Chapter Seven

Wrath

Wind howled outside the shuttered, rattling window, and a muted tap-tap-tapping built into a steady roar on the roof. I bolted up on my haunches beside Night Cloud, inadvertently pushing her wing off my back. She groaned quietly, tucked her legs in, and pushed herself up beside me, taking a deep breath.

“Does it normally hail this time of year?” I murmured, grabbing onto her leg.

“Um,” she mumbled, yawning, “Not normally, no… not around here… at least, not unless the Bloomfang Tower is causing it. Happens every now and then, but—” She yawned again. “—I wouldn’t call it normal…”

A hiss of static and a loud pop came from the corner of the chilly room. Both of us looked at the empty suit of armor standing there by Night Cloud’s barding and our saddlebags. We lit our horns with cerulean and emerald.

A stallion’s voice followed.

“Ah… hello? Crystal?”

“Carbide?!” I scrambled off the bed and bolted to the corner, and I reared up to brace myself on the suit. “You’re back! You’re okay!”

“I, ah—yes! I am okay. And back, I suppose, from your perspective, yes.” I squeezed the immobile neck of the suit and shuffled on my hind hooves. “Crystal, I can’t actually feel any of—this. You know that, right?”

“I don’t friggin’ care! You’re back, and—I didn’t know if I’d be able to fix you, and… you’re back. Ow.” I pushed off the suit and giggled as Night Cloud stepped up beside me. “Okay, that kinda hurts.”

“Well, I appreciate it, in any case.”

“Um, so…” I glanced up at Night Cloud as she set her hoof on my withers and lit her horn, and the warm yellow ceiling light turned on. “Carbide, what happened to you? You just—you went quiet, and… it’s been days!”

“I am keenly aware, believe me—but nothing actually happened to me. I’m fine. The interface control layer between my anchor—that is, my, ah… housing and the rest of the suit crashed, and wouldn’t restart. Faulty system drivers; I had to patch and recompile them the hard way. That, ah… it takes a while. I’m sorry to have left you hanging—but I’m glad to see you’re all right, glad the suit kept working for you, at least. Ah… could you step back, please? You’re covering the main camera.”

“Sorry, sorry!” I fell back to my hooves and pranced in place. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay! I don’t have to fix you!”

“Yes, that’s for the best—trust me, you don’t have the tools necessary to fix the control computer, anyway. Nobody does. Listen, ah—who are you, if I may ask, Miss…”

Night Cloud chuckled and dipped her head. “My name is Night Cloud. It’s a pleasure to finally speak to you, Carbide. Crystal has said you saved her life. You have my gratitude for that.”

“Ah… you’re welcome. And likewise. You—you are… my word—never mind! Is this Bellenast? Crystal, that’s what you were looking for, yes? A city? Are we there now?”

“We’re in the town of Granite Bridge,” said Night Cloud. “And we’re going to fly to Bellenast this morning. Why? What’s wrong?”

“I need to speak to a member of the city police, or the mayor, or—or someone in authority. It’s urgent.”

“Will a princess do, Mister Carbide?”

“Ah—well, yes! That’s perfect. I just need a hoof in the door. Maximillian has left Spannerworks—” I froze in place next to Night Cloud. “—and he pinged me, but he won’t respond to my return transmissions. I need to warn someone about it.”

Night Cloud gently stroked her wing along my back. “And… who, or what, is ‘Maximillian?’”

“He’s a machine intelligence,” said Carbide, “Very large, mobile, and potentially heavily armed. And as far as I can tell from his beacon signal strength, he’s traveling north. I don’t know what his motive for leaving Spannerworks is, but he might be dangerous.”

“The giant doom-bot,” I muttered, shuddering where I stood. “The one that tried to kill us. It brought a whole friggin’ building down on me. Twice!”

“Might be dangerous,” murmured Night Cloud, “Well… time to wake up Blitz, then.” She lifted her gambeson from the corner and put it on. I shook myself, grabbed several pieces of her barding, and began to help her don the suit. “Thank you, Crystal.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Fitting and buckling the pieces onto her was a welcome distraction from the images of a rolling steel behemoth and its bristling weaponry flashing in my mind’s eye. “You said that friggin’ thing wouldn’t follow us, Carbide.” I glanced from Night Cloud to the tiny camera inset on the front of my armor. “No way to tell where we went, no reason to follow us. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind. That’s what you told me. Still sticking to that story?”

“That’s what I thought,” said Carbide, “Based on what I knew… clearly, I was in error.”

I stomped and nickered. “Egregious error.”

“… I am never going to live that down, am I?”

“No.” I grinned and snatched the armor’s folded hazard suit up from the floor, stepping into it awkwardly one leg at a time. “But I’m really glad you’re back.”

I finished zipping up my hazard suit, and the bulky armor opened in front of me—like a bizarre metal flower in bloom. I stepped gingerly up and set my forehooves on the inside of the reinforced honeycomb mesh that protected the insulated wiring and densely packed thaumic circuits hidden in the suit’s belly.

I shifted my hooves, peering at the inside of the legs. “Um… Carbide? Just curious; how did you put me into this thing the first time?”

“Ah… with a kinetic assembly manipulator—that is, I partially assembled it, then put the rest together around you in pieces.”

“Right… don’t think I’ll ever forget that part.” I shuffled my hooves inside the armor again. “What I mean is, um… did you ever think about, um… how I would do that myself, or how I could take it off?”

“I rather hoped you would run into another unicorn at some point… failing that, someone with a hoist.”

“Gotcha.” I stepped back from the suit and grinned at Night Cloud. “Wanna hoist me?”

“What?” She glanced between me and the splayed-open armor. “Oh!” She wrapped me with gentle cerulean and lifted me over the suit. “Sorry. Silly me.” Night Cloud rolled her eyes and lowered me slowly in, and I shifted each leg until my hooves and belly rested snugly in the mechanical cocoon. “I, um… I think I prefer my own barding. More comfortable. Doesn’t require a hoist.”

“Yeah, well, you’re big and strong, and I’m not, so I’ll take the barding that lets me kick things really hard.”

“It’s also Class Four hazard-rated,” said Carbide. “For what it’s worth.”

“Okay.” The suit locked into place around my legs and torso, and I slid the helmet over my horn. The tight, figure-hugging suit matted my coat, and the gentle whirring of fans came to life in my ears as the pieces shifted and the titanium exoskeleton sealed. A light pressure on my withers accompanied an electric jolt that traveled down my back and into my legs, and then the weight of the armor vanished.

“So, what does that mean?”

“Well,” said Carbide, “As long as the filtration system lasts, the exosuit remains powered, and the hazard suit’s shielding layer is unbreached, it will protect you from balefire radiation, airborne toxins, and thermal differentials—the exoskeleton program was meant for ponies servicing operating power plants, movement and disposal of toxic substances, that sort of thing. This particular design was one of my old hobby projects, believe it or not.”

“I believe it. Little unfinished, but I like it.” I stepped forward, and instead of a constant tugging on my legs, the armor moved the instant I did. “Whoa!” I pranced in place and reared up, then hopped, boots clunking on the wood floor.

“Baby,” said Night Cloud, side-stepping away from me, “Maybe don’t make so much noise?”

“Oh,” I mumbled, looking down at the tiny scratches below my boots and their claws. “Oops… Carbide, this is way better. I mean, holy crap, I can barely tell I’m wearing it! What did you do?”

“I just needed an opportunity to calibrate the kinematics controller,” said Carbide. “I needed a few hours of motion data to use as a reference; your trek across the desert gave me plenty of that. Everything should move fluidly now—I meant to do that as soon as I could, so wearing it would be less tiring for you… in any case, I’d rather you not stumble into a pothole or something because I forgot to finish the job.”

“No…” Night Cloud sighed and tapped her hoof on the back of my crinet. “No, we wouldn’t want that.”

I bumped my helmet against her shoulder. -I want to see you in one of these.-

-Good luck finding one in my size. Besides, I prefer a bit more breathing room in my barding, darling.-

I rolled my eyes, and she opened the door to our room in a swath of cerulean and led me out.

Ivy approached us from the hallway along with Eagle and Zephyr, holding her inscrutable eyes on me. Eagle had put on his own power armor, and Zephyr once again wore her yellow cape, and looked at best half-awake.

“Slight change of plans,” said Ivy, spinning around as we neared her. “Come. Breakfast will have to wait.”

Ivy’s horn glowed a brilliant gold to my right, and the elliptical barrier hovering above us rippled under the muffled, battering hail. I trotted to keep pace with her and the guards at our front and rear, gawking at the hailstones shattering on Ivy’s golden shield. Some of the lumps of ice in the street were as broad as my hooves, but the worst had passed over the town before we had left the hotel.

“If you’re going to tell me about the iron hound wandering out of its kennel,” said Ivy, glancing down at me, “Then save your breath. The report came in from Cliffside after midnight. The machine has done nothing aggressive, only said that it is looking for one Chief Engineer Carbide of the Spannerworks company staff. Is that you?”

“Ah…” A slight hiss came from the speaker on my armor, and Carbide’s amplified voice overcame the pelting ice. “I am he, yes.”

“Then answer me this, Chief Engineer Carbide: Is the machine tracking you?”

