The Tome of Exalted Ponies

The Crane stylist waits for the soup to make the first move, passing the time by idly discussing philosophy with his meal. After a few hours, everyone else is done and ready to go, but the Crane stylist has found the soup to have a rather charming and insightful personality.

…

The celebrations in Shimmer’s name were… arguably modest. It was a party at a hastily made camp, not a party at a luxurious palace or manse. Still, good times were had and Shimmer were given gifts to help her on her way, though it was via the uniquely bloody tradition of Lunars:

Elder Horns tore flesh from her own body, moulding it into a glowing sphere of essence-infused meat that she offered to Shimmer: “It will digest slowly and imbue you with sorcerous knowledge, use it well”

Another lunar offered up a small chest of silver bars, the chest thoroughly encrusted with dried remains of deep ocean plant and animal-life, hinting of its origins. Other gifts were offered, such as small trinkets and talismans, items imbued by powers by western spirits that could be traded with other spirit courts for favours or protection. Most of the gifts bore the hallmarks of things that could be made on the go, or acquired quickly from others, or torn from the carcasses of slain sea-monsters – but they were all useful.

Then it came for Sage of the Depths to grant Shimmer her gift: “You were true to your oath. I have trained many lunars, and very few managed to do that as well as you. I also owe you several favors from your past life, which add to this: Imbued with the spirit of a willing squid spirit, may it keep you safe and strike at your enemies at every turn”

It got eerily quiet as Sage drew the object forth from elsewhere. It looked… alive? A small silvery squid. Speaker recognized it when he looked at it with essence sight: “Good heavens… a quicksilver aegis talisman – that is not something you see everyday”

Shimmer looked at the thing and accepted it with trembling hooves: “I… I don’t know what to say”

“For many great contributions to Luthe in your past life, and dutiful service in this life. Leviathan also sends his regards” Sage said, eliciting even more hushed gasps and murmurs among the surrounding lunars.

Speaker frowned: This didn’t quite add up to the stories that Shimmer had told him during her past life. She had spoken of Luthe as a bad place, a place she had begged Speaker to avoid. Had she served Luthe at some point? There was something missing here… but that would have to wait for later.

Sage instructed Shimmer to stroke the hoof-sized silver squid talisman, and to name it. As she did so, naming it Deep Wave, it opened its black jade eyes and sprouted eight tentacles, slipping onto Shimmer’s right fore-leg like a living bracer: “It will answer your commands, keep your vigil at all times, become your shield, blade, spear or detach to be a simple servant. If struck enough – and it is impressively tough – it will go dormant and require repair though”

“I… thank you” Shimmer said, tears in her eyes.

Speaker looked around – and he saw other ponies whispering and nodding. It seemed that he wasn’t the only one finding such an impressive shapeshifting weapon. Now, Speaker didn’t have the same sensory-enhancing charms that Sullen Hoof knew, but he knew how to listen… and he heard some of the less careful whispers: “So the rumors were true – they really were lovers before she left for the east last time around…”

Ah, there we go – mystery solved. Oh well, time to present his gift.

Elder Horns was about to announce the gift-giving ceremony over, when Speaker stepped forth. Elder Horns nodded and gestured for him to approach, Shimmer looking up from her new magical weapon/pet/magical servant.

“I didn’t know that I was meant to bring gifts – but I do have something… something I got the last time I saw… the last you. I wasn’t really sure what she meant with it, but now I think see what her idea was” Speaker said, feeling strangely proud as he sat down and began to recall the item in question from elsewhere.

Everyone else waited patiently as the gift slowly translated into creation. It was difficult to see what it was, right up until it dropped into Speaker’s lap, still bloody and squishy.

The scent was unmistakable. The uproar deafening.

“What is the meaning of this!?!” Elder Horns roared, her voice bestial and her mouth suddenly full of fangs.

Sage of the Depths actually stepped in between Speaker and Shimmer: “Keep that away from her!”

