Aftersound

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Written by: Oneimare & Geka

Preread and edited by: Jay Tarrant, IAmApe

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Responsible

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“Zdzisława, I’m asking again—what’s your excuse for the delay of the shipment we discussed?” the neighponese stallion impatiently demanded, punctuating his words with taps of his hoof against the polished obsidian.

The caprine CEO of Kashmare, innumerable jewellery clinked as she dismissively waved her hoof, retorted, “How many times do we have to tell you the current state of the Edge prevents any operations?”

“According to the deal, the goods should have been dispatched three weeks ago!” The elderly earth pony mare took her turn in accusing the goat, croaking in an almost caricature manner, “That’s what you get when you put things on the back burner.”

“Don’t tell me how to run my business!” Zdzisława struck the table and winced as her gesture only resulted in her hoof silently rebounding against the sombre stone—the ringing bracelets not taken into account.

“It’s not about business, but a partnership,” one of the Kirin twins bitterly muttered, pouring oil into the fire of petty polemics. Her sister nodded—they spoke in turns, exact copies of one another, perpetually frowning.

My tired gaze found Chrysalis settled in her throne so low, her towering form barely reached above most of the council delegates. She seemed to find great amusement in observing the bickering and I also suspected her enjoying the confusion and boredom of everyone else.

Once again I wondered why the queen wanted me to come to the council supposed to decide the fate of Canterlot—so far nothing directly related to that question had been brought up. Nobody even acknowledged my presence, the speakers tightly clustering at one side of the massive table.

The queen herself occupied the head of the basalt slab; Rainbow visibly suffered from the horrible agony of standing still by her left hoof, Sunset stood impassive at the changeling’s right.

Luna sat opposite to them, given a wide berth by everyone. She had been trying her hardest to follow the conversation, but struggled—the Dream Realm could offer only so much insight into the intricacies of society.

Not far from her, Trixie shared Rainbow’s plight; though she appeared to be content with being back in her arcanium body—a bit scuffed and still bearing burn marks.

Next, the most mysterious of guests rested on a tall chair, though her head still barely peaked above the ebony surface. The size of a filly, almost a foal, she resembled a bizarre mix of a pegasus and gryphon. The feathers spread from her wings across her white coat, forming a magnificent black plumage in place of her mane; their tips seemed to be smouldering.

That strange creature kept glaring with intense anger at each of those present—even I didn’t avoid her wordless scorn, sitting betwixt her and the ‘royalty’.

“The mess at the Edge is going to resolve itself,” the Kirin twin slightingly proclaimed. “The TCE cut off their food supply and riots don’t happen on an empty stomach.”

A previously sourly silent zebra came to life, a stallion whose height rivalled that of Luna, “Nebula’s sector is one big mushroom farm that feeds the rebels. So far, the TCE thinks it’s just drugs.”

“They’ll cut that off, too,” the Kirin mare pressed on.

The zebra shook his head. “It might be too late by that time.”

Coming to the grim conclusion, the representatives of the city turned to the queen who faced them unwaveringly. Instead of her, Rainbow spoke, relieved:

“Involving the Royal Guard into the conflict puts us under fire.” She paused to glance at Chrysalis and received a nod, then dismally admitted, “Both the TCE and rioters possess weapons able to negate the cybersuits. And according to our newly found sources, there’s more to this situation than we thought.”

Sunset called the enigmatic filly, “Fotia.”

I should have guessed—she did bear some resemblance to Princess Celestia’s former secretary, if hidden by the features shared with a phoenix.

Fotia Koraki used her miniature and disturbingly sharp hooves to almost climb onto the table and her deceptively young voice cut into the sombre silence.

“A year after the Winter, the TCE got two guys with at least one brain cell each. The first one came up with an invisibility enchantment, the second used his grey matter to keep things extra hush-hush. So hush-hush, the TCE formed a whole army of the police forces loyal to them and they snuck right to the Castle of Two Sisters.”

She said that intently looking at Chrysalis, to which she reacted with an offended expression—the master of spies had failed and the filly was rubbing that all over her face. Sunset shared the displeasure with her peer, but both remained silent.

“The Winter crippled the Pinks like everybody else, so when the TCE materialised out of thin air, half of the gryphons turned on their buddies.”

Her words reflected on those gathered with a deep worry; Rainbow grimaced and I recalled her questioning Flower about the terrorists’ armour—she’d gotten her answer now.

