it. Moving on."

She re emphasized the illusion with several sections glowing.

"Each of the six pillars contributed a seed of their power that eventually grew into the elements today, but there is an inconsistency in the records."

Bringing up the image of an old tapestry, she continued.

"While there are indeed only six elements, several old depictions of the tree's creation shows it was done by seven sources of magic."

With a gesture of her horn, she made the corresponding images in the tapestry glow in kind. With her hoof, she then gestured to a green cluster of power present only in the tapestry that wasn't glowing with the others.

"The seventh source was not a pillar of light, but rather a closely trusted servant of the Animus Mundi. Using the Animus Mundi as an anchor rooted in something other than the quintessence in the elements and the Æther that was used to initiate its creation, they were able to help ensure the tree still had some magic even if nothing was powering the elements at any given time. This would ensure that the Tree of Harmony would not simply die off at any brief bout of strife that disrupted the elements."

She meekly dipped her head down and blushed as the images she was producing faded. "At least that is what Wild Storm was telling me just now."

Tree Hugger came up to the table, put a hoof on it and gave us a chill smile.

"The Tree of Harmony is only what Equestrians call her. We among the servants call her the Crystal Sister. She rarely is active in the world when it comes to interacting with us, and often simply acts as an adviser to those who know how to reach her through the Animus Mundi."

Tempest came up and put her hoof on the table too. "That is the side of the tree that promotes life, but if what the princess tells me is correct, the quintessence side of her energy promotes something else entirely. When its power grew strong enough, the tree created not only the table you see before you but this entire castle. Through this table, it has summoned many ponies, and one or two other creatures, to fulfill quests. Quests of friendship and problem solving that have aided in ending conflicts and bringing harmony among the creatures in this land."

A door slammed open, revealing the Speaker of the Fey running in quite irately. "Oie! That's all well and good! But will you get on with what the loudmouth crystal tree wants with us? Our entire village heard that racket! I had to fly on one of the pegasus patrolling the forest to hurry here and shut the tree up! My wife is with child back in the village, so I really don't want to be away for any longer than I have to."

Wild Storm rolled his eyes. "You know, for creatures not native to this world, you certainly have a knack for acting like you have seniority among those the Animus Mundi chose to bless."

The Speaker gave Wild Storm a death glare, though it looked pathetic when considering their size difference. "Don't get me started. You might have unlocked a slowed aging process like us, but I'm still at least a dozen times older than you. I am your senior. And dragons and griffins weren't always native either."

When I looked to Speaks with Talons, he calmly explained.

"From what I am told by other servants, the original griffins migrated over during the time of the first war. It took every single griffin that was not born of Equis passing away before any new born griffins were considered native in the eyes of magic. Normally it only takes the passing of a few centuries for a race to be turned native, but the Fey live far longer than even dragons, and their strong connection to the Animus Mundi extends that lifespan further still. This is why the Speaker is not considered a native. He is of the transitional generation. He was born here but he has ancestors from the other world that are still alive."

Wild Storm glanced over as the griffin explained, then looked back at the Speaker.

"Though, those among dragons that have heard the tale deny their ancestors ever being from the other world." Speaks with Talons added, respectfully.

With the explanation finished, Wild Storm broke silence as he continued to glare back at the Speaker. "And I still refuse to apologize for aiding Star Swirl in the creation of the Tree of Harmony all those years ago. Quintessence can be abused, but it is not evil. Neither is our creation that wields it."

"Boys!" Tempest called out to both of them.

Once she had their attention, she directed them back to the map on the table. "You can go at each other's throats another time. The fact is we have an impending disaster on our hooves. More creatures will be coming to the castle, needing coordination and assignments to avoid this 'oncoming storm' the Tree of Harmony seems to be so scared of."

Looking at the table, I saw the cutie marks of Tree Hugger, Tempest, Fluttershy and one other pony I didn't recognize circling the image of the castle. Alongside them, faces of Zecora, Speaks with Talons, Scraps, Mandible and many other creatures, all were gathering above the castle too. I saw my face, but half of it was oddly changed to the form of a bear—my most frequent go to for battle for the longest time and first creature I had ever transformed into.

Suddenly, the faces of Speaks with Talons, Mandible, Scraps and myself moved from the castle alongside Tempest's and Fluttershy's cutie marks. Stopping together, they landed at a spot in some mountains to the east that had no apparent settlements nearby save for a small train station a small ways off.

The princess and Fluttershy looked at each other in surprise.

"Well, that tells us where you guys are going, I guess. I just hope coordinating the rest of them when they arrive is this..."

She looked back at the tension between the Speaker and Wild Storm. "...Easy."

Troubled Reflections (Stemming the Tide, Part 2.)

We were approaching our stop after a long train ride, where we were to set off and walk the rest of the way.

"So you can finally call out to the Animus Mundi, battle brother?" Speaks with Talons asked me with a spring of hope to his voice.

I shook my head and brought my hand up to perform the short version of the spell.

"I didn't say that."

With a quick twirling of my hand, and a half twiddling of my thumb, I called out, "Lⁱn_gu^a a_ni^ma_li^s."

The subtle sounds of some birds calling in the distance turn into the sounds of words being yelled, not quite able to be heard clearly over the sounds of the train. I immediately let go of the spell and turned towards him.

"You once said you use a trace of Æther in your spells as a handicap to your casting. As such, you don't speak with her directly when you cast, but weave the spell with just a nudge of guidance from your mind with the secrets she taught you. I think it's similar with me in this case. The Animus Mundi didn't just make the spell available to me by calling out to her. She outright taught me how to cast the whole thing all by myself. It's almost as if I'm casting one of my wizard spells, but not quite. I think the only reason why I can cast it is because it's bypassing the block I have with having to call out to her like with all my other druid spells."

I paused and shirked my shoulders. "Well, besides the cantrips."

When he heard this, he paused for but a moment and shook his head as the train stopped. After he stood up, he grabbed his quivers of his custom bolts, strapped them back onto their proper location just under both wings, and looked back at me with hope. "Then perhaps it will act as a stepping stone for you some day."

With everybody getting ready to disembark, Scraps put his magic short sword back into its corresponding sheath. He then put the sheath back across his belly for travel alongside his quick grab vials, filled with just about anything and everything short of a healing potion. I was still amazed Tempest let him keep the sword after he nicked it from one of the invaders we rounded up. Though I was also a little confused as to why he always had it on his front instead of his back or hip. It was a short enough variety for him to still draw or stow it without a problem, but the sheath looked so uncomfortable placed there.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy and Mandible were packing up the last of their medical kits they had been going over and swapping notes on. They both were skilled enough to act as field medics, but apparently they went about it slightly differently. Fluttershy had knowledge more appropriate for a veterinarian and at least a couple years of practical experience with her animals. This limited her knowledge on immediate aid in the far less than ideal treatment settings of a battlefield, but extended her ability to understand the long term needs of a patient's injury.

On the other hand, Mandible, while having only about a month's practical experience, had basic military medical training from the Equestrian forces with more emphasis on working under fire. He had also gained a tiny bit of knowledge on herbal medicine as well from his time with Wild Storm after his recovery from the rift war. So they had found the differences in their approaches to field medicine fascinating.

Tempest simply popped her neck after the long ride and stood up to crack the rest of her bones. She never opened her pack or removed her armor through the entire trip. She instead opted to run through scenarios with Scraps on when to draw his blade and fight and when to keep it sheathed and take a different approach, be it talking peaceably or something in the middle like his hiding and tinkering skills.

I could only imagine how stiff she was, but I could understand why she did it. She hated having to drag him back into a possible fight yet again. Apparently this was his home land and the princess said that the map table and Tree of Harmony probably sent him here for a reason connected to that.

---

We were trekking along with Scraps leading the way. Instead of his normally happy and playful nature showing through, he was on high alert and constantly sniffing at the air. Every so often his paw would go to the grip of his sword out of reflex, but he never drew it.

Tempest and Speaks with Talons decided to keep an alert pose going as well. Tempest kept her ears and eyes peeled to catch the items that the diamond dog's nose couldn't and Speaks with Talons was up flying in the canopy, making quick peeks top side to not be easily spotted while scouting the skys.

Mandible and Fluttershy, neither being warriors nor our guide that was familiar with the territory, stayed back and spoke softly with me on different subjects. Some were on medicine again, some were on his injuries and how his horn was permanently damaged like Tempest's. He said the injury made it to where he could never shape shift again. Because of this, he had been taken in by Wild Storm as an apprentice when his hive had no idea what to do with him. This in turn led up to the next topic of discussion, his attempts to learn the ways of the servants from Wild Storm the last few months and his uncertainty of where he fit in among them.

"Are you certain it is alright for me to call you cousin, Beast-kin?" Mandible asked me for the third time, "I am still only a student. The Animus Mundi has not opened up to me under Wild Storm's teachings. I am not a servant yet."

I turned my head to him and shook it with frustration at the constant re-asking of his question. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not even fully comfortable with Speaks with Talons calling me battle brother. I'm not from this world and I really have a pet peeve about being accepted into a family just because I'm helping out."

Mandible looked at me oddly for several seconds while we walked before finally shrinking back into Archimedes for comfort. Having been the symbol of hope he had seen back during his literal darkest hour, he had grown fond of the owl.

"I had no idea you were that displeased with us. It's a wonder you and your familiar were so willing to aid somecreature you did not like when you helped save me. I'll..."

Fluttershy signaled to him, cutting him off and leaning into his ear. With a few seconds of whispering what was surely her sugar coated version of my internal frustrations, Mandible's eyes widened in shock.

"I'm so sorry! I... I didn't know." He tried to form more words, but seemed unable to find any.

I looked into his empathetic eyes and shrugged it off with a turn away from him and back to the path ahead.

"You have nothing to apologize for. The term brother as it's used between Speaks with Talons and myself just does not sit well with me. It implies a close bond of someone you can trust wholeheartedly, but I fear that trust might be abused some day. Maybe not by me, but somebody."

Turning a corner in the path, a break in the trees several yards down the path revealed a series of dirt fields coming into view eventually yielding to the mountains that we saw on the map.

Bringing my head back down with a huff of sadness, I forced myself to finish.

"When Wild Storm called me cousin for the first time, I wasn't sure how well it sat with me, as it was still tied to the term the title Speaks with Talons bestowed on me. But since then I've decided I'm indifferent to it. It has that degree of separation that I find myself wanting. I've got no more problem with you using it than Wild Storm, or Zecora, or even Tree Hugger. So go ahead and call me it if you want. Just don't use any title closer than that, OK?"

A few seconds later, we were a few yards into the dirt field as Scraps tensed up and waved at everybody to stop. The fir on his back that peeked out the top of his studded leather hide stood up with tension as he sniffed the air frivolously.

Without moving from his spot, he signaled at us again with a whisper of urgency.

"Friends. Get in air."

With a signal to Speaks with Talons, Tempest jumped up and was swept up in his talons. Fluttershy and Mandible opened their wings and likewise took flight.

I readied myself to shape shift into a mouse so that Archimedes could carry me, but held up.

Scraps kept scanning the ground as he whispered back to me. "Fish friend need to get into air."

His eyes zeroed in on a bit of ground almost right in front of him and his teeth came to bear.

Curious, I moved my hand in a way that was similar to how I move water to use my most recently acquired cantrip. Instead of a wave of a hand, however, I formed a scoop with my hand, then moved that scooped hand almost as if I were scooping ice cream.

Once I did, I saw the dirt from where he was looking move aside and pile up onto the ground right next to the hole I just dug with my magic.

Inside that hole, however was a kneeling diamond dog. It was a little bit bigger than Scraps and snarling.

It jumped at Scraps, reaching for the sword at his chest.

Scraps however, had beat him to it, putting his paw on the handle first. He managed to struggle with the snarling diamond dog that toppled him over and keep his sword in its sheathe, but just barely.

Just as this was happening, however, I saw another, even bigger diamond dog burst out of the ground to my left. I barely had time to see him reach for my amulet before I pinged my good luck charm of about four to five to push him to fail at stealing it.

With just a split second of vision, I saw his hand waver considerably as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, but his paw still managed to find its mark around my jewel encrusted amulet. With a sharp tug, I felt the cord of the amulet snap.

Before I could even react, I saw the diamond dog disappear into the hole he came from. My Amulet of Equine Tongue, my lifeline for reliable communication, was gone.

Requiem of Anguish (Stemming the Tide, Part 3.)

For those of you that were disappointed at not seeing the fight between Garble and Pharynx, this chapter is the closest I'll be able to get to cashing in a rain check for you. Hope you enjoy.

Scraps immediately reached his other paw for a bottle on his vest, held his breath and smashed it on the snout of his adversary. Even from my distance a few yards away, I could immediately smell the scent of concentrated pepper as his foe fled with a high pitched whining.

I tried to get to his side, but quickly found myself being dragged under by something that had grabbed my ankles. I only stopped being dragged when my arms landed on the edges of the hole, causing me to get stuck, armpit deep in the dirt. I would have quickly dug myself out with my cantrip if it weren't for the strong pull at my ankles making me realize that I would only get dragged down further if I moved any of the dirt surrounding me.

After getting back up and out of the cloud he created, Scraps looked towards me in shock. He then started yipping to the hidden foes.

Snarls and words I couldn't make out were exchanged between Scraps and the diamond dogs crawling out of the dirt. This went on for several moments before Scraps huffed in defeat and looked back to me with pained eyes.

As more diamond dogs came to the surface, it became apparent that not only did they have home field advantage, but they easily out numbered us three to one. That wasn't even counting the ones that might have been coming as reinforcements or otherwise still been underground like the one holding my ankles in a death grip.

Quickly turning his head back, he made one last gnarling sound.

This made the crowd hush suddenly, looking at each other with mouths agape in shock. Some of them looked at Scraps skeptically for a few seconds as he stood there, shaking in his nonexistent boots but otherwise not wavering.

As whatever Scraps said sank in, the biggest diamond dog of the entire lot came out and towered over Scraps by a full foot in height as others started carving a shallow but distinct circle in the dirt around the two.

Scraps and the other paced around while facing their opponent, gathering distance as the diamond dogs finished taking their places.

"What's going on?" I ask the one person who I could still communicate with clearly.

Archimedes gave a heavier disdain than he usually did in his response.

"If I'm not mistaken, he has challenged the leader of this group to earn our right to pass. From what I have absorbed in my time studying local cultures at Canterlot, any diamond dog may challenge the alpha of there pack or sub group at any time should they need something bad enough. However, it is not done often as it is a method of last resort."

Tempest and Speaks with Talons landed beside me. Tempest tried to come forward, towards the circle, but Speaks with Talons put a firm grip on her withers just as the diamond dogs closest to us turned around and gave us solid glares.

Tempest turned back to the griffin, who was shaking his head in a melancholy fashion. Words weren't exchanged, but the cause of the tension was pretty clear: We weren't diamond dogs. We were outsiders.

They seemed to imply with their glares that we didn't have the right to approach the circle to spectate up close, or they thought we might interfere. Either way, Scraps looked like he was on his own for now.

I turned to my other side where Fluttershy and Mandible were landing and Archimedes returning to his perch on Mandible's back.

I started to ask, "So why is it a method of last-" just as the dogs lunged forward towards each other.

When the two diamond dogs met in the middle, the alpha made a solid swipe at the side of Scraps' torso. Fortunately, because he was trying to evade instead of attack, the blow only managed to cut through the first layer of the leather studded together in his armor. Immediately after, the alpha's fangs lunged towards Scraps' exposed throat, narrowly missing flesh and catching only a little bit of his fur.

"It is a method of last resort because the alpha has the right to end the life of any challenger to maintain their dominance within the group. Scraps is literally fighting for his life right now."

The fight went on as Scraps had to constantly stay on the defensive, dodging and evading. Meanwhile, the alpha constantly took swipes at Scraps, not managing to land any blows, though several came close. This was appropriate for Scraps' fighting style, analyzing his opponent for weaknesses to exploit then striking once, but something was wrong.

It was becoming increasingly apparent as the fight went on that he wasn't a match for his opponent. A little ways in, Scraps managed to get one good slash of his claws on the alpha's already scarred torso, but it didn't land the way Scraps intended. It still caused damage, but the alpha just shook it off. It was clear that the alpha was built to take a beating, and the blow Scraps managed to land didn't make him waver in the slightest.

Scraps was going to have to deal a good deal more damage to even shake the alpha, but it was hard for him to get an opening to land the kind of blow he depended on. The alpha, however, only needed a small number of normal blows to take Scraps down, and that was presuming he didn't cripple or mortally wound Scraps with the first blow.

After a bit, the alpha grew tired of Scraps' evasion tactics, stopped chasing him and called out to the crowd. I couldn't tell exactly what he was saying but it was pretty clear that he was mocking Scraps' lack of power.

Though Scraps didn't seem mentally phased by this taunting and kept his focus, I could still see that it stung him somewhere as his breathing became a bit more pained. When the alpha turned around and casually started walking from the center of the ring to the edge of the circle away from us, Scraps took the initiative.

Scraps dashed forward, not in anger but with a cool head and a calculated approach. Though I couldn't replicate it myself, I could tell he was going for the angle that would give the best chance of landing one of his strategic blows.

It was all for naught, however, as the alpha just bent over and gave Scraps a solid backwards kick in the chest. Scraps flew from the center of the ring, landing and rolling to maybe five feet from the edge.

The crowd laughed as one of the females at the far edge came forward and started licking the cuts on the alpha, treating it in their own odd fashion. A male also came up and passed a water skin to him, allowing him a drink.

I don't think it was a formal end of a round, but apparently taking a break wasn't illegal. It was only happening because the alpha was not taking the fight seriously at this point, and was simply taking the break to taunt Scraps.

Looking back to Scraps, it looked like the alpha had hit Scraps on his sword sheathe good and hard, digging it into his chest. Scraps was clutching his chest in pain and looking at the edge of the ring. The diamond dogs near the area that he was looking cackled and moved aside, gesturing to allow him to leave.

I saw a look of hopelessness in Scraps' eyes, but I didn't see the panic of a coward. With a grit of his teeth, he struggled to get his wind back and back to his paws. I could see by his stance that he was ready to give up, but not by leaving the circle.

When he did so, the alpha slumped in frustration then called out to the crowd. As I saw one of the diamond dogs run off to go fetch something, an idea came to my mind.

"If they are helping the alpha, can we help Scraps?"

Archimedes hesitated for a second before answering. His tone had an air of uncertainty to it. "Not directly. We can certainly cheer him on, maybe tend to him at the edge, but we'd need to get to the edge to do that. I'm not sure if they would allow any of us to approach."

Thoughts of the past filled my mind as I tried to think up a plan. He needed to get his head back in the fight, but all I could do was cheer. Thinking back to my strategy talks with Tempest, I recalled some decision making shortcuts.

When doing no action was guaranteed to fail, any action, no matter how thin the odds, was still better odds than nothing. With a mind pretty much going blank on actions I could do without starting a fight with an enemy that had home field advantage and superior numbers, I recalled something Fluttershy said the day before about singing with sincerity. It was ultimately me grasping at straws, but I was ready to take straws over nothing.

*Bap!* I slammed my palm on the ground, getting the attention of some of the nearby diamond dogs.

*Bap! Bap! Bap!* I slapped in rhythm, finally getting Scraps' attention.

With my eighteen good luck charm to help the movement of my hands flow into a form resembling music, I steeled myself to just accept the embarrassment of what I was doing and go all in.

"Rising up! Back on the streets!" I called out loudly as I continued the rhythmic ground pounding, "Did my time, took my chances."

They had no idea exactly what I was singing of course, but I was hoping that I could relay the spirit of defying the odds I felt from the song through my tone and gusto.

I just kept going as best as I could but hit a snag after I called out, "You must fight just to keep them ali-aive!"

With the entire crowd watching me at this point, mostly with looks of confusion, I barely kept the rhythm of my hand bopping going when I realized I couldn't remember the next line of the song.

With the pause in my words getting just a little too long and I felt the spirit of the situation starting to fade, I heard Mandible speak up in a rhythm that mimicked my own words from before.

"Keep your Tvsiphvj! Show me the Scraps that stared down dragons!"

Speaks with Talons came up and tried to continue, but ultimately choked.

"You are..."

When he lost his words, he started moving his talons in meaningful ways, ending with a closed talon pounding his chest over his heart.

While this happened, I could see Tempest sneak something from her pouch and hide it in the frog of her hoof.

Tempest, braving the diamond dogs, glared down a patch of females into letting her through and carefully walked to the edge.

Scraps met her there, letting her sing to him in a loving tone to the crude rhythm.

"You have jupusif me as a student. Now apply the lessons I've veahjv you."

She shook her hoof a little as she kept singing, "You can't fight him straight on. Use the-" She booped him on the nose and a subtle glow of a spell sparking was barely visible from the slight opening at the back end of the hoof doing the booping. "-_Ed^di_mi^su technique."

A tiny piece of some kind of plant fiber fell from Tempest's hoof as she pulled it back. She checked the nearby diamond dogs to see if she had gotten away with it and I could see a subtle grin form on her face as a result. Scraps' eyes widened for only a moment before a loud howl forced Tempest to jump back.

From the other side of the ring, a diamond dog had fetched a crude but sturdy pole arm, which the alpha promptly snatched.

As Tempest pulled back to us, Fluttershy started pounding the ground in sync with my own pounding, with Mandible following along soon after to cheer him on. Meanwhile Scraps placed his paws on his head and spoke out his magic words, making a display of sparks appear. He followed up with another casting of his prestidigitation to make a symbol of a white lightning bolt on his forehead.

After that, he gave a few swipes in the air in jest as he regained his confidence then pulled out his sword in answer to the alpha's pole arm. The match had resumed.

It only took me a few seconds of watching Scraps zip around even faster than before and easily keeping out of the alpha's reach to recognize the haste spell that Tempest had placed on him. The display of the sparks and the symbol was just to mislead them into thinking it was his spell.

Scraps had the speed advantage now, but the alpha had a much greater reach with the pole arm. It was going to be hard for him to come in close for a blow with his short blade.

Scraps instead maneuvered and set himself up for what would look like an easy shot against him as he moved in. What was happening in reality, however, was that he was using the technique taught to him by the guards to gain some extra maneuverability as he moved, increasing his defensive ability and letting him give the alpha an opening that wasn't actually as advantageous as he thought.

It was difficult for Scraps to do, as his body wasn't conditioned, but he was able to pull it off at least once before resting when he had to. Just before he moved in and let the alpha swing at him, he called out a magic word.

With an easy dodge down and to the side of the pole arm being thrust at him, Scraps released his spell and struck at the furthest point down the pole arm he could reach with the flat of his sword. Neither the strike from the sword, even if he had used the blade, nor the green flames that erupted from the sword did any damage to the pole arm, but that wasn't what he was going for.

When the green flame shot up off the pole arm and smacked the alpha square in the cuts from before, the entire crowd could hear him howl in pain.

Though cauterized now, the wounds looked much worse than before. As Scraps quickly backtracked away from the alpha, the alpha looked back at Scraps with a sense of caution about him for the first time in the entire match.

With his range advantage suddenly significantly diminished, the alpha did a tactical retreat and the crowd gasped in shock while he tried to grasp what was going on.

Scraps took advantage of this pause and wasted no time. He ran to the other side of the ring and started digging. Most other creatures wouldn't be able to move dirt as fast as he did, but diamond dogs could move through dirt pretty much as fast as walking.

At first I thought he was digging down to hide in the ground, but then I remembered his opponent could do the same. Instead I found him just flinging the dirt into piles.

Initially no one pile was all that big. The alpha had regained his bearings and Scraps had to split his attention as he evaded the alpha and his continued labor of building his piles.

While this was happening, I heard a shifting of weight beside me. When I turned to look, Speaks with Talons was quietly holding Tempest, pretending to be comforting her. Her eyes were closed with intense focus and her breathing was starting to become somewhat heavy. Speaks with Talons, however, put up a single talon to his beak to indicate silence, then pointed to gesture my eyes back to the match.

After a minute or so, the piles were large enough to obscure the vision of the combatants. That's what Scraps' plan was. He was changing the battle field to his advantage. Not a cage match with a brute, but a field of obstacles he could hide and maneuver in.

The alpha could move the dirt aside too, of course, but he didn't have the action economy to spare like Scraps did. Unlike Scraps, he would have to set his pole arm down to dig. Even then, with his haste Scraps could still dig them back up faster or take advantage of the alpha's distraction.

I think the alpha knew this too as he just stood there, on guard and waiting for Scraps to make his move.

By the time it happened, however, it was too late. Scraps had managed to sneak up behind the alpha, and gave him a solid slash of his sword up his side, severely injuring the alpha.

By the time the alpha could react, Scraps had already sped away back under cover.

Getting smart, the alpha backed up to the edge of the circle. He didn't look all that intelligent, but he certainly understood strategy. Scraps couldn't leave the circle without forfeiting the match, and that was as good as a wall against the alpha's back against his hidden opponent.

Scraps, in the meantime, pulled some items from his on the go chemistry supplies, adding some copper powder to a liquid, then pored out the liquid into the dirt.

He then went to another mound to hide behind on the far side of the alpha compared to where the liquid was, waiting for the moment to strike.

When the crowd started whining and making noise at the pause in the battle, Scraps used the sound cover to mask his location as he called out a magic word and did his paw equivalent of snapping fingers.

The liquid just within range of his prestidigitation ignited into a bright green flame from the mound it was set behind, distracting the alpha.

With the opening established, Scraps rushed in behind his opponent, grabbed the alpha's forehead and put his blade right to his throat, ready to slit it open at the slightest twitch. Tears of pain rolled down Scraps' eyes as he demanded the alpha's surrender. I could tell a part of him just wanted to slit the alpha's throat right then and there, but something was making him hold back.

The alpha was stunned. So was the audience. After a few moments, the alpha dropped his pole arm in defeat.

Author's Notes:

The amount of attitude and style Moss tried to put in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27F46WPVJBs

The amount he actually managed to put in, but got just enough help to make it work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvfVEm6qkG0

RAW difficulties:

Yes, I know the haste spell is 30 feet and lasts 1 minute, but she wanted to hide it, and equestrian magic doesn't work the exact same as D&D. When a spell slot is used, all the energy for the spell is put in all at once, and that's all the energy the spell will ever get. But Tempest doesn't use spell slots. She uses a pool of energy that replenishes over time. That system has a harder time putting more energy out at one given moment, but is far superior at sustaining the amount it can give for longer periods of time. So she can keep the spell going for as long as she can keep concentration up and keep feeding it energy. Moss wouldn't be able to do this with his spells, though, as he is limited by his spell slot system.

As for the targeting of the pole arm, if you wanted to go the strictest of RAW, Scraps' cantrip wouldn't have been able to target the pole arm, granted, but I'm not going for a computer's interpretation of the rules. I'm trying to tell a story. Scraps is known for adapting and thinking outside the box, both in his concoctions and his fighting style. It's not the intended type of target, but I don't care.

DM says it's close enough.

PS, I will likely not be able to focus on the story for some RL stuff for a while. But please believe me when I say I want to do my darnedest to finish this story before the year is out.

Honor Among Thieves. (Stemming the Tide, Part 4.)

Author's Notes:

And I'm back, partly. I still have some items to deal with in RL, but I've got enough taken care of to spare the time for this. Hopefully more will be following sooner than later.

I thought Scraps would have to walk him to the edge or have him yell out his defeat, but nothing like that happened.

Instead, as soon as the pole arm finished clattering to the ground, Scraps simply stopped grappling the alpha, backed off calmly and sheathed his sword. The fight was apparently over, but in a much more casual form than as it had started.

The alpha turned around and faced Scraps. Scraps went a bit submissive, but did so with no sense of tension to it. The alpha looked angry, but Scraps wasn't showing any of his usual signs of fear. He simply kept his gaze to the ground and his ears limp while he waited on the alpha.

The alpha pulled a paw forward and offered it to Scraps. Scraps was a bit hesitant, but managed to put a paw out to match.

The alpha grabbed it in an aggressive manner and gave a far firmer than normal shake, throwing Scraps off balance a bit in the process. All the while this firm shake took place, he glared at Scraps with a sense of contempt.

As soon as the alpha howled a deep bellowed howl, I could feel the paws that had been holding me down suddenly let go.

"What's going on?" I asked Archimedes as I scrambled out of the hole. "I mean, he won obviously, but... The glare on that dog could kill a man, yet their shaking hands... Well, paws."

"Scraps did win, but he won with techniques that are considered dirty fighting. A diamond dog's challenge circle isn't meant for dirty fighting. If they wish to keep the respect of those that serve under them, no alpha may fight dirty in a challenge, besides slaying their opponent. This is even more true the greater the span of ranking between the alpha and their opponent. That's why Scraps never had any fear of his sword being stolen like before."

I saw the diamond dog that had stolen my amulet present it to the alpha. The alpha, in turn, gave Scraps another glare then pushed the amulet back to the one that had stole it.

"They have a funny sense of honor." I called out to him aloud as he landed on my arm.

Shaking his head vigorously, he commented again.

"Out in the field, it's different for them. Anything is fair game and they understand their enemies will do the same if need be. But when they enter the circle, it is for stature and respect among the community. A challenger fighting dirty is a sign of weakness and dishonor. Scraps hasn't gained any standing or climbed in stature among them from besting the alpha. If it were not for the fact that he is already at the bottom as an omega, he would have actually lost stature among them for doing what he did."

He leaned over and listened to the snarls, growls and yips that were their native language.

"If I am hearing this right—I am not well versed in their tongue—we have the been granted the privilege to pass without being harassed further, provided we don't start anything, but they are refusing to give the amulet back, claiming it was fair bounty at the time. That is not surprising, given the outcome of the match."

I shook my head and turned to Mandible's approach. "Then it sounds like asking for it back is a good way to start trouble..." I called to him as he flew off to rejoin Mandible.

"Oh, and look out behind you." He called back to me in an almost mischievously smug tone.

Turning around, I saw my three main teammates approaching.

In a voice of cheer, I called out to them as best I could in my rough Equestrian, "Hey, guys. We won. Good.... job??"

By the time I had finished addressing them, I had noticed the fuming sense of anger coming from them.

"Oh shit!" I cried out as I turned back to run.

I barely had time to launch into my sprint by the time Speaks with Talons had tackled me to the ground. This time, however, I felt myself being launched downward at full force. Instead of his protective tackle I had come to know, I felt the wind get knocked out of me from my landing.

Next thing I knew, I was being pinned to the ground. Scraps was wailing on my head as hard as his fisted up paws could muster, causing more disorientation than damage, while Tempest made up for him in that department by pounding on my body with her hooves like she was playing a xylophone.

Through it all, they were holding back enough to where I could tell they weren't aiming to kill me, but dang it they sure were doing a good job at giving me a solid fonging for my slip up.

The worst part, however, was after Fluttershy managed to get them to stop. She was doing what she could to tend to the bruises, but the look she had on her face when she looked at me was just as painful as the collective bruises I had just acquired. The only glance she sent my direction the entire time she and Mandible tended to me wasn't one of anger, just one of disappointment that stung me even worse.

It was in that moment I recalled my old D&D campaigns. Most any starting group had at least one of "that guy." The guy that screwed things up for everybody else. The player that would take a torch to the webs in the treasure room, burning up the wood room and destroying the treasure in the process. A bard would attempt to get a hostile group of about a hundred orcs to let the party pass by befriending them, only to have "that guy" pull out their weapons and start lopping off heads just as soon as the party was smack in the middle of the orcs.

Yea, today I just got a taste of the backlash that came with being "that guy." I definitely didn't like it.

* * *

A short rest to finish getting myself patched up and in good order later, the diamond dogs had largely cleared out. The Alpha lingered just enough for his slash to be treated but left with the rest of the patrol as soon as that was done.

Tempest and Scraps were still giving me the stink eye, but otherwise they had returned their focus on where to go from here.

When I looked over to Speaks with Talons, his expression was more one of frustration than anger. When he saw me looking at him, he tapped his temple with the knuckles of his talons in question.

I instinctively reached for my amulet to respond, but found my hand hitting only the organic scales of my armor.

I think he saw the feeling of loss I had as I looked down at the absence of my amulet, because he took his talons and made a tearing motion over his heart, then repeated the temple tapping.

With this, he got up, and gave me a few signals I was more familiar with. He gave the signal for a sunrise, indicating tomorrow, then moved his talons similar to how one would move their hand to mimic talking. After that he pointed to his eyes, and then out to the direction Tempest and Scraps were debating about.

That much I was able to discern for sure. He was still a little irritated at me, but we'd talk about it later. We needed to focus on the mission for now.

---

We traveled a ways further with a small escort of the locals that lingered behind. We ultimately found our way up a small ways into the mountain into the upper parts of the diamond dog village.

I had to say upper parts, because I could tell that there were tiny structures that I could peek at to see were just entry ways to a larger space underground. I didn't know how far down they dug, but there wasn't enough room in the structures above the rock surface of the mountain to hardly house a single diamond dog while sleeping.

Some of the diamond dogs watched us with leery eyes. A few yips between them and the ones escorting us and they backed off a bit, but kept their eyes on us.

Scraps and Tempest seemed to be trying to get more information, but they clearly had no particular respect for Scraps, nor trust for the rest of us.

Meanwhile, I noticed a few half grown pups staring at me from one of the underground entryways.

When they saw I had noticed them, they quickly ducked down and out of sight. A few seconds later, they carefully peeked out again, yipping softly among themselves.

All but one of them went back inside, leaving the biggest one to come scampering over toward me. As she approached, she submissively went down more and more into a haunch position, slowing her pace and keeping a careful look out for any indication of me not liking her approach.

Getting close enough, she slowly brought her paw upward and only barely grabbed the bottom most edge of the armor that protected the upper part of my leg. Not enough to do anything aggressive. Just enough contact to let her gently tug at it.

She yipped pleadingly at me, with a slew of emotions in her eyes, both hopeful and fearful.

With Speaks With Talons at a loss as to what she was saying too, he just shrugged and gestured the two of us to follow her.

With a slow pace of her tugging at the bottom of my leg as she kept yipping, I just about pulled out the crystal from my pocket to hear what she was saying, but realized exactly what it was she wanted when I saw the other pups return, carrying what I presumed to be their elder sibling, as he was just about full grown but still clearly young. The thing that cued me in on what they wanted, though, was that he was in really rough shape.

He had some serious bruising, like he had fallen down some stairs, but he also seemed to be really sick with some kind of fever.

Speaks with Talons and I looked at each other in worry at this.

I went to put my hand in front of me to start my cure wounds spell, but quickly found it being grabbed by a talon.

Speaks with Talons shook his head with a serious look on his face.

After a moment of thought, he let go and pointed back the way we came.

"Flut-ter-shy," he carefully pronounced, gesturing me to go fetch her and bring her to the pup.

When I hesitated for a moment, unsure as to leave the injured pup as I was the one able to heal him readily, he tapped his temple again with that look of irritation coming back on.

I got the hint, or at least second hint this time around. I needed to trust my teammates' calls.

I nodded and went to get Fluttershy as fast as I could without making a scene.

* * *

The caretaker of the pup, who had come back while I was gone, was found hunkering over the pup just outside the entrance of the den by the time we had gotten back.

With Scraps in tow as a translator, we managed to get her hesitant permission for Fluttershy and Mandible to approach, but she looked like she was ready to pounce at any time.

Speaks with Talons, carefully gestured me and Tempest back, and Scraps seemed to keep just enough distance to not put her on edge but also keep the translation up.

After a while, they had his wounds treated and wrapped up. On top of that, Mandible threw together a cold tea like medicine from his stash of herbs for him that seemed to be bringing down the fever.

Beyond that, though, Fluttershy and Mandible seemed a bit worried, and called us over.

Fluttershy made a signal to me by tapping her neck where I had healed her in the past, then lightly tapped the sick pup.

"He's out of tvenope. His body is stretched thin between healing his wounds and fighting the giwis."

The look in her eyes showed me the many facets of emotion running through her face. Fear in the quiver of her lip, hope in the perking of her ears, and that spark of compassion in her eyes, devoid of judgement.

