The Immortal Dream

Senescey's thoughts were aswirl as she slipped under the ship's door and into the storm.

Had she lost her mind? Papyrus had a point; it was none of her business what the windigoes did with the rest of the world and it was extremely unlikely they were here for her in particular. This was a point she herself had made before, when signing on for her brief and uninspiring tenure as Halcyon's mercenary: just because you knew about something you were powerless to change, you didn't have a responsibility to change it. And they were even talking about windigoes. This exact same topic.

She winced a little at thinking of herself as Senescey. The name felt too charged, too loaded, a relic of a time she couldn't go back to and needed to escape, and she didn't want to give Papyrus the satisfaction of dragging her back into it. But Leif was even less appropriate, now that she was raising a sword against her former employer and home. And she didn't have a better alternative.

Senescey pushed herself up through the snow drift on the deck like it was the wreckage of her former plans, a whole foot of it walling the door closed. That was good. It would prevent Papyrus from following her.

She shook herself out, trying to dislodge the snow from the surface of her heavy parka, but for every bit she brushed off, more landed on her, falling from the sky in a silent flood that seemed to want to bury every trace of her existence - herself, and everything she had ever been. Senescey had been buried like this before, in the old Empire, when she was forced to commute and do business in the old catacombs beneath Stormhoof Keep and other cities that resisted her existence on the surface.

Yes, that's right, the snow seemed to whisper as it tried to clog her ears. You fight back, or get buried. It's the only choice.

Senescey jumped off the boat, landing in the snow drifts that covered the now-frozen bog created by the earlier rains, where there had once been a manicured lawn. The snow gripped quietly at her hooves as she pulled herself towards the mansion. She had been gripped like this before, by the stares of the sarosians around her as she rose through the Empire's underworld. Some were incredulous that she could do it, and others openly doubted her, breaking off friendships as she surpassed the limits they had resigned themselves to.

But all of them had something in common: as she enriched herself with money swindled from Gondolus Gyre, as her family started to grasp at the levers of government, they groped at her with stares that said Please, take us with you.

And she couldn't. Sharing her wealth and influence wouldn't change the system that made them stare like that in the first place. At best, it would give them more that others could then take from them. So with a practice born from shrugging off those expectations, Senescey shrugged off the snow, pushing past its creeping, frosty suggestions that all of this was a cruel joke and she was betraying everyone if she didn't do something about it.

Well, she was doing something about it. Senescey reached the mansion and slipped in beneath its door.

The foyer was every bit as opulent as she remembered, with its carpeting and dark alcoves and high-ceilinged architecture. Little more than a status symbol. All the money used to construct this-

She closed her eyes, took a breath and steadied herself. Windigoes could try to hijack her train of thought, to steer her emotions to places she didn't want them to go. When they were on the scene, it was important not to trust herself too much; to stick to her mission at all costs.

"You're disgusting," she whispered to the invisible specter of Gawain, manifesting around her in all the effort that could have better been spent on his people. "But I'm not here to fight you. I have more important targets tonight, ones who are actively malicious and not just misguided. Okay?"

The mansion had no response. So Senescey made for the stairs and continued on.

She couldn't tell if Cherrabell had suspected something was up when she asked where to find the weapon. Cherrabell had firmly established that she trusted them as a group, but after the ill-fated Icereach expedition, Senescey never knew how much stock to put in her acting skills. Much of what they accomplished in the Empire had been a combination of Papyrus shielding them with his audacity and Felicity shamelessly selling herself: she was only the face of their cons when they needed someone who could pass for normal and well-adjusted. But what was normal and well-adjusted about asking for the location of a weapon of mass destruction?

Either way, she had her destination: it was supposedly underneath a loose floor tile at the back of the chapel on the fourth floor.

Not a hint of wind blew through the mansion as Senescey slipped from shadow to shadow, keeping her stealth up without slowing down as she raced for the top. She could easily imagine the storm circling the mansion like a school of sharks. Hopefully the Aldebaran simply hadn't arrived yet and she could still get to the weapon first, and hide or disable or guard it in some way. Hopefully this really would be the work of a crew of mortal mercenaries she could fight, and not actual, free windigoes.

Remembering the way the snow had whispered to her, it was a distant hope.

Most of the mansion's facilities and public spaces were located on the first and second floors, and Senescey had enough trouble finding a staircase to the third that she simply cheated, shadow sneaking up through a crack in the ceiling where a barrel vault had separated slightly from one of the ribs supporting it. After a bit of writhing around in the dark to find a way out, she slipped up through the crack between the floorboards and an air vent, emerging in what could only be described as a love hotel.

Senescey made a face. It was fortunately uninhabited, but the lacy decorations and fluffy pink carpet and white fake-marble canopy bed were painfully familiar to her: establishments like this were where Felicity had gone from a nobody to a somebody, using her brand for manipulating the intensity of emotions to become a unique and prestigious courtesan and start their rise through the underworld.

