Broken Wings, Scattered Dust

If All You Need is Me to Work, Then, My Friend

Eve threw a veil of her starry void over all of us except Azimuth, who had other business to attend to.  The shroud was translucent enough to see through, but not enough that it didn’t feel like we were walking in a mobile observatory; I stepped outside for a moment just to make sure it did indeed keep us all invisible.  It did.

Deluge and I ferried the other three across the river—Julienne with some effort, as she’d found a healthy stock of odd blue mushrooms and refused to leave it behind—and we entered Draconia with little besides Eve’s shroud and her word it would keep us hidden.

The guards kept in a loose formation that kept Eve away from the front line; Swan forwards and to the left, Julienne on the right, Eve in the middle, and Deluge and I at the rear.  We were to remain earthbound to keep us from stirring up air currents, which annoyed Deluge more than me; she kept rustling her wings and staring up at the sky.  I had long since learned that no matter how fast you flew, someone was faster.  Going unnoticed was a wholly different advantage.

A twilight shroud, as Eve had called it, didn’t seem to take much of a toll on her.  She unsurprisingly hadn’t disclosed any more of its mechanics, but however it worked, it was probably more an exploitation of nature’s laws than a bending or breaking of them; her horn was hardly glowing.

Swan, however, had her bow at the ready, and her gaze flitted between the distant mountains, the rolling hills, the occasional tree, and the crumbling ruins of three once-grand draconic spires.  Skyways bridged all three together, but apart from those and a few wispy cirrus clouds, the sky was empty.  She kept a wary eye on it anyways, watching, waiting, for any rage-ridden dragons.  From what I could tell, most were, if not reasonable then at least nonviolent, and hadn’t succumbed to that kind of blind anger.  But then, it only took one.

I did notice, however, that once again Swan carried no arrows; she hadn’t carried any back in Riverside, either, but I had assumed that was because she was off-duty.  There was a small protrusion on the side of her body armor that looked like it was supposed to hold some, but it was empty.  She probably had some stashed away somewhere—she had to.  I couldn’t think of where, but admittedly I trusted her over the other two, so I pushed it to the back of my mind.

Instead I kept my eyes on the spires.  Unless another pony shared Eve’s abilities, they were the most likely avenue of attack, and thus far I had never seen any unicorn whose magic looked like hers.  The spires, made of more black, volcanic rock shot through with red and orange, were beyond repair; large chunks had fallen off the sides, and time long since had eroded tips that could’ve once pierced the sky.

A stale sort of chill settled over us as we neared the spires.  At a closer distance, we could see black shadows of crows circling their tips like so many flies, and with some concentration, I could hear a faint humming—a faint breathing—coming from the volcanic stone.

“Timid Thunder lived here, once,” Julienne said quietly.  “A vacation house, I think.  One of, like, two Wardens that worked outside Equestria.  Imagine actually living in a dragon spire...”  She sighed happily.  “He must’ve had a blast.”

I shuddered a little.  Timid Thunder wasn’t a new name to me, but I hardly knew anything about him.  What I had heard of him, however—a fondness for titles and curt formalities, for example—was a peculiar combination that he shared with someone I’d met a long time ago.  What they didn’t share was the station of the Warden.

“So, you figure out that dragonscale yet?” I asked Deluge, still avoiding the Silhouette charade.  Doing it now would only draw attention to it; if Eve had noticed the change, she didn’t seem to care, and the other two hardly seemed to remember I’d introduced myself as somepony very different.  In all fairness, they had more important matters to consider.

The rain mare eyed me oddly.  “Haven’t had time, and I’m not doing it here anyways.”  She nodded at Eve.  “She’s got enough on her hooves as it is.  It can wait.  I can wait.”

Which I might have believed, if her wing didn’t keep clenching over the bag that held Canzonetta’s scale.  Something rare enough—or buried deep enough—to never appear in written history, or rather any history Whimsy had encountered, was sure to have its secrets, but it was a gift regardless.  If I hadn’t received a scale of my own from someone who championed innocuity, I would’ve suspected such a gift would have any multitude of strings attached.  Manipulation just wasn’t Descant’s style—and weird though she might be, Canzonetta seemed no fonder of it than he was.

We arrived at the base of the northernmost spire without incident, but overhead the crows kept circling, waiting for something to pass over that they might reap its remains.  I couldn’t see anything, nor was anything moving on the spires, but there was no reason for this many crows to congregate unless there was something to scavenge.  There was one shadow of a bird that seemed just a little different, just a little brighter, than the rest.

“Eve.”  I moved up next to her.  “Can I fly up there and see what they’re waiting for?”

She didn’t even turn around.  “Make it quick.  And don’t die on me.”

A globule of the shroud peeled off with me as I flew through it, and it shimmered around me as I ascended, flickering white with every wingbeat.  I realized halfway up the spire that it was nullifying the wind currents I was making; Eve clearly had practice with hiding pegasi.

I realized belatedly that finding the group again might be near impossible, but a glance downwards revealed that I could see them just fine, despite Eve’s shroud.  At a guess it seemed likely that those inside one shroud could see into another, which made sense if she were part of a unit.

As I drew level with the nearest spire’s tip, I scoured the flocks for the raven amongst the crows.  I had had a sneaking suspicion when I had first noticed the outlier, that maybe, just maybe, beneath its feathers and wings lay a secret I already knew.  The suspicion solidified when I found a pure-white raven hovering right behind me; albinoism aside, regular birds were not capable of that feat, save for hummingbirds and a select few birds of prey.  It had bright red eyes—another distinguishing trait—and two red streaks running along its body right under its wings, both of which only furthered my suspicion.

The raven was darting around me, looking right at me curiously.  It couldn’t see me, I was certain, but it could sense my presence; that much was clear.  More evidence.  I hesitated, then floated towards it until the shroud encapsulated it, too, at which it gave a squawk of surprise and reeled back slightly.

“It’s okay.”  I held out a hoof as nonthreateningly as I could.  “I know.”

It cocked its head, stared at me, and—after an unmistakeable glance at my cutie mark—it disappeared in a flash of white-hot fire, and when the light faded, the raven was gone, and in its place was a smoky grey pegasus.  He had spiky, maroon hair so dark it was almost black, and the white silhouette of a raven sat on his flank, surrounded by tiny starlike runes and glowing softly in the aftermath of his metamorphosis.  Perhaps the most alarming part of his appearance was two bold, blood-red eyes that never seemed to blink.

“Hm.”  He rubbed his chin.  “Apollo?”

Blood rushed to my face, and for a moment my vision drifted out of focus.  “No, the Plea.  You’re...” I breathed in sharply.  “...not going to tell anyone, are you?”

He just looked at me.  “No.”

An awkward silence followed.  He didn’t seem to want to introduce himself—which was fine by me.  It meant I neither had to play the Silhouette charade nor lie about my name.

He did not seem surprised to see the phantom universe surrounding us or the other four looking up at us, far below.  But then, I guess when you can shapeshift into a raven, there’s not much that can really surprise you.  Or concern you.

I ignored—not without difficulty—the growing, crushing sensation of utter hollowness that was slowly eating my insides.  Not having eaten for a few hours wasn’t helping.  “What’s with all the crows?”

He gestured at the spire.  “There’s a dying dragon inside.  I’ve been trying to clear them out so she can die in peace, but...” He shrugged.  “It’s a dying dragon.”

The phrase restored my usual state of mind; the wearing hollowness faded, the surging blood receded, the wind around me remembered to breathe, and all that was left was the frigid focus of objectivity.  My home.

“Who is it?”  It couldn’t be Timid Thunder unless there was some odd gender disparities.

“Don’t know, haven’t seen her.  The crows say she’s—”  He paused for a moment, ear cocked.  “She’s crying and wailing in pain.  Trust me,” he added.  “Crows know death when they hear it.”

I strained my ears as hard I could, but for all my efforts I could not hear anything that sounded like a dragon on Tartarus’ doorstep.  “I don’t hear anything.”

“Are you a crow?”

“No, but—”

“There you go.”  He gestured at the murder.  “I said they can hear death, and that’s exactly what I meant.  They know the sound far better than I do,” he added with a slight tilt of his head.

I looked down at the waiting guards, then back up at the pegasus, whose red eyes were locked on me, and within them I caught a glimpse of something I’d seen only once before.  “Volcano?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”  I saw Julienne far below, waving something that sparkled silver in the sunlight.  “I should go.”

He shooed me off.  “Fly.”

