Death Valley

After the last several days, the prison riot that wasn’t in prison nor a riot had rattled Amanita’s internal clock, set it back to something familiar. She knew it was 6:28 when she woke up before she even opened her eyes. Yet somehow, she knew to get out of the right side of the bed.

She couldn’t sleep. More precisely, she didn’t need to sleep. Her mind thought she’d be ordered up in two minutes, and so had forced her body to get all the rest it could during her time in bed. She was rested and restless. So she pulled her furs on and stomped downstairs. She had somewhere she needed to be.

The common room was almost empty. A few early birds. Cabin. And Bitterroot. The last waved at Amanita before returning to her cup of what smelled like coffee, even though it couldn’t have been. “Morning, Amanita,” Bitterroot muttered.

Amanita continued for the door and ignored the glares she was getting. They must not’ve known. “Morning, Bitterroot. You’re already up?”

Bitterroot grunted. “Headache. Sore throat. No bad dreams, though. You?”

“I need to see the wolf attack victim I resurrected last night.”

“Okay. Cool. …Someone died?”

“Mmhmm.”

“And your ritual actually worked this time?”

Amanita turned around and grinned at Bitterroot. Every other person in the room was looking at her considerably differently now. “Ask Crosscut yourself!”

And then she was gone.

It was easy to tell which house was Crosscut’s; you just needed to look for the blood. She’d been bleeding badly outside and the blood hadn’t been cleaned up. Amanita simply walked down the main concourse, looking up and down the side streets before spotting a puddle of red shining brightly in front of a certain house, even through the darkness. When Amanita reached that house, the snow out front was scattered and messy, trampled down and thrown about and pounded by crowds and whatever wolf had attacked Crosscut.

Amanita marched up the steps and, hoping somepony was awake, knocked on the door. When no one responded immediately, she found her lack of anxiety odd. She was just waiting for someone to open the door, because it sometimes took people a while to answer a knock. She wasn’t worried. She was fine. Nothing was wrong with her.

Huh.

A few moments before Amanita knocked again, the door was opened by Crosscut, cleaned up and with no sign she’d been dead last night. She opened her mouth for a reflexive greeting, saw who was there, and twitched in surprise. “…Hidy,” she said in a voice that sounded like she was forcing her breath out.

“Hey,” Amanita replied, nodding. “Just checking in. How do you feel?”

Crosscut blinked. She looked at one of her legs like it was a foreign object attached to her. Her hoof rolled well enough when she tried to move it. “…Fine.”

“Good. You won’t experience any… side effects.”

“Mmm.”

They looked at each other. Amanita blinked freely, but Crosscut looked like she was in a staring contest. Amanita’s ears pricked up as she heard somepony cooing softly in the room. She leaned over to look; Arrastra was sitting in front of the fire, curled up with Wythe, singing some song Amanita couldn’t make out. Her wings were loose and relaxed, at least. “How’s Wythe doing?”

“Ehh. Foals’re hardier’n we reckon they are.” Crosscut’s shrug was stiff enough to look like acting. “I’m fine, so she’s fine. …M-misses her pa, though.” She shuddered as she breathed in.

“And what about Arrastra?”

Crosscut looked over her shoulder at Arrastra. Or maybe she stopped looking Amanita in the eye. “Eh. Cannae say. Ma’s had a… tryin’ week when it comes tae family.”

Amanita nodded. “Yeah. But the week’s not over yet. Maybe we can turn it around.”

Crosscut’s nostrils flared in the ghost of a snort.

“I’d like to talk to you about last night, if that’s okay with you,” Amanita said. She raised a hoof for emphasis as she said, “Just, just last night, nothing else. Promise.”

The shadow of what other resurrection ritual they could be talking about loomed over them. But Crosscut nodded and gestured Amanita in. As Amanita entered, she could pick out words in Arrastra’s song to Wythe.

“Oh, go tae sleep, oh my dear little devil
Fer yer night shall be filled wi’ yer dreams and yer revels.
Though the Midwich wind may blow, an’ it may shake,
Swathed within yer bed, nay, ye shall not wake.”