She ducked through an open door, and decided the whole third floor had to be decorated this way. That was probably why it was so hard to find: this was Gawain's 'private' sanctum for activities that went beyond wearing his wives like clothing.

It was sickening. Bad enough when Felicity had been the one in power in a place like this, with important ponies and griffons paying money to place themselves at her mercy.

He's trying to do better, Senescey reminded herself. Some of them might actually like this, another part of her added. Not all of those girls see fluffy resorts like you do.

Right. Senescey pushed her reaction down like bile and kept looking for a staircase to the fourth floor.

But it was hard to ignore for long. She knew what she was trying to accomplish: keep a dangerous, war-starting weapon out of the hooves of someone who would use it. But she had no good reason to do so: her life, her identity, her view of herself was in shambles, taken apart and deconstructed and only beginning to be rebuilt. She wanted to be the kind of pony who wouldn't let another war occur on her watch, but her actions were nothing more than simple, passing desires with no worldview to back them up.

She also wanted to rob Gawain blind, steal everything he owned, set him to work digging latrines in Gyre, and then sensationalize his fate in every newspaper in the world. Not merely take revenge on behalf of those he had wronged; public humiliation of the highest degree was the only antidote for those who abused their social status.

She wanted it. And without anything trustworthy to fall back on, to back up her judgements with, how could she say definitively that she wanted to protect that weapon more?

Senescey almost had to stop and hold her head with a hoof. How was she the one this mission had fallen to? She was probably the most manipulable pony in the world right now. It would take nothing to convince her to use that weapon on Gawain and his household. Nothing more than a little rebalancing of her desires. And wasn't that exactly what windigoes could do?

She took a deep breath. She wanted to change. To find a future for herself, to become something more than she had been before. That was what she was leaning on. And it would have to be enough.

Papyrus tumbled in through the front door of Gawain's mansion, shaking off an avalanche of snow that clung to him like sticky rice.

Behind him, Floria took a few deep breaths, trying fruitlessly to rid her mane of snow before it melted and soaked her through. "Congratulations," she growled, her voice wry with frustration, "we've made it through the storm and into the haunted aristocrat lair. Papyrus, I didn't quite think you had it in you."

Papyrus chuckled, trying to dry himself off as well. "If you think that was the hard part-"

"Braen do bulk of heavy lifting for both of you," Braen reminded them, her mechanical body allowing the snow to slide off with ease. "If not for Braen, party would still be snowed in behind door of ship!"

"Yes," Floria admitted, "that was a very impressive and slightly unorthodox ramming technique you used to force it open, congratulations to you too." She gave Papyrus a straight look. "Now that we're inside, permit me to establish this one more time: for no apparent reason, completely unrelated to everything we have been doing and discussing over the past evening, a race of mythical evil ice monsters has chosen this exact night to conduct a raid on this exact location. We have no weapons that are known to be effective against them, there's a passable chance they would simply leave us alone, and we're going to stop them anyway without any semblance of a plan."

"I'll have you know my tongue is a fantastic weapon," Papyrus reminded her. "And for some reason creatures of chaos take a liking to me."

Braen planted her hooves and stretched out in a determined pose. "Plus, Papyrus said windigoes might hire mercenaries to do work for them. In which case, Braen has permission to finally use experimental combat features!"

Floria glanced at her sideways. "Do these experimental combat features by any chance include the ramming maneuver you used to force open the door?"

Braen nodded. "Braen ram enemies good."

"Right, right, right," Papyrus interrupted. "Less planning and more doing. Cherrabell said she sent Senescey to the fourth floor, right? I don't remember seeing any staircases going upwards last time we were on floor two, so let's go see if Griffon McLordliness is still up waiting for news of his new baby and ask directions. Maybe see if this mansion has an underground bunker to hide everyone in while we're at it."

Braen and Floria nodded, so Papyrus took off, ignoring propriety and flying in a noble residence to go faster, just like he used to do. It took barely a minute to reach the study where he first met Gawain, and where - luck willing - he would meet him again.

"Hey!" Papyrus barged in through the door to the study without knocking. "Baby daddy! You home, or what?"

The study's enormous walls-and-ceiling window was a picture of snow, flurrying in chaotic and constricting streams like the coils of a sea serpent. Past midnight and under the weight of an epic blizzard, it should have been pitch black outside, but the clouds illuminated their snowflakes with a strange internal glow, blue on white on blue.

Near the window, watching the snow, was a familiar tall-backed reading chair. It spun around quickly when Papyrus announced himself, revealing Gawain, shockingly alone and not wrapped in a single mare.

Papyrus did a double take. "Woah, nice job ditching the entourage. Listen-"

Gawain nodded interrupting him. "I decided I would rather be alone with my thoughts while contemplating what you said about my present course. But come, why are you here? To make a trek through those snows must mean important news is afoot?"

