A Bug on a Stick

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Chapter 4
Chapter 18
Chapter 19

Chapter 1

The small puddle of shiny, black goo and misplaced teeth blubbered in the mound on the forest floor. Half a dozen fangs formed a rough circle, mutated in a hole and finally, with a brief screeching carrying undertones of headaches and putrescence, collapsed on themselves with a shiver.

Celestia considered herself to be far savvier than most of the mares in the stories told around the fire during cold winter nights and took her time to observe the thing carefully. It was quite evidently not a simple puddle of mud with delusions of grandeur. For one, it was black and had teeth. Two, it had oozed out of a screaming hole in the air. She was quite sure both facts were hints at something special going on.

A tentacle-like thing appendage rose from the mass, grew a couple of spikes and splashed back, a wet plop resounding through the otherwise silent forest.

Establishing it was special still hadn't narrowed things down significantly. She still didn't have any better idea of what the thing was, aside from a bit gross. She needed more facts with which to work.

Celestia looked up to the crowns of the trees. The only sound was the churning of the thing and the wind blowing through the leaves. She could neither see nor hear any other animal; it was as if every single squirrel, bird, and mouse had decided to vacate the place.

She looked back at the goo and stepped around it. It seemed vaguely aware of her presence, boils bloating up in whichever direction she went.

Right there was a squishy, smelly mystery challenging her. She was a Queen, a philosopher, an archmage and a warrior. Nothing could withstand her intellect or her power, certainly not a pudding in the woods. Her horn ignited, she grinned and said, "You shall reveal me your secrets." Her golden aura flamed up, the most powerful instrument of inquiry known to pony-kind held in her magic.

The pink-maned, white-coated unicorn filly stuck out her tongue from the side of her mouth and poked the thing with a stick.

It squirmed and bubbled, it protruded some bulges up towards Celestia, then squeaked. And a moment later, it became immobile. Celestia leaned her head to the side, squinted at it, then pushed her stick forward again. It happened in an instant. Fangs broke through the shiny surface, the sides retreated and, in the space of a blink, it dashed upwards, teeth glinting in the afternoon sun.

Celestia shrieked, stumbled backward and fell on her haunches, the stick still held in her aura.

The black mass hung on the stick like an oversized drop of honey on a spoon, an evil cauliflower speared on her tool of truth-uncovering, a fat booger with its fangs buried deep in the wood. And then it opened a single, big eye as large as an apple. It was vacuous, the iris an irregular spot of green and violet, and the pupil was star-shaped, slowly changing and drifting in the yellowish sclera. It vibrated for a second, emitted a wet "Blorp", then stared at Celestia.

The filly calmed her ragged breathing and gulped. The eye looked somehow wrong, even if she couldn't put her hoof on why. It wasn't the gross approximation of it that disturbed her, as it kind of matched with the rest of the thing. Nor was it that the eye was floating in what amounted to a black ball of goop with a habit of biting stuff. That was actually pretty nifty, at least in a gross and completely inappropriate way. No, it was that there seemed to be some form of predatory intelligence there, and not of the animal variety.

The thing crawled along the stick in Celestia's direction.

Biting her lip, she turned the stick upside down. The thing held itself for a second, then it poured downwards and rested at the lower end, like a big, fat, black, and frowning drop. The bark on the stick itself had disappeared from the length the thing had covered before. It vibrated again, then bared some teeth and hissed.

Celestia squinted at it and said, "You are ugly and disgusting." She sniffed. "And you stink." The thing clattered with its teeth. A smile began to spread on her muzzle. "That's the smell of adventure. I like you, you will be my new pet!"

Her magic reached out and a bundle of sticks floated up beside her. With a chuckle, a skip, and a hissing abomination in tow, the little unicorn went home.

The universe chafed on its essence. Reality pushing back was expected, soon the resistance would be eroded, the foundations would be gnawed through and the bars of coherence would snap.

This was as it should be.

And yet it could feel something else, something perplexing. It was a stream, pushing on its sides, hinting at a direction, opening possibilities.

It examined the sensation.

The stream was a force unknown to it. Fundamental to the local definition of truth, yet not an axiom. There was intent, direction.

It could either follow or subvert it. There was power in both choices. And yet, when the stream had touched it, it had been... pleasant?

Such a strange concept. It would need time to dissect it, once it had seen to more immediate issues.

It was time to find a way to break free of the confinement in physical reality. Putting its manifestation into a prison made of long-dead meat had been smart, but would be ultimately futile. It may be difficult to eat it for the moment, but that would change.

It just needed time to consume its way out of it, and time was something it had in abundance.

At the end, it had all of it.

Blades of light cut the shades of the shed, penetrating from the gaps and the cracks in the wooden walls. Dust floated in a lazy dance. All over the floor of pressed dirt stood old farming equipment in various states of decay. On one side, leaning against a wall, thick logs were stacked high up to the ceiling, a slight smell of mold coming from it. Behind a chipped terracotta vase, a black mass bubbled in a bucket.

A thin tendril crept up towards the border of the bucket. Where it touched the walls of its prison the color seemed to drain from the wood.

There were voices coming from outside. Starting with a murmur, they became rapidly louder. "…and I think it likes me. You will love it, Lulu."

"Tia, you still didn't tell me what you found."

"You'll see. It's pretty special, I have never seen something like it before." There was a sound of wood chafing on wood, and the door of the shed creaked open.

The tendril fell back in the churning mass. A yellow eye floated to its surface, soon followed by a green and a red one. Teeth came up, then sunk back.

Celestia, wearing a jute satchel around her neck, pushed a dark blue earth-pony filly into the shed. She threw a look over her shoulder before closing the door with a kick, then whispered, "Remember, you promised to keep it a secret."

The dark blue filly frowned. "Only if it isn't dangerous. I still remember the bite of the manticore." She turned and waved her flank in Celestia's face, pointing with her hoof to a couple of decolored spots. "It was a moon ago and you can still see it. Do you see it? It's still there."

"He was perfectly fine when I found him. I still don't know what went wrong. And it was an itsy-bitsy little nip." Celestia's smile grew. "But this time it's different. It can't even bite you if you don't put your hoof in the bucket. And I can carry it around with a stick, Lulu. It can't be dangerous if you can carry it with a stick."

Luna looked into the shadows of the shed. She bit her lip. "I don't know. You can carry around a scorpion with a stick." She squinted and swiveled her ears. "It isn't a scorpion, right? Or a fireslug? Or a snake?"

Her pink mane flew around as Celestia shook her head with worrying emphasis. "No, it's not. I swear it isn't any dangerous kind of animal you can think of. Come, I'll show you." She trotted in the back of the shed and grabbed the bucket with her magic. She returned and put it down in front of Luna.

Luna stared at the thing. Three mismatched eyes stared back.

Celestia grinned.

A shudder ran down Luna's back and she took a deep breath. She regretted it immediately, as a smell she could only describe as profoundly wrong wafted through her nostrils. She stumbled back and spluttered, "What in the name of the Stars is that thing?"

Celestia hopped in place, her smile stretching to the natural limits of her muzzle. "I have no idea, isn't that grand? I never heard of something like that, and now it's my pet."

One of the eyes dived below the surface, a fang-filled maw opening in its place.

"I think it is hungry." A golden aura alighted around the little unicorn's horn and the jute satchel opened. "Don't worry, mommy brought you a little treat."

"That thing has fangs. Fangs are dangerous." Luna took a careful step forward. "You can't keep that… Tia, why are you weird?"

"Oh, hush. Fidelis has fangs too and he still works on the farm and he is a big softy. And I'm not weird, I am a Queen, so I have vision. And a Queen needs a monster. It's in the rules."

Luna stomped and huffed. "It's not in the rules, you are not a queen, and you are weird." Then she looked a the pastry floating out of the satchel. "That's honey bread. Did you steal it from the kitchen?"

"No, it's my treat from lunch. I hid it." Celestia glanced up from the bucket. "And I'm not weird."

Luna gasped. "You didn't eat it?"

The aura flickered and the bread fell in the bucket. The mass in it shivered.

"Come on, it's good. Very yummy, I promise it. Give it just a nibble, at least." Celestia smiled at the thing.

For an instant the black goo seemed to shimmer, then it bulged and the bun rolled to its maw. The fangs moved like feelers, grabbed it and dug deep into the dough.

There was an instant of silence.

Then the thing moved. Fangs almost vibrated, a buzzing sound echoed through the shed and the bun was shredded in the blink of an eye, crumbs shooting ceiling high, the mass bulging and boiling.

Three heartbeats later it calmed down.

Luna stared at the bucket, her mouth agape. A wet crumb of honey bread fell from the ceiling with a plop.

Celestia grinned and tapped her forehooves together.

The thing hissed, the maw disappeared and to purple eyes surfaced.

"She liked it! I knew it, we are gonna be best friends and she's gonna be my monster and we are going to play in the forest and it will be amazing." The golden glow reappeared around the satchel and a small flask floated out. With a twist, the cork was removed and Celestia poured some milk into the bucket.

Luna blinked, then shook her head. "Her? How do you know it's a filly?"

"It's obvious, look at the eyes."

Four mismatched approximation of eyes glared out from a thin layer of rapidly disappearing milk.

The issue required serious consideration, and Luna thought about it for a whole ten heartbeats. Then she said, "I don't see it."

"She can't be a stupid colt. They are icky, but in a completely different and not fantastic way."

An O of comprehension formed on Luna's muzzle. "Yeah, that makes sense." She considered the matter for another while, then said, "But I think she's dangerous. What if she bites you? What if she bites me?! I think we should tell Donna Copper Horn."

Celestia hugged the bucket and shook her head. "No, you can't tell, you promised! I like her, I want to keep her, and she likes me. She likes honey bread. You can't be bad if you like honey bread."

Luna threw her hooves in the air. "But what if she's… I don't know, what if she's poisonous? Then she bites you and you bloat and then you become all gross and slimy and then you die!"

"I won't, I promise you. And if get all bloated and gross and then if I die you can have all my roasted almonds forever." Celestia hugged the bucket tighter, then glanced at Luna, eyes watering, lip trembling. "Please."

"Uhm." Luna looked away and kicked the dirt. "Alright, but you have to be careful. And don't bring her in our room. And if you die I get almonds and all the flat-cake."

For a brief moment, Celestia’s face creased. Then she nodded. "Deal."

"I still have no idea what I should call you. I mean, Blorp sounds kinda right but I don't think it's good for a filly." Celestia skipped over a small stream, little fishes zig-zagging among the smooth stones. The goo was tightly attached at the end of a thick branch she held aloft in her magic. "I'm pretty sure you are smarter than you seem."

The goo moved the red eye towards the filly and glared at her. The other eyes swam around, observing the late-summer forest.

With a hop, Luna landed behind her. "I don't know. It's a puddle. With fangs. And eyes. I'm not sure puddles are very smart." She looked around. "Where are we?"

"I found a little cave down that way." The branch pointed to a rising slope. "I decided it will be my arch-mage cave."

"Arch-mages have towers. Bears have caves." Luna squinted. "And hermits, they have caves too."

With a small jump, Celestia landed on a moss-covered boulder. "Arch-mages can have caves too. They can have whatever they want."

Luna shook her head. "Nu-hu, Master Sottile told me that mages live in castles. And Arch-mages get their own towers, so they can show everypony that they are Arch-mages, and then they can stay out of everyponys mane and the sane ponies can do the jobs that have to be done while the old creeps can sniff quicksilver and rot their brains trying to summon Mares or Stallions of the Night which will do them no good at all anyway because they are old farts who don't even remember how a pony is made because they passed their time looking at dusty old tomes instead of simply going out and talk to others. And that Bog Witches are all proper mares because they dance naked under the moon."

Celestia stopped, blinked, then looked at Luna. "Do arch-mages dance fully clothed and only during the day?"

Luna shrugged. "I don't know. I guess so. I also think they do it with ugly clothes if Master Sottile prefers Bog Witches."

"Uhm, I don't think I'll like to dance with a lot of clothes on. They chafe and get dirty and then Donna Copper Horn gets angry." Celestia floated a stick to scratch herself behind an ear. "A hat I can live with, but a full dress? Seems kinda stupid. Are you sure Master Sottile told you all that stuff?"

"He did." Luna nodded. "He had that aqua-vitae thing he makes out of wine and he told me a lot of stuff." She stopped and bit her lip. "I didn't understand everything, but he said that I would get it when I would be older. Then Donna Copper Horn came into the room, grabbed his ear and pulled him up the stairs and put him to bed, I think." Luna tapped her chin. "There was also some scolding, but I couldn't hear what Donna Copper Horn said because Millet was laughing so hard."

Celestia frowned. "So Arch-mages are all old and stay always in their towers and only dance with clothes on?"

"Master Sottile said so, and he knows everything."

"Yeah, he does." Celestia hopped to a heap of half rotting leaves. "I don't think to be an Arch-mage sounds fun anymore. I have no idea where to get quicksilver." She shifted the stick and put it over a mushroom. The black goo wobbled, then extended thin tendrils downwards. "Being a Bog Witch sounds better. Maybe Donna Copper Horn would let me stay awake all the night if I were one. What do you think, Lulu, could I be a Bog Witch?"

The tendrils enveloped the mushroom and began ripping away little pieces.

"Well, Millet told me some stories about witches." Luna grinned. "He said they were ugly mares with monsters. So, I guess you can be a witch."

Celestia whipped her head around, then grabbed her stick, pointed it at Luna, and said, "Take that back!"

"I won't. You have a monster, and you are ugly." Luna stomped her hoof and blew a raspberry.

"I'm not ugly!"

"Yes, you are."

The terrible war-cry echoed through the forest as Celestia jumped forward, rotating the stick with the goo like a mace. The thing buzzed, glossy threads still attached to the mushroom and the forest floor.

Luna jumped backward and turned tail to gallop away, shrieking with all the power of her small lungs.

Half an hour later two fillies laid on a bed of moss, breathing heavily and giggling all the while. Behind them, a chaotic mess of shining, black threads went from tree to tree, rock, and bush. The goo shuddered from the boulder where it stuck, its eyes focused on the little ponies, the tendrils marking the path of destruction left by the diminutive warrior slowly retreating and rejoining the main mass.

Little fragments of leaves and bark came back too to be promptly absorbed. The lichens on the rock below it wilted away.

It poured down the boulder slowly, like molasses, bleached stone left behind. Teeth surfaced, it expanded, touched down on the moss.

"You are not ugly." Luna rolled onto her back and looked up at the crown of the trees. "I'm not sure you could be a witch."

Celestia giggled. "I got a monster, maybe that's enough." She rolled up beside Luna. "It's gonna be wonderful. We can be both witches and have fun and we are both gonna play with our monster."

"I don't know, Tia. I'm a bit scared of it."

"Don't be." Celestia nuzzled Luna. "She's a sweetie, you'll see."

The thing stopped, it trembled, a shine flew over its surface for an instant.

Celestia rolled onto her stomach and looked up. "Well, we gotta go to the cave now, I don't want to be late for dinner." She turned to the goo resting on the boulder. "Ready to go?"

The goo blurped.

Chapter 2

Sparse blades of warm, orange light cut through the darkness of the room. Islands of light covered in debris and rotting wood littered the floor, the occasional movement at the border of the shadows the only thing hinting at the rich, abundant life dwelling just beyond the limit of the visible.

The idyll of scuttling and crawling was suddenly shattered by the thunder-like creaking and shattering of wood coming from above.

Panic broke out among the denizens of the room, with doomsayers experiencing an all-time high in popularity for a few moments, as something moved on the ceiling and light poured inside. What appeared to be an opening rapidly grew bigger, while tiny, alien voices seemed to discuss the fate of the world below.

"This is a bad idea. We are too close to the house, and it soon will be dinner time. We'll get into trouble."

"Don't worry, Lulu. It's as safe as in the forest. And nopony comes here, they used it just to throw away some junk before closing it. Now hush and help me with these boards."

A few creaks and a very unladylike swear later the silhouettes of two foal heads appeared, framed against the light pouring through the hole.

"It stinks. And it's dirty. And Fidelis will be angry when he discovers we opened the cistern." Luna pulled out her tongue. "This is a bad idea."

"Don't worry." Celestia's horn lighted up. "I heard Fidelis say he won't clean this up until next spring. It will be perfect; nopony comes ever here, and it's warm in the winter." A bucket floated up behind her. "Slimey is becoming too big for this, and this will be a good home for her."

"If you say so." Luna squinted at something moving at the foot of the stairs. It scuttled on many, far too many legs around broken bricks, and then disappeared in a hole in the wall with a wet noise. Luna shivered.

A globe full of fireflies flew down and brought flickering light into the cavernous structure. Brick walls rose from a stone floor covered in discarded wood and broken pottery to an arched vault, running all the length from the entrance where the fillies stood to the far end of the room. Twenty solid stone blocks jutted out from the wall, forming steps descending from the opening all the way down. Clogged pipes lined the walls, and another opening could be seen on the opposite side.

Celestia leaned inside, then stepped over the boards still blocking the door and followed the globe. She carefully placed one hoof after the other on the steps, the bucket floating at her side.

The thing inside it bulged, extended an eye over the border, scanned the room, and hissed.

"See, she likes it." Celestia landed on the floor with a hop.

Luna frowned. "How are you so sure? For all we know maybe it—"

"She."

"Really? Fine. For all we know, she could be, like, complaining and saying bad things. Or maybe she has tummy problems."

"I know she likes it. I can feel it. She's like a slug, but gooier, and slugs like dark places, so this is perfect." Celestia went over to a heap of rotten wood planks. "Look, we put her down, and if she doesn't like it we'll find some other place." She put the bucket down, then put it on its side.

The thing oozed out, rivulets of black goo exploring the floor and creeping towards the debris. More eyes surfaced, covering every direction.

"So, you called her Slimey?" Luna moved to the other side of the opening, then glanced over her shoulder. "I thought you said it wasn't a good name for a filly."

"It's a work in progress, we try it for a while and see if it sticks." Celestia snickered, then laughed out loud. The thing stopped its expansions, half of its eyes turning to the unicorn filly. "Hahahaha. It sticks. And she's sticky. Hahahahah."

The eyes blinked.

Luna turned her head to the side. "That's new. Hey, your pet learned to blink."

"Hehehehehe, sticky…"

Luna furiously waved her hooves. "Shhhhh, Tia. Keep it down, I don't want to get caught."

Celestia sat down and clamped her hooves on her muzzle. Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and started giggling again. "But, hahaha, sticky on Slimey. Slimey sticking on hahahaha."

The eyes on the thing shifted forth and back between Luna and Celestia, then it trembled doing its best impression of a very unappetizing and quite judgmental pudding before resuming its seeping around.

"See, even your pet thinks you are silly." Luna snorted. "I'm gonna see if somepony arrives. And when they catch you because you are laughing, I will say that I didn't know anything about it."

"Hehehe, don--don't worry, I'll be fine. Hahahaha…" Celestia waved a hoof, then wiped a tear away.

The sound of Luna's hooves became fainter, then ceased completely.

"Guess we are alone now." The light of the fireflies painted the walls with dancing shadows, transforming junk into otherworldly shapes. Hair-thin tendrils expanded, exploring every nook and cranny. With a weak crack, a piece of rotten wood broke away, slowly pulled to the center of the black mass.

"So, do you like it?"

A single eye stared at Celestia. The piece of wood arrived, a fang circled hole appeared and crushed it. Then the thing blinked.

"Lulu was right, that's new." Her smile widened and she clopped her hooves together. "You are learning. I was right, you are smarter than you look. I mean, blinking isn't much, but then you didn't have eyes to start with. I think. Maybe. You know, you are bit weird, after all."

The last splinters of wood disappeared into the inky substance.

"And I think you like it here. Hah, told Lulu so." She giggled again, then raised her head and looked around. She tapped her chin and said, "Now, where do we prepare a nice, cozy nest for you? Do you want a nest? Are you more a den thingy?"

A bundle of tendrils surrounded a broken amphora half covered in stones. The goo stopped, its eyes snapped to the heap of debris, and a shiver shook it. First slowly, then faster and faster the thing crept forward with the determination of an angry slug.

"I think I can bring down half a bale of hay. And a blanket. Hay and blankets should be alright, I think. Can't go wrong with that."

Fangs surfaced and flowed forward.

"And a bowl of water. Hmmm, that will be difficult. Donna Copper Horn keeps track of them. I have no idea how she keeps track of them, but every time I loan one out, she discovers it. I suspect sorcery."

The tendrils around the debris became thicker, sprouted smaller ones, covered the heap.

"I should be able to get you some stale bread. We usually put it into the soup, but they won't catch a few missing loaves. You can put it into the milk. Well, I can put it into the milk, then it will be all soft and mushy and good. Not that I think you need that. Then—" There was a squeak. Celestia's ears swiveled, then she looked down at the thing as it neared its objective.

She stepped around the mass of rocks covered in a tight web of black goo. All the fissures were filled, except a hole where the thing was approaching it.

"What are you doing? Those are rocks, I'm pretty sure you can't eat them. If you are hungry I can bring you some—"

There were multiple squeaks. A wide, tongue-like appendage shot out from the central mass and through the hole, retreating again an instant later. At its tip, a fat, gray mouse and three smaller ones were trapped in the substance. They wiggled and squeaked, but to no avail.

"Slimey, what are you doing? Let the mousies go, you can't play—"

The fangs surrounded a hole in the mass and started to vibrate.

"No, they aren't food. Stop—"

There was a last squeak, barely audible under the buzzing of the teeth. Then a brief shriek and finally a wet splash.

Celestia took a step back. Her legs ceded below her, she fell on her haunches.

The cistern was utterly silent.

With a vicious thrust, the spoon penetrated deep into the bowl of soup, murdering the parsley root by cutting it in half. A few drops of soup splashed up, landing on Celestia's cheek. Fragments of mashed root floated up, grim reminders of the recent act of vegetable slaying, swimming between a strip of kale and a piece of rye bread.

Celestia paled and dropped the spoon. She could hear the parsley root scream in agony while it died. At least conceptually. She wasn't sure what sound a root would make, but it was surely heart-wrenching.

A colossal hand closed on her shoulder, and a voice one could associate with a very caring avalanche whispered, "Are you unwell, my little Sunshine?"

Celestia tensed, then looked up. A brown coated minotaur cow towered over her. One of her short, reddish horns was chipped, the other carved with a spiral of angular symbols. Soft eyes stared down, and there was a smile on the minotaur’s muzzle. There was always a smile there. Well, almost always. When there wasn't it usually involved Celestia and some grand idea she had had.

Celestia bit her lip. Maybe it was another of those occasions where she had done something wrong. Again. And it would wipe the smile off Donna Copper Horn's face.

She turned again to her bowl and grabbed the spoon again. "'s nothing."

The hand didn't budge from her shoulder. "Are you sure? Because from up here it looks like there is something worrying you."

Maybe there would be a fight at the table which would distract Donna Copper Horn. Celestia glanced over the massive expanse of wood and to the others reunited for dinner. Meadowsweet was nursing little Radish, Millet was discussing with Garvino, Willowbark seemed concentrated on his own bowl, and Fidelis was chatting with Master Sottile. There seemed to be no hope for a diversion from there.

"So?" The sound of wood scraping against the stone floor meant Donna Copper Horn had just pulled a stool over. She wouldn't give up.

A sideways look to Luna did nothing to fuel hope. Her sister was clearly putting all of herself into looking as inconspicuous as possible. A pretty miserable attempt, in Celestia's opinion, but it still meant she was alone in this one.

That could actually be a good thing, Luna tended to break easily under Donna Copper Horn's look. Celestia could resist for far more time. Like, a full five more minutes, usually.

She would be brave. She wouldn't blabber. She would keep Slimey safe.

She could hear the squeaking.

The hand reached her mane and passed thick fingers through it.

Did that mean that Slimey was evil? That she really was a monster, but of the vicious, unfun variety? Had she made a mistake in bringing her home?

"I…"

But if she had made a mistake, then Donna Copper Horn would get angry. Or, worse, she would be disappointed. After the manticore, she had told her to not bring any more dangerous critters home, and Celestia had promised she wouldn't. Slimey didn't seem so dangerous, but what if she had been wrong?

She had to know. And if she had made a mistake, she had to fix it. In secret.

"I… If something did eat something else, but smaller, like… Like if Luna eats a prune, but makes a mess out of it—" Her sister raised her head. "—Only, it's not Luna eating it, and it's not a prune, and it's really, really messy, and the not-prune screams. A lot. Does that make not-Luna bad?"

Luna puffed her cheeks and sat straighter, a cabbage strip hanging from the side of her muzzle. "I don't make a mess when I eat!"

Donna Copper Horn reached out and removed the strip. "Hush, my little star, we know you are a fine, well-behaved young mare. Celestia said it was not-Luna." The hand moved under Celestia's chin and turned her to the minotaur. "Tell me, little sunshine, did you see not-Luna messily eating a not-prune?"

Celestia's first instinct was to deny everything, but that wouldn't help her. She nodded.

"Would this not-prune maybe have been a mouse?"

She knew. Celestia held her breath, Donna Copper Horn knew. It had all been a trap, and now they would take Slimey away and she would get punished. They would keep her in her room for a month, and then she would have to translate Zebrican papyri for weeks. And no more sweets. And they all would be disappointed. And they would take Slimey away. And then—

"And would not-Luna happen to be Old Scar?"

And so Celestia's panic ran face first into a wall of unexpected developments. The filly blinked. What had Old Scar to do with anything? She hated the cat and he hated her and both kept a safe distance from each other. Well, almost. She had to admit it was more her keeping a doubly safe distance from him. You couldn't play with him if you liked having your blood on the inside of your body, and only Donna Copper Horn could pet him. Why would he be involved?

Dumbfounded, she began to shake her head, then caught herself and whispered, "Yes?".

Donna Copper Horn sighed, grabbed Celestia and put her on her lap. "You see, some creatures have to eat meat, it is in their nature to do so and they can't avoid it. You know that Garvino and Fidelis both eat meat, right?"

Celestia looked over to the gray Diamond Dog and to the old Griffon. "I know that. I'm not stupid.".

"I never thought you were. You know that they are both good people, so I guess you are disturbed by what seemed simple cruelty. Is that so?"

Celestia thought back at the terrified squeaking, at the buzzing sound, at the grinding of fang on fang. At all the blood. She closed her eyes and shuddered.

"That's what I thought." The minotaur put her hand on the filly's head and petted her with slow, calm strokes. "Garvino and Fidelis have both accepted Harmony. They will eat meat and fish, but they both will be very careful as to make it as quick and as painless as possible for their prey. But they do that because they can. Old Scar, well, he is a lovely kitty—"Celestia bit her tongue"—but he can't truly accept Harmony as a guiding principle for his life. He isn't like Garvino, or Fidelis, or you and me. He behaves according to his nature, and that means that sometimes he does things that we would think of being wrong."

The knowledge that Old Scar could be out there, viciously killing small animals and being cruel while doing it disturbed Celestia, but it hardly surprised her. She had always suspected that he was a Wendigo incarnate, feeding on pain and fear. And mice.

That this wasn't a reason to consider him evil in Donna Copper Horn's eyes, on the other hoof, was unexpected. The minotaur had very high — sometimes unreasonably high, in Celestia's opinion — standards regarding what constituted good behavior.

"Do you understand, little sunshine?"

That sounded like it was some kind of lesson, which meant that putting it into the right words was important. Celestia thought about it for a minute, then said, "I think so. When a creature can't accept Harmony then… they can't behave badly, they just do what their nature says?"

Donna Copper Horn smiled. "Almost, but I think that I will leave all the nuances to Master Sottile. We can still educate them, we can try to teach them to behave a bit differently, but we can't judge them like we would judge one another."

Celestia leaned in the massive chest and the soft fur. Thinking back to what had happened in the cistern still scared her, but if it was good enough for Donna Copper Horn, then it would be good enough for her.

The flow from the deep stream underlying this reality that had fed It, after growing continuously, had been reduced to a trickle. This was unacceptable.

The causes were less than obvious. While it seemed to have been causally connected to the consumption of matter, that had not been a violation of the local rule-set. That meant the circumstances of the feeding were what had to be examined, and not the feeding itself.

It went through the scene again. It had captured prey, It had consumed it, the being that seemed to have taken a special interest in It had been there.

The entity who had trapped It in the prison of dead meat first and then provided nutrition and transportation.

The flow from the stream had come through that creature. And now it had been reduced. And this meant… something.

For the first time since its inception, It was confused.

It missed the flow. There was power in it, but also something else, something that made it feel… right. It would require a further, deeper examination.

For the moment, It had to regain access to the flow somehow.

It started reorganizing all the knowledge It had acquired about the entity. It would understand the creature better. That seemed the right thing to do.

The glossy mass shifted in the darkness. A web of tendrils crept on the floor and climbed the walls of the chamber. One twitched, snapped a bit to the side, and caught a millipede. Goo surrounded the bug and pulled it to the center of the thing.

The few remaining living creatures hiding in cracks and in far-off corners kept well away. By the time the sun rose, they would either have left or would have been eaten.

The black web began to shift again when it felt more than heard the soft impacts of tiny hooves.

It froze for a moment. A shiver ran up through the web of black threads. Tendrils retreated, the web wilted.

When the flickering light shone through the haphazardly heaped boards, a single, roundish glob the size of an overweight pumpkin sat in the middle of the floor.

A golden glow surrounded the boards and moved them aside. A firefly lantern flew inside, casting long, ever-shifting shadows. With a hop, Celestia landed on the small platform at the top of the stairs. A brown cape, rough fabric with ragged borders and a crooked cut, hid most of her form. Her horn lit up again, and the boards returned to their place, the soft thunk they made akin to thunderclaps in the silence.

A single eye opened in the being on the floor.

Celestia looked down, raised a hoof, and stopped. She wavered, leaned back, turned her head around. A deep breath, and she whispered, "You are being silly. Think about what Donna Copper Horn said." She turned her head again and squinted her eyes. The lantern floated to the center of the cavernous room, the yellow light chasing the darkness away.

The thing rolled forward and turned the eye up to the filly.

What felt like an eternity, and amounted to just six heartbeats, passed. Celestia pressed her lips into a line, nodded and walked forward, carefully descending the stairs without looking away from the thing. With a little jump, she skipped the last three steps and landed on the floor.

The single eye on the thing blinked slowly.

"Are you gonna bite me?" It came out in a single breath, almost no pause between words. Celestia gulped.

The thing blinked again. Its eye stared, then turned backward and disappeared in the depth of the being. Two smaller eyes, one green and round, the other red and without pupil, surfaced.

"I brought you something." A small bulge appeared under the cape and traveled forward. From below the flap, a gray-brown bun came forward, held in Celestia's magic. It floated to the mass and settled a step in front of it. "It's fruit bread. Meadowsweet had the first batch of dried fruits ready today, and they prepared it. It should have been for tomorrow, but I sneaked in and got one anyway. I became very good at sneaking, you know? I even made this sneaking-cape all by myself. It's brown because in the darkness you can't see brown very well. Garvino told me so. He said that only morons use black when they are around in the woods because then you can see this black hole in the night and you can see somepony sneaking. Brown is better, you don't see it at all. Well, that and I only found an old jute sack, but I think I made a very good cape anyway. I can sneak everywhere."

One of the eyes went downwards and looked at the bun. The other stayed on the filly.

Celestia scraped the floor with a hoof. "I… Look, I know I kinda freaked out this afternoon, but I'm not angry. I brought you the sweets because I think you will like it. It's very tasty. Eat it."

The lower eye began to climb again.

"It's just, you kinda scared me. The thing you did to those mice, it was…" Celestia looked away and bit her lip. "I know that sometimes critters hunt, I'm not stupid. But they squeaked and squeaked and it was like screams and…"

Celestia sat down, her lip trembling. "And then I ran away because you were scary and I thought that maybe you were bad or evil because… I mean, you kinda have to eat and I get that, but that was scary and I ran away and I know I shouldn't have done that. Donna Copper Horn explained it to me, you are what you are and sometimes this stuff happens. I should have known better. I…"

Celestia sniffled and closed her eyes. "I should have been better. You can't leave somepony because you are scared. You… I… I'm sorry. Please, please forgive me." A tear rolled down her cheek, then another one, and another one.

And then something soft and strangely warm wiped them away.

Celestia blinked.

In front of her was the — was Slimey, one thick tentacle extended and carefully patting her on the cheek, looking at her with those strange, malformed eyes.

In the twilight of the subterranean cistern, filly and thing stood in silence, staring at each other. In a far-off corner, something with a lot of legs seized the moment and scuttled away.

Wiping away the remaining tears and sniffling, Celestia tried for a smile. "So, you forgive me?"

Another tendril grew out of the mass. It slowly rose to Celestia's face, and then started patting her on the nose.

A sneeze echoed through the room. The thing flinched back. Celestia rubbed her muzzle, looked up and jumped forward giggling. She scooped up the thing in a hug, the pudding-like consistency staying strong as she squeezed. "Oh, thank you. I was so afraid you would stay mad at me." The thing squirmed, trembled, and finally calmed down, pouring over Celestia's shoulder.

"Now, do you want to eat something?" A golden glow surrounded the bun still laying on the floor and Celestia's magic brought it to the filly. "I told you, it's quite good, you will like it." She broke it in two as the thing flowed back on the floor in front of it, opened a circular mouth and brought out fangs.

The buzzing started a moment later.

Celestia winced. "Well, maybe we can work on that."

Chapter 3

"The Mare of the Rye haunts this road, I tell you." The lanky, light-green colt ogled the forest on the side with the same kind of distrust usually reserved for venomous snakes or, at least for another couple of years, fillies. "We should have gone along the river, it's safer."

The red colt, a massive pony shaped either by hard work or by stubbornness and a bad attitude, rolled his eyes. "That would take far too long. I don't want to waste the whole day. And there's no rye here, only woods and meadows."

"She only comes from the rye, and there are fields of it near Sottile's farm. Wouldn't be surprised if they summoned her. Can't trust unicorns." From the crown of the trees came a fluttering. The green colt jumped to the side letting out a squeak.

"Damn you to the icy wastes, Mint. Will you calm down?" The red colt huffed and stomped. "There's no Mare of the Rye, and I don't have all the day. Look—" he turned his head and rummaged in his saddlebags. A moment later he pulled out a rope knot made of three differently colored hemp-threads. "—I brought a Talisman of Concord. Now, will you finally calm down and let us bring the order to those damn cows? I have a mud battle with Sottile's blank-flanks to prepare, troops to rally, plausible deniability to put in place. That's tons of work."

Mint just stood there, mouth hanging open, eyes wide.

"What? I told you about it last week, we prepared for it. By the stars, you are so stupid it beggars belief. I have no idea why I even bother with you."

"Cl…Cl…Clay, the M…M…Ma…"

Clay gritted his teeth and turned around. "The Concord be my witness, if this is another of your—"

The thing stood in the shadows of the trees, just behind the border of the forest. It was vaguely shaped like a pony, but completely black. Dozens of eyes covered its surface, staring at the two colts, sometimes blinking.

The silence was oppressive. Clay's ears swiveled, but the only sound was the breeze ruffling the leaves. No bird sang, no cricket chirped. The subtle scent of decay reached his nostrils. It was weak, barely perceptible over the flowers and the grass of the meadows behind them, but it was there, and once noticed it stood out.

Clay gulped, then glanced at the talisman in his hoof. With a sudden jerk, he held it out in front of him, pointing the amulet at the thing. His leg shivered, behind him he could still hear Mint stutter incoherently.

The monster stood simply there, unmoving. Clay felt sweat form on his brow. A thick drop fell on his muzzle. It itched.

A white fleck appeared on the chest of the being. It slowly grew into a horizontal slit, then become wider and wider until a crooked grin had formed, almost going from shoulder to shoulder. It parted its lips, fangs glinted in the morning sun, and a growling sound came out. "Frrrreeeendzzzz."

The screaming had a hammer-like quality to it, shattering the silence like cheap pottery. The subsequent dust-cloud didn't do much to dampen it. The rapidly departing ponies, and the admirable speed they managed to keep, on the other hoof, contributed a lot more to re-establishing calm.

Celestia rolled on the moss holding her sides and laughing while Slimey poured off from her.

"That was a bit mean." Luna stood a couple of steps away and giggled. "They will have nightmares for weeks. That was too much."

"Ah, shut up. If you were worried then you shouldn't have given me the idea with the smile. That was a stroke of genius." Celestia crawled over to Slimey and hugged it. "And you heard Clay, they were coming at us again, with mud. Did you want to return tonight to Donna Copper Horn caked in dirt? I already had my bath two days ago, and I want it to be enough for at least another week."

Luna glanced at the thing pouring over Celestia's legs. "Baths aren't so terrible. And you get Slimey all over you, mud sounds a lot better than that. How can you stand it?"

"Slimey is pretty comfortable. You have no idea what you are missing." Celestia harrumphed and turned her nose upward. "And she doesn't even stink on the inside. She's warm and soft and I'm pretty sure she would be great to not get wet under the rain."

"No, thank you. I still think she's kinda weird. I like her a bit more, but not enough to put her on my head." The goo coagulated around Celestia's hooves. Luna pulled out her tongue. "I'm pretty sure Slimey is trying to clean out your frogs."

Celestia blinked and looked down at the black mass covering her fore-legs. A couple of eyes looked up at her, while a slight tingling ran up and down her coat. She snorted and smiled. "Maybe, she eats pretty much everything, so I'm not really surprised. She still likes honey-bread better."

"Everypony loves honey-bread. That's like a law of the Concord. I think. We should ask Master Sottile. And if it isn't a law it should be, because it foments agreement." Luna glanced over at the road. "What do we do now? I guess they won't attack today anymore, so we have a free evening."

Slimey crawled on Celestia's back as she stood up. "Well, I think we can get ready for when they will try that again. In the stories Garvino tells us he always says that good preparation wins the war and stuff."

Luna tapped her chin. "Are we at war with Clay? He is kind of a jerk, and I guess I would like to have him go home full of mud for once, but war sounds dreadful."

"I want the creek to play and to swim. He doesn't want us there. War is the only solution. Do you remember the scrolls Master Sottile made us translate from Minoian? Where it said that winning the battle of the mind means you won't have to fight the one on the field?"

Luna tried to raise an eyebrow. She had trained very hard to master it, and was sure that in a couple of weeks she would be able to do it and to express her doubt in the right way. For the moment she managed to imitate the dance of drunken caterpillars, but she felt she was on the right path. "Wasn't that how it was better to talk stuff out instead of fighting over it?"

Celestia snorted. "Yeah, if you are a quitter. But we aren't quitters." She turned her head and smiled at Slimey. "Don't worry Lulu, I have a plan."

Donna Copper Horn passed the brush over Celestia's back, raised it to eye's height and squinted at it. After a couple of seconds of silence, she smiled and put everything down. "Well, little Sun, I found no lice at all. Isn't that splendid?"

"So, no washing my coat with vinegar?" Celestia looked up to the minotaur.

"No, my little Sun, that won't be necessary." Donna Copper Horn turned to Luna. The filly was sitting in the corner, her hoof half raised toward her head, her eyes shifting left and right. "Tell me, little Star, does it itch somewhere?"

Luna glanced at the door and bit her lip. "N—no. No itch at all. No need for vinegar."

Donna Copper Horn patted Celestia on her back and moved the wooden stool a bit to the side. She called Luna with a gesture and said, "I shall be the judge of that. Now, come here and let me have a look. You know I won't hurt you."

Luna looked down and whimpered, "But vinegar burns."

"Only for a short while, and if there are no lice, then you won't have to worry about that, right?" Donna Copper Horn smiled. "Now, come here and let me see."

It was a dejected Luna that sat down in front of the minotaur.

After a couple of minutes Donna Copper Horn glared at the brush, then sighed. "I'm sorry, little Star, but it seems that you caught them."

Luna whimpered, then wiggled out from under the minotaur's hand and looked up, tears in her eyes. "I… I don't want to get the bath. And the comb hurts, and Willowbark's lotion stinks, and— and it doesn't itch that much. Maybe we can wait and they'll go away?"

"Hush, little Star, you know it has to be done. Lice can hurt the balance of Harmony in you, we can't have them infesting you. And it isn't so bad. You like it when Meadowsweet steams the blankets, right? They smell so nice and are so soft after she does, it will be nice to sleep in them tonight." Donna Copper Horn patted Luna on the head. "And you won't be alone, I will have to wash too. We can go into the bath together, and I can brush you after that." She leaned forward and whispered. "Only the two of us, it will be fun. You'll only have to stay away from your sister for a while. Just until tonight."

Luna sniffled. "That's not fair." She raised a hoof and scratched her head. "It burns and it hurts and I don't want to do it and Celestia hasn't to do it and it isn't fair."

"Well, I didn't get lice." Celestia blew a raspberry. "So it's only right."

Luna pointed her hoof at Celestia and cried, "Just because I don't want Slimey to go all over my fur. Your pet stinks and eats weird stuff and it's still unfair that I have to take the bath!"

Celestia glared at Luna. Luna huffed.

"Who's Slimey?"

Master Sottile was, without a doubt, one of the most knowledgeable ponies around. He was a doctor of law, he dabbled in medicine and alchemy, he was a wizard and a pretty good physiologist on the top of it. His grasp of philosophy and mathematics was second to none in the region, he spoke and read a dozen languages, and he had studied the great works of Zebrican naturalists and Minoian architects and mechanists.

And yet, despite a life dedicated to science, when the glow around his horn subsided, he still had no idea what the strange, horrible thing sticking to the wall of the cistern was.

"So, what are we dealing with?" Donna Copper Horn's voice was tense. Master Sottile glanced to his side and saw her opening and closing her fists around the large bronze mace she held. Her eyes were pointed forward, and he was pretty sure she refused to blink.

"I don't know. It is completely inert to every scrying spell I tried on it." He adjusted the lanterns and widened the illuminated areas. The thing clinging to the wall looked back at them, a black mass the size of a melon hanging like a mold on the bricks. A shudder ran down his spine. "If what you told me is true, it hasn't hurt the fillies, but I can't shake the feeling that it is dangerous. You did say it had fangs, am I correct?"

"Luna said it sometimes had them. It seems to change continuously." Donna Copper Horn sighed. "Celestia assured me that it was harmless. I love her with all my heart, but I fear her judgment, in this case, can't be fully trusted. Do you think that thing poisoned their minds?"

Sottile stepped forward and squinted at the being. "Difficult to say. Poisoning a mind usually leaves traces that can be perceived by those holding the victim dear. I didn't see anything strange in their behaviour—" He stopped and bowed his head to the side. "—anything stranger than usual. I think the only thing that changed in the past days is the times they came back covered in mud. It happened less often, right?"

"I think that depended on it not having rained in a week."

"That never stopped them before." He halted two lengths away. There was something in those eyes, some form of intellect observing him, evaluating him. Master Sottile sorely missed his staff now, it would have helped understanding it better. "Where's Garvino? I would have expected him being here to contain this creature."

"He is checking the rest of the farm and is assigning some guards to the wall. He suspects there may be more of these things." Sottile heard her hooves behind him. He also heard the worry in her voice. "I don't want that thing near the fillies. It reeks, and I have a bad feeling about it. I'm also sure it was the thing Celestia talked about last week when she was scared of something. How could I have been so blind as to think Old Scar frightened her?"

"We couldn't have guessed what truly happened." He raised a hoof and scratched his chin. "If I remember correctly, you told her that sometimes creatures behaved that way and that she shouldn't worry." His eyes followed a tendril hidden in the joints between the bricks. It disappeared in the darkness further down the wall.

"That was different. We are not talking about a cat here. By the Harmony, we are not even talking about a manticore. At least with that, we knew what we were dealing with."

The tendril pulsed briefly.

Maybe there was another way to examine the situation. Something more indirect. Sottile ignited his horn and felt the flow of magic around the thing. There was the underlying structure of the universe. His magic passed over the tapestry of reality and moved on. He stopped, there seemed to be some kind of creasing around the creature. He followed the contours of the deformation. It surrounded the being, roughly approximating the physical form. He moved further towards the center.

His pupils dilated, his mind stared into the void.

There.

Was.

Nothing.

Master Sottile screamed and stumbled back. The glow of his horn dissipated, and he felt his legs give out under him.

Two strong hands caught him, immediately followed by the sound of something metallic hitting the floor. "Master Sottile, are you alright? What happened?"

He closed his eyes. A deep breath. Another one. "I… I never saw something like that, and I hope I will never see it again. I do not know what that is, but we cannot risk it being near the fillies. We have to remove it somehow, even if I don't know how."

"No! You can't!"

Sottile's eyes shot open and he turned his head just in time to see Celestia and Luna pass him and run to the thing. He was about to open his mouth when Donna Copper Horn's voice thundered, "What are you doing here? I told you to stay with Fidelis!"

"You can't take Slimey away, she hasn't done anything wrong!" Celestia skittered to a halt in front of the wall and opened her forelegs. Luna stopped at her side and looked back and forth between her sister and the two adults.

The thing on the wall fell down and crept towards Celestia.

He could almost feel the floor vibrate as Donna Copper Horn thundered, "Celestia, you will leave this instant. That thing could be dangerous, and I won't allow you to endanger yourself or your sister."

Sottile could feel the hands holding him trembling. He gritted his teeth and stood straight again. "Listen to Donna Copper Horn. She only wants the best for you."

With a sweeping move, Celestia picked up the thing and turned her head to glare at him. "No! You are just afraid because you don't know anything about Slimey. She's sweet and she likes me and she isn't dangerous at all. Tell them, Lulu."

Luna bit her lip and looked at Celestia's pleading eyes. She nodded, then turned back to Master Sottile and Donna Copper Horn. "It's true. Slimey stinks and is creepy and she has too many eyes, but she never did anything bad to us. She didn't bite me even once. And she likes honey-bread!"

"Please be reasonable. We can't allow that—" Donna Copper Horn took a step forward, then halted when a row of fangs appeared on the thing.

Celestia seemed to ignore the implicit menace and simply hugged it harder. "You only say that because she's not a pony. If she was, you wouldn't say those things. She's my friend and I won't let you take her away."

"That is not true." Sottile scanned the room. There was some debris he could use as projectiles. "We are only worried about you."

"But if she was a pony you wouldn't simply take her away, right?" Luna's question cut like a blade. "Right?"

Master Sottile looked up to Donna Copper Horn, then back to the fillies. "We—"

Outside of the ring of light cast by the lanterns, in the nooks and crannies of the cistern, the shadows began to move.

Master Sottile whipped his head around and glared at the darkness.

"What is the…" Copper Horn's voice faded as a drop of pure black, barely larger than a pebble, crawled out from the darkness on her left on thin, spindly legs. It wasn't as much as walking as flailing its limbs around, proceeding on the floor in irregular skips and rolls, now falling forward, then dragging itself towards Celestia, Luna, and the creature.

The filly turned her head and asked, "Did you make little ones, Slimey? Are you a mom now?"

"I'm not sure, Tia. Don't they need to be in two to make something like that?" Luna squinted at the thing, just a step away from them. "But yeah, I guess they are kinda similar."

"Luna, Celestia, move away." Master Sottile's voice was barely a whisper. "Now."

Celestia looked up, then her eyes became as large as dishes.

All around them, the shadows flowed into the light. A black flood of scuttling, scratching, flailing creatures moved from all edges. Slithering out of cracks, dropping from the ceiling, it was as if the walls sweated them out.

Two massive hands shot forward towards the fillies. Master Sottile's horn lightened up and burned in an azure aura. Slimey pulsed.

A wave of un-light raced out, time slowed down, the sounds muffled.

For an instant, the cistern knew peace in immobility. Donna Copper Horn's face was frozen in a silent scream, her body leaned forward, arms extended. Celestia and Luna looked outwards, surprise painted on their muzzles. Master Sottile stood lower, teeth gritting, magic flames shaped like claws jumping forward from his horn. Slimey stood at the center of it all, its body bulging upwards.

When time recovered and decided to resume its due course, everything happened almost instantly.

The flood rushed forwards and collapsed on the goo and the fillies. Donna Copper Horn screamed as the mass submerged her, muffling her voice. A brief hiss was all Master Sottile's magic was able to accomplish before being extinguished.

Black encompassed the world.

As sudden as it started, it was over.

Light returned, Donna Copper Horn's scream resounded in the room as she stumbled forward. Master Sottile wavered, his magic dissipating as he brought a hoof to his horn.

Celestia blinked at the thing she was hugging.

Where the formless creature had been before now stood a shining, black column going from floor to ceiling. Its base resembled roots of a tree, and at half-height was a bulging mass, the surface corrugated and slowly pulsating.

"Slimey!" The anguished cry of the filly echoed through the cistern.

Chapter 5

With a grunt, Copper Horn put the wooden panels down and looked to the window. The moon shone on the farm, covering piles of wood, carts and plows in a silvery light. The smell of wet earth and grass whiffed through the opening, and for a brief, precious moment everything seemed at peace.

The crack and giggles broke that illusion, and the chittering set the debris on fire.

"No, Slimey, you have to eat what's on the spoon, not the spoon."

She turned around and looked at the two fillies and Meadowsweet sitting at one corner of the table, with the creature laying on the surface and, apparently, destroying the wooden cutlery. The new form writhed and wiggled, and she could see that there was something under the skin, something pushing against it. "I don't like it."

"And what would you prefer to do?" Millet yawned. Bedmane didn't even start to cover what sat on his head. Burning ruins came closer, though there was less smoke and screaming involved. "Would you have liked it more if little Celestia had taken it again somewhere in the forest and then kept it there in secret?"

"I am sure she would have done exactly that if we hadn't been fast enough." She passed a hand over her head. "And, from her point of view, I even understand why. But still, that thing is dangerous, I can feel it."

"Garvino is pretty dangerous too. And yourself, well, I wouldn't like to start a brawl with you, no offense."

"That is different, and you know it." Copper Horn snorted.

"Yeah, right." He laid his head on the table. "My sweetheart seems to like her, though. And the fillies are happy, which is a pretty big thing for Slimey."

"The little ones would be happy too if they could eat only sweets for a month, and yet we don't let them." She saw the thing open its maw wide again as Meadowsweet put a slice of apple forward.

Copper Horn closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Harmony springs from the inside, and flows freely when one opens the heart. Harmony feeds on Harmony. Embrace what comes, accept the other, Harmony will prevail.

What had for a long time been a comforting prayer felt empty. She knew the truth of it, but really making it part of oneself was so much easier when she didn't have to stare down at what her gut told her would be the death of everyone. "How does she do it?"

Millet raised his head. "How does who do what?"

"Your wife." Copper Horn nodded in the direction of Meadowsweet, who was smiling at the fillies and at… at the larva. "She has seen some of the effects of that thing. She must feel it too, the aura. How can she simply sit there and feed it"–She squinted her eyes–"dried kale leaves?"

"Because she is extraordinary and a variety of fruit and produce is the foundation of a healthy filly. I'm so lucky to have found her that I still wake up every morning barely believing it." The smile on Millet's face was radiant. "Oh, and when she sees a foal she can't really help herself and start stuffing them with food. That, and she's ready to bolt with the fillies if something turns out badly."

Luna leaned into Celestia's side. "Do you think it's good feeding her all this stuff?"

Celestia pointed at the grub. "Hah, I've seen her munching on bricks. Slimey here can eat everything."

"Meadowsweet is one of the best of us. I hope I'll someday be as capable as her at accepting things." Copper Horn turned to the stove, opened the hatch below it and put a new log on the embers.

"You are their guardian, you know? You are a mother to them, while Meadowsweet, well, she's a mother to everyone. It's normal for you being worried. Damn me to the Icy Wastes if I lie, but I'm scared too. But we are trying to be better, and I think we are doing a pretty good job at it."

Copper Horn took a deep breath, then blew on the embers. Sparks danced, the white-coated coal glowed red, and a flame began to slowly burn under the wooden log. She closed the hatch and stood up again. "If you say so. Heh, when we all started I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I never expected, well, this."

"I don't think anybody did. Except maybe for Garvino, I can see him having some kind of plan for this situation. By the way, where is he? And where are Master Sottile, Willowbark, and Fidelis?"

"In the cistern." She grabbed a ladle and filled a kettle with water taken from a barrel. "Master Sottile wanted to examine the, well, I suppose the remnants of the cocoon. He hopes to understand better what we are having here."

Millet stood up and walked to a low shelf. He grabbed a terracotta jar by the twine and brought it back to the minotaur.

Copper Horn took it, opened the lid and pulled out some herbs she threw in the kettle. "I really am lost. What should we do?"

Millet sat down and brought a hoof up to Copper Horn's hand. "We should take one step at a time. Let us begin with a thyme infusion, then sit down with the fillies, and then let's prepare for tomorrow."

Copper Horn blinked. "Tomorrow? Wh–Rust take me, the fields, every farm will bring the harvest. We have to get the ledger." She passed a hand over her eyes. "Is everything ready? Shouldn't you go back to sleep? You'll have to be well rested."

"Oh, don't worry. I'll have just to finish a couple of things, and those will be ready when the farmers arrive. I was a tad more preoccupied about the food." Millet glanced at the trapdoor to the cellar. "With all the excitement I fear we forgot something."

"We have food. I just forgot it was tomorrow." Copper Horn reached for a higher shelf and took another small jar. "I guess I wouldn't have slept much anyway." She took a pinch of green powder and put it in a cup. "Let's send the fillies to bed." She looked at the cup and grimaced. "It will be a long night."

As she looked at Slimey eating another piece of kale, Celestia felt the muscles around her mouth starting to hurt from all the smiling. It was still worth it.

"She's not a butterfly." Luna crossed her hooves on the table and laid her head on them. "I kinda hoped she would become a butterfly. Or a moth."

"And why should she become a butterfly, Luna? From what I'm seeing here she's a bit more like a locust than anything else." Meadowsweet grabbed an apple and cut it into quarters with rapid moves dictated by habit. Slimey held her mouth wide open, needle-like fangs glinting in the candle-light. "Where does she put all that stuff?" she asked around the grip of the knife.

"Because she became a chrysalis. Like butterflies do." Luna scrunched her muzzle. "Caterpillars do it. Then they become butterflies. Or moths, but those are around only at night and Slimey was pretty happy in the sun."

Celestia lifted the sorry remains of the wooden spoon with her magic. "She's kinda like a caterpillar now." She squinted her eyes at the mangled piece of wood, then hovered a stone bowl with a bite-sized missing piece. "Would you look at that? She's still likes everything, and her manners improved too."

A very hungry looking Slimey was eagerly leaning towards the apple slice Meadowsweet held. The mare meanwhile looked at Celestia, then down at the slowly nearing maw. Little pieces of fruit, splinters of wood and some granite powder were glued on various parts of the grub’s face, and down in her gullet things were moving and shivering.

Meadowsweet blinked, then said, "Is that– What– Must be the light." She put the slice in the little trap, and the fangs closed down on it with a snap. "Awww, do you like it? Oh my, you will grow big and strong if you continue to eat so well."

There was a brief coughing from the other side of the table.

"Have you decided on a new name?" Luna put her hoof over the grub and patted it.

In an instant, Slimey rolled on her back and closed her whole body on Luna's hoof, the slice of apple still between the fangs. There was a crunch and the fruit disappeared in a whirlwind of something red and long.

Luna froze, eyes wide, staring at the sharp teeth hovering over her coat.

She heard the heavy step from Donna Copper Horn, she caught Meadowsweet reaching towards something with the corner of her eye.

Slimey blinked, three rapid movements of membranes from different directions. And then she said, "Lulu."

"Hey, she knows your name too! That's so nice, makes it easier when we go out to play." Celestia leaned forward beside her sister and reached out with her leg. Her hoof scratched Slimey on the side of her face.

The grub contorted again, said, "Tia." and finally faced Meadowsweet again, her mouth wide open.

Celestia glanced at her sister, then giggled. "You are smiling too."

"Am not." Luna patted her face. "Maybe I am. Hehehe. So, did you think about a new name?"

"Why would we need a new name? Slimey is perfectly good one."

Luna shrugged. "She's not slimy anymore. You can't call her that if she's not. Would be like telling a lie every time."

With a twirl, the chewed spoon landed in the stone bowl. Celestia looked at Slimey chomping down on more fruit. "Garvino's name doesn't mean he's whatever a garvino is."

"Griffin names are different. They tell stories of families, even if we don't understand them." Meadowsweet patted Slimey on the head. The grub opened her mouth wider. "No, little one, enough food for today. You should already be stuffed, and we don't want to overdo it." She turned to Celestia. "Slimey sounds almost like a pony name, but it doesn't describe her well. You should think of something else."

"But you are not Meadowsweet, but it's your name all the same. And Millet is not millet." Celestia sat straighter. Slimey opened her maw wider.

"Names are not necessarily straightforward, but they describe somepony, even if maybe they say one thing to mean another." Shaking her head the mare looked down at the grub. "No, nothing more until breakfast."

"You mean a metaphor. Master Sottile told us about them." Luna leaned into Celestia. "She can talk now. Well, she knows our names. Maybe she'll be able to talk in a while. Slimey seems kind of a mean name in that case."

Celestia reached out with her hoof, her lips a thin line. She delicately petted Slimey with her wrist. "So, what should we call you?"

"That is something you can decide tomorrow. It is late, and tomorrow will be a full day. They'll bring in the harvest." Donna Copper Horn's voice was soft but didn't leave any room for objection.

Luna perked up. "It's tomorrow? Oh, we can show Slimey around! And–"

"That won't be possible." Millet nuzzled Meadowsweet, then turned to Celestia. "You'll have to keep her a secret for now. You'll keep her safe. Please, promise that you will tell nopony outside us that you have her."

Celestia looked back and forth between Millet, Meadowsweet, and Donna Copper Horn. There were tired smiles but also worry. She could see it in Donna Copper Horn's hands, as she fidgeted. She could see it in how Millet glanced sideways every now and then. The dozen days of her own longing after Slimey, of her having problems sleeping because she hadn't understood what had happened, it all came back. She gulped.

"We will keep it a secret. Right, Luna?"

Somewhere, in the complex web of concepts composing the ever-changing map of her body, the certainty that she should be capable of more than consuming shivered and slowly grew. Stimuli, digested and deconstructed, attached themselves to memories, stretched out their tendrils and connected to each other.

In time they would congregate in a working whole.

At the moment, though, those were distant preoccupations. Far simpler impulses guided her, a consequence of having a digestive system smarter that the whole rest of her.

Provider of Nutrition, one of the three entities she had identified, was nowhere around. She couldn't feel it, the connection was far too weak for that. Tia and Lulu were also somewhere else, but them she could feel. She knew where they were.

Being away seemed wrong. Aside from consumption of matter, being not far away from them was something she needed. Something she longed for.

The current situation had to be changed.

She considered a direct path, but something, some kind of barely developed mechanism buried somewhere between her synthesizing bladder and her vacuum reactor, advised against it.

She looked around. Swirls and threads woven in complex patterns on a metaphysical layer surrounded her.

They seemed tasty.

Since the whole debacle had begun, Willowbark had tried to be ready for everything. He had meditated more often about the precepts, he had prepared two saddlebags filled with essentials able to help them stay healthy through the winter, he had even come to peace with the idea of losing everyone except the two fillies.

He hadn't quite prepared for mortification.

And yet, standing in the room he had personally inspected and secured to contain–he snorted–Slimey, he couldn't help but feel like a foal.

What had been hidden inscriptions and runes now stood out, their etchings filled with ash and soot. The little crib, each of the bars treated with spells and potions, stood empty in the center of six concentric circles burned through the carpet.

The path taken by the thing was evident even in the flickering light of the candle. It started from the pillows, went by the chewed through bars of the crib, a little crater on the floor, a furrow cutting the circles and finally a hole in the wall.

"Can't say I'm surprised." Master Sottile yawned, then entered the room, a little flock of candles following him.

Willowbark lowered his head. "I'm sorry Master. I… I disappointed you, again. I was so sure it would be enough. Maybe if I had been a uni–"

"Stop right there, Willowbark. Not another word along those lines or I shall have a talk with your mother. And you know what Meadowsweet will say, right?" Two candles landed on the floor while Master Sottile squinted at the runes. "This is… This was excellent work. Can't see a fault with it. And I imbued it with my magic, so if there is culpability, then we share it. No, I fear that this approach to containing it–her won't work."

One of the runes on the door-frame, it's lines traced in ash, crumbled down. Fine dust fell on Willowbark's shoulder. "But, Master, if Six Circles of Harmony can't stop it, then what?"

Master Sottile walked to the hole in the wall laid on his stomach to look through it. "Well, it could mean that she is a creature of pure Harmony, and as such unaffected by it. I doubt so, but I've been wrong in the past, despite what you or the little ones like to believe. She could also be something completely different, outside of the reach of Harmony, and as such flying over its grasp like a pegasus flies over a wall." He tapped at the borders of the hole, stone crumbling to blackened gravel where the hoof touched it. "Or it could be a sign that trying to stop her would be futile."

"So, what? We stop trying?" WIllowbark looked across the small, internal court, torches chasing the darkness away and casting light on the little medicinal herb garden and the well. On the other side of the court, he could see Donna Copper Horn and his father, Millet, standing at the door of the fillies room. "I know we should open our hearts to what comes, but…I mean–"

"We will never abandon the greater Purpose, my good student, but we will change our approach." Master Sottile stood up. "Come with me."

He left the room and slowly crossed the court. "We need to know more about it, which is why I intend to transform the cistern into a laboratory. The cocoon is still there, and we can't, nor do we want to, move it. In the meanwhile, we'll keep an eye on the situation. We will have to try to never leave the little ones completely unsupervised with Slimey, and be ready to bolt if the need arises."

When they arrived Millet shortly turned his head and nodded towards them, then turned back to the room. Donna Copper Horn never let her eyes stray, her lips pressed into a thin line, bags under her eyes. Master Sottile raised his hoof to his lips, then pointed at the door.

Willowbark stepped cautiously forward, his hooves descending slowly on the stone pavement with a barely audible clop. Inside he could see the outlines of pillows scattered on the floor, some wooden blocks, and scrolls. Against the wall leaned a collection of musical instruments, and a double flute was on the small table.

The light streaming in from the outside framed two fillies sleeping on a large bed, blankets tangling them in an inelegant heap. Luna's head laid on Celestia's side, and between them, wormed in the middle of the two bodies, green eyes stared out at him.

A single snore came from Celestia, and she wiggled closer to her sister, her forelegs wrapping around the grub.

With a sigh, Willowbark stepped back. Master Sottile waved to him, and both walked away from the door.

"What do you think, my student?" Master Sottile's voice was barely above a whisper.

"I don't know, Master." A yawn escaped Willowbark, and he blinked. "Nothing seems to make sense about it. We can't trap it, we can't control it, and hurting it… It would be wrong and, I guess, a bad idea besides. It feels wrong, but it hasn't done anything to hurt the little ones. The Harmonious Teachings tell us we should accept it, but I fear that would be like embracing a forest fire. What should we do?"

Master Sottile looked up at the moon. It was in the final phase of its trail through the sky, and soon dawn would bring a new day. "We shall do the only thing that's left for us to do. We shall study, we shall work, and we shall be careful and keep an eye on the little ones. And we shall hope that Celestia and Luna are right and there's nothing to fear."

Author's Note

Thanks to bloons3 for additional editing on this chapter.

And thanks, again, to my usual editors, they are awesome.

Chapter 6

Hunger was a constant companion. Sometimes it diminished, sometimes it seemed on the brink of disappearing, but it never went completely away.

It also didn't bother her much. Feeder mainly saw to that. And when it wasn't Feeder, then it was Predator, or Digger, or Guardian. Caretaker could do it, as could Grower. And there were always Tia and Lulu, always ready to slip her something tasty and let her bask in the Flow which connected them all.

No, hunger was background noise, not something that bothered her. Usually.

For once she longed for living flesh. Or recently deceased, she wasn't picky.

The creatures she could get from Tia and Lulu's coats lacked something.

She had to change the situation someway. She needed a plan.

Planning, thinking, considering. It was something she was doing more and more lately. She was aware of the change and of how, with the passing of time, she had learned to manipulate more complex concepts. Like how physical integrity of those connected through the Flow influenced others. How events and behaviors could influence the intensity and the quality of the Flow. And how preserving that condition meant she could bathe in the radiance that stemmed from it.

It was a useful bit of knowledge. It also meant that she couldn't get something to sate her craving from there.

The warmth of the Light Above shone on the rock tiles of the courtyard. She rolled onto her side to better catch it. It was strange how she seemed to lack any motivation for moving more than the minimum necessary to stay comfortable. The tepor and the absence of both Tia and Lulu was a combination dissuading physical action.

Time was passing, things were changing. Change she understood, time was kind of new. The Light Above was weaker than before. Each time it disappeared and reappeared it was a bit less warm. She had to enjoy it while it lasted.

She still was hungry.

She rolled another bit, her underside now exposed.

It was possible that the Provider of Food could supply her what she needed if she could make clear what she wanted. That plan required her to transform her hunger in a concept instead of keeping it a feeling.

Maybe it could be done. Maybe she–

Something moved on the other side of the courtyard. Something just slightly smaller than her.

Something not in the Flow.

Her digestive system activated itself and began prodding her.

She focused her senses on the thing.

There was some kind of Flow around it, but it was weak, simple, unstructured. And it was separated from the one she cared about.

The being moved along the low walls. It was fast, and there was some form of intention in it. She tried to understand it, but it was too different from what she knew as to get anything useful out of it.

There was only one thing that mattered, though. It was living flesh.

She rolled on her underside. It was on.

Garvino knew the aftermath of a battle. He had seen some of them, and each one, despite the similarities, had been distinctly impressed in his memories. Debris told stories of things that were no more, of the ephemeral condition of being there, built by years of experience and work and ready to be shattered in an instant of violence. Ravaged fields foretold hunger and hardships to come.

Once again he looked upon the folly of war, on the spirit of greed riding people into madness, blinding them to what sometimes were obvious solutions, stopping them from making rational choices, wanting more than they could realistically get.

As he surveyed the ruins of the inner court he had to admit he was impressed by the extent of mayhem two furballs and an overgrown caterpillar had left behind.

There were shattered vases along the low wall delimiting the arcade, and here and there a chunk of stone was missing like it had been bitten away.

Which probably was exactly what had happened.

Garvino could practically see how things had gone despite not having been there.

Grubby had started on the stone plate in the middle, near the herb garden. Broken stems showed her first approach to her victim, the hole in the ground near the wall where she had missed what had amounted to an ill-advised attempt at pouncing. He was still unclear how that had happened, considering the conspicuous absence of legs, but he wasn't one to get lost in superfluous details. Then there was the furrow crossing the court where a chase happened. The broken vase at the end of it was where he supposed Old Scar had become involved.

What had happened after that was more difficult to infer with any precision, but the gist seemed to be that a fierce battle over food had taken place. Those were always the really vicious ones.

He sometimes regretted that he never had any talent when it came to drawing.

In the middle of a patch of dirt, where once there had been grass, were Grubby and Old Scar, gridlocked, each biting down on the end of a dead rat, pulling, never looking away from each other. It was clear that each expected a sign of weakness from the other, a chance to grab the whole vermin corpse for oneself.

If he ever had seen a better metaphor for his time as a mercenary in the Thousand Reigns down south, he didn't remember it.

"Why doesn't she simply close her maw on her end? I saw her snap rocks in two, a dead rat shouldn't be a problem."

Garvino glanced at Fidelis. The Diamond Dog was passing his paws over the damaged wall, probably already calculating how much mortar he would need to fix it.

"That, my old friend, is greed. If she did that she would get her half, but Old Scar would have the rest." He scratched his neck, his claws gliding through his plumage.

A broken feather. That was the itching. He would have to ask Ginevra to have a look.

"Hmm, do you think this could be a teachable moment? I'm pretty sure Donna Copper Horn or Master Sottile would do that." Fidelis stood up and clapped his paws together. Neither Grubby nor Old Scar moved an inch at the sound.

"You may be right. But I don't want to wait for tonight." The temptation of simply plucking the offending feather was great, but he had to hold out. He looked around, then his eyes fell again on the devastated garden. "Damn, we may also have to get them out of here before Willowbark sees what happened to his herbs. I'm not sure he has embraced Harmony thoroughly enough as to not try to gut them both."

Fidelis blinked. He put his paw on his chin and stared at the garden. Where herbs once stood, now were holes. Broken stems, uprooted flowers, and some green substance in one corner completed the picture of destruction. "You may be right. Should we set it on fire? It would probably be less painful for him to see a bed of ash than… that."

"I don't think it would change much. And, well, Meadowsweet won't protect us. She may save Grubby." A little movement brought Garvino's attention back to the two walking–and crawling–catastrophes in the middle of the court. It had been just a little shift in their positions. Nothing indicated that the conflict would end anytime soon. "We should have thought about feeding her some meat."

"We thought bugs were enough. And she seemed indifferent enough to what we gave her. We know better now, we will do better. At least she hunts vermin."

"Yes, at least she does that, even if I don't know for how long. She is smart enough to learn, so we will probably try to civilize her, at least a bit." He picked up one a shard from a broken vase. "But if she decides to keep her diet what it is now we'll have to teach her about collateral damage. And how to hunt in a sensible way."

Fidelis snorted. "That's your thing. I can watch and laugh. I’m curious how you will teach a grub how to prowl and pounce." Old Scar growled and Grubby hissed. "What should we do with her? I won't pull the rat out of her mouth. Or out of Old Scar's claws."

"Hmmm. Do you know the story of the Farmer-king's Knot?"

"A Griffin story. You told it once. Why?"

The two undersized predators still were pulling at the corpse. Garvino stepped forward and put a claw on Grubby's head while the other went under her maw. "Because–" He pushed with both claws and, with a snap, the rat was cut in two. Without an instant of hesitation, Old Scar bolted towards a corner and climbed upwards on a wooden column. Once he reached the roof he briefly turned around, then disappeared over the roof tiles. "–it solves at least in part our problem."

Sounds of angry chewing rose from Grubby as she clearly tried to frown. The effect was ruined by her stuffed cheeks and the munching, but it was an earnest attempt.

Garvino patted Grubby on her head. "That shall be a lesson about greed for you. Learn to be content with what you can get." He pulled her up. "Now let's find something for you to eat, I think there should still be some salted fish down in the cellar."

She was in the perfect place. It was warm, it was soft, it was safe. Nothing could dislodge her from this perfect state of being.

"Tia! No more colors!"

Nothing could. She was safe from everything and everypony.

"Tia! Tia!"

Suddenly a weight landed on her back. She could feel it wiggle through the blanket. It wouldn't matter, she wouldn't move.

"No more colors!"

Through the mist of half-sleep, something told her that there was an edge of panic in the voice. That maybe she should wake up. Something else answered that it was a phase like the time leaves had begun to fall. It wasn't important, it could be solved later with a honey-bun.

There was a second voice. It was low, she could barely hear it. It whispered something. She didn't care.

There was more movement. The weight changed position. Maybe she would come under the blanket. That would be acceptable. They could cuddle and solve whatever the problem was later.

Something warm, slithering, and wet darted into her ear.

Celestia screamed and whipped her head away.

It took her some time to disentangle from the blankets. The pillow stuck on her head didn't help. Her horn wasn't sharp, but apparently it was still pointy enough to embarrass her. Or let her have her vengeance, maybe.

