Natalie laid on the other bed with her back facing the ceiling, keeping one eye on Katie's slumbering form and the other on Matt, who had fallen asleep next to her with a grin on his face. Sitting next to Katie's bed was Armin, who closed his eyes for brief intervals lasting a few minutes before opening them and keeping watch again.

Only Katie's snoring ensured that the room wasn't fully bathed in silence, though sometimes she mumbled and snorted about sparkletop muffins. As the hours passed, her stomach shrunk and her body pulsed with mana, until she was once again pencil-thin. The night drew on, and eventually Matt wrapped his front hooves around Natalie's barrel and pulled her close to him, and she leaned over to nestle her head into his shoulder.

She still kept one eye open, facing Katie so intently that the slightest twitch of a hoof or the buzz of a wing caught her attention for a few seconds on end. Natalie's eyes closed as Matt pressed her closer, and she gave a small sigh as the legs on her barrel shifted a bit, tickling her with their fur. Sleep claimed her in minutes, leaving Armin awake in the darkened room.

Armin turned to the two and grinned as he watched them cuddle, and his eyes stayed on them until a few minutes passed and Natalie gave a soft whinny. "I swear, they're cute together. I wonder what they'll do when they get back to base," he pondered, turning back to Katie as she jerked a leg outward and poked him in the barrel with it.

"I… will not be… denied my muffins…" Katie grumbled, before her long tongue snaked out and licked her torn chops eagerly.

"Note to self: make muffins tomorrow," Armin murmured to himself, giving a sigh as he slowly lifted a hoof and brushed Katie's off with such a faint touch she wasn't roused by it. He saw the tongue dart around before inserting itself into one of Katie's ears, probing around for a second prior to reeling out and then diving right back in again. "Now that's just gross."

He turned away, having no intention of witnessing Katie prod at her own brains. His eyes fell on Matt and Natalie again, and he found that they had stilled and started murmuring. Armin's lips quirked in a smile as Natalie neighed and gave a flinch of her shoulders. "You want… celery?" she grumbled with a snort.

Armin sniggered, his lips still locked in a grin. The grin fell as a pair of back legs shifted, followed by Matt giving off a soft groan mixed with a whinny. "Is he okay?" he wondered, watching the two intently for a few more seconds.

"Not… the ginger…" Matt mumbled, his rear legs fidgeting about as he spoke. He stilled a minute later, and began snoring quietly.

"Ginger?" Armin mouthed, a brow raising disbelievingly as his brain processed the remark. It took several minutes for it to register, during which time Matt began kicking and struggling again. Before he could dwell on it once it finally gained admission, though, Matt abruptly sat bolt upright with wide eyes and a paling face. He dragged Natalie with him into more or less the same stance thanks to his hooves still being wrapped around her barrel, in turn waking her up with a startled gasp.

"The hell?" Natalie murmured, looking around before her eyes fell onto Matt's front hooves. She stared for a second before craning her neck to look at him in the face. "You okay?" she asked.

Matt sighed and flopped back down, but not before he slid his hooves off of Natalie first. "Had a bad dream is all," he replied quietly. He turned to Katie and winced as he saw that her tongue was still lodged firmly in her ear. "That's freaky," he hissed, turning away to stuff his face into a pillow. "I've seen enough for tonight."

Natalie turned to Katie, stared for a few seconds, and proceeded to turn away when the anomaly registered. "I concur." With that, she buried her face into Matt's shoulder again and released a groan of exasperation. "Never before have I heard of or seen a wraith try to eat their own brains," she added with a note of disgust.

Armin's horn glowed and his magic seized Katie's tongue before yanking it out sharply, and he turned to find that it managed to drag out at least a good inch and a half of blackened, foul-smelling ear wax. "Someling's gonna need more examinations," he snorted as his magic began to remove the wax with a gentle scraping motion.

