Alexander had his talons full. He sat in a recliner in one of the lounges, Heather sat on a couch before him, and her colt was taking his first steps across the carpet with shaky legs while the changeling nurses and the elder unicorn watched his every move. The baby, clad in a small suit of chitil with extra padding on his rear end, was learning with increasing speed the layout of the room.

That included where he could and could not crawl under. The two changeling nurses always barred potential hiding holes with their legs, but once they did the infant lost interest and tottered off to try and squirm under another piece of furniture. Every so often, he stopped and repeatedly reared on his back legs and stomped his front hooves, burbling with eyes of soft teal gleaming in delight.

Heather, for her part, did next to nothing to help. She did not even attempt to corral her baby, but then again she hadn't really needed to, when two changelings did so in her stead. The elder sat next to her, worryingly looking at a small wheeled stand with hooks which held IV bags that were anchored to her forelegs. "So you had him yesterday?" the elder asked with a sigh.

Heather nodded. "Bad ponies tried making me live in bad house. Put me in bad dress," she muttered, ears folding back. "Ran away. Tore bad dress up, but not before baby cried and hurt my tummy really bad."

The elder grimaced at that, and turned to the colt as he started galloping in circles around one of the nurse's legs, little wings buzzing with fervor. "And then… nice ponies came. Nice white pony scared me a lot, but… but he wasn't like bad ponies," Heather added, smiling a little.

"Sounds to me she's mentally… stunted," Alexander murmured, frowning when the elder and Heather turned to him.

"Stunted?" the elder parroted.

Alexander gravely nodded. "Either through a birth defect, or was simply kept as ignorant as possible," he answered, his tail swishing a little. "Or she suffered a concussion too many."

The elder's frown deepened. He crossed his forelegs. "There's a lot the other villagers wouldn't tell me…" he muttered. "Such as what became of the stallion who forged the shield…"

"No offense," one of the nurses began as the colt managed to latch onto her tail with his mouth and started pulling with all his might, "but they might've thought you were going senile, or something."

"Psssh," the elder hissed dismissively, parting his hooves and rearing one up to make a flicking motion, "I'm the only old soul down there who hasn't started gettin' cobwebs up in my head."

The nurses shared looks, then the one who was getting her tail pulled hiked hers straight up, in turn sending the colt through the air… and causing him to land on her back without issue. The baby burbled some more, waving his little legs as if asking to do it again. "Strange…" Alexander muttered, brow furrowing thoughtfully.

"Our sentiments exactly," the changeling nurses piped up at the same time. The baby burbled and kept flailing his little legs eagerly, still pumping energy into his beating wings almost as if he were expecting to launch back into the air at some point.

Alexander turned back to Heather. "Have you decided on a name for your foal yet?" he queried.

Heather's smile fell. "Dunno what to name baby," she answered earnestly, eyes gravitating to the ceiling as a hoof rose to tap her chin. "He has wingies… one of only wingie babies to leave bad place…"

Alexander's gaze snapped to the elder, eyes narrowing by a smidgen. "Is this true?" he asked.

The elder shook his head. "No, another winged child left Greenwood years ago," he answered. Gesturing to the colt, who was now being settled down onto the floor by the nurses' magic, he added, "He's the second winged child to have left… on a technicality."

Alexander's brow rose. "And the first?" he pressed.

The elder shook his head again, slowly and grimly. "Hadn't seen hide nor hair of that child since," he stated somberly.

Alexander nodded and turned to look at the feet of his recliner as the baby cantered up to him and reared on his hind legs. He leaned over until his beak was just inches from the little one's muzzle, and softly queried, "Yeeees?" The baby burbled, lifted a tiny hoof, and proceeded to boop him on the beak with a flap of his little wings. He couldn't help but chuckle as the baby then dropped to all fours and started galloping circles around the nurses again.

"I think it's safe to say the tyke has a clean bill of health," one of the nurses chirped, spinning in place just to keep her eyes affixed to the child.

"Not to mention that he's obscenely lucky," chimed the other nurse with a small grin. "I think the little guy would make Lance melt," she added as the baby tripped and landed on his stomach, burbling as he looked at her with a curious gaze.

"Who is this Lance fellow?" the elder asked, tilting his head.

The nurses exchanged glances, before one of them picked up the foal with her forehooves. "Our boss," she answered tersely, pausing to nuzzle the child who then booped her on the snout with all four hooves.

