The Immortal Dream

Faye sat inside a protective golden bubble, floating aimlessly in a sea of red.

She blinked a few times as her cognition caught up with reality. She had... just been reading in bed, right? And felt something off, with a sixth sense she couldn't properly describe. And then she had gotten up to investigate...

All of that had just been happening. And yet there was no moment of transition in her mind, no explanation for how she got from that to this. It felt like she had been sitting here, thinking nothing at all, for a long, long time.

"What just happened?" her own voice groaned next to her. It was Halcyon, sitting naked on the bubble's floor.

Faye blinked at her. She looked corporeal enough, and... Faye was naked too. "Are you... you?" Faye asked. "I don't remember summoning you..."

"I sure think I'm me," Halcyon responded, uncertainly looking herself over. "I don't remember being summoned. I thought I was napping in the back of your mind you read a book. Right?"

"On Puddles' ship," Faye agreed. "That's right. This... place doesn't seem like it should be able to exist, let alone with both of us in it. Are we inside our own mind?"

"You mean like that time we went inside Coda's throne?" Halcyon asked. "Maybe. You think this is because of something we did? Like how we've been practicing passing control to you without physically taking off my mask?"

"I don't know..." Faye rested a hoof against the inside of the bubble, which was solid and felt like crystal. It was true: Halcyon getting separated when she was in the form of a physical crystal had been a worry ever since Seigetsu took her as collateral, and they had been experimenting with ways to swap back and forth that didn't involve Halcyon completely separating from her mind. But at the same time, whatever wrongness she had sensed leading up to this had felt very much external.

Halcyon flicked her backwards ears. "Well, if this isn't our fault, that leaves a whole lot of options that are a whole lot worse. How do we get out of here? We need..." She held up her bracelet hoof. "Look at these."

Around her leg was their bracelet... or, at least, half of it. An imperfect semicircle, it didn't look like it had been cut: its ends were jagged, in a pristine, geometric, interlocking fashion like the tines on a comb. The other half, Faye realized, was on her own leg.

She held her own half up. It didn't fall off, despite there being nothing holding it on.

Halcyon extended a hoof to meet hers. Their hooves tapped together, a sensation Faye had never experienced when Halcyon was a ghost. It felt deeply, almost unsettlingly familiar, making contact with her other half in a way she couldn't even when they shared the same body and mental space. As she tried to hold contact, a sensation jolted through her, a powerful remembrance that they were split like this because she had rejected herself, all those years ago.

It forced her to recoil. Halcyon's reaction mirrored her own.

"W-What was that?" Halcyon asked, dazed. "Was that how you felt about...?" She averted her eyes.

"I don't know what's happening," Faye apologized. "I don't know where we are, what we're supposed to do..."

"If you're looking for answers," Procyon's voice volunteered, its owner sitting somehow undetected behind both of them, "I could help with that."

Faye jumped a little in surprise. "You!"

"Me," Procyon said, wearing a poker face.

Halcyon pointed at Procyon's bare, sunrise-colored legs. "Where's your part of the bracelet?"

Procyon shrugged. "I don't have one. Probably because I forfeited mine when I asked Unnrus-kaeljos to cut me out. You two have been making an active effort to share and be part of each other's lives, and I've been accepting my role as a spectator. So it seems I don't get a part of it."

Halcyon frowned, apparently considering whether to accept this.

Faye had more important things to worry about. "Where are we? Do you know what's going on?"

"Inside our mind," Procyon agreed. "And this right here is the protective shield that prevents things like Gyre's atmosphere and other changeling queens from messing with it." She tapped the golden bubble. "And, presently, is keeping us safe from whatever just happened."

"And 'whatever just happened' is...?" Halcyon quizzed her, leaning to one side.

"I think we were attacked," Procyon explained. "Though 'caught up in an accident' might be more likely. That red stuff is the culprit. The shield is keeping our minds safe, but somehow it's gumming up the connection between you and our body. That shouldn't be easy to do. It means it must have both a physical component and an emotional one, like harmonic magic and windigo bodies. But I can't tell where it came from or what it is."

