Chapter 19

“Convergence”

    “Ponyfeathers!”

    Galaxi carefully peeked around the entry of the door, put on her guard by the shouted obscenity from a voice she knew all too well. It hadn’t taken her very long to find the old building, partially because she had been there before, and partially because it was the only functioning facility along the old “factory row” in Canterlot. Most manufacturing had long since moved to other cities with better access to raw materials, and that lead to the hoof-full of abandoned plants along the eastern edge of Canterlot, away from the palace and cliffs that ponies normally see. The buildings themselves weren’t in terrible shape, but given the high premium Canterlot put on their limited space, she was surprised they hadn’t been demolished years ago.

    The particular factory that Galaxi found herself peering into had once been painted a bright cheery red, which the sun had faded to a splotchy pink, and caked filth had rendered the rest a dingy brown. Still, it was in better repair than most, with no broken windows and doors that actually looked like they could actually prevent some pony from breaking in. Inside the building, a number of machines that once created automated high-speed chariots sat dormant in rows. Too big to move, but too clunky to sell, they sat there slowly rusting. At least they had been, before Clockwork Key refurbished and turned the whole thing into a production facility for her custom chariot.

    Most of the old machines had found new life, repurposed for whatever the mechanically inclined mare needed. Some sort of connection that Clockwork once tried to explain, but went right over Galaxi’s head, linked the computers here with the ones in her laboratory. This allowed her to control the mechanisms with a precision their original creators could have only dreamed of, and kept Clockwork’s design constant regardless of where she worked from.  The high end holographic interface she used in her lab was missing, but a number of glowing holographic panels allowed her to keep track and program the machines, and made it even more clear that she’d retrofitted the old building for her own purpose.

    Of course the centerpiece was suspended in mid air just over the center of the floor. Unlike the original team chariot, which reminded Galaxi of a boomerang caught in mid-flight, this one was longer and looked more dart-like. The central “chariot” was stretched and longer than the original version, with a cylindrical shape that tapered on each side, as if a pony had bit on the sides and pulled, giving an eye-like shape to it. The taper along each side lead into the initial super-structure for the wings, making it all look very smooth and sleek, or would if construction had progressed beyond the metallic grid-like supports that formed the base structure. Right now it was just a framework, which allowed Galaxi to see that the main structure came to a sharper point at front and, interestingly, the cockpit of the chariot seemed to be easily accessible by the passengers. It still lacked any sort of bench for a pony, but Galaxi supposed that would come later, or Clockwork would stand in that section with her power armour.

    The entire assembly was suspended by a number of robotic arms and winches from the ceiling, holding it over any number of additional machines and computers. Almost directly under it all, Clockwork stood facing a large fan-like piece of equipment. It was easily twice as long as the pony facing it, and almost as tall, but Clockwork was less than happy with it. She went so far as to buck it with her hind legs, which landed her flat on her face. Rubbing a clothed leg over her nose, which brought Galaxi’s attention to the fact the small mare was wearing ugly olive green overalls stained with any number of fluids and grease while she worked, Clockwork muttered something less than couth and approached the gear more as if she were going to fight with it than work on it.

    Galaxi stifled a giggle, trying hard not to think how cute the frustrated mare looked as she threw her wrench to the cement floor. But despite the apparent anger from the other pony, Galaxi could hear it; her mind was singing again. It wasn’t pure, there was still plenty of discordant noise and distortion, but there were pure notes amidst the fouled tones struggling to get through. Hope surged through the psychic pony…

    “You okay there?” Galaxi asked as she rounded the corner. The other pony looked surprised and a bit embarrassed, but relaxed when she recognized her.

    “Yeah, I’m okay,” she answered, then thumped the oversized fan with her hoof, “but I’m having a bear of a time with this stupid thing. I want to set it in the superstructure so we can eliminate the need for long landing zones. It should increase our flexibility if I can add some rudimentary vertical landing and take-off methods to the chariot.”

    “So that’s not the main engine?” Galaxi asked, garnering a strange look from the other mare.

    “Nah, it’s got too much surface area,” Clockwork answered, and pointed towards the back of the building, “I’m still building the main engines back there. They’re the reason I changed the shape and elongated the chariot; these new turbines will be longer and thinner, which unfortunately makes them less flexible, but adds to their speed a great deal. While they could, potentially, break that second rainboom barrier, I’m less worried about that then I am about stability and safety. The fact the previous engines were so far out along the wing meant that the vibrations gave them hell, especially at high speeds. After studying the wreck, it turns out the catalyst for the crash is as simple as a bolt getting sheared off from the strain, which in turn gave the turbine spin an unhealthy wobble. A longer turbine would make it more stable, since there are more places to stabilize it if something similar were to happen again.”

    Galaxi frowned and furrowed her brow. “A wobble caused it to explode? What did it do, strike something sensitive?”

    “Something like that. The turbine fan started scraping the walls of its containment area, throwing sparks everywhere,” Clockwork sighed, “and then it ripped a furrow right out of the edge and exposed a fuel line.” Galaxi winced at the implication, and the other mare nodded. “Exactly. Ka-Boom. Thankfully the fuel line safeties were working, and they kept the explosion localized in the engine. But with one engine down, it put too much strain on the other, and caused it to burn out. Without engines, and extensive damage to the wing thanks to the explosion, crashing was a certainty.”

    “Well, look on the bright side,” the blind mare offered, drawing a skeptical look from Clockwork, “it gives you a chance to work out the kinks from the first version.”

    The short mare considered that for a moment before looking up at the incomplete frame. “You’ve got a point there.”

    Galaxi smiled and looked up at the suspended frame over their heads. “So that’s the new ride, eh? I notice the cockpit isn’t separate this time.”

    “That was Princess Luna’s suggestion,” Clockwork admitted sheepishly, “but I’ll admit that it does simplify things. Plus, it makes good sense, now that I’ve had time to think about it. It struck me when I looked over the wreckage that if I’d passed out any time during that trip back… we would have crashed a lot worse than we did. No pony could have reached the controls, and even if they could, no pony could have interfaced with them. So I’m going to try and put in a back-up station right there in the front.”

    “Wait, where will you sit then?”

    “Towards the back, ahead of the main engine housing. It’ll be easier to wire up the harness and hard-point connections for the suit,” she answered, pointing a hoof to what looked about the midpoint of the chariot to Galaxi. “The main turbines will be just behind me, so I’ll have quick access if something goes wrong as well. And, in the case of catastrophic failure, I should be able to disconnect and jettison the engines from the rest of the frame.”

    “So what’s the big fan there for?” Galaxi asked, motioning with her head. “You already said it’s not part of the engines...”

    “That is going to fit into the wing assembly. The longer shape necessitated longer wings, though I can make the entire thing a bit narrower than before. As such, I want to mount this fan into one of the wings with some rotational adjusters for fine steering. With a pair of these mounted, the chariot should be able to hover for short periods. It’ll make landing in rough terrain easier, and with luck it’ll negate the need for a runway and allow for pinpoint landing. I’m not so sure it’ll have the power for that, though, but early tests look good.”

    “So why were you swearing?” Galaxi asked. Clockwork motioned to an opening on one side just slightly smaller than a pony’s head and slightly longer than a pony’s leg that extended out between the blades towards the center of the turbine.

    “That’s one of the rotating mounting brackets,” Clockwork noted simply, “but in order to get it in place, I need to a turn a bolt all the way in there, just out of my hoof’s reach, while it’s being held in mid-air with the frame. As if all that isn’t problematic enough… I dropped the bolt when I tried to set it and can’t reach it.”