“That is exceptionally bad,” the shorter zebra mare of the Mlima Tribe intoned in the trademark singsong voice of mountain shamans. “The greedy guiding the mad.”

“And it’s going to get even worse,” Fotia commented, returning all the attention to her.

The neighponese stallion barked, “The TCE already controls eighty per cent of the city’s police and now it also has an army of terrorists experienced at guerrilla warfare with invisibility talismans. How could it get worse?”

“It can always get worse, just so you know,” the phoenix-filly darkly noted. “The Pinks hate everyone in this fucked up city. When the TCE starts shagging us, the gryphons are going to backstab them and plunge Canterlot into chaos, I guarantee you that.”

An uneasy silence settled, and the congregation began to exchange nervous and reluctant glances until Zdzisława defeatedly uttered:

“So, the time has come, then.”

Chrysalis straightened herself and leaned over the smooth obsidian, somehow managing to smile both triumphantly and sadly.

“Indeed it is,” she said. “We have to evacuate while there’s still someone to evacuate.”

I would have been surprised if I hadn’t thought of it myself—I’d planned to flee to Stalliongrad after all. Perhaps, a few decades ago there could have been hope to fix the fatal issues killing the city, but not when it stood on the brink of civil war.

“Earlier than we’d hoped,” the queen added over the disgruntled murmurs, trying to inject some positivity with her strained voice bearing very little of that itself. “But it always would have been that way.”

Zdzisława sighed deeply and squinted at Luna, then at me.

“At least we have a place to go to now.”

The alicorn’s stoic face didn’t flinch and I shallowly nodded back to the goat—she returned the gesture in an even more subtle manner; Rainbow rolled her eyes.

“We stick to the plan, then?” the elderly pony mare asked.

“How?” the Kirin raised her voice above the deep baritones of the zebra and the quiet conversation the neighponese were having with Zdzisława. Even more loudly she announced, “With the Edge captured in the conflict, we are going to have no qualified workforce.”

“The Outer City population should have enough factory workers,” Sunset retorted, but her answer lacked firmness.

“We need industry, we need builders—not packers and assemblers,” the Kirin mare scoffed.

“It’s already taking a huge risk relying on your biomass farms,” the elderly mare croaked, addressing the changeling queen.

She answered, snapping, “They’ll have to suffice—I’m risking the lives of my children as much as yours.”

The twins scowled and if anyone hadn’t been paying attention to that fight, they were now—the Kirin raised a major concern that could lead to the evacuation ending in a catastrophic failure upon arrival to the Badlands.

Whilst Sunset tinkered with a tablet, probably looking for some sort of statistics, Chrysalis gave me a sidelong look, her viridian sharp eyes boring into me.

A pony, a neighponese, the Kirins and representatives from each zebra Tribe. She’d also brought a vigilante in charge of the Tunnels sector. Whilst Luna’s presence remained a riddle—mine didn’t anymore.

Refusing to stop and think where that question led, I asked, “What about the equinoids?”

“What about the equinoids?” the Kirin echoed me almost mockingly.

Her twin joined in, “Oh, yes, how could we forget about the TCE property and the organic-life-hating fanatics, eh… living above the Deep Tunnels?”

“Mixing them with the pony populace would result in an immediate bloodbath,” the neighponese stallion huffed. “That’s out of the question.”

The rest regarded me with mild disapproval; only Zdzisława gave me a thoughtful, yet unsure look.

“But what if they changed?” I pressed on and steeled myself before blurting out, “What if there were someone to… to unite them?”

I squirmed under the intense spotlight of every pair of eyes.

“The only one who can control those fanatics is a goddess,” the Kirin slowly said, squinting, her calculating gaze threatening to burn a hole in me.

That statement only served to intensify the looks, their expressions ranging from bewilderment to doubt and suspicion.

Chrysalis came to my help. “I support the idea—we need the equinoids.”

“Most of them used to work as building crews,” Sunset supplemented after a moment of hesitation—the conversation we’d had hours ago made doubts clear.

First, murmurs, then impossible to follow arguments claimed the table. Eventually, it winded down with almost nobody looking particularly pleased with the result.

“Perhaps it can work,” the Kirin mare declared, then lifted her hoof and, holding it in the air, continued in a warning tone. “If you manage to control their violence, you have my support.”

“You have my support as well,” Zdzisława eagerly said, raising her limb with a resounding ringing.

The rest joined, the zebras—the last.

A chair scraped against the polished floor as Luna abruptly stood up.