Ok, social faux pass? Speaker held the old Shimmer’s heart, a heart she had torn from her own body as her last act before dying while hopelessly trapped in a doomed underworld manse: “Now hold on! She gave this to me freely, and instructed me to give it to her heir!”

“Oh sure, you want us to believe that she committed suicide for you? Just how brainwashed did you have her?” Scale Tooth said angrily, shell plating already forming around his body and encasing his forehooves like new crab claws.

Surrounded, Speaker wasn’t really sure if he should raise his shield charms – or try to talk it out. That was when Shimmer stomped her hooves: “Stop it! Do you all really think that Lord Bright would be stupid enough to show up with… whatever that is… if it was sourced under such bad circumstances? Bloody think for a moment!”

Such an impassioned call for reason did seem to calm everyone – at least a little bit. Elder Horns stomped over to Speaker and beheld the still warm heart, it still slick with blood from its ‘donor’. With a quick swipe she bought a bit of that blood to her mouth. Speaker noticed that everyone else had gone very quiet as she somehow tested the blood, tasting it.

Elder Horns gave Speaker a most confounded look, as her eyes began to fill with tears: “She put so much into this…”

Shimmer came up to Speaker, looking at the massive heart he was floating in the air. It was almost half the size of a pony’s head… definitely not the heart of a normal pony – but when she got close: “That’s… that’s my scent!”

Well, that was one word for it. Elder Horns stood aside, no longer objecting: “Very few lunars get to meet their past selves like this… but I’m not sure if it should be called an honor or a curse…”

Speaker hadn’t thought that the heart had any kind of message in it, having instead figured that it was something that would grant power, or knowledge, or access to the shapes that old Shimmer had been able to shapeshift into… not meeting on- self – then again, they did seem to have a lot of blood-bound powers, so… perhaps?

Shimmer accepted the heart, but looked at it with great trepidation, her eyes wide. The scent of her own blood from the heart frightened her in a way she had never tried before. Sage of the Depths came up to her: “You… may want to be careful when you consume that. You risk having your old self replace you. You’ll still be Last Shimmer, for you both bore that name, but you’ll be her… not you. Strengthen your mind and essence before you do this”

Nodding, Shimmer folded the heart into elsewhere. With the bloody organ out of sight, everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief – with quite a lot of ponies curious at Elder Horns, for she had tasted the heart-blood and had thus gleamed its secrets.

This signalled the end of the ‘official’ festivities, and many of the ponies began to disperse, returning towards Creations or starting to pack the camp up. Shimmer said her goodbyes to her new peers while Speaker summoned a magical cloud for them to fly off on.

Leaving, Speaker activated his chaos-repelling charm, allowing for very swift return to the stability of Creation. During this flight Shimmer thanked Speaker for the heart, and asked that they fly to her tribe: “…I need to say goodbye to them too, if it’s ok with you Lord Bright”

“Of course. We’ll be there before sundown”

“Thanks… this is still so new to me Lord Bright. Being exalted, suddenly being able to do all kinds of things, Sage training me and teaching me sorcery. I thought I had lost everyone I knew, and then you showed up one day, Sage sends you off, and then in no time almost everyone the slavers took comes back with a stolen realm cargo ship? I’m just trying to keep up” Shimmer mused, finally able to give voice her stress, anxieties and mixed emotions.

Speaker understood the experience well. He still remembered when he had exalted, the confusion, the lack of understanding: “It gets better over time, and while we travel to Sunhill I can train you myself – I know some very powerful educational charms… no eating anyone’s flesh required”

Arriving at the five-palm tribe’s island, Speaker landed and Shimmer quickly found herself embraced by her kin. The tearful reunion turning into an impromptu party, and celebrations were had, the tribe thanking Speaker for freeing them from slavery, and for Shimmer for her defence of the village. This culminated with a ceremony where Shimmer selected a new shaman for the tribe, and even used her lunar charms to commune with the local ocean spirits, negotiating new and much better terms for her tribe, which would likely lead the tribe to great prosperity, especially with their new ship.