    Galaxi paused and looked into the hole herself, frowning a little as she put a hoof against the side. “I can’t see it.”

    “It got caught in the shielding for the center of the unit,” Clockwork noted and leaned slightly against it. She yipped slightly when the entire assembly began to lift off the floor, backing away a step as Galaxi’s telekinesis lifted it. It hovered just over her head when Clockwork called to her, “Hold it right there!” She quickly reached up with a hoof and proceeded to try and scoop out the underside of the shield… then sighed. “It’s gotten further under the cover than I thought; I’ll have to take it off.”

    “Maybe not,” Galaxi interjected, and slowly tipped the large fan to one side. Clockwork realized quickly what she had in mind and slipped around to where the bolt was most likely to go and scooped at it with her hoof, pulling out a heavy two inch long securing bolt. She quickly slipped out from under the fan, which Galaxi gently set down on the floor once more.

    “Well, that works too,” Clockwork laughed and held up the bolt.

    “That… little bolt is going to hold that entire thing?” Galaxi asked incredulously.

    “Hardly,” Clockwork noted with a smile, “this, and a dozen or so like it, holds the outer ring in place. I would weld it, but I like being able to remove and replace it quickly if something goes wrong.”

    “So why make such a big production about that one?”

    “Because if it was just left in place, it could do untold damage to the turbine itself,” Clockwork noted seriously. “That wobble from the old chariot would be just a minor hiccup compared to what would happen. Thanks, Galaxi, I appreciate the helping hoof.”

    “Sure thing,” she answered, smiling warmly. “Y’know, I don’t have anything planned for today; I could stick around and help out if you want…”

    “Really?” Clockwork asked in surprise, setting the hard-won bolt on the counter. “You always preferred just to stand by and watch…”

    “Really,” she answered.

    “Well, if you’re sure. Just grab a jumpsuit from the lockers over there,” the short mare said, motioning to some old lockers with her hoof. “They might be a bit snug for you, they’re all my coveralls, but they should fit well enough.”

    “Sure thing! Just give me a moment to suit up…”

    Clockwork didn’t know exactly what to expect from Galaxi and her “help”, but put her friend to work none the less. To the small mare’s surprise, the psychic threw herself into the work as best she could. Sure, she needed help from time to time, and her lack of experience with this sort of work was obvious, but Clockwork couldn’t fault her enthusiasm to help. Besides, there was something about seeing the mare hunched over some piece of gear…

    The khaki mare shook her head to clear it, yet over the next few hours found her eyes lingering over the other mare’s form. The sway of a hip here, the arch of a leg there, and that cute little scrunchy thing she did with her face when trying to be careful with delicate bits. It all left the short mare feeling oddly short of breath and a little warm under the collar. More-so when Galaxi looked her way, and she would find herself making some excuse or another to look away and at her readouts and gear.

    “This is silly,” she told herself and sighed, glancing at her friend. “We’ve been friends for over a year now. Why would I suddenly start feeling this awkward around her?” She chuckled at her own silliness and set herself back to work, gripping a wrench in her teeth to winch it down on the engine housing. They’d been working on it for the past hour or so, and it passed the initial tests with flying colors. She borrowed some tech from her own armour for its design, incorporating an air-scoop into it that would further act to accelerate the craft, even tweaking the aerodynamics so that even at rainboom speeds it wouldn’t be air starved. Still, assuming the airless environ that a potentially second rainboom might cause, she made sure to have back-up fuel-lines. Air sensors could detect the amount coming in, and could adjust the fuel consumption as the chariot flew along… or would it be more correct to compare it to an airship now? Zeppelin? Balloon?

    “Clockwork?” a voice came from behind her, startling the short pony badly enough that she dropped the wrench she held in her teeth. Galaxi couldn’t help but giggle, “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. You just looked so far away for a moment… I thought maybe you had something on your mind.”

    “I… er…” the small mare stammered, suddenly finding herself fumbling for words, “I was just… wondering if the chariot really counted as a chariot anymore. I mean, it might be closer to an airship or zeppelin now…”

    Galaxi hummed a little and put a hoof to her chin, looking up at the suspended framework. With the light shining in through the dirty windows, Clockwork found her eyes drawn across the tight denim clothing her form. Clockwork almost instinctively looked closer, her mind whirling as she started breaking down proportions and figures. Length from neck to tail, circumference of the chest, breadth of the hips, and the smooth curve along each thigh…

    “Maybe you just need to invent a new word for it,” Galaxi offered with a shrug.

    …the graceful curve of the neck, the delicate arch of her foreleg, the inquisitive angle of her head…

    “Clockwork?” Galaxi asked quizzically at the other mare and took a step forward, only to bump into something that clinked softly on the cement floor. She paused to look, and noticed she’d stepped on a wrench. “Oh, you dropped this,” she said, and lifted it in her telekinesis, facing Clockwork again.

    …the circumference of the eyes, the seductive curve of the eyelid, the height/width of the muzzle tip, the fullness of her lips…

    A sensation swept through Clockwork, like a foreign invader in her body, and she was helpless to resist. She didn’t know, she couldn’t understand, but that alien warmth flowed through her body and pushed her forward in a sudden motion. It was like touching an exposed electrical wire when their lips met. It was sloppy, it was awkward, it was overwhelming…

    The clang of the wrench that dropped to the floor when the telekinetic grip holding it aloft vanished brought Clockwork back to her senses. In that instant the moment was over, and Clockwork pulled back with wide eyes, horror flooding through her. “OhmygoddessI’msosorryIdon’tknowwhatcameoverme!” the small mare cried in a single breath, oblivious to the rather pleasantly befuddled expression on her friend’s face. Fortunately, Galaxi was able to shake off the stupor at roughly the same time Clockwork turned on a hoof and bolted for the door, her coat more red than khaki.

    It took Clockwork almost a full minute before she realized that she hadn’t reached the door yet, her legs flailing a few inches off the floor where she was suspended in mid-air. She managed only a squeak when and folded her forelegs over her face, blushing furiously even as Galaxi set her down and smiled down at her friend. Clockwork wanted to apologize, to explain herself, but she found herself unable to do more than give a strained croak. Galaxi smiled gently and brushed a hoof through her friend’s mane.

    “It’s okay,” Galaxi said after a moment, “but let’s skip the whole ‘running away’ part this time.” Clockwork’s eyes widened, only barely grasping what was said when the other pony leaned close, their lips touching once more…

    From the doorway, Princess Luna smiled knowingly and turned to leave.

    Waiting.

    Waiting was something Verdigris could do, though it was far from her favorite. She’d much rather be sleeping, playing with one of Zilch’s toys, or even working out the overheat figures for Professor Burner. In a way, she was already doing the last one in her head, but it all rested on the melting point of the material he was using, so she couldn’t do anything more there. Idly she wished she had thought to sneak out a toy when Zilch opened the portal this morning, at least then she wouldn’t be so bored while waiting.

    Why was she waiting? She wondered that for the umpteenth time, but the Prince had suggested that this would be the best way to reintroduce herself to the team. He called her “support” for them, but in reality she figured she’d spend a majority of her time helping sort out Professor Burner’s armour and playing with Zilch. Not much different than before.

