I let out a horrified shriek, falling onto my rump and scooting away from her, my heart pounding and my breath shortening to short, panicked gasps. A pounding rose up in my head, each throb bringing a burst of heart-stopping panic. I didn’t know what was going on, but I did know something was seriously wrong, and that made the unknown absolutely terrifying.

If I didn’t know what the problem was, I couldn’t fix it. When the problem looked like it could kill the most important pony in my life…

I’d say I had a reason to be scared out of my mind.

The pounding in my head intensified to the point where it was painful, the terror and hysteria that came with it overwhelming me. The world started spinning, and I dropped to the ground, my throat closing up. My breaths turned into choked gasps, and I started to get light-headed. My alarm skyrocketed, the choking sensation sending instinctual bolts of panic running through my nerves-

And then Reed was there, talking in firm, reassuring tones. I couldn’t understand him, my panic having distorted any outside input, but his presence alone seemed to calm me slightly. He placed a paw on my chest and started to rhythmically press on my chest, pressure being applied and released at an interval of three seconds. It took a few seconds to realize what he was telling me to do, but I did figure it out. Breathe in… breathe out… breathe in… I did, and after a few seconds, my airways opened up enough to let me get a deep breath. A few seconds after that, I started to be able to hear him again.

“... it… keep going… keep breathing,” he said firmly. I nodded and did as he said, feeling more and more of my control return. With that, though, came something else.

Every second I waste is a second that Tranquility gets worse! I screamed mentally.

I got my hooves under me and scrambled to stand up, slipping on the smooth ground. Eventually, though, I got up, swaying drunkenly. Cam was staring at me in mild shock, and Reed with concern, and Tranquility was still on the ground, spasming.

“Jeez!” Reed exclaimed. “Try to calm yourself! I don’t want you having another panic attack-”

“N-no!” I choked out, my throat sending out spikes of pain. “T-Tranqui-” My voice gave out, and I broke out into a coughing fit, falling to the floor as another spike of panic tore through me. When the coughing subsided, I started taking deep breaths again, trying to get into a speaking state. Reed started to run his paw through my mane, trying to calm me down.

“Don’t rush it,” he said soothingly. “Let it come naturall-”

“Oh CRAP!” Cam screamed, causing Reed to jump. I scrambled to my hooves again just in time to see her sprint towards her box and away from Tranquility, the abnormally pale color of her face jumping out like a speck of snow in a clear summer day. She started to frantically rummage through it. “No. No no no nononononononoNO!”

“What’s happening?!” Reed yelled, his ears turning backwards.

“I don’t know, but Tranquility’s in a REAL bad state!” she yelled. Reed’s face went pale as well as she turned her full attention back to the box. “I’ve gotta wake her up. I need something powerful… where is my dang concentrated mint?!”

“I-It’s not gonna w-work!” I yelled, my voice thankfully not breaking. “I-I tried to wake her up! She’s out cold! You h-have to give her something to HELP her!” I screamed, tears starting to run down my face.

“I have to get her awake first!” Cam yelled. “I need more information!”

“No you don’t!” I bellowed, my voice getting clearer. “She’s in serious trouble! Give her something, anything! Flood her with painkillers, antibacterals, antitoxins, anything you can! I DON’T WANT HER TO DIE!”

“Anything I give her right now could harm her as much as help her!” Cam screamed. “I need to know what I’m dealing with-”

“SHE’S MY BEST FRIEND!” I screamed as loudly as I could. “I’VE KNOWN HER ALL MY LIFE, AND NOW I THINK I’M LOSING HER! EVERY SECOND WASTED IS A SECOND SHE GETS CLOSER TO THE AFTERLIFE! YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, ANYTHI-”

“STOP IT!”

The shout didn’t come from Cam or I. It came from Reed, and it was filled with so much commanding authority that it broke my tirade off without so much as an extra syllable to spare. We both turned towards him, and to my surprise, I could see tears forming in his eyes.

