One Last Mission

Underside, San Palomino

Day 15

“Well, most everything looks good,” the doctor said. The unicorn wrote something down on a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard, an exhausted yet genuine smile on their face. “Have no idea how your body healed itself from that, but the world is full of mysteries. If it wasn’t for the damage to your mental health, you might be one of the only true bonafid miracles a medical professional has ever seen.”

I simply nodded at the mares' words, staying silent and hoping that this would end sooner rather than later. Most of my morning had been like this; checks to make sure every piece of my body was truly as healed as it looked, some mental tests to see if there was any damage there, that stuff. It didn’t take a medical expert to tell me that I was completely fine in the former, the second…

They were keeping quiet about it. They had noticed the changes there, clearly.

While it maybe should have worried me a little, all I wanted was for it to end. There was a piece of me begging to once again get outside, though this time it was not because of a beautiful night sky. Sharpshot, Gemmy, Willow, they would all likely be up around now, and I wanted to let them know that I was alright. It would also mean telling them who I now was, but that was something that couldn’t be avoided.

That wasn’t currently possible. Instead of getting a rather difficult discussion over with, I was dealing with boring – albeit rather important – medical shit. If I was lucky, the monotony of it all might be broken up by one of them visiting, likely Sharpshot given his talents.

“Missus Rhap– Macabre,” the doctor called out. I had stopped paying attention to her for a second, the sudden surge of pain from her speaking one of my half’s names the thing to pull me back. “Apologies.”

“You’re… you’re fine,” I replied, sucking in a huge amount of air as I did. “I’m getting used to it myself. The pain was not something I expected, or any other part of this.”

“Of course. I promise to be more careful, for your comfort,” they explained, smiling just the tiniest bit brighter. “Magic and the spiritual world is not my area of expertise, unfortunately. I’m afraid any help we could give you would be negligible at best and possibly harmful at worst. As close as your condition is to Dissociative Identity Disorder, it isn’t one and the same and I refuse to give you anything when it’s more than likely common medicine won’t help.”

I nodded, having anticipated the answer well before everything had started. They had done everything they could for me, far more than they probably knew. It made me feel just the tiniest bit more guilty about my midnight escape the previous night. At the very least, admitting there was nothing they could do likely meant I’d be out of this clinic sooner rather than later. That was relieving.

“While I’m unable to help, I do know of a pony – or zebra rather – that might be able to help,” they said, placing the clipboard onto the countertop opposite of the bed. “Another medium, like yourself. Rather well known, exceedingly odd, but more well versed in magic and its origins than any unicorn I know.”

I tilted my head. “Another medium?”

“Yes. Their name is Liberty, a legend of his own out here.” They turned to me, discomfort undoing their smile. “I wouldn’t recommend somecreature like them from a moral or medical angle, but you are the first of your case. None other more respected, and distrusted, medium out there.”

“Liberty. That was the zebra responsible for the ward talisman in Nowhere.”

I shuddered as the memory surfaced all on its own. The pain from that talisman, it flashed through my body, as real as it was all the way back then. Same went with the hate Malt spat when talking about them. The doctor was right: if anycreature knew, it was likely going to be him. Still, if what I was hearing was right…

“What do you mean distrusted?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s simple to explain,” the doctor replied. “He trades with the Equalists.”

The doctor left a bit later to fill out some last bits of paperwork, my release nearly finalized. Thus I was alone again, with all the time in the world to figure out how to explain my predicament to my friends. Countless different versions of the same message ran through my head, none feeling exactly right. Too blunt or melancholic, impossible to predict reactions, it was hard to put completely together with my brain not running at one hundred percent. Like anypony, though, I did everything I could to figure out those right words anyways.

Yet a pony can only do so much to predict the future before their reactions turn to fiction and fantasy. We were living beings, after all; logic and emotion rolled into one, though not always in a perfect unison. No matter how well you know someone, it is impossible to call every action they make. It only made sense that I would deal with that same snag here, given the very nature of the interaction I was attempting to plan out.

It didn’t stop the knock on the door from being entirely unexpected. I turned to face it, having got off the bed so I could pace while thinking. My initial thought was that the doctor had returned, but all it took was a voice both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time to dispel that.

“Danse Mac… M-M-Macabre,” a mare called out from the otherside of the door. “It’s Will… Willow. C-Can I….”

I hadn’t prepared for them to come to me.

Instead of giving her a yes or no, I hurriedly trotted up to the door and opened it up. I was greeted by a familiar alicorn, her wing rubbing the outside of her neck in discomfort. The way she beamed upon seeing me, I was honestly surprised that I wasn’t immediately strangled. When she did hug me, it was surprisingly gentle, using only her wings instead of her forelegs. I returned it back, melting slightly at the comfort of her wings.

“I got the new name correct, right?” she asked, lowering her head to better look at me. I gave her a nod. “Thank goodness.”

“I’m guessing the doctor told you everything,” I said as we removed our wings from each other. I took a few steps back, allowing the alicorn inside. Looking at her now, I couldn’t help but feel there was noticeably less white in her coat than before. “I’m… surprised at how well you are taking this.”

“Oh, trust me, hearing about everything definitely hurt,” Willow replied, practically jumping onto the bed I had stayed in the night prior, “but considering everything I’ve witnessed in my life, I feel like it could be worse. A lot worse.”

“I’m a bit afraid to know exactly what you mean by that?”

“Ever seen an earth pony slowly dissolve into gravel because they touched a little blue plant?” she asked. I felt my entire body tighten up just trying to picture what she was saying. “Ever seen a craven or ghoul in their last minutes as themselves? Have you lived so long that you’ve watched nearly everypony you know die, and your only escape means either given in to that aforementioned plant or–”

Willow closed her eyes, one of her forehooves sinking so far into the upper part of the mattres I was surprised she hadn’t made a hole in it. Her wings were flared slightly, her face stuck between anger and discomfort. Once again she started rubbing at her neck as she took in deep breath after deep breath, all in an attempt to keep herself calm.