"He's got a bit of a soft spot for kids; hell, if he were able, he'd do his utter damnedest to keep every single foal on Fantasia safe and away from the foal-diddlers," the second added, chortling as her companion snickered in the process of getting multiple boops to the snout in rapid succession. "I'm surprised it took him this long to adopt one. I heard the foal he has is a real hoofful."

The elder nodded with an "Aaaah" of understanding, and proceeded to light up his horn. His magic tenderly grasped the colt and plucked him from the nurse's forelegs before levitating him to Heather. "I think he needs to eat," he said, to which the nurses nodded with no objection on their part. The moment the colt crawled between her rear legs and started suckling, his aura dimmed as he ceased casting. "This is… the youngest mother I've seen yet."

"I cannot help but agree there," Alexander muttered ruefully, looking at the elder intently.

The elder looked back at Alexander and sighed. "Normally, ponies in Greenwood would wait until the mare was at least eight years older than this filly," he grumbled, lifting a hoof to gesture to Heather for emphasis. "Unless…" That same hoof went to rub his temples as mental gears started turning. "They're hiding more than they normally would?"

"Well, whatever the reason, we needn't worry about it too much ourselves," Alexander sighed, smiling a bit. "Lance is already working on something to send some of the others down to Greenwood, without involving you or the foals. He has enough hooves on this ship and the other ships that he can afford to do something like that."

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Twilight was in her guest room, reading the books she'd brought over, though she lifted her eyes from the pages every few seconds to watch as Zecora and Katie mulled about. The former had gotten a few cooking pots into the room, filled with a deep blue liquid. All of those pots were suspended in a lavender aura, and had searing white flames just beneath them, heating that liquid to a boil.

The latter was busying herself by hopping from corner to corner, occasionally using her tongue to do meager things such as scratching her own back or retying her casts, both made obscenely easy by the simple virtue of being able to rotate her head full circle. Around all three, arranged very carefully onto the various tables and dressers and further glued down with chitil, were several potted blue flowers with dark purple stamens, all bearing six sharply pointed petals and sickly navy stems. There were other pots that held a variety of different herbs and plants, but they were much bigger and had to be stationed on the floor simply due to how many there were.

"I can't believe poison joke can be converted to thaumic energy," Twilight muttered, turning back to her book.

"Verily, but I am glad we brought a small crop abroad. We must be careful, so it doesn't affect any poor sods," Zecora agreed with a nod. She peered at the various pots, waiting for the liquid to do something other than boil. Katie jumped over, hearing the liquid pop and steam with fervor.

"What're you gonna do with that? Make me drink it?" Katie asked, causing Zecora to turn to her very briefly and shake her head.

"Yeah, now that you mention it…" Twilight pried her eyes out of the book again and sighed. "We're going to need a funnel sooner or later."

Zecora shook her head. "Nay; the application needs to be direct. In concentrated poison joke she must be bedecked," she replied. "I was told it heals her wounds. Whether or not it does, we'll find out soon." Twilight's brows shot up at that.

"Come again?" Twilight queried, dumbfounded.

Katie answered before Zecora could utter another word, "She needs to soak me in it, head to hoof, before I can trot again. It's why my legs don't got holes anymore."

"Let me get this straight… someone told you that poison joke of all things helps with…" Twilight could not scrounge her brain for the words with which to finish the question, eyes widening at the utter ludicrousness of Zecora's utterance. Her brain simply refused to even acknowledge it. She managed to ignore Katie's answer, at least for a few seconds before it clicked in and she turned to the wraith in question. She gathered herself before stating matter-of-factly, "Katie, don't be ridiculous. Poison joke only pranks ponies with small but annoying afflictions. It doesn't heal wounds."

"But it's true!" Katie exclaimed in exasperation, swollen wing-nubs buzzing as she jumped in place with legs helplessly flailing. "Rainbow saw it! You can ask her about it!"

Twilight sighed, knelt to Katie's level when she landed on the floor, and donned a firm frown of disapproval. "There's no evidence poison joke affects changelings, and to be frank, there's no records of it affecting wraiths as far as I am aware of. I have read every single book in Canterlot and in Ponyville, some of which I think are hooey, and none of them touched the topic of poison joke in little beyond either a passing mention or what it does to ponies at best," she lectured.