"Congratulations, you're a father again," Floria deadpanned, stepping up. "Mother and child are both healthy. More importantly, we have reason to strongly suspect your compound is about to be assaulted by thieves."

"Thieves?" Gawain blinked. "In this weather? I understand that I have much here to steal, but-"

"Dastardly thieves," Papyrus agreed. "Ones who are probably resourceful enough to create this storm as cover. Now, where are your staircases? We've got a strong hunch they're angling for the fourth floor."

"Preposterous," Gawain blustered. "No craft could fly in this weather, much less could any technology create it. I'll have you know I have been trying harder than I have in a very long time to take this present situation seriously, and cracking such jokes does nothing to help matters. Tell me of my Cherrabell. You said she has delivered, and is healthy?"

"It's not a joke, old griffon," Papyrus threatened ominously. "And we're not sure how much time we have. We're going to deal with it, but if you've got a giant basement sitting around, it could be worth moving your civilians there. Just in case."

Gawain looked at him sideways. "Have you even looked at the weather? I feel like we're speaking past each other, here..."

"Perhaps stop speaking and look for self," Braen suggested, pointing up through the window at the sky.

Papyrus turned upward and groaned. "Did we arrive right as something started happening...?"

Behind the white, seething clouds and their strange blue light, there was something new: a patch of red light, faint yet growing brighter and larger, like a massive boil descending through the storm. Barely several seconds passed, growing and brightening, before it broke through the surface of the clouds like tearing skin, and Papyrus could see something new and terrifying hanging in the sky above him: a giant, blood-red eye, nearly eight pony-lengths across.

Gawain looked like he had instantly wet himself. Floria cowered defensively, her ears back and her hackles raised.

"Well," Papyrus gulped, staring into the storm's massive eye. "I've got nothing."

Senescey found a staircase hidden inside a walk-in closet, and arrived at the fourth floor.

The mansion's sloped roof already cut off parts of the third floor, giving it a smaller footprint than the two below. Here at the top, there was only enough space for a single large room, which Cherrabell had told her would be a chapel.

During her search for the stairs, Senescey had questioned to herself what Gawain would be doing with a chapel in his residence. What would a griffon that vain even worship? Perhaps it was a relic of the mansion's previous owners, or even its bygone history, days when Griffonstone's leaders had a little more dignity and played a constructive role in their society's culture?

She let herself be curious, and that proved to be a mistake. The chapel was full of statues and paintings of Gawain.

Senescey resisted the urge to waste time planting her head against a stone pillar, but she did resolve to needle the griffon about this later. The biggest, most central statue depicted Gawain hopelessly ripped, wearing an anatomically impossible mare on each shoulder and sitting atop a throne Papyrus would have compared to a toilet. If they really did stay here and make fixing Griffonstone into their pet project, this thing would be the first to go... but before Senescey could think about destroying that statue, she had to destroy the floor. Cherrabell's weapon was under a loose tile in this room, somewhere behind that central statue. That was what she had been told.

She rapped the tiles with the edge of her hoof, rapidly checking for the telltale sounds of cavities or loose grout. No one had come to stop her yet. No one had beaten her to this room, unless they were hiding too well for her to make out... and while her skills sometimes failed her, perception usually wasn't one of the culprits. Tap, tap, tap... Clink!

"Here," she hissed under her breath, digging in with the tips of both wings, her extremities still numb from her slog through the blizzard. With a burst of strength, she prized up the lip of the tile, adjusted her grip, and flipped it all the way away.

There could be no mistaking it. Sitting in a small depression in the ground was a dagger, its hilt carved from some sort of shiny, wet-looking black rock that occupied the same artistic space as moon glass, halfway between stone and gemstone. The blade itself was wrapped in an old, tattered rag, pulling her eyes like a magnet to whatever lay underneath. Trembling, Senescey exhaled, reaching for her prize with shaking limbs.

She had no time to waste. She had gotten here first; she couldn't squander her lead. And yet still she hesitated, a silent scream warning her that she was in terrible danger.

Why had she allowed Cherrabell to tell her story in chronological order? Why hadn't she insisted the mare talk about the most pressing part, this thing she had left in the mansion here and now? Twisted queens, lecherous princes, those couldn't hurt her right now.

She knew nothing about this knife, nothing save for stories about what it had allegedly done, and even those were distant and incomplete. But the mere sight of its shrouded blade set her heart to hammering.

The storm was blowing. There was no time for indecision. Better it remain in the hooves of someone who wouldn't use it than someone who would.

Senescey lifted the dagger from its depression in the ground, and as its cloth wrappings fell away, a glint of green pierced her eyes with the force of hundreds of thousands of screams.