The next morning, as Speaker woke up in the hut he’d been assigned to sleep in, he got up and found Shimmer sitting at the sea shore, gazing over the ocean and the waves washing up on the sandy beach. She was stroking Deep Wave, which seemed to alert her to Speaker’s approach – this let her ask with turning her head: “Lord Bright, will I ever get to see them again?”

“Your tribe? That’s your choice. Your exaltation gives you a compulsion to go with me, but you’re not bound by it. You still have a choice – and you can equally choose to come visit them. Mind you, with a little luck, you can live to be many thousands of years old. Come then, the descendants of this tribe might not know you as one of their own, but as a legendary heavenly guardian who guided them to greatness from a time of great need” Speaker mused, reflecting on how his own perspective had changed after just a few years of being a solar.

Shimmer got up and turned to look at the village: “Guide them to greatness… you make it sound simple”

“It starts out simple, but it depends on what you would like for them to become. I would teach them to write, so they can start to record their own history, write down their songs and their rituals, so the death of a shaman doesn’t mean losing everything. It makes it a lot easier not having to remember everything yourself. It gives them time to specialize more, so the tribe can grow and become something more than subsistence fisherponies” Speaker noted, having more than once spoken with Sunrise and Cash about similar plans of action for dealing with various jungle tribes in the east.

With a deep breath, Shimmer pondered what Speaker had said, looking at what her ponies were doing: “They’re gathering driftwood for new buildings… better huts – is that your doing Lord Bright?”

“Probably. I taught them better wood-working techniques while we were on the ship back to the island, after I freed them. It was mainly so they could maintain the ship, but the same lessons can be used to build better huts that can withstand storms and keep insects out, plus they can build better boats on their own now. That’s another way they’ll grow” Speaker said, feeling proud that his little lesson was already being used so well.

Without hesitation Shimmer asked Speaker to teach them how to read and write. Speaker did as asked, teaching those of the tribe who could speak seatongue how to write the language as well, using his magical educational charm. They would in time be able to teach the rest of the tribe. The lesson also included a quick primer on the use of local octopus ink and how to make bamboo scrolls.

Thankful, Shimmer bid farewell with her tribe and promised to visit them again. The duo flew off on a cloud, their bellies full of fish and coconut, heading south-east towards Wacecrest.

Out over the ocean, nothing but water around them as far as the eye could see, Shimmer asked why they weren’t flying straight east? Speaker explained that now that the two of them were reunited, then the heavenly protection he had enjoyed was no more, and that going over the blessed isle would be a death sentence: “We’ll need to move through neutral territory. We’ll go to Abalone, find out where the Denzik is. I have friends on the city-ship, we’ll go there, and from them to An-Teng. From there we’ll cross the fire mountains, and then fly along the southern coast all the way to the summer mountains – from there we’ll just fly straight home. I have a map if you want to see”

Shimmer was quiet for a moment, then she said: “Going to that lunar meet was the furthest I’ve ever been from home. Sage never even took me to Luthe where he’s from – always told me it would be best if I didn’t come there. You’re talking about going all across creation like its nothing…”

“For the exalted, it is nothing. By the way, the training you got from the sage, did that include teaching you a warform?” Speaker wondered.

Shimmer said that she had learned a beast-pony transformation technique: “…but Sage said I had much to learn in developing it”

“Fair enough – you can show me when we’ve found somewhere to sleep tonight. I’m curious what features it’ll have. Oh, and did you learn to hide your tattoos? When we’re in Wavecrest and An-Teng we’ll have to pose as normal ponies”

“I can do that – but won’t others still think it’s weird if we just show up on Wavecrest?” Shimmer wondered, not sounding terribly sure if she could pose as anything other than a tribal pony.

Speaker explained that she didn’t have to pose as anything else: “I’ll pretend to be an unexalted scion of a lesser realm noble house on some private journey, with you as my servant or slave. That shouldn’t look out of place – and we won’t be staying long. We just have to find out where the Denzik is, then we can fly off again”

Following the scattering of islands that led to the giant volcanic isle of Wavecrest, the duo had to stop for the night once before they could reach their goal. Speaker used his crafting charms to quickly and efficiently build a simple but very nice hut just off the beach, while Shimmer sent Deep Wave out in the ocean in the form of a squid, it returning shortly with a large fish they cooked over an open fire.