"You don't know where it came from?" Faye asked.

Procyon shook her head. "I was somewhere else at the time, but I felt it go by. It looked like a shock wave of some sort. But I didn't stop to investigate. I came here as fast as I could."

Halcyon sighed. "Great. Increasing the number of reasons this could be ridiculously bad. Is there anything we can do to get out of this? Even to just let me go fly around all ghost-like like normal?"

"Your crown." Procyon pointed to the two halves of the bracelet. "Our changeling queen void can probably suck away this red stuff and un-jam your connection to our body. But using it here might be different from in the physical world."

Faye raised an eyebrow. "And taking in this unknown red substance wouldn't have unknown consequences?"

"You'd have to get a feel for it to know," Procyon apologized. "But I don't think so. This stuff doesn't feel intelligent, or even like it's associated with an idea. And even if it was, changeling queen voids are perfect prisons. Once something's inside, talking to you is the only thing it can do."

Halcyon concentrated for a moment, then slumped. "I don't think the bracelet's gonna work while it's in two pieces, though."

Faye's mind snapped back to the sensation she had felt upon touching Halcyon's hoof, the accusatory reminder that this was what she wanted.

"We split our mind to escape from a world where we had to be ourselves," Procyon agreed. "Sealing our powers was part of that... unless you've never questioned where your 'old' fear of using them came from." She nodded at Halcyon.

"So what do we do?" Faye asked, looking to both of them for ideas. "Does it not work here because we're separated?"

Procyon nodded. "The physical world has some ideas about how matter conservation works that prevent you from just duplicating your body and going along your way as separate people. This world has no such limitations, and so our power has followed our split. It's not going to work unless everyone with a stake in it can use it in harmony together, bringing together the parts that were split. Fortunately, that shouldn't require actually becoming a single person again, which is both impossible and unwise. All you need to do is push past the wall that's separating you so that you can properly work together on this. And the good news is, that's a wall you've spent the last few months aggressively trying to break down."

Uncertainly, Faye offered her hoof back to Halcyon. "Do we try that again, or...?"

Halcyon glanced at Procyon. "How do you know all this, anyway?"

"Conjecture." Procyon shrugged. "Educated conjecture. I have nothing to do but sit back and stare at the dynamics between you two, after all."

"And you don't need to be a part of this, too?" Faye asked.

Procyon showed off her bare, braceletless forelegs. "Fortunately not, since you're the ones with the bracelet parts. None of us have made any efforts towards making me a part of our life, so the barrier between me and you two is just as strong as it was when I first returned in Ironridge. That's not a barrier that could be surmounted any time soon, even if I wanted it to be. Haven't we established that both of you are happier without the qualities I took with me when I left?"

Faye turned back to Halcyon and took a breath, conflicted about whether that was something she was supposed to take action on, or even wanted to take action on. Thoughts for later. For now, she offered her hoof. "Maybe we start with this?"

Halcyon nodded, swallowed and stepped forward, lifting her own and making contact.

Faye braced herself for the sensation, and it came.

It felt like pushing back against a magnet. She felt the feat she had instilled in Halcyon over pushing their limits and rediscovering their powers, a warning siren dredging up all the secrets she remembered that Halcyon still hadn't discovered yet. If they got too close, if those spilled over into her other half, there would be no going back. The life she had set up, had created Halcyon to live, was already a fading, illusory dream, hammered out into something neither of them were ready to admit wasn't real. And yet actually admitting it...

She couldn't tell Halcyon that she had ruined Corsica's life. Couldn't tell her that their special talent did more than she thought it did. Couldn't tell her that they were a changeling queen... at least until Halcyon figured that one out on her own.

