The Lost Element

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She didn’t know where she was; only that it was a room that she didn’t recognise. Wooden boards held back earthen walls, though clods of soil managed to squeeze through in places, leaving lines of muck down the walls. Looking around, she frowned, trying to figure out where she was, but there were no windows to show her the outside.

Light seemed to come from the floor itself as she moved deeper into the room, trying to find a way out. Her hooves made no noise on the moss covered floor, only adding to the creepiness of the scene she had found herself in. “What is this place?” Nightshade asked herself, looking around once more. “Come to that, where is Spitfire?” Nothing answered her save the soft creak of shifting wood. She was alone in this place of darkness.

Swallowing hard, she continued on towards the opposite end of the room to the one she had started out in, cringing as a rusted wing blade appeared out of the darkness, looming from where it was hanging off a bar. Her ears twitched as she heard something, a soft hissing sound. Stepping forwards slowly, she finally managed to make out the back wall of the room, and a table in front of it, one covered in dark stains — were they soil, drinks or something else?

The area seemed to brighten somewhat, as a crooked horn lit with green fire. Looking down, Nightshade gasped, seeing an insect-like pony lying against the wall, the light of its horn enough to see blood running down its face from a trio of long scratches, more blood pooled around it. The light was also enough to see a picture above the poor creature, a pony skull mounted over it while a group of sinister looking ponies glared out of the picture.

“S-stop… them…” The changeling gasped as everything went dark again.

*****

Sitting up sharply, Nightshade was rewarded with the sound of something toppling over followed by a yelp from the floor of the bedroom as she panted. It didn’t register though, not properly, as her mind was still running over the dream she had woken up from. What in Equestria had that been about and why had there been a changeling of all things in her dream?

Taking several deep breaths, she let them out slowly, starting to calm down from the after effects of the dream, just in time to realise that the bed was empty apart from her. “Spitfire?” She asked, looking around and blinking at the daylight creeping in through the windows.

Spitfire groaned, rubbing her head as she righted herself and stood up. “I swear, being around you is getting hazardous to my health lately,” She mumbled, trying to figure out just why Nightshade had more-or-less tossed her out of the bed they were still sharing. Looking over at her bed mate she could almost hear the comments about that from her team mates if they ever learned about it. “What happened, Shade?” She asked, twitching her tail before spreading her wings slowly. “Why’d you throw me out of bed?”

Nightshade blushed, her ears flattening at Spitfire’s tone. “Sorry, Spitfire,” She said, “I just… I had a bad dream.”

Spitfire arched an eyebrow, “A dream?” She asked, moving to sit on the bed. “What kind of dream was bad enough to make you throw a pony out of bed?” She asked, frowning at her friend. Granted the bed wasn’t exactly the biggest thing she had ever slept on, but last night they had managed without one of them ending up on the floor, so what had happened just?

Shrugging, Nightshade sighed. “I… I don’t really know,” She admitted. “There was this room that had somepony’s wing blade in it, and an injured changeling… and a picture of a group of ponies.” She shook her head and sighed. “I really don’t know what it meant, but it was probably bad… they had a pony’s skull mounted over the picture. What kind of pony does that?”

“I don’t know either, Shade.” Spitfire replied with a sigh, wrapping a wing around Nightshade. “All I can say is that it’s probably best to try to keep on without worrying too much about the dream, if you do, you’ll probably end up not being able to think about anything else and that would be a problem.” She pointed out, reaching up to push her mane behind her ear. “Besides, we’ve got plenty we need to do before we head back, like sorting out what we’re doing for the Summer Sun Celebration, finding out more about this legendary lost element and ghost hunting.” She added with a grin, the thought of getting out and poking around old buildings looking for ghostly happenings perking up her mood.

Grinning, Spitfire nudged Nightshade with her wing before hopping off the bed and trotting to the door. “C’mon, Shade, we’ve still got a lot to do before we head home, starting with breakfast.”