“No, there’s nothing to track—well, there’s an emergency beacon and a shortwave transmitter, but I never turned them on, and Crystal didn’t know how—I didn’t have a chance to tell her. But you said Maximilliansaid that he’s looking for me?”

“It spoke to one of the Guard.”

“He spoke first? Not in response—he volunteered that information, to a pony that asked him? Did the guard speak first, or did Max? Did they tell him to stop, or go away, or—”

“They told the machine to halt,” said Ivy, “Then—if I am to believe the report—it introduced itself, stated its intent to seek you out, ignored further questions, and went on its merry way north. Tell me, Carbide, is the machine programmed to do that?”

“No! No, he absolutely is not… I—listen to me, please: If he’s looking for me, then he has chosen to do it. There’s no programming, no command, no directive, no predetermined instructions—nothing that could result in this. He decided to look for me, completely on his own. If he has acted in spontaneity, I must speak to him. Please, I beg you, don’t attack him!”

“If you want to speak,” said Ivy, staring down at a point on my armor below my head, “Then I will let you speak; far be it from me to waste an amicable opportunity come knocking. But know this: If that machine intends to harm me and mine, I shall answer in kind.”

“I truly hope that will be unnecessary.”

Ivy flicked her tail and turned away from me and Carbide’s camera. “As do I.”

Zephyr scoffed and said from behind me. “Well, I hope you have a big fucking gun. That thing is the size of a building.”

“I learned my lesson when I first crossed its path. We are prepared.”

“Oh yeah?” Zephyr tossed her mane and muttered, “Only thing I learned is, ‘Don’t wake up the giant metal guard dog.’”

“You learned that some fights are best avoided. Sometimes all you can do is run. No shame in it.”

“No shit… and what did you learn, way back when-the-fuck-ever?”

“To look more closely before I leap… and to watch out for tainted springs and fool’s gold.” The pine needle-green mare glanced back at us in the golden light of her rippling shield around us. “No treasure in Spannerworks is worth your life.”

Eagle let out a dry laugh. “Well, we weren’t looking for treasure, strictly speaking… still, sobering to know I wasn’t the first.”

“You probably won’t be the last, either, edicts be damned.” Ivy’s horn glowed, and a golden light tugged gently to lift my head up. “Others haven’t been so fortunate… or tenacious.”

Ivy led us left onto a broader street; carriage tracks left in the packed dirt had filled in with mud and sparkling ice, and the passing hail had turned to mere sleet. Several ponies had come out of their homes and storefronts to inspect damaged overhangs and windows by lamplight. They looked on in curiosity as we passed by inside Ivy’s golden bubble.

“When I led the first proper expedition to Spannerworks,” said Ivy, “I believed the most we would face were the same sentries we saw patrolling the fences. So I made suitable weapons, and we dealt with them. We found the giant deeper in.”

“Did it attack you, too?” I said. “It brought a whole friggin’ building down on us.”

“It did,” said Ivy, nodding, “But we stuck to the alleyways, kept out of sight. Went where it couldn’t follow; dealing with both it and the sentries wasn’t worth the risk. We fled through the same tunnels you did… and the machine stayed in its cave. So we let it be, we observed… dealt with the sentries that followed us to the fences…”

While I looked up at her half-turned head, a hazy image of the ancient buildings of Spannerworks appeared in my sight. Hot wind played across my ears and the scorching sun beat down on my coat, a steel bit and trigger sat between my teeth, and the slight tension of a cable harness tugged on each of my legs. I shifted my left foreleg and bit the sensitive trigger, and the long gun melded to my barding roared and shook my bones. An instant after, the carriage-sized robot rolling toward me across the hot ground stopped in its tracks, smoke trailing from a blackened hole in its armor.

“We placed warnings,” said the tall green mare leading us along the muddy street. I shook my head and shivered mid-step. “We stationed lookouts along the cliffs, in case it ever crawled out…” She glanced back down at me with one blue-grey eye lit by her gold-wreathed horn. “In all honesty, I had forgotten about it until you three showed up. You prodded quite the slumbering giant, little one… no-one else has ever enticed it to leave.”

“Okay,” said Zephyr, “Don’t you dare pin that on her. How do you forget about a giant robot sitting on your doorstep?”

“I’m old, filly. Ancient history doesn’t come to the surface on its own… have to dredge it up. I haven’t thought about Spannerworks in over a hundred and fifty years.”

She glanced upward, then let the golden bubble around us disappear, and she said, “Back then, we had more pressing concerns than whatever nascent, improbable threat some machines out in that desert may have posed us. One rogue robot is one rogue robot. Destroy it, isolate it, avoid it—the danger is gone. The same cannot be said of harsh winters, of famine, of plagues, of dragons burning our homes and crops, of beasts of the woods snapping at our tails, of infighting and gang wars and petty squabbles between tribes, year after year without end…”

She looked directly at Zephyr, saying, “I left it alone because that was the simplest solution to the problem.”

“I’m less worried about the giant robot,” said Blitz, laying her enormous wing across Ivy’s back, “And more worried about the ponies who may or may not want to stab me in the neck. The former I can deal with, easy-peasy; the latter is tricky. And besides—” She jabbed her other wing toward Zephyr, “You’d be surprised how easy it is to forget important things when you have a million important things floating around in your head.”

Ivy stopped and kicked her left foreleg forward as an odd patch of light appeared in middle of the road ahead of us. The short gun on her right side snapped up on its mount, tracking unerringly toward her front. Blitz stopped in her tracks, horn glowing bright violet, and Night Cloud set her forehoof in front of me.

“Lady Ivaline!” called the stallion who stepped out of the whirling light, which disappeared and left him lit by magic and lamplight.

Wellspring and Polyrhythm moved ahead of Blitz and Ivy, both aiming their guns at the stranger: A dun unicorn with a wild, vivid orange mane, clad in only a goldenrod yellow sash across his collar.

“The Falcon of Dunn,” said the stallion, speaking loudly enough to carry over the wind. “The Witch of the Amber Palace… the Curse-Speaker, in the flesh…”

“So you’re the one skulking around,” said Ivy. “Who are you?”

The tan, spotted stallion stretched his right foreleg out and dipped his head in a deep bow, maintaining eye contact, and said, “Argent Nimbus, Milady. A magus of Kasín Hasara Sol. It is my honor to meet you.”

“Bold of you to come here.”

“Perhaps,” said Argent Nimbus. He bowed his head to Blitz. “Your Highness. I wish this meeting could have been under better circumstances.”

Blitz snorted and half-spread her wings. The light around her horn faded. “Yeah, me, too. I’d like to give you the benefit of doubt—so, why don’t you explain what you’re doing here, instead of us jumping straight to the irons? Sound good, Argent?”

Argent Nimbus raised his head again. “If I must be held in custody to avert a disaster, then I will acquiesce, but please understand, I come to you for peace.”

“How gracious,” said Ivy. She kicked her leg again, and the short gun on her left swiveled downward. Wellspring and Polyrhythm lowered their weapons, but stood at the ready where they had stopped. “Speak.”

“Lady Ivaline,” said the stallion, “I’m sure by now you know of a Kekalo war party coming through the Forest of Leota.”

“I’ve heard some things through the grapevine. By all means, elucidate for me: Who are they and what do they want?”

“There is a sect within Kasín Hasara Sol that wants to see your head on a platter.” Bowing his head slightly, he said, “They do not have the Emperor’s support, I assure you.”

Ivy quirked her head. “And here I thought that old feud had bled itself dry… is it the third son? Nádarin?”

“I don’t believe so.” Argent Nimbus shook his head. “He was not present, when they set out, and I am certain he does not lead them. I won’t pretend to know him as the closest of friends, but I am inclined to think he would see the folly in this course.”

“But you do know him.” Ivy lit her horn and swept a wave of gold over the stallion; he barely moved, but closed his eyes until the light faded. “If you could protect him, would you?”

Argent Nimbus nodded, glancing from Ivy to Blitz, and even at Night Cloud and me; his eyes lingered on my armor. “I want to forestall any needless conflict,” he said, looking up to Ivy again. “And, yes, I want to help my friend come to his senses, before he does anything too foolish. I don’t want to see him repeat his elder brother’s mistakes… are you amenable to this?”

“I am.” Ivy stamped her left hind hoof. “He has done nothing yet that I cannot forgive.” She nodded, and glanced aside. “Pardon me, Blizziera. Would you extend an invitation to our friend? We wouldn’t want him to be caught out in the rain.”

Blitz coughed and stepped forward. “Argent Nimbus,” said the immense sable-purple mare, “By my authority as Princess of Bellenast, I, Blizziera of House Firenza, hereby offer you asylum in Bellenast, ah—until such time as it is no longer required. Do you accept?”

“I do.” Argent Nimbus bowed his head deeply to Blitz, then to Ivy. “Thank you, Your Highness, Milady.”

“Polyrhythm,” said Ivy, and the azure unicorn mare in armor stepped toward her, ears forward. “Secure our guest. Argent Nimbus, you will be kept under thaumic restraint for the flight, and under guard for your stay in Bellenast.”

“I expected as much.”

Argent Nimbus stood stock-still as Polyrhythm levitated a hinged metal ring from a covered pocket on her battle harness and placed it onto his horn. I shivered and looked away.