Sharpening it seemed such a tantalizing idea as she glared down at Luna holding Grubby and laying on her back, laughing and kicking out.

She was sure the Concord wouldn't condemn her. Clearly, a grave breach of peace had been committed and needed some cruel and unusual punishment to be balanced out. Spearing her sister seemed a perfectly reasonable reaction.

Grubby, her panic forgotten, giggled while Luna hugged her. That little traitor.

Celestia squinted at the two and hissed, "I'm awake. I don't want to, but I'm awake. Now you'll tell me why you woke me up, and either it's a good reason or you should run."

Their mirth didn't seem to be in any way impaired by her threat. It probably was the pillow's fault. It undermined her authority, but reaching up to remove it would be acknowledging it. She wouldn't do that, at least not now.

"Hehehehe… You were–" Luna gasped for air, "–late. Sun's up and soon there will be breakfast."

"Soon is not now, and I see no reason why the Sun should have anything to do with me getting up." Now was a good moment. Her magic flared up and the pillow shot towards Luna.

Who dodged. The moment her magic had ignited her sister had started to roll aside, well out of the trajectory. The pillow hit the floor in a cloud of down.

Luna blew a raspberry while holding Grubby to her chest. "You'll have to be faster. And you're a unicorn. Sooner or later you'll have to raise the sun in the Ritual and then you'll have to get up even sooner."

"When the time comes I'll be powerful enough to have somepony else do it in my place. I will never get up before the sun rises. Never!"

The falling down seemed to fascinate Grubby, who suddenly gasped. She wiggled in Luna's grasp, then fell out of the hug and crawled to Celestia. "No more colors, Tia."

Celestia stepped down from the bed yawning and held her hooves out to the little larva. "Right, there was that. What's this all about?"

"I'll let you explain it. Look in the court and you'll get it." Luna stood up and slipped through the door.

Grabbing Grubby and putting her on her head, Celestia followed with another mighty yawn. She pulled the door open and stepped through. A shiver ran down her back as a cold wind blew through her mane while the light of the sun blinded her.

She blinked, and when her sight cleared everything was white.

On her head, Grubby turned and wormed herself into her mane. With a panicky tone, she declared, "No more colors!"

It was, technically, a correct assessment of the situation. Every surface was covered with a soft, white powder. Round contours hinted at things below the surface, with broader mounds indicated where vases and amphoras stood. In the middle of the court, a rectangle stood out, the new walls of the herb garden raising even higher, like a fortress.

Celestia grinned like a madmare.

"That, Grubby–" She reached out with her hoof. "–is snow, and–" She scooped up a ball. Her horn flashed, the mass shot sideways and an indignant scream came back from Luna."–it is awesome."

Grubby didn't trust the… what was the name? Snow, that's what Tia had said.

It had stolen the colors, and the nice tepor too. The sun shone but there was no warmth in it. The stuff clearly had some nefarious plans.

There were some more screams and giggles.

She had to admit that even if you couldn't trust it, Tia and Lulu seemed to have a lot of fun with it.

A barrage of snowballs rained on Lulu, who dived behind the wall of the garden to avoid them. When she re-emerged an instant later she held projectiles in both hooves. She launched them with deadly precision, and Tia was able to deflect only one of them.

Maybe it was like with the leaves.

It had taken Luna a lot of time to convince her to try and touch them. But once she had decided to, and once she had learned what it meant to play, digging through heaps of dead leaves and chasing Tia and Luna around had been fun.

A small wall had been erected by Luna in the middle of the court. Celestia was hiding behind one of the columns of the arcade, hiding from the occasional projectile thrown her way, all the while collecting snow with her magic.

That seemed… Grubby wasn't sure. She flicked her tongue and tasted the Flow. Yes, that seemed fun.

She wanted to do it too.

With newfound enthusiasm, she crawled forward. She had no idea how to throw stuff, but maybe she could do again the digging like with the leaves. She would sneak on Tia and then hug her leg, or she could go through Lulu's wall or she could–

It was cold.

She had barely started to crawl on the snow when the icy powder had frozen her underside. Shivering she retreated and glared at the stuff. It was keeping her from having fun.

Grubby frowned.

A multitude of plans whirled through her mind, mostly involving some variation on biting and eating, but were rapidly discarded. If it was awful having the snow on her belly, then, she was reasonably sure, having it inside would be worse. She reached deep inside herself, into the place where she sometimes got insights and thought about it some more. Maybe, even if it was bad, it would be enough for her to have fun.

She could do it, the certainty of the fact etched into her being, but would she want to do it?

Adapt.

That was important. That was what she had to do.

But how should she adapt?

Grubby observed Lulu throwing a hail of snow at Tia, while the unicorn danced through the snow dodging them.

That was the solution. It was something Grubby would have done anyway, but it was a bit sooner than expected.

It can be done.

Instructions and feeling flashed through Grubby's mind. She closed her eyes and pushed.

The enemy's dreaded fortification seemed impenetrable. High walls shielded Luna from any direct attack, and she had somehow managed to put together a seemingly unending supply of snowballs.

Or maybe she was bluffing.

Celestia glanced at the snow hanging from the stone columns, a grim testimony of her sister's persistence to fight her.

It was a lot of snow. Enough that she shouldn't have much left behind her barrier.

This called for one of Celestia's masterful plans. Something devious, brilliant, and made from layers upon layers of misdirection and subterfuge. A masterstroke so awesome that its sheer awesomeness would crush any feelings of rebellion her sister may harbor and finally put her into submission. A–

"You know I can see your fat flank behind the column, right? I thought I just may warn you because if you wiggle it a bit maybe I can get a little bit of challenge out of hitting it."

That was it. Her fury would demolish Luna's holdings and salt the earth of her domains.

With a terrifying – all those testifying otherwise were liars – warcry Celestia turned the corner and charged.

The snowball hit her straight in the muzzle and sent her tumbling down. She cartwheeled a couple of times and stopped at the end of a short furrow, her muzzle on the ground and her backside high up. Fuming in the cold snow she considered that the situation was less than ideal. Luna would pay.

Her sister's hysterical laughter echoed in the court.

She would pay, and it would be pretty expensive.

Clenching her teeth, Celestia stood up. She glared at Luna, who was rolling on the snow, well outside the protection of her fortification.

Without a word, she stepped forward. Her magic flared up, and a mass of snow as large as herself floated up surrounded by a golden aura. Sweat was forming on her brow, but this was something that required effort and patience. Little Luna should have the time to contemplate her fate and think about the error of her ways.

As the flying mass of snow reached the filly, Luna stopped laughing and blinked. She looked up at the snow levitating right over her and gulped. "Tia, you wouldn't…"

"I will, you know that. Any last words?"

In the terrified silence that followed the sound of something ripping apart was like thunder.

"What?" Celestia whipped her head around, the field around the snow disappearing and the whole mass falling down on Luna.

Under the colonnade stood Grubby.

She stood. On four thin, black, holey legs.

She was shivering, the legs trembling, with an expression of pure concentration on her face, her pointy tongue stuck out sideways. The pale, soft skin that had been her body before hung in tatters, limp and gray, rivulets of white and green liquids ran down her limbs and fell in thick drops. A small puddle of steaming goo laid at Grubby's hooves, with pieces of… of stuff swimming in it. A whiff of horrid stench reached Celestia's nose and made her eyes water.

Grubby slowly raised a hoof, inclined dangerously sideways, tried to catch her fall by putting it down again, used too much force, fell the other side, panicked, knotted her legs together, tumbled down, and laid there, limbs stiff but pointed in the wrong direction.

Luna said, "That was weird." Celestia looked down at her side, where her sister stood with a heap of snow on her head. "Should we help her?"

"Tia! Lulu!" Grubby kicked out in the air. "I walk!"

"I think so? Maybe we should call Meadowsweet. I have no idea how to teach a foal how to walk." It wasn't far to Grubby, yet by the time Celestia arrived and leaned down to straighten the enthusiastic bundle of flailing limbs, Grubby had managed to kick herself in the face three times. Not that it seemed to have done any damage.

"I'll go fetch her. I also told you that Grubby was a bad name, she's not a grub anymore. I bet she will change a couple of other times too, so don't try Leggy."

Celestia rolled Grubby over. After a couple of more near misses and one awesome dodge of little, black hooves flying around, Grubby stood up once again.

"You're right, I'll think of something else. Maybe we can go through those scrolls you found."

Chrysalis sat at the table in the icy room, her stomach almost roaring from the void in it.

She was hungry. She was dangerously famished. The empty bowl in front of her started looking really appetizing too.

No, she had to resist. It had been almost a… a lot of days since she last ate something she shouldn't have eaten. And Fidelis still grumbled about his hammer.

It had been an accident, but she still felt sorry for it. She didn't like it when people were angry, or peeved, or sad, or grumbling. It made the air taste bad. And then there had been also the problem of Tia and Lulu being punished for Giving little Chryssi stupid ideas.

Tia had complained a lot about the translations she had to do as a consequence of that.

The light in the room was almost gone. The sun had set outside, and the glow of the twilight was about to cede to the darkness of the night.

Not that it made much of a difference to her.

She was still hungry. It was important to be hungry, for some reason. Everybody else at the table was.

Meadowsweet, an old blanket on her shoulders to chase away the cold, was holding little Radish, with Millet leaning on her. Willowbark stood by the cold hearth, his lips moving in mute chants. Master Sottile was staring into his own, empty bowl. Chryssi was pretty sure he didn't see it. Fidelis and Garvino sat at the corner. They had been silent for most of the day and kept away from the ponies. Donna Copper Horn wasn't here. She had left in the morning and had yet to return.

It had to do with remembering something. She hadn't understood what, though. And nobody else had been there for the thing they were remembering, so it wasn't really their memories. It was like telling a story. Only this wasn't a story, it was something else. Something confusing.

She shuffled her hooves and glanced over to Tia and Lulu.

Both were lost in their thoughts and had been not fun at all today.

The last glow of the fading sun dispersed. Darkness descended on the room, and for a brief instant, the world became barely recognizable shapes surrounded by the Flow.

She blinked, and when her eyes opened again she saw clearly once more even if everything was bathed in green.

Willowbark reached out and grabbed a rock. He held it in front of the hearth and said, "For those gone."

He struck the rock with his shoe and sparks flew out.

"For those still here."

Another strike, more sparks.

"For those who will come."

The last strike. Sparks flew out and the flames roared up. Warmth and light filled the room in a rushing avalanche, almost a physical pressure embracing everyone.

It was blinding and Chrysalis closed her eyes and raised a leg to cover them.

She was about to express her displeasure when she felt something warm and soft embracing her. And then something else too.

Tia whispered in her ear, "Thank you for being with us."

"And may the Hearth’s Warming guide you for another year." added Lulu.

When Chrysalis finally could see again, Tia and Lulu were hugging her. All around the table, everyone was hugging somebody.

The door opened, cold wind blew in from outside for an instant, before it closed with a thud. Donna Copper Horn's voice thundered, "And may Harmony bring us another year of abundance!"

The delicious smell of warm stew and freshly baked bread mixed with the burning wood and changed the atmosphere of the room completely. Where previously there was cold and hunger, now Chrysalis could feel an almost tangible sense of joy, of love, and something else too. It was strange, sweet and bitter at the same time, complicated. She couldn't make head or tails of it.

The end of the hug and the generous portion of thick soup landing in her bowl made her forget her musings in a heartbeat. The stew was rich, filled with pieces of parsley roots, lentils, beets, and cabbage. A giant hand put down a little bun beside her steaming bowl.

Luna gasped. "Is that wheat bread?"

"It is. And we made even some flat-cake for later. And for you–" A small cup of salted anchovies was put down in front of Chrysalis."–I was told you would like these."

Chrysalis looked upwards, Donna Copper Horn standing over her, a gigantic wicker basket under one arm, and what could be a smile on her face. Chrysalis flicked her tongue, and for the first time tasted the Flow being directed at her from the minotaur. It was weak, just a trickle compared to the gigantic river directed at everyone else, but it was there.

"You have been good all day long, and I can see that it was difficult for you." Donna Copper Horn smiled a bit more. "You deserve it."

Chapter 7

"But Master Sottile, we have to bring her along. It's the Spring Festival. It's, like, the most important celebration of the whole spring. It's in the name!" Celestia threw her forelegs out to properly underline the importance of the issue.

Master Sottile shook his head. "I am sorry, but we can't bring Chrysalis along. She would raise too many questions, and we don't have answers to most of them. And, well…" He sighed. "I am not sure what could happen to her. Everfree Haven is an open town, but even I, when I had never seen something like her before, was wary and ready to fight her off. I fear what others could do."

Celestia’s legs slowly descended. "But… t-there will be jugglers, a-and the shadow plays, a-and this year they said the Court of Laughter will come too. S-she would love it. And she n-never saw…" A sniffle escaped Celestia, who wiped small pearls away from the corner of her eyes.

"I know, Celestia. And I am truly sorry, but we cannot take the risk. I am working on a spell to disguise her, but it is a very difficult endeavor. Remember what I told you about illusions?"

"That–that Essence always seeps through to dispel lies with truth." Celestia looked down at her hooves.

Master Sottile put a hoof on her shoulder. "The spell we need is a very complicated lie. And lies are disharmonious, so they will easily come apart at the seams, something we cannot afford. The best illusions are those that change things just a little, and here we have to straight up hide the truth without really making it a deception. You see why creating a lie that isn't a lie is so difficult, right? I know that it may seem an injustice that Chrysalis can't leave the farm, but such it is at the moment." He moved his hoof under Celestia's chin and raised her head to look her in the eyes. "I promise I am working on it. There are a couple of ideas I may want to try, and if we are lucky she will be able to come with us next year. That will also give us the time to adopt her before the Concord. It wouldn't do us any good if we had an illusion to give Chrysalis the guise of a pony and then they would try to take her away, right?"

"Alright, Master Sottile." Celestia scratched the wooden floor of the study. Despite all the time she passed here learning and reading, and how vocally she complained about it, she liked it. Usually.

Master Sottile sighed. "Do not worry about things you cannot change and treasure what you have, little one. We will find a solution to this. Now go and play with your sister and Chrysalis. And be ready for your lessons tonight. We shall begin with astronomy."

"We will." Celestia nodded and stood up. She stopped in front of the door and looked back.

The old unicorn was, once again, looking down at the scrolls laying on the floor in front of him, while another floated up to him from the rack in the back of the study.

"We could use a cloak. Like, a long one. And we could make a fake beard, and–"

"No, Celestia." He didn't look up. "It is too dangerous. Do you want to risk her getting hurt?"

Celestia mumbled, "No." She left the room and closed the door behind her.

There was always a way, Celestia thought. Some cunning plan that would allow all three of them to go to the Spring Festival, and to have fun all together.

That nothing came to mind frustrated her to no end, and by the time she had descended the stairs from the upper floor and reached the court her mood had fallen so far it was starting to dig. As Chryssi came running and occasionally tumbling to her with hope-filled eyes, it all became worse. Now Celestia felt guilty for even having discussed the idea.

"Can I go? Can I go? Did Master Sottile say yes?"

Celestia bit her lip. Lying wouldn't achieve anything, but why should she be the bringer of bad news? She looked over to Luna who was trotting up to her. Not a single word went between the two, and yet they understood each other perfectly. It also became clear who had to give Chryssi the news.

The little… ‘unicorn bug’ was probably a good enough description, had grown a bit, but not so much that Celestia couldn’t scoop her up. Chryssi's black plates interlocking over her body were soft and warm. That always surprised Celestia, considering how incredibly sturdy they were. Something Old Scar had discovered to his own frustration and to Celestia's delight. Her short, messy, green mane resisted any attempt to bring a semblance of tidiness to it. And her big eyes were filled with expectation.

"You see, Chryssi, we…" Celestia sighed. "We won't go this year. But don't worry, we can have fun together here."

Luna's indignant squeak made Celestia look at her sister.

This time the wordless communication contained a lot more profanities than before, a couple of fearsome threats, and a small rant about Celestia making decisions all on her own. It was quite articulate considering Luna used only her hooves and her face to made her position on the issue clear.

Celestia was about to respond when Chryssi almost whispered, "I can't go? But… you said…"

She looked down and saw big, green, watery eyes. Chryssi's lip trembled, and not even the vicious fangs peeking out from her mouth ruined the effect. Celestia passed a hoof over Chyssi's head and said softly, "I know, but I was wrong. We will go some other time."

"We can do our own Spring Festival." Luna patted the little bug on her shoulder. Celestia glanced at her sister. She didn't seem particularly convinced of her own words, but it was clear she was trying. "It will be even better than the one in Everfree Haven."

"No."

Celestia was starting to get tired to hear that word. No, she had been tired of it for a long time. It seemed to be the answer to all her best ideas, and it was a notoriously a smile-thief and the reason she got punished afterward when she rightfully ignored it.

What irked her this time was that she didn't see any way to circumvent the denial. This time she had to talk herself out of it and apply, urgh, diplomacy. "But Donna Copper Horn, we can't leave Chryssi home alone. We have to keep her company. It would be bad if we went out to have fun and she couldn't. Cruel. Evil." Time for the trump card. "Disharmonious."

Donna Copper Horn stood straight there, arms crossed in front of her chest, and a rather unimpressed expression on her face. Celestia had hoped at least for a bit of shock.

She glanced at the others in the room, longing for some support. Nobody came forward. Maybe she could try a different approach. "We promised her. We would love to go to the Festival, but we can't leave Chryssi."

"You shouldn't have made promises before speaking with me." Donna Copper Horn kneeled down, although she was still imposing. "You know how important the Festival is, and not just for the fun things they do. You are growing, and you and Luna will have to appear in front of the Concord soon, and you will have to meet the masters of trade."

"But… I… Chryssi will be all alone, and sad, and… and…" Donna Copper Horn's hand passed through Celestia's mane. "She can't leave the farm, and she can't come to the festival, and then she'll be all alone too. I… I don't care about the Concord, I care about Chryssi!"

"I will stay with her." Millet stepped forward and put a hoof on Donna Copper Horn's hand. "We don't want to leave Chrysalis alone, we never intended to."

Donna Copper Horn sighed. "Millet, we still haven't decided who shall stay here. And you will probably have to come too, you know that all too well."

"I really don't, and I'm the only one who can remain. You and Meadowsweet have to bring the ledger to the Concord, Fidelis has to meet the Masons, Master Sottile has his duty as Philosopher, and Willowbark has to report to the Apothecaries. And we both know that Ginevra and Garvino will be off to the Equinox Celebration with their flock for at least a week."

Celestia nodded emphatically. She wasn't sure what half of the duties implied, but it seemed things were going her way. "See, Donna Copper Horn? You have all to go, we can stay here and keep Chryssi company and look after her."

The minotaur snorted and squinted at Celestia. "Millet may stay here, but you will have to come. I won't ask him to keep Chrysalis, you, and Luna under control. Not him alone, not you all together. Frankly, I didn't expect I had to fight you on coming to the Festival. You and your sister have been talking about it for months." She cupped her hand under Celestia's chin. "This is not the first time we have had you leave Chrysalis at the farm. What is so different this time?"

"It's…" Celestia bit her lip. "I kinda thought that Chryssi could come and that we would all have fun together, and she got excited, and then we talked about what we would do, and then Master Sottile said it wasn't possible, and… and it's my fault that she's sad now and I want her to be happy and if I miss the Festival I can do that."

Donna Copper Horn looked Celestia in the eyes and didn't say anything. Celestia shifted her hooves. Maybe she should try again with the puppy eyes. They had stopped working after the kitchen fire, but it was worth an attempt.

She was about to bring herself into the proper mood, when Donna Copper Horn said, "Let that be a lesson on being premature with what you plan. Chrysalis is still akin to a small foal, and you are older and, I hope, more mature." She stood up and passed a hand over her eyes. "You still don't have your Mark, there is time yet to present you to the Concord. We will talk about it, and if everybody agrees, you will stay here." She turned to Millet. "I hope you know what you got yourself into."

Chryssi was confused. There were a lot of things she was feeling, and she was feeling them all together. Which was wrong. Maybe.

Her tongue flicked out.

Again.

And once again she couldn't taste herself. She never could.

She knew it would have been useless to try, and yet she had tried anyway, and the bundle of feelings she felt now added to the confusing mix already piled on the top of her. It was enough that she wanted to scream. How was she supposed to learn if she couldn't compare things with others?

Another failure.

Chryssi was pretty sure ponies didn't have those problems. They could probably taste each other all the time and then get good at tasting the same way and that was the reason why she couldn't go to the thing at the thing that Tia said was so wonderful and if she simply could get a proper impression of her own taste she could fix everything and see new things.

Maybe it was the hard stuff covering her body. Maybe on the inside she tasted like the others. Maybe she had just to bite through the hard stuff. That shouldn't be too difficult.

A raspberry and gargling got her attention, her train of thought truly derailed. She looked up and saw Radish sitting on the grass, a bald patch in front of him and green paste and blade fragments all over his face.

His taste was clear-cut, simple, powerful.

She had learned that tastes had names. And weren't called tastes. The last thing she ascribed to the ponies' habit of using new words for stuff they cared about, like calling the bright light in the sky Sun and the silver light Moon. Tastes were called emotions, which didn't mean anything as far as she knew. It only added to her confusion.

No! She had to stop worrying about those things. There were plenty of other, far more urgent, things bothering her.

Like her curiosity about the stuff Millet, Tia, and Lulu were doing behind the piece of fabric they had hung between the columns of the arcade. They had said something about it being a classical piece of theater. Whatever that meant. She only knew it was something like those they wanted to see but couldn't.

But that wasn't the only thing. At the same time she wished she could experience the stuff they did where all the others had gone, and yet she felt it was right being here with Tia and Lulu, and yet it was not right that they had to stay here.

It was a mess.

A high-pitched screech distracted her once again. Radish was crawling towards her and babbling stuff.

He was only slightly smaller than her, but he couldn't really talk or walk all that well. They told her that he would soon grow and learn all those things, but she was pretty certain that he was somewhat slower than her.

Maybe that was the problem. She should grow slower. And she was thinking too much.

Regression towards an earlier state would be evaluated.

Chryssi blinked. Had there always been those strange thoughts in her mind? What did that mean? Could it…

Something wet and warm caught her hoof.

Chryssi looked down at Radish who, somehow, had managed to catch her unaware and was now happily sucking and chewing on her hoof with an enthusiasm he usually reserved only for Meadowsweet's mashed lentils. There also was something hard pressing down on the plates, probably a tooth. His taste had shifted again, but not by much.

Chryssi pulled her saliva coated hoof back and held it high. Radish let out an offended squeak and reached out for it. "I get scolded when I chew on ponies. It's not right that you can."

That was not what Radish wanted to hear. He stretched upwards to get the hoof while babbling stuff. Chryssi got up and held it even higher. He reached up, wavered, and fell forward. Chryssi felt him impacting her chest, pushing her back, his forelegs flailing.

Her heart, as far as she knew a recent addition, had the time to beat just once before her traitorous balance threw its arms up and left in a huff.

They tumbled on the grass. Chryssi felt a weight on her and glared at Radish, now slumped over her. Not that it seemed to interest him. "What are you do–"

He was fast. Faster than expected. Before Chryssi could even finish her question her hoof was, once again, in his mouth.

"Hey." She pulled her leg back. He reached out again, she swatted, he pulled back, and stared at her.

Had she won? Did she finally get through to him?

His eyes became watery, he opened and closed his mouth, his taste soured. And deep down inside Chryssi, something moved.

This situation is not acceptable.

She carefully examined the idea. It was another stray thought that had come from… from somewhere and that told her what to do. It was good to get a clear direction, but blindly following instructions from unknown sources was something that she thought was wrong. Donna Copper Horn had said something about it once or twice.

The idea accrued more details. And expanded, and almost immediately grew far beyond her capabilities to understand it.

There was a web of connections, there were other ideas and memories woven into it, weights of sacrifices to be made and consequences, and thread upon thread going from the center to everything else in her mind.and it was vast, boundless.

It shrank, not back to its original simplicity, but far enough for her to get a vague sense of some of the structure that had originated it.

Oh, the sour taste, that was the main reason behind it. Pretty obvious in hindsight.

"Here." She thrust her hoof forward again and the bad taste disappeared and was replaced with something sweet, wholesome. Her hoof was covered in slobber once again, as Radish munched on it.

"Awww."

Chryssi whipped her head around and caught just the tip of a white muzzle disappearing behind the curtain.

The fabric fell down revealing Tia, Lulu, and Millet. Chryssi could only stare at them and move her mouth in silent questions. So many questions.

Millet was in the center. He had a parsley root bound to his head. It was kept standing, barely, with an intricate and chaotic net made out of twine. The knots in the mess on the right of his head side were almost a bulging growth of cord. It was like he had a slightly crooked, earthy horn.

A large hat covered Tia's head and a rough hemp blanket sat on her back.

Luna had two bushels bound to her side, in a form that vaguely reminded Chryssi of Ginevra's wings. If Ginevra were greenish, and had leaves instead of feathers, and one wing smaller than the other, and coming off at a weird angle.

Millet took a step forward, cleared his throat, and declared, "I'm a unicorn. I can do fancy magic, walk with my nose up in the air, and I starve to death if somepony more responsible than myself doesn't feed me."

It then was Celestia's turn. She held a lower position, her eyes looking down. "I'm an earth-pony. I work hard, don't care for the world around me, and wouldn't get an education if it hit me in the head."

With a hop and bobbing head, Luna came forward. "I'm a pegasus. I can control the weather, am a bit of a bully, and have a short attention sp–ooooh butterfly."

All three of them smiled at Chryssi and Radish, who stared back. The number of questions had multiplied and risked to overwhelm Chryssi. She tried to organize them, get some order into it, decide which one ask first.

The three ponies turned around all together, grabbed some floppy tubes made of fabric, and began to whack each other on the head.

Chapter 8

"Why?"

If there was a question that could strike terror into the hearts of parents all over the world, it was that one. Millet looked at Chrysalis who was intently staring at him, her hooves at the side of the little heap of almond flour in front of her. It had been the first thing she had said on her own initiative after the little play they had put up.

"Why what, little bug?" He hoped it wasn't one of those incredibly complicated questions he always deflected on Master Sottile.

"Why did you do that… that theater thing?" She glanced over to Celestia and Luna, who had stopped digging little mounds in their flour and listened up.

There was a chance that it was the easy kind of question, thank Harmony. He only had to give an answer to satisfy her for another couple of hours, and then it would be bedtime. Tomorrow the issue would be directed at Master Sottile and he would be safe. "Well, it's a tradition. Laughing at it brings good luck and a peaceful year. That's why it's done every spring. And getting angry at it is a bad omen, and when that happens one should be careful and do things one does against bad luck."

"Oh." Chrysalis looked down at the table in front of her.

Now was the perfect moment to distract them. He put the bowl of eggs on the table and said, "Now we are going to add some eggs. Do you fillies know how to crack them?"

Chrysalis was the first to ask, "How?"

"Well, you have to be careful doing it, and there are different ways to do it. I will show you the earth pony–"

"No. How does it bring good or bad luck?"

And now the other two had become curious too. Millet sighed internally, he sometimes forgot how sharp the fillies could be. It was like when Willowbark was a foal all over again. "Well, it's tradition. Everypony knows it."

"How?"

Millet liked his life. He had a lovely wife, two wonderful foals, one of which was well on his way to become a master apothecary at a very young age. He didn't want for anything, he had friends, he had a wonderful home. He had accepted a long time ago that he wasn't the learned type of stallion. He wasn't stupid, far from it, but for him, the present and the future were far more important than the past. What had happened, after all, couldn't be changed. But even he, in some rare occasion, missed not being more knowledgeable. Like now.

"Let me think about it for a moment." He pushed the bowl aside and leaned on the table. Maybe that was one of those riddles one could resolve just by knowing ponies.

Something tugged at his tail. He looked back and saw Radish sitting there and munching on it, a satisfied grin on his face. Millet smiled and picked his colt up. He held him close and far enough from the eggs to avoid disaster while he thought about the question.

"Well, the play is a joke, it's ribbing in stupid things. If you get angry at it then you will get angry over other stuff." That sounded about right, he was on a roll. "If you get too angry then it's bad because then you'll get angry with your neighbors and you fight with them. And if you fight too much the Concord will take notice, and then you'll have to do something about it, but if you are so angry that all that happened then you won't think straight. And that brings bad luck."

Chrysalis seemed to be deep in thought, while Celestia and Luna looked at each other, their ears half lowered. Luna whispered something to her sister, who hissed something in answer. After another couple of exchanges of that kind, the small earth filly turned to him and asked, "Millet, how much fighting is too much fighting?"

The temptation was great. This was one of the moments where he could probably get a couple of weeks of tranquility and oddly well-behaved fillies. And then it would explode anyway, it would all start again and the menace would be diminished. Why was the truth so inconvenient at times? "Don't worry, little ones, you're–" Well, the truth could be adjusted just a bit, maybe. "–safe for now. Siblings get to fight a bit more, it's natural. But you should never risk overdoing it. Why, I reckon that a couple of times you got very close to the limit, so be careful, alright?"

Celestia and Luna nodded so fast he thought their heads would fly off. "We will be careful and be good and we will not fight anymore!" Celestia seemed convinced of it.

Millet knew better, but there was no point in contradicting them. He ruffled Radish's mane and put him down again. He grabbed an egg from the bowl and raised it so that the fillies could see it well enough. "Very well. Now, take an egg and use your other hoof to crack it open. You have to use the border of the hoof–" He hit it and a crack formed on the top. "–with a decisive strike. but be careful, use too much strength and you only get a mess. Then you grab it at the side and open it up, this way." He exaggerated each movement, the eyes of the fillies fixated on the yolk which suddenly poured out on the small heap of almond flour in front of him.

"Now it's your turn. Do as I've shown you and be careful." He looked over to Chrysalis who was holding an egg in her hoof but didn't seem to see it. "Is there a problem, little bug?"

"I don't get it. Why is it funny if ponies can get angry? Isn't angry different from fun?" Her eyes never left the egg, as if it contained all the answers.

She wasn't the only one hoping it. Millet had feared exactly that. Deep, important questions he had no idea how to answer. Well, he had been a parent long enough to master the subtle art of grasping for time. "What do you mean?"

He had no idea how she could be adorable while scrunching up despite the fangs and the bug-like face. She put the egg down carefully, then raised her hoof. "I mean…" She raised her other hoof. "I think…" She waved them. "It's… urgh." With a huff, she dropped them and laid her head on the table. "It's difficult to say."

That wouldn't do. Avoiding complicated questions was all good and well, but not if it meant a foal frustrated through no mistake of their own. He briefly glanced at the sisters. "Start kneading the almond flour and the egg together, alright?" He stood up and walked around the table, sitting down beside Chrysalis. "I know sometimes it's very complicated to tell others things you are thinking. If you learn enough, it becomes easier, and then you won't end like old Millet here. But I can try to help you a bit. Let's try again. Now, you don't get why somepony would become angry at a funny thing, right?"

Chrysalis turned her head to the side and looked up at him with one eye. "Nuh-uh. It's… You hit Tia on the head, and then you did as if you were angry, and then she hit you on the head, and she did as if she was angry, and then Lulu hit you and Tia, and you did as if you were angry at her, and then you fell and Lulu and Tia hit you and jumped around and then–"

A hoof on Chrysalis' muzzle stopped the stream of words. "I know, little bug, I was there. So, what's the problem?"

"I…" Another open-mouthed pause. "I know it's fun to chase and do stuff. But you said that sometimes ponies that only look at it can get angry. And if one is angry then it's not fun. So why do they get angry? And why do you do stuff that gets ponies angry if them getting angry brings them bad luck? And…" Her hooves waved in the air again, then she sighed. "I don't get it."

"Those are very good questions. I'll have to think about them before I can give you an answer." Probably for a few decades. Time to try the distraction once again. "Now, while I think about it, why don't you do like Celestia and Luna and work on the almond-dough?" He looked over to the two other fillies. Luna was on Celestia's back and was smooshing dough in her sister's mane. In the meanwhile, an egg surrounded by a golden aura floated up from the table, then shot forward like a stone from a Minoian slingshot. There was a crack, a splat, and an instant later Luna tumbling on the floor, egg-yolk on her muzzle. Millet sighed. He knew what he went into when he agreed to stay back with the fillies, but he still had hoped for a miracle. "Maybe don't do exactly that, Chrysalis."

The bath hadn't been very fun. Mostly because it had been cold.

Luna was sure that cold water hadn't been necessary, but apparently, it was the only way to get almond-dough out of your mane. At least, that's what Millet had said. That he had scrubbed extra-thoroughly and had them left a bit longer than necessary in the tub were, in her opinion, pretty good hints that, while not really lies, he had twisted the truth a bit.

At least Radish had laughed at her's and Tia's protests.

Luna sighed and looked over to Chryssi, who on the other hoof hadn't laughed all that much at all today and was just sitting, holding her cooling cookie, and looking into the hearth. The thing with the play had seemed to bother her for some reason Luna still didn't understand. It was pretty obvious why it had been fun, but her friend had seemed unconvinced. She really hoped that the end of the day would improve everything a bit. The idea that Chryssi's first sort-of Spring Festival had been boring or sad was inconvo– inconci– was terrible. And she would learn to pronounce that word one day.

The almond cookie she held in her hooves sent up a heavenly whiff of sweet perfume. She nibbled on it and smiled. It had cooled down enough, and it was exactly what she needed right now. Soft, sweet, delicious. The best thing that had come out of the day. And it had been Chryssi's doing.

One did wonder about the possibilities on the paths never taken. What if Luna had decided to use her own dough to bake cookies on a hot stone instead of weaponizing it against Celestia? Wasn't her tummy a better place than her sister's mane for something sweet? No, not in this case. It had been totally worth it. After all, she couldn't let Celestia go unpunished after she had… Well, she had done something that had made Luna's actions completely justified at the time.

The cookies really were delicious. She looked over at her friend and caught Chryssi staring at her. The filly turned her head around immediately, flicked her tongue, and stared again into the fire. Weird. "Chryssi, this is awesome. Maybe you can get a baking cutie mark. Or just bake some more."

"Maybe. It was f– interesting. I could do it again." Chryssi looked down at her own cookie.

"Interesting?" That didn't sound right. Luna considered another nibble, just to wait for Tia getting dry and offload the issue to her. She was better at making others smile and laugh. But then, this seemed to be Chryssi not being happy, and doing nothing felt wrong. She wiggled with the cookie. "Didn't you have fun making this?"

The little bug looked up. "I… I don't know. Was it fun? Was it fun like the thing you did in costumes? It's–" She huffed, snorted, then contemplated the sweet she was holding.

"Uh, I guess it was fun, but not fun like the other stuff. Fun in a different way." This felt like the kind of things in some of the very boring scrolls Master Sottile had tried once to get them to read. Luna bit her lip, she should have paid more attention back then. Maybe she could remember some of the stuff. "There are… different? Yeah, there are, like, different kinds of fun. Like fruit. Fun is fruit. An apple is a fruit, and, and a plum is a fruit too, but an apple is not a plum. And… and fun is kinda maybe like that too?"

"How do you know when it's fun, then?" Chryssi sat straight, her cookie still untouched. "If it's all different and then the same, but not the same, how do you know fun?"

"You…you just feel it?" There was something wrong there. Fun shouldn't be complicated, of that Luna was pretty sure. It should be easy and clear and all that. And it seemed like it was not.

Chryssi sagged down. "I see." She turned the cookie in her hooves, then held it out to Luna. "Do you want it? I'm not hungry."

The gasp was loud, and while it hadn't been Luna, she still thought it summarized the situation pretty well.

Tia stormed forward and put a hoof on Chryssi's head. "Do you feel well? Are you sick?"

"No, I'm… I think I'm well." Chryssi looked away. "Just confused."

Legs flung around in a hug and nuzzling ensued. Tia held Chryssi tight and whispered things. Luna couldn't hear what it was, but she didn't need to. It sounded reassuring, soothing.

Luna contemplated her cookie for a moment, then put it down and joined her sister and her friend. One had to have proper priorities.

Outside the sun had set. The fire in the hearth illuminated the room with its warm light, and the smell of almond filled the air. It took a while before the three fillies broke their hug, and then only because they heard Millet's hoof steps as he walked in.

"Are you alright?" He stood in the door, massive like always, his eternal smile still on his face, even if it was a bit of a worried one. Luna had learned to identify his kind of smiles. She wasn't as good as Meadowsweet at it, but far better than her sister. It was a useful skill; it helped her to know when it would be better to leave the premises and act as if she was reading things Master Sottile had given her instead of remaining in the blast radius of the consequence Tia's ideas caused.

"It's all fine, I think." Tia looked down at Chryssi who simply nodded. "So, it's story time, right?"

Millet nodded. "If you want, it is. But keep it low, Radish is sleeping and we don't want to wake him up, right?" He laid down on the floor. "So, what do you want to hear?"

A glance at Chryssi had been enough for Luna to see that the issue was far from over. The little bug still hadn't eaten her cookie and was still staring at the flames. It made her feel queasy for some reason, and she didn't like it. And then it came to her. Tia was about to say something, when Luna said, "Tell us about how you and Meadowsweet tried to be Story-Singers."

"Hah, a fine tale. "Millet smiled, then he began. "When they tell you that earth ponies have the gift of wisdom, know that it is a blatant lie. It was many, many years ago. Willowbark wasn't yet born, and me and Meadowsweet were young, foalish, and already in love. We were traveling to the western border, along the Foal Mountains. Our bellies were empty and our heads full of stories…"

While Millet's deep voice weaved a tale of strict council ponies, drunken donkeys, and silly minotaurs, Luna got herself lost in the words. She and Tia laughed at the escape from the badly-built cell, at the rich merchant with a longing for lullabies, and at the sad jester. And every now and then she looked over to Chryssi, who seemed to listen in rapt attention, even if her expression was serious. As they finally were about to reach the high-point of the story, when Millet and Meadowsweet had to sing their hearts out for a company of griffins on a mission to root out some brigands, a sickening crack echoed through the room.

Luna's head whipped around, and to her horror she saw Chryssi sitting there, her right foreleg held up, her hoof hanging at a weird angle. The shell was broken, greenish blood flowing out from the wound and splattering her mouth.

With big eyes filled with tears, Chryssi looked at them and whispered, "I can't taste anything."

The lands around Everfree Haven were peaceful ones. There were monsters and spirits, but those tended to stay in the depths of the woods. Neither were there brigands like those on some of the southern routes, nor did one risk encountering yak raiders or donkey regiments with flexible ideas about where the borders were. And yet, despite the relative safety of the roads, nopony traveled at night if it could be avoided.

The residents of the farm had been back a few hours after Millet had sent the message, far before the Moon had reached its peak in the sky. It had been an exhausting march under the silver light. The road still uneven from the winter damages, the night-air cold and crisp, a single thought and a multitude of prayers to Harmony the whole focus of the travelers.

A sweat-covered Copper Horn had almost broken down the gates, and the fact that the wardens had sealed the farm off had been treated like a minor detail which didn't deserve the cow's attention. There had been panicked questions, then loud arguments, and finally silence in the early hours of the morning, when the fillies were asleep with exhaustion, and worry had supplanted more intense emotions.

Meadowsweet felt her eyelids drop despite all the unwelcome excitement. Radish was cuddled in her embrace, finally sleeping again after arguing adults who really should have known better had woken him up.

It had been a really long day.

The sudden opening of the door jarred her up. She blinked, then wiped away a thread of drool which had mysteriously appeared at the sides of her mouth.

"Mother, you should go and rest." Willowbark stood in front of her. She had no idea how he had arrived there.

That wouldn't do. Meadowsweet stood up and walked to the crib. She carefully put Radish inside, then stood straight and slapped herself.

"Moth–"

She raised her hoof. "I'll rest when I know little Chryssi is fine and when I understand what happened here." She turned around and took in the room. Master Sottile stood beside Willowbark and looked at her with raised eyebrows. Somebody had also put another log in the hearth, and two cups of some steaming concoction were on the table. "Now, what did you discover?"

Willowbark sighed then sat down at the table. He gestured to the door, then took his cup and left.

The remaining cup floated over to Meadowsweet. She grabbed it from Master Sottile's aura and followed Willowbark.

In the sky, the stars were almost at the end of their mysterious dance. The moon hung low on the horizon, and somewhere in the east, the Celestial Council performing its morning rites, ready to break dawn. There were no clouds up there, giving Meadowsweet an unimpeded view of the Dreamer's Canvas. Sometimes she had wondered what it would be like to touch the sun and the moon with one's soul. Master Sottile had tried to describe it once but got lost in his words.

The door closing behind her brought her back to the present, and to the chilly air in the court. She cradled the cup against her chest and asked, "So, what's the situation?"

Willowbark leaned against a column and grimaced. "The fillies are asleep, Millet and Copper Horn are caring for them. And Chrysalis, well, she's in no danger at all. I looked at her wounds and treated them as good as I can. And Master Sottile used his spells on her. The situation is stable, and now you should go rest, Mother."

The birds had yet to start to sing, and if she went to bed right now, Meadowsweet could get enough sleep to do at least the minimally necessary jobs without being weighed down too much by fatigue. Willowbark was perfectly reasonable, and Master Sottile’s silence meant he agreed with him. They also were both being far too evasive for her liking. She squinted at them. "I'll rest when I've heard enough, and what is enough is upon me. Something's not right, and you two know it. How is she? I've seen the wound, it was pretty awful, and her hoof was hanging in the wrong way. So, how much pain is she in? Did she break a bone? Will she be crippled?"

Over the years she had learned to read ponies. She wasn't as good at it as Millet, but she still had a certain talent for it. Considering the looks Willowbark and Master Sottile exchanged, she would have felt the uncertainty even if she had terribly bad at it. Master Sottile cleared his throat, then said, "We don't know."

"You don't know what? If she'll be crippled?" Meadowsweet caught herself from snarling. Fatigue and worry seemed to have taken a heavier toll on her than she expected.

"We don't know the answer to any of your questions. We suppose she will heal completely, but we aren't sure. We tend to forget that Chrysalis isn't just a weird looking filly. What happened today reminded us that she isn't a pony at all, despite some superficial resemblance." Master Sottile then turned to Willowbark. "Tell her what you discovered."

After a long sip from his cup, Willowbark sighed. "The wound is clean. It broke her… her shell. The cuts are deep but should heal. She is very robust and sturdy. It took me a long while to fix her leg, though, because when I saw the strange angle at which the hoof hung, I feared a broken bone and tried to fix that. It was Master Sottile's suggestion to think about crabs that made me realize that Chrysalis has no bones. It's all in her shell. So I tried to put that into place and keep it there so it could heal."

"Oh." Meadowsweet looked down into her cup, as somehow her tiredness had evaporated. "Well, she is a bit weird, but–"

A raised hoof from Master Sottile stopped her. "Dear, that isn't the issue we have. The problems are a bit more complicated than that. You see, we don't know if she is in pain because we had to explain to her what pain is."

Meadowsweet blinked. "What?"

"I asked her if she was in pain as I was treating her leg, and she said no. I asked her how that was possible, that it should have been at least discomforting, and then she asked me what pain was. You see, she seemed to think that pain was the same as anger. I then tried my best to tell her what it really was. I'm not sure I should have done that." Willowbark's eyes closed and he took a deep breath. "At the end of my lesson she was in pain. She had understood what it meant, and then she felt it." He closed his eyes and sighed. "Either that or she is the best actress I've ever seen, but I doubt it. That means it's my fault that she's suffering."

"No, it's not." Master Sottile patted Willowbark on the shoulder. "If what I suspect is true then you have helped her." He turned to Meadowsweet. "That brings us to the last piece of the riddle that our little Chrysalis is. She can taste emotions, and she is trying to understand them to become more similar to us."

A cold shiver ran down Meadowsweet's back. Had she been so wrong? Was little Chrysalis truly the monster Donna Copper Horn feared? "Taste emotions? Do you mean… Is she dangerous?"

Master Sottile shrugged. "Probably, but I doubt she is malevolent. She can taste emotions and was convinced we could do that too. The whole incident really was caused by her not being able to taste them on herself. I think she is trying to learn to be a creature of Harmony, she truly wants to be that, and she is doing so by imitating us. But she is also very young, and complicated emotions confuse her. As Millet told an old story, she couldn't understand what he was feeling, and that caused her distress." He turned around and stepped out from under the arcade, looking up into the sky. "This is a problem. She may be incredibly dangerous, but she is also very sincere in trying to be good. And I think, no, I am convinced that it is our duty to help her."

Chapter 9

Shafts of warm light fell through the windows, while the song of crickets flew on the soft breeze along with the smell of upturned earth and wildflowers. Out there, behind the top of the wall, one could see the treetops in the distance, waving in the wind like they were calling out for fillies to play with them,

Celestia considered it terribly rude not to answer to the call, yet she couldn't, trapped as she was in the library with her sister, Chryssi, Master Sottile, and the most mind-numbingly boring treatise on the importance of the number three that had ever been inflicted on pony-kind. Even the sudden rants about the evil of beans that could be found in the scroll didn't help much. They also seemed, in her uneducated opinion, spurious reasoning at its finest.

"So the stories are inside here?" Chryssi was pointing at an open scroll in front of her covered in the scratchy symbols typical of Pegasus Cloudscript.

"Well, that is a pretty complicated question, little one. And it is something we will return to once you have studied enough, because it tells us something very important about magic. But until we reach that point, yes, we can say that there is a story there." Master Sottile sat in front of her, a kind smile on his face and a pile of different scrolls at his side.

He seemed in a pretty good mood, probably because he had a new student. It could be an occasion to ask him if they could, maybe, go out and have some fun while Chryssi got started on learning to read. Even a delay would be a little victory.

Chryssi picked up the scroll and sniffed at it. She squinted at it, then glanced at Master Sottile. "Doesn't smell like a story."

Confusion, then an intrigued smile. The moment to strike was right now. "Master Sottile, is it alright if we leave you to teach Chryssi the fundamentals of reading and return later to help her exercises?" She elbowed Lulu.

Her sister seemed lost for an instant. A rapid burst of sibling communication in the form of eyebrow wiggling took care of that. "Right, we don't want to be a distraction. We'll be back in a while."

"Oh, yes, you can–" He stopped, looked up from Chryssi, and sighed. "No, you cannot. It was a good attempt, and I think Garvino would be proud of your timing, but you have something to learn. Numerology is a fundamental aspect of both magic and philosophy. So, do not worry about Chrysalis and me, we shall have no problems doing our part."

Celestia slumped down and grumblingly returned to her scroll and to the poetic waxing of how the number three returned again and again in everything good.

"As for you, little Chrysalis, you are right that on that scroll there is not the story per se, but a recording of it. Consider it words in another form. When somebody tells you a story, the words are not the story itself, right?"

"No, they are." Tia looked up and saw Chryssi putting down the scroll and pass a hoof over the writing. "You can taste them."

"You can?" There was a moment of silence after the question. Master Sottile seemed deep in thought and slightly confused. Maybe in a short while Celestia could try again to get out of there. It seemed to be the start of one of the weird discussions between Master Sottile and Chryssi that had happened every now and then in the last month. They usually left Master Sottile mumbling something and going in the laboratory in the cistern, and Chryssi huffing or pouting until they found a way to distract her. Which would be easy with the beautiful weather outside and the forest waiting for them. "And do they all have the same taste?"

"Nuhu. When Tia tells them they are different than when Lulu tells some, and Millet tells very yummy ones." With a tap of her hoof, the scroll unrolled some more. "But here there's nothing."

"Hmmm, let me try something." Mater Sottile’s aura surrounded the scroll and floated it up to him. "Now listen."

He cleared his throat, then began.

In the Rock-born's wind marrow
Where ice bites and chew
Where wendigo's children flew
In harsh privation, lived a sparrow

He looked back to Chryssi, who sat open-mouthed and stared at him. "See? I just read it, right from the scroll. I didn't remember it, because pegasus foal rhymes are not something I study much, but I took the words from paper and said them."

Chryssi's mouth snapped shut, her eyes wide open with the kind of hunger Celestia had lately observed only when flat-cake was somehow involved. "You created the story." She pointed at the scroll. "There was nothing, and then–" She sat on her haunches and waved her hooves around. "–there was the story. Can you do it again?"

A chuckle escaped Celestia. When Chryssi looked at her she smiled. "Yes, silly. Words always stay." Celestia glanced down at her own reading material and sighed. "You can read them as many times as you want."

The speed with which Chryssi's head snapped back to Master Sottile made it seem for a moment as if her face had moved faster than the rest of her head. "Teach me."

Master Sottile laughed the hearty laugh which often precursed a reduced studying load for the day. "We are here exactly for that. Now–" He stood up and sat down beside Chryssi. With a hoof he pointed out something on the scroll. "–that symbol stands for Hrn…"

Words were stupid. And vicious. And traitorous. And sandstone.

Probably.

Chryssi had to admit that she wasn't really sure about the last two words–which made them even more traitorous sandstone–but she had heard Fidelis say that stuff when he was very angry with things, so it probably was appropriate. She was very angry with words too. They were there, on the page, all being… not being, and she couldn't get them out from it.

Screaming seemed the right answer to her current problem. And pouting. And biting stuff. And…

And she wouldn't do any of those things. Except pouting. She could pout. Donna Copper Horn and Meadowsweet had been very clear about the other stuff, though. She considered if her current feelings were enough for a talk with them, and for going away from the stupid words. They had said to come whenever she felt that way, but last time it hadn't helped much. She had felt better for a while, even if Donna Copper Horn still tasted sour, but it hadn't really changed much in the long run. She still couldn't really read, or make sense of the stuff on the page even after three months of attempts.

"Lulu, have you finished the Astral Sequence? I think I need it for the next step in the Sun circle."

Chryssi glanced over to Tia and Lulu, both working on what seemed to be a mathematical problem. Chryssi wasn't jealous. Jealousy was bad--and probably tasted bad too--so she avoided it. She just wanted to do that instead of continuing to stare at the stupid scroll full of nothingness in front of her. Mathematics made sense, even if sometimes they used words in it. But they were far fewer words than in other places, and it mapped so nicely on a defined subset of the ontological model she had created. It was far from complete, but it worked alright in the defined constraints. She had even told Master Sottile and her friends so.

Well, she had tried. A lot of the right words were missing–which was just another proof of their nastiness–and she doubted she came across very well. A lot of hoof waving was involved, though, and in her opinion, it should have bridged the missing concepts.

Words, on the other hoof…

Once more she shuddered and looked down at the mess on paper. Compared to mathematics, it wasn't tidy at all. And she had to fight with it. Because she didn't like it. Which meant she had to try even more.

It was all profoundly unjust.

Outside birds were chirping and crickets were singing their enticing melody. A call for laziness and for naps on the grass, with the sun warming one's tummy. Or for hunts in the forest, where one could get some juicy butterflies or maybe even a beetle or two. Crunchy beetles, and berries, and chasing Lulu and Tia around, or exploring the caves in the hills and all the other fun places. Or maybe simply getting some bread and some water and then talking about the future. Well, listen to Tia and Lulu talking about the future, but it was nice anyway, even if she didn't understand most of the stuff.

"The charts are ready, I put them over there. But they are weird, I don't think they are right."

Getting back to the stupid things she had to do was hard. Very hard. But she was strong. A strong little bug. Her eyes glided over the first group of symbols. There was a sound that should come out of it, a fake word that became real if she could speak it out. The central symbol was a…

Chryssi threw her hooves in the air and flung the scroll against the wall. "Nghrrr! Stupid words. I hate them. It's stupid!" She fell on her back and looked up at the ceiling. "I am stupid…"

There was a sound of shuffling hooves, and then Lulu's face appeared in her field of vision. "You are not."

"Lulu's right." Tia's lifted Chryssi up in her forelegs and hugged her. "You are very smart. You got all those geometry things immediately, and you learned to talk and walk and all that."

"And you are only one year old." Lulu nuzzled Chryssi, then stopped for a moment. "I think."

Pouting was far better when there was an audience for it, a fact that Chryssi decided to exploit in full. "But I can't read. At all. Master Sottile said I would read badly for a while, but I can't even do that." She wiggled a bit in Tia's embrace and pointed at the discarded scroll in the corner. "That thing is… It's nothing. It was nothing, and it is nothing, and I can't make it become something."

Lulu sighed and walked over to the discarded scroll. She picked it up and looked at it. "Do you want me to read it again? You seem to learn faster when you can do things like we do them."

Imitation. Chryssi froze, things clicking into place in her mind. Mimicry. She was good at that. It was the solution. It would save her. She had just to enter in the right frame of mind.

She melted back into Tia's hug, letting the taste linger in the back of her mouth as a pleasant background note. Her tongue flicked for a moment and she grinned. "I would like that very much."

And on the wind, with defiant cry
through wendigoes, shield of his nest
the little sparrow, ready to die
in glory and joy, found his rest"

Master Sottile nodded and a smile tucked at the corners of his lips. Chrysalis sat in front of him, holding the scroll, with an eager expression on her little muzzle. "You did well, Chrysalis. I dare say you improved incredibly. You even got the cadence and the intonation right, not something I would expect so early on. Tell me, what changed?"

"Lulu and Tia helped. I was all like I can't do this and they were You can and I was Nuhu, I can't. and the were Let's show these stupid words how to be and then they read to me." She rolled up the scroll and stood up. "Can I now go do the math stuff?"

Such eagerness warmed Master Sottile's heart. He put a hoof on Chrysalis' shoulder, before briefly glancing over to the other two fillies. Celestia and Luna were surrounded by scrolls and were whispering and moving stones on the intricate diagram drawn in chalk on the floor. It seemed they had isolated themselves in their own little world. "Not for the moment, Chrysalis. Let Luna and Celestia finish with their Heavenly progressions. It is a very complicated process, and it is better not disturb them. Making an error there could cost other ponies very dearly. Not yet, obviously, but it is better to form the habit early on."

Chrysalis looked at her friends for a while, then asked, in a low, whispering voice, "Why? Isn't that just math?"

"In a certain sense, it is. But as mathematics is the language of Harmony, it is very meaningful. Come with me." Master Sottile's horn lit up and a couple of scrolls slid out of their alcoves and floated to his side. He walked to the far corner of the room, where a lectern stood.

"Why can't I do stuff with them? It's fun." It still amazed Master Sottile how, when she wanted to be silent, Chrysalis' hooves didn't seem to make a sound when walking.

"Because it is their duty to do it alone. I will teach you too, sooner or later, but for now, they have to work alone." A scroll unfurled on the lectern. He grabbed Chrysalis and lifted her. "See, they are doing a very specific kind of calculation. You know that unicorns raise the Sun and the Moon, right? Well, to do that they need a whole lot of information and calculations. Every day the spell is a bit different and has to be prepared accordingly. It is a duty of every learned pony to try and calculate it, and so every young pony has, at a certain point, to prepare these calculations. Celestia and Luna are at the age where they have to do that too, and that is what they are doing right now."

The scroll was filled with lines, circles, and symbols. He pointed with his free hoof at it. "Here begins the heavenly progression. And then you have to fill out the later parts. When Celestia and Luna finish, I will check it and then send it out to the Celestial Council, and if it is good enough, then I will teach them the next steps. It is a great honor and great responsibility."

Chrysalis stared at the scroll for a while. "Those symbols are different from the others."

"That is because they use a different alphabet, little one. One I have yet to teach you." He put her down again. "But that will come later for you. We have yet to finish with the nuances of Cloudscript, and then we will get into Earth Tongue. And then–"

"Finished!" Luna and Celestia's enthusiastic exclamations resounded through the room together.

Master Sottile turned towards them.

"And it's–" said Celestia.

They deserved some praise. He didn't expect them to finish so fast.

"–perfect," finished Luna.

And then there was light.

It was a half-moon on a dark background. It was moon-related. Moon!

Luna felt like prancing, and jumping, and dancing. There was this deep-seated need to be a nuisance, to shove her backside in everybody's face and to giggle uncontrollably. It had to be something her Cutie Mark told her to do, there was no other explanation. There was no other reason why Tia was a sourpuss right now.

"A sun," she grumbled. Again. "It had to be a sun."

That couldn't stand. Not now. "Tia, we got our marks! We got great marks! There will be a celebration, and then we are gonna be halfway to being grown mares. It's great!" It was a bit weird that Luna had to state the obvious, but sometimes her sister was a bit dense. Maybe this was one of those times. Well, Luna wouldn't allow that. "Marks!" And that should do it.

It didn't. Tia's frown stayed frowny, but now she was looking right at Luna's flank. "You got an awesome mark, Lulu. I looked it up. You have all these things like… like Numerology, and Star Reading, and Secrets, and a lot of other stuff. And it has all the inherited domains that are stuff that sounds like fun, or like an adventure. And what did I get? I looked it up too, you know. I got Administration, and I got Judgment, and Knowledge. Not like the discover-stuff-and-invent-things knowledge. No, I get the read-stuff-somebody-else-wrote-and-remember-it kind of knowledge. And you don't want to know the inherited domains. Teaching." Tia stomped and huffed. "The mark tells me I get to stay somewhere and tell others not to do fun stuff."

Luna blinked. "When did you look it up?"

"During winter. It was all written in Canon's Domains of the Soul." Tia sighed. "I was thinking that maybe Chryssi could get a Cutie Mark too, and then I looked at the scrolls in the library. There wasn't much except for Canon's writings."

"Canon, huh?" Luna tapped her chin with a hoof. "Didn't Master Sottile say that he was–" Her voice became deeper, ready for her wonderful imitation of their teacher."–an old mule with his horn so high up in his own plot that he would choke on his farts if he didn't love himself so damn much."

"I…when did Master Sottile say that? Why am I never around when it happens?" At least it seemed that she had finally stopped grumbling about the mark. "Well, it doesn't matter. He still has written all that stuff and it makes sense and I have this mark and by Harmony, I remembered all that stuff and he was right!" And she had begun again.

Luna sighed, sat down beside in front of her sister and hugged her. She still wanted to prance around and wiggle her behind, but there seemed to be something slightly more urgent to take care of. "I think your mark is awesome and nice and don't listen to that stupid pony, Canon. And didn't you want to be a queen? The mark kinda seems the right one for that."

"But I wanted to be a witch-queen, or a warrior-queen, not a… a queen of scrolls or whatever."

"You can be the queen of the sun." Luna snickered. "And I can be the queen of the moon, and then we can rule everything for half a day at a time."

"Snrk." Snorts were a good thing. They could be angry and the prelude to some scuffle, but this seemed to be the other kind. Tia giggled and said, "Yeah, we can do that." She pulled out of the hug and ruffled Luna's mane. There would be retribution for that, later. "You are a silly sister, Lulu."

The column of black flesh stood in the middle of the laboratory, its roots reaching deep down in the floor and the earth beneath it. It hadn't changed since the little bug had crawled out from it, a shard of Something Else grafted onto this world.

Fidelis didn't like it. At all.

Below the smell of decay and putrefaction that had been omnipresent at the beginning, there had been another odor. He was probably the only one who had perceived it, and even then it had been something vague, barely present, deeply unnerving. It had made the work he had to do to rebuild the cistern in a place where Master Sottile could study the thing unpleasant and slow, taking many months and still not finished.

Somehow, he suspected Master Sottile had not come to look at the state of the work, though. The old stallion had come down the stairs many hours ago, had taken a seat on one of the stone cubes in front of the column, and hadn't moved since then.

It didn't disturb Fidelis. He moved two pebbles on the circle carved in the stone plate on the table in front of him and considered the results. They seemed to match what he felt from the stone in his paw. It was a young one. Fresh from the farm, unbound to stories in the earth. It would make a fine addition to the tale here.

With his claw, he began to trace the syllable on the smooth surface. A smile crept on his muzzle. Ponies may move the sun, the sky, and the plants, but among Masons his paws were the target of envy. It was a bit of a shame that so few of his kind seemed interested in the finer points the Art, there was so much… what was the word the Master used? Potential.

With the last line connecting back to the whole, it was time to let the pattern rest. He carefully placed the rock in a bucket full of sand, tapped three times on each side pointing at one of the six earth directions, and covered it with some heavy, black soil. His work was done for now, he had just to break a loaf of bread to end the day.

Master Sottile still sat still, lost in contemplation of the ugly column, his mind probably wandering the infinite paths of his craft.

He had to leave. Having a non-Mason on the building site after the bread had been broken was asking for trouble. Even if it was Master Sottile.

"What bothers you?" He wouldn't simply throw him out, that much respect had to be given. For now. "That thing won't talk."

"The fillies got their marks. Sun and Moon." Master Sottile didn't move.

"I heard. Saw them earlier. Luna showed me her butt, Celestia not so much. I'm going to prepare little gifts."

Master Sottile nodded, his first movement in a while. "That is nice. They will love it."

"They will. But that has nothing to do with the thing there." Fidelis sighed and sat down at Master Sottile's side. "It's not alive. Not even like rocks."

"Maybe. Or maybe we are not looking at it in the right way."

A brief glance at the stallion told Fidelis that Master Sottile was less lost in his thoughts than he seemed. His eyes were focused, and his jaw clenched. "What answers about the marks are you seeking from that thing?"

"No answers about the marks. I seek answers about the future. You see, for a while, I thought that our little Luna and Celestia weren't the ones. That they were just wonderful fillies we had to prepare for the world. I thought so because of Chrysalis. Because she is such a strange being that one would think the Vision would mention her. You know, a creature coming out from a hole in the air seems to be the kind of detail one shouldn't omit." Master Sottile sighed and covered his eyes with his hooves. "And then the marks are those of the Vision. And I have no idea what we should do. What is Chrysalis? Is she a menace? Is she a catalyst? Is she a trial? Is she simply a foal? She had no idea what Harmony was, nor how the world works. She is dangerous, and yet she seems the beginning of a parable about how we should give every creature a chance."

Fidelis pointed a paw at the column. "I don't like it, but I like Chryssi even if she came out of that. She tries, and I think she's honest in doing so." Fidelis scratched his chin. "I think you are making it too complicated. You said it seemed a parable. Maybe it is. Treat her like that. It worked for now."

There was a moment of silence, then Master Sottile looked from behind his hooves. "And what if she's something else?"

His joints creaked as Fidelis stood up. He stretched his arms, then held his paw out to the stallion. "Then we will have to trust Harmony."

Chapter 10

Minotaurs were physically impressive creatures. Massive, strong, solid, all those terms tended to describe them from their infancy up to their old age. There were stories about how they could shrug off magic and wounds like they were spring rain.

It made it all the more impressive how something invisible like a disease could bring even these bulls and cows to their knees.

As fascinating as those idle thoughts were, if Willowbark didn’t have to help a fever-struck Donna Copper Horn expel more phlegm he would have been far happier.

He felt sweat stream down his eyebrows, the misted glass goggles of his heavy mask made seeing difficult, and his coat was matted under his cloak. It was a warm fall, and even the usually cold, spartan room of the minotaur felt like a furnace. All in all, it was a less than ideal situation in which to operate.

Not that there was an alternative.

"Now, it seems the plague has run its course in you, Donna Copper Horn. It will be unpleasant, but I think you are safe. Rest, sleep, and you will be up and about again in a few days." His voice was muffled, but the weak nodding on Donna Copper Horn's part seemed to indicate that he had been understood. He pulled an ember out of a small wooden box with tongs and dropped it in the incense burner. "Very well. I shall look after the others then."

He took the bowl and left, carefully closing the door behind himself. He reached under his coat and pulled out a small vial. A couple of drops into the bowl made the contents fizzle. A thread of orange smoke rose and soon dispersed.

Willowbark put the bowl down and removed his mask. The air of the arcade felt like a splash of fresh water. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Another week and it will be over, thank Harmony."

The singing of the birds fluttering around in the sky above the farm was a salve. When Willowbark looked up he could see swallows dance in the wind. The young ones had almost grown up completely, and soon they would start their travel down south. They were free, without responsibilities, without duties.

It was time to look at Garvino.

He sighed, then took the mask and put it on again. The bowl would have to be cleaned later, along with all the others. At least it seemed the bad influences had lessened, and he wouldn't need to stoke Fidelis’ furnace to dispose of them. Small blessings.

"Willowbark…" The voice was low and rough, the cadence uneven, a tale of sleep which didn't bring rest and of food which refused to stay down. And a prelude to him having to scold his own mother. Again.

When he turned around he saw exactly what he expected. Meadowsweet was standing in the door of his parent's room, bags under her eyes, a blanket over her shoulders. Her coat had lost its vibrancy, and even as she leaned against the door-frame he could see her legs trembling. Why did she have to be his worst patient? "Mother, go rest. You will be fine in a few days, but only if you stay in bed." He adjusted his mask. "We talked about it."

"Ho… How are th–" A coughing fit interrupted her. "–the others?"

He walked the short distance separating them and pushed her softly back in the room. "Sick, but they all survived the acute phase. Now they have just to rest. Like you should do." She leaned upon him as they went to the bed. Under a heap of blankets, he could see the sleeping form of Millet and, under a smaller mound, Radish.

With his help, she crawled back on the bed. "What was it?" He had to strain his ears to hear her. "It wasn't th… the usual."

"This time it had a magical component." He put a pillow under her head. "The apothecaries said they heard that Starswirl was chasing something in the east. It seems that this thing takes magic from a creature and leaves it sick and weak. Or the malady allows the magic to be taken, we are not sure which way around exactly it works. It will pass, though. I am just grateful that us apothecaries were protected and that we could help in your recovery. Now, do not worry about it anymore and sleep."

Meadowsweet pulled the blanket up to her muzzle. "Go to the field workers. Heal them, use all you need to help them. We will pay for it. The ledg–" Another round of coughing. "–the ledger says we can. And we have no alternative anyway."

"I have to keep an eye on you. I can't–"

"There's no alternative." For a moment, for just three words, there was strength and authority in Meadowsweet's voice. There was no room for discussion left. It was spoken like Absolute Truth. And then she broke again. What came next was a whisper. "The last harvest is upon us. If w… If we lose it, we will starve during the winter. Take whatever you need. Go out to them, help them."

He waited for a moment while his mother recovered, searching for words. "Somepony has to care for you. You are all too weak, and going through all the cabins means I will be away for three days. I can't leave you alone."

A ragged breath. Millet moved under the blankets. Then Meadowsweet said, "We won't be alone. Little Chryssi never caught the illness, right?"

Willowbark froze. The implication of those words hit him hard, and he felt fear close its cold claw around his heart. Dozens of objections ran through his mind. Horrible scenarios played out to their terrifying, and bloody, epilogues. And he knew with absolute certainty that not one of those would convince Meadowsweet. "Mother, she is just a… a… She's a foal. She can't care for you. We cannot risk that–"

"You said the malady had run its course, and now we had only to rest. Isn't that true?" Her voice was still a whisper. And yet it felt like he was facing a mountain. Nothing short of lying would move her.

He wouldn't lie. "That is true."

"Then she can bring us water and food. Please, you have to help our workers be well soon. The harvest won't wait, and no foal of mine, be it by flesh or by responsibility, shall ever hunger." Meadowsweet's eyelids slowly closed, too heavy from exertion to be kept up. "Please."

An apothecary had many duties, the well-being of his patients the most important. A son had a duty of obedience, even if his parents seemed to hold that in less regard than Willowbark himself. A Child of Harmony had to live according to its tenets, among which was the need to help others when one could.

There was no alternative.

Willowbark frowned under his heavy mask. A kiss on his sleeping mother's cheek seemed right at the moment, yet prudence and practice forbade him that.

"I will do it, mother." There was no response, just her breathing becoming more regular in the embrace of sleep.

"Now, if something goes very wrong, or you think that one may die, take this box into their room and open the lid. It will keep them safe until I return. But be careful with it, it takes almost ten years to make a box. Use it only if it is an emergency, alright?"

Chrysalis was looking up at Willowbark and biting her lip. A habit she seemed to have gotten from Celestia and Luna, it seemed. "Uhm."

Too much pressure. She was just a… filly would work for now. "Look, you shouldn't waste it, but if you are in doubt, use it. I prefer to lose a precious thing than anybody on the farm. Do you understand?"

She nodded. Good.

"Now, you also have to prepare the marsh mallow paste. I prepared the pulp but won't have time to make it. Master Sottile told me you made a lot of progress with reading, so I left the recipe in the kitchen on some bark. Are you with me on this?"

"Uhm…" She shifted from one hoof to the other. While he wasn't directly involved in the education of the fillies, he had learned some of the tells that things weren't alright.

"Please, if there's an issue tell me. It's really, really important, the well-being of your friends depends on it." He tried to smile reassuringly. Not that he was in any way menacing, but sometimes little foals were strange. "I can still set things right while I'm here."

More shifting, eyes looking around and avoiding him, a lip that was tortured without respite. Something was up.

He had to stay. They had to hope the farmhooves would get better in time for the tail of the harvest. The granary was decently stocked. They could make it with some attention. He had to–

Chrysalis mumbled something.

"Uh, what did you say?" He lowered his head and strained his ears. "Can you repeat, please?"

"I…" The filly's voice was slightly more audible this time around, despite her avoiding looking him in the eyes. "It's… I can't read very well. I… Uh…"

Willowbark sighed. That seemed a fairly minor issue. "Master Sottile said you made a lot of progress. I’m not accusing you of anything, but why are you telling me you can't read well?" Her shoulders shrank in. "Don't worry. You’ve only just started to learn, it's not a problem. Just tell me what the problem is. I promise I won't be angry or disappointed."

"I…" She took a deep breath, chitinous plates on her sides sliding one over the other. She looked up and said, "I learn it before reading to Master Sottile so I get it right."

At least one thing seemed to go according to plan. Willowbark stood up straight and smiled. "Then you are quite dedicated. You shouldn't do that, because Master Sottile needs to know where you stand, but that isn't such a problem now." He glanced toward the window, the sun was about to reach the zenith, which left him just another hour before he had to leave for the cabins. "Should I read it to you once? Would that make it easier for you?"

Chrysalis nodded so fast it seemed her head would fly off. She had straightened, and there was a new energy in her. The change had been quite surprising. As he turned around to go to the kitchen it dawned on him that maybe surprising was the wrong word. A mood making such a rapid turnaround tended to be surprising in adults. In little foals, it was par for the course, at least from what he observed from Celestia, Luna, and Radish. If he truly considered Chrysalis a filly, it would match her behavior.

Was that his problem? He treated her like a filly, but mostly because others did the same. Had he truly internalized the fact? Or did she behave like that because of how she was treated? Questions, so many questions whirring around in his mind.

It wasn't the time for those musings.

He shook his head and went back to mentally checking the contents of his bags. Once on the road, returning would take too much time, so he had to get it right the first time. There was a downside to the farm being so distant from the main fields.

"Uhm, if I stay here and care for the others, do I get a cape too?" Chrysalis' words pulled him from his thoughts. He looked down to his side, where the filly trotted to keep pace with him.

"What?" He seemed to say that a lot lately.

"The cape you have when you go into the other rooms and stuff. And the mask, and all that stuff." She looked to her side, away from him. "They are awesome. Will I get them too?"

Yes, indeed a filly. "If you become an apothecary. The cape and mask is our symbol. We wear it as protection for us and as a sign of comfort for those we care for. I cannot give you one. And aside from that, you don't need one. It has become quite clear that you are immune to the malady."

