Anna had taken some hours just to awaken in the master bedroom, but she did not open her eyes even as her sleep-addled brain started kicking itself into gear. Her ears managed to register the sound of running water and someone breathing down her neck, though she didn't think anything of it, at least initially. She felt a barrel press into her back, rather large and prominently fuzzy yet slender of build, in addition to an equally-large object cradling her from the side. Her tail swished, and whomever was pressing into her shifted to knee her between the rear legs with enough force to make the top of her head lightly collide with the bedframe.

Still, she did not open her eyes, figuring whomever it was happened to be dreaming and deciding to let the issue alone for as long as she could stand. She knew that she didn't want to be roused during her dreams save for waking herself up; that particular side of the fence wasn't all that appealing, nightmare or not. So she snuggled into her pillow, feeling it rise to hug her head a little more, when the limb that wasn't her's shifted again and lightly brushed against her teats and kept aimlessly moving for some twenty minutes afterwards. In fact, she didn't respond until the knee shoved itself into her folds again, this time hard enough to actually hurt and possibly leave a bruise.

That did it, she decided, and opened her eyes before sitting up and turning to the limb that intruded on her private bits. It protruded rather rudely from under the now-crumpled quilt, and it was… cream-colored? Anna blinked and lifted a hoof to rub at her eyes, slowly turning her head to the left to find that both Matt and Lance were absent. Then she turned right to find Natalie still sound asleep, head resting on a frumpled pillow and her scarlet mane utterly tangled and askew. She was far too close for comfort, and had the nerve to shift even closer until her hips were resting very snugly against Anna's croup.

Natalie started to mumble in her sleep. "Ngh… mrgrgr… ginger… bad juju," she managed to articulate before devolving into incomprehensible gibberish. For all Anna knew, she may as well have started rattling off in ancient alicorn. Anna muffled a groan by biting her lip when the intruding knee pressed in further, its owner either unaware or unconcerned of where it was going. Anna lifted a hoof and planted it on Natalie's ear before tugging sharply, with a little bit of very translucent green mana that was nigh-invisible pulsing between them to ensure that the ear was firmly grasped.

Natalie's head was lifted off the pillow, and for a few seconds Anna held it there by the ear. She didn't stir until Anna gave another sharp yank, whereupon her eyes snapped open, wide at first before narrowing into a glare. "The hell's that for?" Natalie hissed. Anna merely lifted her other hoof and pointed toward her stomach with it, watching as Natalie's eyes trailed to where the issue was.

"Get your knee out of my snatch and I'll let go," Anna stated, her voice embarrassed yet firm. "Do we have ourselves a deal?" Natalie grumbled something unintelligible, but removed her knee from Anna's groin nonetheless. Then, Anna let go of Natalie's ear and dropped her hoof. She turned over and made to crawl out of bed, but halted when the sound of running water cut off.

Then, hooves stepped on tile before being muffled by carpet. Anna's ears twitched, folding back to catch the sound when flapping wings followed suit. She twisted to find Lance and Matt trotting toward them, both sporting towels hanging on their withers. The towels, though, did little to stop their bodies from being damp and still dripping with fresh water in some places. "Didn't you bathe last night?" Anna asked incredulously, looking pointedly at Lance.

Lance frowned, blushed, and folded his ears back simultaneously. "I… had to take care of something," he stated.

Anna raised a brow at Lance's rather vague answer. "Huh?"

Matt snickered and grinned. "He slipped and fell face-first in the toilet," he stated.

Anna winced, her ears folding back further. "Yikes."

"So I decided to be magnanimous and help him with his back and wings," Matt chirped. His grin widened when Anna released a choking sound. "Besides, you didn't wanna get up," he added smugly.

Anna relaxed and sighed, frowning. "I was a log again?" she asked.

Matt nodded. "Just about." He jerked his head in the direction of the toiletries' corner. "Go ahead and take care of whatever business you may need to. Me and Lance'll meet you at the mess hall." With that, Matt and Lance trotted out, the former letting his horn flare to life to grasp the towels and dry himself and the latter of vigorously on their way to the hall.

Anna and Natalie exchanged glances, shrugged to each other, and proceeded to crawl out of bed; or finish doing so in the case of the former. They stretched their legs, rolled their shoulders and hips, and popped whatever bones needed popping the moment their hooves hit the carpet. "You take a horn up the baby factory, and I get a knee at the front gates. What next, Matt's asshole being invaded by ginger?" Anna asked as she finished stretching. Natalie shot her an incredulous look once she started trotting to the toiletries' corner.