Without hesitation, his magic ended up causing the blackened substance to ignite into flames as its gooey bits were forcefully parted from the organ. The tongue began writhing in response, but ceased as the magic seized it in its entirety and snapped it upright, taut, and as far as it could stretch in one go. In response, her neck caved in a little, but that alone did not take Armin's attention at all.

Armin gave a low whistle as he scanned the pale instrument of taste up and down, seeing that it easily reached four-and-a-half feet by itself. "Damn thing's as long as her body," he remarked, eyes glimmering with a slight awe. The utterance caused Matt and Natalie to turn to him in an effort to find what he was babbling about, and in the very moment they did their jaws dropped simultaneously.

Armin turned to the two unicorns and regarded them for a long moment that hung in silence. Slowly, he lowered the tongue to the bed with his magic, and nestled it in a way that not only ensured that Katie remained asleep, but in a way that they could see the tip easily reached the end of her red tail. "Huh. Seems like we may have a mutant with us," he whispered lowly, just enough that they could hear him.

"Mutant?" Natalie murmured, eyes darting between Armin and Katie as she struggled to process the fact that the latter had a ludicrously long tongue. Part of her imagined the organ taking residence in her skull and going in one ear and out the other. The other part imagined a brain being displaced in a jar because of it.

"Considering she has four wings and a tongue long as this, who knows what breed of changeling she is. Might be a mix, but the likeliest candidates for making something like this would be...." Armin trailed off and racked his brain for a way to finish the remark. It fell short as Katie's orbs lit up and she turned to him, her long tongue slinking back into her mouth inch by inch.

He turned to her and found her throat expanding as the organ slid in, though not in a way that gave the impression of having something wedged into her esophagus. For all he knew, it may have been a throat pouch specifically for her tongue. Only when her tongue was fully back in place a minute later did Katie speak, "The hell did you do?"

"You, uh… feel anything in your ear?" Armin answered with a slightly shaky voice, and for a moment Katie lifted a brow. Then, she lifted a hoof and felt her ear with it before finding a slick substance coating it. At her nod, he answered, "Your tongue went in your ear. I pulled it out and got most of the wax off."

Katie's orbs widened as the utterance sank in and the taste of foul wax finally registered on her tongue, and she immediately slid it out and started to spit frantically. Armin's magic grabbed it again and got what little wax was left off, but that did nothing to remove the taste itself. "M-my ear?" she croaked between attempts to spit.

Armin lifted a hoof and gestured to Matt and Natalie with it. "I have witnesses," he confirmed.

Katie turned to Matt and Natalie, and her orbs then shrank to pinpricks as she found them both nodding in tandem. She turned to Armin again after taking a second to stop retching. "I need a muzzle-cover… thingy. Can you make one, please?" she asked sincerely, her brow slanting.

Armin nodded and his horn started glowing again. "Chitil, or another substance?" he replied.

"Chitil," Katie immediately answered.

Armin grinned and summoned the ball of blue slime he'd retrieved. "One chitil muzzle, coming right up."

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

Sarah sat up in a queen-sized bed, mane frazzled, thought processes muzzy, and eyes bloodshot. Her good wing fanned out, and its feathers were askew in all directions. She turned to her wing and sighed as she found her primaries brushing up against the back of Fenrir's head, though it took a few seconds simply to process the sight. Slowly, her wing folded shut, and she laid back down to stare absently at the ceiling.

Her eyes squinted, and they started burning and aching at the same time. She lifted a talon and rubbed at her eyes with it, opening her mouth wide and releasing a hefty yawn in the process. She turned onto her left side, still rubbing her eyes, and found herself yawning again. "So… tired…" Sarah grumbled as she pulled her talon away from her face. She blinked before realizing she was now staring at a window on a far wall, and the snow still falling beyond the pane, dancing in the darkness outside.