*****

Chewing on cornbread toast, Spitfire scanned through the logs from the sensors she had put up the previous night, looking for anything obviously interesting before she copied everything to external storage for later. It was a habit she had developed from working on ghost hunts alone so often. Most ponies, when asked about ghosts, were either scared of them or didn’t believe in them, which meant that even with all the travelling she did, it was rather hard to meet anypony that she could work with on her second love.

Unfortunately nothing stood out to her, but then there were times when she had to go through things frame by frame and muck with the audio settings to pick up anything at all, if there was anything there to start with.

Sighing in frustration, she set everything to burn to the silvery discs and shifted the table as far out of the way as she could before going to her suitcase and pulling out a map of the surrounding area, laying it on the floor. Where to head from here… the library might have some information about the crowns in its vaults, but Spitfire had the feeling there wouldn’t be anything easily accessible, so where else could information be hidden?

“So…” Nightshade started, balancing a plate of cornbread toast on her back, “Where are we going to go today?” She asked, making it to the seating area and carefully slipping the plate down onto the table before looking over at what Spitfire was doing. “What’s that a map of?”

“The town and its surroundings,” Spitfire replied, looking up at Nightshade. “I was actually trying to figure out where it would be best to look around for any clues on what is going on in this place and any clues about those treasures.” She flicked her tail out behind her, finishing the cornbread. “Best I can figure would be either the museum,” Her hoof moved to point at a building marked on the map, “Or the castle.” She added, pointing to another building, “Though that place is in ruins so it’s hard to get to a lot of the rooms on the upper floors even with wings.”

Nightshade flicked her tail as she chewed on a cornbread. “What about talking to the station marester or Heathwarmer about tales?” She asked, flicking her ears forwards. “I mean didn’t you say that the station marester has been around these parts for a while, and I’m sure any barkeeper worth their salt — and I could go for a lick of that myself — would know at least a few tales about their area’s history.”

“Don’t you get getting yourself high on salt on me, Shade.” Spitfire said, shifting back a little as she looked over at her friend. “With just the two of us here, we need to be thinking straight when we’re looking around places, particularly places like the castle.”

“Why?” Nightshade asked, arching an eyebrow at her yellow friend.

Spitfire sighed, shifting awkwardly. “Because believe it or not, a lot of ruins around here, while great for ghost hunting, aren’t exactly maintained.” She pointed out, moving to tap the map. “The castle, and several of the caves are best explored with your head on straight and safety gear at hoof before you begin.” That was the main reason she had brought both sets of her armoured flight suits, granted one of them was a Shadowbolt suit, but at least with the light metal plates woven into it, it would provide more protection than the standard one. It was also the reason she had acquired some hard hats, with lights attached, unlike the normal ones available in Cloudsdale.

Well that made sense, particularly after what had happened to get her bucked out of the Wonderbolts and near enough forced into the newly created Shadowbolts. “Do you have the gear?” Nightshade asked, shifting slightly.

She nodded, pointing a wing at her suitcase. “One reason that’s so damned heavy is because of the equipment, the other is because of the safety gear.” Spitfire replied. “I’ve got both my Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts armoured uniforms along with a couple of hard hats… and we’re about the same size so we should be able to use either of them.”

“Then… what’s say we take the armour and hard hats, along with some portable gear and talk to the station marester and Hearthwarmer, then check out that castle, see what’s there.” Nightshade said, flicking her tail out.

Spitfire snorted in amusement. “Alright, Shade, but we’re not getting much salt, if any. I don’t want to end up forgetting how to use my wings when I need them the most, and I doubt you do either.” She commented, reaching out to pat Nightshade’s shoulder with a hoof.

*****

They were sitting in the Gryphon Rampant again, in an area behind the main barroom where people could go for a somewhat quieter evening. Fortunately there didn’t seem to be too many people around at the moment, which could only be a good thing as it would save awkward questions from everypony and their filly. Savouring a sip of her drink as the pair of them waited for Hearthwarmer to come around, Nightshade shifted, looking over at Spitfire. “So…” She started, twitching her tail out of the way, “Just how do we go about ’ghost hunting’?”