She knew I couldn't cure the illness directly, but I could help with the wounds. Maybe I could help even better now than before, now that they were properly cleaned and dressed. She was hoping I could heal his wounds and save his body more energy to better fight the illness.

I was about to come over and help, raising my hand back into position again to cast my cure wounds spell, but found all the other pups coming up out of the den again with bones and toys of all sorts.

When they started yipping and pushing the toys towards us, I felt Speaks with Talons grab my other arm again.

Turning to him, I saw a raw passion in his eyes, both of the caring kind that I saw with him as a servant of the Animus Mundi, and a yin-yang like counterpart of raw irritation, bordering anger. Something had triggered him.

"A healer is not moved by greed," He called to me in his slow Equestrian again.

He then gestured me back, and pointed to himself, making his equivalent to my gesture of the cure wounds spell.

I backed up a little, but reached out to get his attention with an open hand. I knew better than to grab him when he was triggered.

"Are you... certain?" I called to him, taking an extra second to get the right word out of my memory. "You failed... before."

Most of the spells I was showing the servants of the Animus Mundi were capable of being performed with enough practice on getting used to the immediate demand and the resulting drain. It was difficult on them, compared to the way they normally cast spells, yet manageable. But healing spells moved against the flow of entropy. At least that was what Starlight theorized. Whatever the reason, they were far more demanding. Out of all the servants I had tried to teach my style of casting to, only Zecora had enough skill and power to pull off any healing spells so far.

On top of that, as good as a warrior he was, Speaks with Talons didn't have the best connection with his magic side as a servant. He was still pretty young compared to Zecora and he openly admitted he was only about half as good as most that were around his age.

He shook his head, but swelled his chest forward with what I recognized as his sense of honor. He then answered me in a firm tone.

"No."

His words were open with me about his odds, but his tone gave away he was going to give it his all anyway.

He carefully approached the pup, knelt down and took a moment to brace himself, then brushed the bones and toys that the other pups had brought forward back to them.

He brought his dominant talon forward like before while planting the other one firmly on the stone beneath him.

His tongue spoke a quick syllable heavy in that magical tone flexing as he brought his talon forward and touched the pup's forehead.

"T^ep_u!"

With a flash of light, Speaks with Talons gave a last ditch effort of a shove with his planted talon and fell over, landing clear of the pup.

Fluttershy managed to unwrap one of the bandages over one of the larger wounds. It showed the wound was mostly healed, well past the point of needing any special care, though not fully healed.

I came up and looked at Speaks with Talons. He was awake but in a state of extreme exhaustion. I looked into his lazily held open eye.

I gave him a nod and a solid double pound of my fist over my heart in respect.

"Well done. Good. Job." I repeated in translation as best I could, bringing my hand forward again. "I'll take it from here."

I knelt down and did a similar gesture to the pup, this time finishing the process.

"Partner, please, ^he_lp."

The wounds finished healing with another flash of light, and I stood up and backed off so that the pup could be carried off to finish resting.

The dogs took a pause at me standing, surprised at it compared to Speaks with Talons. When they came to, the eldest two of the healthy pups came and took the sick pup back inside, but the rest of the pups started running off, yipping and hollering, as did the small number of adults that had gathered and watched.

My eyes went wide as I realized what this meant.

"Oh dear," was all I could think of to say when I looked sympathetically to Fluttershy and Mandible, both of them also recognizing the oncoming tide.

Chasing my tail. (Stemming the Tide, Part 5.)

We had managed to setup a small medical station to help with the diamond dogs that came to us for healing, but I felt pretty useless through it all.

There were few diamond dogs besides the one pup that was bruised up with the "strange" wounds, as Fluttershy seemed to call them, if I had the words right. Even then, all of the other diamond dogs that did have wounds had them well on the mend already before we arrived and were healthy otherwise.

That relegated me to a dual job of shaking my head for any of the other ill diamond dogs coming straight to me for aid while pointing them to Mandible and Fluttershy, and finding what little things I could do to help.

Boiling water for clean bandages and general application cloths on top of making ice to convert into cold compresses was about all I could do. That is to say, providing fire for the boiling pot Scraps and Tempest had managed to get one of the locals to lend. Beyond that, about all I could do was slowly use my mending spell to mend Scraps' studded leather armor between bandage boiling. It was a slow process, steadily reattaching layer by studded layer of the armor.

"I feel bad," I called to Archimedes as I clasped the two natural lodestone magnets together, causing the next layer to re-fuse as if it were being cut in reverse. Some tiny flakes of material were missing and flakes of material from other layers were lodged in the re-fused seam. It was fairly strong, save for a scar of imperfections in the leather, showing it to be not quite as strong as it was originally. But this was as close as we could get it without getting it to an armorer or leather worker and getting the bits replaced entirely.

"You are not using a holy symbol for your cleric spell of mending. You are not violating your own rules." He looked out at the diamond dogs being brought in. Some had diseases that were easily treatable by our two "real" medics, but a few of them weren't so lucky. Mandible could give them a few different herbal medicines to up their chances, but still had to look the ones that brought them in with a gravely apologetic look.

Archimedes looked back at me with an apologetic look of his own, sorrow taking the place of his usual disdain. "But that is not what you are feeling bad about, is it?"

I saw the diamond dogs and Speaks with Talons finally start putting new makeshift bandages into the pot for me to sterilize. Knowing I didn't have time to start another layer of Scraps' armor, I signaled my partner to help Mandible with analyzing a difficult case.

He just about turned the diamond dog away before seeing Archimedes land beside the spot he was sitting.

As Archimedes reached his wing out to touch Mandible's side, I pulled my hand forward as discreetly as I could manage with two fingers extended upward and the rest curled as if focusing, and called out as quietly as I could, "^Du_ct^u."

Mandible felt the surge of magic from his moral support buddy, and gave the diamond dog laying in front of him one last look over. He strained hard, but the boost was enough, and he came out of his near trance with a look of realization. Bringing out two different herbal medicines, he ground them together and called Scraps over from Fluttershy's side to translate his instructions to the healthy diamond dogs overlooking their comrade.

With a smile on the changeling's face, Archimedes flew back to my side and I turned back to the now prepared pot.

With a nod at Speaks with Talons, I raised my curled fingers in an aggressive form and called out, "U^ro!" causing the pot to be almost completely engulfed in the flames of my bonfire cantrip.

With the fire up again and taking up the majority of my attention to keep it going, I set down the armor I was working on, settled into my spot to be ready to re cast the bonfire a couple of times before the pot finally boiled.

"It's easy to destroy," I called to Archimedes as I stared into the flame. "I know a few different ways to kill now, but that isn't power. The Animus Mundi gave me this spell because I 'embraced fury.' but fury isn't anything special."

With a shake of my head, I briefly pointed to Fluttershy and Mandible's general direction while still focusing on my flame. "The ability to create and preserve, now that is power. That is special."

"You are able to heal wounds. Does that count for anything?"

I glanced down at the owl then back at the flame, preparing to re cast it.

Calling another "U^ro!" and doing the complimentary gesture, I restarted the fire as soon as it went out.

"I get the sentiment, but not really, no. You can focus your magic through me to do that, so it's not exactly me doing it. But even if you want to count that for the sake of argument, I know I could do more. I know the exact spell that could heal these sick diamond dogs."

Archimedes nodded solemnly. "Lesser Restoration. I mastered many spells in the eras I waited in Toril and I know that one quite well. I'm sorry we couldn't spare enough quintessence to allow me to focus a second level spell for you. We took a risk to reroute enough of it to even let me be your catalyst at all."

I gave a heavy sigh as I continued to stare into my flame.

"I wasn't talking about you. The Animus Mundi knows the spell too, as well as a lot of other healing spells. Even now, it's on the tip of my tongue but I can't cast it. I can't call out to her because of the whole 'what does she mean to me' bull crap Zecora keeps prattling on about."

I thew a stone at the fire in frustration. "I know what she means to me. She likes me for reasons I may never know and so she lets me stay. She still openly calls me 'son of Gaia.' I'm a child of my home world. I'm not one of her children, nor do I want to be. I'm the stray that she took pity on and let in out of the rain. Why isn't that enough?"

Archimedes said nothing and just stared into the flame alongside me. After a long silence, I re-stoked the bonfire spell again.

A few more seconds of silence passed before he called out to me with an odd feeling I couldn't quite place, neither warm nor cold, yet gave a sense of an old grandpa giving a word of wisdom.

"That sounds more like what you want to think you mean to her, rather than what she means to you."

He didn't press the matter, and said it in a way that seemed to imply he didn't want a response. He just left the statement to sit with me as I continued to focus on the flame.

* * *

The very last patient was an extremely sick pup with dark welts all over him. It didn't even take Mandible a second to quickly shoot back in fear.

"I must apologize," he called out after recovering from his shock.

He gave the pup another look over at a distance as I fetched my crystal and muttered "_Liⁿg_ua^m I_nt^el_le^ge_re," to activate my comprehend languages spell, in absence of my amulet. I didn't want to miss any details on something that had scared him.

"This disease closely resembles one that is deadly to my kind. But on closer inspection it is another illness."

With a moment to steel himself, he approached the pup again and bowed his head to the pup's parents. I recognized the father as the diamond dog who had stolen my amulet, sporting a fresh set of wounds similar to the first pup we treated.

"I'm sorry, but while this illness is not contagious unless you allow some of his blood to enter your body somehow, such as through a cut, it is still much like the other in that it is always fatal. There is nothing I can do to even improve his odds of pulling through. He has a day left, maybe two if he is unlucky. All I can do is ease some of the pain that is in store for him in his final hours."

Scraps paused several times to look at Mandible before translating the bad news, which was quite odd hearing him with my spell re translating it back to me the exact same way as Mandible said it, save for Scraps' mannerisms causing a few minor hiccups.

After this, the parents looked horrified at the news. When Mandible suggested they burn the body after he has passed to keep the rest of the village safe, the mother quickly scooped him up and the father spat at the changeling's hooves in contempt.

Once the parents left, the group of females that had lent us the pot took it back as Tempest thanked them with an exaggerated bow to make up for translation.

"Is alright. Bitch look out for bitch."

I was taken back by the language, hearing the translation directly, yet apparently everybody else was shocked at the female's words directly too, but more by actually hearing them.

She nodded. "Happy speak decent pony tongue." She then booped her own snout with her paw curled up like a hoof. "And Happy also know how to see pony magic, even when sent through hoof."

I froze for only a second, but quickly snapped to as I heard Tempest call out, "_de^fe_ns^at_ri^x g_en^te_s!" activating the coats of arms on her armor to detach and act as floating shields, followed by her striking a battle stance.

Knowing she only pulled out her animated shields in a moment of great need, I pulled out my wand in ready for conflict as well.

We practically drew our variants of the blade ward cantrip side by side, mine a pentagram with my free hand, hers a yin-yang like equestrian symbol of the two sisters in the air with her horn, both of us finishing off with a distinct "_Tu^te_la!" spoken in unison.

We backed up a bit, but felt odd when the female simply looked at us with a surprised sense of alert confusion.

"Happy said bitch looks out for bitch, not tattle on bitch."

Our wards faded as Tempest carefully approached.

"What do you mean?" She asked in a measured tone and volume.

The female pointed to her eyes.

"Eyes window to spirit. When diamond dog look into eyes, we look into spirit. Pony might have body of pony, but when we see pony approach Scraps at circle, we see fire in pony's eyes. Fire of caring and anger, and fire of determination. Pony may of had body of pony, but pony have spirit of bitch."

She puffed up in pride. "While males like to fight for dominance, bitches look out for other bitches."

She pointed at Tempest. "And you, pony, are bitch in spirit, so we look out for you. Not tattle. Lend pot. Same as xi fu for any covdj."

I lost translation as my spell ran out and had to kick back into translating manually a little late, but I think I managed to get the gist. We were safe. They weren't going to tell on Tempest for cheating.

Slowly stuffing my wand back into my left sleeve as the last of the diamond dogs finally went off and left us alone, I couldn't help but laugh, despite my attempt to stifle it.

"What is funny?" Archimedes asked me, coming back down from the air.

"It's just an odd irony. A few words that fit up too perfectly with a slang from my home world that I couldn't help but laugh at. You probably wouldn't get it."

"You never know, I might."

I shook my head again and got my furs in order to resume traveling and looking for information. "Alright, alright. I'll give you the short version. They said she was a bitch in spirit... I find myself unable to disagree with that statement."

He landed on my shoulder and pondered for a moment. With his head returning to his regular scouting pattern as a familiar, he responded.

"It's a word that describes ones nature or personality that happens to fit... Wait. We have more company. Behind you on your left."

I turned around to my left enough to half face what my familiar noticed. I saw the father of the doomed pup holding my amulet out to me. There it was, with the string even fixed. There was a whimper to his attempt to ask something from me as his eyes went back and forth between the amulet and to my nearest hand.

The pain in is eyes as he begged compelled me to give it another shot.

"Landlord, lady of the land... Great Animus Mundi... Spirit of the land I reside in..."

But alas, my words fell short and I still couldn't feel anything. I just couldn't find a personal connection to her. The mental block of me being an outsider was still there. I dropped my eyes to the ground and whimpered what even to me felt like an empty apology.

"I'm sorry. I can't help him."

I knew he couldn't understand my words, but I hoped he could understand my tone as the tears began to fall from my face and I clutched my left arm with my right in shame.

"Beast-kin!" I heard Speaks with Talons call out to me, too late.

I looked up and saw the diamond dog pounce on me again, this time driving the amulet hard into my chest, but I also felt something else.

Looking to my left arm, I saw the diamond dog had pulled my wand out of my sleeve. Next thing I knew, he was running like a bat out of hell with the wand in tow.

---

Thankfully, the time without my amulet's translation was over, as the fixed string was holding and the amulet's magic seemed to not suffer any damage.

The part I wasn't so grateful for, however was how the fighters in my team left Mandible and Fluttershy behind in the village while we chased the thief across the mountainous landscape. If it weren't for Scraps knowing the area and Speaks with Talon's natural flying, we would have surely lost him.

When we caught up to him, finally, he was in a cave with... A humanoid?!

Looking closer, his mate and pup were there too, and the humanoid with a hood was finishing the sprinkling of what looked to be diamond dust over the pup in the sickly purple tinted lighting of the cave.

The welts all over the pups body quickly dissipated as the humanoid's spell finished, burning up the diamond dust into harmless steam in the process.

He looked up at us, gave an audible growl and shooed the couple out of the cave.

With the rest of the team catching up with me and Scraps, we saw him twirl my wand briefly, then use it to push back his hood, revealing the pitch black face of a dark elf.

"And so we meet yet again, though for the first time properly in person."

"What did he say?" Tempest asked, nodding to my amulet.

I didn't respond, as my body was tensed up in fear from multiple factors. The two biggest ones were the fact that my eyes were somehow focusing on both his body, and an otherworldly presence emanating from him that I couldn't "see" but still somehow "saw." Combine that with the fact that I saw his lips move to the words that showed I didn't need my amulet to understand him, and my mind was both denying and screaming the truth at me about who I saw before me.

"Impossible!" I heard Archimedes cry out in my mind, "He died! In the desert, he died! Nobody else can have that marker, and he died!"

He grinned a sinister grin, not all that scared of the griffin snarling at him and the pony charging her horn in preparation.

"Allow me to introduce myself, my dear lesser half," He called out with a mocking tone at the end.

He twirled his hand around twice as a little devil like creature still sporting an amulet appeared at his side. He then went into a long ramble, gaining ever more gusto as he went along.

"I am the blight set on this world. The near slayer of Fey. The master of great magics, and your greater half!"

He looked at his audience with the eyes of a crazed madman. "I am the champion of Bane!"

Looking right at me, he carefully pronounced each word, exaggerating his lip movement to where I could see what he was saying even if I were deaf. "I! Am! @#^$#*Dalock!"

Author's Notes:

I hope I don't have too many people scratching their heads at this guy. Been setting him up since book one with little hints here and there.

Pointless Diliberations. (Stemming the Tide, Part 6.)

Author's Notes:

Warning, A little nugget of profanity in the video (and the chapter now that I re read it...), but it conveys how I feel about getting the RL stuff sorted away and being able to get back to this story and posting the other tiny related story alongside these chapters. (link to story here)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahUo8bojQBs

"Da-Law-k?" Tempest called out, trying to imitate the way he spoke his name. She had been cued in by him gesturing his hand to his own chest.

With the confusion on her face, Dalock slumped and rubbed his forehead while muttering, "It always worked two ways back home... Why can't I get it to work like that here?"

He then looked up at me with a sneer like he had something putrid rubbed on his top lip. "As much as I don't like you, at least you can understand my words. Imp! Translate my words for the others so that they don't slow my discussion with my lesser half by asking him to do it instead."

With his momentum broken, I started to come back to my senses while the imp translated the last minute or so to them.

When Tempest heard the words "Champion of Bane," She grew wide eyed.

As Tempest looked more intently at the now more irritated Dalock, I started analyzing the situation. He knew English. He was from my world. That meant he was probably transformed like me to his character too, though with a clearly different build.

He had an imp familiar too. That probably meant he was a chain pact warlock. While Archimedes's owl form was a prime strategic choice for the base spell, a chain pact warlock had better options still, including an imp.

He also had just used diamond dust to cure a disease. That meant he had access to greater restoration, a level five spell. Given that I'd be able to do a level six spell if I were a single class at my total level, and I was without my wand, he was probably at least as powerful as I was, and was a competent healer. Celestial warlock patron maybe? With the rifts sealed, he definitely wasn't a cleric. Archimedes kept the technique that bound him and Discord to mortals a closely guarded secret, having ever only told Oghma when he needed to have himself be bound to me. So the only other alternate source of clerical power was an actual god, which had been sealed off from this world months back by my own hand.

"Well, I trust you can still hear me without needing to use that horse made toy of yours my familiar has told me so much about? As pretty as it was, I wasn't about to waste an attunement using it, much less valuable diamond dust trading for it."

I could feel the air around Tempest get colder while she held herself in check. Meanwhile the imp translated the word "horse," and started forcing herself to calmly address him with war formalities I didn't really understand.

"He's been studying me, but I've done the same just now." I messaged Archimedes. "At most, a high level warlock has four level five spell slots, and maybe four mystic arcanums at any given time. On top of that he's already spent one on the pup. Once those are gone all he has is cantrips. We just need to survive long enough to let him run out of ammo. Luckily that's something you and I can help the team with, partner."

With a slight irritation from the imp finishing his translation of Tempest's attempt to address him instead of me to English, Dalock looked back to me. "You don't even lead your party. You're even more pathetic an adventurer than I thought."

"I still don't know how he's alive, or why he wants to talk, but a fight is definitely happening. It's inevitable. Bane's claim to this world will remain until his champion dies."

Tempest intercepted us and gave the glare of irritation right back. With words on the slower side to make each one heard clear, including the defensive stance she made, she all but growled at him, "Don't look at him, look at me. I am the ranking officer here and the only one that can speak for the nation of Equestria and its allies."

With a twitch to his eye as he heard his familiar translate again, he put my wand away deep into his robes. Afterwords he started to look at Tempest with a glare. Judging by the snootiness he had, and Tempest's own temper, I could sense would break into a fight right then if left at this stalemate for too long.

I took a step forward to Tempest's side, took a knee and put a hand on the withers of her armor.

"Yes, she speaks for me and I can hear both of you. I promise I'll speak up if she says something I don't agree with. But talk to her, not me."

"I hope that buys us enough time to get a little more information out of him, at least."

Dalock still looked annoyed as before, but thankfully he gave a huff of defeat.

"I suppose it is inevitable that I speak with one of you eventually. I will have to do so to accept your nation's surrender."

Tempest's horn released a few sparks and her body tensed for just a moment. "Shouldn't you mean that the other way around?" She pointed to a single traveling pack in the corner that was so well hidden that I wouldn't have spotted it if she hadn't pointed it out. "As far as I can tell from your limited supplies, you're alone out here and barely getting by."

Once the message was translated, I half expected him to get irate like the madman he appeared to be, but he just grinned.

"Oh I know I'm alone, but that's OK. I have this."

He stepped aside and revealed the source of the purple light illuminating the cave. It was an crystal like orb a little larger than a head sitting in a crevice in the cave. Inside was a sickly swirling fog of the same purple.

"I command a plague artifact. The locals have been an excellent source of test subjects, but I am now ready to release an army you cannot defeat with blockades and bows." A visible shiver went down his spine after he spoke.

"It still surprises me to this day that those griffins didn't take the bribe I offered them. My familiar's intelligence gathering leaned so heavily on their loyalty being to their pocketbooks."

While he spoke under his breath the imp quietly translated with a smirk. Tempest gave Speaks with Talons a knowing look, which he promptly gave back. Scraps in the meantime simply looked disturbed at the idea of his home town being a testing ground for the madman and was letting the rest of the team carry the conversation.

"An army of diseases set loose upon your nation unless you surrender unconditionally. I suggest you hurry along and get your leaders' attention soon. I already have the power to wipe your nation out as I stand today, and my patience is wearing thin."

The entire team stared at him making his outlandish demand. It wasn't that we didn't believe him. Tempest's posture when she saw the plague artifact seemed to indicate she recognized high level magic when she saw it.

She shook her head and looked back at him. "You really don't sugarcoat your words, do you? You talk a good talk, but we can't let you use that artifact. Face it, you don't look that tough and we have you outnumbered. The only way you're getting out alive is in custody."

I started warning Tempest covertly "He is tougher than..." before going silent at the shifting patterns in Dalock's robes.

While his robes seemed to shift around magically, similar to how Luna's disguise as Moon Beam faded away, he leaned over a little and picked up an impressively well made and brutal looking magical staff.

Meanwhile a comparatively impressive shield appeared on his other arm, perfectly matching the likewise impressive armor that was showing clear as day underneath his now tattered robes. With his illusion broken, it was clear that he was a lot more ready for a fight than we anticipated.

The imp went and grappled Archimedes and pinned him down just as Tempest and Speaks with Talons charged Dalock.

He easily used his shield arm to block Tempest's volley of four strikes with her hardened horseshoes while taking Speaks with Talons namesake with a casting of a barrier, pushing his claws off target and only glancing his armor instead.

I readied my own shield and shifted into a bear, ready to up my defense should he knock me out of my form. But something felt off, like I was missing something as soon as I saw that barrier.

With a smirk as I charged closer to him, he struck both Tempest and Speaks with talons with his staff, a lot harder than what a spellcaster should normally be able to do with a stereotypically weak build like his.

As he did so, he called out, "_tu^rb_o t^on_it^ru_um!" and a glowing yellow energy enveloped both of them. Without so much as another word, he moved two of his fingers from his staff hand as if tipping a hat and teleported away from them, right next to Scraps as he did his best to hide in the otherwise obstacle free cave.

"Boo!" He called out, scaring Scraps away from him, and earning a solid bonk on his head from the same in the process of running, though no energy engulfed him.

After seeing this, Tempest and Speaks with Talons ran through the barrier made of energy, getting a solid glare of pain as they suffered the energy's damage from moving through it.

Upon recognizing the twinned spell effect on the booming blade spell, a spell meant only for one target, I just about shat myself when I realized what we were facing.

He wasn't just a Warlock, he was a sorcerer with spell slot making meta magic and a warlock with recharging pact magic. He was a sorcerer/warlock combo. A coffee-lock. That meant he didn't just have a handful of spell slots we could outlast anymore. Combined with greater restoration's exhaustion removing properties at his disposal, he didn't have to rest and reset his spell slots. It was a convoluted way to basically cheat the system without breaking the written rules. The short version: there was no way of telling just how many spell slots he'd managed to stockpile by now. Possibly even hundreds.

I couldn't help but curse to myself. "Oh fuck me sideways..."

Extermination. (Stemming the Tide, Part 7.)

Tempest and Speaks with Talons did their best to keep up with him to slash at him, but with his constant teleporting, they found it difficult. Ultimately, They decided they couldn't keep up with his teleporting and stood in the center. Tempest started pulling her enchanted rocks out of her pack and Speaks with Talons did his best to keep throwing bolts. When a rock wasn't busted open or a bolt was still intact, Scraps scooped them up and did his best to fling them himself with the paw not holding his short sword. Occasionally he'd throw one of his bottles instead when he couldn't find any regular ammunition.

All their efforts were for naught, however. He seemed to be able to dodge, deflect or outright block virtually everything we threw at him.

I, meanwhile, didn't really have much of a ranged option in my bear form, and ultimately had to revert out of it.

Almost immediately upon reverting, I found myself having to reflexively pull up my shield spell to counteract his seven darted magic missile spell, with every one of the darts that never miss their target pointed at me. With all of them barely being put through the shield's nullifying barrier as they came up, making them harmlessly splash off of me, I could hear it.

I could hear is laughter. His constant, annoying, "I'm not touching you" while pointing right at your face, mocking laughter. Had I not gotten that barrier up, that one spell would have ruined my day and we both knew this.

With a flare of her horn, Tempest upped her game and did her best to cast her witch bolt spell.

It missed horribly. When Dalock saw this, he stopped his laughing and moved his lips with a spell I couldn't make out. Suddenly, there were four of him standing so close that their forms overlapped each other.

After that, he stood still with a taunting gesture. In response, Speaks with Talons charged, swiping at one of the forms, only to have it fade into nothing again when his Talons made contact.

Finally, he moved back out of Speaks with Talon's reach, but not in a manner that left his guard up. The griffin took full advantage of this, but only landed his talons on that shield again.

As he moved out of reach, him and his two remaining mirror images shifted around to where I couldn't track which one was the real one, basically putting the guessing game back to square one.

With this, he lowered his staff at us, and threw out a lightning bolt more brilliant than I normally would have my wand cast. It scorched through the team, hitting us hard.

I was relatively unharmed at this point and managed to get out of the way. So I stayed up, but was about out of breath in the process.

Speaks with Talons threw his forelimbs out and uttered an incomprehensible word through the thunder, negating what he could with his absorb elements spell. Even so, he still took the brunt of it and looked in pretty bad shape at this point.

Scraps tapped into his version of the same spell he learned to pull off once a day, while also dodging out of the way and managing to get only singed. His sword now charged with the energy he absorbed from the bolt.

Tempest, however, didn't have that spell in her arsenal, not even as a one off like with Scraps. To top it off, she was in the center of the blast and couldn't get out of the way.

She stood there for a moment, unresponsive, but then fell over, unconscious, severely hurt and out of the fight.

I tried to heal her, calling out to Archimedes, but then Dalock pulled his ace out of his sleeve.

"^Help!" I called out, only for his staff to spin around mockingly, making the magic die in my throat, spell slot still wasted. Of all the spells he could have, he had to have counter-spell. He could counteract my healing spell for spell, and he had lots more slots to burn through than I did.

In short, my ability as a healer was completely nullified in this fight.

With my plan of attack already cemented in my mind and my adrenaline keeping that thought from sinking in fully, I pulled out my rose stem and threw a thorn whip at him, only to have it wrap around one of the two remaining mirror images of him and poof it too.

I was even useless in an offensive standpoint. As I saw Speaks with Talons throw another three bolts at him, only for the first to take out the last illusion and the other two two bounce off the real one yet again, I saw the true depth between our power levels. We hadn't even laid so much as a scratch on him yet and he already took out our strongest team member and put significant damage on the rest of us.

I dropped to my knees. My wild-shape was useless with his constant teleporting around, my portent good luck charm was spent, and he was purposely holding back to make sure he could counteract any healing I tried to give my team.

With that same "I win" smirk on his face, he turned and looked at our fallen teammate.

While my despair settled in, Scraps got back up off the ground and saw Tempest unconscious, with Daclock approaching her. His response was quite different from mine.

With a burst, he ran up to our opponent, screaming "Nicknack!" at the top of his lungs. His face looked determined, yet something about his eyes seemed to indicate a part of his mind wasn't here, but somewhere else.

As he did so, Dalock gave pause, turning with to face the diamond dog attacking him as if it where nothing more than a chore.

Scraps reached his target easily, and appeared to swing his sword wildly. It was almost slow motion as I saw Dalock's shield raise to parry, only to have Scraps pull his sword back in his feinting technique, and mutter the word ""_Fo^me_s dⁱs_si^li_o!" making the sword burst into green flame alongside the lightning already charging it.

With a quick twist of his entire body, Scraps turned, pulled his short sword back around, and away from the side the shield had been presented on. With a quick, precision jab from the other side, he stabbed upward right through the cracks in the plate armor and into the tender flesh underneath with the sickening singeing and popping sounds coming from the elf's wound.

The room went back to speed, but was silent. Only a mere second of silence passed as Scraps twisted his blade as best he could, but that wasn't what caught my eye.

His face. Scrap's normally happy go lucky, playful face was hellbent on killing Dalock. This wasn't the restrained anger and pain I had seen him hold in check in his fight with the alpha.

His teeth were barred. The fur on the back of his neck disappearing into his leather jerkin was raised the highest I'd ever seen it, his eyes were like that of a wild beast, giving a death glare at the elf's face mere inches away from it. No. This was that pain brought full force to the surface.

Then the moment broke as Dalock winced in immense pain. The purple light illuminating the room flickered at the same moment. Upon seeing the lights flicker, Dalock looked up and called out "NO! Not now! The new clone isn't ready yet!"

Dalock turned his gaze down to the small diamond dog that just stabbed him, he called out "You little son of a-" as he blasted Scraps across the room with multiple repelling blasts of force. With a loud thud, he landed on the ground.

I could only scream "No!" as I saw him follow up the first attack with a spell of magic missiles, all seven of them striking Scrap's already limp form. Such a barrage of missiles could easily kill an already downed target.

With Scraps presumed dead, I futilely gave another attempt at healing Tempest. As if on cue, I found the injured Dalock once again swirling his staff to counter spell my healing word.

"No. You will pay for this victory dearly."

Speaks with Talons backtracked towards Tempest and brought forth with his dominant talon doing a brief gesture.

With a quick "S^an_o!" and a placement of his talon on her knee, a jolt of energy seemed to transfer between the two warriors. With a brief spasm, Tempest took a breath and quickly assessed her surroundings while Speaks with Talons collapsed beside her, weak with the exhaustion.

Dalock, already backing up and dropping his staff in defeat, rolled his eyes up and cursed. "Of bloody course your team has a second healer."

He looked over at his imp that was still successfully pinning Archimedes. "A healer I was oddly not told about!"

The imp started calling out in a mocking tone.

"Oh, master. Did I not hear you give the order to do a tactical summary when I spied on them today? I didn't feel prudent to remind you. I also didn't find it prudent to add the detail that that orb doesn't just inflict all the summoned diseases on the controller if they lose control, it does it within moments."

With a loud laughter for a creature that size, he called out again "Enjoy your last few breaths, master!"

Dalock looked at his familiar with anger as his skin started looking gangly, and his voice began to crack with the onset of a sore throat. After a moment of looking defeated, he smirked. "Then with those breaths, I give one final order."

The imp looked at him unfazed and waited.

"Snap your own neck. Do not let them capture you."

The imp paused for only a moment, but then smiled. With a quick nod, he called out "I'd say it's been a pleasure, but you've ordered me never to lie to you. Thank you for the release."

His hands went from pinning Archimedes down to his own head. A quick snap was heard and his head twisted grotesquely. Then the entire imp puffed into smoke.

At this point, Tempest had gotten up, took a single deep breath to steady herself and started back towards Dalock.

With a raised hand, he waved her off. "Oh don't bother, I'm as good as dead already. You've won."

He looked at the orb that was making him look sicker and sicker by the second, then back at me. After strong hacking fit, he gave me that same snarky grin. "Today, at least."

Before I could react, he scooped up his staff, placed it to the orb and called out, "_I wⁱs_h f^or _th^e p_ri^ze _Baⁿe _pr^om_is^ed _me!"

A strong billowing of wind burst through the cave as the orb glowed brilliantly. The winds grew stronger as they reached Dalock, slowly ripping his flesh where it stood off of him, and crumbling his bones, drawing in his armor and shield and striping his robes off of him. The bits of his flesh, bone and clothing were swept into the orb bit by bit almost like a black hole until nothing but his equipment and my wand clattering to the ground. All that was left was his staff remaining in mid air, fixed to the orb were it had made contact.

After a moment, even the staff finally clattered to the ground alongside the rest.

With the threat gone, Tempest and I hurried to Scraps.

At first I thought he was dead, but Tempest just poked at him. "I see your shallow breathing. How long are you going to play possum, Scraps?"

With this, Scraps stirred, got up and tried to lick tempest's face. When she stopped him, he turned his attention to licking his wounds from the blast instead. The wounds that closely resembled the wounds on the pup from the village.

"How... How did he survive?" I asked, baffled.

Tempest smirked. "Cat's out of the bag now, but I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore. Show him, Scraps."

Scraps pulled out his eagle headed brooch, then took great care to remove the outer covering, revealing a more militaristic design underneath.

"Apparently Scraps' first protector didn't just have an eye for nice things, but also for magical items. After Scraps looked into your spellbook back when, he recognized his keepsake of his late big brother Nicknack was also magical. After investigating it, we realized it was able to protect against your missile spell much like the foreign version of the shield spell your books showed Starlight. We decided to keep it a secret from you as a safety measure should you ever turn against us."

"That not all!" Scraps chimed in. "After Scraps learn magic, Scraps study even more. Scraps now on verge of learning how to use any object holding magic. Not quite cracked code yet, but almost there!"

Tempest rolled her eyes upward into their sockets. "A day that I know is inevitable given his ingenuity, but I'm not looking forward to it."

"Tempest, Beast-kin," we heard Speaks with Talons call weakly.

He rolled over with great effort. It looked like it was going to take him even longer to recover from using a healing spell the second time in a single day. "We need to take that orb back and have it analyzed by the pony mages. I fear it may be what the Crystal Sister was so terrified of that she summoned us here."

Tempest nodded and took out her bag of holding. "Lets grab everything here just in case there's something else important."

Unslayable Foes, Part 1.

Author's Notes:

You might notice a particular medical item spoken as a minor issue, but realize the species difference and technological differences between our world and MLP. I don't mean to belittle how serious medical items are in reality.

We didn't stop in the village. We simply made haste to grab Fluttershy and Mandible, then go. We didn't want any problems when they found out a figure they had seen as a healer was suddenly gone. When Scraps was spooked that we might have been followed underground, we sprang to the air to get that last spurt to the train station.

After I transformed into a mouse for Archimedes to pick up, he chimed in. "I've been talking to Sunburst about your growing power as a druid. If his chart is not mistaken, the Toril roots in the art should allow you to have the ability to fly yourself by now. Why didn't you?"

I could. I had just unlocked the level eight needed for flight based transformations. I could just wince to myself as I responded, "Kinda forgot, but should probably practice before I do it in the field if I can."

Speaks With Talons was still looking in pretty bad shape after the battle. Even with his reputation of being the strongest on the team by actual muscle power, and greatest stamina, carrying Tempest through the air wasn't doing his already taxed form any more favors.

With a quick pace we returned to the train station after leaving diamond dog territory and returning to the ground. Surprisingly, despite it being late, the train was primed and ready to go. We were afraid we would have to make camp on the station's platform until the morning.

Apparently, they had been given orders hours before to seek us out and keep the train ready for us. They were ordered to wait around the clock for us and to get us on that train to return as soon as we arrived at the station. Indeed, they were surprised we had returned only half an hour after they arrived back at the station again.

---

The train ride back had everybody a little spooked. On our way back, we were confined to a single train coach. The staff were kind enough to give us some food and water when we asked but it was how they did so that made us on edge. They were insistent on simply dropping it off at the door of our coach and letting us pick it up when they were gone. They even refused to take the tray back, telling us to just put it in the corner when we were done.

Tempest seemed to not be too worried, though. It was odd, but nothing seemed too off to her. She'd seen a situation like this once or twice in the past. She simply figured something had probably stirred back in Ponyville and the train needed to keep us isolated for some reason.

Speaks with Talons simply swigged as much water as he could, munched unceremoniously on the crackers, gave that trusting nod to Tempest that they had managed to form over their adventures, collapsed on the largest sofa in our coach and promptly fell into an exhausted sleep.