“Fall’s right,” he said softly. “She’s not going to wake up, no matter what you try.” A spike of pain shot through my heart, causing me to gasp aloud. “You’re not going to get the information that you need, Cam, and besides, none of what you have is going to work.”

“H-how do you know?” she whispered viciously.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Because I know what this is,” he whispered. “I’ve seen it before. I know how it works. It’s different than anything you’ve ever encountered before in your lives.” He fixed both of us with a stare. “And I know how to cure it.”

A rush of different emotions filled me. There was relief, shock, hope, and suspicion, all mixed into one stimulating cocktail. I didn’t know what to say, but in the end, Cam said it for me.

“Explain,” she whispered. “Now.”

“O-okay,” Reed said shakily. “I will. Tranquility got this condition when she was bitten by that plant back in the Sentient Vines. The green toxin that drips from their fangs was put directly into her bloodstream, starting this whole process. Cam, you did the worst possible thing by sealing the wound with your healing balm.”

“Why?” she asked defensively.

“Because of the method in which the venom kills its victim,” he answered. “It slowly converts the blood surrounding it into more of the toxin, which transforms more of the blood, and so on. It’s part of why I wanted her to calm down so badly in the Great Freeze. Her increased heart rate lead to the spread of the venom.” He let out a soft laugh. “The method is actually a genius maneuver. The venom contains the plant’s seeds, so when the victim dies, its offspring have a fresh source of food to grow off of.” My blood ran cold. “Sealing the wound is bad because it locks the poison in the bloodstream, letting it do its job uninterrupted. But I know how to fix it. Ash had the same thing happen to him a few years ago. But I need two things.

“I need your trust, and I need my magic.”

Time seemed to slow to a crawl around us as the full implications of that request hit us. It meant that he would be able to escape. It meant that we would be trusting him with one of our lives. But most of all…

It meant that he was trying to join our side. And if we abided by his request, we would be acknowledging and welcoming him as one of our own.

“Why should we give it to you?” Cam asked, her voice a low whisper. “You knew about this. You just admitted that you knew, and you knew from the beginning! You let it spread this much, and now you want to stop it? That seems a little bit suspicious to me, boo!”

“Yeah!” I added. “Why not tell us as soon as she was bitten?”

His looked down in apparent shame, a sigh escaping from his lips. “Because I was still unsure about who I wanted to side with in this whole affair,” he said. “I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to make a move that decisive. But as you and Tranquility drifted apart… I saw something.” He raised his head and fixed my eyes with a piercing stare. “I saw care. I saw exactly how much every one of you meant to each other. The way that it hurt the both of you to be apart, the way Cam tried to help fix the rift between you, it all led back to that. And then I realized something.” A small smile appeared on his lips. “You cared about me too. Every act of kindness you three showed me was evidence of that, no matter how small it was. And that meant a lot to me. And then I realized something else, something even more shocking. I was fighting to kill compassion and break up the bonds between you. I was fighting to murder good creatures. I was the bad guy! And that made me think, and I reached a decision.

“Care is not an enemy I want to fight. I want to save Tranquility. I want to stay with you, not as an enemy, but as an ally.

“I want to go rogue. I want to be the hero Cam wishes for. And I will be, if you let me.”

The silence left behind after his speech was so thick, I felt that I could reach out and touch it. It was truly compelling. And reviewing what he had said, I realized the truth of his words.

He meant every one of them.

“Cam, give him back his magic,” I said confidently, hope surging up and piercing through the panic inside of me.

And she did.

In the blink of an eye, she had crossed the distance that separated the two of them and placed her paw on his chest. A shimmering layer of magic became visible around him, and a second later, it burst away from his fur, vanishing.

Almost immediately, his forearms exploded into a blinding golden light. Tranquility’s shaking body was lifted off the ground and levitated into his lap. He let his magic fade and placed two of the toes on his paw on her neck.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“The treatment is fairly simple,” he said. “We just need to get all of the toxin out of her blood. To do that, I’m going to open two small cuts in one of her major arteries so I can access the bloodstream. It hasn’t started destroying tissue yet, so we still have time.”