Katie's eyes narrowed. "But that's not every single book in Equestria, recent or ancient," she dourly pointed out. When Twilight grimaced, she turned to Zecora. "Is it ready yet?" she queried. Zecora turned to the several brews boiling at once, and smiled a little as they congealed slightly.

"The poison joke brew is finished at last. We must drench you, and fast," Zecora intoned. Her smile fell as she turned to Twilight. "But, how will we go about with the process of drenching her? This airship has no tubs or pots large enough, of that I am sure."

Twilight sighed and magically lifted Katie into the air, tenderly taking off her casts in the process before wrapping her in an airtight bubble similar to Shining's shield. The pots then ascended until they were above the bubble, whereupon a small hole formed at the very top, lined with a funneled rim. Precariously, Twilight poured the liquid into the field through that funnel, making sure some actually splattered on Katie on its way down. "If this mends her legs, or does something similar to that, then I'll reconsider my concerns," Twilight muttered as the bubble shrank once the last of the brew was poured in, forming a makeshift tub that ensured Katie would get thoroughly drenched in.

Before long, her ears and mane were dripping blue liquid as though it were raining, and Katie started barrel rolling to further soak herself. As she spun, blue spots formed on her body, and the liquid pulsed with mana before the blue color drained out and was seemingly absorbed by its occupant, leaving a small pool of water as clear as any well-kept bath. This left Katie so blue that even her wing-nubs took on that tint. "This is most bizarre, second to finding Fantasia full of strife. I have not seen poison joke react like this in my entire life," Zecora murmured, her eyes widening in tandem with Twilight's at the now-blue Katie.

Twilight herself was taken aback. This, however, sparked something in her brain, and she conjured an inkwell, a quill, and a sheet of paper. "Well now… this calls for a bit of research," she murmured. Before she could start writing down notes, a series of sickening snaps filled the air, and she turned to Katie. Dyed legs twisted and bent unnaturally, pulsing with mana, doing everything from spinning in their sockets to bending as far back as possible until they rested with their owner in a crouching stance that reminded the two observers of a grasshopper waiting to jump.

Wing-nubs then swelled twice, thrice their size, absorbing the liquid trapped therein and forming an entirely new network of veins and arteries with which to pump blood. Gossamer membranes grew between those veins, stretching until all four nubs had become once-more functional wings that were almost moth-like. With a grunt, Katie heaved and stretched her legs until they were back under her body once more, popping them one final time with the effort. Buzzing her dripping wings, she managed to kick up the liquid in the bubble a little and simultaneously dry them off before the blue tint faded from her entire body with one last pulse of mana.

Katie turned to regard Twilight with a smug glint in her orbs and a joyous fervor in her buzzing as she made the water and the bubble vanish in light, in tandem with the myriad of pots that held the brew before. Once more airborne and free from her confines, she asked, "You were saying?"

Twilight's jaw had dropped at that point, as had Zecora's. Not one moment ago, the wraith before them was helplessly hopping about on the floor, and now she was flying as if nothing had even happened. But now that she thought about it, she did see mana at work… Twilight started jotting down notes, eying Katie with a very critical gaze. "Subject absorbed properties of poison joke by way of mana… healed fully… yet to determine if innate mana or external…" she muttered.

"Hrmm?" Katie hummed, prior to flying closer to Twilight to see what the deal was. She noticed that her flying was much smoother than it was when her wings were tatters, but no more faster than the average hover at best.

"Tell me… have you ran into poison joke before?" Twilight asked, enunciating each word slowly to make sure her meaning wasn't lost on Katie even as she continued to jot down notes.

"I have not, at least on Fantasia," Katie muttered in reply, tilting her head.

Twilight frowned. "Not once?"

Katie shook her head. "Nope. My memory is only as good as the week is long. If I have, I either forgot I did, or just didn't actually come into contact with it," she answered with a shrug of indifference. "One of the things nobody tells ya about being immortal; you have to write things down, otherwise it's lost to time. And even that doesn't help one bit."

Twilight raised a skeptical brow. "So… your memory is bad?" she translated.