    So why the big deal? She could guess, and much of it had to do with one name: Alto. When the Prince told her about him, she lost her temper. The Prince didn’t say a word as she shrilly explained every slight, both real and perceived, he had ever committed against her. He waited patiently until her fury had dulled to a simmering rage, and then laid out his reasons. She hated to admit it, but they were good reasons. She didn’t agree with all of his choices, but…

    The sound was faint, but in the silent meeting hall, it was a clarion call. Verdigris sat up a little straighter, trying to ignore the ache in her leg, as a pinprick of silvery white appeared in midair near the far wall of the chamber, and then expanded to a large portal easily three times her height and equally as wide. A dusty breeze pushed through, warm against the cool air within the aerie, and the young gryphon fluffed her wings nervously.

    “Hah! Didja see me?” Crosswind crowed as he broke the threshold first, the pegasus fluttering near the ceiling as he struck a pose. Junkyard followed shortly behind, and looked like he was struggling to keep from rolling his eyes. His expression shifted to one of guarded curiosity when his eyes landed on the young gryphoness. Professor Burner was next, filling almost the entire portal with his massive Manticore armour, followed shortly by a snow white gryphon.

    “How could ve not zee you,” Burner asked sarcastically, “you only ztopped for applauze every twenty zecondz.”

    “Grandstanding aside,” Kaos noted as he came through the portal with Zilch, the latter of whom allowed the portal to snap shut behind her as the pair skirted the heavy armour, “you all did far better this outing than you have done in the past. We are actually starting to look like a team. Every one held their position, coordinated with one another, and fought well. Professor, the latest batch of tweaks seemed to really improve your performance.”

    “I cannot take all ze credit,” the unicorn noted as he tugged the helm off and shook out his mane, “Verdigris found ze zolution zat vas eluding me and azzizted me in ze implementation.”

    “Then it worked alright?” Verdigris asked suddenly, blurting it out. All eyes fell upon her in surprise and she suddenly felt sheepish, and rubbed her foreleg with a claw. “I… er… wasn’t sure about some of the heat distribution. I thought there might have been a build-up in the lower torso that we might have overlooked…”

    “Nein, it vorked perfectly,” Burner answered with a broad smile. “Did you have time to look over ze --“

    A shrill scream interrupted the professor as a white winged blur dove under the cover of a nearby table. Several loud thumps later, and the group could hear a shaky voice ask, “Did she see me?”

    “Uh, if she didn’t, she’s both blind and deaf,” Crosswind snarked, ignoring the tug on his tail from Junkyard.

    “Zat vas… unexpected,” Burner added, flattening his ears.

    Verdigris bent over, using a foreclaw on the table for support, to look under it at the other gryphon, his amber eyes meeting her green ones for a brief moment. “Yes, I saw you,” she said flatly before sitting back up.

    “What’s this about, anyway?” Crosswind demanded, flitting his wings irritably. “You’re supposed to be tucked away, and out of our way!”

    “I vill admit to zome curiozity az to vhy you are here az vell,” the Professor chimed in. Zilch trotted worriedly towards the other youngster, placing a hoof tentatively on her shoulder. Only Kaos seemed unfazed by her appearance.

    “You spoke with the Prince, didn’t you?” the zebra asked with a knowing grin.

    “Yes,” Verdigris answered softly, “he asked me to help the team as repayment.”

    “And you agreed?”

    She glanced at Zilch with a thin smile and nodded. “I don’t agree with everything he’s done, or plans to do, but… but it is important enough to help. Plus, you all did save my life, and you haven’t asked me for anything in return. I kinda feel… I feel like I should at least help out where I can.”

    “B-But what about…?” a trembling voice asked, the white gryphon barely peering over the edge of the table to stare at her with wide and fearful eyes.

    Verdigris closed her eyes before answering, “The Prince convinced me that what he was doing was important. I understand it pits you against my sister, and I think he chose poorly in that regard, but…” Her voice hitched, finding it difficult to continue, when a gentle warmth touched her shoulder. She glanced to her side, and was able to see the glow of the Prince’s magic from the corner of her eye.

    “…but despite her reservations, she has agreed to act in support of the team,” the Prince’s voice smoothly continued from the monitors around the room, making most of them jump in surprise. “She won’t actively move against her own sister, or the Princesses and their team, of course. However, she has agreed that there is madness to my method… err, excuse me, a method to my madness.”

    “It’s far too late in the game to change pieces,” she noted softly.

    “That said, Alto should still do his best to avoid young Verdigris,” the Prince continued. “She may have agreed to help, but she also has not forgotten what happened to her and her sister. It took me a good hour to calm her down when your name came up.”

    “Vait, vat vas done to Verdigris?” Burner interrupted.

    Verdigris answered in a wavering voice, “He came to the clans to seek my sister’s promise from her old owner, the Duke Silverthorn. It was passed to King Goldtalon, who in turn took my entire family into chains to force my sister to come to the aerie and be forced back into shackles. We… I was just a pawn to get at my sister, so he could spy on the Ponies for the King!”

    “I-it wasn’t like that!” Alto stammered.

    “Like hell it wasn’t!” Verdigris shouted in return, shuddering as she leaned forward, only to find a pair of forelegs hugging her. Her anger evaporated as she fell against them, Zilch holding her gently, even if her eyes continued to bore into the other gryphon. “It’s why my wings are clipped. It’s how I met Filigree, and why she rescued all of us, only to end up in the Everfree Forest thanks to my idiot father. That isn’t your fault… you were just the catalyst, the first domino in a chain of events…”

    “B-but…!”

    “None of us, save perhaps Verdigris, are without sin here,” the Prince interrupted, “nor does it change our purpose. You all know your roles, and for the time being, Verdigris has agreed to assist. I do trust that her presence will not be disruptive to any of you?”

    “She ain’t buggin’ me, so long as she stays out of my stuff,” Crosswind answered simply. Junkyard chuffed softly and gave a thumbs up. Zilch simply nodded from where she held the sniffling gryphoness.

    “Her azzizztance has been invaluable,” Professor Burner spoke up, “I look forward to vorking vith her in ze future.”

    “I… I dunno…” Alto stammered.

    “I would suggest you figure it out soon, Alto,” Kaos said, “time is a luxury we have little of.”

    Zilch opened a portal and shepherded Verdigris through it, and the others filtered out of the room, leaving Alto alone in the chamber with the still suited Burner.

    “I vas zure you had a hiztory vith her,” Professor Bunsen Burner said softly to the gryphon, “given how you reacted vhen ve found her. But after vhat happened zat day, I have no right to criticize. Vhen you are ready to zpeak about it, come zee me…”

    The stallion paused only long enough to witness a small nod from the white gryphon before carefully patting his shoulder, an act that inadvertently knocked Alto back to the ground, before reclaiming his helm and stomping the heavy suit from the chamber. Alto started to pick himself back up off the floor…

    “Are you going to quit?” the Prince asked from a nearby monitor, causing Alto to jump in shock.

    “I th-thought you…” he stammered, then took a steadying breath, “I don’t know.”

    “None of us are without sin,” the Prince reiterated, “you’re just fortunate enough that yours is willing to face you so quickly.”

    “Fortunate?!” Alto all but cried. “How in Celestia’s beard is this fortunate??”

    “That saying is still in use? Wow, I thought it had been retired years ago,” the unseen stallion mused. “It is fortunate because you have the chance to face this fear, to try and overcome it. Many never have that chance, and many more do not seek it out, and it eats away at them until they are but a shell of themselves. Junkyard, for instance, is guilty of murder, as is Zilch. Professor Burner almost wiped an entire city off the map for revenge. They may never have that chance. Yet Verdigris is here, now, and staring you in the face. You just have to work up the courage to do what must be done…”

    “You mean, like, kill her or something?”