I felt another burst of fire as I turned tail and flew, and I knew he was once again a raven.  My insides had yet to settle, but the more distance I put between myself and Raven—what else could I call him?—the calmer they felt.  Admittedly I’d suspected the same of Swan, but even with her name, she had shown no sign that she knew of Raven’s kind.

Until I landed next to the others, that was.  All eyes were on me, staring daggers, but it was the archer and her honey-golden eyes that glared the hardest, harbored the most suspicions.  She was twitching ever so slightly, and she was clearly fighting to keep her face impassive, but it was in her eyes.  Some mixture of surprise and anger, but what caught my interest was the smouldering embers of jealousy.  She did know.  She didn’t comment on it, but I knew she would at the first chance she got.

“I’ve been trying to talk that crow for ages,” Julienne said casually.  “He won’t talk to me.”

“Raven,” I corrected her.”  He’s a raven.  How’d you know he—?”

Julienne nodded at Eve, who stepped forward.  “I saw him a few times, never with other birds.  Thought he stood out a little, so I caught him flying over the river a while back,” she said.  “Tried talking to him, but he didn’t want to talk at first.  He...”  She hesitated.  “...he didn’t turn back into a pony until I introduced myself.”

Swan cleared her throat, and the odd pink tinge in Eve’s cheeks intensified.  “He wouldn’t talk to anyone else,” the archer said, still glaring at me accusingly.

I took a step back, but not because of her; Eve was sheepishly scratching at the ground with a hoof.  “It’s fine,” I told her.  “I’m not interested in him.”

At which she look mildly relieved, but Swan caught my eye and curtly nodded sideways; it was all she needed to do.

I wordlessly joined her and we walked some ways off in silence—again, a globule of the shroud peeling off to conceal us—and when we were out of earshot, she stepped in front of me and stared me down, eyes livid.  “You knew.”

“I know.”

She squinted at me, then at my cutie mark.  “I figured you weren’t actually Silhouette, but I didn’t want to ask if you didn’t want to tell.”

“I don’t.”

“But...”  She pointed at my flank.  “I know what that is now.  Or,” she amended, an odd tone I couldn’t place entering her voice.  “What it was supposed to be.”

I wanted to respond, I really did.  But it was how she said it that made me forget to; it took me a few stunned moments to recognize it, so unexpected was her reaction.

It was anger.

“How can you give that up?!”  She drew herself to her full height, golden steel glinting in the afternoon daylight, blue mohawk quaking with rage.  “Just abandon it like it was nothing?!  Do you have any idea how much ponies would give up for the chance you had?!  Do you have any idea how much I would give up?!?”

Her outrage battered against me, a fierce and discordant wind from a past I’d laid to rest long ago; I drew strength from my weathered core, and spoke as calmly as I could.  “I don’t, nor do I want to.  Just think, just for one second, about what could be so bad that it would make me give that chance up.  Think of what horrors I might’ve unleashed if I’d embraced that potential.”

“You don’t know.”  She advanced on me.  “You don’t know what it’s like being an earth pony.  The underbelly of pony society.  Mocked because we don’t have magic or wings.  Face rubbed in pebbles and dirt every day, being told we’re upholding society, but no, we’re just upholding unicorns and pegasi.”  She spat at my hooves.  “And you think you’re all high and mighty because you turned that chance down so you’d be on equal ground with us.”

I felt myself growing angry in spite of myself; Earth ponies had their capabilities, too, but they were subtle.  Very subtle, and perhaps not very well known.  But it wasn’t a secret I was at liberty to divulge.

“No.  I turned it down because the damage I did while taking that chance left scars that will never heal, and almost none of those scars are mine.  I’ll not cripple countless others so I can become something...more.”  I took a breath.  “Don’t think for one second I turned it down out of pity or some crap like that.

“And believe me, I know exactly how many ponies would give up their life to have the chance I did.  Because most of them actually do trying to get that chance.”

That did it.  Her anger waned visibly, nudged aside by confusion and puzzlement, perhaps helped along by the chilly gust I’d sent at her.  “They do?”

“Yes.”

“The—err—one I met said it was just a ritual.”

“It is.  There’s three parts to it.  Two of them like ending in death.”

“Oh.”  She stepped back, anger gone, though her chest was still heaving.  “I see.”

I took a breath, hesitant.  “Can...I ask how you know?  I take it you knew before meeting Raven.”

She turned away from me, looking up at the spires.  “Gravitas.  That’s his name.  And yes, I did know before.  I got my cutie mark for keeping wildlife off our ranch, growing up.”  She tapped her bow fondly.  “One night, full moon.  Spotted a snow-white fox with all the timber wolves.  I couldn’t peg him, and believe me—” Her chest puffed up proudly.  “That’s saying something.  But instead of going for the animals, he went for me, and pinned me down.”

She laughed, though the sound was marred by lingering anger.  “Next thing I knew, I was covered in snow, the fox was gone, and there was a pony standing over me.  Backed off once he was sure I wouldn’t shoot, introduced himself.  Apologized a lot, said the wolves had been running out of food and our ranch looked like a gold mine to them.  I asked if he could keep them out—he said he’d try.”

A gust of wind blew past us, unbidden, a little trail of dandelion seeds borne aloft on sun-warmed currents.

“Never saw the wolves again.”

She didn’t need to finish; I knew what happened after.  There was always something that happens after a story ends.  Always.

The way Swan had said his name told me everything.  It hadn’t been with heartthrob, but with reverence and a dash of tight familiarity.  So she’d seen him a few times after, and they connected as any close friends might, but there was no romance, no regular dependence on one another, and hardly any communication between them.  Yet still there was that friendship, rarely called upon but nevertheless a bond that could weather time’s weary advance, and perhaps even grow in spite of it.

“Well,” I said tentatively.  “I’d help you, but I’m a little preoccupied.  Have you asked him if he could help you, y’know...get started?”

She cocked her head.  “Of course, but every time I ask, he just goes silent and looks away.”  Her brows creased and anger flashed across her face again, but I beat her to the punch.  Her situation wasn’t one I was entirely new to, but it was still rare enough that the words tumbled from my mouth faster than my brain could process them.

“Have you ever thought that he wanted you safe more than he wanted you to ascend?  I’ve seen twelve ponies attempt the ritual.  Of those twelve, seven died during the first stage, and another four in the third.  It’s not safe.”

I knew long before I’d finished what her response would be.  “And the twelfth?”

Another cold and lonely wind swirled around us, an anomaly for an otherwise warm, sunny day; Swan shivered when I answered, and even I shuffled my wings.  “She hasn’t finished yet.”

I couldn’t keep the bite out of my voice, but she ignored it, eyes on the sky.  Time passed, maybe a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, before she looked up again.  “Thank you,” she said.  “For everything.  And sorry for getting mad at you.”

“It’s okay.”  My smile faltered.  “And...thank you too.”

“For what?”

I lifted my head met her honey-colored eyes with mine, and from the way she looked back at me, I knew she hadn’t had a proper look before.  A smile stretched across my face; I always kept my mane over my eyes, but anyone who saw past the shadows would find a cold, slate grey hiding underneath.  “For not asking.”

“You’re welcome.”  She nodded towards the group, and we starting making our way back.

“Please,” I said.  “...don’t tell the others.”

She looked at me again.  “I won’t.  Not unless it becomes important to our mission—then I have to.  But...it won’t.”  She paused.  “You have beautiful eyes.”

I blinked and dropped my gaze.  As silly as it was to be proud of something you’ve always had, I was proud of my eyes.  It was a rare color to have—and of the few who had actually seen my eyes, none had ever complimented them.  I’d learned how to deal with a lot of things over the years, but compliments were not one of them.  They never were.

“Thanks,” I said awkwardly, and it was with massive relief that we dropped the topic there.  Our return had drawn the attention of the others, and no longer were they out of earshot.

“Let’s go,” Eve said curtly, and we fell back into formation.  It still felt strange to me, being in formation; usually I was on the other side.  I had to actually focus so that I drifted waywards now and then, so it didn’t look like I knew this kind of formation from the inside out.  Any structure—it any form—has its weaknesses, and it was my job to know them from the ground up.  This particular one was adopted to protect a single VIP.

“Gravitas said there was a dying dragon inside the spire,” I mentioned casually.  “Would you guys know anythi—”

Apparently they did, because Swan raised one of her hooves, gave Julienne and Eve a nod, then drew several circles in midair.  They turned towards the spire and started towards them, Deluge and I following in slight bewilderment.  If a dying dragon changed their tack this quickly, then it was because the rest of their unit was with said dying dragon.  But then...their mission had to involve dragons, which wasn’t surprising...except that they would have to be including those of the dead variety.