“Lord Bright, is this how it’s going to be now, flying around, going on adventure, sleeping in really nice huts?” Shimmer wondered, as she took a zip from her coconut.

Speaker shrugged: “Sometimes. Sometimes adventure comes to you – that’s one of the prices of being a lord of a city state. We have plenty of enemies already, and they know to target the ponies who live there to get to us”

“Tell me Lord Bright, do you have your own songs at this Sunhill place?”

Nodding, Speaker tried to recall one such song, but really that was Sunrise and Cash’s forte, not his. The best he could do was a nursery rhyme he had heard at the Sunhill manse in a foal’s ward. It was a slightly silly song, about waiting for the sun to rise if you were afraid of the dark.

Shimmer was asleep by the time Speaker finished, making him smile: “Welcome back Shimmer”

…but before Speaker fell asleep, he heard her making noises, tossing around on her mat of woven palm leaves. He had seen such behaviour plenty of times: Shimmer was clearly having a bad dream.

Speaker smiled. He could actually fix that now.

He wouldn’t have been able to do anything more than counsel Shimmer before he had started this journey, but now? With his new dream-based powers? First, he gathered up sticks, spiderweb, melted sand into clear glass and plucked a few hairs from his mane, fashioning a dream catcher. It was so intuitive to make a vessel that could contain a dream… and with a swift movement of the hoof and essence, Speaker pulled the nightmare from Shimmer into the dreamcatcher. Shimmer’s twitching instantly calmed down, her sleeping becoming restful again.

The next morning Speaker wondered if he should tell Shimmer what he had done. It wasn’t until they were flying again that he managed to broach the subject, showing the dream catcher to Shimmer.

She seemed to instantly sense that the dreamcatcher contained something bad: “You… Lord Bright you put my nightmare in this?”

“Pretty much”

“And that won’t hurt me, will it Lord Bright?”

“Not a single dream. If I did to you repeatedly, you’d wake up in the morning as tired as when you went to sleep – but you had a normal dream afterwards, I checked” Speaker mused, not having had anywhere near enough practical experience using his new powers to fully describe what they could do.

Shimmer accepted that information, putting the dreamcatcher away into elsewhere: “Alright, then maybe we can find a use for my bad dream later on”

“I could put it in someone else – maybe it’d be a good distraction” Speaker pondered, just as he saw the impossible to miss smoke from a volcano in the horizon.

The kingdom of Wavecrest was the single largest island in the west, along with the second and third largest ones – none of them were all that big by the standards of eastern territories, but it was the best the west had to offer. From up in the air the duo could clearly see the volcanoes that dotted the massive islands, keeping them fertile with their ash and even slightly growing the size of the islands every year, at the cost of scorching and burning many a plantation each time they erupted.

The challenge at that point was to get to Abalone, the capital of Wavecrest. According to the map that Cash had gotten Speaker, then it was set on the eastern coast of the largest of the three islands, which was the one furthest to the south of the three. It was thus that Speaker guided his cloud to fly them south. It was Shimmer who suggested that if they were supposed to pass for unexalted ponies, then they should land on a beach with no ponies in sight and walk to the nearest village or town: “Flying in would be a bit… obvious, if that makes sense to you, Lord Bright?”

Agreeing, Speaker said that he’d have to hide away his uniform and a few other things, while also retrieving his money from elsewhere. This resulted in them finding a beach and Speaker once more stripping down, Shimmer taking his old uniform and jewel pinions to put into elsewhere, while he finished getting his solid purse full of silver and cowries from elsewhere.

“Whoa… that is a lot of money” Shimmer said, her eyes wide as Speaker checked the content of the big purse.

Shrugging, Speaker said that it was one of the perks of being a lord: “Taxes – plus remember, I’m supposed to be a rich but unexalted son of a lesser noble house from Grey Falls – I came prepared for this”

“Yes, but what’s the name of the house Lord Bright?”

