Chapter Eight

Respite

My first few breaths after waking came in fitful gasps, and tears followed closely. My mouth and throat were parched, my tongue like a piece of dried jerky. A yawning emptiness clawed at my belly and every muscle ached. My head pounded behind my eyes.

I was not in a hospital.

I lay under a quilted blanket in a luxuriously soft bed that would have been several sizes too large for me even cut in half; posts rose to the ceiling at each corner, draped with green curtains tied back with yellow ribbons. The nearby windows rattled under the persistent howl of wind and sleet.

A tall oval mirror in dark frame stood against the wall across from the endboard. A half-filled bookshelf and a table strewn with papers occupied the wall to my left, and green curtains hung over the window there. A large, lopsided cushion sat in the corner.

Zephyr’s pale violet coat blended almost perfectly with the cushion; if not for her teal mane, and the red cover of a book lying open by her side, I might not have seen her at all.

Hanging on a wooden rack by the bedroom door was a familiar suit of gleaming armor and white caparison folded across its back. On a narrow, semicircular table against the wall by the rack was dim lamp, lighting the room in gentle yellow. The room was otherwise bare, and a faint scent of mild soap hung in the air; the floorboards shone.

The faint crackling of a fireplace came from down the hallway beyond the open bedroom door.

Not daring to stretch, I lifted the covers and clambered out of the bed on stiff legs. On the bedside table were a pitcher of water, a bowl, filled already, and a plate with a large loaf of bread, cut into four chunks.

I levitated the bowl, gulped its cool bounty greedily, and poured myself a second helping while I bit into one of two pieces of bread I held in my magic, scarcely breathing until I had finished. It was sweet and dense, filled with crunchy seeds, and slightly sticky. I took unsteady steps as I ate, my head spinning. By the time I had reached the bedroom door and glanced back at Zephyr, tears streaked my face.

Then I twisted my head farther to properly look at myself. The half-spread limbs sprouting from behind my withers were naked and bare, almost completely bereft of plumage, but they were there.

Tiny pinfeathers gleamed in the lamplight. As though I had another pair of legs attached the wrong way, with nerves and tendons juxtaposed, I stretched my stiff, aching wings wide and wiped the tears from my face.

They stung and jerked in odd spasms with every clumsy motion, but I managed to fold them back down again. My hind leg was midnight blue again instead of chrome and white plastic. It tingled more than anything else, and my stifle in particular hurt the most of all my aching joints. The patches of shaved coat on my spine and flanks were gone, and my coat fairly shone with a uniform glossiness.

The quiet squeaking of a faucet and burble of running water came from the hallway, at a door several meters along the right side.

I approached the door, favoring my left hind leg.

-Night Cloud?-

I waited, my ear pressed to the door. Water sloshed again, but no voice answered.

-Night Cloud, are you in there?-

Again, no answer came. I frowned and opened the door slowly. A light haze of steam lit by another dim yellow lamp hung in the room, along with the smell of lilac. A bath set into the floor took up most of the room. Several ceramic and glass bottles of shampoos and soaps occupied one end of the steps, along with a jar of dried flower petals.

And in the sudsy water, head laid on a cushion on the tile edge, was the most beautiful mare in all the world.

My eyes stung and my voice broke. “Night?”

She opened her eyes and gasped as I trotted in and closed the door behind me.

“Crystal!”

I stepped in and sank up to my neck in the warm bath beside her. Buoyed by the lapping water, I reared up and hugged her, nuzzling her throat and wrapping my hooves around the back of her neck.

She sat on her haunches and squeezed me tightly with one foreleg, head bent low over mine. “Oh, Crystal,” she whispered, “It’s okay… you’re safe now. Nobody will hurt you now. I have you, my darling… I have you now… I have you now…”

She held and caressed me, stroking her hoof down my neck again and again, and she began to rock gently back and forth with me while I shook and sobbed in her embrace. I grabbed onto her leg and pressed my cheek into her chest just above the water.

For several minutes, I could do nothing else but sit with her in near-silence.

I took a deep breath, nuzzling up along her neck. “You’re really good at this,” I mumbled, “The whole, um… being comforting thing.”

She laughed, and whispered, “I’m glad I can do that much.”

“I can feel my leg again,” I whispered, “And—wings!” I laughed, voice cracking. “I have wings!”