“You okay?”

I looked up to find Deluge staring at me, concerned.

“I’m fine.  I just thought—” I drew a sharp breath, and I felt my voice quake.  “I just thought I...wouldn’t have to work here.”

Again the cold wind blew between us, but a warm, feathery sensation followed; Deluge had rubbed her wing against mine.  I extended my wing and returned the gesture, feeling her feathers—her flight feathers—brush against mine.  The silent act of trust.  We were two of a kind, and now I knew we both knew it.

We housed the same tempered storm, and we both played host to dichotomic forces.  For her, it was an ongoing war between fact and faith—Mer was loyal, but he had scarpered all the same—as well as formality and practicality.  She was born and raised in the former and sought the latter, yet she was unable to shed all the trappings of her upbringing.

It was a little different for me, but only a little.  The wingtap proved she was as sharp as I was, proved she had figured out that I, too, spent most of my time torn between two fronts, and that I, too, bore irremovable marks from an upbringing I’d much rather forget.

I pushed it out of my mind as we neared the spire; it was absolutely colossal up close, with more than enough jagged surfaces to conceal a pony.  It appeared to be roughly the same size as the Calamus, but out here, in the open—there was no proper scale to compare.  It was definitely made of the same volcanic black glass as Whimsy’s new sword, but it was so scraped and worn down it had lost its luster, and instead was a matte black.

We circled around it and entered via a gaping hole near the base of the spire, which led into a darkened tunnel—well, a grand hall, for us, but a tunnel for a dragon—whose depths were hidden by shadows not far in, explaining why I hadn’t seen it earlier.

A whipcrack of thunder split the air and the darkness was swiftly dispelled as a bolt of lightning arced along the lines where the gently curved walls met, bathing the tunnel in light so white it glowed blue.  Even more interestingly, the lightning did not vanish, but stayed, persisted, crackling quietly behind what looked like glass.

Eve’s head snapped back as the lightning came alive; Swan braced for combat at the sound, and Julienne merely looked upwards curiously.  It was the unicorn that concerned me, though—her reaction was too violent, lasted too long, to be mere surprise.  But was it because she hadn’t known about the lightning conduit, or because she was supposed to be keeping us concealed and the lightning was surefire proof something knew we were here?

I knew there was more to it than just lightning and glass.  Sustained lightning was feat enough in itself, but glass alone would never work as a shield; that kind of heat would melt it under normal circumstances.  There was magic here, but it was more than just the work of a dragon.  The persistent lightning was just that, I was sure, but the containment conduit?  Not a chance.

That was a unicorn’s field.

We continued along the tunnel, hooves tapping quietly on the glass floor, the sound seemingly bouncing around endlessly inside the shroud.  Whether or not Eve had prior knowledge of conduit was irrelevant, for the time being; something knew we were here, and from the way Swan’s gaze darted about, and the way Julienne cringed at every slightest sound, they had figured out the same.  Even Deluge looked nervous, but she didn’t hesitate to poke me when she caught me preening my feathers.  I really needed to stop.

Yet as the air thinned and the tunnel’s curve grew steadily sharper, we heard strains of a heated discussion echoing down to us, and though it was bent and distorted by the reverberations, two other sounds were also discernible; the same clanking of metal and the same hooves-on-glass sounds as we made—so there were guards ahead.  But not necessarily their unit.  Probably, but not necessarily.

“It’s them,” Julienne whispered.

And indeed, whern we turned a final curve and the lightning conduit receded into the ceiling, there stood three armored Solar Guards—two pegasi, one unicorn—all of whom were standing in complete silence, right before the tunnel’s opening.  Two of them looked relieved to see their squadmates, and Eve even hoofbumped the other unicorn.  They—we—were clearly waiting for something to happen in the room above us, but now that Eve was here, they could talk without giving us away.

The third guard, a pegasus—who had at his side a hefty red hammer with gold insets—looked as stony-faced as I could imagine, but if anything he grew only stonier when he noticed Deluge.  I couldn’t entirely blame him; she was classy, sure, but what he’d done to her, the emotional Tartarus he put her through...it would be more than enough to break the mare’s composure.  And once that happened, Celestia knew what she would do.  That was the problem with class.  You never knew what was hiding underneath.

“About damn time,” said the other pegasus, tapping the butt of his spear on the ground, the Captain’s Crest glinting on his armor. He peered at the two of us not clad in armor, but he glanced sideways as Meridian stiffened, and he made the connection.  “I take it you’re Deluge?  Who’s the tagalong?”

“Traveling companion.”  The mare did not hesitate in responding, and even knowing she was lying, it was impossible for me to spot the tells.  “It’s a long journey, I couldn’t take it alone.”

“De—Deluge?” the other unicorn stuttered.  “What’re you doing here?”

“I need to talk to Meridian,” she said flatly.

“Speaking of which,” Julienne cut in; she’d been peeking over the tunnel’s edge, into the room.  “We haven’t all been properly introduced, and since we’re all waiting around doing nothing, why not fix that.  That—” She pointed at the captain.  “That’s the captain, Crimson Lotus.”

I shivered reactively before I could suppress the urge, but she took no notice, pointing at the other pegasus.

“That’s Meridian, Lieutenant Meridian Aubade.  And this—” She thumped the other unicorn affectionately.  “—this is Burnout.”

“I assume you’ve already met the dark one, the duck, and the hashslinger?” said Crimson.

“Uhm.”  Keeping my face straight around Crimson was a serious effort, and I wasn’t sure if it was working.  “Who, who, and who?”

Crimson sighed.  “Sorry, forgot.  It’s been a while since I’ve had to use their real names.  Let’s see...the duck is Swan, Swan Fletching, Julienne—just Julienne—is the hash slinger, and...bllaaaghh.  The dark one.  Don’t make me say it, please, please don’t make me say it.”

Eve’s muzzle curled into a smile, and against her dark coat, her teeth shone like stars in the dead of night.  “Event Horizon.”

I couldn’t make the call on whether or not Eve’s or Crimson’s full name sent more shivers down my spine, but at least the former’s black—no, void—magic made a little more sense.  Yet even being crushed into oblivion by a black hole was more attractive option than the prospect of having to deal with Crimson once the truth was laid bare.  The former would be over quickly.

“Well, now you’ve met us,” Julienne said with a weak smile.  “Caelum, the Watchers, in all our ragtag glory.”

Eve poked her head into the room, her scouting concealed by the shroud.  The room was—as far as I could tell—empty of both living beings and sounds, save for the wind’s soft breathing and the faintest whispers of rain.  “She’s late,” she said quietly.

Deluge had already picked up on it.  “If we’re waiting for somepony, why are we waiting in here?  What if they come up this way?”

“Hah,” Julienne snorted.  “She won’t.  She has a more...eccentric way of getting ar—.”

A violent slamming noise from above cut her off, followed by the insidiously quiet sound of cracking glass and thereafter the sound of hoofsteps.

A pony?  Up here?  I hadn’t heard the flapping of wings or any sort of airship.  If it was a pegasus, they could’ve just landed at full speed without breaking—it would explain the noise, but not the weight.  Whoever was walking around above us was heavy; pegasi were not, and it was a distinctly nonmagical sound.  So either they were here already—and I would’ve heard them had they crossed a skyway—or they had dropped out of the sky.

“There she is,” said the captain, a tad unnecessarily.

“Who is she?”  From the way she kept lurching forward, Deluge wanted to get into the room and have a look, but she had to go through the guards—and more importantly Meridian—to get there.  Given that we’d encountered an admittedly weird pony not too far from here, and that pony had also displayed prior knowledge of the guards and their mission—and a knack for some abilities not possessed by most earth ponies—I had one and only one guess as to who was trotting around above us.

The guards crept forward until at last Deluge and I emerged into the room, and as I’d expected, there was a brown-cloaked pony.  What I hadn’t expected was the familiar blue-scaled dragon the pony was standing next to; Canzonetta was curled up against the wall between the two gaping holes that led to either skyway, and unless I was mistaken, her scales were a little less blue than they’d been hours before.  She was breathing hard.

Dust glanced at us—directly at us—before turning back to the dragon, green magic curling around the her hooves and slithering towards the dragon, sinking beneath her scales.  Canzonetta’s breaths slowed and deepened, but she seemed no better for it.  Upon noticing the pony glancing back, she mumbled something in Draconic.

And as if it wasn’t outlandish enough already, Dust replied in kind.