“I’ve lived for longer than most anypony around these days, Rh– Danse,” she explained. “Nearly a century and a half, and that is far longer than our minds are meant to last. I’ve seen communities rise and fall, beautiful stories turned into tragedies because of any number of messed up reasons or horrible mistakes.”

Her wings settled again after one small flap, her eyes opening so that she may look me in the eyes.

“I don’t really show it that often, but I’m tired. Until we met, two weeks ago, the only reason I had left to live was… thinking how upset Sharpy would be if I died. You want to know why I’m taking it so well? It’s because I’ve caused, seen, and suffered enough personally that very little shakes me.”

There was no way to respond to that, at least without feeling like my words weren’t enough. With slow steps, I made my way over to the bed and sat down next to her. One of my wings rested itself on her back, my hope being that it would be enough to get across the fact that I understood her feelings. It wasn’t enough, there was no possible way it could have been enough, but it was something. More than words would ever do, that is for certain.

“Sorry. Shouldn’t have dumped that on you so soon,” Willow said. A foreleg went to rub her withers. “Been a bit… all over the place, emotionally. Quite a bit has been going on in this head of mine recently.”

“You’re not the only one,” I replied. “My head is an absolute mess. It’s impossible to tell Rhapsody apart from Dead Hooves.”

“They are in there though, right?” she asked me, leaning down. I nodded. “Then we will figure something out. I’m sure they’d both prefer to be themselves than you… no offense.”

Though her words were certainly blunt, they weren’t wrong. I felt it, the remaining will both mares had, clinging onto those words of hope. Both knew it was unlikely, borderline impossibilities, but it did everything in its power to try and worm its way into my brain. I almost growled at the thoughts, forcing them down and reminding these bits of individuality exactly what I had told them last night.

This body was mine.

“Ours, now yours,” that individuality said.

“None taken,” I lied. Willow did not need to know of the little voices in my head. “I’m just happy to see you alright. How about the others? Are they okay?”

“Sharpy is fine… at least physically,” Willow answered. Her lips pulled themselves into something trying to be both a smile and frown at once. “He’d never admit how worried he was about you, at least in front of everypony else. Even when you started healing, he seemed more about you then himself. As for Three, he got banged up a bit. Currently recovering where we can’t visit him.”

As if I didn’t have enough reason to believe Falke’s words last night, that practically settled it. Willow went deathly quiet afterwards, not a single word about Gold’s wellbeing. He was, indeed, not with us anymore. A spark of rage worked its way into the front of my mind, teeth gritted.

“Gold tried to kill me, didn’t he?”

Willow’s eyes went wide, though the shock that it was formed from wasn’t one of fear. Even assuming she had been told about my little excursion the previous night, no one but Falke and myself had been present for that small bit of conversation. There was no way for her to know that I had learned about the griffon’s departure from our party, not unless she had gained the ability to read minds while I was out cold. The aforementioned shock made it clear that wasn’t the case, of course.

“How… why do you know about–” She shook her head, banishing the shock as swiftly as it had come. “Sharpy was supposed to have this conversation with you, not me. He’d be here too but, well, Gemini needed a bit of a distraction after seeing you unconscious.”

“That’s… understandable,” I replied. “I’m guessing that means what I was told is right?”

Willow nodded, a rare and unusual frown on her face. Everything I knew about the mare had led me to believe she saw killing in the same way foals saw a new toy. For this to be such a clear outlier was a sign I was wrong. There was a line, one Gold had crossed.

“Whatever he tried, you don’t need to worry about it,” I told Willow, placing a hoof on the foreleg closest to me. “What I am now is not a result of whatever he did, so don’t dwell on it.”

Willow closed her eyes, letting out a sigh. “You ask us the impossible, Danse.”

I withdrew my hoof and shuffled away from my friend. Though the words were carried through the same telepathic means that I had gotten used to from the alicorn, the words seemed off. The voice was hers, yet not hers at the same time. Where Willow carried this crazed foal-like innocence in her voice, there was something more… maternal here. Still deranged in its own way, but where the mare I knew was simply insane there was a gravitas here. It didn’t fit, and that only grew more clear when she opened her eyelids and smiled at me.

Though it was Willow’s face, it wasn’t Willow’s expression. It was weird, uncanny, different in ways so minute that, even knowing they existed, I couldn’t truly point any out. Perhaps her lips didn’t reach just high enough, her mouth was just the tiniest bit open, or maybe her ears and eyelids were off. I don’t know what was wrong and yet, looking at her, I felt a shiver going down my spine.

Not the shiver I got when the mare before me said something horrible in a far too innocent manner. No, it was the kind of shiver one got when they were talking to somepony of far higher station. An orphan foal talking to a High Councillor, a new employee talking to a CEO of some old world company…

A mare who didn’t even truly understand what she was, standing before a goddess.

“We cannot sit idle as a potential threat still holds their life,” the not-Willow replied. It was quickly dawning on me who exactly was using my friend’s face, causing my stomach to twist. “Oddity as you are among our kind, you are no less one of us, the future of Equestria. Let your worries and fears fade away, Danse Macabre. You need never be scared of anything again."

She slowly reached a hoof up to my face, attempting to console me as if I was a scared filly. I stood still, glaring back at not–Willow as harshly as possible, hoping to convey my feelings to the creature that had taken control of her. They didn’t stop, their hoof getting closer and closer, aimed for my left cheek specifically. I went to raise a hoof up and push it away, but there was no need.