Katie shook her head. "Only limited, actually, not bad per se. A few interesting things that really stick out from what I've seen either happened ages ago, or very recently. Everything else is a fog as thick as the moon," she answered. "And suffice to say, until I woke up in Lance's tank, hardly anything interesting happened, aside from becoming a wraith." She leaned back and crossed her forelegs under her head and her rear legs rather strategically over her pelvis in a lazy, hovering lounge and added, "I mean, you're Celestia's student. Haven't you seen her cheat sheets whenever she has to listen to the nobles of the Courts bitch and moan?"

Twilight hazily recalled a few Court sessions in her foalhood that she didn't actively participate in, but did notice that more than once Celestia had papers seemingly on hoof in every instance within her memory. "... vaguely?" she murmured. "I was only there when Mom and Dad were on vacation, Shining was in school, Cadence was unavailable, and I was out of school for the day…" Still, if what Katie said was true, it would have explained a little more about her antics as of late.

And speaking of not remembering things, a thought crossed Twilight's mind in that moment. "Do you remember what life was like before you attained immortality?" she queried.

"Not much, though most of what I can recall is from my grubhood. I still remember the moment I hatched, and saw my hivemates for the first time," Katie replied, her tone taking on a solemn, reminiscing note. Her orbs wavered briefly. "Used to have purple wasps every day, until I had my third molt and became a nymph."

"Nymph?" Twilight echoed, her raised brow climbing higher.

"Basically, a changeling's equivalent to a filly or a colt," Katie replied with a shrug. She lifted a hoof from behind her head and gestured at herself as she added, "I could not become a full-fledged mutant drone. I did not know it at the time, but before my tenth molt could even be reached—a changeling's equivalent to a birthday party—the hive I was a part of was soon to be decimated."

Twilight's jaw dropped at that. "You're an undead foal?!" she screamed.

Katie glumly nodded. "Over the years… of which I have lost count, it must be said, I learned to stop thinking like a foal and start thinking like a grown mare," she stated. Her tone lowered ominously, and the solemn note became more prominent as she continued, "Only reason I let Lance make me into one of his lackeys is because I want to know what the hell destroyed my hivemates, and why the barrier broke." She paused, eying Twilight with a serious glint in her still-wavering orbs. "Futile it may seem, given the possibility the records of the first shitshow and the barrier are few and far in between, or possibly even nonexistent for that matter, I am still willing to take the risk."

The bottom dropped out of Twilight's stomach at what Katie said next, orbs averting before dimming entirely, her tone taking on a bitter, hateful note tinged with the slightest margin of despair and desperation. The words were uttered in a cacophonous symphony of all-encompassing dismay, each undernote impossible to miss unless she were deaf, and each note roiling about as though multiple wraiths spoke at once, "Nobody else was willing to give me answers over the years. They all cast me out and never looked back."

Twilight looked at Katie with eyes widening all over again, comprehension dawning. The skeptic in her wanted to deny, deny, deny what she'd heard. The realist in her, however, pointed out that, if Katie really did die so young, then her small size could not have come from emaciation alone. Bones became brittle over time, yes, but did not shrink the way skin and muscle could unless a serious defect was involved. Her mannerisms when they first met, her tendency to piggyback on somepony's back, her utter refusal to filter her words in a way that would spare everypony a lot of embarrassment, her tendency to charge first and ask later…

These things were the hallmarks of a foal. A foal who should not have had to endure endless hunger, seemingly-inescapable loneliness and scorn, and pains both physical and mental for years on end, yet did. A foal whose wounds time did not heal, whose wounds refused to heal until recently. A foal who, somehow, persevered in spite of all of that, all for the sake of finding someone, anyone who'd help her with her dilemma. A foal who sounded desperate above all else.

Zecora spoke for them both, "There are answers you seek, answers you want but have not yet found. You will not rest until you obtain them, whether by old text or spoken sound?"

Katie turned to Zecora and stared for some seconds before shaking her head. "I cannot die," she muttered wearily. Bitterly, she added, "Even if I get my answers… then what? It's not like Fantasia could magically become a better world overnight."

Twilight's brow furrowed at that. The realist within her agreed with the sentiment, and her eye twitched wholeheartedly. She'd seen her fair share of things getting worse before they got better, so she wasn't even all that surprised that such a comment left Katie's mouth. "Well, if you got your answers, you could tell other changelings about your tale years down the line so what happened to your hive doesn't repeat," Twilight muttered.

