Quicksilver nodded and rushed to the sack of goods before rummaging through it again. After a few minutes, he produced a knife. He tossed it to the pegasus, who caught it with a hoof. Before the fur had been cut away, along with the skin, Anna took the time to remove the arrow still lodged in its skull with a simple tug from her magic. After that, Natalie's horn glowed, and she conjured a very large ball of flame—large enough to easily engulf the bear.

The process of skinning the damn thing took a hefty fifteen to twenty minutes, and afterwards, the meat had been cooked to perfection and everyone heartily dug in. Only the stripped bones and aforementioned fur and skin remained once the meat had been eaten—many of the organs were also devoured, and those that weren't had been tossed in the fire to burn away and become ash.

Lance looked at Anna with a half-smile, who had just finished her third chunk greedily. He then looked at the others, who were cleaning themselves from the meal.

“What should we do with the bones?” Matt asked before burping loudly.

“Make something from them,” Natalie proposed, a faint smile on her face.

“Hang the bearskin to dry. As for the bones, put ‘em in their own box. Maybe we can ward off crazed spirits with a bone charm,” Lance commanded after giving it some thought, and a few gryphons did just that in a matter of minutes. The stallion turned his attention to the dead mare on the gurney and frowned. “Where’d that small body come from?” he asked. "It looks almost skeletal, and seems foal-sized."

“That changeling—a girl, I checked—was already lying next to the bear when said bear fell thanks to my arrow. We figured you’d know something about what caused her to keel over,” Anna clarified quickly, frowning. She pulled a blanket over her body, her head resting atop her front legs.

“She had strange clawed horseshoes on her, which I’ve already tucked away in one of the chests,” Matt added with a nod. “Perhaps she fought tooth and hoof, but it wasn’t enough for the sorry bitch.”

“Quicksilver, Alexander!” Lance barked in a commanding tone of voice, and immediately, the two gryphons he addressed looked at him, bodies stiff and wings ruffling as they stood to attention. He pointed to the corpse on the gurney and said, “Figure out how that pony—”

Natalie cut him off mid-command as she proceeded to lay down, “Changeling, Lance! She has four bug wings, a red carapace and ribcage, and a missing horn!”

“Fine!” Lance snapped before continuing, “Figure out how that changeling died!”

The two gryphons nodded and rushed to the deceased changeling and set to work examining her head to hoof. They prodded at her legs, her ribs, and even at her face before stopping. “Lack of love and food in general, the cold, and I believe her missing horn might’ve also been a contributing factor,” Alexander concluded with a sigh.

“How does the missing horn contribute, exactly?” Lance asked in a slightly saddened tone, blinking.

“Simple: without a means to channel her magic, she would not have been able to adequately feed off of love and defend herself. She’d have keeled over in a matter of days in a condition such as this, and frankly, I’m amazed her corpse isn’t stiff given the circumstances,” Alexander elaborated with a nod of his head. "I'm curious as to how rigor hasn't kicked in yet. Maybe this changeling had glycerol in her blood, but as I've yet to run a proper test... it's just a hypothesis on my part."

“Must’ve just strived on determination alone to find one morsel of food. I genuinely feel sorry for the poor bitch,” Quicksilver added with a frown gracing his beak. “It takes guts to do something like that, with nothing more than a set of clawed horseshoes to boot.”

“But what explains her red mane and light grey coat?” Matt frowned, laying down and levitating a blanket over his body.

“This one’s probably albino, or she bleached her body. As for the mane, this one might've been some sort of nobility—maybe a queen, even,” Quicksilver replied and shrugged. “Either that or it’s a postmortem thing going on where the skin—or chitin, in this case—just pales.”

“I see,” Lance sighed as he laid belly-side down on the floor of the tank after reclaiming his tattered blanket, a content smile on his face. “We’ll bury that queen first thing in the morning—she deserves that much, at least. For now, let’s get some shut-eye.” The other soldiers soon followed suit and did the same. As for NoLegs, he simply slept atop Matt’s back as everyone else went out like lights.

During the first few hours the group spent sleeping or so, the only sound heard in the tank aside from the heaters belonged to a few gryphons and the two stallions, who had been snoring in a semi-silent cacophony. Lance scrunched his closed eyes as he slept, mumbling to himself incoherently. He rolled over onto his back, wings spread uncomfortably wide, and a blush came onto his face.