In a flash, the alicorn’s before me recoiled away from me of their own volition. She closed her eyes yet again, snarling at herself, body quaking as she held her wings to her side like shields. Quick, loud, fearful breaths left her muzzle as she slowly opened them again, suddenly on the verge of crying. It was equally as non-Willow as the words I had heard earlier, but the sudden change in reaction made it clear that this time, it was her.

“Willow?” I called out to her, shuffling closer. “Willow is that–

With no warning, Willow let her horn and disappeared. My brow rose, and I quickly galloped over to where she was. I reached a hoof out to touch her, only to find nothing but air. The door for the room opened wide, and then shut itself without any further warning. With a single flap of my wings, I catapulted myself towards, hoof reaching for the door knob. Grasping it tightly, I opened it and gave it to her…

Only for control of my body to once again be taken away.

“What are you– let go of me!” I shouted, fighting to make any part of my body outside from my lips move even the tiniest bit. It didn’t budge. “It’s my body, and I want to help Willow. Stay where you are supposed to and leave me alone!”

“And if we let you go after Willow, how will you find her?” My two halves asked. “Do you know where she is heading right now? As long as she is invisible, we can’t exactly follow her.”

Curse them. Curse them and their ability to make sense. Their control over me lessened, and I placed my hoof on the floor, staring at the knob as if I could burn a hole in it. Everything I had heard out of Willow’s mouth played in my head, the subtle yet sudden shift sending shivers down my spine from memory alone. It didn’t take a stable pony to figure out what I had just witnessed, or why my friend had fled in fear.

Still, even then, the way the Goddess spoke felt… different.

“Gentle, acting almost like a mother and yet that slightest bit… off,” I murmured to myself, hoping my inner selves would understand. “Certainly paints a picture but it feels….”

“I see it too. It’s entirely different from our memory of her, or at the very least her ‘children’,” they replied. “Either, judging by her wording she knows we can use magic. Apparently that is enough for her to see us as one of her own. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not.”

“This is the Goddess we are talking about. Assume the worst from her, just like you would Red Eyes,” I said. It felt weird to say, as if I was both convincing myself and a different pony at the same time. “She’s made it clear from past interactions she doesn’t care about pegasi, and the same goes for Sharpshot.”

“On that, we all agree,” my inner selves replied.

The doctor checked in on us not long after Willow Wisp left, probably expecting we had made an attempt to leave before we were supposed to. The look of relief on their face upon seeing me still within the clinic’s walls certainly lessened the wound of having my body once again halt by Rhapsody and Dead Hooves again. Still wasn’t happy with it, but I’ll admit that it kept us out of trouble. From there, all it took was one last talk with the doctor and some paperwork, and we were free.

All the while, Willow had no doubt disappeared to someplace we would remain unable to find them. Hopefully the disappearance wasn’t permanent.

Upon entering the clinic’s lobby, I found a familiar face – or mask technically – waiting for me. I smiled at the sight of Day Glow seated in the corner closest to the door, his hoof waving to me in a hesitant manner. He didn’t share it back, I could tell that much even with only his eyes visible underneath her uniform. They seemed ready to burst, the only thing likely keeping him from crying right here and now being professionalism and the necessity for him to remain anonymous to the general public.

Anonymity didn’t mean a thing when it came to invisibility though. Anycreature else present in the lobby had their eyes on us, and somehow it only seemed to intensify when Day Glow got up from his seat and walked up to me. He was quite aware of said attention as well, eyes darting left and right the entire time, and anyone whose eyes he locked on to for even a second immediately looked away.

“Seems we’re popular.”

As if my talk with Basalt didn’t make that statement clear enough.

Once Day Glow was right in front of me, I found myself doing something that felt… wrong. He wasn’t the tallest pony, but the same went for both of my former selves. I was tilting my neck down to look at him, just as he was craning his neck up to look at me. It felt odd, wrong, and for the briefest of moments it felt like my sight and sense of self had detached from my body. How had I not noticed up until now? Was it because everycreature I had talked to up until now were individuals I either didn’t know or were taller to begin with?

“You okay?” Day Glow whispered, as if something like that was truly incriminating on my pre-Shattered Moon relation to the stallion.

“Kind of, but, um…,” I looked down to my forelegs, and then looked to Day Glow’s own, “why am I taller, Three?”

From somewhere in the lobby a creature snorted at my question, and I’m sure if my innerselves could they would have brought a forehoof to their head in disbelief. All Day Glow did was blink wildly, as if my first choice of words to them was so far out of left field that their brain couldn’t fully grasp it. He closed his eyes once he finally did, closing his eyes and allowing the tears just a little bit of what they wanted. When his eyelids opened again, his eyes only seemed to be even more clouded than they were previously.

“Let’s… let’s talk about that somewhere else,” he whispered, trying his damndest to hold the sorrow in his voice back. “Where is Willow? We both came here together but she went in by herself because, well, you know.”

“Anonymity,” I muttered back. He nodded, and I found myself looking around the lobby to the other creatures present around us. There were far too many around. “Something happened and, well, she ran herself off.”

To my surprise, all the one-winged pegasus did was nodded again at my words. No surprise, no further questions, immediate belief and acceptance of my statement. Considering exactly what that ‘something’ was, it just made me a bit more concerned. Without another word he turned around and ushered me to follow behind him. I did as he asked, my hooves trailing behind his hooves as he left the building.

All it took was a single second in the hot sun for me to instantly regret it. Along with the semi-busy mid-morning streets of Underside, and the immediate gasps and stares I got from just walking out of the clinic, some small, fragile piece of me wished to retreat back inside. Were those stares present the previous night as well? No, the streets were quiet and lonely enough where I would have noticed it. I had gotten lucky then.

It was different, this time.

“Hey, isn’t that–”

“Oh, Miss Gemini is going to be so relieved.”

“The Anomaly is awake! I can’t believe it!”

“Damn. If that ghoul shows up I’m going to look like a fool for calling her dead.”