"Actually, Matt did take ginger up the ass once," Natalie stated, her remark halting Anna in her tracks.

Anna turned to Natalie with a brow raised. "Wait, he did?"

Natalie slowly, gravely nodded. "He and I got drunk after Lance went 'fuck it' and recruited your ass. I don't really remember who did what that night, but the morning after I found no less than six bulbs of peeled ginger sticking out. He couldn't trot for a week after," she replied. "He'd been adverse to it since."

Anna's eyes went wide as she envisioned how Matt likely reacted to waking up and finding an entire posse of intruders in his back door after a night of drinking. "What… did you two drink that night?" she asked, her tone exasperated.

Natalie shrugged, pursing her lips for a few seconds as her eyes narrowed a little. "The strongest drinks the military had available. I think we chugged… at least five glasses apiece. It was pretty strong stuff," she replied. "Didn't take long for us to get smashed."

"And… that's why Lance has you two supervised whenever you drink?" Anna queried, garnering another nod from Natalie.

"He bitched left and right until his lips threatened to turn purple once he'd heard of it," Natalie stated, frowning slightly.

Anna sighed and turned to the door leading to the hall, staring at it for some seconds as her mind painted the entire scenario from start to finish—or at least what little of it Natalie elaborated on, and a lot of possible explanations as to how the ginger got involved to begin with. "So if I started drinking, I'd be monitored?" she asked.

She saw Natalie nod again out of the corner of her eye. "Doubly so, if you were in heat doing it. I should know; he's breathed down my neck a couple of times about that, figuratively of course," Natalie answered. "But I don't drink often, so it was only once or twice."

Anna turned back to the toiletries' corner, her tail hiking up of its own accord. "Hey, Natz, would you mind doing me a favor?" she asked, blushing as she turned to Natalie.

Natalie tilted her head and sharply arched a brow, but nodded nonetheless. "I'm listening…"

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The brown-ribbed changeling found himself in a different compart of the kitchen of all places, making disgruntled noises as he magically flung open boxes and fridges in his search for ice cubes. "An ice changeling wraith… this day just couldn't get any better," he hissed in displeasure, searching this ice box and that to find no ice cubes whatsoever, though the boxes were filled with foodstuffs that were categorized neatly. "What next, the general getting hitched? Hippogryph alicorns?"

The changeling paused in his search to consider his own queries. He snorted and clicked his tongue, shaking his head. "Nah, who the hell am I kidding?" he tittered to nobody in particular. "The general can't get hitched outside of politics, and hippogryph alicorns are as likely to become real as another crystal pony getting into the army. Lieutenant-General Starcovert's bad enough."

He resumed his search, throwing still more appliance doors open to find little in the way of ice. "Gah, the ice cubes have to be in this clusterfuck somewhere…" he grumbled as he began to fling out several items just to see if the ice cubes were perhaps buried behind them. To say he had no luck would have been a bit wrong; to be entirely fair, there were some ice cubes within sight once he'd gotten the obstructions out of the way.

The problem was, they were less cubes and more marbles that were clumped together and stuck in the corners of the ice boxes and freezers he'd thrown open. The changeling hissed again and placed the foodstuffs back, pausing to look beneath his hooves to make sure nothing snagged on his holey chitin on its return trip. "Damnit, I still have nothing," he groaned sardonically.

The changeling marched to a shelf, turned his back to it, parked where he was and crossed his forelegs. He started scowling and leaning back into the shelf, glaring at a door that was a good twenty feet down from the shelf as though it offended him. "He just had to recruit an ice wraith… fantastic! And I thought that the entire fiascos with Akron, Godcat, and Lieutenant-General Windwood were all ridiculous," he hissed petulantly. "I'm amazed he managed to find a genuine diamond dog!"

His ears twitched when he heard the faint sound of hooves hitting tile, followed by a door being flung open so suddenly the changeling jumped and bumped his head on the shelf in surprise. Voices spilled out soon after, though they were a little on the muffled side. Before he could glean anything, though, he'd caught another sound—something sliding and then thunking rather metallically onto the floor. He glanced around, trying to determine from where exactly that something had landed, only to freeze when another object slid and fell right on his head before bouncing off and landing on the floor next to something at his rear hooves.