She tried counting the flakes that whirled elegantly beyond her reach, mouthing to keep from making noise. "One… two… three-four…" Flakes kept drifting on down in such amounts that, soon enough, she started to lose count. "Fifteen… seventeen? Twenty-one? Damn…"

Sarah started over with a sigh of resignation, "One… two…" As she counted, her eyes started to slowly close, and her body began lulling itself back to sleep. Six minutes passed before her eyes fully slipped shut, and her mind fully clouded not long after.

The world shifted around her just before sleep could claim her, gravity altered drastically, and for a second it felt like the bed ceased to exist beneath her. Sarah's eyes snapped open and she yelped before rolling over, tumbling out of the bed, and then landing face-first in the floor. "Shit…" she hissed, turning her head to rest it on her cheek once her brain caught up with the fact that she'd fallen rather ungracefully.

She shifted her talons and then stopped when a rustle of cloth reached her ears, and her eyes shifted peripherally as Fenrir leaned over to peer down at her. "May I inquire as to what that was about?" he grumbled, his voice equal parts tired and irritated.

"Had… a falling dream," Sarah mumbled in reply, figuring that was as good an answer as any. She did not make an attempt to haul herself off of the floor yet, if only because yellow eyes bored into her in such a way she had the impression that Fenrir was going to try something.

He continued to stare instead, incredulously at that. "Tumbling-from-a-cliffside variety?" he queried.

Sarah nodded. "Sideways," she replied tersely. "And it turned into a nosedive…"

Fenrir frowned, and huffed through flared nostrils. He stared for a second longer and caught sight of a green tinge budding on Sarah's face. "No, I am not…" he paused, racking his brain for a way to finish his utterance, "sporting a particular protrusion, if that is what you are pondering."

With that, he retracted and flopped on the bed, and patiently waited for the telltale sound of claws and hooves scraping against the floor. Seconds later, that exact sound reached his ears, and after that Sarah crawled in and dropped next to him with a groan. She flinched as he lifted a paw and gently scratched her between the wings, the sensation almost immediately sending shivers and a secondary, unfamiliar feeling up and down her spine. The hairs and feathers on her back stood on end, from the dock of her tail all the way to her withers.

Fenrir felt Sarah tense up and pulled his paw away. "Not fond of gentle scratching?" he asked softly, turning his head to look at her face.

Sarah nodded apprehensively. "That was… out of the blue. Last time I was scratched on the back was before me and Anna split up," she explained, her tone having a distinct note of uneasiness to it.

"By whom?" Fenrir inquired, his brow lifting ever so slightly.

"Mom," Sarah answered, closing her eyes before giving off a sigh. "Only she managed to draw blood that time."

Fenrir's brow proceeded to climb up the rest of his forehead. "Intentionally, or not?" he snorted, barely managing to keep a growl from his voice.

Sarah merely shrugged. "Not really sure," she answered. "And honestly, I don't want to dwell on it." Leaving it at that, she buried her face into a pillow and rubbed it furiously, mumbling incoherently as she did so.

Fenrir's brow fell, and he put his paw on Sarah's backside again, making her stop and tense once more. "Are you well?" he asked, and he frowned as she turned from the pillow to look at him.

"Aside from being tired, so-so," she answered, staring him in the eye. Her own eyes twitched as she asked, "And why must you put your paw on my back? I'm trying to sleep, Godcat-dammit, and you're not helping."

Fenrir's frown eased a little, and a twinkle came in his eyes. "I thought it might ease your apparent restlessness," he explained in an overtly innocent tone that had Sarah thinking he pulled that one from beneath his tail. "But should I happen to draw blood, I will cease immediately," he added in a slightly firmer voice.

Sarah simply stared at him for the span of about six seconds. "Just avoid my broken wing and you've got yourself a deal," she relented, turning to rest her chin on the pillow again. The paw began scratching her between the wings once more, which caused her to tense all over again at first. She didn't have an itch in that area that she didn't know of; the action was very foreign to her and made her crawl a little.