Night Cloud hummed in my ear, and she said, “And you look wonderful with them, darling.” She raised her head as I stepped back from her. “How do you feel? Sore?”

“Yeah. Still have a headache. Um… thanks for the food.”

“You’re welcome.”

I pushed back and braced my hooves on her shoulders to meet her electric blue eyes. “Night Cloud?” I shivered and darted my head up, brushing my lips against the corner of her mouth—but I froze at the last second. “Um…”

She waited, still as a stone. “Yes?”

Lowering my voice, I said, “Since we’re, um… since this is… this—this is your house, right?”

She giggled and whispered, “Yes, baby, this is my house.”

“So, um… that means it’s private… right? Nobody’s going to, um… see us, and be mad about… you know, being close, or, um… kissing?”

“That’s right…” She carefully lowered herself down to lie submerged up to her jaw in front of me, and she smiled, mere centimeters away. “I take it you want to do that?”

I nodded quickly. “Uh-huh. I mean—if you want to...”

Night Cloud grinned and gave a faltering laugh, and looked away from me for a moment, then stretched her wings out from the water.

“I’d love to.” She pressed her lips to mine with a tentative, searching touch that sent shivers down my spine. I stood up again to gain the slightest height over her and eagerly returned that exploring invitation of her tongue.

She giggled, I laughed, she smiled, I grinned. Those few minutes joined at the mouth set my heart racing and filled me with a giddy, fiery yearning that made the hot water tepid by comparison.

“Mmm…” She raised her head and gently pushed her magic against my chest, taking a quick breath. I reared halfway out of the water and set my hooves on her shoulders, chasing after her again, and she laughed brightly. “Mmm-hmmm!” She turned her snout to the side. “Okay, baby, I think…” Biting her lip, she set her wing on my side. “I think that’s enough for now.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, “Didn’t mean to be so, um—”

“Enthusiastic?”

I stared down at her chest and muttered, “I—I can’t help it, okay?”

“Oh, darling…” She pulled me close and set her neck across mine. “Crystal Dew,” she murmured, “I do not fault you for it. Not now, not ever.”

She leaned back to meet my gaze again. “Now, baby, to be clear, I, um… I liked it… I liked it very, very much, and I—I, um—I am… glad, and grateful, and… happy. I am happy—to do this with you. For you. To—to hold you, to be close to you, to kiss you… away from prying eyes, if you please. I—I…”

She faltered, giggled again, and cleared her throat. “I would like, um… I want just as much to do it again… and, um… regularly—often, if you want that. I like it. Really, I do—I am simply saying that… right now, we should take a break. Okay, darling?”

“Okay.” I stretched up to kiss her right on the lips again, softly as can be, and she cooed. “I’m sorry I, um… made you flustered.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not the hardest mare to fluster, darling… it’s all right.”

We both giggled, and I gave her one more quick peck on the cheek. “There, now we can st—ow!” I ducked my head, rubbing a hoof along my neck where a cramping pain had flared. “Friggin’… ow, ow, ow… okay, I friggin’ hurt all over…like I pulled a muscle, but everywhere. What’s up with that?”

“That’s an after-effect of the transformation.” She nudged me around sideways and began to massage my back with her hooves, and stretched my forelegs out in her cerulean magic. “I’m afraid it will probably persist for a few days, baby… I have willow bark and mint in the kitchen for tea, if you’d like some. It would dull the pain, at least a little.”

“Mmm…” I lay my head against her again, sighing deeply. “Sure… after, um… well, the hot water’s kinda helping, so… maybe we can just stay in here together for a little while?”

She nuzzled the back of my neck, murmuring, “Of course, baby… and I, um—do you want to come to bed with me tonight?”

I froze with my foreleg entwined around hers, and twisted my head up to look her in the eye. “Um… Night? Maybe it’s different in your language, but… in Equestrian—or, um… Celestian, ‘come to bed’ usually means… something different. So, um… probably better if you just said ‘share a bed,’ instead. I don’t think Blitz, or Eagle or Zephyr, would be super happy if, um… if you said it that way—the first way.”

Night Cloud bit her lip and let out a slow breath. “That’s… something that you want, though… isn’t it?”