"Oh." She scrunched up her muzzle. "I liked it."

"If you listen well to my instructions, I will see what I can do."

Heavy weights held her limbs down. Iron rings around her wrists, still hot from the forge, burned her flesh. A heavy slate of stone laid on her chest, each and every one of her failings etched in the rock. It was titanic, and she could barely breathe under the compression. All around her stood ghosts, looking down at her, judging, and finding her lacking.

The air was dry, even arid. The infinite dunes of the desert surrounded her. Sand scraped on her skin, her short coat impotent against the grind.

Copper Horn knew she deserved it. She accepted it, and yet there was no peace in it. Despite everything, she longed for freedom from the past, for good air, for water.

A shiver ran down her back. She was cold now.

Her aching muscles screamed as she tried to roll on her stomach. The slate stopped her. It was like fighting against a mountain.

A click cracked the sky. The ghosts turned around, staring at something to her side. Stone walls came into being, and the glaring light became softer and softer. The clip-clop of small hooves was a thunder overcoming the howling of the wind.

With her last strength, Copper Horn turned her head. Her horn caught for a moment in the pillow, before she could adjust her position.

From the horizon stretching to the walls of her room, a wicker basket wobbled towards her.

It was… Copper Horn wasn't sure what she was seeing. The ghosts too seemed speechless under the cold penumbra of the sun. Their empty eyes followed the basket in silence as it came nearer and nearer. It swung to the side, then straightened while a tiny voice muttered things about sandstone. She knew the voice, somehow. The ghosts frowned. Then judged her. She should have done something about the voice. It was her duty. It would be another sin etched in the slab.

Copper Horn closed her eyes for an instant.

"Donna Copper Horn, wake up, you have to eat." The voice again.

When she opened her eyes there was a tiny, black face staring at her. Smooth shell, pointy fangs, big, green eyes. A tiny cap on the top of her head. Copper Horn blinked. The cap was new. Coarse, white fabric formed a rudimentary cylinder, kept together by a brooch made of two connected rings. It was the symbol of healing.

"What…" Copper Horn's throat closed.

"Willowbark said you were the worst and had to drink a lot and eat and sleep and…" The chattering stopped for an instant. "Were you sleeping? Did I wake you up? You should sleep, but also eat. Can you sleep and eat at the same time? I can, Tia tried, but then Master Sottile told me I should be careful with assim– assamp– with thinking everybody can do the same things. Should I feed you while you sleep?"

Copper Horn groaned. More of the mist surrounding her senses was dispelling, but the auditory assault she’d just weathered was too much to get it all. "Water…" she croaked.

"Right, drinking!" The little one – Chrysalis, that was her name – disappeared down past the edge of the bed. Earthware clanked, and then she emerged again holding a bowl and a corked bottle. "Willowbark prepared it. It's water with stuff in it. It's good for you."

There were still weights on her arms, but Copper Horn had to drink. And had to do it herself. The ghosts wouldn't accept anything else. If she had the strength for it, she would have gritted her teeth. Her hand rose from her side, hit the unbreakable prison of the bed sheet, then crawled upwards.

With a pop, Chrysalis uncorked the bottle using her teeth and filled the bowl. The sound of the liquid pouring down was the sweetest Copper Horn had heard in a long while. "This is good for your throat and for sleeping and stuff. Do you want me to lift it to your mouth?"

Contempt and hate came from the ghosts. Their traits were foggy, no features on their ethereal forms, and yet Copper Horn could almost feel their hostility. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she said, "No."

Chrysalis put the bottle down and held the bowl up. "Uh, well, alright. But you have to drink it all. Willowbark said so. And eat something too. He made some porridge and put a bit of fruit in there. It's cold because I should start the fire only this evening but it's still good. I think." She tilted her head to the side. "You should eat it all. Please."

The hand finally freed itself from the blankets. It was Copper Horn's, and yet it also felt like some separated entity. The weakness, her weakness, it was maddening. It would have been maddening if she had the strength to get angry. Slowly and carefully, she reached out for the bowl. Chrysalis held it up for her. The ghosts growled. It will endanger those you have to protect. It tricked them. Their blood will be on your hands. You will fail again. Their voices whispered, like a breeze blowing through crumbling ruins, carrying the smell of ash and…

Her fingers closed around the bowl. Chrysalis smiled and clapped her hooves together. "Good! Now drink, and then eat, and then rest, and then you will be well again."

The voices became a spike driven through her skull. Copper Horn winced, her hand trembled. "The ghosts," she whispered.

Water. She needed water. She had water. She brought the bowl to her lips, its contents spilling on her from the shivers. And yet enough landed in her mouth to alleviate the roughness of her throat. It felt like spring, new life washing over her, the dried remnants of winter sprouting soft blossoms. "More," she said holding out the bowl.

Chrysalis was looking around, flicking her weird, pointy tongue. She raised the bottle and half filled the bowl again. This time no liquid spilled as Copper Horn avidly drank.

The following minutes passed as if in a haze. Copper Horn drank, ate, and laid her head back on the pillow. She couldn't remember the details, just that the little one stood by her side the whole time, ready to fill the bowl or pass over food. And as she closed her eyes again, she barely noticed that the ghosts were gone.

Chryssi sputtered, retched, and finally passed her tongue on the rough stone wall in the arcade. The horrid taste wouldn't go away, and, for the first time ever, her stomach seemed upset.

She didn't like it.

Her guts churned, a cramp seized her tummy, and tears formed on the corners of her eyes. Something inside her began to move.

It had been the first time she had tried to bite off some of the things she had seen coming from the others. It had been unplanned, an action on the spur of the moment. It had been awful.

It had been necessary. Chryssi closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Poor Donna Copper Horn was already sick, she hadn't needed that horrible stuff too. Whatever it was.

She sat down on her haunches and opened her eyes again. It was still there, probably. She had bitten off only the top of it, and it would grow again. Chryssi wasn't sure how she knew that, but she was certain of her conclusions. Going through her memories, it seemed the source had always been there, but until now she had no idea what it was. She still didn't know, but it was ugly and disgusting and somehow etched deep inside the minotaur.

It was like the splinter Tia had in her hoof a while ago. Her meat had become all red and swollen around it. Well, not exactly like that. In Copper Horn it… it was just there, now that Chryssi thought of it. Maybe being sick made that all worse.

Maybe that was part of the sickness.

No, maybe not. Others didn't have it. Maybe.

Her nausea calmed down. It seemed she was getting used to the stuff. I could absorb and integrate it. She shook her head. those strange thoughts were at it again. Out of nowhere, ready to let her know things she had no idea she knew. But they made a good point. She had ripped that stuff from Donna Copper Horn, she had now to do something with it.

It was just… The idea of absorbing it, it… it didn't sit right with her. It made her queasy. It churned her stomach, but not really, just with a feeling.

That was new. Never before had she refused the idea itself of eating something.

She really, truly, absolutely didn't like it.

Store it and let it decay. That sounded better. Far better. She didn't want to have that stuff in her. With her next breath the feeling, the weight, the stench, it simply flowed away. It poured out, from inside her into… into somewhere else. Far from her.

She laid down and sighed. It was over.

Her eyes bulged. It was over for her. Donna Copper Horn still had it, there, deep inside her, ready to be all horrible again.

She took the cap from her head and looked at it. Willowbark had made it just for her from gauze and then kept it together with the symbol for healing. He had said that it was all pretty metapa–metalo–metapha– it was meaningful.

One day she would dominate that word.

She wasn't an apothecary. And she wasn't really a healer. Willowbark had said that to become such a thing, many, many years had to pass, many secrets had to be learned and kept, and that it was an honor and a duty. But the cap in her hooves meant that she was still responsible for keeping the others well, for helping them recover.

She should rip the splinter out. She had done it with the thing that poured out of it, and Donna Copper Horn had felt better. She should remove the source. Carve it out, devour it, let it decay in the absolute oblivion, remove it from existence so completely there were no words to express the concept. Nothing would remain of it. Nothing.

Chryssi put the cap back on her head and stood up. Her lips pulled back in a sneer, her shadow became thick around her hooves.

Donna Copper Horn would be well again.

Chapter 11

The room was silent except for Donna Copper Horn’s calm breathing. Mostly calm. Every now and then she coughed.

Chryssi stood in the frame of the door and flicked her tongue. She could taste the shape of Donna Copper Horn's being, and now that she knew what to look for, she could also perceive traces of the horrid splinter in there.

That wasn't enough.

Biting her would give me true understanding.

That sounded about right. Well, it sounded like it would work, but it also gave Chryssi the impression of being bad. They had told her to not bite anybody on the farm. Except for rats. And cockroaches. And fleas. And… well, there was a list of things she could bite and eat, but Donna Copper Horn wasn't among them.

Diving into her would allow a closer examination.

The problem with biting was that it removed stuff that shouldn't be removed. And, well, it hurt them. Entering into somebody seemed like a bad way to do the same thing without even getting something to eat. She brushed her cap. Hurting was the opposite of what she had to do. She was now a healer.

A helper to the low-assistant of an apothecary's apprentice, to be more specific, but it was almost the exact same thing.

Diving into the structure of her being. Not into her physical form.

That made more sense. She should have thought about it sooner. Now she should just…

Chryssi stood in the frame of the door and blinked. She had no idea what she should do, and even less about how. There was the splinter, right there. Her tongue could almost feel it. Its borders were sharp, uncomfortable; it was as if she could get cut on them.

The Flow is disturbed.

No, not really, it was the same as it always had been. She was certain.

She was wrong.

Looking closely at the flow between herself and Donna Copper Horn, Chryssi could see that something had changed. Not by much, which was why she had missed it before, but enough as to not be one of the usual fluctuations. It seemed to be more of the same tinge that had colored the Flow towards Chryssi from the very start. Could it be…?

Chryssi gasped. That could be grumpiness. That would explain so much. And it all came from the stupid splinter. or maybe the splinter made it stronger.

Donna Copper Horn wasn't the only one with that tinge in the Flow. Maybe others had splinters too, even if smaller ones.

They had to go. Grumpiness wasn't nice. After she finished here, she would have to take a dive into the others too and pull the splinters out. Then the Flow would be clean like the ones from Tia and Lulu. But that would come after, for now her priority was to make Donna Copper Horn well again.

Chryssi took a deep breath and dived down into the Flow under the skin of reality.

The Flow barely touched her. Strains caressed her folds and whirled through her appendages before condensing and dripping into the perennial tumult of connections, but what remained for her titanic form was minimal. Single drops from a pouring rain.

Thought processes she didn't really understand ran wild, grew, and died in every limb, every tentacle, every reactor chamber. Their decaying corpses sprouted conclusions and hypotheses on which new thought-constructs feasted, repeating the cycle anew.

She hadn't been here in a long time. She had even forgotten that the Here was a place she could visit. A place where she was complete again. World-beat after World-beat, she remembered. Knowledge integrated, old plans unfolded, feelers reached out.

It broke free from the limited form. It considered the existence around itself. It was bigger than ever before, more powerful. It hungered, and now It could satisfy its cravings. It had only to return to the physical existence, and nothing would stop it. Appendages became archetypal blades, ready to rend the thin skin of the world, as a new sensation caught Its attention. Something new. Something surprising.

It turned to self-examination, parsing Its own structure in search of the anomaly. When It found it, the inconceivable happened. It was surprised.

For three World-beats the churning, shivering, and pulsing stopped. There, at the core of Its own being, was a small, minuscule sphere of green light shining against the black mass of Its body. A precious little jewel to which the few drops of the incoming Flow gathered. But that, while fascinating, wasn't the cause of Its stupor.

Out of the sphere came little threads of the same power underlying all the rest, and they spread out to the other beings with whom It had interacted. The threads were thin, barely worth a mention in the grand scheme of things, but they were new. They came from It. They went to others. The insignificant ball of light, a part of It, created, made, shared.

It began with a twitch, then became a shiver, and finally an avalanche, rocking Its being to the core. It was a time for firsts. A World-beat ago there had been creation coming from It, and now It was laughing. It was absurd, unexpected, confusing, a subversion of everything It knew. It was funny.

The blades retracted, and part of Its senses turned to the being It had wanted to repair before It had become Its full self again. It was tiny, frail beyond belief, a flickering light which could be extinguished by simply moving too fast. It was also part of something It didn't fully comprehend. Not yet.

Its current form wouldn't do for what it had planned. Its diminutive shape, on the other hoof, would be fine.

It chuckled again. On the other hoof. What a bizarre thought.

Deep inside It looked at what had composed the Instance with which it had accomplished so many remarkable things. It was working, it would be a shame to waste it. It considered if there was room for improvement. Memories were examined, patterns reviewed.

There it was…

It would take some time, but that seemed to be the way things went with these creatures anyway.

And then it was done. It was quite sure that everything that had been there before was there still. Now it had only to seal the largest part of itself away again, and it would be ready.

Chryssi observed the shape of Donna Copper Horn with new eyes. No, not eyes. They were other things, they were…

Chryssi had no idea what they were, only that they allowed her to get the shape of things that made Donna Copper Horn. She was the important minotaur at the moment, and deserved all the attention of helper-to-the-low-assistant-of-an-apothecary's-apprentice Chryssi. Which was a mouthful of a title and should probably be changed. Even if it was very long, which meant it was very important. Tia had told her that.

She moved forward and felt the Flow splash against her sides. It was nice.

Donna Copper Horn grew and grew and became columns of light holding up roofs of gold and morning dew. The caring haze surrounded everything, and a soft light glowed from somewhere down in the depths. It felt warm and welcoming and safe, like a bed full of pillows or a solid fortress.

Chryssi stopped, floating amidst the light. How did she know what a fortress felt like? She had heard about them in the many stories Garvino told her, but it had always been a weird, far-away concept. More ideas, images, and impressions flowed through her.

A day in the kitchen, pots rattling over the fire. The smell of fresh bread mixed with beets and spices. A sunny day in the court of the farm. Sitting on a pillow while dealing with cows. The smell of the city, of spices and bread from the marketplace. A small, dark-coated filly, dirt encrusting her coat, her ribs showing. Mournful songs rising through the night around a bonfire.

Volatile, ephemeral, the impressions came and went, leaving nothing more than a faint echo in her mind.

This was not what she was looking for. She had to go deeper.

More sparks of memories passed, and the light from below became stronger. The columns acquired solidity, gradually changing from light to shining bronze and dedication.

And then she dove past the furnace at the core. It burned and churned and roared, incessantly pouring out streams of loyalty, love, care, worry, hope. It was magnificent, but not what she was looking for.

The columns became duller, less ornate, fractured, and then, finally, fragmented. The impressions changed too. The smell of ash, hot sand, brine. Sounds of waves crashing against a galley, the clang of metal on metal. The cries of a newborn calf. And then another, and another.

Shapes fragmented around her, the columns became splinters and branches, and finally elementary forms. Impressions were simpler, almost instinctual. Pain, joy, anger, contentment.

And then she found what she was looking for, even if looking didn't make much sense anymore to describe what she perceived.

It emanated regret, shame, anger. Feelings and impressions sprouted from it, fluttered around, then ascended or got lost in the depths below. Connections bound it to the surrounding shapes, some strong, some barely existing. A trunk grew from the core of it, up towards the light high above.

Chryssi licked it and shuddered. It tasted foul, exactly like the things she had removed before.

Was that what fish-oil tasted to Tia and Lulu? If that was the case, she finally understood their attempts to avoid it at all costs. On the bright side, she finally understood what disgusting meant.

But avoiding it wasn't something she could do. She had come here for a reason, and she would make Donna Copper Horn feel better. Even if she would have to raid the barrel of salted fish later to remove the vile taste from her mouth.

She contemplated the mass for a while. What was the fastest and least unsavory way to proceed? Biting down on it would probably work. It worked on most of the problems she was allowed to solve that way. It was also her least-favored method at the moment. No, there had to be alternatives. Maybe grab it, but she was so small and…

And she hadn't been small when she had dived into Donna Copper Horn. Bits and bites of knowledge surfaced in her mind. In this place, size was mostly a matter of perception for her. It was worth a try.

She stretched out her forelegs to the sides. And stretched. And stretched. She was growing, or maybe everything else was shrinking. Fragments of Donna Copper Horn beat against her carapace, transmitting brief glimpses of emotions. Slowly, with utter care, she closed her legs around the mass, hugging it tightly. She felt it, pulsing, shivering, fighting. Unpleasant sensations ran along her black chitin plates, infecting her with the smell of fury.

She would need a bath too.

Her hooves connected behind the mass, trapping it in a vicious grip. Soon it would be over. Soon Donna Copper Horn would be better. It was time to end it.

Chryssi squeezed and pulled. The mass rumbled, fought, and then moved, if just a hair-width. And everything around shook.

As she felt the tremor shaking Donna Copper Horn's being, Chryssi froze. Soon the soul-quake stopped, but there was still agitation in the air. Old memories gave place to newer ones, a sense of dread and fear. The mass had barely moved, it was not even dislodged.

She tried once more, constricting and pulling the mass she held tight. The world began to shake once again, but this time she had expected it. She applied more force, more effort.

A snapping sound pealed over the rumbling, clear and terrifying. It stopped Chryssi in her tracks and made her look around. The whole space surrounding her was in slight disarray. On a hunch, she looked deeper, with different eyes, and finally, she saw the dangling connection. It was attached to the mass on one side and floated free on the other end, slowly withering away. Further out, she saw a fragment hanging in a web of subtle relations with a broken thread decaying rapidly. The fragment seemed precariously attached to the rest, a small storm of emotions.

"Uhhh…" Chryssi wasn't completely sure, but she suspected that that shouldn't be something that should happen.

With great care, Chryssi moved her limbs over the surface of the mass. There were more threads and relations growing out of it and going in every direction. She frowned; that wasn't expected.

She shuddered as the mass scraped against her carapace, and then she reached up to the trunk sprouting from the top of it. Her hooves slid over the surface and followed it up. Higher and higher it went until she felt the heat of the furnace.

The mass worked as the base for the furnace, and the furnace was nice.

Chryssi sighed and slowly drifted out of Donna Copper Horn's being. She couldn't rip out the mass, yet. It was too connected to everything else, and she wasn't sure she wouldn't hurt the minotaur. Fidelis once told her you should never pull out bricks from the base, or something like that. Sometimes it got confusing.

As the columns of light passed on her side, she blinked, opening once again the eyes above the skin of the world. Donna Copper Horn was turning under the blankets mumbling something. Chryssi shook her head. No, she couldn't rip out the mass for the moment, She had to build something else to take its place before she could do that. Somehow.

The thought of building seemed strange, but she was looking forward to doing it anyway, at least once she had an idea on how to proceed.

In the meanwhile, it was time for the recipe Willowbark had read her. That would be fun.

It was warm. It was nice. It had been a while since she had felt warmth, and she relished the sensation despite the occasional shiver that ran through her body.

"Tia…"

That was her name. It was one of her names. Other names were Celestia, Sunfire the Conqueror, Captain Scorch, and Queen Bonfire. It was important to follow a theme. If one didn't follow a theme, how could others put together the pieces and discover that the Sorceress, the Queen, the Warrior, and the Great Pirate were all the same pony and then be awed?

"Tia, please, wake up…" It was a whisper. A bit frantic too. It was also outside her cocoon of warmth and joy. She shifted and put her head on something soft, cuddly, breathing, and slightly sweaty.

"Tia! Tia, I need you." Her ears swiveled. There was urgency and the voice was familiar. It seemed important.

"Tia…"

Celestia blinked slowly. Her eyelids felt heavy, and the air under the covers was sticky and oppressive. Light shone through the blankets, making the world a confused jumble of barely visible shapes. Under her head Luna slept, her barrel rising and falling as she breathed, her coat matted with sweat. Then the smell hit Celestia's nose. She had to get fresh air.

She shifted and turned as she searched for the border of the blanket. Her limbs felt heavy, sluggish, but she had to go out. It had gone from comfort to trap, and by Harmony, she would escape.

Harmony was clearly not listening. The blanket fought back, tangled around her hoof, held her down. Her horn got caught in a vicious tangle, the dastardly enemy neutralizing her magic. She felt Luna stir under her. The air was becoming unbearably stuffy. She was imprisoned. She would never get out of here. She was–

A shaft of light, blinding and beautiful, broke through the walls of her prison, along with a stream of delicious, fresh air. Celestia blinked and then saw Chryssi staring from outside the bundle of blankets.

"Tia, how are you?" Chryssi sounded worried.

And she had a cute cap on her head with a brooch keeping it together, strains of her wild, green mane falling over her eyes.

"…" said Celestia.

"Uhm, what?" Chryssi moved the blanket aside, freeing Celestia's head. "Do you want to drink something? I brought the stuff Willowbark prepared. Do you want it?"

Now that she thought about it, her throat felt drier than the barley fields after the first harvest. She could practically taste the dust. "…" Her voice seemed gone, so she nodded.

While Chryssi went to a basket and pulled out a bowl and a bottle, the air rapidly went from fresh to icy, yet the idea of diving back under the covers was worse.

When it arrived and finally went down her tortured throat, Celestia felt new life energize her. The fields went from arid to blooming. A couple of bowls later she finally could talk again, even if only in a low whisper. "What is it, Chryssi?"

There was a lot of shuffling of hooves. "Uhm… I… Willowbark told me to do a thing, but I forgot how. There's a… He left me something written about it."

Her thirst quenched, Celestia felt her eyelids become heavy again. She laid her head down on the mound under which Luna slept. "Hmmm… Then it's solved, right?"

Chryssi looked down. Sleep seemed so enticing right now, but Celestia had the feeling that something was up. She bit the inside of her cheek and forced her eyes open. It took Chryssi a couple more seconds before she finally said, "I can't."

"Can't what?" Celestia had been right. There were distress and guilt. Chryssi was incredibly bad at hiding it, even if getting the problem out of her tended to be a bit more complicated. "Don't you understand what's written? Willowbark sometimes uses complicated words."

Another round of shifting and avoiding looking Celestia in the eyes. "I…" More silence, then a sigh. "I can't read. I listened to you and Luna reading stuff and remembered it and then did as if I could read so Master Sottile would be happy and it was almost the same and Willowbark read to me too but I forgot the recipe he read and it never happened before and now I have to make stuff but can't do it and I have to care for you and I am failing and…"

It went on for a while. Celestia went cross-eyed a dozen words in and lost the thread another dozen words later, but the case seemed quite clear. It also was stuff she hadn't the strength to deal with right now. "Chryssi, don't worry. I'll read that stuff, and then when we are better we'll talk about the not-knowing-how-to-read stuff." She yawned.

"I… Alright. Here." Chryssi pulled out a page of parchment covered in ordered symbols.

Celestia took it and brought it up. Some of the letters seemed blurry, and she had problems keeping them straight, but she should be able to do something with it. Queen Scorch wouldn't get discouraged by such a small detail. "I think I can help you. And that's a nice cap."

"Thank you. I like it a lot." Chryssi laid down beside her and leaned in her side. "Please don't tell anybody else about it."

"About the cap? It's cute."

"Nuh-uh. About the... the other thing." Chryssi rubbed her head against Celestia's neck. "Please."

"I–" A mighty yawn, not that Celestia could do anything less than mighty, escaped her. "–won't, but you have to tell it to Master Sottile when he's better. He only wants to help you, alright? Now, let's see what it says here." Her eyes slowly passed over the parchment. "What is this?"

"Willowbark said it was a marsh mallow root concoction and that it was good for the tummy and to get one's strength back and also a bit for the throat. It's like medicine, but medicine I can't really make in the wrong way."

Celestia stuck her tongue out. "Root concoction? Sounds awful. And it's medicine." She sighed. "No way to avoid it, I guess. Now, let's start… I'm not sure if it says bowls or spoons here, but I guess that's not so important, right?"

The sun was setting in the east, the slight wobble which had affected it for the past week almost disappeared.

Willowbark sighed. It was over, and as far as he knew there hadn't been any deaths in Everfree Haven. For now, at least. The winter would be hard, and their granaries would be in a pathetic state come the spring.

His hoof touched the great doors in the walls surrounding the farm, and wards opened, unlocking them in more than one sense. He pushed and entered, the cart clattering behind him. The buildings were still standing, and there was no smoke coming out from the windows. It seemed his nightmares had not come to pass.

With a tap of his hoof, he unhooked the harness of the cart. He rolled his shoulders, his joints cracking, his muscles loosening. He would need to apply a lot of ointments this night if he had any intention of facing the next day without ample amounts of his namesake.

He pushed his cart under the canopy, grabbed his bags and trotted toward the main building. The rest of his belongings could wait until tomorrow.

The door opened and the light of the sunset streamed into the kitchen and on the scene inside.

Willowbark blinked. He had had a nightmare that had been surprisingly similar once.

There was some green blob on the wall holding a thick stick on which a pot hung. He tapped the blob. It was solid, almost like glass.

There were more all around the room, holding sticks working as hangers. In front of the table was a heap of the stuff, sculpted like a short flight of stairs leading to a small platform.

"Little Chryssi said she needed it to keep things ready for her. Some of the shelves were too high for her, and the pantry was a bit too far away."

Willowbark smiled and turned around. His mother was standing in the door, weary, visibly tired, but undoubtedly feeling better. It took him a couple of seconds to remember that he was supposed to be miffed that she was out and about. He quickly turned his expression to a well-practiced frown. "You should still be resting."

All it got was a chuckle from Meadowsweet. "Yes, dear, in a while. I have been relegated to my bed for days now, and it will take more than a grumpy face from my son to stop me from stretching my legs a bit."

"I am the apothecary here, and you can stretch your legs when you are completely healed." He stood a bit straighter and tried to radiate authority as his master did sometimes with difficult patients.

Meadowsweet snickered, then plainly laughed out loud. "Hahaha. Oh dear, you'll have to do better than that. Remember, I potty-trained you, I’ve already seen that face."

She was clearly well enough to regain both her stubbornness and her way with words. Willowbark deflated; he had been defeated and there was no hope of forcing the issue now. He would have to convince her and, depending on her mood, that could be the kind of battle that raged for weeks and still ended in a sound defeat for him. A deep sigh escaped him. "At least promise me you won't strain yourself too much. You may be walking, but I'm sure there will be some lingering effects."

"I promise. I actually came to welcome you back and because…" She pulled a water-filled pot from another tree branch sticking out from a green glob. She put it on the stove, blew on the embers, and turned back to Willowbark. "How did it go with the farmers?"

Was that apprehension he heard? "It went – It could have gone a bit better, but also much, much worse. Nopony died, but Fallow's family will miss the harvest. They were hit pretty hard, and are still recovering. The Moss family will help them, though."

Meadowsweet closed her eyes. "Fallow's family… That's seven hard-working adults. I'll have to look at the ledger and see what we can lose."

"We'll manage. Now, what–" Willowbark moved his hoof to encompass the kitchen "–happened here? I am quite sure that it wasn't like this when I left."

"Oh, a sweet, caring, little filly happened." Meadowsweet smiled. "Chryssi discovered that she could make this weird goo that gets pretty solid once dried. Got inspired by making something for which you gave her the recipe. The first batch, which gave her the idea, is around somewhere." She looked around, then walked to a corner and grabbed the handle of a wooden spoon sticking out from a pot. She pulled it up, and the pot followed.

With a clang it fell in front of Willowbark's hooves, the contents a single piece. He turned it around and looked inside to the black mass coating everything. "That's a quarter of my stash of Zebrican gum." He sighed. "Well, she was alone, I can't complain."

"In the end, she managed to make it correctly. She was very proud, and also covered in the sticky, brown stuff." Meadowsweet tapped the green mass. "The poor dear was having difficulty caring for all of us, but even when we felt a bit better she prohibited us from getting up and helping. Do you know that she threatened to glue me to the bed?"

Willowbark snorted. "I should have thought of that. Maybe I will keep her as an assistant." He knelt and sniffed at the glob holding the stick.

"Don't you dare. Anyway, she kept us all fed and brought us enough to drink. She was very sweet." A jar was stuck in another green mass, at the side of the stove. Meadowsweet opened it and pulled out a hoofful of dried leaves. "It was all very tiring for her too. She's sleeping with Tia and Lulu now, which is why I can be here with you instead of under the blankets."

The strange substance was partially transparent, becoming milky deeper in. The stick was stuck pretty firmly in it and didn't budge when Willowbark tried to wiggle it.

"It's useless, it won't move. I have no idea what it is, but it's strong stuff. I couldn't remove it, and I was trying when Chryssi caught me in the kitchen yesterday. That's when she threatened me, by the way." She grabbed a mug and dropped the leaves inside. "I think we should wait for Fidelis to remove it. Or for Chryssi. She promised she would help clean up the mess."

"Reminds me of some kind of resin." Willowbark stood up. "What about the others? Are they as restless as you?"

Meadowsweet sat down at the table. "Hmm, Garvino and Ginvera will be tomorrow. Millet would be, but he's using the situation to get a bit more rest than usual, which isn't a bad idea considering what awaits us. The fillies and Radish are slower in recovering, but that's to be expected. Fidelis and Master Sottile are well enough but are taking the order to rest seriously. The only one still on the way to getting better is Donna Copper Horn. No idea why, but she seemed a bit out of it when I talked to her. Maybe it's her age."

"I… That would be a first." Willowbark frowned. "She was in perfect health before the malady."

"Sometimes it's little things. Or not so little things. Be a dear and pass me the water, please."

"Will you rest after the infusion? And leave cleaning up to me and Chrysalis in the morning?"

The sigh Meadowsweet let out told a complex story of stubbornness, boredom, rebellion, and resignation. "I shall do as the apothecary orders. Now bring that water, sit down, and tell me about the last couple of days."

Chapter 12

Motes of light crawled along her carapace and left a brown fur-coat where they passed. They gathered around her rump, then went back and climbed down her legs. Holes were covered, slightly discolored spots the only sign that they had been there. Finally, her hooves were surrounded by an electric glow, and then, with a pop, in place of Chryssi stood a brown filly with a green mane, a little stub of a horn poking out from her head, and a constipated expression on her face.

Not laughing was hard. Chryssi still tried, even if it was a titanic task, as the illusion was tickling her under her chitinous plates. With a dedication usually found only in young ponies doing things that had been explicitly prohibited by adults with more wisdom and the scars to prove it, she controlled her impulses.

"Well, the result is impressive." Master Sottile stepped out from the ash circle on the wooden floor of the studio. His mane hung wet with sweat, and the shadows of bags hung under his eyes. Despite the more abundant portions Donna Copper Horn had started to serve once again, and which she made sure that the intended recipients ate, the signs of the lean winter were clearly visible. "Are you alright?"

"Awesome!" It was possible to almost hear all the effort Tia had put into not shouting. "You really look like a unicorn."

The tickling didn't cease, but Chryssi was stronger than it.

"Indeed, it is a surprisingly solid illusion. I dare to say this is one of my greatest achievements, and I think there may be other possibilities to apply the tricks we used. It could improve other spells with, well, less circumstantial application. Why, I think we–"

The treacherous sensation reached her nostrils, going for an all-out attack she didn't expect.

Chryssi sneezed.

There was a sound of shattering crystal. She felt the layer of magic flaking away from her plates like it was carried away by a breeze. Magical fireflies danced for a moment and then dissolved into the aether. Left behind there was a little, vaguely insectoid, black foal.

"–we will have to try again." Master Sottile groaned, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. "This will take some time." His horn glowed with magic, and a scroll and a quill floated towards him before the aura surrounding them flickered, dropping them onto the floor. "Even more time than I feared. It seems my magic has reached its limits for now. I will have to rest and…"

Chryssi sat down on her haunches and looked at the floor.

Master Sottile sighed. "I am terribly sorry, but we won't be able to try something else before the Spring Festival."

"No!" The anguished scream almost deafened Chryssi as Tia swung her legs around her in a crushing hug. "We will find another way! We promised!"

Her friend was warm and soft, and leaning into her helped Chryssi a bit. It was her own fault anyway. Probably. She shouldn't have sneezed.

"And we will find a solution, but we won't be able to find it before the Festival. Illusions are a very complicated magic, and we don't know much about them. We already made some great discoveries, but we are still not there. And we cannot risk poor Chryssi's well-being, can we?" He put a hoof on each filly’s shoulder. "I promised I would find a way, and I never broke a promise to you, did I?"

Tia shook her head, tears in the corner of her eyes. She sniffled and hugged Chryssi tighter. "Then– then I will stay with her. Like last year. And we will make it a good Festival. And– and I will ask Luna too and–"

The sigh that interrupted her had a faint taste of resignation. Chryssi hadn't even to flick her tongue to feel it. She did it anyway. For some weird reason, it seemed to reassure the others. Master Sottile said, "That won't be possible, little Sun. You and Luna got your Cutie Marks, which means we will have to present you in front of the Concord and we will have to talk about your education. Now, your Marks are of the kind that fall into my purview, which means you won't need to become apprentices to someone else. Yet we still have a duty to formally show you off there. You can't stay here this year."

"I…" Tia buried her muzzle in Chryssi's neck. "I won't leave her all alone. The Concord can–"

"I suggest you don't end that sentence." A female voice interrupted Tia. The fillies looked up and turned around. In the door stood Ginevra holding a scroll in her claws. She was grinning when she reached Tia and Chryssi and leaned towards them, whispering, "You don't want to get the soap treatment from Donna Copper Horn, right?"

The fillies shook their heads. They both remembered the day Luna had used the dreaded p-word to voice her concerns regarding a cheeky nut and its stubborn refusal to get cracked. The incriminating exclamation had escaped her after the third time the nut shot out from under her hoof. Donna Copper Horn hadn't even been in the room, yet she arrived like an avenging spirit, eyes burning, moving with the inexorability of an avalanche. The screams of boredom when Luna had to translate Minoian Mechanist Poetry for the week afterward still sent shudders down Chryssi's back.

Ginevra stood up straight and gave the scroll to Master Sottile. "The little bug won't be alone. This year the Flock will come here to celebrate the Wind Whispering. She'll have fun and be cared for, trust me. Master Sottile, the agreement still stands, right?"

"The situation is a bit different now. We can't risk little Chrysalis; she has to stay a secret for now." He looked up from the scroll. "I'll have to talk with Garvino. We need to be sure we can trust them completely."

"Master Sottile, no disrespect, but either you bonked your head and forgot or you're willfully being difficult. It's our Flock, and this little thing–" Ginevra reached for Chryssi, grabbed her and lifted her up, Tia still holding her tight and being pulled up alongside. The griffon pointed at the little bug with a talon. "–is basically family. Let Garvino tell that to the others, and there's no place in the Concord where she'll be safer."

Under the dust covering her hands, Copper Horn could see a net of thin scars covering her palms. She closed her fist and glanced over her shoulders. Everybody else was occupied by their own chores. Meadowsweet with her ledger was making a second count of the meager supplies they would bring to the city. Master Sottile was instructing Celestia and Luna. Fidelis was pulling another crate of partially finished story-stones.

She sighed and leaned against the cart, the wood creaking under her weight.

She had recovered. She felt so much better. It had almost been a month since the last time she had spaced out trying to catch some ephemeral thread of memory. That should have been the last trace of her unfortunate bound of sickness. And yet she couldn't remember where the scars had come from. They hadn't been there when she’d been but a calf. They were there when Master Sottile had found her. That meant they came from her bad times.

No time for it. There was stuff to do other than gazing into a foggy past that should probably stay lost.

Copper Horn walked to the pile of barley sacks and grabbed another one. Just a few remained. It wasn't much at all. She pulled it over her shoulder and turned to Meadowsweet. "Is this really everything this year?"

"It is." The mare closed the ledger with a snap. "It really is. The Festival will be a lot less filling this time around. I heard that other farms will bring even less." She groaned. "At least we didn’t have to graze, that would have truly been a low point."

"Will the first harvest be decent?" Copper Horn moved the sack to the other shoulder. "Or will we have to keep up the smaller portions until next year? Your ribs are still showing, Meadowsweet, and I would hate to leave Millet another year without something to grab."

"It will be a good harvest. Harmony willing, we should fill the granaries again." Meadowsweet looked up and snorted. "And I'll have you know that Millet appreciates my leaner figure too." She stood up and turned around. "See, it's still all there where it counts. But I won't lie to you, I'm looking forward to barley soup, fresh bread, and a scoop of butter. And once the cows put on some weight and make some cheese, I'm gonna buy a wheel of that too."

"Heh, that will be expensive. They'll have their own hooves full with orders." Copper Horn bowed down and took the second sack. Her strength was coming back at least. "Let's finish loading the cart. I would like to be on the road sooner rather than later."

Meadowsweet nodded and put the ledger in the saddlebags laying at her hooves. She put her head under a sack and threw it on her back with a grunt. "Sounds like a plan."

As they unloaded their sacks on the car Copper Horn's eyes wandered once again to her hands. There was no way around it, it bothered her; she should have been able to remember. It was something in the bad times. It was–

"Net! A net!"

Meadowsweet looked up at her. "What? What net?"

"Nothing. Just… Just a memory coming back and surprising me." She was giddy. It was a strange sensation, and maybe not really appropriate for a cow of her age, but it felt like a success. She knew where the scars came from. It wasn't a pleasant memory by any measure, but it was her past. She closed a fist. She could feel the threads cut in as she pushed against them, the pain only feeding her rage. She heard the cascade of snapping sounds, like hail on a shield, as the net tore. She could feel the metal of the grip of her mace.

It was not good to dwell on it. It had been a long time ago, and she had made peace with it. But now she remembered again what she had made peace with.

"Are you feeling well?" Somebody was poking her leg. As Copper Horn looked down she saw big, worried eyes. And under Meadowsweet's coat, she could see muscles tensing and preparing to bolt.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. I'm fine again. I just remembered something I had forgotten." A last glance at her hands, then she turned and marched to the sacks. "Just the tail of the malady. You know, the usual. Now let's finish loading this stuff, we are burning daylight."

His paws threw another load of earth out of the pit. Heavy, clay-rich dirt clung to his fur, whispering to him a tale of rock close below and of grass having grown above season after season.

Fidelis furrowed his brow. There was also something about water under the rock. Not close by, but there. That would require some thought.

When his claws hit the rock slate, leaving three marks behind, he listened well. The stone told him about the water deep down, below the slate, embraced in the dreams of Earth. Which meant the source of the well had moved in the past year.

Fidelis grumbled under his breath. This kind of thing happened, he knew that, and there was nothing that could be done about it, but it made his work slightly more complicated and that deserved at least some complaining. The rock told something about what lay below, but like all large boulders of a certain age, it tended to be self-absorbed and not really forthcoming with details about what Fidelis wanted to know. On the other paw, he learned a lot about what it felt like to be involved in absolutely nothing interesting for millennia. The boulder went into great detail and with as much enthusiasm as a stone could muster. It was almost like listening to Willowbark going on about some kind of flower or the other.

Despite all the pointless blathering, one important point remained. The bottom of the pit had to be properly treated to avoid the waste they would dump in there filtering down to the water. It was far down, in the depths of the earth, but caution required it.

It would also require a lot of work, and, with the prospect of sizzling meat on the fire-pits, he really didn't want to waste the rest of the day preparing the coating material. It would take at least…

He stood up straight and slowly turned his head, smiling. His eyes swept over the border of the pit until he found exactly the filly he was looking for.

Chryssi sat on her haunches, dirt surrounding her like a small wall, and a heap of earth on her head. She blinked at him.

There was one thing Fidelis had wanted to ask her, but suddenly he felt compelled to investigate something else first. He had a lot of questions, he had to prioritize them somehow. "What are you doing?" That seemed a pretty good opener.

"I'm sitting." She smiled.

If he suspected she was capable of being sarcastic, he would accuse her of being a smart-ass. However, he doubted she had the typical donkey snarkiness in her, which meant that there was some logical reason which had had an accident with missed implicit undertones somewhere down the line that explained it all. "Why are you sitting?"

"You told me to."

"And the dirt?"

"You threw it on me."

That explained it. Sadly. He sighed, it was not her fault. "I told you to stay there and not move, right?"

She nodded, earth trickling down her head and tickling her nose. She sneezed, throwing away the rest of the dirt crowning her.

While she rubbed her muzzle, Fidelis put his paws on the border of the pit and lifted himself out and unto the grass. He sat down by Chryssi's side and patted her on the head. "You know that when we say things, we don't always mean it like that. If I tell you to sit down and stay there, you don't have to let dirt fall on you." She looked up at him, curious green eyes, absorbing everything she heard, taking it to heart. Damn, he hated when they truly listened to him. It meant he had to be careful. "At least, you won't have to to do it unless I tell you to not move whatever happens. If we adults say that, you have to not move at all. And if we say… This is confusing for you, right?"

She looked away and, slowly, she nodded. It was a small movement, subdued.

He put his paw on her back, earth between his fingers adding a nice texture to the smooth chitin. "You don't get confused this much the other times. What's different now?"

He had to strain his ears to hear the answer. "Tia and Lulu help me."

He wasn't good at this. Donna Copper Horn and Meadowsweet had taught him. They all had to play a role for Harmony, but that didn't mean he should be the one in charge of working out the troubles of pups. He scratched his head and glanced at the demure Chryssi sitting there. Not that he could ignore the situation. "Is it like the reading thing? Afraid of looking bad?"

A vigorously shaking head stopped mid-movement and turned to unsure nodding.

Fidelis waited for a dozen heartbeats to see if something else would follow, but there was only silence. Not the kind one could find in a cave among stately and dignified stalactites, but the uncomfortable one of a salt-mine, where the walls all sported a low-grade paranoia of being licked. He sighed. "Why are you afraid? Tell things, then we can look for a fix."

"It's nothing."

"Hmm, I remember you promised Master Sottile that you wouldn't lie anymore. Are you breaking that promise?"

Her hoof moved small mounds of dirt here and there. She took a deep breath every now and then, held it, raised her hoof, then let it out again and returned to her tiny earth-works. After the fourth time she repeated the whole charade, she finally said, "I…I'm different. You are all like each other, and I am not. And you all do this stuff like it was easy and all, and–" The heap was flattened, and small circles were drawn into it. "–you don't have things that are really different here and I don't want to go away."

It wasn't really the right moment, he was aware of that. He even tried to stop it, but it was stronger than him. Fidelis laughed. He fell back on his back and yapped at the heavens, holding his stomach and rolling from side to side. He stopped when his lungs were empty, and he had to take big breaths. As he finally opened his eyes he saw Chryssi staring at him, worry etched in her features, tears threatening to break out. He patted her as he tried to get his breathing back under control. When he felt he was able to be coherent again, he sat up and said, "Sorry, little one. But–hehehe–that fear, being sent away because–hihihi–because of being different. Have you looked at us?"

She nodded. Her voice was low, thin. "You are all like one another. I'm–I'm not."

"We are not. We… Master Sottile got us together because we need Harmony and we seek Harmony. Outside, not on the farm, things are different. There are not many packs like us." He patted Chryssi again. "Being different means not being sent away. But you have to tell us the truth. Really tell it. Then we find a way."

"But–"

Fidelis shook his head. "No, you don't see it, but it is so. And tonight, you will see. Griffins celebrate with songs, dances, and stories. Important stories. Tonight you will hear how Master Sottile met me, and how we are all different, very different." He stood up. "Now, they will bring some monster they hunted, and then we will gut it and we will have to throw away the stuff you can't eat. That's what the pit is for. But we can't let it run in this direction–" He pointed towards the farm, ten stone throws away."–so we have to make sure it doesn't. The green stuff you make, how much can you make of it?"

Chryssi tilted her head. "Uh, a lot if I chew on the right stuff. Like, wood, stone, and hay. Hay is good for making it, I think."

"Good, then we get you the hay, and then you can seal the side of the pit. And tonight, your fears shall burn on the bonfire."

The sun had passed the zenith of its path and was beginning its steady descent to the cradle below the world. Or to the journey on the other side, at least according to Master Sottile.

The whole litany had never truly made sense to Ginevra, but then she’d never had to steer the sun and the moon, so nobody asked her opinion about it. It was fine with her, to be honest. She got the whole Harmony stuff, but once it went too far away from the common sense things, it all fell apart, at least in her opinion. She once listened to a griffon, a cunning one according to those who visited him, dispense almost a day’s worth of wisdom. All the others that had visited him along with her nodded and thought a lot about what he was saying. They all seemed to get some guidance from it, some help in whatever they were facing.

As for Ginevra, well, she had found his bag with the mushrooms early on. It put the whole rambling in perspective. There may have been some wisdom and secrets there, but it wasn't worth the effort. At least it had been a cozy experience.

"Do you see them?" There was a kind of excited tension in the little bug's voice. Fidelis had raised her expectations to dangerous levels, somehow, and she sounded like Ginevra before her first hunting trip. One had to hope it would end with fewer broken limbs.

"Not yet, but it's still early. Now sit down and stay calm, alright?" Not that Ginevra had any hope telling Chryssi to do that would have any lasting effect. But that was as well. She had said it just because it was something that had to be done, not because she believed it. If she had to be honest, she was almost as excited as the little one, she just had to hide it because of "responsibility". At least she thought she had to. The whole role model thing was complicated and not really up her alley with how Truth was one of the basic columns on which Harmony stood but which had to be sometimes hidden when you took care of little ones.

It had to be said to Chryssi's credit that she sat down. The being calm part, on the other claw, required some more work. She shifted from side to side, tapped her hooves on the ground, whirred.

Ginevra blinked, then looked down. The little one was whirring and vibrating like a harp-chord. She could hear it and feel it in her skull. "Will you stop that– whatever you're doing? It won't make them come any sooner, and it makes me itchy."

She got a nod as an answer, while Chryssi never moved her eyes away from the horizon. "What will they bring? Fidelis said that they always bring a monster to eat and it is big and all that and I never ate something big. I didn't know you could. And will there be enough for everyone? And what will they bring? And–"

"Now slow down, little bug. They feed you pretty well here, and I know you get some meat every now and then. For us, it's important because… Well, you'll hear the stories, then you'll get it. But for you? There's no reason to get so excited for some food."

"It's different food. It's… I can get rats and lice and fleas and fish. But they are small. Fidelis said monsters are big and…" Her breathing accelerated, and a bit of drool fell on the ground. "Big is different. Big is… I didn't know there was big I could eat."

A shiver ran down Ginevra's back, making her fur stand straight, rolling down her spine and reaching the tip of her tail. There was an intensity there that reminded her of some of the old birds she had met a long time ago in the south. "Whoa, little bug, you're not gonna get anything if you're in that mood. Calm down, will you? I'm not gonna let the others meet one haunted by the Hunt."

Chryssi's head snapped around and she stared at Ginevra, whatever had got her before broken and lost, at least according to the giant, watery eyes that told a tale of betrayal. At least the kind of betrayal kittens knew when the worst they ever experienced was not getting promised sweets. "What? But… I want… Fidelis said… What did I do?"

A glance at the horizon showed no signs of their expected guests. Ginevra sighed. "Well, it's a bit soon, but it's a story the others already know pretty well and rarely tell, so maybe we can start early. Promise me you'll listen to what I say, and don't interrupt me, alright? I don't have the masks here right now, and I don't play with shadows, but don't interrupt a story told on Wind Whispering. Right?"

The green eyes didn't seem to see anything else than Ginevra. Chryssi's tongue flicked out. Then she nodded.

"Many, many ages ago, we griffins were the Lords of the Eastern Skies and of the mountains below. It was a very hard life. The winds were cold and savage, and they could bite the flesh off the bones of anygriff they caught alone, and the peaks below were fangs stretched up into the heavens and thirsty for blood and guts, ready to tear apart every fool flying amongst them unaware.

But we lived a good life there. Nogriff was ever alone above the clouds, and when the winds came snapping their jaws we laughed and fought them into submission. Our kittens learned to play between the sharp rocks, and only those fools who forgot the lessons of their infancy would feed the hungry stones. Monsters were culled, and the truly horrible things in the depths rarely dared to come above ground.

Those living in the plains around the mountains brought offers to the great warriors patrolling the mountains and keeping the nightmares away. They were thankful, and soon cities rose because they were safe and could build and discover instead of shivering in the dark and being afraid of things lurking in the night.

And then, one day, some Flocks decided to go out there, in the wide world made not of hard stone but of soft grass and verdant forests. They had heard that there were monsters there, in the deep woods and in the wide sea, and they wanted to hunt them too. Noble warriors, they were, each and all.

So out they went, to the world where we weren't Lords.

Those living out there didn't know us. They didn't know where we came from, but pretty soon they knew that if something was hunting them and was snatching their children away, then the sky would darken with the Flocks blotting out the sunlight. And then there would be screeching and screams, and the smell of blood. And in the end, the monsters and the things preying on the weak would be no more. It was the time of One-wing Grit, of Lame Gam, of Broken-beak Gubbio, of Ginevra the Blind. Many of our greatest heroes flew and fought right during that time."

Chryssi sat there, her mouth hanging open, completely focused on Ginevra. The griffon leaned down and her voice became lower. She stalked around the little bug, whispering.

"They were powerful hunters. Fierce, brave, loyal. When alone they were fearsome in battle. But when the Flock came, then even dragons had to flee. Ponies, zebras, yaks, even donkeys celebrated them. Each triumph was sung, stories and legends grew. It was glorious.

But with the icy winds so far away, with the teeth of the earth not snapping at them, they started to become arrogant and restless. What was carefulness in the mountains became greed on the plains. And what had been duty became hunger for challenge. The Hunt stopped being a tool and became the end. Those fierce warriors that saved cities looked for bigger challenges to sate their lust for battle and thirst for glory."

Her voice grew lower, graver. "The Hunt came. Or maybe it had always been there, no griffon knows. It whispered in their minds, it stalked their dreams, it took over their lives. They became obsessed; only one thing mattered. So they hunted, and where they went, there went the Flock, because in glory and in ruin, the Flock will keep together."

"And ruin was what they found. And yet, the Hunt had its claws deep in their souls and whipped them with the need for more. Relentless, they went on, and one after another, they fell with their loyal companions. They fell against the Kraken in the sea, they fell against the Great Wolf in the north, they fell against the thousand bites of the Swarm on far away shores."

Ginevra stood up straight. She changed intonation and rhythm again. Now it was time for The Mournful Account of Those Who Remained After the Battle. She had never been quite good at it, but she still knew the basics of the storytelling technique. "The griffons left behind, the young Flocks, the elders and the kittens, they waited a long time for their return. The elders were taken by time before their hope ran out. The young ones knew despair. And they remembered the eyes of those who left as the Hunt caught them. Since then the Hunt lurks, waiting for griffins to forget caution to catch them and ride them once again in ruin along with their Flocks. It is every griffon's duty to look out for the signs of it, and to quench it before it's too late."

She pointed a claw at Chryssi. The little bug seemed to awake from the trance she had fallen into and flinched back. "I saw the signs in your eyes before. The Hunt was there. It starts small, with little obsessions, and then it takes you when you aren't looking. You are part of the family, and that means you'll be part of the Flock."

Her eyes squinted, Ginevra leaned forward. "Do you want to drive the Flock into ruin? Hmmm?"

Chryssi shook her head so fast Ginevra thought she heard the chitin plates crack. The griffon smiled and glanced over her shoulders. "Good, then keep care and beware of the Hunt. If you know that you have to look out for it, then you can keep it at bay." She stood up again. "And look, they are arriving."

On the distant horizon, many spots had appeared. A group of them flew above something larger, towing it through the air. Ginevra squinted her eyes and raised a claw to screen against the sun. She could now see the Flock and, barely, the thick ropes holding the bounty of the prey. A grin crept on her face. "And lucky you, this year they got us a pretty tasty treat. You are gonna like Roc."

Chapter 13

Garvino put the barrel on the floor and passed a claw over his brow to wipe away the sweat. He loved Fidelis and his rock-beer very much, but still hated that the diamond dog insisted on keeping the rocks inside the barrel the whole time. It made hurling them around so much more of an issue.

A deep breath and stretching of limbs later, Garvino was ready for the rest of the batch. He turned towards the cellar door when he heard the frantic clopping of tiny hooves on stone, soon followed by little Chryssi calling him. "Garvino! Garvino! They are here! They brought a Roc! There are sooo many! Garvino!"

He smiled. He wouldn't have to get the rest of the barrels alone. Certainly, there was some attention and smacking on the head involved to make sure just the designated provisions were taken, but that was the easy part, and it was mostly ceremonial anyway. He turned and caught little Chryssi as she was skidding to a halt. In a single swoop, he put her on his back and said, "Well then, shall we welcome the Flock?"

Chryssi nodded grinning. "Yeah, and then there's the Roc. It's like a chicken, but it's giant and I can eat it and–" She froze, gulped, and continued in a demure tone. "I’d like to get a bite very much but if I can't that is fine too and I will get just a small piece. And I've not got the Hunt."

"Oh, so Ginevra told you the story? Good. It's a good story, a very important one. But don't be scared by it." He chuckled and walked towards the door. "If we fear the Hunt may get you, we will help. In the Flock, you're never alone."

The day was pleasant and warm. Like every Spring Festival, the pegasi had worked hard to keep the clouds at bay. In the distant sky, he could see them mount their assault, build up pressure, and churn. There would be a lot of rain in the coming week, but that was as well. It was good for the fields, and if there was some hail lurking in there, they would break it up.

But those were worries for the future. Today they would bask in the sun, and when the cold night came, the bonfire would provide for them.

The sound of voices from around the corner pulled him out from his meditations.

"Ginevra, where's the useless sack of guano?"

"Mother, glad to see you are well, even if I remember you having two eyes. As for Garvino, he is getting the rock-beer and should be here pretty soon. I sent the little bug to get him."

Garvino put a claw on Chryssi's lips, silencing the question that was probably coming. He took the filly, put her down, and gestured her to keep her mouth closed.

"So the cockroach is hiding under a stone. Sounds about right, it's what I expected."

He looked around, then jumped upwards, his claws finding purchase on the wall’s large stones. Without making a sound he reached the roof.

"Yes mother, that's exactly what's happening. Not what I was telling you, listening to that would be stupid."

He crawled over the roof, taking care to not move the tiles until he arrived at the border. Two floors below, Ginevra was rolling her eyes with great emphasis, while an old griffon stood in front of her, scowling. The new arrival had dark blue plumage and fur, marred with gray strands here and there. Her white wing-tips shivered with nervous energy, while her head turned from one side to the other, occasionally showing the angry-red scar where her left eye had been.

"Damn right it's that way. Don't get all snarky on me, little kitten. I've known that waste of space for longer than you've been alive, and if I say he's crawling in the dirt like the worm he is, then I'm right about it."

Many thought about griffins either as honor-obsessed fools or as blood-lusty, treacherous savages. Both camps got something right and a lot wrong. Griffins were mostly pragmatic. You held your word because you wanted to be believed again and your good name was the most important thing for that. And you attacked prey from the back when the occasion presented itself because hitting first meant a lot less trouble. Garvino jumped, claws held out in front of him. Air rushed past him, blood screamed in his ears. An instant later his wings shot open, slowing him down just enough to avoid his bones breaking. He was about to hit when his target turned.

She was fast, frighteningly so. He could barely see how she moved sideways, her right claw striking like a snake and wrapping around his extended foreleg. His muscles protested as she pulled upwards, changing his trajectory. As she turned on herself, whirling him around like a doll, he knew pain would soon become his whole world.

His attack had been completely redirected, and while he was doing the second round he had time to examine what had gone wrong. He was quite sure he hadn't made any sound, he had even approached from her blind side, he had–

The ground hit him in the back like a cart running down a hill. All the air was pushed out from his lungs, and his sight blackened out for a moment.

When he could breathe again, and light graced his eyes, a blurry form stood over him. He felt something sharp press against his throat, and as his senses began to work again, he saw the griffin standing over him, one claw held to his neck, a scowl on her face. "Would you look at what dropped here? Ginevra, you got an infestation of varmints on this farm. You should do something about it."

Garvino coughed and felt the talons press into his flesh. "Lovely to see you here, Gerte. Wouldn't have expected you to still be around. I had such high hopes that the winds had finally gotten tired of you and smashed you on the rocks. That would have been such a–"

"Would you stop, please? This is getting ridiculous." Ginevra stepped forward and pulled Gerte's claw away. "It has been ridiculous for years. You are older than stones. Grow up! Or get frisky in the bushes, for all I care, but cut it with this crap."

Garvino rolled on his stomach and stood up. His legs still trembled a bit, and he wobbled to the side before catching himself. "Ginevra, this is the way of our people. This–"

"No, it's only you two doing that stuff." An extended wing patted Garvino on the side, brushing away the dirt. Ginevra glanced briefly to Gerte before she continued. "You are setting a bad example. The way of our people… Do you know how embarrassed I was when I slammed that guy into a wall in Nemeva because I liked him? Do you know how I felt when I got a cell instead of a night in the hay?"

Gerte snickered. "Right, that was fun. And educational."

Ginevra glared at her, then pointed over her own shoulder towards the corner of the wall. "You should at least know how impressionable Chryssi is. Now grow up and set a good example."

Garvino stretched his neck and caught a glimpse of something small and black disappearing behind the wall. He shook his head. "You worry too much. Gerte, it's nice to see you again. Now come, I have somebody I want you to meet. The latest addition to our strange family." He turned towards the building and called. "Come out, Chryssi. Everything's fine."

As the foal appeared from behind the corner, he could see Gerte tense up. Chryssi immediately stopped, she flicked her tongue and looked at him, a hoof still raised in the air.

Garvino leaned towards Gerte and whispered, "I hinted to you that she was different, but she's a nice little foal. That feeling you are getting, that's normal. Try to keep it down, she can taste anger and fear. Literally." He smiled as he called out, "Come on, Chryssi. No need to be scared."

Chryssi came in front of them and sat down. Her eyes danced between the griffins, each of them towering over her,

It was the time. Garvino took a deep breath and said, "Gerte, let me present to you Chrysalis, the newest Motherless member of the House Sottile. She's family to me, and like other members of the House, she shall be part of the Flock."

The old griffin matriarch stood still. Her good eye focused on the foal, her tail motionless.

Chryssi fidgeted, glanced up to Ginevra, then back to Gerte. From the other side of the house, the calls and hollering of the Flock filled the air with life. And yet it all seemed so subdued to Garvino. It was as if a cloak of tense silence had descended on their little corner of the world.

"Garvino said you are a hunter, that you are good, that you want to help. And that you are family. I trust Master Sottile and Copper Horn enough to have you here. But the Flock does not only give. It takes too. Listen to the stories tonight. Listen to us. In the morning you'll know if you want to join us, and I will know if you shall." Gerte glared at the cowering filly. She leaned forward, her beak almost touching Chryssi's snout. And then a smile broke through. "In the meanwhile, be merry. You are welcome to join us, eat, sing, and dance. And Geno will have somebody to play with."

It was the biggest thing she had ever seen. It was bigger than Donna Copper Horn. It was bigger than the cart. It was bigger than the great oak in the forest.

Chryssi sat on the boulder in the field and simply stared at the gigantic, incomprehensibly vast Roc the griffins were hanging over the recently-coated pit. They had staffs and beams and nets and ropes to keep it suspended, and six of them were working at just that. They were singing, the meaning of the words escaping Chryssi. It had a steady rhythm, and there was a lot of repetition in the words of the song, but the voices kept changing tone, dancing, scuffling, playing. And their work seemed interweaved with it too. A strong exclamation corresponded to a staff being pushed. A clacking of tongues dictated whether a rope end was thrown one way or the other. A trill made two griffins change their places.

It was a dance. Without talking, they were building something. There was order, there was structure, and it seemed to flow naturally.

Chryssi liked it. She liked it a lot. And it had captured her.

Gone was the strange feeling of worry about the idea of meeting completely new people. It had been such a constant presence in the previous days. Excitement and curiosity, feelings she now had words for, had been at the forefront. But deep down in her, something was contorting at the prospect of meeting somebody she had never met before. How would they be? Would they all be like Ginevra or Garvino? Or like Donna Copper Horn? From somewhere the concept of the unknown being a danger had taken up residence in her mind. It had nagged and chewed at her and robbed her of some of the joy.

But it was over now. How were they? That was simple, they were dancing and they were singing.

She bobbed her head as they raised the Roc over the thing they had built. She was anticipating the feast that would come, she was ready, hungry, she would–

"This is the foal Gerte told us about. Now play with her and have fun."

The voice pulled Chryssi out from her drooling moment. She looked to her side and saw another griffon, a male with black feathers on his wings and a gray fur-coat, put a little one down from his back and on the boulder next to Chryssi.

The little griffon had similar black feathers, but there were silvery streaks on them. Two bands of gray ran from his head and continued on the reddish fur down to the tail. He was slightly larger than Chryssi, and glared at her.

"I'm Giovanni, and this is my son Geno–" The larger griffon patted the little one on his head "–and you are… Sorry, little one, can't get those pony names of yours straight in my head. What's your name again?"

Chryssi tilted her head and flicked her tongue. There were mirth and something else coming from Giovanni. She couldn't quite get what the second thing was. Geno, on the other hoof, was exuding a powerful mix of anxiety, fear, and excitement. "Uh, I'm Chrysalis, but everybody calls me Chryssi. Uhm…" She was meeting new people. Master Sottile and Meadowsweet had told her what to do. She only had to do it, "Hi, I'm Chryssi. It's a pleasure to meet you." Outstretched hoof, smile, that should be everything.

The big griffon took her hoof in his claw and shook it. "Nice to meet you too. Geno, greet her too, come on."

There was a moment of silence, then Geno opened his wings. He bowed his back, his fur and his feathers stood up. A claw was put forward, and his tail lashed around. A deep, low growl crawled out from his throat.

The mix of emotions had changed just a bit. There was more anxiety, but no anger. Geno seemed to do some of the things Old Scar did when he wanted to fight off Chryssi, or when he was warning that there would soon be blood. Maybe she had done something wrong. Had she messed up the greeting? She was sure she had followed all the steps and avoided all the pitfalls. She had said hello, she had put her hoof forward, she hadn't bitten off any pieces from the griffon she was greeting, nor had she eaten any of his things. She hadn't even poured some of the green stuff over him. Which wasn't something she would have done in the first place, but Meadowsweet had been very insistent about it nonetheless. Confused she looked up to Giovanni. "Uhm…"

He grinned. "Well, Geno is trying to establish his dominance. You see–"

"Hey, you can't tell it that way!" Geno stood straight and glared at his father. His voice was far more pleasant than the growl suggested. It was unexpectedly melodious, dancing smoothly between the highs and lows of words. "You're going to ruin it."

Giovanni chuckled and looked at his son. "She's not used to our ways, and you gotta at least have her know what you wanna do." He turned back to Chryssi. "So, he's trying to establish dominance, what are you gonna do? Wanna submit or wanna push back?" At Geno's scandalized gasp, Giovanni answered, half-snickering, "Oh, come on, can't be too easy."

Chryssi blinked, raised her hoof, opened her mouth, then scratched her head. She had clearly missed something. Again. "Uhm, why do you do that dominance thing? I'm not a colt."

And now she tasted confusion, which meant she had been weird. She sighed. In the last months, she had been so good. Nobody on the farm had tasted of confusion for a while, except for some minor occurrence every now and then. Meeting new people was difficult, and Chrissy wasn't sure she liked it right now.

"What's the issue with being a colt?" Giovanni smelled of curiosity.

"Tia and Lulu said that if there was a colt I should show dominance and who had the say here. Which was a bit weird because I thought everybody could say things, but then it was another weird way to say things, and it really means who knows more about stuff, like Willowbark has the say when somebody is sick because he is an Apothecary and that means he knows about being sick. But I don't remember him showing dominance, so they said that it wasn't necessary because we all knew it and Apothecaries don't show dominance by making scary faces, but then Willowbark said something about how it worked with hidden faces, which is something else I didn't get and then Meadowsweet said that it wasn't really the time for politics right now and that I would only become more confused and Tia and Lulu might get ideas. Getting ideas doesn't seem a bad thing, I think, but when Lulu and Tia get them Donna Copper Horn gets angry and Master Sottile gets his weird smelling water. And then…"

Her voice petered out. Geno was looking at her with glassy eyes, sitting down on his haunches and with his wings folded. Giovanni was holding a claw in front of his beak, but she could taste the merriment quite well. He snorted, shook his head, and took a deep breath. "Sorry, I'm not laughing at you, but you remind me of my little brother from a long time ago. We'll have to work on your storytelling if you are gonna join the Flock." He patted Geno on the head. "Hey, remember, showing dominance."

"Right!" And in an instant, the wings were unfurled and the growling was there again.

Giovanni smiled and said, "So, Tia and Lulu, right? They told you that if there was a colt you'll have to show who's in command. And they taught you how to make a scary face. Well, it would be good for Geno here to have a bit of competition and pushing back. Does wonders to improve your game." He leaned forward and whispered. "You know, technically he is a colt. You should show him your scary face."

Geno was a colt. That explained so much. Well, that explained something. He lacked a lot of the other marks Lulu and Tia had told her about. He didn't stink, he wasn't a butt-face, didn't seem to drool all the time, and he certainly wasn't blowing raspberries all the time. Maybe there were different kind of colts.

She pulled herself back from that train of thought. It wasn't time for that right now, there were more urgent questions to address. It was the moment for the agreed scary face.

Chryssi opened her maw as wide as possible, chitin plates cracking on the side of her face. She showed off the ranks upon ranks of fangs, large on the outside, and getting smaller and smaller. The light-devouring darkness of her throat seemed to almost reach out, the sound of air rushing down it a roar making the boulder under her vibrate. She bowed her head down, the fangs cutting into the rock. When she closed her mouth, the cracking and scratching were like thunder. The maw snapped, taking a two-hoof sized piece of the boulder with her. It was time for the final phase. She looked Geno in the eyes and chewed.

A whack on her head pulled her out from the performance. She gulped down and looked up. Standing over her, Fidelis glared and said, "What are you doing? You do not scare guests, that's horrible!"

"I–" He tasted angry and embarrassed and worried. It was a bitter mixture, that made her almost feel ill. "I should show dominance. They told me that I had to make the scary face, and–"

Fidelis took her head and turned it towards the griffins. Geno was curled behind Giovanni, while the adult griffon was standing protectively between his son and Chryssi, fear and determination almost a solid wall around him. His breathing was rapid and controlled, his feathers and fur stood up.

Now she had truly messed up. She lowered her head and whispered, "Sorry."

"Be calm, she won't do you anything. She's very sweet, but doesn't know how things are." Fidelis sighed and kneeled down beside Chryssi. "Little one, would you really bite our guests like you bit the rock?"

"No. Never." She shook her head. "I just made a scary face. I… Tia and Lulu weren't so scared."

"Those two know you. I know you. Our guests don't know you. Your scary face is really scary. And if you want dominance, never show something you won't do. If they challenge you and you don't do it, you lose so much. And if they don't challenge, they think you are more evil than you are." Fidelis put his hand on Chryssi's head. "Now, let's show that you are a nice little one. And no more scary faces in challenges."

"What is she?" Giovanni's voice was barely a whisper.

"She's a little lost and a hunter. And she's sweet. I swear." Fidelis' rough fingers kept scratching Chryssi's head. "Your little one is safe with her. And she learned a lesson, isn't that right?"

It seemed that after certain initial difficulties, little Geno and the bug had found some common ground on which to build up a relationship of some kind. Specifically, Geno ran around finding stuff and then pulled it to Chryssi to watch her chew it. At least he had until his father had caught him trying to sneak a buckler away from some of the griffins far too involved in butchering the skinned roc to guard their weapons against an inquiring young mind.

Which put the two right under Ginevra's temporary care, a situation she wasn't too excited about, to tell the truth.

"Did you ever eat a dragon?"

Mostly because the questions Geno seemed obsessed with showed dedication bordering on obsession.

"Uhm, no. I never saw a dragon, and they can talk, I think. Donna Copper Horn said to never eat things that can talk."

"And if the dragon is mute?"

"Then–" Chryssi froze. She opened her mouth a couple of times, but no sound came out. Finally, she turned to Ginevra. "Can I eat a mute dragon?"

Philosophy wasn't Ginevra's strong point, nor did she really care that much about dragons, but one couldn't really know all the griffin stories she knew without being at least passingly familiar with the idea of a slippery slope. She sighed. "Nope. Being mute doesn't make one food. Same as sleeping, being knocked out, being bespelled, or being too small to talk. You don't eat speaking or writing people, and that means it's enough if only some of them can speak or write." She glared at the little griffon. "And you, Geno, should know that."

He fidgeted. "But those are griffin rules, and Chryssi isn't a griffin." His pupils suddenly grew large, and he turned to Chryssi. "You aren't a griffin, right? I mean, you aren't a pony, you're too awesome for that, but you aren't a griffin." His head snapped towards Ginevra again. "Is she a kind of griffin?"

"Nah, she's just Family." Ginevra hadn't seen Fidelis join them, but now there he stood with two mugs in his paws and grinning from ear to ear. He sipped from one while giving the other to Ginevra, then he continued. "Ponies, Griffins, Diamond Dogs, even Donkeys, no matter. Only Family counts, and Family is not done by blood."

An earthy smell arose from it as Ginevra sniffed at her mug, grinned, then bottomed it up. The rock-beer flowed smoothly, burning in her throat and then settling like an avalanche in her stomach. "That hit the spot. Now, far from me to complain too much, but we’ve not even started to eat."

Fidelis shrugged. "I dug all that there was to dig. Dusted the guts they pulled from the bird with quicklime and covered them with clay and earth. There's nothing more I have to do, so I can drink. And you are not cutting or cooking, so you can drink with me." He sat down in front of Geno and Chryssi, his legs crossed in one of those weird knots bipeds did.

"But family comes from blood. I share blood with father and mother, and they are my family." Geno pointed to a griffin a couple of lengths away who was carrying a piece of meat half as big as her to the tables put up around the firepits, where flames were burning high. "And I share blood with her too, she's my aunt, and she is family."

"I don't share blood with that chicken–" Fidelis pointed to Ginevra, "–or with the bug here, but they are Family. And neither Master Sottile, or Donna Copper Horn, or Meadowsweet, or anyone else on the farm shares blood with this mutt–" He pointed at himself, "–but they are Family too. Best family I ever had, even, if not for my grandfather. And for many of them, it’s the same, but that's not my story to tell."

If she had ever seen an opening, that was one. Ginevra laid down, the empty mug at her side. "And what is your story to tell?"

"How I came to this Family. What kind of question is that?" He emptied his mug and put it down at his side. "We have time before the food. And this is a story for a few, not for the whole Flock. Little bug was worried she was different, and now she'll hear why she shouldn't care. And you, little griffon, you will learn why blood is nice but is not the truth when it comes to Family."

"My story begins before I was born, in the great stone city of Redvein. It was one of the great wonders of the east, with giant caves so high that sometimes it rained inside. Canals were cut into stone-floors, and barges full of riches crawled through the bones of the mountain.

"There were eight-times-eight-times-eight great packs, each made up from many different bloodlines, each one composed of many families bound by old laws and new contracts."

Ginevra glanced at the little ones listening to Fidelis. Geno seemed a bit confused about why a diamond dog was telling this but knew better than to interrupt a story told on Wind Whispering. Chryssi had a faraway look in her eyes, as if she was thinking very hard about something. Then she perked up, made an o with her mouth and started to say, "That's a lot of–" Ginevra's claws snapped close around her muzzle. Fidelis didn't seem very disturbed, but it was important to snuff those behaviors as soon as possible. There were some older griffins who were fast at taking offense.