“I… hadn’t thought about that. What sounds like a generic noble house from Grey Falls to you?”

Speaker didn’t notice the surprised expression Shimmer made as they walked down the beach, but after having a bit of a ponder, she said: “I don’t know any places in the east Lord Bright… but this Gray Falls place, have you been there?”

“No, not really – I just know that it’s a realm satrapy, but I don’t remember who’s the satrap or what house controls it. I should probably call home and ask about that. Could you give me my hearthstone amulet?”

A quick question sent back to Sunhill later, and Speaker had gotten a quick summary. House Nellens controlled the territory, with one Nellens Rombulac as the wood aspected satrap currently in charge: “Oh, and Cash suggests we say I’m not really from a lesser house, but since Gray Falls is a place where criminal and exiled unicorns get sent from the realm, so I can just say I’m the son of an exiled house Mnemon unicorn who lives there”

“Is that a lesser house Lord Bright?”

“No, it’s one of the big ones – a house founded by the Scarlet Empress’s firstborn. They’re big in education and sorcery, helps explain why I’m so well educated”

A few hours of pleasant walk down the beach got the duo to a small town where Speaker started spending money like it was going out of fashion: Spinning a yarn about the two having been on a private yacht that had been taken by pirates, and how they had jumped overboard to escape with naught but his money pouch and their lives, Speaker bought new clothes and a chariot, as well as hiring two local strong stallions to pull the chariot to the next village in the direction of Abalone.

“Honourable one, the road directly to Abalone is dangerous. Beyond the next village the jungles are wild and monsters and feral tribals roam” one of the two stallions said as they were strapping into the chariot.

Speaker shrugged and gave Shimmer a knowing look: “That’s my problem, not yours – just bring us there”

Shimmer smirked, but was equally distracted by the sights of the massive island. It was so huge! After a short while she couldn’t even see the sea anymore. The orderly plantations, the ponies working in tiered rice fields, to Shimmer it was such an alien landscape: So unnatural, yet so bountiful and full of life.

Their breath ragged and stamina spent, the two locals who had pulled the chariot were quite surprised and happy when Speaker simply gave them the chariot once they had arrived: “I have no need of this anymore – we’ll walk from here”

“Ok, your death Honourable one. The roads are good, but it’s a ten-day walk – I hope you know how to find food and water” one of the two new grateful chariot-owners said.

Shimmer perked up: “That’s what the good lord brought me for. Don’t you worry”

With an accent that clearly revealed her background as that of a tribal, or at least former tribal, the two locals didn’t question Shimmer’s confidence or survival skills, leaving the duo their own fate. Speaker and Shimmer in turn shopped around at the jungle village they had been dropped off at, buying some supplies and saddlebags to keep them in, and then walked off into the jungles in an east-ward direction, along a lone road that didn’t look all that well-maintained.

Once out of sight of the village, and having passed the last of the outermost lumber operations, Shimmer asked exactly what Speaker’s plan was in Abalone.

“Well, I don’t think we’ll be staying there for long – we just need to find out if the Denzik has left for An-Teng yet. It all depends on whether they’re staying for calibration or leaving early” Speaker said, enjoying the sound of birds singing in the jungle canopies.

Shimmer perked an eyebrow: “Calibration was last week. That was the whole point of the lunar get-together. They hadn’t met up just for me Lord Bright”

Speaker stopped right in his tracks: “Wait what? But it was weeks until calibration when I came back to five-palms with the rest of the tribe”

“It was when we walked into the wyld Lord Bright. Sage moved us in both space and time, so we arrived after the main festivities at the western dam were over – he doesn’t like being part of stuff like that” Shimmer said, talking as if it was the most obvious of facts.

It didn’t surprise Speaker that the lunars had many tricks for moving about in the wyld – but to manipulate not just your physical destination, but your destination in time? That was… no, he remembered lunars having done similar things in the first age, slowing time around them while in the wyld, so that time in creation passed faster. It wasn’t time-travel per say, it was more akin to walking a long path to reach a destination.

