Armistice stared in surprise at the submissive diamond dog.

"Can you?" he implored. The pads on his paws were hot on her cheeks. He was aware of tears in his eyes, and was not ashamed of his weakness before this young creature. In the light of her beauty and her power, she had demonstrated the truth of her abilities - she was the key to his lady's salvation.

"I..." Armistice began, her tone uncertain.  She shifted her forelegs, one hoof behind the other. The collar of Grecio's tunic was loose and open, and the unicorn's eyes were drawn to the puckered scar over his heart.

"For years I have watched her, guarded her. In these last few decades, she has lost all hope. Please... Armistice..." His voice softened to a whisper. "I cannot stop her from destroying herself."

Armistice gently removed her face from his grasp, lifting his lowered chin with her muzzle. The diamond dog was allowing his grief to flow freely down his cheeks. It tore at her heart.

"Tell me," she began, lifting a hoof to his chest. "How did this come to be? How are you still alive?" Her expression was stern, but caring. "I want to understand you. I want to understand her. But to do that, I need to trust. And for that to happen, I need the truth."

"I will tell you everything," he replied solemnly, rising to his feet, clasping her hoof tightly. "All that I know."

The lovely young pianist nodded.

"First I must move my lady to her quarters. I can't leave her sleeping with an unbandaged wing in the front room," he added. "If you would like to wait for me-"

"I'll help," she interrupted. Grecio blinked. Armistice smiled warmly. "I can move her without her even knowing."

The pair headed inside the flat, Grecio closing the balcony doors quietly behind them. Noir slumbered still upon the cushion, her deformed wing having bled slowly and stained the material. Gently, the diamond dog lifted the tattered mass of flesh and feathers in his paw, motioning for Armistice to open the small drawer in the table nearby. With a soft blue glow, the drawer slid free, and a fresh cloth wrap of bandages floated toward him.

"Why won't it heal?" she asked quietly, watching with her brow knit as Grecio tenderly wrapped the damaged tissue. He shook his head.

"She never explained it fully to me. I don't think she knows herself. Something went wrong during her transformation... something her body can't fix." He rested a paw on her flank, and her good wing twitched.

"What does she dream of?" the unicorn continued. Grecio smiled sadly.

"Flying, I think."

"Oh," Armistice replied softly, lowering her eyes. Grecio moved to stand and scoop Noir into his arms. Armistice tapped him on the shoulder, and he looked back at her. She lifted her eyebrows, and he nodded.

That same soft sapphire aura encircled the sleeping alicorn, lifting her soundlessly from the cushion.

"Lead the way," Armistice murmured. Grecio motioned her down the hall. She followed.

He took her to a simple room, large, but sparse, the only furniture an immense cushion bed, like the one in room Armitsice slept in, and a bookshelf. The far wall held a fireplace. There were no windows. She lowered Noir onto the cushion while Gercio busied himself with the fire. Armistice pulled one of the numerous blankets over the slumbering alicorn, taking care to not disturb her bandaged wing.

"She's still asleep," Armistice told him, joining him at the hearth. He nodded, watching the small flames lick at the logs.

"The spell will keep her so until morning."

"Magic is unusual for your kind to wield..."

"So is my lifespan," he chuckled, sitting on the rug. She followed suit.

"Tell me how that happened."

Grecio rubbed at the scar on his arm, watching as the flames found fuel in the wood and became a blaze. Shadows danced on the walls behind them.

"Noir freed me from my pack. I stayed with her, on her journey back to Canterlot. It had to have taken years... I had no sense of time. Only sunrises and sunsets. We walked for hundreds of those." He folded his legs and rested his paws on his knees. When he stared into the fire, his green eyes took on a look that gave Armistice a chill. Guardian and warrior, so much older than he should have been, this creature had seen more in his lifetime than he wanted to. "Things... did not go they way she hoped with her teacher."

A log popped and cracked. Noir stirred on her cushion. Grecio looked over to ensure she was still asleep.

"When we arrived at this place, it was still a place of small houses and shops. Noir was... beside herself. I was older, not the pup that had saved her in the mountains many years ago."

"Do you understand, Grecio, what I am asking of you?"

"One night, while laying awake in out tent - our lodgings had not yet been built - she turned to me in the dark."

"Life in my service will not be easy. The path you walk shall be over shards of crystal and bone."

"She offered me the opportunity of a lifetime," he continued, eyes still on the flames.

"Do you swear yourself to me, as long as I am of this world?"

"This, to bind my body." He extended his forearm, showing Armistice the scar. "With a molten hot horn, she drew the symbol that extended my life."

"This next part, Grecio... hurts me as much you..."

"And this..." He pulled the collar of his tunic open to reveal the scar over his heart. It was puckered, like something spiraled had been plunged into his chest.

"Beat for beat, twined in time, when mine heart stops, so does thine..."

"Bound our souls." He rubbed it absently. "A shard of her horn lies deep within my heart." Armistice stared with wide eyes. He nodded. "When she passes from Equestria... so shall I."

"That magic is ancient," she said softly. "Even my people are wary to cast it."

"I suppose she figured she had nothing to lose," Grecio shrugged. "Celestia cast her aside. At first, Noir threw herself into research, convinced there was some way to undo what had been done. But she despaired as time went on... and fell into drink. And other habits..." He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Not two nights ago I dragged her from a stallion's home before the papers got word of it."

"Grecio," Armistice said gently, "to reinstate an Ascension phase... no non alicorn has ever done so."

The diamond dog looked up, meeting her eyes with a sudden look of despair. Armistice smiled.

"But if there's a way... I will find it."

He threw his arms around her in a tight embrace, burying his face against her neck. Her mane smelled like the sun and the fields and hope.

"Thank you," he whispered fiercely.

"May I stay with her?" she asked. He nodded, releasing her gently. Armistice smiled again. "She is not alone. And neither are you." She tapped her necklace. The silver heart glinted in the firelight. " 'Quis Aeternum'," she said. "Forever Supporting."

Grecio rested a paw on her cheek.

"I will wake you both in the morning for breakfast."

The unicorn nodded and watched the diamond dog get to his feet, stopping to check on his mistress before exiting the room. She sat by the fire for several more moments before rising herself.

From the doorway, Grecio watched as Armistice crawled onto the cushion next to Noir, snuggling under her wing and nestling next to her flank. Noir stirred, and to his delight, did not pull away, instead turning to cradle the young mare in her embrace in a display of intimacy he had never thought her capable of.

Noir had lovers, yes. Strings of them.

She had never had friends.