The Immortal Dream

Lyantra watched from the window of Garnet's carriage as Garnet, along with more than half of her caravan's attendants, left to enter the city.

Their final camp was pitched at the city's gates, just beyond its outskirts, flying lots of flags and establishing a perimeter that was guarded more warily than when they were on the road. Lyantra had yet to interact with a single resident of Wilderwind, but she could tell they were unwelcome just from the Everlaste griffons' demeanor. People wouldn't behave like Garnet's entourage were behaving if they felt like they belonged here.

The city across from their camp stirred up strange sensations when she looked at it. It seemed kind of lopsided and haphazard, like it had just been dropped in place, and not particularly gently. Parts of it also seemed to be straight-up missing. Other parts were ramshackle and patched together, using whatever its residents had on hoof. It was also buzzing with activity, and even from here she could see crews working on areas that looked like parts of the city had simply been forgotten when putting it all together. Not large parts like districts; smaller things that should have been made of stone, like individual walls and roofs.

It was very strange.

And yet, it somehow didn't feel as unfamiliar as it could have, despite the lack of good, cold stone in its construction. The truly strange part was how Garnet had left her here, all on her own except for her foal.

Wasn't she going to show her this city to teach her about the things she was missing? She couldn't do much learning from the inside of their carriage.

The foal began to cry.

Lyantra sighed, turning her attention to her daughter. Diaper? Didn't smell bad. Food? She had just eaten. Maybe that meant she needed to be burped?

She held the foal like Garnet had showed her and started patting its back. This was... doable. Kind of demanding, like her maid work except with a boss who could only ever communicate through inarticulate screams. But aside from being hard on her sleep, it wasn't that bad. The only part she felt would wear her down over time was the foal's appearance.

This wasn't hers.

Then again, maybe she didn't know what she was missing out on. Garnet made a point of telling her how much was wrong with her expectations. Apparently, the reason she was here in the first place was to get them checked against reality.

If Lyantra was miserable, would she know it? If there was supposed to be more to life than this, did she have a reference for what more meant? She kind of wanted to know. Maybe she was dissatisfied, and didn't understand enough to recognize that in herself. Or maybe she was recognizing it right now.

The foal stopped crying, and she kept patting it. See? She could do this. But, alone in the carriage while Garnet was off doing diplomacy in the city, she found herself on the clock, without anyone to talk to. Whenever she was alone in her room in Everlaste, she could try to relax, and appreciate the safety of solitude. Whenever she was working, Garnet was there. Now, she wasn't sure if she was bored or lonely, but something akin to those was on her horizon, and she couldn't stop its approach.

She wasn't sure she could do this.

Lyantra put her foal down and planted her forehead against the window glass, the edges of the curtains hugging her like a headdress. The servants in their caravan encampment-

Her foal started crying again.

She knew what to do, picking it up and patting some more, but it wasn't instinctive. There was some resistance in her thoughts, a leaden cord around her limbs that felt much older than her foal was. Lyantra realized that she didn't like having so little to track time by.

Out there, maybe... And the staff had wanted to care for this foal for her...

Was this a test? Did Garnet intend for her to wander off on her own, and see how she fared?

That was a dangerous test. But Garnet had promised to protect her. But she was also off on a diplomatic mission. What could she put her faith in? The safe, boring option? Or taking a risk?

It was a scary world out there. A world she didn't understand and couldn't predict. Lyantra's nascent courage failed her, and she stayed pressed against the window long after her foal stopped crying, waiting for Garnet to return.

An hour passed, with no sign of the posse that had left for the city center. Garnet didn't return. But, suddenly, her voice did.

"You choose to stay put," Garnet's voice said, scaring Lyantra so badly that she startled the foal in turn, causing it to start crying again.

"Aah! W-Where are you?" Lyantra jumped, frantically trying to tamp down her nerves while also reassuring the foal. "Garnet?"