She lost her footing and tumbled forward with a yelp, the screams catching her like a great, dark lake. One of them was her own.

Senescey was in a room she had visited many times over the decades. A room she had slept in, schemed in, wept in, partied in, dreamed in along with many others.

She didn't know if this was the last time she would ever come here. But this was certainly the first time she had come here knowing that things would never be the same.

Old water stains lent the bricks in the walls a grimy character, befitting Stormhoof's catacombs. Senescey walked past a table, strewn with playing cards. Usually, they were pretty good about finishing their games before leaving on business, but this time, they had left them out on purpose, a visual promise that they would be back, sit down here again and pick up their game where they left off.

Senescey sat on the bar stool where, only days ago, she had played in that final game. The dregs of her drink were right there beside her, along with a small pile of winnings. She had been behind in the game, though not last place.

She scooped her winnings into a small bag, and then everyone else's, before starting to collect the cards and put them away. It felt like she was defacing a shrine. But, if she was to start over again, she would need all the money she could get. And this time, her sisters wouldn't be there to provide it.

Starting over. It was impossible, unthinkable, incoherent. And yet, it was all she had.

...Had she done this before?

She started towards the adjacent room, past the bar in the corner where the barkeep's stool had been thoroughly deformed by its old occupant's girth. Todd the boozehound, they had called him. Todd was an unusual name, and no one knew if it was his real one, but the fat old unicorn had a real knack for smoothing things over when they were feeling discouraged. He believed in the power of greasy bar food for raising spirits, though his belief in the team did a lot more for everyone than his food ever did. Of course, Senescey could have done without all the times when he got drunk and nearly spilled important secrets to the wrong people, but the hideout just wasn't the same without him.

Next over was the dorm, opposite walls lined with more wooden bunks than they had ever been able to fill. It didn't help matters that the griffon twins insisted on sharing. Tasha and Carla, the mercenaries from Wilderwind... Senescey had never been sure what to think of them.

In more innocent days, she had harbored a crush on them. Them, as a unit: their coordinated bandanas were the only way to tell them apart, and they were otherwise inseparable. But was their closeness with each other a signal that they didn't need anyone else, or a lure, advertising themselves with the obvious? Maybe it was nothing more than an emulation of their idols, an Izvalden sister-sister duo band who still had a poster tacked to the wall beside their now-empty bed.

Either way, Senescey had never acted on it and never known them well enough to ask. And now, she never would.

...It felt like she had already said goodbye to them, for some reason.

Still, they were gone. Everyone but her. After a lifetime of preparation, they had embarked on their final mission, an immaculately planned raid on Stormhoof Keep when its defenses were at the lowest, to rid the Empire of half its sphinx population in one fell swoop.

And they had failed. They were betrayed, and they had failed, and Senescey didn't even learn that they met their ends until she was already celebrating on a distant getaway ship, thinking the plan had met with success.

She staggered under the weight of it all. The knowledge that her own sister had been the one to turn coat. The reason she was here now: not to mourn, but to loot their old possessions, sell them, raise money and use it to recruit new revolutionaries and try again. And as she did her best to replace her old friends, their old targets would be sitting with reporters, alive and well, telling their side and only their side to the world, about how a heinous plot had been foiled without a word in edgewise about why they deserve to die.

Senescey choked on directionless rage. At the back of the room, nailed to a well-scarred board, was a mug shot of Lord Everlaste, a throwing knife embedded in his left eye socket. Mundungus had hung that there, their resident pegasus ninja and point of contact, the one who knew best how to read the underworld and recruit non-sarosians to their cause. It was his coping mechanism, his target practice when things went south. Sometimes it was Lord Gyre's face on that wall. He had to replace it frequently because of how well it was used.

She grabbed the knife, yanked it from the wood and brandished it at the paper, but it was no use. The old sphinx's face, having served so well as a target for her resentment up until now, failed her when she needed it most. This was Larceny's fault. One of the few to survive, now wearing a medal and living who knew where after they all parted ways.

Felicity was gone too. Senescey didn't even know why. Maybe because she couldn't stomach coming back here again.

No, that wasn't right. Felicity was... on the ship with...

<> the dirge said. <>

All those years, and there was no one to hear her cry.

Senescey screamed. She threw the knife on the floor, dropped her loot sack and stomped on it, shrinking into a pile at the side of her old bunk. She curled up and sobbed, tears of desperation matting her cheeks, with no one to hear her and no one to care.

At least, she should have. Senescey had been here before, she knew how this went. But the stake through her heart, the guilt of failure... Was it supposed to be this fresh?

She sat up and wiped her tears with a hoof. This had happened years ago. Wasn't she doing something else, now?

<> the dirge asked. <>

<> still there from the night before the mission. Her head slumped to the side, and she stared in.

<>

Back stared the reflection of how all this had begun.

