My Little Pony: Forever Stranger

by xenos29

Rating: everyone
Tags: Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Adventure, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 35485

A Royal Guard cadet wanted a mission, a ticket to make his way. They gave him one. And after a week on the bottom of the world, with a mad scientist and a pack of frozen savages, he never wanted another. Welcome to Bovaria.

Summer nears for the Royal Guard's newest class of cadets, including Bearing Gale, who has proven his salt in both the classroom and training ground.

When the Royal Sisters receive a strange message from one of Equestria's long gone scientists, Gale's skills by chance earn him the honor of investigating on the princesses' behalf.

A mission for the princesses? That doesn't even deserve a proper guard? Professional opportunity doesn't get much easier than that. High-minded Gale sets off for the source of the message, in a frozen land to the south. Its inhabitants are hard-hearted, wary of ponies, and Gale won't stop until he's found an answer to satisfy the Royal Sisters- even if it tears apart what his hosts call home.

Published 2015-06-17 21:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-08-12 22:18:15 UTC

2

He imagined the shadow of a white figure with pastel hair, towering over him from a gold and marble throne. But he was safe in the conclusion he'd devised as Smoke jumper led him through the castle. Rather than anxious, he was pleased at having figured it out. This was just some evaluation of the academy, a formality. The Princess was going to ask his opinion on the cadets' training this semester, without the instructors there to put words in his mouth. He just drew the lucky ticket. All he had to do was walk in, give some polite non-answers, shake hooves with Her Highness, and leave the envy of every cadet in Canterlot.

He stopped a couple steps behind Smoke Jumper. She cocked her head, then shrugged. "Alright, Gale, in you go. Close the door behind you, greet them like you would in parade, and not a peep until they say otherwise."

Gale only heard half of that, for the two unicorns were standing before a pair of tall blue doors, not the entrance to the throne room as he'd predicted. There were no guards standing post. A bubble in his throat popped as he replayed Smoke Jumper's instructions. "I thought you said it was just the Princess, ma'am."

She shrugged. "Me too, but she never closes the door when it's just her. She's in there with somepony." She put her hoof on his shoulder. "Worrying won't do you any good, so just go in there and relax, ok?" Then she left him in the glare-soaked hallway.

Gale's shoulder still sagged. His knees softened, his uniform itched. Was he in trouble? He straightened his sash and willed his horn to pull open the doors. As the seam between the wood widened, he imagined the Princess talking with the headmaster about his and his classmates' conduct. Did somepony rat on the four of them for the Jam Incident?

There She was. Statuesque, aurora mane, as he'd imagined. But there was something on either side of her. Another mane on her left, navy and purple with twinkling stars. On her right a smaller one, dark violet, with a pink and lavender highlight to the right of her horn. There were feathery wings under each of those manes, and without knowing it, they had just crushed Gale's gut into a raisin.

Oh, I'm not in trouble. I'm dead where I stand!

The Princess of the Day, Night, and Friendship sat on the far end of a round table, where thin shards of light littered the floor around them like white-hot glass. High on the walls, curtains split in half before the spade-shaped windows, tinting the study in a yellowed musk.

The parade drills saved him from collapsing on the spot, but they also made him smash the sides of his hooves together as he stood up straight enough to make the joints in his neck pop.

The bottom of his eyes glimpsed Princess Celestia's smirking glow. She brought a hoof to her trembling mouth. No way she was doing what he thought she was. Not Her.

"Good morning, Your Highnesses!" Gale bawled, voice on the verge of cracking.

The Princess dropped her hoof, and a quiet chuckle boomed in Gale's ears. The hairs on his neck smoldered, then put out once she summoned the will to stop laughing at him.

"Now, there's no need for that. Please, have a seat." Up close, the timbre of her voice was like a cordial hum.

His jaw clenched as he closed the door. He sank into the seat opposite the three alicorns, and the table was like a desert between them.

"I'm sure you're wondering why you're here," the Princess started, "And I admit, the circumstances are strange, but I'll do my best to explain." She held in her magic an unfurled scroll. "Let's see...Bearing Gale: cadet squad leader, outstanding teacher reviews, and high scores in wilderness survival, magic, and history. Reminds me a little of Shining Armor!" She smiled privately at Princess Twilight Sparkle, who returned it with a brief glance at Gale.

They'd clearly known who he was before he stepped into the room. And he wasn't in the gallows. Yet. So why was he cramming himself into his seat like a coward? Then he met eyes with his answer: Her Royal Highness, Luna. Despite being stone-faced, the Princess of the Night managed to stare and frown and scowl at him. Her eyes were digging past his uniform, past the cover of his eyes, searching for something. He had to look away as Princess Celestia spoke.

"Bearing Gale, it's clear to me that you're a faithful student and cadet. Are you looking forward to graduation and joining our guard in full?"

He croaked, "Y-yes, Your Highness, of course."

She smiled again. "We have a mission for you. It will test everything you've learned and trained for and more, but I think you're the right pony for the job." Princess Twilight nodded. Princess Luna stared.

"Two days ago," the Princess continued, "a magical disturbance left a very mysterious message in this room." Between her hooves on the table were photos. Luna's foggy glow slid them across the wood, silently.

Gale looked down. They were indeed pictures of the study where they all sat, but there was nonsense scrawled on the walls, the floor, even the table. The room's walls were now bare. Not a dust mote of the words still existed.

"Have you ever heard of a pony named Ivory Slate?" the Princess asked.

His head shook. "Only by name, Your Highness."

Princess Twilight adjusted her crown before educating him. "Ivory Slate was a scientist from several generations ago. Not the most famous, but brilliant in his own way. He was still a student when he published his first discoveries. They led to huge improvements in weather factories, and our understanding of how machines and magic interact..." She paused for an enthusiasm Gale was too nervous to give, then pushed herself from the table. "But despite all his accomplishments, it looks like he was known for worrying about his reputation..."

He could hardly track the lavender blur that leapt from its seat to a nearby shelf. With librarian deftness, the Princess of Friendship extracted a stack of dusty books and scrolls larger than her, then spun back around. Is this normal?

Princess Twilight beamed, then blushed in light of the scholarly solar system orbiting her. "Oh! Um...these aren't so important. But you really should read them if you can! They tell all about Ivory Slate's work." A scroll stopped its orbit and unfurled. "But this is what's really interesting."

He squinted. The map was unremarkable if not old, but contained only a cyan sea which marched miles across the parchment's expanse, dotted with chains of islands. In the rightmost bottom corner, a teardrop peninsula sat hunched above a white continent. Grey silt dusted the granite would-be island, and its ink scars suggested mountains. Longitude and latitude were scribbled next to it.

"I...don't follow, Your Highness," said Gale.

Princess Twilight gawked, "Don't you see? That's the Stone Heart from Ivory Slate's message. It has to be!"

Princess Celestia continued, "The land on this map was Slate's last discovery. He disappeared many moons ago, and the spell he used made a copy of his map in the archives, where Princess Twilight found it yesterday." She took back the photos as she slid the map across. "Which is where you come in, Gale. Ivory Slate was one of Equestria's most brilliant minds. We shouldn't ignore this message from him, even if it was just some leftover machine or spell that sent it."

"There's so much we could learn from him, or anything he left behind," Princess Twilight added. "And you could find out for us!" Princess Luna appraised the young alicorn with a frown.

The map on the table stretched his eyes. The mountainous peninsula- the 'Stone Heart'- was far south, lower in latitude than the Froud Valley. It would be winter down there, and before he arrived, he'd have to worm his way through island straits that guarded the southwest seaway. A long, cold voyage.

The Princess leaned forward. "I know it's a tall order. All three of us are anxious to find out about this." She waved a hoof over Princess Twilight and Luna. "But none of us are in a position to be away from Equestria for a week. To make matters even more pressing, recent crises have stretched the Royal Guard thin lately. Few have your specific set of skills, Gale, and even though you are just a student, we know you are more than capable. Do you understand?"

He looked up, where Luna's stare was still waiting. She held on him for a moment, then turned to her sister with a raised eyebrow.

This was a test. It had to be. A personal mission for the princesses. He'd be their official agent, for this mission and all the missions to come for sure. If he did well. "Yes, Your Highness. I would be happy to help. Definitely."

The Princess exhaled before she smiled. "Thank you. Princess Twilight has prepared a strict schedule for you. You'll be gone only a few days."

At least five, Gale figured, seven at most. "Forgive me, Princess, but won't I miss my finals for the academy?"

"You'll get to graduate with your friends, Gale. When you get back." She tilted her head, and he nodded to show he understood. More silence as the two older alicorns studied him, then Princess Twilight talked him through the mission.

"There's a train that leaves for Manehattan in an hour, and a boat at the docks waiting to take you to the mountains. Don't be late. All you have to do is pick up Ivory Slate's trail, find out what happened to him and where the message came from, and then...come back as soon as you do." Lips pursed, she looked at Princess Celestia, who nodded twice.

"As soon as I do..." Gale repeated.

Still facing him, the royal sisters traded glances from the corners of their eyes. The eldest sighed just loud enough to be heard; the younger furrowed her brow as she leaned back in her chair.

"Gale..." said the Princess, "it goes without saying that this mission will have dangers. You'll be on your own, in a place nopony but Slate has ever been. But you can make the journey quickly, which is why we're sending you, and only you. But you are not a delegate, nor a royal representative. We expect you to be careful and discreet if you meet anyone on your mission."

"Sail to the Stone Heart. Find out what happened to Slate," Gale repeated again.

Then, Princess Luna's sapphire gaze intruded once more. Her eyelids fell.

"And return to Equestria. Immediately."

Gale nailed himself to his seat when the clock struck ten. Princess Celestia lit the fireplace with a flick of her horn. Then, from under the table, she produced an ash-colored cloak and slid it across.

Amidst the avalanche of fabric that buried his hooves, Gale saw a sheen on the left breast: the sun and crescent moon, intertwined in an obsidian field of stars. The steel points of the badge glowed like a branding iron, thoroughly soaked in the flame's flailing hues.

4

The less said about my first expedition, the better. I wasted six months sailing a winding path towards Saddle Arabia, tracing somepony else's hoofsteps the entire way. Everything I 'discovered' from ponies en route I could have looked up back in Canterlot. But at least they were civilized. The griffins were spiteful dodos who slammed their doors in my face. And the one time I saw a dragon, the vile thing was solely interested in turning my boat into a bonfire...

I came back different, alright. Disillusioned, defeated, and an unspoken laughing stock among my 'peers' who'd chosen safe, paltry pursuits: potion-making, fertility spells, machinery for factories. I left that sort of work behind with my wide-ruled notebooks. But the others clung to it like a security blanket. Children playing scientist, all of them. And they had the gall to turn their noses at my work, just because I wasn't churning out discoveries like bit candy...

It wasn't all bad, though. There were students that heard of me and actually paid attention to what I was doing. I was still in Canterlot at the time, planning my next moves, and on the way home a couple of them came up to me. More on them later. At some point in the conversation, one joked that being smart must make science easy for me.

I told them, humorlessly, that I could be twice as brilliant as I am now, and my days would still be chock-full of frustration, boredom, and failure. Being smart isn't important; it's being obsessive.

Ivory Slate, The Scientific Mind

A buried pine forest was his only clue he'd escaped to the land. He left behind the glacier, the invisible beach, and another hour of day. In return the land gave him more of the same powdered ground, the same soot sky, the same sleet-polluted air which jabbed his eardrums and sandpapered his coat.

Then there were the trees, black and skinny antlers propped up at the base by frozen anthills. White jellyfish with clear stingers swung from the charcoal-brittle branches, and for the next hour Gale knocked off dozens as he bent and snapped his way through. His sled caught more than once, and it seemed the fog would spew out these husks forever. But like the glacier the grove ended, abruptly yet seamlessly, into a flat and empty tundra.

He raised his mask. Not a blade of grass rose above the plain's sterile scab, only mourning stones and skeletal shrubs. Beyond lie the foothills, a herd of jagged dough mounds trying to eat each other. Even further stood the peaks of the Stone Heart, still stalking the countryside from their cloud hunting blind, looking no closer than when he first saw them.

It fell like rain now. The fog thickened. He lowered his mask, containing the world in two grey rectangles filled with tumbling spider webs. The wind refused to be ignored so easily, however, and dragged glass teeth across his forehead. He clenched his jaw, tightened his sled straps, then broke into a heavy-stepped trot.

***

Clouds had banished the sun, so night only became clear when the sky's went from ash to asphalt, the ground from plaster to concrete. The tiniest breaths spurted vapor across his flaking nostrils as he squeezed between the foothills. The chalky dunes offered no refuge from what was falling, and their runoff flooded the twisting path to his knees.

The sailors were corrupt cowards. They could have detoured him to another shore, followed the coast inward, anything. But they lacked either the decency or the discipline to do the job they were paid for. The day was over, and all he had to show for it was a near case of frostbite and twelve miles of desolate wilderness. He cursed the sailors once more, then checked the dowsing spell on his forehead. The ghostly compass still pointed north, but its weak pulse claimed he wasn't any closer to the source, despite his straight path.

Gale shut his eyes and tried counting to ten. He made it to the first even prime number, then slammed his hoof down. The day was over.

Ten minutes later he happened upon a small cave. The wagon-sized hole was tucked beneath the overhang of a small cliff, which guarded a small quarry and pond. Had the water been wet and the earth green, it would've been someplace from a foal's storybook. A secret hideout and swimming hole.

He stripped five shrubs before ducking inside. Before long a little orange diamond danced was dancing on the stone floor, swaddled in a pile of skinny twigs. It flickered and flinched from the wind's pawing, but warmed and dried him nonetheless. He smiled as the white blisters disappeared from his coat. It would take more than that to stop an agent of the Royal Sisters.

Still nothing useful from Slate's book. After filling his stomach and lightening his sled, Gale fell asleep sitting up. The hard dirt and dried food he could handle- if only he could have rubbed the crackling wood on himself as black took the slopes outside, then the cave walls, then him as he closed his eyes.

5

In five years I'd gone from rising star to flake, and I couldn't be a teacher's assistant forever. Switching subjects, switching classes- it didn't matter. I could've taught better than all of them put together, and if I had to sit through one more dim-witted lecture, I was going to hurl myself through a window...

I was still popular with students, at least. But their attention gradually just became insulting. At the end of the day, these colts and fillies cared more about chasing grades or each other. I withdrew to my office. Maybe I was obliged to grade their poorly-written papers, but not to listen to them, as they quoted textbooks with one breath and gossiped with the next. Truth was, they were only one step apart from the current generation of pretend-scientists...

That was until the day I met Whirring Gear and Topaz Tide. My two young unicorns were taking an advanced course I happened to be co-teaching, the only one I still had the stomach to attend. They both were typically quiet, but I never saw them fail to raise their hooves for a question, or answer correctly when called. Their written work shined, too. Every formula, every statistical analysis, applied flawlessly, effortlessly...

They knew that science isn't a matter of 'which equation do I use?' or 'is this the right answer?' They, like me, were beyond worrying about those things. They appreciated the struggle as a whole, and how its essence boiled down to only one question: what don't I know yet? We understood each other.

After much prodding, I told them what I didn't know in the form of my notes, from before and after the expedition. They showed up at my office one evening, after the semester ended. They didn't need to say anything. I opened the door, and they just stood there, smiling. And for the first time in over a year, so did I.
Ivory Slate, The Scientific Mind

Day came at the point of a spear. The pressure against his neck jolted him awake.

"You're on the wrong mountain, pony."

The voice was deep and earthy. It steamed from a wide, brown muzzle which towered over Gale in his sitting position. He had never seen a buffalo, but they who surrounded him were not far from how he'd imagined: stout and shaggy, swirling horns flanking a pair of beady, inkblot eyes.

One of them pulled the spear away. The creature in front of him extended a hoof and spoke, "I am Steel Summit."

'We expect you to be careful and discreet...'

Gale said nothing and looked away. The spear holder growled as she lowered her weapon again, but the one who spoke- the leader, presumably- raised his hoof. Like the rest he had a brown-black coat, though his hairs were streaked with white. A thick, tiled saddlecloth draped his back, and burgundy coated the tips of his bugle-sized horns.

"We mean you no harm, pony. But staring is not going to get rid of us." He spoke like a grandparent, but there was a sag in his eyes that age didn't quite account for.

The sword's pummel nudged his ribs. "Gale...my name is Bearing Gale."

"Are you here to hurt us, Bearing Gale?"

"No."

"Good." Summit offered his hoof again. Gale took it and stood. "So, what are you doing here?"

"I'm passing through."

"Please."

"It's the truth."

"We saw your tracks under the snow. Why were you heading for the mountains?"

"I can't tell you."

Steel Summit rolled his eyes. "And why is that, Bearing Gale?"

"I was told not to."

"Do you not make make your own decisions?"

He bit his tongue. This guy was teasing him open like a lock. Not for long. "I answered your questions. Now I want to ask you mine."

Summit cocked his head. "Shoot."

"Who are you? Where am I?"

Summit gestured as he looked outside. "Welcome to Bovaria, Bearing Gale. As for who we are, others up north call just call us 'the ox.' Our particular tribe has lived here for as long as we can remember. Not the easiest place to live, but home is where the heart is, as you ponies say."

Gale had long forgotten about his mission, his career, and the trickling hours of day. These ox weren't civilized ponies; there was no telling what they would do with him. Take his sword and supplies then drag him back to camp for questioning. That's what he'd do.

"Did Slate bring you here?"

Tongue was getting sore. There was no keeping secrets from the oxen or, at least, Summit. He stowed his plan to use a stun spell. If the oxen knew about Slate, then they could be useful. "No," Gale answered. "We thought he disappeared. A few days ago we received a message we didn't understand. But it had to be from him. I was sent to investigate."

"What was the message?"

"Nothing changes. I still wait. In the Stone Heart beyond the sea."

That seemed to satisfy Summit, who turned away and began pacing from wall to wall. The other oxen's eyes followed his every step. Then one, the jump-happy spear, shook her head and scoffed, "Candy-colored liar."

"He told the truth, Flint."

"Sure..."

"Flint." Summit studied Gale as a parent did before letting their foal outside. "He made the journey by hoof," the old bull said matter-of-factly. "He knows his way around a fire- without magic." He rubbed his chin. "And he's loyal. Stubborn, but loyal."

"So?"

"Well, at the very least he's different."

The cave was silent until one bull spoke out, "Let's get some of his food, at least. We're already behind today because of him."

"No. We are not stealing from him." Summit turned away and snorted. "Even if he is a pony."

"So what do we do with him?" asked another.

"He could be useful-"

"Enough!" Summit barked. "Let him do what he wants." He turned to Gale. "It has been years, Bearing Gale, since I set hoof in the Stone Heart, or saw Ivory Slate. You are heading in the right direction, as far as I know." He poked the remains of the fire. "But it is a long climb, and you won't last long like this. Bovaria is not the garden you are used to." He beckoned, and the oxen all turned to leave.

Gale raised his hoof as he went after them. "Wait! Where are you going?"

Summit twisted his head back. "To look for food. Winter is far from over, and we are needed back at our camp."

"If you've lived here for so long, why do you need to look for food?"

Summit called as he walked away, "Nothing to do with you."

"Steel Summit! I still have questions I need answered!"

"And I have other responsibilities! I have neither the time nor desire to chaperone you, Bearing Gale. But you are our guest, and I won't tell you what to do. Try and do the same, please?"

The sled gave a rattle as Gale yanked it towards himself. "What are you hiding? What was Slate doing here?!"

The oxen entered the labyrinth of the foothills, slipping behind the curtain of a craggy crest. Gale took a step as if to follow them, but Flint stopped him short with her spear before she too disappeared. On his left the Stone Heart's spires snatched his attention once more. They swirled the bleached hills around them like spindles, a new downpour falling where their tips punctured the sky.

6

They took some getting used to, of course. The same way somepony who's lived in a cave gets used to a city- slowly. We were only separated by a decade, but they always seemed so much younger. She and Gear were always laughing, telling each other stories as they worked. Genius comes in all forms, I thought foolishly at the time, and I supposed not everypony was meant to escape the faults of youth...

My two sparkling assistants did a lot of the legwork, investigating local discoveries while I busied myself at the chalkboard. They usually didn't pan out- always some fraud claiming to have invented a weather controller or magic amplifier. It was bad enough they were selling lies, but that they claimed to be ponies of science? That made them even worse than my peers...

Machines and magic get along to an extent, you see, but eventually the former just quits if you push it too hard. You'd need a machine the size of Canterlot to replace one of the princesses, power not included. If only the Empire were still around. If I had just an hour with the Crystal Heart...

It was the best time of my life. The three of us were in a comfortable routine, and filled the year with research and the occasional experiment. We were making little progress, but I was fine with that. Better than Gear and Topaz were. They still had to learn that science isn't done in a day. I learned that lesson the hard way, and another soon after. Ponies aren't always who they seem, who they pretend to be when they know you're watching.
Ivory Slate, The Scientific Mind

Deep in the foothills lay a path that snaked into the mountains' cliff pedestal. The sheer walls refused to be contaminated with snow, so grey rock ruled his vision whenever he managed to look away from his hooves. A slick pus coated the trail- not smooth like an ice rink, but bumpy like when the watery slush that's been stepped on all day froze again. He knew he'd been adding to it. Clear, hot beads tumbled from his forehead, the cost of the thawing spell he'd used for four of the past six hours. Ten minutes ago, as he panted and grimaced, he decided to take his chances on the ice, rather than press on until he blacked out.