"An understandable choice," Garnet's voice continued, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. "Perhaps even a wise one. Something small and feeble like you could never hope to stand on your own in the world, let alone carry a child. So you choose to stay put, and wait for the one you leech off of, in hopes that you can continue to survive by continuing to receive. It doesn't matter where your food comes from, or why you are safe. You accept it while you have it, without question. And for a time, it works."

Lyantra turned in a circle, her ears going down. "What are you talking about?"

"But not this time," Garnet's voice echoed. "Unbeknownst to you, the diplomatic mission was a trap. Garnet and her entire entourage perish in a coup. You wait... and you wait... and you wait. And nobody comes for you."

Lyantra's chest constricted. "You're dead? But I can still hear you! How are you talking to me? Where are you?"

"In the tower," Garnet's voice grunted. "Holding meetings. This is only a possibility, but it's how we're going to pretend the path you've chosen plays out. You're all alone. You lose."

"What?" Lyantra blinked. "I don't get it."

"We won't be here long enough for you to live out the consequences of staying put," Garnet's voice told her. "Or of anything else you decide to do. And I'd like you to have time to try other paths while you're here. So get out of the carriage. Now that you've seen where sticking your head in the ground gets you, try something different."

Lyantra blinked again, more slowly this time. "Is this a game? Where I do something and you tell me how badly it could go? Why?"

"Because you don't have the time to experience every possible choice for yourself," Garnet's voice said. "And I have a hundred thousand lifetimes worth of experiences to fill in the blanks for you. Now get out there and try something else."

Baffled and uncomfortable, Lyantra took the door handle with a shaky wing, wrapping her foal in its bundle so it wouldn't get cold outside. "How are you talking to me like this?"

"The same way I can transform you," Garnet answered. "Using my powers to touch your mind. I've been practicing while you work, whenever I address you when your back is turned. Another useful skill you've helped me hone."

Okay. Cool. Lovely. Lyantra really didn't know how to feel about that. At least this meant that Garnet was still watching over her, right?

Swallowing, she pushed open the door and slipped outside.

Wilderwind's terrain was flat and rocky. That was good. Lyantra liked the feeling of stone beneath her hooves.

It also had griffons. Everlaste ones, since she was right in the middle of Garnet's caravan encampment. Plenty of whom were now looking at her.

"Um," Lyantra said, taking stock of the situation, Garnet's phantom voice nowhere to be found.

"Poor thing," said one of the griffons, looking away with a shake of his head when she tried to make eye contact.

She searched for the one who had tried to take her foal earlier. Garnet was watching, so would she be mad if Lyantra asked for help? Lyantra didn't know what she would do next if she did pass her foal on to a royal caretaker, though. What should her priorities be, at a time like this? What even was there to do?

The sky was overcast with a dark gray cloud cover, blocking out the sun. That meant... something, she wanted to say, but she couldn't remember what. It was a good time to do something?

In front of her was the city, and beyond it, a mountain range. There were foothills far in the distance beyond her, too, and off to the west was a dim band of color where light seeped down past the edge of the clouds. This all felt achingly, hauntingly familiar, right and wrong at the same time. For the briefest of possible instants, she felt like she was standing in an open doorway, looking out at this same scene and discussing it with someone. Was that Garnet's presence?

She looked to her side, but nobody was there.

Right. Priorities. Priorities... but Lyantra didn't know what to do.

Her hooves carried her towards the griffons. Where was the one who had offered to help care for her foal? She would better be able to navigate Garnet's game if she wasn't carrying around a foal on her back. Especially if - and she had a feeling it would happen - Garnet prodded her into the city itself.

There he was.

"Excuse me," Lyantra said, zeroing on the griffon who had argued with Garnet over her foal. She had probably left him here for her to find on purpose. "Are you the one who was interested in my foal?"

The griffon in question was playing cards with three others, using a barrel as a table. He sighed, answering his opponents' questioning glances with a duty calls look, and then turned on his stool to face her.

"You are, right?" Lyantra asked, her foal balanced on her back.

"What I am primarily interested in," he told her, gently and with a small hint of exasperation, "is Her Majesty's public image. Conducting this outreach with an underage sarosian servant's heretical foal on her teat sends a rather unflattering message. And seeing as she is no longer doing so, I consider my interest served."