Scraps, while not super tired, made a point to stay close to Tempest's side the entire way, yawning himself into a nap once we were seated.

Fluttershy and Mandible, however, were nursing their poor weak wings from having to team lift a diamond dog that was about their size for so long. Tempest had refused to let either her or Scraps ride in the bag of holding.

To keep my mind from going crazy with questions, I focused on just one that I thought I might get an answer to. I tried to ask about the situation with Scraps, and why he had called out the name "Nicknack" when he had seen Tempest fall.

She went into a bit of indirect elaboration as she explained how Scraps had been arrested in the first place. It turned out that he was caught with a small amount of a drug, commonly known as "happy powder," and admitted he had made lots of it in the past when he was arrested. With the authorities not really understanding his past, and him being too heartbroken to do anything but just admit everything during his trial, he was sentenced far more severely than he should have been.

Nicknack was his big brother before then, both being the largest of his litter, and being the prior Alpha of his pack that protected him. It was actually Nicknack that asked him to make the drug with how smart Scraps was with chemicals. Through discrete transactions, Nicknack would then turn around and sell it to ponies and other races.

Scraps had since learned that Nicknack wasn't as good as he seemed to be, but his heart still mourned his death none the less. It was Nicknack alone that had made sure Scraps was never picked on, always fed and always protected. Scraps was still an omega and was appropriately humble, but he was the best treated omega because he had the favor of an alpha. In some ways, the way he was treated rivaled even that of a beta.

But all that changed when the current alpha bested Nicknack in the circle and killed Nicknack. It was done right in front of Scraps' eyes, but Scraps was powerless to protest back then, much less stop it.

From what Tempest surmised, when Scraps saw her fall, his mind was reliving those moments due to the similarly close bond he had with her.

At this point, Tempest closed her eyes. "I only saw about the first minute of the second half of the fight, since I had to focus, but from what Speaks with Talons said, Scraps had his blade to his throat at the end and could have killed him."

With a strong inhalation, she recomposed herself. "I am proud I was able to teach him enough tactic to know not to break the chain of power, since he knew they would never follow him if he did."

She looked at the napping diamond dog at her side with a flat expression and gave a pained, yet relaxed sigh. "But he was also able to hold back his desire for revenge. He really does have a good heart."

I looked at the drooling mutt and cracked a weak smile myself.

"He really does have an innocent mind, and a brilliant one too. But I think some of that strength of heart was rubbed off from you." I turned to Tempest and gave a proper smirk. "Like him, you also have a good heart underneath all those scars from your past too, and he's been helping bring it back to the surface."

She rolled her eyes at my statement, shook her head dismissively and deflected her gaze from me to look a the ceiling.

"I think you're right. I saw Princess Celestia slipping back to a back room before my trial. I couldn't put the pieces together then, but now I think she was slipping in to give advice to her niece. This was probably Princess Celestia's plan all along."

---

We finally got our answers to the spooked train staff when we pulled into the Ponyville station around midnight.

Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst was there, practically in a panic.

Starlight called out to us just as Tempest was about to step onto the platform, "Stay on the train! I know it is weird, but we need you to trust us!"

They called out to me in an uneasy, concerned tone. "Moss..? Are you... There? We would like to examine you if you're feeling up to it. We have some suits to come in there and check on you if you need."

When I finally got up from my seat in the coach, I could have sworn I heard a collective gasp from the ponies that had come to meet us.

"Sweet Celestia! You're alive!" Starlight called out as she galloped forward to meet me, only to have Sunburst yank at her tail to stop her before she got close to the coach.

When she looked back, she saw Sunburst shaking his head at her. "R-right, precautions. Shield up."

Starlight put up a shield similar to the one they used to protect themselves when we had done the most recent tests of my magic missile spell. After this, Sunburst pulled out a clipboard, quill and ink well and set them aside, ready to be picked up and used.

With this, she gently gestured me to step forward, showing an extra sign of worry as I made the small gap from the train to the platform.

It was only after this that we noticed a medical pony come out of the train station and stood beside them.

I recognized the doctor. He was the doctor that had worked on me in the past when I was needing medical attention when I first arrived. The one doctor that would have any insight to my particular anatomy, being so different.

With a few minutes of poking and prodding, the doctor slowly filled out the items on the clipboard. I couldn't really ask what was going on, given the tongue depressor in my mouth and other tools, but I knew something was up.

"Given his past records, as far as I can tell, he's as healthy as he can be, save maybe a little sleep deprivation and overworking himself." The doctor looked to Glimmer. "He's clear to lower the shield for a scan. But stay up wind and as far back as you can. Follow up with a closer scan after the first clears if you must, but keep your distance.

With a pace backward to help her keep her distance, she dropped the shield and scanned me like an office printer doing a detailed pass for a high quality copy. Slow and meticulous.

I wanted to talk now, but once again I felt I needed to hold off, not wanting to mess up the scan.

When she was finished with a smile, She turned to the doctor. With an expression like a great burden had just been lifted, she called out, "He's clean!"

Without even being able to respond, the doctor nodded and looked at Sunburst's clipboard.

"Alright then, Captain Tempest. You're next. Moss, I need you to step aside."

The others were examined by Sunburst's levitation of medical tools, guided by the doctor's expertise. After that, each of them were thoroughly scanned by Starlight as she stood at a few meters upwind from them on the platform.

* * *

Once Mandible was confirmed to not have a clean scan due to his insect biology and agreed to stay on the train until his own kind could scan him properly, I was finally able to press on my amulet and ask a question.

"So... Something is up. What has you so riled to meet us out here and do a checkup?"

Starlight turned to me and finally let out the tears she had been holding back. They weren't too impressive waterworks, barely coming out, but I could see they were genuine.

"Oh, it was horrible, Moss!" She called out as she briefly galloped towards me, stopping just short of a hug to ask for permission.

With an unsure nod, I knelt down and met her embrace. I wasn't too surprised when I noticed Fluttershy quietly join in too in an attempt comfort her friend.

"All the invad..." She paused, then mimicked a word of English. "All the 'humanoids' we had captured and were deciding what to do with. They're dead. Every last one of them. They're all dead."

I was already on one knee to kneel, but upon hearing that I had pull her back with me a little as I fell on the other to take that statement in.

After Sunburst nodded to the doctor to let him go, he turned in kind and gave a similarly worried expression.

"And that's not all. They didn't just die. They all died at the exact same time and in the exact same way. They exploded into a cloud of disease. We had to quarantine the jails, forcing the guards to stay in to protect the rest of Equestria, but we didn't manage to stop all of it."

Starlight pulled out of the hug with Fluttershy and looked at me. "We're in the early stages of managing an epidemic now, Moss. We were so afraid you had suffered the same fate as the rest of your 'humanoid' kin."

Mandible, overhearing from the train for lack of better thing to do while he waited, called out, "What is the illness that caused it?"

Sunburst shook his head and turned in an attempt to speak toward Mandible to let him hear from the train. "That's just it. It's not just one illness. It's many. Not counting small ones that can be treated easily when caught early like hoof and mouth anthrax, or gangrene, we have five confirmed serous illnesses in this epidemic so far. The investigators fear we might have as many as a dozen different serous illnesses slipped past the quarantine that we will have to deal with by the time the ponies already exposed show symptoms for us to track, and that's presuming there weren't any more rogue 'humanoids' out there when it happened. We will probably have to quarantine more areas as they pop up."

Starlight shook her head and stomped in a fit.

"If we only knew what caused it, we might be better prepared to fight it!"

Tempest came up and kept Scraps from opening the bag of holding at her side.

"Did this event happen about sixteen and a half hours ago?"

Starlight looked at her in shock, then checked the clock on the station. Turning back to Tempest, her mouth was agape.

"Almost on the dot!"

Tempest closed her eyes for a moment as she made a solemn nod.

"We need to get to a debriefing then. Because I think we might have some information that would be able to help with that."

Pinkie Pries Fearfully for Further Fascinating Tidbits, or "Ppfffft!" (Unslayable Foes, Part 2.)

Two hours after the debriefing, I was sitting in the study of the local castle by myself. I wanted to go to sleep, but had too much to process. All the humanoids besides myself were dead. Thanks to Dalock, all that was left in their wake was a plague cocktail. As much as I knew the struggle from this sudden event was only just beginning, I couldn't help but sit and silently weep at their loss.

They were former invaders, sure, but not all of them were outright bloodthirsty. Even with my urging of caution in letting them be reformed, there had been progress among some of them. According to Starlight, there were dream walkers that had been working with the more cooperative ones in sorting out valid stories from liars. Many of them were decent citizens in their old world in the wrong place at the wrong time.

One of the officers I had been told about was just an ex-soldier who's family had wracked up too much debt to pay taxes from a few years of poor harvest. He was pressured into serving under Bane in exchange for maintaining the ongoing taxes for as long as he continued to serve. His only sign on bonus was that if he died in service then the remaining debt would be forgiven. From what the ponies working with him could infer, even when he signed up, the officer wasn't sure if Bane intended to keep that promise.

My mind was drowning with sorrow, burning with anger, and somehow numb all at the same time.

Thinking of a way to try to say goodbye to them, I undid the cap of my water skin and looked at it for a bit. All forms of liquor was going to be commandeered as sanitizing materials in the morning. In turn, I knew I couldn't ask the staff for any. Besides that, I made a point to not drink liquors of any kind due to my tendency to "embrace fury" and a little related family history with alcohol. So water was going to have to do.

Turning to a spot that didn't really get walked on but could be seen easily, I held the water skin out in front of me and took a moment to pause.

With a shake of my head, I muttered aloud, "The cleaning staff are going to be so angry with me."

I grabbed the bottom of the skin and prepared to tilt it.

"To those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Tilting the water skin, I poured most of it out onto the floor. After that, I brought it back upright and had the hand holding the spout lift it up as if it were a toast.

"May you find peace in death that you could not in life, and may..."

I took a pause again, trying to be sensitive about the likely radically different religions of their home.

"And may those that judge you on the other side be fair and as merciful as it is right for them to be."

With that, I tilted my head back and did my best to drink the remaining water in a respectful way, neither rushed nor slowly.

I had just gotten what I felt was the last swallow left in the water skin into my mouth when I heard a noise from behind.

"Hey, Moss! I'm glad I found you!"

I spat the last swallow of water out in a, "Ppfffft!" Turning around, I saw Fluttershy's oddball friend, Pinkie.

"Exactly!" she called to me while pointing her hoof at me. When I gave her an odd look of being completely lost and wanting to know what she was even doing here, she just shook her head.

Her ears went down with unease as her mood practically did a complete flip to a mood similar to my own.

"Um, never mind. I was hoping I could pick your brain for a bit about death and other things?"

* * *

"And that's why I see life as sacred, because once a specific living creature dies, that's it. You can have more of the same species, sure, but that exact rendition of it, never again. That's why I don't see the ability to cause death and destruction as anything great. Virtually every creature can do that to some capacity."

I looked at the normally hyper pink pony sitting politely from across the table where she sat to keep her distance like the princesses had asked everypony in the castle to do. The order for everypony else was going to be announced first thing in the morning after the final version of the orders for the general public had been agreed upon by Princess Celestia and her advisors.

Listening calmly to every word I said seemed to be difficult for her. Despite her best efforts, she had caught herself fidgeting more than once. It was like she was using all her willpower to struggle against her own hyperactive nature to listen.

"But to preserve life, or to help a creature get back to living life after an injury, now that is far more difficult to do than to cause an injury or take life."

Seeing me lean back and finish, Pinkie surmised, "You see life overall as precious because it is so frail?"

It was odd, being the one giving the "how did you get this from what I said" look instead of receiving it for once, but I just shook it off.

"I suppose you could see it like that, but life itself isn't frail. Though there is a bit of that for individual life forms, 'life overall' has a way of adapting and moving on. The real kicker is if the life that you value will be able to adapt and move on with it."

I shook my head. "But that's a grittier topic for another time. I think a better way of wording it is 'I value lives because they are easy to lose, and impossible to truly replace.'"

Pinkie nodded in deep thought at my words. Shortly after, she gave me a worried look. "So... With the problems we have to face in the near future, we are going to have to make some tough calls. For the sake of lives, principles might be challenged."

A deep sense of focus began to emanate from her, like something was truly scaring her and she needed to pry into my soul to get the answer.

"I need to know, if some creature messes up and breaks a principle to save lives. Do you feel the lives they saved are at fault?"

I looked at her with a blank stare for a while. It was like there was a deeper context to her question that I didn't understand. Multiple possible contexts that I had no way to discern made it difficult which answer to give. So I had to just respond as best I could for each context I could think of.

"That could be construed in different ways. If the life saved is not the one that made the call, then I'd say that generally no, without special circumstances at least. Any fault would generally be on the one that made the call."

With a scratching of my neck, I shifted my weight and took a breath to continue.

"If the life saved is also the one that made the choice, that falls under self preservation. Since we're facing an epidemic, then I'd say extreme actions like taking one life to save another medically is considered unethical in my home world. Outside medical decision making, it changes a little. In nature, a predator's right to hunt isn't violated by its prey's right to defend itself. I find it pretty self evident that every entity has the right to preserve its own existence in general, but this goes for every creature on all ends of a conflict."

As I recalled the last day's events, my hands curled into fists and I took a deep breath and a moment to steady myself.

"However, among sentient creatures, like us, it goes deeper. We think in ways beyond our base instincts. This means we have a greater capacity to do good, or harm. Even if you don't throw ethics into this and just use raw pragmatism, we have to weigh the long term effects of our actions and how it reflects on all the things we depend on. So even with an objective view devoid of emotional driven logic like ethics, our right to preserve our own existence is tied hand in hand to an need to try to respect the same right in others where possible. In short, we at least have the capacity to know better, so we have an obligation to do our best to be better."

I threw my fist down in frustration. For my efforts, I got an impact with the good solid slab of crystal underneath the ledge in the wall turned sofa, causing my hand to go a little numb from the impact with the hard surface.

"An obligation my kind have not had a good tract record of keeping because its so tempting for us to make up excuses so that we can ignore the responsibility and take the easy way out instead."

"Uh huh. And with that heartfelt personal burden in a deep mysterious backstory shared-" she responded in a way that made me realize I was rambling, "-what do you think about the actions taken? If it was wrong to do in the first place, should it be undone after?"

Getting back on track, I did my best to give a simple answer.

"Making amends is almost always a good thing, but..."

I looked at the puddle that reminded me of the lives that the other humanoids might have been able to live, albeit under severe supervision. "But as the few sages of my world managed to give to the field of medicine, 'above all else, do no harm.' If undoing an action causes further harm, I don't think it can generally be justified, at least in a medical standpoint. A generalized stand point might have more odd case exceptions, but would likewise follow much the same logic."

Just as I was wrapping up, Pinkie jerked her head a few times, focused on something internal.

"Tingly tongue... Itchy back... Popping ears..."

Her eyes went wide and jaw slack. "Oh. Oh! It's that time already! I got to go cover for myself before Time Turner leaves."

With this, she galloped out of the study, hurriedly calling back to me, "It was nice chatting! I'll be sure to put in a good word for you!"

When she left the study, I heard the princess call out "Pinkie!? You're supposed to be in bed! You're sick!"

"Yep! Heading there now!" I heard Pinkie's echo fade as she ran down the halls.

---

The next morning, I was expected to stay indoors and isolated in my old cell in the castle. It wasn't for being a prisoner, however. It was more for my own safety, as they still needed to run some tests on some blood they drew from me before they determined if my body would react badly to any of the known diseases from the plague.

Sharp Sentry was oddly not the one guarding me. Rather, Plasma Wave was at the door as my honor guard, catching up on old times. He was lucky enough to not be on duty at his prison during the time of the outbreak, so he had agreed to help out where he could. They needed Sharp Sentry somewhere else, and working in a coordinated team as a pegasus that only had maybe twenty minutes of flight time through his prosthetic at any given time wasn't a good idea.

We actually had to get Tempest to charge both my amulet and his wing from empty to full back to back on a mission, nearly dropping her in the process. In turn, it was no surprise to be decided by everypony involved that the best way Plasma Wave could help was to keep me out of mischief and free up Sharp Sentry to do the more demanding tasks.

Keeping me company was just an incidental side effect, though a welcome one. Thinking of things years back, he shared stories as only a proud parent could gush over.

"I'm just so proud of my little girl. Not only did she train the colt that made this wing to fly, she was granted a blessing by none other than-"

An odd rumbling could be heard as Speaks with Talons came charging up the stairs and hit the breaks a little too late. He ran into the shaft of Plasma Wave's spear across the doorway making up for his limited breaking power and slamming him right across his barrel and front limbs.

With a wince of pain, he pulled his head back out of the cell, allowing Plasma Wave to return the spear to his side.

"Beast Kin, I am in need of your aid. My brothers are here. May I take refuge with you in your cell for a time while I prepare how to approach them? I fear they will find me before I am ready most anywhere else."

I gave him an odd look, tilting my head slowly until my neck was basically slack as I reached to press on my amulet.

"Your brothers? As in other servants of the Animus Mundi?"

Still having a touch of panic, he gave me an uncertain expression.

"Kind of? They are blessed by her as are we, but no. To word it like you would when you clarify something, I mean the other offspring and apprentices of my father. My half-brothers."

The Counsel of Healers, (Unslayable Foes, Part 3.)

The tests on the blood samples all came back negative, allowing me to not be locked up the entire time. They did caution me to be careful, however. While the tests were reliable enough, they didn't cover all possibilities. I still had about as likely a chance to get a terminal sickness as any of the other creatures of the kingdom, given biology variance from race to race.

Plasma Wave escorted Speaks with Talons and myself to the meeting room. When we stopped at the door, Speaks with Talons gave an asking look to Plasma Wave. Just as soon as Plasma Wave stepped out of immediate earshot and idly itched his mechanical wing fittings, Speaks with Talons looked to me.

"Thank you for granting me the chance to get my thoughts together, but I must ask you one more favor. I am no longer the ambassador of the Tribal Collective. Our teacher has taken that title now that he is here, and he will be the one speaking for the Tribal Collective in the meeting. In his absence the senior most student present would speak on his behalf, but it will be inappropriate for us to speak out of line in such a gathering while our teacher is present."

He gave a sigh and braced himself to continue in a more bitter tone.

"My teacher's other apprentices may fit in an offhanded remark if they are asked to speak, but it is only bait. Whatever you do, do not come to my defense during the meeting. As good as your intentions, it will be a sign of you believing I am so weak as to need your help in their eyes and it will only have the opposite effect of its intent. If they approach us after the gathering, we can address them then."

With this warning, he nodded to me and we opened the door to find most of the room filled already.

Starlight and multiple medical doctors were present, along with Sunburst, Princess Twilight and Princess Cadence. Her husband, the general prince and a few crystal guards were behind her.

Wild Storm stood closest to the table, with Zecora back just a little ways to his left, followed by a barely adult zebra stallion and the pony I recognized as Fluttershy's friend among the servants, Tree Hugger. To his right was a well seasoned griffin with the head of a hawk.

Sitting a good deal directly behind the hawk griffin was another adult griffin, albeit a good deal younger, with the head of an owl. Behind him was another griffin with the awkwardly long beaked head of a toucan. This one was barely fully grown. Yet another, still younger looking eagle griffin sat just shy of being against the wall. The eagle griffin was about the size of Speaks with Talons, though he looked like he still had a year or two of growing left in him.

After shaking off the noticing of the rigid differences in the bird qualities among them, it took me only a second at the relative ages of their lion parts to realize they were lined up by seniority behind their teacher.

This was further reinforced by the fact that Speaks with Talons seemed to be the second eldest among his brothers by age and there was a good deal of space between the nearest griffin apprentice to the teacher and the next. More than enough space for Speaks with Talons to sit between them.

Going up to his teacher, he nodded in acknowledgement then tried to move on only to be stopped by his teacher calling his name.

"Speaks with Talons," The hawk griffin said with the thick accent of my amulet translating tribal griffish and a tone that tried to be formal, but had the warm undertone of a father happy to see his son showing through.

Stopping just long enough to briefly reply, "Claps to Thunder," in kind, Speaks with Talons marched past.

This is where my expectations of the family dynamic were shattered.

Speaks with Talons managed a neutral exchange of nods with the eldest apprentice. It was neither loving nor bitter, just formal. But when he got to the toucan, the apprentice gave a tilt to his nod, and eyed the space between himself and the eldest in an expectant, almost mocking fashion.

When Speaks with Talons moved past him and the vacant spot he had purposely left for him, my jaw dropped. He simply reached the last one and gave a downward glanced nod. In return, the eagle headed griffin gave a quick and somewhat aggressive, begrudged nod in return.

With the nod received, Speaks with Talons went to the eagle headed griffin's side and sat down as far back as he could against the wall.

The eagle headed griffin turned to look at the near identical seating between him and Speaks with Talons, then brought his head up to Speaks with Talons with a glare. In response, Speaks with Talons did his best to squish himself against the wall and put himself as far back from the other apprentice's seating as he could.

The master griffin, Claps to Thunder, briefly glanced back at his apprentices, then gave a sigh and returned his gaze to the front.

The words, "Do not come to my defense . . . it will be a sign of you believing I am so weak as to need your help," rang again in my mind.

With nothing else I could do, either for him or myself, I let the frustration go as best I could in a quiet sigh. Turning to lean on an empty spot of the wall that didn't seem to have any other attendee's near it, I waited.

* * *

Maybe a minute or two after settling in on my little section of wall, I noticed the eyes of the unfamiliar griffins eyeballing me. The apprentice griffins had looks of disapproval, but the master griffin and the younger zebra were just curious. None of the apprentices had the guts to say anything, though.

A while later, a few higher ranking changeling medics came in with the one I had recognized as their leader, king Thorax. They were also followed by a meekly postured Mandible. Once they were seated, their king cheerfully turned to Mandible and gestured towards Wild Storm.

The young changeling quickly trotted over and greeted his teacher, who gave him a warm smile and a gentle rubbing of the head with his talon. With a quick glance between the two leaders and a silent nod of approval from Thorax, Mandible took his place a few meters directly behind Wild Storm as his apprentice.

Soon after, the doors opened again and revealed what I presumed was our last three attendees. The first two I could recognize as two of the Pillars of Light that helped seal the rift, but I had not become savvy to either of their names. All I could tell was that one had a mask with her while the other showed signs of great aging. The third, however, was one that made me do a double take, then brace myself against the wall.

Princess Luna.

When her eyes landed on me, she was likewise taken back. With a carefully placed, soft and non-aggressive tone, she spoke,

"Moss, I apologize. I was not aware you would be attending this meeting."

With a moment of pause, she turned. "I can ask my sister to attend instead..."

I reached out and brushed the tip of her wing with a shaking hand. She, and many others, looked in surprise at this contact.

With a press of my amulet, I stumbled through a response while keeping my breathing level.

"Sunburst asked me to attend, though I still don't know why. But you were prob-bably needed here for a reason. I'll manage."

With an awkward silence, Princess Luna looked around uncomfortably for another moment, unsure.

Finally, Sunburst chimed in, gesturing them to their seats. "We need all kinds of healers with their input here. While dream walking does not directly heal the body, it is one of the most effective ways to aid a tormented mind. You are the most experienced dream walker in the land by far and Moss might have some bits of wisdom from his home-world's medicine that we haven't thought of."

Archimedes came flying through the door only shortly after the three took their seats.

"And besides, Archimedes might have some insight on this situation as well and Moss is the only one that can directly convey the thoughts of Archimedes fast enough to keep the meeting flowing."

Though surprised, I extended my arm for him to land on, which he did promptly. As he climbed to my shoulder for more efficient seating, he relayed a message to me.

"Please tell them I apologize for being late. A guard mistook me for a simple animal on the way to the meeting and I was forced to find an alternative route."

* * *

The meeting went oddly smoothly with so many practitioners of traditional medicine and alternative medicine working on the same project. The Servants were willing to assist with their healing magic, which the traditional practitioners had to admit they couldn't do to any significant effect without the assistance of the Animus Mundi.

However, the servants' abilities were extremely limited due to there being so few servants present per capita, even with the summons of the Crystal Sister. They would have to work with the traditional practitioners in preventative measures to mitigate spread and treat the cases that the ponies had non magical treatments for.

To this end, Zecora—who had a history of working with both other servants and Equestrian doctors—had managed to modify her medicine mask a while back to meet traditional standards to more smoothly cooperate with them, while still effectively manage to function in its original purpose. She also presented additional similar masks. Masks that she had the foresight to start crafting for other servants that might need to coordinate in a similar fashion when she realized the Crystal Sister was summoning prominent healers.

The changelings said they had a list of diseases they were immune to and ones that would be particularly detrimental to them. Once reviewed by the pony doctors, this would let them better allocate the already trained traditional changeling medics to patients that would otherwise be a risk to ponies and vice verse. Beyond that, they had to apologize that they didn't have a whole lot more to contribute than a supplement of raw hoof power.

Princess Luna said she could coordinate with the dream walker's guild to look out for telltale signs of the known plague diseases that would manifest during sleep. This hopefully would act as a partial early detection blanket and slow the spread of infection while also helping maximize early treatment. Above and beyond that, all the dream walkers could do would be their normal duties of helping with dreamers in keeping their fears in check.

Archimedes had little to add, save that he would be willing to act as a counselor should an unknown disease from the other world crop up. I also thought I had little to add, but I positively had the doctors' full attention when I mentioned plasma transfusions from already recovered individuals as a way to boost immune systems.

"Could you elaborate?"

I scratched my head with the arm not holding my familiar.

"Not a whole lot, not really. The general concepts are common knowledge, but the exact details and methods are vague. I'd suggest trying to do your own research before going in blindly. But the basic idea is the components in the immune system that recognize the diseases persist in the plasma for several months at elevated levels. These components can be transferred to compatible patients, acting like a kind of artificial supply drop for the recipient's immune system to better identify the invading diseases and attack them sooner and in greater force. But this will only help in cases where the problem is identifying the invading diseases. Other medicines might be better in other cases. Some diseases cause detrimental toxins to be expelled when they are killed off, building up faster than the body can philter them out. In cases like this it's better to have medicines that stunt the disease from increasing in number in the body and let the body take them out at a safer rate instead of a medicine that just kills the disease off faster than it can repopulate."

Multiple doctors simply had their jaws slack at this.

"Fascinating! We will have to follow up on these leads right away! And this is common knowledge in your home world?"

I bobbed my head side to side as much as Archimedes' presence would allow for.

"Kind of? The exact details of how to research it definitely require advanced training that I don't have, but most of these concepts are available for the common people that bother paying attention in the biology classes of our basic school system. As broken as the school system was in helping us be decent people, it did have the potential for knowledge for those that invested the effort."

The doctor I recognized from treating me before looked over to Zecora.

"And you said he couldn't even manage a first aid kit properly!?"

Simply letting the comment die, Zecora turned to the present Pillars of Light. The pillars in turn looked at each other and sighed.

"We sadly do not have much to contribute," the one with the mask like the servants addressed the others, "Mistmane said she would do what she could to keep the population calm and treat what she can, but she can't heal a whole lot with æther without making significant, permanent sacrifices. That will severely limit her long term capacity. If you can tell me what the folks are being ailed by, I'll share the recipes for what remedies to other potion makers like Zecora that I can. My family and I will do what we can to help with whipping up those remedies to the best of our ability too. But sadly, while my family wear healers' masks like the servants, we're not servants of the Animus Mundi. So we can't help with the healing spells, eith-."

The doors slammed open to reveal a well to do family charging in. Without so much as an explanation, one of their staff came in and levitated a familiar and clearly sick pink filly to the center of the table, causing the guards and the general prince to quickly pull back the princesses from the potential threat of infection.

The apparent mother with a necklace of pearls and a snarky face I'd never forget piped up with a very, very entitled attitude that was also all too unforgettable for me.

"Many of you owe us from our years of donations. We need you to have your magic friends heal our daughter, now!"

Author's Notes:

Happy 4th, American readers! Did you know a crude form of giving a transfusion of immunity components was used in the Revolutionary War to keep the revolutionary army from succumbing to disease during the winter of Valley Forge? It was used to give solders that had not yet gotten sick an improved chance of beating the sickness. Presuming they were bound to get sick sooner or later, it introduced the disease in a way that was more advantageous in fighting it off than simply contracting it normally. So it also worked as a crude form of vaccination. Desperate times called for desperate measures, I guess. The more you know!

Angry Snarls and Soothing Songs, (Unslayable Foes, part 4)

"My apologies for my wife's rudeness. She can be—Princess!?"

The apparent father of the child stopped in his apology as he saw Princess Cadence being rushed out the other door to the room while the other two had straight up teleported out as soon as they saw the ill child.

With Starlight and Sunburst barely able to keep the guards from tackling him, the father continued.

"I'm s-s-so sorry. We didn't mean to expose the princesses. We had no idea the princesses were meeting with the doctors too. Otherwise we'd have-" He turned around to his wife and glared at her "-waited outside and let the guards ask to interrupt the meeting like I had suggested in the first place."

With a firm grip now on the withers of each parent, the guards tentatively waited for them to make their case like Sunburst and Starlight gestured to them to do before arresting them and taking them away.

"Our daughter became very ill very quickly, and we were worried the hospital would already be overfilled."

The wife paused at her husbands words for a moment with a calculating look, then gave a subtle glance at the guards before simply nodding.

With my one good roll of a seventeen for the day, I raised the hairs on the back of my head and managed to discern that while it may have been a true concern, it definitely wasn't their main concern when they decided to interrupt the meeting.

"While this is a bit of a sticky situation we're in now, our main concern is our daughter's life. We'll cooperate with the guards for our incidental crime against the princesses, but please treat our little Diamond Tiara."

He pulled a bit bag out filled with coins of high valued metals and currency grade gemstones. "Of course we are willing to compensate you for your skills and expenses and the inconvenience our urgency may have caused you fine healers, up front."

The traditional practitioners and the Pillars of Light took a step back as they all saw the expression of each and every servant of the Animus Mundi change drastically. All at once, feathers puffed, a set of bug wings fluttered, fur stood on end and a subtle smell of brimstone could be smelt as a light smoke came trickling out of Wild Storm's nostrils. I had my back to the wall, myself, so I couldn't back up. Yet I still had to stop myself just before I finished slinking out of the door in fear.

Even the guards holding the two parents stiffened. It appeared that the only creatures in the room that weren't aware that a serious mistake had been made were the very ponies that made it.

Wild Storm walked up to the father and gave an intense gaze at the bag that was being lifted up to the dragon. As the ancient shaman slowly breathed in and out, there was a deep rumbling to his breathing that echoed through the small room.

The mother, standing much closer to me and the door than the dragon, smirked and softly muttered, "He's fixated. Fastest way to a dragon's heart."

Finally, Wild Storm bared his teeth and made a swiping motion towards the bag. With a strong smack, the bag flew towards the door. The mother quickly jutted her head sideways to get a safe distance from what might have been a glancing blow, and Archimedes had to jump off my shoulder while I outright dove out of the way.

With a clang, the bag burst against the far hallway wall. Coins and gems went flying everywhere in the hall. Turning my head back, I saw the father bringing a sorely bruised hoof in to his barrel while Wild Storm brought his head inches from the father's.

"Servants. Do. Not. Take payment for healing. Trying to sway us with such a temptation is the worst insult you could ever give us as healers."

I managed to pick myself up just as Wild Storm got out of the father's face. "Zecora, see if there is a suitable modified mask for Claps to Thunder among the ones you have made. Doctor Pulse, please get ready to do an examination of the child along side my own."

With this, he reached for his own mask that had already been modified by Zecora and quickly put it on. "We will be treating her as soon as you and I have both made our prognoses."

With hardly a second glance, Wild Storm waved the parents away and the guards resumed shackling them and left to escort them to the dungeon.

As the assorted healers got to work, I looked out and saw the filly's father limping out of the door.

Taking a moment to make sure I wasn't needed anymore, I pressed on my amulet and did my best to catch up to the guards without tripping over the spilled money.

"Iron Bastion! Hold up!" I called out to the one guard I recognized.

Stopping for only a moment to give me an "I'm just about out of patience" glare, he shifted his weight to the hoof that kept the shackles of the mother under control.

"I'll be real quick, I promise." I spoke to the guard as I pointed to the father's limping hoof. "But even a capital offense prisoner has the right to medical treatment in this country, right?"

Iron Bastion gave a begrudged nod. "Do not waste any more time than necessary."

With a respectful nod back, I approached the father and knelt down.

"Let me see your hoof."

"Why? So you can hurt it more!?" the mother shouted at me, "I still remember seeing that desire to hurt me back at the station! Don't pretend to like us! You aren't fooling anypony!"

The father crossed his eyes, inhaled and looked back at his wife. "Spoiled Rich! We're already in deep trouble because of you and your hysteria! Now just shut up!"

When he looked back at me apologetically, I couldn't help but put my head back down and examine the hoof he had extended for me.

"Thank you. Though she is kinda right on one point. I have no real positive feelings for you, and I definitely don't like her."

The hoof looked banged up good. Without any sharp shifts in his pain as I felt the range of his hoof's motion, I was able to reliably tell that his hoof didn't have any broken bones or open cuts. This was good, as it meant I didn't have to call any of the others. It just had a solid bruise and maybe a few strained tendons. No special setting of the bones or disinfection was needed to get it on the path to healing up right. It was a lucky injury that a simple cure wounds spell could set straight without any complications.

"But fortunately, I don't have to like you to heal you."

I did the appropriate gesture with my free hand then placed that hand on top of the hoof.

"Partner? Could you please ^he_lp?"

With a slight glow of the spell making contact, the hoof managed to lose the swelling that had started to form.

I let go of the hoof and backed up. When I saw the husband and wife look at me in shock, I just shrugged and said, "I told you it would be quick. It should be set now, but it might still be a little tender for a while. The spell is intended to repair damage and restore function, not make it feel better."

I subconsciously rubbed my side where I had gotten stabbed on a round up mission, still remembering the spot being tender for days after I healed myself.

As they began walking off, I shouted one last encouraging message to them, "And don't worry! Pretty much every creature at that meeting is even more experienced in healing than I am! Your daughter is in good..." I paused for a moment to look at my hands in confusion. "...Company!"

Upon returning to the meeting room, I saw the staff member of the family that had levitated the daughter occupying himself with cleaning up the money that had spilled over the floor. When I found Wild Storm and Doctor Pulse still in the middle of performing their examinations of the poor filly, I decided to help with the cleanup.

He eyeballed me at first. But soon he looked in the direction that I had been when I healed his master, then thought twice on objecting. For several minutes we simply gathered the coins and gems in silence and put them into a pile on top of the main part of the bit bag, since only the string appeared broke.

When I saw the string that had broke was a string similar to the one on my amulet, I pulled the spare I acquired the night before out of my supplies and re strung it, taking the old one to mend later on my own time to replace it.

With the last few coins being gathered, I found myself struggling with one particularly flat platinum coin. The staff member could easily levitate it with his horn, of course, but he seemed to respect my desire to get it up myself. This became pretty obvious when he had every other coin and gem up in the bag except the one I had been working on.

With a huff of frustration, I finally just called out "_Pr^es_to!" and gestured out with my hand with a simple motion like that of a stage performer adding flare to a stage trick.

After that, a basic copper crafting scalpel appeared in mid air maybe an inch above my hand. Knowing I only had seconds, I grabbed the tool as soon as it fell into my palm, then quickly and carefully used the blade to get under the coin and lift it up enough to get my fingers under it.

"Y... You're a conjurer as well as a healer!?" the staff member exclaimed as he saw the tool disappear from my hand about six seconds after I had summoned it.

I looked at him oddly, noticing the intelligence of a scholar in his eyes. He wasn't a proper mage, but clearly at least understood the basics a unicorn might rightly study to sate a curiosity.

"Kind of?" I answered back uneasily before I pressed my amulet and passed him the last coin, "I dabble in a few different magics, but I'm not all that strong in each as a result. Aside from the spell that granted me my owl familiar and maybe the bonfire spell I'm known for, that's the only other form of conjuration I really have access to. It's just a trick for practicing, and even then it's really only one part of that trick. It's clunky to use, doesn't last long and I can't conjure anything of significant quality. So I don't like leaning on it."