Katie's orbs glowed again and then widened, and for a second her jaw fell slack. Her voice fell to a whisper as she said, "Those who cannot remember the past… are condemned to repeat it…"

Twilight nodded, smiling as Katie started to see what she was getting at. "If anything, you could start with Lance's other changelings and work your way from there, to the gryphons and minotaurs and everybody else in between all of that," she stated firmly. "Of course, they might not take you seriously at first, especially if what you'd just said is true. But, some could on the first try. You never know what sort of reception you'll get, so keep your torn mouth running until somebody's willing to listen."

Katie's face hardened, her split mouth's tears twitching knowingly. "Right now?" she queried, a note of hope in her tone.

Twilight shook her head. "Not yet. I'd say wait until we leave Greenwood before you let your gums start flapping," she stated. At this, Katie sagged a little. "The soldiers are busying themselves with other things at the moment, and Lance is trying to avoid doing something scatterbrained in the meantime. Things will need to settle first."

Katie nodded in understanding, and dropped to the floor in a clumsy, four-hoofed landing. She righted her posture before folding her wings, and she trotted a few laps around Twilight and Zecora, chirping in delight when she found her legs could now adequately support her meager weight. This went on for a few minutes before stopping as Katie turned to the door of the room. "So, what should we do in the meantime?" she asked.

Twilight lifted Katie up in her magic and planted her onto her own backside. "Now, we give Lance a little Tartarus until he gives up the ghost and tells us if he formulated a plan or not," she stated, unable to keep the slight smirk off of her face.

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

Unfortunately, Lance was already on the receiving end of being hoofed a platter full of Tartarus, with a screech of terror thrown in for free. Anna had gone into full-out panic mode, cowering in the shower stall with a pale face and eyes wide. He was in there with her, trying to cradle her with his wings, only to repeatedly be kicked and magically pushed to the wall, one time receiving a large series of cuts across the barrel from such a strike that should not have been able to even produce the wounds in question. Matt and Natalie were outside the stall, horns aglow, using their magic to keep her pinned to one corner of the stall in an effort to avoid harming herself. Concern dotted their faces, giving way to wide eyes and firm frowns.

It was easy to see why. One of her forelegs had grown a swath of bark that tore through skin and muscle, forming a hellish four-digit claw where her hoof was, each digit tipped with Lance's blood. Her blood seeped from the bark profusely, and that wasn't the only thing that decided she was good enough to become fertilizer. Ivy and kudzu worked in tandem, weaving angry webs beneath her skin before breaking out in a myriad of places, even meeting with the bark just behind her withers, forming an elaborate and crude mockery of two pairs of pegasus wings that flapped and flopped without doing anything more than making her scream in pain. One of her back legs was undergoing a similar treatment, the bark on it forming plates that were less plant-like and more armor-like.

"Hold still so we can start removing the bark!" Natalie pleaded, trying her best to magically seize Anna's faux wings, pumping more mana to compensate for Matt's relatively weak glow.

"It hurts! Make it stop!" Anna wailed, unable to hold still for even a second before another plate of bark tore its way through the skin of her haunch, almost obscuring her cutie mark in blood.

"We're trying!" Matt grumbled, feeling his horn heat up as he managed to seize hold of the flailing giant leafy bark that dared call itself sets of wings before pinning them to the wall.

Lance got off of the wall and ambled over, the large gashes dotting his barrel still dripping blood as he tried once more to soothe his subordinate. "Hey, it's gonna be alright," he muttered as he knelt to her level and clasped her with his forelegs, wrapping them around her withers to pull her close. She nestled her muzzle to his shoulder and bit him, hard, muffling another scream as a chunk of bark was forcefully parted from her back leg, taking with it a tiny chunk of flesh. As more bark was worked free, the kudzu and ivy raced over beneath her skin to try and keep the wound off-limits, but those too were torn out before a soft white glow covered it and started mending the exposed flesh.

Lance lifted a hoof slightly and began rubbing at Anna's withers, causing her to relax a little at the sensation. He heard a door slam open not even a second after, the sound causing Anna to tense and bristle, but he kept rubbing even as another chunk of bark and some more plant vines had been magically evicted from her back leg. "Oi, Lance, we need… the fuck?" he heard Katie mumble.