Lyantra blinked.

"I don't wish ill against you and yours," the griffon clarified. "Knowing Makalov, you've suffered enough of that already. But I'm here to serve Her Majesty, not her other servants. Please go wait in the carriage where they can't spot you through telescopes or something."

Lyantra winced, hard. She hadn't even asked him for anything yet... though it sounded like he knew better than she did what she was here for. "But I don't know what to do with them," she protested. "Garnet didn't want your help, but I-"

"It's a tough life," the griffon interrupted. "Should have thought about that before you let Makalov get a hold of you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to focus on this play..."

"Okay," Lyantra whispered, stepping away.

The griffons resumed playing. After a few seconds, one of the other griffons cracked a joke she didn't hear fully about Makalov and batponies. A third one shushed him, but the fourth one laughed. Lyantra's ears fell, and she hurried away.

"You try to abandon your foal at the closest opportunity," Garnet said in Lyantra's head as she ran. "No one could blame you, but you'd definitely blame yourself if you had succeeded. Failure stings almost as bad as their laughter, but in the depths of your heart, you know this is a good result. Try again."

Lyantra hid underneath a wagon, nestled against the interior of its wheel. "I don't like this game," she whispered.

"This is life," Garnet said.

"No it's not," Lyantra quietly protested, her voice threatening to crack if she raised it. "Real life wouldn't have you narrating bad news like this, would it? Normally, you're helping me."

"Perhaps," Garnet admitted. "But the reaction of those griffons was unscripted. They despise you."

"Why?" Lyantra folded her ears.

"Because they think it makes them strong," Garnet lectured. "The lesser strength of lesser creatures that comes from dragging others down beneath them so they can see someone when they look down. They're desperate for such strength because they've always been weak, and are too weak to even conceive of an alternative."

Lyantra set her bundled foal gently on the rocks beneath the wagon, allowing her back a moment of rest. "What do you mean?"

"Choose your next path," Garnet said. "See where it leads. Stay hung up on this and look for revenge, or find somewhere else to look. I'll be watching."

"Do you want me to go into the city?" Lyantra whispered.

"I'm just an observer." Garnet's voice receded in her mind. "That's your decision."

Lyantra looked out at the caravan encampment. She wanted to run to safety, but what did that even mean? This place was familiar, sort of. That didn't mean safe. The city wouldn't be safe either. A sixth sense told her that if she waited too long, the sky would start falling, slowly and gently closing in on her until the confusion she was feeling now would look like clarity in hindsight.

"This isn't fun," Lyantra begged. "Please help me."

But nobody answered.

Lyantra slunk into the city.

She wanted to hide, and there were countless places to do so. Her assessment of the place from a distance had been spot-on: it was as if small parts of it had just disappeared all over, individual walls and supports and bits of infrastructure, and the whole place had been shaken and settled in lopsided as a result. She could sneak into buildings through holes where windows should have been installed, yet simply weren't. And sneak she did, because every time she caught a glance from a stranger, the reaction was usually fear.

Something about it was existentially terrifying, the architecture even more than the way others treated her. She was inside what had once been a bedroom and was now abandoned, and while it showed no signs of looting, certain things were just gone. The bed, a nice four-poster with its drapes intact and only slightly askew, had no mattress or pillows, yet the sheets were all still laying in place, like someone had made it anyway.

In the corner was a pile of clothes, layered in a particular order even as they were all strewn about, as if they had been in a dresser that one day just vanished from existence.

All the fur on Lyantra's spine tried to rise, tamped down by the weight of the foal on her back. This was wrong. Horribly, terribly wrong. She poked at the pile of clothes and pulled out a business collar with a tie, her instincts screaming at her that it was about to disappear, too. Along with maybe even the carpet beneath her hooves.

"What happened here?" she whispered, an awful sense of foreboding looming just behind her back.

"This was once a flying city," Garnet's voice explained. "It was carried by Garsheeva's magic and used solidified clouds in its architecture. When Garsheeva disappeared, her enchantments came undone, and all the clouds slowly returned to mist."