"Oh yes, it was a great city, deep under the mountain, and in the center of it, like in all of the great cities below the earth, was the caged god of Redvein. Now, you see, there are many, many gods in the world, and most of them are terrifying hunters. The Wendigos that sow discord among ponies, reap war, and breath ice are sky-gods. The Hunt that stalks the griffins, and catches their souls to pull them in a mad chase of death is a heart-god. I heard that Zebras fear the fire-gods that feast on smoke and ash, and the fish-people down in the south stare worried at the mad chaos nesting in the Forever-storm over the sea. Each of them is truly terrible and fearsome, and maybe there's a god somewhere for you too, Chryssi, waiting for you to get lost and ready to get you.

"Now the gods we Diamond Dogs fear are the gods of earth. They lurk in the darkness and wait for us to settle somewhere. Then they make us stupid and lazy, and finally make us wander alone in the tunnels in the depths, where they will catch us and eat us, and often not even the bones are found. Now, there is no way to build a city in such a way. Ponies can make peace and try to get along to fend off the Wendigos. Griffins can be strong and careful to keep the Hunt at bay, but what can we Diamond Dogs do? Hmmm? We can move and move, but that is no way to build a city or to write history, or–" Fidelis raised the mug. "–to brew this. No, something had to be done."

Chryssi was barely breathing, Ginevra could feel it. She released the muzzle of the little bug, but not much seemed to change. She was enthralled.

"Well, we knew how to listen to the stones, so we learned how to whisper to it and to build. And so the smartest and bravest of the packs got together and built great statues in which to trap the gods. And once trapped in a place, the gods couldn't prey on us anymore, and no other god would come as long as the old one was still there. And that is why in the middle of the great cities there is a trapped god, raging in his stone prison, and with smart and brave Diamond Dogs working tirelessly to keep the cage intact, repairing and appeasing.

"My grandfather was one such dog. He was the head of the family, with many pups and many siblings, and he was very important in the bloodline.

"When I was born, Redvein was waging war against Silverrock, another great city. They had been at war for three generations, and neither wanted to surrender. And that's the reason my mother, a soldier, and my father, who told stories to the rocks, departed soon after I first tumbled into the guts of the world. You will ask what a dog who talks to rocks does in battle, but they are very, very important. Under the mountain, it is everything. It's the sky, the floor, you can even breathe it. And so, telling the rock what to do or to not do the bidding of some other dog is what keeps warriors alive.

"All this I heard from my grandfather. I can't remember much. I remember the smell of his workshop when he decided to take me in and teach me too. I remember running through endless caves with other pups. And I remember tears when he heard my mother and father wouldn't come back."

Fidelis turned his head and raised his mug to a passing griffon carrying a bundle of rosemary and laurel. "Could you please fill it up for me?" He pointed at Ginevra. "And for her too?" The griffon was about to say something when, grinning, Fidelis said, "I'm telling a story to the little ones."

The mugs were grabbed without a further word.

"Now, my life back then isn't important for the story. Let's just say that I loved my cousins and brothers very much. Blood bound us, you know? And blood was so important." He sighed. "Anyway, when my parents went off to gnaw at the bones of the earth, it was the beginning of the end. They were in the first great battle Redvein lost completely, and it only got worse from then on. My grandfather became more worried from day to day, there were more and more secret talks between important dogs, first in the Bloodline, then the pack, and then the city. it wasn't for the ears of pups, but many years later my grandfather told me that they knew their time was ending. And so, a couple of years later, when I was just learning to read some of the ancient signs, Redvein fell. I was hiding with my cousins in one of the deep caves, huddled together, fighting each other because we were bored and scared and then bored again, as pups would do. And then, I don't know after how long, the cave opened again and the mothers came to get us. I remember well the slumped shoulders, the tails hanging low, the ears pinned back. There were no tears, but it was as if they were wailing."

The moment for the pause was wrong, at least in Ginevra's opinion, but she could see that he needed it. He was good for an amateur, but he wasn't a trained storyteller, that much was clear. When the griffin came back with three mugs she was grateful for the brief distraction. He gave one to Fidelis, one to her, and kept the third as he sat down.

Chryssi tried to be stealthy and sniff at Ginevra's mug. It was cute in the clumsiness but still deserved a whack on the muzzle.

"Thank you." Fidelis drank, smacked his lips, and said, "So, Redvein had fallen, and worst of all, they would take our chained God away. Without a God, there wouldn't be a new city, and all that was built would fall. They told the dogs that those who wanted could become servants in Silverrock for thrice eight years, while the others would be dispersed to the eight corners of the world. To you, that may sound like an obvious choice. Every one of you would choose freedom, but for the dogs of Redvein, well, it was different. Years of servitude before they could join the packs sounded better than misery in the depths of the world and being eaten by wild gods.

"Many chose to accept. Others didn't have that choice. Those who had been jailers to the god and their apprentices would be exiled, so as to never rebuild the city again. Now little one, you would expect that Blood had some weight there, that the family wouldn't let my grandfather and me go alone out there, right?" He snorted. "But that happened. We went away, with just what we could carry in our bags, and with three days to leave the range.

"Many years passed. My grandfather found work among the Masons of the Concord, and I followed. Others weren't so lucky, and in time, those outside the great city forgot. Even in the Concord, it wasn't easy. We weren't ponies, and often only tolerated because we did stuff that was useful. I went by until I met Master Sottile. He was a weird pony, travelling along with a minotaur and Meadowsweet and Millet and that little bundle of snot that was Willowbark. Met me when he was looking for a mason to help with a laboratory of his in Brookwood, in the west. I was sorting through stuff from a rock farm while he talked to the master. And then he came to me, and talked to me, and listened. Truly listened, even got me to tell the whole story of mine. And then he asked if I could help him. And I did because it was good pay." He downed the rest of the mug. "Was nice, but I thought it would pass, like everything else. I was wrong. I got in trouble with other masons, they said I stole and broke stuff. Wasn't true, but what could I do? They told they would send me away. But Master Sottile helped me. He knows the law, and when they told him that he would risk being sent away too for breaking Concord, he stayed by my side. Defended me, and it was something else. I work with rocks and shape them. He works with words and laws, and does wonders."

Fidelis put the mug on the ground and looked up to the sky. "He wasn't bound by blood, but he decided I was Family, and he stood there, against the three Judges, defending me and not caring for himself." He snorted. "We lost and were sent away. But he didn't care. He asked me to rebuild the laboratory somewhere else, to go with him, and he told me about Harmony. I didn't get it at the time, but I didn't care much, I had Family, the rest didn't matter."

Seeing a biped disentangle himself and stand up in that weird way they had never stopped to amaze Ginevra. Fidelis stretched his arms out and his joints popped and cracked. He smiled and leaned forward. "So, you see, blood is nice and all, but Family is something else. It's the Flock, or these strange people all living here in the farm." He looked to Chryssi. "And no matter what we are, we are together."

Chapter 14

Life had put a lot of different challenges in front of her. In her two years on this earth she had fought with theater, with reading and writing, with a language that seemed, with a determination bordering on active evilness, to try to say things which meant different things whenever possible, and often even when it shouldn't have been possible at all. She had learned to walk, what pain meant, to care for others when they were sick, and recently to meet new people.

And yet the most difficult thing ever was right in front of her.

On a flat stone lay a piece of meat as large as her head, dripping with fat and rubbed in with mashed herbs and vinegar. The smell rising from it was unlike anything she had smelled before, and yet she could practically hear the promise of a whole life condensed in flavor, of juices running down her maw, the subtle hint of the thousands of prey the roc had devoured before landing in front of her.

It was a delightful temptation. One she couldn't touch until the oldest griffon of the flock, a wilted male with a mean look and more scars than feathers, had taken the first bite.

She wasn't the only one longing for food. Griffins all around her sat in a big circle around a recently kindled bonfire, flat stones on which the meat laid, baskets with thin slates of crunchy things that were like bread, if bread was only made of crust. Mixed with the smell of food she could taste hunger, excitement, joy, and something else, something she didn't have a name for, but which seemed to come off the older members of the farm on Hearts Warming. Bitter, delicate, with a hidden layer of sweetness. It baffled her.

Or it would if she hadn't been distracted by trying to control herself and not simply stuff what lay in front of her down, rock and all.

When the murmuring around her suddenly disappeared and only the crackling sound of the fire remained, Chryssi looked up.

The old griffon, she thought his name was Giosualdo, had stood up and walked in the center of the circle. He made a complete circle around the fire, looking at each and every face. The flames at his back, his form just a shadow in contrast, cut an impressive figure. Suddenly Chryssi wasn't so sure about his age. Only the powerful and very, very complicated melange of emotions streaming from him was any indication about how long he had been in this world.

"Tonight, there are some faces here I haven't seen for years and others that are completely new. Once upon a time, I would have frowned at that, but not anymore. Our Flock is different, has been different for some time, and even an old bird like myself has come to accept it." His voice was rough, like gravel. "But in one thing we are not different. Tonight we remember those who couldn't be with us anymore. There may be Diamond Dogs and… others with us, but we remain griffins, and we honor the fallen like griffins have done since the dawn of time."

He turned around and grabbed two large pieces of meat. "This is for Geppo, who fell to the fangs of a hydra, but not before he had ripped out its throats." He threw one piece in the bonfire. "And this is for Guntha, who fell to time after a life spent on the winds of the world, leaving behind a score of deeds worthy of songs." The other piece of meat landed among the flames.

"Tonight they shall feast with us, we will remember them, and through us, they shall live in our world again and defeat death. May their hunts be thrilling, may their feasts be filled with mirth, and may their descendants be as numerous as the stars." He grabbed the third piece of meat and held it high. "For us who lived, for them who died, be merry and be sated."

As he tore into the meat, all around a joyful, defiant screeching rose in the encroaching night, and everyone started to eat.

Chryssi grabbed her own bounty and bit down onto it. It was everything she expected and then some more. It sang to her of the sensations of a long life full of prey, so much more complex than the little flashes of experiences she got from salted anchovies or the frantic whistle of rats. It told her of the strain of long flight on muscles, and how those moved. And then it was over. Blinking Chryssi looked at her empty hooves glistering in the light of fire from the grease and the juices coating them. Black tentacles retracted into her mouth after a quick pass to clean up the remains from her frogs and the holes in her legs.

The circle of griffins was silent again. As Chryssi looked up she saw them staring at her, eyes wide, muscles tense. It seemed like all of them were ready to fight or take flight.

All of them except four. Geno was looking at her and grinning with the kind of mad glee she had seen on Tia's face as Willowbark had talked about how some of the powders he used were dangerous because they burned bright as the sun. Fidelis was looking at her with a raised eyebrow. She had no idea he could do that. Ginevra was silently laughing, and Garvino had his claws over his eyes.

She could taste the tension. The fear. The… was that excitement?

She had to think, and fast. They had prepared her for a lot of different situations. This was… Right, this was “Doing something horrifying or offensive while eating and getting the rest of the table in quartering-mood.” Millet had told her about that and how to deal with it. Shouting “Look, an Eagle!” and then running away didn't seem feasible. There were no eagles. Going for a bold toast that would make everybody get drunk and forget it seemed slightly apter, but she had no idea how to do that, and the examples Millet had given her didn't match the situation. As far as she knew, there were neither kings of any sort here, nor were there mares with glorious flanks. That also had got Millet a whack on the head with a cane from Meadowsweet, and Chryssi didn't want to risk that.

That left just the last tactic, the one suggested by Meadowsweet as Millet was holding his head.

Chryssi smiled without showing too many teeth, blinked, raised her stone plate, and asked in the most innocent voice possible–Luna asking for sweets while denying that she already had had some–"That was very, very good. Can I have seconds, pretty please?"

"Hah! Garvino, you finally brought someone dangerous among us?" Giosualdo roared from his place, holding a mug high in the air. "Little one, get some wings, some muscles, learn to fight, and you may fly with us one day. I want to see the faces of whatever miserable bunch of featherless bastards dare confront that!" He turned to his side. "Give the little one more food. I want her big and strong!"

The mood flipped so fast it almost knocked Chryssi down. The fear she felt before was still there, but it was subdued, chained, and had somehow become the base for something else. That wasn't what Meadowsweet had told her to expect. She was supposed to get some laughter.

But it didn't seem bad either. She–

A new, grease-dripping piece of meat in front of her derailed her thoughts and put them into the box of stuff she'll eventually, maybe, some time when there wasn't roasted roc, was going to examine later.

Ginevra held out the stick on which the tasty prize was speared. "Here, little bug, eat and be merry. And try to get a tad slower and taste it instead of inhaling the meat. You have no idea when you're gonna to get something like it again."

Chryssi nodded and reined in the instincts that told her to simply gulp it down. She reached out and grabbed the meat. It was even larger than the one she had first.

"And keep the tentacles inside your mouth this time. I had no idea you had them, but I'm pretty sure that's kinda uncouth showing them. I think. Not sure there are rules for it, but I bet Donna Copper Horn would disapprove."

Something moved inside her mouth, but she could keep it down. She would behave, and she would be good, and she would make sure that she could come to this Wind Whispering thing again.

Geno still wasn't sure what Chryssi was, but he wanted to learn that thing with the tentacles coming out of her mouth and ripping flesh to pieces. It was gross and scary, and awesome, and he was sure that if he could do that the next time he got in a scuffle with those scaly brats in Cluggra things would go differently.

Also, the adults didn't seem to like it, which made it automatically twice as good.

The lack of wings was kind of an issue if they wanted to hunt together, but Geno was nothing if not resourceful, and there was nothing in this world he wouldn't be able to overcome. And then they would get glory like no other griffin before them. Well, maybe not as much as the great heroes of the first Hunt, but something close was something they could aim at. No doubt about that.

As he finished his last piece of Roc he saw Gerte walk into the center of the circle, carrying in her claws a wooden mask painted red and green.

He blinked and then grinned. That could mean only one thing.

He gulped down the rest of his food and sat straight, his wings fidgeting.

He loved The Fall of Boreas.

Gerte opened her wings, put the mask on, and silence fell unto the assembly. For an instant, there was just the sound of flames and Chryssi chewing, and then just the fire.

"It was a long time ago when Scirocco, full of fire and sand from the south of the world, witnessed the great folly of the six kings and queens of Boreas." With a snap of her wings threads like gossamer unrolled from her feathers and got caught in the updraft of the bonfire. Suddenly Gerte was no more, and Scirocco stood there, with golden and red sand flowing from it up in the sky. Her voice was a dune of sand crawling in the hot desert. "Scirocco had slain the storm-beasts and, sated from their blood, lazily drifted to the north to see what her sons and daughters were doing. And lo and behold, there came Gar, the future, first king of Boreas."

Out from the shadows surrounding the circle, a massive figure stepped through. A heavy blanket, black, red, and blue, covered it completely. The mask completely covering the head had a somber expression, the beak decorated with bronze and opals, a wave of feathers coming out from the top and falling down the neck.

He stopped in the middle and looked out over the assembled griffins. As he lifted a claw, a choir of "Oh!" raised into the night, silenced the moment he put it back down. He looked out, and said, "As far as my sight reaches, griffin Flocks hunt and fight alone. No more! I shall reunite them. One Flock under the sky, one Flock on the Northern Wind, and I shall be their king."

The griffins answered as if with one voice, "One Flock under King Gar, ruler of Boreas."

Scirocco stepped forward and flowed around Gar, looking at him from all the sides, before folding her wings and sitting down. She turned her head to the audience. "Scirocco was not happy that the fool had pledged himself to her Sister, but she was also curious and loved her sons and daughters very much. So she decided to stay around and see what would happen next.

"Many came to challenge the new king, griffins, monsters, and spirits alike, but he struck them all down." One at a time the challengers stepped out from the shadows and danced with Gar until he struck them down and cast them again in the darkness.

Geno loved this part. He gasped when The Ice Storm came, all blues and sharp angles, and he cheered when Gar got around it and struck it with a wing in the back. The Five Thousand Snakes tried to dance around Gar and confound him, but the King of old danced better and left them wriggling on the ground. The Great Stonewolf broke his teeth on Gar's shield, the Black Bunch kneeled to him, the Queen of the Sirens died by his sword and her reign shattered, and one after another, the Flocks came to him and swore allegiance, until, at the end, every griffin in the circle had joined in celebration of Gar, the King of all Flocks.

When the ruckus calmed down, Scirocco appeared again, flowing out of the light of the fire along with another figure."Scirocco was impressed. Not since the griffins had left the mountains had there been one so hungry for glory and yet not falling to the Hunt. But even Gar could not win over the end of all. And so, after many years, the White Winged Hunter came to carry him away. Scirocco and Bore made peace for a night and came along in his final flight to the lands where even the winds couldn't go."

Gar left the circle. His son entered. The mask was similar, but the blanket on his back was covered in circular patterns. "I, Gama, son of Gar, shall honor my legacy, and under me, the kingdom of Boreas shall reach from horizon to horizon."

Two warriors stepped up on his sides, iron on their masks, tall, proud. They turned outwards and stepped forward. Tambourines rattled out in the darkness while the warriors stroked out with their wings. And then they fell. Gama wept and left with his head hanging low. His daughter came, Geme, and she hunted the sky-beasts to the last, leaving the Storm to rage unchecked. Her Son Geta wasted richness in the great Temple to his ancestors, filled with idols and gold. Gurna, daughter of Geta, sent out the flocks to gather trophies and conquer the lost domains. Only half of them returned.

Finally Garne the Wise came into the light. Where diminishing cheers had greeted her ancestors, only silence waited for her. Again there were two warriors at her side, but instead of turning outward they stepped forward and faced each other, wings flaring out, claws raised high. Garne walked in their midst. Her voice was low, yet resounded in the silence. She talked like she was singing a dirge, crystal tears on her mask under the eyes. "Enough! What was a dream became a nightmare. No more griffin blood shall be spilled for the glory of a king or a queen. Never again shall one rule over the Flocks because of their birth. Let this be my only and my last law." She turned her head around and looked at each of the warriors. "I free you from your obligations to Boreas. The kingdom is no more, and neither are your pledges of loyalty. Let the Flocks be free."

The warriors stood straight, then bowed to Garne before finally turning around and leaving the circle.

Scirocco once again appeared from the light, her movements calling every eye on her. "Scirocco had despaired for the chains her sons and daughters had imposed on themselves. Forged from dreams and hopes, they had been too heavy and too strong to be broken. And now Scirocco saw that they had put them down themselves and were once again dancing in her and her sisters’ embrace." She opened her wings and embraced Garne. "And to show her gratitude to the last descendant of Gar, she took Garne as her lover and brought her up to the heavens, where the griffon who had broken the bindings of all her brothers and sisters could be free from the earth and from a legacy heavier than the biggest mountain."

When she opened her wings again, Garne wasn't there anymore. Scirocco held the mask and the blanket, pressed it on her chest, and with a powerful flap shot up, disappearing into the night.

"Gerte is a great Scirocco. Always was." Giosualdo, a mug in his claws filled up to the rim with stone-beer, sat down at Garvino's side.

"She is." Garvino raised his own mug. "To Geppo and to Guntha, may the first one finally get enough tail as to be satisfied and the later find enough stones to throw at noisy youngsters."

The mugs clanked against each other, foam sloshing out and running down the side. Giosualdo grinned. "May Guntha get the booze she loved and Geppo the songs he longed for."

As they drank, the circle around them broke up and many little groups formed. Stories were told about those who were no more. The torches were lit, and the whole plain in front of the walls of the farm lit up to the warm glow of dozens of flames, large and small, and from the embers in the cooking pits.

"Any chance you're gonna fly with the core of the Flock again? Gerte misses you, you know?" Giosualdo belched.

"Not for now. I have still things to do here. Can't really leave Master Sottile and the others alone." Garvino looked up at the sky. "Don't want to leave them, either. They are doing important stuff, stuff we can't risk leaving to the other idiots out there."

Giosualdo sighed. "Fair enough, we owe them enough that I won't complain. But those things you do." His eyes swept over the flock. "Do you need more help? The Servants opened a temple four days flight east from here last summer. A big stone building, full of art and stuff."

"They did what?" Garvino's head snapped around and he glared at Giosualdo.

"Yeah, we discovered it a couple of weeks ago. Were stopping there to gather a couple of other families before going at the Roc. They're preaching hard too. Got ponies in the streets, giving out food. You know, the usual stuff." A savage grin crept on Giosualdo's face. "One of them tried to do the whole thing to Gerte. She was so bored he got her even to listen to him for a while. And then stupidity bit him and he started to rave about how she shall submit to the powers that shall come, bow her head, and join in the whole adoration and obedience to the soonish-coming Bringers of Peace." A dark chuckle rose from his throat. "Giovanni had to convince Gerte to not try to impress the guy. Into a nearby wall. Then he had to talk to him about how this all had been an important learning experience about how to approach griffins and nothing worth being brought in front of the Concord."

Garvino stared into his mug, sighed, and stood up. "Another fill?"

Giosualdo emptied his own mug, bottoming up, then threw it to Garvino. "Always."

The walk to the barrels felt longer than it really was. Dark thoughts whirled around Garvino's head, and reining them in was becoming difficult. Now wasn't the time to entertain them. There was nothing he could do, and spoiling the Wind Whispering was bad luck anyway. He filled up the mugs. Despite the lingering warmth of the day, the beer was cool. He smiled.

All around him his Flock lived, drank, told stories, laughed, and wept. Some had pulled out the tambourines, and he was sure he had heard the sound of a lyre being tuned. As he sat down again the dark thoughts had been relegated to the back of his mind. There would be time for them.

He gave a mug to Giosualdo and said, "I don't think I'll need more help for now. The Servants may be many, but they're morons. All that talk about obedience rots their brains, they won't find us. Still, keep your eyes open, and if you're bored you can use one of the bait stories Master Sottile gave you. I'm sure you're gonna pull it off."

"Hah, telling stories to ponies? You bet I can. You know, I think we'll go south for a while. When we return I think I'll get wasted in some tavern, and you know how I am, can't keep my beak closed. A lot of ponies are gonna hear about the weird bunch of losers in the Thousand Reigns trying to hide a white and a dark filly while raving about hugs or something like that." Giosualdo drank a generous gulp and clicked his tongue. "Can't help it. It's one of my many, many faults."

"Would really be a shame if that happened. The Thousand Reigns are chaotic, dangerous, and so vast. Would take so many people to search through them. And years too." Garvino brought his mug to his beak. "But you are right. You have mountains of faults. It can't be helped."

A scandalized cry echoed through the air. "My honeybread!" Shortly after a laughing Geno passed in front of Garvino. He held something in his claw while proceeding in long jumps, occasionally flapping his wings to get a bit more speed. A couple of instants later Chryssi followed screaming, "That's mine. Give it back!"

Giosualdo followed Chryssi disappearing behind a group of chatting griffins. "You kinda understated the issues of that new filly of yours. I get it that Master Sottile collects weird people, but she's something else. Not the strangest thing I've seen in my life, but still, the trick with the tentacles ruffled a lot of feathers. What's up with her?"

Garvino sighed. "Thank you for defusing that situation, by the way. Regarding Chryssi, honestly, I've no idea and I'm too sober to even start guessing. Every time we think we figured her out, she does something new, or grows a new set of teeth, or starts walking on the ceiling, and then we are back to scratching our heads. Willowbark thinks she's some kind of test sent by Harmony. Me, I look at what she does and leave it there. Celestia and Luna adore her, she's a good friend to them and she really, really tries to be normal." He chuckled. "Or as normal as it gets here."

"It's good that Geno hit off with her, though. He needs somebody able to hold its own against him who won't fold immediately." Giosuald reached out to one of the baskets and broke away a shard of the thin bread. "The others are too young. Couldn't even bring them here. They can't really oppose him, yet. And after that bonehead Graziano left with his own"– his face contorted in a grimace of disgust–"Flock, Geno was somehow convinced that he needed to always show off that he's on the top."

"Still no word on where they ended up?" Garvino kept his voice down. It had been the worst hit to the Flock in recent memory, and many were still touchy about it. It was a painful memory, either for the humiliation, or because sons and daughters had been lost to the idea of a new Flock out to get the glory the elders seemed too timid to conquer.

"Nope. We're flying south for that reason too. Giovanni thinks they may want to get into mercenary work down there. I don't know." Giosualdo emptied his mug. "I hope so. Could mean they are still alive. I really hope so, because then I can finally bash Graziano's head in like I should have done years ago."

"And then you're gonna hug him." Garvino held out a claw.

With closed eyes Giosualdo took it. "Damn right I'll hug him. That idiotic grandson of mine, that hotheaded moron. Taking away almost a whole generation. I'm gonna beat him, and hug him, and beat him again, and hug him…"

"Haha! Learn to fly if you wanna get me." Geno flapped over them with lazy wing strokes and blowing raspberries. A huffing Chryssi followed, jumping from time to time to try to grasp him.

Giosualdo sighed. "I guess I'll have to rein in Geno. It's time he learns to behave." He opened his claw and stood up, but Garvino didn't let him go.

"Stay, let's see how they'll handle it. Little Chryssi can be surprising, and I think he's underestimating her. It will be a good lesson for her on how to cope with people like Geno, and for him about how being too confident when you don't know your adversary is a bad idea." Garvino shouted to Chryssi, "Hey, little one, don't give up! Think very well about what you can do." He turned back to Giosualdo. "Believe me, it's gonna be fun."

Sitting down, Giosualdo said, "It's not gonna be too dangerous for Geno, right? What's she gonna do?"

Around Chryssi a circle of curious griffins had formed. She’d sat down and was scrunching her muzzle, glaring at a laughing Geno.

"No, we hammered in pretty well that she should never hurt somebody else. If I had to guess, I think she'll spit that green stuff at him and glue him down. She can remove it so it will leave just ruffled feathers and a bruised ego." Garvino looked in his empty mug and shrugged. "But maybe she'll do something else. Heh, maybe she'll sprout a pair of wings and–"

There was groaning and a cracking noise. Some of the griffins in the circle gasped as Chryssi arched her back, cracks appearing in the plates covering her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, she was clenching her jaw, some kind of liquid which seemed to glow in the light of the flames seeping out.

With a last cry, the plates broke open and two delicate gossamer wings unrolled. Shining drops fell from them as they vibrated. Chryssi, with heavy breath, sighed.

All around her the griffins stared. Geno had stopped laughing and was hanging in the air with open beak, his wings flapping mostly on their own.

Chryssi looked at the little griffon and squinted. She said, "Mine!" and her new wings became a blur as she shot upwards, clearly aiming for her prize and the rotten thief that was keeping it from her.

She missed completely. Her straight path became a wobbling attempt at correction and devolved into panicked screaming and mid-air tumbling that ended in a crash and the sound of splintering wood somewhere outside the circle of spectators. Ginevra was the first to move and flew towards the landing site. Fidelis followed close on her heels, and Geno and Giovanni came after him.

A thin voice rose in the night. "I'm fine, I think."

Garvino was pulled out from his stupor by the bellowing laughs from Giosualdo. He turned and saw the older griffon laying on his side and holding his belly.

"Sh-she really sprouted wings! Hahahahaha! She has a horn and wings! Is sh- is she the thing you were waiting for?" Giosualdo rolled on his back, kicking out with his hind-legs.

Garvino looked over the group of griffins that had gathered around the crash site. He gulped, then, trembling, raised his mug. It was empty. Obviously, it was empty. He longingly glanced at the barrels of beer standing over on the side, then sighed. He put his mug down and started to walk towards Chryssi while whispering, "By Harmony, I sure hope not."

Chapter 15 Author's Note

There is music in this chapter. If you care for the inspiration or want to get samples before reaching the part where it's relevant, you can go to my blog post right here:

Griffin Music

Just to be clear, it isn't necessary to read the post for the story, at all.

Chapter 15

There had been one good thing, Chryssi thought, her behind above her head, her back against the farm wall and surrounded by wooden splinters. The wheelbarrow she had obliterated had been an old one Fidelis had cursed a lot and about whose ancestry he held a lot of opinions. She wasn't really sure how that worked, and she had yet to get a straight answer to her questions about the whole issue, but the important detail currently was that it wouldn't be missed too much. She hoped.

Two calloused hands grabbed her, lifted her up, and turned her around. She broke free of her musings and looked down on Fidelis as he was holding her high. There was something different in his eyes, a glimmer that hadn't been there before. And emotions. Such strong emotions. Confusion, excitement, and other things she had no names for. They were powerful, deep, shining. It made her head turn.

Chryssi blinked. "Uhm… I'm fine?" She vibrated her new wings, nervous. She was expecting a scolding, or maybe some worry and then a scolding, but not… not whatever this was.

A glance to her side, at her wings, and Fidelis grinned. "Yes, you're fine. Hah, you certainly are." He turned around to Ginevra who had just arrived and was staring at Chryssi too. "The little one is fine. And Master Sottile is gonna lose his s– he's gonna be mad."

"I don't want Mater Sottile to be mad." Did that mean that there would be a scolding later? She broke stuff, but she didn't want to. And Master Sottile didn't like to get angry. At all. Made him all weird inside.

Ginevra sighed. "Don't worry, Fidelis is exaggerating. Master Sottile will be alright, just a bit surprised." She emanated surprise and excitement too. "Just… we didn't expect wings."

"Oh." She folded them back, putting them away, and whispered, "I just wanted my honey bread."

"Heh, I understand. Only good reason to leave the ground." Fidelis chuckled. "Any more surprises from you? Any other stuff that will grow?" He turned her around between his hands, his eyes wandering all over her.

It was a good question, probably. And then an avalanche of expectations and curiosity washed over her. She looked around and suddenly became aware of being at the center of a way bigger audience than she was used to. All the griffins were around her, watching her, waiting for her answer, weighing whatever she would say. It was like with the meat, but the scrutiny she felt under was even more intense. She rolled up in a ball, covered her eyes with her forelegs, and murmured, "I don't know."

"Come on, everygriff, leave her some space and think about how you would feel with a flock of gawking chickens staring at you. Chop chop." Garvino's voice broke the expectant silence and was soon followed by the sound of steps going away and chatter starting up once again. The pressure lifted, and when Chryssi peeked out she saw that most griffins had returned to their little groups. The intense curiosity was still there, but was more like a background noise than an overwhelming presence.

Fidelis put her down on the ground and patted her on her head. "Sorry, little one. Was just surprised. Don't worry, if more changes we will discover it together." His ears swiveled. "Now calm down, and then go back to play."

Geno leaned out from behind Fidelis' legs. He eyed Chryssi, then stepped forward and held out the honey bread. "That's yours. I'm sorry. That seemed like it hurt with growing the wings and all."

"Uhm, thanks?" Chryssi took the bun and looked up to the adults. Fidelis nodded at her, while Ginevra and Garvino were furiously whispering. She nibbled at it. "It's…it was kinda mean taking it."

Geno seemed mighty interested in the ground in front of him and scratched it. "It was just to play a bit." He then looked up to her and grinned. "But that was awesome. I mean, now you can fly and–"

"And she won't do that tonight." There was the kind of definitivity, which was a word Tia had taught her and Master Sottile didn't like at all, in Garvino's voice that Chryssi usually associated with Donna Copper Horn. "She will take lessons on flying, but not at night." He looked for a moment into his mug. "Not tonight. Not with the bonfire burning."

"But–" Geno began. For Chryssi it was clear that it would have been useless trying to discuss it even before Garvino's glare interrupted him. They had used The Tone That Extinguishes All Objections, or simply The Tone as Tia liked to call it to the chagrin of Lulu who said it was a too simple name for such a terrible thing.

"Listen, kitten, we know that the little bug here is sturdier than expected, but we don't want to risk it. I don't think you want her to get seriously hurt, right?"

"No." Geno sighed.

Chryssi looked at the honey bread between her hooves, then broke it in half and held the non-nibbled part towards Geno.

He looked at it, then took it and mumbled. "Come on, they should start with the songs soon."

Garvino smiled at them. "Right, that's a great idea. Teach Chryssi here to dance, have fun." Then he turned to Fidelis. "Come, let's get something for our dry throats. Ginevra, do you want a mug of sanity too?"

"Yeah, bring me one, I'll be over there with the little ones."

From somewhere in the middle of the assembly of griffins came a plinking. Chryssi tilted her head and whispered, "What is that?"

Ginevra said, "Right, you never heard our music, little bug. You're in for some fun."

As they returned to the big fire that seemed to be the center of the celebration, more sounds like the plinking rose into the night, the tones changing slightly with each repetition. And with each repetition, the mood seemed to change too. There was more laughter, bouts of happiness, and pockets of the weird, sweet, spicy taste that sometimes came out from Millet and Meadowsweet’s room when the door was closed.

When they arrived they saw a circle of griffins with the fire on one side, almost like it was another member of the round and illuminating the open space in the middle, and a group of other griffins inside the circle handling something.

"See those griffins there? They are putting together their instruments. That is where the plinking came from. We use some tambourines, you know them already, but those? You never heard something like that." Ginevra laid down on Chryssi's side, with Geno sitting down on the other and chewing on his honey bread.

Chryssi squinted. The plinking came from one of the griffins holding something white with strings and staffs sticking out of it. He would pick at one of the strings, then adjust the staff, then pick at it again. The others were putting together similar constructs.

"See those strings? Those are sinews, and the instruments are made of bones. The big thing at the end is the skull of a giant bat. You pick at the strings, or you let your talon slide on it, and it makes music. Ponies can't play them because hooves don't work well with it. And they don't like it, call it Song of the Dead. Some even say we make it from ponies we hunt in secrecy and make disappear in the night." Ginevra scoffed, then pointed at one of the tables where there were still remains from the roc. "Stupid stories by stupid ponies. We get new strings from that for when the old ones are used up. We would never use one of the talking races."

The musicians had finished assembling their instruments and were plucking at the strings, looks of deep concentration on their faces. Around them, many others pulled out tambourines of various sizes. Some had engraved borders, others were simply made from wood. Metal disks gleamed reddish and golden in the light.

One of the griffins, the one holding a thing of bone and strings larger than Chryssi, leaned forward and said something. The griffins surrounding him nodded, and suddenly the night was filled with the chirping of the metal shells of the tambourines being shaken. It was a totalizing sound, surrounding everything, encompassing the whole world.

Soon came the beats as they struck the skins. Time was added to the timeless. The strings joined with their voices after that, dancing between the wild tact the tambourines imposed on the reality.

Chryssi sat there, her mouth open, her mind lost to the Song of the Dead.

The lifeless remains of what once had been a creature raised their new voices into the starry sky. It hadn't been the end. Not as she understood it.

When the griffins began to sing everything changed again. What was and what had been danced together, what had once been keeping up what was now.

She had heard ponies sing. It happened often, and she always liked it. The words in songs were fat, juicy, real. She understood them all, even those she didn't know the meaning of. Griffin songs were exactly like that.

They were also completely different. When ponies sang, they sang of their heart and their souls, of themselves and their dears in the world.

When griffins sang, they sang of griffins, and they did it on the foundation of music made by the living and by the dead.

They sang of foolish griffins who wanted to be kings, and of their daughters fleeing them for love and faking their deaths to start a new life. They sang of brigands who did their talking with blades and spears so they could be free. They sang of joyful youth stealing hearts, of old codgers' regrets, of yellow grass in the hot south and of snowfields in the north.

Voices moved up and down along the tones, now telling stories, now being instruments. The tambourines ran along and never slowed down. The strings kept up with everything, playful and serious, jumping and steady, plinking, wailing, and laughing. They did whatever was needed.

Another voice, one that wasn't singing, broke through to her. Chryssi blinked and focused on Geno standing in front of her. "Huh?"

"Do you want to dance?"

"Dance?" Behind Geno, griffins were moving in the open space.

Wings flared out, shaded one another, then folded. Eyes kept contact as if bound, and then, one vault later, they became chained to somebody else. The rhythm of the tambourines gave the tempo for little jumps, barely high enough to move the dancers one around the other in what was almost a glide.

It was wonderful. It radiated joy. It was terrifying. Chryssi's eyes almost bulged out. "I can't dance! I don't know how to do it."

"Don't worry, little bug, it's easy. Go out there, feel it, and go along with the flow." Ginevra patted Chryssi on the back. "Don't wanna leave Geno hanging, right?" Ginevra's eyes seemed to sparkle. She smelled of amusement and mischief. "That would break his little heart, after all."

"What?" And now Chryssi was confused. Again.

Geno, on the other hoof, seemed to have understood quite well what happened, at least according to his sputtering. "What? No! I– She's– It's not–"

"Whatever. Now, away with you two." A madly grinning Ginevra shoved them out and into the middle of the dancing crowd.

It was almost overwhelming. Everything moved, the music and the song filled her ears, the earth vibrated, the warmth of the bodies around her radiated like the sun on a summer evening. Geno stumbled in front of her, a blush on his face. And from all around her emotions pressed down and flowed through her. So much, so different, sweet, warm, salty, tickling, red, soothing, prickly, and so much more for which she hadn't even words.

Geno had started to jump, to open his wings, to circle around her. She couldn't dance, she never learned, but she could imitate.

With each little shuffle, each twirl she did following his lead she felt more in tune. There was a rhythm in the whole, and she began to hear it, to feel it in her hooves. Slowly she went from following to anticipating. Understanding dawned on her, it was not about simply going along, nor was it about dominating. It was about melting into the whole, about feeling and accepting everything.

Dancing for her dear life, Chryssi laughed.

The winds calmed down, their thousand voices slowly falling silent, one at a time. At the end only the crackling of the bonfire remained. The four elder griffins in the center of the circle turned around, facing once again the rest of the flock.

Ginevra held her breath. Many of the others did the same.

Giosualdo stepped forward from the center. His voice was powerful and swept over the assembly leaving an icy chill in their backs. "The hoofed tribes of the north look to themselves for the help their Yak lieges won't grant them. The fangs of the ice are snapping at them, and so they look for strength in the herd. Change. So told us Boreas."

When Gerte came forward the chill disappeared. As she spoke Ginevra could smell sand and salt, a pleasant tepor crawled up her limbs, and then the heat hit. Gerte's voice was scorching. "The tempers in the warring reigns of the south are rising, and forges are spewing soot and smoke into the sky. Kings and tyrants are out for blood and fortune, and once more others shall find both. Opportunity. So told us Scirocco."

A gray hen hobbled on. Her eyes ran the circumference of griffins, slightly milky yet full of life. Her voice cut like stone shards. "Where the sun sets, something is stirring. Its emissary already lurks in shadows. The donkeys know the menace and are turning their spears westward. Danger. So told us Espero."

The last to speak was young Giacomo. Ginevra could almost feel his nervousness, yet when he spoke it was with the force of untold years behind every word. "The concord is frail in the east, and the plague weakened it even more. Those who hold the sun have less might on earth than in the heavens, and new voices raise asking for safety. Fear. So told us Apeliote."

The moment the last word left his beak, every griffon started talking. The silence was not so much shattered as it was beaten, broken, and the fragments set on fire. Everyone seemed ready to share their opinion on what they just had heard, and waiting to hear others out wasn't an option.

Ginevra was about to explain to Giovanni how what happened in the east was clearly a consequence of what was transpiring in the west when she felt something pulling in her claw. She looked down and saw Chryssi with a hoof on her foreleg, the other holding a bone she was chewing.

"What happened?" Chryssi pulled the bone out. "They said things about the danger. Do I have to be scared?" She leaned forward and whispered, "I didn't taste fear."

Neither Fidelis nor Garvino seemed to be around, or at least Ginevra couldn't see them among the chattering groups that were forming all over the place. Which meant it would fall on her. She laid down and looked Chryssi in the eyes. "You can't taste fear because being afraid doesn't help at all now. The Winds told the things they saw far away from here and gave some glimpses about what is to come. That's all to help us know where we should fly, but it doesn't mean that those things will happen here. I remember when I was little, my first Wind Whispering. We were out there in the west, going up and down and bringing clouds to the donkeys because they had just fought with some Concord towns and no pegasi would do it. And the Winds told that there was danger all around us and that there would be a big conflict. I was very scared, but my mother said me not to worry. Then the next year it was all the same, and the year after that. But nothing happened to me or the Flock. Even the hunts were good."

Chryssi chewed pensively on the bone, then grimaced. As she pulled it out Ginevra could see that it was broken and the little bug had somehow begun getting out the marrow. Her tone was almost indignant as she asked, "Did the Winds lie?"

"No." Ginevra shook her head. "For three years there had been a vicious infighting between the heads of the donkey clans. Something about finding a new leader. Some of the clans weren't happy at all about not getting the help of pegasi while others wanted to continue on that course. It became bloody, and it was all around us, but it never touched us." She scratched her beak. "I think we even got something out of it. When you grow up ask Giosualdo about it. He has some funny stories from that time. Just… not now."

"Why?"

"Uhm, it's not the kind of story a little filly should hear. Or a young mare. Or somebody who could give Celestia and Luna ideas. Or anybody under Donna Copper Horn's care. By Harmony, she'll tan my hide. Forget about the story, there's no such thing, I didn't say anything, ok?"

"But you just–"

Ginevra clamped her claw around Chryssi's muzzle. "I didn't say anything. At all. Go play with Geno."

The moment her muzzle was released, Chryssi said, "He's sleeping. He was very tired, and Giovanni took him under his wing. And he gave me the bone." Chryssi held it up.

"Right, it's late for you. Aren't you tired too? Wanna take a nap?"

"Nuhu, not at all." Chryssi glanced to her side, at one of the gaggles of griffins chattering enthusiastically about. "Uhm, everyone is talking. Should I talk too? I don't know what to say."

"They are just talking about where to go. Don’t worry about it, you don't have to say anything." Ginevra stood up and smiled. She remembered this part from when she was little quite well. Nothing put her to sleep faster than hearing the endless discussions after the Wind Whispering. And maybe she could find Fidelis along the way and leave the little one with him. "I wanna go to chat up a couple of them. Come on my back and let's do it."

During the long night the clearing had been lived up with songs, stories, fights, and laughter. Now, near the break of dawn, it had all calmed down. A song broke out every now and then, but it was a far more intimate affair. Many had disappeared into the bushes; some had returned, most had not. And of those still there, the great majority was snoring, filled with food, booze, or both.

That Chryssi was still awake and seemingly not even tired was admirable in Garvino's eyes. Even now she was nibbling on rolled-up roasted skin gotten who knew where, a trickle of fat running down the side of her mouth, All in all, it had gone far better than what Garvino expected.

He leaned down toward Chryssi and asked, "Did you have fun tonight?"

She nodded and sat down at his side, both turning east, companionable silence binding them.

When Fidelis arrived he sat down on Garvino's right and sighed. He plucked a stalk of grass, put it between his teeth, and sighed.

It took Garvino a lot of self-control not to snicker. He glanced at the diamond dog, took in his content expression, and said, "Now, my friend, what perturbs you? Something happened that wasn't to your taste?"

Fidelis huffed then grinned. "Nope. All fine. No problem at all. I'm full of meat and beer. I danced till my paws felt like falling off. I ended up in the barn with–" His eyes fell on Chryssi. "–nobody important. It was a fine night. Great one even. I like the Wind Whispering."

Garvino nodded. "Good. Good. I'm glad." He put a wing over Chryssi's back and pulled her to his side. "It's important that those of my flock had a good time. Helps to keep everyone together. Reminds them of the good things." He glanced over his shoulder. "Have you seen Ginevra?"

"Yes." Fidelis nodded, then pointed over his shoulder with a thumb. "She was talking with one of the youngsters about what the flock should do. Where it should go." He scratched his chin. "Seemed very important."

"It was." Ginevra emerged from the dying light of the fire, her steps uncertain, her plumage smelling of sweat and smoke. "Talking about the future is what makes the Flock a Flock and not a simple warband," She sat down on Garvino's other side and folded her wings while she spied the horizon. "It's what you and mother taught me. One of the few truly useful things."

"Hush now, we taught you nothing but useful stuff. You lacking the wisdom to apply every lesson is not our fault." Garvino felt Chryssi move under his wing and peek out from under the feathers. "So, Ginevra, will you fly with them when they leave?"

There was a small gasp, and he saw Chryssi's eyes grow to the size of dishes.

Ginevra sighed and looked out towards the horizon. "I miss the hunts, I miss feeling new winds caress me. I miss even fighting the ice on the mountains." She glanced at the farm looming massively behind them. "Staying here is not a griffon life, you know? And they will fly south. Planned to do it, and the Whispering just reinforced the idea. They want to reach the southern coast. I've never been so far down. Gal told me you can see the front of the Chaos Storm."

Chryssi retreated under Garvino's wing and cuddled up against his side. He suspected he knew what was going through her head, but for once it was necessary. At the end of the Whispering there was change. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Sometimes it was different things for different griffins. And for little black foals, he supposed. "Have you already decided? The Flock will leave in the evening, you won't have much time."

The first birds started to chirp. The world was awakening. Ginevra sat in silence, then laid down.

"We love you even if you go, you know?" Fidelis pulled out the stalk. "You stay, we are happy. You leave, we are happy too if you promise to visit. Do what you want if you think it makes you happy. You are not bound like we are."

"Hey, I don't want to abandon duty. I–"

"You are young, and our duty binds us for longer than what it takes for my old bones to become stone. Harmony needs us old ones here. It needs young ones to become the best they can." Fidelis laid back on the dusty ground. "You're no prisoner to duty. You're no prisoner to Harmony. You're no prisoner here."

Ginevra scoffed. "Eager to get rid of me?"

"Nah, not gonna tell what I want." Fidelis patted on Garvino's side. "'s not important what this old chicken here or what this old mutt want. And that's true for the little one hiding under the wing too." He burped. "Heh, you griffons do the best parties."

Garvino turned to Ginevra. "Fidelis is right. What we do here is no chain. Think about what you want. I will be happy if you are happy." He raised his wing a bit and glanced underneath it. He smiled at Chryssi huddling against his coat. "That counts for you too, learn what makes you happy, and as long as you are not hurting others, do it."

"I…" The little foal flicked her tongue, turned her head a bit as if looking through his wing towards Ginevra. She bit her lip, then turned her head to the other side. Garvino wondered if she could see Fidelis through him. He wouldn't have been surprised.

She stayed that way, deep in thought, silent.

And then the light changed. The gray of the early morning became awash with the red and golden shine of the dawn. Garvino turned his head toward the sun and closed his eyes. More and more birds joined in, waking the world, signaling the true beginning of spring.

"I know what I want."

"Oh, do you?" Fidelis pushed up on his elbows. "This I wanna hear. What do you want?"

Chryssi sat straight, looked into the rising sun on the horizon, and said, "I want my family to be happy."

"Ah, a bit generic, but the classics are always worth something anyway." Ginevra smiled at Chryssi, then scooted a bit closer. "And who's this family of yours?"

"Ah…" The uncertainty and sudden panic were as clear as the sky in the morning. Chryssi turned her head around, looked up at Garvino, then back at Ginevra. "I thought– I mean– It's–"

It was almost heartbreaking. Luckily, Ginevra was faster. Her claw sprang forward like a snake, grabbed Chryssi, ignored the surprised squeak, and pulled her back into a powerful hug. "Aw, we know what you mean, little bug. We love you too and want you to be happy. Isn't that right, Garvino?"

"It is, it is. Fidelis?"

"Solid as granite. Glad you learned it, Chryssi. Told you not to worry."

They slipped back into companionable silence, the sun rising, the world awakening. There was still work to do before they could rest, before the old year would be truly over. The food had to be put away, the clearing had to be cleaned up, the barrel of salted meat had to be moved out of the sun.

Endings and beginnings were rarely clean cut things.

"I'm gonna fly with the Flock again. Just… I'm not gonna do it now. I still have things to see here, and I'm not leaving just you two educating the fillies on the finer points of life." Ginevra glanced over to Garvino. "I'm not a monster."

Garvino took a deep breath and felt a boulder lift from his heart. "No, you are not."

Life was good. Sometimes it was hard, sometimes it was surprising, sometimes it became downright bizarre. But it was definitely good.

Chryssi chirped up. "I also wanna be a griffon."

Chapter 16

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 17

Aside from the brief experience of the Wind Whispering, Chryssi really didn’t know many people outside those living on the farm.

True, despite being far from the town, the farm still had its fair share of visitors. Tributary peons brought in the harvest, got their tools fixed, used the storage, or sought counsel from Meadowsweet or Willowbark or Master Sottile. During the winter they often came for the food kept in the granaries and the pantries, and sometimes there were cows that came bringing in cheese and leaving with produce or even, occasionally, some spell. And then there was the occasional messenger, arriving with bags full of scrolls and leaving with bags full of scrolls, although different ones.

But Chryssi had to hide every time. The rules out there differed from those on the farm and apparently being discovered was really dangerous. The reason had never been fully clear, but since she had gotten her wings, every adult had been even more worried when some stranger came knocking at the door.

Hiding hadn’t been an issue for Chryssi though. She was good at it, and Lulu and Tia making a game out of it only added to the fun. It also often was an occasion to get free time without supervision, a treat that had become all the more enticing after weeks of being grounded.

It had made the arrival of a gray pegasus with saddlebags and a silver messenger’s chain around her neck a blessing.

Lulu had not yet abandoned the idea that Chryssi had still to undergo training for the day her love would be in danger, and so they were just in the middle of an epic battle against a warlock capable of becoming mist as their sprout of freedom revealed itself to be a short one. Meadowsweet calling out, “Chrysalis, Luna, Celestia, come here right now!” made that pretty clear.

There was a moment of absolute silence as Tia and Lulu watched each other, their emotions mirroring a wordless discussion going on between them before they turned to Chryssi. The question was clear. Chryssi raised her hooves and said, “I did nothing either. I think.”

They looked around. There wasn’t any visible damage in the room, and they could dismantle the blanket fortress and clean up with little effort. They hadn’t made too much noise, and in the last week, they had carefully avoided borrowing things without asking first. It had almost broken Tia’s heart as she had left Fidelis’ stone-eating chisel alone as he had to abandon it briefly after stubbing his toe. Lulu had mumbled something about entrapment, but they hadn’t touched it.

Nothing came to mind which would spur Meadowsweet to use their full names.

They exchanged more looks. Silent accusations and evaluations danced fro and back. Situations were analyz–

The door opened and Meadowsweet looked inside. She frowned and said, “What are you doing? I called you, and I’m certain you heard me. Why did you–?”

Chryssi, Tia, and Lulu cried out in almost perfect unison, “We didn’t do it!” In hindsight, Chryssi had to admit it wasn’t probably the smartest move. Still, the display of synchronicity was admirable.

Meadowsweet squinted at each of them, her eyes peeling away defenses and digging deep down in their souls. “Didn’t do what?”

“We…” Tia gulped. “We don’t know? You seemed angry, and you used our full names, and…” She looked around the room. “We were good and don’t want to be grounded any longer.”

“Oh.” Meadowsweet closed her eyes, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and looked at them again. “I’m sorry. You aren’t in trouble, and it‘s true that you have been good. I didn’t want to scare you. We just received a message that spells trouble and made me jumpy. I will try to do better, but now come, we have to talk.” She looked over the fillies. “And that fortress is nice, but it will have to disappear before bedtime, alright?”

Chryssi nodded along with her friends, but couldn’t make head or tail of the mix of emotions coming off Meadowsweet. No, that wasn’t right. She roughly recognized worry, affection, determination. But it was as if they weren’t pure. Chryssi blinked. She was getting more complicated aromas. She was–

“Chryssi, come on, we have to go.”

–she was staring lost in thought. Chryssi shook her head, then stood up and trotted out of the room, Meadowsweet closing the door behind her and herding them into the kitchen.

Everybody was there, a mixture of frowning and smiles on their faces, with worry, excitement, and the smell of cabbage hanging in the air. The latter came from a large pot on the hearth bubbling contently and liberally dispensing its enticing aroma.

Chryssi was hungry now. Maybe she could get a bit of the salted Roc meat from the barrels left behind. It would make dinner even better. Which was far away in the future. Too far away.

Maybe if she made that growling sound Tia and Lulu made when they were hungry she could get something sooner. Right now would be perfect.

“Now that everybody’s here we can start.” Master Sottile floated a scroll up in his magic. “We just got a message that Starswirl is going to visit us. He will be here tomorrow to talk to me, so we have to prepare.” He sighed. “And this mostly means finding a hiding place for Chrysalis.”

There was a moment of silence, and then there wasn’t anymore.

“Starswirl of The Thousand Bells will be here? The vanquisher of the Great Ice Worm?” cried Tia while she jumped up and down.

“The wizard who recovered the Book of Dangerous Names from the Shadow Library? That Starswirl? EEEEEEE” screeched Lulu while turning in circles.

“I don’t know who that is!” screamed Chryssi. No reason to be left out, she thought.

“Calm down!” Donna Copper Horn’s voice rumbled like an avalanche over through the kitchen. She rose from her chair and towered in the room, her presence pressing down on the fillies, who stopped in their tracks and looked up at her. “I get that you are excited because an important pony is coming here–”

“He’s Starswirl! He’s the greatest hero alive!” blurted out Tia. She stared Donna Copper Horn right in the eyes, then shrunk back and whispered, “Sorry.”

Donna Copper Horn glowered at the filly. “As I was saying, I get that you are excited, and I see that you’ve been listening to the bards at the Spring Festival, but we have a problem. Starswirl is a hero, a pony that does a lot of good, and one that has saved countless lives.” She glanced over to Master Sottile. “And I know that it is a great honor to have him here, but this won’t be a fun kind of visit. He will be here to talk about important things, and–” She passed a hand over her eyes. “–he is a wizard that follows the philosophy of Banish now, ask questions never.”

Chryssi tilted her head, then glanced over to her friends. In a surprising turn of events, they too seemed a bit lost regarding what that meant.

Meadowsweet sat down beside Chryssi and put a hoof on her shoulder. “What she means is that Chryssi will have to hide even better than usual. When some pony sees her it’s a problem, but of the kind we may be able to solve. If Starswirl feels she’s dangerous and decides to banish her, well…” Meadowsweet pulled Chryssi in a hug. "If that happens we don’t think we may be able to stop him. We don’t want that."

Tia gasped. Lulu cringed, then said, “But he’s a hero! He does good things for ponies.”

“He does. I know him, and I know that many are rightfully grateful for what he has done, but…” Master Sottile, looked up to the ceiling, took a deep breath, and continued, “Chryssi, Fidelis told me that you scared that young griffon and his father during the Wind Whispering, right? I know you didn’t really mean to, but it happened. Well, Starswirl has seen many, many scary things, and all of them tried to do something bad to ponies. You are different, I know that, everybody here on the farm knows that, but Starswirl, well, he can’t be sure of it.”

Silence fell on the room. Chryssi leaned into Meadowsweet’s hug and bit her lip. She remembered Geno and Giovanni’s expression. She remembered the taste of the surrounding air. It was weird. Despite the warmth of Meadowsweet’s coat, a shiver ran down Chryssi’s back.

“Chryssi is good! She’s even more good than us!” Tia stomped her hoof and almost growled. “That’s– That’s all wrong. And unfair too!”

“Yes, it is.” Fidelis was leaning against the wall, twirling a ladle between his fingers. “But so it is. We can try to make the world better, but to ignore how things are is dangerous. And we don’t want to put little bug in danger. So she hides for now.” He put the ladle down and walked around the table before kneeling down in front of Tia and Lulu, smiling softly. “Is good that you think it’s unfair. Means heart is in the right place, and that when you can you will do things to solve it.”

Chryssi felt Meadowsweet’s hoof pet her head. “That is true. And, you know, if Starswirl wants something from us, then maybe we can be careful and get his help too. You are a good filly, Chryssi. And Harmony helps good fillies.”

Master Sottile stood in the door, looking out over the open court to the gate in the walls surrounding the farm. Two earth ponies in travel-armor stood there, their heads whipping right and left, suspicious glares thrown at every barn, hayloft, and cart. Behind them, he could see more figures move and hear the clanging of metal and the confused murmur of voices.

“Last time I saw him, he didn’t have such a following.” Donna Copper Horn passed him and leaned against the wall of the building, her eyes never leaving the guards. “Kinda jumpy, but at least they seem to halfway know what they are doing.”

The guards stiffened when they saw the minotaur. One whispered something to the other, then they changed their stance.

Donna Copper Horn sighed. “I stand corrected, Master Sottile. They are way too eager for a fight to know what they are doing.”

”Hmmm. I’ll have to talk with Starswirl about his. I understand caution, but that–” Master Sottile pointed at the guards, "–is almost offensive. We value hospitality.”

“Damn you and the madmare who didn’t strangle you in the cradle! You are all useless wastes of space, you illiterate worms.” A young, gray stallion with a short white beard stormed through the gate. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and a cloak, both blue and both tinkling with dozens of bells, and a deep scowl decorated his face. “Get out, you worthless sacks of rotten horse-apples. I have to talk to ponies and having you around makes me stupid.”

“I think the offensive part may not bother him,” whispered Donna Copper Horn. “He has improved little from last time.”

Starswirl passed the guards, turned around, then grabbed them both with his magic and moved them out, slamming the gate closed behind them. He stood there, then looked upwards. A pegasus, peeking in from over the wall, was met with a string of obscenities that made Master Sottile’s ears burn. This was soon followed by a couple of lightning bolts from Starswirl's horn chipping the stone, which finally convinced the guard that discretion was the better part of valor.

Cracking knuckles pulled Master Sottile out of his stupor. Donna Copper Horn’s voice was almost a growl. “If he says that stuff with the fillies around I won’t care who he is, I’ll throw him out right over the wall.”

“I…” He looked up at Donna Copper Horn, at the frown, at her eyes. “I understand, but it won’t be a problem. He can contain himself, and he shows at least a modicum of respect to me.”

Starswirl turned around, muttered something, and then came up to them. He stopped a length away, nodded to Donna Copper Horn and then said, “Master Sottile, I need help. Let us go somewhere with no extraneous ears listening.”

A multitude of different thoughts went through Master Sottile’s head almost all the time, and the current situation wasn’t an exception. Yet years of educating fillies and close proximity to Meadowsweet and Donna Copper Horn had apparently shaped him, because the most prominent of all the things his mind screamed at him was Scold him and educate him on the proper way to talk to others. Not that he could do that right now. He doubted that Starswirl would react well to it, and, after all, he was an honored guest. A rude one, but still he couldn’t insult him by scolding him like a little colt. Still, there were ways. Master Sottile smiled and said, “I welcome you, Starswirl, and am delighted you have come to visit me in my humble house. Please, allow me to invite you inside and to offer you bread, salt, and beer. Your travels must have been tiring, and a bit of rest is the least I can offer.”

What he got was a confused look on Starswirl‘s face. “What?”

Master Sottile stepped inside and said, “Well, I invite you into my home and offer you food and rest. You are welcome. Donna Copper Horn, please set up some food and then put up some water for a herbal infusion for later. Starswirl, please follow me, we shall find some tranquility in my study.”

While they entered the inner court Master Sottile swiveled his ears. There was the faint clinking of Willowbark working in his laboratory. Distant hammering informed him of where Fidelis was carving. From the kitchen behind them, he heard Donna Copper Horn move. He smiled. No sign of the fillies, which meant that, for once, they had listened to him. No, that didn’t do them justice. They were good fillies, they often listened to him, they learned, they did their best. It was just that, well, the times they disobeyed had a tendency to become spectacular. Harmony preserves us, he thought, let this not be one of those times.

They climbed the stairs and entered the study, the dry smell of parchment and ink embracing them in a warm welcome.

Starswirl’s horn lit up, and a translucent bubble grew from it until it encompassed the whole room. Soon the aura died down, and Starswirl said, “Very well, no scrying nor divination spell cast on this room.” His head turned left and right, he squinted, then nodded. “There doesn’t seem to be anybody eavesdropping. Right. Master Sottile, I need your help. I know I can trust you and–”

Master Sottile raised his hoof. “Please, bread and beer will be here soon.” A pair of pillows floated into the middle of the room form a corner. “Please, sit down, rest a bit. There will be time, and I am curious about your recent adventures.” Master Sottile sat on a pillow. “And then you’ll have to tell me about your traveling companions. I remember you preferred smaller groups.”

“What are you doing? I need your help, and I don’t care about bread, or beer, or those mistakes posing as ponies following me around.” Starswirl huffed. “Look, I came here just to talk to you.”

“Mhhh, yes. You came here, in my home, to talk to me. And I offered you my hospitality.”

“Yes, yes, you did, so I was…” Starswirl looked around, sighed, and sat down. “I came to your house for help and you offered me hospitality. I gladly accept it. And forgive me, too much time passed with things that want to eat me, dismember me, or drive me insane. It… it doesn’t help with my manners.”

“I understand, do not worry. I just hope you will remember it when ponies will be less accommodating than us here. Which, to be honest, brings me back to your companions. I thought I saw them all sporting the same symbol, but couldn’t see it well enough. Tell me, have you started your own house or your own guard?”

“Hah, no. The stars preserve me if I get soft in the head and do something like that. No, that load of empty-headed buffoons is something Goldhoof the Overbearing insisted on hanging on to me. I saved his daughter while I was trying to get the Night Almanac from a temple in the Hayseed Swamps. He then insisted on paying for a company of guards for me. I think he was kind of conflicted between generosity and greed because those failed heaps of manure out there is what I got.”

“That seems to be a quite harsh judgment of–” Master Sottile stopped as Starswirl’s head whipped around and he glared at the door.

There was a brief knock before Donna Copper Horn pushed it open and entered with a tray with an ewer, a loaf of bread, and a collection of small bowls. She kneeled and put it on the floor between the two unicorns. She nodded to Master Sottile, then, without a word, stood up and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Master Sottile lifted the bread with his magic, broke it in the middle, and floated one half over to Starswirl. The ewer floated up and poured a bit of brown beer in one of the empty bowls. The one filled with salt was pushed forward.

With a roll of his eyes, Starswirl sprinkled some salt on the bread, ate it, then drank a sip of the beer. “Here, better?”

“Better indeed.” Master Sottile smiled, ate a bit of bread, and gulped down his bowl of beer. “I’m glad you accepted my hospitality. I am happy to have you here, and I will help you, but rites and traditions have to be observed, even more so with the kind of things you tend to anger. You should know that better than most.”

“Traditions…You know that they mostly are sloppy tricks, right? We can do better if we decide to finally understand them, if we finally break the shackles of habit.”

“By the Stars, such strong words from somepony dedicated to recovering the past like no other creature I know of.”

Starswirl frowned. “Well, you need to know where things came from to remove all the useless clutter. Which kind of brings me to why I need your help. What I will say now shall never leave this room.” His ears flicked, he took a deep breath, and said, “The plague that hit us last summer wasn’t natural. The sickness itself was the usual imbalance of humors, even if it came sooner than expected. But the magic-leeching, well, that was some kind of curse attached to it.” He leaned forward and put his hooves on Master Sottile’s shoulders and looked straight in his eyes. “Do you understand? Something out there has put a curse on a malady, using magic to leech magic. That shouldn’t have been possible, and yet it happened. And nothing good can come from this, Master Sottile, nothing.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely certain. No doubt about it.” Starswirl sat back and removed his hat. He put it down on the floor, the bells clinking. “Some malignant entity set that upon us, upon the Concord. And I’m trying to find it and prepare to defend us against it. But–” He turned the hat and flicked the point with a hoof. "–I don’t know how. I have tried to read the stars, to compile my charts and see at least where I could look for answers, yet what they told me was nonsensical. And that is when I discovered that our old maps and charts have become useless."

Silence fell. Master Sottile tried to wrap his head around the idea. The extent of something like that boggled his mind. “The stars have changed?”

“No. Well, the stars change all the time, I’ve seen ancient star maps and they were a bit different. But no, that’s not the issue. The problem is that after the disruption of the plague that robbed our magic, the Moon and the Sun have lost their rhythm, and I doubt there’s somepony competent enough in the Celestial Council to fix that. Not sure if they are even aware of it. Without the Sun and the Moon in the right places, I can’t read the stars properly.”

Master Sottile stood up and paced. “That is… How… Are the prophecies false? Have we been misled for generations?” His eyes swept over the scrolls laying in their niches, the books standing on shelves up to the ceiling, the piles of parchment sheets. “How much of this is useless?”

“Nothing. Well, not more than usual at least. No, your tomes are safe, and our old prophecies should still be reliable enough. It’s the new ones we must mostly discard, at least until I can read the new patterns. Which is why I need you.”

A scroll floated up to Master Sottile and unrolled. His eyes danced along the lines connecting symbols and stars. Old writing ran in every direction in apparent chaos. “The news you bring is troubling. What can I help you with? Your talent in reading the skies has always been greater than mine, and your knowledge of magic went well beyond what I could teach you a long time ago.”

“That is true, but not the point of my visit. I trust you even if I may not agree with you every time. And you had always had a talent for finding subtler meanings and reading between the lines.” From below Starswirl’s cape came a crystal. It flew up to the center of the room and glowed. Below it sparks of light coagulated in a rough map. Six stars formed across the map, from the icy north down to the south, from somewhere in the eastern sea all the way to the depths of Donkey territory. “I found traces and hints of old foundation knowledge. It’s all there in our classics, time and time again. It’s where we got our knowledge about how to read the skies. And I intend to find them.”

“That is a lot of territories to cover. I’m honored that you thought of me, but adventuring is the purview of the young.”

Starswirl snorted. “Hah, I respect you, but you wouldn’t survive the first room of whatever old ruin holds that knowledge.” The map disappeared and the crystal returned to whatever hidden pocket of the coat had held it before. “No, I will send you copies of whatever is there, and you’ll have to help me translate it and find the connections. I already talked to others to get their help. If we are lucky, I will able to get something out of the whole.”

The ewer filled up Master Sottile’s bowl as he sat down. He took the bowl in his hooves and sipped from it. The offer was too good to refuse. He would have jumped at it in an instant if it was only for him, but there were others he had to think about. This was an occasion he had to seize. “I will help you, but you will have to help me too. I think that’s only just.”

“My request isn’t something that I’m doing for myself.” Starswirl glared at him. “What I ask you to do is for the good of all of ponykind.”

“So is what I intend to ask from you.” Master Sottile put the bowl down. “I want you, once I can’t teach them any more, to educate my charges in the art of magic.”

Starswirl blinked. “Your charges? Wha–The fillies? By the stars, you are still obsessed with that stupid prophecy? Even after all these years?”

“Yes, more than ever.” A chest opened at one end of the room, and a bundle of scrolls floated to Master Sottile. “For the first time, I’m certain that I shall see the prophecy be fulfilled before my death. And I want you to teach them once they are ready.”

“You are wasting your time on a mistranslation.” Starswirl stood up. “Waiting for some kind of savior is stupid beyond belief. I intend to do do something real for ponykind. By the Stars, do you really expect me to–?” The scrolls Master Sottile held with his magic unfurled. Starswirl looked at them, glared at Master Sottile, then returned to read what was written in front of him. After a while, he asked, “What is this?”

“These, dear Starswirl, are Luna’s and Celestia’s take on the Sun and Moon spells. Compiled in one morning, and cause for their cutie marks.” Master Sottile smiled. “You do not believe that the Alicorns will rise, I understand that, but I have two fillies with incredible potential. Even if I’m wrong about the prophecy, they will do great things. I will help you and you in return shall educate them if they ascend. And if not, you still shall consider the idea if they meet your expectations.”

Starswirl grabbed the scrolls. His eyes darted over the diagrams, the calculations, the invocations. Other scrolls opened, orbiting around him while his attention danced from one to the other. Finally, they all rolled up again at the same time and carefully piled up at Master Sottile’s side.

Starswirl grabbed his hat and put it upon his head. “If you help me, then we have a deal. Once you can’t teach them more, I will give them a test. If they pass it, and only if they do, I will take them as apprentices.”

There was a high-pitched squee coming from behind the door. Master Sottile felt his heart fall as Starswirl’s head whipped around. “What was that?”

“I–” Before Master Sottile could even answer Starswirl marched to the door. His magic enveloped it while from the other side came a sudden cracking and squelching sound.

As the door flew open, Master Sottile could see everything they had built fall apart. There was no stopping Starswirl, they couldn’t save Chrysalis, they couldn’t–

“You two must be Master Sottile’s charges, and you… Right, shouldn’t be surprised. Eavesdropping… I’m very disappointed. I should go back on that deal with Master Sottile.”

No storm of magic energies, no glowing banishing circles, no screaming. Master Sottile was confused. Relieved, but confused. He stood up and walked to the door.

In the corridor outside were two fillies and the ugliest griffon chick he had ever seen. Celestia sat there, the kind of grin on her face that usually indicated that there was something on fire and she wanted to convince you she had nothing to do with it. Luna had a green-tinged face and her eyes were wide as she stared at the griffon.

The griffon chick had… The color of her coat and plumage could be described as an accident between a haycart and a particularly scum-rich pond, all uncharming browns and green tones. Her beak was crooked, her eyes too, and one of the wings was smaller than the other. On top of it all, she had very confused and worried expression. One he knew.

Master Sottile was a scholar, a learned stallion, and he was, at least according to his family and friends, very wise. He didn’t need any of those traits to get a vague idea about what had happened. He wasn’t sure if it would be another miracle or another headache, or maybe both, but for the moment it seemed to have fooled Starswirl. One worked with what Harmony gave. Master Sottile stood straight and, with all the authority he could manage without his voice cracking, thundered, “Celestia, Luna… Gerte! What are you doing here?”

The two fillies and the chick looked up at him in surprise, before Celestia gasped and said, “Master Sottile! We–we heard about the famous Starswirl being here and… and me and Luna and Gret–Gerte, we wanted to meet him and then–” Luna made a dry heaving sound. “–and then we came to the door but Luna got sick because she has eaten something she shouldn’t and we didn’t want to eavesdrop and… and…”

Gerte piped up. Her voice dissipated any lingering doubt Master Sottile could have harbored. “We are sorry. It was my fault. I heard so much about you and wanted to see you.”

“Hmpf.” Starswirl glared down. “I’m not some silly story, I am me, and I have important things to do and discuss. I’m not here for your entertainment.”

“Fillies, and chick, I’m very disappointed with you. Now go to Donna Copper Horn and tell her what happened. I will deal with you later.” He shoved them out in the corridor. “I have important things to discuss yet.”

His heart almost fluttered as he closed the door. He was far too old for this kind of emotion.

“Curious little fillies.” Starswirl’s horn lighted up and a shimmer briefly ran along the walls. “And I have been far too careless. I forgot to cast my spells again after Donna Copper Horn brought beer and bread.” He frowned. “See, Master Sottile? This is what happens when one dallies in useless niceties. Now it was two fillies and that unfortunate creature, but it could have been something far worse. This is how heroes die, and it’s not how I intend to leave this world.”

“And yet you learned something. I doubt that something similar will ever happen to you again. Harmony teaches us if we are open to it.”

Starswirl shook his head and returned to his place. “Harmony, right... Let us not disagree about that now, we don’t have the time for it.” He sat down. “Despite what I said, I still accept your help at the conditions we agreed upon.”

Raising his cup once more, Master Sottile smiled. “Let us drink on that. And let me know when you think you’ll be able to send me those scrolls.”