“She's too damn young for me—barely an adult pony...” He paused, nose wrinkling as if responding to a horrid smell, “... she should know better.” He rolled over again, his form shaking. The metallic wings flapped once, then twice, as he babbled on without making even the slightest bit of sense. Rolling over once more, he started shaking his head in his sleep. “I don’t want Anna..." Another short pause riddled with a few pants. "I want… Natalie… she has the nicer ass…” he moaned, hind legs splayed wide and twitching for a fleeting second before kicking and retracting back under his body.

“Anna… stop…” Lance went on, his face reddening still. He turned over yet again, shuddering as if the cold outside still assaulted him, letting off a few pleading whimpers all the while. “Stop it… I'm not interested…”

Natalie woke up, though she only opened one eye. She directed her azure orb towards the struggling and blushing stallion, who kept mumbling along the lines of “stop it, Anna” over and over as he tossed and turned. The mare kept very still, blinking her one open eye every few seconds.

“He’s having a wet dream about Anna. And he's mumbling like a sadsack. Greeaat,” she thought, still unmoving, save for her eyelids. “Yep. He has a thing for her. Joy. Though, he doesn’t seem to want this wet dream. Something’s really off here.”

Lance began panting. “Stop it…” he continued to plead, stretching his rear legs and kicking at nothing in particular. His fidgeting worsened, and his breathing turned hitched and shallow. “No no no,” he mumbled, his voice now shifting to panic whilst his blush faded. “Don’t shoot an arrow at me.” He began scooting his body away from something, but Natz couldn’t tell what. “You’re creeping me out with your rambling about sin; stop it already!” his voice rose, yet he kept scooting. Judging from his current flailing, it seemed to have little effect over what transpired in his dream.

”Now he’s yakkin’ about something else?” Natalie thought, her eye narrowing and her brow furrowing as a concerned frown marred her face.

His wings flapped again, and he hollered “I atoned for my sins already, just don’t shoot!” as his eyes snapped open in seconds, and Lance glanced around to find the gryphons and Natalie all wide awake and staring straight at him. The stallion shifted so he could sit on his rump whilst breathing frantically, with dark red bags forming under his wide and bloodshot eyes which held pinprick pupils.

He hastily moved a hoof over the barrel of his chest, desperately pawing at it in a way the red-maned unicorn thought he had genuinely had a serious bout of pain in that particular spot. She made to speak, but could not utter a word as her attention turned from the panicked pony and towards another shifting form.

Matt scrambled to his hooves, sending NoLegs yowling and flying off his back as he got up with haste. He looked at the pegasus, a frown marring his features. “What the fuck, dude? Why did you scream?” he asked, eyes just as wide.

Lance simply shook on the spot like a leaf in a storm, the look of pure terror not leaving his face. Sweat already formed, dribbling down his body messily like liquid bullets. He set his hoof down, jaw working up and down shakily, and his wings were still splayed wide. His torn ears fell flat on his head.

“He had been having a wet dream. How it went, I don’t have an exact idea, but I know it had something to do with Anna. Maybe something about her yakkin’ about sin or whatever,” Natalie answered, shaking her head sadly and groaning afterwards.

Anna bore a lopsided smile on her muzzle and small, twitching eyes sparkling with perplexion. Her horn glowed, its sparks creating question marks above her head. “Why would a simple dream about me end up frightening him? Doesn’t he like you more, Natz?” she asked, using a hoof to gesture to the only pegasus present.

“He only wants me for my ass, Anna—you're just the one he had a nightmare about. How the hell should I know?” Natalie snorted with a shrug as she briefly glanced at the smaller mare. “All I know is it looked like he nearly shat himself, and that he didn’t want the dream to begin with.”

Lance hid under his tattered blanket in short order, his form still cringing afterwards, like a foal who had yet to shed its fear of the dark that housed the evil boogeymen. “Just go back to sleep, everybody…” he murmured.

One by one, the others complied. This time, though, NoLegs moved next to the metal-winged pony and curled up. The tank became blanketed in silence once more, save for the snores of the gryphons and stallions and the heaters as they generated warmth.

Another bout of dreaming clouded his thoughts, and this time, it granted him witness to an area comprised of lava and rock that greeted him in the stead of whatever he dreamt about before arousing everyone else from their rest with his panicked howling. Had he been inside a volcano?