“I’m in a halfway-decent mood,” said Ivy to the dun stallion, striding forward once again. “Don’t sour it.”

“I dare not dream it.”

Night Cloud climbed up the rear ramp into the passenger carriage: A dull grey, dubiously aerodynamic, armored oblong on eight mesh-bodied metal wheels recessed partway into the hull. A narrow gun barrel protruded from a small turret on the roof near the bow, and the levitation motor array underneath the transport hummed ceaselessly in its standby state. Two bulbous aerokinetic thrusters jutted from the widened rear of the fuselage, one on each side of the entryway.

I climbed behind Night Cloud, boots thunking on the deck, and followed her to the front of the spacious cabin lit with dim yellow lights, where she turned around, sat and lay facing aft on a padded mat at the port corner. Next to the mat on the wall was a bright, teal blue box marked at its center with a pair of golden-yellow bars on either side of a serpentine head of the same color. Behind it was a circular porthole about twenty centimeters across.

Night Cloud set her healing potion canister carrier down behind herself and fastened it to the wall with a strap. I faced the rear entrance and sat next to her in my bulky armor, watching Eagle and Zephyr walk across the steel mesh deck paneling between the pads. Wellspring and Polyrhythm followed behind them; the carriage shifted under the ever-increasing weight of its passengers.

“What’s with the snake head?” I murmured to Night Cloud, pointing at the teal box.

She glanced at the container. “Hydra, actually; that’s the symbol of the Bellenastian Council of Medicine, and Emergency Services.”

“Oh. So, an emergency kit.”

“Yes.” She brushed her wingtip over the steel basket she’d brought aboard the carriage. “It’s pretty much what I’ve been lugging around all this time, just a bit more comprehensive.”

Zephyr claimed a spot opposite us across the center walkway, but remained standing. As Eagle settled into place on her other side, Zephyr thumped her hoof on the deck and said, “How does this can rate against flying snake monsters?”

“You mean a storm serpent?” said Wellspring, stopping next to a column in the center of the cabin. “Gelgrin Naga?” He gestured to the fore cabin door. “Nothing the gunner can’t manage. They don’t typically come down this side of the mountains.”

“Really.” Zephyr finally lay down by Eagle; deprived of her own functioning suit of power armor and wearing only the yellow woven cape she’d acquired in Cliffside, she looked smaller than usual next to him.

Wellspring nodded once. “I assume you don’t ask out of idle curiosity.”

Eagle set his wing across Zephyr’s back, and he said, “A big one attacked us a few days ago, coming down from the ridge into the basin, way southeast. Twenty meters long at least, and ripped right through our carriage. Seemed like it was following the storm rolling through the area.”

“I can see why you went so far south.” Wellspring tilted his head at the door to the forward cabin between Zephyr and me. “No worries. If a fully grown naga brood mother comes all the way down from its roost to chase after one carriage, the gunner will take care of it.”

“Or Her Highness, if she’s bored,” said Polyrhythm, chuckling as she deployed Argent Nimbus’s flight harness; the stallion looked around the interior of the aircraft in open curiosity.

“Let’s not tempt fate,” said Wellspring. He looked to the rear ramp as the last two ponies trotted up it: Blitz, whose ears brushed the ceiling as she stepped aboard with her head inclined, and Ivory Point beside her, clad for the first time I had seen in her own polished barding and a stubby gun on a battle harness. The hydraulics at the rear of the cabin lifted the ramp that doubled as the door, and dim yellow lights blinked on along the floor grating and ceiling as the door sealed.

The air pressed slightly on my ears. A resonating hum came from below, a gentle liftoff pushed me into the deck, and then the force on us shifted as we accelerated north.

“That’s a bad thing?” said Zephyr, giving Blitz the side-eye. “Her being bored?”

Wellspring glanced at Zephyr and Eagle. “Being assigned to Her Highness has been…”

“Careful,” said Ivory Point, smirking; her high, airy voice contrasted sharply against Wellspring’s tenor, “No slander now.”

“Well, go on,” said Blitz, rolling her eyes. “Be honest.”

Wellspring took a breath. “It’s been, shall we say… interesting.”

Blitz let out a soft snort. “Lieutenant Wellspring is a talented and tactful understater.”

“Great,” muttered Zephyr, “Just what we need: A magnet.”

“How do you think I feel?” said Blitz, chortling.

Night Cloud shivered suddenly beside me.

“Claustrophobic?” I mumbled, leaning on her steel-covered shoulder.

Night Cloud bumped her helmeted head gently on my crinet. “Just a little… being in one of these, it, um… well, the last time I took a ride in one, it was to go to Splendid Valley with Blitz and Ivy.” She swallowed and glanced past me, at Eagle and Zephyr, and Wellspring, Polyrhythm, and Ivory Point, who watched us in silence. I telekinetically disengaged the locks on my collar and pulled off my helmet, wincing as the fluted sheathe scraped on my horn. Night Cloud nuzzled behind my ears and murmured, “It brings back unpleasant memories, that’s all.”

“Splendid Valley?” said Carbide, causing Night Cloud to pull her head up. “Ah… that explains it.”

I angled my head awkwardly to eye the camera lens on my collar. “Explains what?”

“Hey,” said Zephyr, peering at that same point. “Um, Carbide, right? That’s your name?”

“Yes, ah, Miss Zephyr?”

“So, uh… that black piece of metal you put on Crystal’s back… what is that?”

“A somatic interface; it coordinates the prosthesis and the exoskeleton’s movements with the signals of the peripheral nervous system. That is, it lets the armor and her leg move together seamlessly with the rest of her.”

“O-kay… right.” Zephyr took a deep breath, ruffling her still-bandaged wings. “Can it be removed safely?”

“Yes, absolutely. There are only a few pins and thaumic sensors attached.”

“And… what about the prosthesis? Can it be… adjusted?”

“As she grows, yes… I understand if you’re concerned about it. That will be a bit more, ah… involved, but I can provide full schematics and show you what needs to be done. We’ll, ah… we’ll need a good machine shop.”

Zephyr gaped between me and the camera on my armor’s chest. “A machine shop… not a surgeon.”

“Yes, a machine shop. I already accounted for expansion of the joint mating as she grows; I’ve fitted prosthetics to adolescents before. I just didn’t have time to fabricate a fully extensible bone replacement, so those will need some, ah… elongation.”

“Elongation,” said Eagle, “You mean, cut each segment and join them back together with a spacer? I could do that.”

“Ah—yes, exactly. Detach the muscle strand bundles, lengthen the bones, mill new anchor points for the muscles, and reattach them afterward. Exactly how you lengthen them doesn’t matter so much, so long as all the internal power lines are reconnected, and you don’t damage the thaumic converter. Ideally, I would reheat the bones and forge them to the correct proportions, to mirror her other leg, and just do that again as needed. I, ah… I wish I’d had a better option to start with, but I was a little pressed for time.”

“Carbide,” I said, “The other option was to leave me with a stump… or I would have died from an infection or something.” I looked back at my armor-encased legs, flesh and metal both, and leaned into Night Cloud as she nuzzled my neck again and put her wing around me. “It’s fine.”

“Yes, well… I’m a perfectionist. I always see different ways I could improve things after the fact, and wish I could have taken a different route to reach a goal.”

“Well, that’s nice,” said Zephyr. “That you can show us how to fix things, I mean… I—I was really worried about… never mind.” She put on a terse smile and said, “Thank you, Carbide. For saving her, and—and protecting her.” Her voice hitched as she muttered, “When we couldn’t.”

“Ah—you’re welcome. I’m glad I could help… glad I could do something meaningful, after wasting so many lifetimes away…”

Night Cloud lifted her snout to the top of my head suddenly, and she said, “We could—” She sighed as she set her muzzle against my neck once more. She let out a quiet, irritated hum. Ivory Point glanced at her, ears suddenly forward; the snow-white mare frowned in the dim yellow light.

Blitz stretched her wing forward and touched Night Cloud’s armored neck.

“Could… what?” Eagle looked at us both, helmet canted a hair to the side. Zephyr’s eyes darted over to the guards.

Night Cloud breathed deeply, and I looked up to find her smiling tightly. She abruptly jerked her head, shrugging off Blitz’s wingtip; the larger mare pursed her lips.

“I am by no means an expert on prosthetics,” said Night Cloud, “Much less machinery… but howsoever qualified you may be to… modify Crystal’s leg physically, Eagle, and you, Carbide… I must insist that an orthopaedic specialist examine her first, to make a better-informed decision.”

Zephyr stared across at Night Cloud, ears forward. “What do you mean? How—what’s wrong with adjusting it? How would that affect her?”

“I don’t know, Zephyr. That’s exactly the problem: Lack of data. I’m saying this out of caution, not to scare you.” Night Cloud pushed her mane back with a wave of cerulean light and said slowly, “I realize you are a capable surgeon in your own right, Carbide, to have done what you did, but… right now, I am much more concerned about the long-term effects on her health and growth, and…”

She looked down at me, hesitating, and nuzzled between my ears. “I would like to know for certain what those effects may be before we decide to alter her prosthesis in any way. You say that you accounted for growth of the joint, yes? I believe you—but I must point out that you did this surgery under extreme conditions, without any advance planning, and with tools and methods no surgeon or institution in Bellenast is familiar with.”