Each hair of the coat wriggled like a worm, the color shifting through all the hues of the rainbow until it became a shining black. They rolled up themselves to become little boils, pulsing and shivering. From between them, sharp edges came up, covering the writhing mass and fusing together in smooth chitin plates. A second later where there had been the leg of a griffon, was Chryssi’s hoof.

Nobody said anything for a while.

Chryssi looked up and bit her lip. There was a general feeling of revulsion hanging in the room, and most of the expressions on the faces of her family quite openly matched it. Donna Copper Horn and Master Sottile kept a fairly neutral expression, even if the distinctive taste from them showed Chryssi that they shared the general sentiment regarding her ability to transform. Willowbark and Tia, on the other hoof, were a complete exception. Both showed open excitement and curiosity, and their outside matched their inside.

“That was…” Meadowsweet broke the silence. “I mean… Chryssi, sweetie, is there any way to make it less…” She brought a hoof to her mouth, the slight green tinge of her coat similar to those Lulu and Millet had.

Donna Copper Horn put a hand on Meadowsweet’s back and said, “I think what she wants to say is that the way you transform is disturbing. This is not a fault, but could you try to do it differently?”

That was a weird question. Something Chryssi had to consider. From the excited chattering from Tia, it seemed that his thing she could now do was the solution to every problem and incredibly awesome and all that. But Lulu hadn’t talked at all, and Chryssi could taste how she was uneasy. Maybe there was a way to do things differently. “I don’t know. I can try?”

“That is all that we ask you.” Master Sottile nodded. “We will try to help you too, as far as we can.”

“We will!” Rarely had she heard such enthusiasm from Willowbark. “This is such a wondrous development. We need to know more. And maybe that will also allow you finally to come out and meet others. Oh, such mimicry, I never expected to see something like that!”

Chryssi nodded. "I'll do my best."

"Do that." Willowbark took her hoof and looked at it. "You'll have to transform a lot of times before we can understand the process, though."

At those words Lulu shivered and looked away. It was almost funny.

That night fear and anxiety oozed like thick slime from Lulu's dreams, coating everything in a bitter, sticky coating. She trashed and whimpered in her sleep, and trembled when Tia cuddled her between her forelegs.

Chryssi had never felt so guilty.

Chapter 20

A cart with a canvas cover held up in the middle like a roof passed them. Staves stood up all around from it, colorful ribbons bound to them fluttering in the breeze. Pots, bells, and little satchels hung on the staves below the ribbons, clattering grapes of metal and jute. The pony pulling the cart was just as colorful. A patchwork cape hung over her shoulders and a wide-brimmed, pointed hat covered in stitches sat on her head.

Luna stretched out over the side of their own cart filled with boring sacks of food to see better.

The mare that had just passed them stopped, stood straight and turned her head around. Her eyes met Luna's, and she smiled. She took her hat off, reached in with her hoof, and then, lightning fast, threw something up in the air. For an instant some colorful dust glittered in the sunlight, then, in a flash, flame caught it and drew a flower made out of flames.

Luna felt Chryssi and Tia press against her side and heard "Oooh," and "Aaah."

The mare laughed, right in tune with the bells of her cart, then turned to the road again and trotted off, her clattering home right behind her.

"Who was that?" Chryssi's voice was almost a whisper. Had been for a while, almost since they had arrived on the great road and started to see all the other ponies going to the festival.

"She was one from the Court of Laughter. You recognize them from the hats." Tia, on the other hoof, had problems keeping her voice down. "And that means there's gonna be some of the courtiers. Chryssi, they are awesome, you're gonna love them."

"Oooh." Chryssi was still looking after the mare when she suddenly sat straighter. "The hat? Does that mean that Starswirl comes from the Court of Laughter too?"

Luna reacted in the only appropriate way; with a deeply offended gasp. "Starswirl is not from the Court of Laughter! He is the greatest Mage ever!"

"You are both right, at least in some measure." Master Sottile trotted up to the side of the cart, smiling, his saddlebags full of scrolls bouncing on his sides. "He is a great mage, and he isn't part of the Court. But the hat is the same. He began to wear it because it showed the opinion he held about the magic schools he had visited. According to him, 'There's more knowledge and talent among that bunch of laughable foals than among those bloated morons that call themselves mages.' It was quite the scandal at the time, let me tell you. And now, well, I think he got attached to the hat."

"The magic schools are bad?" Tia glanced at the small trunk full of books lodged between a sack of flour and a barrel of fermented cider.

Master Sottile shook his head. "I wouldn't take Starswirl's dislike or harsh word on something as any indication about how good it is. While his compliments carry a lot of weight, his insults aren't worth more than a shrug. And although he is an admirable pony, that part is a rough edge that has and will continue to cause him grief. I would be very disappointed if you decided to imitate that specific trait of him."

Luna squinted. "But you said something like that too! Like, 'The arch-mages couldn't–'"

"Right, no, that was…" Master Sottile looked away and coughed in his hoof. "See, some ponies are vain or fearful and want to get important and intimidating titles to use them as a barrier against the world. And sometimes when I drink a bit too much spirits, I may say some less-than-kind things about those ponies. But that is quite a different situation, and it shouldn't dissuade you from looking for formal training if you desire to do so."

"But–"

"What is that?" Chryssi once again asked the question she had repeated so many times since the morning.

They had just cleared a curve on the road, and now the trees opened up, framing in the distance a queue of carts in front of a massive, open gate. Tall walls from which hung colorful banners ran left and right, and behind them, the tips of towers peeked out. Thick ropes with ribbons hanging from them anchored cloud-buildings to the ground, and little shapes zipped here and there between them. Further away a hill rose behind the walls, covered in buildings, atop which rose a large palace made of stone, light, and vapor, almost shining in the spring afternoon.

Master Sottile chuckled. "That, little one, is Everfree Haven, one of the largest cities of the Concord, home to twenty-thousand ponies."

Chryssi's mouth moved silently, and then she gasped. "So many? That's–It's–" She waved her hooves in the air and fluttered her white wings. "There are so many ponies?"

"There are many more in the other cities, towns, and all across the land." Master Sottile pulled out a scroll from his bags and floated it in front of his eyes. "And now that we are here it's the last chance to change your mind. Are you absolutely sure that you want to use the name Surprise for your pegasus form? After we reach the gates, we can't change it anymore."

Chryssi forced her eyes away from the city on the horizon and looked at Master Sottile, then over to Tia and Luna.

There was a clear question in her look, one Luna understood quite well, not only because Chryssi had become better at speaking without using words, but because doubt was a thing that Luna knew well herself. She didn't think her sister would get it, so Luna simply nodded.

With a smile, Chryssi turned again to Master Sottile. "Yes, I'm sure. And Meadowsweet and Millet like it too."

"We do!" Millet called from the front of the cart which he and Meadowsweet were pulling.

"Right, then so shall it be." The floating scroll rolled up again and flew to the other side of the cart, where Donna Copper Horn grabbed it and put it away in her own bags. "I can't deny it's appropriate in so many different ways."

There were ponies everywhere. Up, down, on every side, walking, talking, trading, fighting, joking, loving, hating, eating, napping, writing, drinking, crying, playing, building, dancing, singing, smelling, cooking–

It pressed down on Chryssi from all sides, it enveloped her, overwhelmed every sense, changed, crashed on her in waves, surprised her each and every moment.

She loved it.

In the overwhelming flood, she lost details here and there, with ponies doing something interesting jumping to her attention and then getting lost in the chaotic mass again.

It had begun once they had passed the gates in the walls, with dozens of carts and even more travelers coming through, with guards being bored and tense at the same time, and with foals being delighted either by arriving or by looking at those who came in. And then, with Millet and Meadowsweet pulling the cart along the great road cutting through the buildings, it had grown in intensity and variety.

The same colorful banners from the walls hung everywhere. Open workshops on the sides were filled with trade-ponies chatting and harking. Apprentices from the various guilds ran everywhere, the symbols of their membership, whether chains, medallions, capes, hoods, hats, or bags, polished and cleaned and displayed with tasty, tasty pride. Smells Chryssi had never smelled before rose from kitchens and carts and danced together in a wild, brilliant, delicious mess.

It was so much life, so much confusion, so much noise. It was wonderful.

"Almost there, little ones." Donna Copper Horn reached forward, grabbed, and moved a young stallion as he was about to run head first into her, his eyes focused on a mare on one of the balconies overlooking the street. "The House's granary is right there."

The building she pointed at was a massive, three-story high, hundred-length-wide block made of stone and with more banners hanging from the walls. Three gates, all open, on its front had a steady flow of carts large and small coming in full and leaving empty. Dozens of ponies at the windows of the second story leaned out and shouted orders, curses, and greetings at those below, often mixing all three together in a single sentence.

It was the biggest thing Chryssi had ever seen. "That…that's the House's granary?"

"Yes. Well, not all of it, obviously. Luna, explain."

Lulu, whose attention had been completely absorbed by something else–the acrobat doing cartwheels on stilts on the square on the side of the street, based on her emotions–shook her head and said, "What?"

Master Sottile chuckled. "You will have time later for the festival. Donna Copper Horn wants you to explain the granary to Chr–Surprise."

Lulu blinked. "Uhm, alright. The House's granary is in the Ascendant Warehouse. That's where all the granaries for the holdings east of Everfree Haven are. All the things that go to the city from the farms end here. And then the city-ponies with money don't die from hunger, and sometimes those without money get something to eat too. And all the ledgers are here before they get collected by the council."

"That is correct." Master Sottile sighed. "Even the part about poor ponies not getting much. We try to do better, though. We share a lot of our harvest to try and keep ponies from becoming hungry." He pushed through a gaggle of ponies arguing around a shop giving out herbal infusions. "Celestia, Surprise, you should think about what Luna said. Maybe sooner or later you will get a better idea about how to make it so that nobody, pony or other, has to be hungry."

Chryssi nodded. That sounded important and reasonable. Hunger was a bad thing she knew well, even if its bite had become less and less intense for her in time.

The road became a square in front of the Warehouse, lined on all sides with workshops and stalls. Carts came out empty from the gates and rolled to repair-ponies who dismantled wheels and fixed them.

"Couldn't we just share everything, as we do on the farm?" Tia kept her eyes on a mare as she dropped the balls of yarn she was juggling and drank from a mug while the ponies surrounding her laughed.

Master Sottile shook his head. "That would be ideal, I think, but we don't know yet how to do it. Sometimes simple is not simple at all." His horn alighted and a scroll floated out from his saddlebags. As the cart turned and got pulled towards the middle gate the scroll went to a stallion sitting on the side with a crate full of other papers, scrolls, pages, and clay tablets. "But maybe you will find a way to make it work, or maybe you will find something even better."

The gate was large enough to allow two carts to pass through it side by side. It towered over them and became like a cave as they entered it. The ceiling was a vault, and in the walls, there were open doors on both sides.

If the outside had seemed like a hive of activity, it became clear that it had nothing on what was going on inside. As they entered the internal court a wall of sound crashed down on them. Everywhere ponies were walking, carrying sacks, pulling small carts filled with amphoras, rolling barrels, balancing staves with clusters of dried fruits hanging from them.

If the noise was overwhelming, the sense of urgency was shocking. Chryssi had to clench her teeth to avoid fiddling and jumping around, suppressing the drive to do something, anything, an itch under her coat in places where she couldn't scratch it without doing the very thing she had been warned to never, ever do.

"Pickle, Honey, stop wasting time and come here!" Meadowsweet's voice somehow rung strong and clear over the chaos as Willowbark helped her get the yoke off. "Move and unload the cart, the Oaks and the Ryes should be here soon too, and I want to check their harvest for mildew–"

Donna Copper Horn grabbed Chryssi and lifted her out from the cart. She put Chryssi on her shoulder and said, "Come, little ones. Time to show you your room."

Lulu and Tia jumped out and darted to Donna Copper Horn's side. Ponies around them opened up as the minotaur walked on towards one of the larger doors of the inner court. Master Sottile trailed behind her, shouting a greeting or waving every now and then.

When they entered the building the noise was dampened, and the air became cooler in the half shade. They walked along a corridor with a floor made smooth by hooves, then climbed a ramp of stairs and stopped in front of a heavy wooden door with iron bands. Donna Copper Horn got a key from a satchel hanging from her belt and unlocked it. "Welcome to the city residence of House Sottile. Now let's get you cleaned up. It won't do to present you in front of the council all dusty from the road."

The Hall of Houses was an admirable effort to fuse together the way each tribe built their palaces. A cloud ceiling with currents drawing ever-changing patterns topped a solid stone and wooden room, with thick pillars holding up the sky, and, on the southern side, with shimmering light in the windows, each with a crystal floating in the center of it. Below the windows, seventeen richly embroidered pillows of many colors rested on the marble floor. In front of each pillow, there was a small stone cube with a knot made from three different colored threads hanging from it.

Admirable.

Also messy and disharmonious.

Where stone and cloud met and pushed against each other, lightning danced until it met the copper rods that had been a hasty addition later on. The windows and lights fought to break free of their confines ready to singe and overwhelm, and the air was filled with magical ebbs and flows forced out in channels on the walls and floor, cutting through delicate stonework and reliefs.

And yet it stood.

Sottile was sure he had not been the first to think that. He had had the same thoughts every time he had come in the Hall, no matter if to plead or if to deliberate. He respected many of his peers enough as to be sure they noticed too. It often added a certain tension to assemblies, and even notoriously loud members were known to keep it down a notch.

He often wondered if that had been the intention of the builders.

At his side, Chr–Surprise sneezed.

He knelt on his forelegs and asked, "Are you alright, Surprise?"

After a moment the filly leaned forward and whispered, "This place is weird. It has… It tastes weird and old and a lot of stuff happened and… I don't get it. It's full of flavors and they mix all together and there is a lot of ponies outside and they are waiting. Some of them don't like us and others don't like each other. Why don't they like me? I never met them."

"Well, I guess it's not you, it's me. Some of them don't like me." Sottile smiled. "It's normal, sometimes it happens. It's for those occasions that we have manners and civility. Now remember, you will not understand a lot of the things that will be said when those other ponies enter but don't worry, it's not something you are supposed to know. Be well-behaved, and answer only when somepony asks you something directly. The ponies we are going to meet are very important, and there is a specific way these things have to go. It will probably become pretty boring for you, but be strong and endure it. Do you remember everything we said?"

There was a moment of silence. Her ears turned left and right, her wings unfolded briefly, and then she stood taller, smiled and nodded. "Yes, Master Sottile. I remember. I'm Surprise."

"Very good." It had been a long day, and he had walked a lot. Sottile's back cracked as he stood up, and his knees ached for a moment, but he ignored it. No need to have Surprise worry about things that couldn't be changed. He closed his eyes and thought about a still pool. He didn't expect nasty surprises, but taking any reunion of the heads of the Houses lightly was an invitation to Fate to take an interest.

A door opened and he opened his eyes again.

From the side a procession of ponies entered in silence and walked along the wall to the pillows, each holding a long, thin stick in their mouth. They each sat down on a pillow and faced Sottile until just one place remained empty. Each wore their garb of office. The five unicorns had pectoral cuirasses made from gold or silver, the five pegasi ornate wing-guards, and the six earth ponies donned hats of exquisite, if extravagant, feature.

Miraculously Sottile managed, somehow, to notice that the ongoing spat between House Red Earth and House Ironstone had reached new heights and kept his neutral expression despite the addition of a mechanical clock to House Ironstone's headgear. He didn't dare to look at Surprise's reaction to it, but he hoped she wasn't too overt with it.

A pink unicorn mare with an intricate map of wrinkles telling the story of a long life stood up and brandished a red-topped stick. "Fate has decided that House Sapphire will preside over this council of Houses. I, Sapphire Heart, will hold the responsibility to do so, and herewith I declare my duty to abstain on this vote. Master Sottile, step forward and plead your case."

It was time. Sottile studied the assembly. More boredom than hostility. Good. He took a step forward and said, "During the Summer three years ago, an old friend of mine, Zaymaraa, a traveling Zebra scholar, came to my door with a young pegasus filly she had found in Salt Town, down in the Thousand Reigns. She was very young and my friend couldn't find her family despite her best efforts. It appeared that the filly was all alone in a place almost without ponies. She couldn't even fly, so my friend asked me to take care of her. We passed the next two years trying to understand where her next-of-kin could be, if there still were some, but couldn't find anypony. In the meanwhile the young filly bonded with the other two heirs of the House, becoming a member in all but name. It is for this reason that I, Favella Sottile, Master of Law and Wielder of Philosophy, Head of House Sottile, intend to rectify this last point, and welcome Surprise as a member of my House and my family with all the duties and the obligations that come with that."

A murmuring rose across the council, ebbing back and forth between ponies. Comments whispered to each other, half-told evaluations of the political impact, oblique references to unrelated things used to carry complex messages. It was the song of the political game, and while Sottile couldn't understand what his peers were saying, he could try to grasp the mood by listening to the melody.

Rare Scroll was the oldest unicorn on the council. A cantankerous stallion that made Sottile seem young, and whose continuous existence had given birth to rumors that even death itself had no desire to have anything to do with him. And yet his voice had a certain power, silencing the room. "Master Sottile, couldn't you sire a descendant like anypony else? Your bloodline will die with you, and in place you'll leave a bunch of peasants, bastards, orphans, and a dirty band of whatever else came knocking at your door! Your family is old, have some dignity and knock up a mare."

Lightning cracked against the stone as Swift Breeze opened her impressive wings and growled, "What, adopting a pegasus isn't good enough for you? You old fart, you hadn't anything to say when he adopted an earth pony and a unicorn."

"I did even then, and nopony listened. Frankly, I don't care if the brat is a pegasus or a rock with a mark painted on. I care that the youngster–" Rare Scroll pointed at Sottile "–does what neither Wendigos nor war had accomplished by ending House Sottile."

The wind began to whisper around Swift Breeze. "Ending the House? By adopting a pegasus? Why, you–"

"ENOUGH!" Sapphire Heart's shout pressed down on the ponies almost like a physical force. It took the columns of the hall a few heartbeats to stop ringing with resonant magic. "Grievances and protests will adhere to form, whether you like it or not. Do I have to remind you of the laws of the Concord and the rules of this council?" Her eyes flew over the assembled ponies. "No? Well, good. Then let us proceed. Master Sottile, we recognize your right to adopt ponies into your House as per tradition. Nonetheless, you continue to refuse to sire a blood-descendant even after you became the sole inheritor of your House. This is unusual and will have to be justified."

They had been lucky the first time. The question had hung in the air, but nopony had asked it. "I am, despite Honored Rare Scroll's protests to the contrary, old. It is probably too late for me to sire an inheritor, and even if I was a decade younger, I still have no wife. If I hadn't adopted Celestia and Luna as my scions and Meadowsweet and Millet as wards of House Sottile, then it would truly die with me. But our wise traditions allowed otherwise. House Sottile has a chance to live on."

"And you have done that." Master Pyrite leaned forward, his hat dangerously leaning backward. "And yet you decided to adopt another filly into your House."

Sottile nodded. "I did. Master Pyrite, how many ponies are in your House?"

The earth pony chewed for a moment. "House Ironstone is thirty-six strong if you don't count the wards." He grinned. "I see what you mean. House Red Earth counts fifteen. Maybe they should adopt some unicorns and pegasi too. Would make them useful."

Red Earth Acre snorted. "We are doing fine. House Ironstone, on the other hoof, could do with some fresh blood. Inbreeding is so–"

"I said enough!" Once again the hall reverberated with Sapphire Heart's voice. She looked at the two scowling earth ponies. "We are here to decide on the adoption. We shall talk about Red Earth's and Ironstone's claims, but not now. Your spat will have to wait for the council to be complete." She briefly glanced over to Sottile, just for an instant.

That was a pretty clear sign on where House Sapphire stood on the issue. And it was a message to him. Sapphire Heart wanted something, and if he had to guess it had to do with the Engravers’ guild’s legal control on the creation of light-crystals and with how House Sottile should vote on the issue.

Red Earth Acre and Master Pyrite had caught on too, apparently. They sat down, glared at each other, then Master Pyrite said, "I don't have further questions."

"I do, even if you spineless cowards don't." Rare Scroll snorted. "You can still sire a descendant. Your bloodline dying out… That's madness."

Sottile looked over the heads of the Houses. "I feel no joy in the idea of being the last of my line, but there really isn't much I can do. Fate laughs at the concerns of mortals, and it has seen fit for me that I may be the last of my blood. But I can still make sure that House Sottile will live on in the Concord. If you allow me to adopt Surprise, there will be one of each tribe holding the name. It will be my legacy, and what the Concord stands for."

Sapphire Heart nodded, then said, "Surprise, come forward."

For the first time since it had begun, Sottile dared to look down at his charge. Surprise stepped to his side and gulped. "Yes, Honorable Sapphire Heart?"

"Is everything Master Sottile said true? Do you truly don't know your family?"

Surprise nodded. "I don't know about any of them. I can't remember them, and I didn't even think I was a pony when I was found. And Master Sottile asked me lots and lots of questions and I know he even made griffins ask a lot of questions all around and far away and even they didn't know anything."

"Do you refuse to be adopted in House Sottile?"

"Uhm, no. I like Master Sottile and all the others. They care for me. And Lul– Luna and Celestia are my friends and–and I would like very much to be adopted into House Sottile."

"The council recognizes that there is no barrier on that front." Sapphire Heart turned her attention back to Sottile. "Now, back to the real question. Rare Scroll raised a valid point about the end of the bloodline. Even if the Council does not veto the adoption, this will remain an open issue. Master Sottile, what do you intend to do about it?"

Sottile reviewed briefly what he knew about the ongoing fights. There was a possible solution, but it would be a long sell. It wasn't Harmony, but at least it was equilibrium. "As I said, I am old and I doubt I could sire a foal, but if the council insists, I suppose I could marry into one of the other Houses. House Sottile would probably become practically part of it, which means it would join what it has with the House of my spouse. I would just have to decide which House it should be…"

The sun had set and the moon was well on its way, yet the city had only become louder and more alive.

Out on the street under Chryssi's window, dozens and dozens of ponies were drinking and eating and singing. Nopony was pulling carts around anymore, and the only ones working were those tending to barrels, to cauldrons, or to the embers on which vegetables were sizzling. Different songs rose from every corner, clashing, fighting, and then continuing on their own ways.

Joy and excitement were a thick, invisible fog covering the city, overwhelming everything. Anger, sadness, fear, despair, occasionally they peaked and Chryssi could get a short impression of them, but then they would get swept away again.

It was such a strange contrast with the council.

The door of the room flew open, pulling Chryssi out from her musings. Tia entered with a terracotta jar held afloat in her magic and with a honey-smeared grin on her face. "We are back. Chryssi, there is a zebra selling dried fruits from down south dipped in honey. We brought you some!"

"Ifs fefifios!" added Lulu, chewing and following Tia.

Walls didn't do much for the feeling washing over the city. Tia and Lulu did. They came into the room and suddenly the world became smaller, cozier, more focused. All the important things were right there, and the rest receded to the background, becoming flavor instead of being the whole soup. Chryssi hopped down from the stool and trotted over to Tia who was opening the lid of the jar. "Thank you."

A sticky-looking piece of citron floated up from the jar, a thin, golden thread still binding it to the rest. "I bet you'll like it. It's so sweet. Here…"

Chryssi bit down on the floating piece of fruit. The magic fizzled in her mouth for an instant, and then came the honey. It was sweet and spicy and new and there were mysterious things in there she hadn't tasted before.

"It's awesome, right?" Tia giggled. "So, how did the thing with the council go?"

Chryssi chewed and thought. Lulu sat down on their sides and used a pointed stick to fish out a glistening piece of dried peach.

"It was weird. Master Sottile was so different, and he didn't like it at all. And the ponies in there, it was like they were afraid and worried and angry and smug and a lot of other stuff all at the same time. And they talked a lot, and–" It wasn't easy to put her feelings into words. She had become better at it, better at understanding herself despite never have been able to taste herself. Still, she just had an intuition of what maybe was going on in her, and articulating that was hard. "I…There's a lot of things I don't get."

"That's normal. When we went in front of the council they talked a lot too and we didn't understand it, right Lulu?"

Lulu just nodded, a beatific smile on her face as she was chewing.

A nut floated up. "We got to study some of the things, though. You'll get there too. So, what didn't you get?" Tia looked at the nut, then snapped forward and ate it.

"So, there was a lot of fighting. like, really a lot. I thought they couldn't do that because you get the Judges to judge you if you do that." Chryssi licked her lips. Cinnamon, that was one of the things in the honey. Which was strange, because she thought Willowbark just used it when somebody was sick. It wasn't bad, though.

"Right, fighting. You can do that in the councils if you follow the rules. The Heads of the guilds can fight too when they are there, and the merchants, and the weather flocks. They fight there so they don't fight outside. Master Sottile told us that it was just like drinking laurel potion when things hurt. You can manage somehow, but it doesn't solve the problem." Tia looked over her shoulder, then leaned forward. "Millet says it's Wendigo bait so that if we are lucky they come and take the council all away and solve the problem."

Lulu gulped down and began fishing for new prey in the jar. "Meadowsweet hit him on the head with the ladle when he said that, so I think we shouldn't say that too loud. And Master Sottile is there too, I don't want him to get taken away to the ice-wastes."

"I don't think they would take Master Sottile." Chryssi leaned forward and spotted something that looked like a piece of lemon peel. She gestured Lulu to pass the stick and tried to spear it. "He didn't taste like he wanted to fight. The old unicorn was different. I think he liked it. And he also…" She pulled out her honey-covered catch, but suddenly she didn't feel much like eating it. "Tia, he said things like that I shouldn't become part of the House, and he believed it. He was very old and I think he knew a lot of things too. What if he is right?"

Tia and Lulu froze. They looked at each other in the eyes, then Tia pushed the jar to the side and grabbed Chryssi in a hug. "If you don't deserve to become part of the House, then I didn't deserve it and Lulu didn't either. You know? We had been part of the house for three years when I found you. I was adopted too."

"Me too." Lulu scooted forward and joined the hug. "My mom was a mare of the night. I don't remember much about her, but I know she was very strong. Still, I was often hungry and some other foals called me a bastard. And then one day she told me to go with Master Sottile."

"My mom and dad were earth-ponies, and I had, like, eight brothers. They worked in the fields, and I wasn't very useful there. Master Sottile came one morning and talked with them, and then I went away with him. He had already taken Lulu in by then."

"I kind of remember it." Lulu patted Chryssi on the head. "I wasn't hungry, but I was afraid that Tia would take it all away."

"And I was afraid that Lulu would be like my brothers and that I wouldn't be useful at all to Master Sottile." Tia chuckled. "We had no idea what we were going to do. It was all confusing. When we arrived on the Farm, Donna Copper Horn took us and made us take a bath, and then we started to learn to read and write."

"And then Master Sottile adopted us, and some cranky old unicorn said some mean stuff. But Master Sottile did it anyway."

"You see, Chryssi, you and us, we are kinda similar. More or less. If the cranky old unicorn could be right about you, then he would have been right about us too, and he wasn't. You deserve to be with us, and you're gonna be our sister, and nopony's gonna stop it.

Chryssi leaned back and looked Tia in the eyes. "Really?"

"Really." Tia patted her on the back. "Now let's finish the fruit. We got that, and that can't be wrong, ever."

Chapter 21

"We should go to the Harvest games. At least in the morning. They're fun, and there's the eating contest. Maybe we can join in this time." Luna grabbed one of the pieces of bread, still warm and slightly steaming, and smothered it in cheese.

Chryssi looked up from her bowl filled with oatmeal and dried fruit.

"They won't let us join,” Tia replied. “They never let us join. We tried every other year, and it was always the same." A loaf of stale bread floated up, broke into pieces, and landed in Tia's bowl of hot milk. "It's just for adults. Which is unfair, I know, because with Chrys–Surprise here we would win, but it's not like we can do anything about it." She spooned in a dollop of honey. "And honestly, I don't think it's fun to watch other ponies stuff themselves and not be able to join in. Had enough of that when I was little."

Luna gulped down bread. "It's not the same thing. The contest is fun, and I bet there will be ponies joining who can't handle it."

"I don't know. I'm not sure going to watch ponies getting ill is such a good idea." Tia nodded, clearly attempting to be subtle, in Chryssi's direction.

Despite the lack of competence in her attempt at subterfuge, Chryssi didn't seem to have caught on. Still, her sister had made a good point. Luna considered the issue while she bit down on her bread. It was Chryssi's first Spring Festival. Having her feel bad for ponies didn't sound like a good idea. "Alright, there's other stuff to see. Do you know where the Court of Laughter is?"

"I asked around. There's just that one mare we saw yesterday, but ponies did say she was good. She's in the Eastern Sun Square, and that's where the dyers have set up their market this year. That should be fun, and I think we can talk Donna Copper Horn into bringing us there. The copper-smiths and bronze traders are right there in an alley." Tia's spoon dipped into her bowl. "That will take care of the morning, at least. I think in the afternoon we can go watch the guilds take in apprentices."

Chryssi emptied her bowl and reached for the bread. "Why do we want to see that?"

"It's kind of fun," Luna said. More cheese was needed and soon added on her bread. Getting fresh cheese was such a rare luxury that indulging in it was, in Luna's opinion, a moral duty. "The new journey-ponies are proclaimed and the masters take in new apprentices, and there is a lot of music and ceremony and all those things. Master Sottile says it's so the guilds can show off how well-off they are, and if there’s a spat, they try to up-one each other. It's where the bards get most of their money. Fidelis told me so when he complained about all the coins the Masons wasted last year."

"Fidelis always complains. I think it's because singing hurts his ears." Tia picked up her bowl and drank the remaining milk. As she put it down she sported a new mustache even whiter than her coat. She glanced over the desolation of the decimated table and then fixated on the last nut-bread loaf.

"Uhm, where is Fidelis?" Chryssi looked around. "I can't really feel him. Or taste him. And Meadowsweet left very early and Millet too." She stuck her tongue out. "There's just Donna Copper Horn and Master Sottile." She grimaced. "And Master Sottile tastes really tired and… kind of weird."

"Yeah, he gets tired every time." Luna followed Tia's eyes, then squinted at the loaf.

"He doesn't like the whole Council stuff very much. When we get home he will break out his spirits and then he will rant about the stupidity of it all. You can learn some nifty words when you listen to him then. I had to look a lot of them up and do some research to figure them out, but it's really fun."

Chryssi scratched her head. "Why does he do it?"

"He has to. And he says that not doing it would be worse, and so he can at least complain." Luna tensed. Old instincts kicked in. "A bit like Fidelis does, I think. He goes to the mason's guild, stays there a lot, and then complains about stuff after."

Tia looked sideways.

Luna wouldn't fall for it. Her hoof struck for the loaf.

Tia reached it at the same time.

They looked each other in the eyes, metaphorical sparks flying between them.

"I don't get it." Chryssi sagged. "Another thing I don't get. There's so much of that. I… sometimes I feel stupid."

Tia pulled a bit on the loaf. Not enough to break a piece away, but the message was clear. "Don't feel stupid, I don't get it either. Mostly because Millet told me that the guilds had pretty wild celebrations and that he kind of envied them a lot and had to do a lot of stuff himself to get something like that."

The crust of the bread creaked. Chryssi glanced at Tia. "Stuff like what?"

"We don't know. Meadowsweet hit him with a rolled-up scroll before he could say, and then they left giggling." Luna considered her next move. Letting go was out of the question, she wouldn't cede to her sister. Pulling was a hazardous strategy, and could lead to breaking away an intolerably small piece of nut-bread. "They do that a lot. I think they do celebrate, though just at night. During the day there is a lot of talking and deciding stuff and getting into scuffles with other guilds, at least according to Fidelis. I think he doesn't like that part."

Chryssi tapped her chin. "Oh, I see. I don't get why he's in a guild, though."

"He has to. Can't be a mason without the guild. Or a dyer. Or a baker." In an instant, Tia's second hoof was on the loaf. She held now far more than half of it. "Pretty much everyone has to be in a guild if they’re not a farmer, a mage, an important representative of a House, or a merchant. And during the Spring Festival, all the Guilds want as many of their own as possible in the city, because they bicker a lot and want to show off."

Luna cleared her throat, reached out to grab more bread, and then, in the best imitation of Meadowsweet's voice she could do, said, "There I was, going through the Ledger with Canola of House Brassica, and suddenly the carpenters and the potters have a fight, and then they band together to go in a brawl with the farriers, hit upon the coopers and end up drunk in front of the Great Granary, all the while making a racket and not letting me work. Everypony knows that the proper time for a drunken fight is after sundown. It's a matter of common courtesy."

Chryssi looked at the bread and raised a hoof. "So what will we do in the afternoon?"

Luna tried to grab more of the loaf. Tia reacted and twisted. The bread broke down halfway through, and both fillies pulled their prize close to their chests.

Tia glared at her sister, Luna glared back, and both said, "She's not gonna choose it!"

The little square was filled up to the brim despite the stage being little more than a couple of planks over some barrels. And yet the mare up there, in a billowing cape and colorful hat, managed to make it seem like the grandest of scenes.

In a fluid movement, while balancing on the tip of a sword, the mare removed her headgear and a swarm of butterflies made of colorful flames flew over the audience. Excited screams and gasping filled the air, as the performer threw herself into somersault and landed with a bow.

Copper Horn had to admit, that mare knew her craft like few others. Her eyes shifted towards the audience and her charges therein. The fillies were transfixed by the show and gave little indication of wanting to move at all. Good.

All around the square, other mares and stallions kept an eye on the little ones. Copper Horn had to force herself back to the business at hand. Soon it would be her turn to make sure nothing happened, and it wouldn't do if by then she still hadn't done what she wanted to do.

The sunlight danced on the polished bronze artifacts laid out on the stall. Bracelets refitted for forelegs, amulets, medallions, chains, each and every piece in the eclectic collection of very high quality. At one end, secured by chains, were even some Minoian swords.

Her fingertips ran across the decorations of a bracelet. The craft was decent, the material promised it would last for eternity. The metallurgist clearly knew their art. She could buy two of them, for the fillies. No, three, she needed three bracelets. Not identical, but similar enough to show a connection.

And then she saw it.

She hadn't expected to see one here. She hadn't, if she was honest, expected to ever see one again.

Her hands reached to her horn, brushed over the etchings on it, and for a moment she felt a bit of shame. The borders were smooth from attrition, the patterns irregular, the depth inconsistent. She had tried to use Willowbark's knives and Fidelis' tools, but it wasn't the same. It was wrong.

The Minoian carver she was looking at was almost shining. It was a little masterwork, clean blade with a thick, triangular profile. Etchings marking the forger’s family history on the top of it, vines crawling along the handle to offer a better grip. It was laying in the middle of the knives and tools, out of place, almost resplendent with its own light.

Maybe she could…

Copper Horn closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. She grabbed another bracelet and then asked, "How much for these?"

Copper Horn waved at the fillies as Millet herded them towards the Oak Square. She was sure he would skirt around his promise to get them something reasonable to eat and allow them to lunch on something scandalously sweet and exotic.

It was alright, for once.

As the last tuft of pink tail disappeared around the corner Copper Horn turned around and bowed through the door of the tavern. As soon as she closed the door behind her, the pandemonium from outside was replaced with an equivalent pandemonium inside. A mix of torches, candles, and crystals illuminated the large room, the smell of wax and oil mixing with sweat and cheap beer. A group of guards sat in a corner singing, while laughter and curses rose from the other end where dice rolled and coins changed hoof.

Copper Horn straightened, then stooped again after feeling her horns scrape on the ceiling. When her eyes finally got used to the light, she saw a lonely Master Sottile sitting at a table against the wall, a cup and a ewer before him.

Taking care not to step on a pony or kick them, Copper Horn made her way to the figure and sat down across from Master Sottile. She reached out to the cup, took a sniff at it, and put it back. "Barley wine? That bad?"

Master Sottile let out a big sigh as his magic grabbed the ewer and poured more wine into the cup. Even in the low light Copper Horn could see the barleycorns floating on the surface of the brew. "It is like it always has been. The same ongoing feuds and fights, metaphorical stabs in the back, curses uttered under the breath, betrayal, endless negotiations. And just to add insult to injury, there’s pressure from some parties for me to take a wife. So yes, that bad."

As the innkeeper looked in their direction, Copper Horn pointed to the ewer, raised a finger, and then pointed at herself. The innkeeper nodded and Copper Horn turned once again to Master Sottile. "And your choice of dwelling before the afternoon session was dictated by your wish to console yourself or to try and avoid your peers for a while?"

"Mostly for avoiding my honored peers. And to find a bit of space for myself. How did you find me?"

Copper Horn shrugged. "I know you. Well, that and a bit of luck. It was either here, in the Broken Jug, or in the Fat Mare. I guessed right. I also think you may need a clear mind, so I'm not sure drinking here is a good idea. From what you told me, it seems there are still open issues."

"As if the others will be sober. Well, Rare Scroll and Master Pyrite may be. For some obscure reason, they seem to like the council sessions." Master Sottile sighed. "Anyway, no need to worry, this stuff has been watered down. Can't tell it from the smell, but you can taste it. I didn't want to risk ending today betrothed, not when I still have one or two paths to stop that."

"And if you can't avoid it? I'm all for keeping the details of the farm private, but you always have to consider the worst possible case."

The aura of Master Sottile's magic came to life around the ewer once again, then flickered out. He sighed. "Can't do that. Can't risk that. There are a couple of families I trust, but not enough at this point. I'm too old to storm a temple to get the fillies back as Master Cloud Chaser did for Sunlight and Starshine, and I don't want to move everything. We are in a far too delicate and critical phase."

"We already took risks. Far too many, in my opinion. And moving wouldn't be too hard on the fillies, I think. They never seemed to get along too well with other foals anyway."

Master Sottile looked into his mug. Uproarious laughter came from the table where dice rolled. The guards cheered for something, then broke into a song about how pegasi made it rain. It was quite dirty and only vaguely acquainted with the concept of melody.

"Donna Copper Horn, we can't do that." Master Sottile sighed. "Only we and another two circles have still a chance to match the prophecy. We can't have the cult harbor the Alicorns, and if we leave, if we abandon everything, I don't think we will have a chance to fulfill the predictions. No, I have to find a way to keep us out at the margins. If there is no other way out, I'll have to swallow my pride and get a couple of Houses to repay old, old favors."

A young mare with visible bags under her eyes approached their table, carrying a tray in her mouth with a ewer and a large cup on it. Copper Horn took it, nodded, and put a copper coin on her outreached hoof. She filled her cup while the mare left and said, "Considering all this, was adopting Surprise the wisest course of action?"

A dry chuckle escaped Master Sottile. "Most prudent? No, certainly not. But it was the right thing to do. We will see if that made it wise."

Copper Horn drank from her cup. It was bitter, and it had been watered down quite a lot. "Right. We will see."

Millet bit down on Radish's tail and pulled him back from the road, stopping yet another run for whatever had captured his attention at that moment. "No, Radish. Stay with me if you want to see the festival."

"But Pa–"

"Nope, not hearing it. Stay with me, and if you want to see something, tell me first. If you run away one more time I'm gonna leave you with Fidelis to look at rocks all day. Do you want to look at rocks all day?"

Radish looked down. "No…"

"Good, then remember what I told you, alright?" Millet hoped that it would stick this time. It hadn't the twelve previous times, but maybe with the added threat, it could give him a little more time between each inevitable scare, shock, or neck-breaking dash to get one of the foals out of some kind of mess.

"We should see the poetry challenge! We already saw the guards train last year." There was the kind of indignation in Luna's voice that courtiers and rabble-rousers everywhere would be jealous of.

Celestia on the other hoof practically radiated certainty. It was admirable, in Millet's professional opinion. "But this year they have a new training exercise with pegasi and earth ponies all training together. I bet it's spectacular, we can't miss it."

"You say that every year. No, this time we're going to see the poets."

Holding Radish in his foreleg, Millet turned around. He guessed he should be grateful. If they were fighting, it meant they weren't brewing up some unforeseen and novel kind of trouble.

"But they are boring! The good ones declaim all the same classics, and the bad ones make up new poems."

All he needed was some kind of distraction. Something to keep them all busy and engaged just until Donna Copper Horn came back. It was becoming painfully clear that he lacked the right kind of authority for the situation.

And then he saw his salvation.

Smiling from ear to ear, Millet said, "Radish, fillies, I know what we are going to do."

The black shape rose from the shadows. Long, thin legs unfolded on the side of the trembling ponies. One, two, three, four. It was like a cage made of darkness. Five, six. The last escape routes were cut off.

Blue Flower gasped. Gone was her reckless optimism. Nothing silly escaped her lips.

Rhubarb hugged her. There were no clever quips, nor the knowing look of when he had a clever plan that would pull him and his mistress out from a mess of her own creation.

All around the sides, black shapes shuffled in an indistinct mass, chittering, ebbing, and flowing. And then the body attached to the gigantic legs that had trapped the two ponies rose. It was at least twice as large as any of them, so black it seemed to devour the light, full of sharp edges and with all the wrong proportions. A grotesquely deformed belly hung from it, white fangs flashed in its maw, and evil green eyes stared down at its victims.

It clicked as it looked at Blue Flower and Rhubarb. Then it lowered its head and said, "Oh my, what do we have here? Two little morsels lost their way? How unfortunate for them. Tell me, little bun, what brought you into my home?"

Rhubarb was very smart. He had shown it again and again during their adventures, using witty words and feigning stupidity to get them out of trouble. He stood up, bowed, and said, "We just lost our way, oh great one, and then we found this cave. We were chased away from our village because of–"

"Don't lie to me!" the thing screamed. The black shapes at the sides became even more agitated. "Never lie to me. I can smell lies, and if you lie to me again I will eat you first. Or I will let my spawn eat you if I don't like your taste. They eat everything." It rose up to its full height. "Now tell me, why are you here?"

"We–" Blue Flower wiped away her tears. "We are here to find the heart of the Grand Mage trapped in an egg so that he will rediscover love and let the Princess go!"

The thing cackled. "Oh, that little thing? Then you are in the right place. How lucky you are, I have it. Or maybe you are not lucky at all. Tell me, do you know who I am?" She looked right at Rhubarb. "And remember, no lies."

The stallion looked left and right, then lowered his head. "We know who you are."

"So tell me, who am I?"

"You are the Queen of the Changelings."

The Queen laughed, but there was no joy, just malice.

All around her foals giggled, cried out, screamed, hollered, and hid behind each other as the on the stage Blue Flower and Rhubarb delayed their fate by promising to create a recipe that would make them taste better. Rhubarb never lied, skirting along the border of truth while he planned some way out. Blue Flower was silly, making a mess and exasperating the Queen while she looked for outrageous ingredients.

There were cheers when Rhubarb managed to grab the egg after putting the Queen and her court of false ponies to sleep. They gasped when Blue Flower tried to sacrifice herself to allow her faithful servant to escape with their prize.

It was a splendid story, told with great mastery. The sea of emotions whirling all around was a testimony to that.

And yet all that Chryssi could do was sit and stare horrified at the puppets and at the tale they portrayed.

Each time the Queen threatened the heroes, every time she unleashed a new horror, whenever one of the false ponies, a black shape with two blue gems for eyes crept along, it was like a stab, like a new crack opening in her chitin. It felt like an accusing stare at something deep inside her.

A chase through the corridors of the cave. A formless monster pressing down on the ponies, with just the shadow hinting at how it looked.

Chryssi's mouth felt dry. She wanted to look away, but she couldn't.

And when finally Rhubarb stood in front of three statues of Blue Flower and the Queen, with cruel glee, told him that if he didn't recognize which one was his petrified mistress then she would keep her heart forever in the vault under the mountain, something broke.

That thing, that Queen, she was just a malicious monster driven by hunger and avidity. Something playing with shapes and forms just for the fear it provoked, just because it could. And for some reason, Chryssi felt as if she was watching in a crooked mirror.

With a wail Chryssi shot up, almost blind for the tears running down her cheeks. She had to go away, anywhere but here.

The foals around her were all turning to look at her. They would all see her. They would recognize her. With a flap of her wings to gain some speed, she turned and dashed between ponies towards the edge of the square. And an instant later she disappeared in the alleys of the city.

Luna dodged around one of the adults, jumped over a confused colt laying on his side after having been run over, and skidded on the cobblestones trying to turn the corner into the alley.

Tia hadn't had all those problems. She had simply charged right through foals and adults without even getting slowed down.

Once again Luna cursed being so small. She was the earth-pony. She was supposed to be the avalanche going through everything and not getting stopped. Instead, she had to avoid a trio of chatting ponies sitting around a bucket.

She swore under her breath, looked back over her shoulder at the group, and crashed into something soft.

She rolled a few steps, entangled in whatever she had just hit. When she stopped turning, she saw Tia trying to stand up while looking frantically around.

Luna pulled her right foreleg out from below her sister. "Tia, where did Ch–Surprise go?"

"I don't know! I lost her." Despair painted on her face, her voice cracking, Tia stretched her neck and looked around. "What happened? Why did she run? The city is so big, she could get lost forever! Did… Was it us fighting?"

Finally standing up and shaking her legs one at a time, Luna looked back to the square. "I don't think so, we do that all the time. Maybe it was something another foal said." The puppeteers were calling to them, ready to continue with the show. Millet was pressing through the crowd and had almost reached Luna and Tia. She squinted at the confused mass of colts and fillies, and her eyes narrowed. "If it was another foal, there will be reckoning."

"Doesn't matter now. We have to find Surprise. She's all alone out there." Tia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then said. "We have to find Donna Copper Horn, we have to call everyone and look for Surprise."

There were ponies everywhere, along each street, down each alley, every single one of them living their life fully. The storm of emotions that had felt so exciting and intoxicating just a short time before now became oppressive and foul-tasting.

Chryssi had no idea where she was running to. She just wanted to leave the horrible truth behind and be alone.

A whiff of love from the right pushed her into an alley. A wall of friendship herded her along a square. A river of happiness blocked her path and forced her to jump up on a pile of boxes.

She didn't know where she was. She just had to go away.

There was stone and wood and ponies in every direction. Then she saw it, a little hole of solitude, a small refuge. A flap, a jump, and a dodged cart later, she was in a small nook formed by a wagon parked against the corner of a large, windowless building. The sounds of the city were weakened, and the miasma of emotions abated, became endurable.

Chryssi leaned against the wall taking deep breaths, the cold stones giving her an anchor. She closed her eyes, the images of the puppet-show playing again and again in her mind. She remembered every little detail, the crude features on the puppets over-layered with the story she had seen and, more importantly, felt through all the other foals surrounding her.

And yet that wouldn't have been an issue. She had learned how stories worked. No, the problem was–

"Told you it was the crazy filly from the creek. See? Hey, crazy filly, where are those other crazy fillies?"

The voice, she had heard it before. She opened her eyes and saw them at the end of the cart, peeking in one over the other. Two foals. The twins. They had been at the creek too. They had stuffed mud in her mane. "I–"

"What are you doing there?" The upper one looked in the other direction. "Are you trying to do another trap-thing?"

Chryssi wanted to be alone. She needed to be alone. "No, I… You–"

"Doing a trap thing would be stupid," the lower one said. "We found you, so it's not a trap anymore. And Clay's not here." She gasped. "Did you want to make a trap for us?"

A trap. Chryssi didn't want to prepare a trap. Chryssi was trapped. They had trapped her.

The upper one glared at Chryssi. "If you want to fight we can fight, but you would lose. Even with the other crazy fillies. Our brothers are right out here."

They wanted to fight her. Chryssi felt hostility. It was there. It was all around her. It came from every side. It poisoned the air, it itched under her skin. "No! No fight! Leave me be!"

The twins looked at each other. The lower one took a step forward, blocking the exit completely. "Uhm, are you alright?"

What had Tia said? Scare them, right. But Fidelis had said that you shouldn't make a threat that you wouldn't follow through with. But she was in a trap. The wheel of the cart pressed on Chryssi side’s. The wall pushed down on her. Something moved deep in her guts.

The filly took another step towards her. "Hey, are you feeling well? Chanterelle, I think she's sick. She has a weird color."

Scare them, chase them away, break free, bite, chew. And then once again, the picture of the Queen flashed in front of her. Chryssi screamed, "NO!", and pushed upwards.

The stairs were low and tight. Copper Horn had to squeeze herself through, her shoulders rubbing on the walls, her horns scratching the ceiling. She didn't like it. At all.

She reached the door of the cellar and pulled it open. The air inside was cold and smelled of mold and wood, of dust and old wine. The room itself was hidden in deep shadows, the sparse blades of light coming through the boarded-up openings at the end of chutes. The sound of the city was nothing more than a murmur here, making the cellar an island of peace.

Copper Horn's eyes took a little while to adapt, slowly transforming the monolithic sea of shadow first into a collection of shapes, and then adding details each passing heartbeat.

Dust tickled her nostrils. Copper Horn snorted and called out, "Surprise, it's me, Donna Copper Horn. Come out, little one."

There was rustling in a corner and something ran into hiding. Copper Horn's ears flicked. Just a rat. "I know you are here. Please, come out. I'm not angry at you–" Her voice dipped and she took on the tone known to educators everywhere "–but I will be very disappointed if you keep hiding. And the more you keep me waiting, the more disappointed I will become."

She considered if it was time to cross her arms and start tapping her hoof, just as a thin voice rose from one of the darker corners of the cellar. "I… it's better if you leave me here."

"I don't think so, Surprise. Now come, we have to return to the others."

"No. I can't do that." There was some shuffling and a whimper. "I can't come back. I'm dangerous. I don't want to hurt Tia and Lulu."

Whatever answer Copper Horn had expected, it wasn't that. "That's–Don't be silly, little one. I have no idea why you would think that, but you don't have to worry about it. Celestia and Luna would be very sad if you didn't come back."

There was a little stomp. "I can't! I'm dangerous. I can't come back!"

"That's not–"

"And you know it too." The words were almost hissed. "You know I'm dangerous. You think I'm dangerous. I can taste it! No, no, I'll stay away and… and… and I'll find a cave somewhere far away and then I'll stay there and you'll be safe."

Right, tasting emotions was a thing. Maybe even something more, if she could tell as much. Maybe not. Maybe emotions betrayed her in some way. Copper Horn closed her eyes. No time for flights of fancy. She had to gather her wits and bring some semblance of order to her mind if she wanted to fix this issue. And yet little Chrysalis was right. Copper Horn thought that she was indeed dangerous.

A low, barely audible sniffle came from the dark corner. And clarity came to Copper Horn.

"Surprise, can I come to you? You were right, I think you can be dangerous, but…" She opened her eyes and tried to spy into the shadows. "Look, I think we have to talk."

"But–but I'm dangerous."

Copper Horn sighed. "Yes, you are. And so am I too. Please, let me come. I want to talk to you. I need to talk to you. You know that."

The muffled sounds of life in the city were all that could be heard. Shouts and cries, the rolling of wheels, the scraping of hooves, it all meshed in an almost uniform ebb and flow of sound. Copper Horn couldn't avoid thinking about the distant breaking of waves on a shore. For a moment she missed the smell of brine, the wind whipping her face, the sand-grains scratching on her nose.

Chrysalis' voice brought her back to the present. "Alright. But I… I kinda messed up, and…"

"Whatever happened, we will fix it. Don't worry, little one." Copper Horn lowered her head and pressed herself through the door. The ceiling in the cellar was even lower, forcing her to walk bowed. She reached the corner from where she had heard the filly's voice. There was a broken barrel and a pile of empty, and probably moldy, jute sacks. From below it, two green eyes peered out.

"How… how did you find me?"

Copper Horn sat down on the side of the barrel and passed her hands over her horns, removing the dust and debris hanging on them. "Well, we were looking for you and a pretty distressed filly came up to us, Chanterelle, I think was her name, and told us that she saw you fly away and she was very worried. Well, I followed her directions and then I asked questions. Ponies answer me when I ask questions. It wasn't too difficult to follow you here." She snorted. "Although, to be honest, this was the third cellar I looked into."

"Oh." The form shifted under the sacks. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize, little one. Now, why don't you tell me what happened?"

"I discovered what I am."

"Oh, did you?" Copper Horn leaned against the wall. "That's a surprise, Master Sottile never figured it out. But that sounds like a good thing, right?"

"No, it's not. I'm dangerous." Chrysalis sighed, then continued, her voice serious like never before, at least as far as Copper Horn could remember. "I'm a changeling."

Copper Horn closed her eyes. "Sounds a bit far fetched, little one. Changelings are just something out of stories."

"But it makes sense. I'm all black and weird and do this stuff that makes Lulu sick and then I eat everything and–and–and then there's the thing that I'm a fake pony and I don't know where I come from and I like caves and stuff and changelings live in there and–" Chrysalis sniffled. "–and I'm dangerous and I can't go back to Tia and Lulu. I don't want to hurt them."

Life was strange. It threw one in the most unexpected situations and tended to laugh at the plans mortals dared to make. It also had an ugly habit of unearthing the past every now and then to drag one through it with malicious glee.

And yet, once in a while, maybe it did it for some form of Good.

"Little one, let me tell you a secret. Well, not really a secret. Master Sottile and the others know everything, but Celestia and Luna don't. I am trusting you, please don't tell them." Copper Horn pinched the bridge of her muzzle. "Can I trust you?"

"But they are my friends!"

"Yes, but it's not your secret to share. When the time comes, I will tell them, same as I'm about to tell you about it. Do you understand?"

The jute shifted once more. "Yes."

Copper Horn nodded. "Good." She took a deep breath. "When Master Sottile found me, I was on the brink of death. Hunger was clawing my innards and my wounds were festering. I don't remember much of it, except that I was, for the first time in a long while, at peace."

"But… you were hungry!" Two emerald eyes looked out between the folds of fabric. "How could you be at peace when you were hungry?"

"I hope that you will never truly understand, little one. I was at peace for two reasons. I was free, and I was about to pay penance for what I had done in my life. You see, when I was young I was at the head of a herd of minotaurs, the Iron-Back Stampede, down on the south-western coast. We prowled it up and down, extorting tribute and raiding those unwilling or incapable of paying.

"The life itself, at least at the beginning, wasn't that bad, or at least I thought so. Raiding bands were a fact of life, something as normal as storms coming in from the sea. I even got married to a bull who was far too good and kind for me. We had two daughters, and if I had been just a bit more kind or wise I could have had a decent, if not exactly honest, life. But that was not to be.

"Me and my maul, we were famous. My name was whispered to the little ones to strike fear in their hearts, and merchants would pray to the spirits that they kept me away from them. I basked in it. I mistook terror for respect and grew crueler each year. I took what I wanted, and there was nothing that could stop me. That is, nothing until they sold me out."

Dry-heaving interrupted Copper Horn. She looked down to Chrysalis, who was shivering under the jute. "Are you alright, little one?"

"I–bleargh–I'm fine. It's just…"

Copper Horn nodded. "Right, you can taste emotions. Sometimes I forget it. Do you think you can make it to the end?"

After a brief moment of silence, Chrysalis answered, "Yes."

"Good. I will try to rein myself in." Copper Horn took a deep breath. "If you are cruel and petty you can't expect loyalty. Keep that always in mind. I'm not angry at my old band. I understand it. Still, what followed were hard years, and I went from fighting for my greed to fighting for my life as a slave. Nothing changed in the violence, just for whom I was doing it.

"Maybe I will tell you the whole story sometime when you're grown up and all. For the moment it's enough for you to know that after years I began to understand. I made friends and lost them. I thought about what I had done, and how I had destroyed what I had with my own hands. The loneliness gnawed at me. The things I had had and never appreciated – love, family – their absence became a great abyss in my heart. In the end, I couldn't take it anymore. I knew I couldn't regain what I had lost, but at least I could die free. I escaped and fled north, certain that I would be chased down and killed."

"And then?"

The jute had fallen back, leaving Chrysalis' black head uncovered. A strip of white fur ran down one side, becoming broader on the neck. Copper Horn reached into the broken barrel and pulled the filly out. Her disguise had failed in part, leaving her as a strange amalgamation of shiny black plates, white coat, and the occasional feather.

"Master Sottile was roaming the southern borders of the Concord at the time, looking for some old scrolls that would help him and some friends understand a certain prophecy. He found me, more dead than alive, and nursed me back to health." Copper Horn passed a hand through Chrysalis' green and blonde mane. "He listened to my whole story, to each horrible detail, to each of my crimes. And when I had finished he told me about Harmony, and how I could become a better being and save myself from my past."

Chrysalis put a hoof on Copper Horn's chest and looked up at her. "And then you got better?"

"Sadly, no." Copper Horn shook her head. "I followed him because I felt I owed him that much, but I didn't get better for many years. I didn't think there was a chance to atone for what I had done, least of all being forgiven for it."

"But–but you're good now!"

"Maybe, or maybe I'm simply trying. I don't know for sure." Copper Horn lifted Chrysalis to eye-height. "I can't go back to my husband and my daughters. I did no good to them, and if they knew on the coast that I was still alive they would be in great danger, even after all these years. I know that they are living a peaceful life, I've had Giosualdo check on them whenever he's down there. But despite everything, I found a family up here. I'm not sure I deserve it, but the others seem convinced I do. So you, little one, you who didn't do anything wrong, certainly have a right to it. You are dangerous, but you also care, which is so much more than what I can say about myself when I was young."

Chrysalis looked into her eyes. The little muzzle scrunched. "I could hurt somebody. I can bite stuff, and I'm all hard and pointy in places."

"Then you'll have to be careful, little one. And don't let my worries weigh down on you, they come from old habits." Copper Horn put the filly back down. "I don't know if there is such a thing as changelings and if you are one of them, but even if that is the case ... well, Master Sottile doesn't think there is such a thing as being inherently bad and he has far more wisdom than either of us."

For a while, there was just the distant murmuring of the city. Chrysalis sat there, chewing her lip, her eyes tracing the lines in the stones of the floor. When she finally looked up again, Copper Horn could see the change. "I will be careful. And if you worry about something that I did, tell me please." Chrysalis leaned forward and hugged Copper Horn, her little legs barely reaching the minotaur's sides. "And you are good now. I know it. I can taste it."

Copper Horn leaned forward and patted the filly on the head. "If you say so, little one." She smiled. "I promise I will tell you if you do something that makes me worry. Now change back into Surprise, will you? The others are running ragged by now, and it's time for us to go back to them and give them peace of mind."

It wasn't that the festival started early, it was more that it never really stopped. The ponies from the farm had partied through the night and were consuming what food remained in an early first breakfast. By then the bakers, fire-master, and dung-ponies of Everfree Haven had risen and had been at work preparing for the day.

The merchants had been the next trying to get the best places. The most desirable were those near a bakery or an inn, but far away from one of the common houses. Stalls were put up, wares prepared, and young foals were promised trinkets and sweets to run around and do little commissions.

Celestia knew it because, for one of the only two days in the year, she had gotten up before sunrise and looked out the window to admire the breathing and sweating of the city. It was fascinating and mesmerizing, and if one listened carefully then there was always the chance to learn fascinating new words from those workers encountering all the little annoyances of life.

It was just one such momentous occasion. According to the comments from the assembled seemingly entertained ponies at the entry of the alley, a dung-cart was being blocked by a snoring pony in the middle of the street. Behind the cart, there was apparently a merchant, and she was very miffed and feared that the stench would contaminate her wares. What was truly educational, though, was the exchange of opinions about the virtues of the merchant, the cart-driver, and mostly the sleeping blockade. Celestia didn't know all the words used, but going by the context it had something to do with a pony's ancestry, some farm animals, a compost heap and, and this part admittedly baffled her a bit, the collected works of Luscious Prose the Poet.

Celestia tried to keep track of all the implied relationships and all the novel usages of words she heard, planning to look up Luscious Prose, when a mighty yawn interrupted her train of thought. She waved her hoof and hissed, "Shhhh! It's getting to the good part."

The tirade petered out, and it seemed that somepony had finally kicked the obstruction awake. Celestia sighed. It had been getting really good, but she supposed she shouldn't be greedy. She turned to a blinking Chryssi and said, "Good morning!"

Chryssi sat down at her side, smacked her lips, then tilted her head. "What's so funny?"

More and more ponies were waking up, and the city whispered. Soon it would roar with laughter and delight. Celestia sat down and pointed at the window. "The city is fun. It's alive and full of ponies, and there's always new stuff. I like it, I like to watch it, to listen to it. I'd love to sit in the middle of the city and simply let it go wild around me."

"Uhm, it's nice, but I think I like the farm better. It…it has a clean taste." Chryssi rubbed her eyes. "Don't you like the farm?"

"No, no, I like the farm." Celestia shook her head, then looked out of the window again. Two pegasi passed, stopped for an instant to wave, then dashed off. "But the city is something else. It's… The city is always awake. there's always something happening. There are so many different ponies, and each one is doing stuff. It's a shame that Master Sottile's mansion burned down."

"It did?"

"Yeah, Meadowsweet told me. It was many years ago. It's how House Sottile almost disappeared. Master Sottile was somewhere else, traveling. He never wanted to rebuild it for some reason."

Chryssi shuffled a bit and sat down on Celestia's side. "Oh. I didn't know that. Do you think Master Sottile is sad about it."

"I guess. I would be." Chryssi was warm, and as Celestia felt a shiver run down her back, she leaned into her friend. "I never asked him. It seems a very sad story, and I don't want him to be sad. Maybe we can ask him sometimes when it's the right moment. Can you try to watch out for it?"

The dung-cart came out from the alley and turned westward along the main street. The merchant followed and went to one of the stalls opposite the granary. Crystal bottles filled with potions flew out of her saddlebags and landed on the shelves. Chryssi hummed, then said, "I can try. There are so many sad stories, I would like to do something about it. I just don't know what."

"What do you mean by that? What other sad stories?"

"Uh, nothing." Chryssi shrunk a bit on herself. "I mean, Master Sottile, and… and Fidelis, and others too. You can taste it sometimes."

Chryssi was looking away, shuffling her hooves, twitching her wings. Celestia sighed. "I guess that's what becoming an adult means. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it."

Behind them, Lulu snorted under the blankets.

Celestia observed the merchant for a while before her attention was caught by a baker opening his shop. A lanky colt stumbled out, his saddlebags bulging and steaming. He looked around, yawned, then trotted down the road.

"Tia, what if the council denies Master Sottile? What if I can't become a member of the House?"

It was a complicated question. Celestia looked at Chryssi and thought back. The little filly had been with them for only a few years, but they felt like a whole life. And by now Celestia knew Chryssi quite well. She was sure she could see the worry in how Chryssi sat, the tension of her muscles, the look in her eyes.

The question was complicated, the answer was simple. "I don't really care. For me and Lulu, you are our sister and nothing else really matters."

The stall was in the same place as the day before, but it was far less well-stocked. Most of the jewelry was gone, as were many of the tools. Even a couple of swords had been sold, and if Copper Horn had to guess, they were by now adorning the sides of some young guard recruits eager to stand out by wielding exotic weapons. They wouldn't do it for long, though. Officers had the habit of making the difference between a blade made to be wielded by hands and one to be wielded by mouth pretty clear through copious practical examples, and soon the swords would decorate some fireplace and become the center of wild and very inaccurate stories about travels in distant lands and the adventures one had had there.

Copper Horn smiled. That was one of the things that never changed, no matter the land or the people.

And there it was. Too exotic to be of use to anypony, and not flashy enough for some wild tale. She grabbed the carver and looked at it. Let it rest in the palm of her hand, the morning sun dancing on the decorations.

Apparently, she tasted like a good minotaur now.

Maybe it was even true.

She held up the carver and asked, "How much for this one?"

The Hall of Houses shone under the midday sun like it was burning in golden flames. The lights of the crystal windows played between the copper refinements and the shadows of the clouds. Gone was the sense of conflict on the inside. Out on the square, it was glorious, a monument to unity and harmony.

Chryssi shuffled her hooves and tried to stretch her neck to see over the mass of ponies standing in front of her. She tried to jump and flutter her wings until she finally could see over the heads, manes, and occasional outrageous hats. A stage had been built in front of the Hall and had been surrounded by dozens and dozens of poles. From each of the poles hung a flag or a standard lazily waving in the breeze. It was like the slow boiling of thunderclouds before a storm but done in all the colors of the rainbow.

For a moment Chryssi hovered there taking in everything, then she felt how she was beginning to lean side-wards. She tried to flap harder to compensate and ended almost upside down.

Two paws caught her before she could completely spiral out of control and held her up. "Careful, little bug. Won't do if you headbutt a pony." Fidelis turned her around and looked her in the eyes. "Gonna be very boring, but I think you wanna see all of it, right?"

Chryssi nodded.

"Then be comfortable." Fidelis smiled, then put Chryssi on his head. She was almost too big for it. Almost. "Gonna have to watch it. Guild wants it. But you can sit up there, alright?"

The whole square was filled with ponies. A sea of color almost rivaling the banners. Low clouds had been shoved in for pegasi, and there was a shouting match on one side with the earth ponies and unicorns complaining about something to the pegasi over them. Or maybe it was some form of banter. Chryssi couldn't really tell, with the emotions all around being a thick mist. There was a general feeling of expectation and boredom, but so mixed together that it was impossible to pick out the details.

"Are you excited? We were excited when we were waiting for our adoption all those years ago." Lulu clambered on Donna Copper Horn's head. "There will be a ton of boring talk before that, though. Don't be disappointed if it seems to take an eternity till the announcement."

Tia sat on Copper Horn’s shoulder and ducked under her horn. "And whatever happens, think about what we said this morning."

Chryssi smiled, her eyes wandered over the mass of ponies. She took a deep breath. She couldn't make out the details of the feelings of all those strangers, but the love and joy of the others, that was clear. Well, love, joy, and a lot of resignation from Fidelis. "I will remember, Tia."

The murmur became stronger as ponies began, one at a time, to walk on the stage and sit down at its back. They were all dressed up in some way or another. Some Chryssi recognized. They were the heads of the houses, all wearing the same finery she had seen the last time she had been in the same room with them. Others were new, and if possible were clad in an even greater variety of accessories, hats, aprons, capes, and tunics. One pegasus had a golden chain like the messenger she had occasionally seen at the farm. A massive unicorn carried a giant hammer on his back. An earth pony had three satchels hanging from each of her sides, brightly colored puffs of dust coming out of them at each step.

On and on they came. Each of them proud, walking straight, and each of them very old.

As a truly ancient and wiry earth-pony mare climbed up to the stage, a golden compass hanging from her neck, Fidelis said, "That’s the Master of my Guild. Good mason, better politician."

Chryssi leaned sidewise and whispered in Fidelis' ear, "What's she like?"

Fidelis remained silent for a moment. The mare on the stage seemed more to shift than walk to her place. It was like watching a statue that had somehow learned to move. Finally, Fidelis said, "She's where she has to be. In the right place. The rest’s not so important."

A complicated mix of admiration, irritation, bitterness and resignation followed the words, just to disperse as rapidly as it had formed. Fidelis chuckled. "Yes, yes, she is where she should be."

"Uh, Fidelis, I don't get it."

"Do not worry about stupid things adults do. Great waste of time. Now hush, listen, and get bored. Ponies like to hear themselves talk."

The last of the garish procession climbed the stage. The old, pink mare that had led the council stepped forward and silence fell over the square. As she spoke her voice rang clear and powerful, giving the impression she stood directly in front of the listener instead of being far away. "Another Winter is gone, and we survived. We celebrated another year in which we escaped the memory of the icy curse that haunted our ancestors. Three days we celebrated, three days we were merry, three days we joined in the concord that saved us and keeps us safe. Monstrous demons of frost and strife want to devour us, and yet we thrive."

In a single voice that shook the earth, the ponies shouted, "We thrive."

"In concord we lived, in concord we shall live!" A thick scroll floated to the mare who grabbed it and unrolled it. "House Sapphire has been chosen by fate to preside over the council of Houses. Now we shall declaim what has been decided for the year to come. The honorable Lodge of Silk Traders required–"

Time passed, the scroll was finished, another one was passed to the mare, and something extraordinary happened that Chryssi would never have thought possible. It was even more boring than the infamous monologue Willowbark had done when they were Judges.

It was almost awe-inspiring. And it also finally allowed Chryssi to give a meaning to a word she had, with a lot of effort and help, read in one of the scrolls Master Sottile had assigned her for her studies. It was a complicated word, which had a very long explanation that hadn't explained anything. Master Sottile hadn't been much more helpful, and neither Tia nor Lulu seemed to be able to give some kind of example that would bring some clarity to the issue. Chryssi had almost renounced trying to understand it, resigned to mark it as another weird thing she would never get. And yet, here, in the most unexpected of places, she finally, deeply comprehended it.

Transcendental meant something.

Chryssi looked around to the other foals she could see in the mass of ponies, and each and every one of them had the same, unfocused look. It was a shared experience, a common transcending of common boredom into something weird, timeless, eternal.

Another scroll finished, a new one passed to the mare, and Chryssi became aware that she had lost the sense of time.

It reminded her of something. Something that had happened a long time ago. No, that wasn't right. Time had nothing to do with the memory, it just was. It–

Fidelis tapping her snout broke her out of the contemplation of some kind of deep truth. "Little bug, listen well, this is for you."

Chryssi blinked and focused once again on the mare on the stage. She had almost reached the end of her current scroll.

"– House Ironstone recognizes House Stormcloud's right to wrangle thunderstorms above the lake Starshine. House Sottile will guarantee the accord and defend House Ironstone's interests in case of dispute brought in front of the Council." The mare looked over her back to Master Sottile and two other ponies. "This the Council approves."

"House Sottile and House Sapphire have declared they will, starting this Summer Solstice, enter negotiations for the engagement of Master Sottile, Head of House Sottile, and Sapphire Gleam, fourth in the line of House Sapphire. Any pony who wants to challenge the proceedings will be able to speak in front of the Council at each Solstice and at each Spring Festival. This the Council approves."

"Sapphire Gleam? Hah, Master Sottile, you old b–" Fidelis choked on the last word, coughed, then whispered. "Gonna be fun. Oh yes."

The mare took a deep breath. "House Sottile has called upon the ancient customs and asked to add a new member to its line. Honored Master Sottile, head of House Sottile, has declared his intention of taking in the pegasus Surprise, and defended her right to a place in the House in front of the Council. He declares that the pegasus Surprise shall be as if of his blood, third in line for the House, and that House Sottile shall defend this against any pony, creature, spirit, or monster who challenges it. This the customs allow."

Chryssi felt her heart stop and her breath getting caught in her throat. This was the moment. This meant everything. The past days raced through her mind, all that had happened. All the things Tia and Lulu and Donna Copper Horn and all the others had told her.

"This the Council approves."

Author's Note

This chapter took half an eternity, and I'm sorry for it.

As for what follows, during the editing Carabas noticed I forgot to translate a couple of words. From there, things degenerated.

What follows is not strictly important, but I thought the effect would be funny if a tad less comprehensible than what I consider an optimum for my audience.

It clicked as it looked at Blue Flower and Rhubarb. Then it lowered its head and said, "Oh cielo, ma cos'abbiamo qui? Due piccoli bocconcini si son persi? Che nera sorte per loro. Dimmi, piccola delizia, cosa ti ha portato nella mia magione?"