His eyes gravitated to the two objects, finding them to be dubiously-labeled tin cans that had a few dents. Just as he started to register the fact that one can smacked him upside the head on its way down, his ears pinned back as a large and ominous creaking noise filled the air. The changeling barely had enough time to spread his wings and flap away, and he did not move a moment too late; he felt the reverberating impact of something crashing noisily through the air, which only sent him off-kilter and back to the floor.

The changeling staggered upon landing, and he turned before his eyes grew round at the sight he now beheld. The shelf had fallen over, and its particular wares—several cans' worth of food—were now scattered on the floor. He mutely stared at the mess, legs starting to shake, his tail tucking itself between his rear legs as the sound of hooves on tile once again filled the area. His eyes watered as a door opened from behind him, powerful and sudden enough to leave a deafening thud that gave way to a pregnant silence.

He'd expected someone like Rhinoc or, worse yet, Lance himself to start spinning up into a bitching conniption within a matter of seconds. He stared at the shelf, now feeling that getting squished under it would have been the better option. He waited, patiently, for the tirade to start, and he hoped for a lenient punishment like scrubbing duty. The silence, though, seemed to judge him with an air of dread, and he could feel eyes staring at him. How many, though, he had yet to see; he didn't want to know who had stumbled upon him, though he was sure he was going to find out anyway. His eyes screwed shut at the thought.

Hoofsteps permeated the kitchen, slow at first before quickening to a brisk trot whose echoes started to ring in his ears. It only took a minute for the hooves to stop entirely, and the sorry soldier felt someone's breath brush up against his shoulder in a sharp exhale. His bowels squirmed, his heart started to race, and his chitin trembled as, for a few seconds that felt as though they stretched to eternity, the only thing to confirm that someone was standing next to him was a slow and steady breathing.

He expected bitching that would make his head hurt for hours to come, he expected to be punished with derision and scorn; he did not expect a hoof to plant itself on his withers. The lone changeling slowly opened his eyes and craned his neck to look toward his shoulder, only to relax as he saw Twilight standing next to him, staring with a worried frown and slanted brow on her face. "Are you alright?" Twilight asked.

Slowly, hesitantly, the changeling nodded and took a breath to slow his thudding heart before it could make an escape attempt up his esophagus. "I was expecting one of my superiors to find…" He lifted a hoof and gestured to the fallen shelf. Twilight turned to the shelf for a second, sighed, and then turned back to the changeling.

"Just tell them it was an accident," Twilight replied. The changeling drew another shaky breath as he heard claws and hooves scratching on the floor, and craned his neck some more to spot Spike and Maria waddling up to them. "I'm sure they'll understand."

"Nice changeling, I'm hungry," Maria complained, frowning herself. "Can I have breakfast?"

The changeling sighed again and turned to the shelf, blinking as a lavender aura embraced it, hefted it up, seamlessly returned it to its wall, and picked up its cans before putting them back as well. "What all are you in the mood for?" he asked.

"Syrupy pancakes," Twilight replied, her frown twitching up into a smile as the changeling looked at her incredulously, just in time to see her horn cease glowing.

The changeling reluctantly nodded, and his frown deepened. "I'll make you breakfast if you help me find an ice cube stash," he stated. "Deal?"

"Why ice cubes, though?" Spike asked, his query causing the changeling's tail to sink further between his rear legs.

The poor soldier sighed. "Lance went and recruited an ice wraith, and she had a fire-related accident," he groused. Twilight's eyes widened, and she winced a little.

"I… think I know who you're talking about," Twilight murmured, before her face set in as neutral an expression as she could manage. She trotted to the nearest ice box and opened it with a flash of her horn, cringing as she saw piles of frozen meat contained within, each one wrapped individually with wax paper and labeled with dates and what the meat even was written on said wrappings. "So… what happened?" she queried as she closed the ice box.

"Major Rhinoc thought it impossible for her to be magically capable," the soldier replied, shaking his head. "So Lieutenant Armin… launched a bolt of fire at her horn, and… it caused a bit of a chain reaction. And I've checked all of the boxes and freezers in this room already; the only ice available is measly corner-bits."

Twilight turned to the solder, sharply arching a brow. "Is it impossible for impaired changelings to use magic?" she asked.