“What’s the Shattered Moon’s interest in her? Are they going to try and recruit her?”

That last one actually caught my attention as we started to walk west of the clinic. The Shattered Moon, interested in recruiting me… or perhaps more accurately who I used to be. That didn’t seem accurate, however. Nothing about this felt like a recruitment, and considering I had passed out from blood loss back in the desert, me being their pony of choice made even less sense. Sharpshot made far more sense.

“Seems we’re popular,” my inner selves commented. I could easily imagine them puffing out their chest and unfolding their wings in pride at the statement. “This feels pretty damn good. Been a while since we’ve had any true respect.”

“Lightning Cloud and Three don’t count?” I muttered.

“The former is afraid of us and, well, one pony is hardly enough to be considered respected,” they replied. “It gives this… nostalgic feeling. You feel it too, don’t you?”

Out of curiosity, I searched for the feeling they had mentioned inside of me. What I found was fluttering in my chest, which quickly caused my lips to curl upwards in a smile and my gait to become more confident. It was new, yet familiar at the same time, walking this fine line between a wonderful new experience and an old, comforting one. It led me back to Basalt’s words the previous night, or more accurately the moniker that had gotten around in the past twenty-four hours.

The Cloudborne Anomaly, as fitting as it was unnerving. The cloudborne part of it likely just came from me looking like a pegasus, despite really being somewhere in the middle between that and an alicorn. It was the comfortable part of the name, the one which left me more warm inside then cold. The anomaly aspect of it was that cold, the piece of me scared at what it exactly meant. It wasn’t wrong, everything about me was strange, from my looks to my very existence screamed ‘unnatural’. No one dealt well with the unknown.

It made me curious, and more than a little afraid; despite what Basalt said, the moniker might not have been born out of awe. What were the chances that being called an anomaly was meant more as some warning than anything else?

“You’re worrying too much,” my inner self said. I scrunch my nose; as if taking control of my body wasn’t invasive enough, they were now reading my mind. “A title is a title. You’ve worn one before, and you were given it out of love for the Enclave.”

“I wouldn’t relate Lieutenant Colonel to Cloudbourne Anomaly,” I replied. “They are far from the same thing.”

“Yet they are both still titles. We should be proud of them.”

I snorted in annoyance. “I’ll consider it once I’m certain what the cause behind it wa–”

“Talking to another ghost?”

My attention returned to Day Glow, his head turned just far enough to the right to show he was addressing me. My ears feel against my scalp, more than a little embarrassed that he had overheard me. A ghost certainly would be a good excuse for my actions, but lying didn’t feel quite right. Besides, something told me the truth would make him feel far better than any lie I could come up with.

“Myself, actually. Though I guess you can call my former selves ghosts in some strange way,” I explained, piquing the masked stallion’s interest. Something about those words had filled their eyes with pure, uncontainable desperation. They begged for me to continue talking. “I can feel them and hear them, to some extent. Whether I’m talking to Dead Hooves or Rhapsody is impossible to tell, but there are some pieces of them that aren’t completely a part of me.”

Day Glow didn’t need to say a word, his eyes said everything for me. Where once had been confusion, morning, and desperation was now something that looked like… hope. Where that hoped stemmed from, what piece of my explanation had caused it, was unknown to me. Even with their mask, I saw their mouth attempt to move and say something, but they either kept stopping themselves or were resisting it. Was there a question they wished to ask?

In the end, they turned away from me once again and focused back on the road.

“W-we should keep moving, Rhapsody,” he said. I fought through the pain that the mare's name inflicted on me, certain it was just a slip of the tongue. “I have somepony I need to get you to.”

“Okay,” I replied as our legs started moving once more. “If it’s okay for me to ask, who is it?”

“Sharpshot,” Day Glow answered immediately. Something about saying his name made him snort. “I can’t believe I’m admitting this but, he’s pretty good for a horn head. It makes sense you’ve kept him around all this time; first pony I’ve met who has ever been able to fully back up all their shit-talking.”

“That’s… surprising,” I said, tilting my head slightly. “Granted I don’t remember you two being on bad terms, but you weren’t friendly with each other either.”

“Somepony saves your ass, you learn to lighten up on them,” He said. “He saved my life, and then we saved yours together. Incidents like that bring ponies together.”

There was a story there, one that had unfortunately occurred while I was comatose. I never got the specifics on how Sharpshot saved Day’s life, but from context clues and knowledge of the two ponies I had an idea how they saved me. It was certainly better than the opposite, both of them had each other’s throats tossing blame back and forth for my injuries.

Though, nothing said that hadn’t happened, just that it had resolved due to one thing or another. Somecreature attempting to kill me was one way that could happen, and Willow had already confirmed that.

“Thanks, Three,” I said, offering the stallion a smile he couldn’t currently see.

“Don’t apologize to me just yet,” he replied. “Wait until you are yourself again, then I’ll accept it.”

Of all the things I expected to find Sharpshot doing in the middle of the day, sitting on that destroyed statue in the middle of town, drinking a smoothie. In two whole weeks of getting to know the stallion, it was probably the most ordinary thing he had done outside of his little signs of affection towards Willow. He had this pleasant look to his face, possibly the most calm I had seen him in my entire life.

Then I saw who was with him, and I froze up.

“Gemmy?”

There she was, right next to Sharpshot, listening to him talk about something in silence. Her face was downtrodden, her own smoothie barely touched, probably thinking of me… or Rhapsody more likely. This body had belonged to her, everycreature’s words to me had made that clear, but she wasn’t completely me. I thought through all the various ways this could possibly go wrong, of all the ways to break her heart.

I didn’t want that, for despite what parts of me were different I still had those same feelings towards her. One's Rhapsody had pushed down, mostly due to her being unsure of how to feel about them. The motherly love, the pride in seeing Gemmy slowly become more confident, the disgust at everything that had happened to her. Didn’t matter how much my creation had changed me, all of those stayed the same. With it, I admitted quietly what I knew to be true.