Solidified clouds? Those were a thing?

Lyantra felt a little bit better, hearing that there was a rational explanation for this. It still shook her to her core.

She left the clothing and the destroyed bedroom behind, and kept moving. She didn't know what she was looking for. Other people? Someone who could help her? But she had found plenty of those, and the important part was to avoid them.

"You decide not to steal the clothes," Garnet narrated in her mind. "Perhaps you're clinging to some morals, or maybe you just haven't thought this through. It would be useful it would be to disguise your identity as a sarosian. Of course, I could give you a much better disguise, if only you would ask. Keep going."

"Is that why everyone doesn't like me?" Lyantra whispered. "Why does it matter that I'm a sarosian?"

"I've explained this to you," Garnet told her. "Because they're just that uncreative."

Lyantra swallowed. Would it really change something? She didn't know what she wanted, how to get it, where to get it, only that she was lost and confused and in danger. Would indulging Garnet make this test stop sooner?

"Can you make me a pegasus?" she whispered.

Instantly, her body locked up, and after a brief second of light, she could move again. Her wings were covered in feathers.

"Good," Garnet praised. "Now what other tools do you have available to you?"

Lyantra didn't know. So she moved on, and kept looking for whatever she was looking for.

The first time Lyantra started to feel like she understood how this worked was when her foal got hungry.

There was only one thing to do about that: she had to feed it. And it was pretty much impossible to feed on the go, which meant she needed to stay in place while her foal did its thing. And that, in turn, made her more vulnerable.

She needed a safe place to stay while she did this. And the other things she would need to do, like sleeping. That was what she should be looking for: shelter. This time, she had gotten caught by surprise, and was feeding her foal in the lobby of what she hoped was an abandoned apartment complex, hiding under a dusty chair and praying nobody found her as the foal suck-suck-suckled away.

"Where is everyone, anyway?" she whispered, after checking to ensure the coast was still clear. "I saw plenty of people outside, but that can't be everyone. What about everyone who lived in these buildings before they fell apart?"

"They're all dead," Garnet replied. "Some of them, anyway. Wilderwind is a military province, full of mercenaries. Lots of them died fighting when the Empire fell. And the survivors are in higher demand than ever. The ones who can't fight are fixing the city. The ones who can are bringing the region under control, ensuring they have a source of food. Even children and the elderly are chipping in. No one has time to sit around in apartments with their roofs or walls gone."

A source of food, huh? Good thing Lyantra could feed her foal, but... her stomach growled, loudly. She was hungry, too.

Food. Food and shelter. She needed to find shelter, but first, she needed to find food.

"You're learning," Garnet said gruffly. "Keep it up."

Only one pony passed by while Lyantra nursed, and they thankfully didn't notice her. They were a pegasus, flying up to the balcony on the atrium's second floor, so they passed pretty far away. But did that mean someone did live here, after all?

Bad news. She wanted a place to stay as far from other people as possible, at least until she got her bearings. Though, they might have food...

Could she trade for it, now that she wasn't a sarosian? What did she have to trade? She knew how to clean, and she had her foal, and her foal's blanket. And that was about it.

Impossible or not, she needed food. And so once her foal was done, she crept out from under the chair - its cushions had disappeared, probably because they were made of clouds, leaving only a luxurious skeleton - and quickly crept towards the nearest staircase, balancing her foal on her back.

It had a nice, red carpet over the stairs, but no banisters or railings whatsoever. Only peg holes on the sides of the steps where railings could once have been inserted. Neither of the sides hugged a wall, so Lyantra clung to the middle of the staircase as she climbed. She trusted her own balance, but it was like an open invitation to fall off.

The staircase passed by a large, unframed painting, or perhaps just a painting with a frame that had disappeared. It depicted an enormous sphinx smashing and scattering an army on a wasteland plain not unlike where the city was now, jagged foothills rising imminently in the background.