“Well, um…” I gave a short, high laugh. Trembling all of a sudden, I giggled and nuzzled her chest, and I mumbled, “I mean, I… I, um… yeah, I… I want—I-I mean, I’d just be lying if I said I haven’t, um—thought about you… um, you know, fantasized, but Night, you, um… um… okay, I—holy crap, you go right for the friggin’ throat, you know that?” I took several long, deep breaths, and I set my hoof on her chest. “Night Cloud… I get it, if—if you aren’t ready, or you just don’t want to—or if it’s just too soon, whatever. That’s fine. I wasn’t asking you for—for that, or trying to… to—sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I swear, I wasn’t—”

“Shhhh…” She bent her head low and pressed her cheek to mine, and whispered, “It’s all right, baby. I understand what you mean.” She sighed, hugged me, and said, “But… no, I am not ready for that. Um… thank you, for correcting my… figure of speech.”

“Right! Right. Right… welcome. Cool.” I flicked my tail, splashing water over the side of the bath, and squeezed her leg again. “I, um… I’d love to snuggle tonight, if you’re up for that. Or, you know, the rest of the night.”

“Mmm… snuggle. Right.” Her soft chuckle brought a smile to my face. “I really am sorry, baby. I just… I don’t believe that, ah… making that decision so soon would be wise.”

“Night, you don’t need to explain it. It’s okay.” I pecked her cheek and murmured, “Thank you, by the way. For saving me… again and again. For fighting for me. You’re friggin’ scary when you’re angry, you know that?”

“I…” She shook with soft laughter and muttered, “In all honesty, I… I wasn’t really thinking, Crystal… I just… I wasn’t thinking… I was just… so furious… so afraid… when I saw you… I couldn’t stand to… I wouldn’t stand to…” Steamy as the bathroom was, she had yet to wash her face or mane. The tears crawling down her cheeks were plain for me to see. “Crystal, I can’t stop thinking about it…”

Her voice dropped to a husky whimper. “I swore an oath, as a healer, as a protector, never to harm another, never to take a life, and… she was on the ground, I could have restrained her, I—I’m more than strong enough to—to… I could have broken her horn, instead, or… or anything but…”

She broke into shuddering sobs and whispered, “But I killed her, Crystal… I didn’t stop to think, I just… diaĉas amorandas féle Gaía eta Nube, mertaĉa un equra… mertaĉa un equra…”

I took her foreleg and held her hoof as she lapsed into silence and wept. “I shot her, too,” I mumbled. “It’s not all on you, Night.” As she murmured something I couldn’t understand in her tribe’s language, I raised my forehoof and struck her chest, causing her to gasp. “You’re my choice.”

“Ka se—” Night Cloud blinked and grabbed my hoof. “What?”

“You are my choice, Night Cloud.” I clasped my forehooves behind her neck and hugged her tightly, “You killed a pony? Guess what: She hurt me… she tried to kill me, Night Cloud… so you decided she didn’t matter anymore. You chose me over her. If someone tries to stab me or shoot me today, will you choose me again?”

“Yes,” she whispered in my ear, hugging me tightly in return. “Earth and Sky, yes, a thousand times, yes…”

I leaned back and kissed her, savoring the tender warmth of her lips and intoxicating caress. “When someone tries to hurt you,” I said as I broke contact, “I’ll choose you. Not them. You. I will choose you every time, Night Cloud. I may not be as big or as strong or as fast as you, but darn it, I will choose you everytime. Every time, Night Cloud.” I flinched as she placed her forehoof below my ribs, where not long ago biting steel had impaled me. “But you can’t wait for someone else to fight for you, Night… I can’t rely on you and Carbide to be there every time and… and…”

She closed her eyes The corners of her mouth tightened. “Oh, darling…”

“Night, where’s Carbide?”

I levitated the entire exoskeleton so that its chest panel and the blue peytral faced the crackling fireplace.

A triangular hole, warped at the corners and charred black along its channel, ran through the titanium plate that had protected my belly and continued through the honeycomb frame, circuitry, and insulated inner lining of the suit before stopping on the back. One of the heavy vertebra had cracked at the exit point, and the connecting pistons and armored plating were scored with lines of char and oxidation.

I forced the protective halves of the cuirass open.

In addition to being caked in a copious amount of dried blood, the power conduits and numerous talismans and circuit boards that ran along the spine were similarly melted and charred.