“Well, normally I tend to do what I’ve done at the cottage,” Spitfire replied, sipping her own drink. “I’ll get permission from the owners then set up cameras, voice recorders and data loggers in areas that’ll give me the best coverage. That normally takes a couple of days, then I’ll just stick around for a week or so, recording and seeing what happens, and every so often I’ll wander around and check things out, maybe start a voice session or take photos or video the area. After a day, I’ll do a quick review and burn it to disc for when I get back.”

“How well does that work?” Nightshade asked curiously.

Spitfire shrugged her wings. “Probably about as well as every other method out there,” She admitted, “Ghosts aren’t exactly the easiest thing to ‘study’ since there’s no real way to do it in a lab. A lot of the others I’ve talked to that actually do this tend to be doing things as quick in and out jobs, usually at night. That said… I’ve found I get a bit better time with a longer investigation and one that goes throughout the whole day, particularly when I can do it without changing too much in the place, actually, the less changed the better the results as I get to see what life is normally like for the place and keep an eye out for things that aren’t ordinary. There’s so many times when it’s just some random pony that gets an encounter it’s unreal, so letting things happen seems to work better than trying to make an environment sterile.”

Nightshade frowned, sipping her drink slowly as she thought about it. In all honesty, she had only really encountered ghosts maybe three times that she could recall, once being the time when they were settling into the cottage, once with that thing in the lab and the third time being the picture she had taken as a filly. “I guess so, I mean, we weren’t really doing anything in the cottage when things happened, and it seems most of us have had a picture from the cloudseum at some point or another,” She admitted, “What about the rest?”

“Well… there’s pretty much two ‘ghosts’ you’ll likely encounter, the type that’s actually intelligent and reacts to you and the type that replays certain events over and over again.” Spitfire explained, shifting up slightly. “While both can show up in a variety of ways, most often the ‘memory ghosts’ are simply something that certain events trigger and they just play out whatever they’re a memory of, like a battle or sex or something. The ‘intelligent ghosts’ are ones that actually respond to what’s happening in the world today, so they’ll respond to questions or react to things you do… that type are the ones that are more likely to be dangerous though, as they will know that things are happening and do respond, and not every ghost is good or happy with their predicament.”

“So how do they work?” Nightshade asked, getting more interested in things as Spitfire talked.

Spitfire shrugged, “I honestly don’t know, Shade,” She replied. “The memory ghosts… those from what I can tell are when a place records an event, usually something with a lot of emotion behind it into itself, and from then on, either every set passage of time or when certain things occur in the surroundings, it replays that event.” She frowned, shifting slightly as she thought. “For example… there’s rumours of a battle that took place in the desert near Las Pegasus between ponies and gryphons, one that happened during a really powerful storm. Ponies and gryphons both have been through that area since, and when storms, particularly powerful ones come up, they say the ghosts of the soldiers march and fight, paying no attention to what happens around them.”

Nightshade frowned. “So memories ghosts are just replays that you have to try to figure out how to ’play’?” She asked, getting a nod from Spitfire as she worked through things. “What about the other type? The intelligent ghosts, how do they work?” She asked, “And you mentioned there were different effects the other day, what are they?”

“Well the intelligent ones are actually, as far as anypony can tell, actually dead ponies or things escaped from Tartarus, but mostly the former. Some do know they’re dead, some don’t and they react pretty much like any other living being would, which is to say there’s no real way to tell.” Spitfire shrugged her wings. “They manifest as actual ghosts or as environmental effects… sounds, voices too low or high for ponies to hear, smells, temperature fluctuations and other things. Current theory is they draw energy from the environment to do things, much as we eat and drink to get energy to do things, but how they do is anypony’s guess. I’ve heard of a group that specialises in experiments involving charging things or bringing back high points of history to try to get reactions, but never studied their work and as I said yesterday there’s good odds that most things can be explained away by things that we can actually track back to something normal that are happening, like Greyfeather’s ghostly stench that turned out to be somepony’s cooking filtering through the pipes.”