Lyantra reached the balcony, itself completely missing a railing. Her hooves carried her into a hallway, where a couple of plants grew from large, cracked urns, providing just enough cover in the event that anyone saw her. The plants hadn't been watered recently. They didn't look too good.

Her attention was on the doors, though. Or rather, the lack of doors: the hinges were still there, with screws still threaded through them, and the handles and locking mechanisms were sitting there all in a row on the ground. But there were no doors. They must have been made of clouds, too.

Some of the apartments were dark, and others lit by natural light seeping in through the missing windows. Lyantra couldn't see in the dark, so she chose one of the brighter ones to investigate.

It was pretty much the same as the other destroyed rooms she had crept through, though now she was looking at it with new eyes, evaluating it as a long-term place to stay. She didn't know what Garnet's intentions were, but if the sphinx never came back for her... She needed food and shelter.

Apartment. Hole in the wall? Yes. Kitchen? It had one, but the countertops were such a mess that there must have been cloud cupboards above them that simply disappeared.

She searched through the mess of broken dishes and cooking implements for anything she could eat, but it was all bowls and spoons and shards that could slice her to ribbons if she inspected them too closely. Maybe there was a pantry? Come on, there had to be a pantry...

There was a pantry. Lyantra did her best to ignore the smell of rotting fruit, and found a couple of cans she didn't know how to open, some raw ingredients she didn't know how to cook with, like oil, sugar, flour, potatoes... a cheese wheel. She could eat cheese! It wouldn't be much of a meal on its own, and it only looked big enough for a few servings at best, but her stomach growled again. Even if she could tough it out, she knew instinctively that if she didn't eat she couldn't make any milk for her foal. Lyantra pulled off the rind and bit down.

Spicy. Really spicy. At least it wasn't stinky, but this cheese had chili pepper bits mixed in with it. If this was all she could find... She bit down again and again, trying her best to ignore the pepper's sting in her mouth. She couldn't eat this by itself. At the very least, she needed water.

With her foal on her back and the cheese wheel under a wing, Lyantra went back out in search of a bathroom, somewhere with a faucet that wasn't covered in broken porcelain. The apartment wasn't large, and it wasn't hard to find, a narrow room with a weird smell and a toilet sandwiched between the sink and the tub, curtains drawn. A small hole in the roof provided illumination, probably once used as a translucent skylight.

A fly buzzed past her as Lyantra worked the faucet, but nothing came out. Had the building's plumbing not survived the landing and the loss of clouds...?

Maybe it was just a bad faucet. She could try the one in the tub. She pulled back the curtain-

The tub was occupied by a griffon, his eyes wide and unseeing.

Lyantra screamed and fled, heart hammering and hooves pounding, the cheese wheel slipping from her grasp as a half-formed memory of the grisly image chased her like a ghost. She darted out of the apartment and hid behind a dying plant several doors down the hallway, watching and trembling to see if the corpse would follow, her foal wailing from the sudden movement.

"You've seen your first corpse," Garnet said, her voice strangely muffled and muted as Lyantra tried to shush her foal. "Congratulations. Perhaps he hit his head and died of a concussion, or perhaps it was something far more pathetic. But you don't want to end up like him, do you? Even after all you've seen, you're still trying to survive."

"Please," Lyantra whispered, ears flat against the infant's screams. "Please help me. I don't want to do this anymore."

"Soon," Garnet promised. "I am still protecting you. This is all just a lesson. Once you survive for a night, I'll know that you understand what's at stake, that you know where your foal could be without you to provide for them. But you're still hungry, aren't you? Find food. Take it if you must. Learn what the food I give you is worth, my little pony."

Lyantra didn't know if she was hungry. She felt nauseous, her mouth was gummed up from the cheese and stung from the peppers. Maybe... if Garnet said she'd come in the morning, all Lyantra had to do was survive until then? Could she keep her foal happy that long? Forget that, someone was definitely alerted by this. With nothing else she could do, Lyantra started running again.

She ran, rounding a corner into another wing of the apartment complex... and a strange sensation began to follow her, like an anomalous squid in the sea of the unknown.