Lance looked around, seeing himself on a small platform that could barely support two ponies at best. Where did he stand, and why did it have to be here? He glanced around again, finding that the tall rock walls bathed in bright orange and red glows stood separated from his impromptu island by miles and miles of boiling lava.

The lone pony glanced at his wings and sighed, shaking his head. "No way I'll be able to get out of here with these pieces of shit plastered on my back. Feathers are too small, though I doubt they’d generate decent air currents even if they’d gotten size augmentations," he murmured, his voice rebounding off the walls as if he’d yelled.

The island and rock walls briefly shook, and the lava began to boil more as it did. What could have agitated the thick, burning lifeblood of the mountain? A cool breeze blew past, gingerly touching the pegasus.

"Wait… a breeze?" Lance murmured, glancing around once more with a realization that something was amiss starting to sink in. "That shouldn't be possible here..."

A voice echoed, one of a raspy masculine nature. "No rest for the wicked..." it snarled rather bitterly, as if the words themselves could have somehow been lathered in layers of horrible venom. This same voice had been loud and demanding like it belonged to a deity of some kind. Its rasping tone only further made this voice start to ring in his ears. "A fitting end for one such as you..."

"Who's there?" Lance cried, glancing around and seeing nothing but the accursed walls and magma. For a long moment, there came no answer in spite of his askance, and thus his ears fell flat on his skull.

The lava began to boil more and more, and it gradually began to rise up and up. A feeling of dread washed over the trapped pony, whose eyes had widened. In a panic, he began flapping his useless wings whilst jumping about like a hapless frog. But, no matter what he did and how hard he tried, he could not escape from the encroaching magma that threatened to swallow both him and the shrinking island he was bouncing upon to no avail.

"Just accept your fate, you red-eyed cretin," the unseen owner of the voice shrieked once more, now loud enough to briefly shake the stone walls that held the magma which cut off all means of escape for the stallion. "You can't—"

A booming, demonic laughter hit his ears and cut off the ethereal voice, echoing off the walls as if coming from everywhere at once. Lance swiveled his head around to get another look at his surroundings once more, yet nothing changed. The eerie cacophony echoed, and this time he detected a creature with piercing and glowing eyes staring right into his soul standing on the same shrinking island as he. This same creature let off the unnerving laughter again, right before rushing straight to him like a missile—and that had been the moment in which he woke up, form shaking, as another howl left his mouth.

Lance looked around after his rather rude awakening and noticed that his scream did not arouse anybody else from their slumber this time. Calming himself down with a few shaky deep breaths, he sighed and looked towards the panel. The blizzard outside had stopped for the time being, and so did the howling winds which fueled its onslaught. He blinked, making sure he was seeing correctly.

The screen—and his weary, bloodshot eyes—failed to deceive him.

Lance grudgingly sighed, and curled up to sleep once more. Before he could doze off, though, a faint moan of discomfort hit his torn ears. He rose up his head to glance around again and didn’t find the source of the moan. Upon trying to lower his head so as to rest again, the noise—a bit louder—repeated.

And then came the sound of faint sobbing, accompanied by frantic whimpers that were equally as hushed.

Once more, he rose his head and was able to detect the source of the sounds this time around: Anna. The unicorn was shedding tears in her sleep, her face reddening more and more by the second. Front hooves poised as if chained together, she desperately shook them as she laid flat on her back.

“Stop… it hurts…” she pleaded, rear legs splayed embarrassingly wide, but fortunately she had her back end pointed towards the gurneys and away from him. Lance slowly blinked, rubbing one eye with a hoof wearily.

“Get away!” Anna suddenly cried out, kicking the air frantically. “Get away! I didn’t sin, dammit!” she shrieked, struggling in such a way the still-sleepy stallion couldn’t help but feel that something invisible had actually been having its way with her right then and there. Lance nigh-instantly scrambled to his hooves and made a beeline to her without a second to spare, shaking her awake vigorously as soon as he stood next to her and put his front hooves upon her chest. She woke up emitting a high-pitched shriek of her own, breathing as if her life began slipping away thereafter. He took the opportunity to shift his front hooves elsewhere, letting them stray up with his eyes locking with hers in a staring contest.