“Speaking of cooking,” Hearthwarmer said as he trotted over to the table, a notepad held in a beige energy field that matched the one around his horn. “Are you ladies ready to order?”

Spitfire rolled her eyes at the question, “Hearthwarmer, we ate less than an hour ago.” She replied shaking her head.

Hearthwarmer arched an eyebrow at her. “So what did you come here for then, it couldn’t be my company could it?”

“Actually… it’s information,” Nightshade put in, seeing Spitfire rolling her eyes again. “Do you know any… stories about the local area? Maybe the castle or the cottage we’re staying in?” She suggested.

He frowned, taking a seat at the table himself. “Well… I don’t really know anything about the cottage; it was gifted to the owner of the Gryphon well before my time, something about it being a request of the owner of the cottage before he died. The castle though, that I can say a couple of things about,” Hearthwarmer said, shifting slightly on his cushion. “It’s supposed to go back to the Nightmare War, but it wasn’t used that much until maybe four hundred years ago… The family that lived there, I don’t know what happened, but something did.” He shrugged, shifting slightly. “Rumour is that the place is haunted by one of the Ladies of the keep, something to do with a scorned lover or something along those lines I think.”

Nightshade frowned, sharing a look with Spitfire. For a publican, Hearthwarmer was being remarkably quiet about what they needed to learn about. “What about other things around there?” She asked, stretching her wings briefly before for pulling them back in. “Any other ghosts?”

“Well… there’s supposed to be some ghost servants around and… and….”

“Hearthwarmer, why don’t you stop trying to hide things or make them up.” Spitfire cut in, watching him. When he sighed, she flicked her tail, frowning at him. “Now, what’s up there that you’re trying to hide?”

“I… uh… that is….” Hearthwarmer tried, only to trail off, finding himself unable to say any more.

Nightshade sighed, getting to her feet. “C’mon, Fire, let’s go see for ourselves, since it seems the landlord doesn’t know anythin’.” She said, gathering her things and starting out the door, Spitfire following her.

*****

The old castle at the edge of the town looked nothing like the castle she was used to seeing in Canterlot. This ramshackle old ruin looked a lot more daunting, even in bright sunlight, with broken towers above a ruined curtain wall, a few blocks of stone lying a pony’s height out of the ground. Twitching her wings against her sides, Nightshade looked up at the place they were going to check out first in their search for… well, she wasn’t sure exactly what they were looking for anymore. Even without the encounter at the cottage though, this ruin looked like it had its share of stories, and ghosts.

“So that’s the place?” Nightshade asked, looking over at where Spitfire was busy pulling on the armoured uniform she had brought with her, muttering as some of the plates inside didn’t pull into place properly.

As she walked over to the other mare to lend a hoof, Spitfire looked up and nodded. “Yeah, that’s the place,” She confirmed, “Grey Marsh Castle. I’ve been to it a couple of times, but never really examined it properly.” She explained as Nightshade helped her get the armour on. “Thanks, okay, now if you get armoured as well, I’ll go over things before we go in.”

It took them several minutes to get Nightshade into the Shadowbolts armoured uniform, plates of light metal woven into the fabric to cover the most vulnerable parts of her body. Flexing her wings and legs to make sure everything was settled into place properly, Nightshade watched as Spitfire dug out a pair of work helmets that had lights on them, much like those miners wore, along with a camera, voice recorder video camera and something with a dial and needle on it. “So what are all these?”