A young Senescey, scrambling in through a cottage door with a pail of well water. A gaunt Felicity, trying to coax their dying mother back to life. An infant Larceny, wailing for food. All of them, poisoned by a mining accident that had contaminated the river, though none of them knew it yet. None of them understood that Senescey was carrying back the source of their woes.

"Someone's world will burn," Felicity's voice crunched, speaking in a memory seen within a memory. "If anyone begged you to reconsider, would you choose your family over anything they could offer?"

Young Senescey wilted. "What if they offered to bring Mommy back?"

Senescey kicked over the mug, spilling the water and shattering the vision. As it seeped into the brick floor, she finally understood: back then, at least she hadn't been alone.

Was she alone, though? What about Papyrus? Papyrus and...

<>

<> and it was infinitely worse.

The edges of her world began to smoulder and turn green, like a paper catching fire.

Senescey looked up, feeling something tug gently at her heart.

"Worship me," the flames demanded, as her world shrank and fell away into a bleak, black void. "Love me. Acknowledge me as your queen."

"What's the point?" Senescey whispered, her body just a speck on the horizon.

The flames caressed her chin. "Love me, and you will never hurt again."

So Senescey gave in. That didn't sound so bad.

Yes it did. That wasn't how she wanted to die, wasn't who she was supposed to be-

<>

Senescey gave in, and the green flames congealed, two worlds separating before her and stratifying, clarifying, until she was lucid once again. This wasn't the day she had died, ruined and broken in the Stormhoof catacombs, swept away without resistance by the tide of Chrysalis's flame. This was...

Senescey was in a room she had visited many times over the decades. A room she had slept in, schemed in, wept in, partied in, dreamed in along with many others.

The end of her road. The day the song took her, when she was too tired to even resist. Her entire life, summed up in one point: pain that beget greater pain, loss that beget greater loss. Finite. Meaningless.

"No it isn't," Senescey growled, tearing her eyes away from the table, away from the abandoned card game and the empty bar in the corner. "I'm still alive! I'm... I'm in a mansion, and there's a storm..."

<> said the dirge, surrounding her like an empty ring that caged in the possibilities of her life. <>

"I am a pony!" Senescey banged on the walls of her old revolutionary home, the air gaining a strange quality that made it feel like cardboard the more she fought back. She pulled on herself, clawing herself back together, and the more she fought, the more she remembered: "I'm not in Stormhoof anymore! I'm in Griffonstone! Who are you, and what's going on?"

The response was garbled and unintelligible, the world around her sticking together like a ruined spider web as she flailed and fought. And suddenly, like ripping fabric, she was free.

It felt like breaking through the surface of a lake of tar, but the scene tore and sloughed away, lifting Senescey back into her body with a visceral jolt. Her real body, her forty-something-year-old changeling body that hadn't had a sense of taste since foalhood, sitting in a disgusting chapel in Gawain's manor. And in her hooves, she held a knife forged from the selfsame flames that had once devoured her broken, defeated mind.

Senescey stared at the emerald, crystalline blade.

"Wait," the knife said, audibly confused. "You're... real?"

Senescey blinked. Was it actually talking, or was she hearing it in her head? Either way, she tested her limbs and found herself to be in control of her body: whatever had happened, she was fully herself, and back in the real world to boot. She spun around to ensure she hadn't been snuck up on while she was out. The storm was still howling, but she appeared to be alone.

"Well?" the knife pressed.

"Always have been," Senescey told it, though the fifteen-year hole in her life said otherwise. "Did you do that? What did you do? Why was I reliving my memories like that? What are you?"

"Me?" the knife asked. "The name's Iblis. Just a plain old garden-variety kitchen knife. You like fruit salad? I can make a mean one."

Senescey narrowed her eyes. "Kitchen knives don't talk. And the things I saw when I touched you definitely weren't normal."

"Well, I'm a very good kitchen knife," Iblis explained. "But come on, enough about me. There I was, wasting away for decades under that statue with nothing to do but listen to the song, when suddenly, one of the chords started getting a mind of its own. And you say you saw it acting up, and those were your memories? That's what's going on here?"

Senescey slowly nodded. "So you weren't consciously trying to trap me in a vision."

"Heh, I'm just trying to figure out how I got such a weird wake-up call," Iblis said. "But you're probably just addled by the experience. See, you're a sarosian, and the song has a special relationship with sarosians... That chord was taken from a failed revolutionary as she died alone in a sewer. No shot that was you. Unless you died a few decades back and just decided to get better?"

Senescey gave Iblis a sideways look.

"I'm getting the funny feeling you have no ground to stand on when calling me not normal," Iblis blithely remarked.

"Spill your secrets and I'll spill mine," Senescey offered. "I know the color of your blade. And the only person who should have any idea I was down there is the one who killed me."