“Well,” said Carbide, “If I’d had a better option, I’d have taken it… if you want to remove the prosthesis, safely, if you want to replace it with something more suitable until she’s finished growing, I’ll help however I can. I have a full record of the operation, a map of every incision and implant—whatever information you need, I’ll provide.”

Night Cloud sighed and nodded. “Good. Thank you for your understanding, and consideration.” She ruffled her wings and set her snout against my neck once again, and I stretched up to return the gesture.

“I kind of like it,” I mumbled, “It’s cool… and if it’s safe to extend it, then it’s safe to cut slots into it! I could build a bit and socket holder into my leg.” Eagle chuckled, and I grinned over my shoulder at him. “That is cool.”

Night Cloud hummed near my ear, and murmured, “What is ‘cool’… is not always what is healthy for you, darling. Let’s wait for a qualified doctor to give a second opinion before you start dismantling it, or… sticking new pieces on it.”

“Fiiiine.” I kissed her cheek and mumbled, “Thanks for, um… you know, um… looking out for me, I guess?”

A dull clack-clack came from Ivory Point’s boot rapping on the side of Blitz’s barding. “Your Highness.”

“What is it?” Blitz glanced down at her, then at us again. Ivory Point jerked her head at me and Night Cloud. “Oh! Right. Right… put it off too long already.” She stepped away from the center pillar, closer to Night Cloud and me, and she lowered her head to nuzzle my cheek. “Listen, Crystal,” she murmured, “Cloudy… I need to… request something. Of both of you. You’re, uh…” Her ears flicked back, and she sighed deeply. “You’re not going to like it… and I apologize in advance.”

“Um…”

I glanced up as Night Cloud turned her head way and closed her eyes tightly. She put her wing across my armor-covered back. Blitz swayed gently as a crosswind pushed the transport slightly to starboard.

I bumped my nose on Blitz’s muzzle, watching her rose eyes in the yellow light, and murmured, “What is it?”

“No more kissing,” murmured Blitz, “At least, not in public. Only in private. Preferably at home.”

“All right,” whispered Night Cloud.

“What?” I murmured, beginning to scowl. “Why?”

“It’s complicated,” said Blitz, “But—simple version? You’re not sixteen yet, and… that’s a problem. For Night Cloud. Potentially. It’s potentially a problem. She, um… she could wind up in a lot of trouble if—if she, ah… if she were to do anything… improper. Or appear to do anything improper.”

“Is this about friggin’ consent and stuff?” I rolled my eyes, muttering, “Because I already know about that. I’m not about to—we’re not about to… friggin’… do that.”

Blitz shut her mouth. Blowing out a breath through pursed lips, she nodded and muttered, “Okay, that makes this a bit easier… yes. You haven’t reached the age of consent—and never mind whether you two are anywhere near that point. The fact is…” She lowered herself to the deck to lie in front of us and held her head next to Night Cloud, nuzzled her ears, and then lowered her head to look me directly in the eye.

“I’m the Princess of Bellenast,” said Blitz, “And Night Cloud is my daughter. That makes her a highly visible public figure, whether or not she wants to be. I don’t like that—I’ve never liked it—but… I can’t do anything about it now. On top of that, I’m coming back to the city for the first time since an attempt was made on my life three months ago, so… granted, we haven’t exactly advertised it, so the landing ought to be quiet enough, but… in a couple hours, everybody will know I’m back in town. That means reporters. Cameras.”

Blitz chuckled, shaking her head. “So, uh… yeah. The press will be rabid, lot of eyes on us. I’d like to think most of those eyes will be on me, and Ivy, not my daughter… but just in case they want more blood than usual, I’d like to keep you four under cover as much as I can. They’ll probably forget all about today by next week, but I don’t want to see any sensational headlines about this.” Waggling her forehoof between us, she said, “About you two being together, I mean. I don’t want any accusations of, ah… impropriety coming your way.”

“Okay,” said Zephyr, rising to step over and sit next to me. “So, what does that mean? We didn’t have any rules like this at Cloud Loft; we’re in the dark here. Is she just too young, or… is Night Cloud too old? Where exactly is the line? Can they have a relationship at all, or is that illegal, or… what?”

“They can, yes,” said Blitz slowly. “So long as such a relationship remains chaste… and so long as you and Eagle, as her guardians—both of you—approve of it.”

“Okay,” said Zephyr, “Fine. Yes, we approve.” I grinned as she nuzzled behind my ears.

“Yeah, I figured, but I’d rather have the answer, just to be safe.” Blitz held up one massive hoof, and looked at me, Night Cloud, Zephyr, and Eagle. “But… no smooching, nuzzling, or anything else in public. Just for a while, okay?” She rolled her eyes and smirked at us. “Can you do that for me, lovebirds?”

“Sure,” I muttered, and I laid my head on Night Cloud’s side, wishing that our suits of armor weren’t in the way. “But I think it’s friggin’ dumb.”

“Hey,” whispered Blitz, “Nobody’s saying you can’t be together… okay? You’re not in trouble, I’m not trying to break you up… I’m just asking you to keep it on the down-low out in the streets.” Her lips grew tight. “Spare yourself some unwanted attention, that’s all. We cool?” I nodded. “Cool. There’s enough gossip about me these days… I don’t want you to have to deal with that. It’s not fun.”

Blitz deftly flicked her wingtip across my ears, smiling down at me, then pushed herself up from the deck and stood next to Ivory Point. Looking next at Eagle and Zephyr, she said, “You really didn’t have any laws like that back home?”

The two pegasi shared a dark look, and Eagle said, “We did.” Pointing his wing at me and Night Cloud, he said, “But for stuff like this, whether anything is done about it mostly comes down to if, ah… if any harm is done, or intended. Two kids want to have a night alone… most folks look the other way and let them. Otherwise… a lot of things just aren’t enforced unless it’s convenient to local command.”

“Local command?” Blitz’s ears turned slightly down. “Your military governs you?”

Eagle nodded. “That’s what the Enclave is. High Council, city governors, judges and juries, police… only enlisted officers have any real influence, any public power.”

Blitz’s mouth hung open for a brief moment, then she let out a soft, disbelieving laugh. “I see… well! I don’t expect you to memorize the entire civil code, but it would be good if you read a visitor’s guide, at least. Just so you’ll know some general rules. We’ll get you one of those, ah… after we’ve landed. By the way—” She gestured vaguely toward Eagle, and said, “Do those guns have a safety switch?”

“I keep them decoupled from the power supply—open circuit.” He glanced at the ceiling. “Particularly indoors.”

“Oh! Okay. Decoupled indoors. How nice… they can’t swivel down, can they? I don’t see a gimbal…”

“Ah… no. No gimbal.” Eagle lifted one black-clad foreleg up and said, “Afraid the suit’s not quite as fancy as it looks—but don’t worry. They can’t fire by accident.”

Blitz chuckled. “Of course… right, well! Just keep them that way for now. Decoupled. And, uh, while we’re in the streets, please stay between my guards. You know, just so ponies won’t see a scary black suit of armor and two cannons pointing at them at face level.”

“Right, right… say, are you, ah…” Eagle trailed off; although his helmet barely shifted, I assumed he was looking at the guards. “You’re not expecting trouble, are you? From this Kekalo group?”

“Prepared.” Blitz ruffled her wings and tapped her hoof on the deck. “We are prepared for trouble… and—” She looked away first, then at Night Cloud, and from her down to me. “I… I don’t want to lie to you. I haven’t exactly been keeping a low profile on the road… so, ah… if whoever wants my head is coming back for round two… I’m assigning you three a guard detail. Incognito. Just for a week or two, just in case.”

“Why?” I said, frowning up at her. “Why us? I mean…” She met my eyes with tightened lips. “Why would we need, um… protection?”

“Because of me,” said Night Cloud, sounding as if she wanted to hide in a corner. “Because… if anyone has been observing us… then they might have seen us together, and… I’m already a target, if anyone wants to attack Blitz, to gain leverage over her.” She nuzzled me again, and I scowled at the deck. “I have been,” murmured the armored mare, “From the very day she took me in. Whether to someone from the Kekalo Empire or anywhere else… I’m a target of opportunity.”

Eagle nodded his helmet. “And by extension… so is Crystal… and so are we.”

“Yes,” said Blitz, “Which is why I want you under guard. All four of you. The alternative would be to keep Night Cloud separated from you three, and—”

I nickered. “And fuck that. No way. I don’t care what’s going on. I’m staying with her.”

Blitz gave the softest chuckle and touched her hoof to my armored chest. “Yeah. I figured. Probably wouldn’t make a huge difference, anyway.”

“How many spies do you think these ponies have spread around your kingdom?” said Eagle.

“Not many,” said Blitz. “Until recently, I didn’t think any sect from the Empire had reason to spy on us. But I can’t assume now that they haven’t been doing exactly that, whatever their reasons.” She looked over at Argent Nimbus and Polyrhythm. “Moreover… I would wager that Argent here isn’t the only pony of House Sunflower who can travel great distances unhindered and undetected. Am I correct?”

Argent Nimbus nodded. “There are several mages in their number who can use such magic; Prince Nádarin, notably. It is not impossible that he, or others, have traveled ahead as advance scouts… although, I remain reluctant to suggest that Nádarin would collude with his House to attack you.”