The path thinned, the cliff face gradually pushing on his left side, outwards. He crushed and ran his shoulder against the jagged grain of the rock, while the balls of his ankles rubbed and ground against each other with every step. Any less, and half his right hoof would've been hanging off the edge. He bit his tongue to pry away the panic, narrowed his eyes, and kept up his crippled walk, the sled dangling beneath him like an evil pendulum.

A slip on the ice turned into a flailing hop as he threw himself onto a small flat before a black-soaked cave. He lay there a second, in an undignified position, and levitated the sled onto the outcropping.

Then the void of the stone esophagus growled.

Without thinking Gale rolled onto his hooves, cast a flare into the cave- too tired for any lasting spell. In the spark of light he had seen a dozen pairs of hungry eyes. He drew his sword, and that's when the pack charged.

He'd never swung at anything more dangerous than a sandbag. To make matters worse sandbags don't have granite jaws and ice-spike teeth. He swung at the lead's torso, and his mouth rattled with the handle as the blade bounced off the stone that was the wolf's side. He staggered back, kicked his equally stunned attacker in the nose. It staggered, trying to balance on its hindlegs until its head smacked against the cliff and exploded in a spray of clear, sandy crystals.

The cloak yanked on his neck and sent him falling backwards. Another one had slipped behind him and tore into the cloth. He made a mistake and blinked, then the third was on top of him, shattering glass mouth snapping. His forehooves, pressed into the beast's neck, kept his head safe, but they were slowly compressing on top of him. So tired. His horn yanked at the cloak-biter's fangs. The beast popped off with enough force to send it rolling off the cliff. He screamed and kicked and rolled and came up blasting the one that had been on top of him. It shattered like its pack leader. Finally Gale was alone on the outcropping. With still nothing but panic between his ears he shot a lance at the cave mouth and buried whatever was left inside. The crunchy impact of the boulders reverberated in his skull, followed by whimpering and clawing from the other side. Quiet nails on chalkboards.

With mortal terror momentarily staved off, he sat in the crumbly piles of his victory and felt absolutely nothing, neither triumph nor relief. After five minutes of watching the ice and stone fragments slowly drift and pile together, turning into claws and legs and noses, he gathered his sled and marched on, the cold surging onto his back where the cloak was torn.

***

Another hour, and the path from the cave carried him past a small village in the decor of Ponyville: cobblestone porches, thatch roofs, purpled wood frames. He walked down the sole avenue, between the two rows of empty houses. Snow had long imploded their straw shingles, ice had warped the beams, and gusts of wind gutted the summery, open-air designs. As he finally passed through, he wondered who in their right mind would have built it. The town was as well-suited to Bovaria as a daisy to a desert. The oxen seemed smarter than that.

More than once he swore he was being followed. But whenever he looked closely it was always a boulder, a lump of snow, or the silhouette of the cliffs. Fifteen minutes later he arrived at the bottom of a barren terrace that was gateway to the mountains proper. Unlike everything else in Bovaria, the clam-shaped, stadium-sized farmland was only dusted. Fresh hoofprints pockmarked the black, brittle soil. Between the cobblestone stairs and black pine fence railings, Gale needed only to climb ten minutes to the top shelf, where the fog exhumed another surprise.

What..?

A tower with minaret lumbered over the terrace. Its marble shell, whiter than polished ivory, stood in stark contrast to the chalky cliffs, oblivious to the frost that crackled across its face. Gold paint swirled and checkered the building's facade, and a pair of royal blue doors sat recessed in the smoothstone wall. They seemed to invite Gale in rather than submit to the feeble glow of his horn, and when they finished their dramatic opening, a living statue greeted him in a sing-song voice.

"Good afternoon!"

The young ox was as bigger than a mare. She stood doused in a lavender musk fit for tea parties, and blue silks slicked the saddlecloth on her back. The sight of her made Gale look down at himself, at his dripping cloak, bow-legged and wobbling knees. He wiped off his badge, looked back up, and his seared eyes widened as the ox introduced herself.

"My name's Stray Frazil. What's yours?"

Gale ignored her as he took in the high-ceilinged hall: alabaster tile, marble columns, rose and spade-shaped windows. But there were cracks everywhere in the mortar and stone, some weather, some stress, and even some that looked like impacts. A brass chandelier swung overhead on a groaning chain, its gold glow failing to hide imperfections in the facade.

Frazil's smile widened. "Beautiful, isn't it? Slate always complained it was so dark in here."

Gale spun to face her. "You know Slate?"

"Of course! Every ox knows Slate. Here!"

Frazil led him slowly through the polished hallways, pointing out random things as she went: a stained-glass window, a reading lamp, a velvet rug. The oxen here had made every last one of them, she said, and it was all thanks to Slate's help. Gale ignored her for the most part, recording everything with eyes and ears in preparation for his report to the Princess. She'd have to be impressed.

"So I didn't catch your name?" Frazil asked again.

"It's Bearing Gale," he said to quiet her.

"It's nice to meet you! It's really exciting meeting another pony. Where are you from? Canterlot? Manehattan? You seem like a city pony."

"Where is everyone?" They had just passed a lone bull with his head down. The mop in his hooves squeaked and sloshed against the marble, supporting most of his weight. He couldn't have been any older than Gale.

"Oh, everyone's busy running errands for Slate," Frazil went on.

"What kind of errands?"

"I'm sorry, but I have to know. What's your special talent? I'm willing to bet it has to do with nature, or navigating. Are you some kind of explorer?"

Gale wondered if this filly was ever going to shut up and answer his questions. He had a job to do, and it didn't involve indulging every oxen he came across. He stopped. "Alright, that's enough."

Frazil cocked her head. "Huh?"

"Listen, Ms.-"

"Frazil," she whispered.

"Look, Frazil, I'm here to talk to Slate. I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in getting into who I am or what you all are doing here." He almost complained about Summit and his entourage. Better instead that this one think she was the first he'd met.

She drew away. "I was just trying to be polite. I thought that's what ponies liked."

"Not all ponies are the same."

"I guess not," she sighed. They walked silently for a time. "I'm sure Slate can't wait to meet you," she mumbled. "I bet you'll be talking for hours."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, he's just really smart. He's always talking about work, his research, everything that needs to be done around here. Oh, and before you meet him, you should know. He can be kinda short-fused sometimes."

They passed a slightly ajar door. Rows of hay, as well as crates of dried fruit and vegetables stuffed the room inside. Gale made a note of it. Frazil continued, "I guess it gets frustrating for him, being around all us oxen all the time. He's just so smart, we don't understand half the things he says."

"So is Slate in charge here?"

"Oh no, he uses his magic to help us grow food and build. So we help him with his work by mining, collecting plants, things like that."

"What kind of work is he doing?"

"Really important stuff. Slate can tell you more. You're even a unicorn like him." A splintery wooden door lay ahead. Frazil stopped. "Here we are. Did you want to leave your sled here?"

"I'd rather hang on to it."

"Don't worry, we'll put it someplace safe," said a voice. Before Gale could reach for his sword, two young oxen were behind him, hastily yet gently unfastening the straps.

"Slate really doesn't like it when we make a mess in his study," one bull said. "We'll make sure you have it when you leave."

"Come on in!" Frazil said. She held the door open for Gale to step inside. Like the hall the study was another slice of Canterlot. Polished wood bookshelves lined the carved walls, revolving around an empty cobblestone fire pit in the center.

Gale frowned. "There's nothing here."

Frazil's eyes cast towards the floor. "Yeah, it's been a while since Slate used it."

Gale spun to face her, frowned. "You said he was here."

"He is! I mean...I thought he was."

Beside the desk was a small door, which opened into a stone-carved corridor. Frazil led Gale through to a small cave with pumping pistons, test tubes, and cables lining the walls. Clouds and fog peered in through a bay window on the far side. In the center was a metal flower with a heartbeat. Crystal obelisks as tall as Gale blossomed from the center. They cast a pulsing green glow through the lab, and were warm to the touch.

With horn lit, Gale paced around the machine, taking note of the strong magical aura he felt radiating from it. "What is this?"

Frazil's hoof traced circles in the stone. "It's...something I've been helping Slate with. Do you want to see what it does?"

"Why don't you tell me first."

"It's...a lot like your empire's Crystal Heart. It projects and sustains magic over a large area."

"What kind of magic?"

"I don't know the exact spells , but it has to do with weather and fertility."

Alright, no booby traps, no dark magic. But this thing's giving off a lot of power for what she says. Gale beckoned, and with trembling hooves Frazil adjusted some dials and switches on the control panel at the machine's base.

The glow of the prisms grew. They began to spin, slowly at first, accelerating until the middle of the flower was a whirring, blazing pyramid. With a flash, a sphere of light shot out from the crystals. Gale blinked, then found himself standing in a ten-meter semisphere. His hooves were planted not in the stone floor, but in a patch of wet dirt and grass. Smell of apple blossoms filled the air. The hanging heat unloaded the cold from his face and body. Then Frazil flipped the switch again, and the morsel of paradise retreated back into nonexistence.

Frazil made a weak smile. "Not bad, huh?"

The heat left Gale slowly. "Yeah..." He shivered and snapped out of the daydream stupor. "So why did Slate build this?"

"To help us, of course! The oxen, I mean. We could really use your help with finishing it. Slate told me he just needed more magic."

"Why can't he do it?"

"I don't know, maybe his age?" Frazil bent down and from behind the flower produced a horn sheath, attached to the machine's base by a thick cord. "Here, you can see how the sphere grows bigger with more magic." She held the thing out.

Gale eyed the metal cone, but didn't touch it. He looked up at Frazil and waited, silently. Five seconds. Her eyes darted from him to the flower. She gulped, and her gaze fell. He narrowed his eyes, took a step back, about to shake his head-

The dull pound of metal on stone shouted from behind. Gale's sword was in his mouth, but the steel-clad faces of three bulls were already reaching out with their hooves. "No! I'm so sorry! Please, this isn't how we-!" he heard Frazil shout for the next few seconds. A burst of air from his horn threw one off balance, but the other two kept coming. Gale lashed out with the pommel. It smashed the helmet of the bull that had grabbed his foreleg, but left him open to the third. A second later he was on his back, thrashing and bucking like an animal in a snare. His horn flared as he blinded the gray hulk wrestling with his hind legs. Standupstandup. Before he could, a shadow overhead brought its hoof down on his chest. He spat out his sword, gasping, horn burning. The shadow held in its hooves the metal flower's horn sheath. A single blast from his horn was all he had left. He let the shadow have it, then rolled over to stand up, his vision little more than shadows and green light as he caught his breath.

The bay window shattered, distracting the four of them. Frazil had long disappeared. A brown blur stood silhouetted between him and the flower crystals. Grunts, the clatter of armor.

"Come on, pony," said Flint, grabbing him by the collar and hoisting him out the window. He had just the presence of mind to will his sword into its scabbard.

Seconds later a tan cord sped by his head. Above him was Flint with one hoof on the cord and the other around his midsection, which churned from the reeling screech of their descent. Overhead a voice- a new one, raspy and stern- shouted angrily as a pop rang in the air. The rope went slack. Flint yelled, and the two of them fell in a wind tunnel.

...density over velocity...pour the spell don't throw it...'cast with your heart not your head...' After two false-starts, his horn sparked and a thick cushion of air pushed up at them. They fell slower. He bit hard on the sword handle before hilting it in an ice patch. The shock and jolt made him hit his head and Flint flip over. Her hooves dug into his neck when she landed on his back. Wet whirring sound as the cloak tore.

The skewed, white blur of a snowbank lay to the right. With no words between them, and Flint throttling him, the two began to swing and lurch towards it. At the bottom of their arc the sword snapped in half, sending it, its owner, and ox passenger alike flying to the side, then tumbling head-over-hooves down the slope.

7

His heart was in his head, hammering and gasping away. His lips were sandpaper. The sticky clasp of a bandage was yanking at the edges of a hot penstroke in his side, so he was all too awake before he opened his eyes.

A simple wool mat kept him off the crumbly, volcanic rock floor. He stood, steadying himself against the black wall, and cupped his face with his hoof. Complications happen. Remember the mission. Now to- He took a step towards the door. Steel Summit and Flint entered. She had her spear again. He drew his broken sword, not stopping to think how he still had it. The two sparred stares as Summit slowly sat.

"You say you're not here to hurt us," Flint seethed. "Next thing we know, you're walking into Slate's stronghold like you own the place."

Gale sheathed his sword, lit his horn. "You shoved a spear in my face this morning, then kidnapped me. I'd say that makes us even."

"Saved you. And yeah, and you would know about kidnapping, wouldn't you?"

Summit shifted. "Enough, Flint. He's done nothing to us." He paused. "We found you not far from here. You must have slid halfway to the foothills. Scrapes and bruises, mostly. Very lucky. We tended to you as best we could."

Gale rubbed his side. "What time is it?"

"Eleven. Evening."

"Underground."

"Yes."

Gale sat. "It's cozy, for a cell."

"You are not our prisoner, Bearing Gale. But I need more than your bout on the mountain to know where you stand with Slate."

"I'm not working for him. I told you already."

"Then how did you get into his lab?"

Teeth gritted without realizing. "The oxen let me in."

Summit patted the air with his hooves. "Alright. I believe you." Gale bared his teeth, and the old ox smiled apologetically. "I had to be sure, even with what Flint told me. But I still do not know as much about you as I would like."

Gale sat. "There's not much to know, Steel Summit. My princess sent me here to find anything I can about Slate. I found you, then the oxen in the tower. Almost found Slate, before they attacked me. So whatever issues you all are having with each other, it's got nothing to do with me."

Summit sighed. "So he is still here. A long time passed since I saw him, but I have reason to believe he is behind what is happening, not the oxen who attacked you."

"Neither of us is in a position to know that. True or not, my orders are to leave as soon as possible. I have until noon tomorrow to meet my ship."

"Could've saved yourself a lot of trouble by not coming," shot Flint.

Summit's eyebrows sank. "I have a hundred oxen to protect from Slate and his followers. Less than a month of food to make last for the rest of winter. And a pony Slate wants for reasons I can only guess are bad for me and everyone I care for."

Gale was silent.

"Alright," Summit conceded, "no use comparing problems. Apples and oranges, as you ponies say. You say your mission is to find Slate, fine. What do you need? Maybe I can help."

About time. Gale rubbed his eyes. "I just need to know about Slate. Where he's been all this time, where he is now, what he's been doing."

Summit nodded, "I can answer some of that. Over dinner." He stood. "Come. In exchange, I would like you to pass on a message to your princess."

Easy enough. Gale stood, facing Flint as she jerked her head towards the door. She stepped behind him as he followed Summit out.

For ten minutes the three of them walked along the underground avenue- lava tubes, carved out eons ago by the mountains when they were hot and bubbling with life. Their camp, Summit explained, ran throughout the ashy labyrinth. Buildings emerged, carved from the walls and floor, so some stood three or four stories on their own. For light, the oxen didn't usually rely on anything so dangerous as torches. The underground streets were paved with turquoise streams, gleaming as they gurgled along either side. Light enough to move around comfortably, dark enough to discourage horseplay. Oxplay.

Town square was a cavern as big as two barns. The center pond silhouetted a dozen oxen as they talked, poked at crock pot coals, and gathered water from the pitter-pattering ceiling. The glittering cones which dotted the floor and ceiling intermixed with the oxen, as if they were simply part of the community. At the far end, the cavern sloped down into an amphitheater of glittering, white crystal.

Gale's mouth opened slightly as he and Summit approached the center. This place is magical. Summit shook the hooves of several oxen as they walked. A couple even nodded at Gale as he followed. The two sat on a mat as they waited for Flint to return.

"It's beautiful."

"Thank you. It was just a small mining town, retired before Slate pushed us off the mountains."

When Gale took out a scroll and quill, a dozen eyes turned his way. An oxen and her calf passing by froze at the sight of the hovering stationery. In a not particularly subtle gesture, the mother stopped and stepped to the other side of her son, then kept walking.

Summit coughed. "It's not personal."

Gale hung his head, frowned, then shrugged. "It doesn't matter. They'll never see me again anyways."

Summit's eyes narrowed, yet his mouth dropped. "I guess not. From the beginning?"

"Yes, please."

"Slate first came to us only a few years ago. It was one of our harder winters, but it wasn't much trouble accommodating him, especially when he started with his...magic. He said he was doing scientific research on magic in different lands. He had been all over the world, he said, looking for a discovery that would revolutionize casting and finally connect magic with science."

Gale frowned. Ponies already could do that, to an extent. Whatever the research was, it had something to do with that machine in the tower. Slate, what were you doing out here?

Summit continued, "He made life easy for us. New crops in the middle of winter. Heat. Shows for the kids. It was nice. Different. He was the first pony we had ever met."

"What changed?"

"Small things at first. As the years went by. His magic took on a larger and larger role in our lives. Some I knew became spoiled, like children. Sometimes fights broke out, families arguing who had traded Slate for the nicer pot or jewelry. It was very unlike us. Slate forgot himself from time to time, criticized how I did things. At first I understood how he felt. We must have been living like barbarians in his eyes." Summit shook his head. "He came to my home one day in the fall and asked me to do something I couldn't agree to. He was different then, and after that day..."

Gale was leaning forward in his seat, stopped scribbling. He looked up. "What?"

"He drove us out, faster than I could have imagined. Gathered every ox who would follow him over me and kicked the rest of us out. We lived in the surrounding area ever since. The land became warmer, hot even, then colder than ever. The winters lengthened, the soil withered." He shook his head. "The Stone Heart seems so far away now. The tower where Slate ambushed you was only halfway there. We had several villages there once, before."

Gale shook his head. "If all Slate had to do was conjure up some sparks and trinkets, who knows how loyal they were to begin with."

Summit glared. "Don't talk about things you don't understand, Bearing Gale."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

"Slate promised them comfort and luxury. He made them do it- with his magic. It is the only way they would have betrayed us." When Summit said that, his face changed. His voice became raspy, betraying both feelings and age.

Since he was old enough to make a light, Gale's teachers had taught him the bond between power and responsibility. In the wrong hands, magic could destroy worlds. "I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that. Ponies don't brainwash other creatures."

"Just each other, then?" Summit's head rested on his hoof. He nodded at the leather-bound corner sticking from Gale's cloak. "Slate often took it upon himself to give me a 'proper' education. Though he never had much to say when it came to the horrors ponies are capable of."

"Most ponies aren't like that."

"He said that, too. Once."

Gale frowned. Who the hay did Summit think he was? Gale wasn't the one sitting underground in the dark, hating someone he barely knew. Slate was an eccentric, whimsical but brilliant scientist, not King Sombra. What did Summit know about him, ponies, or magic? Whatever- he'd heard enough. He didn't need to know why the Summit and his group hated Slate and his. Gale knew roughly the old unicorn's whereabouts and the current situation. Enough to leave this frozen dump tomorrow and report back to the Princess so they could figure the rest out. He couldn't discover much more without getting too close. Orders were orders. He knew his duty. His teeth showed a bit more as he muttered, "So what's your message?"

Summit opened his mouth as if to say something, perhaps an apology, then sighed and looked away. "Tell them that I request their presence in Bovaria-"

Scribbling. "Alright."

"- so that they may see Slate's crimes, destroy his stronghold in the Stone Heart, and restore Bovaria to its state before he arrived."

Gale stopped writing and looked up. "You're really counting on them to do that?"

"Slate told me your princesses are the most powerful beings in the world. Ridding us of him and fixing our land should be a small request, especially after everything he has done."

"We didn't send Slate here."

"He is a pony."

"I don't see you apologizing for what the oxen up there did to me."

Summit muttered, "I suppose loyalty runs deep in both."

"I'll make sure they get it."

"Thank you."

Flint returned, carrying on her back a trio of polished geodes that steamed from their openings. She put one in front of Summit, then Gale. There was no end to the oxen's inventiveness, it seemed. The bowl's outside had been worn down to a porous, ridged surface, easy to grip. Beneath the murky soup, the interior where the crystal prisms once resided was now a smooth jigsaw of gray, blue, and yellow.

"Did I miss anything?" Flint asked as she sat.

Summit sipped his bowl. "Ancient history."

"And he said he'd deliver the message?" Summit looked at her and nodded. "You're kidding. Wow." She gulped down her soup, eyes on Gale.

Summit said nothing, chinned at Gale's bowl. "Not too bad, I hope."

Gale nodded "It's great, thank you. They never made anything this good in the cafeteria at school."

"And he likes our food, too?" jeered Flint. "Next you're gonna tell me you like the cold, and want to learn about us."

"Enough, Flint," said Summit.

"Maybe I'm not a scholar like Slate," said Gale, "but I was curious about your building down here."

Summit's raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Gale nodded. "I mean...for starters, how do you keep the air fresh down here?"

Flint answered as she licked her bowl clean. "Vents in the ceiling, hooked up to a pump. Puts in the good air and takes out the bad."