Although, maybe it wasn't a sensation so much as an intrusive thought, knocking rudely and persistently to be let in.

Was this really right? As she stopped again to try to quiet her foal, it finally caught up with her, slipping into her mind and settling in: did it make sense that she was living like a rodent, scuttling around stealing food from dead griffons? Where was her self-respect? Why settle for a life that worked that way?

She, the thought told her, deserved better. And she could act like it! Carrying her head high, walking outside in the sunlight like a real pony ought to do. Get some resources, some power and clout to her name so she could afford to be seen. True, she might have become worthless garbage, but why sit there and accept it? Why not try to get back what she deserved?

Even if she failed, could she really do worse than this?

It was a tantalizing thought, and Lyantra found herself circling it like a shark. Did that really come from her? It sure wasn't something Garnet had put there. She knew Garnet's style, and nothing about it built her up like that. Telling herself that she deserved better didn't feel like the kind of thing she had reason to think up herself, but... she was overthinking it. She wanted to feel proud of herself. She wanted to do something worth thinking about, worth talking about, more than just cleaning and having a foal and taking strange lessons she didn't have a say in. She wanted, wanted, wanted it, and she let that idea be her passion and her fire. And for a brief, fleeting moment, she felt it.

A sense of pride in herself. Wounded, destabilized pride, humiliated at the circumstances she now found herself in. A desire to fix that and rebuild her pride. But a desire nonetheless.

She would get her own name and her own image, and call them her own, and she would learn to get what she needed to survive, and more than that, to be happy. To live how she was meant to. Whether it was possible or not, she promised that to herself, and it was such a delicious, tantalizing, addictive promise that for a split second, she had a future and everything was okay.

And how would she start? Well, with what she already knew: food and shelter.

A few more doors down, the promise advised. You'll know it when you see it.

Right, right. If that was what it took to keep going, Lyantra could believe that success was just around the corner. She got back to her hooves and started looking for something she could use.

Lyantra found a room that looked very promising, because it was occupied.

She peered around the empty door frame, looking in. There was a sitting room next to a window that had been repaired with some bits of plywood and a misshapen pane of glass brought in from elsewhere, and inside, a group of ponies was gathered around a low table, studying what looked like a huge map.

"Not visiting the Great Temple shouldn't be up for discussion," one of the ponies - they were all ponies, not a single griffon - was saying. "I don't see how we could justify an expedition to Mistvale and possibly skip it. And if we don't get there first, someone else will beat us to the punch!"

"It's clear on the opposite side of Mistvale, though," another pony pointed out, tapping the map. "We'd be spending most of our supplies just on travel time, rather than actual investigations."

"I agree with Lente," said a mare. "We know the cities have been destroyed. We might find records in the Great Temple, but what matters is locating survivors. It's a known fact that there was a colony of exiles who lived outside the dusk statues' range of influence in this cove here, and there could be others." She tapped the map forcefully. "Valleys and caves are where we'll find those, not the dead cities."

Lyantra looked closer at the mare, and her heart jumped: she had spoked, leathery wings. A sarosian, just like her. Could she be safe here...?

No groveling, the promise told her. That's not how you rebuild your pride in yourself.

B-But...

The mare looked much younger than Garnet, with a light grey coat and a short, crimson-pink mane, sitting in a splotch of sunlight that let Lyantra make out her features.

"True," the first pony admitted. "But whether it helps with our goals or not, presenting a strong face to the university is how we get more funding. If this expedition is an academic success, we can try again as many times as we need."

"Hate to break it to you, lady-mare," said a pegasus with a garish red-and-black goatee that was patterned like a lightning bolt, and a pompadour to match. "But the dude's got a point. When you're getting an operation like this put together, securing capital is a more important first step than achieving your goals. I feel how much you wanna see your sister again, but the less time you spend on the foundation, the faster it all falls apart. And we don't even know yet if this plan of yours is even possible."

"The Great Temple might hold answers to some of the parts you're stumped on," the first pony added helpfully.