This unicorn mare, born a slave, turned into something of an everyday hero to the creatures of Underside for exposing an Equalist spy, was a daughter to me. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t Clear or Rainy, it was how my mind categorized her. Hopefully, she’d allow us to continue thinking of her that way.

“Us?” my inner self asked. “You’re including us in this?”

“You care for her too, don’t you?” I asked back quietly, so as to not sound as insane as I probably was. “We both want what’s best for her. I just… hope she accepts who we are now.”

“I hope so, but it's going to be hard for her either way,” they responded. The wording made it clear more than usual that this was Rhapsody speaking. If it wasn’t for the context of her words, it would have been impossible; she and Dead Hooves sound exactly the same. “I was one of her only real anchors, besides Willow. It’s going to take her some time, but I’m sure she’ll come around.”

As much as I wanted to smile, put on a facade for Gemmy, the only thing my face was capable of showing then was worry. “I hope you’re right.”

Sharpshot noticed us before we reached him, a brief flash of surprise took over his face, fading into relief. I mouthed ‘please don’t’ to myself over and over as he turned to Gemmy, holding onto a useless wish that he did bring her attention our way. A wish destroyed as her eyes locked on me, the happiest smile I had ever seen on her face as she did.

It sent a dagger through my heart, knowing I was about to destroy that.

“Miss Rhapsody!”

The emotional pain paved way to something far more physical as that name left Gemini’s mouth. It was just like the first time, my legs on the verge of failing and my wings opening defensively. Something about her saying it made it several times worse than it actually was, like a parent calling their foal disappointing compared to some random stranger. Even worse, Gemmy saw all of it, placed her smoothie on the statue, and started running towards me in fear.

Well-meaning, but the choice was wrong.

“Miss Rhapsody, are you all right?” She said again. Another surge of stinging pain through every part of my body, my legs collapsing. Poor naïve Gemini had no idea what she was doing. “Miss–”

Day Glow cut her off with his wing, the appendage acting as a barrier between the young mare and myself. It gave me time for the pain to fade, catch my breath a little bit, and start getting back onto my hooves. My eyes looked around, noticing the attention we were getting from other creatures present. Whether it was because of me collapsing, or two ponies the town was now more than familiar with being in the same place didn’t matter.

Day Glow’s wing folded back up, taking a few steps forward so that his body was the makeshift wall now instead of it. Very briefly, his eyes trailed the town square just like I had. After a sigh and shake of his head, he started motion towards our unwanted audience.

“This is none of your concern, keep on moving,” he said, his tone flat yet commanding enough where no one dared to question it.

As asked, hooves paws and otherwise all started moving, the number of gazes on us falling to numbers far more comfortable. Day Glow turned his attention afterwards towards Gemmy.

“Mister Three, i-i-is… is Miss–”

“Shining, listen to me real quick,” Day said, interrupting her before they could say Rhapsody’s name again. “There is some sort of… curse on her, I guess. Whenever we see her name, it hurts her.”

Gemini audibly breathed in, taking a step back. “W-w-wait. You don’t- does that mean that I… I didn’t mean to… to…,”

She made herself smaller, a look of horror and grief on her face. One hoof covered her mouth, her mind no doubt spiraling as she thought over her mistake. I didn’t want that; there was no way she could have known what she said would have hurt me. Finding the strength to move my legs, I walked around Day Glow so that I was able to look at Gemini directly. The mare backpedaled at the sight of me, unable to meet my eyes in fear.

A small piece of me wondered how she actually managed it, capturing ‘Amaryllis’, but that didn’t matter at the moment.

“It’s okay Gemmy,” I said. This time, I was able to muster up a real smile at the sight of her. “You didn’t know. Can’t fault you for that.”

“But I still hurt you,” Gemmy replied. Her head fell further, ears flat against her head. “That was wrong, right? You’re not supposed to hurt ponies unless they try to hurt you.”

“Can’t blame someone for something that hadn’t been told about,” I explained to her. From out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sharpshot slowly making his way over to us. “It’s a bit more complicated than just a curse, but that doesn’t matter. I know it might be hard to get use to but,” I placed one of my forehooves against my chest, “I already have a new name. Danse Macabre.”

Gemini looked up at me, eyes ready to burst and her head tilted slightly. “Danse… Macabre?”

“A rather morbid name. Prench for ‘dance of the dead’ if I remember correctly,” Sharpshot said, grabbing everyone's attention. He had both smoothies held in his magic, a faint line of what I assumed to be mango juice dripping from what little fur was still on his muzzle. “Not exactly a name I would expect you to choose, soldier mare.”

“I had a little help picking it out,” I told him. The hoof I placed on my chest went up to my forehead, tapping it lightly. “There is more than one pony up here now. I’m not sure of all the specifics but, all the changes to my body and myself that I’ve noticed, it’s because I’m Dead Hooves just as much as I am Rhapsod–”

The very end of my statement was interrupted by another set of strings throughout my body. It doesn’t make sense, what I was telling them was the truth. I was both Dead Hooves and Singing Rhapsody, there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind.

Yet the pain insisted on denying that truth. The only way to talk about her was via past tense, as if she was no longer around at all.

That entire time, Sharpshot was looking me over, inspecting everything from my wings to to my tail. He stopped at my flank, staring at my cutie mark, face going through several different expressions that were far too subtle to recognize. After one full rotation around me, he locked eyes with me. There was skepticism on his face, perhaps a little disgust as well, though at exactly what it was impossible to tell.

“I think you remind him too much of Dead Hooves.”