And yet... the sensation wasn't as strong as it could have been. Maybe it was because they shared a body and trusted each other enough to take turns in control. Maybe it was because she cared deeply about Halcyon, as someone she had left behind to enjoy the life she didn't think she could have for herself. Whatever the reason, she found that she didn't need to spill any more of her secrets to stand her ground, to hold her hoof in place and look Halcyon in the eyes.

What she saw was a mirror of what she felt. There were barriers in Halcyon's eyes, ones Faye could easily guess at: the lingering fears she had instilled in her when shaping her early on, the limits on exploring her power and potential designed to protect her civilian life. Limits that had fought her explosively when she tried to reach for her powers before. Halcyon didn't fully know herself, couldn't trust that anything she tried to do would work, and Faye was the source of that.

But neither of them needed to resolve those issues, not tonight. All they needed, and they knew it, was to push past them for long enough to use their powers with a perfectly synchronized intent: get out of here and return to the real world.

Their connection was barely more than a hooftip, but slowly, the two halves of their bracelet began to slide down their legs towards each other, touching and fusing together in a flash of green light where their hooves met.

Faye met Halcyon's eyes, willing her fears and reservations not to trip her other half up again. Halcyon met Faye's eyes, trusting that she wouldn't. And the bracelet came alight with green flames.

Both of them glanced at Procyon, Faye's heart hammering out a beat that might have been perfectly synchronized with Halcyon's. "You're sure this is a good idea, right?" Halcyon asked their third. "It's kind of... uncomfortable."

"That's putting it mildly," Faye managed. "If it works, it works. Let's go?"

Procyon nodded, still wearing a poker face that just might have been hiding jealousy.

Their bracelet burner harder, and the red expanse around the bubble began to shiver as the bracelet prepared to consume.

Immediately, Faye felt like she was stuck in the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner. All her lucidity vanished in a flash, and her spatial awareness went with it. Her mind was sticky, like it had just been dipped in a jar of red molasses. As her green flames ate away at whatever was stuck to her, they pulled on her, too, with all the subtlety of a dog eating a chew toy.

But it worked. Her thoughts cohered and sped up enough to more consciously direct her power, and as she did, her void became more accurate and more effective, swallowing up whatever this red stuff was and not getting stuck as much failing to devour her. And soon, she was able to focus again on the world around her.

She was on the floor, collapsed next to her bed. The lights were out. She couldn't hear the rain anymore. It didn't feel like the ship was moving.

"Halcyon?" Faye called out, her voice sounding oddly disused. "What happened? Are you there?"

"Yeah," Halcyon said in the back of her mind. "I think we're back, but something feels wrong. Not, like, with us. With everything."

Faye nodded. "Everyone!?" She raised her voice. "What's going on?"

"Ghost me," Halcyon requested. "You check on Coda and get that red stuff out of our void, I'll fly around and look for the others."

Faye nodded, pushing Halcyon out into the world as a disembodied specter, who immediately zoomed off through a wall. As Halcyon left, she turned her thoughts inward, to the red goo.

There were no traces of it in the physical world, or even signs it had been physical at all, save for the odd sticky sensation that still lingered in her extremities, gradually fading as she burned her bracelet. All of it now sat deep in her void, where it felt like... she had eaten a nice, hearty meal of cardboard.

It had no nourishment, no identifiable traits or substance. It clearly existed. It had mass and volume, or whatever the mental equivalent of those was for emotional edibles. It wasn't taxing her to hold onto it. But it was bland, tasteless and incredibly impotent. Coda's false flattery was probably a more valuable thing to devour.

At least it didn't feel bad. It wasn't trying to align her towards anything she didn't want to associate with, like Ludwig had. And it might be useful for analyzing what had happened to them. So, expelling it could wait.

She got to her hooves, her legs protected by thin cloth night boots that were comfortable to sleep in and let her not worry about being seen. Her bracelet was right back where it belonged, on her leg and all in one piece. She kept it glowing, both for light and protection and to keep on purging the last of whatever had tried to purge her.