I took a pause as I thought about Scraps. With a smile I added, "My friend that I taught the practice spell to, however, loves to use this trick all the time for his hobbies."

With the bit bag fixed, refilled and closed up, the member of the family's staff stood up and bowed.

"Thank you for your assistance. Now if you will excuse me, I must maintain my honor as a servant of the Rich estate and turn myself in along side my masters. I will not let them suffer alone for a crime I assisted in. Randolph would never let me hear the end of it."

I could see a conviction in his eyes as he marched down to the dungeons that kept me from objecting.

Turning back to the meeting room, I saw the three senor most servants with masks on, starting a drumming rhythm.

Slowly as they chanted, wind stirred and the air got thick with energy. Over the course of several minutes, I saw them move around in unison. When the tempo of the drums reached full power, I heard them call out one at a time

"Hear our drums, T^ea_ch^er _of ^Pa_st ^Wi_sd^om_s," Zecora called out in a thick and unfamiliar accent, her voice rich in magic.

"See into our hearts, L^ad_y o^f t_he ^Wi_nd^s," Claps to Thunder called out in a mask that was clearly not meant for his beak shape.

"Aid us in undoing the harm this child unknowingly consumed, M^ot_he^r." Wild storm called out as he raised his arms.

The other two reared onto their back legs and reached out in a similar fashion, making a crude circle around the table the filly lay on. While they did this, I could see the other servants watching calmly. Mandible, while still remaining calm too, looked like his mind was in overdrive taking notes.

The wind howled enough to have papers fly off the table and circle above the ritual as the energies were building up. A slight green tinge could be seen in the air towards the climax of their chanting. All of a sudden, the wind stopped and the mist shot inward and concentrated itself onto the filly. For a moment, she was completely enveloped in its glow.

Slowly it sank into her skin over the course of a couple seconds. When it was done, her shivering and shaking began to calm. She opened her eyes and eyeballed a few creatures, including myself, before falling unconscious again.

The three active healers looked a little wobbly. Wild Storm had to brace himself on the table briefly and both Zecora and Claps to Thunder had to sit down on the floor while having a slightly labored breathing.

The eldest griffin called out softly but clearly in Equestrian after he caught his breath, "Sings to Canopy."

"Yes, teacher?" The toucan griffin responded, coming up to him.

"Of my students, you are the one that gives the greatest compassion for those we heal and that is what I am in need of at this moment. Now that the child is cured of her food poisoning, take her and go with the pony doctor to see what must be done with her while her parents are in custody. Until the ponies have decided who will take care of her in her parents stead, you are to care for her. If there is any decent in this choice, do not leave her side until it is resolved."

With one of the less prominent doctors and Sings to Canopy leaving, young filly in tow, the rest of the room seemed to look down in worry.

"What's wrong?"

The Pillar of Light known as Mistmane came up to me and gave a worried, but warmhearted explanation, "While it is good that the child's condition was not contagious, it does present a new obstacle for us to overcome. We had not considered our food or water sources to be at risk of contamination, but apparently they are. This is going to add an entirely new level of difficulty in fighting the epidemic."

Author's Notes:

And so here is the chapter most people probably didn't expect to be released so soon after the previous one, but the muse's decent on how to weave what I wanted to portray lasted longer than I thought. I also wanted to share the video that inspired me on how the servants would go about healing, though I did my best not to just make a cheap copy of it. This chapter did not show the three masters at their full power mind, as the coming chapters will explain better. (the first video is a shortened version, consisting only of the ritual itself, not the full episode. Technically a separate YouTube channel that apparently made a shortened version with permission)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwdv8csxkmc

And for the fun of it, I want to share another video of the same artist that would show a comparable level of power that these three could do if they pushed themselves more fully, and made some sacrifices in the process. (this one is from the actual artist's YouTube channel)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXMIwLAxKZE

Lockdown and Tentions. (Unslayable Foes, part 5)

Author's Notes:

I swear I had this arc planned way back, long before the covid stuff.

With the countermeasures of the epidemic now in full swing, the town had changed. No more where there ponies traveling the streets with a good cheer. Instead, the only ponies in the streets were the guards, local mail service and volunteers delivering supplies and messages. Although there were exceptions for absolute emergencies, all non essential personnel were essentially ordered into house arrest.

What surprised me was how effectively they were able to enforce it with so little need for actual force.

"Princess Celestia has ruled for centuries." Plasma Wave explained it to me while we walked to Sugar Cube Corner, "Historically, she has been extremely hesitant to impose her will on the populace to such a degree. Combined with a few times that she has and ponies didn't cooperate with her, only to have the very thing she said she was trying to prevent happen, ponies have come to respect her emergency royal decrees."

I could only shake my head and sigh. "That's not the kind of reputation any of my home world's leaders have had. They might be known for not imposing on the people in every last aspect of their lives, or have the sheer power to not have the populace question them in an emergency. But unless a nation was straight up under foreign attack, no powerful free nation was ever properly behind their leaders. Too much infighting. Too much Bureaucracy. Too much hatred to see the bigger problems."

I looked back up at the street, with guards tending to the delivery of rationed supplies to each house. "Which is why it is kinda nice to see the sheer amount of cooperation here, and the fact that the one in charge won't be tempted to abuse the emergency power for her own ends."

"Hello again, Mr Cake," I heard Plasma Wave call out. I saw him looking at the local baker standing at the entrance to his shop. Without me realizing it, we had reached our destination.

"Ah, yes. And am I to presume this is the nice gentlecolt that will be stationed here to help us restore some of the town's lost supplies?"

I noticed his words seemed to be genuine but not confident and I almost gave a giddy grin when I realized I understood why, completely on my own.

With my classes in Equestrian coming to fruition, I came to understand the way pronouns and subject specific word pronunciations of different words not only expanded to include gender like some languages on earth. They would often also include species when referring to a creature, but it didn't really have any good forms for humanoids.

Normally, the locals would use a work around word or phrase without being rude and had worked wonders in the past when I was still new to this world, but formal greetings never had such a luxury even back then. So, knowing it was a genuine greeting despite the awkward state it put the baker in, I chose to meet him half way. I simply mentally swallowed the awkwardness, right along with any hint of pride I may or may not have felt, smiled and nodded politely at the verbatim translation.

"I'm not sure how well it will work, as it's untested, but I think my partner and I have a spell that can help with getting some of the contaminated food to be edible again."

"Indeed, indeed." The baker gestured us inside. The once joyful bakery had been stripped down into a veritable shell of its former self. The front area was transformed into a small storage warehouse with piles of flour stacked to the ceiling. Peeking into the kitchen, I saw what I suspected was a testing facility set up to test the food that was still good and separate it from the stuff that had gone bad. I had to do a double take, though, as it had an immediate appearance of what I suspected a makeshift meth lab might look like.

"Starlight and Sunburst informed me of your uncertainty and made sure to train my wife on how to test the food they bring in to us and separate the bad stuff out. We already have some contaminated flour set aside for you to do your thing with. Once we get a clean test back, we'll be sending another sample to the formal labs to test properly. After that... hopefully gets confirmed clean, we'll do what we can to help you set up for doing your thing in bulk."

* * *

About two hours later, I sat cross legged on the pillow the Cakes had offered me. My brow had a slight bead of sweat and my hands moved methodically in front of me, guided by whims that came to me in the moment, almost like second nature. But I knew it wasn't "natural" at all.

Across the room, perched on a pony sized chair provided for him was Archimedes. Though he could move his owl form and fly about freely, to ensure we were doing this right he elected to stay calm and close and give our task his undivided attention. Words moved freely from his mind straight to my lips. I did not even hear what I was about to say until I said it. It was not his bond as a familiar that he used, but as my substitute divine catalyst. It was his knowledge of the spell that I was actually using to build up the energy needed, not my own.

With a sudden surge of the power I had collected over the last ten minutes, I thrust my hands forward. A swirl of blue haze that was starting to build around me moved forward and clung itself to the sacks, sinking in.

I have a sigh, wiped my brow and press my amulet before looking at the baker.

"There, I think that's the tenth batch."

"Eleventh, actually. I was about to tell you we were done when I finished moving the tenth, but you were already well into that one."

I gave him a raised eyebrow and a huff. "Well, you already had it set aside for me. I figured the ones keeping track of the samples would have a better clue."

He looked at me sheepishly.

"Actually, that was just the remainder of what was left of that segment of storage. I didn't set it in place for you. You just looked so intent, and you said that if you were interrupted that you would have to start over."

I just shook my head and stood up to stretch. With a slight crackling of my spine as I arched backwards, I sighed and came back to a stand, nodding in agreement. "Well, knowing Starlight and Sunburst, I doubt they will complain about an extra sample."

While the baker did his thing and started taking the extra sample, Speaks with Talons shook his head and approached me.

"You have been trying to teach us how to cast quickly like you, and now you show that you are able to cast slowly like us. Why do you not cast all of your spells like this?"

Archimedes bobbed his head in a way I could recognize as a silent laugh before catching himself.

"It's not that simple. Only a small number of the spells I have access to can be charged slowly like this. Most spells engineered for spell slots aren't designed to be able to be woven without the sheer energy of a spell slot fueling it. It would take major adaptation that is just way too far above my skill. This is actually a part of why I couldn't mimic any of your guys' spells until I accidentally saw you pulling off your signature spell."

I looked at the flour I had purified being put into a transport vial by Mr Cake, then went about popping my neck and shoulders.

"Most healing spells can't do this. I'm not sure if it's because of the flow against entropy like Starlight said or not. Either way though, the end result is that I'm stuck with using my spell slots on 'real' healing spells. This is kinda an exception because it isn't actually 'healing' anything, as the stuff is already dead. It's just being 'purified.'"

"Officer Plasma Wave?" The baker called out in the direction of the store's restroom, "Are you about ready? I'm getting the last sample packed up now."

"Just about. This last strap is being difficult."

Plasma Wave came out of the bathroom, his side with his crippled wing still slightly moist from him doing some mid day care to it. The bulk of his harness that held his wing was on secure, but the part that held the artificial feathers tight to the remainder of his natural wing was still hanging slack, making the artificial feathers dangle.

"The wing got roughed up my first day in the jail making sure the inmates knew I could hold my own even if I was crippled. I adjusted it back as best I could but I need to send it in to Keen Wit so that he can get the thing done back up right. He is the only one that really understands all the inner workings of his mechanism inside and out."

He gave one last bite at the last strap, then sighed in a huff. Turning to us he gave a look of a proud stallion that didn't want to do what he knew he needed to do. With an eyeing of the griffin's sharp talons, then my hands, he turned to me.

"Moss, do you mind pulling this last strap to tighten it down while I keep my wing straight? I have to keep it like that to get it lined up now and it makes pulling the strap even more awkward than before."

With an understanding smile, I came over and got the strap in my hand, ready to tug at his signal.

He got his wing into position then signaled me with a simple, "Now."

I tugged firmly and latched it into place. Immediately, I felt him stiffen up and almost buckle his knees.

"I'm sorry! are you al-" I tried to ask before the ankle of his front hoof was promptly shoved almost literally into my mouth.

"I'm fine. The wing just..." He took a pained breath, coming out of it. "My wing gets rubbed a little on the raw side through the day anyway, and today its a bit tingly from the circulation being a little constricted this morning."

With a moment more to get his stance back under him, he looked at me and nodded in gratitude. "But it looks like a few more adjustments in the bathroom did improve it. Honestly, I was expecting it to hurt more."

With just another moment to equip the saddlebags that carried the samples inside, Plasma Wave was out the door and delivering the samples to Starlight and Sunburst.

With that set, I went back over to the wall where the contaminated flour had been piled up and tried to lift, only to have trouble trying to move the large sack of flour.

"Hey there. Take it easy. You've been doing this for almost two hours straight," the baker called out, gesturing to the chair where Archimedes perched, "There isn't a single unicorn I know that doesn't get at least a little tuckered out after keeping their magic up for that long. On top of that, unlike you, they can do it naturally. Take a break."

* * *

"So Fluttershy is working hard to keep one of the diseases from spreading through the animal populations? Knowing that some will have to be isolated and possibly die alone to save the other animals must be breaking her heart."

Speaks with Talons was giving me the run down of what was happening around town as we sat down and simply did nothing for a few minutes to reset ourselves like the bakers asked. The baker had even brought us some mugs of water to boot.

While him and his brothers still had to adhere to a lot of safety rules, as apprentices, they were considered Claps to Thunder's assistants. Therefor, they were allowed to move about town without nearly as much restriction.

Out of all of the brothers, however, Speaks with Talons didn't have a task to perform. He was no longer ambassador of the tribal collective. On top of that, though he did have some effective, if simple, magic for helping him hunt, his ability to perform healing magic was just barely at a rudimentary level. Keeling himself over to stabilize a mortal wound was about all he could do in that regard.

"Yes, and the Fey of Far Everfree have been informed about the situation. At least, the messenger was able to clearly yell out the decree that the squadron was quarantined to the forest for the time being as changing the guards could introduce the disease to their forest and the guards. I can only presume the squadron passed it on successfully. The Speaker hasn't appeared to any outsider again since the Crystal Sister let him go back to his village. I fear I may have to resume the duty as Fey ambassador if he doesn't appear soon."

Archimedes leaned over and looked at me. "At least he would have something to do besides follow us."

Stifling a laugh before it came out, I looked back at him, causing Speaks with Talons to notice him as well.

"Oh, now that was rude," I called out to my familiar to show some respect to my friend, who I knew had learned to read the owl and know when he was communicating with me.

"But definitely funny," I finished privately.

"So what is the thing with your brothers?" I asked, changing the subject, "They seemed bitter towards you at the meeting, especially the youngest."

Speaks with Talons looked at me like I had discovered a secret shame of his. Closing his eyes in pain, he answered, "I suppose you deserve to know. While the tribes have been balancing keeping the old ways with adapting it with more modern thinking, there is an old tradition among the tribal griffins that we still hold sacred because it kept us from dying out long ago. In order to keep alliances strong, it is a custom for the high shaman to marry a single member from each of the tribes and produce at least one child from each. This is why it is rare for a female to aspire to become high shaman. We have long since stopped forcing our kind to take on roles traditional for their gender. The roles are still commonly filled the traditional way by choice, but occasional exceptions do happen. Despite this fact, though, the position of High Shaman is one females do not really seek, as they would not be able to produce the expected amount of children without great risk to their health."

I nodded, absorbing what he said, but failed to understand where he was going.

"So... That sounds like it would affect your sisters, if you have any, more than your brothers. How does this relate back to them?"

Speaks with Talons nodded and gave a quiet, merry laugh. "Yes. I have four half sisters and a full sister in the Raven Tribe. All of them have developed their own strengths. All of them have a grace and beauty that would make their mothers proud. Some very talented, some quite brave, and none of them lazy or cowardly."

Speaks with Talons lost all sense of merriment and became quite focused as he stared at nothing in particular, but still stared intensely.

"My father has only four sons, including my self. But there are six tribes. The sisters I have from the other two tribes did not become apprentices, believing there would be another brother born eventually."

He took a deep breath and exhaled. Pain swelling as he muscled through it like the warrior he was. "But that all changed when Listens in Anger, my youngest brother, was born. His mother died giving birth to him, after already being warned not to carry another child after his elder sister was born.

"After that, my father decreed that he would have no more children, that he would not endanger any more of his wives, nor take another from the Hawk Tribe to replace her."

Speaks with Talons looked at me in a knowing fashion. "Yes, Listens in Anger's mother was a hawk griffin, and my father's childhood beloved while growing up among them. Listens in Anger was cursed with the eagle blood of our ancestors running thick enough through his own blood to show. In spite of this, him and his full sister were the only ones ever truly conceived in love, and our father took him in in spite of the death of his mother while birthing an eagle head was shunned by the Hawk Tribe."

Despite having a great amount of heartache, he lifted his head up in pride. "You have to understand. Griffins can only ever truly have one love. The high shaman is expected to take multiple mates, not privileged. Even a common griffin ave sometimes mated with the beloved of sibling that circumstances prevented them from having a child, allowing them to have the closest thing to their sibling's child they can, but they only ever desire a single lover. It's an instinct that is embedded into our very core."

He hung his head down in an even greater pain than before. This was different, though. This was personal.

"Every griffin who has found a beloved, then lost them early on can understand his plight. Despite the ramifications to the process of electing a new high shaman after his eventual death by having so few apprentices, he still chose to weep for her. Like any griffin with a sensitive heart, he still weeps to this day."

Not wanting to pry into the personal pain, I tried to move the conversation forward. "So your father's title is hereditary?"

He swayed his head side to side, slowly. "Not exactly. A child of the high shaman can be the next, but it can also pass on to a more experienced shaman previously dedicated to a single village, depending on the deliberations and eventual vote. But the thing is, with only four apprentices, two of which are not well received among the shamans, the chance of another high shaman being voted in outside the family is likely, and could cause some uproar.

"An apprentice from each village is not only allowed, but expected. Taking on a second from one or two villages after the eldest has grown up is not uncommon too.

"High shamans are meant to be unbiased. Our mixed blood line is meant to embody this. While not meant to be the majority, local shamans are usually enough to sway the vote when two brothers have fought in the past. But with completely fresh blood holding the title, many of the tribes will question their unbiased position. They would see it as a shaman seizing an opportunity for power, especially with the local shamans out numbering the apprentices. It should not amount to full on war, but it will cause tensions to rise until the new high shaman proves themselves unbiased. This is hard to do when every decision you make is believed to be for your own tribe, or as a token sacrifice to allow later or greater decisions be in bias to one's native tribe."

After his long explanation, he let his burden come to full bear as he placed a talon on my shoulder.

"It was believed both of us were taken in and kept on as apprentices as a way to help prevent this. Neither I nor my youngest brother are admired among the High Shaman's apprentices, but with the number of apprentices so low, no chief has dared challenge it. He has always seen me as the one brother he could best to prove himself. Despite my temper, I have constantly let him do what he nee-"

The door to the bakery slammed open. There stood Listens in Anger, winded, with a glare befitting his name directed straight at Speaks with Talons.

"Fake apprentice! I need to speak! Come here!"

While I had to hold myself back, I didn't even see Speaks with Talons so much as flinch. What an outsider might see as a look of defeat in his eyes, I saw the pained love of a brother patiently dealing with his brother's antics.

With a firm stride, Speaks with Talons went to his brother and stood at attention. With his brother in place, Listens in Anger let loose.

"You dare to call yourself a healer!?"

Speaks with Talons didn't flinch.

"You are nothing more than a brave that learned a few tricks to aid hunting down his prey! You do not know how to heal even in a team! Let alone on your own! The only 'healing' you know is how to cauterize and dress a battle wound!"

While this may have been true when I met him, Speaks with Talons did know how to heal today, albeit at a steep price. Yet still, he simply stood there and took it in.

Meanwhile, I tightened my grip on my mug and drank deeply, finishing off the water so as to not waste it.

"He could have easily picked any of our sisters to take your place when I surpassed your talent years ago! You should not have been at that meeting, let alone-!"

He stopped in mid sentence when my wooden mug hit the side of his arm. I had actually been aiming for his head, but it got the job done.

"That's enough!" I shouted while marching up to them, "If you haven't noticed, there's an epidemic going on! Now's not the time to be fighting among ourselves!"

When Speaks with Talons reached up and put his face in his talon, I knew I had messed up.

"This is none of your business, outsider! We-"

"What is going on here?" I heard a new voice call out.

Stepping in beside his youngest brother, I saw the owl headed griffin from before in a well decorated medicine mask.

"Searches for Stars!" I heard the youngest call out in confidence. "This outsider has come and assaulted me on our mission! But stay back, I do not need anygriff's protection."

He looked at Speaks with Talons with a purpose to his glare. "Not since I was a cub, not anymore."

I thought I was going to be backed into a corner, either metaphorically, or possibly even literally.

The owl griffin calmly looked around and saw the state of the room. He glanced at the mug, at me, at Speaks with Talons still holding his face, and then something at his youngest brother's side that I couldn't see.

"Perhaps you do not know who this is, Listens in Anger. So stay true to your namesake for a moment and hear what I have learned by seeking knowledge since we have arrived instead of dwelling in the past: This is Moss, known to the few local servants as the Beast-kin. He is also the battle brother of Speaks with Talons."

"That does not give him the right to assault me!"

Searches for Stars gave a cold stare at his brother. He wasn't nearly as poised as their father, but was definitely the most reserved of the brothers. The kind that would use wisdom to assess and resolve a conflict with as little energy wasted as possible.

"It does when you run ahead of me the moment I point out our destination, then fail to deliver what we were meant to deliver by the time I caught up just to pick a fight with Speaks with Talons and blame the fight on him, again."

The youngest brother broke his self righteous posturing and leaned back a little at this.

Turning to me, then back at the youngest, he continued.

"This is a fight you picked. You will now face it alone."

Turning back to me, he gave a tiny, respectful nod of recognition. "Do what you must. I will not interfere in this quandary, nor seek retribution. But please do make sure he can continue to function. The need for healers is great."

Now suddenly called out, Listens in Anger turned to me and snarled.

"You should know-"He started to ramble.

"You should know your place!" I cut him off and yelled even louder, posturing in an "I'm ready to fight" stance. "We're trying to save lives and all you can do is whip out your shlong and demand a pissing contest!?"

With his momentum properly broken, at least unless he outright wanted to get into a physical brawl, I lowered my voice enough to not call it yelling, but didn't back my posture down in the slightest.

"I get the practical part of what you're saying, I really do. He can't help with the healing. That doesn't mean he is useless. So, for the sake of the mission, I'm going to let this slide, but..."

I came in real close, like I could have stuck out my tongue and possibly touched his beak with it, close.

"If you insist on continuing to just use that beak of yours to keep badmouthing my battle brother instead of focusing on the crisis, I will have no choice but to find you and formally remove it!"

Cocking his head as I backed off, he jested, "Right. What are you going to do? Challenge me to that brutal rite of standing? I may not be as honed as my brutish brother, but I think I could still take..."

His words died in his throat as he tilted his head up to meet the gaze of the polar bear that just appeared in the place I was standing.

With only two seconds of eye contact, he coughed and started over.

"Beast... Kin... Right! We have a mission. We don't need to be fighting among ourselves." Turning to Speaks with Talons, he spoke in a carefully measured tone. "Brother."

With the message received, I turned back just in time to see the youngest bring forth the mask that their father had worn the day before.

"While I do not feel right about this, our father has made his decision. Now that his own mask has been outfitted to work with the ponies' needs, he is allotting you this medicine mask temporarily."

Looking at the mask presented and comparing it to the mask that the eldest brother had, I noticed it was remarkably simple, like a basic mask made in a hurry, verses a well worn mask that had been customized and changed over at least a few years. It was like looking at a proper machete compared to the tiny blade of a basic pocket knife or multi tool. They served the same function, but there was no comparison beyond that.

Searches for Stars spoke up, calmly and in a reserved voice, "Sings to Canopy and Listens in Anger have also gotten their masks modified and we will be staying here to tend to the sick while our teacher and the other masters have been asked by the Crystal Sister to tend to a more populated area. In the meantime, our teacher has reflected on Zecora's reports of your progress and has determined you have advanced enough to help her students finish a basic circle to aid in the simpler task of purifying the town's food and water."

The youngest sneered at this last part, but took a breath and continued the directions.

"While you and the Zebra's students are being allotted impromptu masks, this does not mean you have advanced enough to consider the mask your own. When this crisis is over, you are to clean, disassemble and return the mask to us to be burned."

"Oh, and one more thing," the eldest interrupted again, "There is one more piece of news I was to relay. While the Plague Artifact was properly recovered from the enemy and secured in the attack, some creature broke into the vault holding all the other items confiscated on your recent mission. The only description I could understand was that it was two legged, dark skinned, and roughly your size, Cousin Beast-kin."

All the energy that was making my blood lean towards boiling from the tension suddenly dropped out as my blood went cold instead.

"Not again." I heard Archimedes call out in shock.

My lips quivered as the word I was dreading left them.

"Dalock..."

Unrestful Night (Unslayable Foes, part 6)

Author's Notes:

I know this isn't much, but I would like to thank the one to two dozen people that still follow this story. (based off what I see from reading counts after I post)

After getting back home to Fluttershy's cottage, I was exhausted from purifying what felt like more flour and other staple foods than I could consume in a year if I tried. Every last sample of each food type I worked with came back clean, fortunately. So, combined with the efforts of others sorting out what storage sites were still clean and which needed to be sent to Sugar Cube Corner for purification, the food supplies were not in an immediate crisis. At least not if we all stayed on top of it.

Right as I entered the door and pressed my amulet to give a friendly "I'm home," Archimedes flew off my shoulder and up to his usual perch that Fluttershy had made for him when he first came into my life.

"Oh, I hope Speaks with Talons and the other two manage to get clean tests too. I really don't want to be the only one purifying all the contaminated food."

I slumped down to my cushion on the floor of the main area as Fluttershy came out of her bedroom with a brave face.

Turning to her, I tried to put my own worries aside. "You doing alright?"

It was rhetorical. I knew she wasn't alright, but I also knew she wouldn't admit it. I just had to go through the motions to let her unwind her stress in her own way.

"Oh yes. And speaking of purifying, I have news."

She sat down next to me and gave a weary but sincere smile. "There are a few other teams spread out through Equestria helping too. Some shamans and apprentices from the minotaur and yak nations are helping in Los Pegasus out of Iron Will's estate."

She gave a bemused sigh and shook her head as she heard her last statement. She then picked up Angel Bunny, who had also seen through her brave face and wanted to comfort her. Against character and with an unusually calm demeanor, Angel let her stroke his head and back while she continued.

"We even found a breezie shaman that has come out of their protected village to help the other two zebra shamans form a circle while their apprentices purify the food in Manehattan. Zecora, Wild Storm and Claps to Thunder are tending to the needs of the Canterlot area. The servants of the Animus Mundi from many nations have really been coming together to keep the diseases from spreading out past Equestria."

She suddenly gave a huff of frustration and let a gleam of anger show through before she steadied herself again.

"But it would be nice if they would stop asking why I haven't taken up studying under Zecora. I love all kinds of critters and nature, but I don't need to be a shaman to help them."

I couldn't help but tilt my head back and close my eyes, thinking about how opinionated they could be. At least they would not force the point.

I was about to comment, but Fluttershy continued again.

"I even heard about how you stood up for Speaks with Talons."

Had that come from anybody besides her, I might not have been too bothered. And yet, because it was from her, I found myself shrinking down in worry of her feelings towards the actions I took.

Instead of any frustration or anger, I actually saw her genuinely relax and take comfort at the fact.

"Trouble making aside, its nice to see you've grown such a strong bond with him. I was beginning to worry you wouldn't open up to any creature enough to form a bond that deep."

With a more genuine smile, less strained by her day's labors, she looked at me with pride.

"It's a good sign for your RRE progress."

"Something is outside." I heard Archimedes call to me.

"So, besides being tired, how was your first day of employment as a food pr-" She started to ask, but was quickly interrupted by a sudden rising of my hand.

After the alarm from Archimedes, I went into alert mode. I almost couldn't make it out from the wind lightly rustling the leaves outside, but in trusting my paranoia just enough to make sense of it, I heard it. It was subtle, but I could sense something coming from around the cottage to the kitchen door.

Although I had absolutely no authority over her, I quickly gestured to her to stay seated where she was while I checked out the noise.

Pulling out my wand of lightning bolts the moment I was out of eyesight, I came to realize that whatever had made the noise was just on the other side of the door.

With a careful placement of my feet and spare hand on the door nob, I charged the spell within my wand to max capacity and readied myself.

With a quick throwing of the door open, I shoved my wand right at Princess Luna's heart. The moment I saw who it was, I couldn't keep myself from letting the spell go off. I couldn't even point away with the wand at point blank range.

With a reflexive twirl of her horn, I could see she had a counter spell, making my own spell fizzle out, expended but otherwise uncast in the process.

When it was all said and done, she and I just stared at each other in utter shock.

"I'm... I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else," Was all I was able to utter as I dropped the wand.

Her thestral guard moved up to arrest me, but Princess Luna waved her off.

"It's alright, Crescent Blade," she called to the guard, "We weren't expected, so his worry was reasonable. I am not harmed, and there was no ill intent towards us specifically."

Turning to me, she gave an uneasy smile. "And if I am to be formal, I suppose my pardon against this not quite assault can make up for the wrongs I have done to Moss in the past. Are we even now?"

I saw her face wasn't the calm, cold expression she had when speaking formally to bureaucrats at a distance, but the warmer expression that I had seen on the fanged face she wore when she worked painstakingly as my Equestrian tutor.

I backed up to let them inside as I had to take a second to subdue the rising knee-jerk desire to run and to understand what she was talking about. Once I made the connection, I shook my head side to side.

"I never blamed you for my astral judgement back when, either. So... Yea. I suppose we are still even."

I could see one of the weights on her mind lift at my response.

"I see you and Starlight managed to master up-casting," I stated, it being the only thing running through my mind besides my desire to keep the reflexive panic from coming forth.

Princess Luna looked at the wand, then back at me, confused. "Not quite, though we are coming close. But I wouldn't have needed to do so with your wand, no? The spell is the same level of power as the countering spell we extracted from the books sent with you. The base level should have sufficed, should it not have?"

With Fluttershy coming towards the kitchen, I weakly muttered, "No. It was full power at level nine. If you didn't up-cast, then we're lucky that it managed to work anyway," before she came in.

Princess Luna went a little shocked at the news, cocked her head and asked, "Why would you risk breaking your wand to..."

Her eyes landed on Fluttershy entering the kitchen and giving a semi courteous bow to the princess as Princess Luna connected the dots.

I heard her speak to me slowly in the fragmented English she had plucked from my mind back when, eyes wide in shock, "Yew. Thoot. Iee. Waz. Heem."

Despite the desire to not make her worry, the sudden tension in the air made Fluttershy worry anyway.

When we looked at her, seeing her muscle a smile despite it all, she looked at Princess Luna and asked, "So what brings you here, Princess Luna?" in order to try to move away from the tension.

With a cough, Princess Luna came in all the way, followed by her guard mare and another thestral that looked like he was more of a lawyer than a guard.

"Though I barely picked up on it, I had an urgent message. The Speaker of the Fey needs my assistance and called to me in his dreams."

With each of us pouring into the main area, Princess Luna shook her head.

"Sadly, he couldn't elaborate. Before he was forced to awaken, all that the Speaker could say was to meet him here, that he needed asylum and it was important enough to break quarantine."

"Small forest creature friend coming to visit?" I heard Scraps call out from the area him and Tempest were bunked.

Turning to them, Princess Luna greeted them with a simple smile, "Captain Tempest, Scraps. It is good to see you both alive and healthy in this epidemic. I apologize for the intrusion."

"Don't mind us, we were just seeing what the commotion was about. If we aren't needed, we're going back to bed." Tempest looked down at Scraps and made her voice go stern. "Now."

* * *

With some small talk to keep us busy and some tea prepared, we eventually found ourselves with a soft knock on the front door.

When I opened the front door, I was not surprised to see the Speaker, but he seemed surprised to see me. Pulling back and guarding a package, he brought forth his small wooden staff that would have been little more than a cane to me.

Pointing said staff right at me in an accusative manner, he called out, "Wh-what are you doing here, Beast-kin!?"

With Fluttershy coming around into view of the door, I just looked back and forth between them and plainly replied, "I live here? If you need her, Princess Luna is inside waiting for you."

At first he held his stance, then gave a grimace look. "The griffin has often told of how you show only disdain for the home world we feared your declared master would spill from, and I must now question my village's values. It appears I have no choice but to set my fear of you aside for something far more important."

As he slowly lowered his staff, I could see the strain of many days of struggling come to the surface.

We walked into the main area, with the Speaker making a point to keep as much distance from me as he could and settled down.

"I understand there is a need for Asylum, yes?" The lawyer like thestral called out as soon as Princess Luna gestured to him. "Given that we cannot ask your true name due to your special circumstances the Princess has informed me of, an alias will suffice. However, if Asylum is to be given, we need more details than what you conveyed to the Princess in the brief moment you contacted her. Could you elaborate?"

The Speaker simply nodded and set down the staff in his lap as he continued to hold the wrapped package.

"I suppose the best point to start would be when the Fey first asked for aid. We successfully managed to get rid of the attackers, but at a cost. Elder First Webweaver, our strongest weaver of the web that protects our village, expended too much of her stamina repairing the web during the battle. Indeed, the last act she managed to perform was placing her palm in the ink and pressing it to the treaty that all our elders signed, dying only an hour later."

He took a pause to wipe away a tear. "This left only my father, Gatekeeper, as the last living Fey of the original generation that came to Equis as a child. The last Fey that stood in the way of newborn Fey from being considered native in the eyes of magic."

With this, he took his free hand and carefully unraveled the package to reveal a tiny baby Fey.

"It is a taboo subject as an old agreement between the first generation said they would not seek each other's deaths, but when my wife went into labor..."

Tears flowed and the baby, seemingly sensing its father's pain, became uneasy. Forcing himself to rock his child back and forth as he fought through his grief, he slowly regained enough composure to continue.

"When my wife went into labor with our daughter, my father, in an act of love and desperation, locked himself in his study and cut off his own head."

"That's terrible!" I called out in utter shock, "Why in the name of all things sacred would he do that!?"

The Speaker looked at me with raw contempt. Once he stood up and placed his baby in Princess Luna's care, he went right up to me and laid in on me.

"And what do you know of our plight!?"

Coming up to me and forcing me to back up to the wall, he continued, "You may bear a similar curse of foreign blood, but you know nothing of the agony! I have heard tell of your difficulties with our surrogate mother!"

Shifting is posture to a dramatic crybaby form, he mocked me, "'Oh boo-hoo, the Animus Mundi does not call me her child. Oh woe is me!'"

Looking at me with disgust he continued in anger again, "Phooey! She loves you like no other! No Fey, nor even the most talented Servants we have had the chance to meet over the millennia took less than a year to gain any favor from her through rigorous study! And yet, despite not trying to study in the least, she took to you within days!"

He slapped his bear chest then brought is arms forward and cocked his head. "Not one Fey of my generation are considered her children either, and we were born here! I have lived though countless ages of the other races, and have known nothing else but this world, yet still my true name can still impose great detriment if it is ever spoken by another! Do you know how difficult it is for an Animus Mundi to grant a second true name!? You could spend a hundred of your life times searching the cosmos and not find a single entity that has been adopted and granted a true name by a second home world! The Animus Mundi of Equis only granted one to that draconequus in an act of desperation!"

Time seemed to slow. Not quite stop, but slow. The Speaker lost his posture and stepped back, looking at something that was behind me.

Suddenly, I felt a great pain stabbing me through the back. I felt myself being lifted up from the inside, like the stabbing pain was grasping my heart.

"And now the secret is out," I heard Discord speak as if he were whispering into my ear, but loud enough for the whole room to hear. "The secret who's details I've tried to dance around to hide from you for your own sake. The secret that I have a prior true name before being granted the name Discord by the Animus Mundi."

I could feel a strong magic being woven into my body.

"If it were not for the fact that it would break my dear Fluttershy's heart, I would be killing you where you stand. You who are able to order the one entity still in this world that still knows my first true name. The name that can still be used against me to this day."

My eyes went to Archimedes as the magic was suffocating me. It coursed through my every vein, every artery, my lungs, my heart, and up into my skull where it wrapped around my brain.

"Know this. I trust him and his sense of duty to never jeopardize his mission by revealing it voluntarily or to even elude to it. You, however, I do not trust. Not to that degree. If you ever have him reveal my true name, the curse I place into you now will cut you down. You will be dead before you can even speak the first syllable."

After this, Discord let go and I fell to the Speaker's hooves. As quickly as he came, he bowed to Fluttershy apologetically and disappeared.

With a deep gasp to recover, I saw the whole room stare at me like they had seen a ghost.

"OK, then... Archimedes?"