But after a half-minute, she relaxed and slowly sighed through her nostrils. If it would help her get back to sleep, it sure was taking a bit of effort. She felt the paw trail up to rest on her withers, garnering a slight twitch and a pair of eyes slipping shut. "Okay, that's… starting to feel… wow," she thought, her mind going muzzy again as the paw kept up its soft scratching. "Never thought he could… do… that…"

Fenrir kept scratching for a good few minutes, moving his paw along her upper back to keep from turning one spot raw. Only when he heard a soft snore mixed with a squawk did he stop and pull back, and he looked at her face as she dozed. She gave a twitch of her ear, but then a small smile crossed her face as she started to purr. Nodding to himself, Fenrir closed his eyes and laid back down before drifting off to sleep himself.

Approximately thirty minutes later his eyes opened again as he heard a very soft tapping at the door. Consigning irritated murmurings to the back of his mind, he slowly sat up and crept out of bed, making sure to keep his tail low to avoid poking Sarah with it. Once he was on his paws he padded his way to the door on all fours, crouching low to keep himself steady. As soon as he was within reach he lifted a paw up, grasped the knob, and slowly turned it before pushing the door open.

He blinked when he heard chittering coming from the hall, very closely at that. Looking down, his brow climbed his forehead again as he saw Angel looking up at him. "Yes?" Fenrir asked, watching as Angel hopped into the room, going between his legs in doing so. He turned away from the door without closing it, and to the bunny as he darted right up to the window and pointed at it with a paw.

A few seconds ticked by before Fenrir registered what the gesture meant, and he mentally facepalmed as he padded over to the window to see what the deal was. Peering out, he caught sight of… something jutting from a rooftop a good thirty feet away from the church. The whirling snow obscured its features, but he could still tell it was there and was so oddly shaped that it did not do a terribly good job of trying to pass off as part of the roof. Turning to Angel again, he caught sight of a pair of small, furry arms crossing over a fluffy chest.

Peeling himself from the window and bending forward until he was eye to eye with Angel, Fenrir softly asked, "Do you have any idea what that… form may be, perchance?" When Angel shook his head with a frown forming on his muzzle, Fenrir turned to the wall and gave a heavy sigh prior to turning back to his unexpected visitor.

He jolted when Sarah started mumbling in her sleep. "What are… you doing to her?" she hissed, her face scrunching slightly as she spoke. "Stop… you're hurting her…"

Fenrir and Angel turned to Sarah with brows raised. They slowly crept to her, as silently as they could manage. She started shuddering when they took no more than three steps forward, her talons balling into fists as her face tightened a little more. "Lemme go…" she hissed, and that was all the initiative Fenrir needed. In an instant he bolted to her, crossing the distance before clasping her by the shoulders and hauling her right out of bed, leaving her to screech and dangle above the sheets as she was violently roused from sleep.

Sarah now stared at Fenrir incredulously, her eyes wide and her pupils but tiny slivers. For a moment, she heard murmuring voices, but shoved that aside to gather her thoughts."E-excuse you?" she hissed, before her ears twitched as the sound of soft hooves and claws against the floor wormed its way inside.

Fenrir opened his mouth to utter something in response, but whatever it was he'd wanted to say immediately left before it could roll off his tongue. He then noticed the sound of the hooves and claws, both of which then stopped prior to giving way to a soft tapping that immediately echoed in from the still-opened door. Both he and Sarah turned to find a droopy-winged Maria staring at them, a talon balled into a fist and hovering just inches from the door. They could spot heavy bags formed under bloodshot eyes, accompanying a tight frown on her muzzle.

"Daddy wants me to tell you…" Maria paused to yawn, her voice groggy and scratchy, "to shut the fuck up."

Fenrir gaped. "Did… you just say that… word for word?" he asked.

Maria nodded tiredly. "And that mommy told me to tell you to keep it down," she added, making the two flinch at the implications of her utterance. She turned to Angel as he hopped over to her. "Daddy wants you to sleep with me tonight, so the bad hippogryphs go away." Angel nodded and plodded around her before jumping onto her back. With that, she turned tail and shuffled into the hall.