Her legs felt shaky and uncoordinated as she made her way to the closet to check on Coda, as if she hadn't walked or stood in a very long time. The filly was right where she usually was, locked in her iceberg and staring blankly into space. If she had gotten gummed up with red stuff too, there were no external signs to prove it. Nothing wrong with the rest of her cabin, either... No, scratch that.

It was actually a mess. Much messier than it should have been. it looked as if they had made a very rough, sudden landing.

And something felt even more wrong beyond that, something deeper than the last vestiges of whatever had hit her. Something in the air, in the world around her.

Something like... how Ironridge had felt after the sky turned gray, or how she had felt in the catacombs of Gyre.

Faye stumbled into the hallway, her legs still getting used to being used. "Everyone?"

The hallway was dark. Voices were coming from the bridge.

Faye ran towards it, wondering if Halcyon was already there as she burst through the door to the bridge. Puddles, Lissa and Flarefeather were all present, barely visible against the gloom as they engaged in a tense debate, but pausing so they could acknowledge her arrival.

"Hi," Puddles greeted, sounding strained. "Wasn't sure if you slept through our emergency landing..."

"Emergency landing?" Faye asked, seeing no signs of Halcyon. "What's going on?"

"Well," Flarefeather said, gesturing to the ship's broad windshield. "We're soliciting ideas. Working hypothesis: it's the end of the world."

There wasn't enough light in the cabin to cast a reflection as Faye approached the glass, her bracelet dimming so she could see better into the night.

The ship was grounded, sitting in a grassy field dotted with short, wide trees. They were on the edge of a rainstorm, moonbeams breaking through tiny gaps in the clouds as sheets of rain swept down around them. Except the rain wasn't falling. The clouds weren't moving, the moonbeams weren't shifting, and no wind blew through the grass to cause it to move. Everything hung in the air, paused perfectly where it was, as if time had simply ceased to flow.

"What the...?" Faye whispered, staring out at the timeless world.

"There was a bright flash of red," Lissa explained. "Then the ship lost power and she had to make an emergency landing." She gestured at Puddles.

"I checked the systems," Puddles explained, trying to keep a professional face up even though she clearly had no idea what was happening. "Nothing looks broken. We're just completely out of power, including all backups. Even the ones that weren't connected. Drained to the very last drop."

Faye glanced between them, guessing this meant none of them had shared her experience of sticky redness gluing up her mind. "Has anyone taken a look outside?"

"You mean gone out in person?" Flarefeather raised an eyebrow. "You wanna risk getting petrified like everything else out there? Your girl's not a coward, she's just saying..."

Faye frowned. It sure felt like the red flash had already done its worst, but no one else sounded like they had gotten themselves gummed up... At least she knew now that she could recover from it if it happened again. "I'm willing to do it," she volunteered. "Just... give me a minute to get my armor on first, just in case."

Everyone else was coming, too.

Puddles had to open the door manually, since the powered mechanism that usually controlled it was offline. Soon, it swung open, and Faye stepped forward into a world without motion.

Raindrops hung in the dark air around her, thin and streaked against the night. When she touched them, they broke off, becoming water again on the surface of her armor, trickling and dribbling across its surface. The grass moved when she touched it, colored a gray blue by the sporadic moonbeams and a fierce green by her bracelet. Dozens of tiny, rippling hills obscured the land's features with wave after wave of petrified grass - if water was pooling anywhere, or if it was properly draining, she couldn't tell.

Faye looked up, a curtain of rain wrapping around a moonbeam like a treble clef. She looked back, to the trail she had made through the raindrops by walking. She looked at the ship, a curtain of time-stopped water in the air behind it, where it had plowed through raindrops during its emergency landing and they had frozen again the moment they streamed off its hull. The ship's plume looked like an ice sculpture of a muscle tissue, glistening and twisting organically, a watery record of its trajectory preserved in the night sky.