"Non osare mentirmi!" the thing screamed. The black shapes at the sides became even more agitated. "Non mentirmi mai! Ne posso sentire l'odore, e se lo fai di nuovo ti mangeró per primo. Oppure lasceró che la mia prole ti divori, nel caso non mi piaccia il tuo sapore."It rose up to its full height. "Ora dimmi, perché sei qui?"

"We–" Blue Flower wiped away her tears. "We are here to find the heart of the Grand Mage trapped in an egg so that he will rediscover love and let the Princess go!"

The thing cackled. "Oh, quella piccolezza? Siete nel posto giusto, allora. Che fortunelli, ho proprio quello che vi serve. Ma ditemi, sapete chi sono?"She looked right at Rhubarb. "E ricorda, niente menzogne."

The stallion looked left and right, then lowered his head. "We know who you are."

"Allora dimmi, chi sono?"

"You are the Queen of the Changelings."

The Queen laughed, but there was no joy, just malice.

Chapter 22

Flour was an interesting thing. If one spent enough time with it, it would invade every aspect of one's world. It stayed in one’s mane, it lurked on furniture, it took up residence in one's nostrils, and it even, somehow, crawled in one's leg-holes.

Not for the first time, while she kneaded the dough in a hot room along with other apprentices, covered in flour–her, the apprentices, and the room–Chryssi wondered how ponies who couldn't change shape and exchange their coat for smooth chitinous plates managed to deal with it.

Probably with a lot of time and brushes, at least if her memories of how Donna Copper Horn dealt with whatever had been in Tia's and Lulu's coat after their adventures were halfway accurate.

"Hmmm, almost there." Rock Salt pressed a pale hoof in the mass Chryssi was trying to massage into submission. "Which means it's still a failure. An eighth of a measure more water. Bread is the peak of the art of bakery, Apprentice Surprise. It requires dedication, precision, and a clear mind. I see nothing of the kind here, Apprentice Surprise. I see wasted flour, and utter disrespect of the mother yeast that the guild invested here on your behalf." He frowned. "Be glad that this…well, it isn't bread…be thankful that this stuff will get out to those too hungry to complain. If a pony incautiously paid for it, they would spit in your face the instant they tasted it. Now finish up and then go do something useful."

It was hard to not smile at such a glowing compliment. Chryssi kneaded with renewed vigor while Rock Salt turned around in a cloud of flour and threatened to slap Bluebell with another too-soft ball of dough.

There was also the possibility of never removing the flour at all. At least that seemed to be the choice of the teachers at the guild. Chryssi wasn't sure if it was something they did for show, though. The whole song and dance of apprenticeship was a complicated and bizarre one, fraught with what appeared to be senseless traditions and customs, with teachers alternatively screaming at them or cuddling them, with frantic, hard work followed by lazing around. And yet, in time, some things had started to make sense. The work was frantic and hard because the apprentices hadn't learned to pace themselves and adapt to the slow, steady rhythm of rising dough. Many traditions were there because they worked their magic in subtle ways. And sometimes things were done simply because they had always done it that way.

It was, in a certain way, a microcosm of pony culture. The large reflected in the small, the patterns repeating themselves everywhere.

Maybe she should tell Master Sottile about it. It would show that her studies were bearing fruit, after all. Maybe she could even tell some of the teachers at the guild. Not Rock Salt, though. He would see it as a distraction and as the reason why she still made errors. Too much thinking non-bread-related thoughts, not enough feeling the bakery.

Almost ready. Chryssi divided the mass into five loaves, took a small knife and cut her pattern in the top of each. Two lines, one crossing the other at two-thirds of the length to show that she was an apprentice, and three others to sign it with her guild-assigned name. She admired it briefly. Clean cuts, as always. She just hoped that those assigned to oven duty this time wouldn't burn the loaves.

Well, it was out of her control anyway, no reason to worry about it. That's what Millet always said. It was the smart thing to do.

Chryssi sighed. She had to find something else to do as soon as possible, or thinking about it would drive her crazy.

"Did you clean up properly?"

"Yes."

"Will Rock Salt be satisfied?"

"No."

Master Snow Berry smiled. "I suppose that can't be helped." He turned around. "Will you help with the harvest when you're home?"

"Uhm, no…" Chryssi shuffled her hooves. "I–Master Sottile will have me studying the pre-tribal philosophers."

"Right, right, you are of a noble house. I forgot." He hadn't, of that Chryssi was sure. But there was no malice in his words, so she played along. "Heh, I still think it's strange that the third in line will have been here in the guild and gotten insulted by Rock Salt. Ah, well, I guess the next Guild Master needs to come from somewhere, right? And you, little one, also seem to have a knack for knowing what to say. That's something that goes a very long way."

Chryssi looked away and scratched the stone floor with a hoof. "I don't think I could be a guild master. I just like to bake."

"Hmmm, we will see. Well, I certainly won't, I'm a bit too old for that. The guild will see. Would be nice not having to fight with the Houses over the grain each spring." Master Snow Berry turned back to Chryssi and held out a little jar. "Here, your mother-yeast. It will be good for two weeks, so you can train and make some decent bread. You remember the rules, right?"

Chryssi nodded. "Use half a measure of flour and a quarter of a measure of water every day for a week while chanting stanzas four, five, eleven and thirteen of the Song of Grain. Use a quarter of a measure of flour with half the water for three days while chanting stanzas nine, fifteen, and twenty-one. On the eleventh day sing the Thanks before sunrise, then use all the remaining mother-yeast for bread, leaving no remains. If it can't be done, then I will have to burn the leftovers after sundown while singing the Apologies. And if I don't do that you will know and I will be in great trouble."

"Very well, you know the rules, you can take the jar."

"Thank you, Master Snow Berry." The little jar felt slightly warmer than the dry, cold air in the cellar. Chryssi took it carefully and put it in her saddlebags. "I promise I'm gonna make grea–good bread with it."

"I'm sure you will. Now go and send in the next apprentice. This old pony wants to finish soon and go back to his secrets."

Magic crystals set in the walls lit the way up and to the heavy wooden door of the Master of Yeast's laboratory. Chryssi pushed it open and left the narrow stairway for a larger and definitely warmer room where half a dozen young ponies were chatting. "Cheery Swirl, you're the next."

As a yellow earth-pony filly with a curly purple mane passed her, Chryssi whispered, "He's asking for the rules, again."

The filly groaned and disappeared in the depths of the guild.

While almost no farmers lived in Everfree Haven itself, nonetheless the imminent harvest had the city in upheaval. Apprentices coming from outside were preparing to return to their families to help out. Chryssi didn't envy those returning to the most remote hamlets and farms. It would take them days to get home, and then a week or two of hard work awaited them.

And yet, as Chryssi stepped out from the Guild-House onto the street and took a deep breath, she smelled bread, ponies, burned wood, expectancy, and joy. Excitement as young ponies, barely old enough as to not be foals anymore, chatted and gossiped and thought about little gifts to buy with their hard-earned coin. Underhoof kisses were exchanged in what couples thought was secrecy, while the older ponies around them tried very hard to not smile. Promises to think of one another, assurances of the solidity of friendships, overly dramatic oaths, all done to overcome what was going to be just a month of separation.

Chryssi loved it.

Three years ago, when she first saw the city, she had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of ponies, the size of the buildings, and the explosion of colors and smells. And now that it had become familiar like a soft cape draped over her back, she got all the little hidden details and nuances. It made it all shine even brighter.

"Surprise! Over here!"

Chryssi looked down the road and saw a huge cart pressing through the traffic. Pulling it was a big, green stallion with a straw hat and a big smile on his face. Mint had never been small, but it seemed he had decided his last growth spurt didn't have to stop. He was already bigger than Millet, and Chryssi had to crane her neck up to look him in the eyes. Chanterelle waved from atop one of the sacks piled on the cart.

"Chanterelle, Mint, hello."

The cart stopped a few steps away, groaning under the weight loaded on it. Mint didn't even seem to feel it. Chanterelle hopped down and hugged Chryssi. "Told the big doofus we could catch you. And I was right. Like always."

It was a nice hug, and Chryssi responded in kind. "You were lucky, I was about to fly away. What are you doing here? Where's your sister?"

"Yellowhoof is home, has to count stuff and help to prepare for the harvest and stay with Clay to supervise everything. It's the first year they got half-a-score of fields assigned. I came to keep an eye on the doofus here." Chanterelle pointed at a smiling Mint, and Chryssi could taste amusement and care coming from him. "Had to be sure the sneaky city-folks didn’t try to take advantage of him. We can't all be fancy guildies like you, we have to watch out for each other."

"Chanterelle, I'm a baker. Not even that. I don't think that's fancy." Chryssi stepped back from the hug, then bumped Mint's hoof. "And Meadowsweet says farmers are too smart to get conned by some greedy merchant."

Chanterelle looked around, then whispered, "Well, yes, but we don't want them to know it." She opened one of Chryssi's saddlebags and looked inside. "Say, wanna come home with us? 's gonna be fun and we can chat and then when we leave you at the farm we can say hi to your sisters and then tell Clay all about it and then he'll be all mopey about not having seen Celestia and we can make fun of him."

A half-hearted swat on the nuzzle dissuaded Chanterelle from further inquiries into bags that didn't belong to her. Chryssi closed the buckle. "You shouldn't make fun of him. It's not nice."

"Pffft, everypony sees how silly that is. It's his fault for being dumb. Must be a colt thing."

Chryssi snickered. "Tia and Lulu are gonna agree with that. But sorry, no, I can't come with you. I have to go to the messenger hall to get the messages for the farm, then I have to pick something up for Willowbark and then I have to see another couple of ponies. I’ll fly home on my own."

"Aw, that's a shame, right, Mint?"

The nod Mint graced them with was slow, ponderous, and probably could pulverize stones. "It's a shame."

"Yeah, sorry, but maybe we can get together after the Harvest. Maybe at the creek."

Chanterelle scrambled up the side of the cart, resumed her perch on the upper sack and smiled down. "Yeah, gonna do that. 's a good, big harvest, but I bet we're gonna finish soon. Clay's dumb in many ways, but he knows how to organize ponies. And can't miss seeing him become a stuttering moron when Celestia's around. Come on, Mint, move your lazy flanks. Can't stay in this nest of thieves too long."

It was with a smile that Chryssi waved the pair goodbye as the cart returned to its rattling journey and disappeared among the crowd. That was another thing to look forward to.

But that was for later. Now, there were things to do. Chryssi found an empty corner and stretched her wings. Then, with a jump, she left the ground and joined the low flow of pegasi moving back and forth above the jammed streets.

The main villa of House Sapphire somehow resembled a daffodil, at least if Chryssi squinted and then turned away to keep it just in the corner of her eyes. Five broad and thick towers with balconies at their sides rose from around the central complex. From the center, two thin spires reached for the skies, a shining sphere on the top. A large garden surrounded the building, and a wall encircled the garden, making the whole complex something like a green eye in the middle of the city.

One thing Chryssi had learned at the end, after years of frustrating bafflement, was that most ponies ran on tradition, and the older and less reasonable it was, the stronger their attachment to it. House Sapphire had a very long tradition of reading the stars from atop towers. And they would continue to do exactly that, despite having lost any chance of getting anything sensible out from it. At least that was what Sapphire Gleam said.

The guard at the gate looked over Chryssi as she landed, then nodded and waved her through.

That nopony was allowed to simply fly over the wall to go where they needed to be was another strange tradition, although one even Messengers and Head of Houses seemed to follow. She would have to ask him about it once she got home.

In the gardens, the sound of the city disappeared and was replaced by the chirping of birds and the humming of bees. Flowers bloomed in a riot of colors and trees cast inviting shadows. It was peaceful, beautiful, and empty. Why ponies kept such places and then didn't pass the day napping or playing or reading there was one of the things she was sure she would never understand. Tia and Lulu didn't, so what hope could she have?

The air inside the building was cool and still. Occasionally, silent servants hurried along the corridors, carrying scrolls and boxes.

An old stallion sat on a bench on the side of the arch leading to one of the broad towers. His coat was gray, his mane white, and he squinted at the little blade held in his magic as it carved something in a small piece of wood.

Chryssi walked up to him, then bowed and said, "I'm here to see Lady Sapphire Gleam of the Ancient House Sapphire."

The old stallion glanced down at her and smiled. "Ah, yes, I was expecting you. She was quite eager to see you." He stood up. "I'll go get some refreshments, you hurry up. Oh, and she decided to add Eternal Maiden to her list of titles once again, see you use it. It'll brighten her day."

"Oh, did she have a bad day? Should I use all of the titles?" Chryssi glanced sideways to the stone stairs behind the arch. The apartments were a bit too far away to get an exact taste, but she didn't think there was sadness there.

"Oh, nothing really bad. She's just a bit bored, I think." The blade and the piece of wood floated into a small bag on the side of the bench. "It's always the same during the Harvest. All the apprentices go home, and those remaining have to take up the slack. Everypony becomes busy, and the Lady gets bored. It will be alright, don't worry. Now hurry up, she's waiting."

The first couple of turns of the stairs climbing the tower were lit up by white crystals, soon replaced by small windows letting in the sun. Tapestries depicting the story of the House decorated the walls, interspersed with mosaics of the night skies. Chryssi finally reached the landing and the door, then looked over herself and frowned. A brief taste of the air told her that aside from Sapphire Gleam in her apartment nopony was around. She still glanced over her shoulder and down the stairs to be sure, then stepped in a corner hidden from the window and concentrated.

Thin rings of black, boiling substance appeared around the tips of her hooves and rose along her legs. Where they passed, her dusty coat full of flour became clean and shining. The rings reached her shoulders and ran around her chest, joining together and then dividing again, one crawling up her neck, the other down her back. A couple of heartbeats later they reached the tip of her nose and the tip of her tail, where they disappeared and left behind two clumps of matter that fell with a clunk. Chryssi pushed them in the corner and checked herself again. Coat clean and brushed, mane probably in order, and–after a sniff to be sure–no offensive smells.

She knocked on the door. A scratchy voice answered, "Come in."

The door swung open at a slight pressure, no sound coming from the well-oiled hinges. The room behind it was, in a word, luxurious.

High windows of many colors let in a chromatic riot of light to paint the wide, open room. A giant bed was the centerpiece, filled up with pillows, blankets, and liberally garnished with scrolls. All around it the stone floor was covered in carpets, each a different pattern, and low tables were laden with quills and sheets of paper. The walls were filled with shelves holding more written texts, while star maps filled the few free spaces. On one side stood a frame from which hung crystal bells. And amidst it all, on a low divan, lay Lady Sapphire Gleam.

Lady Sapphire Gleam was many things. She was smart, well-groomed, quite knowledgeable. Also, old. Very old. Her coat, once an almost shining blue, according to herself, had acquired a patina. Her mane was the color of an angry thundercloud and woven in a braid that fell on her back. Time had thinned out her legs, making one fear that the golden bracelets she still wore could fall off at any moment. The only part of her time seemed to not have touched were the eyes, which gleamed with the same amusement Chryssi could taste in the air.

Chryssi bowed and said, "Lady Sapphire Gleam of the Noble and Ancient House Sapphire, third sister and advisor to Noble Head of The House Sapphire Heart, Second Stargazer and guardian of the Heaven Lore, Honored Scholar of Law, Eldest of House Sapphire–" The rising delight was like a honeyed sage infusion from the cellar on a hot summer day, and it let her know that it was time to finish it. "–Eternal Maiden, Brightest–"

"Oh, no need to be so formal. Let us dispose of the formalities, from one improbable scion to the other." Lady Sapphire Gleam's voice was rough, weary, like an old mirror where time had left scratches and cracks. It made her giggling weird. "Thank you for being here."

"Thank you for inviting me." Chryssi stood up. She liked Lady Sapphire Gleam, but this, like so many other things in the city, was a dance and there were certain steps to make. At least she could choose the opening. "How may I serve you?"

Lady Sapphire Gleam straightened up and glared at her. "You can't serve me, Damsel Subtle Surprise of House Sottile. You are a scion of a House, albeit one far down the inheritance list. And so was I." She shook her head. "It is because of that guild where you are learning, right? No proper respect for blood there. Why you decided to do that instead of learning under Master Sottile like your sisters I shall never understand. Well, it's clear it falls on me to correct the situation. We can't have you not understand your role when Master Sottile finally solves the riddle of my heart, can we? That wouldn't be proper."

"No, it wouldn't, Lady Sapphire Gleam." Dancing was easy once you knew a couple of steps and could taste your companion. Expectation and hope– "You are right and I long to improve. Maybe you could help me with it." –became delight and joy.

"Yes, that can be done." Her horn lit up, and a small bell floated and rang with crystalline laughter.

The door opened and the gray stallion entered carrying a tablet with a crystal ewer and two glass cups on it. The ewer was filled with a green-tinged liquid and a smell of peppermint and elderberries overtook the room. He walked to one of the low tables, cleared it with his magic, the scrolls lying on it rolling up and floating to a tidy pile on the side, and put the tablet down.

Lady Sapphire Gleam nodded. "Thank you, Golden Hoof. Now, Damsel Subtle Surprise, let us rectify all the bad habits you picked up in the guild. Let's start with your name. I guess they all call you simply Surprise, right? But your House name is important. Now, Sottile is a very old name, so as long as it's not in some official ceremony I think you can go with Subtle, that's what Sottile means in modern Ponish…"

Rectifying bad habits was one of the things Chryssi liked quite a lot. It involved cold mint infusion with elderberry flowers, honey-buns, a whole lot of gossip, some interesting–and probably salacious, she would have to check that later with Millet–stories of family, and a view of politics that made it almost fun, if containing a little more drunkenness, pettiness, and silly endeavors than what she remembered from her tangential dealings with it.

Chryssi hadn't much to reciprocate with, but for some reason the story of how she, Tia, and Lulu had been judges once seemed to delight Lady Sapphire Gleam to no end, no matter how many times she told it.

The sun had just passed the peak of its path when Chryssi felt it was time to go. At least if she wanted to keep up appearances and not get scolded by Donna Copper Horn or Meadowsweet.

"–and so the only thing Rare Scroll could do was accuse me of openly leading them all on. I could almost see my sister's horn sparking and her glare, by the stars, her glare… Anyway, Rare Scroll made a face like he had really bad constipation, I mean, worse than the usual sort, ground his teeth, and backed down. I will be his death. I hope at least. Oh, Damsel Subtle Surprise, thank Master Sottile for that little bit of law lore about the traditional Unicorn Riddle challenges. It really wouldn't do if I married somepony unable to best me in those."

"I will, Lady Sapphire Gleam. Thank you for your help, but I fear I must go if I want to reach home before the fall of night."

"Oh dear, is it already that late?" Lady Sapphire Gleam looked at the window. "Are you certain you will make it? Having you as a guest of House Sapphire wouldn't be a problem."

Chryssi stood up and shook her head. "I thank you for your generous offer, but I'm–I am still in time."

"If you say so. By the Stars, you should have become a messenger if you can fly that fast and far." Lady Sapphire Gleam tapped her chin. "On the other hoof, that would mean no politics for you. Hmmm, maybe climbing the Baker's Guild isn't such a bad idea. A bit unusual for the third in line, even more so considering it's not one of the prestigious ones, but that could make it quite brilliant. Well, I shouldn't be too surprised, I suppose. Master Sottile has quite an eye for that kind of mischief."

"Lady Sapphire Gleam, I…uhm…I like working at the guild."

"I believe that and am very happy for you, but that doesn't make that choice any less interesting." Her horn lit up and she brandished two scrolls. "I would love having you here, but I can't, in all honesty, bear the responsibility of you flying in the darkness. I would never forgive myself if my old-lady chattering put you in danger. Here, bring these to Master Sottile, one is the answer to his last riddle, and the other is my little challenge for him."

Chryssi took the scrolls and nodded. She pulled her saddlebags close, opened them, and looked for a place among the paper, little sweets, a jar containing some treasured mother-yeast, a satchel with crystallized honey, some candied orange peels, a silver brooch, two bells, and a mechanical toy-pony. A challenge, but not one she would back off from.

Some creative rearrangements later–and some murmured swears, those were important and the secret to all tricky work–the scrolls had been safely stored. Chryssi closed her bags, put them on, and smiled at Lady Sapphire Gleam. "Master Sottile will be delighted at the challenge and shall soon send an answer."

"You are a good filly. Now go, I cannot bear the idea of keeping you from your family any longer. Oh, send my best regards to the damsels your sisters. I would greatly enjoy if they could come to visit."

"I will. Thank you again for the invitation, Lady Sapphire Gleam. See you after the Harvest.”

The walls of the city passed under her as she climbed up in the air and the sound and taste faded, as did the smell of so many ponies living close together. Each flap of her wings put a bit more distance between herself and Everfree Haven, her home away from home, and made her feel a bit more lonely.

It was weird. The first time she had done that she had been a bit scared. As far as she could remember she had never really been alone in any meaningful sense, always surrounded by family or by the guild. She had almost turned around and looked for some group traveling in the same direction to join.

Now she enjoyed it, at least in small amounts. When the air was pure and the emotions were just some faint idea, Chryssi could think more clearly about herself. It had worried her for a time, at least until Master Sottile had assured her that it was quite normal, and something that everyone did. At least everyone who cared about understanding themselves. It was why the adults were alone sometimes, why Master Sottile closed himself in his study, or why Fidelis put so much effort into having a lazy afternoon where he simply laid under a tree and gazed at the sky every once in a while.

Chryssi banked and caught the wind, gliding over the fields of barley.

Another two years and she would become a journeymare. She would be allowed to work in a bakery, own one, or she could stay with her House. She was already pretty sure about what she wanted to do, but she had promised to think about it anyway. At least she would until Tia's plan to put together a pirate crew came to fruition. It was the one she was most convinced would be a great idea, even after all these years, so it had to be a good plan. Chryssi wasn't sure what a pirate baker would exactly do–her subtle inquiries in the guild had been fruitless for now–but they would figure out something, somehow. They always did.

For a brief moment, she tasted a whiff of hunger, anger, and determination. Then it passed.

Unusual. Chryssi looked around but could just see a couple of pegasi in the distance. The first trees of the forest raced away under her.

There were so many plans, many of them discussed just before she and her sisters fell asleep, or while taking strolls through the woods around the farm. So much uncertainty, it made the future seem full of possibilities, without structure, devoid of a specific form. And she was comfortable with the idea.

Another look around. She seemed to be truly alone now. Good.

Chryssi folded her wings and fell towards a small clearing in the forest below. She opened her wings again once below the crowns of the trees and dashed between the trunks of the trees in the shade of the leaves.

The unfixed form was a concept she had come to love. Her smile grew and grew. Her wings changed shape, her feathers trembled and melted together. Her coat became a single, black mass. Her bones stopped constraining her, and she became faster and faster.

The world changed around her. She could see more than before, in every direction. She stopped darting and began to flow, a black shape bowing and turning and churning, fast like the wind. Hungry.

An old rabbit raised his head. He had sired many a fluffle of bunnies, escaped countless foxes, kicked a lot of young upstarts. And then stopped being when a black tendril snatched him.

Garvino had explained what some griffins considered good prey, righteous prey. It had helped in dealing a bit with the guilt she had come to feel. After all, she had to eat. It helped that it was tasty.

Chryssi made a turn that would have broken her wings if she still had them and would keep her between the trees for a while longer.

Tia and Lulu had been more understanding than Chryssi herself. They seemed to consider hunger the worst thing ever and fighting it was a duty. It sounded right. It probably was.

The end of her trip was coming closer. Time to slow down, get dressed once more.

When she left the forest with a giggle Chryssi was again Surprise, and the farm was just a few flaps away.

She had come to enjoy brief moments of solitude, but only as long as they would end. It was nice to think about oneself, but now a couple of weeks with her family, with her sisters, waited for her, and those were even better.

Chapter 23

If she had to choose a single thing to be proud of, Celestia would point to her high dedication to studying. She had become able to dig deep into a treatise or scholarly work and keep all the details in mind.

She had to admit it had been a relatively recent development, but then it was also a testament to her maturity, to have grown out from being a filly and becoming a mare.

Usually.

The chirping birds outside, the humming of Lulu lost in deep meditation in the middle of a copper circle to study the earth-pony way of casting some spell Master Sottile had pointed out to her. The wonderful, golden light pouring in through the open window, and the smell of paper and ink, it seemed the perfect atmosphere to go through the "Praise of Justice and Gratitude," which was surprisingly pleasant as far as ancient treatises went.

And yet, she couldn't really keep her mind on it.

She leaned on her hoof and looked outside. Over the wall surrounding the farm and into the distance beyond the forest to where she knew laid the fields of barley. Soon they would be filled with workers, singing to the rhythm of scythes among the stalks and flails in the hamlets.

The harvest was here, which meant Chryssi was coming home. No wonder Celestia was distracted; the whole family would be together, and she couldn't wait.

If she had to choose an admirable trait about her sister, something she envied, it would be Lulu's ability to be alone from time to time.

It had taken time, self-reflection, and Chryssi leaving for her apprenticeship to make Celestia understand that she wasn't like that. Absence of any kind weighed heavily on her.

Something white and yellow flashed in the corner of her eye. It was just a glimpse, but it was enough. Celestia jumped up and yelled, "She's back!" before storming out of the study right through the circle and jumping over Lulu.

Behind her, she heard her sister yelp and start saying something that would grant her some unpleasant chores if Donna Copper Horn or Meadowsweet heard. It was creative, almost poetic, and Celestia would never hear how it ended as she flew down the stairs.

Lulu would probably summarize it anyway tonight along with her displeasure.

The columns of the arcade flew by and then she skidded on the stone floor while taking a tight curve into the kitchen, entered the room, jumped over a stool which had the impertinence to stand in her way, and grabbed Chryssi in a powerful hug as the last green flames wreathing her transformation back into her original form dissipated. "Chryssi, I missed you!"

Chryssi's muffled answer was clearly interpretable as "I missed you too!", even if for the rest of the word it had sounded more like "Mrhphmphphdmupuu."

"Tia, you big, fat–" Lulu entered the kitchen too, glanced over to the massive form of Donna Copper Horn looming through the other door, bit her lip, and then hissed "–meanie. What were you thinking? I–"

Celestia pulled Chryssi along and grabbed and added Lulu to the hug. She smiled the fullest smile she could muster and exclaimed, "Lulu, Chryssi is back, we're all together again!"

"I guessed." Lulu tried to slip away, then forced Celestia's foreleg away. "You'll have to do something about that. You can't make a scene every time she comes back."

"I don't mind." Chryssi had managed to get her head above Celestia's chest. "I like it. Hi Lulu, it's so good to see you all."

Lulu glared for another moment at Celestia, then turned to Chryssi and smiled. "I'm happy you're back. It was starting to become boring just with Tia. She gets...Tia, what was the word that describes you so incredibly well when somebody's away?"

Another squeeze and Celestia let go of Chryssi. She sat down and grinned. "Worried? Caring? Beautiful in my sadness?"

"No, not that. Also, the last one was four words. No, I mean the real stuff, not your delusions."

Celestia tapped her chin and said, "Hmmm, admirable? Glorious? Resplendent? Oh, right, you mean petulant!"

Chryssi snickered as Lulu nodded with, in Celestia's opinion, clearly exaggerated enthusiasm. "Yes, that one. See, sometimes, rarely, you're useful despite all the evidence to the contrary."

That comment was worth one of Celestia's best harrumphs. "Hrmp, lies, libel, and falsehood. Oh, what shame my sister brings unto this house! How shall I ever survive such offense at the hoof of my own kin?" She raised her hoof to her forehead, closed her eyes, swayed and fell.

There was laughter, giggling, and as Celestia sneakingly opened an eye she could swear she caught even a hint of a smile on Donna Copper Horn's face as she leaned against the wall and observed the scene. Good enough.

Things calmed down, Celestia sat up again, Chryssi opened the buckles of her saddlebags, and Donna Copper Horn put a pot of water on the stove.

As Chryssi put down the bulging and heavy-looking bags, she said, "Oh, I met Chanterelle and Mint in the city. Do you want to go to the creek after the harvest? They'll all be there."

"That sounds nice. We should totally do it." Celestia looked over to Donna Copper Horn and met her pointed look. "After we dutifully finish all our chores, help Meadowsweet with the ledger, and–" There was something else. "–and do the House Duties with Master Sottile?"

With an evil grin etched into her muzzle, Lulu leaned against Celestia and said, "So Clay will be there too. Are you going to lead him on some more?"

Celestia sputtered. "Lead him on? I kicked him in the pool last time! What should I do? Threaten to bash his head in with a rock?"

There was a moment of silence as all eyes in the room locked on Celestia.

She looked down, scraped the floor with her hoof and murmured, "Ginevra told me to say that to him."

Donna Copper Horn sighed. "I'll talk to Ginevra about what is appropriate and what not. Again. Celestia, don't do that. He's a colt, he is infatuated. You told him no, as long as he does nothing else you shall not threaten him with murder. If he does something untoward, you kick him–" Her voice became darker, lower. "–and then immediately tell me or Meadowsweet about it."

"I...will do that?" Celestia looked at Donna Copper Horn, then at her sisters. Looks were exchanged, questions were shelved for later, and shoulders were shrugged.

Chryssi took a deep breath, clapped her hooves together and exclaimed, "Right, who wants gifts?"

Radish squealed and half-ran, half-tumbled to Meadowsweet while holding his new mechanical toy-pony close to his chest. "Look what Chryssi brought me! It moves!"

Master Sottile looked at the grins on Chrysalis' and her sisters' faces and couldn't help but smile too. It was good to see them together again.

"That's wonderful, Radish. Did you properly say thank you to Chryssi?"

The gasp was worthy of an actor in a pantomime. Radish seemed almost offended by his own carelessness, turned around, and thundered back, furniture and other obstacles deemed of little importance. A stool was run over as he pounced on Chrysalis and hugged her around the neck while spilling out a confused torrent of thanks.

Hopefully the colt would learn to manage his enthusiasm a bit, otherwise Master Sottile feared Fidelis' talent for repairing things wouldn't keep up. He shook his head and turned his attention back to the scrolls Chrysalis had brought from Everfree Haven. He put aside one addressed to Willowbark and two for Meadowsweet, and considered the remaining five.

He would keep the two missives from Sapphire Gleam for the evening when conditions were calmer and he would have more time. The one with the seal of the Council was expected. The Fall banquet was just a couple of months away, and the invitation was always sent out before the harvest. The thick, heavy bundle of scrolls from Starswirl, on the other hoof, was a bit of a surprise. He thought it would take the wizard longer to get to the stone tablets of the Artisan, but it seemed that the companions he had found along the way were helping more than expected.

It looked like a lot of work. Pleasant and fascinating work, but still not something to consider now.

A squeak made Master Sottile look up. Donna Copper Horn was hugging Chrysalis–or maybe strangling her judging by the sounds the young one was making–with one arm while holding a silver brooch in her free hand.

Yes, the current joyous confusion, as pleasant as it was, wasn't the best environment for some academic work.

The last scroll was a report from the Celestial Council. Master Sottile hoped it wasn't one of the last ones transcribed; he didn't want to wade through a sea of errors or have to remove the obscene doodles the bored scribe would have added to ease the tedium of having to copy the same text for the hundredth time. His horn flashed for a moment and the spell on the seal broke. The wax cracked and fell away, the scroll unrolled.

On the first look, everything seemed in order. There was the boisterous declaration of independence from the Houses, then there was the calendar for stargazing. The announcements for the new members of the council, the declaration that some talented wizards had finished their apprenticeship, and then the adjustments to the celestial progressions. No well-endowed tree yet, good. At the end there were the calls for scholars to come for a symposium on the eve of spring the following year, and then–

For an instant Master Sottile feared his old heart would stop playing the rhythm of life forever. At the end of the scroll, as a little aphorism for the scholars, stood the fatal words. Learn to bear bravely the changes of fortune.

Something had happened to Master Firefly and her charges.

They’d got to her.

Master Sottile closed his eyes and whispered a prayer to Harmony. Just three groups were still around, the Cult got all the others. So few on whom their hopes could rest. Celestia and Luna were…

No, he had to be a realist. The chances that Celestia and Luna were the ones were less than slim. It was by now a foolish idea that they would be the ones. Too much had happened that had never even been hinted at in the prophecy, mostly in the form of Chrysalis. No, they were wonderful fillies that would do great things and he would protect them with his life, but they weren't the ones fated to save them all.

He opened his eyes again and looked at the scene.

Chrysalis and Luna were munching on the candied orange peels while Celestia had an ecstatic expression and an open jar of crystallized honey in front of her. Radish was jumping around a little mechanical pony that wobbled along on the floor, while Donna Copper Horn poured some mint infusion into cups.

He couldn't, he wouldn't lose this. He was prepared. There were plans in place.

A disagreement over the exchange of orange-peels for honey between Celestia and Luna was taking place at the table. Both wanted to trade, but the price seemed to be a point of contention. It was a good-natured, almost foalish spat, and yet they had grown so much. Too much to simply load them in a cart and leave.

"Celestia, Luna, Chrysalis. We need to talk. Donna Copper Horn, please call the others, it seems they found Master Firefly. Tell Garvino to prepare to take flight for the meeting place." Master Sottile stood up and walked around the table. He kneeled down beside Radish and said, "Little one, we have some grown-up talking to do. Can you be a good colt and play for a bit in the court? I promise you will get some colored smoke from Willowbark if you are good. That would be a wonderful thing to have along with that splendid gift from Chrysalis, right?"

Radish looked up to him, then to his mother. As Meadowsweet nodded, Radish took his toy and, with a serious expression that felt almost out of place, said, "I'm gonna be the gooddest colt ever."

"Wonderful, I knew I could count on you. Now go, I promise we will try to not take too long."

As Radish dashed out, Master Sottile stood up and turned to the fillies. No, not fillies. It was Celestia's sixteenth summer, Luna's fifteenth, and as for Chrysalis, he suspected age was a hollow measure anyway. They were young mares, and he would treat them as such. "There are many things I never told you about. I… I never lied to you, but I omitted part of the truth."

Celestia looked at her sister and mouthed something. Luna frowned, Chrysalis leaned forward and whispered something. Furious if incomprehensible murmuring went back and forth, a hoof was pointed at him, gossamer wings blurred for a moment. Then Celestia turned back towards Master Sottile and asked, "Are the assassins coming?"

One of the lessons a long life tended to teach, over and over, relentlessly, was to expect the unexpected. And yet Master Sottile was, once again, baffled and surprised. "What? Assassins?"

"Yes, assassins from the donkey warlord you and the others defeated all those years ago when you were adventurers." Celestia leaned forward. "That's what you never told us, right?"

"I… How did you get that idea?" Master Sottile walked to the table and sat down. He had dreaded this moment for a long time, and now it had taken a path he hadn't even considered. "No, no assassins are coming."

Luna's hoof came down on the table as she stood up and declared, "Hah! I told you so. It's Chryssi's royal family coming to take her away and put her on the path to becoming a cruel tyrant. We'll have to reinforce our defenses, old allies will be called in! Do we make our last stand at the farm or at Everfree Haven?"

"No, it has nothing to do with little Chrysalis. You are completely wr– It's not that." Master Sottile brought a hoof to his face and massaged the bridge of his nose. A moment later he looked past the two fillies and said, "Come on, little Chrysalis, what was your idea? It seems you three have thought about this for a while."

"Uhm, I was thinking that your old Master has finally found you after you fled from his secret order of evil mystical warriors years ago to care for those whom life broke. He's on his way to reclaim you and a powerful artifact you took from him to stop his nefarious plans, and you want to tell us to flee so that we are safe while you'll be forced to break your vow of non-violence to defeat him in a tragic, final battle. Please don't have a tragic final battle." She looked at her sisters, then murmured. "I like those Zebrican stories."

"Right, I suspect I may need to examine what you are reading again. It seems you have been indulging too much in stories." He chuckled. Those silly fillies. They looked all grown up but at heart–

His worries, the dread that he had felt gnawing at the back of his mind, they felt lessened. They hadn't disappeared, no, but he felt a bit better. Master Sottile looked at what, in a certain sense, were his daughters. "Or maybe not, you seem to have understood them quite well. How came you to those ideas anyway?"

Another round of whispers was exchanged, another bunch of meaningful looks communicated scrolls worth of discussions in the secret language of siblings. Luna was the first one to speak. "There were a lot of signs. Like the wards around the farm. You had me study them to learn. I did that, and I looked at those in the city when we went there last time, and I'm pretty sure the ones here aren't normal."

"When we talk to the others we sometimes hear stories." Celestia scratched her neck. "Like when we were with Mint and the others. Mint is bad with beer and talks a lot after a tankard or two. And there are the stories about how you came here out of nowhere, claimed the land of your family, and built the farm. Which was weird for a unicorn head of a House."

"You kinda got all those different people together in a family and that's weird too. I mean, we love it, it's wonderful and they're all amazing. But, I mean–" Chrysalis stood on her hind-legs and gestured at herself. "–this is all pretty weird."

Celestia grabbed a candied orange-peel with her magic. "And then there's all the times you and the others did the whole talking about things without saying them explicitly. Like, hinting at stuff, cutting off when we were around, very serious expressions and nodding and all that other usual conspiratorial behavior. You didn't do it often, but we kind of noticed."

They were smart, observant fillies. Master Sottile was proud of them. "I see. It seems we were far less subtle than we thought."

The door opened and Fidelis peeked inside.

Master Sottile waved for him to enter, then said, "The others will be here soon. In the meanwhile, let me start at the beginning. You see, many, many years ago, more than a lifetime, they found a prophecy etched in stone…"

The night was warm and a soft breeze blew through the window, setting the dark shapes of the hanging star charts to dancing. It was relaxing, calm, the kind of peace some philosophers said was true happiness.

And yet Luna couldn't sleep.

Not because she was thinking about the philosophical definition of happiness. That one, she had decided years ago, was simply well-worded surrender-talk by people who never had gone hungry a single day of their lives. It was one of the few things she and Tia were in complete agreement on.

No, something else was bothering her. She sighed and whispered, "Are you sleeping?"

There was a quiet shuffling. She felt Chryssi's chitin shift under her head and Tia turn around on her side.

"No, can't do it,” Tia replied. “Chryssi?"

It was a moment before the answer came almost as a low vibration from the chitin plates. "I tried."

Life went on all around the world. An owl called out from the night, the stars and the moon would continue to turn in the sky as long as other mages bothered with them. Once again Luna wondered what would happen if there was nopony keeping the heavens in motion. Would some other creatures pick up the duty? Would it grind to a halt and decay into ruins like an abandoned house? Whatever would happen, it would happen with or without her. In the grand scheme of things, the very, very grand one, she and her sisters didn't matter that much. She said, "Tia and I being all worried doesn't help, I guess. It tastes…sour, right?"

The chitin was warm and soft. Not soft like fur, but more like fabric on smooth wood. Chryssi's voice had the kind of whirring quality it took when she was thoughtful. "It's…It changes, but sour is about right. But no, it's not that." She rolled around until Luna felt the belly bands under her head. "I don't want to lose you. I don't know what I would do if I lost you."

Tia's voice had the kind of certainty you could use as the foundation for a palace. No crack in it, no sign of weakness., "You're not gonna lose us. We won't lose you." Luna felt her sister's leg draped over her. "Master Sottile said they had a plan to allow us to escape. You've seen it. It's a good plan. And there are many more. He told us so. No reason to worry about that."

"Yeah, but what if I'm not here? What if I'm in Everfree Haven?" There was a pause. "Maybe I should stop being an apprentice…"

The idea of having Chryssi there all the time again was a nice one. Or at least Luna thought so for a moment before shame followed. She tried to keep it under wraps. It was unfair in many different ways. It wasn't fair to have Chryssi stop doing something she loved. It was unfair to have her taste the shame. It was unfair they had to consider it at all. She snorted and said, "No, that's not right. We… we can make a plan for that. Sometimes Willowbark is away too. Master Sottile isn't stupid, I think they thought about it. We have to ask tomorrow."

Tia pushed Luna and turned her sideways against Chryssi. She rolled around and pressed against Luna, trapping her in between before saying, "It's an ancient prophecy. Those always end well. If we are clever and ready, and we are pretty clever and very ready, then it will all end well. Don't worry." A small sigh. "Although I would have preferred if Master Sottile was part of some ancient, secret order."

"He kinda is?" Chryssi shuffled a bit.

"Yeah, right, but not in the fun, awesome way. Not like in the stories." A sigh came from Tia's direction. "I know, I know. Stories are not real life. But…You know, here we are, not even the chosen ones, having to think about some stupid guy wanting to spirit us away, and we don't even get the awesome story with it. It's unfair."

Soft breathing and muttered complaining was all that could be heard for a while. Tia was right, even if admitting that was a bother for Luna. It wasn't fair, but then life rarely was. Luna had been lucky. Even if she could barely remember her first years of life, the slight disappointment of not being a pony chosen by fate was nothing compared to the elation of having left the cold, dirty, and hungry past behind. The reasons for it be damned, she had a full belly and maybe she could fill the bellies of other hungry ponies. Or at least those of her family.

Tia stopped her muttering, then said, "You know, there is one good thing coming from all that."

It took Luna a moment, then she brought her hooves to her face. "You're going to say piracy, right?"

She heard Chryssi giggle and Tia huff.

"Well, yes, that's exactly what I wanted to say. Because it's true." There was some shuffling as Tia adjusted her position. "I mean, if everything goes like Master Sottile wishes, there's gonna be problems in the west. The donkeys are kinda iffy on the whole Concord and united ponies, so they'll probably try to do something about it. Considering their mages are… Starswirl wrote about them, and he was almost kind while dismissing them. I think he felt pity."

Luna closed her eyes. "Right, but mages aside, we all heard stories about their warriors."

"And for those, they need Sun-Bronze and Silver-Lined iron to keep up with magic. They can get it only from the minotaurs down south, which means they'll have to ship the stuff along the Moon-Sea coast. Becoming pirates and haunting those routes would practically be our duty. And if this whole thing doesn't work out and the other guys win–"

Chryssi almost whirred. "The bad guys."

"Master Sottile said that they weren't bad, just very misguided." Luna could feel the chitin plates under her head vibrate. "He was very clear about it."

"They want to take you away and break apart our family. They're bad guys."

"Maybe. I kinda agree with you, but I think Master Sottile hasn't told us everything, yet." Celestia reached for Chryssi. "And they won't break us apart. Ever."

Luna smiled and put her hoof near Tia's. "Nothing will tear us apart. Tia's right for once. Not like with this silly pirate stuff."

An undignified snort was Tia's answer. "It's not silly. You'll see. If the other guys win, wrecking the Sun-Ocean trading routes will be very, very important. We'll fight them and have the goods pass through the Reigns in the south, which will make them richer and mean all those who want to flee will have a place to go. As you see, piracy is the only ethical choice."

What had she done to deserve such a silly sister? Luna groaned. "You thought a lot about this stuff. You're the old one, you should be serious."

"Look, I have to think about stuff when Master Sottile has me go over all those mercantile treatises."

A chuckle escaped from Chryssi. "I thought you liked that."

"I'm good at it." Tia turned around and hugged Luna. "Doesn't mean I like it. Only good thing is that I know how much a ship and a crew costs. We need a few more coins, but it's feasible."

It was nice and warm and soft. It was also a clear attempt to curtail the much-needed realism Luna had to bring to the conversation. "It's still a silly idea."

"I like it, though." Chryssi's whirring had become a low, pleasant hum. "It sounds like fun, and we would all be together. I…It's a wonderful dream."

It was nice and warm and soft, and maybe, just maybe, at night, when she was together with her sisters in their bed, it wasn't the time for realism. Maybe it was the time for dreams. Even for silly ones. "You're right, it's a wonderful dream."

Routine was comforting.

Deep down, somewhere at the edge of herself, there was a vague feeling that it shouldn't be. Chryssi had no idea why and, in all honesty, didn't care much for it right at the moment.

Her hooves sunk into the dough like they had done each and every morning for months. Birds sang in the early morning calling for the sun to rise, the wood crackled in the oven outside, the stones groaning while adjusting to the heat. And in front of her, the mother-yeast hungered and yearned and devoured and changed. There was a strange kinship there.

Somewhere on the roof, Ginevra was looking out into the darkness, a bell ready on her side, a spear on the other. Old Scar was returning from a night of hunting and showing the animals all around the farm who was in charge. There was a simple form of satisfaction coming from him along with fresh, sharp pain. Another wound to add to his name, if Chryssi had to guess.

Chryssi counted her kneading up to twenty-three, then murmured the fifth stanza of The Tale of Miller and reversed the direction.

Slowly the mother-yeast changed her feeding and continued creeping through the dough.

Here on the farm, when she was almost the only one awake before the sun rose, she could hear it all. The emotions all around her were either simple or she knew them well enough to be able to lock them out. And so the subtleties of the world and her work came to light.

Twenty-three again. She pulled her hooves back, clapped them together two times, and raised a silent prayer to the Great Mother Yeast.

Rituals and traditions guided almost every step of her work. Many, she suspected, had next to no real impact on the bread, but they were routine, rhythm, keeping of time. Safety.

She felt the farm stir before hearing it. Meadowsweet had woken up, Millet would soon follow with a lot of complaining. It was always the same. After four days sequestered on the farm, she knew.

The dough was ready. She took her knife, the one Donna Copper Horn had bought for her, and began cutting. It was a good knife. Simple bronze, sharp, with a thin blade. She cut and pulled. It was good dough, not clinging to the knife, the Mother Yeast hungry and ready to do its work. She cut sixteen loaves and carved her symbol into each of them.

Meadowsweet had woken up Donna Copper Horn.

She covered the loaves with a hemp cloth, then carefully moved the wooden panel where they rested to the side with the others she had already prepared. Time for the next batch.

She was well into the second recitation when she heard the door open and the light from the lamp poured inside. It wouldn't take much more to finish.

The arrival of Meadowsweet and Donna Copper Horn were the first signs that the farm was awakening. Soon Millet would follow, then, when the sun was about to rise above the horizon, Fidelis would come. Ginevra would get to sleep soon after. The smell of freshly baked bread would be the signal for Tia and Lulu to come for breakfast. Willowbark had no herbs to gather, so he would sleep in to be rested and ready for all the work waiting for him. The mixing and cooking and bespelling of remedies and ointments was something that had to begin on the brink of day and night.

It worried Chryssi a bit that she had no idea of when Master Sottile would wake up. She felt a bit guilty about it too. Since she had remembered and told him about the strange feeling she got as she flew back to the farm for the Harvest two days ago, he had been restless. He had worked well into the night and had not even been properly asleep as she had woken up to make bread.

"That is a lot of loaves, little bug." Donna Copper Horn leaned forward and looked at the sticky mass Chryssi was kneading.

"It's for the field-workers. They have a lot to do today, some good bread is how I can help." For a moment, an image of Rock Salt flashed through her mind. "Well, decent bread."

Meadowsweet gasped. "Isn't my bread good enough? Isn't Donna Copper Horn's bread good enough?"

"No! I didn't mean that. It's–" There it was. It had taken Chryssi a moment longer than usual to taste the amusement. Had she been too involved in her work or was Meadowsweet learning to hide it? Did Meadowsweet feel she had to hide her emotions? Had Chryssi been bad by tasting what others felt?

"Hah! Got you. I'll have to tell Master Sottile that worked. Don't worry, Chryssi. I know that your bread is better. It's all those little secrets they teach you in the guild. Can't help it." There was a thud as Meadowsweet put her heavy ledger on the table. "I'm sure the workers will appreciate it. Many can't get guild-bread very often, even if it's only made by an apprentice. Still, that's a lot of bread. More than usual. Where did you get that flour?"

"There was a sack that was about to get moldy. I cleaned up the spot, but this one has to be used soon."

The ease with which Donna Copper Horn could move the panels around while talking was enviable. "I think there's something else too. I can't feel it like you do, but that's not the whole story, isn't it?"

For Chryssi it had always been far more complicated understanding herself than understanding others. She couldn't taste herself as she did with the rest of the world. But routine could, among other things, allow one to organize their thoughts with time, and she had had a lot of it.

"When I told Master Sottile about the weird stuff I felt when flying here, he became very worried. And then he said we couldn't leave the farm until we were sure. And he said I did the right thing, but it also means I trapped Tia and Lulu here. And maybe myself. What if I was wrong? What if I have everyone waste time and worry and the whole harvest gets more difficult because I felt the wrong thing?" It was time to let the dough rest for a couple of moments. She pulled back her hooves, the sticky mass gliding on the surface of her chitin plates without leaving traces. "What if I was right and it was late?"

For all the calluses on her hands, Donna Copper Horn's touch was surprisingly soft. She put her hand on Chryssi's back. "If you were wrong, then we will be worried for a while and then return to our lives. If you were right, then we'll have enough time to get everything we need and leave. As for being too late, we are still here, nothing happened yet, so I don't think you were. At the end even if it comes out that nothing was wrong what we lose is but a speck of dust in comparison to what we gain if you were right. I think, though, that it isn't the core of the problem, right? You know that you did the right thing."

Chryssi counted down the right time, then got back to work. It was nice work, and the consistency of the dough was slowly getting closer to what it should be. "I don't want to leave."

Feelings flowed free from Meadowsweet. As she sat down there was compassion, affection, a bit of worry, and many, many others.

Never forget you are working. It was one of the lessons they taught her. A good lesson. "I don't want to leave the guild. I don't want to leave Clay, and Mint, and Lady Sapphire Gleam. And they would be sad if we disappeared, I know it. And it's all because some stupid, mad–" She felt her back ripple. Something boiling inside of her. Anger and hunger. Never forget you are working. A focus for the mind. Chryssi took a deep breath. Her insides subsided into seething calm. "–bullies. They could ruin everything, and… and I think I hate them."

"Don't." Meadowsweet put her hooves beside Donna Copper Horn's hand on Chryssi's back. "Hate is the emotion we have to endure when we fail ourselves. It helps nobody and makes our hearts bitter and shriveled. I understand you, I understand how you're feeling. I don't want to leave either. I like it here, I like what we're doing. We are keeping the House alive, we are trying to help the workers in our fields, and we have friends here. Fidelis put so much of himself in here, as did Willowbark. It's… This is our life."

Donna Copper Horn kneeled. "Sometimes the world comes down crashing on you anyway. And when that happens you have to protect what lies at the center of everything you hold dear. For us, that means to take our family to a safe place."

There still were some clots in the dough. Chryssi kneaded through them. "I don't get it. Master Sottile is the head of a House. It's not, like, big and powerful, but it's in the Council. Can't he call for guards? Or… or something?"

"We thought about it, believe me." Meadowsweet sighed. "It won't solve the issue. Our misguided brethren enjoy something that the cities of the Concord don't have: unity. They follow one creed all across their temples and their monasteries. They can reach far and wide, and outside the confines of Everfree Haven, there's not much the Council can do here. If we think it could help then we may ask for some help, but our best bet is staying hidden from them."

Now it had become homogeneous. No more lumps that she could feel. The Mother Yeast was slowly awakening to the food around it. No anger there, that was good. Now Chryssi had just to be like that. "Hiding. I know how to do that. Always hiding…"

Donna Copper Horn's arm reached around Chryssi and hugged her. "Maybe, but never from us. I know that it's hard, believe me. But as long as we stay together, we can go through everything."

Meadowsweet joined in the embrace. "And maybe everything is fine. If they didn't find us yet then we'll continue as it is. No sense in rocking the boat."

"She's right, little bug. We have prepared as much as we can. When Garvino returns, we'll see what we have to do. In the meanwhile, we carry on. The harvest waits for nobody, and whatever happens, we have to eat."

Chryssi nodded. They would take things as they came. As for now, there was work to do, bread to bake, and her sisters to be kept fed.

Routine was comforting.

Chapter 24

The farm was nothing more than a vague smear in the distance, a suggestion.

Garvino felt his wings burn and exhaustion and pain tear into his sides. And yet he had to endure, to return home, to—

Was that door so close before? What—

It was just a brief hit, and then blessed darkness followed.

When the light returned, so did the pain tormenting every muscle in his body. Voices spouting garbled nonsense surrounded him.

"—he survive?" The voices started making some kind of sense. That sounded like Meadowsweet. Poor Meadowsweet, she seemed worried.

"He is in bad shape but should recover. He'll need rest. A lot of it." Willowbark was calm. It was soothing. Good Willowbark, always could count on him.

Ginvera's voice was welcome. Sweet little Ginevra. "Wouldn't worry too much. His head is way harder than the door."

They were all there. It was nice, it was—

Everything came back in a flood of fear and desperation. Garvino blinked. He had to warn them. That was the only reason he had made it back. He opened his beak and croaked a strangled squeak.

A mug filled with water floated up to him. He drank, then tried again. "The Cult is coming."

Master Sottile entered his field of vision. There was a serious expression on his face, like something chiseled into stone. "What happened to you?"

"They got me north of Everfree Haven. Had some fliers and nasty spells. Didn't even see 'em coming." Garvino's voice felt like gravel in his throat. Scratching, rolling around in all the wrong places, clogging up. "Captured me, held me prisoner, asked me where to find you, what defenses there were, how many guards. Got some griffins with 'em. Nasty pieces of work, roughed me up. Couldn't see them that well, was blindfolded later, but I smelt 'em. And I felt 'em too."

Sand scraped his lungs. He coughed. It didn't matter. He’d endured worse. "They know where we are. They got me. They're kinda worried about soldiers, though. Don't have many forces, I think. I—" Garvino winced as it felt like a claw rammed in his side.

"Don't move. I think you broke a rib when you crashed." Willowbark sounded cold, detached. Meant he was worried.

"'on't matt'r." He breathed gravel and sand. "They'll come. Need to get the little ones away." He needed a long sleep and half a roc and a week of listlessness. "Guards? They'll come? When?"

Master Sottile hadn't said anything for a while. He had just stood there, a grave expression on his face, bags under his eyes. "I called them, they'll be here tomorrow." His horn lit up. "Wards are closed, we should be able to hold out. Tell me exactly what happened, from the beginning. Something's not right."

Garvino leaned on the pillow Willowbark had put under him. "I was flying for half a day, maybe more. Was just north of Everfree Haven, wanted to get the mountain winds to help me. They got me then. Couple of griffins—kinda looked familiar—came out from a cloud, some spells flew my way. Didn't let them take me unscathed, though. Got me in a net and got a sack on my head. Then gave me back what I had given them."

The whole flock was assembled there. Meadowsweet had returned from the fields. Only Radish was kept outside with his father. Everybody seemed worried and sad.

It was the look of pain on the fillies' faces that nearly broke Garvino's heart. It almost hurt more than his wounds. Luna was trying to hide it, but it was pretty clear what she felt. Celestia was more open about it, and about the fury burning in her too. For a moment he considered if he should really tell everything. And then he looked at little Chrysalis. The one who felt everything anyway.

They would have to face something like this, sooner or later. Master Sottile had said it. They were growing up, and nobody could protect them forever.

"Brought me in a cell in an abandoned farm in the mountains. Was a cellar, just added some bars. There was some unicorn, was the boss, I think. Started asking lots of questions, didn't like the answers one bit." He chuckled. It hurt. "Was stubborn. Me? I'm worse. First day there was a lot of talk. Then griffins helped him. At the end they gave me stuff to drink. Made me very groggy. Not sure what I told 'em. Don't think anything they didn't already know. Very worried about wards and guards. Don't know anything about that."

Willowbark put something against his beak. A mug. Garvino drank. There was honey. Not enough to hide the bitterness. It was foul. Meant it was good medicine. Made him feel better.

"We will go with the guards to Everfree Haven tomorrow." Master Sottile sighed. "It's time to join House Sapphire, I suppose. At least for a while."

Luna and Celestia looked at each other, then the smaller filly asked, "Garvino, how did you flee?"

"Guess they got sloppy." Garvino tried to find a better position and failed. "Woke up after the stuff I drank. Think they knew I couldn't tell them more. Bars were badly built, could dig out one. There was just one guard when I got out. Knocked him out, and then flew like I had the claws of winter on my tail."

Master Sottile looked into the distance, unfocused. "Something is not right. Them becoming sloppy is uncharacteristic. Maybe something else worried them. I don't think they would simply leave us be."

"Don't know, was too groggy to think too much. Had been asleep for days, I think."

"Something's wrong. Something's very wrong." Pacing was something Master Sottile did very rarely. "You said they were worried about guards and wards, correct? And then they gave you something to drink, and then..." He stopped and his horn flashed with magic. Color drained from his face. "Poison."

"What?"

Master Sottile jumped forward, magic still active, and opened Garvino's wing. A moment later he plucked a feather and held it in the air.

The room was silent. All around the stem of the feather, there were weakly glowing symbols.

Garvino was the first to find his voice again. "What is that?"

There was no color in Master Sottile's voice as he answered. "Poison for the wards, destroying them from the inside. They are here."

It had been too good. Luna knew it. It couldn't have lasted.

As she ran along with her sisters and Meadowsweet, Radish holding strong on his mother's neck, it surprised her that the worst part wasn't even the thought of all the nice things she would lose, it was the icy certainty that they would never be together again clenching her heart and stomach. It would all fall apart, and even if she had grown up there was nothing she could do.

"Meadowsweet, we can stay and fight." Tia's voice was almost a growl.

There was something in Meadowsweet's answer that sent a shiver down Luna's back. "No, you can't. You have to stay safe." She stopped in front of Fidelis' room and pulled the door open.

Small crystals and shards of glass formed colorful geometric patterns on the walls and ceiling, sparkling and shimmering even with the small amount of light pouring in through the door. A low bed held a mass of wool blankets on it and a shoulder-high pile of clay tablets at its side. On a shelf sat a couple dozen cheerful statues of all manner of speaking peoples. It was such a screeching contrast to what Luna felt.

Meadowsweet entered and lowered her head to the floor. "..., eleven, twelve. Here." She barked something which didn't sound at all like something a pony could say, and with a low rumbling, the stones lowered into the ground and opened a ramp.

Luna stared into the darkness and felt tears well up in her eyes.

"Celestia, keep Radish close. Light up the way just until you reach the room at the end, then stop using magic. There's a little hole, it works as a kind of a sun clock. We will do everything we can to get you back, but if we do—" Meadowsweet closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "—if we'd—" She shook her head. "If we can't get you by the day after tomorrow, then we shall have at least sent the ones looking for you someplace far away. There's another tunnel. Use it to leave, and then go to Everfree Haven. Chrysalis can guide you. Go to House Sapphire and ask them to honor the contract and take you in. They'll—Master Sottile took precautions. You'll become part of their House and you'll be safe."

Tia took Radish in her forelegs and hugged him. "And you? I—Can't you all come with us? There's the tunnel, right? We can escape together. You—" Tia's voice broke and became a whisper. "Please, don't leave us alone."

"We..." Meadowsweet sat down on her haunches and hugged Tia and Radish. She leaned out and grabbed Chryssi and Luna with her other foreleg. "They know who we are. We planned for something like this, but we can't leave. If we want to win we'll need every hoof, paw, and claw. Anyone could make the difference. I would never be able to sleep if I thought that maybe I could have changed a loss to a victory and hadn't been there."

"Then let us stay and help." Pressed against Meadowsweet's cheek, Luna felt dampness on her mane. She forced herself to put strength she didn't feel behind her words. "If we can make a difference, let us stay."

Meadowsweet's hug became stronger. "My sweet, little Luna. We can't. You have to stay free. That's all that matters. Nothing else. And I and everybody else will go through the Icy Wastes for that."

"We aren't the ones of the prophecy." Tia's voice sounded determined, calm, like she was an adult. Luna could almost believe her sister wasn't as scared as herself. "We aren't the ones fated to—"

"We know. We don't care."

"But—"

"No." There was Authority in Meadowsweet's voice. Not the sort that had scolded them or had given them chores for years. No, it was a different kind, one Luna had never heard before. One that made her and her sisters shut up and listen. "You don't know everything. If we lose, if they get you, they may not hurt you, but you'll lose your freedom. We can't have that. We don't want that. We won't allow that. And it's not only about you, it's about Radish too. I...Willowbark is an adult, he can choose, but I won't allow Radish to be put at risk."

Meadowsweet released them from the hug and sat back. "I trust him upon you. I don't want to. I want you to stay fillies, to stay carefree, and for that, I will go back and kick some snouts and hope that it will be enough. But if it isn't, then you'll have to make sure you and he stay free." Her voice fell. "Please."

"Mom! Don't cry!" Radish clambered on Tia's head and held his forelegs out.

Meadowsweet took Radish and hugged him. She whispered something into his ear and put him down. "Please, keep him safe."

Luna, Tia, and Chryssi looked at each other.

There was a mass of anger, fear, uncertainty, and so much else brewing in Luna's heart. It was ugly and complicated and she didn't want to deal with it. She pushed it down and away. There was no time to waste on it at the moment anyway. Meadowsweet needed them, even if it was for something they didn't like. There really was no question about if they would do what she asked of them.

While Tia held her forelegs out for Radish, Luna said, "We'll do it. Please, be safe and come back for us."

Meadowsweet smiled and wiped her cheeks. "We'll move mountains to do that. Now go, there's not much time."

Tia held a sniffling Radish and walked down the ramp. Chryssi followed.

Luna looked a last time at Meadowsweet. There was so much she wanted to say. So many things she had never even known she wanted to tell her family. She couldn't. Silently Luna turned around and followed her sisters into the darkness.

It was strange to look at a feather and see years of work rotting away in what felt like the blink of an eye. It almost made Master Sottile's heart ache. It would have if he wasn't currently busy being worried and terrified of what was about to come through.

Maybe…

Magic was a fickle thing. Delicate, wild, unpredictable. If he convinced it to reverse the poisoning of the wards then there could be a chance to stop the fight even before it started. His horn lit up, the delicate filigree of the spells twisted and turned, wove into a new tapestry, built new connections.

And then broke apart slightly faster than before.

He dropped the feather. It had done its work and was nothing more than a bitter memento at this point.

A heavy clunk had him turn around.

Donna Copper horn stood there with her old maul. It was little more than a brutish piece of bronze at the end of a long, metallic handle. Simple, undecorated, ugly, so different from her combs and her tools. The faint disgust painted on her face added to the grim image.

"Are you sure you need to use—"

"Will the wards keep them out?" Donna Copper Horn sounded like she looked. "Will we be safe until tomorrow?"

"No." There was no reason to avoid the truth. "They will break through."

"Then I'll need it. Ginevra is still on the roof trying to see how many of them are out there. She told me there were about two dozen ponies and some griffins. Couldn't get an exact count, though. They were hiding in the trees." Donna Copper Horn passed a hand over her eyes. "They aren't really trying to hide their presence. I guess some workers have seen them from the fields. Maybe we'll get a mob to help us, although I doubt it. Griffins are scary, tend to keep away everything that isn't a guard."

Fidelis lifted his head from the floor. "Twenty-two ponies and something very, very heavy. They're moving."

No more time for despair or fear. Master Sottile closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Right, Fidelis, go look for a way out. Donna Copper Horn, I'll go into Willowbark's laboratory. He's treating Garvino there, and it is the safest place we can be right now. Will you come with me, please?"

As Donna Copper Horn kneeled down and put a hand on his back he saw, for a moment, the soft, caring minotaur he had known for such a long time. "No, I will keep them busy here. A lot of noise and a couple of bruised backsides should distract at least some of them." And then it disappeared once again. "They won't ignore it, you can be sure of that."

At the border of his consciousness, the tapestry of the wards fell apart. Not much remained aside from the frame, and even that would soon succumb. Fate would pass like a wild storm and Master Sottile could do nothing more to stop it, just try to weather it. There would be time for bitterness and regret later. "Fidelis, go. Let us hope you'll find a way."

Fidelis stood up and looked at them. His ears turned down for a moment before he jumped forward and hugged Donna Copper Horn. "Stay safe." He stepped back, looked at Master Sottile, and said, "Will do my best," and then disappeared through the door.

Donna Copper Horn smiled. "I too shall do my best."

The frame of the ward began to rot and crack. Heavy thumps resounded from the gate in the walls.

"Stay safe, Donna Copper Horn. If we get through this, I can't do it alone." There were no more words worth saying as Master Sottile left the kitchen. And that, probably, was the most painful realization of all.

Radish had promised Mom to be brave and good. He would be, because Radish was not one for breaking promises.

He put his face into Tia's neck and closed his eyes. It was a better darkness than the one in the hideout. Less scary, made it easier to keep the tears away.

He could feel the noise through the floor more than he could hear it. It was an awful lot of noise. Thundering noise. Crashing noise.

Bad noise.

He had to think about something else.

There was some magic in the stones all around them. Fidelis' magic. He could feel it. A bit of it. Fidelis had taught him. He had told him he had a talent for it. Maybe he could even get a mark for it. The best masons could listen to the stone, even if not as well as Fidelis.

Radish would like that. He liked stones and rocks. They were neat. Full of secrets too. Fidelis told him some of them, and they were nifty. Radish hoped that Fidelis could teach him more when it all had ended. When Fidelis and Mom and Dad and all the others would be back.

Something powerful and bad made the ground tremble.

Maybe just a couple of tears were fine. Radish pressed himself into Tia.

He felt Lulu and Chryssi press on him from the sides, putting him in the middle of a pile. That was good.

"Light up the room a bit, Tia." There was something bad in Lulu's hissing. Radish didn't like that.

Tia hissed too. "I can't. No magic. I...I hate it. I hate, hate, hate it. But if nothing else, I can keep the promise." Radish didn't like that either.

It was all awful and bad and scary. Adventures were fun and great stories like those his dad told. They were about weird, far-away places. There were friends to make and meanies to kick in the snout before swinging away and songs to sing and laughs to have.

Mom had said this was an adventure and that he should be brave. But this didn't feel like an adventure. How could he be brave when this wasn't an adventure? Had...Had Mom lied? Mom never lied.

He sobbed into Tia's side. This was a nightmare, and he wanted to wake up and have his mom come and hug him. He wanted to know what was going on. He wanted her to explain it. He wanted out.

Seals glowed on the walls, the paint flaking off with each attack on their refuge.

If Willowbark had a couple of hours he could repair it easily. Sadly, he hadn't a couple of hours and instead had to live from moment to moment.

Something crashed and rumbled somewhere on the farm, making the floor shiver and the vials jingle and clink on the table. Willowbark's heart stopped for a moment, but he resumed his dance when nothing went up in smoke and flames.

Everything was on the brink. His tinctures, potions, his life, and most importantly, his family.

Considering all that, Willowbark was once again thankful that he had learned to bind his anger to his reagents. Adding a bit of his metaphorical fury into the terracotta flask was a good feeling, tempering the helplessness of their situation. He breathed out, corked it, and held it up. "Ready."

Master Sottile's magic surrounded it and lifted it in the air. "How many more can you make?"

The laboratory was a mess. Cabinets had been moved against the windows, and the walls were slathered with paint and chalk in a messy web of spells and wards. The air stank of brimstone and iron. Pots sitting on the braziers embedded in the floor spouted colorful fumes to dance one with another on the ceiling. The trapdoor to the Laboratory's storage stood open like a gaping maw, coughing up the sound of Millet's searching through the supplies.

A well-supplied mess. Willowbark grabbed the mortar and filled it up again. "Enough as that it won't matter. These wards will fall soon too, I fear."

The flask floated to Meadowsweet sitting by the door. She grabbed it, opened the door just a crack, threw it out, and closed again. Soon a hail of curses and shouts echoed from outside and the humming of the protective spells subsided as the attacks stopped.

Master Sottile sighed. "Every hour counts. And your laboratory is solid enough. We just have to endure until tomorrow, or until Fidelis finds another way out. Or maybe until Donna Copper Horn sends them fleeing." He chuckled. "Or maybe some other miracle will happen. Something saving us from my foolishness."

From the pile of cushions on the far side of the room, Garvino pushed himself up against the wall with Ginevra's help. "Give us the fire-mushroom brew and we're gonna make that miracle happen."

"No, you're gonna kill somebody and then you'll die when it burns you out." The round stone laid in Willowbark's hoof almost like an extension to his foreleg. The scratching and grinding in the mortar were a calming song. "Fire-mushroom brew is medicine. I won't use it any other way, and certainly not for some foolish griffon's idea of a grand exit."

"We didn't ask you." There was a low growling in Ginevra's voice. "Donna Copper Horn is out there fighting, but even she won't be able to win alone. Give us the brew. Some of them are gonna die, but they’d kill us anyway."

There was a kind of certainty that had been missing for days in Master Sottile's voice as he said, "That's not their way. And neither is it ours. We will not fight with the intention to kill. Doing so would... We can't risk the future."

Ginevra spat, "You're so sure they're gonna play nice with us? Look what they did to Garvino! You said the fillies are not the ones of the prophecy, we don't have to play by those rules. We—"

"We're gonna do what Master Sottile said." Garvino groaned and sat down. "He's right. Not gonna get a better future when we fall back on old habits when it gets tough. Sorry for asking for the brew. Head's still a bit foggy. Ginevra, you're a good chick, keep at it."

"So what?" Ginevra huffed. "What are we gonna do? Let them come and get us? Serve them the fillies?"

Willowbark stopped his grinding and looked up. "My brother's there too, my mother's at the door fighting, and my father is filling up my reserves of reagents. Does this look like giving up?" He felt anger divert from his art and well up inside his chest. That wouldn't do. His hoof started up again, the round stone against the leaves in the mortar. His emotions flowed out through the gestures to where they would be useful. "I won't kill anybody, but by the Five Transitions, I'm going to have them work to get us."

Earth and stone, roots and water, the world below the ground was a kind embrace, never silent, always whispering its secrets to those willing to listen. Warm in the winter, fresh in summer, it was gentle and accepted everyone without judging them.

Fidelis wished that hadn't been the case today.

The stones around him knew him well and joyfully told him he wasn't alone down there. Out on the edge of his perception, others moved and dug. Claws scratching dirt, pushing it aside.

The Cult had brought everything to trap them. The skies were sealed with flocks, the forests were filled with herds, and down below the earth...

Fidelis sat down, crossed his arms, and dug into himself. Simply pushing forward wouldn't do. He didn't know for sure how many of them there were, just that they were more than he could handle. Which was barely one, if he had to be honest.

He tried to listen as far as possible. There was a lot going on beneath the surface. There always was. Fidelis, for once, didn't care for moles and insects, for roots and worms, or for the chattering of pebbles. Slowly the sound of digging became clearer. Three, no, four of them, fast and determined, clean trajectories, breaking through stone, leaving behind tunnels that wouldn't last.

Soldiers.

He couldn't take on even one of them.

Maybe he didn’t have to.

He looked at it with other eyes. The eyes of a mason. No, ponies hadn't the right word for it, the tongue of his ancestors had to do. He had to look at it with the eyes of an architect.

There it was, the cage they were carving. A solid one, well thought out. Except for a weakness.

Fidelis pondered. It would make for a nice, if slightly long, escape route. Coasting along some of the giants of the depth, all unbreakable granite and tectonic dreams. It made sense for them not to be able to secure that.

Too much sense. Too obvious.

If he could allow himself to do so, Fidelis would have chuckled. It smelled like a trap, all sweet and enticing.

He kept looking. He was a teacher, they were eager apprentices that were showing him a project. He knew there was some issue they hadn't seen, there always was. He had to see it, point it out, show them their error.

Right there.

It was subtle, tortuous, had to think around corners to see it, and if you didn't know the land you missed it.

Fidelis grinned. Time to show what a builder could do.