I tilted my head slightly, both as an acknowledgement of what my inner self was saying and as a way to question Sharpshot’s expression. The former didn’t explain further (they were likely guessing more than anything else), but Sharpshot? He cut eye contact with me and floated Gemmy’s smoothie back over to her. While I couldn’t see his face at the time, I could see hers; a flash of grief, followed immediately after by great melancholy.

“Danse Macabre, right?” he said. Gemmy took the smoothie in her own magic, allowing him to turn back to me. As soon as I knew he would see it, I gave him a nod. “I want you to explain everything you know about your situation. I need to know exactly what Dead Hooves did to Rhapsody.”

I nodded, and without further ado did exactly as I had been asked to. Finding the words was hard, putting it into something that felt like it made sense even harder. So much of it was hypothesis and theory, very little understandable by even the doctor. I had to say ‘I guess’ or ‘possibly’ and other words like them so many times it was hard to tell what was fact and what wasn’t.

Those facts were as follows: I am the creation of Singing Rhapsody and Dead Hooves’ spiritual link to each other, both them and somepony at the same time. I’m an alicorn, even if I don’t have a visible horn, though my body belongs to a pegasus and my soul a unicorn. There are little fragments of both of them, still talking to me, able to take control of my body against my own will for a small amount of time. Lastly, the volume of memories, as well as the fact many of them contradict each other in some way, makes it hard to recall them. I gave myself a migraine in an idiotic attempt to show that last bit.

As I talked, we all made our way back to the destroyed statue. Sharpshot, Gemmy, and myself sat on it while Day Glow stood on one of the other ends, listening carefully but keeping an air of indifference for the sake of her anonymity. Sharpshot kept that same skeptical expression the entire time, as if waiting for me to mess up. He asked questions every now and then, poking and prodding as if expecting me to mess up somewhere.

Gemmy stayed quiet, tears trailing her cheeks. Nothing more needs to be said about how she was taking it.

“A living pony and a ghost fusing together and created you,” Sharpshot mumbled to himself. There was a brief pause in his words as he organized everything I had laid in front of him, then threw his forehooves into the air aggressively. “Sure, why the fuck not. Fits with the card drawn, that's for sure.”

“C-card?” Gemmy asked, her voice slightly choked up.

“Not explaining now, not in the mood for it,” he said. As his hooves rested once again on the statue’s pedestal. “The doctor mentioned this zebra to you. Liberty, correct?”

“Yeah. They’re a medium, like Gemmy and myself. If anycreature was to know it would be him,” I answered with another nod. Despite her current state, I noticed Gemmy’s own interest pique at the mention of a medium, leaning forward to better look at me. “There is one problem though, and if you and Willow would prefer to not interact with them because of it I completely understand.”

A sly smile crossed his face, a somber chuckle leaving his lips. “Okay, how did I manage to piss them off, exactly?”

“From what the doctor told me, they’re with the Equalists.”

In a flash, the smile was gone, replaced with aggravated disbelief. He leaned back, groaning loud enough where he got a few stares from creatures passing by. His forehooves went to cover his eyes, and he started mumbling to himself.

“Of course they are. Why wouldn’t they be?” he asked himself, forelegs falling away from his face. “Everything was so easy with getting here and finding Lucky Shot, I should have expected the wasteland to throw a curveball like this at me.”

“I can definitely see how that would be a problem, especially considering what happened three days ago,” Day Glow said. His head didn’t turn to us as he talked, addressing us only passively. “Changelings are like Unity, though more individualistic. They’ll know about what happened at the test site, figure it out as soon as the holes in their hivemind are recognized. You’re not stepping hoof into Equalist territory without a target on your head.”

“I have to head there anyway. Angel Hair is in that direction, and I still have a mission to do,” I explained. “Rhapsody wants me to, and I want to. Whether the memories are fully mine or not, her foals and husband still feel like my own. I’m not abandoning them more than I already have, even if I missed…,” I closed my eyes, breathed in, and continued, “even if I missed my call in with Ironsight. Even if the Enclave considers me dead.”

If only hooves were strong enough to puncture stone. They dragged along the statue’s pedestal, scratching it up but doing very little else. It was the truth I had immediately accepted, as soon as I learned how long I had been unconscious. Anchor was probably being told I was dead as we spoke, making what had originally been a lie to Clear and Rainy seem like truth. There was nothing I could do to change that.

Except, it didn’t need to be changed at all, because one moment later a familiar violet aura floated over a hoof-held radio; Rhapsody’s hoof-held radio, to be specific. I blinked, brain slowly processing what was in front of me, and then looked at Sharpshot. His magic let go of it, the piece of machinery falling between my forelegs unceremoniously.

I stared at the ghoul, hoping that he would explain out loud whatever he was wordlessly trying to tell me. Another, smaller groan left his throat, along with some more faint, incoherent mumbling. Considering the pony in question, he was likely calling me an idiot in some form.

“You’re correct about me not going with you,” he said. “You aren’t Rhapsody, not in appearance or name anyways. I doubt they’d recognize you, but to fully sell it, nopony who was present at the test site should enter Northern San Palomino at your side.”

“Meaning I’d have to go alone,” I replied, getting a nod from Sharpshot in confirmation. I briefly looked down to the radio, and then back to him. “Why did you hoof this to me?”

“So we can contact you. Check in, make sure you're alright, all that stuff,” Day Glow answered. “Sharpshot filled me in on why you are in San Palomino to begin with. I’m not stopping you, but I would at least ask that you stay in Underside for a few days. Had a lot of ponies scared for you, and this way,” he swallowed, “we can hopefully keep Gold off of you for a few days.”

Sharpshot snarled at the mere mention of the griffon, a raging fire visible in his eyes. This was it, the moment to ask what both Falke and myself wished to know. I allowed a silence to follow in Day Glow’s words, giving myself time to prepare the question in a way that would hopefully not lead to the ghoul lashing out. That was assuming it was even possible, considering how much of an emotional balefire bomb he was. Anything might set him off.