“This is basically my minimal field kit,” Spitfire said, twitching her tail. “Still camera, the same one as yesterday, video camera to try catching things in motion, a voice recorder to try catching some EVPs if I’ve not got a proper room covered and this last thing is an electro-magnetic field detector.” She looked over at Nightshade. “You know how unicorns can tap into the energy of things around them, right?” Getting a nod, she shifted. “Well this can measure the electro-magnetic fields of things, though it was originally developed to figure out why unicorns found spells harder or easier depending on where they were standing. The areas that had higher energy concentrations seemed to make spells easier, but someone found they were also areas that ghosts seemed to manifest in more readily. This one’s modified as well, it’s got a thermometer attachment, meaning I can check the temperature of areas as well.”

“To find cold spots like the one you ended up sitting in yesterday?” Nightshade asked, “And, what does EVP stand for?”

Spitfire shifted, putting the cameras away where she could get at them easily. “Yes, like that one and EVP are electronic voice phenomena. The long and short of it is, well, you remember I told you about sounds we can’t hear?” She asked, getting a nod from Nightshade. “Just because we can’t hear them doesn’t mean they aren’t there and some show up without anything to make the noise. Having the recorder, I can record what’s happening in an area, then use some sound editing software on the computer to check for anything that might be interesting, like when we heard ‘Patch’. Thing is, EVPs are classified by how easy they are to find, with A being the easiest, and C being the hardest, at least the ones I’ve heard, there might be more.”

Nightshade watched Spitfire for a couple of minutes as the Wonderbolt Captain packed away the rest of their gear. “So for today we’re just going to go in there and look around, see if we can spot anything, right?”

“That’s the plan,” Spitfire nodded, “If there’s anything interesting, then we can come back tomorrow with the less portable stuff and set that up where we found things.” She looked back at Nightshade. “The thing you’re going to have to remember though, Shade, is whatever we do find, even if it’s crystal clear and readily recognised, there’s going to be at least a few dozen sceptics around that will claim we made this stuff up.” She flicked her tail briefly, “That’s why I’ve never really told people about my own studies. Soarin’ knows, since he’s an old friend, Twilight knows some of it as she got some of the equipment for me and there’s you.”

That was quite an exclusive club to be a part of, as if Nightshade didn’t have enough of those by now. The mare snorted softly to herself at the implications of that as she looked at her friend. “Spitfire the amount of weird horseapples we’ve both seen since the Shadowbolts were formed, not to mention however you ended up friends with a dragon, I’m pretty sure nopony would believe things.” She snorted again, this time out loud. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they put our memoirs or biographies in the fantasy section.”

Spitfire snorted in amusement at that, imagining some filly or colt a hundred years in the future reading through her biography as if it were a fairy tale. Somedays it seemed like she was living it, what with getting knocked out at the Best Young Flier competition, fighting a dragon, Changelings, demons, ghosts and everything else. “That’d make an interesting sight, some filly reading them and asking about things that we did.” She said, smiling slightly before sobering. “You know, I wonder sometimes, what the future Wonderbolts will read about my time as Captain. I mean the Shadowbolts would pretty much have to read about your time, since you’re effectively the founder, but I wonder about mine.” She said, picking up the helmet and settling it on her head before starting into the castle.

Following along behind her, Nightshade twitched her wings. “They should read that you’re one of the best damn captains they had, that you cared for your people enough that you stood as a friend to someone you were forced to kick out, helping her form a team that had to play enemy to your own and that you’ve seen things that most people would curl up and cower from, facing them in spite of fear.” She said, catching up to nuzzle Spitfire. “I mean, buck, you hunt ghosts, you’ve seen demons… you’ve dealt with a dragon whose main purpose is to kill every demon he comes across and call him a mentor and a friend. Not only that, you’ve had how many medals from the Princess?”

“I know, Shade, but I do end up wondering sometimes.” Spitfire responded as the pair of them entered the castle. “Come on; let’s see what there is to see.”