“I vote against.”

Her expressionless face—not that a skull with the skin taut on it could show much— was turned away from me, but every eye in her mane, which had grown tumultuous in the past few minutes, glared at me indignantly.

“Your voice has no weight,” Sunset acidly noted, the only who dared to challenge the ominous silence.

I suspected Sunset speaking at all broke Luna’s hostile conviction rather than the Former One’s words specifically. Nonetheless, it worked as the storm of darkness receded and a bitter resigned scowl overtook the alicorn’s features.

“Either way,” Chrysalis cautiously began. Seeing Luna paying her no mind, she continued, “The majority vote approves the inclusion of equinoids into the evacuation effort and I sanction the endeavour.

“As we’ve discussed, openly declaring the evacuation is going to critically compromise it, so I’m deploying my entire spy network to spread the rumours. You have no more than a month before the TCE traces the source and launches countermeasures.”

The moment the Kirin clarified to me the role I had to fill, driving the idea home, my attention to the discussion began to slip, crumbling under the weight of the deed I had promised to achieve. As such, I hadn’t noticed how everyone had left, even the queen’s advisors.

I sluggishly rose from my seat to depart as well, but Chrysalis’ call stopped me.

“Machine Goddess, I’d like you to remain.”

Her amiable tone held a certain ambiguity, but so subtle I couldn’t tell if she’d mocked me or genuinely addressed me as a sovereign.

Trying to mimic that, I responded, “It’s very premature to call me that… your highness.”

The changeling chuckled, shaking her head. I patiently watched her slowly leave her throne and approach me; the soft creaking of her joints filled the silence of the room. She effortlessly towered me, in an almost self-conscious fashion; ironically, her discoloured chitin looked little different from my porcelain coat.

“There’s nothing high about me but my physique—I’m sure Sunny has spilt everything already.” Chrysalis’ lips corners went up, yet the smile didn’t reach her eyes; and even that faltered. “I’d like to talk to you... mother to mother. Would you mind if I call you that?”

I regarded her expression—a mask ridden with cracks both actual and virtual, an unreadable stoicism flawed by glimpses of severe worry. Her sharp eyes twitched as she studied my pensive face with her penetrating gaze.

But where the Moths only read, I didn’t need to strain my imagination to see thin threads attached to the convenient holes in Chrysalis’ hooves, spreading across the city in intricate webwork.

“This was your plan the whole time, wasn’t it?” I said, neither angry nor impressed—simply stating the obvious.

She cryptically grinned.

“I have many plans going on right now.”

“To test me and if I succeeded, use me to get help from the equinoids.” Going through my entire ‘adventure’ in Canterlot I failed to pinpoint the moment she could have caught me in her net. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you even placed my gems in the Archives to start the whole thing.”

The queen howled with laughter, the titters shaking her fragile body. Almost instantly her guffaws turned into a stifling cough and she clutched her throat, her face simultaneously contorted in pain and merriment.

“Oh, please, stop—it hurts,” Chrysalis squeezed out of herself when she finally overcame the mirth. “I’m flattered, but I’m not that good; not even a god would’ve been able to pull off something so complex. Still, I admit to influencing your path so it would end up where I prefer.”

Not for a moment, I found myself able to share her joy—now, especially.

“And you prefer me to be the Machine Goddess rather than Twilight Sparkle.”

The vestiges of humour instantly evaporated from the changeling’s expression.

“Considering you have some of her memories and must have learned about the missing parts, you should understand why I don’t want Twilight Sparkle to be anywhere near my children,” she nonchalantly said and sweetly smiled, displaying two rows of razor-sharp teeth.

I grimaced and muttered, “What did you want to talk with me about?”

“Straight to business—I like that.”

The queen unhurriedly trotted away, to the window taking up the entire wall.

The cloud curtain had dissolved, revealing Canterlot’s streets far below glowing with neon. The reflection on the glass showed my diminutive doll-like form mirroring the shine of the city and gleaming by itself with the immaculate polish of ceramic. The tall and ancient ivory statue by my side glimmered only with the arcanium stitches holding together the dim silhouette blending into the shadows.

“You might have noticed,” Chrysalis rasped, “I’m… not really in my prime anymore.” She paused to clear her throat and choose her next words, yet as the silence lingered offering no help, she had to admit with a sigh, “I’m dying.”

The reflected silhouette slumped and I met her tired green eyes with a sympathetic look. However, I pitied her children more than her—many of the sacrifices she made for them were paid by the others.