The sounds of a pony speaking a dragon’s tongue, though it was unnatural and clearly not her native tongue, rebounded off the walls and tangled with its own reflections, turning into an aural web that was almost impossible to decipher.  It didn’t help that moments after speaking, the pony dashed to one of the openings and pulled something that—even knowing she was peculiar and fanastical and unlike any pony I’d ever heard of—I couldn’t help but call extraordinary.

The lingering echoes of her Draconic were swiftly drowned out by the sound of, apparently, a materializing massive, glowing, spectral, green bow, drawn from thin air.  A phantom construct decorated with runes that, like Riverside’s gateway, were not Draconic, nor anything else I recognized.  Dust wasted little time in loading herself into the bow, hind legs against the string; a shockwave rippled through the spire’s stone as she fired herself into the twilit sky.  She was outlined by the rising moon for the briefest of moments before she plummeted out of sight; the bow had already vanished.

“Ow,” I said reactively, but only Deluge heard me.  Five guards had rushed to Canzonetta’s side, where Dust’s green magic was still sinking into the dragon’s scales—with, unsettingly enough, no sound at all and no evidence that it was ever there.  Swan alone rushed instead to the opening Dust had...departed from, but she didn’t seem concerned with the mare’s escape.

“She killed her!”  Crimson exclaimed, trying in vain to stop the last few tendrils of Dust’s magic from melding into the dragon.  “She killed her and we were right there!  We should have done something!”

Meridian caught his captain’s eye and pointedly tapped his armor, face expressionless.

“It’s not our mission.”  Eve looked slightly disheartened, but her face was set.

“Oh.  Sorry,” said Crimson bitterly.  “I forgot we can’t save lives unless the ponies upstairs say it’s okay.”

Meridian tapped his head, extended a hoof, then sharply withdrew it as though he’d been burned, shaking his head.

“You know why we’re here,” said Eve dispassionately.  “And it’s not to interfere.”

“I—I just don’t get it sometimes...”

Burnout laid a hoof on him and said nothing.  What the hoof said, however, was far from nothing; the captain lifted his head and met her eyes, drawing strength from her silent empathy.

“Heh, yeah.” He chuckled reluctantly and stood back up.  “She knows better than us.  Now if only I knew why I was made Captain...”

I shot a glance at Meridian.  His stony expression that hadn’t budged since I’d first seen him faltered for the briefest of moments; if I’d blinked I would’ve missed it, but I wasn’t imagining it this time.  And it couldn’t be him just knowing something about Crimson’s promotion—from little what I knew of him, that alone wouldn’t be enough to make him uncomfortable.  He’d had a direct hoof in it.

“Canzonetta?” Crimson spoke quietly, carefully.  “Are you okay?”

One of the dragon’s eyes cracked open, and it became immediately apparent that she was deteriorating.  Her eye which hours before had been a blue as pure as the open sea, was shot faintly through with grey and yellow, and it seemed a constant struggle for her to keep it open.

“Well enough,” she croaked, her breath coming in ragged, uneven bursts.  But when the guards moved closer, she growled at them until they retreated, forcing herself into an upright position.  “No.  One last thing.  Then the passing.”

The guards looked at each other, suddenly nervous.  I couldn’t keep the confusion off my face.  Here she was, clearly on Old Thresh’s doorstep, possibly thanks to Dust, ready to journey through the Gates of Tartarus, but she was defiant, summoning her last vestiges of strength, and for what?  To talk to a few guards, a weathermare, and little old me?  Hardly.  There was something else going on here.

“Was it her?”  Burnout whispered.

“No.  Fault not gold and silver.  Time alone.”

“What is she talking about?” Deluge asked, as politely as she could manage, but both the guards and the dragon ignored her.

There was a distinct note of dread in Eve’s voice when she spoke.  “Does it have to be...one of us?”

“Yes.”

No.  Oh please, no.  In raw desperation I jammed my goggles on, but nothing changed, and that was the most horrific thing imaginable.  This was happening.  This was really happening.

Killing a dragon, one that could hold their own, fight back—that was one thing, even if the wails of a passing dragon were otherworldly and earsplitting and gutwrenching and terrible, made even worse by the lack of a corpse.  It was a sound that would shadow me to my grave.  But this...this was an execution.  A mercy killing, but an execution all the same.

There was a challenge in assassination.  Any worthwhile target knew they were one, and so they erected defenses.  Varied and extensive they were, each one an obstacle to overcome.  They had a chance to hide, to run, to defend themselves.  Canzonetta did not.

Deluge nudged me so hard I fell over.

“It’s not that,” she said sharply, earning the guards’ undivided attention.  “She wants—needs something else.”

I stared at her blankly.  She needed something else besides a mercifully painless death?  What, a banana?  What had to be one of us?

“I was kinda hoping...she’d be the one,” Julienne said lamely.

“Thought for sure she would be,” Swan added.

But the first whispers of a real answer came when Canzonetta caved in to another bout of coughs, and the first mistrals of death froze the water vapor surrounding her, causing a light snow to blanket her scaled form.  Some of the snow lingered in the air, however, defying gravity in favor of forming the glacial silhouette of...a bird.

Though it was nothing more than some airborne ice crystals, the mirage struck a chord within me, and despite my goggles’ lunar enchantment, the bird assumed a transparent, ethereal quality, glowing with an icy blue not so far from my coat.  I could pick out individual barbs on its feathers, each one in constant flux between perfect needle and jagged ice, as if the bird housed a devastating snowstorm within, and it was with the howling winds of winter that it went barreling through my head, baring its soul in a shower of frosted feathers and a feral shriek that reeked of ages past.

Sapphire.

This wasn’t my goggles, and I could tell that the projections weren’t real, that it was still only an admittedly precise cluster of snowflakes.  Whimsy had said there were a couple ways to project illusions, and this was without a doubt the more insidious of the two; this was magic at work inside my head, shards of ice driven into my mind like so many nails, and as the bird’s cry continued I could feel the centuries upon centuries worth of memories contained within, bogging me down with volatile emotions and vivid flashbacks that went careening past with dizzying speed, too fast to make anything out.  There was more to the memories, the recollections, the reflections than I’d ever experienced, more than I was capable of experiencing.

Dragons were acutely aware of the magical planes, almost lived in them, whereas even unicorns only flitted through them.  But I had visited those planes for longer than most, accessing potential unused for centuries, and I could feel that plane now, leaking into ours in a overwhelming tidal wave of magic.  It sounded like every animal’s cries combined, proud and quiet and fierce and playful.  They looked like every creature fused into one, horned and slimy and scaled and furry.  They smelled divine and putrid, fruity and biting, stinging and musty.  They felt jagged and glassen, rocky and sandy, cold and dry, wet and hot.  They tasted sour and sweet and bitter and salty.

This was magic in its purest form.

Raw magic went were it willed, acted on the merest of whims, and could just as easily grant cosmic powers beyond comprehension as it could torch beings alive, from the inside out.  I had seen it at work, seen it bless ponies with trascendent abilities.  But far more often had I seen it freeze ponies solid, bury them in magma, drown them in the oceans’ depths, or rip them apart with nothing but wind.  I’d even seen one torn apart by the void of the cosmos.

The bird let out another fierce shriek and it twisted, deformed, spiraled into a shining vortex that hesitated only briefly before bursting forth to form a blue gryphon, who had the same icy-needle feathers as well as vaguely crystalline scaled legs, fur that looked like frost, and a jagged, almost polygonal beak that cracked open to the same, shivering howls of winter once more.

Paradigm.

And the magic withdrew.

I was back in the spire, watching some sad snowflakes melt on their way to the floor.  Gone was the cold, the memories, but nevertheless a shiver ran through us all.  Evidence that the magical fit hadn’t afflicted only me.

But the guards knew already.  There was no confusion in their eyes; determination drained all personality and color from their faces, and they kept shooting furtive glances at one another, waiting for someone to step up.  It has to be one of us.

Paradigm.  Paradigm.

I rubbed my head, disparate facts floating around inside, no connections to tie them all together, yet...there had to be connections.  There was too much evidence to the contrary.  The Paradigm—the Sapphire Paradigm, at that, whatever that was—the military presence, Canzonetta’s splintered mind, her grandiose display of magic followed by her death, the rippling wall.  Then Deluge’s inevitable confrontation with Meridian, and my task of giving her—ideally them—resolution.

Coincidence that both events were happening simultaneously, and in the same area?  Unlikely.

Sapphire Paradigm.

Canzonetta, the gryphon, and the...ice phoenix?

Perhaps the magic that allowed elemental dragons could affect other sufficiently magical beings, as well.