"Impressive." He pointed towards a nearby aqueduct. "And does the water do that naturally, or was that you?"

Summit nodded. "Naturally, but we have learned over time that adding certain minerals make the fungus glow brighter."

"That's why you have to collect water from the stalactites. You can't drink it."

Flint stopped her ministrations and stared at Gale. She made a face, narrowing her eyes, then looked at Summit, who smirked. "I think I'm gonna turn in," she said, standing. "Goodnight, Dad." She held out her hoof.

Summit took it in both of his, then let her go. He turned to Gale. "Can you find your way back to your room?" Gale nodded. "Goodnight then, Bearing Gale. Tomorrow we will see you back to the coast."

"Goodnight. And Steel-"

"Summit is fine."

"Summit. For what it's worth I'm..." He stopped. "I think the princesses will help."

It was a long walk back to the hut. As he stepped through the doorway, Gale took a deep breath, then blew it out. Maybe Summit hadn't given him the red carpet treatment like Frazil, but he was sincere. He and Flint led with the spear, rather than smile and wait until Gale's back was turned. While the oxen in the tower had sabotaged the mission, it was Flint and her father who saved him. Still hard not to blame all of them. This was their family feud. If any of them thought they could jeopardize his mission, his future, they were setting up to be disappointed.

Another thought crossed his mind: why didn't Summit mention he and Flint were family? Because that's none of your business, pony. Gale shook his head. A royal agent couldn't afford to be sentimental about who he met on missions. He needed more practice.

He levitated the mat off the floor and draped the doorframe for an impromptu curtain. This time, he didn't sleep sitting up on the rocks. Another spell, and soon he was lying in a bed of ground-up shale and mud, just as he'd learned at the academy. It was familiar, better. An hour later he fell asleep, Slate's memoirs slipping from his hooves.

8

Neither Gear nor I spoke much after Topaz left. She was going back to Fillydelphia, to be closer to her family and friends, she said. Apparently the box of parchment I gave her every month for letters wasn't good enough. She said she would keep sending us her research, but I told her not to bother. So no, we didn't part on good terms. I wasn't taking help from her, for the same reason I wouldn't take help from my peers now, even if they begged me. Truth be told, I couldn't care less where she is now. She couldn't hack it, she wasn't the real deal. Not the kind of pony I wanted at my side anyway...

Looking back, I think she knew we were heading for another expedition. It was bound to go longer and even farther from Equestria. It had to, if I was going to make any progress. Someone, some creature, somewhere had the answer, and I'd find it if it was the last thing I'd do...

Three months after Topaz left, my peers' rumor mill started up again. I was a failure who turned to adventuring in a hysterical attempt to hide his lack of any worthwhile contributions. I gave them a nice, long rebuttal at the Grand Galloping Gala later that year. Right in front of the Princess, in fact. One of them, my former classmate Leatherbound, was near in tears when I took apart her most prized 'achievements.' Potion-making, lowest of the low. Suffice to say, her sparkling flasks were closer to soda than she was to a scientist...

The horrified looks the nobles gave were just as rewarding. All posh and dignified and without a clue of what was really important in the world. And they acted as if they were better than the rubes they spent the evening bad-talking. Joke's on them; they're all rubes. Different strain, same germ. I made sure to let them know before a couple of the Princess's meatheads in shining armor escorted me out...

I found Gear later that night. We had to get out of Equestria. I had to get out of Equestria. No more parties, no more classes, no more being surrounded by prissy, pampered, stuck-up ponies pretending to be something they're not...

He was nervous and dragged his hooves, of course. 'What about our other research?' he said. 'Bringing in other variables could destroy everything we've built up so far.' I told him: in the pursuit of great things, there lies a choice between truth and safety. I have chosen and always will choose truth. If I wanted to be safe, I would've become a watchmaker.

Ivory Slate, The Scientific Mind

The attack came before dawn.

Though he slept poorly, his last dream was by far the nicest. He was in the throne room, in captain's armor. Princess Celestia was smiling down at him as she signed decrees and listened to dignitaries. He belonged here. He'd earned it.

Eyes were still closed when he woke up. When he opened them, it was black. The torch had gone out. Shouting and stamping metal rapped against the door, muffled by the mat. He was cold again, but his hooves no longer hurt. Neither did his horn, and he made a light. Right when the metal stampede was loudest, just outside his door.

A steel-stamped hoof threw the makeshift curtain aside. The bull's eyes widened, then grew brighter with Gale's horn.

"He's in here! In he-!" The armored ox went down hard, 'here!' becoming 'heuughh!' when Gale flew past, sword out, horn flaring in the darkness. He reached out with his forehooves and shoved another bull who clattered onto the rock. Following the light of the streams, he sprinted down the lava tube towards the common area.

The world became very small. The only sounds were his breaths, long and fast as his steps became wider and his hooves blurry, and rattling gravel flicked his belly. He lit a semi-circle of cave, bordered by the turquoise streams that twisted and curved like glow-in-the-dark train rails. They were looking for me. Gotta get to the coast.

Two more minutes of galloping, and he hit a roadblock: another pair of steel-clads. They were guarding the entrance to the common area, wherein the shuddering light of torches rattled the cave walls, and shouting breezed past them and into Gale's ears.

No time to slow down. He picked up his knees and went faster. The bulls presented their horned helmets to him in unison. He lowered his head and took aim at the one on the right. Small flash. The steel-clad went down, and his comrade turned his head slightly to look, exposing his unarmored collar. Gale went into a savage leap, and his hooves never hit the ground. As he and the second steel-clad rolled into the common area, they took out someone else's legs before hitting the edge of the center pond. In spite of his burning lungs, in spite of the hulking grey crowd forming around him, he raised the broken blade's pommel and tested the tensile strength of the helmet lying underneath him- hard.

Whatever rest the night had given him was gone now, replaced by a maelstrom that turned the cavern into a loud blender. He got off the dazed bull, ran and dove behind a stalagmite on the periphery of the cavern, not only to hide his glowing horn, but the rest of his body from the rubble that whipped around the room fast enough to chip away at the walls. Oxen everywhere were scrambling for cover as the brown whirlpool pelted them. One by one the steel-clads' torches snuffed out as they were dropped, or blasted by dirt and wind.

Gale eased his back against the stalagmite, sliding down until his muzzle was level with the cave floor. He slowly gathered a hornload of rocks, arranging them on the ground around his head, to hide himself when he leaned out from behind the stalagmite.

The cavern brightened as the shouting steel-clads relit their torches. A couple swept the room, overlooking Gale behind his darkened ring of rocks. He watched as they yanked dozens of other oxen out from ditches, behind boulders, and in one case a young calf who tried to hide in a shallow stream. She made soft whimpering sounds for her mother as she and her neighbors were shoved and herded out into the tunnel.

Gale gave silent thanks that the steel-clads were more concerned with rounding up Summit's oxen. But he was still trapped in here, with who knows how many shaggy giants standing between him and the exit, wherever that was. He was tired, more tired than he could remember ever having been in his busy life at the academy. He sheathed his sword, feeling his horn smolder. Need to save it. Dark once they leave. They'll lock down and sweep the whole place once it's empty. No sooner than the steel-clads and their prisoners leave did another squad of four enter from another tunnel. One of them barked an order and they all spread out, fanning the cave with their torches. It was only a matter of time now.

He made then discarded a dozen plans. Might as well have just stepped out during the maelstrom and opened his mouth. So tired.

Hoofsteps- loud to him but not to the four bulls, with their clattering armor and crackling torches by their heads. He peered across the room and saw a small, shivering silhouette, slightly off-color from the cave wall, sneaking between shadows.

Suddenly Gale had a plan. It was outrageously simple, risky, and very, very low. But it might work, and he told himself he didn't have much of a choice.

He wrapped the cloak around his horn and waited until the silhouette slipped behind one of the steel-clads, towards one of the cavern streams. The water's glow masked the aura of a nearby cluster of rocks, which soon came tumbling down by the silhouette's hooves.

The closest steel-clad shouted, "Over there!" and the calf screamed, taking off down one of the tunnels. All four of the large bulls pursued, leaving Gale alone in the once safe and cozy cavern.

It took him five minutes to read the air currents and catch up to the steel-clads and their prisoners from the common area. He followed them, staying just out range of the light, ducking from one black rock to another. The last, long stretch to the surface was paved with rusty mine rails. Fingers of sunlight were slowly reaching into the cave. When it became too bright Gale shoved himself in a darkened alcove on one wall and waited.

Until now, the fear of getting lost or caught in the dark had filled his head since he lured the squad of steel-clads away. With the kid. 'The good of the many...' quickly descended on Gale's thoughts, and directed his attention elsewhere.

A cracked voice from outside. "Have we found the old goat yet?"

A second voice, breathing hard. "Not yet. I think he or Flint lead some out through the tubes."

"And the unicorn?"

"We lost him rounding up the cavern."

"How? He should have been surrounded!"

"He was. He cast some kind of spell and got away. We'll probably have to carry Halberd and Stick out of here. The pony got them good."

"Fine," he first voice growled, "I'm gonna talk to Slate when we get back. I'm not sending anyone else after the pony until I know how to deal with him."

"He won't be happy about that."

"Well, Slate's not happy with much of anything we do these days. Still better than living down here with...them."

"Should we ask about Summit? Or the pony?"

"The group we captured last month didn't talk. I doubt any of them will."

"Hope we've got enough cells."

"The Stone Heart's got plenty of room-"

"For them to be comfortable, I mean."

The two traded more complaints, about escorting the oxen all the way up the mountain, about food and the cold. All the while more steel-clads were emerging from the bowels of the cave, often with three or four oxen between them. They must have captured over half of Summit's group. The last to pass Gale's hiding place was the squad from the cavern, and in the middle of them Gale's decoy. The young bull had long stopped crying, and marched silently with his head down. He'll be alright. They all will. Just need to get out of here.

It took another twenty minutes for the steel-clads to decide that they weren't going to find everyone. The second voice, whose name Gale discovered was Hornfel, seemed worried about not finding Summit and the rest of the oxen. The first, Grout, conjectured Summit was too weak and dumb to last the rest of winter. It was only a matter of time, he said, until Summit had to swallow his pride and come crawling back to Slate for help. It was the least the lying old codger deserved, said Grout. He barked an order, and the steel-clads began marching their prisoners out of sight and sound.

Gale waited another five minutes before venturing from the safety of the tunnel. Dawn came quickly after. No sun, again. Its clouded light cast a purple-grey tint on the sky and snow, but did little to halt the chill stalking through the foothills.

A deep, cold breath billowed from his muzzle, and he bit his lip. A mob of hoofprints pockmarked the snow. Dozens and dozens of circular of plate-sized divots, and half again as many smaller ones. Worse still, more than seven uneven rectangles of pushed snow that snaked towards the mountains- drag marks.

The coast was calling, some fifteen miles away, and with no supplies he'd have to stop to forage for water and warmth. Grueling, even with his training.

There was an almost inaudible scraping behind Gale to his right. He reacted before his mind thought 'ambush,' and he flipped his head back in time to see the shadow and spear before his world went brown.

"Traitor! We let you into our home! Kept you safe! And you led them here!"

Even with Flint crushing him, Gale managed to wheeze out, "I didn't lead them here..."

"But you did," said Summit. He knelt by Gale's squirming head. "And now we have no food, shelter, or time to find either." Gale twisted his head to the left. A crowd of oxen standing there, glaring at him. He counted: twenty-four.

"We're all that's left," said Flint. "We won't make it the rest of winter. Because of you."

Gale pushed against her, uselessly. "I told you, I didn't lead them here."

Summit looked away and shook his head. "Let him up, Flint." Before Gale could finish standing Summit reached across and pulled out Slate's book. He opened it, finding the map of Bovaria. Gale had been using it as a bookmark.

"I should have known," Summit mumbled. An oxen in the group held a torch. Summit beckoned and held the map up. The old parchment wheezed then doubled the flame's size.

The spell that would have let Slate track its location wasn't difficult. But how did Summit know? "The map came from Equestria," said Gale. "Slate used his magic to make a copy there. He's still up there, falling back to the Stone Heart."

Summit turned to look at the remains of his tribe. Even now, they tore their scowls away from Gale to look at Summit, their eyes sagging and chests falling.

"What are we going to do, Summit?" asked one.

"We're not trusting him, are we?"

"They took my son!"

"They destroyed the food!"

Summit patted the air with his hooves. "I know, everyone...I know. We will find a way to get back the ones we lost, and our food. We will make it through the winter." He paused. "Before we do anything else, we need to decide: Bearing Gale has agreed to send word to his leaders in Equestria. If they are as wise and kind as Slate led us to believe, then they will come help us. But Gale must leave by this afternoon if he is to travel back to his home."

"You can't be serious, Dad," said Flint. "You want to let him go?"

"Flint's right," added someone in the crowd. "What good will it do sitting around waiting for ponies to save us?"

"If they'd even help..." murmured another.

"What choice do we have? We can't do anything down here. They might as well have taken all of us. What 's this pony going to do?"

Silence. Then Flint spoke up, "He could take us to the Stone Heart." The oxen looked to one another. Many nodded. "Every time we've tried, Slate's guard stopped us," Flint went on, "But with magic..." All eyes fell on Gale.

A bull at the front of the pack stepped forward. "This pony is here. He's the reason we're in this mess. He should be the one to help us." More nodding from the oxen.

Summit looked away and sighed. "Will you excuse us a moment?"

The oxen entered the cave in one big group. Gale stood alone at the mouth, waiting, catching with his ears the occasional eruption of shouting from the same oxen he'd seen laughing and cooking in the cavern not seven hours ago. Some argued for letting him go; others, stay.

Gale shut his eyes. But when he opened them, he wasn't on the bench at the cadet dormitory. He was standing ankle-deep in frozen water, trying to decide whether he should make a break for the coast while the oxen had their backs turned.

Too late. The oxen emerged, forming a semi-circle around Gale.

Summit stepped forward, with Flint right behind him. "Bearing Gale. If what you told me it true, and Slate is at the Stone Heart, then we have no hope of rescuing our people or surviving the winter. We need help. Here and now."

Gale's gut twisted. He said, softly, "And if I say no?"

The oxen looked at him, wide-eyed, open-mouthed. No hate-filled stares or stamping hooves, just awe- and perhaps more than a little revulsion.

Summit sighed. "Then we will go to the Stone Heart alone, and hope your princess comes."

Gale lowered his head, turning away slightly. Impossible to think with all those probing eyes. As smart as the oxen were, none had stopped to wonder if he was even capable of helping them. He wasn't a princess. He couldn't just wave his horn and move mountains. Say he did come with them, and say they did reach the Stone Heart in one piece, then what? Walk up to Slate and say, 'your food and your money?' Bovaria was dying, and helping the oxen wage war on each other wasn't going to solve that. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle- they could sort this out. Just a wave of the horn and they'd-

But if he took care of this himself, then there'd be no waiting. Bovaria could be saved in a matter of days. The oxen had blown this disagreement with Slate out of proportion, on both sides. Come to think of it, it's likely Slate was simply caught up in this mess too, and trying to use his machine to fix it. Frazil's group must have had him locked up somewhere. It was the only explanation that made any sense to Gale.

If the princesses thought this required their attention, they would have come themselves. He was here. He could do it. Not explore or investigate, but act. Discover the truth, end the oxen's war, and save Bovaria from becoming a frozen pit. All in a day's work for an agent of the princesses, and he knew they'd agree with him. So would Slate. Gale scooped up The Scientific Mind and faced Summit.

"We're going to the Stone Heart. Today."

9

He shredded up his old cloak; with the tears it wasn't fit to bundle up a worm. Still, the Princess had given it to him, so he frowned as he wrapped his new wick around the frozen branch and dipped it in the sap Flint was passing around. It lit up like a bonfire.

As the group set out in a mob-like caravan, Gale felt a tap on his shoulder. One of Flint's warriors, a shaggy hulk named Foggy Blitz, held out a cloak bigger than Gale. It was a mud-colored carpet that weighed as much as one, but once on it felt like someone had built a house around him. Pinning the Equestrian badge to his chest, he thanked Blitz as the two of them walked side by side behind Flint and Summit.

Not much call for conversation on the way up. The empty-hooved oxen walked with plodding steps, mumbling reassurances to each other, asking neighbors if they managed to save anything from the cave. Their individual tracks twisted and weaved, as if looking for the patches of snow that would permit them to pass.

Two hours in, Gale suggested that the oxen rest. The tower path, Summit had decided, was their only way of reaching the Stone Heart before the food ran out. Slate, through his eyes in the snow, would have figured their situation by now, and would wait until they were committed to a course before attacking. After they passed the tower, however, the caravan would quickly scatter. The smaller groups would hopefully spread Slate's forces and give Summit's a chance to enter the city. From there, they'd free the rest of their group, and using whatever supplies on-hoof, begin the fight.

As the caravan moved out, Gale shook his head. The plan had a ghastly sound of finality to it, and it all meant nothing if he couldn't reverse the damage to Bovaria. That meant getting all the big names in one room to talk things out and work together. It was a long shot, but he'd made his choice; now he was going to see it through even if it-

"Summit." he called, catching up. "I know it's not for me to say, but we need to talk about what's going to happen. Even if we free everyone Slate took this morning, do you really think you have enough bodies to take the city?"

Summit nodded. "I appreciate your concern, Gale. Yes, it is a problem we considered. But understand that everyone up there, even though they follow Slate, are still our friends, our neighbors. Many of us are certain that when we arrive we can convince them to join us."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we will do what we can. With you at our side, we will get rid of Slate. That will be enough. With the others we can take our time, explain to them what happened between us was...difficult for everyone." Summit trailed off, looking at Flint. She shook her head and shrugged. "They had reasons, many of them good. We forgive them for following Slate."

Gale's eyes narrowed. "They'll need to forgive you for what they think you've done. Will they?"

"I hope so," Summit whispered.

***

They'd reached Slate's tower in five hours, as opposed to his original six, and with less ice standing in their way. As the caravan passed the abandoned village he made a note to remember the route, not that he planned to make the climb again.

The tower was still there, lording over the bare terrace, a king without subjects. Under Flint's direction, their only five warriors swept forward in an arc, eyes fixed on the wide-open doors.

As they passed under the gold chandelier the oxen fanned out, inspecting every gilded corner and carved column, scavenging any useful materials. Flint and Summit meanwhile followed Gale to the laboratory, where Frazil had shown him the machine. Any information they found could be useful, if and when Gale would have to use it, he decided.

Flint's gaze slithered from marble floor to crystal ceiling. "They've been living like...this. All this time."

"Slate did it," whispered Summit. "All of it. He made them weak and dependent on him. After living like this for so long, it must have seemed...normal."

"Yeah, for ponies." She looked Gale in the eye. "No offense, Gale."

"My name's Gale, now?" he mumbled.

"Blame this one," she said, jerking her head at Summit between them.

"He did not have to come, Flint."

"I know, but it's not like Slate made a good impression."

"Why do you hate him so much?" snapped Gale. "I get everything's that happened, but there's more to it, isn't there?"

Summit took a breath. "When we welcomed Slate into Bovaria, he became more than our guest. He used that against us..." Summit's mouth went bitter. "He turned my own family against me."

"Who?"

"My sister," hissed Flint.

"That is all I wish to say, Gale. But do not think for a second that Slate is anything but what we have told you, and what you have seen for yourself."

Gale pursed his lips. This wasn't about food, land, or even power. Slate's mere presence had driven a wedge between every family on the continent, but Gale refused to believe the old unicorn's intentions were that sinister. Why else would he have built a machine to save Bovaria?

The study in front of the lab was empty, save some stray papers, broken books and crooked bookshelves. Though Summit didn't, it was no cowardice that Flint flinched when everything in the room began to glow, then rose when Gale craned his neck. The study's contents flipped end over end, then shook like the inside of a snow globe.

"Subtle," said Flint.

Gale took a closer look at the books. "I try." He turned to face Flint and Summit, shaking his head. "Nothing." Flint groaned and started to pace.

Together, the three of them combed the study once more by hoof, until Summit settled in front of the entrance to the lab, now sealed by a flat wall of ice. The hole took a minute to burn, and by the time Gale was done his forehead was slick.

"I gotta get me one of those," Flint mumbled as she kicked loose the slab at her hooves. Summit, torch blazing, followed her and Gale inside.

Empty and cold. Canals where machinery and cords once lay snaked around the room. A frown took all three of their faces as they looked back at the doorway they had to carve. A jagged pothole sat in the floor's center, surrounded by a ring of flaky rust and four smaller holes- for fastening bolts.

Flint traced the hole with her hoof. "There's something here. They wouldn't have sealed it otherwise."

"Perhaps they meant it as a distraction," suggested Summit. He walked to Flint's side. "Gale, you said the machine that was here...transformed the earth?"

Gale stopped probing the walls and joined them. "It was...big. Like a blooming flower. Metal petals, with green crystal prisms in the center, as big as a sword."

Summit's eyebrows went up a fraction, his brown face bordering on tan as Gale's horn glowed again. Same spell he used to inspect the machine before. A flash, and then a small column on the far side of the room twinkled. Flint reached behind, groping the rock until something caught. Her hoof came out holding a splinter of green, ember-like crystal.