All I could do was take a deep breath, prepare for the inevitability of him over reacting, and be as straightforward as possible.

“He tried to kill me?” I asked, broaching the topic with all the subtlety of a .50 cal bullet.

“Caught him about to put a gun barrel to your head. Called him out, and next thing I know that gun was now pointed at me,” Day Glow explained, voice neutral. This time he turned his head to address me more directly. “Fired a shot at him, and he fled. By the time Willow and Sharpshot arrived, Gold was gone.”

“I told you, didn’t I? Moondancer and Lucky Heart tell him to jump, and he’ll jump,” Sharpshot said, voice filled with the venom of a snake. “Fucker cared about us as little as a slaver does a slave. We step out of line, or he starts to see us as a hindrance? Boom, bullet straight through the brain, no more Danse Macabre.”

I allowed their explanation to sit, marinate in my brain, as I now had the full story. Blind loyalty, Rhapsody had been more than familiar with the concept, having lived and breathed it for the majority of her life. For her, it was the Enclave, a false symbol of greatness ruled and controlled by extremists. For Gold, it was one little filly, and the ‘assistant’ controlling her like a puppet on a string for her own purpose. Whatever that purpose was didn’t matter.

“Backstabbing cuck,” I mumbled. Shaking my head to clear some small amount of negativity from my brain, I allowed it to rest there. “Yeah, probably best I stay in Underside for the time being. I’ll have to leave at some point, though, and sooner rather than later. Can’t take a chance at Angel Hair disappearing.”

…

“I-I’m going with you.”

My attention snapped to Gemmy, the young mare still clearly on the verge of breaking down. Her face was stained with tear trails, eyes looking bloodshot, and yet despite all of that there was a determination in face that rivaled any soldier in the Enclave. Placing down a now empty cup, she hopped off the statue and looked me dead on. There were little flashes of fear in her muzzle, her emotional mask held together by threads.

“Gemmy, you don’t–”

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to,” she said, her tone halfway between terrified and authoritative. “You were gone for five days, and now you are back, and you are both somepony entirely different and the exact same at the same time. I got scared that, the next time I saw you, you were going to be a ghost like Dead Hooves or those two griffons that appeared behind Gigi and… and…”

Determination fell away to desperation. Desperation born from pain, fear, and a ‘what if’ so terrifying to her that inaction would probably wound her more than anything else. Those eyes were like swords, piercing any immediate argument I had and wounding me emotionally. She had been so brave while we were gone, but now that I was back? Now that I was Danse Macabre?

I do not regret leaving her behind when we left to kill Lucky Shot, but at the time it felt like the worst mistake of my life.

“Look, little filly,” Sharpshot said, “I know you mean well, but I don’t think it’s the best idea.”

Gemini’s desperate look became more exaggerated at his words. “W-what?”

“Can you fire a gun accurately? Can you control your emotions? When you and Macabre’s life is on the line, can you bring yourself to pull that trigger?” He asked. Gemini seemed ready to answer at the end of each of those questions, and yet each time the ghoul cut her off before a single word was able to leave her mouth. “No you can’t. You’ve fired a gun twice, and the first time you shot Rhapsody in the shoulder because you had no idea what the fuck you were doing.”

Day Glow’s eyes shifted to Gemini as the young mare winced at the reminder. He held the slightest hint of shock in his body posture, specifically in how his ears had gone completely straight. Gemmy didn’t notice, Sharpshot’s words having robbed the majority of confidence, her legs bent in a way that made her look small.

“But she taught me afterwards. I know how to fire a gun now, and what not to do, and even if she isn’t completely the same pony, Macabre is able to teach me,” Gemini replied, a begging tone in her voice.

“Yes, she might be able to, but tell me this,” Sharpshot replied, leaning forward, “in one week of training, do you think you can take on Three? How about Macabre herself? Or, since we know he is out there, and has orders to kill her, can you. Kill. Gold?”

His barrage of questions were followed by silence, the sound of creatures passing by and the sound of chatter, the only thing daring to break it. Gemmy, once so confident in her decision, lowered her head as low as possible. All her tears were already spent, but she could still cry. That hurt more than the desperation in her eyes, a metaphorical sledgehammer to her heart. I wanted to tell Sharpshot off, saying that Gemini would be more than capable of defending me.

Except, the ghoul was right. Gemmy’s declaration was more likely to be a death sentence to her than anything else. She had no ground to stand on, when the ghoul she was arguing to was one of the most hated ponies in the entire wasteland. If he said she shouldn’t go, then she shouldn’t go.

I got off the pedestal, making my way slowly over to Gemini. I laid down so that we were eye level, my forelegs stretched far enough out for her to see them out of the top of her vision. Her head slowly lifted, looking at me. There was the barest glint of hope in her eyes. It stung to see, knowing that what I was about to say was likely about to crush it.

“Gemini, I appreciate you wanting to help me, but I can’t let you,” I said. Her jaw hung the slightest bit open, hope gone from her eyes, heart crushed. “You’ve barely gotten the chance to live life, and the last thing I want is for you to throw away that chance for me. If we had more time, if it wasn’t going to be so dangerous, I might have said you could come with me but… I can’t.”

Gemmy hung her head again, closing her eyes as if it would keep us from seeing how much my words hurt.

“I-I’m scared t-t-to see more happen to y-you,” she said.

“I know, which is why I’ll promise you this,” I replied. “I’ll come back from Our Haven as soon as Angel Hair is dealt with, alive and still myself. How does that sound?”

The young mare didn’t answer. Instead, after a few seconds of silence, she got up and looked at me. She wore a fake smile, once again attempting to look brave. It was all for me – for Rhapsody – and we couldn't help but feel proud of her. Though she was still recovering from a foalhood of suffering, she was coming into her own, finding herself.