The soldier shook his head. "Me and everyling else is magically capable… so I wouldn't know a lot about impaired changelings," he replied, shrugging again. "But she used her horn, despite it being broken. In her case, I'd wager 'yes' under 'extenuating circumstance.'"

Twilight nodded and trotted to the soldier. "Could you show me around the kitchens, then?" she asked. "Or at least, the rest of them?"

The soldier nodded and managed to form a small smile. "Sure thing," he chirped. He turned to the door Twilight and her company came in from and trotted to it, entering the compartment beyond. Twilight herself trotted after him, with Spike and Maria falling into step behind her. Once they were in the first room of the massive and hellishly cluttered kitchen, Twilight's horn glowed and her magic grasped every box and fridge in the vicinity. With a swift flick and a nicker, she threw them all open simultaneously, revealing even more frozen meats and veggies in such obscene amounts it could keep Pinkie happy, were she to get creative.

Twilight gave a low whistle. "I have to say, your food storage and amounts of edible goods is impeccable," she murmured.

The soldier chittered, his smile widening. "We kinda tend to eat the foodstuffs before they stay a week in the freezers, unless it's something nobody in the military would think of touching," he chirped. He veered to one of the freezers and started digging through it, while Twilight went to another and simply levitated everything out of the frozen box effortlessly. When she found no ice cubes, she simply put everything back, closed the freezer she'd dug into, and trotted over to the next one to repeat the process.

"What's that?" Maria asked as the soldier pulled out a rather round, large shape easily the size of the his barrel. It was covered in a few layers of wrapping, which did a very good job of obscuring its features.

The soldier paused in his search and plucked the shape in his magic, slowly spinning it around until he found its labeling. "Frozen purple wasp," he answered.

"Do what now?" Twilight asked as she set down the second batch of foodstuffs, since she had no luck finding ice cubes. She turned to the soldier, who turned back and slowly, magically unwrapped the shape to reveal a filly-sized insect curled up onto itself. It sported a black chitinous hide, large purple eyes as big as her hooves, suspiciously-curled antennae and delicately-preserved lavender wings sporting a faint luminescent sheen. "That… looks like a butterfly," she remarked.

The soldier nodded, and used his magic to fiddle with the end of the bug's abdomen, making sure to not damage its frozen flesh. With a few tender pushes, a stinger as thick as her horn emerged. "I know, but trust me, it's a wasp," he replied, slinging the bug onto his back, making sure it wouldn't sting him. "It's gotta be eaten today; otherwise it'll go bad."

Twilight's stomach churned a little as she wondered who in their right mind would eat giant wasps. "Um… did you manage to find any ice cubes?" she asked.

The soldier shook his head. "Nope, but I found some pancakes," he answered, using his magic to reach into the freezer he was scouring to produce a frozen stack of no less than three dozen fluffy, carefully-wrapped pancakes whose bindings were as clear as crystal. "Hoof-made, and usually stored for later."

"Why store pancakes?" Spike asked, his brow arching at the incredulity of it all.

The soldier turned to him and smiled. "Only a few in the military eat pancakes. Lieutenant-General Bladerune's really, really big on them," he answered. "He likes them with a side of tortoise bacon."

Spike's brow climbed higher. "Tortoise bacon?" he queried.

The soldier nodded. "Yeah. A hundred years ago, ponies and gryphs stopped farming pigs and switched to tortoises, except maybe a few settlements here and there that output pork products by the hundreds of thousands. The taste is similar, so I was told," he answered. He saw Twilight cringe in the corner of his eye and turned to her, his smile fading. "No, we don't farm pigs, but we do eat them from time to time. I'm only going by what I heard."

Twilight relaxed a little and tilted her head. She trotted over to another freezer and lifted everything within it via magic. "Do you keep ice in bags, perchance?" she queried as the third box, too, turned up empty in the ice department.

"Now that I think about it…" The soldier lifted a hoof and tapped his chin with it, eyes gravitating up to the ceiling. "I don't think we had a need to…" He turned to an opened freezer, magically closed the one he'd gotten the pancakes and wasp from, trotted to that second freezer and peered inside. He spotted an exposed blue crystal jutting from the backside via the wall, surrounded by nothing but frost. Next to it was a yellow crystal that crackled faintly with electricity, which in turn made the machine hum a little. "Jackpot."