"Ok, now I know I've seen this- oh. Oh no..." she moaned, turning to her father. "I didn't realize before...when I followed him here."

Gale caught a glimpse of Summit's teeth before the old ox turned around, trembling. "I told Slate, never this. He gave me his word he'd leave it alone." He shook his head. "I should have known."

"Summit?"

Flint was still holding the crystal. She took the torch and Summit the shard, holding it flat in his hoof. "Bovaria is not like Equestria, Gale. We do not use magic like you do. It exists as one with our world." He stared at the flickering torch. "That harmony has maintained Bovaria for as long as we have lived here. We do not tamper with it." Summit squeezed the shard. "This is not their normal shape. When Slate took them from the mountains, he upset the balance that keeps Bovaria alive. That is why the winters have worsened!"

"I don't understand. What's so special about the crystals?"

Summit breathed, "They are us."

It took Gale eight seconds to blink. "You mean..."

"Our family. Our ancestors. We all come from the mountains, Gale, and in the in end we all return to them."

"...How?"

"That I cannot tell you, Gale. For the same reasons I would not tell Slate. I am sorry." He looked at Flint, who motioned for the door. "There are things better left private to us."

Gale bit his tongue, lest his curiosity start demanding explanations. Trust and respect were his only hope of cooperation from Summit if the negotiation plan survived the climb.

The crystal's true nature made his mouth turn sour. What kind of pony was he going to find up there?

Summit and Flint were gone. On a whim Gale cast the spell again, and the column that concealed the shard lit up, then darkened. He peered behind, barely catching the outline of chalky words fading like photographs. He kept the spell running, and this time the words stayed:

Left this for you, Gale. Slate knows you're coming. He can still track you. He wants my dad. You have to stay away from him on the way up.

They're going to catch you. Let them. Slate will let you wander after he talks to you. Find me at the schoolhouse with the big arch in front. I have a plan. Don't tell anyone. Not even him or Flint. Please.

Frazil

Gale stepped back as the scribbled words disappeared from the rock. Seems the bubbly young lady had missed her calling in espionage. Was she spying for her father this whole time? No, he or Flint would have said something. Gale left the lab through the study, back into the main hall where the oxen had regrouped. Summit and Flint stood in the middle, giving orders and taking inventory. Gale turned away and took a deep breath before approaching them.

"Nothing else in the lab." Harder to say than he thought. Neither Flint or Summit deserved it, but once Gale told them, there was no un-telling them. The twist in his gut wouldn't even let him be shocked by the discovery that Frazil was their family.

Summit nodded dully. "The supplies here will give us some flexibility, but we need to hurry."

At the other end of the atrium was the main exit, a heavy metal door that slid on rails. The brown rectangle was a mud stain on the ornate walls, and groaned like a giant when it opened. Everyone poured onto the slope outside, then snow poured onto them. The wind blew it sideways into eyes, muzzles, ears, and refused to be shaken off. High above, the clouds cracked and broke against the mountains, giving the peaks a clear view of the caravan daring to climb them. It wasn't even noon yet.

10

Many of peers have gone down as saying 'no scientist works alone.' Technically true, but at the end of the day, no one will ever help you more than you can help yourself. When you're at your desk or in your lab and every answer comes out wrong, leaning on someone isn't going to magic your failures away. You have to dig deep down into yourself, and decide whether you can deal with the pressure. Not your peers, not the public, not your teachers, YOU.
- Ivory Slate, The Scientific Mind

Gale snapped the book shut as the caravan began to move again. Not long after they left the tower, a storm reached down and pelted them with flurries and dry hail. So they spent the past hour in the shelter of a small, low-ceilinged outcropping, waiting for the gray-white haze to grow bored and leave them alone.

Not a lot of time or reason to read, but he kept coming back to Slate's memoirs. The old unicorn always sounded so sure of himself, like there was nothing he couldn't understand. Maybe there wasn't; he was one of Equestria's shining stars, one of the most forward-thinking ponies of his time.

So why was this happening under his watch?

Summit didn't ask why Gale kept reading, so he didn't answer. Was it simply 'know thy enemy?' No. As far as Gale was concerned, Slate wasn't anyone's enemy. He said so himself. Ponies don't brainwash, ponies don't tyrannize. They don't melt down someone else's ancestors into lab equipment, either. Gale sighed, then shivered. What was he going to tell Princess Celestia, when they found out he disobeyed their orders? They wanted to know what Slate was doing here. When- if- Gale made it back to Equestria, they'd be just as interested in what he'd been doing. The royal guard ship was gone by now, or looking for him some forty miles west. And a mile straight down.

At dusk the caravan reached another village, more sensibly built than the failed slice of Ponyville. The mountain trail turned to gravel and funneled into a large circular promenade with a cluster of long dead pine trees placed in the middle like a centerpiece. The oxen's stone buildings spread along a horseshoe of tall terraces that surrounded the clearing. A couple of the steep, wooden roofs had given out, but on the whole the village was intact, if lifeless.

At the bottom of the horseshoe was the tunnel leading deeper into the mountains. On the terrace above it sat the communal hall, where everyone was heading. Blitz was waiting atop the steps. He'd scouted ahead and seen another blizzard on the prowl, approaching fast from the southwest. Lucky; anyone Slate had out searching would have to take cover too, so the caravan could rest safe for the night and split into its groups before first light.

Right after they left the tower, Gale explained that if Slate could track the map, he could certainly track any Equestrian magic. Summit took his 'reasoning' on faith, so Gale, Flint and Blitz would leave the earliest tomorrow, reaching the Stone Heart by mid day. And the faster we move, the longer it'll take for Slate's guards to find out Summit's not with me. But how to keep Summit out of their hooves for that long? When Gale was nowhere nearby? As the oxen gathered in one large circle, all he could do was carefully remind Summit that as leader, the old ox was a likely target. The two of them and Flint sat next to each other, each rubbing their sore, wet hooves.

The hall had a fountain-sized fire pit in the center. After it was lit, the oxen passed around water for drinking and cooking. A couple of crock pots survived the attack on the caves, so at least the food would be hot. Utensils were an issue, though; everyone quickly realized the only option was to pass around the pots themselves, sip, and pass it on until their hodgepodge stew was gone. Everyone, Summit included, ate from it and never longer than anyone else. Despite his empty stomach Gale followed their example, and afterward he could swear more oxen looked him in the eye.

As the fire withered, the circle huddled closer together. In Equestria, this was the moment when everyone, having finished eating, would sit around and talk. The oxen were no different.

"Hey, Clay," Flint said over the flame's crackle, "dinner tastes different tonight. It's like you put in more food and less dirt."

"Ok, princess," the slim warrior called from the other side, "you can cook your own meals when we get home."

Some of the oxen shook their heads, smiling. Summit murmured, "I guess some things are better off not changing." He stared at Gale, looking very far away. "In the years I knew him, he never ate with us once. Sometimes he invited me to...'dine' with him, but never like this."

"Is this how your meals usually are?"

"Almost always."

Gale smiled. "It's a good practice. I like it."

Summit's face rested on his hoof as he turned to look at his grinning daughter. "Me too."

More than once someone talked about finding their friends, neighbors, or family at the Stone Heart. Almost as if they didn't care what happened, as long as they were together again. If Summit disapproved, he didn't show it, nor did anyone else. Blitz mentioned that if they did succeed, maybe they could see about finding everyone who fled after Slate took over. They were still out there, Summit explained to Gale, making a go of it on the islands to the north.

The wind above was growling, clawing at the roof which began to groan and pop.

"Right," said Flint, looking up. "That hasn't been cleared in years. We should probably..."

"Go outside?" groaned Blitz.

"I'll need some help getting on the roof-"

"It's alright. I got it," said Gale, not noticing every oxen staring at him as he stood.

Flint quickly joined him by at the door. "Just to be safe."

Despite the steep angle, nearly half a foot had piled onto the roof. His cloak billowed up and hit him in the face, but he shoved it down, lit his horn, and began hurling the snow one scoop at a time onto the terrace's lower levels.

"Is that all of it?!" Gale shouted.

"Yeah! Wait, we need to get the other side!"

It took ten minutes total, and ten minutes more than either of them wanted to be out there, but soon they were inside shutting the door behind them, much to everyone's relief.

"Thanks, Flint," said Gale, shutting the door.

"Ha, for what?"

"Thank you, Gale," said Summit. "We appreciate that your magic takes a...considerable amount of effort." Several oxen nodded.

"Of course, least I can do." Gale and Flint sat just as a brown, fist-sized pouch was making its way around. Blitz pulled something out, popped it in his mouth, then passed it to Flint, who did the same. When it was Gale's turn, he pulled out and rolled the caramel-colored pebble in his hoof. It was sweet and salty. He bit down, not hard, but a sticky sledgehammer struck his teeth.

"Ow!"

"Did you really just try chewing...?" Flint cupped her face and howled, as did the others while Gale rubbed his jaw.

Blitz patted him on the back. "A little different from what you're used to, huh?"

Summit chuckled, "No magic in the world will help you eat that, Gale."

"Say, Bearing Gale," cheered Clay, "why are we going through all the trouble of hiking up there? Just conjure us up some wings and we can be at Slate's doorstep tonight!"

"Not funny, Clay," Flint chided.

"It's fine, Flint. Trust me, Clay. If I could, I would."

"He's got a point, though," said Flint. "Why didn't you just fly or...I don't know, teleport up to Slate when you first got here?"

"I can't."

She looked as if he'd told her up was down. "But...you're a unicorn."

He shook his head. "Most unicorns can't do things like that."

Flint made a face. "That doesn't sound right." Blitz and the other warriors nodded in agreement.

"Not all ponies are the same," said Summit, with a tip of his head towards Gale. "Unicorns typically have very specific magical abilities. Like all ponies, Bearing Gale's talents- including his magic- are reflected in his um, 'cutie mark.'" Seems there was no end to what Summit knew.

"Oh! That little thing on their flanks?" Flint laughed. "Yeah, now I remember. You don't have one of those, do you?" Gale raised the hem of his cloak. "Well, it could be worse."

Gale looked back at his windy compass and chuckled, "Yeah, I guess it is kind of strange."

"But not bad," added Summit. Many in turn looking at Gale, nodding. They looked to one another, whispering occasionally.

"There was this time when I was a colt," remembered Gale, "I went with my class to a forest. It was winter. We were learning about the seasons, and our teacher wanted us to go out and find something we thought was interesting to write about. Me and six others had wandered far from the group when a storm came. We got lost, and no one knew what to do."

"We took shelter in a cave. We waited for more than an hour, but the storm didn't stop. Everyone wanted to wait, but I said we should go. The mouth of the cave was at the bottom of a shallow crevice, and there was already a lot of snow on the ground. I thought we were going to be buried if we waited here. They said I was scared. I got mad, so I left the cave and went to find the teacher."

Silence from the oxen when he paused. "Did you?" asked Summit.

"No. I didn't find anybody. Anything more than five meters away I couldn't see. I ran, scared out of my mind, wishing I hadn't left the cave, until I got tired and just sat in the snow. For a minute, my head was...I couldn't think, I couldn't feel anything. All I could hear was the wind working its way around me. My magic wasn't very strong, but I knew how to cast a compass, but it didn't do me any good as long as I didn't know where I was relative to the town. Then I realized: I'd seen the storm coming over Ponyville when we entered the forest. Everywhere I looked I saw trees and shrubs leaning from the wind. It wasn't easy to see the clouds, but they were moving in a similar direction. Southwest, so I went Northeast. It took me two hours- the snow was so deep- but I found my way back to the schoolhouse, where the teacher was rounding up parents to look for everyone. The look on her face when I opened the door..." Gale looked down at himself. Some of the snow hadn't melted yet. "Must've looked even worse than this. We found everyone eventually, the ones in the cave just before dark. It was a week before my hooves were back to normal, after we dug them out."

"You went back out after all that?" Flint nodded, one eyebrow raised. "Like to see Slate do that."

Summit smiled contently, "And that's how you got your cutie mark."

More idle conversation after that. The oxen talked about food, the sports and music they played, and sometimes they asked Gale for an Equestrian comparison. When it was time to sleep Gale eased his head onto the floor, and he smiled for the first time since Canterlot. The hunger and stone floor he handled fine- as Astrolabe once put it, 'it's the feeling of being alone that's unbearable, when you have nowhere to run but deeper and deeper into the darkest corners of yourself. It'll drive you crazy.' Tonight, that wouldn't be a problem. Everyone was falling asleep around the fire, in the same circle they'd eaten in, shoulder to shoulder.

Last thing he remembered seeing was Flint on his left, her eyelids flickering as she mumbled, "We'll make an oxen out of you yet."

11

It was like waking up for school. Eyes opened, closed, opened, closed, and there was hardly a difference except one made him a little less miserable. The interior of the hall was a dark, inky blue. The fire was long out, but the burgundy embers were still sending a solitary black wisp hissing towards the cone-shaped hood on the ceiling.

The grey storm clouds were still overhead when Gale finally managed to pry the door open. A good foot and a half covered the ground, nowhere near white, but rather a shade of blue-violet. There was plenty still falling onto the wind, whose breaths sent it flying in every direction like water on a snarling dog.

As he and Flint carefully stepped their way down the terrace, Clay and Blitz were wading out from the tunnel. The two bulls had taken the last guard shift, to make sure no steel-clads were watching, and had scouted the routes for when everyone else woke up in three hours. But for two hooded oxen and one hooded pony, it was time to walk the gauntlet now.

"Good luck, you guys," Clay whispered, and he followed Flint's tracks up to the hall.

As dark as it was already, the tunnel was but a black semi-circle that Gale couldn't help reaching out to touch- only to have his hoof paw at wispy nothing. Blitz said it was a straight shot, so they'd grope their way along the sides. Fires only when they stopped and had a roof for the smoke. The three of them stepped into the tunnel, side by side. Surprise, even colder inside.

There were five winding trails leading to the Stone Heart. The three of them would crisscross between- the straightest path with the hardest terrain. Maybe Slate could track Gale, but word traveled slow in the mountains. The storm would provide cover most of the way, and the steel-clads would be less responsive in their larger groups. Still, evading or subduing everyone they encountered? For ten, rough miles?

Gale estimated: him, Flint, and Blitz against three, four dozen steel-clads. Las Pegasus odds.

***

Two hours in, and the snow kept falling. After the tunnel, they never again walked on a flat surface, and not a minute passed without a mini-avalanche making them jump and their hearts spike. The wind bared its whistling fangs, prodded and jabbed, causing some spills, so Flint broke out the rope and they began to walk single file, Blitz in front. For the most part they lay low, between the piling dunes that ran alongside or below the trail. But in two hours they'd encountered at least ten patrols, and were nearly seen every time.

Like clockwork, five minutes after the last patrol a grey mirage approached from ahead. A mirage bearing torches, metal plates, and seven heads. Blitz saw them first and dove down the hill on the right, bringing Flint and Gale along.

They buried themselves and waited for the crackling and clattering to fade. Thoroughly smothered, the three of them found a small overhang of rock, shielded on all sides but the one facing a thousand-foot drop.

While Blitz made the fire, Flint found a slab and unrolled her map.

"Good catch, Blitz," Gale mumbled, rubbing his stiff hindlegs.

Flint took a deep breath, then let it blow out. "That makes fifty-six. Did Slate send all of them after you?"

He just might have. Gale shrugged. "At least we're drawing them away from the others."

"We can't keep hiding for seven miles. We're gonna have to make a break for it. We don't have the supplies for another night." She put her hoof on the map. "Here. The path's too small for all of them to follow us. I saw the archway leading to it on our left, not far at all."

Gale summoned the compass. "We'd be going five miles with no cover. They'd see us for sure."

"Face it, Gale. We won't get to the city going at this pace. So what if they see us? We can take them. Their numbers won't help them on the path."

Gale looked at the map and frowned. A closer look at the map showed him that the Stone Heart wasn't simply one mountain. It was a whole range, built up like a chessboard, with each piece a separate mountain in a tightly-packed fist. The city itself sat atop a mesa nestled right in the center, half as high as the tallest peaks. No wonder it'd been so much up and down. Per Flint's plan, the three of them were toeing a line of rises where many of the mountains bumped up against each other, a path that led straight to Bovaria's capital. Moving for the arch path would keep them lower to the ground, in pretty plain view. There'd be no protecting Summit's whereabouts then. The steel-clads would spread out and find the other groups after they realized Summit wasn't with Gale.

He didn't want to believe Slate would harm Summit, even if the old ox posed a threat to his research. No pony would dream of it. But whenever Gale put himself in Slate's shoes, he recited on instinct an ancient saw about the head and the body, and how you got rid of one that was causing you trouble.

They warmed themselves, before stamping the fire. Their pace was brisk, and they were three-quarters there when suddenly the snow stopped. The wind stopped. The air began to clear, and a rock ten meters away slowly became visible. A ridge, twenty away.

Gale changed his mind. He couldn't throw away everything he'd struggled for, Frazil's plan, to risk losing Summit now. "We can't let them spot us! Move!"

"What the...? Gale!" Flint shouted as she and Blitz sprinted after him.

The further Gale saw, the more eyes he felt on the back of his head. Muffled shouts echoed all around them as they reached the arch and ducked behind the cliff face it touched. The ground under their hooves narrowed, but Gale didn't slow.

He tripped, sliding muzzle-first on the trail. Hoof on his back as Flint or Blitz slammed into him.

"Are you crazy?!" barked Flint.

He stood. "We need to get to the city." Without another word he turned his head and a lance from his horn sliced the arch in two. The cliff face trembled when the pieces fell, blocking the path. Before he could back spin around, Flint tackled him.

"We won't get there if you bury us! What's gotten into you?"

Gale grunted, "Slate wants your father. As long as he thinks Summit's with us, the guards won't find him."

"How do you know Slate wants my dad?"

"It's not important."

"It is!"

"I can't tell you."

"Come on, Gale, not this again!"

Blitz pulled at her. "We need to move!" Behind them, past the bend of the cliff, the shouting grew loud as the steel-clads wrestled with the debris.

The three ran, following the path until it forked. To the left, a sloped clearing lead into a boulder-littered valley. Their original route, before they ran for the arch, was now above on the right, no longer visible behind the top of the cliff and its overflowing edge. Dollops of snow periodically fell from it, exploding wetly on the half-buried trail.

Halfway down the clearing was a line of large snowdrifts. As the three of them ducked behind, Gale pointed his horn pointed at the clearing, then swung his head in an arc towards the cliff. At least thirty bubbles of air burst above, under, or in the hoof-marked snow. The ground's coat erupted skyward, then settled in a sheet of uneven lumps, just as the ridge and arch trail became lined with steel-clads.

"Anyone see them?" carried a voice.

"Where's their tracks?"

"Spread out!"

Keeping his head low, Blitz leaned out. He turned to Flint and Gale. "Eight on the path, eight on the ridge. I think it's Grout."

Flint sat, throwing up her hooves. "Great. He wouldn't give up if we dropped the mountain on him." She glared at Gale. "Now what?"

He took the map. "We can lose them in the valley. It circles back up on the far side."

"That's gonna waste us hours!"

"It doesn't matter when we arrive. It's your dad needs to make it up there, so he can get help and keep Slate off balance. That was the plan, remember?"

"It was until I realized you had your own."

"Look, I know I haven't earned your trust, not yet-"

"You did. But I need a reason now, Gale. What are we doing?"

Blitz leaned out again. The steel-clads were sweeping down the slope in a loose line. A couple minutes at most until they reached the snowdrift. Now or never. In a low voice Gale told her, "I met someone at the tower who will help us. They told me Slate wants your dad."

"Who?"

He shook his head. "That has to stay with me, Flint. I'm sorry. We can't risk Slate finding out he's got someone helping us."

"You think I'd talk if I knew?"

"No, I think you'd be distracted."

"What's that supposed to-?"

"Guys!" Blitz slid down the hill, between a pair of boulders. With a glance at the other, Flint and Gale followed, and found themselves in a forest of frosted rocks as big as carts. Some luck: the valley was already well pockmarked with hoofprints.

A shadow came over Flint's face, then disappeared. She looked at the ground, then at Gale. "Okay." She nodded. "Let's find a way out of here."

"Grout!" a voice above shouted. It was Hornfel, the plus-one from the cave. The steel-clads gathered in a circle. "Slate just sent out word: the pony's moving towards the valley."

Grout laughed, "I know. It's over, then. Take Ash Flurry's team around and cut them off. I'll give the signal when we're ready. You see the pony, you stay out of his view and flank him all at once. But focus on Summit! The old goat's got to be planning something."

It was hide-and-seek for an hour. The three of them darted from boulder to boulder, between gaps in patrols as the sun burned overhead, no longer smothered by the clouds. It was the brightest Gale had seen since he arrived, and here he was, evading a platoon of steel-clads in broad daylight. In a valley no larger than three square miles. Their only blessing: Grout nor any of his underlings had realized hiding a large group in here wasn't difficult; it was impossible.

Their luck ran out when they reached the end of the valley. It curved back up to the mountains via another archway, blocked by Hornfel and his team. Slate wanted Summit bad.