I looked up at his perch. "Please, whatever I do, do not answer if I ask for Discord's first name. I am ordering you to disobey me in that scenario. Can you do that?"

With a nod, he quickly made himself scarce and hid inside the little hut he almost never went into.

With that odd interruption settled, the Speaker continued, though with a broken momentum to his temper. "You asked why he killed himself? If my father was still alive before my daughter took her first breath, she would have been cursed the same way I had been. He only had a few decades of life left, and he willingly gave it up to give his granddaughter a chance to live a better life."

He pulled out a bit of parchment with some notes in a language that definitely wasn't Equestrian.

"His dying wish was that I show her to the world. His granddaughter, the first truly native Fey of Equis. But the rest of the counsel would not have it. They sought to weave her life force to the web, binding her to the village like the rest, save for myself. If they managed to do that, then it would take a great ritual to unbind her like it did me thousands of years ago."

Taking his daughter back from Princess Luna, he held her close. "My wife and I barely managed to get the message out and sabotage the web long enough for me to escape with her. My wife is surely paying the price for this as we speak."

The lawyer looked up at him, doing his best to write down the story. With a nod of approval from Princess Luna, the Lawyer spoke up.

"It seems that Princess Luna has approved your application for Asylum, both for you and your daughter. But if I am to get my paperwork straight, I need to know what I can put down on her papers. What alias are you willing to have her go by?"

The Speaker gave his first genuine smile since I had met him and held is daughter as tightly as he dared in a hug.

"No alias is needed for her. Our names are a bit like the tribal griffins' in that they are not so much a series of syllables, but a woven thought. A concept. In Equestrian, her name—yes her name—would be spoken as 'Hope.' 'Hope Bittersweet.'"

The Meaning of Family, Part 1, The Study of Healers (Unslayable Foes arc, part 7)

Over the next two days, I worked alongside Speaks with Talons and the other two in his casting circle.

I came to learn a lot about how the Servants cast magic in a circle, sharing the load and applying more force to overcome the added taxation of healing. Most of it was jargon I only half understood, but the biggest thing was that it required at least three servants and the maximum power of the spell was capped by the weakest caster.

In this case, oddly, it wasn't Speaks with Talons that was the weakest link. He was a slow learner, but he still had been studying since he was a child. No, the weakest link was the freelance Zebra stallion.

It turned out that he was not always a servant, and had only just started meditating on his own in recent years. He refused to go into details about his past but it was clear he still looked up to Zecora in great admiration despite not being her formal apprentice. While Speaks with Talons had trouble being in a circle at all, now that he could he had more stamina for it than the zebra stallion.

The zebra had been introduced to me as Consolation. This proved to be a headache due to an odd hiccup in the translation of my amulet. This was because he was the only creature I had met so far who's name was rooted a meaning and not just syllables, and was actively spoken in the native tongue instead of Equestrian. Even when I tried to speak it as it was spoken in his native language, my amulet translated my non-Equestrian words to their meaning in Equestrian. Needless to say, this caused some awkward situations on my first day working with him.

"He is a natural healer, though," Speaks with Talons mentioned to me while the young zebra stallion caught his breath so that they could continue, "Like Mandible, he has so many little techniques outside of magic he has helped treat others with. Consolation has only been awoken as a servant for about a year and yet he can already heal in a circle. I, however, have never been good at healing."

He shook his head and looked at me, noticing I had not even touched my water as we sat at the bakery.

"I have you to thank for the ability to heal at all, Beast-kin." His tone went sad, but was full of resolve. "You also helped me finally realize what I have known all along but not wanted to admit."

I could see his talon get stiff around his own mug, resisting the urge to squeeze it, and the bittersweet pain of acceptance in his eyes. "I will never be a proper healer. The raven tribe are a tribe of hunters, warriors and fishers. We barely even have any fields of crops compared to the other tribes. No, it is not my place to heal, but to destroy. I destroy those that would destroy more, so that I can protect my brothers and sisters in servitude as they heal. This is why the Animus Mundi gave me the burden of being a quasi servant."

I looked at him odd. "Quasi servant?"

He closed his eyes and nodded briefly before opening them again.

"It is the term for those that grow slowly in magic among the servants like myself. Quasi servants are still servants, but our magic is different. Many of us choose to train in a wider range of skills outside of the magic than most because of the additional amount of time needed to reflect on the magic we learn. Whether we study other arts or not, it still only comes so fast. The biggest fault among us is that the magic is also independent from the Animus Mundi once learned. It cannot be denied that we learn it from her, but it becomes infused into our minds as well as our hearts, almost like that of the pony mages. While I meditate and communicate with her like any servant, I do not need to call out to her in the moment I use my magic. Some among the servants see us as charity cases. Grossly flawed and barely functional through fouler means and we should be allowed to serve only in lesser roles out of pity. The only reason the ones that believe this even tolerate us is that they can't deny the Animus Mundi not only allows it, but thinks of us far more warmly than most."

He looked over at the wagons that were just arriving with more food for us to purify and take to more populated areas.

"It's also why I have so much trouble forming a circle with others. With the need to use our minds as well as our hearts, it makes it difficult to work in harmony with the others that only use their hearts. This is on top of the fact we learn magic at about half the rate of the normal servants and healing is extra difficult for us. No, I've always been more efficient in using magic to destroy than to heal. I just need to accept it."

He took a breath to steel himself and got up, only to have my hand catch him.

"Hey, death and destruction are a part of life. You shouldn't be a shamed of it." I gave him a confident smile. "I've gotten to know you pretty well by now. You have a good heart. I also know you had one back when you were young. I saw how you earned your name that day. I think she knew this when she empowered you with her more destructive magic. She knew she could trust you to be careful and never abuse the power."

I let go and let him actually get up. Getting up myself, I finished.

"You're not a weak servant just because your healing magic is weak. Out of all her servants, you were strong in exactly the way she needed to trust you with the dark side of the force."

I had to wave my hand to dismiss that last part as he looked at me with that familiar look of not fully understanding the phrase I made. "And I have a sneaking suspicion it is probably true for the other quasi servants too. Don't ever let the rest make you feel ashamed of that."

With the heart to heart over, we started towards the door to help the unloading, only to find Mandible and the Speaker coming through the door with a fussy baby Hope in tow.

"Consolation," We heard Mandible call over to the zebra stallion, "I need to ask, do you have any fennel and peppermint in your supplies? We have ran out of her mother's milk that was sent with her and Hope is not responding well to pony formula. We have to calm her stomach before we can try any alternatives for feeding her."

Consolation looked up and glanced at the baby. "I do, but are you trying to make gripe water for her? That recipe for gripe water is not healthy for a newborn of any race and we would be gambling if we tried any other herbs for gripe water too. Bring her here. I may have another technique that can avoid hurting her digestive tract."

It seemed to sting Mandible that his remedy was potentially harmful, but he yielded to the more experienced herbalist and ushered the Speaker over.

As they set Hope on the table, Consolation looked to her father and asked, "Do you have anything of hers, a toy perhaps? A loose hair that came off will suffice."

The Speaker nodded and brought out what looked to be a simple bit of wood cleaned up and shaven smooth in a funny shape, covered in a bit of spit. It took me a moment but it was basically an impromptu pacifier made in a way she could suckle but not choke on it.

Consolation took the pacifier and a doll out of his own supplies. Carefully placing the pacifier on top of where the doll's mouth might be, he brought out needles.

"Do not worry. These will not touch her, nor cause any puncturing through my doll. They are simply to coax her natural gates into calming down to help her with her discomfort until her gas passes. In short, it will keep her from fussing and making it worse. Then we can look into relieving the gas."

It was weird, seeing him work on a doll that was twice the size of the child laying right next to it, but his methods seemed to be working. Hope was calming down, but wasn't quite completely settled yet. She was still feeling something.

I just shook my head and looked back at Speaks with Talons. "Some of the techniques you servants use to heal still amaze me to this day."

At first he was in shock, but looked back at me. "That's not a servant technique. It's voodoo, an æther based magic that manipulates the flow of energies in a body and mind. Though they do it through tools rather than horns like the unicorns, it started with the study of ancient mages who sought to better understand the natural patterns the Animus Mundi works through. That is why Consolation does not speak of his past before becoming a servant. He was a witch doctor."

When he saw me not understanding what he was implying, he shook his head and replied. "They study natural magics, but unlike quasi servants, they are not blessed by the Animus Mundi at all. This practice is purely focused in the mind, not the heart. Many servants want to lump quasi servants up with them, seeing us as only one step removed from them in practice. We have common roots, but there is bad blood between some shamans and the witch doctors."

Having completed the procedure with his doll and instructing the Speaker to carefully move her legs in a bicycle like motion, Consolation turned towards us. "'Never is it a waste to let a healer heal.' That is what Zecora once told me. So I will not deny my past, nor the medical knowledge passed to me by my old teacher. But I would appreciate it if you didn't needlessly tell others. I walk a different path now."

A few minutes passed as the Speaker steadily worked the gas out of his daughter's belly. After a while, we saw Plasma Wave and another volunteer come in to Sugar Cube Corner.

"Here you are!" The pegasus mare called out as they approached Mandible. Upon seeing Consolation, she gave a smile of familiarity. "I heard you were back in town! I can see you've finished growing up since I saw you last."

Consolation could only give an uneasy smile and a bowing of his head to her.

Holding his now calmed daughter, the Speaker came up to the group and the guard. "Never have I seen æther so beautifully wielded. If only more magi could learn to work with its flow like you did instead of push through it with raw force, the Fey probably wouldn't be so paranoid of it. Maybe after Hope is grown I can return and show them what I've seen in the outside world."

He locked eyes with me for a moment as I could see the gears turning in his head about how to judge me as well. Ultimately, he took a step back and called to Mandible. "Please tell the doctors that I have to refuse their request. While my wells of magical stamina are far deeper than most, it also regenerates far more slowly than most. Until Hope can safely eat something else, I have to save all my stamina to feed her."

Turning to the kitchen, the Speaker called out to the owners. "I must apologize, but do you have one of those 'baby bottles' I was shown by Nurse Redheart? Hope seems to prefer them to the nozzle of a milk bladder."

Upon seeing a nod from an empathetic Ms Cake, the Speaker set Hope down on the floor and spoke, "P^le_as^e, s_ur^ro_ga^te _mo^th_er, ^he_lp ^me _fe^ed _my ^da_ug^ht_er," while passing his staff over his hand.

With this, a familiar sight of ten berries appeared in his hand. His hand was so small that he had to drop his staff to keep from spilling them onto the floor.

With some quick maneuvering he placed them in a pouch at his side then pulled one berry out again. When Ms Cake brought the baby bottle, he placed the one berry inside the bottle then reached up and set it on the counter.

Turning to Mandible and Plasma Wave, he took off his pouch and offered it to them. "But it is not our way to waste any resource. So you may also tell the doctors that while I will not expend any of my magic to create any additional berries, they may still have the excess that would otherwise go bad after I have seen to it that I have enough to feed her. I sympathize with the children who's stomachs were all but shut down by the poisoned food, but my duty as her father comes first. With her mother unable to feed her, I can't risk sparing even a single drop of my magic for anything else."

With the pouch in tow, Plasma Wave nodded and prepared to head out to deliver them. "Hopefully this will still help them get back to normal food. With so many from the party sick, the doctors are having a hard time rationing that stuff they put straight into the blood until they can get more in. I've survived on those berries myself when Zecora made them, but I'm still surprised even a baby can eat them without straining their bellies."

After Plasma Wave stepped out, he noticed the mare hadn't left with him. Turning back around, he poked his head back in.

"Lightning Dust? Are you coming?"

The mare he called out to shook her head and looked at Consolation. "I'll meet up with you later, dad. I have an old acquaintance I want to catch up with."

With another nod and a simple smile, Plasma Wave left.

Turning to Consolation, Lightning Dust lowered her ears for a moment then shook her head back and forth. "So did you hear what happened to Gets Things Done?"

Consolation simply sighed and closed is eyes. "Yes. He died last night from one of the more quick acting diseases they contained within the prisons. I know I should morn him, but with the sheer amount of pain he caused for his own ends, I can't seem to shed a tear for my older brother's passing. In some ways I'm actually relieved."

Lightning Dust Nodded in kind, then abruptly turned her attention towards us.

"OK, I caught up with Consolation. So I wasn't technically lying, but I need to ask all of you for something. You're all healers, right?"

With all of us gathering, Speaks with Talons and myself scratched our heads. "Technically, in our cases?" I spoke for the both of us while the rest simply nodded.

With an expression of slight desperation, Lightning Dust gave a look of a mare out of options. "It's my dad. I've known him my whole life and I can tell something's wrong. He's really good at putting on a brave face but what I've seen today has gone above and beyond. Something's terribly wrong with him, but he won't admit it."

She looked at us with a growing expression of fear.

"The doctors are stretched thin and either can't or won't fight to get him to consent to an examination. Please, figure out what is wrong with my dad and help him."

The entire room went silent at her odd request. After it sank in, we all looked at Lightning Dust with unease and empathy.

The Speaker went first as he reached for the baby bottle again, then his daughter, "If I find something, I will be sure to do what I can. However, much of my time and energy is filled with taking care of Hope and learning to get along in this outside world. So I am not sure how much I can do."

When he turned to the rest of us, he seemed a bit surprised our faces matched his expression. With a gurgle from Hope's now hungry belly causing her to get fussy again, he proceeded to excuse himself and start mashing the berry into juice and dilute it with water to bottle feed her a little at a time.

Tree Hugger, whom had been quiet thus far, came up and put her hoof on Lightning Dust's shoulder. "As much as we'd like to help figure out your dad's bad mojo, we have to stay here to purify the food for the greater good."

Mandible, being the only one that wasn't preoccupied, piped in. "I will try to do what I can too, but he only sees me as the broken changeling he rescued that one time. I don't think he'd open up to me much."

Speaks with Talons looked at the first cart they finished unloading and shook his head. "He has a bond with the Beast-kin and myself from our adventures, so he might open up if we could be with him. Sadly, we will likely take the rest of the morning for the last of today's batches and will be completely exhausted after that."

Lightning Dust closed her eyes to look inward as her face became mixed with an array of motions in a span of only a few seconds. Anger, confused frustration, and finally disappointment.

She didn't make a fuss, but rather just turned to walk out.

"Wait," I called out to her.

She stopped in her tracks to turn her head back.

I gave an uneasy apologetic face to Speaks with Talons and the other healers, but steeled myself to continue. "If I can get Archimedes to cooperate, I think I can wrap the last of this up quickly. I still have to go home immediately after due to my paperwork, but it should free up you guys."

"No," I heard Archimedes call to me, which I promptly ignored.

"I play by a different set of rules compared to natives when it comes to casting. I actually have a limited reserve of energy I can tap into. The catch is that I have to have Archimedes's cooperation to cast the spell I've been using here, and he's been a stick in the mud."

"What if Dalock attacks?"

Still ignoring him, I continued "He doesn't want me wasting my spell slots, my reserves, doing a spell I can cast without them if given enough time. He is afraid of not having enough magic to deal with something if it happens, but the fact is I don't have enough magic to deal with it even if it did. I need to rely on my friends, but if I hold on to my reserves needlessly, I won't be able to rely on as many friends and my resources will dwindle in the long run."

I turned to Archimedes on his perch, noting that Speaks with Talons followed my movement. "All I can do is up cast level one spells while Dalock has the ability to stockpile his magic indefinitely. In the long run this is a bad idea and you know it."

"He hasn't let me cast this spell with the reserves that let me cast quickly. Please, Archimedes,-" I shifted my tone to a pleading one as most of the creatures present started looking at him longingly, just as I needed them to. "-Partner, will you work with me on this?"

The owl stuck his head down "...I still feel this is a bad idea, but you have a point. We will need allies to take him down."

Turning to the teams that were piling the food in from outside, I told them to stop. With everyone looking at me through the door or windows, I made quick work of the nine carts, taking only a few seconds at each cart to move my hands and call out to Archimedes before casting the spell to purify the food, still in the carts.

Coming back inside, I used up my smallest remaining spell slot on the pile that had already been unloaded.

Almost every creature was shocked at my ability, except for the Speaker.

With a look of disgust and contempt, he practically spat at me. "You still wield that forbidden energy?"

I rolled my eyes up as if I had a migraine, then turned to him. "OK, one, I never had a say in it being inside me or not. Two, this 'forbidden energy' is the very stuff that ended the war and made this world safer for you and your daughter. Three, until I manage to figure out how to use the magic from your precious 'surrogate mother,' it's the only healing magic I have. So hate me if you want, but it is a bad idea. Hatred is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die."

The Speaker was taken back for a moment as the rest of the room was surprised by my bit of wisdom and sudden boldness.

"'Surrogate Mother,' that is what the Fey call her?" I heard Mandible call out, breaking the tension.

He shrank back when we looked at him oddly. "I couldn't be sure with his thick accent earlier. It's just that Wild Storm says it's one of the things I must meditate on. What to call out to her as when I start to awaken as her servant. I was going to just use the same words as my teacher, but he insisted it needed to be personal, from my own heart. From what I've heard others call her, her raw power and brood like..."

He paused, trying to find a better wording.

"...Or what mammals might call maternal nature have resonated with me. With my insect heritage, I feel the title Queen of Queens might be a befitting title for me to call her. I still have a ways to go before I solidify it though."

Pushing the more pressing matters forward, Archimedes asked, "So how many spell slots do you still have?"

Shaking my head and focusing inward, I did a quick count. "Three level four, two level five and one level six."

"It will have to do. Try not to expend any more. We at least need something to last until help arrives if he attacks."

I looked at all of them, working in harmony, ecstatic to suddenly be able to help out Lightning Dust. A part of me was happy to be able to enable them, but mostly I was just sad I couldn't do more.

With a slumping of my shoulders, I turned towards the door and called out.

"Well, regardless, good luck you guys. I'm happy I managed to free you guys up, but I gotta head back to the cottage now."

Speaks with Talons stood in front of the door, blocking my exit. "No, you don't."

"Oh come on now. With my work complete I am obligated by law to return home when I'm not with Fluttershy or otherwise detained."

"No, your work isn't done. The first day you purified the food you might have been working under the Cakes, but Tree Hugger, Consolation an myself were put in charge of purifying the food and we are the ones you have been answering to since that day. Right now we are your employers, and we say your job isn't finished yet."

I stopped and stared at him as I absorbed his words. A smile slowly grew on my face and I stammered in a sense of relief, "Y-yes sir."

Author's Notes:

For those that haven't read it yet, I'm sharing a link to an old work involving Plasma Wave. Echos of Foalhood.

I'm also heading out on a long trip with multiple hours over the road to help somebody I know out tomorrow. So please wish me safe travels.

The Meaning of Family, Part 2, Labors of Love (Unslayable Foes arc, part 8)

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the second part of the two part being so late compared to the first. I had a general idea for this chapter set up when I released part 1, but I became so emotionally drained that I couldn't put the pieces together until just recently, even when I tried. Some items tackled and some new, but ultimately sour, ties severed, I'm back on track.

I was standing in the lobby of the hospital. Speaks with Talons and Plasma Wave were chatting away about adventures during the round up missions. Meanwhile, I casually listened in and occasionally commented while I pored over the small notebook that acted as my wizard spell book I had compiled under Starlight after the war ended. They understood why I didn't dedicate to the conversation and didn't pay it much mind. Though it was rare for me to do it during my time in Ponyville, I had done it more times then any of us could clearly recall during the round up missions.

Yet, I had to take a brief pause when I found myself in utter shock at what I had overheard had happened earlier that morning.

"They're using my advice with so little testing, and with children!?"

Plasma Wave turned to me in a bit of a grump. "It isn't that simple. The colt is allergic to the only medicine the doctors have for the disease affecting him and the griffin apprentices are stretched thin healing those that are on death's door."

Speaks with Talons came up on the others side. "My brothers will do their best to heal him if he takes a turn for the worst, but the doctors have determined there is no additional danger to Pipsqueak's life from the transfusion itself."

Plasma Wave smiled at Speaks with Talons, "From what I heard about it from Keen Wit's dad, Keen Wit and Pipsqueak happen to have the exact same blood type and Keen Wit not only has had the disease before, but was exposed to it again at the same time Pipsqueak was. Given that he's not sick in the slightest now, the doctor's got his parents to consent to a sample for tests and determined his body's producing exactly what it needs to fight it off."

Speaks with Talons nodded again. "I will not pretend to understand these 'blood types' the doctors speak of, but with the two colts matching up, the doctors determined that this transfusion between them was the best chance Pipsqueak had. The shaman's remedy for this illness takes the dedication of a truly skilled herbalist and needs multiple days to work on any creature the doesn't have the magic of æther coursing through their veins like unicorns or dragons do. So my brother, Sings to Canopy, could not bring himself to object to it when they sought his counsel, given the colt's need."

Speaks with Talons saw me listen intently but failed to smile. With a furled brow of frustration, he continued.

"If it is of any comfort to you, battle brother, they are refraining from taking this measure with the other ponies affected until they have more research, be it with adults or children. On top of this, the parents of both colts were informed this was experimental and of the risks before they agreed to this."

I thought about how they had too little time to even see if it would work, but at least they weren't doing it in mass. Maybe they knew more about the subjects than I had been led to believe and I had just helped connect some dots. Either way, it was done and I couldn't do much to undo it.

Instead, I just swallowed my pride and focused on the mission at hand. Shifting my weight to my other foot, I brought my notebook back up to continue reading and turned to Plasma Wave.

"So you've been spending as much time as you could volunteering for the hospital as a counselor for the guards that had to have amputations from the gangrene outbreak. That's neat."

Plasma Wave made note of a nurse walking by, and furled his brow. "Yes, and I've also been spending my time listening to my daughter nag at me to get examined by the doctors when there's nothing wrong with me!"

With a glare, he practically snarled. "And I'm not stupid, either. You've been preoccupied for days now purifying that food but you just so happen to pull out your special foreign magic and whip it up quickly immediately after I leave her alone with you guys. And don't pretend you didn't! You wouldn't be going over your little scribble notebook of spells otherwise!"

With this, Plasma Wave stood up and saw that same nurse stallion turn on the indicator that the patients in the recovery wing he was helping with were ready for counselors and visitation.

"What do you guys do with that exact time you are granted but buddy up to me? You two have been some of the best adventuring buddies I could ever hope to have and it's great to catch up, but I'm telling you that I'm fine! Now go find somepony else to help, because I'm sick and tired of being told I need it!"

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly and practically marched like he was in a parade to that wing.

I just about gave chase when Speaks with Talons put his talon out to stop me, holding it out just shy of touching me. It was subtle, and an outsider wouldn't have understood, but I got what he was using his talon and namesake to say. Plasma Wave was triggered. There was no reaching him right now and Speaks with Talons was using my own gesture to relay that message to me quietly as I had done for him in the past.

I shrank back and returned to working with my notes.

Maybe ten minutes later, I finally finished enough reflection on my notes to feel it kick in. My Arcane Recovery feature as a wizard, while at the most rudimentary level, did let me restore a single level one spell slot after reflecting on my notes for an hour or so. Starlight and Princess Twilight wanted to hook me up to a machine and run tests right away so badly when they found out that they had to be held back by their friends. Ultimately, I had to concede to the testing the next day, but only after they calmed down.

With a smile, I closed my notebook and looked up.

Immediately I was startled to see Fluttershy patiently waiting for me to finish.

"Um, Moss? I'm glad you're here. I was hoping you could help with something?"

With a press of my amulet, I nodded and steadied myself.

"I'll try. What do you-"

I was cut off by a miniaturized Discord lashing out from Fluttershy's mane. His back limbs and tail were still caught in her mane without disturbing it as he stretched his form and grasped my amulet.

"Enough with the politeness! Here's a recharge! We need to get moving!"

With the slightest touch of his lion paw, he dumped so much energy into my previously empty amulet that the overflow protocols were triggered and I felt the surge of the remaining energy shock my body in the form of electricity.

It did more pain than damage, but it was enough to send me over the edge with the sudden surprise that it made me jump back.

"I'm sorry for his behavior, Moss. With..." She went meek. "With you know who out and about again, Discord has refused to leave my side."

Shrinking back into her mane to guard her zealously, Discord piped in with a much quieter tone. "If your counterpart or any soul stupid enough to try to harm her comes near her, I'll rip them a new one, sew it back together inside out, then rip them apart again before they can even try to utter the words 'I'm sorry.'"

A chill came over me as I was reminded of the curse he placed upon me as a compromise on Fluttershy's behalf. I knew he wasn't kidding. If it weren't for the fact he couldn't detect Dalock due to his and his familiar's Amulets of Proof against Detection and Location Starlight had examined before he stole them back, Discord could have already been out there, found him and ended him with little effort. As powerful as Dalock was, Discord was on a whole different level still. I couldn't help but be grateful he was working with us in spite of his chaotic nature.

* * *

Fluttershy, myself, Speaks with Talons and our little almost out of sight followers, went outside the hospital to an open field behind it. It was littered with impromptu tents full of patients of a kind of disease that I didn't understand entirely. All I was able to absorb was that it was one with a nearly nonexistent mortality rate when a healthy pony could tend to the others, but it still left the infected as weak as a kitten. Their core body metabolism and immunity would be as strong as a healthy individual beyond barely being able to lift their heads. As long as they weren't sick with anything else, their biggest threats were dehydration, starvation or a predator catching them from being so weak.

This simple cure of just tender love and care that even volunteers could do, combined with their sheer numbers, the victims of this disease were brought outside to make more room for the others packing the hospital so tightly. At the behest of the Tribal High Shaman before he left, he had recommended leaving them in the fresh air and tend to them around the clock as they get their strength back, saying the fresh air tended to actually help in the recovery by a day or two.

I had to take a moment to remember that the ponies could control the weather conditions before I objected to the logic.

With a small group of nurses and a single doctor overseeing the volunteers, it was quite the sight of cooperation. I wasn't super savvy to my home world's history, but I had a suspicion that this might have been what it might have looked like when the nations of the world clashed and the people of my nation's past put aside their differences, put aside their personal problems, and rose to the occasion to fight a problem that threatened all of them. In a way I was almost happy to be reminded of that time in history. By the time I had been born and raised before I was thrown into this new world, I honestly had no idea if such a time would ever come again. Too much politics and mud slinging.

I had to shake my head as we reached our destination. It was probably an idealized sentiment of looking back at the past like a photograph. I'm sure problems were still under the surface, but at least that didn't keep them from becoming united.

Fluttershy nodded to the pony running the impromptu kitchen to feed the overflowing patients. "Blossomforth and Flitter and the other caregivers that recovered quickly from this disease from having it as foals can handle the animals on their own. As much as I hate parting with the animals, we ultimately agreed that we needed to help as much as we can and only so many of us are needed at the shelter. Since I had this sickness as a filly, at most I'll be out for a day if I do catch it again. So I came here to volunteer."

"You shouldn't be here. You could get sick." I heard Archimedes call out to me.

I looked up at him circling above us. "The sick need medicine, not the healthy. So you can take that opinion of staying away and zip it!"

He said nothing for a moment, but responded coldly, beyond his normal disdain, like he had been hurt. "Yes, partner... Sir."

I just had realized that I had inadvertently given him an order as my familiar when I heard a weak voice from behind.

"Is that you again, Mr Not-Invader?"

Turning around, I saw a feeble white unicorn filly barely managing to come up to me.

"You need to get back to bed!"

It took a moment, but I recognized her as one of the first ponies to warm up to me after I had arrived. She had even tried to recharge my amulet, despite not even getting a single charge in for her effort.

"I know, but I wanted to thank you. You're donation is what made this entire..."

She stopped talking as she was lifted up in the kind of telekinetic aura I'd seen unicorns use.

"That is quite enough energy spent, little one." I heard a familiar voice call out as a larger pony approached.

Without the need to support herself, her body went completely limp like a rag doll and she called out. "but Aunt Luna..."

"Don't you 'But Aunt Luna' me. I've been told that if Applejack catches you or the other Cutie Mark Crusaders out and about again she will personally tie you to your beds. I'm tempted to do it myself. Back to resting."

"Shouldn't you be far away from here, your highness?" I heard a nails on a chalk board like voice call out from the kitchen.

Turning, I saw Spoiled Rich pop her head out alongside her servant, working in the kitchen alongside the Apples.

Before I could respond, Luna was promptly back, teleporting straight in between the volunteers that were getting soup to administer to the ponies in bed.

Several of the ponies were startled, but no soup was spilled.

"I was ill with a much stronger strain of this disease, one that could actually kill a pony when I was young centuries ago. Unlike with you, we were able to confirm with the doctors that my body won't be affected before I came down. And you should be grateful that we are allowing your family to work off your crime in community service. If it is too much for you, you are always welcome to take your chances in those quarantined prisons instead. Just realize that once you go, we can't let you out again until the quarantine is lifted."

I recalled a time where I could have made rain suddenly appear above her, ruining her makeup, but had decided against it. That look of a defeated "Karen" on her face definitely made up for it and my more immature side was properly karma-sated now.

Meanwhile, I was doing my light breathing routine to keep myself... relatively calm in Luna's presence.

Turning to me apologetically, she came up carefully. "Though Sweetie Belle did have a point. The donations collected from your fundraising via answering questions did help considerably in setting this up expediently. Though we know it was simply meant for a general charity of Twilight's choosing, the royal family does thank you for the immediate funding before the paperwork could be pushed through."

With a hand to the spot where my forehead and nose met, I shook off the impending headache I knew I'd have to deal with later. Not wanting to dwell on it, I changed the subject by asking, "'Aunt' Luna? Was she another princess or something?"

A merry smile came to Princess Luna's face as she quelled a laugh before it came out. "Nothing of the sort, Moss. The Ponies of Ponyville were the first to open up to me after I returned and it is simply a nickname some of the local children gave me after I granted them my blessing in gratitude a time back. While privileged to see me in the palace, the ones from this town that hold my blessing are not actually related to myself. It is simply an honorary title I carry from them with no real weight."

She shook her head. "I came because Ponyville is one of the few locations I can substitute for my sister's duties to help with moral, but I fear my presence here may be causing more harm than good after all."

I looked back to the line where they were just getting back in order.

"Let me guess. You're offering to comfort them, but they keep getting upset?"

Her eyes went wide when she saw what I was thinking back to. After a moment she simply gave a nod.

"It's because you're coming on too strong. I know you're their princess, but they're sick and probably feeling very vulnerable. Try taking it slow and let it be their choice to be comforted or not. There's a time for a firm stance and time for a gentle one. Firm isn't working, try gent..."

I cautiously bowed to Princess Luna as quickly as I felt I could get away with, and turned back in the direction of the hospital.

"I'll volunteer with you as soon as I'm able, Fluttershy, but I have to fix something."

Turning to Speaks with Talons as he came up next to me, I gave him a serious look. "Gentle isn't working. We're doing this the firm way. It's time to intervene."

---

We caught Mandible and Plasma Wave talking to the nurse at the amputee station.

"I'm sorry about before but..." I shifted from thought to speech. "Partner?"

"...OK, fine. One last one, but only because you managed to replenish the slot earlier and the urgency."

With a nod, I reached into my component pouch and pulled out a yew leaf. Moving it across my eyes, I called out.

"^He_lp ^me _se^e."

Immediately, I saw a startling sight. Plasma Wave's featherless wing was glowing hard with an infected cyst underneath the mechanical wing. This was coupled with another disease eating away at him, mostly in the wing but also throughout his body. I could see the properties of the disease, but I couldn't figure out their names.

Not glancing at him for too long, I moved as if to pass him, only to reach out and grab his mechanical wing where the edge of the cyst was sure to be sensitive.

I had barely grabbed it, but the action caused him to scream out in pain and drop like a sack of potatoes. His brave face broken, he was clearly breathing heavily at the pain my grabbing of the wing caused.

Speaks with Talons worked with me to remove his mechanical wing so that the others could see the cyst.

Once Speaks with Talons saw the cyst on the exposed part of the wing, he looked at Plasma Wave in anger.

"You're getting that examination, now!"

---

Plasma Wave was on an impromptu couch turned hospital bed in one of the other rooms that had been expanded for allowing a second patient.

"Doc, I need to let you know, I didn't do it to save the wing. If it needs to go, fine. I'm not going to be a hypocrite to the ponies I've been-gah!... Visiting."

The doctor looked at the cyst as he finished draining it carefully.

"Why didn't you at least get it checked up? A simple prescription of penicillin could have handled both the gangrene and prevented the infection of the staphylococcus. Now the gangrene has metastasized."

"I didn't want to clog up the hospital any more. And the infection looked like it was going down. It wasn't nearly this bad this morning."

He looked at Plasma Wave's vitals the old fashioned way, since the machines were all being used from the hospital being overrun.

"Well, We're going to have to go to surgery. Your body isn't responding to the medicine fast enough. The shaman's apprentices just exhausted themselves and they aren't going to recover their stamina in time to catch this."

Plasma wave looked at the doctor. "Give it to me straight. What are my odds with the surgery?"

Pulling up a page on his personal clip board, the doctor shook his head. "If I were to give a good guess, at your age and the progression of the gangrene, maybe thirty percent? We will have to bump up some surgeries-"

"No!"

We all looked at Plasma Wave in shock. "No. No bumping up anypony's surgeries. Not on my account. I know the surgeons are stretched thin as it is. You're all ready having to make tough calls on which ones to let the shaman's treat, which ones to operate on, and are on the verge of just letting some go. I've lived a long life. I'm not risking some young one's treatment for a mere thirty percent that I know you're high balling."

"But-"

Plasma Wave got angry. "I have the right to refuse treatment! Now stop wasting time on me and get back out there!"

The room was solemn as the tired doctor just sighed, nodded and left. The the elderly earth pony mare that was also sharing his room gave an empathetic but sad face.

"At least one of us will recover to help the young." He turned to me. "Moss, you just wanted to help, and I forgive you for that stunt, but could you and the big lug do one last thing?"

With a quiet nod, Speaks with Talons and I leaned in.

"Just stay here? I know it's greedy of me. I don't want my daughter to see me like this, but I don't want to be alone at the end either."

It was a few minutes in as the reality sank in. Plasma Wave was going to die to make sure others could get the limited treatment available.

"I want you two to know, I didn't think it'd end up like this. If I had, I'd have gone to the doctors the moment they had a chance to see me. Now I'm even more of a bother."

Speaks with Talons came up and cupped Plasma Wave's head in his talon, pressing their foreheads together as he shed tears for the stallion. "Even in your last breaths, your worry is for others. Had you ever walked among my village, you would have been seen as a kindred spirit to both the shamans and the braves."

My mind, while in great pain, was in overdrive, thinking on what needed to be done. Memories of words past flashed through my mind.

"Never is it a waste to let a healer heal."

"I was going to just use the same words as my teacher, but he insisted it needed to be personal, from my own heart."

"That sounds more like what you want to think you mean to her, rather than what she means to you."

"Phooey! She loves you like no other!"

"...The ones from this town that hold my blessing are not actually related to myself. It is simply an honorary title I carry from them with no real weight."

"Stay strong, Battle Brother."

"Are you certain it is alright for me to call you cousin, Beast-kin? I am still only a student."

I knew what I could do to help, but a part of my mind still nagged at me.

"...We are going to have to make some tough calls. For the sake of lives, principles might be challenged."

I muttered under my breath, practically in a whisper, "Alright, fine."

Archimedes came over and gave a gentle gnawing at Plasma Wave's mane affectionately.

Not being noticed by my adventuring buddies, I closed my eyes and meditated inwardly on my beliefs.

"He who calls himself 'I Am,' please forgive me if I'm wrong."

With a slight pause to reset myself and dedicate, I heard Plasma Wave call out to Archimedes. "Aw, I didn't think you cared, Mr Grumpy Feathers."

"Animus Mundi? If you're listening, I'm desperate. I won't deny that. You don't seem to want worship, and I have no intention of serving you, but you seem to still like me. For reason's I'll never fathom, you seem to like me. I still have my doubts about my presence in this world, but if you're willing to help despite my not being your child and my lack of dedication, I won't object to it. Not anymore."

I opened up my tear stained eyes. I came up to Plasma Wave, still trying to put on a brave face to comfort me. With both hands, I pressed firmly onto his barrel and called out.