“I heard the caterwauling. Frankly, I don’t want to know what you were dreaming about,” Lance half-wearily sighed, gently spreading her forelegs to reassure her that nothing horrific had transpired whilst she dozed.

Anna shook, sitting up in a heartbeat. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and housed pinprick pupils. She frantically wrapped her front legs around and then clutched the pegasus tightly, still cringing with complete terror.

“It had… g-glowing eyes…” Anna whimpered like a frightened foal, more tears leaking from her eyes. “A-And it t-told me… I-I had s-sinned…”

Lance blinked, feeling pain in his shoulders as the unicorn tightened her hug a bit.

“T-Then… it…” Anna hiccuped, only to stop as thin wings of metal wrapped around her.

“Please, for the love of Godcat, say no more,” Lance cut her off sternly, but in a low and gentle tone of voice that could have been mistaken for a whisper. He had a pretty good idea of what she dreamt of, if her howling and sleeping mannerisms were anything to go by. The mental imagery did more than enough to make him cringe at the mere notion of it. Since he too had seen something sporting glowing eyes in his earlier dream, he began to think that something had been haunting them.

Did he merely imagine this 'haunting', however? That could have been a possibility; his sleep-fogged mind must've been playing with him. Whatever the reason, all he could do was begrudgingly sigh.

The shaken mare was silent for a minute or two as she calmed down. Then, she let go and curled back up, drying her tears with a hoof once her grip on the pegasus had loosened. Lance moved away, scooped up his blanket with his mouth, then returned to her and laid down at the mare's side. He tossed the tattered cloth over his back like a sack of flour, glancing at his companion as the thing landed on his metal-infused midsection, covering most of it up. "C-can I sleep with you?" she asked, still cringing a bit.

Lance thought her request over for a some seconds, pursing his lips together and furrowing his brow slightly. “Just this once, squirt. And don't try any funny business,” he answered at last, swiftly wrapping a cloth-laden wing around her as best he could. Anna smiled weakly and snuggled up next to him, falling fast asleep with her head next to his shoulder. Lance nestled his head between his forelegs and quickly dozed back off himself, not hearing another peep from anyone else around him.

A few hours passed and clouds parted, and at the first rays of light everyone arose like zombies from the grave. A collective series of yawns had been shared, as was the stretching of limbs and bodies.

After that, Lance had the hatch opened and poked his head out of it, with one gryphon beneath his back hooves, just barely supporting his form. The moon hung high in the sky, bathing the entire landscape in a silvery glow. The snow twinkled like little diamonds, and the tank’s exterior like recently-polished steel. Beyond the horizon, half-visible, another planet hovered, distant enough to blur whatever had been on its surface.

The other three poked their heads out as well, supporting themselves with their magic.

“It’s so amazing…” Natalie remarked, her eyes twinkling as much as the snow. A wide smile adorned her face.

“Oh my Godcat, it is!” Anna agreed, her eyes also twinkling.

“Look over there,” Matt stated, using a hoof to point at a silhouette some distance away. The other three directed their gazes to it, using his hoof as makeshift guidance. “You think that could be Frostbite Haven?”

“Maybe,” Lance replied, blinking.

“If it is, then can we go there now?” Anna asked in a hopeful, ears twitching.

Lance mulled about it it for longer than a minute. “Yes,” he said, dropping back to the inside of the tank and immediately trotting to the control panel. The other three dropped down as well, and the hatch closed. Typing in numbers and letters and whatnot before grasping the steering handles with a new destination in mind, the burnt orange stallion smirked as the tank’s treads whirred to life very violently. This caused a cascade of snow to fly everywhere and twinkle like hail. It sped towards the silhouette in the distance like a speeding bullet, and it had only been a half-hour before the silhouette became clearer as the tank came closer to it.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

It was, indeed, a town, and all the inhabitants happened to be cutie-markless hippogryphs of varying colors and plumage patterns. Some had manes and heads like ponies, while others had feathers and beaks like gryphons. There were houses made from ice molded into bricks, and some had signs indicating shops and the like. Many of these villagers approached the tank as soon as it came to a stop on the outskirts of their town and watched as four ponies and around a dozen gryphons clambered out.

“Ponies!” one yellow-feathered hippogryph child shouted, eyes wide.

“With cutie marks!” exclaimed another hippogryph foal, this one with a teal coat.