“He hasn’t said anything?” I waved my forehoof in front of the suit’s attached helmet, squinting at the lens at the corner of the right eyepiece. “No blinking lights? Radio signals?”

“No. He didn’t respond to a telepathic coupling, either. Not even Ivy could do it. She said there was something. A presence, but no conscious thought. Nothing she could connect to.”

“So he’s…” I took a deep, trembling breath and swallowed. “That means he’s still alive… right? Maybe he’s just, you know—knocked out, or in a coma?”

“I’m not certain how well either of those terms apply.” Night Cloud set her wing on my back. “When… when you were stabbed, the blade discharged some kind of spell. Could that have been a, um… matrix disruption? Is that the right thing?”

“No—I mean, yes, it’s the thing you’re thinking of, but no, I don’t think that’s what it was. Maybe as a secondary element, but disruption spells don’t melt things… do the guards all have shields like yours?”

“Yes.”

“Then that was probably an electrothaumic induction charge. That’s why she had a bunch of those spears: One spear for one suit of barding.” I shivered and muttered, “Why stop at knocking out the shield when you can fry it?”

I touched the inside of the heavily reinforced half of the cuirass. The halves would swing open on hinges to allow me to step into the suit, but they protruded from my chest far more than was necessary for armor alone. The framing and nexus of insulated ribbon cables on the interior panel, nestled under a wire mesh that had been scorched black, were the most charred of any parts of the armor. They fed into a black rubber grommet, scorched and deformed. The similar grommet on the right panel was comparatively undamaged.

“The sparks. Where did they focus? On the peytral, around the front?”

“I… I didn’t see it, baby.” Night Cloud squeezed me and murmured, “I’m sorry. I was too stunned.”

“Mmm. It’s fine. Just thought I’d ask.” I swallowed and pulled a release latch inside the thick cuirass panel, and the titanium plate on the outside, scarred with yellow streaks of oxidation, popped outward. “This suit doesn’t use a spell matrix for control. Power distribution, maybe…”

I gently pulled the cuirass plate apart from its frame, and the reason for its abnormal thickness became clear. Within the left half of the cuirass panel was a thin, yellow circuit board dominated by an array of aluminium fins surrounded by minuscule electrical components. The smell of melted plastic and capacitors wafted up from the opening.

“There’s the computer,” I muttered, “I think. It’s so small…”

Night Cloud leaned over me to look. “What is that?”

Resting inside a hollow within the left panel, surrounded by melted wires, ribbons, and a four-pronged, rubberized clamp was a dazzling, perfectly clear ball of crystal held in a geometric, metal cradle the same deep blue finish as the detached peytral lying on the hardwood floor.

A pure, white light, dimmer than a candle guttering at the end of its wick, flickered faintly throughout the interior of the polyhedron. The light danced across every face, edge, and individual vertex of the diamond ball. Lines of gold, thin as gossamer and numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, spun in parallel, fractal paths that led deeper into the center of the orb, all converging on a translucent, milk-white sphere at its center.

Faint, dark marks scarred the corners of the metal cradle.

Night Cloud leaned over my shoulder as I lifted the cradle gently free of its housing of melted insulation and fused wires. I detached the many scorched ribbons and warped connectors that had plugged into narrow slots in the frame.

“It’s beautiful,” whispered Night Cloud, “But what in Gaia’s name is it?”

I held the ball to my chest and whispered, “This is Carbide.” The light within the polyhedron flickered a hair faster when I touched the noctium cradle’s surface. “I know you probably can’t hear me, Carbide,” I murmured, “But I’ll say it, anyway: I’ll fix you. I just… don’t know how yet.”

“Baby…” The tall alicorn nuzzled between my ears. “I promise you, I will help you however I can with this… though I don’t know how yet, either. But, for now…” She wiped my cheek clean of tears, then rested her forehoof on mine, over the diamond orb and its noctium frame. “I’m exhausted, and I would appreciate… very, very much if we could go to bed, now…”

She stood and stepped away. I followed her, every muscle screaming in protest. I levitated Carbide’s cradle as we entered the hall and turned right, keeping the metal and diamond ball in sight.

I followed her into her bedroom, where the suitably enormous four-poster bed and bizarre cushion-chair waited with Zephyr on it.