Zephyr sank to the deck beside me and quietly groaned. “How long has this been a problem? This whole thing? The—the assassination attempt, the Kekalo, this Prince character… what is this, a fucking blood feud?”

Blitz sighed, rubbing her wing joint along the side of her neck. “Well, if you want to count the time the Emperor’s eldest killed my father? About thirty years, but that’s old news these days.”

Zephyr barked a high laugh. “Wait, what?! Seriously? You—I’m sorry, but—you’re allies with these people… why, exactly?”

“These people,” said Blitz, “Are our neighbors. Our fellow ponies. One small group among them with grievances does not represent the Empire, Zephyr… we neither want nor can afford to let isolated conflicts jeopardize our relations with a nation of millions.”

“Yeah, okay… okay…” Zephyr covered her head with her wing and laughed quietly. “Out of the frying pan, into the fucking fire…”

Night Cloud nuzzled my cheek, and I leaned into her. Her voice came above the muffled rush of air outside the aircraft’s hull, and no noise within the cabin could compete with her.

-Crystal… if it were safer for you to stay somewhere away from me, would you consider—

-No.- I pecked at the corner of her mouth, then nuzzled up along her cheek and jaw. -No, I won’t consider it. I don’t care if it’s dangerous. I’m staying with you, no matter what. Besides, you have guards, and armor, and I have power armor, and a plasma cannon, and a shotgun, and an aetheric rifle, and—you get the idea. Stop worrying.-

She hummed softly, and the buzz from her jaw traveled through my ear. -You know that never works, right? Telling someone not to worry?-

-Do you think anyone here really cares if we kiss? I want to kiss you.-

-I, um… I can’t speak for everyone here, Crystal… but I would rather have some privacy first, either way.-

-Fine… am I, um… being too pushy?-

-No, sweetheart. I appreciate your earnestness. I’m just… not quite so comfortable about, ah… showing it in public. I hope you can understand why.-

I sighed and bumped my clawed boot against her hoof. -Yeah… I guess… still seems kind of dumb to me—the law, not you.-

-It wasn’t like this where I come from… but those laws are in place for good reasons, darling.-

-But… your tribe kind of sucks. No offense to you. Was this kind of thing, um… was it better there?-

-Different, not better.- She hummed again. -My tribe has its own host of problems… I simply didn’t recognize the mire for what it was until I crossed the stream and looked back with clean hooves. There are some things I miss about my life there… and some things I much prefer here. That law—it isn’t meant to punish me, but to protect you, Crystal. To protect young ponies from anyone who might take advantage of them. To protect ponies who might not recognize that danger in a relationship.-

-But you’d never—

-You don’t know that, darling.- She lowered her head, looking at me with one close, electric blue eye. -You can’t know that about someone you met a few days ago, Crystal. You must be cautious with strangers, no matter how kind they might seem.-

I glared back at her, and blinked as my eyes began to sting. I nuzzled and kissed her jaw. -I know better than to lump you in with the same pony who friggin’ raped me. You rescued me from the middle of nowhere, you helped me, you literally nursed me back to health the other day, and you’ve been nothing but friggin’ amazing to me from the moment I met you. You are not like him. I trust you not to hurt me or—or friggin’ take advantage of me, so just accept that.-

She sighed and pulled her wing up to brush my neck. -I do accept it… I am honored that you give me your trust. I give you my oath, as a healer, a protector, and a servant of Biri and Kana, that I shall never break it… but do you understand what I mean, Crystal?-

-Yes. I learned my friggin’ lesson, Night Cloud—but don’t compare yourself to him. Just don’t.-

“Hey.” Zephyr nudged the top of my head with her wing, poking her head close to us. “You okay?”

“M’fine.”

She gave something between a sigh and chuckle. “Shouldn’t have asked… I can tell when you’re pissed, baby… if you want to talk, just… just let me know, okay? Please?”

“Sure,” I mumbled, listening to the whistling air beyond the hull. “Extra porthole or two would be nice.” I glanced around at the drab grey deck and ceiling panels under the artificial yellow light. “Maybe a little color…”

“She’s not the prettiest,” said Ivory Point, “Or the fastest, but you won’t find a tougher bird. You could take on a dragon with one of these.”

“If you’d ever met a full-grown dragon face-to-face,” muttered Blitz, “You wouldn’t say that. Let’s not boast, Ivory. It ill-becomes us.”

Ivory Point smirked up at Blitz. “And when have you met one, Your Highness?”

“When you were a suckling foal.” She rolled her eyes, and the barest smile tugged at her lips as she glanced down at her guard and errand mare. “And if Ivy hadn’t been there to talk her down, I might well have become crispy alicorn jerky. Some life advice for everyone: Never meddle in the affairs of dragons. It is exceptionally unwise.”

The deck shifted beneath me, and I raised my head, blinking in the yellow dimness.

“We’re almost there,” said Night Cloud. “You’ll see the outskirts soon, if you look out the window.”

“Porthole,” I mumbled, yawning.

“Um… pardon?”

“It’s in an airship,” I said, standing up to move around her, “So it’s a porthole.”

Night Cloud stared at me, mouth slightly open. “I… thought it was a flying carriage? Sorry.”

“Don’t need to apologize. Sheesh.” I reared up and set one ungainly, clawed boot on the inner hull below the reinforced porthole framing, peering out at the grey clouds above and hazy foothills of forested mountains on the west horizon. “Kind of the same thing, but it has a sealed hull, and it flies, so it’s an airship. And since it’s an airship, and the windows are round, the windows are portholes.”

She laughed. “Right… so is this a Celestian thing, or—that is, an Equestrian language thing, or just a weird, um… esoteric vehicle terminology thing?”

“Terminology thing,” said Wellspring from behind me, and I glanced back from the window at him. “But she’s right. Pressurized hull for flying at altitude, levitation array, aerokinetic motors—she’s an airship first, ground carriage second.”

“Don’t call it a boat,” said Blitz, “Or a tub, or a brick, no matter how much it may resemble one. And don’t call the pilots drivers. That makes them angry. They don’t care if you’re a princess.”

“She is also right,” said Wellspring, nodding. “They really don’t.” He winked down at me. “On your head be it.”

I snorted and craned my neck to see the ground far below. A few kilometers away and southwest by west there spread a smattering of yellow dots straddling a winding river, a constellation of streetlamps and rooftops turned ghostly white under snow and cloud cover in the gloom of early dawn. The telltale lines of fences and cultivated fields surrounded the village, and several barges with their own yellow lights floated along the river.

“What’s up with all the snow?”

“Courtesy of the Bloomfang Tower,” said Blitz from behind me, sighing. I turned away from the window. “Probably on the fritz again… damned thing has never been that reliable in winter, but it helps with irrigation in the summer, so… we deal with its peculiarities and keep it working as best we can. If these storms grow much worse, we’ll probably have to shut it down for good. One spring snowstorm isn’t catastrophic, but a few freezes a year, a few years in a row… that would put us on the verge of famine.”

Eagle cleared his throat and said, “Did the scheduling computer reset, or something? I know there was a plan to cannibalize some of the outermost towers, to keep the inner network running. The High Council approved it sometime around sixteen-hundred. If this one is missing some of its sensors, the scheduler could act up.”

“Huh…” Blitz looked down at him from next to the center cabin support. “Have you been inside one before?”

“No. Never had the clearance. Just read what I could about them while I was in Neighvarro.”

“Hmm.” Blitz nodded. “For all I know, yeah, it’s probably missing something important. I haven’t looked at the old reports. Haven’t had the time.” Glancing around to her right, she said, “Polyrhythm, you wouldn’t happen to have…”

Polyrhythm nodded, smiling. “I would happen to have. Sixteen-o-three, an Enclave salvage team and transport craft landed on the Bloomfang Tower. Was the first contact we had with them. King Corio sent envoys to meet them, they killed the envoys, and the Grand Marshal shelled the upper platform to drive off the salvage team.”

Her ears flicked back, and she shuffled her front hooves. “They never sent another salvage team.” Looking over at Eagle, she said, “I think you two are the first documented Enclave members we’ve seen in over a hundred years—or the first powered suits we’ve seen, anyway, since you’re not soldiers. Or—are you?”

“No. Got the suits as salvage from a friend; had to restore them myself.” Eagle sighed, shaking his head. “They could have been peaceful… so damned pointless.”

“And on that cheery note…” Zephyr set her hoof on Eagle’s boot. “I’m a barber. He repairs… things. Lots of things.”

“Anything I can drag into a shop…”

I pressed my nose up to the porthole again, squinting at the dark fields, roads, and sporadic lampposts passing below us, all beneath the blanketing snow. Fence posts stuck up from the white here and there. “Are these all farms?”

“Yep.” Blitz lowered her head down to my left. “What do you think?”

“Um…” I glanced sidelong at the large rose-pink eye and long lashes beside me, then back out at the fields, and mumbled, “They just go on and on and on… I’ve never seen so much food before.”

“Bounty of the Bloomfangs,” murmured Blitz. “Those mountains protected the valley from fallout from the north, in the early years… and the aquifer below them keeps us all fed. Without both… well, the valley would be very different today.” She nudged my armored shoulder and stepped away. “Just don’t ever actually go into those mountains, unless you want to become a crazy hermit and frolic with the badgers.”