    “Would that bring the sort of closure you desire?” the Prince asked. “Think on it, Alto, but make your decision soon; you cannot avoid her forever.”

    Alto swallowed visibly, alone in the room filled with ever watching monitors…

    Clockwork felt… content.

    She wasn’t sure how else to describe it. She was happy, but it was hardly an overwhelming joy or giddy laughter, even if the latter had come up many times in the hours since… The small mare shook her head, unsure how to categorize the event. It felt like a culmination, a fated occurrence, a destined moment in time and space... it just defied normal categorization in her mind. It was just “there”, a singular point in time that she could look back and see every sign pointing towards, but before it happened she never saw it coming.

    How could she? Discounting all those stallions Trixie tried to fix her up with, her only real romantic liaison ended in complete disaster. Her teenaged crush on the media produced image of Ultrapony had blown up in her face in a horrid way. Perhaps that was an aspect of fate, a fate which brought her there, lying in another mare’s legs and musing about the strangeness of it all in a darkened room. Before recent events, she’d never even considered feeling like this. When she was young, her obsession with him and the events that followed all but killed the drive to find some pony special. She had to admit that she still found stallions attractive, but always kept a respectable distance. You never knew if one of them might try and hurt you, like the last one did.

    Clockwork made a face at that thought. That made her sound like the victim of something far worse than a simple back-hoof, didn’t it? She hated to think of herself as a “victim”. That implied helplessness, an inability to fight back, and she was not helpless. She’d proven that time and time again. Every time a pony thought she was down for the count, she got back up. She pushed herself beyond any and all reasonable limits, and when her body couldn’t handle it, she built something that could. What her body couldn’t do, the Dragonfly armour could. She fought Ultrapony to a standstill, landing him in the hospital. She felt a surge of pride at that small fact. Ultrapony, the invincible stallion, sent to the hospital by a powerless mare who he once tried to victimize. Sure, she landed in the hospital right alongside him, and for far longer, but an achievement is still an achievement. It was the only recorded occurrence of Ultrapony ever needing medical assistance, and she couldn’t help but feel proud of that.

    With a sigh she realized that psychologists would have a field day with her. She was victimized, so she fought back. That was the cycle of her life, it seemed. Every time a challenge stood up and beat her down, she picked herself up and found a way to fight back. A meteorite nearly killed her family and forced them to abandon their home, so she created armour for her brother. Ultrapony landed her in the hospital, so she made noise until the agency itself told her to stick a cork in it. Her brother died, so she created power armour to take his place in the war against the Imps, at the invitation of Princess Luna. Ultrapony tried to push her around, and even struck her, so she put him in the hospital. The Nightmare took her friend, so she led a team to the moon itself to bring her back. The Nightmare almost crushed her to death, so she stood point with the other element bearers to wipe the Nightmare off the map. In a way, that might explain much of the problem with the “condition” she acquired. She was constantly looking for the next thing to try and beat her down, the next challenge to overcome… and when nothing came, she felt lost. Wasn’t that the very definition of the disorder she’d come down with? The constant expectation of an attack, and when it doesn’t come it makes one feel less a pony?

    She closed her eyes for a moment and forced herself to relax. She could feel that old tension curling in her gut, the anticipation, the twitchy sensation of expecting the floor to drop out from under her. She forced herself to focus on her breathing, on their breathing, the slow in and out of breath. She could feel Galaxi’s breath across the back of her neck, where her head was nestled, its gentle warmth spreading over her neck and shoulder, and the almost possessive grip of her forelegs. They exhausted themselves pretty thoroughly after “finding” each other. Clockwork couldn’t help but imagine she was late to the party, given how Galaxi took charge. The shorter mare always was seen as just “one of the boys” when it came to the Agency, but Galaxi somehow made her feel all girly and giddy inside. And now, in the aftermath and the warmth that followed, she couldn’t help but feel content.

    There was that word again….

    “You’re awake?” the groggy question came from the blind mare. Clockwork flushed, she should have expected that Galaxi would instinctively know when her mind was spinning away in the darkness.

    “Yeah,” Clockwork answered and shifted a bit, clumsily rolling onto her side. “Just thinking…”

    Galaxi nuzzled her cheek. “What about?”

    “Just a bit of everything, I suppose,” she answered softly. “I mean, I never even saw this coming. I don’t know why… looking back it all makes perfect sense.”

    The blind mare chuckled softly, “That’s the way things seem to work out sometimes, isn’t it? The most obvious stuff sneaks up and ambushes you.”

    “Could also be a case of me missing the forest for the trees,” Clockwork answered with a smirk.

    “That’s not the only thing on your mind…” Galaxi said softly, only to laugh when the other mare poked her.

    “No fair! You’re not supposed to use your psychic powers in bed!” Clockwork turned bright red the next moment and covered her mouth with both forehooves. “W-wait! I-I didn’t mean it like that!”

    The other mare laughed again and kissed the blushing mare on the nose, “I know what you meant, though if you remember, I can’t read your mind right now. Relaxed as you are, I can get a few impressions, but the music is still off…”

    “O-oh…” Clockwork stammered, “t-then how…?”

    “You were frowning and thinking really hard,” Galaxi answered with a shrug, “that hardly looked like you were going over how we ended up in bed together. You looked like you were really chewing something over. So what’s on your mind?”

    “I… I was thinking. It really was about how I got here, but in a more nebulous way,” Clockwork said thoughtfully. “Not just being here with you, but how I got from point A to point B in my life.”

    “Figure anything out?”

    “I… I don’t know. Maybe? I’m not sure what to call it,” she sighed softly. “I hate to think of myself as the victim of anything, but really, we’re all victims at one time or another to things beyond our control. When I was a foal, so young I barely remember, the Ladies Sparkle and Applejack saved me and my brother and father. Because more imps were falling, we were forced to abandon the town. In a way, they victimized everyone in town, and years later I fought back the only way I could, I built. In that case, the Warpony mk. 1 went online using my brother’s abilities as a focus. He could link with any machine he was in contact with and control it, thus I made the armour to capitalize on that. I wasn’t even out of school, and here I was creating power armour! How absurd is that?”

    “Every bit as absurd as the fact it actually worked?” Galaxi asked teasingly.

    Clockwork smirked and rested her head on the other mare’s chest. “Precisely. It worked. I fought back. The imps victimized my entire family, and I found a way to fight back. Since Dad passed away, it wasn’t a complete win, but it was as close as I could do. Of course, then I met Ultrapony…”

    Galaxi frowned as she saw the first links of the chain. “…and, if I remember your telling properly, he tried to force himself on you, then slapped you away when you refused.”

    Clockwork nodded. “I made so much noise about that the Agency told me to shut up. Then Widget died, and Luna invited me to take his place on the team…”

    “I remember that, “Galaxi said softly, “and I think I see what you’re getting at. You’re looking at each of these as pivotal moments, aren’t you? Moments where something seemed so big that it was impossible to overcome and it knocked you down, and in almost every case, you figured out a way to fight back. If you couldn’t yourself, you found a way to do it with help, mechanical or otherwise.”

    “That’s exactly where I was going,” the short mare said and closed her eyes, “and I also think that’s part of my problem.”

    “I’m not sure I follow…”

    “I’ve spent my life looking for crises,” Clockwork noted softly, “and then finding a way to overcome. Imps destroy my town? I invent armour to fight back. Brother dies? I invent armour for myself and continue on. Nightmare kicks our flanks? Take point in the formation to fight back. Some unregistered mare tries to kick my flank while I’m armourless? Find a way to beat her anyway… even if I did overdo it.”