At the end of the last line, Crosscut cleared her throat. “Ma? Amanita wants fer tae talk with us.”

Arrastra’s ears twitched and she looked up. The expression on her face was blank as she gazed at Amanita. Then she said to Wythe, “Possum, Nana needs tae do adult things. Why dinnae ye go play?”

Wythe squeezed Arrastra. Then she bolted over and squeezed Crosscut. Then she was out the door with a, “Love you’ns!” hanging in the air behind her. Foals were resilient.

Everyone pushed through the air to take a seat at the table. Before they’d been sitting a moment, Amanita headed off any silence by asking, “What happened last night?”

Crosscut flinched and looked down. Amanita bit her lip; normal ponies didn’t respond well to violence, did they? Especially if the violence was directed at them. But before she could add anything, Crosscut was talking. “ ’Twas late,” she said in a detached voice. “Whippletree- said he wished tae speak tae me. He didnae say what about, but he wanted us outside. Said Midwich air an’ starlight would clear our heads. An’… An’ then…”

She glanced quickly, almost furtively, at Arrastra, who didn’t notice. Crosscut took a deep breath, raised her head, and continued, “An’ then this… timberwolf jes’ comes a-chargin’ up the street, all- by its lonesome. An’- And it attacks us an’- drags Whippletree off. An’… then you’ns found me.”

Amanita frowned. That didn’t sound right. Why just one wolf? Why was it so far into Tratonmane? Crosscut was hiding something, almost definitely. But pressing things right now would… be bad. Amanita didn’t know how, exactly, but “be bad” was enough. Instead, she said, “And you haven’t learned anything since?”

“Nay.”

“Okay. How would you feel about a search party?”

Crosscut and Arrastra both stared at her, and Amanita blinked. She’d been thinking about that in the deepest recesses of her mind, but to have it just bounce out like that… But once she actually heard it, she wouldn’t take it back. She already knew that, once you cut out her hemming and hawing, this was what she’d do. Might as well keep that band-aid off, now that it was ripped.

“A- search-” Crosscut laughed bitterly. “A wolf took ’im. Intae the forest. Y’ain’t findin’ him. He’s prolly dead already.”

“You were dead last night. Didn’t stop me.”

“Ye-” Crosscut looked Amanita in the eye. Her ears were twitched and her jaw was working, though her lips didn’t part. “Yer claimin’ this again?” she said. “Thankee fer savin’ me, but ye’re a right moldwarp if’n ye think-”

Arrastra reached over and gently laid her hoof on Crosscut’s; Crosscut immediately stopped talking to turn to her. Without raising her head, without looking at anyone, Arrastra whispered, “Crosscut, bantling… Ye died.”

Crosscut snorted, but it felt forced. “Ma, don’t ye-”

“I… I felt ye die, fall clean off the drop edge o’ yonder. Yer heart, it… It done stopped. Ye weren’t breathin’ nae more. An’…” Arrastra pointed a shaking hoof at Amanita, though she couldn’t bring herself to look. “An’ she… Then she walks up an’ does ’er ceremony, an’… Ye’re right as rain. Even though ye were deader’n four o’clock jes’ a minute past.”

Crosscut looked between Arrastra and Amanita, her ears twitching frantically. “But, Ma- Pyrita-”

“We’re only talking about last night,” Amanita said. By some miracle, the words didn’t come out harshly. “Listen. You remember what happened. Do you really think you could’ve survived that?”

Crosscut looked down at her chest, rubbed at where it’d been torn open, at where there was now no sign of damage. “…Nay.”

“Because you didn’t.”

Silence.

“I want to help,” said Amanita. “If this can save Whippletree-”

“I’ll see if’n I can get some ponies,” Arrastra said, still not meeting Amanita’s gaze. “Ponies’ll- They’ll want tae help him. An’… if’n ye can get the rest o’ yer team tae help-”

“I’m sure they’ll want to,” Amanita said. “We’ll meet at the forest’s edge.” She stood up. “That’s all I need right now. Thank you for your time.” She gave them a small bow and headed for the door.