Now that she was outside, it reminded her much more strongly of Ironridge. There, when the Flame of Kindness failed and its palace turned into a spire looming above the city, it was as if the heavens forgot how they were supposed to function, gave up and turned a blank, empty gray. That time, there hadn't been a flash or any red stickiness, sure, but the feeling in the air in the aftermath...

The sky was still working, at least. She could see moonlight through the cracks in the clouds. But the world seemed to have forgotten a core part of its identity, as if the weather had reached the end of its script and now held still, awaiting further instructions.

Red... Was there a palace in this area? Was that its color? Faye gritted her teeth against a rising tide of frustration and helplessness. Had the same thing really happened again? All she had been through, all she and Halcyon had done to try to fix the one that broke in Ironridge, and now it was happening again? She had to be wrong. This had to be caused by something else. Something else, that gave her the same weird sensation that a feeling in the air she had never been without was suddenly missing.

She gritted her teeth. She needed someone to tell her that she was off on a goose chase, that there was no way it had all been for nothing and things were failing faster than she could fix them... and then suddenly, as if responding to her wishes, Halcyon was there.

Her ghostly other self flew down through the frozen weather, her face a pensive mask.

"Well?" Faye asked, praying for good news.

"I went up above the clouds," Halcyon reported. "I know what you're thinking, and the sky's normal, at least. But a really long ways to the south, near the mountains, there's a giant ruby tower just like the one that appeared in Ironridge."

She didn't need to say the last part: it definitely hadn't been there before. Faye could feel it, could recognize this lack of something in the air. She already knew.

Faye sat down in the wet grass without speaking. That felt natural, at least.

"...Are you alright?" Halcyon asked. "Something still wrong with our body?"

"Why is this happening?" Faye whispered. "What's going to happen if it continues? It's not fair. I'd just started getting used to the idea of playing a role in the world again, and..."

"...Put me back in charge," Halcyon offered. "We'll figure out something we can do. I think the first step is getting our ship back in the air, then making it to that crystal tower to see if there's still a flame we can save."

"Right," I said, back on the bridge with Puddles, Lissa and Flarefeather, trying to piece together the least-alarming way to lay out what I knew. "So I don't think it's the end of the world in a 'we'll all be dead by tomorrow' sense..."

"Highly reassuring," Lissa told me, nodding.

"What I want to know is, how's your luck this bad?" Flarefeather asked, looking sideways at me. "Listen, I let you drill through my head how you were super cursed and all the ways stepping outside our safe little tower could go badly, but do you have a calamity djinn breathing down your back or something?"

I shook my head. "If it makes you feel any different, these conditions probably reach Wilderwind too. The important thing is, this is the same thing that happened in Ironridge, except a different rule of how the world works has stopped functioning. And it's happened at other points in the world throughout history too. I don't know if we can fix it, or even why it happened, but there's a giant crystal tower that caused it by appearing somewhere to the south, and the first step is to get there so we can investigate."

"Oh, so fixing it is on the table!" Flarefeather brightened, still clearly freaked out. "That's good. That's great! I've always wanted to save the world. Is there no one better qualified to, you know, turn the weather back on?"

"There had better be, because I'm not very qualified," I sighed.

"You say that," Lissa pointed out, "while laying out a plan of action. Apparently you've seen this before? And Flarefeather was telling me how once you're done in the Empire, you're meaning to go stop a war in Yakyakistan?" She raised an eyebrow at Puddles. "Even you don't throw yourself in front of stuff like that."

Puddles gave her a challenging look. "Guess what problem we're about to be throwing ourselves in front of."

I straightened up a little, relieved to have Puddles' backing - I knew a whole lot about getting myself into trouble that I didn't have the resources to see through. "Well, let's get to it. How's the ship?"

"Out of power." Puddles grimaced. "Whatever that red shock wave was that swept by when the weather froze, it caused all of our batteries to go as empty as they day they were made... Meh. Didn't I already say this?" She glanced at me, then shook her head. "So I hate to say it, but before we can go flying off to save the day, we need to get to a city and trade for some filled batteries."