"Please, help me heal him-"

I took a deep breath and called out loudly.

"A^un_ti^e E_quⁱs!"

Suddenly, the room was alight with magic. I was drawn into the green mist like medium of the Animus Mundi, and yet I could still see the room around me. I saw the spell go off as well as new energy that had been held back flow through me and grant another level. Somehow, however, I knew this was different. Something different was fueling this level.

Archimedes and Plasma Wave simply looked at me in confusion. At the same time, the warmest sensation I had ever felt from the mist swept over me as I saw Speaks with Talons beak fall slack and his eyes follow the swirling essence infusing itself into me.

All the while, a pronounced thought from the Animus Mundi formed itself within me.

"Joy from your presence, son of Gaia."

The Restoration and Release (Unslayable Foes, part 9)

There I was, sitting in the hospital lobby with a desire to just crawl back into bed and pretend recent events would just undo themselves if I hid long enough.

And yet, the local alicorn princess was there, practically squirming as she wrote down notes and inadvertently making sure I'd never live it down as she geeked out about studying my next advancement of filling into my foreign magic for the ump-teenth time.

"I've heard æther mixing with the Animus Mundi's magic in some of her servants, and I recently learned that Alicorn magic is æther based but still laced with a touch of quintessence. The Tree of Harmony even used its link to the Animus Mundi to sustain itself when the elements are not nestled in its branches. Yet this is the first example I've ever heard of quintessence being used with the Animus Mundi's magic—at the same time and for the same task!"

I passed my mistletoe over my palm, and called out "A^un_ti^e, f_oo^d p_le^as_e?"

Immediately, the berries appeared in my hand for the fourth time in the last hour. For the third time that hour, Princess Twilight's eyes went wide as she saw the readings from the portable machine I was unwillingly hooked up to.

I unceremoniously let the berries roll out of my hand and into the bowl just as the doctor bowed in gratitude and took them away.

"One more time, please!? I want to see the data for it when you apply your upcasting technique!"

I finally let the emotions I had been letting slide into lament of my choice turn back into anger. Turning around, I gave her a solid glare.

I growled for half a second then barked my response, "No!"

I pulled the wires off and calmed myself enough to give a proper explanation to the not quite scientist like scholar of magic who was also a member of the royal family.

"Lesser restoration is a level two spell and can't be used with a level one slot. So I have agreed to use those on the berries. But all my level one slots are spent now and I have to conserve my level two spells and up for healing the sick."

Turning to the nurse that was coming up to me, I waved the princess off. "After the crisis maybe, but not right now."

The nurse bowed with gratitude just as deep as the doctor, and spoke, "Thank you for assisting with feeding the children this last week. One even found his cut leg healed up upon eating his."

I gave the nurse a nod in kind then, having a shrinking suspicion to what he wanted, I responded, "Yea, that's kinda due to my caster link with Archimedes. The quintessence I got from him boosts most any healing spell involving wounds, not just the ones I cast through him. So what is it this time? Need me to substitute for the trio again?"

The nurse nodded apologetically and gestured me to follow. "Sadly, yes. Their work is as effective as their father's circle but-"

I interrupted him as I came up beside him. "Teacher."

He pulled his head back a bit and stopped. "What?"

Pressing on my amulet on the off chance it had gone out just then, and to reset the timer, I repeated myself, "He may be their father, but I've been studying language and I realized that when referring to their capacity as healers, they always referred to Claps to Thunder as their teacher. Using the term father is reserved for less professional times.

I mentally finished to myself, "At least, that's the only explanation to why Listens in Anger always switches to using 'father' when speaking to Speaks with Talons about Claps to Thunder."

With a blush of embarrassment, he continued both his walking and his conversation.

"Yes. I mean, their work is as effective as their teacher's circle, but they just can't do it nearly as much as the proper masters of their art stationed in the big cities. The masters in Manehattan are healing around thirty five creatures a day, and their teacher's circle in Canterlot is managing around forty to forty five creatures a day. But the griffin apprentices, while more advanced than the other apprentices, are only managing around a dozen now without straight up exhausting themselves. The population is less dense here and there are far less in critical condition now that the gangrene outbreak is stabilized and on the recovery. Nevertheless, the load Ponyville and the surrounding areas has still put a terrible strain on them."

Turning to walk down the hall that led to another wing dedicated to the disease in question, I piped in with a bit of dry wit to try to lighten my mood.

"And, unlike the gangrene, these newer diseases that are taking their turn at reaching their critical phases can't just be fixed with a simple surgery."

The nurse tilted his head, missing the humor entirely and kept his half sincere and half forced smile.

"We are grateful for you volunteering your limited reserves to give our surgeons a much needed rest alongside the griffin apprentices when they were in their highest demand. Most of them will be able to help more out here on the floor as normal doctors now."

With a turn to a patient's room, a sickly mare lay in the bed with a teary eyed husband sitting next to her.

"Well it's still a welcome distraction to purifying food or working with wires sticking out of me."

When they saw me, I just walked in, cracked my knuckles and put on my sly, don't want anybody to like me, business man voice, "So, would you like the version that drains about three years of her remaining life span, or should we bump it up to five just to make sure?"

---

Hours later, at Fluttershy's cottage.

I was doing what I could to clean up, including cleaning my familiar's bird house.

"Your behavior this last week has been exceedingly cruel of you." I heard Archimedes call to me for the first time in six days. His mental voice had a strong sense of vinegar to it.

I nodded at his statement of disgust and called out to him. "But you'd want me to do it anyway, given our circumstances. No?"

"Your lies about your foreign magic requiring them to give up a part of their life force does allow you to conserve as many spell slots as possible with the demands of the community. I won't deny that. But we both know that is not your intended goal."

I said nothing as I wrinkled his replacement bedding blanket to make it a little easier for him to adjust it to his liking.

When he saw I wasn't going to respond, he said it for me.

You don't want them to see you as a good person. You want them to dislike you so that they don't blindly trust other humanoids that might come again in the future. Now that they see you as a fully fledged healer, you're doubling down on this.

With my continued silence basically being taken as a confession, we didn't speak further on the matter.

* * *

After I had the list of chores Fluttershy left me completed, I finally sat down with my notebook and tried to restore the one spell slot.

It was for naught, though, because I heard a knocking at the door.

When I answered it, I saw Princess Celestia, flanked by Tempest and Fluttershy and Scraps kept in check with a guard.

With her regal, yet gently spoken mannerisms, the princess nodded and asked, "Hello, Moss. May we come in?"

With an uncertain mind, I just numbly pressed the amulet and answered, "Two of you live here, and I can't exactly deny any princess, much less the eldest. What is this about?"

The princess just laughed and everypony relaxed.

She grew a merry smile and spoke to the ponies behind her, "You are right. His behavior when he knows something is up is tense to the point of it being fun to watch. Thank you both."

Fluttershy gestured me outside so that we could sit at the garden table.

With all of us seated, I asked, "Joke at my expense aside, is this bad news or even worse news?"

Tempest rolled her eyes and spoke up, "Disgustingly sweet and good news, actually."

I gave her a skeptical eyebrow.

She bobbed her head in begrudged agreement to my look and corrected herself, "Well, we got some news that is good but sounds bad, but we also have the good news."

The princess looked at me again from the far side of the table, notably up wind of me just to make sure I wasn't carrying any latent diseases. "Before we go too much further, I do wish to clarify your little stunt in the hospital about lying to patients will have to stop lest it create hysteria. When this epidemic is over, I will expect you to write a personal letter to each and every patient you claimed to reduce the life force of, apologizing and clarifying the lie you made. That said, in light of recent events we have finally decided you are ready."

She nodded to Tempest, who brought out a piece of paper and read it in a formal tone,

"To the water genasi known as 'Moss.' The board of the Office of Rehabilitation and Reintegration has evaluated your cultural, lingual and ethical studies of Equestria as a nation, as well as sufficient growth in skills applicable in employment. We also have made additional note to your progress in your personalized program of combating your emotional isolation and your new ability to open yourself emotionally enough to form bonds with others, corporeal or otherwise. In light of this, the office of Rehabilitation and Reintegration do here by recognize your ability to provide for yourself and perform as a productive member of Equestrian society, and do here by declare you a properly graduated parolee. Therefor you are now granted the status of a legal, independent resident of Equestria with all the rights, freedoms and responsibilities there of."

After Tempest finished, they sat there silently for me to respond. I waited several seconds before I could think of anything to say.

"Does this mean I can't stay with Fluttershy at this cottage anymore?"

The princess bowed her head with a genuine smile before coming back up. "That will be between you and Fluttershy, but she will not be able to take another charge until you manage to move out."

I nodded. "And she won't be able to make legal calls for me anymore if something happens?"

With a furled brow to match her smile, she answered just as openly. "By default, yes. But it is not unheard of for graduates to fill out the forms needed to entrust their former RRE officers with such authority until they find a more suitable pony."

Once I had a moment to let all of this sink in, I gave a pained look towards Fluttershy.

"So, if that's the sorta good, sorta bad news, then what is the good news?"

A soft, pained and yet sincere smile came across Fluttershy's face in response to my question, coupled with a slight blush and a gentle folding back of her ears. "That was supposed to be the good news."

Knowing the mood went from bittersweet to outright sour, I turned back to Tempest and the princess.

The princess spoke in an almost not quite apologetic tone, "The one you know as Dalock has been sighted near the city of Canterlot. Once we manage to track him enough to discern his location without magic while not letting him know he's being tracked, we will be attempting to detain him, but..."

She looked at me like she had something to say, but despite all of her nigh-ageless skill and charm, she still had the thought caught in her throat.

I looked at Tempest's eyes, having learned how to read them from so much time and so many adventures together. Without any further hints, I nodded and finished for the princess.

"But it will be a lot easier if you have a bait you know he won't be able to resist. Something he has strong feelings for or against. That is to say, me."

I could see the princess's demeanor falter and her posture fall into one fitting pained guilt as I saw what I knew to be genuine tears coming from her eyes. Almost immediately, she caught herself and got her posture back, even getting the tears to fall in such a way that their trail was almost invisible in her coat, but that brief moment of exposure cued me in. I could see great pain behind the face that now looked more like an expertly developed mask as she simply nodded.

Author's Notes:

"Such is the weight of the crown that we wear." Lullaby for a Princess, Luna's Reply, by Ponyphonic and adapted by... uncertain. (someone confirm please?)

The Bitter-Tough Plans. (Pain, Part 1)

With the full coordinated efforts of every creature involved, from the experts working concisely with each other to the volunteers to the guards and the healers, the pandemic was dying down after about a month. Most quarantine regulations had been lifted and life had been starting to get back to normal.

Many politician ponies were complaining about the chance of resurgence, but princess Celestia quickly quelled them when she kept asking, "When will there not be a risk? What do you feel is the correct moment? How would you tangibly define that moment? What should we do if we can't define it? Should we always hide under our beds and let our nation crumble around us?"

She had given a speech on the matter to clarify and struck home with the final point that, "We can only hide in our hospitals and homes for so long before the hiding does more harm to us as a nation than the lingering illness here or there. We need to get back to our lives."

While she did not expressly order each and every city and town to resume, she did lift the national bans and encouraged the local leaders to work towards resuming normal life as they saw fit.

But before that decree, Zecora had objected to letting the elders and those prone to sickness out. Celestia argued with her for a bit and ultimately had to get Zecora to agree to simply adding this as another recommendation. If she had been more specific in the order of releasing the restraints instead of declaring the crisis outright over, it would have opened the floodgates for political turmoil among politicians. In the end, there were grumps on either side of the divide of the royal decree, but things overall did improve. Sadly, tragedy ultimately struck after she made the decree ending the crisis.

Dalock had started striking out at Canterlot and the surrounding communities. He only seemed to target those that dared to resume normal life, particularly those that wanted to celebrate weddings or other local events. The diseases died down, but his sheer ferocity left a path of blood and cinders as he evaded capture with his hit and run tactics.

And that led to another speech to address the attacks. One with many ponies talking about different aspects of the past and present crisis. Since I was tied to both, I was ultimately called up to the balcony and told by both Doctor Pulse and Princess Celestia to explain the declaration they just made about my lie.

With a huff, I called out to the ponies that had gathered at the square and decided to just double down while giving them what they technically asked for. With my hairs on the back charging me with a good, strong eighteen, I looked out at the crowd and told them what I wanted to say.

"Let me make myself perfectly clear, I don't give two shits if your feelings were hurt over what I did. My concerns at the time were about preserving lives overall, not politics and niceties. My magic works under a different set of rules than unicorn magic or even the magic of the servants of the Animus Mundi volunteers. The pertinent part is that my magic has hard limits and I couldn't push past them even if I wanted to. I didn't have the time or energy to explain this to each and every pony that wanted me to heal them, then have them get in a fit about them not believing me. So I made up the stipulation that my version siphons off the expected life span of the patient to deter ponies from using my healing as anything but a last resort. There was only so much to go around at any given time. I did clarify with the doctors about this lie to help in their decisions when confronted about it, but they are not at fault, as I also threatened to not perform healing at all if they revealed this information during the crisis and opened the flood gates of every minor illness that was simply uncomfortable wanting the easy way out."

With a nod to Doctor Pulse, I backed up and let him take the mic. As soon as he did so, he turned to me and asked, "So to clarify, you do admit those that you healed have not had their lifespan shortened as you had initially claimed, correct?"

With a quick lean back into the microphone, I answered, "Not from my magic or of any other factor to my knowledge. Correct. And my punishment for this falsification will be under review upon the completion of my currently deputized mission. But for the record, and the princesses may put this into their review, I would do it again if I thought it would give the same effect in the same circumstances. It let my talents be used only to save the lives of those that couldn't have been saved otherwise. I don't care about the hooves it stepped on."

I went back inside from the balcony and proceeded towards the war room without even waiting to be dismissed.

On my way there, I heard a voice.

"Your words are spoken in ways unwise. Do you think they will not despise?"

Seeing my veritable shadow for the last three days in Canterlot, I called out to Zecora.

"I'm actually counting on it, and no I don't intend to elaborate."

Following me as I walked, she hounded me about my newfound druidic spells.

"Then if on that you will not clarify, will you tell me away from your magic, you shy?"

With a brief memory of a select number of spells I could now newly tap into, I found myself shaking in disgust. Not grossed out disgust, but in disturbing disgust of what I knew all too well I could do.

"Ever want to be trapped neck deep in stone? How about I cause disease instead of cure it? With the right materials I could even cause the very..."

I had to stop myself in mid sentence. There were spells the Animus Mundi could help me cast that I was alright with, and there were some I was disgusted by. But that spell? That was a spell that was so vile I had forbidden myself from even mentioning it.

Mistaking the moment I restrained myself as a moment of uncertainty, she pushed further instead of dropping it. Though she did at least manage to shift the subject slightly.

"I still do not understand why you refuse our gift. Many of us have felt quite miffed."

I squatted down as we walked and brought my amulet up to her face for a brief moment, which was now sharing its spot on the string with a carefully tied up piece of preserved mistletoe.

"I am no servant of the Animus Mundi! This little trinket does the job just fine, thank you! I'll keep breaking as many wooden staffs over my knee as you bring me! The amulet makes your offer to teach me the servant language moot and if you ever try to give me a mask to show my competency as a proper healer, then so help me powers that be, I will shove it up your-"

"Ahem!"

Princess Cadence was holding the door to the war room open from the inside. Judging by the look on her face, she could hear me shouting from a ways off. She didn't even need to say anything. While not nearly as skilled as her aunt Celestia, she could still manage to convey a message. That message was that that particular conversation was over.

Zecora shook her head and jested in disapproval, "Your new ability is simply miraculous. And yet you treat the gift with such callous."

Managing to get the last retort in that I couldn't respond back to without facing the ire of the princess, Zecora entered the war room.

I held the door and nodded in a way to cue the princess that I'd come in as soon as I collected myself.

Once the princess turned back to the room, I genuinely tried, but found myself unable to let go of the thing I wanted to tell Zecora in response. Not that I had the words sorted out in a way that would convince her, but I whispered what I had anyway before I could reset myself enough too at least play nice and enter.

"A miracle? More like a disaster waiting to happen."

As I finally walked in, I thought to myself, "For the sake of the integrity of my beloved new home—indeed, even for the sake of my very soul—that kind of power is something I must never touch."

---

The meeting covered many boring topics that I forced myself to listen to. The early detection measures having no success. Dalock was trying and failing to recruit ponies to his side with the pictures he set out not being sufficient to bridge both the language gap and the fact that he kept killing in spite of all the smiley faces on the pictures. They had searched all over in the forest and caves in the mountains below Canterlot, but found nothing on his whereabouts. Not even a trace of his odd scent.

The fact that the gap in our apparent power levels was a subject of worry, with my total level being twelve now, and his access to the wish spell that he used to cheat death made his at least level seventeen, if not more. Combined with his ability to stockpile his magic well beyond any capability I had, they realized strategy would only get them so far. While they were applying strategy, they knew they couldn't afford to pull many punches with his capture.

The princesses determined his magic had a lace of quintessence in it, being able to heal. This was another troublesome difficulty to overcome, but it had a minor upside. The scholars had worked with Speaks with Talons on how laced æther could bypass the barrier on æther being useless for healing.

In the end, Princess Luna and Princess Celestia had managed to adapt the cure wounds spell I had taught Speaks with Talons and Princess Twilight and Princess Cadence were well on their way to learning to purposely tap into their trace levels of quintessence too. It was a minor effect for them compared to the complexity of the wizard like spells they could cast, but the more healers there are in a group, the less practical his known tactic of targeting healers first would be.

Speaking of which, the princesses had agreed on a plan to add their raw power to the fight. Two of the four alicorns would be present in the search, while the other two stayed away from the danger. That way if the worst happened, Equestria would still have some leaders left.

The Crystal Empire would only have Princess Cadence's husband acting as regent until their daughter was of age, but alicorns were one of the few things in Dalock's power bracket and Princess Cadence was determined to take her turn in the field like the other three. Other contingencies were in place should he enter the capital, but most of them were too frail or specific to a city's structure to work out in the open field. Losses were likely in this fight and they had to go in knowing any given component of their plan could fail, so they had to have redundant backups when the inevitable losses came.

That meant they had to use their princesses too, and not just the elements. If a princess fell, the rest of the teams could cover and continue to function. The element bearers could do their big fancy blast, as could the Pillars of Light, but it took their entire teams to pull off their powerful magic and even if not a single one of them fell, they only had one good shot each.

What scared me the most, however, was what was revealed about the initial attack revealing Dalock's return.

"What do you mean, he never broke into the vault?" a crystal pony general asked.

Princess Celestia shook her head. "I mean he was already inside when we closed it. More specifically, his phylactery. When he reformed, it was not in a prepared clone as we had presumed. We did find that in a more thorough search of the diamond dog territory and destroyed it.

"After that, we studied of the bits of flesh we extracted from the guards weapons he was struck by. The tests showed he was definitely a type of undead now. The prize Bane had promised him was likely a vague promise of immortality, and Dalock probably didn't know it was to be as a lich, or that Dalock did know and didn't care. But in the end he came back beside the item in the vault that we had not realized had become his phylactery. From what we could extract, he was right next to his equipment when he re formed as a lich, including his amulets that now keep him hidden from us, and simply broke out."

I looked at the princess with the blood running out of my face. "Are you saying..."

She nodded, "Even if we kill him, he will reform again and again. The Plague Artifact was undeniably a part of the process his spell initiated by our testing, fueling the process by murdering the army that was sent with him for their life force. In turn, we deduced it is now acting as his phylactery. We would destroy the phylactery if we could, but the Plague Artifact is too powerful to be destroyed by normal means. At least, not without creating an explosion at least the size of the mountain Canterlot sits on that would spread thousands of deadly diseases across the globe. Instead we are simply going to have to trap him again when he first emerges and is too weak to put up a strong fight. We will figure out how to neutralize the Plague Artifact's threat later."

The general shook his head and looked at his ice spear. "At least that means we don't have to hold back for ethics. Even if he dies, it isn't permanent. That should make it at least a little easier once we find the criminal."

Of Hunters and Prey. (Pain, Part 2)

The first few days were fruitless in a way, but it did let us narrow down the search to the upper areas of the Canterlot mountain.

The alicorn princesses, Luna and Twilight, could be seen in the skies alongside pegasi, searching the area from above.

Meanwhile, ground troops combed the outskirts of the city, having it be the one area left on the mountain not searched besides Canterlot itself.

Tensions were clearly getting high from the lack of results. After arguing with one of the guards, I went out on my own to sit on a rock well outside earshot of the city and just barely visible to it.

And I sat their, doing my best to breathe in and out. I wanted to calm down, and clearly needed to for the inevitable battle, but the tension in the air just wouldn't let me.

So I just sat and kept trying.

* * *

It felt like an hour passed before anything happened, but I knew it had only been a handful of minutes. Stepping out from behind a tree along the path near where I sat, I finally saw him. I saw Dalock.

"You are a fool to break away from the search," he spoke to me from a distance just out of the range of the bulk of my spells.

Knowing that if I stood, I would surely provoke a fight, I did my best to put on a brave face. Gripping my hand on the cuffs of my scale mail, I did my best to mask a single finger scraping along the inside of the armor, as if drawing it alongside something hidden. As I did so, I faintly heard a bit of the dirt behind me shift the way I told it to.

"And you look like shit compared to when I saw you last. You lost weight? Or is that just a side effect of becoming a lich?"

His gaunt face made him look like a man that hadn't eaten in the longest time, on the brink of starvation, and yet he stood properly upright. His elvish features were barely recognizable and one ear was missing a good portion of the lobe where something had cut it off. The wound didn't look like it had any signs of healing.

He glanced briefly at the hand that held his staff, and how bony it had become, then back at me. Without any hint of wanting to entertain my banter, he shrugged off my remark and called out again.

"Are you going to get to your knees and pledge loyalty, or not? I need a new translator after I couldn't find a new familiar that knows the local language and English."

I held off answering for as long as I could, buying me a few seconds, but ultimately his gaze told me he was out of patience.

"Aren't you afraid I'd stab you in the back some day?"

He cocked his head and smirked. "No. You're far too weak, too smart and too much of a bleeding heart to do that. I have this land in the palm of my hand and you can't do anything to me permanently without killing them too. All you can do is obey. It's the only option that lets most of them live."

I gave him a suborn face. "So you know the side effects if we destroy your artifact turned phylactery and think that means you're exempt from consequence."

"My favorite play." He smirked as best he could, straining some of the dead flesh in the process. "Slavery or mutual destruction. It's not much of a choice, but it is still... Your choice."

I shook my head, trying to think when I realized I had heard that phrase before, in my home world.

"Wait..." I looked back at him. "Have you ever heard of a game called Dungeons and Dragons?"

The smirk on his face disappeared instantly. With a harsh tone, I heard his response. "No. Now make your choice already."

I didn't need to use my portent trick to tell he was lying, and I really needed to save it for a fight. But as I read his face, I started realizing I knew just who this really was. "I think you have, and I think you were plucked from earth like I was. You're that guy that regularly murder-hoboed on that D&D podcast and designed your second character after that corny TV show's villain. Weren't you kicked off after season two for almost running the game into the ground?"

His face went from serious to straight up angry. "I think it's time for you to die now."

Putting his staff forward, he called out "_Ur^o!"

Fire barely started to sputter out of the staff, but then nothing happened.

It was then he noticed Starlight standing a good distance from both of us, just within range to cast her counterspell spell, breaking her illusion of cover in the process. Her face had veins pulsing with anger as she lightly panted from the strain of her newfound prototype upcasting.

Right as that happened, I jumped up and screamed, "Now!"

All around Dalock, creatures came springing up out of the ground where Scraps had dug the tunnels for them to hide in.

Speaks with Talons and his brothers were on opposite sides, the trio ready to heal with their combined power when they fell. Princess Cadence and Princess Celestia came up to, horns ready to join Starlight in their assigned roll to counterspell him and slow his progress. Only Starlight was able to upcast and have a guaranteed counter spell to his nearly limitless pool of level five spells. While she was still working out the kinks of her prototype technique, even a chance of a counter spell working at the base level was a massive help in the fight. It would break up his momentum significantly.

Tempest, though she couldn't counterspell with her broken horn, was also there leading a group of elite soldiers in tactical formations, and Wild Storm was able to substitute for any of the griffin apprentices if they fell, as well as his own natural power as a dragon.

The guards also came in, but acted as a spread out, secondary barrier to strike at him from all sides if he tried to flee, instead of swarming him like he would have wanted them to. The Pillars of light were also on standby with their artifacts to try to smack him good if he broke the inner and outer circles.

And the apparent Alicorn, Princess Luna, came barreling down from the sky, only to become engulfed in green flames, revealing Changeling General Pharynx. My wand of lightning bolts gleamed from the spot where it was carefully wrapped around his horn attuned to the one battle ready, flying spell caster that could make use of it. A spell caster that could shoot it to just one spot on the ground where it would stop safely instead of running the risk of hitting someone behind him after it hit him, primed and ready to go.

We pulled out all the stops, and were about to let our power out full force to take him down.

Looking around at the veritable army suddenly swarming him, Dalock tipped his hood in a begrudged respect. "You came prepared. Well so did I." He tossed a pouch into the air and yanked a string coming from it. When the baggy exploded, a strong wind also came forth, stirring up the dust from the pouch into the air, covering every creature remotely near him, even some of the nearest guards surrounding us.

Immediately, I felt something off. I was physically fine, but something was off with my magic, like I was suddenly naked and alone. I couldn't feel the presence of Archimedes, or the Animus Mundi.

"A parting gift from my late familiar and his amulet's anti detection magic. Divine casters can't cast if they can't be heard by their divine catalysts. Say bye bye to your precious healing magics, my lesser half."

Author's Notes:

This chapter is short, but I'm releasing it separate because it's largely setup for the next part that I want to give the care it deserves... and I find fight scenes hard to write... If I put them together, it will cause issues with flow and make me want to constrain the next part for word count guidelines. So this is just a short chapter to itself.

But since the setup is accidentally mildly similar to another story, I figured sharing a video that (from 2 min 8 seconds to 2 min 34 seconds) shows how serious Equestria is taking this threat. (though admittedly this is the BBEG vs a borderline villain/antihero in the video)

Just be warned this video is not for the faint of heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZuqUofH6D4

The Brave. (Pain, Part 3)

The griffin trio and Wild Storm all faltered at the sudden shock. The entirety of their magic was cut off the same as the majority of mine. I saw Wild Storm pull off one of his two belts lined with potion gourds. I was barely able to see him toss it to the young dragon Slate that accompanied him and begin a gesture that looked like an order before the battle went wild.

I did what I could, but being a designated healer with the majority of my magic gone, I had little to contribute myself. I still hadn't learned Equestrian enough to read a spell scroll fluently in battle, so I just ran up and tried to be a distraction for the others, hoping they would think of something.

Dalock then simply smirked and grappled with me for a moment as I came close before I managed to get any spells off. He raspberried in my face and then smacked me good and hard on the foot, making me reel. He then hopped back with a giggle and called out. "Believe it or not, bitch, I'm actually not here for you today!"

I saw the unicorn guards that accompanied Tempest cast their counterspell scrolls instead of the princesses. With the griffins out of commission as healers, the princesses had pulled back and shifted to fill in the gap as best they could.

With this, many ponies managed to rush him, but his excessively strong armor made it difficult for them to land any blows. What blows struck knocked flesh off but he seemed unphased otherwise.

And then despite having three unicorns trying to counteract him, Dalock managed to get off a fireball through all three base level counters.

That's when things went bad. Instead of targeting the ponies in front of him, he hit the unicorns casting all of the counterspells.

Upon being freed up from the restriction of the scrolls, Dalock smacked the snout of the earth pony that tried to grapple him with his staff, breaking the jaw. A few seconds later, he flung a fireball at the elite troops charging him again, frying them hard.

This forced our main hitters to come in again, but there was a problem. In addition to teleporting he was also running. Combined with what looked similar to haste, but only seemed to hasten his feet he made more distance than the remainder of the center group could keep up with. He shot many of the guards at the outer circle that attempted to engage him four at a time, blasting them far and wide with a basic eldritch blast.

But then oddly, he stopped as soon as he got enough distance from us and turned around, flinging another fireball from a great distance. It didn't hurt anybody, but it did stop the pursuers in their tracks.

With a rapid motion of turning, he shot fireballs and eldritch blasts out in a circle, making a perimeter of scorched land.

A perimeter too far out to allow the use of counterspell, and too far to allow the use of even my wand on the changeling general's horn without being struck back.

He expended too many spell slots for a normal spell caster to use and still be able to fight, but that was the point. He was boasting.

Nay, flexing.

Waving his shield and staff in a form suggesting they come at him now that the biggest source of our nullification was gone, he egged us on.

Throwing insult after insult, I didn't bother translating.

"His pool does indeed seem nigh limitless compared to your own, Moss." Princess Celestia quietly spoke to me as she looked around at the injured soldiers.

Seeing many of the soldiers being treated by simpler potions, but many still needing quick treatment, she shook her head and spoke. "It can't be helped."

With a glow of her horn, she built her energy up for a few seconds then let out a wave of light that initially reminded me of a solar flare.

Immediately, the wave moved out and dove into the bodies of different soldiers with severe injuries, healing them.

I briefly looked at Celestia, "Mass healing word? There's no way you could have adapted the spell that fast. You already knew of healing. But I'll ask questions later."

I just turned back to our foe that, oddly, didn't seem impatient now. He was reveling in us pulling ourselves back together. Once again expecting us to just surrender.

"We need to get close." Listens in Anger spoke as we tried to regroup.

Searches for Stars corrected him, "No, we need to counteract his magic somehow, and getting close would have helped. But the spell scrolls are all burned up and the princesses would be prime targets even if they all flew at him at once."

The group threw ideas back and forth as Dalock started T bagging one of the fallen soldiers that we couldn't get to in time to save.

I meanwhile, did what I could and reflected on my knowledge of the spells he had been using. 'Eldrich blast... basic but always there. Expedient retreat, I'm surprised he even has a retreat spell like that in his arsenal. Fireball, overpowered even at base levels and overcharged by at least two levels... We can't silence him to knock out his verbal components, nobody knows that spell because hardly any mage here normally has to speak to cast spells. What else could we...'

I looked up at him riding his staff in a rude fashion.

"His staff!" I called out to the group.

Turning to me, every creature went silent.

Fighting through the desire to shrink away, I saved my portent trick for whatever we were going to plan based off what I was about to tell them. I knew we were going to need it. Placing my hand on the pouch at my side, I explained.

"Most high power spells require some material component and he doesn't have a component pouch. Get that staff away from him and at the very least he can't use that fireball anymore! Probably most of his arsenal too!"

"But we'd still have to..."

"I can do it."

Every creature looked to Speaks with Talons.

"I can do it. I can get that staff from him. I know how to survive those fire blasts. I've done it before and I am tougher now than I was then. He may hit hard but the Beast kin has explained to me before that is likely simply a trick of his magic on that staff. Wrestling the staff from him will not be difficult for one with my strength."

Starlight looked at him worried and did a few calculations as she did the distance in her head. "But the sheer time it will take you to get to him is still a problem. You can survive one and keep going with how tough you are, sure, but you won't survive that many blasts. It would still take too much time to close the distance and he would keep knocking you back and slowing you down on top of that."

"I will back you, Speaks with Talons," Wild Storm spoke as he came up, "I will do what I can to distract him and buy you time. I am weak for a dragon despite my age, but I am still resistant to the fire. I can draw at least one of his blasts from you before having to retreat, and I can do it from the air, brother in servitude."

Tempest chimed in, "I can speed you up, should cut the amount he can throw at you in half or so. But I can't hold it for long with how much I've expended blasting at his shield, so you will have to act quick."

Starlight shook her head. "I can upcast the body buffer spell to buy you maybe one hit, but then I'll be out too."

"Searches for Stars," I heard Princess Celestia call out. "Do you have some wrappings I could use?"

The griffin nodded, pulling a bit of cloth from his medical bag.

Celestia nodded in gratitude and looked to only Wild Storm. With her horn, she levitated the wrappings around Wild Storm zealously, while doing so discretely around Speaks with Talons. As this happened, some energy seemed to flow into them from the magic holding the cloth.

"This is not much, but it will add a small bit of resilience, and hopefully draw his eyes to Wild Storm."

I looked at Celestia and muttered, "Again, questions, but later."

With this, Wild Storm flew up into the air and circled just out of range of Dalock's reach.

Turning to his younger brother, Speaks with Talons spoke sadly, "Just in case I don't make it, I want you to know something. I have accepted I am not a healer. You were right back then and you may be at peace with this now. But that does not mean I am a bad servant, just a different kind of servant. Our master chose a different path for me, and today is the day I walk it. Not as the false shaman I pretended to be, but as a protector of my family. My family born..."

He turned to me and Tempest just as Starlight cast the modified false life spell on him and then fell over in the process.

"And my family found."

With this, Tempest and Speaks with Talons went to the edge of the crowd, just behind the soldiers standing at the edge of the scorched earth.

Wild Storm dove in with a roar, drawing Dalock's attention. As soon as his head was turned away, Tempest tapped Speaks with Talons with her hoof, enacting the haste spell. Immediately, he bolted off.

The ruse worked and Wild Storm bought Speaks with Talons one fireball's worth of distance.

But Dalock still saw him and threw four bolts of eldritch blast at him, knocking him backward a little and eating through most of the false life spell.

But Speaks with Talons regained that ground and then some.

He was almost on Dalock by the time he had another round of Eldritch blasts thrown at him. This time, it finished the false life protection and hurt him decently, then came the fireball.

Standing just out of range, Dalock was unharmed, but Speaks with Talons came out with only his feathers and fir singed off. Flames were still dancing around his talons as he had blocked the bulk of it with a solid dive and his absorb elements spell he had taught Scraps.

With this, he immediately called out in a great scream, almost like a battle cry!

"For family! C^us_to^s!"

His form immediately went weird, like a werewolf transformation but full of green and grey feathers. He grew in size and I could swear I saw his eyes dripping blood like tears.

Before Dalock could react, the extra speed boost brought Speaks with Talons in range. Immediately, he grabbed the staff and heaved, hard. He then ran as fast as he could away from dalock and towards the rocky outcrop at the edge of the circle.

Dalock ran after him, of course, but even with teleportation and his expedius retreat, he couldn't keep up with Speaks with Talons.

And the Griffin finally chucked the staff over the edge and into the rocks, out of sight, then turned and faced Dalock.

Dalock slowed down considerably, then finally backed up. Throwing up his now free hand, he called out to me.

"Alright, you have me! I surrender!"

I didn't like his tone, as something felt off, cocky even, but when the princess demanded to know what he said, I had to translate. He gave up too easily.

With this, we all came in and prepared to capture him, but he pulled one last stunt out of the hand holding his shield.

Speaks With Talons saw this and came towards him in a charge, sensing the same thing I did, only to stumble when Tempest's haste spell finally wore out and left him lethargic.

With a quick grab at the dust that had collected in his hair, Dalock shot his hand out at Speaks with Talons and screamed, "_cr^em_it^o!"

A thin green ray came from his hand and hit Speaks with Talons as he recovered. Instantly, Speaks with Talons was gone. No wound. No charred corpse. Just gone. Only a bit of dust in the wind and a pile where he was a moment before was all that was left.

"No! You bastard!" I screamed as I charged at him, unthinking. Going immediately to polar bear form, I ran up as hard as I could. Dalock simply removed his shield, tossed a small, smooth stone down along side it and threw his hands up in the air.

Before I could reach him, a blast from princess Cadence struck at his feet and he let himself become encased in a dense crystal that would prevent his verbal or somatic components of spell casting.

Before he was fully encased he called out to me, "And thanks for the rock," and then lost the ability to speak as the crystal encased him.

I slashed at the crystal until my borrowed arms lost their claws, and I kept swinging anyway. As I transformed back solely from self inflicted damage, I could see the smirk frozen on his face, and the flipping the bird gesture he had made towards me before his arm was encased.