The sarosian mare sighed. "Suppose you have a point. We can't just change how we're promoting this to the university. Turning back the clock only sounds nice to them when they don't have to take it literally."

They seem pretty distracted, the promise advised Lyantra. And they sound like they're getting quite a lot of resources. Stealing isn't something you should take pride in, but you're already a rodent. Pride is for winners, not something that will help you win. Get there first however you can, and then you'll feel it.

Right. Lyantra swallowed, praying her foal would keep quiet, and crept through the edge of the room, sticking to the shadows and darting into another door the moment she could.

It didn't sound like she was spotted.

Okay, pantry. This apartment had a similar layout to the last one, so she knew where that should be. Lyantra ducked through the kitchen, which was also missing its cupboards, though someone had cleaned up the mess from when they vanished.

The sink looked disused, but there was a barrel with a spigot next to it. Water! Lyantra carefully, carefully adjusted it to dribble into her waiting mouth, silently getting a few slow gulps without spattering too much on the floor.

Nobody heard her. She shut it off and opened the door to the pantry.

But this wasn't food.

Inside the dark pantry was a small, softly-lit shrine. A table with a rosy tablecloth held numerous tiny, framed pictures, showing two sarosian fillies together, one her age and one younger. The older one had light blue eyes and a crimson-pink mane, and a brand of an ear next to a vibrating line. The younger one's mane was the same shade of crimson-pink, her brand showed a dainty tiara, and she had an intelligent, imperious, mischievous look on her face that suggested she caused trouble and loved life in equal measure. Some of the pictures were set to a background of caves and tunnels, others to crudely-poured concrete walls, and still more to snowy mountain valleys and peaks.

A few more artifacts completed the shrine, random trinkets and tiny foal's toys, the whole display lit from behind the central photo with a strange golden light.

Lyantra felt like she shouldn't be here. But, unable to stifle her curiosity, she slid the central picture aside to see what was causing the light.

It was a diamond. Almost hoof-sized and completely gold, it glowed from within with a distant, fiery, apocalyptic light, gently shifting and changing.

That's gotta be magic, her promise said. Powerful magic. Get it.

Lyantra hesitated. A weapon? True, she would feel a lot less vulnerable if she had a way to defend herself. But she had no idea what she would do with a thing like that. How could you use a beautifully ominous golden diamond for more than just a source of light?

She'd have to figure it out later. Better not to dawdle here. Muted by a sense of disbelief, Lyantra reached for it and took it, fixing the position of the photo she had moved while swimming in a sense that this wasn't really her.

She didn't have a bag or anything, and the diamond was glowing. So, she stuffed it inside the blanket with her foal, hoping they wouldn't start crying due to being wrapped in with a hard and pointy gemstone.

And then she shut the closet and fled, creeping out of the apartment, making it out of the hallway and finally a full building over. Lyantra stopped, panted and let herself breathe easy, at last confident that she hadn't been noticed.

She lifted the blankets and snuck a peek at the diamond, nestled in with her foal. Still there. Still strange and dangerous and beautiful, though she hadn't a clue what it did. And for some reason, Garnet wasn't commenting on it, or even saying anything at all.

That was strange. Lyantra looked around: she was now in what once might have been a small cathedral, though it was completely missing its roof and its walls. There wasn't much for cover beyond a few rain-soaked pews, so she hid under one and waited to see when Garnet would speak again.

"Where are you?" Lyantra whispered after a few minutes of silence. "You should have said something by now. Are you happy with me and think leaving me alone is a reward? I just don't want to be alone. I didn't want you to leave..."

Nothing. Lyantra swallowed, and kept waiting.

Just when she thought she couldn't afford to wait any longer, a squadron of five Everlaste griffons flew in formation overhead.

Get their attention, her promise urged. See what you can get from them. Food, supplies, anything - they're supposed to be on your team, right?

"H-Hey!" Lyantra stepped out from under the pew and waved up at the sky. "Hey! Are you looking for me?"

Maybe that wasn't the best way to phrase it. But even if they came down to say no, that would still involve getting close enough to talk with them.