Fenrir lowered Sarah to the bed slowly, until her haunches were connected with the mattress and sheets. He lifted a paw and shifted his index digit up whilst curling the other ones tightly—'hold on for a second,' he seemed to say. At Sarah's mute nod, he turned and cantered over to the door with as silent of steps as he could muster, and when he reached the wooden slab he tenderly nudged it closed. The instant door and frame connected with a soft click, he plodded back over to the bed.

"Can we discuss this tomorrow?" he whispered.

Sarah nodded again, and gave a sigh. "I suppose," she whispered back, turning to the window to stare outside once more. All she saw was the dancing snow.

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

Lance flopped on his bed with a groan, his face buried in his pillow as the sound of soft hooves and claws hitting the floor echoed once again. A minute later, they came to a brief halt when a door opened, closed, and then resumed before completely stopping with a faint rustling of sheets. Only when silence thoroughly permeated the room did he lift his head and turn it to his right, finding Anna more or less in the same position barely a centimeter away, and Maria and Angel situated on a bed about two feet from theirs.

"They stopped yelling," Maria reported, smiling in spite of her apparent exhaustion. Lance nodded in approval, and he watched as Maria flopped on her pillow before she gave a soft snore. Angel curled up next to her, out of immediate reach of her claws, but still within touching distance. Seconds later, Anna and Lance themselves flopped and fell back asleep as though nothing had happened.

Some three minutes passed before Lance lifted his head again, grumbling unintelligibly as he heard a very faint sound of something akin to sliding. That was immediately followed by a thin, chilly breeze wafting its way into the room that made his wings press up more tightly to his stomach. He turned to the window and frowned as he barely managed to catch sight of a black form moving away from it.

From outside the pane, no less. It took him a few seconds to register that bit, but when it gained admission and checked into the topmost floor of his mental processes, his eyes went wide. Slowly, he crept out of bed and cantered over to the window before nudging it closed with his snout once he was within range, and then checking for anything even resembling a basic locking mechanism while he was at it.

There was none to be had; at least, not one that he could immediately see within the inky darkness of the room. A niggling feeling started whirring in his head and working its way down his neck, culminating in shivers rushing through his spine and a realization that he'd need something to keep the window closed lest the darkened form come back. Lance gave a sigh of resignation; he didn't know what that figure was, much less what it wanted.

But it had tried to enter the room, and he'd barely caught it in the act. That in itself was enough grounds for him to stay up a few minutes longer. Since there were no latches or anything of the sort to keep the window down, he'd have to use unconventional tactics. That made him snort indignantly; what sort of house didn't have locking windows? He made a mental note to consult Eve at a later time about it, but for now he had more pressing matters to sort out.

He turned to scan the room in search of something that could be used to block off the window. Slowly, his head moved from corner to corner, and with it his body turned until his gaze settled on the window again, taking in everything the room had to offer. "I could move the dresser here…" he mumbled, turning around to the corner closest to both the door and Maria's bed. Shrouded by a deep blackness, he could barely make out a foot of his chosen piece of furniture.

He trotted to it, giving a grimace as he soon found it was taller than he was. Adding to that, there were a few photo frames atop it, and a vase at one end of the picture row and a small lantern on the other. "Great. Couldn't move this thing if I'd wanted to… I just haaaad to think a dresser would be a good idea," he inwardly hissed, and made to turn to the window again when he heard a rustling of sheets.

His gaze fell onto the beds instead, and he found Angel sitting bolt upright and looking at him with eyes widened in alarm. Lance lifted a hoof and held it to his lips, motioning for Angel to be quiet. As soon as the furry white head nodded, he sighed and turned to the window again.

The black form was back, but it turned away and fled before he could get a good look at its features. He made out glowing green orbs accompanying a horn bathed in viridian light and scowled. "A likely wraith. Even better," he found himself murmuring. "And the fucker's waiting for me to fall back to sleep. That does it. I'm keeping watch." A soft chittering tore his attention from the window again, and he turned to Angel. "You saw it too?" he asked in a whisper.