Just great, prying eyes and ears arrived when everypony in the shower least wanted them to. "You're gonna have to wait! We have an emergency on our hooves!" Natalie called, furiously peeling bark and vines away from the entirety of Anna's hind leg, revealing angry red flesh that she then worked on healing at the same time. They heard muffled hoofsteps approaching, and out of the corner of his eye, Lance saw Twilight and Zecora emerge into the stall uninvited, with the former having Katie on her back. All three turned to the sight and sharply gasped in unison.

"What's going on here?!" Twilight demanded, trying to force her way between Matt and Natalie to see what the fuss was about in more detail, only to magically be pushed to the toilet by Anna before she could get very far.

"Anna's turning into a fucking timberpony over here, and last thing we need is to be thrown off our hooves!" Matt barked, turning to the faux wings as soon as the last of the vines and bark were torn out of the hind leg, and started to work on removing the wings when Twilight yet again came over, though that time without trying to wedge herself into the already-crowded stall.

Twilight gaped when a wing was ripped out with a sickening snap of timber, which immediately caused Anna to scream and kick out with her back legs as the remaining three wings beat furiously at the fresh wave of pain being sent through her nerves. Her claw-tipped hoof grappled Lance's foreleg and pierced his flesh once more, though he barely gave a wince as he kept trying to calm her down. "D-did she get parasitized?!" she queried, her horn glowing when she saw still-unhealed wounds dotting Anna's back leg that Natalie was trying to patch up.

"No, it was like this when she got her cutie mark," Lance answered, focusing all of his energy in keeping Anna from flailing as much as he could. "Her magic's always been this haywire!"

Twilight groaned and started conjuring a soft white light of her own, healing the back leg of its wounds and freeing Natalie up a little to get rid of more vines and bark. Another sickening crunch rent the air, followed by another muffled shriek as another false wing had been parted from its host, and the other two wings swiftly followed it on its way out. Working to heal the new perforations in Anna's back, she eyed the clawed foreleg digging into Lance's flesh with only the barest of restraint to keep it from trailing any lower to his exposed stomach. That leg was parted from his own, before in one fell swoop the bark covering it was removed with the last of the vines.

Twilight worked to heal the leg, but Natalie was already on it. Matt proceeded to gather the bark and vines in a faltering glow, before he trotted outside of the stall with them in tow. The group heard a creak like a door being opened, followed by the boom of thunder and the crackle of flames. Zecora rushed out of the stall, leaving Natalie and Twilight to finish healing Anna, to find Matt torching the plants. He made sure they were outside of the airship by simply opening the window. Lightning struck again and again at the plants, before Matt magically pushed them further from the ship and let them drop to the ground below. The window slammed shut in a golden glow after that. Wordlessly, Matt trotted back into the toiletries' corner, finding Twilight magically turning Anna over in a bubble to check and see if there was anymore trouble spots of a bark outbreak.

Fortunately, there was no more bark and vines to be had, and even better, somepony had the decency to heal Lance in the process. Wounds healed, but pain still lingering, all Anna could do was whimper as tears fell freely. "We can barely control her when she's like this," Lance sighed, looking at his now-levitating subordinate with concern marring his face. "Since a lot of magic is fueled by emotion and thought… whenever she panics enough, this happens…"

Twilight gently lowered Anna to the floor of the stall, and turned on the water to help her wash the blood off. "Is this… why she can't…"

Lance nodded, cutting Twilight off. "It's like the madness of the trees… does something to her… pheromones, telepathy, or just their looks, I honestly don't know what… it's like a virus. A virus we can only keep her away from," he stated grimly. Anna scrabbled back to him and clutched him in her forelegs, sniffling and crying like a lost foal, burying her face in his barrel.

"Don't… wanna go back…" Anna huffed, ears folding back against her head.

Matt grabbed Twilight, Katie, and Zecora in his magic before lifting them and trotting out of the room with them in tow, leaving Natalie to watch in case another bark outbreak were to occur. He parked them on the floor of the hall and shut the door behind himself. He wore a solemn, deep frown. "What is it that you wanted?" he queried.

Twilight was more dumbfounded than ever. She could've sworn Anna was fine not even last night, but to have bark and vines growing out of her flesh this morning? She could very well understand the slight panic that filled her colleagues, yet once more could not express her concern with mere words. Zecora and Katie were, likewise, stunned into silence now that the crisis had been averted.

It took them several long minutes before any could answer Matt's question.