I frowned, noting that they had seen it and it apparently had effects on the world other than whatever it did to me... We hadn't just ran out by accident, right? Had it actually neutralized all of the stored mana energy in the ship's reserves? Bizarre.

"So what does that mean, a little cross-country flying?" Flarefeather raised an eyebrow. "I'm no lazybones, but can't say I've practiced that too much in Wilderwind."

"Unless you wanted to stay with the ship," Puddles said. "I'd feel more comfortable if someone did, but none of us are suited for it. The Izvalden capital is very close, and I should be able to negotiate for supplies as a free favor from its ruler. I'm not sending you three there while I stay behind. I'm not leaving you or your friend behind while I go. And Halcyon, I'd trust to stay behind and keep watch, but since she seems to know the most about what's happening out of any of us, I want her present to investigate and ask questions."

"Lord Izvaldi?" Flarefeather tilted her head. "I know that's where we were going before all this happened, but this sure is going to make for an uplifting family reunion."

Lissa nodded. "Or we could not bring it up at all. If we're trying to get in and out quickly, none of them need to find out you're a lost member of the Izvalden royal family."

As they talked, my thoughts drifted to the ship's fifth crew member: Coda. Frozen in an iceberg, and currently hunted by Rhodallis, who wanted her back after I stole her in Gyre. My goals had become immeasurably more complicated after I left her behind the first time, and if we all had to abandon the ship, there was no way I was leaving her again.

"Sounds like we all go," I declared, straightening up. "And keep our wings crossed that the weird weather discourages any bandits from roaming the area. Get ready to travel. Let's not waste any time."

The hills were too muddy and too uneven for me to pull Coda's cart. And so, I wound up carrying her on my back instead.

Step after step, I tromped through the stilled world, bringing up the back of the procession. Puddles led the way, dressed fully in her Black Knight armor and carrying a sack that held the ship's empty mana cores. Lissa and Flarefeather both flew, wearing their Wilderwind Escort uniforms, preferring to keep their glittery indoor boots out of the mud.

It didn't take long to reach the edge of the storm, the rain falling off and the clouds growing patchy enough to let starlight through. I stared up at the sky as I walked, feeling far more relief than I should have to see the stars twinkle, alive and vibrant instead of Ironridge's blank gray.

But my view of the sky didn't last long. Soon after we found a road, a fog bank descended to replace the storm, the suspended clouds getting lower and lower until we were walking through a hazy curtain of mist. Unlike for the raindrops, we didn't seem to leave any noticeable trails, though maybe that was because there was nothing to see beyond the fog save for more fog. Either way, my bracelet glowed green, providing light for all of us as we trudged onward towards the capital.

"Psst," Flarefeather whispered in my ear as I walked, hovering low to the ground.

"Eh?" It didn't feel wise to raise my voice, either.

"Your cursed glowing bracelet thing," Flarefeather breathed. "It doesn't take energy to glow like that? Guess it didn't get drained like the ship's batteries?"

I glanced down at it. Where did my bracelet's power come from? I didn't get tired out from using it too much. I still didn't know nearly enough about what changeling queen crowns were, where they came from, the mechanism that made this one mine, and how they worked... Questions that were especially relevant after whatever Faye and I had done to get it to work inside that bubble with Procyon. It definitely wasn't mana technology. But was there a way to extract or convert its power into mana?

Another idea for the pile of things to research once I had a lab again.

"No answer? Huh." Flarefeather drifted out of my personal space. "Guess that means you never thought about it before."

I plodded along, keeping Coda balanced and daydreaming about all the possible applications I could find for a converter that attached to my bracelet and made renewable mana from whatever its green flames were. Powered armor like Puddles, powered weapons, recharging the airship, perhaps even a rudimentary jetpack...