But regardless, they were all connected, even if I didn’t know how yet.  Canzonetta’s impending death and the magical spilloff...I had witnessed a dragon’s death before, and it had involved some lingering flames, but there had been nothing like the magic we had just witnessed, no overwhelming surge of magic that washed over my mind.  She couldn’t be anything other than an Eyrian guardian, and the influx of memories were almost certainly a result of a waning grasp on her magic.

The guards shuffled nervously, still looking at each other, their expressions growing more and more flat.  Canzonetta’s breathing had slowed, stabilized; she was watching us struggle with ourselves, the moon reflected in both open eyes, her death defied until one of us stood up.  Until one of us...

...until one of us chose to become the next Sapphire Paradigm.

The phoenix, the gryphon.  Sapphire Paradigms from the past.  I saw it now.  The Paradigms were the Eyrian guardians, protectors of primal magic.  The magic they bore, a burden to accept, a role to fulfill; it kept the world running.  If Canzonetta died before another chose to take her place, the magic would roam, like it had mere minutes ago, tidal waves of memories and visions crashing into the cliffs of the mind until they were worn away, reduced to nothing.  The magic had left Canzonetta—a dragon—with a splintered mind and spirit.  Even dispersed, what the magic might do to ponies and lesser creatures...

Deluge began quaking next to me, shivering, trembling.  With every passing second the pressure to step up grew, and the guards appeared no more willing than they had been a few minutes ago.  There was no way I’d do it.  I’d screwed up too many times to carry that kind of responsibility, to take that kind of risk, and I realized perhaps too late that my decision was clear in my body language.  I wasn’t stiff like the guards, and I wasn’t trembling like Deluge.

There was no way she’d had the same revelation as me, but she knew something had to be done, and she knew that if the necessity of it was so great that it could stave off death, so great that Old Thresh stayed his chains.  The world would fail if no one stepped up.  The guards weren’t willing to do it, that much was clear.  They were all backing up slowly, unwilling to make a bigger sacrifice than they already had.  All but one.

Meridian alone was left standing, stance firm, wings flared, hooves crunching as they dug into the weathered stone, but his eyes...his eyes were quivering, uncertain.  Unwilling.  I was far from an expert on magic, but from the proceedings so far, it seemed the dragon’s successor had to be willing, or the magic would not take.  If it didn’t matter, then it would’ve chosen one of us on its own, and Canzonetta would not be lying there, watching us, waiting for someone to want to replace her.

But even so, Meridian began moving, slowly, walking towards Deluge with soft conviction.  Perhaps to say goodbye, or to apologize, or offer excuses.  It didn’t matter.  She was the one with the power to forgive—all he could do was ask and hope for the best.  His hoofsteps rang through the chamber like ringing bell tolls, but she did not turn.  She had eyes for Canzonetta alone, and in less than a minute Deluge had gone from quivering to quaking, her hooves almost rattling against the stone, her wings rustling like autumn leaves in the wind.

Deluge closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths.  When she opened them again, her eyes shone with new resolve, the blue sparkling like crystals, but she had grown rigid, far too rigid, and I noted that she only got tenser as Meridian drew nearer.

He reached out with a tender hoof to touch her, to see if she would be okay with him taking up Canzonetta’s mantle, but before he could even ask, the mare’s wings shot out and she wheeled about with a blast of wind that sent him careening backwards, tripping over his own hooves and skidding along the floor.  His armor gouged long furrows into the stone with a drawn-out screech that reaved holes in the atmosphere, shattering the thin-ice tension only to replace it with raw, unbridled anger.

“Don’t touch me,” Deluge snarled.  “You’ve survived without me for months.  You don’t need me to support you.”

He looked at her, silent, eyes pleading, apologetic.

“You think I can just forgive you?  After everything you put me through?”

She advanced on him, wings wide, the air around her plummeting several degrees as the anger and anxiety she’d been bottling for months began leaking through her composure, pegasus blood and instinct making her cold fury manifest.

“You could’ve been dead!  You could’ve fallen for another mare!  But you left, abandoned me without a trace!”

Meridian flinched with every accusation leveled against him, but he did not close his eyes, he did not back off, and he did not fight back.

“BUT NO, I GET A LETTER, SAYING YOU WENT ..A., AND I’M SCARED YOU’RE DEAD, BUT THEN I COME HERE JUST TO FIND YOU BACK WITH YOUR OLD GUARD AND—AND—”

She wheeled about to fire a piercing glare at Burnout, who shrank back, trying and failing to make herself look harmless and helpless.  Hard to do that when you’re wearing armor.

“IT’S HER, ISN’T IT?!”

Meridian shook his head, still quaking, trying to regain control of himself.  He was still on the floor, but Deluge’s anger was only growing, festering into a storm as only a pegasi’s fury could, and she started advancing on him again, vehemently, slowly, small cumulonimbus clouds roiling to life around her, forcing him to keep backing up until his armored flank hit the wall with a venomously quiet clang.

“No—!”

Burnout’s voice was pitifully weak, a leaf of defiance caught before Deluge’s torrential storm.  The rain mare turned on her, mane flying wildly, eyes furious, unfocused, teetering on the cliff of hysteria.

“DON’T YOU DARE LIE TO ME, YOU FILTHY—”

Most of her insults—and Burnout’s feeble protests—fell away as I shut her out, blood pumping, mind racing, but what little of her yelling that did make it through, did so with considerable volume.

“—HE LETS ME THINK WE’RE GOING TO GET MARRIED BUT HE’S OFF, OH NO BIGGIE I MISSED MY WEDDING—”

Meridian hadn’t moved, hadn’t raised a hoof to defend himself; Deluge was going to keep yelling, there was nothing I could do about that.

“—RUNNING AROUND BEHIND MY BACK AND DOING CELESTIA KNOWS WHAT—”

She had more experience than me, and in any case the less I was directly involved, the better.

“—IF YOU THINK THINK I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU TWO MORONS TOGETHER—”

The resolution would be much more profound, more stable if they found it on their own.

“—NO WAY IN TARTARUS YOU’RE NOT UP TO SOMETHING—”

Deluge was over Meridian now, spittle flying from her mouth and freezing solid mid-air, each little pellet drawn into a light vortex that had swirled to life around the mare.  Most of the guards looked like they understood, too, that if they intervened, it would weaken the conflict’s solution.  Crimson alone had started moving towards mare, spear at the ready, but the raging storm enveloping Deluge kept him at bay.

“—YOU COULD HAVE JUST HAD FLEET TELL ME BUT NOOOO, JUST HAD TO SCARPER—”

She drew a hoof back, as if to punch Meridian.

“—YOU—”

Her leg tensed, and she drew it back further.

“—SON—”

A surge of arctic winds howled to life as the tornado accelerated, spewing hail every which way.  Meridian raised a leg to shield himself.

"—OF—”

The guards were paralyzed, Crimson’s intervention stayed by the storm, but as the freezing winds washed over me and Deluge all but disappeared behind a wall of hail, I smelled rain.

“—A—”

I hurled myself into the storm, carried forth on thrashing winds and ignoring the hail battering my hide.  Meridian’s leg dropped.

“—BITCH!”

The crackle of crystallizing water filled the air as I breached the eye of the storm and seized her leg mid-swing, stopping the icicle a split-second before it disappeared into her fiancé.

“Don’t.”

It was all that I said, and it was all that was needed.  The storm withered instantly.  Fleeting insanity fled from her eyes as she looked down at her would-be murder weapon, and shock contorted her face as she realized what she’d almost done.

“I...”

She backed off, the icicle falling from her grasp to shatter against the ground, its shards joining the hundreds of others on the floor.  She backed off, twisting her ears, but she did not fold her wings, and when she turned to bolt, I snatched up her tail.  Momentum carried her legs out from under her and slammed her against the floor, face up.  I spat out her tail and walked over to her, slowly, calmly.  She was half-whimpering, half-sobbing; the guards looked utterly lost and confused, except for one.  Eve’s eyes had narrowed to slits, and she was not looking at Deluge.

“You think running will solve this?”  I did my best to not sound abrasive, but the rain mare winced every few words, as though each one was another physical blow.  “That’s exactly what he did, and look where it got you two.  Don’t make the same mistake.  Give him, at the very least, the chance to explain himself.”

Deluge’s whimpering dwindled to quiet sniffles.  “I...I just can’t stand it...”

I resisted the urge to grin at her choice of words; she was still lying on the ground.  “Maybe he couldn’t, either.  You both ran away—okay, you only tried—but you both did it for a reason.  We know yours.  What’s his?”  There was more than one side to any story.  Making a judgement call without knowing all of them was folly at its finest.