"Well, now that's a deal I can take." Iblis eagerly chuckled. "I've got a... 'relationship' with Chrysalis, sure. Might even know everything she knew, up to a point. But, I've got my own priorities. No hard feelings right? You apparently got better."

Senescey scrutinized the blade. "Are you a Bishop?"

"What's a Bishop?" Iblis asked. "Never heard of 'em. Anyway, here's the million-bit question: if you're really the mare from the sewer, you must be back on the trail, right? Using your new lease on life to finish what you started? Who's your new target?"

"Good question. All my old targets are dead," Senescey replied, thinking over how to spin her answer and pointedly stomping down her feelings on Gawain. "Right now... I suppose I'm trying to get rid of some windigoes."

Iblis faux-gasped. "Windigoes. Not the wrath monsters they were experimenting on down under Izvaldi, by chance?"

"One and the same," Senescey answered. "Likely even the exact same one. What's it to you?"

"Wellll..." She could almost hear Iblis wink. "I don't suppose you already have a weapon that rips apart emotions, do you? Maybe your back is against the wall and you don't have the tools to finish the job, maybe you even came to find me because you needed a silver bullet?"

"What are you offering?" Senescey asked warily.

Iblis chuckled. "Let me give you the lowdown on what I can do. When I sing the song and get in the mood, this blade cuts straight to the mind. Emotional damage, very unpleasant for normal people. Infinitely worse if you're all the way made of emotions. For my ultimate attack, if I destroy someone's mind all the way, I can ditch this vessel and take over their body as my own. You say you're an assassin; surely you appreciate how useful that is. Your enemies' demise, coming from the one they trust the most? There's another kind of emotional damage! It's a one-way ticket, though, so I'm not doing it for a vessel that isn't worth getting stuck in. And aside from all that, I really am a great kitchen knife."

Senescey's eyes widened. "You are a Bishop. Is this where all of you come from? Do you start as weapons and then steal bodies to use as your own? How does Chrysalis make you, and why?"

"Guessing that's some jargon I'm not familiar with, if you say you've met others like me," Iblis mused. "Can't speak for the others, though for a while they just spontaneously happened before she learned to control the process. I was made on purpose, to protect this filly called Cherrabell... and because I kept getting in the way. But I haven't heard from her in over a decade, and I'm a little more into eating the rich than protecting the weak anyway. Someone like you would make a much better partner. Take me with you, and I swear I'll earn my keep."

Senescey scrutinized the knife. Taking it was the whole reason she had come up here. Something like this winding up in the wrong pair of hooves could prove catastrophic. And this knife knew things. It was a close, direct, tangible link to a dream she had spent years pursuing, and only recently tried to discard. But with something like this, would she have to discard it?

Iblis hadn't corrected her when she suggested it was made by Chrysalis, and it was given purposefully to Cherrabell. That meant Garnet had to be Chrysalis. Papyrus was right. And that meant that her what-if about what Garnet's actions would say about Chrysalis's state of mind...

This could be a direct conduit to speak her mind to the goddess who killed her.

Heart pounding, her grip tightened. "You won't try to possess me, will you?"

Iblis scoffed. "Why would I take over someone who shares my goals when I could get someone who doesn't? No one would be surprised if they died to a known assassin. Let's call that Plan F."

"Alright," Senescey offered. "And you won't get... impatient, if I don't go after someone right away? I've got some more pressing priorities than finding people to kill."

"I've heard your song," Iblis reassured her. "You and I both know that revenge is a dish best served cold. You spent decades on your last plan, and hate like yours isn't dying any time soon. You're patient. The kind of killer who will bide her time until the perfect moment, and can fight the temptation to go for quick and easy gratification. That's exactly what I want. Go ahead, take twenty, thirty years to set up the perfect target. I bet you'll make it worth it in the end."

Senescey sighed, trying to tamp down her emotions: she was still on the job. But it was useless: Iblis thought she couldn't change, and would be captive to her hatred of Gyre and Everlaste and the rest for eternity. And she still was, to an extent. The bloated Gawain statues surrounding her were a testament to that, the angry trembling that threatened to overcome her as she searched through his third-floor sanctum. But what if, over time, she proved it wrong? What kind of message would that send back to Chrysalis? Was this how she would say her piece? Was this what she wanted to say? Or maybe she really did want to do something-

Focus. She gritted her teeth and shook her head. "Right. Alright. Welcome aboard. Now..."

Surroundings check. Make sure she hadn't been snuck up on during all that-

On the floor, near the entrance, a blue-white mist was beginning to pool, like the storm clouds yet brighter and more concentrated.

Senescey dropped into a defensive crouch, pointing Iblis at the puddle as it oozed stealthily into the room. Maybe she wouldn't have to talk her way out of this, after all.