The fog was too thick to make out the terrain as we followed the road, but someone had probably spent effort making it flatter, and we passed through thin stretches bounded by trees and longer stretches without any in sight. And eventually, after what I judged to be four to five miles, I started picking up on the outskirts of a city.

Houses began cropping up with dark windows, lining the road and extending back into the fog. Small alleys and larger roads branched off to the sides, vanishing quickly between the single-story buildings, not organized into any apparent city block structure. Dim structures on the street corners looked like they were supposed to house street lighting, but were all presently extinguished. That was weird, and more than a little disconcerting.

In fact, I didn't see lights anywhere. Had whatever happened to our power supplies hit this whole town as well?

...I didn't see any other signs of life at all, either. Hopefully that was just because it was the early hours of the morning.

Fortunately, Puddles seemed to know the layout of the streets, because she led us into progressively richer-looking districts as we proceeded - none that I'd actually describe as rich, but still more elegant homes with larger yards and better street planning than the ones on the outskirts.

"We're almost to Lord Izvaldi's manor," Puddles remarked under her breath. "Its owner is something of a night owl, so odds are we'll have to deal with him directly. Either way, look cool, be stoic and leave all the talking to me. Remember, our only goal is to swap the dead mana cores for charged ones and then be on our way."

"Got it," Lissa quietly agreed.

"Not to be a downer," Flarefeather warned, "but I haven't seen a single sign that this town has power since we arrived. What if they don't have any to trade?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Puddles grunted back.

I was with Flarefeather on this. If the town had any power, I should have seen it by now.

At the end of a road lined on both sides with very nice homes, we arrived at a proper mansion, a pair of pegasus guards stationed at the gate: together, they marked the first people I had seen since disembarking the ship. I wasn't quite ready for the relief I felt at seeing proof that the city wasn't a ghost town.

"Black Knight!" the guards greeted, bowing as one. "Your timing couldn't be better...!"

"So I gather," Puddles said, adopting her gruff knight persona, her features completely hidden beneath her armor.

"We're in a sorry state to receive you," one of the guards apologized. "The town abruptly lost power about three hours ago. And there's some disturbing news coming in through the teleportation guild, though I'm assuming it's all related to the reason you're here..."

The other guard was rolling open the mansion's heavy iron gate. "Do you know anything about what's going on out there, Black Knight?"

"Nothing I can talk about," Puddles grunted. "Your power stores. Are they depleted too?"

The first guard grimaced. "I've been out here since the lights went out. Couldn't tell you. Only heard what the runner from the guild had to say when I let them in."

Puddles nodded, walking in through the open gate, the guards assuming we were her entourage and waving us in too. "I'll see what I can do."

I followed her through the mansion's curated courtyard, past hedge sculptures that looked like shadow puppets against the mist. Flarefeather and Lissa both landed, now that there was an actual stone path instead of muddy grass, and I shifted Coda's trolley from my back onto the ground so it looked a little less eye-catching... though with how much mist had condensed into frost on its surface, it was fully impossible to see that there was a filly inside.

We reached a large stone patio that served as the entryway. One of the guards swung open a pair of sturdy oak double doors, motioned for us to step inside, and then hurried in ahead of us, treading carefully in the dark.

My bracelet cast a sinister light on the checkered, black-and-white marble floor as we waited. The foyer had two symmetrical staircases, each footed near a low table with a couch and tea set, several stone pillars holding up the roof. All of these cast shadows on the walls that moved as I did, barely visible due to the light source moving along with me. It created the illusion that something was hiding behind every single hiding place in the room, always ducking out of sight just as I shifted to better see it.

The one thing the foyer didn't have was a sense of depth. It was wider than it was long, and there was no door or hall deeper into the mansion directly across from the entrance. All the ways forward were either to the sides or up the stairs, plus a couple of small doors that weren't symmetrical and didn't line up with the middle of the room. Instead, the far wall had two bookcases, a nightstand with a vase, a portrait of a fat old pegasus in a kingly robe, and a grandfather clock. None of it symmetrically arranged.