She struggled into a sitting position and looked at Meridian, curiously, like he were an creature behind bars, behind glass.  “I don’t know...and he can’t say...”

“Hm?”  I turned to look at Meridian, who had peeled himself off the wall but looked as helpless and pleading as ever.  Upon catching my eye he opened his mouth, but no sound came out.  He worked his jaw in silence for a few moments, then pointedly shut it again.  “Oh.”

He was mute.

Eve glanced at Crimson, who glanced at Canzonetta.  The dragon’s death was still on hold, imminent, merely delayed, but her eyes had grown clear again, and both of them were open.  She’d even pulled her head off the floor, if only slightly.  She caught Crimson’s eye and nodded.

“At ease,” the captain said.  Eve removed her helmet, as did Meridian; both reverted to their normal appearances; the former, a dark unicorn, the latter, a pale-orange pegasus with a white-red mane and hazel eyes.  Eve went to his side, angled so she could watch him and us, her expression dead.  When Meridian went into a series of gestures I couldn’t make head nor tails of, she spoke.  Curtly, and flatly.

“He was afraid.”

Meridian was not a pony most would call a coward.  Even for the short while I had observed him, he had not shown fear of much.  He had been shaking during Deluge’s yelling fest, but he had done no more.  He had not turned tail nor lashed out.

“Of what?” Deluge choked through her tears.

To which Meridian replied with another sequence of gestures, but Eve did not speak immediately this time, confusion flickering in her eyes.  She cocked her ears at him, but didn’t seem to get anything out of it.

“...I don’t know,” she said.  “And no I mean I don’t know, not him.  He knows, I don’t.”

Looking at him, watching the way he tried to communicate, the way he thought he should—augh—behave.  All of his gestures had some element of military gestures in them; raised hoof, circular motions.  Every one of them I’d seen soldiers use before.  Even the way he held himself was rigid, stiff; the result of years of conditioning and training.  When Deluge had physically confronted him, he had known what to do.  He had the instincts, the reactions—he was more than capable of defending himself.

He had simply chosen not to.

So he had known full well what leaving would do to Deluge.  And he felt guilty, felt he deserved whatever punishment she saw fit to give him.  Even now, when the one he’d chosen to spend his life with had almost ended him—and would’ve, without me—his expression was laced with grim resolution, the kind I’d expect of a pony moments before their execution.  The kind I’d seen ponies wear in the face of their imminent death.

“He knew,” I said sharply.  “He knew exactly what leaving would do to you.  Right?”

Meridian nodded.  Just once.

“So whatever his reasons were, they were at the very least as potent as his love for you.  Stop me if I’m wrong,” I added, looking at Meridian.  He gestured for me to continue.  “My guess is...”

I examined him closely, looking for minute details, the little tells that would give away his reason for leaving.  Unlike the others, he did not keep shifting so his armor would scratch itchy spots.  Apart from that, there was no other tells.  But that, too, was a tell.  The armor, protective steel for most, was a second skin for him.  Military life was his life.

Deluge poked me impatiently with a tear-stained hoof.  “I’m listening...”

The poke made me turn at look at her, at the way she handled herself.  Already she had reasserted herself, once again the composed mare, nevermore the unstable killer she might have been.  Her emotions were on a leash, and a tough one, at that.  It was how she was raised, and it was how she adapted to virtually any social situation.

And with a final bolt of realization, it all made sense.  I turned to Deluge.

“Your wedding.”  I bounced my gaze between them, watching.  “I assume you invited a good number of ponies?”

“Of course,” Deluge said, looking confused.  “But what’s this—”

Eve shushed her with a look and a hoof drawn across her mouth like a zipper.

“How many?” I asked.

“Uh.  Five dozen at least?  I can’t remember.”

I grinned in triumph.

“What is it?” she demanded, a flare of emotion surfacing.

“Meridian.”  I turned to him.  “You’ve been a soldier for most of your life, yes?”

“Enlisted as soon as he was old enough,” Eve said.  “He went with me.”

“He what?”

“He went with me,” she repeated, looking confused.  “We enlisted together.”

I looked at them both, sizing them up, and tried casting them in a new light.  “You’re twins.”

“You didn’t know?”  She scratched her head in bewilderment .  “I thought—”

“It wasn’t relevant,” Deluge interrupted curtly.

“Right,” I said.  “So he’s been a soldier for most of his life.  Just how much do you think he knows about civilian life?”

“Not much,” said Deluge, and Meridian nodded.  “But he wanted to stick it out until he could at least tolerate it.  And he did fine. It was never that big an issue.”

“Was it?”

“No, it was’n—” her face fell as she realized what I meant, and she shot a glance at Meridian, whose head looked ready to detach from all the nodding.  “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“...Oh.  I never thought about it.  I thought—”

“—he could stick it out, stand through an entire wedding, for you, out of love?  Love is no more or less potent than fear.  I’m guessing he tolerated it for a while, but with the wedding so close...it would only amplify that fear.  You said yourself he’s not very good at standing on ceremony.”

Meridian looked like a cross between a bobblehead during an earthquake and someone praising Celestia.  I couldn’t help but smirk, partly at him, partly because I, a nobody here, had beaten both Deluge and Eve—his would-be spouse and twin—to figuring out what his deal was.  Deluge had never thought about it.  She wouldn’t’ve.  Being sociable was like wearing comfortable pajamas to her.  Eve probably hadn’t cared enough.

“He was afraid of the wedding.  Of what he would have to do, of what would be expected of him.  There’s no training that can really prepare you for something like that.  How do you talk to ponies when you can’t talk?  What do you do?”

She looked helpless, but I plowed on.  She had to understand, and understand fully, or their relationship would never heal.

“On top of that, think about how he would’ve felt, trying to live a civilian life.  Buying groceries, cleaning house, taking out the trash.  Menial work.  After defending Equestria with his own hammer and hoof?  And—”

I stopped to look at Meridian, whose hoof would’ve probably fallen off if he’d gestured for me to continue any more enthusiastically.

“—And it’s not just how the mighty have fallen.  He knows what he’s good at.  He would’ve felt...”

I remembered how I felt when Whimsy insisted on detours to the library.  Hours upon hours of sitting around, doing nothing as she absorbed—literally—tome after tome after tome of knowledge.

“...Useless.

“So he ran to the one place where he was truly comfortable,” I said.  “The one place where he didn’t have to be afraid all the time.”

Meridian tapped his armor and stood tall.

“The military,” Deluge breathed.  “I’m...”

She fell limply to the ground and began sobbing quietly.  Meridian trotted over to me and grabbed at my hoof.  I pulled it back on reaction, but he tried again, slowly, without breaking eye contact.  After a moment, I held it out, wary of tricks, but all he did was shake it so vigorously I had to snap open my wings to stablize myself.  Deluge didn’t react; she was either too locked down by the revelation, or she understood that Meridian was thanking me, not wooing me.  Which was fortunate, because if he had been, he’d be on the ground and I’d’ve been long since lost to the clouds.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

He let go of me and turned, slowly, cautiously, as though he trod upon a particularly volatile cumulonimbus, a breath away from bathing the lands below with sheets of rain and a cannonade of lightning.  A few seconds, a nervous gulp, and an eternity later, he came face-to-face with his one true love, and his one greatest fear.

After several moments of muted tears, Deluge pulled her face out of her hooves and regarded her fiancé with eyes that were swollen, red, but dry.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered.  “I didn’t think—I thought you were okay with—I never thought—I mean—“

He took a step forward, silent, unwavering, still as though one wrong step could shatter the pane of ice keeping him from a frigid death, but when she did not protest, he took another step, and then another, until he was able to wrap his hooves around her and hug her.  Her dry sobs rocked both of them, but in his embrace, they stuttered, slowed, and eventually stopped.

“...I’m sorry,“ she murmured, and he nuzzled her in response, and even to my jaded eyes the apology and implied I love you was clear.  And for the first time I saw him as the chivalrous, stoic, shining-armored, soft-hearted, right-out-of-a-fairy-tale stallion that she’d fallen in love with, and her as the composed,  strong-willed, free-spirited mare that he’d fallen in love with.  A mare to guide; a stallion to abide.

I cleared my throat loudly, and they both looked at me.

“Forgetting something?”

They looked at each other, still in each others’ hooves, confused.  I tilted my head towards the prone blue dragon still lying against the wall.  Canzonetta had been following the proceedings attentively, with little to no signs of her deterioration apart from her scales still slowly losing their luster.  With the group’s attention on her once more, she stood up and extended a single claw.  Beckoning.