    “I think I see your point,” the blind mare said softly, and stroked a hoof over the other pony’s mane, “and where you’re going with it. You spent so much time looking for things to overcome that when the challenge wasn’t there, you found yourself jumping at shadows. Wait… you’re talking about your condition, aren’t you?”

    “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s almost a perfect definition of Acclimation Disorder, don’t you think?” Clockwork asked simply.

    Galaxi blinked owlishly in the dark. “It… it does, doesn’t it? I’m not sure that it’s as cut and dried as that, but… it does give an interesting background for at least a vulnerability to it, especially as it accelerated up to the defeat of the Nightmare. Initially there were years between the events, but once you joined the Princess’ team, everything accelerated. Within two months you were put in the line of fire multiple times, including a near death experience with Ultrapony.”

    “An increased pace means that when it just suddenly falls off, I’m left looking for crises that aren’t coming,” Clockwork finished.

    Galaxi frowned and, in a sudden surge of protectiveness, clutched the other pony a bit tighter to her. It made sense, too much sense, to her. It also made her want to hold on tight and keep the other mare safe at all costs. It wasn’t until Clockwork began to squirm a little that Galaxi loosened her grip, and the “victim” of the bear hug took a deep breath.

    “Where’d that come from?” Clockwork wheezed for a moment, and Galaxi blushed hotly.

    “Sorry about that,” Galaxi offered, “still getting used to…”

    “To all of this?” Clockwork finished with a smile, and her friend nodded sheepishly. Clockwork hugged her lightly in return and sighed, “Me too. I have no idea what I should and shouldn’t be doing or saying.”

    Galaxi giggled behind a hoof, “I doubt you’re thinking the same exact thing I am, because I’m not so sure how you’d handle being called --“

    “No!” Clockwork interrupted. “No pet names, please. Goddess, I hate the one I already have.”

    “What? What’s wrong with ‘Little Key’? It’s cute,” the blind mare asked, cocking her head to one side. “Skillet calls you that all the time…”

    Clockwork made a face. “Because it makes me feel like I’m a foal again. Skillet gets away with it because he’s known me since… for at least ten years now. He knew me as an awkward teen filly, right about the time Widget got into the agency and started using the armour I made for him. Skillet only got into it because my brother teased me with it once in a while… and he got it from Dad. To Dad I was always Little Key, right up until he died and Widget started taking care of me. That was a rough time for both of us, and Skillet was there to help when we needed it.”

    “You don’t talk about your father much,” Galaxi said softly, nuzzling the other mare’s ears lightly.

    “I try not to,” she sighed in response, “there are still a lot of painful memories there… memories I try to put behind me but haunt me at the oddest times. I wonder sometimes what Dad would think of me… of my life.”

    “You saved the ponylands, Equestria, and potentially the world,” the blind mare reminded her, “I’m sure he’d be proud of you.”

    Clockwork smiled sadly. “Thanks.,” she murmured, and then stretched a little and started to crawl out of the bed. Galaxi frowned, but let her go. “I really should get out there…”

    “Out where?”

    “As much as I want to lie down again and just snuggle, we both have things to do,” she answered and spent a moment to stretch, her back popping in a few places. “I promised Mare-Do-Well that I would give her a helping hoof tonight. I’d wager Luna will be looking for you, and if not, Trixie might still need your help. It’s only a few hours after moonrise, if the clock is correct, so there’s still plenty of night to go.”

    Galaxi struck a pose on the bed. “You can’t put it off?” she purred, right up until Clockwork began to giggle.

    “S-sorry…” she managed, as Galaxi’s face fell a bit, “I’m sorry, just… I think Lady Rarity’s legacy is safe.”

    “What?!” Galaxi cried from the bed, and rolled to her hooves. “Why you little...”

    Clockwork squealed with laughter when the other mare pounced…

    “You’re late.”

    “Hello to you too,” Clockwork answered, and flared the hooves of her power armour as she came in for a landing. It hadn’t been hard to find the place she was supposed to meet with Mare-Do-Well, it was exactly where the masked mare had said it would be, atop the warehouses on the west side of the city near the train yard. Said warehouses were all appropriately dingy from years of exposure to the sun and smoke the engines put out. The specially charged gemstones that drove the newer trains left glittering gray soot everywhere that combined with the even darker soot from those engines that still burned coal. The warehouses themselves were squat buildings that barely stood two stories tall, and lined the rail yard on almost every side.

    At this hour, the rail yard was completely abandoned, save for a security pony or two wandering among the spider web of tracks. Outside of their flashlights, the darkness was almost an entity unto itself; heavy and oppressive. If it weren’t for sensors that allowed her to see in even the darkest of nights, Clockwork would have been completely blind. She had no idea how Mare-Do-Well managed in the darkness, but she seemed little concerned by it.

    “We need to get into the warehouse over there,” the masked mare noted, pointing a hoof towards the southern edge of the rail yard.

    “Sounds simple enough…” Clockwork started.

     “It would be, if we had the Princess’ sanction, which we do not. So we’re going in covertly, and we need those guards not to even know we were ever here,” Mare-Do-Well stated simply.

    “I’m not exactly built for stealth.”

    “No, you’re not. That’s why you’re going to wait here until you see my signal,” the masked heroine stated with a cocky smile under her mask. “Then you’ll join me and we’ll go from there.”

    “What did you even need me for then?” Clockwork asked, perplexed.

    “Your scanners,” came the answer, “You have the tech that should make hunting for our objective a lot easier.”

    “What are we looking for, anyway?” the armoured mare fired back.

    “I’ll explain once we’re in,” the mare answered, and flicked her cape back with a pair of dusky violet wings. She launched herself into the air, almost immediately becoming lost in the darkness as she glided silently over one of the guards to light quietly atop the warehouse in question. Clockwork didn’t see where it was any different than the other warehouses, one in a line of squat ugly buildings with a normal sized door and a large rolling door that a disconnected train car could be wheeled into for unloading. The buildings, despite being covered in soot, were in good repair with sturdy locks and heavy thick glass windows smeared with grime. Clockwork wasn’t sure how the other would gain access to the building in question, but with a flick of her cape, the wings vanished beneath it.

    Mare-Do-Well settled herself in a small hidden spot between two buildings to watch the guards, who paused near the middle to commiserate about how miserable the night was. Clockwork’s armour was easily able to pick up the conversation, which started about the cold, one asking if there was any coffee left, and then moved on to the latest hoofball game and a series of names she didn’t know. Idly she pondered if she were really so disconnected from everything that she had never even seen a professional hoofball game before, and only had the vague knowledge that it involved kicking around a ball towards an opposing team’s goal thanks to some experiences as a filly in school. She might have continued further down that line of thought, had she not seen a muted flare of light, well hidden by a heavy purple hat, as her compatriot began to magically pick the lock on the side window of the warehouse in question.

    The silent mare jumped up, bounced off the opposing wall, and through the now open window like a gymnast, and leaving Clockwork to wonder if that had been her “signal”. Clockwork was really beginning to wonder if she was suited for this job, with her shiny armour and bright glowing wings. It was a miracle, and a sign of how oppressively dark the night was, that none of the guards had thought to look up.