All of that, combined with the overdone symmetry everywhere else in the room, created the impression that the far wall wasn't supposed to be there, that under normal circumstances it wouldn't be there, and it had been put there just for me to show that I wasn't welcome. I decided immediately that I didn't like this place.

A light glowed in one of the doors - all of which were mostly closed, but cracked open just a little - before it swung open, guided by the telltale shimmer of unicorn telekinesis. From the number of hoofsteps and amount of muttering that approached, there were quite a few creatures about to enter.

The procession was spearheaded by two middle-aged ponies in sharp business suits: a unicorn mare who was the source of the aura, and a pegasus stallion with dark, lithe features and a slicked-back mane who wore a katana at his side. The mare brightened her aura, and the stallion nodded to Puddles in a small show of respect.

Next up was the pegasus from the portrait, a large, elderly stallion who wore a clearly fake black toupe and might have once had an impressive figure, but had badly gone to seed. He looked flabby and sour, not at all like he was living in the kind of luxury his deep purple, spotted fur-lined robe or gem-crusted crown would suggest.

Behind him were three servants, all sharply dressed yet clearly differentiated in demeanor from the two who had entered first. Those two were important.

"Ah!" the kingly pegasus exclaimed, his voice warbling in a practiced manner, as if he thought speaking with a trill made him sound more refined. "The Black Knight! Your timing is adequate. I have need of you! We are in the middle of an emergency. And none of my incompetent, so-called servants are willing to do as I ask and fix it. You, on the other hoof, have never failed to disappoint! So, when can I expect you to fix this... this, this..." He waved a hoof in a circle, fishing for words. "This outrageous farce that has visited my beautiful kingdom?"

I winced every time he rolled an R.

"That's why I'm here," Puddles grunted. "Give me the details, and any mana cores you can spare, and I'll see it done."

"Details?" The pegasus, who could only be Lord Izvaldi, squinted at her. "You mean you don't already know? Consul Barrows has been murdered on my beautiful property, and now I am the prime suspect! There we were, drinking wine over a game of chess while discussing the latest in theater from Stormhoof, when he keeled over! The Consul collapsed right in front of me, didn't even have the decency to set his drink down first so it wouldn't spill. Very expensive wine, you know. And a very expensive floor! Richer than anything the servants cleaning it can buy, I see to that much. You will clear my good name with the Consulate, yes?" He leaned forward, squinting at Puddles with his beady eyes. "I can't have their... their soldiers coming and tromping around my beautiful home."

"And the power outage?" Puddles asked.

"Ah, the power outage," Lord Izvaldi puffed, seemingly struggling to breathe over his inflated girth. "Set up by the Consulate as cover for raiding my estate, no doubt. That's not what they'll tell you, but doesn't it make sense? It is imperative to clear my name, yet none... none of my useless servants were willing to do as I asked when I told them to fix it! What do they think I pay them for, to say no when their lord has a request?" He eyed up Puddles harder. "You never... ignore my requests, do you?"

As he rambled with the force and bravado of an avalanche, I turned to Lissa and Flarefeather, raising an eyebrow higher and higher. Both of them were standing inconspicuously in the cover provided by Coda's iceberg, their expressions turning increasingly incredulous with every second the pegasus talked.

"This is Crowscone Izvaldi?" Lissa whispered, peering out at the spectacle. "The guy you said is your dad?"

"Better not be," Flarefeather whispered back, mortified. "First time I've ever actually seen him, and I have so many questions... Dead Consuls are really bad, right? You think that's linked to the weather, and the power outage, and...?"

"Yeah, well, I've only got one," Lissa quietly countered, looking like she wanted to squish Flarefeather's cheeks. "How did you turn out so cute? Your dad is kinda gross, girl."

I made a sharp gesture at them to focus. Their relationship with adventuring might still have been in its honeymoon phase, but tonight felt poised to end that with a vengeance.