“I could do that,” Cam mumbled.

“You don’t have the training to maintain telekinesis, an isolation spell, and a sterility spell at the same time,” Reed said. A second later, he gasped and lifted his paw off her neck. “Found one!” Two golden knives extended from his paw, slicing her neck open, and she began to bleed.

Instead of spilling down her fur, though, the blood from the cut closest to her body arched up in a small loop and went back down into the other one, creating a seamless flow of blood. It was a dirty dark green, an unnatural color that made me want to vomit.

Reed closed his eyes, and his paws began to glow brightly once more. At the top of the arch, the liquids began to separate into two separate streams. The first was green, the toxin Reed had told us about. It was diverted into a container of his magic, where it started to collect. The other was bright red, her natural blood. It continued through the loop and re-entered her body.

This process continued for about ten minutes. Even after the green liquid stopped visibly separating from her blood, he kept it up. When I asked about it, he chuckled.

“The circulatory system is huge,” he explained. “I have to get all of this gunk out, from her heart and arteries, all the way down to her capillaries.”

I didn’t know what a capillary was, but I nodded anyway and patiently waited for him to finish.

Eventually, Reed lowered his paw onto her neck again. A small glow emitted from underneath it, and when he lifted it off her neck, the incisions were nowhere to be seen. He sat back and wiped his brow. “Wow, that’s taxing,” he said. He then levitated the pool of green venom over the edge of the island and let it fall. “I’ve put a spell designed to boost blood production on her. It’ll help compensate for the amount of blood she lost. When she wakes up, it’ll deactivate.”

I nodded and strode over to him. Before he could say anything, I tackled him in a tight hug, tears starting to flow from my eyes once more. “T-thank you,” I whispered. “Thank y-you so m-much…”

“You’re welcome,” he said, a smile gracing his mouth.

“Hey Reed,” Cam said, a grin crossing her features as well.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Welcome to the group.”

After that, all we could do was wait. Reed spent some time on the edge of the island, testing out his magic to get used to it again, while Cam and I sat right next to Tranquility’s limp form. The minutes flew by in silence, none of us wanting to say anything…

And then Tranquility’s eyelids twitched.

My heart soared, and her eyes fluttered open. She let out a soft groan and raised her head, blinking a few times. A grimace crossed her face, and gave a soft sigh. “Re ceirho ta airote,” she mumbled, shaking her head.

“Oh thank Celestia!” I yelled, pulling her into a tight hug. I closed my eyes, relief that she was all right sweeping through me.

Then I remembered her instructions, the ones that told me to stay away.

I quickly let her go and saw she was eyeing me with a confused expression. “S-sorry,” I mumbled, standing up. “I-I’ll be over here…” I quickly strode away from her and towards the edge of the island.

I lowered my head, sadness creeping into my heart. I guess it’s not gonna be that way, I thought. It was soul-deadening to realize that Tranquility hadn’t seen me go into hysterics over her. She hadn’t seen me scream at Cam to do anything to save her. Even after I put my heart and life on the line by making the call to free Reed, she still thought I didn’t care about her.

And that hurt deep inside.

I heard a conversation start up behind me, but I didn’t pay attention, too consumed in my own sadness to think about doing that. I mulled over that truth for a while, sadness slowly consuming me once more. I tuned out the outside world, feeling tears well up inside of me. Why? I asked mentally, directing it at anyone and anything. I just wanted an answer.

Then I felt a soft, leathery wing drape over my back.

“Hey,” Tranquility said, shakily sitting down next to me.

Shock drove away all other emotions. I didn’t expect for her to actually come talk to me of her own free will. “Hey,” I said dumbly, unable to think of anything else to say.

Silence filled the air around us before she let out a soft sigh. “Cam told me everything,” she said. “You risked everything for me.”

“Not everything,” I said.

“To me, it meant everything,” she said.

“So you know now,” I mumbled. “You realize how much I care about you, even through our fight.”