“W-wait.” Crosscut ran a hoof through her mane. “I- Thankee fer- fer-” Her voice dropped to a whisper, like hearing it would acknowledge it as truth. “-fer bringin’ me back.”

Amanita shrugged. “I’m a necromancer. It’s my thing.”

“Aye, but… after… we…”

“It’s my thing,” Amanita repeated. “And I believe we’re not talking about last night anymore.”

“…Aye. It’s… Aye.” Crosscut swallowed. “Be well.”

“You, too.”

“You slept through it?” Charcoal said, gaping. “Someone was killed and you slept through it?”

“Yeah.” Bitterroot took another bite of eggs. Were they better than yesterday’s? Maybe. But since she’d ordered them before Amanita had proclaimed what she’d done, so Cabin wouldn’t’ve been able to give her less-bad ones, so it was probably Bitterroot’s imagination.

“You’re a bounty hunter.”

“Yeah. A bounty hunter. Which means anyone who cares about me usually tries to avoid me.” Toast. Mmm, toast. You could make it anywhere hot, if you knew what you were doing. “I try to sleep deeply whenever I can so I can stay awake when I need it.” Did Tratonmane have apples? It really wouldn’t have surprised Bitterroot if another member of the Apple family was here. “Sometimes, things go wrong and I need to stay up for like fifty hours at a time. Can’t do that if I jolt awake at the slightest noise.”

“…And I really liked Alicorn Falls. You’re delling- telling me that book was a lie?”

“It’s better than most, and it’s entertaining, but parts of it are a load of night fertilizer, sorry.”

“Aw.” Charcoal pouted.

Word about Amanita was spreading and the Tratonmanians around them were speaking in hushed whispers and occasionally sneaking glances at them. The atmosphere didn’t feel like a barbed-wire fence about to snap, at least. It was more than bearable, even. Who knew death would make things better? (Amanita. Amanita knew.)

“Speaking of sleep,” Code said, “did you have any bad dreams? About the…” She pointed at her neck, apparently not wanting to talk about the brand where other ponies could hear.

“Nope,” said Bitterroot. “No dreams at all and it doesn’t hurt a bit.”

“Hmm. Promising. You ought to be safe. Let us know if your situation changes.”

“Great.”

Still, Bitterroot stared at the table and traced out a loop around one of the knots. If you looked at it in just the right way, you could imagine it as a crossed circle. The grain went that way, there was a crack that went this way-

…A crack going against the grain? Huh. Bitterroot shook her head. “Code? What do, uh… hallucinations mean in my context?”

Code immediately snapped to look at her, ears back slightly. “What sorts of hallucinations?” she asked.

“Just seeing the crossed circle. I’m thinking of the sign.”

“Have you seen it anymore since then?”

“Once, maybe.”

Code relaxed slightly and chewed on her lip. “That depends on the precise nature of the mark, which we don’t have. If it’s just crossed circles that infrequently, then you should be fine. That was the original shape of the mark, so any magic getting dispersed would naturally take that form in your perception.”

“And I’m not in danger?”

“Hallucinations are surface-level sensations and qualia as opposed to something affecting the subconscious. At the very least, you’re not in danger yet. But tell me if you see anything, okay? The last thing we need is you keeping mum about something important because you’re literally too selfless for your own good and don’t want to be a bother.”

“Okay. Do you see that?” Bitterroot pointed at the knot.

When she leaned over to look, Code saw it immediately. “That crack’s going against the grain,” she mumbled. “Strange, but not a hallucination.”

“Not in danger?”

“No.”

But as Bitterroot kept looking at the knot, she somehow didn’t feel very assured. She’d seen the mark on the sign when Charcoal said it didn’t exist. Seeing it again, here… It wasn’t a complicated sign, true. The sort of thing you could make easily, by accident. Yet it sure didn’t feel like an accident. Against the grain. “…Code, are you sure you’re not hallucinating with me?”