The griffons wheeled about, and swiftly landed in a circle around her. The ones who had been playing cards weren't among them.

"That first the profile, alright," one of them said, scrutinizing Lyantra and then nodding to the others. He turned back to Lyantra. "It's her, as a pegasus, just like she said. Bizarre. What did you do to tick off Her Majesty so much?"

"What?" Lyantra blinked. "She's mad at me?"

The griffon shrugged. "Mad enough to interrupt a meeting to order us to come search this general vicinity for you. I don't know what's going on between you two, but I haven't seen her that intense for all the time I've known her."

Lyantra blinked again.

"Garfield, go report to Her Majesty." The griffon gestured at another, who saluted and took off. Another griffon grabbed Lyantra's foal, blankets and hidden diamond and all, and the one she was speaking to grabbed her in turn, his talons closing professionally around her barrel, pinning her wings to her sides as he lifted off.

She wasn't consulted and never offered her approval, but in a few short minutes, she was back in the caravan encampment, her foal being passed stiffly back into her wings. Did this mean the game was over? That was a relief, but why? She didn't even have time to question it out loud before the griffons ordered her back into Garnet's carriage, and she found herself slumped on the bench, filthy from a day of sneaking around but otherwise right back where she started.

Well... except for...

Lyantra was staring at her diamond when Garnet returned. She barely had time to hide it as the door swung open, sitting on it to smother out its light.

"...Well," Garnet said, inspecting her with an expression Lyantra had never seen before - some combination of surprise, annoyance and deep, deep thought. "It certainly looks like you... What did you do, after you fled from the corpse in the bathtub?"

Lyantra blinked. "Weren't you following me?"

"Something interrupted my connection to you," Garnet said stiffly. "And it's still active. What did you do? Tell me everything, anything unusual at all."

Lyantra swallowed. Could it be the diamond? That was probably magical, and she didn't know what it did. If holding onto it caused Garnet to be mad at her, that definitely wasn't worth it.

Her promise didn't interfere as she hesitantly pulled out the diamond, presenting it to Garnet with a shaky wing. "I stole this."

Garnet swiped the diamond with a wingtip, sniffed it, and then gnawed curiously on the surface. "Pride. Too constant to be a symphony, too concentrated to be a single creature's. Now that's fascinating..."

Lyantra tried to make herself small.

"Good job," Garnet declared. "This thing is worth a thousand experiments with you. I'm very curious how you came by it..."

"Does that mean..." Lyantra lowered her voice to a whisper. "If I give you that, we won't have to play this game again?"

"You've already given me it," Garnet carelessly remarked, clearly more interested in the diamond than Lyantra. "But I suppose." She looked up. "Was that really too much?"

"Yes!" Lyantra burst out. "Yes, that was horrible! Don't ever make me do that again!"

Garnet slowly tilted her head. "Tens of thousands of children live that way every day of their lives. You even had it easy compared to some of the voices in the song. I've heard children sit helplessly during their parents' death throes, heard them exploited and forced to work fourteen hours a day, or carted off on pirate frigates as spoils of war. You kept your freedom. You barely looked at the world from the sidelines, and you already think that was too much?"

Lyantra nodded with a whimper, her promise doing nothing to bolster her now.

Garnet sighed. "I suppose there's a lesson I should take from that as well, though it might just be how soft you are... Fine. I won't kick you out on your own again. But you are going back one more time before we leave. I'll go with you in person, after my duties are finished. Satisfied?"

No, Lyantra wasn't satisfied. Not with going back. Although, Garnet had just promised not to make her go back alone, so maybe she was satisfied? She didn't know. She needed a bath, and was too tired, both mentally and physically. She just wanted to curl up and be left alone.

"...I have some tests to run." Garnet swung the door shut. "If you had that bad of a time, then stay in the carriage until I get back."

It latched closed. The foal was, miraculously, sleeping.

Oh well, Lyantra's promise said, sliding back out of her mind with the same alien sensation it had arrived with. You got that gemstone out of its dusty closet and into the paws of someone who can properly use it. That's more than a rodent like you usually amounts to.