“Yes… and no,” she said, causing my heart to rise and fall. “I’m still confused… and I think I know why. I need to hear something from your mouth, in your own words. I know it to be true in my head, but my heart doesn’t.”

“Ask anything,” I replied instantly.

“Why didn’t you help me in the Great Freeze?” she whispered.

I paused for a moment before sighing. “I wanted to,” I started. “Believe me, I wanted to. I just didn’t know how I could. My first instinct was to run over and wrap you in a tight hug, to calm you down like I’ve done before… but then I remembered that you had told me to leave you alone. I didn’t know how you would react if I didn’t follow that… and I froze up, trying to reach a decision. Reed stepped in before I could, though.”

“I see,” she said. “Thank you.”

“For what?” I asked.

“For clearing that up,” she said. “It was the only thing keeping me from doing this.” And with that, she pulled me into a bone-crushing embrace, tucking her head beneath my chin. “After today, I realized you never would have hurt me on purpose, or done something like what happened intentionally. I should have realized that long ago.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I wrapped my hooves around her body and rested my head on top of hers. As I did that, the dark clouds of sadness and misery that had been plaguing me vanished, save one. I felt as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders… and it was liberating.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but I do know that it was one of the best moments of my life. We’d endured hardship, and pulled through it, our bond having grown stronger because of it. I felt a hint of blush rising to my cheeks, and I smiled. Maybe I’ll tell her soon, I thought.

But after all the bliss of rekindling the fire we shared faded, there was one question on my mind. “Tranquility?” I asked. “Why did you get so mad in the first place?”

She tensed up before pulling out of the hug. “Weh pourehasti du quri surai, weh pourehasti du zhaigai,” she said. “I told you what that means, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It highlights what not having a home can do, right?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “That phrase holds so much meaning to me… and I got mad because I felt you didn’t care about that.”

“Not to be rude…” I said. “But why? You were fairly eager to get out of Canterlot, your long-time home…”

“My house in Canterlot was not my home,” she said. “Canterlot ceased to be my home after…” she trailed off, shutting her eyes and grimacing, like she was remembering something painful.

“After what?” I prompted.

“It’s something you don’t know about,” she whispered. “And I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable with telling anyone about it. It’s the worst part of my life, and I’ve hidden it down inside me for years. I will say, though… it has to do with these.” She extended her wing.

“Your wing?” I asked.

Shaking her head, she lifted a hoof and pointed to one of the white patches in the leather. “These.”

Confusion filled my mind, and I tilted my head to the side. “Wait… those aren’t natural?” I asked.

“No, they’re not,” she said, drawing in a shuddering breath of air. “I’m sorry… I don’t want to say any more.”

I had questions. I had so many questions… but I took one look at how she was reacting and I let it slide. “Okay,” I whispered, bringing her back into the hug. We stayed like that for a little longer, and before long, I felt the need to say something else. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“For what?” she asked.

“For forgiving me.”

After that, we walked back towards Cam and Reed, side by side. Reed was using his magic to put on a holographic puppet show for Cam, which she appeared to be enjoying immensely. When he saw us, though, he let them fizzle out. “I guess you two kissed and made up?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What now?”

“Now we wait for Ivy,” he said, a scowl crossing his face.

“You don’t have to,” a female voice growled. Four hooded figures swooped in and landed on our island.

Author's Note

A good doggo has appeared!

Truth be told, I finished this yesterday, but was unable to upload it because of sleep. Somehow, I managed to write three-thousand words in one day... I can be determined, especially when I know exactly what I want to say.

So yeah, Reed's good now, Tranquility's better, and she and Fall have made up, bringing this mini-arc to a close! Now, they'll have a better chance against the Mages! I told you guys to bear with me, and look where we are! I know what I'm doing... I think.

Also, did you guys like the fact that her sickness came from those plants? I thought it was a good idea, but I'm not sure how it came across.

Thestral Language Guide

Let me know if there are errors with this in the comments. My keyboard has been dying recently, so there are probably a few.

~Pyrepinna