The top of a small rockslide offered the best view and most cover. Lying on their bellies, the three of them caught their breaths and crawled onto the lip of their hiding place. Flint squinted at the eight guards, then turned to Gale and Blitz. "If you really can give us wings, now'd be good."

Gale wiped his forehead. "Can we fight past them?"

"Without them seeing we're alone? That's a 'no', Gale."

"Maybe we can distract them," offered Blitz. "I can pretend I've snuck away from Summit's group, and lead them wherever."

Flint shook her head. "Come on, Blitz, that's the oldest trick in the book!"

"Not the worst, though," Gale added.

Blitz went on, "It can't be Gale. And they'd definitely expect a trick from you."

"Lead them here, then." Flint unsheathed her spear. "We'll have your back."

As Blitz climbed down and started walking, Gale pulled out his sword. "If this goes sideways and we can't take them all out, I'll put up a shield to hide us."

"You mean, like, make us invisible?"

"No, like a one-way mirror in a big dome. It'll look like I'm hiding a lot of us."

"Then what?"

"I bring down that pile of snow on top of the arch."

"Oh. Great."

What happened in the next minutes remained a blur to Gale, but it went something like this: as soon as Blitz stepped out from the rock field into the clearing, the steel-clads bore down on him like wolves on a hunk of meat. They surrounded him, then talked to him. Blitz's acting must have been good, because Hornfel and his team didn't debate long before they started prodding Blitz in the direction of the rockslide. Flint and Gale were hiding in the darkest shade the boulders, weapons ready as the steel-clads and Blitz approached from just out of pouncing range. Just a few more seconds, and they'd be out of the way, no fuss.

Until Hornfel pulled out a leg-sized tube. Blitz had seen it, and tackled the meek, light-coated bull, whose friends turned just in time to see the fuse finish its burn, and the flare cut a bright red crescent into the sky.

Eyes wide, Flint and Gale jumped from the rockslide and rushed them. But they were too far, and too late. Flint reached out, swinging her spear while Gale, sword in mouth, covered the rest of the distance with a long balestra. Caught the first steel-clad in his helmeted head. The broken blade clanged, the bull staggered dizzily, and opened himself to a swift kick to the side. He went down, and the rest of the fight became a private brawl more worthy of an alley.

Hornfel and his remaining five paired off. Blitz took his bare-hoofed, pinning one to the ground as he grappled the other's neck like a nasty older sibling.

The two against Flint moved around her until they had her completely outflanked. They lunged at the same time. She slid under the one in front of her, bucked him over and into his partner. When they were tangled she jabbed one with the weighted end of her spear, then smashed it over the other's trapped head.

Meanwhile, Hornfel and the last steel-clad retreated from Gale to the rocks, darting from cover to cover. No clear shot. Like Flint, he was completely outflanked. Didn't help he was out of his weight class, too. Every missed blast from his horn brought his temperature up and Hornfel closer, until something heavy threw him to the ground. Burning pinch as he fell on a sharp rock.

"I got him!" the steel-clad shouted. As Hornfel charged Gale's eyes shut. The world went quiet. Could hit him couple times but one on back would break concentration need different spell simple thinkthinkthink. A long second later, he opened his eyes. The weight flew off his back. Hornfel's eyes widened in horror as he and the snow and rocks around him rose ten meters, fifteen meters.

Gale rolled to his hooves, looked up and spoke in his head: down.

The two steel-clads fell like anvils. Gale walked over to Hornfel. Tilt head, pommel up, smash, helmet skittering away. Same for the other one, probably Ash Flurry by the color of her coat. Still catching his breath when Blitz and Flint joined him.

Flint looked at the two unconscious bulls. "Geez, Gale." She bent down and scooped up Hornfel's flare cannon. "They teach you that back in Equestria?"

Gale, still breathing hard, looked up at the mountains that forever remained in the background, at Hornfel lying beaten in the snow before the peaks like a ritual offering, and shook his head. "No."

Coming from deeper in the valley, a clattering, shouting storm front.

Flint spun to face him. "Shield, now!"

As they ran for the arch a beam shot skyward from his horn, then spread out in all directions as it arced back to the ground, forming an opaque, nonsolid dome. Big enough to hide at least twenty oxen. Thirty seconds later, there were twice as many steel-clads behind them, pouring from the rocks. Every ox in the valley must have seen the flare.

"Gale...?!" Flint shouted.

He nodded. Another beam from his horn hit the top of the arch. "Move!"

The snow sitting on the arch trickled at first, hardly noticeable. Then a crack, like the earth was splitting in two, and a steady stream of houses began falling in slow-motion onto the clearing. Flint and Blitz were at the front of the shield, moving fast enough to stick halfway through it. They cleared the arch before looking back at Gale.

Almost made it when a bowling ball exploded on his head. He fell to his knees, shield flickering in tandem with his vision, then he felt his hooves drape over a pair of shoulders which hauled him away.

***

He must have passed out. The sun was low and falling fast behind the mountains. The snow was blue again, and the sky bruise-purple.

Flint and Blitz were studying the map, while he sat propped against a dry rock. Some forty meters below was the trail on the other side of the arch, its opening half-filled by their little avalanche. To the left lay a wide pass with steep sides, and beyond it the jagged inner circle of the Stone Heart, still flat against the horizon.

Flint reached out and held him down. "Nice and slow, Gale." Blitz offered his hoof. Gale took it and stood, carefully. "We got away before the shield broke. They didn't see us."

Gale nodded. "You guys carried me all the way up here?"

Flint made a half-smile. "You aren't exactly heavy."

He tugged at his sword a bit, then let it slide back into the scabbard. "Thanks. Now what?"

"I went down a little while ago. They're still digging all of their friends out. When they move out, we'll follow behind. Make it up from there."

"Sounds good."

They waited thirty minutes for the forty steel-clads to claw their way free and regroup under the arch. Half of them were missing armor pieces, and both halves were wet and white wherever their coats were exposed. One of them walked forward to the front of the pack.

"Who set off that flare? Who? Get up here!" Hornfel and his team limped to the front. "You nearly got us all buried, you get that?!"

"It was the pony, Grout." Flurry said wearily.

"I know it was the pony I was there! You're telling me eight of you couldn't stop some candy-colored milksop just because he had a horn?!"

"It wasn't just him. Flint and Blitz was there. They were part of a larger group. They jumped us when we moved into the valley."

"You were supposed to be guarding the pass!"

"We were, it's just...not like them. We weren't expecting them to ambush us like that."

"Or the pony to bring down the mountain on us..." another added.

Hornfel, clutching his forehead, spoke up. "What's done is done, Grout. Slate clearly doesn't know the pony as well as he thought. We gotta keep moving if we're gonna catch up to him and Summit. We're gonna have a war on our hooves otherwise. Summit's still got too many friends in the city."

Grout snorted, "Let's go."

Sunset brought a close to their day, in more ways than one. Gale, Flint, and Blitz followed Grout's company of steel-clads closely for an hour, until a lone bull came tearing out of the darkness. The torch in his saddle flickered as he screeched to a powdery halt.

"Just got news from Slate, Grout. The pony's still in this area. He's real close."

Gale could hear Grout's eyes roll. "Oh! You really think so, Tuff? Well, that's just great!"

"You haven't the good part yet." The young bull's eyes went wide, his voice tight. "You won't believe it. When Slate heard about the valley he sent us reinforcements from the city. They weren't even out an hour and they got him. They got Summit!"

13

Another night, another storm, another helmet. Smash, run, hide, repeat. Only the wind talked. Flint and Blitz were nearby, fighting the helmets shining in the torchlight, wheezing and shivering afterwards. Gale doubled over, shut his eyes, and did what he'd done ever since this mission went to the wolves.

He was sent to Bovaria to save the-

No.

He was sent to Bovaria to investi...find Slate. Yes. Yes, that was it.

He only joined with Summit to find Slate. Slate was a scientist. Summit...didn't like that and went to war.

But Slate hurt the oxen.

Ponies don't hurt other creatures. This was all just one big mistake.

He decided: all that mattered to him now was finding some way to make something good come out of this mess. Save Bovaria, end this before any one else got hurt. No one but him saw what had to be done, so he had a responsibility. Even if Flint, Summit, and everyone else ended up hating him for trying. He could live with that. Just like Slate said in his book: a scientist is only beholden to progress and the effectiveness of his results.

So wise, so certain. He'd built a machine, an amazing machine, to save all of Bovaria.

And yet...unless...

What was he gonna tell the Princess? Okay, maybe he'd overstepped and gotten in over his head. But he didn't disobey them, he didn't have a choice! What good was it investigating if he couldn't help? That's what royal guards were supposed to do! The princesses hadn't seen what he'd seen.

Oxen, sobbing and holding themselves by a fire.

Villages, mangled and buried.

Mountains, always taller and farther, mocking him because he didn't know what was happening and deep down he didn't want to, but the lost colt inside told him to keeping going, that he alone would set things right if only he knew the truth of what happened here.

But if the princesses were here everything would have been fine. They'd have waved their horns and fixed things like it was supposed to happen. But here he was instead. He only said 'yes' to Celestia because he knew if he did this, there was no way he'd spend the rest of his career guarding gardens and galas. He was going to go far. Now, he didn't care where he went as long as it wasn't here.

***

They'd arrived. But there was no finish line, no red carpet, no oxen loyal to Summit waiting to let them in. The splintery beams of the main gate loomed over them, spat on them with snow from atop its mountain wall frame. Behind them, the telltale sounds of the steel-clads grew.

Blitz supported Flint and her bad leg as Gale limped forward. His horn pulsed, flickered and sputtered. Spell barely singed the cold wood. Fell onto knees, then face. World going dark. Felt them shake him, Flint's words soft. He was so tired of all the fighting, the mountains never got closer, so tired of getting hurt, so

"Gale..."

tired of never being sure.

"please..."

Tired of being cold and away from home.

"we need you."

So tired.

14

He woke up and fell asleep in different places. Once in a cell, alone. Later in a big room, surrounded by shaggy silhouettes who spoke gently to him until a bark made them scatter, and rings of metal shut around his hooves and dragged him away.

Finally he woke up in a bed, complete with sheets and pillows and springy mattress. Electrodes dotted his head and torso, which hooked up to a beeping monitor. He didn't climb so much as spill out of the bed, but was steady on his hooves as he took in the room. Ripped right out of Canterlot, from polished floor to latticed windows. And it was warm.

Rubbing his forehead revealed the fresh bandages there, on his legs and everywhere else. His coat, which hadn't been dry for days, felt as if it'd been scrubbed from head to hoof. The alien feeling was too good to be troubling just yet.

There it was. Below him and just outside the frosted window, enclosed by that impenetrable ring of narrow mountains. The pear-shaped plateau was terraced, practical. The oxen had doubled their space in the process, building in almost every shape imaginable: prism halls, an open-roofed amphitheatre, winding spires, tall dwellings with turrets. A steep, wooden roof topped most, while the stone that made their walls shared the mountain's blue-grey, as well its powdery, pearly highlights. The painted cityscape seemed to rise from the earth rather than stand atop it like a three-mile, three-dimensional jigsaw.

"Wow..."

Click. Door wasn't even open before Gale covered the distance from the window. Despite being half again as tall as him, the middle-aged oxen jumped back when she saw him, sheets spilling from the basket on her back.

"I'msosorry!" she dropped her head and turned away. "I...please..."

It took his heart a good four seconds to slow, before he looked up and saw his horn crackling. Moment of panic as he stopped showing his teeth, straightened his knees, and dropped his shoulders. She wasn't the enemy. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." He held out his hoof. "My name's Bearing Gale. What's yours?" Nothing. "Have you been taking care of me?"

Her head stayed down. "Yes, sir...Mister Gale. I just took over for someone else. I'm sorry, I should've been more careful."

"No, it was my fault. I came at you like a wolf." He reached out again. "It's just Gale, ma'am."

She took it this time and shook, looking up. "Frost Flower."

He didn't know what to say next, so he gave her a tired smile and stuck his head into the hallway. No guards, no Flint, no Summit. "How'd I get here, Frost Flower?"

"You can just call me Flower, sir-"

"Gale."

"Gale." She relaxed a bit. "One of our guards, Grout, brought you here."

He nodded and rubbed his leg. "Yeah, I know him. He, his pal Hornfel and I have been getting to know each other the past few days."

She grabbed his shoulder. "You know my son! Where is he?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. You don't?"

"I haven't seen him in days. Slate's been sending him up and down the mountain, trying to find Summit and...oh." She let go. "You never actually talked to Hornfel, did you?"

He swallowed air. "He was ok last time I...saw him. I'm sorry."

Her eyes, though lined with age burned deep hazel. Though he braced for it, she didn't lash out or scream. Only parenthood granted anyone- pony or ox- that kind of control. "You're a stranger. You didn't know any better." She scooped up the sheets and threw the mess onto the bed. Gale grabbed his things, which were hanging by the door. A little warm for the cloak, but he felt bare without it. When he turned around Frost Flower was facing away, smoothing the bed.

Apologize again? Leave quietly? Manners and courtesies failed him; they all sounded hollow. So he was rude but practical, "I'm looking for Slate. Do you know where he is?"

Without looking she pointed left. "Someone down there can help you. Gale."

He took two steps, thought of Ms. Scroll, then was standing in the door again. "Thank you, Flower." He didn't wait, but caught her head turning before the wall replaced her. Too late, for both of them.

His 'help' came in the form of two steel-clads around a blind corner. All three of them jumped, were perfectly still, then slowly eased back into their standing positions. Neither bull said a word, their eyes wide and mouths hanging slightly open. Gale looked up. His horn had lit itself again. Twice in five minutes- hadn't happened since his feather-levitating days. It was more embarrassing than anything else, but one creature's fumble was another's war dance. Another door behind the steel-clads. One held it open for Gale while the other stepped far to the side. Neither followed him through. The door creaked shut.

The hallway curved gently. East, given the windows on his left, which hit his hooves with barely any light. The glass trembled from the wind, trying to claw its way inside.

At halfway, the apex of the hall's curve, stood a royal blue door twice his size. He only had to raise the brass knocker once. The snaps of turning locks echoed through the wood, and the door slowly eased open.

Another study, another chandelier. Polished shelves lining alabaster walls, parchment and books littering the tables and lecterns. A roaring fireplace on the other end of the room, behind a horseshoe desk and padded chair. Both were silhouetted by the flames, but neither hid the bone-white coat of the unicorn sitting, or the brown glow of his scribbling horn.

"Slate?" Gale whispered. "Is that you?"

***

The old unicorn wasn't so old. He wore his graying mane short and combed back. Where it met his forehead, a pair of smart reading glasses hid the brown twisting irises of an owl. A tie and pinstripe vest concealed his top half. When the door shut, he looked up from his work.

"Yes, Gale. It's me. Come, take that nasty thing off and make yourself comfortable. We have a lot to talk about, if you'll forgive the cliché."

A chair slid in front of Slate's desk. Gale sat, but didn't take off his cloak.

"When Grout first told me about this pony fighting his way up to the Stone Heart, I thought he'd become careless. Forty, fifty oxen- it didn't matter. So either Equestria was pumping out ruthless warriors now, or Grout was being outmatched by a single unicorn."

"I wasn't alone."

"Yes, I was...surprised by your alliance with Summit and his followers. But I assume they gave you little choice, didn't they?"

"I owed them for what happened in the caves."

"They certainly got their money's worth, then."

"You told Grout where to find me and your map. He attacked them." Careful, sounding a little too hostile.

"We've known about Summit's hideout for months, Gale. I...Grout was perfectly content with waiting them out, until they returned to the city on their own. Your being there, after Flint abducted you, left us with limited options. They might have hurt you, or worse. So Grout went, at my request, because I knew I could trust somepony the princesses sent." He stared at his desk, mouth curving up. "Grout, Hornfel, Flurry. They're more than my guards. They're my friends, strange though they are."

Gale looked away, looked back. "Why did they attack me?"

Slate sighed, chair hissing as he leaned back. He tapped the desk. "Gale. As you may have noticed, we're not in Equestria anymore. It's important that we stay true to our better nature, and inspire it in others when we can." He leaned forward. "I tried, Gale, and I failed. I failed. Despite everything I did to help Summit and his followers. It took me more than four years, but eventually I gathered the resources to call for help from Equestria."

Gale shook his head. "I don't understand. What happened?"

"They didn't tell you?" Slate's puzzled frown disappeared. "Ah, of course." Pause. "Tell me, why was it so important to Summit that he have your help?"

He shrugged. "Flint said something about my magic helping their chances of-"

"They have their own, Gale. They didn't need your help." Slate adjusted his tie. "And therein lies the source of Summit's problems." He rubbed the fine-hairs of his beard. "What did you think, the first time you met him?"

Five days ago. "He seemed decent, honorable," Gale answered. "All he cared about was keeping his oxen safe."

"All true. And when he stopped being that, they abandoned him." Slate waved a dismissive hoof. "Oxen loyalty is...fickle, as I've sometimes observed."

"What did he do?"

Slate tightened his tie as he rubbed his forehead. "I can see it so clearly, even now. I had just made a remarkable discovery about Bovaria's magic. The machine you saw in the tower-"

"You made it."

"-using crystals I gathered from caves all around the Stone Heart. The oxen had been propping them up in the tunnels for years in some kind of strange, ritualistic behavior. They don't keep many secrets, but Summit refused me an explanation."

Gale gulped, "Maybe he had a reason."

"I did my research, Gale. A sample I recovered one night was just that- a crystal. Nothing more than a pile of calcite covered in oxen scribbles. But it wasn't completely useless. After several experiments I discovered they had magical properties. Even the smallest shard acted like the Crystal Heart, along with some properties I still don't fully understand."

Gale's head spun. He'd traveled five days and the better half of a hundred miles. He'd been buried, frostbitten, chewed on, and in general treated poorly in so many ways most ponies wouldn't dream of. So why did it feel like he'd just stepped off the boat? The mission, the one the princesses had given him, was over. All that was left was to learn what he could, add to his report. They'd find him eventually. Focus. He swallowed before asking, "Summit found out what you were doing."

"He didn't even give me a chance to explain myself. I don't know how, but he had a spell ready to get rid of me. It didn't work, obviously. But in that moment, he betrayed his community, his family. He'd been increasingly critical of me lately, of how oxen were coming to me to solve their problems instead of him." Slate sighed, "I don't blame Summit for holding on to who he is, who he wanted to be. But we couldn't both have what we wanted. So he left, while the oxen let me stay."

"And what did you want?"

"To do what ponies do best, Gale: to help them. With my machine...imagine Bovaria without snow, without blizzards or hail every waking moment. Where the oxen don't have to struggle day and night only to scrape by. I can teach them so much. We can teach them so much."

"I came to find you, Slate, not teach."

"So you did. Though you did a lot more than that, if everything I've heard is true." His horn glowed, tightening the bandage on Gale's side. "A week out there. A high price, even if it was for the Royal Sisters. Do you think it was worth it?"

"Yes," Gale whispered.

Slate cocked his head, looking down as he adjusted his tie. "They certainly didn't send just anypony after me. Most would be sobbing right now, telling me how hard it was, how much they wish they could go back and do things differently. No good ever comes from that- trying to undo and 'do-over,' Gale. It comes from accepting our choices, facing our mistakes, and moving on. I'm glad to see the royal guard aren't slouching with their members, though I'm willing to bet they're not all like you either."

Without thinking, Gale mumbled, "The princesses needed somepony who could make the trip. I thought after this mission, they'd make me..."

Slate appraised him with a toothy grin. "I see. Well...maybe they'll be more impressed than you think. But first, what will you do now that you've found me?"

Shrug. "I don't know. I'm stuck here until somepony else finds me. I just want to go home."

"Then let's help each other, like ponies should. As you probably guessed, my machine isn't exactly working. I haven't had time to resettle after relocating from the tower, so I'd like your help getting it ready. It will cover the entire peninsula by the time we're done."

Flashback to the steel-clads trying to shove the horn sheath on him. "I don't have your magic or your mechanical skills, Slate. Why do you need my help?"

"I don't need your help, I want your help. My time here, your mission, both leading up to this moment, when two of Equestria's finest saved an entire land from devastation. Your career, my legacy. It's ours, Gale, if you help me. Then, I promise to see you out of Bovaria myself."

'We expect you to...careful...discrete...return to Equestria. Immediately. Brilliant minds...turned my family against me...Just agree with him. Please.' The mission was over, and here he was, still making it up as he went. He nodded. "Alright. We'll do it."

Slate nodded in turn. "We're doing the right thing." He smoothed his tie. "The only thing we can do." More papers glowing settled on the desk. "I'm afraid you can't help me right now, but why don't you go explore the city while I set up. I'd say you've earned it. One piece of advice, though: don't mingle with the oxen. Unlike Summit's, they understand what it means to be civilized. And after what you did to get up here, they're likely to be afraid of you."

Gale nodded, stood, and stopped at the door. Turning around, "I need to see Summit. Flint, Blitz, all of them. To make sure they're alright."

"Your debt to them is repaid, Gale, they're fine. They're here now. Maybe not under the conditions that would've given them the war they wanted, but I know you'll agree that was for the best."