We banked eastward, and the rolling of the aircraft pointed the porthole gently up; when we leveled again, the passing view of the dark fields had given way to a spread of low buildings along roads dotted with lamps and scattered figures moving along them. I shifted my rear hooves closer to push myself up and look more steeply down at the sprawl.

“Whoa…”

“And there are the outskirts,” said Blitz.

Zephyr rose to her hooves and came over to my side, and I let her have the porthole. She stared out at the passing outer edge of the city coming into view, and her mouth fell slack.

She chuckled and whispered, “You could fit all of Cloud Loft in just that one little bit there… see there, all the red brick?”

“Yeah… what’s that big yellow building? The one with the dark roof, by the river.”

“Oh hey,” said Blitz. “I know that one. It’s the old Slate Brothers Tile building. That was their first factory… they built it way outside the city because there was, uh… plenty of space on the riverfront…”

I turned from the porthole as Blitz trailed off. Next to her, Ivory Point turned one ear to her charge five times her size. Blitz blinked a few times, focusing down at me.

She smiled, saying softly, “I took a tour of the place with my father when I was a little filly… that was a couple months before he died.” Sighing, she rolled her eyes and said, “And yes, I was a little filly once—about your size, believe it or not.”

I snorted. “What, when you were eight?”

“More like five.” She winked and held her hoof up just above my armored shoulder. “Eight was when the legs started coming in. I was always big as a filly…” She shrugged her wings. “Then things, ah… well, then things became complicated… and a few months ago, the complications reared their ugly head again, and…” Blitz took a deep breath and brushed her wingtip across my ears. “And now… now I’m even bigger.”

A speaker somewhere on the ceiling hissed briefly, then a stallion’s voice rang through the cabin.

“Past the wall now, on final approach to Palace.”

Eagle and Night Cloud rose to their hooves, one in shining steel and stunning white cloth over it, one in battered black carapace and golden goggles.

“How tall are you?” I said, turning from the porthole to face Blitz. Ivory Point glared at me all of a sudden.

Blitz grinned and laughed, but her ears flicked back. “Eh… hundred and seventy-three centimeters, as of three months ago… and about twenty of those are from three months ago.” She backed up past the central pillar to turn around and face the rear door, flicking her faintly-glowing violet tail, and she muttered, “Largely my own fault—haha, largely, get it? So funny—now I have to live with it.”

“Live with it?” I mumbled, staring up at her grey caparison, wavy mane and tail, and immense sable-purple wings tucked tightly at her sides. Ivory Point drew her wingtip across her lips as I trotted past her and stood by Blitz’s forelegs. “What’s wrong with being big?”

She glanced sidelong down at me. “Door frames are lower… hallways are tighter…” She ruffled her wings. “Need a bigger bed, bigger blankets, bigger barding, bigger shoes… have to be extra careful around small ponies such as yourself, so I don’t knock someone over just from turning around too fast. Sometimes, I feel like I’m living in a big dollhouse.” She looked aside as Night Cloud walked up on my right. “Imagine what happened with you two, but with me, inst—no, never mind, don’t.”

I shivered inside my armor. “Um… yeah, okay…”

“And have I mentioned, my appetite has exploded since that stupid radiation bath?” Blitz gave a sudden full-body shake. “I mean, I thought I ate a lot before, but now it’s like—I gained nearly two hundred kilos practically overnight, okay? And just to put that in perspective—” She nodded her head back at Ivory Point. “—that’s more than her. All of her, her entire body weight plus barding.”

Blitz scuffed her hoof on the deck and sighed, muttering, “Sorry. It’s just—being big isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, kiddo… it really isn’t. For crying out loud, I barely fit in this carriage…”

“Touching down in ten.”

I stood frozen in place for a moment, then tentatively stepped closer to nuzzle her leg as the vehicle lurched and decelerated under us. “Well… I, um… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, um… I didn’t think about it like that.”

“Eh, no harm done, kiddo.” Blitz shifted one hoof back on the grate and leaned forward. The deck gave a final jolt beneath my boots, and we all rocked backward as the carriage rolled overground. She looked down at me, and a small smile showed on a huge head.

“Now, back you go. Ivory needs this spot. Appearances, you know—it’d look weird to have a pony in lizard armor where everyone is used to seeing my page.”

“Okay,” I mumbled, giggling. I returned to Night Cloud’sside; Ivory Point winked at me as she passed and took her place next to the sable-purple giant clothed in grey. Zephyr stood to my left, and Eagle behind us. The carriage shook and juddered one last time, then rocked back and halted.

“Oh, Crystal?” said Blitz, “Put on that helmet. I really don’t want the media cockroaches snapping a gazillion shots of you just yet.” She sighed and muttered, “I hate this part.”

“Um, sure.” I lifted the metal visage of a dragon’s head off my back and slid it carefully over my horn, and clasped its halves together to seal it to my crinet. A slight pressure pushed on my ears, then vanished, and the internal speakers reproduced a tinny facsimile of the voices around me, not unlike an intercom in a Thunderhead.

“Hey,” said Ivory Point, “At least there aren’t heralds, right? Remember that last Sounding Day parade?”

“Starless hells, I wish I didn’t,” muttered Blitz. “If I ever get my own Canterhorn line, I’m chucking them in Lake Galdun.” The hatch popped open and lowered, letting in a gust of snowy air. She put on a smile as she strode out and down the ramp to the yellow flagstone street.

Ivy stood waiting in the broad street along with a retinue of armored guards, and took her place at Blitz’s side opposite Ivory Point. Sparse groups of ponies wearing scarves and warm caparisons passed by the guards in polished barding and visored helmets. Far off in the haze of snow and deep in the shadow of the mountains to the east, there rose from the grand lamplit street the indistinct shape of a dome flanked by high towers and pointed spires.

I followed Night Cloud down the ramp, Eagle and Zephyr followed us, and the uniformed guards moved to enclose us.

Night Cloud tilted her head down at me, one electric blue eye showing under the crown of her polished silver helmet. Her ear flicked toward me inside its curved guard.

-I’d love to show you around later, but I think we’ll have breakfast at the Amber Palace first. You can sort of see it there, in the mist; it’s more impressive in daylight, I admit.-

I glanced between her and Blitz, then back at Eagle in his black armor and Zephyr in her soft yellow cloak, then again at the edifice looming in the flurry. -Um… show me around… sure.-

Night Cloud looked forward again, holding her head high. -And them, too. We can go to the Market District together once the ice has melted. I’d love to take you to a tailor to have a caparison fitted, so you have something for the cold.-

I sighed, looking down at the worn flagstones. -Sounds nice.-

Water splashed to my right. I craned my neck to peer past Night Cloud and the walking guards at the riverfront on our right. Across the water, all along the road, there were storefronts of brick and cut stone in soft reds and yellows, tall windows, closed market stalls and wagons, and over every door and window, cloth awnings of yellow and green and red, hung with bright streamers and laden with snow.

Ponies in winter clothing of those same colors plowed paths through the snow from their shop doors and through the market stalls, and shoveled the heaps into the water. Across the river, two ponies in bright white and orange-striped uniform caparisons and caps pulled a similarly colored cart that poured a fine white powder from nozzles onto the street behind it.

The speakers on my armor hissed, and Carbide whispered, “Simply stunning…”

“What is?” I murmured, watching the road ahead through the ranks of guards. Snow had gathered on their backs and clung to their boots, and the dozens of hoofsteps on the flagstones echoed off the buildings and snowbanks in a muted din.

“The last time I saw this place,” he said softly, “It was a protected archaeological site, a ruin. It was sacked, razed—completely destroyed, in the eighth century post-unification. The valley tribes considered it unhallowed ground, unfit for the living—cursed, even. To see it now as a bustling, thriving city, it’s… well, on one side of the scale, it’s incredible, but on the other side, to the academic in me… it’s a special kind of horrifying.”

I angled my head briefly to eye the lens below my collar. Blitz glanced down at me from my left. I cleared my throat. “Um… horrifying how?”

“Well, it—this…” He let out a weak laugh. “The construction of an entire city—no, the capital of a nation, here, on this site… I don’t have anything else to compare it to, but I would wager it to be the single most egregious desecration of archaeological context in modern history. I suppose preservation wasn’t a priority for ponies right after the… the, ah… the… oh, sweet stars, is that what does it for me?”

“Is what what does… what?”

“Ha! Oohhhh… I like to think I’m not prone to denial, but let me tell you, these past few days have been like a fever dream… now I’ve finally woken up, and—and seeing all this, this place, these ponies here, just… it’s just a normal city street, filled with ponies doing normal things… that’s what does it.”

I rolled my eyes, giggling. “Does what, Carbide?”

“Right, sorry—it’s the shock I needed. I, ah… I know it’s all really happening now. I’m not having a bizarre fever dream—I’m not stuck in stasis anymore. I’m talking to a real filly, not a figment of my imagination. You have no idea how reassuring it is to realize that I couldn’t possibly hallucinate or dream all this.”

“Um… okay?”

“It is no small thing,” said Ivy, “To take that first deep breath.” She glanced over Blitz’s back at me. “To rise from the depths of a waking dream… to find solid ground beneath your hooves, when all around you rages a storm of doubt.”