Twilight closed the other boxes in that moment and cantered over to investigate. "Is that what keeps the food chilled?" she queried, her eyes then gravitating to the yellow crystal. "And does that power it?"

The soldier nodded. "Normally, both crystals are concealed by a layer of aluminum though, because they work in tandem; each is the other's catalyst. I'll notify Major Rhinoc that it needs that layer," he replied, magically conjuring a wad of chitil before sticking it to the front of the machine. Then, delicately, his magic seeped into the frost and wrenched it a little, causing cracks to form.

A foal-sized piece immediately flaked away with a few more tugs, and it was immediately wrapped in chitil, along with the pancakes and the wasp. In one last flash of light all three items vanished before thawing and melting could really set. The crystals dimmed after, though, and the soldier sighed. "Looks like it needs recharging, too. Note to self: Notify Starcovert and Bladerune after breakfast."

Before the box was closed, the crystals pulsed with mana that, when their paths crossed, formed a dim green glow. The ice reformed; cracks sealed, the chunk that was taken regrew, and within seconds it formed a seamless seal that caused the crystals to dim further still. Twilight whistled again at the display. "Now that's rather nifty. I wish Equestria found crystals like that and utilized them like this machine does," she remarked.

"Equestria?" the soldier parroted.

Twilight turned to the soldier and gave a wan smile. "My home country in Mythos," she replied.

"Can we eat now? I'm hungry," Maria complained, garnering the attention of her current company, who all stared at her for a few seconds.

The soldier donned another smile. "With syrup, right?" he chirped. "Lemme get the tortoise bacon, too. I think the mess hall's gonna need to operate in full swing soon."

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Matt and Lance, having both dried off, decided to groom themselves and don his uniform in the case of the latter, even going so far as to make crude wing-holes so as to spare the rest of the outfit from the awkwardness that was his ludicrously huge-by-pegasus-standards wings. After that, they trotted through the hall and knocked on a few doors, if only to get a move on waking everybody else up. Some doors didn't budge, so on down the hall they trotted, knocking as they went.

It took a good twenty or so minutes before a bloody door opened. Out trotted a frazzled Flash Sentry, whose armor sat so askew on his withers it somehow fit on backwards. His feathers were in disarray, his mane tangled, his horseshoes were resting on his primaries, and for some reason that Matt and Lance did not want to question, his helmet was resting on the southern end to his backside. The only reason it didn't fall off was because his tail held it up and they weren't even sure how he was able to keep the damn thing stable with the rest of his suit on in a way that should not have been possible.

"Mommy, I didn't wet the bed," Flash grumbled tiredly, his eyes so unfocused Matt and Lance were convinced he was staring through them.

Matt and Lance looked at each other for a second before turning back to the evidently-dazed Flash. "Do you need a few more minutes…?" Lance ventured, frowning in concern.

Flash cocked his head sluggishly, gaze still vacant. "I wanna be a royal guardspony when I grow up, Mommy," he muttered.

Matt lifted a hoof and waved it in front of Flash Sentry's face. His eyes did not gravitate after the hoof in the slightest. "Looks to me like he's dead on his hooves," Matt remarked, retracting the hoof.

"Considering he's muttering about his mom, he may be sleep-trotting with eyes wide open," Lance groused, his own wings ruffling slightly at the unnerving sight of Flash Sentry seemingly staring into his soul.

Flash's ears fell back against his head, and his pupils dilated. "Mommy, what are you doing? Where's Daddy?" he asked, an edge of curiosity and some other emotion Lance and Matt couldn't place resonating in his otherwise-dead-tired voice. "Mommy?"

Matt's horn lit up, and a golden dome of magic immediately encased Flash, who didn't even register what was happening. Silently the two watched until Flash flared his wings and began to flap for all it was worth, his mouth wide open and his pupils shrinking as his knees trembled under threat of buckling. Whatever noises he made did not bypass the barrier, however, though they did manage to make it shake in tandem with his fast-liquefying legs.

It took him several minutes to calm down, though not before he threw his armor off and fell down onto the floor in a fetal position. "Poor bastard," Lance muttered, shaking his head in pity at the sight. "Looks to me like he may've been hallucinating."