Meridian broke off at once and started towards Canzonetta.  His eyes were set and his stride firm, and he lifted his hoof to place it in the dragon’s claw.  He never completed the gesture.

The lieutenant’s mouth opened in a soundless yelp as he was yanked backwards, landing on his rump, and where he meant to place his hoof, there lay a blue one instead, its fur still damp with tears.  Meridian looked up, agape, and soundlessly met a hovering Deluge’s blue eyes.

“You’ve sacrificed enough,“ she whispered.  “It’s my turn.“

He wanted to protest.  His wings twitched, his hooves jittered, and he kept half-jumping up as if to pull her down, but there was a steely glint in the mare’s eyes, a tiny little spark that could shine alongside the brightest of stars, and with that sign, that single tell, I knew she truly understood.

She was taking up the mantle so no one else had to.  The same way Meridian defended Equestria so that no one—except those who chose otherwise—had to.  The noblest of sacrifices; the sacrifice of self.

“One with crystal eyes will do,” Canzonetta murmured to Meridian.  “The silent need not accept.”

She bent her neck until she was face-to-face with Deluge.  The mare didn’t blink, flinch, or even move, and it clicked into place.  Meridian had wanted to take the dragon’s mantle, but he did not want the mantle—he wanted the sacrifice.  Deluge wanted the sacrifice and the mantle.  It was so obvious.

“Scale?” Canzonetta inquired.

Deluge obligingly brought her scale out without so much as a glance at her saddlebags.  Next to the dragon’s paling colors, the scale was a beacon of her former glory, streaked with the rippling blue that I’d first seen her with, rife with magic, breathing, alive.  A tingle ran down my side as the dragon took it, inspected it, flipped it over, and returned it to Deluge’s outstretched hoof.  Shrieks and screeches, shadows of a sound I’d hoped I’d never hear again, began creeping through the chamber, unbudgeable by the wind, screams that wandered across the void between our reality and magic’s, and persisted even when the dragon’s muzzle was closed.

Deluge heard it, too, and she knew what it was, even if she’d never heard it before.  “How will I know—?”

She was silenced as Canzonetta brushed the side of a talon across her mouth.

“One with crystal eyes,” she repeated, and for the second time I saw her eyes clear up, focused, and when she spoke next, it was in the same voice she’d used when she left Riverside.  The clear, focused one that didn’t betray so much as a whisper of her splintered mind, only this time it was multilayered, a entire chorus of voices contained in one.  “Listen.”

Though she spoke softly, the two syllables rang through the chamber, mingling with their own reflections, resonating with the walls and floor, so they, too, quivered and quaked with the voice of raw magic.

Listen.

And Canzonetta started to fade.

Little bits and pieces of her, parts whose color was already lost, lost their substance—melting into glowing blue fog as though being dissolved by invisible acid.  The rest of her physical self rapidly followed suit, leaving behind nothing but fog and an odd-looking blue flame, with two pulsing red spots, like dying coals.  Within seconds her body was gone completely, nothing more than wisps in the wind, the blue flame wavering in the wind.  The otherworldly shrieks and screeches vanished along with her, and in their place I heard the woven whispers of the dead, leaking souls as Old Thresh led her into the afterlife.

But the fog—the fog stayed.  Her soul was drawn into the afterlife, but the fog was unmoved—until the ambient whispers ceased, and they began moving.  Towards Deluge.  Towards the scale in her grasp.

The scale breathed in, consuming the fog, its glow intensifying, until Deluge was holding a minature, blue version of the sun, little fiery flares arcing outwards then curling back into it.  An odd thrumming started as the scale, too, began to vanish, but this time, there was no shrieks, no howls traversing the void between dimensions, and even as we watched, Deluge’s head snapped back, mouth silently agape, her eyes beginning to glow.  White blotted out blue, little tongues of a sky-blue fire rising from her now-obscured eyes, but the tongues were swiftly pulled back.  She shut her eyes.

The fog was gone.  The scale was fading.  The blue ball of fire that was likely her soul had been taken by Old Thresh.  There was nothing left, no evidence that the dragon had ever existed—except for a mare with closed eyes and fur that emitted a faint blue light.

Minutes ticked by as Deluge hung suspended in midair, the incorporeal scale hovering before her, wings spread but motionless, lost in some odd reverie, still emanating that strange thrumming.  The air grew still, unable to be coaxed into wind, but it did not turn cold, did not yield to her pegasus blood nor to any loose magic of the Paradigm.  It was working.  The magic of an Eyrian guardian had accepted its new host, had agreed not to stray to other creatures.

And when Deluge finally opened her eyes, we knew it had worked.  Her eyes were as blue as ever, but upon closer inspection there was a little lattice of light moving through them, rippling and wavering like sunlight at the bottom of a pool.

“Damn,” she said, and though her voice hadn’t changed a bit, I almost jumped at the sound of something I could actually understand.  “I was not expecting that.”

Meridian inched forwards, expression flickering between confusion, concern, and curiosity, but with just two words, Deluge took out two of those, leaving him just curious.

“I’m fine.  I—I just wasn’t expecting to hear her again.”  She plucked the scale out of the air.  “Or Vadose.  Or Haze.  Oh, sorry,” she said, catching our confused expressions.  “The gryphon and the phoenix.  I heard them both and more.”

The dragon’s lingering magic hadn’t so much as touched the rest of us, but I couldn’t help a shiver of apprehension; the magic had broken Canzonetta, left her mind in pieces.  Just what would it do to Deluge?

She looked me straight in the eye, and with no prompting whatsoever, she answered my unspoken question.

“I’m fine,” she said.  “Canzonetta wasn’t broken because of Eyrian magic—because she was a Paradigm, I mean.  She i—was the last water dragon, and the last Eastern dragon.  It was just...stress.  And isolation.”  She alighted on the ground, still holding the blue scale.  “Here.”

She pulled a globule of water from the air—a pegasus skill, I noted, not a gift of her new mantle—and let it trickle onto the scale.  What it sounded like, however, was nothing like dripping water.

“Vigilance,” the scale said, in the rough, grating tones of a gryphon.  “You have to stay aware of everything.  If you fall behind...just don’t.  Don’t fall behind.  You know exactly what you accepted, and I know you can rise to the challenge.  But...don’t forget, you need time for yourself, too.  You can’t serve others if you don’t take care of yourself.  Take my advice,” the voice said as it petered off weakly, as though its owner was departing from his world.  “Have a little fun now and then.”

The voice faded as the last few drops of water slid off the scale.

“What—” Crimson began.

“It’s called an echo,” she explained.  “Memories etched in a dragon’s scale, awoken by their element.  This one has everything Canzonetta...wanted to remember.  It’s...” She turned it over.  “...I think it has visions, too, but she...either she never knew how to invoke them...”

“...or she didn’t want to remember how,” I finished.  The rest broke into chatter, but it fell into indistinct noise.  Canzonetta was gone, just like that.  No murder, no touching last words.  Plenty of screaming, but from her unbound magic, not from her.  A silent passing.

I was no stranger to death, but it was one of perhaps two times I watched someone go without the slightest protest.  Old Thresh went out of his way to make the passing as painless as he could, but then, he was only the ferry, not whatever was actually killing them, which was as free to cause as much pain as it felt like.

Yet Canzonetta’s death...it was not painful.  She hadn’t roared, screeched, or even whimpered.  The voices we’d heard were the voices of her magic, leaking, breaking free of bonds only to fall into more.  They were more chaotic noise than voices, but every now and then there was a sound that vaguely resembled Equestrian, and if I listened closely, there were repeat patterns, certain recurring arrangements of sounds that I could only guess were an actual language.

The last time I heard those voices, they hadn’t been nearly as loud as they’d been here, with Canzonetta’s passing.  Here they’d been overwhelming, but there was a focus, something else I could concentrate on.  A blue pegasus, not too unlike myself, transcending the limits that bound so many, but at considerable cost.

What would she do now?

Her role—I had to assume—involved a ridiculous amount of traveling.  Would Meridian go, too?  Would he be allowed to go?  Last I checked, guards couldn’t just go on extended vacations whenever they felt like it.  If he even wanted to—being in the military was most of what he knew.

I looked forlornly at the spot where Canzonetta had been only moments ago.  Even in the short time I’d known her, there was something about the dragon that marked her as different.  Not the Paradigm thing, not even her splintered mind.  What had she been like before both of those?  Just what did she want to forget?