"I still want to see them," he said, voice quivering towards the end. "Where are they?"

The lines around Slate's eyes tightened, then relaxed. "You've been in Bovaria a long time, Gale." Slate raised an eyebrow. "Maybe you're not as ready to go home as you think. He stood and tugged the hem of his vest. "Down the hall, to your left. I'll have Hornfel escort you. Try to be back by two. We'll talk more then."

***

His hooves were clicking on the stone brick streets, and he still hadn't decided whether he believed what Slate said. All the more reason to find Summit- and Frazil, once he found a way to ditch Hornfel. The young bull, his helmet mysteriously missing, was attached to Gale at the shoulder since they crossed the thin bridge connecting Slate's abode to the city. Built into the mountain side, his lone tower shadowed them for a block. The farther they walked, the more oxen dropped everything and retreated to their homes in droves. Streets went silent in seconds, though Gale could hear eyes turn from the few pretending to shovel walks or scrape windows. To make it official Hornfel should have shouted, 'Roll up, roll up! Come and see the dangerous freak!'

The building was elegant, for a prison. A line of four stained glass ovals laced the grey granite facade, centered around a wooden door. A simple, stone arch as big as seven oxen stood freely but close to the building, oriented so as to be aligned with the entrance. They passed under it approaching the dozen steel-clads standing guard. Either Frazil had mixed up meeting places, or she'd deliberately chosen one with more security than the gates of Tartarus. At least he wouldn't walk very far to find her.

The guards made no fuss, no 'state your business' or other such nonsense. Whether that was because of Hornfel or him, Gale couldn't tell. The steel-clads always seemed informal, more academy hoofball team than actual army. For all he knew maybe they had been, before Slate. Before their old schoolhouse was a prison.

The main desk was still there, covered in dusty, frozen scrolls. The chalk drawings on the walls told him the building was for all ages. In a way, it still was. As he and Hornfel passed the classrooms, young and old faces looked up at him from behind the barred doorways, some confused, others shocked. Their shaded figures seemed familiar, as if he'd seen them in a dream.

Flint and Summit were with the rest of the caravan in the basement, which once served as the school's small gymnasium. Like the classrooms the gym's double doors had been ripped out, replaced by a sliding row of crisp iron bars.

When they saw he wasn't in chains, Flint sprung to the door. "Gale!"

He turned to Hornfel. "Open it."

The bull kept his eyes forward. "I can't do that."

Horn glowed. "Then you better stand back."

"There are twenty of us in the building-"

"And twenty ice sculptures if I feel like it. Now open it, Hornfel, your mother doesn't need you getting hurt more!"

Something rewarding in Hornfel's eyes when he looked at Gale. But when he looked back at Flint, she stared with her head turned slightly away. Strange. She had to know he couldn't actually do magic like that. Even if he could, he probably wouldn't have.

The door slid open, and Flint led him through the rows of cots to the back corners, where Summit and several others had gathered. Blitz was there, sitting and rubbing his hooves together. "You've looked worse," he said to Gale.

"Wish I could say the same, Blitz." He met gazes with Summit, his head fell. "I'm sorry."

Summit rubbed his eyes. "It was a gamble, Gale. You have our thanks." He looked older than ever. Gale could tell; they were all tired too.

Gale shook his head. "What happens now?"

"Slate talked to me alone not long ago. He said he's willing to negotiate if I tell everyone that the fight is over."

Flint read his mind, "We've already decided. This isn't over."

"You might not have a choice, Flint. You're all looking at banishment or worse."

"Except Shale Mantle..." someone muttered.

"We still have a chance," she pressed. "You're a pony, Slate trusts you. He wouldn't be letting you walk around otherwise, unless..." Her mouth dropped. "You didn't."

"You really think I'd betray you? Just because me and Slate are ponies?"

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't say you tried to get rid of Slate with magic, either."

Flint froze, mouth open. All eyes fell on Summit, who sighed. "I knew he was dangerous the day he arrived. So I took precautions, consulted our histories and yours. A year of work, and it did nothing to him."

Gale frowned. "He didn't take over their minds. He just make you look like a power-hungry hypocrite. And they haven't bat an eye at his experiments since."

"If they even know about them," Flint pointed out.

"There's more, Gale. As Bovaria fell apart my daughter, Stray Frazil, she took Slate's side. I was convinced then that he was controlling her somehow, but now..." He hung his head. "She was never locked up or waiting to be rescued. I should have found another way, but I failed her, and everyone who left for the islands." He looked up. "If I submit to him now, I fail everyone who stayed to help me find her."

"Never, Summit," whispered Blitz. "We followed you because this is our home, and you were willing to fight to keep it ours." The oxen all nodded.

Gale breathed deep and sat on one of the cots. Summit did what any worried leader would have, but against Slate's magic, he might as well have tried wrestling an ursa. The old unicorn held every card, including one to save Bovaria. So why spend his time getting Gale's 'help' and the oxen's surrender? What was left for him to want? Gale rubbed his chin. He had to get out of here, see what Frazil was planning. Still not sure where she fit in all of this.

A familiar voice roared from the end of the room, "And you just let him in?!"

"He was going either way, Grout-"

"And now he and Summit are planning who knows what! You two, with me!"

The bar door rang as it hit the wall. Grout, backed by Hornfel and two steel-clads, were pounding across the room, fast.

Gale spun to Flint. "I need to find our friend."

Flint grinned. "Can do. Blitz, Needle, you get the two in the back. Clay, grab Hornfel. I'm gonna find out what that bell on Grout's head sounds like."

"I'll be back as soon as I can." Gale turned around, and his muzzle almost touched Grout's. The four guards had forced their way into the middle of the crowd. Not smart.

"What are you doing here?! I gave strict orders- !"

"Calm down, Grout," said Gale. "I came to check on Summit and Flint before I went to help Slate with his science."

"You really expect me to believe that?" Grout flung his hoof at Summit. "There's always something when this old liar's involved!"

Summit kept his voice steady, "I never lied to you, Grout."

"No, you destroyed us! And right when Slate's trying to put us back together, you con this pony into doing your dirty work!"

Flint stamped her hoof. "Grout, you dumb jerk! Do you have any idea what Slate's doing, what he took from us?"

"Yes! Slate did what he had to, because of him!" Another jab towards Summit. "He did this to Bovaria!"

Gale shook his head. "How many lies has he been telling you?"

"I could ask you the same thing, pony."

Flint growled, "His name is Gale."

Grout bared his teeth and pointed at Summit. "That's it. Time's up, we're going to see-"

Blitz, Needle, and several oxen who weren't part of the plan grabbed Hornfel and the steel-clads. "Sorry, guys," muttered Blitz.

Flint smashed into Grout. They both hit the ground, a tangle of hooves and horns as Flint slipped behind him. "Just like recess huh, Grout?" she grunted.

Summit clasped Gale's shoulder. "We'll talk soon."

As he sprinted from the gym, clattering hoofsteps thundered down the staircase up. He threw himself onto a cot, then the cloak over himself, right as eight more steel-clads joined the brawl.

In ten seconds he was outside the cell, sliding the door closed and melting the lock.

15

He sprung at least twenty oxen from their cells as he ran through the hallways. They brought every steel-clad indoors, leaving Gale to pace in front of the school. Still no sign of Frazil, until he remembered his horn. He kept the spell going, turned around and saw on the shaded underside of the arch:

cellar

The school sat on the edge of the plateau, so a seven-foot wall surrounded the small yard and playground behind it. As Gale passed the rusted swing set and jungle gym he noted a loose rock in the wall, then turned to the shutter doors beneath him and pulled.

The small room was bare except for Frazil, still wearing her sapphire saddlecloth and a small bag. When she saw it was him coming down the stairs, she sighed. "There you are!"

"Frazil."

"No one saw you leave?"

"Sure hope not." He fell against the wall. "It wasn't easy lying to Flint and your father. They're distracting Grout right now."

She nodded. "I heard them through the walls. Gale, about before...I wanted to tell you more, especially the first time but-"

"I understand. Your father and Slate gave me their sides of it, but I'll be honest, Frazil: I still don't have a clue of what to do here."

"What do you know?"

"That whatever plan your plan is, you've been working on it for a long time. And it was worth staying with Slate so your dad wouldn't run to the islands with everyone else."

She shook her head. "I had a bad feeling ever since I first saw him. I knew we'd never be able to force him out. After Dad tried, I made a choice. I lied to them- everyone- so Slate would trust me."

The scene he imagined told him that didn't deserve a response. To the young ox it must've felt like biting off her own tail. "Did he and Flint tell you about the crystals?" she asked. Gale nodded. "Then you know what Slate did. I need your help, Gale. We all do."

"What do you want me to do, arrest him?" Fossil or not, Slate was a high-level unicorn. And in Bovaria, there were so many more creative ways for Gale to seal his fate.

"No." She sighed, "Gale...didn't Slate seem strange when you met him? Kind of...young?"

"Yeah, but..." A voice shouted in the back of his head. An old, raspy voice as he and Flint fell from the tower. But there'd been no one in the lab- just him, Frazil, and the steel-clads.

And the machine.

Knots in his stomach snapped. "That isn't possible. Our magic...you can't..."

"He found a way, Gale. They aren't just crystals, no matter what he says. So either he's lying to himself, or he knows and doesn't care."

He shook his head. "No. Nopony would do that, not at someone else's expense."

Frazil snapped, "I was his lab assistant for four years, Gale! I learned who he is by being with him every day, not reading a book he wrote to feed his ego!" She drew away. "I saw when they brought you in. Why'd you hang on to it for so long? Did you think all this was our fault? Just a bunch of dumb oxen waiting for somepony to save us?"

Gale looked away. He did. He had, until he met Flint, Summit, Blitz. But he couldn't have it both ways. Whoever he used to be, whatever he'd accomplished, Slate was the enemy now. And it was time for both of them to leave. "I'm sorry."

"I know." The side of her mouth tugged, weak substitute for a smile. "You were a real jerk when we met, but deep down I knew you'd be different. You were honest."

Gale looked away. He did. He had, until he met Flint, Summit and Blitz. But he couldn't have it both ways. Whoever he used to be, whatever he'd accomplished, Slate was the enemy now. And it was time for him to leave. "When did you find out?" he asked.

"It wasn't long after everything fell apart. It was...like flipping a switch. One day he was old and weak, the next...he just brushed me off and said he'd used some old Equestrian magic."

"You didn't believe him."

"Not for a second. I could tell he wasn't himself after that. He was still smart, but he got angry really easy. He forgot things, got distracted all the time." She paused. "Maybe that's part of why he didn't suspect anything from me. I was just his dumb little assistant, who did all the fertility work while he sat around thinking of ways to amplify his power."

"I'm sorry, Frazil."

The corners of her mouth tugged up, poor substitute for a smile. "Well, joke's on him." She patted her bag. "Everything I need to make it work without him is right here. Based on the incantations we used in our old rituals. The only trick is finding a way to keep the spells going. It's Slate's concentration that holds it together."

"You'll figure it out."

"I hope so." She stared at the wall behind him. "You know, it's funny. You were a real jerk when we met, Gale. But I knew you'd be different. You were honest when we talked."

"A fat lot of good that ended up doing. I learned a lot from your dad and sister on the way up. But whenever they said something about Slate..." Gale hung his head. "I thought I knew him. He was supposed to be one of our best. What's that say about me?"

Frazil let him down gently. "Nothing at all. Look, Gale. Maybe he was different back in Equestria. But out here? He's looked down on us ever since he shook Dad's hoof."

A crash behind the walls made them jump. History lesson was over. They needed to act, sooner rather than later. Gale shook himself awake. "So how do we stop him?"

Frazil pulled a scroll from her bag. "I built a failsafe into the machine. We can reverse the process Slate used to put himself in. He won't be able to control Bovaria, so he won't control us."

Gale unrolled the parchment and started memorizing the accompanying spell. Complicated, maybe too complicated. He looked up. "What about Grout and everyone else?"

She shrugged. "We'll figure it out. Slate's not as beloved as he thinks he is. But even if they knew, he could always just destroy Bovaria for good. So no one's ever really stood up to him anyway."

"What about once he's out? You think we can undo the damage?"

Frazil looked down. She kicked the gravel at her hooves. "I don't know. I've looked at it every way I know how. We've always made the crystals a certain way, scattered them in a specific pattern around the mountains. What he's doing is brute forcing it with Equestrian magic."

"That's why it's still not working?"

She nodded. "He's taken every crystal from the Stone Heart and still doesn't have enough to power the spells all the way." Frazil swallowed a lump in her throat. "Sooner or later, he'll..." she stopped. "Just a couple dozen of us, that's all it would take. Maybe even you, if he knew you were on to him. He's not far from figuring it out. If he hasn't already."

"He told you this?"

Frazil pursed her lips. "He didn't have to."

The munch of dirt filled the cellar as he and Frazil buried the scroll- her idea. She really had missed her calling outside a science lab. Then again, he wagered she could give any of the academy's magic students a run for their money, horn or no horn. Maybe someday she would, he tried telling himself. Oxen and ponies, friends forever after this. Did he really believe it? No. That was the colt from Ponyville talking. Hoping wasn't going to help anyone; Slate in chains would.

Time to head back. Frazil pointed out she could take the path she used to escape her room in the tower; Slate kept her on a short leash. Gale, on the other hoof, was better off finding Hornfel. If the riot was over, better that Slate see his fellow Equestrian had behaved. If Flint was still having fun, however, Gale would saunter back to the study, none the wiser of what had caused those barbaric oxen to start attacking each other. A simple but effective lie. Thinking more like Slate now, that's good.

As they climbed up the stairs Frazil explained, "Slate would have told you eventually about his...condition. He's got the machine- himself, whatever- hidden in a lab behind the study's fireplace. I'll open it from the other side, pretend I didn't know you were there, and then he'll have to show you. You can cast the spell before he knows what's happening."

When Gale put his hoof to the door, it shook with a voice from outside, "We know you're in there, pony! Come out!"

Teeth gritting, Gale cracked the wall with his hoof. "No!" His horn began to glow, until Frazil grabbed him.

"We can still make this work!" she whispered. "You can blame me-"

"No more games, pony! You've got to the count of three: One!"

"I wanted to see Dad and Flint-"

"Two!" The outside latch rattled.

"-so I dragged you in here to ask about them! Something like that!"

"Three!"

Gale shoved the door open and climbed out, Frazil cowering behind him as they stepped up into the schoolyard. It was snowing again. Everyone was there: Summit, Flint, Blitz, Clay and the rest of the caravan. All in chains held by Grout, Hornfel and a squad of steel-clads.

"Frazil!" Flint's chains popped as she tried to step forward. Summit's mouth was open but silent as his followers all looked on, eyes wide.

Grout snarled, "When Slate finds out you've been sneaking around- !"

"What's your problem, Grout?" Gale put his hoof around Frazil. "All this young lady did was pull me aside on my way out. Apparently, she hasn't seen her father and sister in four years, and wanted to ask me if they were okay."

"Stray Frazil," Grout snorted. "Of course, who else would dare disobeying Slate besides his sweet little assistant. I told you, Frazil: no visitors!"

"I-I just wanted to see my Dad..." She began sobbing in earnest, while Hornfel and three other steel-clads averted their eyes.

Unreal, Frazil. He turned to Grout. "You done?"

Grout shook his head and spat, "Slate can figure out what to do with you. I'm done with this." He glared to Gale and Frazil. "Come on!"

Gale pointed at his friends. "Not with them in chains."

Grout crossed the yard like an avalanche, stopping an inch from Gale's face. "If Slate hadn't told me otherwise, I'd have a pair on you too. Now get in line, pony."

He fell in next to Blitz as the steel-clads herded them out. Frazil walked behind him, between Summit and Flint, albeit with some difficulty due to the chains. As they filed out from the schoolyard, Grout and Hornfel took the lead at the front of their double-row prison line.

With many heads down, they marched down the middle of the street. Life had resumed since the last time Gale walked it, though the oxen froze once again as they watched their leader, friends and family pass by- most certainly not for the first time.

Gale looked up. The Canterlot tower loomed dead ahead, flaunting its fancy minaret and marble from across its equally garish bridge. It was the building's sole bulwark against the homely wood and granite on the plateau.

As they approached the bridge the steel-clads fell out of formation, pairing off with the comrade behind. Gale heard them talk: how cold they were, how sick they were of the weather, of guarding Slate's prisoners. At one point someone mumbled 'what choice do we have?'

A sudden thought hit him: he wasn't getting out of Bovaria. This spell was no less of a long shot than their climb up here. His mind was made up; if- when- worst came to worst, he'd hit Slate with everything he had. The only trick would be making sure no-one else was in the room. As for him and Slate, well, they'd make an impressively grisly story for the next pony.

Gale twisted his head back. Frazil was whispering into her father's ear, his ears picking up as she went. The old ox's lips pursed in thought, then sighed heavily. He motioned for Frazil to climb off, draped his hoof over Flint, and they too talked, too quietly for Gale to hear.

A few minutes later, Flint's eyes glazed over. She closed her eyes for a long time, nodding to herself before waving Clay over. More whispering, then Clay brought the ox next to him closer, and so on. When whatever it was finally reached Blitz, Gale felt a tug on his cloak. Frazil had reached underneath, placing the crystal shard she'd left him in one of the pockets.

"You need to talk to Hornfel," she whispered. "We need his help to get everyone inside the lab."

"What'd you tell Summit?"

"The short version of what we talked about. He wanted to see the spells I was working on."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Dad says he has a plan. Blitz?" The large bull stared at them a moment, then shrugged.

Come on, Summit. We're running out of time for secrets.

It was another small short climb to the tower entrance. Past another pair of blue doors, the steel-clads marched everyone towards a cell on the ground floor, past the bottom of the sparkling staircase that spiraled up seven stories.

Save Gale and Frazil, everyone was having their chains removed. And as luck had it, Grout had the only key, so he was on his knees popping locks and ordering his underlings to put the oxen inside. Hornfel stood by the staircase, wearing a half-lidded stare as he looked on.

Now or never. Frazil positioned herself next to Flint, blocking Grout's view as Gale walked over. Taking care not to stand too close, he looked at Hornfel and waited for the ox to turn his head.

"Hornfel."

The bull swallowed softly, didn't make eye contact. "Yes?"

"Nothing. How's your head?"

"Better, I guess."

"Sorry."

"You didn't know any better. Summit tricked you."

Gale nodded. "A lot of lying going around lately." He turned his head. "About before, I didn't mean it. And bringing up your mom...that was a low blow. She was very kind to me. She's lucky to have you."

Hornfel looked at him. "I'm the one who's lucky, with all the families that got split after..." He stopped.

"Is that what happened to Grout?"

"Yes, but- well, not exactly. He, um, had someone. She left for the islands with her family."

Grout had a special someone, go figure. Gale rubbed his chin, felt like sandpaper. "This has to end, Hornfel. Either there won't be a Bovaria worth fighting over, or there won't be anyone left to fight."

"Slate's taking care of it," Hornfel mumbled.

Gale reached into his cloak and pulled out the shard. "That's one way to put it."

Hornfel turned, and his eyes glowed. "Where did you get...that?" he sputtered.

"You know where."

"No...no, that's not true." He shut his eyes. "No, no..."

"Yes, Hornfel, it is. I'm sorry," whispered Gale. "All this time, you really had no idea?"

Hornfel shook his head. "I had doubts- we all did. But Slate told us Summit's spell made them unstable, that it was too dangerous to go near them. Slate showed us; I saw it happen, with my own eyes. So we stopped going to the caves, we stopped..."

Gale frowned. Another lie, backed by some dog and pony show. Plus whatever science-sounding gibberish Slate pulled from his ear, no doubt.

Grout was almost done. Gale whispered, "We carried this halfway up the mountain, and last time I checked I'm not exploding or melting. Slate knew most of you don't understand how the magic works." Finally he and the bull met eyes. "He lied to you, Hornfel. He lied to me, and Grout and Summit and everyone since he got here. And he'll keep lying until he's torn Bovaria apart."

Hornfel croaked, "There's nothing we can do. Slate's the only one who understands this stuff, you said-"

"There is a way. But I need your help." He jerked his chin at the cell. "We need to get them out and up to Slate."

Hornfel nodded. "I can...tell Grout I'll stay here. To question the pris- uh, to question them."

Gale nodded and gave him the shard. "Thank you, Hornfel. I promise, we're going to fix this." And sotto voce as he walked away, "We have to."

16

The first two flights they climbed in silence. Grout led while Gale, Summt, Flint and Frazil walked shoulder-to-shoulder up the carpeted, marble steps. The fabric painted a ruby trail that wound along the circular wall like a snake- a muffling coil to keep the tower's sterile silence.

At the second floor landing, a door opened behind them. Gale twisted his head back and saw Frost Flower staring at him. Her mouth opened slightly, as did his, then the two quickly turned around and kept walking.

Flint tapped him. "Gale."

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering, what're you gonna do when you get back to Equestria?"

He hadn't thought about it. "I guess I'll have to report back to the Princess."

"Think they'll be mad about what happened?"