*****

The upper floors of the castle had been a complete bust as far as anything interesting was concerned, no battle damaged walls, no ghosts either. Of course it was possible that the area the ghosts actually inhabited was part that had collapsed into the fen over the years. At least that was how Spitfire was feeling about things as she walked around the one seemingly intact room in the tower, looking at time damaged wall hangings and trying to figure out what the images on them had once been. She turned, hearing the hoofsteps from behind her stop, to see Nightshade frowning at something on the ground. “Something wrong, Nightshade?”

“I think… someone else may have been here before us.” Nightshade replied, looking up at Spitfire before using a hoof to point at what she had been looking at. “I’m not the best at gathering evidence and the like, but between Stratus, Charger and Smoke, I’ve learned a few things about law enforcement techniques. Somepony was walking in mud, then came up to this room, somepony that can fly.”

Moving to have a look at what Nightshade had found, Spitfire frowned at the floor. There were muddy prints in that area, but they weren’t theirs, for one thing, it looked like every few steps, whoever had been here had limped on one hindleg and for another the hoof impressions seemed to belong to someone that had done a lot of walking around in rough areas. It didn’t make any sense for there to be anyone up here, much less someone injured and the tracks were fresh.

Looking up at her partner, she shifted slightly. “Well, since ghosts aren’t solid enough to leave hoof prints, I think we’ve got a live one here somewhere.” Spitfire said, her ears flicking as she tried to remember what she had been taught on tracking others. “And if there’s someone injured here, we should probably look for them and try to help them before they run into trouble.”

Nightshade nodded, twitching her wings as she and Spitfire started following the prints towards the stairs back down to the ground. “Do we have any plans for if this pony turns out to be hostile?”

“Go with our training, try to disable them without doing too much damage.” Spitfire replied, making her way carefully down the stairs, since there wasn’t enough room for them to use their wings. “Remember we were trained by someone that is probably at least as experienced as the Princesses in combat, not to mention he’s been a soldier for over three centuries. He’s taught us practically everything we know and probably knows more than us.”

Nightshade nodded as they came out into a room the second floor down, the stairs not existing any further. What Spitfire said was true, Star had taught them most everything they knew about proper fighting and battle, but there was no way he had taught them everything he knew, most likely even Princess Luna didn’t know everything about him.

Making their way into the room, they checked the room carefully, keeping an eye out for whatever had come in here. Given the size of the room, it didn’t take long for them to clear it and approach the insect-like figure. When they got close, however, Nightshade recognised it, even as insect-like as it was and blinked. “Smoke!”

Turning towards her, Spitfire looked down and gasped, wincing at the sight of the changeling’s broken hind leg and cracked and battered carapace. “I thought he was in Manehatten with the other guys from your group.” She said, moving carefully to check what state he was in.

“So did I,” Nightshade admitted, pulling medical supplies out of her saddlebags to patch her friend up. They really needed to get him to a hospital, but there wasn’t one in the village she had seen and given what Smoke had said before, most wouldn’t want to help him.

*****

He awoke to a cold greater than any he had ever known along with a carapace that seemed to ache and burn from both the cold and the cracks in it. Groaning, he tried to shift, only to feel a hoof press against him from underneath.

“I wouldn’t try rolling around if I were you, Smoke.” He heard his boss’ voice before she shifted and hissed. “Patch would you please leave him alone. I know he’s an ugly bug to people that don’t know him but you’ll kill him with hypothermia if you don’t let up and I like Smoke alive.”

Shifting slightly, he hissed as the cold was withdrawn from his flank and opened his eyes, blinking as Nightshade’s face swam into focus. “N-N-Night-sh-sh-shade?” He whimpered as other pains made themselves known, particularly his hind leg. “Wh-where am I?”

“You’re in Greymarsh, specifically the Harbour Cottage.” Nightshade replied, leaning over to smear some healing paste over his carapace. “It’s where Spitfire usually runs off to for her holiday time, hunting ghosts and the like. You’ve already encountered the resident one, though I’ve no idea why she was touching you.” She shrugged her wings as she continued working the paste over him. “What I would like to know is what you’re doing here, the last I heard you were with Stratus and Charger in Manehatten.”

