One morning, Phosphophyllite and Princess Twilight stood in front of the hibernation room, ready to wake the rest of the gems up. Most of the ice in the ocean had already melted and the cloud cover had dissipated. Phos had felt Twilight’s distilled sunlight spell slowly growing weaker too, to the point where he hadn’t been able to stay awake the previous night.

“Winter sure is hard business... “ whined Phos. “So then, how should we wake them up?” He asked the alicorn beside him. They had been watching the door for a time while Twilight dispelled the sound-proofing enchantment and other protective wards.

“Just have to do this… and… There we go!” She exclaimed as the purple magic around the door disappeared. “We’ll just open the curtains and let my sun wake them up,” she answered. “I also will go out once Jade is awake—at least I can trust him to take care of the cleanup. Oh! And Cinnabar! I’ll have to go wake him up too.”

“Why can’t I go wake him up? It’s not like I didn’t already do enough cleaning during the winter,” objected the cyan gem.

“Well, first, didn’t you spend all your nights looking for where he hibernates, and still didn’t find him? Secondly, Jade will probably want you to make a report about all that happened this winter,” countered Twilight.

Phos grunted, “I’m going to have to talk to him for days…” And, I do know where Cinnabar is, he bragged to himself, suppressing a smile at the thought.

Twilight nodded. “It won’t be this long, and you know it. I trust that you will tell him all that he needs to know about it. However, I will make a public announcement about Antarcticite’s fate before heading out to explain to everyone how it isn’t your fault. If there is someone to blame, it’s me,” lamented Twilight.

The news silenced the excited gems. Antarc’s abduction seemed to affect everygem, despite no one really knowing him outside of rare occasions. Diamond looked saddened, Pearl seemed to deflate, Rutile and Bort both just fumed with anger at the Lunarians. As she had informed Phos prior, Twilight excused herself and went outside to find and wake Cinnabar up. Jade and Phos were now alone in the Princess’ study, the former interrogating the latter about the winter’s event.

“So, you fucked up,” said Jade between his teeth while writing down something.

Phos stayed silent, feigning sadness.

“Start with a brief summary of what happened this winter,” queried the jade earth pony, expectantly looking at the cyan gem.

“Right,” started the cyan earth pony. “Winter started after we let you all go to sleep, the Princess used a sunlight spell to keep both Antarc and myself awake. The first month was spent in a mix of moving snow out of the way and cleaning or reorganising the library.”

Jade looked taken aback from Phos’ serious explanation, he suspected that the latter had maybe learned something with Antarc in their brief time together.

“We had a total of seven sinners apparition, the first four were dealt with by Antarc himself as he taught me, the fifth one was done on my own as a test to prove to him I could do it,” continued Phosphophyllite.

“Okay, wait a moment, what are ‘sinners’?” Questioned Jade. “And what happened to the last two?”

“Well,” Phos looked uncomfortable at the sudden question. He had hoped that at least Jade of all gems knew about them, but it seemed that the Princess and Antarc had kept secrets from them as well. “They’re ice that forms into vague equine shapes over the ocean during winter, though they are rare, they’re annoying and scream a lot.”

“Was it the first winter these sinners appeared?”

“No, I don’t think so, Antarc knew them.”

“I’ll have to ask the Princess for more on them then,” concluded Jade. “Any other notable events?”

“Antarc got taken by the Lunarians, but other than that, no, nothing of interest, really. The Lunarians attacked once, got their prize and never came back, even when the weather was clear” replied Phos.

“I see,” sadly said Jade. “You can go now.”

Phos nodded and made his way outside in silence but was stopped just before passing the door.

“Just a moment, though, how did you get your cutie mark?” Jade asked, curious. He was the first to actually dare ask Phos about his cutie mark and somewhat made him smile.

“I got it when I took back Antarc’s last piece from the Lunarians. I think it means that I can bring back abducted gems,” theorised Phos, before finally exiting the room, leaving behind a perplexed Jade.