He laughed, "Probably. Either kicked out of the academy, or thrown in the dungeon. Or both." The terror and hopelessness from last night were gone. He wasn't cold or hungry or hunted anymore, so what did he care? If not the princesses, then somepony else was going to fire him. Yeah, as if I were still in their dumb guard. He laughed again, "Assuming I even get home."

"You will," Summit muttered. Nothing else, then Flint stopped to wipe her forehead. She clearly wasn't tired.

"Sorry you missed your boat, Gale. Think they'll find you?"

He looked back and smiled. "If they're anything like you? Definitely."

Summit looked straight at him. "We're glad to have met you, Gale. I only wish it had been under better circumstances."

He nodded. "We had a long hike. Ate some food, swapped some stories. So hey, it wasn't all bad." Light bulb went off, and he turned to Frazil. "Ponyville. I'm from Ponyville."

Frazil narrowed her eyes and smiled weakly. "Never in a million years. You were too rude and nasty to come from a small town."

"Well, I lived in Canterlot after that, so yeah." To Flint, "You'd love it there: lots of fancy, stuck-up ponies, boutiques and garden parties, that sort of thing."

"Funny, Gale." Her voice was stone.

The study door was open when they arrived at the top floor. Gale looked further down the hall. Maybe it wasn't too late to find that bed.

Grout turned around and pointed inside. "Get in."

The next couple moments were rather surreal. In silent, single file Gale, Flint, Frazil and Summit entered while Principal Slate sat at his desk, not even looking up from his work until Grout closed the door behind himself. The muddy eyes scanned every one of them, and settled first on Summit.

"It's been a long time, old friend."

"You don't know what the word means."

"You knew who I was, what I am- can you blame me for being true to that?"

Flint spat, "For being a crazy, arrogant despot, yes."

"That's the most eloquent thing you've ever said to me, Flint."

"Go sit on an icicle."

Slate frowned and turned to Gale. "I assumed subterfuge was beneath a pony such as you, Bearing Gale." He leaned back in his chair. "Then again, it wasn't your fault, was it? Good apple in a rotten basket. First the oxen lie to get you up the mountain, then to turn against me. I'm especially disappointed in you, Frazil. I thought you were different."

"What are you talking about?" Gale thrust his chin at Grout. "All Frazil did was try to find out about her family. Grout's making this more than it is."

The young bull started, "You calling me a liar-"

"Grout." Slate lowered his hoof. "I've been tracking you since we met at the tower. But you already knew that, didn't you? What else did you tell him, Frazil? Does it have to do with the scrolls you stole from the lab? My work?"

Gale stamped his hoof. "This is ridiculous, Slate. "I thought you wanted my help."

Slate blinked. The edges of his mouth thinned, twisted down. "You were plotting against me, Gale. At least have the decency to admit when you're caught."

No point pretending now. His teeth gritted as he leaned forward. "You first."

Slate didn't blink as he glanced at Grout. His eyes dimmed, narrowed. Finally he nodded. "I suppose-

A flash and pop, then Slate's chair was empty.

"- it was only a matter of time."

The fireplace had been an illusion too, but the flame still snuffed out, and the bricks crumbled away before the whole wall turned to ice and shattered in a million glass grains. On the other side, an exact replica of the lab from the first tower with its cords, papers, and tables. The machine- Slate- sat in the center, pulsing and humming like a boiler about to quietly burst. Gale scarcely noticed him; in addition to frost the cave floor was littered with tiny, dark splinters. On the far wall sat a smelting furnace. Its prism molds were half-filled with slag that had long cooled like a lava flow. A green, glowing lava flow.

Flint and Summit went pale. Grout's mouth hung open.

The crystals in the machine throbbed with Slate's syllables. "I had hoped to deal you in slowly, Gale. But I should've known: if you were willing to enter the labyrinth at all, you wouldn't stop until you found the minotaur. Ugly as he might be."

"What did you do?" Gale whispered. "What did you do, Slate?"

"Things that I'm not proud of. For your own sakes, I won't expect you to understand."

"Why not?" Flint snapped. "Would four years of this look better to anyone else in the world?!"

"This machine wasn't meant to be an escape for me. It was a safeguard, to ensure my work would be finished. I'd hoped to pass it on to you, Frazil, when I was ready to let go of the reigns."

Frazil shook her head. "Which would have been never."

"We're not here for what you hoped to do, Slate," said Summit. "We're here for what you've done."

"All the families destroyed...all this suffering...because of you," Flint muttered.

Gale stepped forward. "Why? You could've done all of this back in Canterlot. No spying, no secret messages..."

"I didn't belong there any more than you do. And if you understand me at all, Gale, then you know there's nothing I wouldn't have done to finish this. This work demanded my best, and minimal interference."

"Until you needed someone to come save your hide," Gale spat. "Your magic's fading. You knew this had to end one day. Then what?"

"With Summit gone, the rest would have eventually left- to the islands, somewhere else. The Bovaria that was would become a myth, and I could finish its transformation, proving my theories once and for all."

"You sent the message to the Princess. You really thought you could lie about all this to- "

"No, but they're not the ones who came, were they? In chess the pawns go first, Gale. Not the queens."

"He's no more a pawn than you are a pony," growled Summit.

"You're right. Pawns are loyal. They do what they're told. He's just another pretender. Like you, Summit." He paused, and the hum of the crystals filled the silence. "I put everything into this project. I worked...for so long. I deserved to get it right. I had to. Was that so much to ask for?"

"You treated the oxen like they were tools. Things."

"The knowledge we could gain! This was for a greater good!"

"Who's?!"

"Ask the pony who sent you."

"Slate! Do you have any idea what you did to them?"

The crystals dimmed. "I did...what I had to do."

Gale stepped twice towards him. "Did you know? Did you know what they were?"

"What does it matter- "

"Tell me the truth!"

"I made a mistake!" The crystals flared and lit the room. The metal petals and base smoldered, melting the surrounding frost. "I made a mistake. By the time I understood what they were, the only way left for me was forward. What you've been through, what Bovaria's been through. It's all for nothing if you don't let me finish what I started."

"What about us?" screamed Frazil. "You thought we'd just give everything up?!"

Summit grimaced. "It's all about you. Everything."

"What are we going to do?" Flint murmured.

"I came looking for a great pony. I thought he was ambitious, but not heartless." Gale lit his horn. "Wish I'd found him. We're going back to Equestria, Slate. Whether you're in one piece when we get there is up to you."

The machined moaned and rattled. "You dumb, self-righteous savage! You're no better than an ox! I'm trying to fix this!"

"You want your legacy safe and anyone who can threaten it gone. You were a better off staying in your book!"

"You want to drag my name through the streets! Destroy everything I'm trying to accomplish- !"

Slate's voice shut off abruptly as the machine ripped from its base. The crystals and petals burned like a star as they slowly rose into the air.

Slate's voiced boomed, "I would have preserved you, Gale. Your mind would've been yours. You're better off being metal for the forge."

A brown beam from the center slammed into Gale. He looked down, couldn't move his hooves. They were hard, blue glass slowly climbing up his legs. As he struggled Frazil dove behind the machinery across the room. Gears whirred and the lever she pushed poked out from behind the tubes and cables. "I reversed the spell! Do it, Gale!"

He pointed his horn at the glowing white pyramid. Flash and a bright beam sent ripples through the sphere, to change crystal into pony.

Bt nothing happened. The machine kept sparking, the waterline of crystal reached his chest.

"What's the matter, Gale ? I thought you wanted to save Bovaria. Or did you think I'd let myself be overpowered by an ordinary unicorn? I knew they'd send someone like you. A glory-seeking lout who went mad and tried to destroy Bovaria, until I sealed him away in the same machine I created to undo his damage. If only I could have saved the oxen before you turned them all to crystal." His voice cut off abruptly, then screamed, "Traitor!"

Gale twisted his head back. Grout was there. And Hornfel. And Blitz and Clay and Shale and everyone else from the caravan. They quickly circled Slate.

"Grout!"

"It's over!" the young bull screamed.

Flint barked, "Frazil! The lever!"

"What...?"

"Pull it back!"

Gears grinding together. "It's stuck!"

Hornfel and Grout soon disappeared behind the station. A blaring symphony of clicks and clacks, and the pyramid reverted to its sphere as the spell switched. Brown haze took the cave as Slate's cries sent pieces of ceiling exploding onto the ground.

Gale's neck was covered, head not far behind when Summit and Flint stepped in front of him. The old ox leaned back. "Hit it again!"

"But- ?!"

"Now, Gale!" Flint shouted.

Crystal neck brace gnawing on his face. He saw his muzzle brighten with his horn, heard the oxen all chanting as they reached up to touch the prisms. The world went white, then blacker than the deepest ocean on the darkest night.

***

"Gale...Gale, wake up..."

"Frazil?"

"Yes..." she sobbed. The round inkblot of her hoof reached out. As he stood he saw in the corner of his eye Grout helping Hornfel up. The dust settled, revealing the silent, glowing shrine before them.

What remained of Slate- the machine- stood in the center. Its metal panels and petals were gone, leaving a starburst of prisms supported by a geyser in mid-eruption. Around it stood a ring of oxen, green and still. And in the very front of the ring, closest to Gale and Frazil, were the jade faces of Steel Summit and Flint, their hooves locked, their heads raised together towards the forever-rising, frozen star.

The four sat there until sunset and fell asleep on the floor.

17

Knock on the study door woke them up. Frazil's eyes wouldn't budge when she looked up from the floor, so Gale kept his head down as he waved Hornfel and Grout away and stood.

The heavy door gave way to his horn, and opened into a hallway crowded with oxen, who returned his sagging stare with whispers and glances at one another.

Frost Flower stepped to the front. "Gale...?"

His mouth hung open and let out a breath.

"Are you alright?

"No."

"What's...going on? Is Slate here?"

"No...yes...I don't know." He sighed, holding the door open. The mixed crowd of steel-clads and other tower workers stepped slowly into the room. Some flinched when they saw the dirt they were tracking onto the rug. But soon they were all staring past Gale, past the desk, past Frazil and Grout and Hornfel, who ran to hug his mom. The four of them then met at the desk, while members of the crowd circled the shrine at a distance. Looking made Frazil tremble and Gale's stomach ache, so the two went out to the hallway and stared outside. Without warning, Frazil shoved the window open. The air was so cold it burned, but neither of them complained.

For five minutes they would look to the other, opening their mouths to say something. But every time they shook their heads and turned away first, while a clear blur refused to let go of their eyes despite the wind.

A steel-clad closed the door to the study once everyone was out. Gale and Frazil turned around, and for a moment the hallway was silent.

"They're gone. They're all gone," whispered Flower. "Gale...did you do this?"

He said, softly but clearly, "Yes."

With the exception of Flower, the crowd took a step back and whispered hotly within itself. Grout pushed his way to the front, put his hoof on Gale, and turned to face them.

"None of you saw what happened in there," he growled. "I did. Slate, that lying, pampered pony scumbag, used us. He thought we were all just guinea pigs for his experiment. Summit and Flint, all of them in there, saved us!" He turned to face Gale. "With his help." He pointed at Frazil. "And hers."

A young ox stepped forward. She was no older than twelve. "They didn't save my brother, Shale."

Hornfel shook his head. "That's not Gale or Frazil's fault, Chisel. You know that."

The young ox sobbed, "He promised he'd come back. And he did and this pony took him away from me!"

Hornfel reached out and held her. "It wasn't for nothing, Chisel. Shale knew what he was doing. He did it for you, because he wanted you to be safe, to have a home." He turned to face the crowd. "It's what he wanted for all of us- to stop fighting and live like we used to, like we're supposed to."

"How can we?" Chisel whispered. "Slate's gone; Bovaria's gone."

Frazil stooped down to look her in the eye. "I promise, Chisel, I won't stop until I find a way to fix this. We'll stay here. We'll get through this. We'll..."

Slowly Frazil turned her head towards the open window, so did Chisel and everyone else. Gale squinted- at the city, at the peaks- and saw nothing.

He saw nothing. But he felt it: not the biting cold ever since he arrived and when Frazil broke the window, nor the blaring heat when he stood next to the machine. It was the crisp nip that hid between winter and spring, when the sky cleared and the wind was tame. For the first time since he arrived, Gale looked up at the sky and saw cotton-soft blue, and the twinkling sun as it climbed to shine on the city. Its inhabitants below left their homes to look up, watching as the most invasive ice patches thawed and broke from the roofs and streets. And like a photo still developing, the smallest dabs of green faded into view along the terraces.

A faint, green glow reached and ebbed under the study door. Grout opened it, and on the far side of the room, sitting peacefully, were Bovaria's new beating hearts.

***

News traveled fast. The town square was packed with sullen oxen by the time he, Frazil, Hornfel and Grout crossed the tower bridge. Half the city, mostly the caravan's friends and families, wanted to throw Gale off the plateau. After Frazil explained what happened, they were open to blindfolding him first. The harangues and jeers they slung from the sidewalks were clear: a pony is a pony is a pony. And two times out of two, it'd been a pony who brought horror and near ruin to Bovaria.

The sun was high when they marched Gale outside the city walls. Hornfel had found Gale's old sled in the tower, and was strapping him in as Frazil and Grout stood by one of the braziers flanking the main gate.

Gale reached inside his cloak. He felt his broken sword, then the hard corners of The Scientific Mind. He pulled it out, joined Grout and Frazil, and threw it in the brazier.

Hornfel walked over and pulled the last strap tight. "Done. It's time, Gale."

As he turned to leave, Grout held out his armored hoof. They shook.

"Never thought we'd be doing that, pony...Gale." He reached behind himself and produced a leaf-shaped blade inside a scabbard. "You're not like Slate at all."

Gale slid the sword under his cloak, then pulled out his old one. Despite it being broken, Grout took it with a sort of reverence, as if it were some rare treasure. After the two parted with a nod, Hornfel shook Gale's hoof before the two bulls turned their backs and reentered the city.

That left Frazil standing in front of him. The spark in her eyes, so strong when he first met her, flickered as if she were fighting sleep. Her shoulders drooped, and the saddlecloth she'd worn was gone. She looked much more like her sister now. Behind her, the coast awaited. Waiting there by himself wasn't going to be fun, for practical and personal reasons. But he couldn't stay here either, exact same reasons.

"Are you sure you don't want a guide?"

"I think I know the mountains by now," he murmured. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay?"

"You know I do. And that you can't."

"If I'd just left and gone for help- "

"Slate would've gotten impatient and swept us all up. But he didn't, because of you."

"And you. Summit. Flint, Blitz, all of them. They should've been here, with you."

"We don't all get what we want, Gale. Dad could've bargained to let Slate take you, but he said you deserved to go home." She sniffed and wiped her muzzle. "I'm gonna agree with him."

"I should stay here. I owe it to them to help put things back together."

"They won't see you like Dad and Flint did. Anyone who knew you is up there. The rest of Bovaria's had enough of ponies. But I'll always remind them who helped us." She took his hoof in hers.

"You were their friend. You're mine too, Gale. You always will be. But you have to leave now...and never come back."

So he walked away, and didn't dare look back.

***

The remnants of Slate's Bovaria weren't going to let him go without a fight. Though the sky had cleared and the air had warmed, wind still tore at him for the day he spent climbing down. The dangers were the same as the way up, but none more grim than the attitude he'd adopted at the archway: that is, it wouldn't be that big a deal if he never reached the bottom.

For most- including him, once- boredom was a doughy mix of rest and restlessness. And he got as bored as anyone could be, wandering alone in wilderness at the bottom of the world. He had nothing to think about besides the handful of things he'd much rather avoid. But like sewage, those thoughts began seeping into the well on his head.

He didn't save Bovaria. That went to Summit and Flint, and everyone else who Gale had climbed with to the Stone Heart.

Slate was lucky. He was still in there, somewhere, as inseparable from the oxen as water from snow. His precious reputation was forfeit, but was no longer his to worry about. With him, Gale had never been more wrong in his life. What he'd read, what he'd believed- 'a brilliant and respected scientist'- turned out to be the build-up for the world's worst punch line. And every step of the way, he thought he'd figured out the joke, when in fact he'd been the butt of it. Arrogant, prejudiced, and flat-out wrong.

Slate paid for his mistakes, but there was somepony else who hadn't, somepony who got to walk away. Why? Because those two dozen oxen were wiser and more noble than either of Bovaria's ponies could ever hope to be.

He was in the foothills when the wind carried a growl to his ears. He began to run, kicking up snow as the sled straps dug into his shoulders.

It's your turn, Gale. Your delusions of grandeur made you say 'yes' to the Princess. Your fear of failure got you off the boat. Your self-righteous vanity sent you up the mountain, and kept you from the truth until it was too late to save anyone but yourself.

Just how long, Gale, had you acted knowing the real reason you're here? Not for the oxen, not for Slate, not for the princesses. The motive was always there, but when did you stop believing? When did you stop being the student and start being the scientist?

You didn't, in a practical sense. You can make excuses and argue and make more excuses. But if it hadn't been for Frazil, Summit and Flint, you would have joined Slate in a heartbeat. You'd have made a statue out of every ox if you thought it would've impressed the princesses. You're no better than Slate; at least he had the guts to admit he'd been wrong. You're worse, in fact. Slate paid for his mistake- you got Summit to pay for you.

He was sprinting now, bounding over snow banks as he panted and moaned, the sled rattling on every rock and ice patch. The wind still howled as it tried to claw past his ears, while an avalanche of insults directed at himself cascaded from his mouth.

He hit the ground and slid some five meters. When he looked up, the slender black stalks of pines surrounded him. He shut his eyes, and when he opened them, he saw the face of a ghost with feathery wings, and a gleaming gold helmet.

"Gale! Gale, it's Spear! Can you hear me? Oh geez...guys, I found him!" Hooves rolled him over and tugged at the straps. "What's wrong with him, Starshell?"

"I don't...Spear, grab the stretcher." His head was being rotated. "Come on, Gale stay...you're gonna be...Hurry!"

"My fault...I didn't mean to..."

"Grab his hooves, Astro. You're gonna be ok, Gale...you're gonna be..."

He woke up as they finished loading him onto the boat.

He woke up twice in a cabin with oil lamps and wood floors. The three ponies who found him were there both times, while a fourth in purple armor showed up the second. While he ate they questioned him, unsuccessfully, then left after he silently rolled over in his cot and fell asleep.

***

He watched two days pass, and the backdrop in tandem: cabin, deck, harbor, station, train car, castle. It was too hot and dry, but he resisted every pony's attempt to remove his cloak. They were everywhere- laughing, shouting, running. Sometimes they stared while the street carried him and his escorts past.

The dormitory was silent and empty when they arrived. Graduation was over a day ago, he managed to remember. Goodness knows how Astrolabe, Beveled Spear, and Starshell got permission to come after him.

They left him alone at his bed; no ailments that Starshell or anypony else could find. By the time his old friend was done, Gale had found the voice to answer questions with one-syllable replies. They'd take him to the Princess tomorrow, said Astrolabe, and would wait outside if he needed anything.

He didn't, as it turned out. He slept on the floor, next to his bed and footlocker. His books were still there but he did not learn from them anymore. Night fell, and as Gale closed his eyes for the last time that day, he struggled to grasp that he was home. Strange, since he certainly hadn't been home while in Bovaria. He'd been a stranger there, always would be.

And yet, as he sat on these polished chestnut boards, staring out this warm window at this city of vanilla and marble, he knew these things had become forever a little stranger to him, and perhaps he to them.

Author's Note

Thanks to all, stay tuned for the epilogue.

Epilogue

The morning was cloudy, as were Canterlot's mauve streets while the sun escaped the thick blanket, which had smothered the city all night. Before long, dozens three-pegasi teams were streaking overhead, driving back the gray floating fog, lest it sully a perfect Equestrian summer. But, as usual, there was little time for Princess Celestia to contemplate how today's sunrise could have been better. The Grand Summit was in four days, and even with Twilight working round-the-clock, it would be a close call. Half the delegates' gemstone statues still hadn't arrived, the guest rooms were still not decorated, and the busted water main was causing all sorts of nightmares downtown. Then there was Luna, who had at most three meetings left in her before she started using Kibitz as an anti-delegate truncheon. Maybe Cadance would be willing to take her place, but the Princess of Love's schedule was as full as anypony else's.

A trying time to be sure. So when the study began to shake and rumble, she hardly noticed as she stared at the scrolls scattered in front of her. Suddenly, the ink of one report trickled from the page, pooled onto the table, then finally returned with different words. She picked it up, wide-eyed, and read:

The first and last we might ever speak.

Too many voices and too few mouths.

We keep the balance, and the peace.

For our family and for yours.

A son returns today.

He is cold and tired.

Please help him.

The report returned to its original state as Celestia let the parchment fall. She remembered now: the message, the recruit they sent to find Ivory Slate. A few days ago Kibitz mentioned in passing the young stallion was overdue, though Luna was quick to point out there wasn't much they could do, aside from wait. A day later, Smoke Jumper reported he was still missing. It was the senior guard's prerogative to decide whether to search for him, and bigger matters needed Celestia's attention. Still, the answer to this mystery was a long time coming, and it would be good to finally have it. Just what could have taken the recruit so long? An hour later, the study door opened, and Kibitz's head poked through.

"Very sorry, Princess, but Bearing Gale has returned."