Night Cloud sighed and climbed into the bed, lying on her side, then levitated me smoothly up and set me down, pulling the blanket over us both. She spread her wing over me and stretched her legs out; on a smaller bed, her hind legs would have dangled off the end of the mattress.

I blinked several times and set Carbide’s metal self on the bedside table, by an unlit candle. -Where’s Eagle?-

She stroked her hoof along my withers as I glanced over at the corner, where Zephyr slept. -He went out to walk earlier. Said he’d be back in a couple hours, didn’t want to wake you up.-

-Oh.-

I flexed my wings slightly and turned onto my side, then pressed my back closely to her. Every motion caused more burning, and I continued to ache even after I lay still, but her warmth and the gentle swelling of her ribs against my back let me tolerate the dull throbbing.

-I think he trusts you more than Zephyr does.-

I levitated a third piece of the loaf of bread from the plate on the bedside table and began to eat, careful to keep crumbs in the emerald haze of my magic.

-Did you make this?-

She hummed quietly and patted my ribs just behind my foreleg. -Just for you. I added honey. Thought you’d be hungry… I know I was, afterward.-

-It’s good.-

-I’m glad you like it.-

I levitated a new log into the fireplace behind me and pored over the damaged circuit boards and bundles of insulated cables between them. My suit of armor lay open, tipped onto its side near the hearth. The scant tools I had to my name, I had placed in a neat row next to a bowl that had been filled until recently with a simple breakfast of ground corn and oats.

Across two pages of my diary, I had sketched a diagram of the armored exoskeleton’s internal connections, detailing its detached power cables, many discreet circuit boards, and several talismans of esoteric design and function, all of which had been modified from standard conventions to interface directly with the suit’s electronics.

Soft, snipping sounds came from near my ears as Zephyr trimmed my mane with a set of delicate razors on her wings and a comb in her teeth. Lacking a proper barber’s cape, I had wrapped a clean towel around my shoulders.

As the low crackle of the fire grew to something warm and pleasant, I penned a final line and label between what appeared to be a power distributor and the cables leading into the armor’s collar, where the computer rested next to its empty, twin compartment.

I looked up, gazing in silence at the blue, metal cradle and diamond ball within it on the floor nearby. Refusing to place my friend directly on the floor, I had set Carbide’s dormant form on a plate, instead.

Sighing, I murmured, “What do you think, Carbide?”

Zephyr paused her clipping, and she shifted the comb back, holding it between her incisors and molars. “He can’t hear you… can he?”

I ran a glowing, emerald mote of magic over the diamond ball, shook my head, and turned back to my diagram. “No… at least, I don’t think so. He…” I chewed my lip and said, “That is… the diamond… the light in it flickers a little sometimes, when I touch it, but I think that’s just thaumoelectric capacitance. Like static electricity, going into your hoof.”

“Have you found out what all those parts do?”

“Some of them.” I pointed at one of the talismans, a densely-twined coil of thick, copper wire wound around an iron ring. In the center of the ring was a fire ruby, cut into the shape of two truncated, six-sided pyramids that joined together with a silver plate at their bases. The fire ruby was held to the wire torus with numerous spars of rough plastic, save where a solitary wire at each end wrapped around in opposite directions.

“That’s a thaumoelectric inductor. It hooks directly into the busbars. That’s what sends power to the spine, as far as I can tell.” I motioned to the corners of my widespread collection of parts. “There are smaller ones for each of the legs, and another for the tail.” Letting my hoof fall, I muttered, “But those are just for power; the talismans are easy, and I can probably find the sensors he used to tell how I was moving, but I don’t have a clue how any of the electronic stuff works… I don’t think even Eagle would. He never dealt with any of this kind of stuff before…”

“So we need somebody who knows computers… at a very detailed level. You could start looking at school… that’s as good a place as you’ll get.” Zephyr put the comb back in her teeth and continued snipping away at the wilder parts of my mane.

I rolled my eyes. “Great. Another reason I should go.”

Zephyr clicked the comb back again to speak. “And what’s this other reason?”

I scowled, then thought of the cobalt mare sleeping down the hallway and put on a smile I couldn’t hide. “Night Cloud said I could be in some of her classes…”

“Crystal, you’re smart, but not… well…” I turned halfway around. Zephyr bit her lip. “You need to be in school, whether or not you get the same courses as her.”