Straightening herself, she continued, “And since you’re already willing to take one race under your wing, I—”

“Out of the question.”

I had no idea how to carry out my audacious suggestion; and whilst I had a connection to the equinoid race to start with, my affinity with the changelings didn’t exist.

Still, the hospitality the queen had shown to me and my friends shouldn’t be ignored, so I hastily added, “With all due respect.”

Though my outburst left Chrysalis unamused, she spoke calmly as I fell guiltily silent:

“You, how do I put it… don’t meet the requirements.”

Not letting my mind linger on that riddle, I tried to banish grouchiness from my tone as I replied, “You should talk with the one who does.”

“I believe it would be better for you to do that.”

My mind returned to the council and the question of why a certain pony had been present but not actually included.

“Luna?” I grimaced at both the entire idea and the prospect of conversation with her. “We aren’t really on good terms if you haven’t noticed nor would it work.”

“Now, that joke isn’t funny at all,” the queen deadpanned. “I might not be very well versed in the ways of magic, but it’s hard to miss her strong affiliation with certain forces. Unless we want to doom the whole world, that’s a particularly nightmarish idea.”

Next candidate on the list.

“Sunset Shimmer is your friend and I’m sure she knows more about the Swarm than any pony ever did.”

“The Queen of the Swarm isn’t just a title—to become her, a pony mare has to undergo change via an arcane ritual and Sunset has already filled her quota on transformations.”

“Is it someone I know?” I asked for a hint as her annoyingly vague replies had done nothing to narrow down to who she wanted me to convince to adopt the Swarm.

“Yes.”

Not a Former One and someone I knew...

“No.”

“If I say the fillies don’t meet the requirements either, would it change your answer?

“Delight will never agree.”

“You don’t know that,” Chrysalis grouchily retorted. “Before you object, let me tell you something.

“I’ll last a month. I may even survive part of the trip to the Badlands but never see my home again.” Her tone bore only serene resignation. “Without a queen, the changelings will go extinct, as every nymph is going to be stillborn.

“And if the prospect of an entire species dying out doesn’t bother you, there is a more practical side to it.”

Her implication made me glare at the queen, but I let her continue.

“A glamour conceals the old Hive and only a changeling queen can dispel it. Bigger than the Sky Palace, it can house every changeling and have room left for almost as many ponies. The throne of the first queen—Platinum’s sister, Quicksilver—forged of pure arcanium can hold back the winter storms.”

I carefully considered the knowledge very few non-changelings knew about. Chrysalis revealed her hoof which promised a massive offset to the hardships the refugees would encounter. Dismissing it for a single pony felt like a crime.

“Why didn’t you bother preparing a candidate in advance?” I grasped at straws.

The changeling scrunched her muzzle.

“As good as I am with plans, Canterlot is equally equipped to foil them.” Bowing her head, Chrysalis whispered, “She didn’t survive the winter.”

“Why Delight?”

Smiling mischievously, the queen answered, “Your impromptu journey to the Badlands let me take a look at your companions. Clandestine Delight isn’t an arbitrary choice, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

I glared daggers at her, but let that slide, focusing not even on the rest of her words, but my resolve—tightly holding my moral compass in my grasp.

“There’s nothing you can offer that will make me force my friend to do something she doesn’t want to. I’ll talk to her, but not mention any of what you’ve disclosed.”

Chrysalis clenched her jaws, dejectedly looking at her hooves with glistening eyes and slumping even further. That display alone almost convinced me to take my words back.

Steeling myself, I spoke again, “For that, I want to ask something in return.”

We both knew how fickle our bargaining chips were and stakes, so my brazenness sent her brows to her forehead and she squinted at me.

“As mother to mother,” I added and curiosity replaced discontent in her gaze. “There’s a certain dragon in the Deep Tunnels. Help me save him, and I’ll talk to Delight.”

As soon as my hoof found purchase on the floor beyond the council chamber, Seven emerged from the shadows, ready to guide me to the workshop. Yet, I declined her offer, asking her to lead me to the Sky Palace hospital instead.

The familiar route led us to the modest infirmary which I suspected to be a sort of remnant from the time when the Sky Palace had been constructed by the oblivious ponies of Canterlot.