Deluge tried to shove me over again, but I was ready this time; I widened my stance, and she ended up just shoving herself backwards.  The guards started laughing, though their expressions still held the grim acceptance that Canzonetta’d left in her absence.

“Chin up,” she said.  “It was her time.”

“She might’ve stuck around if none of us had accepted,” grumbled Crimson.  “But nooo, here you are, gotta be all noble and—” He caught the horrified expression on Burnout’s face.  “I’m just kidding, geeze.  But we can all agree May killed her, right?  Why else would she run?”

He looked around to find his squad just staring at him.

“I dunno,” Burnout said quietly.  “She probably had other stuff to do.  You know her.”

Meridian caught his captain’s attention and poked his captain’s armor, right below the Captain’s Crest, where there was—I hadn’t noticed before—a tiny little pin.  A telescope.

“I know, I know,” Crimson said wearily, slumping.  “We can’t interfere.”

He looked dejected, disheartened by his inability to take action, but when he looked up again, Meridian stood before him, and he was holding out another pin.  A red-fire phoenix, wings spread majestically, with a set of keys dangling from its claws.  The mark of the Warden.

“I—” Crimson took it wonderously, gingerly, as though the slightest twitch would snap it in half.  “What?  How did you...?”  He worked his jaw soundlessly for several more moments.

“Princess Celestia knew you wanted to be a Warden,” Eve said dispassionately.  “But she knew you weren’t ready.  You needed to learn what you sacrifice by working alone, instead of with a group, where you have advantages and where you’re vulnerable.  And more importantly...” The ghost of a smile curled her mouth.  “...you needed to slow down.”

The captain—Warden—fixed the gleaming pin to his chest, just above the telescope.  “But why does...?”

Eve’s smile just grew wider.  “You know Princess Celestia can’t present it to you, out here,” she said.  “One of us had to, when we knew you were ready.  You were wondering why you were made captain when Mer’ was the universal favorite?”

Crimson nodded silently.  Meridian had sheepishly backed off, and what little of his face I saw had turned bright red.  I felt the ponderous progress of an impending resolution.  An old conflict, of character, of self, was facing its end, and I suddenly felt elated, giddy.

“He knew you wanted to be a Warden,” Eve said flatly.  “He knew you weren’t ready.  He requested that Daybreak promote you instead, so you could learn what you needed to, in order to get what you wanted.  Daybreak agreed, on one condition.  He asked Meridian to work for you as a mediator for your temper.  A secondary captain, to step in when things went too far.”

Meridian held out his hoof, gaze averted.

“He only ever had to remind you,” Eve finished.  “Never had to intervene.”

“I—you—”  Crimson tugged the Captain’s Crest from his armor, eyes on his underling captain.  “You—I mean—”

“That’s his way of saying thank you,” said Burnout.

“...Thank you.”  Crimson held the Crest out.  “I guess you get this now.  Congratulations.”

Meridian attached the Crest to his armor and saluted his still-superior officer.  Congratulations to you, too.

At first it’d just been Deluge and Meridian.  Okay, fine.  Enter Canzonetta, stage left—damn it, Whimsy—with all her weird Paradigm shenanigans.  And now Crimson and Meridian?  So many issues, problems, conflicts.  And all of them resolved—mostly because of me, because of one thing I did.  I helped Deluge understand.  That was it.  Those tiny little observations and inferences I made about the two of them, drawn to a logical conclusion.

And with that one fell swoop, I’d healed their relationship, given Canzonetta peace in the form of a replacement for her, turned Deluge from a weatherpony into an Eyrian guardian that held the world together—and now I’d gotten Crimson promoted to Warden and Meridian promoted to a position he apparently should—ugh—have had a long time ago.

Wind always goes beyond the horizon.

The Calamus, whatever it was, knew exactly what it was doing, that much was certain.

“And before you accuse me of anything, he told me,” Eve interjected.  “So don’t go all gung-ho on me for sticking my nose in his business.”

The newly-appointed captain turned to Swan, who oddly looked bored by the proceedings, and even faked a yawn before speaking.  “Are we done now?  We still have a job to do.”

“Where’d she go, anyways?” said Julienne.  “She could be anywhere by now.”

Eve closed her eyes, her void magic obscuring her horn.  “No.  She’s still close, just in the—”

The rest of her words disappeared as she threw the shroud over the guards, leaving Deluge and I standing outside of an invisible bubble that hid the guards from view.  I pulled my goggles down, and the guards became visible again, but I couldn’t hear them.

“HELLOOOO,” I yelled, but they didn’t react.  So they couldn’t hear us, either.  Perfect.  “How do you feel?”

“Weird,” Deluge said flatly, turning to look at me.  Her eyes were still rippling with distorted light, and for a moment they glowed pure white.  “Everything looks...different.  Just...different.”

“Hm.”

“I know I have work to do,” she continued.  “But before I go running off, two things.  First, thank you.”  She started forward, but slowly, and when she was sure I wouldn’t react, she hugged me.  Quickly.  “I don’t know what would’ve happened without you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Okay,” she admitted.  “I don’t want to think about it.  But I’m glad it didn’t.  And second, I think there’s something we have to do...”

As she said it, I felt a familiar rising sensation inside me, though my wings were still folded, so it came as no big surprise when the ceiling above us yielded to the night sky, its stars already curling into vaguely familiar patterns, vortices and spirals and maelstroms and sworls.  My gut already knew what was happening even if my head didn’t, but the growing sensation of weightlessness ground to a screeching halt when a unicorn materialized behind us.

“You don’t think I can just let you run off, do you, Zephyr?”

We turned in unison to find Eve in all her armored glory.  She had eyes only for me, and they did not look happy.  But they didn’t look determined or threatening, either.  They just looked...dead.  Maybe it was just her.  Or me.

“I have to mindwipe you both,” she said, still in her low, detached voice.  “You might not know exactly what our mission is, but you know too many details.  And I have to arrest you, Zephyr, for about a dozen counts or so of premeditated murder.  I have no choice.”

I tensed, feeling my bands crackle with latent power, and beside me, Deluge stiffened, swirls of mist curling around her hooves, her eyes faintly glowing white.  But the glow of Eve’s horn did not increase.

“But,” she said, and for once I heard a touch of compassion enter her voice.  “You both know that’s a lie.  If, say, a high-profile assassin and a newly-appointed Paradigm didn’t want to be mindwiped, there’s not a whole lot I can do to detain them if, y’know, I don’t want to die.  Basic combat training isn’t going to trump either one of those, let alone both.  So there’s that, for starters.”

Deluge relaxed, but I couldn’t.  Not yet.

“Then there’s the problem of where I’d keep you even if you went quietly.  You can’t stay with us, I can’t—won’t—kill you, I can’t keep you in stasis, and I can’t escort you—or teleport you—back to prison.  Plus, our commanding officers had to send out M.I.A. letters to our families.  We couldn’t leave any trails once this mission started.  But...if you guys refuse, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.  Or we can do.  I imagine you have some new skills you’re just dying to try out,” she said to Deluge, but she got no response.

I shook my head.  “I’d prefer it not come to that.  Or mindwiping.”  I’d never heard the term before, but given that Eve’s talent was hiding things—particularly tracks and trails, regardless of form—I only had one guess as to what it meant.

“I have to agree,” said Deluge with a small smile.  “But I think I can speak for us both when I say, we won’t tell a soul.  I...owe you that much,” she added quietly.

“It’s not for me,” said Eve, just as quietly.  “It’s for the world.”

She turned to re-enter her shroud, but she stopped short, and looked back.

“Both of you.  They haven’t recognized you.  They don’t know that I know.  If you run into us again...if they find out I didn’t mindwipe you...”

She looked at her greaves.

“Please don’t let them find out.”

Deluge saluted.  “Yes, ma’am.”

Eve’s shift in tone was startling, to say the least, and I found myself suddenly filled with disgusting amounts of empathy.   Whether she wanted to or not, whether she liked it or not, she was covering for us.  If we didn’t cover her in return, who knew what would happen, what the others would do.  To her, or to us.

So I pulled myself together and deliberately used three words instead of two.

“I will not.”

“Thank you,” she said, briefly relieved.  “And goodbye.”

Without giving us a chance to respond, she vanished in a flash of black light.  And with her departure, the rising sensation returned, growing, building, lifting us both off the ground, out of the spire, out of this realm.  I vaguely heard Deluge’s voice; it was soft, but laced with the magical chorus I’d heard only minutes ago.

“Here we go...”

And she sang.

“You fly wiiith the loongest wind to nowhere...”