"Peek-a-boo, little ponyo!" the mist said, its words made of winter and broken machinery, rising off the floor and congealing into a form that was almost equine at its head. "Boy, you sure chose a stupid night to be all on your lonesome. It's been a whole entire amount of time since I had a good play buddy, and your face just got..." Ludwig trailed off, his voice going sour as he got a proper look at Senescey. "You again? Is this for serious, ugly ponyo? What are you doing here?"

"What manner of ruin has come for my kingdom?" Gawain whined, flat on his haunches, staring up in resignation at the unblinking eye in the storm.

"Whatever it wants, I vote we let it have it," Floria replied, claws bared and coat bristling. "We must get everyone to the cellar immediately. Please, tell me you have a fortified cellar."

"Of course." Gawain swallowed. "Right. The entrance is in the kitchens on the first floor. We'll rouse my wives; they can coordinate bringing the children below. I assume you three will be heading back to your ship to warn your friends, and of course Cherrabell, though since you already knew about this, are they in the mansion already? Either way, I-I shall attempt to fight it and buy as much time as possible."

Papyrus started running after him as he took off down the hallway. "You? Fight it? Thanks for being noble, but how are you going to pull that off?"

Gawain patted his gleaming armor as he ran. "The Regalia of the Forest King isn't just for show. And Felicity told you about my militant history, I trust? I have a whole armory filled with explosive crossbow bolts that should still have some punch to them. If you think your own courage won't fail you, then help yourselves."

"Exploding ammunition?" Papyrus blinked, rounding a corner after Gawain. "What, like arrows with bombs on the tips? That's actually clutch! You couldn't have mentioned this earlier?"

"I didn't think it relevant!" Gawain panted, skidding into a residential wing. "My wives! Your king has urgent need of you!"

Instead of helping to rouse the numerous mares, Papyrus pulled up, regrouping with Floria and Braen. "Right, so apparently we have useful resources and the griffon has a spine. Planning time."

"What even is there to plan?" Floria snapped back as groggy mares and griffonesses began to appear in the hallway. "Do I look trained in archery to you? I'll give as good as I can get, but in this weather it'll be a miracle if I can hit the thing."

"If activating high-power mode, Braen can fly in storm," Braen declared. "Maybe can ram eye with lots of explosives!"

The mansion shuddered distantly from the storm. Papyrus wanted to berate her for suggesting a plan that sounded like it involved blowing herself up, but his mind was still on that eye: what was it?

If it was a giant siege monster, surely it would have attacked the building more substantially by now. Even if it was just going for Senescey on the fourth floor, they would have felt something if it tore the roof off, something more than the beating of the gale.

Where would the windigoes get a giant siege monster, anyway? And if he was a windigo, what would he do if he had one? Surely it would be much more useful smashing stuff in Ironridge and Yakyakistan, balancing the scales of their war to ensure the two sides progressed according to plan. He wouldn't send it out to the middle of nowhere to help acquire a much weaker weapon.

Besides, windigoes weren't about smashing things directly, were they? Weren't they more about getting people to fight each other? Having others do the fighting for them?

"It's a scare tactic," Papyrus whispered as Gawain barked orders, his wives cleanly dividing themselves between those who were used to following directions and those who were used to sitting around all day.

"What's that you say?" Floria leaned closer over the din.

"That eyeball's not actually supposed to hurt us," Papyrus muttered, just loud enough so she and Braen could hear. "Jury's out on whether it's a paper tiger or a real monster with self-restraint. But if I were a windigo, I'd use it to freak everyone out and get them in the mood to arm themselves. That's a useful prerequisite to turning on each other."

"An unbecoming way to conduct warfare," Floria remarked. "And this means?"

Papyrus nodded. "By waking everyone up, we fell for it hook, line and sinker."

Gawain's wives were moving. It was abundantly clear which ones he had plucked from the aristocracy and which ones he had pulled from working-class conditions: some of them had stepped up to help organize, others were leaving for the wings where the children slept, and still others were herding each other towards the kitchens, the slower ones being urgently prodded along.

It was almost shocking how quickly and effectively they went from being sound asleep to having their act together. Now if only the terse undercurrent of fear in the hallway wasn't exactly what the windigoes probably wanted...

Floria stopped Gawain as he marched past, fear and determination set on his face. "Have they drilled for this?"

Gawain barely offered her a glance. "In Griffonstone, one always sleeps with one eye open. I may have freed them from that way of living, but old habits die hard."

Papyrus set off after Gawain at a brisk pace, trying to out-scheme the windigoes. Everyone was afraid; what would come next? Eventually, the windigoes would have to make a move to capitalize on that fear, but it would be best if they let it marinate for a while. But in order to buy time for it to marinate, they'd have to head off any questions about why the eye wasn't doing anything.

Something would come next, maybe to distract them from the eye with another problem? Or maybe they'd pound the mansion a little to remind everyone it was there, or-

They reached the main hall and foyer. The grand double-doors were wide open.