I turned back to the fireplace, watching the dancing flames creep up the new log.

“And if she thinks you can match her…” Zephyr patted my shoulder. “Sweetie, I’m not trying to discourage you, but… it isn’t a matter of how intelligent you are. It’s about having a complete education, not jumping ahead to be with your marefriend every class… besides which, she’ll graduate in a year, anyway, and then you’ll be on your own. I don’t think that your being able to take those same courses as her is a realistic expectation to have in the first place. I don’t doubt your ability or determination, Crystal… I just…”

She pulled my mane back from my neck and snipped at the ends, smoothing it out neatly. “If you’re agreeing to go back to school just because Night Cloud gave you that expectation, especially on the basis that you’d be with her for many of your classes… that’s not fair of her.”

Zephyr nuzzled behind my ear and said, “I don’t want you to be disappointed. Eagle knows his stuff, but all the things he’s taught you are specialized, not a comprehensive education. I don’t think you understand quite how much you’ve missed, Crystal.”

“Rub it in,” I muttered. “Guess I’ll just go, anyway…whichever classes I’ll be in. She wants me to.”

“Good… I’m glad you like her that much.”

“Respect. It’s different.”

Zephyr giggled. “Doesn’t mean you aren’t also doing it to make her happy, baby…”

“Whatever.”

She snorted and kissed my cheek. “Don’t you ‘whatever’ me, young filly.”

I rolled my eyes, glanced up from the tidy web of parts, and peered to our left, at Zephyr’s defunct suit of power armor, laid bare for the first time since we had stayed three nights at Cliffside. Once the pride of any pegasus of the Enclave, it had been reduced to a scorched, pockmarked husk, its polymer and ceramic plating blasted to ruin.

I set my pen and diary down, biting my cheek; when compared to the indiscriminate, throbbing aches that saturated my body, the sensation barely registered. “So the main talisman and secondary power distributor still work… just not the flight systems… what about the control interface?”

“I…” Zephyr laughed. “Yeah, the radio, the EFS, the targeting and gun mounts… secondary systems all checked out. The primaries are just too shot. I could walk with it, but not fly. Sweetie… if there’s anything in that old suit you think will help…” She took a deep breath and set her hooves on my shoulders. “It isn’t like we have a wealth of spare parts lying around to repair it with, anyway… and it did what you built it to do. Kept me alive when I needed it most. Whatever’s left, put it to good use.”

“But… what if you need it?” I crossed my forelegs and reached backward to hold her hooves with mine.

Zephyr leaned forward and hugged me, pointing at the noctium cradle and diamond polyhedron nearby. “Your friend needs it more.”

“I don’t even know if any of it would be useful for this… or even compatible. Everything in here is… it’s just way more complicated.” I sighed and gazed in silence at the arrayed armor parts, my diary, and Zephyr’s shredded suit. Levitating the diamond and metal ball that was my friend—blind, deaf, and mute—I stood on stiff, aching legs and stepped away from my work of the past hour. I held the polished cradle close to my breast and walked past Zephyr. She accompanied me toward the hallway.

“I’m going back to bed,” I murmured. I untied the towel from my collar and swept a wave of magic over my mane, tail, and coat to free any leftover clippings of hair, then dumped it all in the small waste basket at the kitchen entrance on the right.

“You’re still tired?”

“Not really. I mean… sort of, but…” I stretched my naked wings briefly as I approached the bedroom door and grasped the latch telekinetically. “Sleeping seems like a good idea, and… I just… want to be there when she wakes up, not alone.”

Zephyr gave a soft nicker. “I can’t believe you’ve known her a week and you’re already… well…”

I paused in the doorway, frowning. She shook her head and crept across the dark room, bit onto the ill-shaped, cushion-chair-thing, and began to tug it with her. As she dragged the amorphous piece of furniture through the doorway, I whispered, “What, Zephyr?”

She rubbed her neck with her hoof and murmured, “You and your marefriend deserve some privacy. I’ll be in the living room.”