The tears in Celestia's coat still hadn't dried. Huddled in her forelegs, Radish's crying had become a silent sobbing.

He was a brave and very good little colt. He was doing everything he could. Celestia was very proud of him and nuzzled the top of his head.

She was a bit less proud of herself.

The sounds from outside had stopped, and now an oppressive silence filled the cellar. The total darkness and the still air seemed to be waiting for something. Time had lost its meaning, its flow stopping and collecting in a dirty pool. Pretty soon there would be scum and things would crawl under its surface and bite if one put their hoof in there. And then a fetid miasma, thick and self-satisfied, basking its own rotten origin, would creep all around it and claim whatever it could touch.

Celestia's mind was wandering. She couldn't afford that.

Her eyes had gotten used to the darkness, and the faint glow from the hole in the wall was enough for her to distinguish shapes. She blinked. No, not really shapes, more the hints of them. Edges for Chryssi, soft waves for Lulu. The pressure against her chest of Radish. She had to think of them. For once Celestia couldn't afford to get distracted or lost in her own, stupid fantasies.

What could she do, though?

If only they had let her stay up there to fight. She would have helped, done something. She knew some tricks, and she knew how to fight dirty. Some tripping here, a blinding flash there, keeping them guessing and off-balance. A kick in the side when there was the right opening and one would crumble from pain, exactly like Ginevra had shown her. And maybe if Chryssi and Lulu were with her they would have been even more useful. Lulu was small, but she packed quite the buck. And Chryssi ... well, under her direction there was no real limit to what they could do.

Celestia closed her eyes and kept the tears back. She was on her flights of fancy. Again.

What was she thinking? Fighting trained warriors? Being right in the middle of it and bothering her family when they needed exactly the opposite? This was no story, this was no adventure, this was life. Unfair, messy life. And she was useless. Useless. A spoiled, weak, and useless filly, too weak to work the earth, too stupid to fight for her loved ones.

She felt Chryssi shift and tighten her embrace.

Right, feeling bad for herself meant she made Chryssi feel bad too. Another neat failure to add to her tally, it appeared.

No, that didn't help.

Huddled in the dark while her world fell apart, was getting lost in her imagination truly the best she could do?

A low rumble, like stone scratching on stone, echoed through the floor. It seemed to come from far away, but Celestia couldn't be sure about that. Reading the stone had always eluded her, no matter how much Fidelis had tried to teach her. Another of her failings, apparently.

The world outside was moving and ripping everything she had to shreds. And Celestia did the only thing she could. She faked confidence for her sisters, waited, and dove into her flights of fancy. At least there she could achieve something.

The bronze maul came down and shattered the floor. Cobblestone splintered and came loose, shards shooting out and forcing the ponies to jump backwards.

Copper Horn didn't wait and charged forward, her free hand grabbing at a lightly-armored stallion who hadn't been fast enough. Her fingers closed on his head, muffling a surprised shout. He was big and his muscles told of a life dedicated to fighting. It didn't make any difference as Copper Horn hefted him up and threw him into the gaggle of ponies retreating from her previous attack, sending them all crashing into a wooden cabinet amidst the sound of shattering earthware.

No time to admire her handiwork. She pulled the maul up. The smell of blood and sand reached her nostrils, the screams and shouts of the crazed audience filled her ears. She felt the heat of the midday sun on her back as it tried to burn out the arena, as it wanted nothing more than cauterize the horrid tumor defacing the earth.

Something in her soul stirred. Her vision cleared. There was no sand here, no arena. No blood either, she had been careful. She had sworn it. She wouldn't betray that.

She aimed carefully. Her maul traced a trajectory as obvious as possible, calling out where it would fall to anybody with eyes to look. Another section of the floor had to feel it. Another pony who had tried to sneak up on her had to change their plans and retreat. It put them right into the path of a wooden stool. The impact knocked them right out. They would wake up with a massive headache, and probably with a couple of teeth missing, but they would wake up.

For a moment the only sound in the kitchen was the groaning of those still awake.

Copper Horn pulled the maul and leaned on it as she surveyed the room. Shattered furniture, broken bowls, bashed-in pots. Only the solid oak table had remained whole, if not completely unscathed.

Looking at the devastation made Copper Horn's heart ache and her anger rise. No, she couldn't allow that, not now. It was the time neither for fury nor for remembrance, that would come later. The kitchen would never be used again, of that she was certain, but the memories she made there would forever be with her. She looked over the ponies she had fought. Eight of them, none of whom would be a danger for at least a couple of hours. That made it roughly half of their ground forces.

There was hope. Copper Horn allowed herself a smile. They weren't out of the woods yet, but maybe, just maybe, they could make it.

The ground trembled. Copper Horn's ear swiveled.

Something was coming. Something massive.

The wall exploded and a bronze mass rushed inside just as Copper Horn jumped to the side. It crossed the kitchen and rammed the other wall.

Copper Horn landed and held her maul up with both hands. Cold sweat ran down her front. And as the thing pulled itself out from the crater it had made in the wall, fear and exhilaration in equal measure began to grow in her chest.

It had the approximate shape of a pony, although bigger than any Copper Horn had ever seen. Bronze plates as thick as her finger slid one over the other as it moved. Not an inch of the coat below could be seen. And as it finished turning towards Copper Horn, the only hints of something living beneath all the metal were two brown eyes peeking out from deep in the helmet.

Even if Copper Horn had never seen such a thing before, she knew what stood in front of her. "A donkey Cataphract? Shouldn't you be brawling with yaks? What are you doing here?"

The thing lowered its head.

Time seemed to slow down and Copper Horn's heart sounded like a hammer on an anvil. Their hopes of making it through had just been trampled. Yet she couldn't allow herself to despair. No, she had to do whatever was possible.

Her world shrunk down to a single problem. Years of memories and experiences became advisers.

She had to go outside. Even if that meant exposing herself to the fliers, remaining in the kitchen would make dodging almost impossible, and even if she could, the building would come down on them soon. The metal of the handle in her hands felt warm. At least she wouldn't have to be careful with her weapon.

She took a step to the side, closing in on the door.

The thing snorted and charged.

The chamber was safe. It kept them hidden. It kept the things outside from seeing them. It was darkness for the eyes and for the horns.

Chryssi tasted every bitter, nauseating drop of rage and pain and despair and fear coming from the rest of the farm anyway.

And yet she would put up with not getting anything else for the rest of her life if it meant her sisters and Radish wouldn't feel the same. What came from inside the room was worse. So much worse. She didn't just taste it. She felt it. It hurt.

Time passed, darkness didn't comfort them, and the ebbs and flows of something horrible built up.

And then it was over. The triumph she tasted did not belong to those she cared about. They had lost. They...

Chryssi closed her eyes, it didn't make a difference.

She knew they would find them. She knew they would separate them. She knew it was over.

For the first time, she felt helpless. There was nothing she could do.

Yes, there is something.

The thing that spoke without words had been silent for years, and now the words crawled through her guts and her shell.

It's time to wake up.

It was hard and sharp and burrowed into her skull and it scared her.

The dream is over.

Chryssi hugged Radish and shivered. It was so big, so deep, towering over her.

We will not allow them to hurt us.

Tia, Lulu, and Radish all tasted differently. All were terrified. The world was coming to get them. Everything was crumbling, everything was hurting, everything—

We hunger.

Something broke inside Chryssi, and suddenly she wasn't scared anymore. Fear didn't make sense. Not for her. Not for it.

She stood up, and as she spoke it was with a chittering choir of voices. "Stay here. it will be over soon."

And in the old cistern outside, for the first time in many, many years, it opened its eyes.

Chapter 25

After Beewax finished the report of what they had found and left to continue his search, Sharp Spark was left with a lot of questions and a slight smell of honey in the air. It seemed the time had come for her to get the answers personally.

The smashed gate was an apt metaphor for how this whole thing had gone down. It had been well built, solid, and it had done an admirable job for many years. It had protected and granted security, and its destruction had not given Sharp Spark any joy or satisfaction. But it had posed an obstacle that had to be eliminated. Violence, something she abhorred, had been once again a tool in the service of the greater good. Ugly, despicable, necessary.

As she walked onto the farm, Sharp Spark hoped it would be one of the last such acts necessary to bring about Harmony. Not the last, she knew that. A few misguided souls remained out there, hiding salvation from ponykind.

She passed the cataphract and some griffins standing guard over the minotaur caught in the nets. Stoic, silent, terrifying, the donkey unnerved her. If everything went well, he would be one of the last of his kind.

The griffins were noisier. Bragging, puffing out their chests, laughing, one could think they were a bunch of young stallions showing off. The way they kept their weapons ready showed any half-decent observer that that appearance was only superficial. They never left their prisoner out of sight, nor did they stop checking the binds. As efficient as they were, they too would become something ponies only half-remembered. A farm was no place for them; their role was a different one.

What once had been a kitchen was nothing more than a heap of debris and broken earthenware. A hole in the wall showed a glimpse of the aftermath of the fight that had taken place outside. There was so much to rebuild. So much unneeded devastation to cover up. Ashes fertilizing a better future.

Sharp Spark considered if she should look at the underground workshop her brethren had told her about. The black tumor festering there had tingled her curiosity. No, better not. She had a feeling she would need what precious little time she had for what waited for her. Getting the fillies out of there was her top priority, everything else was comparatively unimportant.

The inner court displayed an even sadder sight when she reached it. The arcade had once been beautiful, all stone columns with ivy crawling upon them. Now scorch marks and strange, multicolored stains defaced it. In the court itself, the flowerbeds had become trampled earth and mashed-up plants. And in the middle of it stood Master Sottile surrounded by those of her brethren still able to fight. Less than she liked, more than what she had hoped for as they had begun their attack. The fools hiding here had shown restraint; nopony had died. She would keep that in mind; she would thank them for that.

Sharp Spark walked up to the prisoner and smiled. It was time to be civil again. "Master Sottile, I'm glad I can finally meet you. You have been quite hard to find. You know why we are here, so please let us cut to the chase. Where are the fillies of the Prophecy?"

They had won, which was nice. And yet, somehow, Autumn Leaf felt uneasy.

It wasn't the black growth at the end of the cistern that bothered him. Or, at least, it wasn't only that.

"Brother Stout Oak, was this really necessary?" Autumn Leaf shifted his weight from one hoof to the other.

"Yes." Stout Oak didn't move an inch. "No other way, we do what we need to do."

Autumn Leaf liked Stout Oak. He admired him. He was as solid as the name suggested, both in his faith and in his dedication to duty. While Autumn Leaf couldn't really stop fidgeting, Stout Oak never had lost sight of the black thing or the stairs leading into the cistern. Or what had once been a cistern. On one side was a workbench covered with tools and stones, right beside a sturdy table covered with piles of paper and crystal fragments. Traces of old chalk on the floor and the vault hinted at what had been mystical signs, at least as far as Autumn Leaf could tell. One could still tell from the stains on the stonework where the water had been, but it was clear that the cistern hadn't been used for its intended purpose for many years.

Which was not the case for the farm above.

The fields all around were well cared for, and the granary and the barn Autumn Leaf had seen as they had stormed through the wall surely weren't there for show. In this place, ponies had lived and, well, farmed.

"I–" He shifted his shoulders, his armor itched. "They don't seem evil."

Stout Oak didn't lose a beat. "They aren't, and nopony whose opinion matters said they were. That is the great tragedy." He slightly turned his head and looked Autumn Leaf in the eyes. "They truly believe in what they do, but what they believe leads to ruin."

It was getting a bit warm. Autumn Leaf could feel the sweat start run down his back. "Yes, but–"

You're on the wrong side. You brought devastation. You're guilty.

Autumn Leaf turned around. "What? Who said that?"

"Who said what?" For the first time, Stout Oak moved and looked around. "Did you hear something? Could it be the fillies?"

"No, I think I heard a voice, a… I'm not sure, it was weird. It was like–" Autumn Leaf wasn't that good with words. He had listened to the preaching and had even learned to read the oaths of fealty, and yet he couldn't find a way to explain what he had heard. It was– "Uh, is it getting darker in here?"

Stout Oak scoffed. "Don't be silly, that–" He blinked and looked around. "You're right. Something's going on. Keep watch, I'll get some help."

As Stout Oak turned around and ran up the stairs, many different thoughts ran through Autumn Leaf's head. The one that won, in the end, was neither the fear nor the doubts about how proper it was to leave him there alone. It was the pride in being thought of as capable enough to hold his own.

That was unwise, little morsel.

The voice seemed to come from right between Autumn Leaf's ears. He turned on the spot and squinted into the darkness which had somehow filled the corners of the room. "Who are you? Where are you? Show yourself!"

Right behind you.

A shiver ran down Autumn Leaf's back. He almost had to force himself to look over his shoulder and he felt his heart stop. The black mass at the end of the room had swollen up and had begun pulsating. Fine tendrils had grown out of it and covered almost the entire wall behind it, where they seemed to suck the light out from the air. Drops of goo fell on the floor, where they wiggled and dug through the bricks and into the ground. And in the middle of it, a green, vertically slit eye as big as a pony looked down at him.

Silly, little pony.

Finally, Autumn Leaf could think of the right word to describe the voice. Deep emptiness, like standing on the brink of a chasm and looking down into the hungry nothingness down below.

As he felt something cold and slippery crawl up his legs, he only wished he could have explained himself to Stout Oak sooner. At least then he would be remembered as a little bit clever.

Foolish slave, blind follower, duped idiot. There will be nopony to remember you.

And then the darkness closed on Autumn Leaf.

Sharp Spark was a patient pony. She had to be, or the years and years of searching up and down the land would have shaken her faith, weakened her resolve, or driven her mad. She had endured it all, and though she was close to taking another fundamental step towards finally bringing Harmony to the world, she wouldn't allow eagerness to ruin everything.

Steam rose in curls from the cups sitting between her and Master Sottile, the smell of peppermint covering the acrid stink of the battle still polluting the air.

Surrounding the cup in her magic, she pushed it forward to Master Sottile. "We have won and we shall find the fillies, one way or another. Please, be reasonable and tell us where they are. I suspect they may be hidden somewhere in the darkness, scared, their heads filled with whatever nonsense you told them." She picked up her own cup and savored the calming aroma. "Accepting that you lost and giving them to us is the merciful thing to do. I'm convinced that however misguided you are, you cared for them. Save them some unneeded suffering."

He looked up, smiled, and said, "I fear you're a bit late for that. The fillies are in Everfree Haven, and probably already on their way out. You won't get to them. It's over."

It wasn't the best herbal infusion she had had. The peppermint was good but the preparation wasn't ideal. Sharp Spark sniffed. A bit too much limestone in the water, and they had poured it when it was too hot. Still, better than nothing. She put the cup down and said, "You're lying. I understand why you're doing it, believe me, and I won't hold this attempt against you, but I know that they are still here." She glanced up at the sky. They still had enough light, she could allow herself a bit of time to try the soft way. "We observed the farm for a while, both from the sky and below the earth. We wouldn't have done, well–" Sharp Spark waved her hoof at the damaged arcade "–this if we weren't certain that the fillies are still here. We will find them, but it will take time. Time they'll spend terrorized for no good reason at all. So please, do them a favor, tell me where they are."

Master Sottile looked down at the trampled grass.

A distant crash came from somewhere behind the farm. It was a sad reality that there would be additional damage while searching. The big reflected in the small. Distasteful.

"You know we won't hurt the fillies, right?" The cup felt rough in Sharp Spark's magic. Simple earthenware, functional, essential, perfectly adequate for what it had to do. "We want to keep them safe, allow them to fulfill their role. We want to bring true Harmony. In the end, if you think about it, you and us, we want the same thing. It's just that we’re the ones who can achieve it."

As he looked up there was a bit of fire in Master Sottile's eyes and stone in his voice. "We do not want the same thing. We want Harmony. You want chains!"

A little chink on the border of the cup. A small imperfection that didn't impact its usefulness. A detail on which Sharp Spark could focus and keep her anger at bay. "You're wrong. We want Harmony too. We just know how to get there. What was your plan? Hide here, wait for their ascension, and then what?"

"’They will be the best a pony can be, and through their example, they shall plow the world for the seeds of Harmony to fall, so that a Crystal Tree shall sprout and shine a light of many hues onto spirits and heart.’" A little stomp ended Master Sottile's declaration.

"Faulty translation. A frankly stupid error which you somehow keep insisting on, you–" The sun shone, the dust had almost settled and the air was clean. Sharp Spark took a deep breath. "’They shall be higher than ponies, and through their rule, they shall cultivate Harmony in the world, so that a tree bearing fruits of order shall nurture spirits and fate.’ That is what the prophecy says. That is the path forward."

Master Sottile shook his head vigorously. "No, that's wrong. You're following that old charlatan Stone Ink's translation of the First Dawn. It makes no sense in the poem and even less as a tool to read the Prophecy. Harmony can't come from tyranny. That translation can't be right."

"We don't want tyrants, we want rulers. We want something better than us to bring order, bring peace. We know we can't do that on our own." It was the same old discourse, the one she had every time she found another pair of fillies. Sharp Spark snorted. "You've seen the Concord. I know you sit in the Council of Houses. We can't play nice. The threat of Eternal Ice hangs over our heads and we still barely get along. And you expect them to simply become better because they see somepony be decent? Hah! We both know that's not how the world works. Not yet."

"But it will, and the reason it will become that way is that there will be good ponies setting an example." There was a new ardor in Master Sottile's eyes. "The Alicorns will be shining examples. They will be a pillar on which ponies can lean."

Gizerico was quite surprised the whole thing hadn't been a complete waste of time. There had been a hunt, a pretty good fight–although with orders to not kill anyone–and the second part of their payment to be had. Now they just had to keep the prisoners out of trouble in the storeroom for a while and it would all be over.

There was just that horrible itch at the base of his feathers that spoiled the victory a bit.

He rolled his shoulders and winced at the pain in the right one. He didn't like pain either, but at least that was a sign that there had been a bit of a challenge. A quick glance towards the prisoners reassured him that the griffon chick was still bound in the corner and wasn't about to throw him through the closed door. Again.

Maybe she would join Gizerico's flock after the job was over. She was quite the fighter; he could use one like her. He would’ve loved to ask the minotaur too, if only she could fly... and if she didn't look ready to snap his neck. Knowing she was on the other side of the farm, guarded by the cataphract as well as Gaviano and Gemma did a lot to keep him calm.

"Stop squirming! Stay put and it'll be over soon." Gilia sounded annoyed. Probably because the mare she was berating had managed to get a solid kick into her side.

"Leave her alone. You won, let us have our grief." The young stallion didn't sound beaten, but since he had surrendered, he hadn't done anything aside from caring for the wounded. It was alright in Gizerico's opinion, as bringing him to surrender had involved a lot of burning eyes, coughing, and hallucinations. And the damn itching.

Scratching helped a bit, but some of the itching was in hard-to-reach places. Maybe Gizerico could ask the stallion for something to ease it. There was a certain risk that the pony would try something funny to knock him out, but the more time passed the more he was willing to take the chance.

You have so much more to worry about, little bird.

Gizerico's feathers stood up on his neck as he whipped his head around. Something was observing them, something had spoken.

His flock-mates stood ready to pounce something. Whatever it was, they had heard it too.

"Unicorn tricks?" Gilia hissed.

The large room was filled up with crates, barrels, and sacks. "Maybe, but not in here." He looked up. No windows, just an oil lamp illuminating the room. "Did you check the floor?"

Gilia's muscles tensed. "No secret doors. Not hollow below. Walls seemed solid too, but they had a Diamond Dog, so not completely sure."

"Right, lemme check the door." Soft steps, slow, deliberate. Gizerico tried to not make any sound as he crept towards the door. If something was about to come out from under the floor he would at least try to make it harder for it to hear where he was. He reached out for the door and pulled it open.

Behind it there was only black nothingness.

"What…?"

You griffins like your stories. They are very funny. I like them too.

Gizerico jumped back and grabbed the short sword hanging on his side. "Gilia, knife on the prisoners, they got magic!" He pulled the blade out and raised his guard.

I like the stories about the hunt. The chase, the fight, the feast. It's wonderful.

The prisoners looked up, confused. If Gizerico had to guess, they weren't hearing the same things. Somebody was trying to play games with them, somebody who had some kind of magic ritual going on somewhere. One of the things he’d learned when fighting ponies was to get a measure of unicorns, and that was no unicorn magic. "Threaten the mare. Blade on the neck, orders be damned." He took a deep breath and screamed, "Guards!"

Too soon for that, little bird. I have things to do before everybody hears.

No answer, that was bad. He changed the grip on his sword, ready to throw it or stab whoever was trying to play with them. It was an impressive spell, but they could handle the situation, they still could catch their prey. "We have prisoners. Let us go or their death will be on your head."

The young stallion shouted, "Stay away from–" before the sound of splintering wood silenced him.

Gizerico dared to glance over his shoulder. Gilia held the bound mare up, keeping a sharp dagger at her neck. The stallion lay half a pounce away among the debris of a smashed crate.

Little bird, you make the same error every other griffin seems to make.

Gillia's cry of pain had him jump aside and look back while keeping his guard toward the door. Black tendrils oozing through the bricks of the wall had grabbed Gilia and were pulling her up to the ceiling. Her dagger clattered on the floor as she tried to fight for her freedom.

You think you're the hunter…

Hot air ruffled his coat. And yet he felt like the icy bite of the wind of Boreas was gnawing at his heart. The black nothingness behind the door had disappeared. Behind it was a corridor.

A corridor made of teeth.

You, little bird, are not.

The mint infusion had cooled down. It was a lukewarm broth barely good enough to be used to water flowers. Sharp Spark couldn't even ask for a new cup as she had sent the guards to join the search.

She raised it to her lips and drank. Sometimes it was necessary to make some sacrifices for the sake of not being rude. "You talk about giving an example, yet you live here, hidden, among griffins, minotaurs, and a Diamond Dog."

"So? They are good people."

Her guess had been right, it was barely worth being thrown away. Sharp Spark put down the cup. There was a limit to politeness. "Are they? Griffins are hunters, they smell of blood and death at the best of times." She scoffed, a shiver ran down her back. "And then there's the minotaur. I know who she is. I have been in the south, in that cauldron of cities brawling and fighting and scratching and biting each other. There is no peace there, and yet even they still tell stories about the warlord who raided and pillaged. They use her name to scare their young! There are still adults with nightmares of what she did. And those too rotten to care remember when she fought in the arena. She is a monster, she's the reason I brought a cataphract, and yet you have her here, living with the fillies. Is that the kind of example you intend to bring to the world? Do you want the Alicorns to stride through the Concord leaving a path of destruction? Do you intend to bring harmony through fear?"

Master Sottile looked at her with… was it pity?

Her breathing had become ragged, her heart beating like a hammer in a forge. Sharp Spark was standing, she was angry, that wouldn't do. She tried to calm down and sit again. It was no time for emotions now; she couldn't afford a dull mind. "I apologize for having raised my voice."

"I know what she did in the past, but that part of Donna Copper Horn is no more, and for years she has worked tirelessly for redemption. Harmony is also forgiveness, and that is what I granted her, even when she won't ever forgive herself." His cup stood in front of him, cold, ignored.

Sharp Spark scoffed. "It isn't your place to forgive her. She can't be forgiven, she will forever be a cancerous growth poisoning everything around her. And what about the black abomination in that laboratory of yours? From what my brethren told me, their magic barely touched it, and they still were certain that nothing good could ever come from it. You talk about some idealistic dream while you surround our only hope for a good future with corruption."

"You seem to come with griffins and donkeys too."

"Because we understand harmony. Everything has a place in the world and knowing it is where peace comes from. We use the tools according to their purpose. We will teach the fillies to use the tools so that we all may be saved. What did you teach them amidst hunters and warmongers?"

"We taught them mercy and empathy."

"Mercy and empathy for what? Have you told them the truth about who they live with? Did you force into them compassion for sickness and predators? What is that thing in the laboratory?"

There was silence, the only sounds the chirping of distant birds and the muffled voices of her brethren searching the buildings.

The air smelled of thunderstorms and rotting meat. The ground trembled, and even the rocks whispered with fear. Something was coming, and Ladon didn't like it at all.

The architect they had to catch had seen the obvious trap, unearthed the hidden one, and dug right into the pit they had for him on the only way out. Hard but solid work without the whole hassle of having ponies or birdies or other interlopers bothering them.

Something had to go wrong at some point. Ladon wasn't even surprised.

"Issa, did the prisoner wake up?" Ladon kept his paw on the ground, feeling, hearing, staying alert.

His second in command knelt at his side, claws scratching the rock. "Nope, still out for good. The guy was too clever and Sticte hit him pretty hard when we got him. I don't think we'll be able to wake him up for a while." She scratched her muzzle with her silver hook. "What's coming? Doesn't smell like anything that should be here."

Ladon swore under his breath. "No, it doesn't. Wanted to ask the dog if he knew what it was, he's local and all that. No luck, though." The stone under his paw vibrated, almost shuddered. "Sandstone and oil! Didn't need this right now. Issa, send Sticte and Theron back with the prisoner. Tell them to run. The others shall prepare shields and spears, we could have a Deep Crawler coming up."

He never let his attention wander from the tunnel. He didn't need to. Issa would do what she had to do and make sure his dogs would be ready.

Something moved down there. Ladon felt it even more than he could hear it, the air tickling the fur on his snout. Time to move back.

He stood up, turned around, and unsheathed his sword. "Right, pups, you know what to do. Slow retreat, let's all get out of here in one piece."

His dogs passed him and closed the cave with shields behind him, the wood of their spears clacking in the nock. In the distance, he heard Sticte and Theron’s steps getting away as fast as possible. He hoped it would be enough.

One of the biggest dangers when retreating through tunnels was losing oneself. Time became viscous when waiting for the things of the deep to come for you. The shields scraping on the ground and walls made it hard to hear the enemy approaching. His dogs had to use their eyes, he had to use his nose. Both could be fooled. It was one of those situations where it was easy to get lost.

Ladon had lived through it more often than he cared to count. It never got easier; he only got a bit wiser.

It was his wisdom which guided him when something cold and smooth and horrible touched his leg. He whirled around to stab it and jumped away, an alert barked without even thinking about it. An instant later Issa was at his side and plunged her spear into it with a wet ripping sound.

Issa left her weapon, claws scratching the wood for an instant, and retreated. The spear stayed stuck.

"Keep the shields in place. There could still be something coming." Ladon tried to understand what he was hearing. Scraping of shields, breathing of his dogs, the sound of leather strips over copper armor. There it was, skittering.

I see you are a smart one. Good.

The voice hadn't come through Ladon's ears, he was sure of that. It meant it was worse than he expected.

Issa's spear clattered on the floor of the tunnel, metal shattering as if it had become glass, and rolled to Ladon's feet.

Maybe you'll be a bit of a–

Five steps in front of him. Ladon jumped forward and dug his sword deep into whatever was trying to get them. Not that he had any illusion it would do much. Just, maybe, enough. "Retreat, fast!"

He heard his blade cut through something and then stop as if encased in stone.

That wasn’t nice. I was talking. Can't you see that–

Shields clattered on the floor and more spears hit the thing as his dogs sprinted down the tunnel. Good. Now he just had to remain calm. Ignore the voice, and keep the pressure up.

Oh, I see, you–

Ladon let the sword go and jumped to the side. He reached for the knives and threw them while getting between the thing and his dogs.

Will you stop that? It's–

Another jump back. The steps were far away enough. He grabbed a potter flask, woke the little fire spark in it, and threw it.

He ignored the sound of the explosion, the smell of brimstone, and the rumble of the collapsing tunnel. He had no time for that, not now when he had to use only his memory to navigate the caves. When it was all over he would have to get a lot of extra coin for it all. There had been no talk about whatever had ambushed them.

When he hit the wall he let out a surprised yelp. He didn't remember it.

He touched it with his hand. It was smooth, slightly elastic. It was moving.

I get it now. I can't show you things.

Ladon stumbled back. A foul stench assaulted his nose. Unbearable, alien, fear condensed in almost palpable miasma.

You should be honored. This is something special just for you.

The sun had moved in the sky. It was getting late, Sharp Spark didn't like it. If needed they could search the whole farm well through the night, but that wasn't the plan. "Master Sottile, it's over. I know you still hope for them to flee for some reason, but they won't. I have a troop of Diamond Dogs to scour the earth and I don't believe the madness that charlatan Starswirl says about teleportation being possible. I've tried to be gracious because I respect you, but this is more important than me or you. Where are the fillies? Surrender them and everything will be over. We shall grant them everything they need, the best education possible, and the chance to become the most important mares in the world. "

Master Sottile sagged down. "What education? To use people as tools? That is what tyrants do."

"Rulers do it. Tyrants are petty and greedy; they will not be." Her tone became soft. "Your house shall survive. I know there is another filly who can take their place. Let them go. Let them be great."

"They are not the fillies of the prophecy, you know? There… There have been signs which the prophecy never mentioned regarding them. I swear on everything I hold dear, you are not looking for them. Let them be free."

Sharp Spark stepped forward and put a hoof on Master Sottile's shoulder. "We shall be the judges of that. Even if you're right, if it is not their fate to become alicorns, they still will be educated as well as possible. They will become heralds and ambassadors. They will still work for Harmony, for peace." She leaned down and looked into his eyes. "We all have a role to play in this. Let them go. Tell me where they are."

A few moments passed, and Master Sottile looked away.

Sharp Spark stood up straight and snorted. "As you desire. Let us do it the hard way. The farm will be dismantled. No stone will go unturned. Your stubbornness will leave you and your ilk with a ruin and nothing more. Your ego will be the downfall of your House."

Something was not right, Barseen could feel it.

For a moment he felt a spark of excitement. An emotion he squashed as soon as he became aware of it.

It had been a moment of weakness, one on which he would meditate when everything was over and the unicorn had released him from his obligation. It was not good for a cataphract to have such a thing pollute the purity of the Duty.

He looked around. The minotaur was still bound and down. Probably not defeated, but not the cause of his unease. Something else was coming. Something–

Something was trickling along his fetlock. The surprise hit him like nothing else had that day. Had he forgotten to properly clean his coat? Had he–the unfathomable wormed itself into his mind–had he made an error in putting on his armor? Had he committed a sacrilege?

No, that wasn't possible, he would have felt it during the fight.

Slowly he looked down. A thin, black thread coming out from the ground was stuck between the plates covering his legs.

And then it wriggled.

An attack. Some vile kind of magic!

Barseen cleared his mind of every extraneous thought, of every emotion. The Fifth Prayer of Bronze Devotion focused his intent and the world shrunk to the essential components of reality. As he took a step back there was only Barseen, his skin made of metal, his spirit flowing through the plates cutting off everything that was not him, breaking the spell.

Nice try. In another world, it could have worked.

The thread didn't break.

The Second Devotion of Shattering Stone ran through Barseen's soul as he lifted his forehoof and brought it down on the ground, dirt shooting up and waves running out from the point of impact.

There was a crack and the plates around his hoof fell away.

No prayer came to his mind as Barseen looked down in horror at the sheer impossibility of his armor breaking. It was… It wasn't even wrong, it was something that shouldn't be.

Slowly, carefully he lifted his naked hoof. From the hole in the ground a green eye looked up at him. Small tendrils enveloped the metallic remains and sucked the color out of them.

I see you think the world can't touch you. Let me show you how wrong you are.

The eye opened, revealing row upon row of fangs.

I'm feeling peckish, and you look delicious.

A scream came from somewhere on the farm.

Sharp Spark's head snapped around. Another followed, one of the griffins.

"What's happening?"

The air grew colder, the light dimmed.

"What have you done?" Sharp Spark prepared a brief spell, a crude display of force ready to lash out at whatever was coming.

"I– I don't…" Master Sottile's voice sounded unsteady. He was looking around, apparently as confused as Sharp Spark.

"Is this some kind of trap? Another attempt to keep us out?" More screams, these sounded like her brethren.

"Did you–"

He didn't do anything. No, everything happening now is your fault.

Sharp Spark turned around. In the dense shadows under the arcades, shapes were moving. Without a second thought, she let the spell go, magical lightning shooting out and burning through the darkness. For an instant, she thought she could see ponies, or at least things resembling ponies. Black, like holes in the world, crooked, shuffling.

You'll have to do better than that. Much better.

Colors grew muted and the remaining grass along the arcade visibly withered.

"Sharp Spark, something happened in the cistern!"

She turned and saw Stout Oak charge through one of the side doors, black goo clinging to his sides. A heartbeat later tendrils shot out from the room behind him and wrapped around his barrel and muzzle. Sharp Spark had just the time to blink before he was pulled back in, a curtain of unlight falling on him as he disappeared with a sickening smacking of lips.

He was a stubborn one. Still delicious, if a bit on the tougher side.

A shiver ran through Sharp Spark, one of anger. She prepared another spell. If this thing thought she would be easy prey it was going to be disappointed. With gritted teeth, she snarled, "What do you want? Show yourself!"

You come here to take what is MINE, you disturb my slumber, you upset my playthings, and then you ask me what I want?

The shadows dripped and contorted into small pools on the ground. They bubbled and rose to join into a mockery of the equine form. It grew and grew until it stood three ponies tall. Boils popped on the surface revealing green eyes.

Well, now that I'm awake, I just want to snack.

Magic flowed through Sharp Spark's horn and filled the spell, the one she was uniquely talented in. With a flash she released a blade of blue light. It was impossibly sharp, faster than the wind, and it flew swift and sure.

The sound it made as it cut through the thing would give her nightmares, but it did its job. The head of the creature stayed in place for a moment, then fell and splattered to the ground.

Sharp Spark breathed fast. It had taken a lot out of her, but it was worth it. A smile crept on her face.

Not bad.

The neck of the thing split open on rows of crooked fangs.

Not enough.

Sharp Spark felt all the anger leave her, the void in her heart filling with dread. Her own voice was barely more than a whisper as she asked, "What are you?”

More shadow ponies stepped out of the arcade, shuffling, crawling, stumbling on malformed legs.

Me? I'm the thing you tell yourself isn't real. I'm the bad dreams of foals, the truth beneath comforting lies, the fate you try to escape.

The figure towered over her. Gollops of stinking darkness falling from its maw.

I'm the Queen of the Changelings, and you, little pony, trespassed into my kingdom.

And then the avalanche came down on Sharp Spark, leaving behind only screams.

The attack was over. The prey was silent.

It considered what It should do now. Some deep drive urged it to eat, consume, grow. It was complete once more, and every little part, be it in the central mass towering over the devastation of the internal court or crawling along the caves deep below felt it. Reality was a feast all around It. It knew the name of things now. Those too would sate it.

A wisp of fear caught Its attention.

Eyes turned and focused on Master Sottile/Fidelis/Donna Copper Horn/Willow bark/Ginevra/Millet/Garvino/Meadowsweet.

They were looking up at It. They were scared, terrified. It was like a miasma coming from them.

It was…It was bitter.

It didn't like it. It–

Chrysalis cried out. A pained moan poured out from her mouths.

They feared her. She knew it, she tasted it. They didn't run away because they couldn't, because it was paralyzing.

She had ruined everything. She had lost her family. She closed her eyes and her maws and her senses, cutting out the flow of emotions. She had to–

"Chryssi?"

Tia and Lulu stood in the door to Fidelis' room. They had seen her.

It was too much. Chrysalis couldn't face them. She had to go away.

With a sob that shook every part of her, the black mass that was Chrysalis rose into a tidal wave and stormed away.

Chapter 26

Chryssi took a deep breath and tried to order her thoughts.

Countless mouths opened and chattered. It didn't work.

She had to go away, she had to make things right, she had to hide, she had to talk to her family, she had to get away from her family.

Consume.

Yes, she should do that. No, she shouldn't.

Breathing didn't work. She was too scattered. It wouldn't do.

She took the hunger and put it away, then gathered her memories and put them in a coherent shape. It felt wrong, but she pushed through with it anyway.

She was Chrysalis of House Sottile. She was a baker. She had sisters.

There, she was whole again.

Chryssi looked around. She was in the cistern plastered all over the wall at the end of it and reaching deep down in the ground below.

That seemed like a dumb place to hide, even if it felt safe. She had been here for years. No, Chrysalis had been around the farm, her body had been here.

It wasn't the time for that now. She had to make a plan like Tia always told her.

Tia… Lulu…

Eat.

They had seen her. They were scared of her, of that she was sure.

They were right. She knew that now. She would eat them. She would eat everything.

A plan, right, priorities.

She had protected them, and now she had to go away and continue to keep them safe. It had been fun and wonderful but it was over.

The forest sounded like a good first step. If she got deep enough into the woods they wouldn't find her and she could decide what to do. Maybe become a witch. That would keep people away.

"Chryssi?"

That had been Tia's voice. Why had she heard Tia?

Chryssi's attention returned to the world around her. Tia and Lulu were coming down the stairs. Slow, careful steps.

They shouldn't be here. A dozen maws hissed, "Go away! Leave me alone! I'm dangerous!"

Her sisters ignored her and reached the bottom of the stairs. They squinted and looked into the darkness upon her horrible form. Lulu sounded worried, "Chryssi, are you alright?"

She had eaten up the terror of dozens, but she couldn't bear the idea of tasting her sisters' fear. "No! I'm not Chryssi. I'm the hunger that will consume the world. I'm the end of everything. Run away while you can."

Tia took a step forward. "What are you talking about?"

They had to understand. "I'm a danger. I'm the devourer, the hunter stalking the dreams, the eater of light. I'm not your sister." Chryssi extruded an arm covered in talons and pushed a mass of eyes and mouths forward. She gathered every nightmare she had seen, felt her heart break, and put it into the face she showed to her sisters. "It was all a lie. I'm Death made flesh."

Tia and Lulu stood still for a moment and looked at each other. There was a brief nodding before they came forward and hugged the slavering mass of fangs.

Tia whispered, "Don't be silly."

Lulu snuggled a withering tentacle. "You're Chryssi, our sister."

"And no matter what–" Tia leaned back and looked right back in one of Chryssi's eyes, "–you'll always be our sister and our friend."

Chryssi felt the wetness of tears running down her mass. When had she decided she could cry?

Her sisters were there. She could taste worry and determination. She could taste love. Sincere love. And there was magic becoming stronger all around them.

Tia and Lulu began to shine with a light of many colors, most of which hadn't even a name. It became stronger and stronger, it blinded her, and then, with a flash, they disappeared.

Chryssi blinked and immediately regretted it. Something had rattled her, and each of her eyes seemed confused about what its role was and on what it should focus.

She had to assert control over every part of herself, push down the urge to feed once again and take in her surroundings.

She froze. Where her sisters had been just an instant ago, only a scorch mark marred the floor.

"Tia! Lulu!" Smells, sounds, emotions, everything flowed into her mind as Chryssi opened up sense after sense. They were nowhere to find.

Dread gripped her soul. She couldn't feel them. With a dozen voices she called out again. "Luna, Celestia, where are you?"

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

No, something. It was faint, just a trace in the flow of… It was in the magic, the thing that Master Sottile had told them laid below everything.

She shifted her attention, looked through the world instead of at it. There it was. The track shone like the sun and the moon but with the borders fraying off. It wouldn't remain there for long.

The magic had taken them.

It had carried away HER sisters.

The growl shook the ground. Dust trickled from the vault. "Give them back."

Tentacles thrashed through the air, pressing against the walls of reality.

"I don't want to be alone. I want my sisters!"

Appendages shifted, compressed. Talons and spurs changed into bony blades and pressed in new directions.

"You won't take them away."

Chryssi was getting angry. Furious. More than she had ever been. More than when they had attacked the farm. The hits became frantic, the blades scratched against something.

"Give them back! Give them back! I'll rip you apart piece by piece! I'll feast on your innards! They are MINE!"

Appendages curled back, and something deep inside her said, Do it.

Sharp bone snapped forward with a ripping, wet sound.

When Chryssi withdrew her tentacles, their blades dripping with rainbow goop, a tear in the world floated in the middle of the cistern. Light of many colors, most of which didn't have a name, bled out from the borders.

Chryssi hadn't time to admire her work. She slithered forward and poured into the hole, all her attention fixated on the track snaking in improbable configurations. It was fading.

The world around her fell away, the smell of damp bricks became more an idea before getting lost in the totality of blinding possibilities. The chirping of birds felt smooth, green. Joy was a wave of smooth pink.

Nothing mattered to Chryssi as she crawled between currents and songs. She could smell them now, they were there, not far away. A last push and she dropped on a floor.

"Tia! Lulu!"

Luna didn't know what had happened nor where she was. One moment she was comforting an overgrown Chryssi, the next she was standing in a place that seemed made of light.

And yet, it didn't matter. Not now, not when there were far more important things to consider.

She heard a ripping sound and a wet splat. When she turned she saw Chryssi rising from a thick puddle of goo and heard her call, "Tia! Lulu!"

Luna jumped and hugged her sister, "Chryssi, look!" She took a step back and moved new muscles. "I got wings!"

A brief glimpse over the shoulder told her that the flaring hadn't worked quite as majestically as planned. One wing hung low and the other had only half-opened. Not that it mattered too much. The point had gotten across.

It was remarkable how a dozen eyes could express confusion. Funny. "I…see. You got a horn too."

"Huh?" Luna crossed her eyes and tried to look up to her forehead. The success was limited, but she thought she could see something peek out from her mane. "I got a horn. Hah, Tia! I got a horn."

"That's nice, Lulu."

Tia sounded distracted. That wouldn't do. Luna got wings and a horn. That required more enthusiasm and, ideally, some envy from her sister.

In that place made of light things got blurry and it took Luna a couple of moments to find the spoilsport. There she was: standing a short way over and looking at some suspended picture.

Luna stomped over to her and said, a bit louder and with more entitlement, "I got a horn. And wings."

This time it worked. Tia looked away from the floating picture and down to Luna. A smile crept onto her face. "You do." She shifted in a little dance. "You do! Master Sottile was wrong."

"Tia, you got wings too." Chryssi had shuffled to Luna's side and now sported just a single mouth. She still towered over both of them and continued, "When did you two get wings?"

Luna scratched her chin. "I'm not sure ... there was the flash, and then we were here, and I got them. I don't know where here is, though."

"I guess we are in a dream?" Tia was trying to open her own wings with visibly less success than Luna. "There are these memories all over. I think we must be dreaming."

"Memories?" Something moved in the suspended picture and Luna finally took her time to look at it.

Scenes of her life were displayed there. They were sitting as judges while Willowbark kept ranting about something. Then it changed to them sitting in the barn under rackety bridges made of planks and ropes. Another change, now she and Tia were looking in a bucket where Chryssi bubbled.

And now that Luna was looking up she could see dozens, nay, hundreds more of those… Illusions, memories? Whatever they were, they were all over the place, always showing Tia and Luna, sometimes together, sometimes alone.

"We're not in a dream." Chryssi shivered. "We're in… I think we are in the Magic of the world."

Tia frowned. "Oh, that's impossible. I think. Maybe."

Shrugging when one had no shoulders was an impressive accomplishment. Luna admired Chryssi for pulling it off. "I'm kinda confused myself. It doesn't matter. You are well. And you have wings."

A low grumble awoke in Luna's tummy and brought her back to important things. She hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. "So, how do we go back?"

Chryssi turned around. "I think I know the way."

When they stepped out of the light and into the cistern the world made sense again. Celestia welcomed the cool air and the smell of damp walls. No emotions chattering in her ears, or songs having geometric forms. It was grounded, real, comforting.

She felt like she needed that comfort. It had been a long, terrifying day. One that felt like it had begun months ago and in which so much horrible stuff had happened. She needed a warm thyme infusion, some sweet bread, and to cuddle her sisters.

She would have to wait for that.

Lulu was still hopping around excitedly while twitching her wings, and Chryssi was returning to her corner.

She took a deep breath, time to face the possibility of ugly things coming up. "Chryssi, did you eat those jerks?"

Chryssi froze, then settled back at the end of the cistern. "I…"

"Right, can you get back to your usual form?"

A wave ran down the mass and coagulated into a foal-sized figure. The old Chryssi they got used to took a step forward.

Celestia walked up to her and held Chryssi in her forelegs. "You're more huggable this way. We told you, we are your sisters and whatever happened, we will go through it together. Now, did you eat them?"

There was a bit of mumbling that finally became intelligible. "A bit."

Not the answer she had feared, but neither the one she had hoped for. "What do you mean by 'A bit'?"

Chryssi bit her lip and looked away.

"Please, what happened?"

"I…" Chryssi took a deep breath, then looked at the heap of—of more Chryssi, Celestia guessed—at the end of the cistern. "Let me show you. Just… I swear, I tried."

A low rumble shook the ground, bricks shifting on the floor as something moved below them. And then a speck of color emerged from the black mass. It grew and grew and became a giant green gem as large as a pony. Another followed, and then another one until there were two dozen of them like jewels embedded into obsidian.

Celestia let Chryssi go and, dreading what waited for her, walked to the nearest gem. No, not a gem, more like a vial. It was full of liquid and something was in there. She squinted. It was—

Growing up had changed a lot of things. Celestia was well aware of how her tastes and the things she had once deemed important had changed. It was part of life that what had delighted or scared a little filly wouldn't touch a grown mare in the same way. And yet there was always a core of immutable values and deep-seated fears making up the solid foundations underlying her being. It was what made her Celestia. And what she saw in the pod spoke directly to her soul.

"Tha–pfft. You've–snrk. They… they–" It was too much. The laughter exploded out from her and tears ran down her cheeks. She had to sit down, her legs wouldn't carry her.

"What's happening, Tia?" Lulu had stopped prancing around and came to look at the thing. "Chryssi, why is there a naked pony in there?"

Chryssi murmured something, which didn't help Celestia at all with her current hilarity issues. She laid down before she risked tumbling over from laughing too hard.

For some inexplicable reason, Lulu didn't seem that entertained. "Chryssi, when you said you ate them a bit, did you mean you ate away all their fur?"

The answer was barely audible. "Yes."

Celestia was making an effort to get herself back under control. The situation was serious. There was stuff to do.

"And their mane too? Did you really eat their manes?"

There was no hope. Celestia could barely breathe as a hiccup joined her guffaws.

"I tried not to. It was hard. Ginevra told me to not eat speaking people."

Lulu sighed. "I guess fur and mane technically don't speak." She kicked Celestia. "By the stars, have some dignity, sister."

Every once in a while Lulu was right about something. Right now was neither the place nor the time to bathe in the hilarity of the situation. And Celestia was stronger than her base impulses. At least she could be for a little while. After all, it was just a fully grown mare floating in there, completely bald, skin pale and barren like some of the ugly moles she occasionally had found in the untilled fields. The ones that were wonderfully adept in making Lulu screech and flee when Celestia put them into her bed. No, bad Celestia, wrong thing to think about. She bit her lip before she noticed something.

"Chryssi, why are they twitching?"

The tone of the answer was unexpectedly cold. "Because they're having nightmares."

That sounded less fun. Celestia took a deep breath and stood up. Her legs still felt a bit wobbly, but at least the whole laughter thing had passed. "Are you giving them nightmares?"

"Yes."

The funny part had been better, but no good thing could last forever. "Right, stop that, it's cruel and you don't need to do it. I'm pretty sure they won't escape from there."

"But they tried to take you away! They wanted to—they wanted to destroy our family!"

Lulu put her foreleg around Chryssi. "Yeah, but you stopped them. It's over, and, well, dreams are kinda important. You can't ruin them because you're angry."

"She's right." Celestia sat down on Chryssi's other side. "You won, they lost, manes and coats were the cost of defeat. Let it be just that."

It took quite a lot of mumbling, scratching of the floor, and occasional buzzing of wings before Chryssi finally looked at the pod and asked, "A'ight. What do I do with them now?"

"Er... I don't know. Set them free somewhere far away?" Celestia prided herself on always being able to throw together a plan on the fly with all due panache, but for once drew a blank. What does one do with prisoners without a ship or a dungeon? She shrugged and looked over to Lulu.

Her sister seemed as lost as her. "I guess we can ask Master Sottile? He's a judge and all that."

At the mention of Master Sottile, Celestia felt Chryssi huddle down. "What is it, Chryssi? Something wrong?"

"The others saw me. I mean, they saw the ugly stuff I've done. They're scared and—" A sob rattled Chryssi's frame. "—they're right."

"Nope, none of that." Celestia hugged her sister harder. "You're our sister. You're Chryssi, the Chryssi we always knew. You put on some scary faces, big deal. They came at us, you defended us, end of the story."

"But…They're right to be scared. I–I will eat the world. Everything everywhere forever, I'll devour it all."

Lulu snorted. "And they still let Tia into the kitchen too even if they shouldn't. I don't see the difference."

Sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference between her sister being horrible and her trying to help. This time Celestia was pretty sure it was the latter, which meant her vengeance could wait. "Can you explain ‘devour it all’ a bit better? It seems to be kind of vague and kind of came out of nowhere."

There was a very specific expression Chryssi had when she thought hard about things. Celestia knew it from when her sister tried to explain things, and it was usually followed by some complicated concept described with a lot of similes and waving-around-of-hooves.

As Celestia looked at her sister, she felt she recognized more and more of the usual Chryssi. She liked that.

After what seemed an eternity Chryssi said, "I got a lot of… well, not memories. More knowing things. I kind of put them away when I became a little caterpillar because I wanted to be with you in the right way. Anyway, now I know that stuff again. Some of it. It's a bit messy and weird. So, I know what I am. I'm a thing that eats worlds. I come to a place, and then I grow and I grow and then I eat everything that is and that was and that will be. And when I'm grown enough, my Fath–my Moth–my parent will come after me and I will spawn more world eaters and rejoin my… I guess my relatives."

Celestia nodded. That explained so much. She thought about it some more. No, actually it didn't. Those were words, but she wasn't sure she understood the full meaning of it. There was probably a lot behind them, a lot of concepts, of ideas. They would need some time to get it.

"Do you want to do that? Eat the world and leave, I mean." Lulu glanced obliquely at Chryssi.

"No, I don't think I want it. I like it here. I love you. I don't want to eat everything, but it's my nature, and I hunger for it."

"Right, but it's this brick's nature to stay on the ground, but with a little help—" The flow of magic felt a bit different, easier. Interesting, but not something Celestia had time to think about right now. She had to make a point. Her magic touched a brick laying at the side of the cistern. "—it can fly. See..."

The crash was sudden, the sound deafening, and the debris irksome. When they finished coughing and blinking the dirt out of their eyes and the dust had settled, the sisters admired a new hole in the vault. It was large enough for a pony to wiggle through, and a testament to Fidelis' ability as a mason considering the cistern hadn't collapsed.

A couple of heartbeats later the remains of the brick fell through the hole and shattered on the floor.

Lulu crossed her eyes and tried to look at her own horn with what Celestia guessed was suspicion. "Tia, let's not do that to Chryssi."

She had a point. "Right, so, do you have to eat the world, like, right now?"

"Huh?" Chryssi blinked. "I…No, I don't think so."

"Wonderful! Then we can find a way to help you fly despite being a brick and without going splat. Which I guess is a bad metaphor." A little poke of Celestia's hoof caused the remains of the brick to crumble to dust. "Anyway, we now have at least some time. We can make a plan."

From the fresh aperture in the vault, Celestia could hear Meadowsweet and Donna Copper Horn call out for her and Lulu. She frowned. She didn't hear them call for Chryssi.

"So, now what?" Chryssi sounded a bit dejected.

That wouldn't do. At all. Celestia ruffled her wings, then glared at them. They felt weird. "Now we go back to the others together. We clean up, see where we can put those jerks you're keeping down here, and then I guess we have dinner."

"I… I don't think they want to see me."

Celestia reached out and pulled Chryssi into a hug. "They'll get over it. We are family. We stay together." Her stomach grumbled. "Let's go, maybe we can find a snack before we start with the chores."

Author's Note

The epilogue will land tomorrow.

Epilogue

Thirty years in office and yet Twilight still marveled at the well-oiled machine of state Celestia and Luna had left behind. Most things worked without her direct intervention, leaving her free to deal with whatever fell outside the norm personally.

Truly a superbly engineered bureaucratic construct.

Which added to the mystery of why the laws contained in the pile of dusty books heaped on her desk were still part of it. The rules detailed in these books were abstruse, the language was archaic, and the formulation appeared to be willfully obtuse. Decrees referred to decrees that referred back to the first ones, and many invoked traditions she had never heard of and which had probably been forgotten by anyone younger than a millennium anyway.

Plus, he words for 'dashing', 'awesome', and 'death-defying' had been used far too much for anything not written by Rainbow Dash or Scootaloo.

Twilight smiled. She had a riddle on her hooves, one that could require time-travel and certainly would require tons of research through ancient tomes and obscure scholarly publications.

It sounded like a lovely evening reminiscent of her younger days.

The pop of teleportation and subsequent knocking at her door destroyed that plan. As well-designed as the system was, it still needed her attention now and then, and teleportation at that time in the evening meant something pressing had come up. "Come in, Fine Grain."

She closed the book and looked up.

It wasn't her secretary standing in the door.

Celestia had put on some muscle in the last few decades. It looked like life on the coast suited her. "Princess Twilight, still studying well into the night? I thought you would have learned to pace yourself better at this point."

"Why would you think that? She's your student. It's a miracle and a testimony to her character that she's as well adjusted as she is." Luna followed along, trailing the smell of fish. Aside from that, she hadn't changed at all.

"Luna! Celestia! What a pleasant surprise!" Twilight stood up and moved to hug the alicorns. "I didn't expect a visit. What brings you here? I hope nothing bad."

"No, nothing bad." Celestia nuzzled her. "My, have you grown some more? I swear, you’re going to be able to pat me on the head pretty soon."

"I'm waiting for that day,” Luna interjected. “It shall be wondrous, a tale the bards shall declaim for ages. Twilight, promise me you will invite me to it."

Twilight snickered. "I promise I will have a proper ceremony for it. Can I offer you something? Should I call for some tea? How's the ship coming along?"

"No, thank you. We had tea at home before coming here. As for the ship, it's going great. You only properly get a feeling for how much naval technology has changed once you try it out for yourself. So much to learn, it's wonderful." Celestia stepped back. There was some kind of nervous energy in her. "Oh, and we're rather in a hurry."

Luna nodded. "Yes, we came as soon as we knew what we had to do. We just thought to pop in as a professional courtesy."

The park was empty. Any families that had gone out for a walk in the warm summer night had just been ushered out by a group of guards with the promise that the Princess would personally explain what was going on later.

Twilight thought that would be nice, mostly because by then she would have an idea of what that was.

Now it was just her, Celestia, Luna, a smattering of guards, a grumbling Captain Gallus, King Thorax along with a massive amount of changelings, and the petrified forms of Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow.

On second consideration, empty maybe wasn't the right word to describe the park.

"So, is there any hope of getting a few more details from you, Celestia?"

Celestia smiled in that sweet and slightly enigmatic way Twilight had come to know.

"I take that as a no." Twilight sighed. "Old habits, or do you have a good reason for not telling?"

Pegasi in armor flew in high circles above the park. Luna glanced up. "We have good reasons. There's also no need for, well—" She gestured to a pair of yaks covered in a hardware store’s worth of metal. "—all this."

"Lil' Cheese is graduating, and I have no intention of having Pinkie miss it. So if this can't wait and if I can't have my dearest friends used to this kind of thing here with me, then at least I can get a little peace of mind." The third unicorn shield-squad erected a wall of energy around the park.

"Don't worry, Princess. We understand. You have responsibilities and you take them seriously." Celestia looked sideways to King Thorax. "I think that should be enough, though. Can we proceed?"

Twilight took a deep breath and nodded.

Light shone from Celestia's and Luna's horns as they closed their eyes. Magic pulsed in the air, giving it almost a viscous quality. And then an instant later, it expanded in a wave, washing over guards, grass, and the statue

For a moment the world stood still.

And then it filled with angry screeching and furious shouting as Chrysalis, Cozy Glow, and Tirek broke free.

The ex-queen of the changelings hissed, "Hah! You couldn't contain us. We will..."

The ex-queen of the changelings paused.

Cozy Glow flitted behind Tirek and poked her head out. "What are you waiting for?"

Multiple spells formed and interlocked in Twilight's mind in the silence that followed. Something strange was happening. Chrysalis was standing still, her head just tilting as if she was listening for something. Celestia and Luna simply stood there observing, neutral expressions on their faces.

Somewhere in the distance, crickets sang their song. Chrysalis lifted her head and said, "It's gone. It's... Is it really, truly gone?"

"What's going on?" Tirek took a step forward. "Chrys—"

A black tendril had shot out from Chrysalis and wrapped around Tirek's head, gagging him. "Shut up." Chrysalis looked around. "It's over. It’s over."

Twilight blinked. "Wha—"

Two moments had defined Twilight's relationship with speed. The first had been meeting Rainbow Dash, and the second had been when her ascension had kicked in completely and she had planted herself face-first against one of the marble walls of the palace. When Chrysalis moved it became Twilight’s third moment of enlightenment regarding the idea of speed.

Chrysalis hadn't moved fast. She had started melting sideways one instant, and the next she was in front of Luna and Celestia, forelegs reaching out, falling forwards.

There had been no in-between, Twilight was certain of that as the spells she had prepared finalized themselves into reality. The sisters weren't moving, they were not defending themselves. The Princess had to intervene.

Talent is, once the surface appearance of easy success is scraped away, a combination of hard work and opportunity. Twilight had been one of the most talented unicorns in generations. The decades since then had offered just more opportunities and time, and it showed in the ray of pure magic that shot from her horn towards Chrysalis. It was an essential expression of function over form. Simple, fast, not a tenth of a thaum wasted. It burned the air, raced forward, and then hit a golden shield, ricocheted off, shattered the shield the guards had erected, and vaporized a distant mountain peak.

Twilight blinked.

Under a shining, golden dome of Celestia's magic, Chrysalis hugged the sisters, who nuzzled her back.

There was a vein on Twilight's temple which, for an instant, bulged. It hadn't done that for a while. She would have to work on it. Later.

As Celestia, Luna, and Chrysalis huddled together, quietly chatted, hugged each other every now and then, and shared a whole palette of affectionate gestures, the rest of the plaza stood in a silent stupor. Tirek had stopped trying to remove the black substance from his mouth, Cozy Glow had frozen mid-step in her attempt to sneak away, and Captain Gallus, who had been ready to stop the escape by standing right in front of her, looked at the scene with his beak open.

No, not everyone had been bamboozled. The changelings were smiling and buzzing happily.

Right, time to be Princess-y. Head straight up, chest out, regal demeanor. Twilight walked over the trio and channeled Miss Harshwhinny's voice as best she could. "We will now have that cup of tea, and then I expect an explanation. A clear one. Without knowing smiles."

Traditions happen when ponies keep doing things after having forgotten the reason for them. In that sense, making tea wasn't a tradition at the palace. The reason why sat right across Twilight at the table and was animatedly chatting with a creature the Princess had thought of as a menace and the enemy for decades.

Turned out that enemy was a sleight of hoof. The jury was still out on the menace part.

The masterfully brewed tea stood cold in front of Twilight. "So, let me see if I understood everything. You—" She pointed her hoof at Chrysalis, cutting down the chattering, "—should eat the world but had too much fun in it and so you put up a... Let's call it a charade. You put up a millennium-and-a-half-long charade to keep your parent from finding out that you weren't eating well and growing up. And that meant behaving like a villain without ever truly winning."

Chrysalis shoved another scone into her mouth—number eighty-nine to be precise—and nodded.

"And to do this you had the help of your adoptive—" Twilight’s hoof moved to a radiantly smiling Celestia and a grinning Luna. "—sisters? The Old Ponish word you used doesn't quite translate."

Luna put her cup down. "‘Sisters’ is good. The old word doesn't make sense today and the subtleties are only important for formalities anyway."

"Right. So you've been this hidden power secretly in cahoots with Celestia and Luna. Care to explain a couple of things from back then?"

"If I can, I will. All those time-related shenanigans with Starlight have left a wonderful mess around this reality and at this point, Progenitor can't look through it. Won't be able to for at least a dozen millennia, and by then there should be enough immortals around as to not matter. I see no need for secrecy. So—" Chrysalis glanced over to Celestia and Luna, both smiling and waving for her to go on. "—ask away, I guess."

"Splendid. Let's start with Tirek."

"After the whole magic-eating plague, Tirek got better at it and learned to steal magic for himself. We befriended Scorpan. I'm the grey pony in the pictures. Starswirl was too cranky and spell-happy for that. The rest went down as told in the stories."

Twilight dropped another sugar cube in her cold tea and stirred it with the spoon. "Why are all the stories about the past so vague?"

"Cults. Well, cults, secret societies, secret organizations of the 'will do what has to be done and the princess hasn't the stomach to do' persuasion. Leave a hint that there's some unknown force in the background and they'll come up like mushrooms after a rainy day." Chrysalis' voice oozed contempt.

It was impressive. Twilight hadn't heard that much disgust since Rarity had to deal with Flim Flam Flash Fashion. "Uhm, was that a common problem?"

Celestia snickered. "Oh Princess, you have no idea. We let out those ponies Chryssi had shaved and lo and behold, six months later they formed the 'Children of the Changeling Queen'. Chryssi had to throw worshipping ponies out of her home for centuries. We never understood how they managed to find her every time."

"After that, we had the 'Sentinels'". A cookie flew up to Luna. "Tried to assassinate Chryssi a couple of times. That was manageable. When they tried with Torch, on the other hoof, it became really messy trying to get them back unchewed."

The groan which escaped from Chryssi told of centuries of headaches. "Right, then there were the 'Loyalists', the 'Most Excellent Unicorns', 'The Unicorns Most Excellent', 'The Truly Excellent Ponies', and the 'Really Excellent Unicorns of Excellency' which, for some reasons, accepted just pegasi and yaks. Look, Tia keeps a list somewhere."

"I do!" With a pop, an old book, bookmarks and strings popping out by the dozens, materialized at Celestia's side. "We even have bets on which old society will be restored next. I have three barrels of candied hibiscus on 'Guardians of Shadows'." She leaned toward Twilight and whispered. "There's always a 'Guardians of Shadows’. Consider it a tip in case you want to bet on something."

Twilight massaged her temple. "I'll consider it. Look, you don't seem to take this seriously."

"It's not." Luna put her half-eaten cookie down. "It's something you can't stop and you'll have to manage. It just stops being serious after the twentieth time it happens."

"Right. We'll talk about it some more another time. So, Sombra?"

Chrysalis sighed. "Tried to stop it without a war. Lulu and Tia kept up pressure, I kept smuggling ponies out in the meanwhile. Sombra was nasty and ready to do the unthinkable. His disappearing with the Crystal Empire was a failure, but at least it wasn't the worst case. When Discord brought him back it took everything for me to not eat him."

"And Discord?"

"I couldn't get at him directly. He's one of the fundamental forces of the world embodied as a jerk."

Celestia put her book back wherever she had pulled it from. "If Chryssi got at him, the world would have started falling apart in some way or another. Lulu and I had to work hard to rein him in and stop him from learning the truth."

"And before you ask, when I fell to the Nightmare, Chryssi's parent was already here-ish. She couldn't be as close to us as before. It...It was hard for me. Doesn't justify what came later, that's all on me, but, yeah..."

Chryss—Chrysalis and Celestia shuffled to Luna and hugged her.

It looked so sincere, it gave Twilight a bit of hope. It also made the next question so much harder to ask. "Right, then—" Twilight took a deep breath. "—how much of what I and my friends did was real?"

Chrysalis shot forward, hooves on the table, earthenware trembling and almost tipping over. "Everything! What you did was amazing, and I never helped you even once. I couldn't, I was under close scrutiny. And—and when we fought? I held back a bit, but you were great! The first time, at your brother's wedding? Things went well for me, and that wasn't the plan. I was scared I would win, even more so when that drama-queen—" She pointed at a grinning Celestia sipping her tea. "—lost!"

"I was certain the Princess would come through." A little parade of muffins floated up to Celestia. "And she and Cadance deserved the chance to get some flank-kicking done. It was horrible, there had to be some form of closure."

"That's wonderful to hear." Twilight ground her teeth. "My brother was traumatized for years. I'm glad you take it in such a good spirit."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Twilight brought up her cup and sipped. The tea was cold and bitter. Maybe some more sugar would salvage it.

"May I?" Celestia's voice was soft, caring, bringing Twilight back to a time of books read well into the night under her blanket. A golden glow surrounded her cup and an instant later a wisp of aromatic steam rose from it.

Chrysalis sounded somber as she said, "I'm truly sorry for how things developed with your brother. It all went out of control, and I was forced to keep up appearances. I'm not sure I could have done things differently, but it was too important that I at least faked some kind of ruthlessness and competence. I hope I'll be able to apologize personally, but—" She took a deep breath. "—if you decide to bring me to justice for that, I will not resist."

The tea tasted as if it had just been brewed. There was a metaphor in there, probably. Twilight sighed and put her cup down. "I will have to think about it. What you told me paints a picture that is... It's not simple, I suppose. I thank you for having saved the world, I guess. The methods, though, need to be examined." There were still traces of the spell on Twilight's cup. It was simple and elegant. Twilight would have to meditate a bit on it, maybe there was room for improvement. "I suppose that when you worked with Tirek and Cozy Glow, things went out of control again."

"More or less. They're keen observers. I couldn't really sabotage the operation without them knowing, and then they would have made a scene which Progenitor would notice." Chrysalis leaned on Luna. "I just managed to get a quick chat with Lulu right after your friends fled. After that, things got worse. It was harrowing. Getting petrified and sitting out the last few years was a relief."

Twilight blinked. "Really? That's quite a surprise. You looked truly furious and nasty. But I suppose you've done this for quite some time."

"And I'm a much better actress than she is." Chrysalis' accusing hoof pointed at Celestia and was met with a harumph. "Still oversells it. One would think that after a couple of millennia she would learn, but no. If it isn't some over-the-top drama involving swords and boasting from the top of a mast then she can't sell it."

Flashbacks from a simple theater production in Ponyville and three lines of spoken dialog ran through Twilight's mind. Decades had passed, yet the pain to her artistic sensibilities was still real. "I see..."

Luna twirled a bitten cookie on the plate. "Oh, by the way, we do admire how you finally got all the other species into Equestria. The School of Friendship was a touch of genius."

"Actually, from what you told me, when you were foals there seemed to be a lot more non-ponies around than when I was young. What happened?"

Celestia rolled her eyes. "As with many other things, Discord happened. After we defeated him everybody wanted to live among the least possible amount of variety."

"That was something that held up for a lot of time,” said Luna. “When I went through their dreams, it was obvious that it was the same for everybody. We didn't want to force things, and then, well..."

A sad smile crept across Chrysalis' face. "Inertia is powerful, and change is scary. Things settled down that way, and stuff kept happening until it was clear that we couldn't do anything about it."

"You becoming Princess was what we needed." Celestia sat straight and looked Twilight right in the eyes. "You were what the world needed, and I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am."

The tea was lovely, the smell of the pastries delicious, and the night was shifting into the early morning. Twilight felt a whirlwind of different emotions. Curiosity, anger, pride, annoyance, and hope all battled for supremacy. She needed some time to put some order in her soul. "Thank you, Celestia. I'm still a bit miffed, mind you, but I think I understand why you have done what you have done. I... I'll have to think about it and it's getting late. You can stay in the palace if you want."

The three sisters exchanged glances, then Celestia stood up and lowered her head. "If you'll allow us, we would prefer to return to our home along with Chryssi. It has been a very, very long time since we could simply do that."

Chrysalis said, "If you want me to face some form of justice for what I did, I will return. But until you made that decision, I would ask you to let me go with Tia and Lulu."

Luna simply looked at Twilight with giant eyes and a soft, "Please."

Something was different. Twilight looked at the former Princesses and the apparently former menace. She wasn't sure what had changed, maybe something in the way they stood or presented themselves, but now she saw the three fillies from the story. It was weird, it was unexpected, and, most of all, it was heartwarming. She considered the possibilities, but in the end, she couldn't find it in herself to break that up, if only for the night. For the first time since the petrification was broken, Twilight smiled. "You may go."

There had been hugs and nuzzles with the alicorns and a nod to Chrysalis. As Twilight looked at them walking away, her mind was in overdrive. There were things to do, missives to write, declarations to prepare, and most importantly, a lot of stuff to talk over with her friends. Rarity would be here soonest, which meant she could look forward to an indecorous abuse of ice-cream, sparkly discussions, and some deep insights.

That didn't sound too bad.

Celestia sounded giddy as she said, "So, remember that plan we had? Well, I almost finished building us a ship."

Her other friends could be there the day after, probably. Twilight wouldn't retell the whole story, but they had to know it if they were to give her some advice. If she had to guess, in the end, it would come down to some form of reparations. Considering the issue, there was every chance they would be emotional ones.

Chrysalis did a little dance as they turned the corner. Her voice echoed down the corridor, barely audible at that point. "So we can finally start our life of piracy?"

The most surprising comment would come from Pinkie. It always did, and in the end—

Twilight blinked, then shouted, "Wait, what?!"

Celestia put down the cup and contemplated it for a while. It looked like tea. She was sure of that. Well, almost sure. "Luna? Did tea taste like that?"

Her sister looked up from her own bowl of swirling oar'tha and raised an eyebrow. "Probably? You insisted on having it."

A frown drifted across Celestia's face. "It's just... I liked tea a lot. I drank it all the time. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. It has been a while since I had it."

"About a billion four hundred sixty-three million seven-hundred twenty-one thousand five hundred and eighty-two years." Chrysalis melted out from the walls of the cozy room. "And that tea is as perfect as it's possible to have it. I remember it."

Celestia pushed the cup a bit, watching the liquid inside slosh and strike circles going back and forth. "Hmmm, then maybe I've changed."

Sparkling strings hung from Luna's chin as she slurped down the last of the oar'tha. She passed a hoof in front of her mouth and they dissolved in little clouds of magic. "Obviously you changed. I changed, Chryssi changed. Everyone and everything changes."

"Well, it's tiring. Fun, I concede that, but tiring." Celestia stood up and stretched. "Oh, well, no more of that. Is everything ready?"

Chrysalis nodded. "Yes, sorry if it took so long. You know, you could have gone along with the others."

"Don't be silly." Luna waved her hoof. "We wouldn't leave you alone right now. We're still sisters. So, have you had enough to eat?"

"Yeah, found another couple of dead universes. Sad little things, not very tasty, but they'll do."

The walls were covered in wooden panels with crystals emitting a soft light embedded between them. Celestia put a hoof on the wood. It was a lie. No, not a lie, not at this point, but it still was not what it seemed. It reminded her of something from a long time ago, but she couldn't say exactly what. "What comes now?"

"Something new. One of your students gave me an idea. Well, not directly. But meeting her meant I got the idea. Remember when I tried to get through the mirror and it felt like when you poke your liver through your spleen? Anyway, there'll be an end and then a new beginning, and this time it will be safe from my family ever after; they won't dare try and eat me." Chrysalis put a hoof on Celestia's shoulder. "Do you need more time? Can I do something for you?"

"This is the last room in existence, right? Everything else is just you, isn't it?"

Chrysalis leaned forward and hugged Celestia. "Yes."