Who? "Oh, yes. Is he here?"

"Yes, Princess. He is um... here. His comrades tell me he is ready to report. I told them you were busy, but they insisted you speak to him."

"It's fine, Kibitz. Please, send him in. And let Luna know as well, would you?" The Princess chuckled, "I'm sure she's looking for an excuse to avoid the Manehattan delegates."

Kibitz swallowed hard and stammered out, "Ah yes, of course. I...I'll send him in now."

Her assistant's head disappeared, and through the door Celestia heard him mumble and stutter. She cocked her head; Kibitz was neat and neurotic, not skittish. What had that been about?

The door opened, but the pony she remembered wasn't standing in it. Instead a shaggy, brown derelict plodded into the room, bandaged from head to hoof, his mane brittle and unwashed, the centers of his eyes unfocused and suspended like floating coals. His heavy cloak hid a ghastly-looking sword and a scroll, which his horn slowly took and placed on the desk before her.

Celestia stared down at the scroll, then at Bearing Gale. He didn't salute, click his heels, or say a word. He just stood there and stared through her.

It was a leader's most heart-wrenching job, and to Celestia's credit she immediately called Kibitz back to cancel her appointments for the afternoon. Then she closed the study door, walked around the desk, and put her hoof around the young stallion's shoulder. It was a start.

Prologue

It was summer, so the moon was still up when the sun rose.

The gold orb was busy as it climbed, snipping away tufts of the night's cloud thicket. It hid a diverse garden of landscapes: hills, which rolled without bothering the streams, which ran free and cool between the patchwork quilt of farmlands and forests. In the shaded center of the cloud cover sat a solitary, snow-capped mountain. And hugged against its rocky cheek was Canterlot, fast asleep.

At hazy twilight, the city was an album of lilac polaroids: marblestone streets, crystal windows under velvet awnings, ivory towers with pointed domes. Whether they sweat and binged hay fries or wore big hats and drank tea at noon, not one inhabitant could deny Equestria's capital its claim to majesty. Against all reason, wind never bothered the mountain city. Its caresses instead suggested that either the weather teams kept unfathomable hours, or the city was favored by whatever magical creatures galloped on the breezes and storms.

That particular trivia had idly occupied Princess Celestia, as she strolled through the castle corridors with a wilting Luna. The sisters were about to pass a gold window, its edges glowing hotly. The Princess of the Night yawned before she pouted, then lifted a wing to shield her eyes.

"Never again shall you drag me out of bed like this without due cause."

"Hm? I thought you liked the day, Sister."

The bags in Luna's eyes throbbed as she let her wing drop, and unwittingly went blind at the next window. "I do not consider this appalling hour part of the day! Certainly not part of mine!"

The Princess smiled and closed her eyes. "I told you this would happen! If you had simply waited another day, you wouldn't have spent all that time rushing to and from Ponyville."

"And miss the pink pony's party of foam? Unthinkable!"

"Just don't be surprised when Kibitz wakes you up."

Luna's next sentence spilled out, "Then I shall take that as proof..." Yawn. "...he finally wishes to eat his pocket watch."

The hallway ended in a tall pair of blue doors. With a wave of her horn, Princess Celestia pulled the handles, and she and Luna stepped into the study. On the other end of the room, old flames of the brick fireplace hummed to themselves. Words of open books upon lecterns danced in the orange light of the flame and the violet outside. It was a much more gracious place to receive Kibitz's reports than the throne room. Not that it made much difference to dear little Luna.

The two sisters sank into velvet chairs that circled a wooden table in the center. Surrounded by quiet bookshelves and tissue-thin maps, it was seconds before Luna slumped in her seat and begin snoring- in a volume quite inappropriate, even for her size.

Though tempted, Celestia had chosen to wander the study, like a filly. She squinted at dusty volumes, fiddled with compasses and astrolabes, spun a rusty telescope. After some minutes like that, she smiled. The tall clock in the corner was ten seconds away from seven, and Kibitz ten seconds away from opening the double doors. His steps were clinking away on the tile outside. She took a deep breath and turned to face the window. The last thing she would see in her solitude would be the sun rising to balance on a pair of peaks she knew well. There was much to do today: royal summit preparations, disputes between Manehattan traders, and weather hiccups in Cloudsdale.

The clock struck seven. Kibitz was through the door, mouth already open to say something. The fireplace spasmed, then burst into smoke. All at once, Luna started awake in her chair as the stone in the walls ground against each other like teeth, and the clock blared its brass alarm. The rafters overhead groaned as the shelves lost balance and threw their books to the floor. Celestia looked to her sister and assistant. Their faces reflected hers, wide-eyed and thin-lipped as chaos reigned over the room. A brown, translucent aura swallowed everything, spitting white sparks onto the floor. Quills rose from drawers and wrote on the walls, an invisible nail gnawed at the table, and ashes from the fireplace spilled onto the tile. In the ten seconds it took for the clock to finish and the aura to fade, jagged phrases had plastered the room from floor to ceiling:

Nothing has changed.

I still wait.

In the stone heart beyond the sea.

Nopony spoke, not even Kibitz. The scribe's mouth was unhinged. Celestia stared at the scattered words. Some in ink; others soot, and all scribbled like the ravings of a maniac. For a half-minute, all was silent except a choking hiss from the fire, and an occasional pop of warping wood. The sun, once gently glowing, burned outside the filth-covered windows. A flurry of dust and ash flaked off of them, showering Celestia's coat. She closed her eyes.

"Kibitz...please make a record of all of this. Then clean it up," she muttered.

"Yes, Your Highness." He left and the door swung shut. Hard, quick hoofsteps started to echo through the wood.

Celestia pursed her lips. "Luna?"

"I have no idea," her sister said, shaking her head.

"Then let's have some help. I'll send a letter to Twilight."

"I will start my search here, with Kibitz." Luna stared at the fireplace. "This can only be bad."

The fact that the magic was Equestrian agreed. Celestia frowned as the circular door handles took on her golden grip. As she stepped out, Kibitz was rounding the corner of the hallway she and Luna had walked not ten minutes ago. A blizzard of dust motes hung in scorching spotlight, cast by the windows on either side. Together they formed a jagged, white path of solid glare. It covered the rug, and her hooves, in light as blinding as snow.

1

It was late afternoon in a full classroom. Ms. Marble Scroll stood at the chalkboard, talking about everything and about nothing. He went between listening to her, and watching the amber unicorn on his left annoy her other neighbors.

As far as anypony was concerned, class was over, and the semester along with it. That didn't stop Marigold from turning her notebook into a volcano, however. As she took notes on who-knows-what, ink and sparks flew from her horn and broken quill, spraying desks in every direction. He and her had been blushing and smiling at each other- in her case, from behind a pair of glasses- all semester. So even though his left hoof now looked like a cow's, he wasn't annoyed in the slightest. What a shocker.

He wiped off his hoof, his ears fixed on Marigold's scribbling. Thought she didn't know it, she was playing melody over the ticks of the clock, and somepony's hoof tapping the alabaster tile. No sweeter lullaby for sleeping with your eyes open.

Ms. Scroll turned to write on the board, and he slowly twisted his head back. Way in the last row, the three other cadets had surrendered. Their navy-blue button-ups were undone, while their yellow sashes sagged or swung from their necks. The three slouched- in one case, snored- in their chairs, finishing the semester as they had started. No wonder the royal guard instructors were wary letting cadets take extra classes at the Princess's School for Gifted Unicorns; afraid the recruits might use class time as vacation.

The very idea. He rolled his eyes, wondering again how the three lumps got here in the first place, then faced forward. With three seconds left on the clock, his horn glowed and tightened his sash for the fifth and final time today.

The bell cheered. Ms. Scroll clasped her hooves together and begged everypony to study hard for finals as they rushed out. She smiled and nodded as he stopped before her desk. He gave her the same, then stood at attention and saluted- habit this semester.

Ms. Scroll lowered her glasses. "Semester hasn't been too boring, I hope, Gale?"

His hoof dropped. "Never, ma'am. I really enjoyed your class."

"And it's been a definitive pleasure teaching you." She leaned forward and whispered, "Good luck Friday!"

"It's gonna be that bad, huh?"

"Not for somepony as hardworking as you."

"I don't know about that." He grinned. "Thanks."

She reset her glasses. "And Gale? No matter where you go or what you do, always remember: it's not the knowledge itself that matters. It's what you do once you have it."

He nodded. "I will."

Day now done, he returned to his room to study.

***

The colts' dormitory sat tucked away in a green courtyard between school and the castle. The barracks-like building, flat and rectangular, had a pointed roof and cobble brick walls, rather than the vanilla marble which candy-coated most of Canterlot. The morning after Ms. Scroll's last class, Gale was up with the sun outside the front door. His uniform draped evenly over the bench he lay on, and his head tilted against it as pages of dates, names and places flipped idly before him.

A robin's gurgled chirp spun his eyes upward, and he began scanning the tree line frill of the courtyard. At ten o' clock, some twenty meters away, a brown-orange puff ball was skipping on pipe cleaner legs across the lawn. Lodged on its top beak was a blueberry the size of a walnut. Purple syrup trailed down its chest, and the little thing shook its head like a foal with brain freeze. It twirled round like a ballerina for a second, until the plump counterweight sent both rolling end over end on the grass. Gale cupped his mouth and chuckled quietly to himself. That's when three grumbling colts came marching and yawning through the door: Starshell, unicorn; Astrolabe, earth; and Beveled Edge, pegasus.

"Oh boy," Edge droned, "it's Bearing Gale, the greatest thing in Equestria since sliced bread."

"Morning, gents."

"We see how it is, Gale," yawned Astrolabe. "Too good to study in the dorm with everypony else?"

Gale beamed. "Yep. You know, because you all are so beneath me. Buncha cud-chewing rubes."

"Look who's talking, Ponyville."

Edge butted in, "Ok, maybe Shell and Astro are duckheads-"

"Suck a lemon, Edge."

"- but I'm not the one who wasted the best semester of his life." The pegasus shook his head. "You got to go to the castle every day, Gale. Half the ponies in your class were girls, and you didn't sneak off to their dining hall once? Not even for what's-her-name?"

Astrolabe yawned as he jumped in, "Called it. Chef put a spell on the food so we'd miss eating garbage every meal."

Gale's stowed the books as the familiar insults and complaints were tossed around. In truth, all four of them knew what had stood between him and 'what's-her-name.' Snoring on a date was impolite. So was bringing textbooks. Then there was the unspoken rule that the instructors would turn you into a rug if they caught you smiling. Gale rubbed his neck. Should've tried harder to find Marigold yesterday. Maybe, if he finished his exam at the same time-

Edge broke into a slack-jawed impression of Chef, and the four hollered as if hearing it for the first time. The last weeks made everypony slaphappy, and twitchy and baggy-eyed to boot.

Starshell's laugh still wasn't done when he asked, "So what's your guys' schedule this week?"

Astrolabe rolled his shoulders. "Well, we've got topology on Wednesday. Gale's history on Tuesday. Edge?"

"Done 'til Friday, remember?"

"Lazy jerk," said Starshell.

"Hey, at least you guys don't have to face Spitfire for your fitness tests," said Edge, scratching his scalp. "Buckler told me she's worse than the instructors."

"She is a Wonderbolt," Astrolabe pointed out.

"Yeah, but still...seriously though, how do they expect you guys to train and study this week?" Edge yawned, then looked at his watch. "Y'all wanna get to breakfast early? I don't feel like waiting in line."

"I'm in..." said Starshell. He started to say something else, then quickly spat out, "Gale. Uniform. Now." He jerked his head in the direction of the castle. A maple unicorn in full armor was cutting across the lawn, beelining towards the dorm.

"You've gotta be kidding me." Gale snatched his shirt. He wrenched it down over him, and his horn scraped it like a cat claw. Luck held the wool long enough to let his head slip through.

"What the hay's Smoke Jumper doing here?" Edge wondered as the four of them lined up.

Out the side of his mouth Starshell whispered, "Come on, Edge. You steal another cider keg?"

"'Course not, I would've framed you by now."

"Tench-hut!" bellowed Astrolabe.

Smoke Jumper slowed down, horseshoes munching the gravel as she began pacing their line. She slowed her steps further, ashy mane bobbing slowly, then she spun around and strolled in front of their muzzles again. When she finally halted, her armor clattered like an explosion, and the four young stallions flinched.

"Good morning, Gentlecolts!" she barked.

"Good morning, Ma'am!" they barked back.

The emerald in Smoke Jumper's eyes doused. She cocked her head and smiled. "Relax, guys. I'm not here to pick on you. No horror shows from us until Friday." She turned to Gale, far right. "It's your lucky day, Gale. We've got an audience with the Princess. Right now."

Gale blinked. He tried to be scared, then excited, but neither reaction fit. He blinked again.

Smoke Jumper filled in, "I haven't a clue, Gale. So fix your baldric and let's go."

He bit his bottom lip as he followed Smoke Jumper, and dropped his chin to straighten his sash for the first time today. A quick glance behind showed Astrolabe and Starshell nodding in approval, while Edge threw him a lazy salute. As the courtyard wall came between Gale and them, the last thing he noticed was the flag hoisted above the dorm, waving at him.

3

When I was a student, I entertained the idea that I was just a little bit brighter and more diligent than my peers. So yes, maybe I was a little vain, but the results spoke for themselves. I was barely out of school when I began my experiments with royal support...

Deep down I knew: there was a thread that connected the worlds of science and magic, which we believed for so long to be separate. And I'd be the one to find it...

My boyish ego quickly dissolved once my research required travel. The griffins, the dragons, whoever else was out there- knowing how they used it would be imperative to my work. And I'd never been anywhere more exotic than Apple Loosa...

When I left Equestria for the first time, alone, I knew I would come back a different stallion. I was right. By the time of my second expedition, when I had company, I made a second discovery: it is the rare pony who leaves home for the darkness of the unknown, beyond where anyone can help them.

Ivory Slate, The Scientific Mind

It was his first morning on a boat. Unlike the bright afternoon, the sea was misty and listless in the half-light of dawn. He had set two of his days set adrift in its foamy palms, with only sun and stars as his company. The sailors didn't count; they were thugs, glassy-eyed privateers who passed the hours fondling the shiny bits sent by 'Canterlot.' Their vessel, equally impressive, was a full-rigged, barnacled piece of driftwood which floated mostly on the water's pity. Rather than yawn, Gale swore as he sat up. Maybe this mission wasn't so important after all.

Princess Twilight wasn't kidding about Slate. If his theoretical works were any proof, the old stallion clearly possessed a keen understanding of nature and magic. His views on being a scientist bordered on the romantic, though that was hardly a failure of character. Gale was getting to know Slate the past few days, but the books offered nothing on what Slate was doing here, in the middle of nowhere.

Ice spat in his face as he stepped outside. Overnight the clouds had decayed into the kind of slush that's been stepped on all day. They smothered the sky to the horizon while fog choked the teal saltwater. Gale groaned, bracing for insults from the crew. But the deck was silent, and aside from one sailor tying a rope, everypony was draped over the sides like sick dogs.

The captain, a beefy and stubbled pegasus, was at the aftward helm. He had one hoof on the wheel and the other in a pouch of bits around his neck as Gale approached.

"How much longer, Captain?"

The mariner's eyes darted between the bag and the wheel. "Don' know."

"You don't know, or can't be bothered to say?"

"Mind yer manners, boy."

"How long?"

"Ah, yer business mus' be urgent then-"

"It's none of your business. How long?"

"Can't be too important if the royals sent a colt-"

The badge led his chest to butt against the captain's.

"This is your ship, but it's my mission, Captain. One more answer, and it better be the one I want."

The captain finally looked him in the eye, then flared his nostrils. "...Two or three more hours, 'Sir.' We should reach our destination by noon."

Gale stepped back. His muzzle billowed out frosty steam, silent against the ship's moaning hull as the captain studied him.

"Do ya even know why yer here?"

"I'm on a mission."

"Save it for the fillies, boy."

"I'm looking for something."

"What?"

"The Abominable Snowpony."

"Come on, boy!" He threw up his hooves. "Throw me a bone!" He fumbled into his pouch. "How 'bout a couple bits to satisfy this old sailor's...er...misguided curiosity?"

"Save it for a new crew. This one's seasick. Bad news for working on a boat."

"They're lookin' for ice, ya posh! My girl here's not some fancy steamer! If my stallions don't keep an eye out, we'll all be swimmin' home." His voice lowered. "So you'd best be watchin' who ya throw rocks at." Gale rolled his eyes as he turned away from the helm.

The captain scratched his stubble. "Don' you worry none, boy. I've seen it plenty of times. Aye, yer some fancy Canterlot guard. Aye, yer better than the lot of us. But out here? Gonna find yerself alone real quick, lookin' down on other ponies."

"I'm already alone," Gale muttered, and the captain finally let him be.

***

Gale near celebrated when he heard a crew member call from port side, "Captain! We've ice dead ahead!"

"Slack the main and cast off the heads!" the captain growled, twisting the wheel. "All hands, brace for impact!"

Gale clutched one of the masts as the ship lurched to the right, rotating in the water so the port side faced the boat's previous course. The fog had cleared. Beyond it stood a wall of ice that broke the surface by no more than a horn, but stretched below until it turned black in the water's shade. The blue-white monolith had abolished the sea from the horizon, cutting it clean off in every direction. Thirty seconds later, it bit the ship in a breath of snow, ice, and splinters.

A shout, then grinding teeth filled his ears as the glacier's rim chewed on the passing ship. It grew bored of its wooden toy however, and allowed its crew to drop anchor.

Across the deck the captain thundered, "Any of you care to tell me why y'all didn't notice a block of ice sittin' on our noses?! We coulda torn the hull if I hadn't..!"

"Was the fog, suh," one replied. "And that wan't no ordinary iceberg, neither. Ice just...showed up, like we reached the end of the world."

"Can we get outta here, sir?" cried another. "We're gonna freeze if-"

"If y'all are so keen to leave, then check the hull and get ready to hoist anchor!" The captain faced Gale. "Well, boy, either yer out here, or comin' back with us now."

This wasn't part of the plan. He was miles from shore. Snow had already descended on the deck. "I don't have time to cross this, Captain. We need to find entry into the mountains."

"Not gonna happen, boy. The job was take ya to the coast." He flung his hoof at the glacier. "There's yer coast."

Gale's jaw clenched. Though he didn't realize it, he was in the captain's face. "I'm on royal business. This isn't a request."

The crew all turned their heads. One sailor had a hoof on his cutlass, but the captain waved him off.

"Aye, boy. Yer on royal business. Which means it ain't 'none of mine,' eh?" He shoved Gale with one hoof. "So you either get back to yer cabin n' books, or get off my ship."

Gale's face was a fist aimed straight at the captain, but even then he knew his options. He had three days to find the source of the message and return to the coast, where a royal guard vessel would- hopefully- find and pick him up. What if he took too long? Got held up? Was he prepared to just turn around, waste three more days on the ship, and face the princesses empty-hoofed?

Gale shoved his supply sled overboard before jumping. The floor of ice ignored him, didn't even budge when he landed hard on its dusty cover. As he strapped the sled to himself, he heard the captain's voice one last time.

"Ya got more guts than brains, boy, tho I still get the feelin' I'm never gonna see ya again." Some sendoff, Gale spat in his mind. He didn't bother to answer, or watch the ship slip back into the returning fog.

With hood up, mask on and horn aglow, Gale began his march against the frozen coastline. Snow gradually piled into an edged crest some two hundred meters out, so the surface curved up smoothly like a plate. Anything further was just so much grey fog except for the mountains, who held themselves above it all. They leaned over the land like feasting giants, with heads and hands concealed.

12

Turns out Summit was right after all. Loyalty ran deep in oxen, too. Such as the loyalty between Shale Mantle and his sister, Copper Chisel, who hadn't seen each other for four years.

When Bovaria fell apart, in the chaos he wound up on the ground with Summit, and she in the city, locked up with the rest of her family like jewelry. She tried to escape at least once a year, failed every time. A talented warrior, her brother was trapped too, duty-bound to Summit. But even had he been free to leave, what would he have done? Hike to the Stone Heart, probably be caught long before he got close, then wake up every morning after underground, in a dark room with iron bars.

So he made a choice. Even with the help of this other pony, Summit didn't stand a chance of taking Bovaria back from Slate. Shale had seen for himself the old unicorn's power, and his tolerance for those who threatened his work. Summit was going to lose, and anyone following him would be banished or worse. But maybe- just maybe- if Shale helped capture his beloved leader, Slate would show gratitude.

When the caravan split, Shale made sure he went with Summit, waited until they were close to the Stone Heart, then broke away and flagged the first patrol he saw. Gale, Flint, and Blitz heard every detail as they trailed Grout's company through the pass, not a word between them. And when the inevitable happened, the three of them didn't startle; they sighed.

"Behind us!"

"Get them!"

"Grab the pony!"

There was no battle plan, no gesture to attack or retreat. The three of them simply stepped from the drift where they had hid, and plodded towards the wave galloping for them. Gale didn't remember much of the fighting. His horn glowed towards the end, though, and afterwards he, Flint, and Blitz ran panting towards the setting sun. Guess they won.