Angel nodded furiously, ears jumping up and standing to attention. He turned to the window again after that, his little brow furrowing in the process. "Good to know me and Admiral Bunnykins are on the same page," Lance mentally snarked as he likewise turned to the window, racking his brain for a possible solution to the current problem. Part of him wondered if having Angel help him in some manner would be a good idea or not; there were several pros and cons on either end of that particular spectrum.

There was size, posture, the ears, and overall maneuverability to account for. He had to give the bunny bravery points for mustering up a death glare in his direction when he was parked in Ponyville, but death glares alone rarely solved things. That, and if Angel was hurt, how would Fluttershy react? The bunny was more or less one of her pets, after all, and he didn't know how well she'd take the news of his possible wounds.

A few minutes passed before he came to a decision. "Angel, can you wake me up if that… thing outside the window decides to drop by again?" he asked in a whisper, turning to Angel as he spoke.

Angel turned back and nodded once more. "Scream if it comes to it," Lance added, garnering another hasty nod as his response. That was all the confirmation he'd needed. Lance smiled and trotted back to bed, crawling into the sheets before resting his head on the pillow. He flexed his wings a little, but did not let them part his sides in the slightest. Once he was sure they didn't snag under his stomach, he stilled and attempted to fall asleep.

The pitter-patter of Angel's feet as he got out of bed and hopped to the window reached his ears, though they were very soft. If not for the room being otherwise dead silent, he wouldn't have heard the noise. But he didn't say anything; it simply couldn't be helped. The bunny was his only alarm at this rate; he made another mental note to speak to Matt and Natalie later for unwittingly incapacitating Katie.

Then his mind wandered further, and he grumbled as he pondered whether or not the dreaded 'trots' had visited the sorry wraith yet. That did little except keep him up for a few minutes longer. His response was to bury his muzzle in his pillow so deep its sides jutted out to hug his cheeks and neck. "Of all the times to have an alert brain worrying about this and that, it had to be now?" he mentally grumbled.

The black figure formed in his mind, and he gave a slight shudder of bald wings. "But I have to be alert… if the damned figure wants Maria…" His thought processes ground to a stop, and slowly he lifted his head from the pillow and directed his gaze at the still-sleeping foal. The last time they'd shared a room…

"No. I can't let that happen again. Filly's been through enough already," Lance murmured so lowly he scarcely heard his own utterance. But it was an utterance that solidified his resolve. A shrill scream pierced the air, and he instantly turned to the window to find it was sliding open with the aid of something dark and distinctly hoof-shaped. A form rushed in once the window had fully opened, seizing Angel in an instant. It picked the hapless bunny up, who unleashed a louder cry as a hoof went to his throat.

Lance found himself jumping off the bed and rushing to the darkened form in a full gallop. "Get your motherfucking hooves off of that motherfucking rabbit!" he barked, wasting no time in crossing the distance and pouncing at the figure, which culminated in him sending it to the floor.

His hooves landed on the creature's neck, which felt unusually solid, and he felt Angel squeezing out of the hold the form had on him and scampering away, still shrieking in alarm. But his hold slipped as the figure lifted a back leg and kicked him solidly in the stomach, sending him tumbling backwards into the wall with a cry of pain and surprise. Then its horn began glowing in a pale green light.

The scuffle managed to jolt Maria and Anna awake, and both turned to the scene to find Lance just in time to see him fall to his haunches. Anna's horn lit up with magic, and a green light started glowing from the tip, casting the sight in a stark relief that made her blanch.

On the floor, with a glowing horn of its own, was a cloaked unicorn of some sort that was flailing about, attempting to get up despite having shoved its attacker away and yet failing to right itself. She jumped out of bed, charged over and summoned an inhibitor before thrusting it upon the glowing accoutrement of the intruder. The act immediately made the form jerk as dimly-glowing bolts ran across their body the very instant the horn was capped. Afterwards, the bolts of magic faded, and so too did the aura of its horn.