Slow, inexorable heat flooded my neck and face. I carefully closed the door to Night Cloud’s bedroom behind me. “Do you… not want me to, um…”

Zephyr froze, then released the cushion and turned toward me. “Crystal… under Bellenastian law, until you’re sixteen, you’re not legally able to… to consent to sex.” She stepped close and hugged me, resting her chin on my withers. “That means that if you and Night Cloud decide to have a harmless roll in the hay, then she becomes guilty of statutory rape.”

I scowled. “I was talking about just sleeping together, not sleeping with her. I know the friggin’ difference. What does statutory mean?”

She stepped back and held me at foreleg’s length. “It means, sweetheart, that the law defines it as rape because one of you is not of legal age. She would most likely end up in prison if anybody ever found out about it… she would be convicted for sexual abuse of a child.” She sighed, and whispered, “And her entire career as a doctor would be ruined.” The mare squeezed my shoulders, backed away, and turned to the living room again. “I don’t think she’ll ask you to do anything… but I don’t know if she’ll say no if you ask her. So please don’t.”

“She already did,” I muttered.

Zephyr looked shell-shocked for a moment. “… she asked…”

“She said no.” I stretched my wings out again, wincing, and sighed. “I asked… I mean, I didn’t really ask, but the topic came up; she said she wasn’t ready. I guess… partly because she thinks she’d, um… get in trouble.”

Zephyr stomped, drawing my gaze up to meet hers in the dim hallway. “There’s an important distinction between not wanting to get in trouble and not being ready. Just because you are interested doesn’t mean she is. The mare has fought and bled and killed for you, in the one week you’ve known her, Crystal. She likes you, she cares for you, she protects you, and she wants to be with you. I can see that plain as day. Don’t repay it by being selfish. Got it?”

My ears drooped. “Okay, okay… I get it.”

“Do you?” She stepped closer to me and wrapped her wing tightly around my torso. I began to fidget as her feathers rustled across my naked wings; it was one of the oddest sensations I’d experienced in my life. “Crystal…” She set her chin in my head and murmured, “We left our home… came all this way, fought every vile monster and thug that stood in our path, ultimately because… because one idiot took advantage of you.”

I scowled, grinding my teeth. “And?”

“And what that stallion did to you was very obviously wrong, Crystal…” Zephyr nuzzled my ear and stepped back from me. “But you need to realize that there are far more less obvious ways that you can hurt somebody you love than there are obvious ones. Even simply asking for something like that can hurt. She might feel pressured to accept, just to make you happy, even if she’s not ready. Even if she’s afraid—and don’t think that because she’s older than you, more mature, that she isn’t afraid.”

“I know that,” I muttered.

“Then you should know it’s still wrong, and even if you weren’t trying to hurt her, you’d be taking advantage of her… it just isn’t as obvious.” The pale pegasus touched my chest and said, “Remember that, when she keeps you warm at night.”

My voice came out as a defeated squeak. “Okay.” I swallowed and turned, trembling, to open the door.

I listened as Zephyr dragged her makeshift bed to the hearth, leaving me to return to the privacy of the bedroom.

As I climbed into Night Cloud’s curtained bed and waited for the coming sunrise to wake her, I was, indeed, warm and safe.

Even so, I shivered.

“Crystal?”

I blinked blearily at the large, deep violet hoof near my own. Then, I looked up at the towering figure to which it belonged.

I surged up instantly and wrapped myself around her neck, standing on the very edge of the bed. “Blitz!”

“H-hey, nice to see you, too, kiddo…” The mare hugged me in return, sighing softly as she nuzzled my withers. “Glad to see you safe… and whole again.”

“Baby, what…” Night Cloud stirred behind me. “Oh, Blitz! Gaia éta Nube, you’re all right…”

“I hate to spoil the morning,” said Blitz, releasing me and stepping back, “But, ah… Crystal, there’s a giant robot outside the city gates. It wants to talk to you.”

“Maximillian.” I sat down on the bed and levitated the diamond and metal polyhedron on the adjacent table into my waiting hooves. “I, um…” My ears drooped as Night Cloud sidled up behind me and nuzzled me, wrapping her forelegs around me. “I’m guessing he hasn’t, you know… blown anything up, since you’re here, and not… there. Dealing with him.”

Blitz nodded. “For the moment… we have every cannon in range pointed at it… him?” She made an odd face. “Maximillian? So, is that meant to identify it as a male, or… is it just a name?”