Matt nodded and dropped the barrier, and at once Flash Sentry turned into a gibbering mess. "Mr. Guardspony, M-Mommy's dead…" That was the only coherent thing Matt and Lance could get out of him; everything else tumbled over itself so fast and haphazardly it almost sounded like he was going off in a Diamæntian dialect. Lance knelt down to Flash's eye level and stared directly into his bloodshot voids for some seconds, opening his mouth to say something, only to have words die before they could form as Flash kept on rambling.

Matt sighed and magically embraced Flash's muzzle but made sure to leave his nostrils untouched, which caused him to start flailing every which-way once again. Lance quickly rose and backed off, but not fast enough to avoid getting punched in the snout for his trouble. Flash tried to scream, but the magical grip merely tightened enough to keep his jaws from parting. Then, the poor guard was lifted onto his hooves and cemented in place by the golden aura, whereupon its caster leaned in until they were perfectly eye level with one another.

Firmly, but gently, Matt uttered a single command, "Wake up, and calm down."

Flash shook in place, even as he took a few scant breaths through his nostrils. He continued to tremble as his mental cobwebs cleared with a few waves of fresh air, and only when his legs stopped shaking every second did Matt release him. His whole body felt like jelly, and he swallowed nervously. "You good now?" Lance asked with a wince, raising a hoof to his snout to check for any nosebleeds and bruises that either were underway or forming.

Flash shook his head. "Gonna need a few more minutes before I'm good," he replied, his voice quivering a little. "H-have either of you been awake… b-but we-were still d-dreaming?"

Both Lance and Matt nodded. "A few times," Matt admitted, his gaze averting for a few seconds. "Anna has that particular issue the absolute worst out of all of us, though."

Flash nodded slowly and shakily, feeling his body metaphorically return to a more solid state. "H-how m-much sun is o-out?" he stammered.

"I looked out the window before hopping into the shower. The sun's approximately at ten o'clock," Lance replied, staring at Flash with a critical eye. "Do you need coffee today?"

Flash nodded again, this time hastily. "Th-that would b-be good. Extra s-strong, no sugar," he answered.

Lance nodded back and turned to Matt. "Everybody else can wait. Let's get Flash to the—"

Matt lifted his hoof and coughed into it, cutting Lance off. When Flash turned to him with a raised brow, he used the same hoof to gesture to his discarded armor. "You gonna trot in the free and easy, or in uniform?" he asked rather awkwardly, his ears falling back at the implications.

Flash took a few seconds to process the question, then craned his neck in an effort to follow Matt's raised hoof. When he saw the armor carelessly strewn about, he frowned and let his wings droop a little. "Uh... I'll be right back," he murmured, spreading his wings and using them to scoop up the suit, horseshoes and all. He backpedaled into his room after that, shutting the door on his way in the moment he was behind it.

"Matt… I think the face-grabbing was a little bit uncalled for," Lance hissed, eyes narrowing as Matt turned to him. "But, I am willing to let it slide this time." His glare eased, and he sighed dejectedly. "I know full well how it feels to silence a still-dreaming sod to keep everyone else from flipping their shit, and I am not sure of how well Blueblood or Zecora would take being woken up by someone else screaming."

Matt nodded. "Do I have to make it up to him later, though?" he queried.

Lance shook his head. "No, unless we're out of coffee," he replied with a shrug. He turned to the lift at the end of the hall. "Maybe we should write a note for the other sleepyheads to let them know we've gone to eat at the mess hall."

At that moment, Matt's stomach gurgled. He smiled as the door before them opened again to reveal Flash Sentry, this time with his armor on in the way it was meant to go. "Mess hall?" he asked.

Lance nodded, still looking at the lift. "Sounds like a plan to me," he chirped. He turned to Flash and leveled another critical gaze at him. "Serious question… do you eat any meat at all?"

Flash actually nodded at that. "Did so when I was deployed in the Crystal Empire, and I learned it was because Sombra drove their tilling fields so much via the enslaved crystal ponies the fields dried up and the crops withered. Supposedly, they had to hunt for their food whenever, wherever they could, though now they're restoring their tilling fields so they won't have to do so nearly as much. The local ponies there insisted I try some, and it was good. Though… they cooked black birds," he answered. A smile formed on his face. "You have any black birds?"

Lance smiled back. "I think we have a few birds," he replied.

"Before we get to the birds, though… I think we should fetch Lazzy," Matt chimed in, turning to the assortment of doors that led to the lift. "But… which room did he take?"