"What are they doing here?" a violet-maned filly asked, brown feathers bristling a bit as an adult hippogryph walked past her.

Matt’s little horn glowed a shimmering gold in color, and from a flash of light that was also gold came another brown sack that had been as full as he stood tall. He plopped it in front of the townspeople and undid the drawstring which kept the sack's mouth sealed. This wound up revealing a lot of gold coins—so much, in fact, one had to wonder if he made a deal with a king or something to get this ludicrous amount of money. “Food, fridges, and cupboards. Do you have them?” he asked.

“Oh, yes we do—we have lots; perhaps even more than everygryph here can manage. The fridges we have no use for, so you can have them for free—after all, what’s the point of having electrical appliances if you’re in an environment where they very seldom get used?” spoke one pure-white hippogryph, a beard of grey hanging from just behind his beak. He turned to his fellow hippogryphs and nodded. “Get them whatever they need,” he commanded. "They have paid us handsomely."

A few more hippogryphs complied with the request, and these were the burliest males around. They went into one of the igloos that made up the town, just barely worming their way past the entrances, and stayed within this igloo for a few minutes before pulling out the requested pieces of furniture one at a time.

With ease and a bit of teamwork and maneuvering, the hippogryphs flew up and up in pairs, each taking either a cupboard or a fridge in tow. They were careful to avoid dropping the blasted things, but had some trouble getting the massive objects past the entrance-hole of the tank. They had to weasel in vertically, which had been easier said than done despite the bulk of the workers who were aiding in the transporting of goods.

Eventually, though, a total of five fridges and three cupboards had been loaded and secured very safely in the tank. Once the hunks of wood and metal were within the metallic behemoth, the burly hippogryphs flew out of the hatch and landed gracefully in the snow, taking their places next to the bearded male who nodded at them.

A few less bulky hippogryphs, all females with duller coats and plumages or manes than the males, then loaded bags of food into the tank. It had been much easier for them, since they did not have to worry about contending with huge pieces of furniture. Lance eyed the females as they passed, though he noticed their eyes did not show any emotion—in fact, the eyes of said she-gryphs were as dull as the steel of his tank. Once they left the behemoth empty-clawed, Matt pushed the sack of gold coins towards the elder with his magic.

For a tranquil minute after the goods had been successfully loaded into the tank and the bag of coins loaded into an igloo, the villagers headed back to their igloos and their visitors to their tank, when a great reverberation echoed in the sky, causing everyone to stop what they were doing. It had been as though time froze on the spot, rendering each and every pony, gryphon, and hippogryph stiff as a doornail. Again, and again, the deafening wailings of the sky continued to drag on, accompanied by the ground rumbling and moaning in response. Once the cacophony from above died down, all looked up towards the sky.

Every single set of eyes widened in either amazement or terror as a thin, shimmering something reflected the light of the moon, rendering those who stood in Frostbite Haven unable to see the heavens above. It was akin to the whole expanse of the cosmos itself being painted in a thick coat of white paint, yet this had just been the start. This whatever-it-was that had muted out the deep navy that separated land and atmosphere began to shake just as another deafening roar resounded from above, like it had been connected to the very earth itself.

“What the fuck is that?!” Matt cried, irises shrinking as he continued to stare at the anomaly. Another crash, like a bout of thunder, echoed from beyond, this one loud enough to force his ears to the back of his head just as the snow-laden ground shook once more.

The hippogryph with the beard blinked, pupils nothing more than meager pinpricks as he spotted a crack in the something, sticking out like an oasis in a desert. “That is the barrier between Fantasia and Mythos,” he said, his voice grim. Another bellow from the heavens shook the town once more, this one forcing him to sit in the snow lest he lose balance.

“What?” Lance asked, turning to the white hippogryph with a concerned frown marring his features. The heavens shrieked again, the recent blare making him glance back up out of morbid curiosity. The crack had widened substantially, to the point it made the red bags appear under his eyes once more.

The white hippogryph shook his head. “According to legend, whatever has caused the barrier to crack just now shall herald the end of time as we know it for both worlds it had separated,” he replied, his voice even more somber now. “What’s more, there is no stopping it, for whatever has damaged the blockade is unbearably strong. Such is the way for that which shall smite us all in fire and destruction.”