“If we were undergoing magically-induced folie à deux, you’d know it, I’d know it, and I’d be lugging us both back to Canterlot.”

“Hrm.” Somehow both reassuring and not reassuring at all.

Charcoal looked back and forth between them, nibbling loudly on some very crunchy lettuce. Bitterroot didn’t mind the sound; it was a distraction from her thoughts. And if that food could be a distraction… She tucked into her eggs, wishing Tratonmane had orange jui-

“Beg pardon.”

The sudden voice made Bitterroot twitch, dropping her silverware with a clatter. She awkwardly managed to turn around; one of the Tratonmanians, a young chiropterus stallion, was staring at her with big eyes like she was a train crash in progress. “Yeah?” she asked.

“You’un said ye died?”

Well. Straight to the point. “Twice, yeah,” said Bitterroot. “Before you ask, I don’t remember what the other side is like. Some sort of…” She waved a hoof vaguely. “…metaphysical thing. Amanita says it’s the sort of experience my brain can’t remember.”

Almost immediately, the stallion’s ears drooped. That was almost always the first question ponies asked her when they knew she’d died. But then those ears went back up and he asked, “How’d ye die?”

And there was the second question. “Throat slit. Both times.”

“Once by her own hoof,” added Code.

The chiropterus flinched and pulled his head backward slightly. He opened his mouth; nothing came out.

“I was cutting short a hostage situation!” Bitterroot faux-protested. “I saved us some time!”

“Gloss had been backed into a corner. You saved me a few minutes at most.”

“Yeah, but I saved me several hours of boring waiting in the bureaucracy afterwards.”

“Hmm. To be fair, the bureaucracy does often make me want to slit my throat.”

The chiropterus flexed his wings in blank-faced shock.

Charcoal put a hoof to her mouth, pointed at Bitterroot and Code, and stage-whispered, “And that’s part of why I think ponies are crazy.”

The chiropterus blinked, nodded, and walked away like he was in a daze. He probably was. But with his attention gone, Bitterroot could get back to her food. She reached out for her silverware again-

Her knife and fork had landed on the plate almost perpendicular to each other.

Forming a crossed circle.

Bitterroot stared at it, carefully rubbed both implements to be sure they were there. Before, she might’ve been seeing things on paper. Maybe that was a hallucination. But this was actual, physical objects. It had to be a coincidence. Right?

The door opened and silence fell in a moment. Amanita was walking into the inn without a care in the world. Bitterroot glanced around at the Tratonmanians. Some of them looked curious, more of them looked afraid. None of them looked angry or disgusted. Progress.

“Was something wrong?” Code asked as Amanita sat down.

Amanita shook her head. “No. I was just checking in on Crosscut and Arrastra. They’re doing fine, although Whippletree’s missing. Apparently a wolf attacked him and Crosscut outside their house and dragged him into the forest. And then I, also, uh…” She bumped her hooves together. “…kinda said we’d help with a search party for that-”

“Let’s do that,” Code said. “We came here to help ponies. This is helping ponies.” Then she dropped her voice down to a mere whisper. “And if it can get us back on their good side, all the better.”

Amanita blinked and her ears twitched. From the look on her face, she hadn’t even thought of that. Which, Bitterroot figured, was Amanita for you. “Arrastra said she’d look for some ponies who’d be willing to join us.”

“Good.”

Charcoal cleared her throat. “Into, into Midwich Forest again?” she asked nervously.

“Yep,” Amanita replied.

“Oh. Well, the last time went alright.” Charcoal laughed nervously. Then it petered out as she became thoughtful. “It did,” she muttered.

“If we get enough ponies, I’m sure we can fend off at least one bear attack,” said Amanita. She swiped a bite of Bitterroot’s semi-forgotten breakfast. “Then I can enthrall the bear and have it protect us.”

Charcoal stared.