“Ah… yes, well said—and thank you. It’s, ah—it’s fascinating to see what it has become.”

“Should it give you a measure of solace to know, there are ongoing efforts to preserve noteworthy artifacts and remains in the ruins as they are uncovered.” Ivy turned from me, looking around at the ranks of guards escorting us. Beside her, Blitz eyed the lamplit storefronts a dozen meters to our left across the ice-speckled river. “In my youth, I appreciated such things little. We needed stone and mortar… the ruins supplied.”

“A gift to the living,” murmured Carbide, “From the long-dead, who care not. Pragmatic, I suppose.”

“A gift, good fortune, pragmatism—call it what you will. I was never one to waste.” Ivy once again looked across Blitz and down at me. “What did you call it, a desecration of context?”

“Archaeological context, yes,” said Carbide, “Which is to say, by removing artifacts, remains, from their final resting places, by disturbing a site, you make it more difficult to discern how they came to be there, what their purpose was… preserving things is all well and good, but if you simply take bones and effects from a tomb and dump them straight into a museum display, without first studying the site where you found it all… it may as well be grave robbery. At worst, you learn nothing of the past, and at best, you at least entice the curious to learn more about the shiny old things behind the glass.”

Blitz let out a quiet snort. “Ivaline the grave robber… there’s an image.”

“I meant no offense—or accusation!”

“Such an accusation would not be wholly wrong,” said Ivy.

We entered a broad, open junction of the thoroughfare and another street running west. In the center of the square lay a shallow, circular pool bordered by red marble, and at its center rose a cubic fountain. Atop the red cube stood a tarnished bronze statue of an earth pony, mane in a running braid, head high, and ears forward. Snow had piled on the marble rim, and icicles hung from the flowing mouths of the fountain at the center of each face of the marble cube.

“No, Carbide,” said Ivy, looking up at the statue as we passed on its west side, “If there is one pony in Bellenast to blame for such desecration, then here she stands before you.”

“Ah… forgive me, but… you say that as if you were there. Surely not…”

“Says the machine spirit broken free of his bonds after a century and more of unnatural slumber.”

“Ha! Haha… oh, yes… well, I’m not a machine, strictly speaking, but I’m not flesh-and-blood, either… how did you do it?”

“I was a young mare when the world ended,” said Ivy, “Grew old after the new one began… wasn’t my choice to sprout wings and horn and light the fire of the undying in my breast, but here I am. I intend to make the most of it.”

“Undying, you say…”

I mumbled, “Lot to catch you up on, Carbide.”

“Indeed,” he whispered, then said, “So, you did come from Maripony, then.”

Blitz glanced down at me from the corner of her eye. “What do you know about Maripony, Carbide?”

“Just the project goal, the big names involved… all my work was half a continent away. Frankly, I’m astounded the project bore any fruit at all, but if anyone could pull it off, it would be Twilight Sparkle.”

“Bore any fruit,” Blitz muttered, “Now, that’s funny.”

Ivy jerked her head suddenly to the left in the middle of the junction, scanning the rooftops along the street.

Blitz followed Ivy’s gaze, then peered to her right, across the river. “Ivy?”

“They’re here.”

A muffled scream came from the buildings somewhere ahead and to the left. Several ponies shoveling snow stopped to look.

“What the fuck?” muttered Zephyr.

Ivy stopped in her tracks, stomped her right forehoof, and said, “Stand ready!”

The guards stopped in unison, the unicorns among them lit their horns, and two dozen machine guns snapped up on their motorized mounts.

Far ahead of us, a disc of light appeared in the flurry, and from it streaked a fiery red light. A golden bubble formed around us, the booming crack and followup roar reached us, and Ivy redirected the accelerating rocket up just in front of the leading guards in the same instant the unicorns spread equally among them formed overlapping shields around the formation. The rocket roared skyward for a few seconds, then detonated far beyond the golden bubble around us in a red burst bright and brief as lightning. A moment later, the sharp thump echoed off the buildings at the edge of the square.

I flinched and huddled closer to Night Cloud and looked frantically between the guards at the surrounding buildings.

“Diamond formation!” hollered Wellspring from just in front of Blitz, and in the same instant silhouettes appeared on the many distant rooftops, all garbed in goldenrod cloth. Ponies beyond the formation screamed and fled from the square.

“Why just the one shot?” said Ivory Point, rocking on her hooves. “That’s not how you spring an ambush.”

“It isn’t one,” said Blitz, and she shifted her hooves apart and lit her horn with near-ultraviolet. The immense sable-purple alicorn fired off a long string of crackling white starbursts high into the air above us. The few ponies still in the crossing in front of the guard formation looked back as they galloped away, and Blitz bellowed, “CLEAR THE ROAD! NOW! ALL OF YOU, RUN! AWAY FROM THE RIVER, GO! TAKE SHELTER!RUN! RUN!”

Then, as her last word rang across the square, one pony on the rooftops shouted, clear and strident, “Mertače le Brujeta!”

The cloud of red missiles streaked at us as one.

The rolling thunder and roaring rocket motors preceded the explosions by an instant. Stone and shrapnel shot up in a deafening cavalcade that shook me in my armor and set my ears ringing. Night Cloud pulled me close and surrounded us with her own cerulean bubble as a second volley exploded against Ivy’s golden shield. Zephyr screamed a curse somewhere behind me, and more shrieks from ponies across the river joined the bedlam.

The guards shifted around us to widen the formation at our sides, all the while a rainbow of shields tinted the cold air and wavered under the concussions of wave after wave of rockets coming from beyond the whirling pall of smoke pulverized stone.

My own shrill screaming blared in my ears over my helmet speakers, muffled and tinny amid the ground-shaking roar, but the ceaseless shocks made me pitch and stumble and my ears ring.

-HOLD!-

Ivy’s voice rang clear in my head above the noise, but only my armor kept me from pitching over.

-HOLD!-

Then, through the smoke and raining chips of stone, discs of light formed in the square, and ponies in yellow charged forth.

Ivy’s golden shield vanished.

-FIRE!-

The machine guns all around me blared, overlapping in a constant roar. Barriers of magic appeared around the yellow-clad soldiers galloping toward us. Some flared and broke, and the ponies fell mid-charge, but far more closed in with their own levitated guns and crackling lances.

I levitated my plasma rifle free of my saddlebags and held it trembling in front of my eyes, but Night Cloud just as quickly pushed the weapon down to the street with her cerulean magic.

-No! You’ll hit the guards!-

I stomped a shaking, booted hoof. -I know how to fucking aim, Night!-

She nudged her armored leg against my peytral. -Or you’d hit my shield and just burn me! Please, don’t!-

I growled and shuffled in place as the charging soldiers clashed with the brightly armored guards in a loud and chaotic firefight mere meters away from us.

A searing beam of violet shot over the ranks of guards and struck one running pony, sending him crashing to the flagstones with a scorched hole in his breast. Then Blitz shot another beam, again and again, each one striking with unerring accuracy to drop another soldier in the smoky square.

Horn wavering with heat, Blitz stole a glance at me and Night Cloud, then focused again on the attackers. -The Guard is coming. Just stay—

“Blitz!” shrieked Night Cloud, “Left!”

Blitz formed a bubble around us just as the swarm of red missiles boomed and roared down and shook us to our bones. She screamed and lit a layer of overglow around her horn as the bubble flashed and rippled under every blast of livid red light.

A simultaneous boom of twin cannons shook the square, and Eagle soared over us, flying up and west, juking erratically under power of his suit’s aerokinetic thrusters. A group of soldiers on the roofs to our left scattered away from the blasts of white-hot plasma that had set them afire.

Then another cloud of red missiles roared from the rooftops and crashed against the golden bubble that formed to meet them. Ivy’s golden shield flickered and vanished. At Blitz’s other side, she hung her head low and shook where she stood, grimacing.

A soldier in yellow shouted ahead of us, galloping under the combined cover of a dozen or more shielding unicorns, and then a flash of light came from among them.

An amber unicorn appeared inside Blitz’s bubble, levitating a set of gleaming steel spikes in the air around her. Blitz backpedaled, yanked Ivory Point bodily away, and blasted a searing violet beam down at the pony, but the attack sparked off the blue bubble around the unicorn.

“The spears!” shouted Carbide. “Don’t let her use the spears!”

One of the spikes aimed straight at Blitz.

I seized the mare with my telekinesis and pushed her back. She looked at me next, and her horn flashed a blinding blue-white. I shrieked and staggered back from the painful light, and then crashed to the ground as telekinesis wrenched my legs aside.

There was a bang, a shriek of scraping metal, and I jolted and screamed as a burning, pinching agony shot through my belly and every muscle contracted at once. Something popped in my helmet, my ears rang, my breath caught, and my diaphragm seized.

Night Cloud screamed, muted and distant. A flash of cerulean like lightning lit the square, and a beam of magic blasted against the sparking blue bubble around the unicorn who staggered back from me where I lay. The spikes fell from her grasp as she leapt away from the blinding heat and light that scored the flagstones black and flash-boiled snow into vapor.

Machine gun fire roared all around us. My plasma gun lay on the ground in front of my snout. A deep ache throbbed through my chest with every heartbeat, and a smell of burnt rubber stung my nose and throat. Gritting my teeth, I levitated my gun and fired at the amber mare as Night Cloud’s magic faltered. Artificial thunder boomed and plasma splashed across the bubble.