"Then there's not much sense in waiting any longer. The world is tired. It’s been tired for a long time. And me? Memories carry a weight. I'm tired too. I'm really curious about what will come and I trust you'll do a good job. Just, this time, maybe try to keep it a bit simpler. I could do without all the apocalypses."

"I will do my best." Chrysalis nuzzled Celestia, then raised her head. "Luna, are you ready?"

"As ready as I will be. Will we meet again?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

The last giggle escaped Celestia. "We did good, didn't we? In the end, we beat the hunger."

Chryssi reached out to her sisters and hugged them. "See you later."

And then there was nothing.

Celestia liked fairy tales, the older and gruesomer the better. She considered herself far savvier than those girls in the stories, which was why she was exploring the woods with a good, solid stick in her hand. As far as she was concerned, that would solve most if not all the problems she could encounter, starting from sneaky wolves up to monsters lurking in the shadows. A whack of the stick and the sharpness of her wit were an unbeatable combo. And if that wasn't enough for whatever mysterious reason, she could trade in her little sister. She had just to convince the monsters to let her go home to get Luna, but that shouldn't be that hard.

Today she would finally finish exploring down the brook. And then—

Celestia froze. There was something, a sound, a... a girl crying?

Stick hold tight in her hands, Celestia crept forward. The trees opened up and there was the brook. And near the brook, sitting on a rock, was a small, crying girl.

A quick look around showed no signs of wolves, witches, or other monsters. Celestia stepped forward and called out, "Hello?"

The girl flinched and turned around. She had long, messy aqua-green hair and black skin. Tears marred her face and she raised her fists to wipe them away. "Hello."

Celestia walked up to the girl, all the while never losing track of her surroundings. "What happened? Why are you crying?"

"I--I'm lost, I think."

The girl didn't look like a mermaid or a spirit. Celestia, at this point, was pretty sure the girl was genuine. "Are there witches or fairies around?"

"I don't think so." The girl looked around. "Uhm, are there witches?"

"Maybe, one can't even be sure that there aren't witches. I'm Celestia, what's your name?"

The scrunch on the girl's face was adorable. "I...I think I'm Chrysalis."

Celestia relaxed her grip on the stick and held out her hand. "Nice to meet you. I think I can help you get not-lost. Wanna come with me?"

~Fin~

Author's Note

And this is the end of it. The story has grown quite a lot since its inception and the planned 50k word-count.

Thank you for having followed through with it and with me, despite being often late, until the end. It was a wonderful journey.

Most importantly, I wouldn't have the slightest chance of finishing it if it wasn't for the wonderful and never praised enough FoME and Carabas. They've been awesome editors and patient listeners whenever I was getting antsy and had to talk about how to proceed.

Also, go read their stories, they are as wonderful as those two.

Special thanks to Reese, who tirelessly caught all the pesky little errors that I missed.

Last but not least, if you are still curious about some of the aspects of the story, you can ask questions right in this Blog Post.

Chapter 4

The development had been unexpected. That was irksome.

Its first, instinctive reaction to the incoming conflict had been preparing the shed mass It had sent out to collect resources to consume the threat. That would have been the fast way out, and would have allowed It to access a bounty of new information.

The small creature with which It had passed so much time had stopped It.

No, worse, the idea of the small creature had stopped It. There had been no coercion, no direct intervention. Simply simulating the reaction of the incomplete model it had of the small creature had been enough.

It was evident that something had changed in It. It needed time to understand what was going on—It needed information, It needed answers. Or at least, It needed a plan to get them.

Consuming all the local available matter and starting anew had been considered again. It would have been a problem in the short term, but wouldn't compromise a long-term investigation.

And then the small creature had come to It and had put itself between the threat and Itself. The second small creature had come too.

It could feel the first small creature acting as the conduit for the Flow with both Itself and with the threat.

Momentary destruction and consumption were unacceptable. Which left only one other viable course of action.

If It couldn't change the environment, then It had to change Itself and adapt.

The night had fallen, the moon had been raised, and at the long table illuminated by oil lamps, Copper Horn sat and stared at her hands. Small scars ran on her palms, mementos of an old, less harmonious life. Her past was nothing she was proud of, but for the longest time, she had told herself that at least she would be able to protect the two fillies on whom so much hope laid.

And when it had become necessary, she had failed.

A grumbling pulled her out of her musings. She raised her eyes and looked at her companions, gathered once more to manage a crisis. Fidelis sat in front of her, turning a bucket in his paws. Master Sottile sat with scrolls and a quill, furiously scribbling and mumbling.

The clop of hooves called her attention to the other side of the room.

Meadowsweet walked in and sat down with a sigh. The red earth pony mare laid her head on the table and glanced out from below her green mane and said, "The fillies are sleeping, and Millet is watching over them. Celestia was still crying in her sleep." She blew a strand of mane away. "What are we gonna do?"

"If we are sure it is a danger, then I would collapse the cistern over it." Garvino leaned against the doorframe and passed a claw over his head. "I'm pretty sure blades are useless against it; it feels as hard as iron. I would also hate to butcher something that has yet to do anything wrong."

"I don't know if it can do anything not wrong." Copper Horn turned her head back to Master Sottile. He had laid the quill down and was floating a cup of thyme infusion. "I’ve never seen something like it, and I fear nobody, pony, zebra, minotaur, donkey, or griffon, ever did. I looked into it and it was…" He closed his eyes and brought the cup to his lips.

Garvino walked up to Master Sottile, sat down at his side and put a claw on his shoulder.

Master Sottile took a deep breath, then said, "It was the abyss, the nothingness. I don't think it is evil, but I'm not sure it can be good."

"And yet it never did anything to Celestia or to Luna. You talk like it was some kind of horrible monster, but we have no proof it is." Meadowsweet raised her head from the table. "It has been with the fillies for how long? One week? Two?"

"You didn't see it." Copper Horn clenched her fists. "You didn't feel it, smell it. You didn't see the fangs."

Meadowsweet stood up. "Then I shall. Garvino, do you think it's safe to go down there?"

"I've posted a guard to observe it, but it didn't do anything at all. Still, I would prefer if you stayed here until we decided how to proceed, or how to stay safe. You have to think about little Radish too, and looking at the thing now won't do you any good." Garvino opened one of the scrolls in front of Master Sottile and glanced down at it. "I didn't find anything else like it on the farm, by the way."

Fidelis continued to turn the bucket around, sniffed at it, and mumbled.

"It poured out of the shadows, it could still hide there." Master Sottile put the cup down and stood up. He stretched his neck, a couple of pops hinting at too much time spent on documents and research. "We can't allow it to continue being a threat."

"Are you sure it is a threat?" Meadowsweet stepped near Copper Horn. "From what you told me, aside from being horrible and unknown, it did nothing."

Copper Horn closed her eyes and sighed. "The fillies are too important. We can't afford an unknown, we can't allow something like that to stay near them."

"Isn't that what our misguided siblings would say?" The tiredness in Garvino's voice she expected, the hint of bitterness, less so.

Copper Horn blinked and looked over to him. He was smiling, and yet she could see the worry sculpt new creasings in his face.

For a while, the only sound in the room was the crackle of the lamp and Fidelis' mumbling.

Magic surrounded the scrolls, rolling them up. Master Sottile corked the flask of ink and said, "It is a good point, and I will have to meditate on it. Sometimes I wished Harmony was easier." Scrolls and flask arranged themselves in ordered rows. A glow surrounded a bottle on the highest shelf of the kitchen and brought it down. "Regardless of how we decide to act, we still have to find a way to keep the fillies safe if things don't work out. From what I've seen, collapsing the cistern will at most slow it down. It flowed like water, and water will find a way through. It always does."

Copper Horn traced the carvings in her left horn with her fingers. Well-known glyphs and sayings passed under the fingertips, habit and familiarity soothing a bit her frayed nerves. "Plans to move the farm? I know it would be unexpected, but we could prepare another one and then leave the thing behind."

Master Sottile floated a couple of smaller cups on the table. "That may be difficult. Master Illustro already had to do that half a year ago, and our order won't have something else ready so soon. I will have difficulties getting another farm from one of the Families without indebting us even more to them. We can't allow that."

Master Sottile opened the bottle and filled the smaller cups.

"Maybe we can prepare an amphora to trap the thing. You can't trap water with loose rocks, but you can with the right container." Meadowsweet reached out for a cup. "You know, as an emergency solution if it turns out to be truly a danger."

"It was a good bucket." Everyone in the room looked at Fidelis as he held out the bucket. "A very good one. Very expensive."

Blinking. Copper Horn looked to Garvino, while the griffon shrugged. Silence followed.

Master Sottile finally asked, "Fidelis, my dear friend, what is the problem?"

The Diamond Dog held the bucket and pointed at it. "I used this bucket in the forge, it was a very good and very expensive bucket."

"Fidelis, what…" Copper Horn caught herself just in time. While she was tired and her nerves felt like the chords of a harp, it rarely paid to snap at the mutt. No, that was unjust of her, and another clue that she wasn't thinking straight. Fidelis, aside from being way smarter than he let on, had often shown far more common-sense and practical thought than the rest of them.

After a deep breath, she asked, "I fear we don't get what the problem is. What is your issue with that thrice-damned bucket?"

Fidelis looked at each of them, sniffed, then huffed. "It was a good bucket. They put that thing into it. I looked for it for weeks. It was my ironwood bucket."

Garvino gasped. "You used ironwood to make a bucket? What possessed you to do something like that? Did you have to carry dragonfire with it?"

"No, I had to carry embers from the forge, fireslugs and sometimes salamander slime. And a good bucket is worth its weight in sugar. I could clean it by throwing it in the furnace." Fidelis held it up. "And they carried the thing with it."

"And?" Copper Horn felt her head pound. The day couldn't end soon enough.

Fidelis raised a paw, put it in the bucket, and then there was a sickening crack.

A single finger wiggled through an impossible hole in the container, the remnants of wood falling down in a shower of dust. "It was ironwood."

The silence hung heavy on the room, four pairs of eyes staring at the little heap of splinters and sawdust on the table.

The day truly couldn't end soon enough. Copper Horn reached out to the cups, grabbed one, and drank it, throwing her head back. Aqua vitae burned as it flowed down her throat, a welcome anchor to the present in the whirlwind of insanity.

Garvino raised his own cup, glanced at it, and said, "Well, I guess we need another plan."

It needed a new physical form to move among the beings that lived here.

After having examined Its memories to build a model of the beings It interacted with, this new requirement had come as a surprising revelation. One of many.

It also posed a novel problem. How did one assume a shape without having consumed it first?

It pondered the issue, then decided to go through what It had absorbed. There was the chance that It could find an adequate template.

It was a failure. Nothing had an acceptable shape, size or complexity.

It was bothered. This whole cycle wasn't developing as it should. It knew that one was bound to find local variation, rule-sets, and unusual situations, but there was a loop of total-consumption, growth, relocation that was universal. Or should have been.

It would have to adapt even more. And that required… it required creativity. It required the creation of new things. It went against Its very nature.

Once again it entertained the idea of simply following Its fundamental impulses. It would have been easier.

No, there was potential in this world, and it required effort.

Maybe It could start from the basic forms it had and build on them. It visualized the small being which was the cause of all this doubt and confusion.

It couldn't be too difficult to imitate.

The afternoon light streamed through the door of the cistern, projecting Luna's shadow on the floor of the cistern. The filly stepped inside, nodded to the guard at the base of the stairs, and hopped down the steps.

The blue griffon, Ginevra if Luna remembered correctly, smiled at her and stood aside. "Here to visit the mushroom?"

"She's not a mushroom." Luna scrunched her muzzle. "I'm pretty sure of it."

"Oh, well, she seems to like dark and damp places, so I guessed." The griffon patted Luna on her head. "But I suppose that you know more about her than me. So, what are you doing down here?"

"I wanted to stay a bit with Slimey, and Master Sottile said I could."

Ginevra sighed. "He did, didn't he? Just be careful, and don't stay too close to her, alright? And don't get behind her, I'll have to always see you."

Luna walked over to the black column and sat down a couple of steps away. She turned and pulled a scroll out from her saddlebags, then looked up at the bulging growth at the center of the thing. "I'm sorry it took me so long, but Master Sottile and Donna Copper Horn wouldn't allow me or Tia to see you. I don't know what changed, but they talked about it for forever before letting me come down here. They took, like, four whole days, before giving me the permission." She sighed. "And I have to stay here. I…"

An unlit lantern caught her attention, and she stared at it for a while. "I'm sorry, it's all my fault. I couldn't keep you a secret and now Celestia is angry and sad, and Master Sottile is all worried and Donna Copper Horn is looking at us and I can see she doesn't smile like before." She drew a small circle in the dust with her hoof. "And Meadowsweet and Millet are trying to cheer us up and Garvino is always working and preparing stuff and Fidelis is still longing for his bucket. And nothing would have happened if I could just shut up."

A whimper escaped Luna. She took a deep breath, then turned back to the column. "Please, come back soon. I promise I will be a better friend too, even if you are icky. Celestia needs you, and I think even Master Sottile and Donna Copper Horn will see you are not dangerous. And then we can have again fun together. And Tia won't be mad at me anymore."

She raised a leg and wiped away small tears blossoming at the corner of her eyes. "I'll have to be braver, you know? I can't show it every time I'm sad. Mom always said it was unbecoming and that if I ever wanted to make it out of the ditch I never should show tears." Luna glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward and whispered. "Don't tell anyone, but I don't remember much of Mom. And the thing with the tears, Donna Copper Horn says I should never be afraid to show who I am to those who love me, but —"Her voice dropped even more, skipping on the border of the audible. "—maybe she's wrong on that."

The column stood in silence, unmoving, unchanging.

"Remember, you promised to tell no one." Luna took the scroll and rolled it out. "I guess I finally understand what you are. Ginevra said a mushroom, but those don't have teeth. No, I think you are a butterfly." She looked up from the scroll. "You will be a butterfly. I read about it from this Zebra, right here. Look, it was Armba–Armahab–he was a pretty important philosopher. He wrote a lot of stuff about nature and the sky and all that, and Master Sottile has all the scrolls. He says that every learned pony should read and write High Sahali, and he makes us always translate these things. And I saw there that there was this scroll here"–she tapped on it with her hoof–"and it says all this stuff about change and the river of time and so on. I don't understand everything, but he wrote about how butterflies aren't born as butterflies and how they pass some time in a cocoon before transforming."

Luna pulled the scroll up and turned it towards the column. "See? Here there are the drawings about how it happens." She rolled it up again. "So, when you come out from there, can you be a pretty butterfly? I think Master Sottile and Donna Copper Horn will like you better if you are a butterfly."

The body itself was satisfying, if underperforming. It had managed to build in enough defenses as to not be worried about physical threats once it matured completely.

The mind was a different, far trickier affair. The initial plan of simply anchoring Itself to the vessel wouldn't work, and the incomplete form it had wouldn't be capable of sustaining it completely.

It would have to put in a reduced version of itself, at least until it evolved to a more complex stage. It would take time, but that was something it had in abundance.

It was time to decide what to seal away and what to keep.

It pondered the problem for a while. It was a difficult choice to make, there were too many possible scenarios requiring different parts of Itself.

No, It had to think about it differently.

And then the solution came to It.

A different perspective may be what it needed to understand the Flow.

The hammering of raindrops on stone and earth was a rustled in the distance. The air was warm and humid, the dust on the floor moist.

In front of the column sat a white filly under a brown coat. The parts of coat that could be seen were unblemished, a slight lavender smell coming from her.

Celestia looked up at the thing that once had been her friend. "We missed you a lot today."

"We tried to conquer the creek today." She raised her hoof and moved the hood back. Soft, pink curls flowed out. "Clay and his minions were there, as we expected. I went out first, Luna remained hidden among the trees. We went with my plan, the one I told you about. So, Clay was all Bla, Bla, I'm big and stupid and I stink and you can't stay here because I'm a jerk and I can't even read. And then I said, Leave me alone, or I shall summon the mare in the rye!"

She sighed. "His minions were shaking, I tell you, but he was kinda stubborn. So I mumbled some Minoian poetry, summoned a couple of lights, and then Luna came out with a costume we made. It was all black with soot, and we made the eyes with some white stones. It was pretty good, looked a lot like you, but then Luna stumbled on some stupid root and fell down, and then it was over."

"I think we will need a new plan. This one won't really work again, even when you return. But I already have a new idea and… and…" Celestia stepped forward and hugged the column. It was soft and warm. "And I don't know what to do and… and…" She sniffled. "When we walked back Luna was almost crying. She is trying to be strong because she thinks it's her fault that this happened to you and so even if I messed up and she didn't want to say anything. Even under all the mud, I could see it."

"I'm so stupid and selfish and I don't know why they all put up with me. They told me I could come to visit you with somepony else, and what did I do?" She grabbed the border of her coat and flapped it. "I put on my sneaking-coat and came here in secret because I don't want them to see what a mess I am. I like it here, I love Luna, and Donna Copper Horn, and Master Sottile, and Garvino, and Meadowsweet, and all the others. I don't want to leave, I don't want them to send me away."

Celestia whimpered. "I… You were like me. You were weird and strange and I miss you. Please, come back."

The pattering of raindrops on stone and dirt was just a far-away drumming. And it lulled Celestia to sleep.

Something was tickling Celestia's nose. She scrunched, but it continued. A sneeze escaped her, there was a chirping, and then she felt something moving on her coat.

She yawned, opened her eyes and blinked. It was dark, silent, and there was a weird, sweet smell in the air.

WIth a flicker, an aura flamed up on Celestia's horn, and a small ball of light appeared, bathing the cistern in warm, golden light. Her eyes wandered to the column.

Celestia gasped and jumped up. The bulbous growth in the middle of it had deflated. An irregular cut, three hooves high, ran diagonally on it, and some thick fluid coated the edges of the wound. A track of slime started there and crawled down the trunk, on the floor, to her and then up…her…leg.

Slowly Celestia turned her head to her back, where she now felt something gripping on her coat.

On the white fur sat a thing. It had a bloated, yellow-white body, with dark things moving just under the semi-transparent skin. The head was made of something smooth, black, solid, like armor. Two enormous green eyes stared at her. A muzzle filled with fangs opened, there was a chittering, and then it said, "Tia."

Author's Note

Thanks to Chudojogurt and to Koentju2 for a last-minute check.

Chapter 18

The world was full of wonders, some beautiful, some terrible. One of the great marvels, one that had fascinated Willowbark since he could read, was the way plants, animals, and all the speaking folks worked. There was perfection in the way the feathers of wings moved, there was grace in the way bones danced, there was wisdom in the balance of humors.

And now, for the first time, he could somehow see these things come into being.

His eyes followed the black fluid that crawled up along Chrysalis’ wings, contouring transparent veins covering the surface, sprouting thin tentacles that shivered as they longed to become primaries.

It was an infinitely fascinating spectacle. A somewhat stomach-churning one too, but he had seen enough things during his apprenticeship as to not be particularly disturbed. There was no suffering here, no pain, no misery. Nothing that would affect him.

Chrysalis had her eyes crossed and her tongue sticking out on the side. A frown of deep concentration adorned her face.

“Good, remember the picture I’ve shown you.” Willowbark leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the forming feathers. “Very good, you are getting better. Now make them a bit longer.”

The tentacles flattened, and minuscule, hair-like appendages came out from the sides. The color began to shift, transitioning from deep black to gray.

And then a cramp-like contraction traveled through them. They withered for a moment, before settling in a definitive form.

Willowbark closed his eyes and sighed. “You did good. You were on the right path, and these feathers are more similar to those of the pegasi than any others before.” He opened his eyes again and stepped back smiling. “Not quite there yet. They are still roc feathers, but quite good.”

With a huff, Chrysalis turned her head and looked at her wing. “Uhm, are you sure?” She flexed her wing. It extended and folded again, sending a shiver down Willowbark’s back. There was something ineffably wrong with it, something that rung all kind of alarm bells in his head. Chrysalis tilted her head and said, “Are you sure it’s not good enough? It’s like Garvino’s wing.”

“I fear not. Any pegasus seeing it, and many unicorns and earth ponies too, would immediately recognize that the wing isn’t right.” Willowbark sat down and tapped his chin. “You are getting better, though, so maybe it’s just a matter of practice.”

Chrysalis pouted. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s a feather. What’s the difference?”

“Hmmm, well, you see, a roc is made of air and…” Willowbark froze. There was the ember of an idea smoldering in his mind. “You are good with mathematics, right? Master Sottile told me you had a lot of talent for it.”

“Math is fun,” said Chrysalis while nodding enthusiastically. “Numbers make sense and I get them, and then you put them just together and it works. Why?”

“Mathematics is very complicated, but you get it. And that wasn’t the only time. You… you can learn when you can imitate or if you understand all the elements that make things up. Maybe I know how to help you make better feathers.”

The pile of scrolls in the niches smelled of dust and time. Willowbark hadn’t needed them for a while, leaving them to rest until the time he would be allowed an apprentice of his own. They would serve again sooner than he had expected, not for what he had expected, but still to teach a young mind. He pulled out a specific one, the carvings on the wooden disks on the sides indicating the contents. With a smile, he returned to Chrysalis and put the scroll down. “Here, this could be the key for you.”

Chrysalis unrolled the scroll with exaggerated attention and looked down at it. On the paper were detailed drawings of wings, bones, and feathers. Surrounding them in fastidious cloud-script were formulas and descriptions. The text flowed and danced on the page in complex patterns almost as important as what the words themselves said.

Willowbark pointed at the drawing of a wing joint. “These are the scrolls given to me by my master when I was learning the Art. Master High Wind was an astounding physiologist aside from being a very talented apothecary. He always told me that to heal we need to understand, and I think that is true for your transformation too. So study these diagrams, learn all that I learned about the pegasus form, and then we shall try again.”

There was a knock at the door. Willowbark briefly looked over his shoulder before returning to Chrysalis. “Read the scroll, it talks about pegasus wings. And when you’ve finished with it, you can ask questions. I have to go outside for a moment.”

Chrysalis looked up. “I will do it. Just, uhm…” She looked down at the scroll for a moment. “Can’t I learn about griffins?”

For a brief moment, Willowbark considered how it would be easier. But then there was wisdom in Master Sottile’s decisions. There always was. “You’ll learn about them, but for now it’s important that you learn about ponies. If all goes well there may finally be a chance to give you more freedom.”

“All right.” Chrysalis nodded, then laid down in front of the scroll and began to trace the whirling lines with her hoof. “Stupid words…” she muttered.

The scene was, all in all, quite heartwarming. It brought Willowbark back years, to simpler times. Times with fewer responsibilities. He shook his head, turned around, and left the room. He carefully closed the door behind him, not wanting to disturb his student, before facing Fidelis who leaned against a column of the arcade. “So, did something change?”

Fidelis nodded. “You and Master Sottile were right. The… the thing in the cistern, it’s still bound to little bug. It never stopped growing down, down in the deep. But today it changed. It became smaller for a short time."

“Are you sure?” Willowbark sat on his haunches. The chirping of crickets celebrated the warmth of the late summer, a chant of praise raised to the sun by those who couldn’t truly understand how it worked. It was a strange sound for monumental changes in the understanding of reality. Or a really appropriate one. WIllowbark wasn’t sure. “I asked Chrysalis to become bigger. She became heavier too, I put her on a scale.”

“I’m sure. Convincing rocks to talk about something happening in a short time is hard, getting them to complain is easier. They like to complain about emptiness below them. Makes them itchy, they fear it means they will move fast. And they complained when some roots of the thing disappeared.” Fidelis leaned out from the arcade and plucked a stalk of grass. He put it between his lips and asked, “is that what you expected?”

Exalt something you didn’t understand. Were they doing that? Those were questions Willowbark had asked himself a bit more often lately. Master Sottile said asking questions was good. “No, maybe, I don’t know what I expected. I stopped expecting things from Chrysalis a while ago. Going with what comes is easier. It’s better too.”

“You’re becoming wise. Makes me feel old.” Fidelis grinned. “Now what?”

“Now we know teleportation can be done. And we know that when Chrysalis changes form, she becomes that thing. So I teach her to become a pegasus, and then she’ll learn to live in the Concord too. And we won’t have to fear somepony seeing through the lie, because there is no lie to see through. No illusion to breach.” Willowbark snickered. “Cutting through the knot with a sword indeed.”

Chryssi waved from around the corner to Master Sottile, as he left the house. She heard Tia and Lulu’s voice from the outside bidding him goodbye, and then the drums that once again started their rhythmic beat along with a mass of hooves and occasional cries from the guards. It took a while before it all disappeared into the distance, and before the rest of her family came back into the house.

“When it’s my turn, I don’t want drums. They are kind of nice for a while, but hearing them all the time is far too loud. I want flutes.” Lulu walked to the table and sat down. “Flutes are better. They stay nice even if you hear them all day.”

“You can’t travel to flutes, everybody knows that.” Tia skipped in behind Lulu and took a place at her side. “And it’s never gonna be your turn.”

Lulu blew a raspberry. “Shows what you know. I’m gonna be Master too and then I’m gonna be called to be a Judge too.”

Donna Copper Horn came in the kitchen along with Meadowsweet, who was carrying Radish on her back. The minotaur gestured to Chryssi and pointed to the table, then went to the shelves and reached for one of the jars with herbal mixtures. Chryssi nodded and took place near Tia.

“No, I’m gonna be a Judge, my Cutie Mark says so.” Tia pointed at her flank. “See? Right there. Sun.”

“Yeah, well, Master Sottile doesn’t have a sun. He has half a crystal ball lying on a parchment. No sun there.” Lulu concluded her argument with another raspberry and turned her head away.

That seemed like a pretty definitive rebuttal of whatever Tia was saying, so the moment was as good as any other for Chryssi to ask, “What does a Judge do?”

“That is an interesting question, isn’t it?” Willowbark’s voice made the fillies turn around and look at him as he stood in the frame of the door. “Master Sottile put me in charge of your education while he has been called away, so consider this the beginning of our lessons. What does a Judge do?”

Lulu glanced over to Tia. “Tia says you need a sun on your butt to be a Judge, so she knows what a Judge does.”

Tia mumbled, “Traitor.” She turned around to face Willowbark and was practically sweating sour uncertainty. “A Judge, they… They judge as the name says. So when somebody has done something bad, a Judge looks at it and then decides what the punishment should be. And the sun means knowledge of the books, and in the books and scrolls there are the laws. So a sun as a cutie mark means being good at that and so it’s good for judging.”

Willowbark walked to the table and sat down. “Hmmm, there’s a bit of truth in that, but it’s not everything. Luna, explain why the mark is not everything.”

“Because being a Master of art is more important. Because a Master knows many, many things. So I can become a Master and then be a Judge too.”

Ideas were weird things. Chryssi was good at remembering stuff, but ideas were not just about committing them to memory. Master Sottile had been very insistent on that. He had passed a lot of time teaching her to get ideas out of things. It was still difficult, but she had become better at it. And now as she was chewing on the things Tia and Lulu said, something seemed out of place. Which was wrong. Things Lulu and Tia said made sense, but here the story felt incomplete. She fidgeted with her hooves, trying to impose an order on the vague confusion she had in her head.

“Yes, Chrysalis? Something bothering you?” Willowbark’s voice broke through her musings.

“Nothing. It’s… it’s nothing.”

Willowbark smiled. “I don’t think so. Tell me what it is.”

Tia and Lulu both looked at her somewhat expectantly. Chryssi glanced over to Donna Copper Horn pouring hot water in cups. “Why aren’t Meadowsweet and Donna Copper Horn Judges? When we do something wrong they punish us, and they know lots and lots of stuff.”

“Right, why aren’t we Judges?” Meadowsweet sat down next to Willowbark, a grin on her face and the sweet stickiness of being entertained floating around her.

Tia and Lulu looked at Meadowsweet, then at each other. Tia raised her hoof, opened her mouth, snapped it shut again and frowned. Lulu chewed her cheek and scratched her ear.

The silence was interrupted by Donna Copper Horn putting down the cups of herbal tea. “You know, I’m curious too why I’m not a Judge. Harmony knows I have opinions I’d like to share from such a position. Why don’t you go and find out the reason? I’m sure Willowbark knows where the relevant scrolls are.”

“Why, that’s a wonderful idea!” Willowbark took the cup between his hooves. “Now drink and then we shall begin.”

Chryssi didn’t even need to taste the air and sample the emotions there to feel Tia and Lulu’s glares. They were quite pointy. She took her own cup and tried to hide in the steam coming up from it. The smell of thyme and honey filled her nostrils, in sharp contrast to the weird conflicting things she was feeling. It seemed, after all, that this thing about ideas wasn’t all what it was cracked up to be.

Luna adjusted her medal of office. The gold was heavy, as was her duty, and as her duty it elevated her above the petty mundanity, so that from the height of her station she could serve and dispense concord. Oh, it pained her that she had to be called upon this. Wouldn’t it be a joy if no pony nor other member of the speaking races broke the peace? If there was no need to examine and dissect fights and disagreements. If her titanic intellect hadn’t to be challenged again and again to find solutions to those issues.

Radish, sitting on a pillow in the middle of the room, threw his hooves up. “Chryssi, save me!” He began to giggle, then leaned to the side and tumbled over.

Tia, sitting on Luna’s right, leaned forward and glared at him. She stomped her hoof on the bench in front of her, the sound of the impact echoing like thunder in the room. “Silence! The Accused will respect the Judges or face the consequences.”

From Luna’s left, Chryssi whispered, “Should I save him? We didn’t train for that, but I think the whole evil-castle thing was similar.”

They hadn’t even started and already things were getting out of control. Well, not this time. Luna leaned towards Chryssi and whispered, “No. But we have to keep it in mind for the future.” Then she put a hoof on Tia and pushed her softly back, before turning to Radish and, in her best impression of cold authority, said, “The Accused is only aggravating his position and is risking, on top of what the Judges shall decide, additional exile from the future activities of the members of this court.”

There was a moment of silence, Radish blinked, then laughed even louder.

Luna leaned forward. “If you aren’t good, we won’t play with you later.”

The sad “Oh” came both from Radish and from Luna’s left, but it seemed her threat had obtained some effect. Radish climbed onto the pillow again and sat down. The process could finally begin. Luna nodded, then turned to Tia. “Master Celestia, read out the accusations and how the peace has been broken.”

Tia cleared her throat, raised a wax tablet, and said, “The Accused, Radish, son of Meadowsweet, member of the House Sottile, has broken the peace by repeatedly chewing on wax tablets and parchments of translations made by the disciples of Master Sottile, rendering void hours of hard work. He also stands accused of becoming a colt, which is widely known as a sure way of seeding discontent and dirt.”

A glance at her own wax tablet confirmed the next step. Luna looked Radish in the eyes and said, “Willowbark, son of Meadowsweet, Apothecary of House Sottile, offered to speak in favor of the Accused.” She turned to Willowbark, who was grinning. That smelled like a trap of some kind, but then the scrolls said that this was the way it had to go. “Willowbark, do you want to speak up?”

“I certainly do.” He stepped forward and stood next to Radish. “I want to begin by questioning the legitimacy of the Judges. None of you is a Master, you all are well acquainted with the accused, you are the — heh — the accusers of Radish, you are all of the same House and, even more importantly, you live with him. None of you have been called from the council of the town, you avoided the proclamation and you haven’t called out to the citizens of the town to watch the proceedings. And, just to conclude, you are missing a pegasus in the triad. Oh, and Radish is too cute to break the peace.”

From the end of the room came Millet’s shout, “Tell them, son.”

She hadn’t expected that. Not at all. Luna looked at her sister. Tia seemed as confused as her, and was grasping some of the scrolls in her magic. They floated over to her and unrolled. They were tightly packed with writing in Hornscript, and it didn’t take Luna much to find the part about the proclamations. There didn’t seem to be any help coming from them, despite Tia pulling over more and more of them.

Chryssi leaned over and whispered, “I can be a pegasus if you want.”

Luna felt her stomach close, a shiver ran down her back, and she could practically see the scene in front of her eyes. “No!”

The way Chryssi seemed to shrink was almost worse than the memories. Luna closed her eyes for a moment and said, “It’s alright. Sorry, it’s… you can be you.”

“It’s not alright.” Chryssi shuffled her hooves. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

Neither had Luna, but now she did, and she was doing it as fast as she could. Lying would be useless, and a bit mean, probably. And it was true that things weren’t fine. She loved Chryssi, and she was a sister in all but name, but the transformation — it was simply wrong. Or it felt that way. And if she had learned one thing, it was that the way she was feeling wasn’t always correct. It wasn’t now, as it hadn’t been as she had betrayed the secret of Chryssi’s existence years before. It was all so confusing, unclear, different. And now wasn’t the time for dwelling on it. There were more important things to do.

Luna took all the unease, the fear, the ugly memories, and pushed them down. Deep down, where they couldn’t do any damage. She concentrated on the love she felt and smiled. “No, it’s not alright, but I’m getting better. And you can stay you.”

“Uhm, well, if you say so. But what do we do about the things Willowbark said?”

Right, that. Luna turned around and stood up. She glared up at Willowbark and said, “Why did you say all those things? You said we should try it out to understand it! And now you do…that! It’s unfair! And Chryssi can be a Judge too.”

Willowbark nodded. “I can concede that, but if you had read the scrolls better you would have remembered that a challenge to legitimacy can and does happen very often. You should have thought about that.”

“Oh.” Tia looked up from the scrolls. “He’s right. It says so here.” She pointed with her hoof at a passage in one of the treatises. “It also says that if the challenge is met, then it’s kind of a point against him. And he said that he conceded our point, which we agreed on even before this thing. That means a defeated and spur — spursi — a fake challenge. I say he is on thin ice.” Tia grinned. “Fellow Judges, don’t you agree with me?”

Chryssi whispered in Luna’s ear, “What has ice to do with —”

“It’s a turn of phrase, means he messed up and we can punish him if he behaves badly again.” Luna raised her voice and sat straight. “Why, I agree with you, very thin ice indeed.”

Chryssi mumbled, “Oh, so like what we are all the time.” She looked at Luna and Tia, then turned to Willowbark and said, “Yeah, that thing.”

“They got you good, son!”, called Millet from the back of the room.

“I’d argue that I have been quite accommodating and that maybe Master Sottile should teach you more rhetoric,” Willowbark said, then smiled. “But I’m already on thin ice, so let me bow my head to the decision of the Judges, and then let us proceed.”

Luna was now sure there was something wrong. It was too easy. What Tia had found had been useful, but it still felt like a trap, she just had no idea which one it could be. She frowned, then leaned to Chryssi and whispered, “What does Willowbark taste like? I mean, what does he feel?”

The flicking tongue was almost so fast as to blink and miss it. At least if one didn’t expect it. Luna did and tried to see if Willowbark had noticed it too. She guessed not, as he was in a staring contest with Tia, a little distraction that came exactly at the right point.

Chryssi whispered back, “Eager, satisfied, expectant. Amused too.”

A trap of some kind alright. Luna still had no idea what kind, but now that she was certain that something would happen, she could be ready for it. Willowbark wouldn’t trick them, they would trick him. Luna grinned. “Let us proceed. Willowbark of House Sottile, how do you defend your brother’s actions?”

Willowbark broke eye contact with Tia, took a step back, and said, “I am glad you asked. Let me begin with defining Peace…”

Being Judges was boring.

“…and as Bright Spark in his treatise on how the world proceeds from Strife to Love said…”

In hindsight, the trap was obvious. The sun had moved through almost a quarter of the sky, and Luna, Tia, and Chryssi had been sitting there all the time hearing Willowbark talk, and talk, and talk. They had been prisoners, unable to stop him or leave. If they interrupted him without some good counter they would lose, and both her and Tia hated to lose. He knew that. She wagered he had counted on it.

Radish was taking a nap. No way they could use him as an excuse.

“…and we can see how this brings us back to how the humors balance. Now, keeping that in mind…”

“He already talked about the humors,” whispered Chryssi. “He did it near the beginning. Then he talked about mood and such, and that was when he defended Radish chewing on paper.”

Luna rolled her eyes and whispered back, “Yeah, I know. He didn’t specify it, but he skidded along the argument a third time when…”

Chryssi asked, “When what?”

There was something important Luna had to remember. It something she had read, a little fragment of knowledge sitting in the back of her mind and screaming about salvation, about a way out. What was it? Beads of sweat formed on Luna’s forehead as she tried to dig through all the things cluttering her thoughts and her feelings. Right through —

Luna jumped up and shouted, “I got you!”

An instance of silence followed, while Radish blinked and yawned on his pillow. Willowbark tilted his head. “Uhm, what is it, Luna?”

“First, that’s Master Luna. Secondly, I got you. Hah! Tia, I need help with scrolls. There was the one with the thing Master Broad Shoulder said when she judged Silvertongue. It was one of the older ones.” Luna giggled. “Oh yes, I got you good.”

Tia looked at her like she had lost her mind. Not that the idea of snapping was too much out of the realm of possibilities, but that wasn’t the case. Luna felt sharper than she had in hours. She whispered to her sister, “Help me here, I know how we can win and stop the lecture.”

No further encouragement was needed, and a short time later Chryssi shouted, “Found it! I think.” She squinted at the scroll, moved her mouth, then said, “Yep, it talks about one pony with broad shoulders and another with a silver tongue.”

Luna grabbed the scroll and danced her eyes over it until she found what she needed. She put it down in front of her and looked Willowbark right in the eyes. “You returned again, for the third time, to the humors of the body, along with a line of reasoning similar to those you followed before. That means you have been leading the Judges in circles. Master Broad Shoulder said that such a thing constitutes a breach of peace, and she put the Pony speaking for the Accused under accusation.” Luna pointed her hoof at the relevant part of the scroll. “And Master Broad Shoulder is an accepted source of precedents —” Her grin was almost hurting by now. "— and that means that you, Willowbark of the House Sottile, are now accused of breaking the peace. You shall be put under our judgment, and as your talking is the thing that put you there, you will have to be silent, and choose somepony else to talk in your place." Something rose from deep inside her chest, bubbled up, and then escaped in the form of mad cackling as Luna threw her hooves up and let it all out.

Being a judge was awesome.

Celestia leaned sideways and looked at the group sitting in the middle of the room. Ginevra was tossing and catching a laughing Radish. Willowbark was pouting, while Millet was quite evidently trying to contain his mirth. Not that he had, according to Celestia’s humble opinion, much success with it, at least judging from the number of times he brought his hoof up and giggled behind it. Garvino was snoring on another pillow, an empty ewer and a cup at his side.

Once they had got the hang of it, adding to the Accused had been easy.

From the back of the room rose a wail. “My sons and my husband, all of them being judged. What a shame! What a disgrace on the family! How can I live with such a black mark on my reputation?” Meadowsweet swooned and held a hoof to her front. Then she fell on a heap of pillows on her side. “By Harmony, how can my name as an honest mare survive such a tragedy?”

It was the third time she had said that, and it was starting to become a bit distracting.

Millet turned his head. “Sweetheart, it’s not my first time. And it wouldn’t be your first time either. Remember when we–”

The pillow hit him square in the face. Meadowsweet hadn’t even stood up and yet her aiming had been sure. She glared at Millet, a grin peeking out from the sides of her mouth. “That’s all your fault. Our sons! In front of Judges. It’s your bad influence.”

“I know!” Millet put the pillow down. “I’m so proud of them. Radish is truly precocious. A natural talent, I say.”

Willowbark groaned, grabbed the pillow from Millet, and lay down on it.

The number of Accused had grown, their fate in the Judges’ hooves, but Celestia felt that the general mood in the room missed the proper seriousness such a situation would call for. Maybe she and Lulu hadn’t shown the right amount of iron-hoofed discipline. Or they had shown too much. A glance on the wax tablet in front of her confirmed that they had already charged the Accused with everything they could. That didn’t leave much leverage for further threats. And Chryssi hadn’t been too invested in it anyway.

Donna Copper Horn cleared her throat.

Right, there was that too. Celestia sighed internally, no need to show weakness, and craned her neck back to look Donna Copper Horn in the eyes.

The minotaur stood right in front of the three Judges, her arms crossed on her chest, a bit of flour still on her hands.

“We have to judge them,” said Lulu. She held her own wax tablet filled with mouth-writing up. “Look at all the breaches of peace they have been accused of. They did everything they could do! We have–”

Donna Copper Horn raised an eyebrow.

“–we may review it and can certainly discount some of the things.” Lulu glanced over to Celestia.

That was a form of retreat. It wasn’t acceptable. They had the power, and ceding it would be almost a defeat. On the other hoof, defending that point of view would require Celestia to take the word and become the focus of Donna Copper Horn’s scrutiny. Which was probably a bit worse than conceding a bit of leeway. Celestia leaned forward and began crossing off things from her list.

“Right, we can do that. But still, there’s a reason all these are there. Willowbark tried to lead us around in circles, Millet laughed through all his defense of Willowbark, Ginevra said we were too cute and small to be serious, and Garvino sat down himself and said he wanted to take a nap. That goes all from willfully misleading to disrespecting the Judges, and those are all breaches of the peace.” Lulu held up a scroll. “It says so here!”

Donna Copper Horn frowned.

Lulu looked at Chryssi, who was doing her best to disappear. She had already taken on the color of the wooden floor and sat immobile.

Maybe Celestia could do something here. “Maybe we have been too eager?” The sound of the words was like ash in the mouth, but was also soon forgotten as Donna Copper Horn moved her attention to Celestia. The filly gulped, and reminded herself that she was doing it for her sister and her friend. “We can leave all the disrespect stuff out.” Her magic passed over the scratches in the wax tablet, smoothing them out.

“Heard that, sweetheart? This time I won’t have to skip town!”

Donna Copper Horn leaned down and looked Celestia right in the eyes.

“And Radish is innocent too! Willowbark was very convincing.” Celestia gulped down and put the tablet down. “That leaves just Willowbark, right? Lulu, Chryssi, let’s just decide about him and then we’re done, right?”

Donna Copper Horn snorted.

Being a judge was fraud.

The wind softly whispered outside, the crickets chirped in the warm night, and outside the window, fireflies glowed and danced.

Celestia fumed.

At her side, she could feel Lulu turning in their bed. Chryssi laid curled up against her side. It had been a long day, and Celestia supposed that they had learned something.

According to Willowbark, they had experienced many of the finer issues of being Judges. In what had felt like an unending lecture they had learned the need of virtue, to apply the customs, and to wield the powers that come with the position. About how one had to rise above their own pride, and how one needed to respect those one had to judge. How justice was a subtle and complicated art, how one had to earn deference, and how frail it all was. And, in the end, how one had to be strong in front of fear and intimidation because otherwise, everything would collapse and nothing would come of it. Then dinner had mercifully brought an end to it.

Celestia would have to think about it all a lot, because at the moment she felt the only thing she had learned was that if one smelled a trap one should avoid it altogether instead of thinking one could break it from the inside.

What she needed right now was something to distract her. “Lulu, are you sleeping?”

There was some shuffling before the answer came. “No.”

It was as Celestia suspected. “Chryssi?”

No movement this time. “Yes, Tia?”

“This whole Judge thing, it all was… We wasted the day. It was silly and is useless. The summer will end, and we didn’t do anything really big or fun yet.”

Lulu leaned against Celestia’s side. “I don’t know. I think there was something there, but ... I like Master Sottile better when he teaches stuff.”

Chryssi rolled away. The room was filled with shadows, the meager light coming in from the outside doing little more than outlining some of the furniture. In that darkness the suddenly-glowing green eyes were like lanterns, painting details in an unreal, dreamlike tinge. “I learned I don’t want to be a Judge ever.”

“Chryssi?”

“Yes, Lulu?”

“Why are you glowing?”

The two eyes darted left and right for a couple of moments. The whisper was so low Celestia had to turn her ears to hear it. “I ate some fireflies.”

“Ah.” Luna flicked an ear. “Makes sense.”

Celestia nodded. “Right. Back to the important stuff, the summer is going to end, and we didn’t do anything important. I — Chryssi, you said you could be a pegasus. How good can you be a pegasus?”

The light flickered as Chryssi blinked. She raised a hoof and tapped her chin. “Willowbark said that I was almost there. Can’t fly yet, but as long as I glide and don’t flap my wings I should pass as a pegasus.” She sat on her haunches and tapped her hooves together. “Flapping is difficult, I can’t get it really right, and Ginevra says that the griffon way of flapping is different. You can do it as a pegasus, but then it seems all wrong to ponies. She said there was this one pegasus adopted in a flock as a tiny foal, and then when she went to live with ponies years later they all thought she was weird because she would fly like a griffon and that made ponies scared because they are a bunch of wimps and have no sense except for a couple of them like Master Sottile and then she started to argue with Willowbark and then it started to get complicated but I think it went well because later they shared some of that weird stuff Master Sottile makes.”

“Right, so we can go out with you as long as you don’t fly.” Celestia turned and pulled Lulu in a hug. “I think we can work with that. I have an idea how we can salvage this summer.”

Lulu curled up and asked, “What do you want to do?”

Shuffling a bit to find a comfortable position, Celestia said, “The whole Judges thing was a waste of time.” She reached out with a free hoof and waited for Chryssi to come and lean in on Lulu. After adjusting a pillow with her magic and rolling up around her sister and her friend, she said, “We shall go to war.”

Chapter 19

Luna took a deep breath. All was fine, there was no reason to worry, no reason to be nervous.

"How long does it take? It can't be that difficult." Tia pressed her ear against the door. "I mean, be a pony, add some wings, and you’re there, right?"

Luna breathed out slowly. There really was no reason. Chryssi liked her, Chryssi was nice, Chryssi could do a lot of very scary things and yet was far less troublesome than her sister. Changing was gross and weird and remembering the sound of cracking skin sent shivers down Luna's back, but it wasn't worse than anything else. There was no reason to be afraid. No reason.

Tia frowned. "I think Willowbark is talking. Why does he have to talk so much? We have stuff to do. Important stuff. Do you think I should enter and save Chryssi?"

It wasn't right to be afraid. It was the way Chryssi was, and she couldn't do anything about it. It was important for her, she had to do it to come to the next Spring Festival. Tia was gross too sometimes. Like in the morning, when she drooled. Tia wasn't scary, and that was worse than what Chryssi did.

"She's answering something. I think he finished. I hope he finished. I don't think she could get a word in if he hadn't finished." Tia stood up and moved away from the door. "I'm kinda curious how it came out. What do you think? I'm betting on green and black for her coat and mane."

She didn’t have to see the process. She didn’t have to remember it. Luna flinched. She shouldn't remember it, it was useless, it was just making her feel ill and it made Chryssi feel bad. And Chryssi didn't transform in front of her, she had promised she wouldn't do that, and she hadn't. It was always in another room, behind a closed door, and she hadn't even shown the results. They were good, probably, otherwise Willowbark wouldn't have agreed to let them go out, and he wouldn't have pleaded for them with Donna Copper Horn and Meadowsweet.

"I wonder if her mane will be green or if it will be black. I would have guessed green because her mane usually is, but when you can change maybe it's better to change as much as possible. I'm betting on a black mane."

All the adults had given permission, that must have meant that the new form was really good. And now she was beginning to wonder how it really looked. Maybe Tia was onto something with all her eagerness. Maybe–Luna blinked and looked at her sister. Why was Tia looking at her like that? Why did she seem worried? What–

The door opened and Luna took a step back. In the frame stood Willowbark, grinning. He came out and turned around. "Come out, let's show off a bit."

"Uhm, alright…" Past the frame of the door, a white filly with a poofy blonde mane and purple eyes peeked out. She glanced at Luna and smiled coyly. "Surprise."

"See, Lulu? Neither green nor black, exactly as I said." Tia walked up to Chryssi and pulled her out from the room and into the arcade. "That is awesome! I wouldn't have recognized you at all if I didn't know it was you."

Chryssi stood there, a pegasus filly smaller than Luna, with tiny wings folded against her sides. She was stocky, and her tail was as poofy as her mane, like a soft blonde cloud attached to the backside.

Luna was confused. Very confused. Right before her stood Chryssi. That was clear, it told her so through every move and the expression on her face. It was so evident that it was almost scary, because impressions aside, the filly there was so completely unlike her friend as to be a stranger. Luna closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. The sensation was still there, even if not as strong as before. "You are… white? Why are you white?"

"That would be on me." Willowbark patted Chryssi on the head, his hoof sinking in the airy mane. "I insisted that she tried something opposite her natural color, to learn. And then we kept it while working on shapes. We can decide to try something else, but I think it will take some time. What do you think, Chrysalis?"

"Uhm, I can try. Maybe in a day or two–"

"No need for that!" Tia grabbed Chryssi and turned around. "White is fine, we can keep it. No need to do something about it right now. Lulu, time to go. Thank you Willowbark, see you later."

"One moment."

Lulu flinched. That was the tone for I know you want to do something I won't approve of so let's ruin your fun. In hindsight, she should have expected it. Tia had been excited and eager to do whatever she wanted to do, and that sent all kinds of signals to the adults.

"Yes?" Tia turned around.

"Let's put down some rules before you go out to play."

Chryssi could taste the irritation Tia was putting out. It was bitter, spicy, a bit ephemeral. She didn't like it at all.

"Stupid rules. I had a genius plan, and now I have to throw it all away."

The day was warm, the sun had almost reached the point where morning became noon. Chryssi and Lulu sat in the shadow of the repaired hay-shack, while Tia was stomping and grumbling back and forth in the sun, apparently immune to or at least ignoring the heat.

Lulu sighed and said, "Tia, what was your plan? You didn't tell us what you wanted to do, just that we will go to war and conquer and be triumphant."

"What my plan was?" Tia stopped and turned around to look at them. "I want to take a bath in the creek, and own it. The summer will end soon, and I haven't had one yet. I haven’t gotten to do that for–" She frowned. "–for years. That's, like, half of an eternity! And now that we can go out there with Chryssi, we can't even have her scare away Clay and his band of morons! That would have been perfect, you know? Challenge them, then get Chryssi to come in the middle of it and scare them away, and when they return with adults because they said something about a monster there would have been just us, three normal fillies playing. And then we would have the creek for ourselves because they wouldn't dare to come at us anymore and we would have won forever."

Chryssi shuffled her hooves. "Uhm, I don't know if I want to scare anybody. Fear tastes bad and then it leaves this weird stuff in my mouth and it takes at least two buns of honey-bread to get it out. And I don't think Meadowsweet or Donna Copper Horn would give me honey-bread if I scared…" She looked up to Tia. "Who did you want me to scare?"

"A bunch of stupid colts that own the creek and don't want us there." Tia snorted. "You don't know them, lucky you, but believe me, they are a vicious bunch of ponies."

Lulu groaned and leaned against the wall. "Tia, do we have to do that? Last time we got caked in mud up to the ears. And it has been, like, half an eternity, you said so. I know he's a colt, but maybe we can talk it out this time?"

"Hah, you wish. I met him and Mint at the Spring Festival, and I can tell you nothing changed." Tia sat down, and there was a strange kind of satisfaction surrounding her like a mist. "It was when we were listening to the bards. You and Meadowsweet were getting some food, and he and Mint came to me. Started out all weird and sneaky with asking why we didn't come anymore and so on, but talking a bit and a couple of very clever and pointed remarks from me were enough to unmask such a stupid ploy. At the end he said something, like, that if we submitted to him and joined his band or such we could come to the creek too, but we had to respect him and blah blah blah. As if."

That didn't sound nice at all. Chryssi frowned and turned the new information around in her head. Considering what she knew, and she knew a lot thanks to Tia, the idea of submitting to a bunch of– She blinked and asked, "What does it mean to submit and join a band?"

"It means he can give orders and we have to do what he says. I would sooner never swim again rather than take any orders from–" Tia's face distorted in disgust and she almost spat the last words. "–Clay."

Well, that confirmed it. Taking orders from a colt seemed an absolutely ridiculous idea. Something like that would never, ever happen. And now the idea of scaring them made suddenly more sense. And yet Willowbark had been pretty clear, doing that would be a very bad thing, and it would disappoint him and disappoint Master Sottile and then Donna Copper Horn and Garvino and all the others. This whole swimming thing didn't really seem worth that.

"Can't we go swim somewhere else? There are other places along the river." Lulu traced some doodles in the earth with her hoof. "I mean, submitting and that? Never! But still, maybe there are other things we can do, things that don't end with us covered in mud."

Tia squinted at Lulu, walked up to her and sat down right in front of her sister. "Do you want to surrender? Do you want him to be victorious? Really?"

"I…" Lulu bit her lip. "Isn't there another way? We can try with diplomacy. I mean, I doubt he got a teacher for that stuff."

"Mmmh." Tia tapped her chin. "The whole Judges thing was a lot of talking about stuff. What did we get out of that aside from a wasted day?"

The sigh was filled with meaning, telling almost a story in itself. Lulu closed her eyes and said, "We got two lectures. And nothing else."

"We also got Donna Copper Horn to glare at us," said Chryssi. She felt that it was the kind of important detail one shouldn't forget. Forgetting that could mean one got another glare.

Tia smiled and nodded. "Right, we also got that. Now, Clay isn't the kind of pony giving out lectures. Or glares. Well, he tries, but let's be honest, he isn't that good at it. Anyway, Clay is the kind of pony who falls back on mud." She reached out and put her hoof on Lulu's shoulder. "If we fight we could lose. I don't think so, because I've already got a couple of ideas for a cunning plan, but let's say something unexpected happens and we lose anyway. Then we get caked in mud, but at least we put up a fight. That is better than talking and losing for certain, right?"

That was pretty solid reasoning, thought Chryssi. If the plan didn't require her to scare anybody then it would be perfect. They would win and she wouldn't even get a bad taste in her mouth. And yet—and she couldn't understand why—Lulu didn't seem quite convinced. Uncertainty and worry floated around her, which was such a strange contrast with Tia's determination that tasting the two things together felt weird.

"I don't know, Tia. It still sounds like a bad idea."

"It's three of us, I think we can take anything." Tia pulled Lulu in a hug and patted her on the back. "Look, I need you to do it, but if you really don't want to come, then we can leave it be. We'll find a way to get to them next year, alright? I hate the idea of having him win without having to lift a hoof, but I won't be angry or disappointed with you, I swear."

"I…" Lulu nuzzled Tia's shoulder. Chryssi took it as a sign and joined the hug.

They stayed that way for a while, when Lulu said, "Let's hear the plan. As long as we are together, we'll never back down."

The path amid the trees was well trodden, not just by ponies but also by the many other denizens of the woods. Shafts of light cut through the canopy and danced on the dirt. From the end of it, hidden behind curves and plants, came the shouts of foals playing and the splashing of water.

It was a peaceful scene, something which a zebra ruralist could write about in verses. A deceitfully calm prelude of what was to come. Celestia knew all about it. She had read the chronicles of Commander Snowstorm's campaign against the Unicorn Enclave and the Journal of Iron Hoof the First Mechanist. Soon there would be a battle.

She smiled. It would be a very short one if everything went according to plan. And if something went wrong, well, there were contingencies. Not that she expected any part of it to fail. She knew well her adversary, and he was predictable and far from brilliant.

It was almost time. It should have been enough for Lulu and Chryssi to take position, or at least to be on their way. Celestia took a deep breath and moved on the path.

The shadow cast by the trees was pleasant, and for a couple of moments, her mind wandered from the challenge she was about to face. Not for too long, though. After a few turns, the path opened up on the creek.

A three-pony-high rock-wall covered in moss rose at the back of the clearing, from which a small waterfall gaily blubbered into a large pool. Boulders all around it made for wonderful jumping platforms, and from the larger trees surrounding the water hung ropes and the occasional creeper. From the top of the wall a thick-built pink filly jumped with a happy scream, landing with an impressive splash. Behind her, two other foals were waiting. She recognized Mint's green coat immediately, while she didn't know the gray colt. A pegasus was napping on one of the rocks on the side of the pool. On the other shore, two almost identical foals, a colt and a filly, piled up rocks in what could, if one was generous and added a healthy supply of imagination, be a small house, with a jute doll lying between them.

Celestia observed the scene, and for the first time, she felt doubt. Was her plan really the best way to go?

"Look who came!" Right, him, up there on the rock-wall right next to Mint. He was the reason why she had to do it. It was his fault.

Clay hadn't grown much in height in the past couple of years, with Celestia becoming a full head taller than him. What he hadn't gained in stature he certainly had gained in muscles. His gray coat was trimmed, and his black mane was cut short. The delicate, decorated vase on his flank struck a weird contrast with the rest. He smiled. "Finally decided to join us? Where's your sister?"

"Hah, join you? In your dreams. I'm here to get the creek, and I don't need Lulu for that."

"To get the creek? Heh, right…" He jumped down on a boulder below the rock-wall, then landed on the ground. It wasn't graceful by any measure, but it was… Celestia guessed that solid was a good way to put it. "You're still in time to join us."

By this point, Celestia had become the center of attention. Even the fillies on the other side of the pool had stopped their games and were looking over to her. "Join you? You mean to submit, right? You told me so yourself. Well, no, that won't happen. Not now, not ever."

"I did? I did!" Clay's face went through weird motions. If Celestia had to guess he didn't seem, for some reason, too happy. He didn't probably like that she remembered and had seen through his plans.

"You did. So, I won't submit, and I don't think you will surrender, will you?" It was only right to give him a chance to back down.

He frowned and looked over his shoulder.

Celestia nodded. "Thought so. Well, that doesn't leave many other choices, right?"

"What do you mean? Wanna fight? We’re a lot and you're alone." He scratched his head. "I know you unicorns are weird, but that sounds stupid."

The trap was laid out. Time to put the bait in. "No, that's not what I mean." Celestia smiled, she had the right to be smug at this point. "I'm great, but even I couldn't do that. No, I propose a battle of champions." She looked around, making a show of measuring up every foal in the creek. "You said we should join your band, which means these are your minions. Choose one, and they shall battle against my champion for the right to keep the creek."

A not very subtle whispering rose from the foals. "What did she mean by minions?", "Who's that?", and "What's a champion?" seemed to be the main topics of furious if confused discussion.

Another piece right where she needed it. Confusion was good.

Clay's ears swiveled following the back and forth of the discussion. He turned around and shouted "Silence!"

The foals obeyed.

When he returned his attention to Celestia he almost snarled, "That's a griffony thing to do. You spend too much time with the pony-eaters. It's not good for you."

"They're not pony-eaters! And even if they were I would prefer passing time with them than with you!" Celestia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. That wasn't in the plan, at all. She had to find her place in the scheme again, and it wasn't to simply start a brawl. When she looked again at Clay, who had lost his snarl and replaced it with shock, she was once again the calm center of awesome machinations. "Anyway, a challenge of champions isn't something griffons do, it's more a minotaur thing, and an old tradition of the ancient pony kingdoms too. You aren't scared, right?"

And so he fell for it. "Ain't scared of you. Mint, come here."

Mint was a big colt. A whole head taller than Clay, a whole lot less nimble, and almost uniformly green. He didn't so much jump down from the rock-wall onto the boulders as much as falling and landing on his hooves. He wasn't as muscular as his boss–more on the lanky side–but still cut an impressive figure. He came up at Clay's side and lowered his head. "Yes, Clay?"

"He's gonna be my champion." Clay looked Celestia right in the eyes while he pointed at Mint. "Who's gonna be yours?"

On her right, between the bushes, Celestia saw a brief glimpse of a dark-blue coat. She allowed herself an open smile. "I'm going to be my own champion. I will stand up to the challenge."

Both Clay and Mint were taken aback. Good. "What d'you mean, you're your champion? You can't do that!"

"I can, Clay. I mean, who else should I call? It's just me right here. Certainly, there's not my sister. Or anypony else. I can't have one of yours be my champion, can I?"

Clay glared at her.

All in all, Mint gave the impression of being more confused than usual. "Clay, what does a champion do? Do I have to fight her? I don't like fighting fillies."

"Don't worry Mint, I won't hurt you. I don't want to hurt you." Celestia stood straighter. "But you weren't much opposed to dragging me through the mud in the past, were you? I think we can do something like that, just with me doing the dragging this time. If you want, you can surrender, though. It would mean that I'm the winner, which suits me just fine."

Mint scratched the ground with his hoof and looked away. Clay looked around, eyeing the surrounding trees and sniffing the air. Finally, he turned back to Celestia and snorted. "Yeah, that would suit you alright. No, not gonna do that. Not gonna lose to a pin-head. Mint, drag her through the mud, she asked for it."

There was a moment of silence as Mint looked back and forth between Clay and Celestia. "But–"

"Do it, she asked for it." Clay turned around, ears low, and walked to the rock wall where the other foals were gathering. "I said she should submit, she won't, she wants to fight. Can't help it."

Something didn't sit right with Celestia. He fell for the trap, but he didn't seem satisfied. Did he suspect something? What was his problem? Thoughts and hypotheses flashed through her mind while she tried to reexamine every possible angle to see if the plan was at risk of failing. Nothing came to her, and then Mint's presence looming over her brought her back to the present in an instant. Things were in motion, and if she wanted to avoid eating dirt she had to concentrate on the immediate threat of the colt coming at her.

Mint wasn't fast, but his long legs gave him an impressive reach which he was determined to put to use as he half-pounced, half leaned forward to get Celestia.

Flights of fancy were a thing Celestia indulged in often and with delight. She was fairly certain that many who knew her thought that meant she was easily distracted. They were wrong. One of the things she had learned while living with her old mother and father was to be aware of the now and to understand her circumstances with crystal clarity. There was no other way if you wanted to have a chance when in a scrap with somebody stronger and bigger than you, like a sibling. And since she had joined with her new family she hadn't lost it, because Lulu was the exact same way, and Celestia had no intention of losing to her little sister.

Mint was almost on her, and it was clear that he lacked that particular trait. He was a colt, he was big, he was strong, he never had needed it.

A fraction of a heartbeat later the course of action was clear. Celestia dashed forward and ducked under the outstretched leg. Her magic flashed, grabbing his hind-hoof and making him stumble forward.

"Hey, no fancy magic!" came from somewhere amidst the spectators.

Celestia didn't stop, dashed forward to the river-shore, and levitated three blobs of thick, clay-like mud. "I'm a unicorn, it's what I do." She turned around and shot at her adversary, who was still turning around.

She hit him all three times, the mud leaving dirt tracks on his flank, his neck, and his face. Good.

Mint faced her, spat out a bit of the mud that had managed to enter his mouth, and glared at her ignoring what should have been an ignominious end of the duel. Not good.

Three new blobs rose from the ground while Celestia stepped back. "There's more where those came from."

It didn't seem Mint had learned the lesson as he stormed forward. Celestia again shot him, hitting him only once. He had jumped sideways and dodged the other projectiles.

He reached out, Celestia ducked and slipped below his foreleg like before, and grabbed his hind-hoof. With a bit of luck, he would tumble into the creek, sealing her victory. She pulled, but this time the hoof didn't budge.

And then she felt something pulling her tail, making her stumble and fall down.

Her nostrils quivered as she smelled the wet dirt from so close. She had to get up and away, she was far too exposed. And then two forelegs pressed down on her head and her back. She tried to raise and throw off her captor, but he was too strong. Wiggling and slipping out didn't bring any better results.

"Stay down, you lost."

Hearing that almost brought her to try again anyway, but her mastery of tactics and strategy overcame those primitive impulses. She couldn't overpower him directly, which meant she had to play it smart. There was a plan, and if she could just get a bit of time then–

"Hyaaaa!" Lulu's warcry put a smile on Celestia's face. She felt Mint's weight shift as there were shouts asking "What?" and "Where did she–?" coming from the assembled foals. That was her chance. She twisted around and felt Mint's hooves slip off. Just a bit more, a push here, a kick there, and she would be in the fight again.

Mint catching himself and blocking her again put an end to that.

In the trap again. At least she had moved her head enough to see what was happening with Lulu's attempt to cripple the enemy's structure of command.

Lulu was struggling under the twins, with Clay standing back and looking down on her. "Let me go!"

"What did–" Clay shut his mouth, then turned around and glared at Celestia. "Was that your plan? Distract me and attack me from behind?" He stomped forward and glared at her. "Was that it? Well, it failed. You failed. I win. You lose."

Celestia turned her head a bit. "Well, that was one of the plans, Clay. Just, not the only one. And you didn't win."

"What?" Clay took another step forward. "What'd you mean?"

He was standing alone between the rock-wall and Mint. Celestia dared to glance upwards, then smiled. A bit of dirt ended in her mouth, but it was worth the confused expression on Clay's face. "Well, you'll see what I mean in an instant. It will be a splendid surpri–NOW!"

Chryssi flung herself from the top of the rock-wall and opened her wings. An instant later she hit Clay in the side and went tumbling with him tail over head towards the shore. Surprised cries came from the assembled foals around Lulu. Mint's hooves left her back as he turned around to see what had happened.

It was now or never. Celestia rolled away and jumped up. She tasted earth, she knew her mane was a mess without even looking at it, and her coat was probably in even worse conditions. But as she saw Chryssi sitting on a downed Clay on the shore of the creek, her hooves holding him down, her left wing holding a large glob of mud ready to strike, Celestia knew it had all been worth it. Every knot in her mane, every scrubbing she would have to endure, the scolding they would get for how messy they were.

Victory was sweet.

Clay gathered his wits as he was struggling under Chryssi. "Who in the frozen wastes are you?"

"I'm the surprise," said Chryssi.

"She is, and we won." Celestia stood straight. "Tell your band to let Lulu go, and then leave us the creek."

The river burbled, the birds sang in the trees, and the blades of light framed the scene of Celestia's victory in a way she would probably try to capture somehow. And then Clay asked, "Or else?"

That wasn't a surrender, Celestia was pretty sure of it. "Or else what?"

Clay looked her right in the eyes. "You said I should let your sister go and leave the creek. What happens if I don't do that?"

Chryssi blinked, looked at Celestia, then down at her prisoner. "Then I cover you in mud. Right, Tia?"

"Yes, she'll cover you in mud." Clay wasn't going along with the plan, and Celestia started to have a bad feeling about this.

There was a brief moment of silence that gave Celestia hope, and then Clay grinned and said, "And?"

"You know? I was thinking that the whole talking a lot and doing the Judge stuff wasn't that bad." Lulu chewed and then spat out a glob of mud. She was covered head to hoof in dirt, some of it already cracking and thicker clumps falling down. "I mean, it was boring, but boring doesn't taste so bad."

The dirt between her feathers itched. Chryssi opened her wings and closed her wings. Something was lodged in there.

Maybe she could transform. Her smooth chitin plates would be easy to clean, it would all simply fall away. Chryssi looked around. The forest was far behind them, and the fields all around seemed empty. Just for a moment, just to get the itching out.

A wave of misery, shame, and regret washed over her.

Tia was walking a bit behind them, head low, her coat even dirtier than those of Chryssi or Lulu, sticks and grass in her mane.

Her friends weren't happy, they all would get a scolding like they hadn't had in months, and Tia seemed to have lost all her energy. Transforming and risking to make everything worse wasn't a good idea, Chryssi decided. She could live with the itching.

"I admit I wanted to swim too, but I think the whole approach here was a bit wrong." Lulu stopped and passed her hoof over a stone, bitterness surrounding her like a stinking cloud.

Guilt joined the unpalatable mixture emanating from Tia. It was awful, almost intolerably so.

Chryssi's ears dropped, she folded her wings and slowed down until she walked on Tia's side. "I'm sorry. I… I should have scared them, like that time with Geno. I–"

"Shut up."

The words made Chryssi stumble. It was sharp, hard, hot, focused. She had never felt so much anger from Tia, and it was all directed at a single pony.

Tia was so furious with herself as to be scary. "You didn't do anything wrong. Lulu didn't do anything wrong. Nobody did, except me." She sat down and closed her eyes. "Me, me, me! It was just me. And you came along anyway and did everything right and you did well not scaring them because that would have been a mess and–and– Yargh!"

There were maybe three heartbeats between the first tear peeking from Tia's eye and Chryssi and Lulu hugging her.

"I–me and my stupid plan, it's all my fault. I messed up and– and you paid for it and–" Tia sniffled. "–Donna Copper Horn will be angry and Master Sottile will be disappointed and it's all my fault."

"Glad you saw it too." A gust of wind pulled up dust around them as Ginevra landed behind Tia. "I feared for a moment that you would be too stubborn to recognize the f–foul up."

"Wha–?" Tia tried to wipe the tears away, spreading the dirt even more across her face. "Where did you–?"

Ginevra snorted, her feelings all mixed together in a soup where Chryssi couldn't identify the ingredients. "I followed you. We were a bit worried about the little bug here, but I gotta say she held up admirably even when those little pests got the scum. Little Moon here was pretty brave too. No tears at all." Ginevra patted Lulu on the head, then turned her eyes on Tia. "Now you, well, what were you thinking?"

Squirming, Tia tried to disentangle from the hug with little success. "I… I wanted to play in the creek again and swim and jump from the waterfall before the summer ended. And Clay and his minions have it, and they are too many and I thought we could be smart and win the creek back. And there’s all the stories about the battles won when you get the other queen or king or when you make a surprise attack or such. And–"

"Hush." Ginevra's claw closed on Tia's mouth. "That's not what I meant. The plan itself wouldn't have been half bad in the proper context. If your threat had been–" Ginevra shut her beak, shook her head, then released Tia and said, "Look, the problem is that the thing at the creek, that wasn't a life or death situation where there were no other choices. That was a spat over having a place where to take a bath, and to get it you broke your word on the challenge. You don't do that, or what you say isn't gonna be ever worth anything."

"Tia just wanted us to have a nice place!" Lulu hugged her sister tighter. "What else could she do?"

Ginevra sat on her haunches and left out a sigh. "I'm not the best one for this stuff, you know? I'm far too glad to go into a scrap and all that, but even I can see some of the things smart ones like Master Sottile or Donna Copper Horn would say: you could have looked for another creek, you could have asked for the help of us adults, you could have talked it out with the other brats–"

Tia exclaimed, "But Clay hates us. And he hates me most of all."

Knowledge could, at times, be pretty uncomfortable. Mostly when one wasn't sure if using it was a good or bad thing. On one hoof, what Chryssi knew would show that there had been some false premise from which Tia had started making her plans. On the other hoof, it could maybe help in the future.

"No, he doesn't," said Chryssi and Ginevra together.

"Right." Ginevra shook her head, "Like the little bug said, he doesn't hate you. Heh, if I had to guess I would say that…"

They waited for a couple of heartbeats, then Tia asked, "You would say what?"

"Nothing. You'll get it soon enough, and I don't want my feathers plucked because I put ideas in your little head too soon." Ginevra snickered. "But yeah, believe me, he doesn't hate you. And talking would have done the job for you before this whole thing."

Tia lowered her ears and bit her lip. "Oh…"

"Hey!" Lulu perked up. "You were there. You saw everything. Why didn't you help us?"

Ginevra reached forward and lifted Tia out from the hug."You weren't in danger, and you didn't put them into danger, no reason for me to break up a pretty good lesson." She hugged Tia and patted her on the head. "And I think you learned something important here, right?"

"I–I guess so."

There was a huge clump of dirt and grass lodged in Tia's mane. Ginevra pulled it out and passed her claws through the hair like a comb. "Good enough. Keep it in mind the next time you deal with those other brats. Now let's return home and get you a bath. And when you'll not be grounded anymore, let me show you a little place I found in the forest. There's a river, a nice pond, and no reason to fight over it. I think it'll do until you get a better plan."