Tigerbright led Violet toward the edge of the cliff before bearing to hir left. The mare then saw that part of the cliff had a reasonably broad ledge sloping down the face of it, neatly bypassing the boulders that she had levitated over. A closer look at the rock face revealed the strata where the softer stone had eroded and broken free to produce the ledge. The shelf only ran about thirty meters but it reached a cleft that gave them some natural steps, albeit very uneven ones. Violet had little trouble negotiating them, and they were laughably easy for the feline taur. The mare blushed a bit when they reentered the forest no more than five minutes after they left the hilltop. It had taken thirty minutes to scramble up over the obstacles even with the help of her magic.

Now that she was being guided, the mare noticed the slightly unnatural touches to the route that they were taking. Gaps between bushes were too conveniently aligned, fallen branches were parallel to their route, and so forth. This was soon confirmed when the chakat pulled out pruning shears from her backpack and trimmed an offending growth here and there. Violet decided to do her bit to help and levitated some rocks to the side that Tigerbright had stepped over. Despite this attention, the path was quite faint. This was not too surprising if it was only trodden by one person on the weekends. Nature was a lot more resilient than that.

A fairly sharp bend in the trail made Violet frown thoughtfully. “I think I crossed this trail on the way up. I didn’t take it because it headed toward the cliff and I wanted to go further upward.”

Tigerbright pointed over hir left shoulder with hir thumb. “There’s a gully and boulders that way; nice to look at but awkward to traverse.”

“Yeah, I found that out the hard way.”

“That’s why I want to make this a proper hiking trail, so more hikers can take in the view without dealing with things like that. Not everyone is as enthusiastic about tackling obstacles as people like us.”

“If you like it so much, why have you confined yourself to just this route? You have a very large island to explore.”

The chakat grimaced. “Because they won’t let me.”

“Huh?” The pony raised a puzzled eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware of any such restrictions. I need to know because I have to go off-trail to achieve my goals.”

Tigerbright chuckled. “But you’re not the colony’s Chief Administrator for the Chakonan Government.”

Violet blinked in surprise. “I knew that you worked in the CWG office, but you’re the top authority?”

“Yep. For security and safety’s sake, I’m not allowed to go far from the town by myself, so anything I do has to be completed within a day. And, so far, I have not met anyone else who enjoyed bushwalking and camping for their own sakes.”

“Well, that sucks. I have to admit that you seem a bit young for such a senior post. Not that I’m an expert judge of chakat age or anything.”

“No, you’re judgment is correct. Normally, I would not have qualified for the position because I didn’t have much seniority. However, due to something you brought up earlier, I got my chance. As you pointed out, Emu Island is a long distance from just about everything, and it’s a very young colony to boot. Not only wasn’t it a prestigious posting, it was also isolated from friends and family. Nobody put their hand up for the position except me. I saw it as a golden opportunity because I am very career-minded and it was a way of quickly boosting my status, not to mention my pay-grade. Best of all, it gave me a place to indulge in my bushwalking hobby.” Shi chuckled wryly. “That was before I discovered the limitations that would be imposed upon me. Still, I don’t regret my decision.”

“So, you got the position simply because they had no other choice?”

Tigerbright shook hir head. “Not exactly. The minister could have appointed someone despite their preferences. My volunteering was entirely dependent upon whether there would be another chakat sent along with me. Fortunately, although there wasn’t one in my department, the colony governor had put in a request for a local biology expert to work with the earth pony environmental team, and Morningmist was available. And that’s how I got the job.”

“Why did there have to be another chakat going with you?”

“Because there weren’t any here already.”

“You get lonely?”

The chakat snorted in amusement. “No. It’s a minor problem we have. As I said earlier, I’m an empath – all chakats are. But while that gives us the ability to feel other people’s emotions, it was intended to give our species a sense of community. Unfortunately, it’s too powerful. We actually need empathic interaction on a regular basis for our mental health. We can’t go too long without it before we start having detrimental effects.”

“Like what?”

“Hallucinations at first, delusions, then total mental breakdown.”

“Yikes! Seems like a major problem to me.”

“Not really. Back at Amistad, there are chakats around you all the time. Even if you don’t live there, chakats tend to live in clans, with several others in the home. It’s normally a non-issue.”

“So, what do you do here?” Violet asked, totally intrigued by now. “I take it that Morningmist doesn’t work with you?”

“No, shi works out of another office in town. Shi’s also mated to a stellar foxtaur and lives elsewhere.”

“I would have guessed you two would have shared accommodations like us immigrants.”

Tigerbright shook hir head. “Shi and hir mate have three cubs and need a place of their own. We have to schedule a regular meet-up to get in our empathic sessions.”

“How long do they take?”

“If we just have a conversation and socialize, about four hours or more.”

“That seems a pretty large chunk of time to spend with someone just for that purpose.”

“True. Although we’re friends, we don’t have much in common, so finding enough stuff to chat about isn’t easy. Fortunately, we do have an alternative. The effectiveness of empathic interaction is entirely dependent on its intensity. The better we know each other, the stronger our feelings and the shorter the time required. And there’s one activity that can reduce that period to only half an hour.”

“Okay, I’ll bite – what is it?”

Tigerbright grinned. “Recreational sex!”