“Ok… that probably means that the Denzik has left already. No need to do this slowly anymore” Speaker said, conjuring a cloud for them to fly on.

Flying south-east, Speaker had the cloud gain in altitude so that the cloud became very difficult to spot from down on the ground, even more so because it just looked like a normal small cloud when seen from underneath. Several hours later Wavecrest was a shrinking dot on the horizon, while another dot on the horizon was growing bigger and bigger…

“That… wow… that is a LOT of ships Lord Bright” Shimmer said, looking at the massive armada of ships and barges that made up the Denzik city ship. Hundreds, no – thousands of ships, lashed together with strong ropes like a blanket of timber and sails covering a massive patch of ocean.

Speaker guided the cloud down to land on the ship brightly marked for flying visitors and travellers to land or depart from, a guide and a translator quickly approaching the two to establish communications.

“I speak the sea and trade tongue, and I am known to Denzik Hala. You can tell her that Bright Machine Speaker is visiting, and that I brought a friend”

Shimmer observed how the two Denzik ponies suddenly became very happy and chatty – they clearly knew Speaker, or had at least heard of him. She had heard stories of the great city-ship back in her tribe’s village, of a great fleet of merchants who lived on the sea all year around. It certainly looked and smelled the part.

A pony soon arrived, and to Shimmer the mare looked like the silliest thing she’d ever seen. Heavily laden with jewellery and perfumes, and oddly flimsy cloth outfit that seemed to flutter in even the slightest breeze. Shimmer didn’t know what silk was, and had never seen golden jewellery nor ever made the connection between wearing shiny metals and wealth, for such had never been available in her tribe.

“Speaker, good to see you – what brings you to the city-ship?” Denzik Hala inquired, her southern accent thick but easy to understand.

Speaker made polite small-talk, while Shimmer kept observing the merchant queen. She could see from the sway in Hala’s hips that the mare had given birth more than once, and it was clear to Shimmer that she had very keen eyes, especially with how she was subtly visually inspecting everything Speaker was wearing.

“And who’s your friend? She reminds me of that other mare who had come along when you were waiting to be picked up by Cash Charmer, but she looks… more grown up, but with less scars?” Hala asked, giving Shimmer a curious smile that made the lunar want to creep into cover behind Speaker.

“It’s a long story – but she is in effect the same pony, reincarnated once more. I came here to bring her back home east” Speaker explained.

Hala took the explanation in strides, even though she did briefly make a confused expression.

They all ended up on the Teak-and-Cotton barge, where a nice tea house operated out of an artfully remodelled cargo hold. Shimmer listened on curiously as Hala and Speaker spoke like old friends, Hala talking about how useful the one hundred elementals that Speaker had somehow gotten the Denzik had been, and how much money they had been able to earn by being able to move about much faster, and thus spend more time at each stop along their annual route, or even add more stops.

“It is tradition here on the Denzik that principal parties to business ventures get dividends – but I understand that you have no need for money, seeing as you are now the lord of your own lands in the east” Hala said, sipping from her exquisite realm china.

Speaker raised an eyebrow at the merchant queen: “You want to pay me for the elementals? With what exactly?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I understand that Sunhill is doing a brisk trade in gems, fine furniture and very high-quality steel products. You’re making bank basically – so paying you in silver won’t be worth much to you… and with the realm civil war ramping up it’s become increasingly difficult for us to trade in certain products” Hala noted, looking in a way that reminded Speaker eerily of Cash Charmer.

It turned out that the Denzik had on its last time in the inland sea scuttled a barge full of ‘forbidden goods’ – things they simply could not afford being caught with for the time being. Things like bits of broken orichalcum and moonsilver artifacts, armor and weapons, things they would usually sell to shady collectors, but now each realm house that had a navy would routinely waylay the Denzik and inspect every cargo hold, crack open every crate, all on the hunt for weapons and magical things that other realm houses might have wanted, confiscating everything they find. This had already cost the Denzik a fortune in lost inventory, so the rest had been hidden carefully: It had all been sunk in the inland sea.