A changeling met us, a petite mare that bowed to a bashful Seven, appearing genuinely respectful. Somewhat confused, she repeated the gesture for me, her faceted eyes frantically searching my flanks for a telling number. Absent-mindedly I noted it lacking any mark, despite my appearance strikingly resembling that of Twilight Sparkle.

For both the nurse’s and my relief, Seven did the talking:

“We’d like to pay a visit to the fair pegasus Clandestine Delight,” she chirped, bringing levity to the remaining awkward situation. “Would that be possible?”

The mare hurried away and returned within a minute.

“The patient is ready to receive visitors,” she informed us and practically bolted to the sanctuary of the staff room.

In all honesty, I didn’t really want to go to Del—honouring the deal didn’t magically conjure the right words to my mind; if they even existed in the first place.

Nevertheless, I found myself in front of the door, staring at the papers reading her name and the medical procedures she’d undergone in the last few hours. The plastic container also had several envelopes addressed to my pegasus friend.

Her spacious room, a no longer temporary substitute, opened into the hollow of the palace. The reflected sunset painted the sterile white interior crimson, casting deep shadows from the bed and simple furniture.

Delight, her left side wrapped in bandages, sat on the mattress’ edge, animatedly chatting with a changeling colt—another worker of the facility, judging by the uniform and a tray with empty dishes.

“Hi!” she joyously exclaimed, waving her hoof.

“Hello, Del,” I greeted her in a more reserved fashion; still, a smile crept onto my face by itself. “Feeling better, I see.”

The colt glanced at us and left the room, the tray balanced on his back precariously. Seven followed him—I wondered if she had overheard my conversation with Chrysalis; the Twelve couldn’t have lived with the Swarm in the same building for centuries and not picked up a few habits.

“I am, thank you.” Del carefully extended her wing. “The physician says I should be able to fly in a week. And how are you? The new upgrade looks amazing—holographic bodies are the best.”

I duly noted a new word.

“How are Flower and Wire?”

“Wire is going to have a new prosthetic installed when her eye heals, otherwise she’s very happy—a different filly,” she announced, seemingly sharing Wire’s state of mind, but then her expression fell and her tone turned accusing. “Flower has run away.”

To my bewildered look she explained, regarding me with a hard stare, “When the nurses came to move us to the better rooms, they didn’t find her.”

My muzzle contorted into a grimace, mostly of a confused kind.

“I spoke with her and things seemed well enough...” I mused aloud.

Most likely, her warming attitude to the changelings resulted in questions that most probably concerned other inhabitants of the palace—the Twelve; learning about their attitude towards me couldn’t reflect well on the filly’s dream.

Whatever the cause, I had to find her. Given an excuse, I almost prepared to leave, finally caving in to the desire to postpone the unpleasant conversation with Delight, but she noted in a concerned tone:

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

Frankly, Del didn’t need any ritual to be a changeling queen—her almost telepathic skills must have told her something was up the moment I entered the room. I should have turned off my holographic face to give myself at least a chance.

“Are you alright?” she worriedly pressed on.

“Just tired,” I lied.

“You’re lying,” Del said, sounding tired.

Caught like a filly with a hoof in a cookie jar, I let out a sigh and morosely trotted to Del’s bed plopping myself on it. Whilst I doubted getting out of that room without Delight learning everything I didn’t want to tell her, perhaps I still could avoid fulfilling my part of the deal right now.

That demanded certain sacrifices, however.

“I’ve learned something about Twilight Sparkle,” I uttered and let my face speak for me. “And took responsibility for her actions. Because I’m her.”

Del’s hoof softly tapped against my shoulder and I sensed more than saw the sympathetic expression overtaking her features. I wondered if she would have acted differently knowing what I spoke about; then I realised—she might already know.

“But you didn’t do those things, right?” She shifted uneasily and said so quietly, it came almost as a whisper, “You wouldn’t do them.”

I almost shrugged her limb off—there would be no me without Twilight Sparkle; I could only be Twilight or nothing. Pretending I was just ‘what remained of her’ was an act of cowardice in light of recent discoveries.

“I don’t know.”

She pleaded, “If you were to return back in time, you wouldn’t do the same, right?”

“But I already did that,” I snapped. “Yes, right now I know the consequences and I see things differently. But that Twilight Sparkle lived the life I would have lived because she is I. It’s not about going back in time, it is about me, right now, who travelled into the future.”

Delight scrunched her muzzle.

Finally, she gave up. “I don’t understand.”

“Imagine you travelled back in time to the moment when you became a Moth, when you were about to receive your mark.” I glanced at the burn on her cheek, and she touched it, frowning. “You would have chosen differently, right?”