Anna stomped a hoof in the snow. “Then we’ll stop it,” she said, eyes narrowing. Again, the skies let off a cacophony, this one much louder than before—everyone winced and covered their ears as the cosmos rumbled and roared as if it were accepting her challenge. The crack widened again, now large enough to be filled by the entire Haven at least three times over.

“But it cannot be stopped,” repeated the hippogryph, eyes narrowing low as he turned to glance at the ponies. This time, the sky didn’t cry out in an ear-splitting echo that had tried its damnedest to rend the very atmosphere asunder.

“Me and my fellow ponies are gonna find a way—” Anna paused as the heavens raged once more, this time letting off three claps in rapid succession. The crack widened with each awful howl from above, leaving an array of jagged markings that spanned the horizon now. “—and if we can’t find a way, we’ll make a way!” she finished, and only then did one last vehement crash make its presence known.

This had been a noise so loud and deafening that the snow beneath everyone shifted as if it were afraid, almost burying the whole population of the Haven as well as their visitors in one wallop. This same noise also came close to drowning out another horrible sound, one very much similar to shattering window glass that was magnified a hundred times.

Everyone hastily dug themselves out, either using raw strength, claws, or magic. They unearthed themselves just in time to see the white cracked thing that blotted out the whole sky shatter into a million rapidly-vanishing pieces, and once the heavens were cleared of the mysterious debris, the entire population of the town stared at the ponies in unison.

The bearded hippogryph went slack-jawed, eyes widening for a second before his face instantly hardened. “You fools!” he exclaimed, pointing an accusing talon at Anna specifically. “You cannot hope to best whatever has just broken the barrier that has kept Fantasia and Mythos apart!”

The whole lot tensed up in unison, but Anna did not so much as falter. She remained dauntless, even as every set of eyes belonging to the hippogryphs focused on her. “I intend to keep my word,” she spat simply.

“You ignorant little pony,” the bearded hippogryph snarled, shaking his head like a father disciplining his troublesome child. “There is no hope for the brazenly foolish, and you are the most foolish I’ve seen yet. Why, I highly doubt your wretched cutie mark can help you!”

“I will lay my life down if that’s what it takes to stop the end of the worlds,” Anna hissed, not once betraying a flinch of a leg or twitch of an ear as she continued to stare down the elderly hippogryph. In that moment, Natalie stepped forward, taking an unflinching stance next to her fellow mare.

“I’ve laid my life down just trying to survive. I have nothing to lose—I will help my fellow unicorn stop the thing that shattered the barrier,” she growled, a frown creasing her cream-colored brow.

Matt trotted up, quickly flanking Natalie. “I can also attest to this. I ain’t gonna sit by while the horrible, ‘unbeatable’ thing lays waste to everything around me,” he stated in a firm tone of voice.

Lance let no second go to waste as he trotted up as well, flanking Matt and the unicorn mares. “I’m not so sure if there is a 'thing that broke the barriers,' but if it exists, I'm not going on standby either. In fact, I'm willing to bet at least a few residents of Mythos feel much the same way. And if my unicorn companions are gonna fight, then I will fight too—me, and my entire army,” he remarked coldly, turning to the gryphons who almost immediately saluted him all at once.

“We will lay our lives for the sake of the worlds, sir!” they barked in unison. Then, one by one, they flew to the ponies and picked them up before ascending higher and higher. Once at the desired altitude, they descended into the hatch with the empty-clawed gryphons following suit. The hatch slammed shut, and the wheels whirred to life, sending another flurry of snow everywhere as the tank backed out of the town and veered around it. Some of the hippogryphs shouted angrily and flew after the Valkyrie, but they had no chance—even at top speed, they couldn't hope to keep up.

Within minutes, Frostbite Haven had been left in the white dust, and in another few minutes the tank once again found itself in the middle of a snow-laden patch of nowhere. White flakes began to fall down from the heavens again, although this flurry was slow and calm. Once the metallic behemoth had stopped moving altogether, Alexander opened one of the fridges and found it empty. A smile curled his beak a bit as he then turned to the corpse of the dead changeling who still lay on the gurney.

“Quicksilver,” he began, turning to the light grey gryphon with a simple nod of his head, “we have a corpse to do further autopsy on.”

“Haven’t we done enough autopsy on her?” Quicksilver frowned thoughtfully, wings fluffing for a second.