I slammed both my fists onto the crystal and slid down, crying my eyes out.

Looking down, I saw a familiar lodestone. Flipping open my component pouch, I found its partner for my mending spell sitting in its compartment, right next to an empty one where the other should have been.

Grabbing the tiny magnet on the ground, I wrapped my hand around it and started slamming on the crystal again just as the princesses showed up to calm me down or pull me away or something.

Giving the crystal one last hand numbing pound, I screamed into the open sky, "Dalock! You fucking shit faced bastard!"

The Brother Shaped Hole in my Heart. (Pain, Part 4)

"I'm telling you! Speaks with Talons knew human body language after being near me for so long. He knew Dalock surrendered, and then reached for something. Right, Tempest?"

It had been four days since the battle. Tempest was looking around the tavern, getting increasingly worried. "I agree, Moss. I saw it too. That doesn't change the fact the courts felt Speaks with Talons didn't hear the surrender and dismissed that particular act as a prisoner simply executing his right to self defense against an unprovoked attacker. At least take solace that he will be persecuted for his ethical crimes against the diamond dog village for experimenting on them, as well as being responsible for the plagues. But if you keep pressing the point then none of our team's testimony will stick in court and he will get off of every charge short of the more recent attacks."

Plasma Wave had retired and went back to his family in Manehattan when I had healed him, but when news reached him of our common comrade's falling, he was by my side in Canterlot the next day. Step by step, he helped me cry. He didn't tell me to get over it, nor did any of the other old crew mates. Even the cold and calculating Tempest refused to tell me to do that. She held the bravest face among the old crew, but every creature of the old crew could tell she was mourning in her own way.

"Hey, do you think you could take your tall friend and get him out of here?" A normal tavern patron called out to the group, "I mean I don't want trouble, but I think it's pretty clear he's had a few too many drinks for his own good and should go sleep it off."

Plasma Wave turned to her, taking the long way in his turn to show his damaged wing as he did so. With a stern face, he retorted.

"Mam, he isn't drunk. He doesn't even drink alcohol. He's just that upset right now. We lost a comrade in arms, and he was the closest to them among us by far."

She gave a huff and I turned enough to see her roll her eyes. "Well, at least do your best to keep it contained, would you? We're expecting a performance from Guiding Star tonight and she hates it when she has to sing over the crowd. I mean since he's the only one of his kind even allowed to serve in the military, it's not like it was a family member."

It was then that I fell from the short stepping stool they gave me to let me sit at the raised elevation of the bar "properly" and right back down to my knees, quietly balling and a new flood of tears coming down.

Fluttershy had asked Discord to watch over me. I think she asked partly for concern to my safety given my unstable state and partly to finally get some freedom from his constant guard now that Dalock was imprisoned in crystal up in some high security prison, if I were to be honest, but he did concede to it none the less. And so Discord came to my side from his hiding place and placed his paw and talon on me. As he did so, he shot the mare a solid glare.

Having her gaze in a mesmerized state, she stood there as Discord stared her down. But Plasma Wave stepped in and pushed him a few inches back from her—as far as he would put up with being pushed back. Turning to the lady, he added the tactful words Discord couldn't. "Young missy, you obviously do not understand what it means to serve. One's squadron is more than simply a co worker or a type of drinking buddy. It practically is family. They live, breathe, and serve together, relying on each other just to stay alive."

"He called me his brother," I whined out loud. It felt like a wound just stitched up and bandaged but not yet started to heal had busted open again, "His 'battle brother.' I was the only one he ever called that. He really was family and I never said it back to him. Not once. Not in earnest! And that bastard took him from me in cold blooded murder!"

At this point the mare backed down and the rest of the patrons didn't bother us again due to my balling.

* * *

I had finished letting the waterworks metaphorically flood the tavern and settled back into my makeshift seat to simply return to quiet brooding. If I said I felt better, that would have been a lie, but at least I was somber enough to start thinking and working through my feelings. I had to say start, because there was a big pile of feelings I was going to have to work through and it felt like even a month of working on it would be hard pressed to get me to a functional state again.

At some point about an hour after the incident with the mare, I heard a mare's voice fit for a songstress call out to me. "May I sit?"

Turning around, I searched for the source of the voice, but all I could see was Princess Luna in her thestral disguise and a well to do dress.

My heart beat rose a little, but I managed to quell it without my portent. Trying to be polite, I pressed on my amulet and called out to her in her disguise name.

"Moon Beam? What are you doing here?"

To this the mare smiled and called out in that same silk-smooth voice. "No, I'm not Moon Beam. Though I can see why you would think that. I'm Princess Luna's sole assigned personal dream walker, Guiding Star. And as you might have guessed by now, I was the thestral that gave permission to have the Moon Beam disguise be based on."

Looking at her, I did see subtle differences, like a human twin who might do their hair a different way or have a beauty mark on a different spot on their face.

A few seconds after letting the differences settle into my mind, I stopped and backtracked.

"Wait, sole assigned dream walker? Aren't thestrals and Princess Luna both nocturnal?"

She nodded and gave a cheerful rolling of her eyes. "Yes, we are. But there aren't always enough advanced non thestral dream walkers to go around for those that need to check in on other dream walkers. So I volunteered to go against my nocturnal nature and start sleeping at night. Princess Luna was also very hesitant to concede to guild surveillance when she came back. I think she picked me when she agreed later on because she felt a kinship to thestrals and I was the only one available for daytime surveillance. Tell me, did you ever find my twin brother snooping around in your dreams? He was so bad at not getting caught when we were in school. I swear him passing his advanced guild exam was a fluke."

I found having something else to talk about that even mildly intrigued me was so rare at this point that I found it to be a nice distraction. So I ignored the awkwardness of the info dump and pursued further.

"Advanced? Why do you have to have advanced dream walkers to watch other dream walkers?"

She looked sad for just a moment, but then brought the smile back to her fanged face. "Some of it is for ensuring we have the skill set needed should something go wrong, but most of the requirements that set the bar so high is for privacy reasons. You see, as dream walkers, we see other ponies' dreams and we can't guarantee personal information from those dreams won't bleed into our own. So those that watch other dream walkers have to have extra high training to not only protect the privacy of our charges, but also our charges' charges. With legalities abound, it is far more tricky than it might initially sound. I have had to dance around four technicalities just in the time I came in and started talking to you."

I sat there and absorbed her words for a minute, trying to think of something else I could ask, but was having a bit of trouble. While the silence built up, another patron came over and asked a question.

"Not to be too prudent, miss Guiding Star, but we were told you would be performing for us tonight? Me and the other guys were looking forward to hearing that beautiful voice of yours perform and we wanted to confirm you weren't just in here for a drink tonight before we got our hopes up too much."

Guiding Star looked over at the stallion and gave him a nod. "Don't you worry. I'll be singing for you tonight for certain. But I have to work out a few last minute details before I can decide on if the new song is ready or if it will be one of my classics."

At hearing this, the stallion positively perked up. Turning to his comrades, he called out, "Did you hear that, fellas? We might be getting a new song tonight! Let's give our lady all the space she needs until she's ready and hope for the best!"

As the stallion walked over to his buddies, I put two and two together and realized what she was over here for.

"New song? Last minute details? You don't mean what I think you mean, do you?"

She nodded in a pained, apologetic smile. "Sadly, probably yes. A lot of the things that Princess Luna saw in your mind bled over into her own dreams."

"No."

"But while she is still only bound by her old dream walker code from a thousand years ago, I am bound by modern codes."

"I said no."

Her ears went flat and I could see her do a very careful biting of her lip with the teeth between her fangs. She looked up and spoke in my ear nervously.

"She was also watching over Speaks with Talons during his time in Equestria and she grew close to him too. She hoped to have an adapted version sung to honor him. But while she could sing it without your permission, she decided she won't. Since I can't without your permission, she was brave enough to ask me to do it, knowing I sing at this tavern as a hobby."

As she pulled back, I shook my head and whispered a question.

"You aren't just Princess Luna's dream walker, guardian... thingy, are you? You two have grown to be friends. Why else would you risk breaking a rule just now talking to me about Luna treating Speaks with Talons? Princess Luna might have given you permission for her dreams, but given your sudden jitters, it's obvious you would need his too and there's no way he could have given it now that he's dead."

She gave me no reply. Instead, I saw her give me a near flat, not quite scared for herself but more worried about how the conversation will go down in general look, bravely waiting for an answer. As she did so, she again went to bite her lip and pressed the rest of her lips tight.

I shook my head again, looked up and out past the tavern door to see the sign just outside and the picture on it just below Archimedes's tiny talons. They wouldn't let what they thought was a wild animal into the tavern.

"Is that why Tempest brought me and the old crew to The Singing Star? Because of you?"

"That sign says 'The Crying Comet,' actually... And yes."

I looked over at Tempest, still apparently worried with something else, but also subtly sadder than normal.
"Can it be only once? Like you sing it once then that's it? You can't sing it after that unless I give permission again?"

She gave a relieved smile. "I'll have to clarify before I sing it, but yes."

In an uneasy, gravely growl of a whisper, I spoke slowly. "Just. This. Once. And be sure to also clarify it's in honor of Speaks with Talons or the deal's off... and I turn you in."

Guiding Star sighed and gave a closed eyed smile in relief. Turning to the small area where there was a karaoke machine, she nodded to her fans, who cheered. She then pulled out a sealed scroll tube from her saddlebag and broke it. Inside wasn't a traditional scroll, but a sheet of music with multiple symbols of instruments on it. Feeding it into the karaoke machine in the corner, she turned to the audience.

"Tonight's song is a special one, granted to us from the homeland of our tall guest, Moss. He is rather tight lipped about his homeland, and thus has only permitted me to do this song once, just for you all on the sole condition I sing it in honor of his late friend, Speaks with Talons. So while you're in for a treat, I can't give any encores for this performance. It's a one time only song just for tonight."

With a ding, the karaoke machine indicated it was ready.

Turning her head only slightly, she bowed to the audience. "And so, Fillies and Gentlecolts, I will now sing a special treat for you from foreign, far off shores. Drink responsibly and enjoy!"

She turned on the karaoke machine that she had just fed musical sheets into before she turned to the audience as it started slowly with a piano.

"Where have all the good braves gone and, where are all the guards? Where's the streetwise Rockhoof to fight the rising hoards?"

Tempest had to go over to one of the larger, bearded stallions that sat between the two groups and get him to sit down after he stood.

"Isn't there a great knight, holding fast to his fiery creed? I toss and I turn and dream of what I need..."

Author's Notes:

For those that want a fuller picture of what happens next (and no, not just the song) I created a new story to cover those details, as Moss straight up isn't present and I feel the straight exposition covered in the next chapter may not do it justice. The link to the story now: But don't click if you don't want the extended horror.

Also, while this character absolutely is NOT canon to the MGiE series, I couldn't get the characters I've had on the covers so far to translate to colored well. It's been such a good tool, so I'm noting the site—that I already link to in my covers for the title as the source—have updated to allow coloring the models in similar form to painting and revamped their old tools. I got cool covers from them and felt I should mention.
Not sponsored, (never even purchased as of date of this chapter release...😖) just giddy about the update and sharing for any that had interest in how I did the title shots.

The Hole Where my Heart Once Stood (Pain, Part 5)

Author's Notes:

Or, as the alternative title of this chapter was once planned to be: Champion's Folly.

When the song was over, the crowd cheered. I mostly was mixed between my feelings of it only partly fitting my late friend, and how not all the notes had translated well in the machine. Some of the instruments were different from my home world's instruments, and they got some of the melodies a little off. Had I not been in such a downer, though, I still might have been able to relax and enjoy it otherwise.

Guiding Star quickly took the notes out of the machine and returned them to the tube, and then the tube to her saddlebag. She faltered momentarily as she stepped down from the slightly raised platform dedicated to the karaoke corner.

When I saw the entire crowd get up at this, I found myself a little shocked, as it was only a minor trip. Intrigued, I got up and asked the nearest stallion that stood about it while one of the mares went to check on her.

The stallion could only scratch his head and gesture out to the crowd.

"Like we said before, she's our lady. It's hard to explain. Guiding Star isn't related to any of us, and yet she's the center of a family here in Canterlot. She's touched our hearts and helped us through troubles. She's a counselor and a shoulder to cry on. More than once the guys have had to... aggressively clarify to an outsider that she isn't just some floozy that gets stallions to wish she was their mare-friend. She's been active in our lives, helping us come together. She helped Silver Spear learn to cook for his daughter when his wife passed and helped him and other single parents here to work together and make a support net for raising their foals. She's counseled Flintspark on controlling her temper and staying focused on her artisan work to where she'd be able to support herself solely with her crafted works now, if she wanted."

The stallion then looked at me and then down in a subtle shame. "And while I don't know how many she's helped, as it's part of her job to keep the privacy of her charges, I can at least say she helped me with my nightmares in my darkest hour. If it wasn't for her having gone above and beyond the call of duty back then, I might not be here today."

He brought his head back up and put on a thinking face.

"She's like a mother to all of us, except that she's our age and never tried to treat us like children? She's like our surrogate big sister we've grown to love, but not. It's kinda hard to put into words. She's kind, supportive, and always knows just what to say to help us through our woes. She's just, 'Our lady.'"

As he was finishing, I tilted my head back in thought about Fluttershy for a moment. With a nod, I looked back at him and I think he could see I understood what he meant, but I said it anyway.

"I think I get it. I have some... somepony like that too. Maybe she can help me through this slump."

I got up and turned to Tempest. "I think I'm ready to go now, but I need to talk to Fluttershy. Maybe on the train ride back to Ponyville tomorrow."

She nodded in kind. "Scraps hasn't shown up like he said he would, so I need to search for him anyway. I give him an inch and he runs off... He's in big trouble when I find him."

As Tempest and I left the rest of the group at the tavern, Archimedes was happy to finally see us come out, coming down to my shoulder from his spot on the sign just outside the tavern.

I heard a, "I told you the owl wasn't wild! Pay up!" from the tavern as we walked through the street and back to the inn at the edge of the city.

* * *

We found ourselves almost to the inn, where about every creature from Ponyville in our group was staying, and one or two others.

Suddenly, we saw Fluttershy and Scraps running into the city gates in tandem.

As they saw us, Scraps called out "Scraps keep promise! Scraps protect big sister Fluttershy!"

Running up to meet them, Fluttershy went straight to me. She was almost out of breath, her face scared, begging for help. Looking up and around for danger, I listened carefully as I held her. I could sense that familiar kindness in her voice through it all.

As she spoke, I saw a humanoid skeleton straight up murder the two guards at the gate and come running at us. It was missing one hand and its skull looked charred like it had been on fire.

"We're in trouble! Dal..."

I didn't even have time to react as I heard the laced magic pierce the night.

"_Pe^re_o!"

All of a sudden, Fluttershy went limp in my embrace. Looking down, I saw her expression wasn't changed, but her head had flopped back and there was no longer a spark in her eyes. Her body was no more harmed than it was a moment before, but I couldn't feel the rapid heartbeat anymore. I couldn't feel any heartbeat at all.

My world went quiet. I could sense Discord springing to action, but it barely registered. It was like there was too much pain in the air and the emotions had to be delegated. Discord held enough fury for the both of us, while I held our dear Fluttershy with enough sadness for the both of us in kind. I knew Dalock was free somehow, and that he was a threat to Equestria, but all I could think of was sadness. Pure, suffocating sadness. My heart beat against my rib cage so hard that it genuinely felt like it wanted to jump right out of my chest and into hers to take over for the one that had stopped, futilely struggling against the truth my mind was telling it.

Fluttershy was dead in my arms.

Fluttershy was dead in my arms.

Fluttershy was dead in my arms.

Fluttershy was dead in my arms.

Fluttershy was dead in my arms.

Fluttershy was dead in my arms.

Fluttershy was dead in my arms.

Fluttershy was dead in my arms.

Moment by moment, my mind kept repeating it to my heart, but my heart kept screaming no. No matter how many times my mind repeated it, my heart kept fighting back with no end in sight to the struggle between the two.

"She's..." I heard Discord whimper.

Looking up, I saw what I suspected to be bone marrow on his talon and paw.

As he reached for her, I instinctively waved one hand over his extended talon and called out, "_Ni^kt_o."

he looked at me in surprise as his talon was suddenly pristine. With a gaze into each other's pain stricken eyes, he understood where I was coming from.

"He has no right to touch her, not even his marred remains."

He stroked her mane as gently as I had ever seen him be gentle with anything. It was like his fury had bled off and he was finally able to accept his half of the sadness, because it was as if the weather itself came to his chaotic beckon call to help him cry.

The rain started coming down from what was crystal clear night just prior as he spoke again with a weak, almost chocked whisper.

"She's... Really gone."

It was at this point my brain finally took a sucker punch from my heart, and my heart took over leading the two like I was a scared little child.

"No. She's not. Not yet."

He looked up at me, at first in confusion, but then in a cold aggression. Cold flames licked the edge of his mouth as he gave a very insistent command, "Explain."

My mind gave one last bout of logic with what I was about to do, but my heart quickly pinned it down like a wrestler, unable to object again.

"There's a spell I know how to cast through the Animus Mundi. I just became aware of it recently. It can bring her back to us, but we need materials. My mistletoe sprig isn't sufficient."

He pulled his head back, his eyes went to flames, but flames with dark centers. With a voice akin to a demon showing carefully measured patience bought with my compliance, he growled deeply, "What do you need?"

"High quality oils and unguents. As much and as rare as you can find. I'll meet you at the inn."

"No spa or hospital storehouse will be spared." With a brief snapping of his talon, he was gone. His voice lingered for but a moment, saying, "Make good on your spell, or you will wish you had shared her fate."

I pressed my amulet, knowing I wouldn't have a hand free soon, and then hefted. When I tried to get up, I stumbled in the effort to hold her in my weak arms.

Tempest and Scraps tried to help but quickly backed off when I lashed out at them.

"Stay back! I'll get her there by myself! Just make sure we have a clear path to the inn."

It took me a few tries, but I managed to finally stand while holding her in my arms.

I tried to move but quickly found her head rolling to the side. I tried to shift my weight to shift her head to my shoulder, but almost fell over again in the process. Ultimately, Tempest came up and carefully moved her head so that it would rest on my shoulder, but quickly backed away again as soon as she was done.

"Are you sure you can really save her?"

I turned to look her in the eyes. I tried to form words but the determination of my glare would have to suffice, because all I could do was turn back and start walking.

One step after another. The rain wasn't thick, just a light drizzle, but it was still starting to wet the dirt side road the inn was on and make it cake to my boots.

With the extra burden, it took a good fifteen minutes before we reached the fence that blocked off the back corner of the inn. My arms burned, much as my legs were starting to, but I pushed on.

As I rounded the corner, the mud started getting thick enough to cause my boots to want to sink and slip. Tempest and Scraps had already reached the in before me and were holding the door open. The inn keeper and Zecora were still up, talking deeply when they saw me coming in with Fluttershy in tow.

I signaled Tempest with my head to a table and called "Clear, empty," to her in crude Equestrian, with my amulet long sense deactivated.

Tempest quickly cleared the table and I carefully set Fluttershy down on it.

When the inn keeper started making a fuss about breaking cups and the mess it made, I simply tossed the entirety of my bit bag at him, landing at his hooves. It wasn't much, with me having inconsistent employment, but it was more than enough to pay for a few wooden mugs, plates and a broken lantern. With that covered, I simply went back to positioning Fluttershy's body in a respectful resting position.

Zecora, being the healer she was, came up to Fluttershy and came to realize the truth right as I shoved her back.

"You were wise to bring her but it is too late, I dread. There is nothing I can do, for she is already dead."

I gave a solid glare at Zecora and pressed my amulet into my chest so hard it hurt, "Maybe you can't do anything for her. But you wanted me to show you miraculous magic? Well sit back and you'll see your god damned miracle!"

Zecora cocked her head slightly as the gears turned in her head. At first even the wise shaman didn't get it, but soon enough her jaw dropped as the spark of realization came to her eyes.

"It took me a bit, but now I know for sure. I know you are upset, but you don't want to do this, Moss." I heard Archimedes call to me in my mind.

Turning to my familiar, I pointed my finger straight at him. As much as I've come to respect him, that was the furthest thing on my mind.

"Archimedes! You are my familiar." I paused for just a moment as I let this sink in. His eyes widened in horror. "And now I order you as my familiar, do not speak to me and do not interfere!"

Immediately, I found his body stiffen as the magic that bound him to that form forced him to obey my order.

With nothing left to do but wait for Discord, I simply sang to Fluttershy to let some of the sadness out. I sang boldly. I sang slowly. And I sang as if she and I were the only two in the room, because I didn't care about the others hearing.

"You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You made me happy, when skies were grey."

Tears flowed anew out of my eyes as I stroked her cheek.

"You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't... take... my sunshine..."

I couldn't finish and found myself falling to my knees in a straight up sob fest.

I just started sobering up when Discord popped in with more canisters and bottles of the supplies I asked for than I could count.

"I hope this is enough? What else do you need?" He saw my face and the fact that I had been sobbing. "I hope you aren't getting cold feet?" His paw and talon were on my shoulders as I looked at the canisters on the floor. I felt the icy fire of his breath go right down my back at this point. It didn't bother me in the slightest. I simply shoved him off like a badass in response, even though I knew he could squash me with no effort, and knelt down to the canisters.

I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but I took a breath to center myself and attune into the Animus Mundi. Letting her whispers guide me through the canisters and bottles as I tested them, I eventually found the correct ones.

After picking a few, and grabbing a couple more than she seemed to indicate just to not accidentally apply too little, I looked up at him. "These will work. I don't know how many shots I'll get at this. Just keep the others back to make sure I don't get interrupted and I'll do my part."

* * *

It was a slow and meticulous process. The Animus Mundi whispered in my ear on where to apply the thick medical paste/oil and what patterns to draw on the table. I found myself apologizing multiple times to Fluttershy as I applied it to her face and barrel.

The spell slot was long since invested into the spell, being drawn into the patterns. Even though it was taking so long, it was not a ritual casting. This spell had to expend one of my highest level spell slots in spite of the time it took and I made a point to not let any noise interrupt me. I only had a tiny handful of them. I didn't even look up from my work as the rest of the old crew came in from the tavern with Plasma Wave. I knew Discord would do his part and keep them back. I could answer questions later.

Finally, the crescendo of the spell came and I closed my eyes placing my hands on her hoof, calling out "A^un_ti^e E_quⁱs, _pl^ea_se ^br_in^g h_er ^ba_ck ^to _us!"

I heard gasps from the audience, but kept my eyes closed in some symbolic desperation. The table tilted suddenly as if something had fallen on it and I found myself falling backwards on my ass as the table flipped the other way.

It was over. Success or failure, it was over.

I heard the coughing and a gasp of a mare from the other side of the table. Then suddenly, I heard a familiar, sweet, angelic voice call out. "Dalock! He's loose! His sta-"

She couldn't finish as I saw Discord suddenly sweep the mare up into his arms.

"Fluttershy! Dear, sweet Fluttershy! You've come back to us!"

The draconequus was positively kissing her all over her forehead as tears flew up from his eyes and to the ceiling.

Finally managing to let the mare pry him away, he turned to me and gave the warmest, most sincere smile I had ever seen him give. I knew no matter what I did, I would never be able to put that kind of smile back onto his face again.

With that turn, he properly revealed the mare he held on to so tightly.

My mind went blank at what I saw, but only for a moment.

The pony before me looked remarkably like Fluttershy in many ways. Her identical cutie mark, her pink mane, her yellow fur, her kind smile and her embarrassed blush. But there was something else. Fangs.

Looking closer, I saw flecked ear ends. She also had a slight slit in her eyes that were barely distinguishable from normal eyes in the dark inn at a glance. At her sides were not the feathered wings of a pegasus, but something more bat like.

This mare was a thestral.

And yet I wasn't shaken by the otherwise scary demeanor. I was hardly even shaken for a moment by the change at all. Reincarnate had a vast majority likelihood of changing the species of the creature it was cast on in the game. Statistically speaking there might have even been about a fifty fifty chance of her coming back male, or whatever the gender ratio was for ponies. Probably close. I simply saw this shift as a scar to mark the occasion at worst.

My heart positively wept joy at the sight of her. With Discord opening up his paw in invitation to the group hug, I joined in merrily.

Discord spun us around in the air with joy until we started getting as dizzy as we were joyful.

When we came down, he finally let us go. I nuzzled my forehead to hers in simple happiness, then came up and spoke.

"Flutter..."

And then I saw it. Laying on the ground, tumbled over next to the table was Fluttershy. Or rather, Fluttershy's corpse.

With the sheer relief of the moment before easing the tensions of my heart, my brain got loose of the metaphorical choke hold and threw the heart off, pushing it back down to the secondary driving force that it was.

I had just cast the forbidden spell.

Looking around, I saw Zecora's jaw so slack it was mere inches from the floor and looked like it was threatening to unhinge itself to finish the drop. Plasma Wave and Tempest were similarly surprised. The inn keeper, the rest of the old crew and one of the other patrons of the inn that had come in without me noticing were looking at me like I had just bested all four alicorn princesses in a four on one duel.

The scariest part was that none of them had the look of horror on their face at what I had done. I had raised the dead. I broke the taboo barrier between life and death. I touched a power that I felt only god all mighty had the right to wield.

Looking down at the corpse again, I realized I didn't even have enough knowledge to scratch the surface of what I had done. Was this actually Fluttershy? Was this a new soul with her memories? Or was this some fraction of her ripped back from the afterlife and she was now incomplete on the other side?

My own trampling over the sanctity of life aside, I had no idea what the ramifications of this spell was. I had no idea what the ramifications on the kingdom was going to be. Was I going to be looked upon like a prophet? Was Zecora and the other servants going to pry into the secrets of this? I honestly had no idea what was going to happen, or what I should do.

So I ran.

My Unyeilding Nightmare. (Pennance, Part 1)

With Zecora chasing me, I had ran away to a cave hidden by the forest at the foot of the Canterlot mountain. I wanted to be alone, but I knew too many creatures cared about me to let that happen. With Princess Luna herself coming to me in person only hours after I arrived in the cave, I wound up striking a deal with her.

She would decree I was to be left alone, using the excuse of my late punishment for falsifying the need to take life force to heal as a reason for me being in the cave. It met loopholes, but in reality, it was the closest compromise we could come to in exchange of me complying to her regular visits and a promise I'd take care of myself physically. Of all the creatures I didn't want to see, she was an exception. It wasn't her calm understanding smile, or her patience with me that I welcomed.

It was the fear her presence brought that I secretly wanted.

As much as I wanted to sort this all out, I couldn't do it alone. I needed someone else to get my mind together enough to make any progress on my thoughts. I mentally knew I needed a counselor, not a torturer, but my heart, gut and everything else wanted to say the opposite. She was the compromise between the two that I needed.

It was the compromise I had to take if I wanted to get back to a level mind. I wasn't trying to justify anything. I didn't even want to justify my actions. I just wanted to sort my thoughts out and figure out my next move. Be it punishment by Equestria, long term self imposed exile, or something else, I needed to meditate and figure it out.

It took a few weeks to convince Princess Luna I wasn't going to try to off myself or do anything stupid, but I wasn't going to just "get over this" or "forgive myself," either. Eventually though, she caught on. I was doing my best to be open with my hasty action, analyze it, and then act appropriately. This wasn't about punishing myself, as much as my gut feeling was to do so. It was about addressing the many issues that were sure to come from the aftermath of what I had done. After that, I could move forward with absolute resolve, whatever that resolution was to be.

I spent Countless hours in the dark, but I had nothing else to do but my task, and entertaining Princess Luna with my progress when she came to check in on me. The progress on my task was slow, however, and I often found myself just going over my early adventures when I had ran out of things to say to Princess Luna during her regular visits. Pragmatically, those tales were only a distraction to keep talking, and occasionally helped me reset myself and to find a new angle to analyze with when I was stuck. It was a distraction that wound up long enough to write an entire book about, mind, but a distraction nonetheless. When she was gone, I tried my best not to focus on them and stay on task.

During her visits, she also told me of outside events to give some semblance of time passing in that cave. She told of how Dalock had been captured more easily without his magical armor or anti detection amulet and they had him secured with new measures. She also told of how the Summer Sun Celebration was also going to be honoring Speaks with Talons, the other servants, and the team that initially stopped the plagues from being even worse.

She also had informed me that she acted quickly with the guards to make sure my actions had been masked. The ponies involved were sworn to secrecy. Fluttershy was reported to be only dying, not dead, and that I had saved her with a spell that incidentally activated some latent thestral ancestry within her.

Normally, I would have objected to such a lie, but given the secret we were trying to address I conceded it was best the public didn't know. Maybe eventually... maybe, but the servants of the Animus Mundi and the royal family needed to weigh their options and get a grip on it before we even entertained the notion at the very least.

I wasn't sure if I had actually resurrected Fluttershy or created somepony new with her memories, and I was working through the implications of both scenarios. What should I call this new pony? Should I treat her like Fluttershy? Should I treat her like her own pony? Or should I do neither and just walk away?

I honestly didn't know, but what threw me for a loop was about mid way through my recovery I had a visitor against the wishes of the princess. It was her, whoever she was. I nearly struck at her, forcing my wand away at the last moment and went to a blithering mess. I wasn't ready to face her yet. I was barely able to keep myself together at her expense when I shouted, "I don't know who you are! Please, just go away."

Regardless of who she actually was, she probably did believe herself to be Fluttershy. It nearly broke my heart having to strike at hers like that, but she took the hint and managed to leave before pushing me over the edge.

When I next saw Princess Luna, I was genuinely grateful that she simply asked if I was ready to continue and didn't press me when I simply continued story time to calm myself. If she had, it might have given me that final shove over that edge.

After that, my progress with Princess Luna's did manage to pick up some, and I eventually found myself coming to the conclusions I suspected I was going to end up to. But going through all the thought processes and double checking my logic instead of taking a quick shortcut and presuming made my decision final. The nuances were too numerous to count, and each scenario of what the repercussions of my hasty actions were had multiple possibilities for solutions. But in the end I found every separate scenario finally had one acceptable solution in common.

One, I hated myself for what I did. It was like chopping my own foot off. There was no undoing it and "forgiving" myself wasn't going to make it all better. There was no denying it happened. I'd have to just learn to live with it.

Two, best case scenario, I was to live with the shame, but that would be about the same thing as I had done in the past about my kind's history anyway. So I was prepared for that.

Three, worst case scenario, I was to live with the guilt, but once again that would be about the same thing as I had done in the past about my kind's history anyway. So I was prepared for that too.

Four, even though I likely had no right to happiness anymore, I still had a job to do. I had issues to address, now that I had decided how, and when those were done I needed to keep going. I need to keep putting one step in front of the other, then just repeat and keep repeating. For now I still had breath in my body. Whether that changed the next day, or several decades into the future, my job wasn't going to be finished until that happened.

* * *

And then the final night of Princess Luna's visits came. I needed to put the first part of my plan into motion: Facing my own inner demons. Instead of laying them to rest, however, I planned on fully accepting them emotionally as I had logically, instead of hiding from them as I had been doing.

By previously refusing to stay asleep long enough for my nightmares to play out without Princess Luna's presence, I kept the more counterproductive thoughts at bay. But, finally having decided on my path, I let it come at me full force.

I didn't fight it, and did my best to let my emotions flow, knowing she was nearby and listening in. At one point, my focus wavered, as would happen in dreams, and I found myself falling into the emotional traps. Not as poorly as I might have when I first ran, but falling none the less.

And then, when I thought I was finished, Princess Luna came and her presence gave me that last boost of lucid dreaming I needed to see it through to the end. Having finally accepted it emotionally too, I sat there in the dream realm and cried in her embrace until the morning. Just before I woke, I asked her to meet me as soon as she could.

---

After I returned, I worked on recovering emotionally for about two days in a cell in Canterlot castle, though in a cell at my own request. I found it oddly comforting.

I found out that Dalock had bypassed the need for somatic or verbal components. This enabled him to shock himself to death, and reform outside of Canterlot. It turned out that while the Plague Artifact had acted as the catalyst for his lichdom, it was his staff, sitting unrecovered in the thick rocks, that was his actual phylactery.

Had... Had "Fluttershy" not reported this shortly after I had ran away, Dalock would still be on the loose. While Scraps had seen her, he did so at a distance and had no clue what Fluttershy was seeing in the rocks. It was believed by the princesses that Dalock used the power word kill spell on her specifically to keep this a secret in desperation. Scraps surely would have been killed too, had Discord not stepped in.

As such, capturing him when he reformed was not only possible, but quite easy. Without his armor or large stockpile of spell slots, he was not nearly as menacing. With Starlight finishing her fine tuning of the up casting technique, her and the two princesses on duty at the time were able to easily counter everything he tried to throw at them. When he attempted another wish spell to get him out of there, Discord quickly countered it himself, being the strongest arcane caster among them all, and they quickly subdued him.

They also managed to keep him from casting any more magic. With the shards of an old changeling artifact that they said would absorb his magic as he casts it, even with his ability to do so while restrained, they ensured that he was unable to finish casting another spell, making sure he couldn't get out of his new prison.

Due to legalities, they couldn't just execute him. He had to stand trial, but translating proved problematic.

I looked at Dalock's lawyer, whom I pitied, and asked, "What do you mean, you need me to translate for him in court?"

"Nopony else is sufficiently fluent in his language except you, and while the translation amulets will allow us to hear him, it will not work the other way around for him hearing us. No translation amulet will work for him while he is in his restraints. I had applied for having them removed for the hearing, but due to his violent history, the court refused. I'll be able to hear you speaking to him just fine with my amulet though, as will most officials and guards in the court room, so formalities on risking a biased translation will not be an issue."

This was not developing as I had hoped. Regardless, I had planned for a similar scenario, and did have a solution for it. I pursed my lips, and gave a quiet groan to myself. Furling my eyebrows, I looked at the lawyer.

"I can do it, but first I need something in exchange. I need a favor from Princess Luna."

He looked at me odd. "The courts can certainly try to ask her to accommodate, I suppose, depending on what you need. What was this favor?"

I steeled myself for a moment then said, "I need her to perform an Astral Judgement."

"Out of the question! We are not at war anymore! To even imply doing this before he is convicted, if he even does get convicted, is utter-"

I quickly got in the lawyers face and screamed to get his attention, "It's not for Dalock, alright!? It's for me!"

Blinking in shock, the lawyer looked at me like I was crazy for a solid five seconds after I backed out of his face. Without losing even a shred of confusion, he asked, "It's for you? But I read your file. You've already been through an Astral Judgement and were fully acquitted. Why in the blazes of Celestia's sun would you want to go through that, again?"

I folded up my arms in stubbornness and gave a firm, calm reply. "That will be between me and Princess Luna after she's already started it. It's not negotiable. Either she does it, or I am willing to sit and rot in a cell for the rest of my life in contempt of court."

I had to be one hundred and ten percent convicted to the move, or he'd see right through me. This is why I had to be absolutely certain before I left the cave. I had no room for doubt as I was no good at bluffing, especially when I wasn't certain about something. Like a person in love, I had to be fully committed, ready to risk it all like a mad man and potentially condemn myself, or I had a zero percent chance of success anyway.

I stared into his eyes as I saw him stare back into mine. In the span of a few more seconds, he stared into my abyss and made up his mind. He then straightened himself up to show that while he understood me, he wouldn't stand for the intimidation. With a nod, he calmly replied, "I'll see what I can do."

---

A few days later, I was taken to a medical area and restrained for my own safety. Quickly nodding off with a mild application of sleeping gas just to help me go under, I found myself on that familiar dream island yet again.

"Now that we are here, what do you actually need from me, Moss?"

I turned around and saw Princess Luna looking at me, worryingly.

I put my head down and called to her mournfully, "I actually do need an Astral Judgement. More specifically, I need to use it to remember something from my past. If I think of it, can you follow that thought to the memory and help me view it again? There's a specific detail I need to retrieve. I've tried to do it on my own, but the memory is too faint."