“I figure, if we make an official deal with Sunhill to recover ‘lost inventory’ from the sunken barge and safekeep it until we can pick it up, perhaps you can even make some of it work, or make use it in the meantime. You might even feel tempted to buy some of it from us” Hala said, sounding so shrewd one felt the urge to check if the silver in one’s purse wasn’t disappearing into puffs of smoke.

Looking at Shimmer, Speaker asked: “How good are you at swimming down to great depths? And pulling sunken treasure up?”

That had most definitely not been what Shimmer had expected them to end up talking about. Then again, she hadn’t really had any expectations… but diving for sunken treasure? Sure: “Oh Lord Bright, I think I have a few ideas – but Sage always told me never to go for really deep dives alone. There are things in the depths that do not care whether you’re a dead fish sinking to the bottom, or a pony diving”

“I can come along – the elements stopped being an issue to me a long time ago” Speaker said in a reassuring tone, then turning to Denzik Hala: “I think I can accept that deal. Should we have a barge or something like that to carry it home, or will a single yeddim be enough?”

“With the flying yeddim your friends have, I think a single one should suffice. Now, to celebrate our partnership!” Hala said with a smirk, calling for servants to bring in food and drink.

As they feasted, Speaker kept seeing Shimmer trying to hold back her tears. This was clearly the very best food she had ever tasted, not the comparatively crude tribal fare she had been used to. Spices Shimmer had clearly never heard of, fruits and sweet-meats from across creation, and some of the finest rice from the realm. It was really good food, though Speaker found it easy to maintain his composure: The culinary genius of Sullen Hoof back home was without equal, a peerless paragon in the cooking arts. Still, it was very good fare being served up, as befit of someone of Denzik Hala’s wealth.

The next morning Speaker and Shimmer inspected the elementals that served the Denzik, Speaker regaling his lunar mate of the story of how he had been bucked so hard he’d flown all across Creation during a fight in Nexus, landed in the western ocean, raised an island from the deep and then been found by the Denzik: “…and then a storm god showed up, and I smacked her around until she submitted to my terms”

“Wait, Lord Bright… You fought and won against a storm mother? She would have had her legion of elementals destroy you with lightning” Shimmer said incredulously.

Speaker shrugged: “Like I said yesterday: Elemental immunity charms. Fire, waters both shallow and deep, storm winds or avalanches, none of it hurts me – not even their lightning”

“Is that the power of the solar exalted Lord Bright?”

“It’s part of it – I was already very good at survival techniques because of my military service. I served in Lookshy’s special forces. Lots of crawling around in mud and eating bugs, but when I exalted, I became supernaturally good at surviving harsh conditions” Speaker noted, watching as a dozen air elementals above them maintained a constant wind to move the Denzik along at twice the speed it normally moved, while water elementals below maintained a clam sea to minimize the strain the massive ropes that connected the thousands of barges and ships that made up the Denzik.

After the party, Speaker and Shimmer were given nice quarters to stay in for their stay. There another friend popped in, the unicorn Mnemon Ever-Ember: “Hey, you’re back again”

Speaker introduced the freelance scholar to Shimmer, who in turn found the idea of very real reincarnation to be curiously in line with immaculate holy texts.

“True. For celestial exalts, but not for unicorns. Your powers are bound in your blood” Speaker noted, Ever-Ember nodding in agreement.

Ever-Ember chuckled: “True, and with the civil war getting worse its surprisingly easier to have conversations like this. Far fewer monks and realm spies wasting time monitoring fools like me, not that it doesn’t have its downsides”

“Yes, Denzik Hala told us of the house navies that keep ‘inspecting’ them and confiscating stuff” Shimmer chimed in.

The unicorn sighed: “Not just things… ponies. Refugees trying to get off the blessed isle risk getting arrested and hung, and unicorns like me risk getting pressganged into serving whatever house catches us. I’ve gotten very good at hiding, had to”

“Well, that sucks. I assume you’re still working here with magical messaging and dealing in rare texts?” Speaker wondered.