This was the type of soldier Rhapsody wanted her to be, isn’t it? Not the kind that fought and protected a country or cause, but one able to overcome the wounds they had. It fit Gemmy perfectly.

“I think I need to step away, talk with Basalt or some others,” she said. The hurt was still clear in her voice, but she was dealing with it better than we expected. “If I’m going to stay here, in Underside, I want to help out. Catching Amaryllis, feeling liked for more than just my body, it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said, nodding my head.

Then, out of shock. Gemmy did something completely unexpected of her: she wrapped her forelegs around me. A hug, possibly the first she had ever given anypony her entire life, strong yet gentle. She didn’t have the strength to really squeeze me, but by the Infinite she tried. There was a little more light crying into my shoulder, but that was okay. It was healthy to cry, and nopony needed to cry more than the young mare currently hugging me.

Not knowing where her boundaries with touch were at the current moment, I did the same thing Rhapsody had in the research station back in Trotson. My wings spread out like a shield, shading her from the sun. We stayed like that for about a minute before Gemmy pulled away, my wings furling back up on my sides as she let go of me. The false nature of the smile she wore was now gone.

After a couple steps backwards, she turned around and rushed off to wherever it was she was planning to go. I’m certain she’d show me a couple of the places and creatures she hung out around in the following few days. I looked forward to it, a motherly pride welling up inside me at the thought.

“Little mare was right about one thing, you don’t need to go completely alone,” Sharpshot said. I looked to my right, having not noticed he had hoped off the statue’s pedestal at some point in the past minute or so, head tilted in curiosity. “I ain’t about to ask him myself, but there is a griff in town with a lot more known infamy than the traitorous geezer we know.”

“You’re talking about Falke Rotfeather,” I replied. He eyed me, one side of his brow raised. “Might have had a little trip out and about last night. Had a small talk with him and Basalt.”

“Well, that makes this all a bit easier than,” he said, letting out a sigh of relief. “If he was pleasant to you, then he would be more than willing to let you hire him.”

“Got to admit, I’m surprised you're vouching for him, considering what I heard about your little scuffle yesterday.”

Sharpshot winced, looking away. “Wasn’t in a pleasant mood. Last griff I saw tried to kill you.”

“Fair enough.”

That was the last thing he said before leaving too, giving a small wave as he walked away. That left Day Glow as the last familiar face present, and I decided to look at him in case he had anything left to say. He looked to me in turn, then to the ground, and finally back to me; a show he was mentally checking whatever he was about to say to me.

“Left his body in the test site. A crew will recover any stolen material from the Hurricane, but the four of us did a sweep once you were given medical aide,” he explained. No need to guess who ‘his body’ was referring to. Felt a bit upset that I wasn’t there in pony for it, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. “No sign of what you were looking for. He probably gave it to Equalist’s so-called Messenger as a show of his good faith.”

He looked away again, doing another mental check of himself, and focused on me once more.

“There’s… somepony who wants to talk to you, over at the F.o.B.,” he said. “Nothing more.”

“Thanks,” I told him, flashing a small smile. “I’ll stop by at some point before I leave Underside. I think I’ll just… relax for a bit.”

He nodded, and then motioned for me to start moving. He had to get back to work, and I wasn’t going to get in the way of it.

Opening my MentaBuck, I looked at each of the streets around me, seeing which ones I hadn’t seemed to explore quite yet. That left a good number of options, more than my brain could reasonably consider without hurting just a bit too much. Only a day or so awake and I was already done with these migraines.

“Not going to go after Willow?” My inner selves asked.

“We didn’t find her on the way here, and I doubt she’s going to show herself again till she is ready,” I replied, randomly placing a little waypoint on a street to the northwest. “Tartarus, we’ll probably have Sharpshot later today asking around about her whereabouts too.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. What do we do in the meantime then?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but we got time to prepare for the journey ahead.” I whisked away the MentaBuck, turned until I was facing the direction of the waypoint, and started walking. “Besides, after everything we went through, having some days to relax feels nice.”

“Seconded. Let’s find something interesting around her and just… enjoy ourselves a bit.”

Couldn’t say no to that.

Message found on private terminal
…
…

Embraxia, I once called you mother. I once worshiped the ground you walked on like the heretic alicorns do their goddess. I gave everything I had to see the Messenger’s will fulfilled, no matter how grueling the task or how sick the heretic you threw me at. Never did I fail; never did the false ones escape my hooves. You called me one of your best, most beautiful, and exceptional daughters. When you came, claiming I was to challenge for the title of Messenger’s Voice, I gave everything of myself to show that those words were not wrong.
Yet now, now I see the truth of you.
You remember the words you said to me, right? “It is through undying faith in the Messenger that all will be fine.” I have been faithful, loyal, unquestioning of your wishes and have reached a state none of our kind has ever seen before. I became the example you wish me to be, that the Voice needs to be. This form is a gift from Her, I know it just as much as you do. It was a sign that I was destined to follow in your hoofsteps – to be the guiding star for all the Messenger’s beloved.
Yet when you laid eyes upon her gift, you called me sick. You claimed I was poisoned by heretics; you claimed that I was no longer fit to be the Voice; you claimed these and separated me from Paradise, exiling me from light as if I was a common sinner. All of these are signs that you do not truly speak for her. A False Voice, using her for your own sick power.
They are not your biggest crime however, Embraxia. You, queen of the hive, know better than anyone what the greatest insult is.
For cutting my connection with my brothers and sisters, my friends and lovers, I made a promise. With the arms of the Southern Sinners, I shall see you and your false rule struck down. You will face punishment, forced to listen as heretics cheer your death as I, Amaryllis, True Voice of the Messenger, smite you.
This is my promise, my rite…
My guarantee.