The mare looked down at me again and grabbed the spikes lying on the flagstones. I fired, and again the white-hot plasma splashed ineffectually on her unyielding blue shield.

She looked to her right suddenly and darted away as Blitz charged her, and the much smaller unicorn leapt around the giant of a mare. She vanished in a flash and reappeared behind Blitz, readying one of those spikes—but dodged as Blitz spun and cocked one hind leg, and the powerful snap-kick struck the nimble mare’s side at a shallow angle, leaving a shiny streak and dent on her armor. She staggered away from the impact and blasted Blitz in the chest with a bolt of blue that set her caparison on fire and sent her staggering back.

Then Zephyr roared and tackled the unicorn from the side, taking her to the ground, and bit and tore a bloody chunk out of her throat. For the first time, the unicorn gave a strangled cry of pain, bucked Zephyr in the gut with both hind legs, and telekinetically threw her off, then rolled away from Blitz’s descending forehooves and sprang up right beside me.

I swung my gun lethargically toward the mare again, but my magic gave out, and I struggled to breathe inside the suddenly cloying, heavy confines of my armor. The fans in my helmet had stopped, and I could barely move my legs. My heart pounded, and each breath sent a terrible grinding feeling across one of my ribs and a paralyzing fire through my chest.

Ivy’s golden bubble appeared once more around us. Then a streak of white and green crashed into the amber mare, sending her rolling across the stone. Ivory Point flew back from her kick and out of my sight, and then a glaring mix of near-ultraviolet and cerulean light froze the amber mare in place, pressing against the blue bubble surrounding her. Her horn glowed against that confining light, and she twisted her head to aim at Night Cloud, even restrained and struggling, and shot a burst of blue that exploded against Night Cloud’s armor in a spray of fire.

A form-hugging barrier of white light faded from the bright surface of her barding, and Night Cloud roared in rage and lifted the mare up, then slammed her into the flagstones over and over and over again. Each impact cracked the yellow stones beneath her.

The bubble finally broke, the amber mare lay insensate on the flagstones in a splash of bright blood, and Night Cloud reared up high, forehooves poised to descend.

The mare’s horn glowed blue again and sent one last bolt of blue up to strike Night Cloud’s gleaming armor on the neck, and no shield flashed into being to stop it.

Night Cloud brought both hooves down on her neck with a muffled crunch. Then she stomped again, screaming wordlessly at the soldier while fire blazed on the side of her crinet. The amber mare lay completely limp on the ground in front of me, mouth falling open. Her bright orange eyes flicked toward me, and her lip twitched as the ragged hole in her throat gushed red a final time and stained the yellow stone.

Not two meters from me, those orange eyes relaxed.

Night Cloud stumbled back from the body and began to wrench off her helmet and crinet, which billowed steam from a clump of snow she had pressed to the metal.

I squeezed my eyes shut, crying inside the increasingly stuffy hazard suit and inert metal around me. The gunfire sounded distant in my ringing ears. Many more sets of thundering hooves trotted on the stone than had accompanied us from the carriage. Guards shouted nearby, and my head began to throb.

“Wellspring, Polyrhythm!” shouted Blitz, muffled and somewhere to my left, “Ivory! Stay with them! I’m going after Ivy. I’ll meet you at the hospital!”

“Crystal?!”

Zephyr skidded to a stop and stood over me, coughing and trembling. Her voice was muffled. Blood dripped from her muzzle and stained her teeth. I nodded slowly, straining against the weight of my crinet and helmet. A double peal of thunder echoed across the square again, followed by the sharp cracks of rifle fire. Zephyr’s ears flicked back at the sounds, but she never looked away from me.

“Baby, can you hear me?”

I coughed, groaned, and struggled to speak through sobs. “Can’t move.” My own words were muffled and indistinct in my enclosed ears. “Armor’s—offline. Broken.”

Zephyr took a sharp breath, then darted her head down to bite and twist the interlock release on the side of my crinet. Chill air rushed across my snout, and the sounds around me grew louder.

“Night Cloud!” shouted Zephyr, “The suit’s broken!”

Cerulean light colored my world. Night Cloud carefully pulled my helmet off, meeting my eyes with tears in her own. I sucked in rapid, shallow breaths of fresh, chilly air, each time making that same horrible scraping on my rib.

The pearlescent cloth of her gambeson was scorched black all the way through a small hole on the left side of her neck, and she had opened it up to fold back over her shoulder. Her coat there was burned way and her skin blistered and shiny in a patch twice as broad as her hoof.

She looked at a point on my belly, blinking rapidly, and levitated me into the air, holding me sideways and supporting my legs and head such that I stayed exactly as I had laid on the ground. Ponies shouted commands somewhere nearby, and sporadic gunfire cracked across the square again, farther away than the last time.

“N-Night…” My back and belly were warm and soaked, and each shallow breath came with a spike of pain through my abdomen. “Hurts a lot…”

“I know,” said Night Cloud, soft and quavering. “You’ll be all right, baby. I promise.” I craned my head down, but she gently nudged against my neck. “Don’t look. Just stay still, baby.”

“Armor’s—broken,” I mumbled, breathing rapidly between every word. “Can’t—can’t move, anyway.”

“Don’t try to, baby,” said Night Cloud, voice suddenly firm. “Don’t speak. I’ll take care of you now.” She looked to the ground nearby and lifted one of the steel spikes up to look at the wire cage attached opposite the sharpened end, inside which was a spark battery. She stuck the spike through one of the straps on her panniers and said, “Zephyr, are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” she said, spitting and wiping her hoof across her mouth. “Not my blood.” Zephyr looked up and shook her head as Ivory Point zipped into view and hovered above us; a gash on her shoulder had soaked her right foreleg red. “I can’t keep up with you two. Just go!”

“They can escort you there.”

“I’ll catch up.”

Then Night Cloud spread her broad wings and shot up from the square, accelerating me gradually after her until I floated alongside her.

She flapped hard and fast, and all I heard was the roar of icy wind and distant gunfire and her voice above it all while the red and yellow buildings and snowy shingled rooftops passed quickly beneath us. I squinted against the chill, staring at the cobalt-blue mare in silver armor and her obsidian mane billowing in the gale that stole my tears away.

-Hold on, Crystal. You’ll be all right. I swear it.-

-I believe you.-

“Cloudy!” shouted Ivory Point, easily matching pace with us, “Want me to go ahead?”

“Yes!” hollered Night Cloud, “Get Orchid Wisp! Tell her we need one of Claraby’s test samples! And the fire department, too! We might need a diamond saw to cut this suit open! And let them bandage you! Go!”

“Wisp, test sample, fire crew, got it!” She blasted ahead of us in a streak.

Cerulean light formed a tiny bubble around me, and the wind grew muffled. I slowly twisted my head to look at the steel spar coming out of the thin segments of armor over my belly. My entire suit gleamed under the light of her magic, but the spike had blackened the metal where it had pierced through my belly and out my back.

-This really hurts.- I swallowed and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. The ache in my chest and sharp pinching in my belly pulsed with every breath and heartbeat. My coat was warm and soaked inside the hazard suit, yet I shook and shivered.Creeping lethargy began to overwhelm me.

-It’s bad, right?-

A narrowed electric blue eye under a silver chamfron turned to me, then forward again. Her powerful wings hastened.

-Thought so.-

-Don’t be afraid, Crystal.-

I watched those magnificent wings rise and fall against the gale. Her flapping white caparison came undone at her collar and flew off behind us, fluttering in the wind.

-I’m not… but this really does hurt.-

-I know. It’ll stop soon. We’ll give you anesthesia, put you to sleep for a while, and—and when you wake up, you’ll be fine, and I’ll be right there with you. I’ll hold you and kiss you and we can—we can read a book together, or go to the market, or the cinema, or take a walk at the lake, or—or just lie in bed under the blankets all day, if you want.

-You had me at holding and kissing.-

-Right! Right. Whatever you want.-

The deep, somber tone of a distant bell reached us over the wind. Far past the expanse of Bellenast and the hills beyond its wall, snowy mountains rose to the horizon. A lake in the mountains’ shadow came right up to the edge of the city to the north, and to the east, the first light of dawn came over the black peaks under pink, wispy clouds.

-How bad was it for you?-

-What?-

-When Blitz gave you that potion… how bad were you hurt? You never told me what happened.-

-I… I was dying. Ran into a chimaera in the Forest of Leota. Ivory Point saw my flare spell, reached me first… and Blitz gave me a second life to live.-

She banked to her right, and we passed a pointed grey tower twice as high as any building around it. At the top swung a bronze bell in a four-pillared enclosure as wide across as Night Cloud’s spread wings.

-Are you going to give me that potion, too?-

She looked at me again, and nodded.

-Yes, my love.-

I laughed, and coughed as my breath seized again. My legs were cold.

-I’ve always wanted wings.-

-Then I will give you wings.-

Author's Note

December: Revision complete!]
Comments from before February 2024 may refer to things that I altered significantly or removed entirely during revision.

If there’s anything that catches your attention, whether editorial, continuity-related, or just something that doesn’t feel quite right, let me know. Feedback is blood and I am a mean green mother from outer space! Feed me, Seymour!