Only a day had passed since everygem woke up and the first day was mostly filled by Pearl’s shenanigans. The white opaque gem had thrown a party to celebrate the end of winter, despite the loss of Antarc. It really helped morale around the Great Oak. Pearl and Phos didn’t have the chance to talk so they planned on spending the following day together. Unfortunately, the cyan earth pony had been called into Rutile’s workshop by the Princess.

The all-too-familiar workshop was surprisingly full, Rutile was there, as usual, but with a sterner look. The alicorn dominated the room with her regal posture, and just beside her stood Cinnabar, the latter frowning from whatever conversation they’d just had.

Phos was momentarily afraid that what he’d done to Antarc had been overheard by Cinnabar, who feinted sleeping and was now denouncing him. Fortunately, it quickly showed that the bunch were still clueless.

Rutile sighted. “Phos, you’re finally here. Come and help us talk Cinnabar out of his stubbornness.”

“Stubbornness? Do you realize what you want to do you mad doctor?” Snapped Cinnabar to the brown unicorn. “What if we got him back tomorrow?” He argued to both the Princess and Rutile.

“Then, Phos would just give it back to him,” tried to explain Twilight with perfect calm in her voice. “We can’t spare any forces. We could lose another gem any day, and magic can always make a difference. I’m sure Phos could have saved Antarc if he’d had access to magic.” Phos cringed at the last statement. “I know this is a new thing, but we never lost someone as good as Antarc before, and we’re probably not getting any new gem anytime soon since we got Pearl recently.”

“Excuse me but, what are you even arguing about?” chipped in Phos, trying to avoid Cinnabar’s angry gaze.

“Those two want to give you Heliodor’s horn,” scoffed the broken-horned unicorn.

“And as I said, it’s just temporary, until Heliodor is back,” continued Rutile.

“And then what? ‘Oh, sorry we gave your horn away but don’t worry, let me just chisel it out of my new best friend I’m sure he won’t mind’?” retorted Cinnabar.

“If it comes to that I’m sure Phos wouldn’t mind giving it back, would you Phos?” The Princess asked the surprised cyan soon-to-be-unicorn-again.

Having a horn back? He could do magic but this could mean he could do it without hiding it from everygem. Imagine what new power you could master if you didn’t need to hide your practice. Mused a strange voice in the back of his head.

“Yes. I would give anything to have my horn back,” started Phos, much to Cinnabar’s disappointment. “I don’t know how I feel about having another gem’s horn however,” he turned to Cinnabar and put up his most sincere smile. “I know how much Heliodor meant to you, if you gave it to me I’d accept it and give it back the moment you want it,” promised Phos.

Cinnabar glanced uncomfortably at all three others in the room. After a moment of obvious hesitation on his face, he reluctantly nodded. “Okay. You can have his horn, but nothing else,” he added, quickly looking at both Rutile and Twilight. “I’ve been guarding the remains of the gems for millenia and never before have we assembled two different sentient gems together like that,” Cinnabar explained with a serious tone.

“I swear it will not become a common occurrence, Cinnabar,” promised Twilight while making some sort of gesture with one hoof, finishing it by almost sticking it in her left eye.

Cinnabar grunted. “I’ll go get it then, I guess you should prepare yourself Phos, we don’t know what might happen.”

Phos nodded and got comfortable in the Workshop, as Rutile prepared to ‘operate’ the gem, with an unsettlingly gleeful expression on his face.

Name: Cinnabar

Mane color: Red

Age: Oldest of the gems.

Hardness: 2

Cutie mark: None? Have I even looked?

Personality: Cinnabar is old, really old. You really feel that when he talks, he doesn’t seem interested in what’s happening; as if he’d already seen it all. I promised him to bring every lost gem back from the moon. I wish I knew how.

He seems to be the keeper of the broken, the rest of the gems who got abducted. I didn’t get a close look when I went into the cave but he did have one of the pieces of Heliodor with him, maybe he keeps the rest somewhere else. He trusts me enough to give me the horn of his former partner. I wish I could trust them all as much.

Author's Note

Damn this took too much time to get out there. I had to wait for my editor to finish her exams mostly, maybe a new chapter will come out in the weekend. Depends.