Lance rose to stand with a grunt as the figure went still. He turned to the window and closed it before turning to the door to find Angel cowering next to it in a tightly-compact ball. "You okay?" he asked in a much softer but pained voice, garnering a shaken nod as his answer. Then he turned to the intruder and sighed. "Who the hell is this pony?"

Anna shrugged, eyes also lingering on the form that lay on the floor. Her magic took hold of its clothes and slowly unravelled them, going piece by piece in case there were wounds present. Maria hopped out of bed and cantered over, turning to look at Lance. "Is this a bad pony?" she asked.

Lance nodded as Anna worked to undo the black bindings. "Tried to hurt your…" he trailed off, lifting a hoof to gesture to the cowering Angel for emphasis.

He frowned as Anna successfully freed one of the intruder's forelegs from a cloth binding, revealing a cracked form with ball-like joints where the front knee, hoof, and elbow would normally bend. Said ball-joints were made of blue crystals, and further crystals grew out of the front of the leg in a jagged structure that was small. Pieces fell off of the leg, giving the impression that it was barely holding together.

"What the…" Anna murmured, working hastily to undo the rest of the bindings to see what the hell the creature was. She freed the other three legs and found more or less the same result as the first, except two legs had red crystals instead of blue. Angel stopped shivering, uncurled himself, and hopped over with his curiosity now piqued. The instant he reached the scene was the same instant he tapped at Anna's back pastern to let her know he was there.

The door opened seconds later, and Fluttershy and Blueblood trotted into the room. Lance turned to them to find a pair of widened eyes, a flared horn aglow in shimmering blue, a pair of wings spread wide, and frazzled manes. "What happened?" Blueblood asked, turning to the pony who was being stripped. He shook his head upon seeing patches of crystal. "What is the meaning of this?!"

"This bastard broke in, tried strangling Angel, and kicked me off the moment I jumped him. Anna's holding him down," Lance explained, turning back to the figure before paling as Anna forcefully parted its hood from its face.

Dim light shined on the form, revealing an entire mane of rainbow crystals and a set of unblinking emeralds acting as eyes, all seemingly affixed in a face of what looked like stone. The last of the bodily bindings came off next, revealing a snake-like tail ending in yellow crystals and some kind of swirling, varicolored orb set into the stomach that jutted out just enough to look like a normal belly had the cloth stayed on.

"What the fuck?" Lance found himself asking. For a moment the emeralds shimmered with vibrant, similarly-colored mana before Anna lifted a hoof and punched the spot between them, channelling mana into her hoof the moment it connected with stone. For a few seconds, this did nothing except make the creature's 'eyes' crackle.

A green glow pulsed from her hoof and made the thing quiver violently, causing more pieces to flake and break off of the body. Only when it threatened to crumble altogether did she stop channeling mana, and she stayed still for a few seconds before she lifted her limb up and punched again, just hard enough to break the entire face of the construct. Considering it was already falling apart at this point, the face more or less caved in on itself.

"It's… it's a pony-shaped crystal golem… an enchanted but flimsy one at that. How did it get here?" Anna asked as she lifted her hoof, dragging with it shards of broken stone and emeralds. The rest of the golem shuddered for a moment before it crumbled into pieces with one last fleeting pulse of mana and a low groan. The inhibitor rolled off of a stone fragment, and was quickly encased in a green glow that made it vanish.

"A… crystal golem?" Fluttershy parroted, pupils shrinking to pinpricks. "B-but…"

"Nevermind how it got here," Blueblood snapped, garnering the attention of Anna in the process. She whirled around to face him, being mindful of Angel's presence. "Who enchanted it is the bigger question. Why did it come here? Who constructed it if it was not built by nature, for what purpose at that? Why did it fall apart just now? Those are some even better queries."