I looked down at object in my grasp; my magic caused scintillating, emerald light to fill the diamond ball and the golden traces within it to stand in stark contrast. “Carbide always said ‘him.’”

“Huh. Well… he wants to talk to you.” Blitz shuffled in place, sat down, and reached around both me and Night Cloud with her wings and forelegs, hugging us both closely. “Asked for you by name, in fact… how are you two feeling?”

“Better,” said Night Cloud, “Mostly. I could do with some breakfast.”

“Sore,” I said. “Everywhere. All the time. Fine, otherwise. What about you?”

Blitz let us go and sighed. “There’s a foreign army lurking somewhere in the valley, a crazy prince with a grudge against me and mine, and most of the city’s narrower streets are now frozen over and impassable. Oh, and there’s the giant robot of dubious intent at the gates and it won’t go away.” She smiled and rubbed her shoulder. “Fine, otherwise.”

I giggled. “So, um… now what? Go talk to Maximillian?”

“Normally, I’d say no, but the thing—uh… he… verbally agreed to disarm while he waited. At my request. Then he actually did it.”

Night Cloud crossed her forehooves over my belly, pressed her muzzle gently against the side of my neck, and said, “How, exactly, does a robot tank normally do that?”

Blitz shrugged. “It took a few minutes. And he let me disconnect the power coupling for the big laser thing on its middle. I don’t know if that was everything, but we’re dealing with a machine… or entity… that’s willing to make a good-faith gesture, so… I’m willing to give him the benefit of doubt.”

I frowned and raised my hoof. “One more question. You said he asked for me by name.”

The deep violet mare nodded. “I’d like to know how he got that, too.” She pointed down at my chest, and the diamond ball I held. “I suspect Carbide was in communication with him, at some point.”

“Oh. Um… he could receive signals from Maximillian back in Granite Bridge, but he’d have needed a really powerful transmitter to send anything back over that distance. Way more powerful than you can fit in a suit.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I’m more worried that he asked for me by name because I, um… shot him in the face the last time we met. Then he tried to tear down a whole building while I was in it. I think. I wasn’t really awake during most of that part, but…” I shuddered and muttered, “I remember leaving that building. It wasn’t fun.”

“I can imagine.” Blitz grunted and flared her wings in irritation. “This machine has followed us across the length and breadth of the entire Kingdom, has expressed a singular desire to come within driving-over-and-squishing range of ponies I love, and is apparentlycapable of negotiating. Machines don’t typically do that last one, and it has me on edge.”

She took a deep breath, ruffled her wings restlessly, and put on a smile. “Oh, and there’s still that foreign prince running around somewhere, plotting to stab me in the neck. Probably. I’m not sure which I should be more worried about: The pony out for my blood, or the machine that has an agenda.”

I laid my head against Night Cloud’s wing and levitated the diamond ball and cradle that had occupied my waking thoughts and dreams alike. “He’s following Carbide… or my armor. Its radio beacon. If he wants to talk to me, it’s just because Carbide was in my armor, and now he’s gone quiet.” Brief ideas of the other reasons an enormous, armored war machine would be following me caused me to shrink within Night Cloud’s comforting embrace. “I hope,” I mumbled.

Blitz stared at the object hovering in my magic. “He expects you and the suit to be in the same place.”

I swallowed, rubbed Night Cloud’s hooves, and looked up at Blitz. “So… are we going to talk to him, or not?”

“It’s either talk to him and hope that he keeps his word about not attacking, or open fire first and hope that our guns are big enough to destroy… him…” She paused and frowned, staring at the floor as she set her hooves on the edge of the bed, near mine. “Before he, ah… can fire back… with whatever he has hidden under all that armor. Goddesses above, this thing can think and barter with us—did barter with me—and my first thought is to blast it to smithereens.”

“Well…” I touched her hooves and said, “My old gun melted a hole in his head, and that didn’t keep him down.” I leaned back and nuzzled Night Cloud. “How about we try talking? That’s the nice option.”

Blitz sighed and rubbed her neck. “I suppose…”

Night Cloud hummed in assent. “Coffee first, Blitz?”

“Coffee?” The deep violet mare’s ears shot up. “Excellent idea. Coffee first, then talk to the giant robot-tank-thing.”

Author's Note

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!