Nodding, Ever-Ember sighed. Shimmer seemed to look at him with pity, appearing to understand the harsh reality of being hunted by others who would exploit you.

Speaker drew in a deep breath and gestured for calm: “Since we last met a lot of things have changed. Sunhill, the city-state I and my circle lord over, has grown. We could use a state sorcerer. You would be free to engage in your rare text business on the side”

“You mean that? Oh, that would be amazing” Ever-Ember said, his mane starting to spark as his emotions activated his elemental anima.

“Just get off the Denzik when it passes Lookshy. We have an embassy there. I’ll make sure that the staff there knows to expect you. Then you can send a message to Cash Charmer to ask for pickup”

It was nice to see just how alleviated the unicorn became, his happiness converting into an elemental warmth that made the cabin all kinds of steamy.

“Hey, now that we’ve at it – since we’ve pretending to be a Mnemon scion and his servant while passing through An-Teng, do you have any suggestions on how Speaker could pass for that?” Shimmer suddenly said, realizing that hearing from someone from that very house would be a good idea.

Ever-Ember found the duo’s plan of going over land with magical transportation interesting, but also sensible if they feared that they were being hounded by essence-tracking foes: “Well… since you’re not a unicorn, you could always complain about never getting the token”

Presenting a white lotus tile from the game of gateway, Ever-Ember explained that when any pony of his house exalts they are made to have an audience with Patriarch Mnemon, the eldest daughter of the Empress, during which she would give one a white lotus tile: “There’s an engraving on it: Power through knowledge, mastery through rigor, and conquest through diligence – it’s the house motto. I can give you other suggestions too if you want”

The rest of the journey on the Denzik were spent the occasional dinner party, Speaker being repeatedly approached with business propositions regarding identifying bits of ancient artifacts, as well as teaching Shimmer a fair about spirits, gods and the lore of the undead, in preparation of what they would likely have to face when they got back to Sunhill. Shimmer found Speaker’s educational charm quite impressive, constantly looking for something to repay Speaker with, and finding herself frustrated in having nothing to return the favors with, especially since he seemed to be oddly hesitant at sleeping with her.

Indeed, Speaker had found it difficult to transfer the love he had had for the old Shimmer. She was so young, so naïve – not the wise and world-weary matron he had once known. He was well aware of Shimmer’s bond to his exaltation drew her to him, and he had more than once resorted to charm-use to escape her amorous traps. Still, he took it in strides as he figured that her fascination would fade into that of a partnership of equals once they got back to Sunhill.

A few weeks later the Denzik approached the Dragon Mouth Bay, anchoring and sending forth dozen of merchant ships to do business in the City of the Steel Lotus. Speaker and Shimmer, clad in fine custom-tailored silk clothes to support their cover story of being a realm scion and his servant, came along for this.

“I feel silly in this…” Shimmer said, squirming in her servant’s outfit.

Speaker chuckled. He knew that this idea of actually wearing clothes was still foreign to Shimmer, indeed none at her tribe had really done so until having been forced to wear it at the slave mine: “So do I – it’s not my old uniform, but while wearing this nobody should question us buying passage to Thousand Dragons Lake and beyond. From there we can just fly over the fire mountains, we’ll be more or less safe at that point”

“Safe from who Lord Bright?”

“I’ve told you of them several times already – but you forget of them every time. Ponies who are shrouded by special magic that makes them fade from your mind. They tell the future and predict your movements, tracking you like nothing else, makes it easy for them to send dragonblooded assassins after us… or worse” Speaker sighed, eager to get back to Sunhill so that Shimmer could be formally made an agent of heaven, that she might remember that the Sidereal exalted were a thing.

It was never easy to guard against a foe that your traveling partner kept forgetting about. Shimmer sensed Speaker’s frustration: “Oh Lord Bright, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be – but keep that attitude, it’s perfect for a servant”

As the Denzik merchant ship pulled up to the harbour, gangplanks coming into position for cargo and passengers, Speaker looked at the many tengese dockworkers standing ready to receive them and their cargo.