“It’s something I’d like to hear as well,” Spitfire commented as she came in, nursing a audio recorder. “Particularly since you were injured and naked,” She added, waving a hoof at his current state.

“I… don’t really know,” Smoke admitted, closing his eyes for a moment. “Stratus, Charger and I finished things early so we returned to Canterlot to debrief with the Princess or Major Stardancer but when we got there, there was some pink bubble shield around the place.” He shifted carefully, grimacing as his wounds hurt. “I had a bad feeling about what would happen to me if I went in, so I stayed outside while the others entered, staying near the guard post. After a couple of days the shield was attacked by a hive of my kind, I followed them to try to find out why when the shield came back up and blasted everyone out. I must have passed out at some point because I woke with a broken leg in a tower; I crawled down stairs only to find the stairs collapsed. I must have passed out again because that’s all I remember until I woke up being frozen by something and Nightshade asking something to leave me alone.”

Spitfire frowned, her ears flattening as she went over what Smoke had said. If there had been an attempted invasion of Canterlot, there was going to be at least one, probably two very unhappy Princesses, maybe all three of them. The fact that changelings were the aggressors didn’t bode well either and if Star was sent against them, there would be one hell of a mess. One that could lead to the first major war in decades if not centuries, “I don’t like this, Changelings were virtually unknown apart from a few and now an entire hive attacked Canterlot? How big was this hive?”

“Big… I didn’t count but rough guess five hundred to a thousand warriors, probably two to five times that many workers and at least one royal, you wouldn’t get a hive to move from the Bad Lands to Canterlot without one since it would take a lot to get that many to move from their homes.” Smoke replied, sighing as Nightshade rubbed his back, careful not to damage his wings. “There is one thing I noticed, the group were worse off than my hive, most looked like they were beginning to properly starve, I know my hive is able to feed everyone better than that even without the love to power our abilities.”

Frowning, Nightshade rubbed Smoke’s back gently, something he and others had done for her on a few occasions. “If what Smoke is saying is right, someone probably should check the Bad Lands. One hive would be bad enough for a war, but if the others are getting close to the edge…” She trailed off as Spitfire nodded. “We can’t do much from here, but we probably should call the rest and tell them what’s going on, get things moving. Maybe relocate some hives to areas that aren’t desolate but aren’t too close to anyone that might cause problems growing food.”

Smoke shifted, twitching an ear. “So… Nightshade, who or what is this Patch person?”

“She was the owner of this place,” Spitfire answered. “We don’t know what happened to her, but apparently she died here and is stuck here for one reason or another.” She shifted her wings. “It’s one more thing we are going to try to find out since we’re not getting back to Equestria proper for at least a week and a half, probably more like three and a half weeks.”

“Well pharsyn,” Nightshade muttered, getting a raised eyebrow from her friend. “If we’re stuck here that long I’m going to go into heat while we’re here and…” She grimaced, knowing that things would be uncomfortable at that point. “It’ll be bad enough with just the two of us, Fire, but add in Smoke and….”

“You’re going to be trying to get him in you, right?” Spitfire asked, sighing when Nightshade nodded. “Buck, that’s going to be annoying and this is a small cottage, not much room to evade things.”

“I could always try to find another place,” Smoke suggested, before grimacing at the looks he got for it. “On second thoughts I’ll take my chances, at least I know the people.”

Spitfire snorted softly. “There’s also the fact you’re probably stuck if I remember right. Your body is probably focusing on the injuries at the moment meaning no energy to transform into your usual form, add in that you’re unlikely to be able to feed on much out here for that area and you’re probably not going to be doing much outside for a bit.” She reminded him since they had been in situations like this before where he had been stuck in his natural form for weeks due to healing and replenishing his reserves.