    A sudden cry caught her attention, and smoke billowed out of an empty railcar north of her position. The white smoke poured from the railcar as if it were a living thing, and the pair of guards scrambled towards it, followed by a third from an office she hadn’t known was occupied. She frowned, momentarily wondering if she should intervene, when she caught sight of motion from the edge of her scanners. Mare-Do Well had pushed open the main door of the warehouse just a bit and was waving to her. Clockwork glanced once at the guards, then jetted her way towards the other mare, keeping as quiet as her nice shiny armour and roaring engines would allow. At least the smoke and shouting seemed to cover her intrusion, and the door was flung wide as she got close, then slammed shut and bolted in place by the masked mare behind her.

    “You set fire to the rail car!?” Clockwork asked incredulously.

    “Delayed fire rune on a piece of refuse I added to the trash in there,” Mare-Do Well answered simply. “Their fire-extinguishers are up to date, the fire department checked them just a week ago, and they’ll be busy for hours with the paperwork and the fire department. With luck, we’ll be left completely to ourselves, with little to no chance of interruption.”

    Clockwork nodded slowly and looked out at the ponies in the yard through the small and grimy window in the door. “That makes sense, I suppose. So long as no pony is actually in danger…”

    “Assuming they were trained up to required standards, this will just be an exciting evening for them. Guard work is boring…” the masked mare confided. “That said, we’ll probably be a few hours ourselves, even with your sensors.”

    “What, exactly, are we looking for anyway?”

    “Not sure,” the masked mare shrugged, “but we’ll know when we find it.”

    “Are you bucking kidding me?” Clockwork demanded, and Mare-Do-Well turned to face her with a lopsided smile.

    “The local crime boss is receiving a package from his boss out in Manehatten,” she said, “I want to know what’s in it. The Falcon family, originally out of Cloudsdayle, now centered out of Manehatten, is trying to make its move on Canterlot. They’ve been held at bay by the guard prior to now, but they found their ‘in’ within the seedier part of town via an establishment called ‘The Plowed Field’. That’s a front for a prostitution ring, and a frequent bit-laundering location. Now the Family wants to expand their influence while the guard is distracted with the gryphons, and they’ve sent word to their boy here in town, Coldstone. If I can circumvent this here and now, I can prevent them from sinking their teeth even further into Canterlot, and might even give me some information I can use against them… though organized crime is notoriously difficult to root out.”

    There was a pause as all that filtered through Clockwork’s mind. “Did you just say the ‘Plowed Field’?”

    “That’s correct,” the other confirmed.

    “Wouldn’t that have been shut down by the guard?”

    “Why would it be?”

    “Because it was just a week or so ago that I had a hoof in getting a pegasus known as Hawk arrested, which turned out to be an alias for Bubble Trouble, a known criminal,” Clockwork said softly. “He tried to threaten me with being turned, forcibly, into a ‘worker’ there.”

    “I’m guessing he caught you without your armour on,” Mare-Do-Well teased. “His arrest had no affect on the establishment. He may have run the prostitution side of the business, but there were plenty of ponies ready to take his place. And, given the clout his bosses have, he’d never give up any names. Bubble Trouble will claim from here to the moon that he was working all on his own; he’ll never admit to working for the Falcon Family.”

    “I’m starting to think they had an influence on the name he chose to hide behind,” Clockwork considered in a subdued tone.

    “I thought as much myself,” Mare-Do-Well noted.

    “So… what do you need me to do?”

    “Rather than break open every crate here, something that would have us here for days, we need to simplify the search,” Mare-Do Well answered simply. “I’m going to go through a list of aliases and known fronts with the delivery forms over there on the wall. I want you to start scanning the boxes for anything unusual. Heat signatures, strange sounds, if you can do explosive or drug sniffing it would be a big help too, but I imagine that might be a little beyond your present capabilities.”

    “Actually, I added a chemical analyzer some months ago,” Clockwork answered proudly. “However, with the main sensor suite from my old chariot is destroyed, and the replacement not online yet, I won’t be able to identify anything specific. But it still might lead us where we need to go.”

    “Can it do airborne particulates?”

    “Only if there’s a large enough quantity,” Clockwork admitted, “the sensitivity isn’t as high as I’d like, but it was the best I could do. It just picks particulates up from the air filters and scans them…”

    “I figured as much, just do what you can,” Mare-Do-Well noted with a smile. “Well then, let’s get started.”

    Clockwork scanned the room, looking about the warehouse with her mechanically enhanced vision. The darkness draped over everything like a heavy wool blanket, with dust-motes dancing in the thin moonbeams that shined through dirty windows. To one side of the large room was the unloaded freight car. The armoured mare poked her head into the rather plain box-shaped car and found it empty of anything but some loose trash in the corners. Outside of the freight car, a majority of the crates were piled up in loose rows that extended from front to back in no particular order she could pick out. Smaller boxes were usually sat near the top of the piles, while larger crates towards the bottom, with some awkwardly shaped crates off to one corner like misshapen outcasts. Towards the front of the building, and the door she entered from, was a wooden porch of sorts, which was kept relatively clean and seemed the most likely vantage an overseer would guide the unloading from. Hanging from the wall were clipboards covered in the charts that Mare-Do-Well had already begin to focus on, using a directed light spell from a mint green horn down at the tablets so that she could scan them without drawing undue attention to them both.

    With a sigh, Clockwork turned the sensors on the armour up to the maximum, but didn’t hold out much hope for a “general search”. It seemed to her a ridiculous effort and a colossal waste of time, one which was steadily draining the energy reserves in the armour. Fortunately the drain wasn’t too bad, but if the search continued for too long she would have to bring it to the other mare’s attention, or she wouldn’t have enough power to fly home until after sunrise, and she really didn’t want to be here that long. That thought soured her mood considerably, especially given the bed, and the mare in said bed, that she had to pry herself away from in order to honor her promise tonight. And for what? This was no more than a search for a needle in a haystack! Clockwork barely managed to keep herself from vocalizing the rather rude words that leapt to mind.

    “No luck?” the masked mare asked, interrupting Clockwork’s silent brooding.

    “None,” she answered a little more sharply than she intended, “not that I really expect to find anything.”

    “It is, admittedly, a bit of a long shot,” Mare-Do-Well sighed.

    “Then why drag me all the way out here?” Clockwork demanded, turning sharply to face the suited mare.

    “Two reasons,” the masked mare answered in an even tone. “One, because you deserve the chance to finish what you started.”

    Clockwork was brought up short. “Come again?”

    “You deserve the chance to finish what you started,” she reiterated. “Your hoof in arresting ‘Mister Hawk’ was the first step to closing down the Plowed Field. Now you have the chance to finish what you began; to take it all the way.”

    “And your second reason?” Clockwork asked in a more subdued tone.

    “To talk,” Mare-Do-Well admitted. “Aside from that first time, we haven’t spoken much since about our shared ‘problem’, and while I am quick to try and push it onto the back burner, I do realize it’s important to you. You don’t quite have a handle on how to deal with it yet, and this is a long and boring task that lends itself well to such a discussion.”

    Clockwork was momentarily speechless.

    “Besides, I figured I better speak up before you take my head off,” the masked mare joked as she ran a hoof over one of the papers, following a line across.

    “How did you…?”