Amanita shrugged. “I’m a necromancer. What’d you expect?”

Bitterroot kept looking at her plate.

They waited about half an hour. During that time, Arrastra entered the inn, proclaimed to the crowd about the search party, and left. If she’d convinced anypony, it was hard to tell. Nopony stood up immediately, but they might’ve just been finishing their meal. Once they thought they’d given Arrastra enough time to go around, they packed up their supplies and headed for the forest. The hike was longer than the trip between the inn and Crosscut’s house, so Amanita had some time to think. And the first thing she thought of was that she was feeling better than ever.

It was like the universe had personally taken aim at her main anxiety of the past thirty-six hours and systematically dismembered it. She was a necromancer. She’d resurrected Crosscut with no problem whatsoever. She still had something to offer the world. And if that was the case, then maybe she could be something other than a necromancer as well. No wonder she felt great.

She’d have to deal with those last few bad thoughts eventually, true. But at least she wasn’t plagued by them in an unfamiliar town where her breath froze.

…And she still didn’t know what was up with Pyrita…

Amanita blinked and shook her head. Wrong thing to focus on right now.

There were close to a dozen supplied ponies waiting at the forest line — more than there were guards, Amanita noted. Many of them had some sort of weapon, and the ones that weren’t were earth ponies. They weren’t quite relaxed, but they weren’t tense with anxiety, either, comparing weapons or chatting amongst themselves. Someone seemed to be missing, though Amanita couldn’t say who.

“Hmm.” Code’s eyes flicked between the ponies. “That’s a decent amount. I would’ve thought less, given the forest’s reputation.”

“The wilderness is funny,” said Charcoal. “It always seems dangerous until you get a big enough group. Some of them could’ve been on the hedge- on the edge until they saw who else was joining.”

“Or maybe they figure I’ll resurrect them.”

“…Or maybe that, yeah.”

As they approached, Arrastra strode from the group, a lumpy shape slung across her back. “Ach, there y’are. All o’ ye’re comin’? Thankee.”

“We came here to help. This is helping,” Code said.

Arrastra snorted. “Wish the other royal gofers thought the same. We were jes’ makin’ ready tae leave.”

Amanita was paying only half a mind to the conversation, instead focusing on the object Arrastra was carrying. It looked so familiar, she could- Ding. “Is that a chainsaw?”

“It’s good versus wood,” growled Arrastra. “It’ll be good versus timberwolves.”

You certainly couldn’t argue with that logic.

Amanita looked around again, and then it clicked who was missing. “Where’s Varnish?”

“Dinnae ken, dinnae care,” said one of the militiaponies (Amanita recalled her name as Poplar). “He prolly thinks he’ll be takin’ o’er if’n Whipple’s gone.” Some of the other milita nodded. Small nods, but nods nonetheless.

“I tried findin’ him, but he ain’t nowheres,” said Arrastra. “It’s like he left off o’ Tratonmane. An’ I sure as judgment ain’t a-waitin’ fer him.” She skimmed the crowd, then marched to the front of it.

Arrastra cleared her throat and her wings twitched open. “I ken ye’re scared,” she announced. “So’m I. ’Tis Midwich; it’s fools that ain’t scared.” Her eyes narrowed. “But we got some o’ the best creatures in Equestria, here, an’ we ain’t goin’ tae take this lyin’ down. Sae c’mon!” She reared and spread her wings, cutting an imposing figure even in the darkness. “Let’s take back our own frae that pit-eaten forest!”

A roar of assent went up from the Tratonmanians, and Amanita found herself yelling, too. The energy was infectious. For the first time since she’d entered the valley, her goal was simple and clear: find Whippletree and bring him. No messing with data. No struggling with geothaumometers. No blundering in the dark as the experts admitted they didn’t know what was up. Just saving ponies.

Arrastra grinned at the crowd as she landed back on all four legs. “Aye,” she growled. “We’ll dae nicely.” She turned and marched northward. And following on her heel, the little force entered Midwich Forest.