Violet blinked. “You mean every couple of weeks you go around to hir place and you buck each other?”

The chakat giggled. “I like your euphemism. But yes, that’s essentially it, although shi comes to my place for privacy’s sake.”

“And hir mate doesn’t mind?”

“Hir mate knew exactly what shi was getting into when shi denned up with Morningmist and again when their family moved out to the untamed wilderness. Shi and I are on quite good terms actually.”

“So, Morningmist just comes around and you screw for a while before shi leaves, saying, ‘See you in two weeks’?”

“Well, it sounds pretty sterile when you put it like that, but just because it’s an essential activity doesn’t mean that we aren’t allowed to enjoy ourselves. Recreational sex is extremely pleasant and we have fun switching things up. But a couple of intense orgasms are enough to recharge us mentally, so we don’t prolong the meetings.”

Violet grinned wryly. “That’s something I never expected to learn about your kind. I wonder what other surprises you have in store?”

Just then, their path opened up onto a ledge which, like the peak, overlooked the township. The way the cliff curved around, it enabled the mare to see the tower they had left behind. It also gave them a view of the colony further east than at the summit due to the lay of the land. The sun was past its zenith and Violet had to shade her eyes, but the scenery was just as breathtaking as earlier. Tigerbright paused there, letting the unicorn take in the sight.

“Whenever I see this, I don’t regret my decision to come here despite the inconvenience,” the chakat said quietly.

“I haven’t been here long enough to have regrets, but I can still empathize with you there. Literally.”

Tigerbright looked at the mare, cocked hir head, and frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that I have some empathic talent too.”

The chakat looked at the mare quizzically. “I’ve never heard of that being a pony trait.”

“It isn’t, normally. I owe mine to my great grandfather.”

“He wasn’t a pony?”

“Nope. Changeling actually. Due to a flaw in the first version of the compatibility spell that enabled him to have children, his foals all had a unique talent. Mine comes from his second daughter, my grandmother.”

Tigerbright looked thoughtful. “Hmm… well, that explains why I’ve been feeling extra chipper. I think I’ve been unconsciously interacting with you empathically since we met.”

“I guess so. I’m not used to dealing with empaths, so I’m not familiar with the sensation.”

“Not even with changelings?”

“It’s different for them. They consume emotions while it manifests another way in ponies.”

The chakat stuck hir tongue out briefly. “Different is right. Meeting a changeling for the first time was uncomfortable for me because they are an empathic void. I can see a living, thinking being right in front of me, but to my empathic sense, there’s no one there.”

“I can see how that would seem weird. Having been around them all my life, it’s something you get used to.”

“I suppose so,” the chakat conceded as shi turned away from the view and resumed the trek.

After a while, Violet said, “If being with me has perked you up that much, does that mean you’re due to get a visit from Morningmist soon?”

“Yep. Tomorrow, in fact.”

“Do you mind if I ask a personal question?”

Tigerbright looked back over hir shoulder with a smirk on hir face. “Bet you I’ve heard it before. Go ahead – I’m pretty easy.”

“What’s it like being a hermaphrodite?”

“What’s it like being only female?” shi shot back.

“Huh? I don’t understand.”

“You Equestrians have this weird image of us being some sort of chimera of a male and a female mashed together somehow. While it’s true that we have both sets of genitalia, we don’t think of ourselves as a mare with a penis or a stallion with a uterus. We are whole beings. Just as you probably can’t imagine what it would be like to possess a stallion’s equipment and temperament, I can’t understand what it would be like to be only male or only female.”

“Oh. You have a point.”

“However, if you want to talk about our sexuality, that’s a different subject. I’m not greatly familiar with your species yet, but I believe that you have a fairly broad range. I mean, you don’t just have heterosexual couples but also mares with mares and stallions with stallions?”

“That’s right, although the latter is rare.”

“Due to the relative scarcity of stallions, I understand. But that spectrum does exist, and the same is true for chakats. I will say in advance that there’s no such thing as a chakat that doesn’t like both sides of hir sexuality. However, having established that, there’s still a huge range of attitudes towards sex. Some prefer female sex most of the time and others love doing the mounting. I’ve also met one who dresses in the girliest clothes but is definitely male-inclined when it comes to sex. Anyway, on a scale of zero to ten where zero is totally masculine and ten is totally feminine, chakats occupy the entire range from one to nine. Most are five or six though.”

“What are you?” Violet asked with a grin.

The chakat returned the smile. “Other than when my cycle swings to my heat, I’d say I’m a two. How about you?”

“I guess I’m an eight. Most mares are interested at least a bit in other mares. It helps whenever we go into season.”

“I hear that’s a lot more intense than when we go into heat.”

“Yeah. It doesn’t matter even if you’re a dedicated fillyfooler normally – hormones make you crave a stallion badly.”

“That’s why your stallions go elsewhere at those times, right?”

“Correct. Self-control is almost non-existent.”

Tigerbright chuckled. “And you thought I had problems!”

Violet grinned. “At least it’s only about one week a year for me.”

“But I get to have sex,” the chakat countered with a smirk.

“You win!”

They both laughed and continued on their way.

# # # # # # #

Author's Note

Part 2 of The Chat coming soon!

Thanks to Airy Words for his feedback.