Outside, a spectacle was waiting for them. The eye was low on the horizon, just over the compound wall, positioned so that everyone in the foyer could see it, like a setting sun. The blizzard still swirled, but instead of inundating the open hallway, it had tactfully penetrated it, laying down a soft carpet of snow in the shape of an actual carpet, like the storm had rolled out a welcome rug for its emissary. And that emissary stood in the open doorway in gleaming silver armor that coursed with ice-blue threads of energy, mechanical head raised and mechanical wings spread.

"Greetings," it said, cool and pious. "You may call me the Composer. I come to you at this hour because your household is in possession of something I need."

"You know me, huh?" Senescey warily circled the windigo, blade drawn. "Guessing you're the weird-talking one who was there in the apartment in Icereach."

"Woah, you have a memory in your brain," Ludwig rasped, wriggling gleefully. "That was me, friendo! The name is Lord Ludwig Frederick Mk.III, which is a much cooler name than yours. So, since you are so ugly, I was curious what you are doing here!"

"Just... passing through," Senescey warily answered. "What are you doing here? And what do you want with me?"

"Hmm," Ludwig mused. "Honestly, I dunno, friendo. I am pretty sure it still involves killing our evil dad, but my lame boss never tells me the details. Or maybe I just forgot." He spun in a circle. "That is a nice knife you are pointing at my face. Want to go stab someone with it?"

Senescey raised an eyebrow. "Want to get stabbed?"

Ludwig undulated. "Eyy, that is a pretty funny joke because I am incorporeal and cannot get stabbed. But!" He floated up and nudged the central Gawain statue, conjuring a frost mustache on its face, and putting beards and spectacles on the mares for good measure. "This place's boss ruler is a super ultimate loser who smells bad. This is how dumb his face looks. And, I remember with my brain that you do not like boss rulers! Want to go stab him? Preferably in a way that would start a riot that will last for weeks."

Senescey narrowed her eyes. "Is that what youuu're here to do?"

"Eh." Ludwig spiraled back down in front of her. "I just did a whole entire amount of work pushing the boat to get it here faster, friendo. And all my lame boss chick wants to do is steal something that is kept here. So I am allowed to do whatever I want with the place in payment, and I figured it would be super easy to start a riot."

"Right," Senescey sighed. "A riot. Of course."

Ludwig nod-nod-nodded. "Anyway, I asked my nose, nose, since you are wise and intelligent, where are the angriest ponyos and bird things who will be best for rioting? And my nose said, Lord Ludwig Frederick Mk.III, since you are smart and cool and handsome, you should go up to this room, because this is a room that smells like resentment and will definitely have the best ponyos and bird things to haunt. And then I found you here! So, what does your incredibly small brain say? Want to party it up like it is two thousand years ago?"

Well, then. Confirmation that they were here to steal something: check. Confirmation that they were looking to cause trouble for fun while doing it: also check. Odds that the Composer was involved: one hundred percent, since Ludwig mentioned a ship. And since Ludwig didn't react more strongly to Iblis, odds were decently high that the Composer didn't trust him enough to tell him what they were actually trying to steal.

"Shanking time?" Iblis asked. "I'm getting a good feeling about this one."

"Shanking time," Senescey agreed. She had learned all she needed to learn; time to fight back.

Ludwig hummed eagerly. "Oh boy, I like shanking-"

Ramming the blade into Ludwig felt like sticking a knife deep into a fresh jar of jelly. "Woah, woah, this is a jackpot!" Iblis crowed as the windigo went rigid. "This thing is way more malleable than I was expecting. Its architecture is downright primitive. Who designed this? Here, what happens if I do a little..."

Ludwig exploded with green lightning. "Byooooooorrrgh!" the windigo screamed, writhing and boiling and spewing green fumes as Senescey staggered backwards, shielding her face. "What-? No, come on, not again!"

"What did you do?" Senescey growled around the knife hilt, looking down and verifying that Iblis was still there.

"Just exposed him to the song a little," Iblis replied smugly. "It's like reprogramming. This thing has some serious pent-up resentment toward another windigo who thinks they're his boss. Feelings like that are my home turf, you see. If you want me to just destroy him, go ahead and say so, but why not see first if we can't make him our minion instead?"

"Bzooooort," Ludwig moaned, burning green chunks of ice bubbling under his surface as the lightning subsided and the greenness spread through him. Ten seconds passed, and his appearance stabilized: he was now a green windigo, the wisps of mist flowing from his body behaving a little more than usual like tongues of flame.

"Well?" Senescey asked.

"H-Hey, I remmmemberer you," Ludwig said, his voice fuzzy, as if he was drunk and putting himself back together. "Yyyou're that goon my stupid lame boss chick betrayed back in Icereach. In the cabinnn. Bet you really hate her, huh? Wanna ruin her, friendo?"