Her frown deepened, but the silence didn’t last this time.

“No. If I hadn’t become a Moth, I’d have never ended up in the Tunnels and met you.”

I bit my proverbial tongue, internally cursing myself. Thankfully Delight either didn’t feel offended or did a superb job not showing it.

After a moment of thought, I tried again, paying close attention to my words:

“I’m a copy of Twilight Sparkle at the moment of the experiment. The original Twilight survived the trial of the cybersuit and went on with her life. I was brought to life about two weeks ago. But at the moment of the trial, we were one and the same pony, and if I were to take the place of the original, I would have done the same things, and she would have followed the same path I did from Flower’s shack. And now that she is dead, I’m no longer a copy, but the original.”

The pegasus’ brow furrowed and she didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then, her hoof left my shoulder as she seemed to retreat into herself.

“I’m trying my hardest and still can’t quite get it.” Del let out a deep sigh. “After all, I’m just an ex-whore…”

“Del,” I groaned. “Please, don’t belittle yourself—you’re a great mare. Your occupation never defined you.”

I reached out for her.

“Thank you,” she whispered and her voice hitched. Clearing her throat she continued levelly, “I think you might not understand what you are saying yourself. Original… copy…”—she shook her head—“that’s not how we work. You’re overcomplicating things.”

My mouth opened for a retort, but then I closed it. The tumult of my thoughts swallowed her words angrily, yet before a roar of emotions deafened them, I glimpsed a sparkling seed of sense—I just needed to figure out how to nurture it into an answer.

“What have you taken responsibility for?” Del asked cautiously.

My jaws clenched and my eyelids fell heavily.

“I sold… sold out the AI enchantments to the TCE.”

Judging by the way she stiffened, her mind connected the dots instantly, realising the full extent of the horrible implications.

“Nobody could have known how it would turn out,” she weakly murmured.

My muzzle screwed up.

“I hear that too often and the truth is that it doesn’t change anything. But I will.”

Staring ahead, I couldn’t see her expression, however, I sensed a bewildered stare.

“I’m going to become the Machine Goddess.” I gave a quiet but stalwart voice to her thoughts; they felt alien on my porcelain lips—unthinkable.

“I don’t know what to say…”

Neither did I, but she solved that issue first.

“I never hated equinoids just for what they are.”

Del must have remembered how she once expected me to kill her at the same time as I did.

“It’s just some things some of them do,” Delight corrected herself. “No matter what you decide with… yourself, there’s nobody better than you to try to make things better for equinoids. And maybe if they have a better life, if they’re treated differently, they’ll act differently and better, too.”

Her expression fell and she bitterly chuckled, “I hope you won’t forget the boring old me…”

“I won’t,” I replied, putting all the effort I had into controlling myself.

“I know that face,” Del snorted in amusement. “You look like my matron from the Silken Flute when she was about to ask me to take an extra shift.”

Yet her mirth turned into concern as I remained somberly silent.

No matter how hard I tried, every choice of my words would be a blow. I pressed my lips together with a faint whine of strain to the ceramic—I should respect Delight’s strength; she wasn’t a spineless filly, even less so after all that we had gone through together.

“Queen Chrysalis is dying and she thinks that you should become the new Queen of the Swarm.”

Her reaction took me unawares—she snickered.

“The Moths aren’t changelings, I had no idea I was feeding the Swarm. I’m just a pony with a tattoo.”

“There’s a magic ritual,” I deadpanned. “It turns a pony into a changeling queen.”

Del’s face went through different expressions until it turned so pale, I thought she would faint.

“Why me?” she blurted.

“I can’t answer that question. Sorry.”

“Why?”

“I’m telling you everything you should know to make your own decision.”

Delight gulped and stammered, “A-am I expected to answer right now?”

“Absolutely not.” I calmed her. “You don’t have to answer at all—it wasn’t an order.”

She turned away to gaze through the window at the changelings milling around the Sky Palace terraces. Then she touched the burn on her cheek once more and her shaking hoof remained there.

An uneasy silence settled betwixt us and reigned for so long I thought I should just leave.

“I—” Del finally spoke, but her voice broke. In a whisper, surprisingly level, she uttered, “I’ll think about it.”

Author's Note

Special thanks to Jay Tarrant.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this story so far.

If you notice any mistakes sneaked in through the editing, let me know.

Stay awesome.