    “Your stance,” Mare-Do-Well noted simply. “When you don’t have your own face, like me, you have to craft your identity through behavior and posture. That tends to make you more observant of other pony’s postures and mannerisms. Your posture when you arrived was relaxed, content, and dare I say, happy. It lacked the nervousness, that edginess I’ve seen in you since the beginning. Honestly, I’d be inclined to say that you got laid.” Clockwork was suddenly glad for the helm and armour to hide behind, as she blushed furiously. “The longer we were searching, the lower and wider your stance got, like you were bracing for a fight. You were starting to realize exactly how futile it was for you to be brought in for the search, and you’d be right. I want you here for when I find it, because you have access to disposal methods I do not. For example, if it’s an explosive, you can get it out of city limits and destroy it far faster and more safely than I could. If it’s drugs, the guard would believe you if you told them you found it while following a tip, whereas I’d be arrested and have to deal with a lot of uncomfortable questions. In short, I wanted you here to back me up.”

    “Just… tell me next time,” Clockwork said softly, “I don’t like it when ponies lie to me.”

    The other mare paused to look at Clockwork closely for a moment, frowning darkly. She nudged her hat with a hoof and asked, “You’ve been lied to before?”

    “Yes.”

    “About?”

    Clockwork scowled at the other mare, and considered not answering… but caved under the continued gaze of her current companion. “Recently? Some pony I considered a good friend lied to me about the source of my affliction. She tried to pretend it was a spell, cast in the dying throes of the Nightmare, and then proceeded to tell me that Princess Celestia was suffering from it.”

    “Given how long Celestia’s been alive,” Mare-Do-Well mused, “it would make sense if she was suffering from a whole host of issues, mental and otherwise…”

    “That’s not the point!” Clockwork shouted suddenly, surprising even herself with the surge of anger.

    The other mare turned to face her. “Then what is the point?”

    “The point is that she lied to me! She tried to manipulate my strongest instinct, my very nature; that which earned me the element I supposedly embody! She tried to use my loyalty, to her and to the Princess, to try and forced my hoof to… to…” Clockwork sputtered.

    “To force you to do what? To try and trick you into accepting assistance so they could help you overcome your issue?” the masked mare asked evenly. When she didn’t receive an answer she moved closer. “Tell me, is your friend the bearer of the element of honesty?”

    “W-what?” Clockwork stammered, caught off guard by the odd question. “No, it wasn’t Filigree.”

    “Then why would you expect that she would always be honest?” Mare-Do-Well asked simply. “No pony is perfect, even the most honest ponies lie over the silliest stuff. It’s often harmless, or an attempt to help the other pony. In this case, it sounds like the latter; she lied to help you when you wouldn’t help yourself.”

    “But she lied….”

    “Yes, she did,” the other pony interrupted. “It’s wrong, but is it such an unforgivable sin? She was trying to help you in perhaps the only way she knew how.”

    “B-but…”

    “I’ll ask again, is it an unforgivable sin?” When Clockwork didn’t answer, the masked mare turned back to the paperwork. “Think about it. Your problem is like mine, but you have friends willing to help you. I had to face mine alone. And just as you have made missteps, they too will make mistakes. If you’ve never been manipulated before, either you’re too naïve to have seen it, too gullible to even know it happened, or too self delusional to admit it. We all get manipulated from time to time. Sometimes it’s little things, like a foal giving those big puppy dog eyes until you cave in to what they want. Sometimes they’re big, like some villain tricking you into doing their dirty work for them. It happens to all of us. The fact that the manipulation you’re reacting so strongly to was purely an effort to help you just makes me think this is being blown out of proportion, or there’s more there.”

    “I… I want to say there’s more there…” Clockwork said, her voice straining to force the words past her raw throat. Only the armour hid the internal conflict from the other mare. “…but that’s not true. I can’t lay the rest on her. I just… I can’t… trust…”

    “You can’t trust her?” Mare-Do Well asked, and the other mare nodded mutely. “That’s understandable, lying is a breach of trust. But it is not the end of the world, and trust can be rebuilt. You’ve never screwed up? You’ve never had to earn the trust of another again after you dropped the ball? If I remember the papers, you were briefly kicked off your team. Did you not have to re-earn your way back onto it?”

    “No, I didn’t,” she answered softly, sitting her armoured flank unceremoniously down on the floor. “The Princess needed members in an emergency and reactivated me.”

    “Really? Huh, guess that was a swing and a miss. But my point still stands,” she noted with a chuckle, using a hoof to adjust her hat. “Besides, wouldn’t you want a second chance if it were you who screwed up? Wouldn’t you want another chance?”

    “I… uh… yes.”

    “Then maybe she deserves one too,” Mare-Do Well noted and trotted away from the clipboards, placing a hoof on Clockwork’s armoured shoulder, “she’s only a pony. She will make mistakes, just as you will.”

    “I…” Clockwork sniffled softly, “…I’ll think about it.”

    “All that, and we haven’t even gotten to our condition yet,” the other mare teased. “I should’ve been a counselor or something, bound to pay more and have better hours than this gig.” Clockwork managed a snotty laugh as Mare-Do Well went to a different chart hanging on the wall, and started to read it.

    “I… I think I might have found a bit of an angle on my own condition,” Clockwork said after a few moments, moving up onto the porch as she did a quick sweep of the crates with her sensors, but came up with nothing worth following up, unless one counted the rat munching in the corner worth pursuing.

    “Oh? Do tell…”

    “I… I never thought about it before,” the armoured mare began, “but my friend, Galaxi, and I were talking about my past. She pointed out that I spent most of my life going from crisis to crisis, always finding a way to overcome something that knocked me down. As events sped up heading to the confrontation with the Nightmare…”

    “And then, bam, she’s dead and gone, and you’re left with no more crises to face.” Mare-Do Well nodded sagely. “That sounds like a pretty solid possibility to me.”

    “I’ll admit I wondered what sort of wisdom you’d have about that,” Clockwork added sheepishly.

    The other mare chuckled and shook her head, “Like what? Stop bracing for crises? There’s no magic pill here, Clockwork. I think you’re on the right path, but there’s little else I can say about it. You’ve learned something about yourself, and your friend is probably accurate. If I had to guess, this friend was probably who you were in bed with before dragging your flank out here to banter with me. I can imagine that was a tough decision to make.” She paused and looked to the other mare.

    “You have no idea…” Clockwork sighed, and then squeaked when she realized how loudly she had said it. Mare-Do-Well just laughed and took a clip-board off the wall.

    “C’mon, I think I found it,” the masked mare said, and led Clockwork down one row of boxes, who was relieved for the change of topic.

    Peace.

    The mare sighed and closed her blind eyes, just absorbing the sounds around her. The palace garden was a perfect and serene place to allow her to center her thoughts, and perhaps indulge that giddy little part of her that was hoof pumping like mad over finally getting the mare she had her eye on. The night had been wonderful, in a clumsy and awkward way. It was nothing like the stories she had heard, or the books she’d read. They had both been all hooves, poking at all the wrong spots in a quest to find the right ones. She’d never seen herself in such a role before, always envisioning herself as the demure and shy one in any relationship, but with Clockwork… something clicked. She just wanted her so badly, it was almost physical. And now…

    She took a slow breath that somehow turned into a giggle halfway through. She couldn’t help it! She was so bubbling over with emotions and feelings and desires that she couldn’t keep her mind still. That’s why she was here, trying to calm herself down. Pushing this too hard would be a bad idea. She might want to clutch her newfound special some pony to her chest and never let her go, but Clockwork was a strong and capable mare in her own right. More amusingly, she imagined the silly little mare would probably have half the palace library checked out in the next few weeks as she researched what she could about pleasures of this sort. Idly she wondered if maybe there was a hidden kinky streak in her…

    Galaxi shook her head, if only to prevent half formed fantasies from taking root in her mind. There was no proof that the other mare had any inclination in those directions, for starters, and she had no clue how to broach such a topic anyway. They were both new at this, and the desire to get in over their heads was almost overwhelming.