She gave me an uneasy frown. "Moss, I will support you whether you back down or go through with this, but you know what an Astral Judgement will do to your mind. You've lived through it once already. On top of this you are still healing from an emotional wound as it is. You are not just doing this to punish yourself, are you? What could be so important to merit doing this?"

I shook my head. "No. I'm not just doing this to punish myself. I'm doing it because the fate of Equestria might depend on if we can extract this exact information from my memories or not. And maybe, since I've done this before and I'm cooperating this time, then if we are fast, we might get lucky and I won't have a lot of trauma from this."

Another question started to form on her lips, but she soon enough found the answer to whatever question it was in my eyes. She raised herself on her back hooves and made her entire body radiate energy as if a star was being born within her.

"R_ev^ea_l t^hi_ne ^se_cr^et_s!"

I could practically remember the magic reaching out to my mind, only this time I reached back to it with open arms instead of resisting.

With the plan in motion on her simply following my thoughts, I stitched a path for her to the memory, and she drove the magic to it. Almost immediately, I felt the strain start to come back. We needed to hurry.

---

"And the next guest we have here with us tonight on Dice Tumble almost needs no introduction. Lets give it up for the mind behind the Ork that flipped the wilderness on its head! Leeroy Peterson! So tell us, Lee, what kind of cha-"

The online video of the nerd channel I watched played in the background as I went about cleaning my room back when I still lived with my parents. I was a typical twenty year old guy who the school system hadn't actually prepared for the world, and who also happened to still slack off on cleaning if not told to.

Despite the strain of the judgement slowly growing like a migraine in the presence of a high pitched noise, I felt a slight wave of nostalgia kick in, seeing the old dwelling.

The scene moved forward a bit with the unimportant parts being skimmed over, until a stomping up the stairs could be heard.

"I hear that computer your uncle got you playing. When I get up there, I had better see a clean room, mr Da-"

---

Immediately, the room faded away and both Luna and I took a step back from the shock. She had forced the Astral Judgement closed.

"I'm..." She looked at me with a sorely apologetic look. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. I'll try not to tell anypony else."

I could see it in her eyes. Even though she tried to cut it short, she had heard the whole thing.

She heard the words that would cripple me, or indeed potentially any outsider. She heard my true name.

I brought myself across the island in the dream realm, and opened my arms in a wide hugging motion. Slowly, with her feeling rather confused but not fighting, I brought her into a hug and said, "It's alright. You know what it's like to be a monster too, so I trust you. That's why I needed it to be you and not some other dream walker. Tell whomever you feel needs to know, and don't tell me who you tell."

With this, my fear of princess Luna was finally over. I had taken a very delicate treasure of mine, and placed it in the care of the one I had reflexively feared for so long. The instinctive desire to panic simply vanished as I came out of the hug. "Now I don't have to worry about if I ever turn crooked like the rest of my kind. Somepony I trust has what they need to stop me."

I had completed the final part of my second step in the plan: Get over my knee-jerk fear of Princess Luna by facing that fear and overcoming it with a more powerful token of trust. Now I was equipped and readied for the third step: Ending the threat Dalock posed before he hurt anybody else.

Duet of the Damned. (Pennance, Part 2)

Days after the brief Astral Judgement, I was declared stable again and Princess Celestia summoned me to her personal study.

I sat there as my arm moved on its own, as if possessed by another. Dreading the action it was about to take, I found myself gulping down the vile poison the princesses called unsweetened jasmine tea.

Princess Celestia looked at me as I reveled in disgust. "And that is why you do not make jasmine tea with hot water when you do not know the first thing about tea, Moss."

Finally released from the compulsion I wasn't even able to resist, I looked at the alternate beverage presented to me, and happily found myself swishing it around my mouth to rinse the flavor.

"That was horrifying. No wonder Discord doesn't want anypony knowing his prior true name. That kind of control is potent."

Princess Celestia promptly took the kettle she had ordered me to brew tea with and asked for some proper tea to be made, notably something as unlike the prior tea as possible.

"And addicting for the user, especially when used on a powerful entity such as Discord. Thus why a native true name was appealing enough to him to permanently harm himself for it. As you are aware, there are magics that can compel one to say their true name, but now he can simply answer with his native true name instead. No creature can force his original true name from him now and he is far to cautious about it to ever let it slip by accident."

I nodded. "And, don't correct me if I'm wrong, but I can presume just about every alicorn princess in the royal family and General Prince Shining Armor have been told mine to keep me in line if they have to, among a hand... frog full of other ponies."

Celestia gave me that same masked smile I had come to recognize, neither nodded nor shook her head, and responded, "Due to her age, Flurry Heart would not remember it even if we did tell her, and I don't think it would be wise to allow a child such capacity. Nor is it wise to call it aloud, even if one believes themselves alone with the subject. Thus why I only whispered it into your ear a moment ago. If we ever did have to call it aloud, we pretty much would be forced to tell you to kill yourself to keep any that heard from using it after, given the power of your magics they would then have at their beck and call. We could have broken your bewitchment with enough effort, but even Discord recognized the need for the secrecy."

"And no level of magical resistance can help you fight off the effect of a true name being called?"

Princess Celestia shook her head. "No, because it is not magic, at least not exactly. The forces that allow for this are far older than conventional magic. From what we have extracted on them, they are passive and everywhere, rarely coming into play even in the ancient times when the worlds were young."

"So is this another reason why there isn't much traffic with other worlds?"

She took my drink I used to wash out the bad taste when I finished and placed it on a tray.

"If I were to travel to a nearby world on the scale of inter dimensional travel, I would have some disadvantage of others knowing my true name, but the effect would be minor enough to not be noticed by all but the sharpest minds. The danger arises when one is in worlds with great distances from their home world such as Discord's original home world or your own."

She gave me a look akin to a teacher giving bad news to a student, needing to say it but not taking any pleasure in the act.

"But whatever degree you are affected by it, it is impossible to nullify or weaken. At best one can resist, if only for a time, depending on how 'close' one still is to their home world. Beyond that, there is no suppressing the effect once one's true name has been spoken."

A servant brought a tea pot with properly made tea from the kitchen and Celestia thanked them in her usual, regal, yet 'not higher than you' courtesy. I couldn't help but feel the look of happiness on the servant's faces in the castle weren't faked or forced in any way. There was the occasional scowl or other less than positive look, but they were allowed to carry it without question and they still weren't generally miserable. The large majority of the staff seemed to genuinely enjoy working there under her.

Pouring tea that actually looked and smelled nice for the two of us, she continued.

"Bypassing the bewitchment to tell my sister your true name was unbelievably reckless, and hopefully now you know why we never pressed you for it once we learned of the safety measure placed on you. Now that you have granted your true name to us of your own volition, we have indeed secured it as a safeguard as you wished us to. Even so, we have only made the absolute minimum sized web of ponies needed to ensure there is a safety net. Even a single leak of your true name to untrustworthy ears could prove disastrous."

---

Tempest and I were sitting in the castle court yard, "Are you sure you don't want to see her? Once you start translating for his defense, you won't be allowed near any of us again."

"No. I have to get a few more things done first. Let her know I do want to see her. I actually need to see her eventually. I just can't, not yet."

Tempest looked down at the papers she had transcribed for me as a substitute to my formal testimony. This was the real sacrifice I'd be doing when I started translating for him. The moment I started hearing anything of his defense, I would not be able to assist the prosecution anymore. In fact, I'd just about be stuck with Dalock all day, practically joined at the hip. All day, every day with the one being that had taken two of my closest friends from me in front of my own eyes. Previously I'd have been shocked, appalled and furious, but now? Now I saw it as an opportunity. It was too perfect.

"This is looking pretty solid now. I don't think we have much else we can add to it."

I looked up at the tree in the court yard, recognizing the perfect spot Archimedes would be perching while we did our thing, but I hadn't seen him in months. Not since I ran away to the cave.

"How is Archimedes? Is he still alive after..."

Tempest looked at me as I paused in reflection.

"After sicking him on Zecora? yes. He wasn't hurt, just netted by Plasma Wave and myself. He's been very inert, though. He'll eat and be responsive to sound, but not much else. He hasn't been active, nor have we gotten him to communicate with us when we ask what's wrong. We can tell he will still listen when we just talk, but short of threatening to move him by force, he doesn't leave his nest for anything but food."

I closed my eyes and held back a tear. "It's because of what I did to him. I betrayed our bond as partners and ordered him as nothing more than my familiar, my servant. If you could, please let him know I am sorry for doing it, but I can't undo my order just yet."

Tempest, being the pragmatic, multi tasking leader of the squad she was, put her notes away as I made my request. With a whistle she called Scraps, who had been playing fetch with one of the off duty guards of the castle.

"Is this for the same reasons you can't see Fluttershy yet?"

I had to resist the urge to use my portent to hide my reflex to her name and did my best to keep myself from stiffening up the normal way. Tempest had become familiar with my tell tale sign of using my portent. She'd expect a bit of stiffness from hearing her name, but she'd outright be suspicious of me using my portent to control my response.

I couldn't let any of them know of my plan. As much as they might like the plan and agree with me, they would be morally obligated to try to stop it. They had helped me so much in the past, but this mission was one I had to do alone, no matter how scared I was to do so. Keeping them in the dark and being shunned or ostracized for my actions when it was over was a cross I would just have to bear. If I wanted to guarantee their safety, then there was no other way.

"...Basically. About a ninety percent overlap?"

Tempest checked Scraps' bauble bag as he dumped it out for her in habit. She rummaged for a few seconds through it to see if anything needed returned. With a smile, she gave him a nod and he put every last item back in happily. Turning back to me, she responded.

"I'll relay the messages to them. I'll see you again when you're freed up from the defense. Hopefully it will only be a couple months."

With this, the lawyer assigned to Dalock came off of the bench on the far side of the court yard and approached us.

"Are we certain we are wrapped up then? I won't be accused of pulling you away before you're finished."

Scraps waved goodbye to me as he and Tempest walked off, not fully understanding how long I'd be gone.

I waved back and responded to him. "Yes. I've done every kind of preparation for this I could. I'm ready to go."

---

When I finally saw Dalock, I was surprised at the ingenuity they took to capture him. Only the front part of his skull and jaw were exposed to the open air. On one side of his face, I could see a dark, almost organic piece of rock wedged between his skull and the stone.

I had heard of the process they used to imprison him, but seeing it made it all come together better. Once the magic nullifying shards were stuck to him, Princess Cadence couldn't use her magic to encase him in crystal again. So instead the servants used the reverse side of the same spell I had used on Zecora to turn the basalt stone into mud. As soon as he was submerged into it, the magic in the mud was absorbed by the shards and they resumed their stone like form. It was like a giant, solidified bowl of pudding with how the stone was displaced around him.

I could even see the remnants of the rod they used to force him down beveled down flush with the stone. There was no forcing his way out physically and with the shards his magic wasn't an option. The lawyer had mentioned he would have to be chiseled out if he won his court hearing.

I payed his snark little mind as I had come to expect it from him.

It was all business during the lawyer sessions we had to build his case, which was as much lies and bull shit as I had expected it to be, but I was a little irritated with the guards constantly hovering near while we were alone.

"Its not like I'd do anything to you." I called to Dalock. "All it would do is free you from the one place within the world of the living I trust you to not hurt anypony."

"They still aren't going to take any chances with Mr necessary evil."

I had lost how many degrading nick names he had called me, sometimes even when the layer was present. But it wasn't long before he tried to play me in more twisted ways. It wasn't bad at first, but I knew he was warming up for the slam dunk.

"So, do you know how many times that monster slaughtered me before they put me in here? I lost track. One thing I noted, though, was that they were waiting for me right off the bat, even though I killed the one that could have told them."

I knew what he was going for, but I still knew it was going to sting.

"You brought her back, didn't you? That's how they caught me. Tell me, my lesser half, what was it like? Having that kind of power if only for a moment?"

I knew I was going to have to play his game.

"..."

"Was it exhilarating? Having the power of a god? Proving definitively you were better than they were?"

"Shut up."

His tone shifted manipulatively akin to a stick being shoved into a wound. "Or was it something else? Were you disgusted with yourself Mr hypocrite?"

I fell over and fessed up. "I was no better than you when I did that, and it will haunt me to the end of my days."

He laughed, thinking he broke me. He would have been right, had I not already broken myself first. But continue to play my part, I did. For months, I translated faithfully, and regularly suggested he just confess for a lesser sentence. They just dismissed me every time, of course, and let him chew me out and taunt me when the lawyer wasn't around, and waited for the day to come.

Over time, I made a point to show my admiration for the show he played on, never mentioning anything about knowing his name. It was annoying, playing the part of a Stockholm syndrome victim. We went back and forth about how I was a man of faith and he would dog me on it, breaking me until I was submissive, speaking meekly in my responses.

---

Months later, in the cool autumn, Dalock's entire stone block was painstakingly dragged to the court room. I watched carefully, waiting for my moment. Sunburst sat at the prosecution table as their legal assistant while another pony I didn't know approached Dalock's lawyer. It was then, while the lawyer was distracted in the hustle and bustle of the court room settling down I finally made my move.

Moving up to his ear, I meekly whispered to Dalock in the same broken voice I had practiced for so long, "I say this for the sake of your immortal soul, Leeroy Peterson. During the trial, just confess to any crimes you've actually committed. Tell them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about your crimes and I will pray for you."

He didn't move for a moment as he processed what I said. Finally, he quietly laughed and said, "Bitch, I don't even believe in that bible thumping bullshit of yours. I don't need your pity or your sissy boy catholic preacher cock sucking prayers! Just shut up and do your damn job so I can get out of this rock already!"

Soon enough, the hearing started. The judge was called and all the formalities were performed properly.

Finally, I was tasked to translate the words of the court to Dalock.

"You stand accused of plotting to overthrow the crown, resisting arrest, terrorism, the murder of twenty two military officers as well as thirty five civilians and crimes against sentience in causing the pandemic of this spring. How do you plead?"

The lawyer started to stand, all expecting him to say not guilty, or a mixture of pleas, but Dalock cut him off, yelling firmly and loudly.

"Guilty on all accounts!"

Sunburst spat out the water from the defense table he had been sipping as the court room went alight with gasps.

Dalock's jaw bone was slack at what he just said.

"You fucking punk ass bitch! What did you do!?"

The lawyer turned to me and demanded the same.

"All I did was translate. You all heard me. I mean, sure, I have been telling him he should just plea guilty for a reduced sentence. That wasn't a secret, but it doesn't invalidate it if he takes the advice just because I gave it! He's in an anti magic trap. By your own words I couldn't have done anything! If I could have, you wouldn't have needed me."

Looking out in the audience, I saw Moon Beam hidden in the audience. It was definitely Princess Luna in her Moon Beam form and not Guiding Star because she look at me with shock at first, but then in realization and finally disgust. She finally put it together what I really needed the Astral Judgement for back then.

"Order! Order in the court!"

The judge looked around. "The theatrics do not invalidate the plea of guilt. The restraints would indeed make any form of magical manipulation impossible as Moss stated. But on the chance that foul play is the case, I will make an exception and allow the defendant to appeal this with Astral Judgement through the Dream Walkers Guild in spite of the odd circumstances if they so desire. One month will be granted to make this decision. Otherwise, the sentence is the destruction of Dalock's Phylactery, and subsequent execution."

I looked over at Dalock with the same level of submissiveness as I had done so for so long.

Pulling my eyes forward, I held my same posture and kept playing my part. I had managed to get them to not let him off. The Astral Judgement would make it clear, of course, and I was sure the lawyer would urge it, and I could live with it if they did.

My only remorse was that I couldn't take Astral Judgement back to earth, though that might still have been for the best. If I were doing it for personal vendetta, I'd feel completely sick with myself. Instead, I just felt dirty. I was careful to word my command to where he would only plead guilty if he actually knew he was guilty, not force a false confession. Therefore an Astral Judgement won't reverse that unless he was actually innocent on some bizarre grounds he hadn't thought of and they saw the horrors that was a human being before releasing a silver tongued monster. I might have possibly damned myself to execution too, but that was a price I was willing to pay to make sure they were safe. It had a chance of mutually assured destruction for both me and him, but now he was going to be neutralized whether I was punished or not.

Checkmate.

Author's Notes:

And P.S. To Golden Reflection, you may now post this image or an equivalent in the comments:

The Devil's Due. (Pennance, Part 3)

I sat there in the middle of the castle gardens, basking in the shadows of the night.

"You deceived me."

"I withheld information of my meditations, but what I did share with you wasn't a lie. I actually was in pain and I told a truthful tale."

"You were planning this disgusting act all along."

"It was about two weeks in before I decided I needed to act, but otherwise I had made a plan much like this, yes. I also had multiple other plans in reserve, depending on what happened."

"And then you used me to get the key to it all, while lulling me into not realizing it by giving me such a powerful token of trust."

"You would have stopped me and he would have walked."

"You sat with him, day in and day out, just to wait for the perfect moment to strike."

"All the while, I listened to his mind games and saw the proof he didn't have any intention of living in peace."

"That wasn't justice you performed, Moss."

I stood up and looked to my left, then to my right. Princess Luna and Princess Celestia both were looking at me with their horns alight with magic, ready to blast me.

I turned to Princess Celestia. "I never deluded myself into believing it was."

Turning to the other princess, I inhaled firmly and met her with that same cold stare. "I commend your strength of heart in wanting to give him a fair trial. It truly is what I love about the ponies of Equestria so much. But until his execution, the war will only be over on paper. Had the war not been declared over, I would have gladly signed the papers for his Astral Judgement myself."

I then folded my arms and gave the pony that had comforted me in my darkest hour her bitter glare right back. A tear beaded from my eyes as I held firm to my stare. "Now you realize I was not simply belittling myself when I said it. Now you finally believe me when I tell you that I am a monster. Even the best of my kind need only a nudge in just the wrong way to become a monster. Now you finally see what kind of threat my kind are to your world."

Celestia came up and spoke a mournful, and yet soft and maternal voice. "It's only because of our own belief in our system's sacredness that Luna can not act against you. Even so, the pain is still there, Moss. We will never be able to fully trust you again."

"Good. You finally get it. That was the whole point of what I've been saying for so long. That's another task I set out to do completed. Now either you need to use my true name against me, or I have an old owl to see."

Princess Luna came up to me and looked me in the eyes with a slew of negative emotions. Confusion and anger were definitely among the most prominent. However, through the chaotic storm of emotions that played across her expressions there was an underlying pattern between them that came together to show the feeling that was at the root of them all. Betrayal.

"The most I can do is make a note on your record that you abused my trust to gain an advantage and that you are a potential danger. Due to the high bias around his case and my regular involvement in your dreams, I can't even give testimony on it. But if you ever misuse such power again, I actually just might have to use your true name against you as you suggest. To draw from your world's dialect, I 'pray' to the greater forces that you come to regret these actions and find peace after."

I nodded as I saw her give me a moment to say my final peace too.

"I honestly don't know if I ever will, at least not in this life. But I do wish you well in my parting."

She lifted a foreleg and pointed in the direction that led to the courtyard and castle gate. "Now be gone. I do not ever want to see your face again, Moss."

---

It was a long, lonely train ride back to Ponyville. I didn't really have anywhere in particular to go after my tasks were done, so it wasn't exactly a train ride 'home.' I doubted I'd even be welcomed if knowledge of what I had done was shared beyond the two royal sisters.

The cab was empty, save for myself and Archimedes, whom I had finally picked up.

I could tell he was still sore, as I had lifted my commands and he was able to speak freely to me, and yet he simply stayed quiet and stared away from me, out the window and into the darkness.

We were about half way through the ride when I had reached out for the ump-teenth time to him, only to withdraw my hand again.

"She was beautiful." I finally heard him call to me. His tone wasn't one of anger, or even his usual disdain. Just a painful sadness.

With a shock at both the emotion and the fact that he talked first, I could only say, "What?"

"My beloved back from the first rift war. She was only an average looker, for a just fully grown mortal, but her heart was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. She was strong, yet kind, and was never afraid to tell me when I was wrong on something despite the difference in our years and level of power. Nothing compared to the inner beauty I saw in her in the centuries before I met her or in the millenniums since."

I paused with a slightly agape mouth and a look of confusion in my eyes.

"My species—that is to say my species as a type of celestial, not owl—are very prone to feeling any emotion strongly and having even stronger ties, once we form them at least. Only a few in the old world or this one could even hold a candle to her inner beauty, your beloved Fluttershy being one of those few. So imagine the bond I've seen in you and Fluttershy, then add romance and times what you would get by a thousand. That is roughly how I could compare the amount of inner beauty I saw in my beloved in crude terms."

He turned around and looked into my eyes.

"Towards the end of the first rift war, she died trying to heal another. I felt a devastation much like your own that night. I wasn't at my full capacity in magic back then, but I was still much stronger than you are currently. She had told me that she would die some day and that I would have to learn to keep moving without her because she believed strongly in not only protecting life, but also protecting the sanctity of it, much like yourself. I thought that might be decades into the future, but that battle proved me wrong."

He stopped, and shifted his posture as if nearly choking on something while swallowing, then steadied his breathing.

"And then I did the same thing you did, Moss. I tried to bring her back. I tried multiple times and failed every time. At first I thought something had trapped her soul."

He put his head against my shoulder from his spot on the cushion and continued in a tone of utter shame.

"I tried to search for anything that might have kept her from coming back, as I had brought other fighters back on occasion when we had the resources for such a spell. This was one of the few tricks I could do that would aid the war that my rival, Discord as you call him, could not. Had we been in the old world, I could have sought her out in the plane her soul went to, but such a luxury does not exist in this world's planes. The veil does not allow the living to travel across it here in any manner, nor draw any information. It barely allows us to call out to it, allowing the dead to return."

I finally was able to bring my hand up to comfort him. Against his usual nature, he leaned into the embrace of my hand as if he needed it like he needed air.

"I wanted to deny it, but the evidence I gathered between missions was too overwhelming. There was nothing keeping her from coming back. Her devotion to the sanctity of life was simply so strong that she was refusing to answer my call and come back to me."

Pressing in so hard I had to actually support his weight, he continued.

"I was so devastated when I finally admitted it to myself that I almost planned on giving up in that last battle and letting myself be killed. But then something happened. Something amazing and terrifying at the same time. I had a dream."

I pulled my hand away and let him suddenly tip over and fall into the seat.

"You had a dream? What's so amazing about that?"

After getting himself set straight again, he explained. "It's amazing because my kind do not dream like mortals. We rest, yes, at least when needed. We even become attuned to the astral realm and meditate to clear our minds in a similar manner to what your minds do while sleeping, albeit a good deal more organized. What we do not do, however, is simply visualize random things that buzz around our minds like mortals. We do not visualize anything. When we do have a dream it is of utmost importance. Great sages of celestials past can guide us in our lifelong training or other entities such as ghosts or trapped souls can call to us to avenge their deaths. Sometimes it is even a clairvoyant prophecy in the most devote of us to our masters, though that has long since stopped applying to me. Though they are a different kind of celestial that have a different purpose to their dreams, the couatl are able to be forewarned of their own deaths a full century in advance in their dreams and make preparations for their passing."

He looked up to me to indicate he was getting back to his point.

"When I slept on the eve of that battle, I dreamt of her. The words of the ancient tongue do not translate well to your tongue, but their equivalent meaning would have been, 'If you love me, then redeem your greed to keep me by extending that passion to the world I love. You're journey will be long and you will have to sacrifice being with me many times over to see it through to its end, but some day you will join me here. Until then, I will wait for you. Do not give up.'"

After that, silence filled the cab for several minutes. I reflected on his words, how his sacrifices made a bit more sense and how long he had been holding on. Eventually, I had the courage to speak.

"No wonder you always have disdain in your voice. Does the path to redemption ever get any easier? What kept you going after all this time?"

He shook his head gently. "No, it doesn't. It's a long, lonely and unrewarding path of penance, poetically so I suppose. As for what keeps me going? Hope. Not the feel good kind that a child or a pair of lovebirds might have. That has failed me time and time again. No. Now all that drives me is a cold, bitter on the tongue like medicine, hope. It was that kind of faith fueled bitter hope that gave me the strength to jump through that portal and let the one bonded to Discord seal myself and the others away from her to protect the world she loved, as she asked of me."

He then hopped onto my lap and cocked his head. His tone finally lost its melancholy and perked up a little. "So I do not blame you for acting rashly against me. If I had such a bond at your age, I would have just as easily done the same. As a thank you for listening to my tale, partner, I will reward you with a little information. I can tell you do not know the ramifications of the spell you cast. Few your age would.

"I understand you believe in an entity beyond all things. I am not well versed in such theology or what ramifications that would bring to your moral code, and thus that might change the formula a little, but within the realms of the magics I am familiar with I can tell you this. All knowledge and research in regards to spells that properly bring back the dead to a living state, including the one you cast, does indeed bring back the soul, and the entire soul back. You are a heavy thinker, so you will have your doubts regardless, but I believe it is her. She's not a copy, nor some fragment. All of her is there, at least according to every last bit of evidence I have ever heard of."

---

I had only gotten a moderate cat nap on the train, partially due to my nerves, and partially from the short remaining distance.

I hurried off the platform as the rest of the train was promptly moved down the line to drop off and pick up cargo further down the line. The royal sisters had ordered my prompt expulsion from the city of Canterlot. Once I told them my desired destination, the train yard had simply put a single passenger cab onto an appropriate cargo train to accommodate me.

By the time I had reached the cottage, the sun was just about finished rising and the morning light was a sight to behold on the old place.

This was it. The moment I both strived for, yet feared. My next task. I finally took a breath and knocked on the door.

After a few moments, Tempest answered, toothbrush still in her mouth. She and I simply stared into each others eyes. I oddly didn't sense any anger from her, but I also didn't see a welcoming smile, just surprise.

"Who is at the door this early Tempest?" I heard an angelic voice call out, "Do we have a guest for breakfast... Moss!?"

The Path Forward. (Pennance, Part 4)

I sat down and told them everything I could. How I meditated in that cave, how I couldn't be one hundred percent sure if Fluttershy was really Fluttershy—even though Archimedes told me that everything pointed to it being so—how I betrayed Luna and subverted the principals of the Equestrian legal system to ensure Dalock was neutralized for good. I told her I couldn't take the risk of him getting free again with how Bane would always have a claim to this world while Dalock was still in it.

I also told her that while I explained my reasons, I made no claim that they granted justification for my actions. I told her how, in one final security measure against myself and what kind of monster I might become some day by crossing those lines, I bypassed my bewitchment and gave Princess Luna the opportunity to hear my true name at the same time that I retrieved Dalock's from my memory. When they asked what had driven me so far, I told them how I felt I had touched a power I felt I shouldn't have in bringing her back, and how not accepting the death and taking the rules of life and death into my own hands was among one of the most heinous forms of desecration I could have made to my beliefs.

I finished with telling her that, in a way, even though the world of Equis was safe now, pending his execution, Dalock did achieve one last victory in that he got me to break my own code.

Fluttershy listened intently, her expression no less dedicated with her new fanged face than her old one. Over time, I saw her become a little worried about something, but her eyes urged me to continue.

"And that's about it. I'm sorry for barging in unannounced, but I felt you had the right to know," I finally finished.

Fluttershy sat there and pondered for a bit longer before she spoke up.

"So do you need to kill me? Undo the mistake?"

I looked at her in horror. "Do you really feel that unsettled now!?"

She shook her head. "No. I do feel different, but it isn't bad. I don't have the aches from the injury with my hoof like I used to, and ponies keep staring at my fangs and wings rather than making eye contact. It's just that I vaguely remember a sinking sensation and you calling out to me. I felt at peace and felt like there was nothing to worry about anymore. I barely came back because when I heard your voice, I remembered that I had a message to deliver and it was important."

She lowered her head. "But I honestly do feel like I cheated every pony else that died in the war when I came back. I don't really want to die again, but if that will set things-"

"It won't!" I called out in worry, "For the love of all things sacred, it won't! Maybe you really are her, willing to give up everything for what you feel is right, but please don't ever even suggest that again. If any sin was committed, it was on me. For better or worse, I'm a healer now and there's an old code of healers when healing from my world. It's one of the few bits of wisdom I feel were worth keeping. 'Above all else, do no harm.' Maybe I shouldn't have done it, but now that you are alive, you have every right to live as any other being. It's not on you and don't you ever let me catch you saying anything even remotely like that again!"

With this Fluttershy smiled, unphased by my outburst. Tempest outright cackled, then responded, "There's the caring Moss we know and love. You made a few mistakes but you haven't lost yourself and owned up to them. With that safeguard in place, we can neutralize you if we have to."

She shook her head and looked back at me. "Are you certain you worded it to where he'd only plea guilty on stuff he knew he did? Because you know the dream walker's guild will be judging him as soon as the hypnotist from Seaquestria arrives tomorrow to put his otherwise sleepless form under, and they will be looking at his memories of the court room, right?"

---

With other formalities out of the way and an explanation that I had to leave and couldn't live at her cottage anymore, Fluttershy insisted that I come and visit when I travel through again.

With my old supplies on my back, I made a week long trek back to the edges of Canterlot to finish my final task before heading out to... wherever. It was a little rough, sleeping in the talons of Archimedes while in my mouse form, then switching out and carrying him while he slept and eating only the magically conjured goodberries. It was especially frustrating since I had to wake up mid way through the night to just transform again for the second half. In doing so, though, we made decent time to the memorial.

I could see it. It was in the early phases of construction, with only the foundation laid. From what I was told, a statue of the multiple races in the rift war would be built on the site of the battle with Dalock to honor those that fell. There was one in particular I had to make my peace with.

The plant life was growing over the scorched earth, slowly healing from the wounds of the war. A mother and her colt were at the sign that was the border of where the construction began and where those not working on it weren't allowed to get any closer. It had become an impromptu substitute memorial for those that needed to make their peace with the departed before construction was complete.

I quietly waited for the colt to finish crying and his mother to pull him away before I approached it myself.

I placed a hand on the sign, "Hey there, Speaks with Talons. I doubt you can hear me, but I suppose I'm just doing this for my own grievance anyway. Still, if you are listening..."

I paused for a moment, then pressed my amulet out of courtesy to my late battle brother. "If you are listening, Speaks with Talons, I hope you're at peace. I finished the mission. The family is safe from the last of my kind. If I see you again, I'll be sure to tell you of whatever adventures I have from here to then. I won't deny, though, I really, really hope they are the burning something in the kitchen and learning to hold down a job variety, not the grand adventure to end a threat to the world variety. I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime, and then some."

I heard a young voice pop up beside me, "I haven't! That sounds exciting mister fish monkey!"

Looking down, I saw what was the splitting image of my battle brother staring back at me, except as a child.

I couldn't help but just stare and process what I was seeing. The griffin boy got bored, however, and quickly called out, "Hey, dad! Come look at this guy! He's funny looking and he said he knew Uncle Talons!"

Looking at the griffin coming up to the child, I was stunned into a stupor of processing what I saw again.

The well kept black feathers, the sheer height, the battle armor, the smoothness of both her stride and the features of the beak and face. It felt like I was staring at a cross of the graceful Chinese hero Mulaun from that movie and an amazonian warrior, but as a griffiness. She was huge, even a little larger than the eagle headed griffins I had seen.

She stared right back at me without caring that I was staring at her. "I assume you know how to speak?"

"Of course he can speak, dad! He was talking to Uncle Talons just now!"

Without looking, she gently took her talon to his beak and closed it. Not in anger, but simply a parent controlling a rambunctious child. The child looked disappointed, but became quiet obediently.

"Is my amulet translating right? Did I just hear him call you 'dad'?"

The previously calm griffiness shot me a blood curdling glare. "Yes. You heard correctly. My brother may have sired him at my request, but I am his father in every other sense of the word! Do you have a problem with that!?"

The hairs raised on the back of my neck, though out of fear and not my portent trick.

"No, mam," I responded with the utmost respect.

"Easy there. This is the Beast Kin, also known as Moss, our late brother's battle brother."

Turning to look behind the giant griffiness, I saw the Toucan griffin, Sings to Canopy, followed by a smaller raven griffiness and two young looking griffinesses that looked like a parrot and vulture. The young griffinesses were not fully grown, but still clearly older than the boy.

"I believe you have my name, Moss, but allow me to introduce the rest of our family. This is Cries when Slaying, Speaks with Talons's full sister." He gestured to the large raven griffiness, then to the smaller raven griffiness, "and her wife, Silent Mercy, whom is not fluent in Equestrian. Just the way they speak her name in Equestrian and maybe a few small phrases."

I saw an advanced medical kit on her side and what looked like what might be a thin blade holding her feathers on her head together like a hairpin. Her eyes were looking me over akin to a medic assessing a wound, and a predator about to strike at the same time.

"The rest have not quite earned their names, but these two are our half nieces from the parrot and vulture tribes and my current charges until I can get them up to speed for our father to take over."

Cries when Slaying shook her head then pulled her son in close to her. "I knew when he was born a boy, that his grandfather would want to snatch him up to the shaman arts. With my brother's death, Claps to Thunder finally was forced to take on new apprentices, even among the girls of our family. They could have made such good braves too."

Silent Mercy looked at the stallions patrolling near the site and the immediate area near the city. "Males are the prominent retainers here? No wonder my wife's brother was so fond of this place. Mammals are so backwards to birds."

Sings to Canopy leaned over and said, "The Beast kin's amulet will still let him hear you, Silent Mercy."

She looked at him blankly, "And your point is? Are we going to attend the execution of the one that set our family's disturbance into motion or are we going to continue site seeing?"

Sings to Canopy looked up to me. "Will you be joining us in Canterlot for the execution, Beast Kin?"

I thought for a moment, realizing they were talking about Dalock, then shook my head and turned to the memorial again. "Sadly, no. I've been banned from the city for reasons that were entirely my fault. I'm taking a risk just getting this close to say goodbye."

Cries when Slaying looked back to me. "Then perhaps you will visit us back in the griffin lands some day. Blood may be a catalyst that starts a family, but it is the ties that we form that truly breathes life into one. You had those ties with my brother, and I hope to form similar ties with you someday, Beast Kin. Until then, we must hurry on."

She promptly took command and gestured every griffin to the city.

"Hey mom! Can I get-" The boy called to Silent Mercy as they moved on before being cut off.

"Don't you come to me for something when your father says no! If I felt you needed something she denied, I would have objected then! Ask again and you'll get the back of my talon!"

---

I sat at the edge of that site for a few hours as the workers arrived and got to building the memorial.

Eventually, the morning went on, and I heard some ponies coming up from behind. I heard a sniffling pony call out in a voice that indicated she was under the weather.

"I told you he would be here and that he could be trusted! I've never met him before but the other me said so and I trust me."

Turning around, I saw a sick Pinkie Pie and a wobbly Lightning Dust along with a gray pegasus mare and a stallion with a tie. Following up behind them was Tempest.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Moss, but we really are in a bit of a pickle. I need to get these two back to when... where I got them from but I need to get them patched up first. I understand you have access to greater restoration now, yes?"

I could get the sense that these weren't common bystanders but have had their share of adventures too. A headache started to grow in the back of my mind.

"It costs a good deal of..."

I was cut off when I saw a bottle with enough diamond dust plopped in front of me for five castings of greater restoration.

"Keep the change. Something tells me you're going to need it."

* * *

With the odd group out of the way, Pinkie Pie restored with just the lesser restoration spell and the remaining diamond dust redistributed into portioned out vials in my own pouch, Tempest came up to me.

"We need to talk. I've been told there's a disturbance in the tribal griffin lands, but I need some creature that will help me get them to let me in. Aside from the trade city on the border of the vulture and parrot tribes lands on the coast, they don't take kindly to foreigners that have no ties to any of the tribes. Servants of the Animus Mundi are also an exception, but Zecora refuses to help. While we fought together, I never earned the title of battle sister due to my ties to the Equestrian military making it simply a "part of my job" instead of from my own free will like you. Do you think you could use your influence as the Beast Kin and help me investigate?"

I put my head in my hands as the headache came to full bear. I rubbed my eyes for a moment before looking up to the sky and shouting at it.

"This is my real penance, isn't it!? I can't just settle down anymore. I'll have to just keep dealing with this crap!"