“No; she may have had intestinal parasites that rendered her as thin as she is before she passed,” Alexander snappishly replied with narrowing eyes He firmly shook his head. “We’ll have to slice her open.”

The ponies turned their attention to Alexander as he calmly approached the carcass, and he only stopped once he stood directly next to the damn thing. He rose a talon up and began prodding at the corpse, lifting one of the legs to assess the whole set once more.

Still limp, but not stiff. The gryphons blinked. “This is a very peculiar corpse; not once have any of the limbs turned rigid as ice when they should have. Why in hell has rigor mortis not kicked in yet?” Alexander sighed, setting down the leg he held before approaching the changeling’s head. He made to touch the cadaver’s face with a claw, only to gape as a thin hoof shot up and met with his talon head-on, stopping it from going any further.

"I... uh... h-how," Alexander stammered, trying to make sense of what had happened His brain struggled to process what should not have happened, but did happen nonetheless.

Then, only when words failed Alexander completely did the lower jaw of the corpse move, and worse still it distended to an unnatural 90 degrees to emit something between a yawn and an eerie hiss of displeasure thanks to its distinct split mouth. The head then twisted upon the neck, going a full 360 with sickening cracks throughout before the jaws snapped closed and the muzzle of the thing turned squarely upon Alexander to regard him seemingly judgmentally.

Several seconds of silence passed before the corpse stopped twitching altogether. All stared with wide eyes zeroed in on it, as if expecting it to do something else—and something else the thing did. A raspy, echoing, and barely feminine voice croaked out of its mouth, even though the jaws had ceased moving. “Stop touching me,” the body moaned.

“She’s alive?!” the ponies shrieked in unison, pupils dilating to pinpricks as the gravity of this situation weighed in on them.

“Yes,” the pale changeling replied, lifting up her head to nod weakly. The black eyes betrayed a blue spark in their canvases before two orbs of azure began to glow within the dark voids, a faint white glowing dead center of said orbs. “I was just napping,” she added, her raised hoof dropping to give way to a set of legs wobbling before shifting under her frame. This stance was temporary, though, and soon she made to get off the gurney and stand up on all four of her legs.

She glanced around, azure orbs dimming as she absorbed her current surroundings before taking notice of the ponies who kept staring at her in stunned unison. She trotted to them with a limping gait, rear legs sagging more than her front ones, only pausing when she stood in front of Matt. She rose a hoof and booped him on the nose when he leaned towards her, and the bulky unicorn flinched once her hoof connected with the end of his muzzle. “Hi,” she greeted in a chipper tone.

“Hi,” Matt replied, but his voice sounded a bit cracked. “Are you a zombie?” he asked.

The thin changeling shook her head, wings buzzing as she rubbed her chin with the same hoof she booped Matt with. “No; I never really had any sort of hunger for as long as I can remember. Never ate a day in my life, in fact,” she replied.

“Hmm, if she’s not hungry…” Natalie paused, ears twitching as the gears began to spin in her brain, “wouldn’t that make her... I dunno, a half-ghost or something?”

“She's not half-ghost; if she was, we'd be seeing through more than her wings. She's probably a damned wraith,” Lance clarified, a thoughtful frown on his face. “And all she has on her is a scarf. I'm wondering why she lacks a cloak.”

“Perhaps she hates cloaks?” Anna guessed, shaking her head.

“Guess that would explain a lot,” Alexander scoffed, approaching the thin mare who still stood in front of the ponies. “Miss, do you have a name?”

“No.” The supposed wraith shook her head again as she turned to the dark-plumed gryphon. “But I reckon you’d like to call me something to simplify things?”

“Yes,” Alexander replied. He nodded.

“Alright.” The thin mare nodded, eyes moving until they spotted one of the recently-loaded cupboards. Her blue orbs brightened, and she trotted to the cupboard that struck her fancy and sat in front of it like a foal looking at some statue from a long-forgotten era.

“How does ‘Cherry Sunset’ sound?” Anna questioned, and she didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

The supposed wraith’s wings sprang up, and her form tensed. “No!” she shouted, turning to the green-maned mare with narrowed eyes. “That sounds stupid!”

“How about ‘Katie Rubywing?’” Quicksilver suggested, whereupon the thin mare turned to him.

Her glare eased up, and her wings fluttered once. “I like that,” she replied in a much calmer tone of voice. “It just… clicks, y’know? It has a ring to it.”