    “I thought I might find you out here,” a soft voice said from behind her, and Galaxi opened her blind eyes, letting her “sight” wash over the newcomer.

    “Filigree?” she asked after a moment. “I didn’t expect to see you out here…”

    The gryphoness smirked lopsidedly and sidled up alongside the pony. “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t, but lately I’ve been coming out here a lot. I overheard Flourish talking about some of the advice she gave you, and put it together with a few rumours about how you and Clockwork vanished into your bedroom for many hours today. I’m guessing you two finally got your acts together and stopped being ‘just’ friends.”

    “I… er…” Galaxi stammered, blushing brightly before a thought hit her. “Wait, why would you expect me to be out here then?”

    “Cooldown,” Filigree answered smoothly and settled herself down on the lush green grass. “Too much at once can be a bad thing, and both you and Clockwork needed a break eventually. Also, I saw Clockwork fly off a few hours ago with her armour. With as quiet as the garden gets at night, save some of the more exotic animals populating it, it’s good for just thinking.”

    “Gee, thanks. I didn’t realize it was all over the castle already,” Galaxi fumed, prompting a chuckle from the gryphoness.

    “As if anything can stay secret here,” the gryphoness answered with a smile.

    Galaxi frowned at her current companion and kicked a hoof through the tended grass. She didn’t have to be a psychic to realize there was something wrong. “So what’re you doing out here, Filigree?”

    “I just needed… to think,” she answered in a subdued tone.”There’s just always so much hustle and bustle in the palace and… it puts me on edge sometimes, especially with…”

    “Especially with your little sister missing,” Galaxi concluded. Filigree answered with the barest of nods. “I’m sorry.” She put a hoof on the gryphoness’ shoulder, which Filigree responded to with a sad smile.

    “Not your fault,” she said softly, “the only one to blame is me. Even Spectrum tried to talk me out of it, and I didn’t listen. I sent my little sister off because…” Galaxi frowned when the gryphoness trailed off and cocked her head. She didn’t push, because it seemed like it pained the other femme, but after a moment of clenching her beak and creating a furrow in the ground with her claw, Filigree forced herself to say it, “…because I was scared, because I was terrified of the idea of having to care for her myself.”

    “Filigree…”

    The gryphoness lowered her head. “I was a servant… practically a slave for so long that I don’t know how to take care of another. The only discipline I knew was at the end of a lash, how would I have handled her? I… I just don’t know. I wanted to take her in, but I just kept seeing the first time she acted up and… and turning into my father. Given my strength, that would have been fatal. I couldn’t have lived with myself if that --”

    “Okay, stop for a moment,” Galaxi interrupted. Filigree looked at her quizzically, frowning at the almost stern expression on the pony’s face. “You’re beating yourself up over the ‘what might have beens’. Your worry might have been legitimate, if you were some recluse living somewhere in the wilds with no friends. You live here, in Canterlot, within a stone’s throw of both Princesses and a team of friends who have handled the Nightmare herself, and are on call to help stop an invasion of your kin. Do you really think we wouldn’t have helped? Do you think the Princesses wouldn’t have bent over backwards to make sure you had the best nannies on call at all times, if not ready to teach you what you needed to know? Do you really think any one of us, especially your good friend Spectrum, would have let you go over that edge? And what about Chase? And…” Galaxi ground to a halt, realizing that Filigree was sniffling, barely holding back tears. “Filigree?” she asked in a gentle tone.

    “It seems obvious to you, doesn’t it?” she asked in return, her voice husky with the struggle. “It is that obvious, everything you just said is painfully obvious. That’s the problem. I didn’t think of that at the time. Over the weeks since then, I have; every last one of those plus some you hadn’t gotten to yet. I’d even have the families that Spectrum knows for help right here. All of that and… and… and I sent her away anyway!”

    Galaxi moved close and hugged the gryphoness, who surprised her by leaning back against her, burying her head against the psychic mare’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Filigree. I misunderstood…”

    “I’m not good at… talking about it,” the gryphoness admitted. “But now… now my little sister is in danger, maybe even dead, and I can’t be there to look for her. Worse, the gryphon I’ve come to care for, maybe even love, is the one out there searching for her instead of me. I’m used to feeling helpless to do anything, but it’s only ever effected me. Now… now it’s affecting so many more. Yes, I miss Chase, it’s a hole in my heart that burns like a hot coal whenever I think about it. He’s out there, somewhere, trying to fix my mistake, and finding out it gets worse and worse.”

    “I’m guessing he sent another missive?”

    Filigree nodded and clenched a claw in the dirt and grass, uprooting some of it. “Yes,” she answered so softly that Galaxi almost missed it, “he’s found nothing. They’re searching one of the most dangerous parts of Equestria, and for what? For me? He’s finding nothing, constantly and consistently. And still he searches… for me.”

    Galaxi opened her mouth to answer, but wasn’t sure how. She settled for patting Filigree’s shoulder as she tried to come up with a way to respond, when she noticed something moving closer. It was hesitant, a tiny figure compared to both of them, its little nose quivering as it approached warily. A slow, unsteady gait, lead the small rabbit closer to what it would normally consider a predator. But something… something powerful steered it towards them, until it could place a small paw on the oversized claw of the gryphoness.

    The gryphoness, forever wired for combat, jumped physically at the touch and her bright blue eyes zeroed in on the offending creature, who in turn squeaked and bolted back several feet before pausing to look back at her. The predator hadn’t moved from her spot, and instead watched the rabbit with intense curiosity. The squeaking of the rabbit’s family tried to call it back into the safety of their burrow, but instead it turned towards the pair again and slowly moved forward. With its heart thumping in its tiny chest, it approached the huntress until it was standing beneath her gaze again. Gently it repeated its gesture, placing its small paw on the larger claw of the gryphoness.

    “I… don’t understand,” Filigree sniffled, watching the rodent closely, “what is this hare doing? Why does it not flee from me?”

    Galaxi watched with combined wonder and wariness, and allowed the psychic sense she kept under strict control to widen, spreading it over the garden. More and more animals came to light under this hunt, but they all struck the same chord, like some great silent orchestra. They were concerned. They cared. Only at the barest edges of her senses did she “hear” a soft voice, gently encouraging as it sung some foal-hood lullaby. Galaxi tried to focus on that sound, that song, but it almost seemed aware it had been noticed and vanished, disappearing as if it never were. A number of the animals seemed to snap out of whatever spell they had been under in that moment, but others stayed close, especially the rabbit at Filigree’s claws.

     “I think,” Galaxi said, swallowing uncertainly, “I think he wants to help.”

    Filigree frowned, and looked back to the nervous rabbit. It cocked its head, and almost bolted when the gryphon lifted her other claw, carefully flexing it as she pondered what she was about to do. The rabbit didn’t move, frozen with fear as she lowered the claw to it… and stroked smoothly over its head. The bunny relaxed almost immediately, seeming to smile up at her. Galaxi looked about as a small number of animals, ones she’d already noted the presence of with her psychic abilities, seemed to materialize from the shadows of the garden and stand along the perimeter. She watched with fascination as an almost childlike smile crossed over the gryphon’s beak, before the hoot of a large owl drew both of their attentions as it landed on a mostly vine covered plaque. A beam of moonlight made it possible to just make out the official name of the garden they had taken refuge in.

    The Fluttershy Memorial Garden.