Chapter Three

The aquarium wasn't very busy, midway through the week, which gave us a little leeway. However the girls might have appeared on the outside to the public at large, they were still a bunch of dorky aliens.

"Ah... Fluttershy?" I tried. "Why are you staring at the turtles?"

The pegasus looked cheerfully back from the thick glass wall, behind which the sea turtles bobbed. "Oh, Tamara, I'm just saying hello to them. They're very wise and old creatures, you know!"

"So I've heard," I told her. "Between two and four times a human's life span, I think. You're really talking to them, then?"

"Oh yes," said Fluttershy, who went back to whispering through the glass.

I made to say something, before deciding that sometimes you just had to let mares and turtles have their conversation time. Or something.

"Dare I ask what you're up to?" I said, wandering over to Twilight. The mare was checking her ever-present saddlebags full of recording equipment.

"Comparative analysis," said Twilight distractedly. "Despite having so many similar creatures to our world, the animals don't... quite react the same. A little less intelligent, a little less of everything, I suppose." She sighed. "I thought that perhaps some of the creatures here that normally sense bioelectric energy might react somewhat to my magical field. Unless I directly interact with them, however," she gently brushed a school of piranha with her levitation field, sending them scurrying, "then they don't notice. That's a big mystery- how can creatures from two such different environments develop the same? Or nearly the same," she added. "Birds and mammals tend to be a lot more intelligent, even sentient in some cases, on our world."

"Maybe they developed without magic," I volunteered. "Maybe magic waxes and wanes over time, like global temperatures. They develop without magic, or with it, and adapt when that changes."

"Maybe," said Twilight, frowning. "Though I can't say I like the thought of magic just 'going away' like that. Still, the similarities between here and Sola are a little jarring."

"I'll bet," I said. I made to make some sort of stupid joke, but the both of us were distracted by the sight of Fluttershy slumping to the ground in front of the massive glass wall.

Twilight was gently scolding the mare and forcing one of our over-priced bottles of water to her lips before I could consider doing something other than stand there like a lump.

"I told you that you can't push yourself, Fluttershy!" said Twilight. "Using your talent will exhaust you, here- this place is like a dry sponge for magic."

"Just... just wanted to talk to the turtles," muttered the yellow mare unhappily.

"It's like air pressure," I muttered. At Twilight's questioning glance, I went on: "Like, we're used to having our bodies push out against the world, because it's always pressing in. Deep-sea animals die when they get too close to the surface. For you girls here, there's no... magic pressure?" I tried.

Twilight sighed, but gave a wry smile. "I should have let you give the safety lecture before I let the girls come over with me."

"No 'xplodin' fish, plz," said Fluttershy, looking a bit concussed.

"That's it, today's field trip is done," Twilight declared. "Tamara? We'll be back for the game, tomorrow."

"Bring cake," I said, before they both blinked out of existence. I stood, sighed, and decided to go sketch the Moray Eels. The trip wouldn't be a complete waste that way, at least.

I closed the door behind me, forced myself to ignore the low ceiling and the sense of claustrophobia that seemed to have come part and parcel with the new body, and brought the basket full of delicious daisies onto the rough table in the tree ponies' home.

"Oak?" I asked. She hummed and set about separating the flowers from the stems, and I knew she would end up using both for different parts of the meal. "What is word 'staephi sill'?"

It wasn't often I got to see the mare blush, but her chestnut coat turned a deeper, redder shade. She glanced up at me, then back down at her hooves.

"Grumble herd word mutter means like whinny mother." Oak coughed. "You... hear from Hayli, yes?"

I did my best to parse that, and asked, "Like.. also mother? Mother who not had daughter-filly?"

She winced and nodded. I worried at my lip, then leaned in, believing that I had figured out at least one pony custom, and kissed her cheek. I moved to break off, but she leaned in and caught my lips again.

Licking was sexual. Kissing was... familiar. Familial, even, in the strange system that ponies followed. She and I surely weren't dating in the usual sense -and I wasn't stupid enough to think otherwise- but we were there, and enjoyed each other, and both of us helped the household and child therein in our own ways. It felt... well, primitive wasn't quite the word for it, but it was something I found I didn't mind at all.

We broke off, and I licked away the taste of blueberries that had been left on my lips. "Oak? What do I say, call Hayli? She call me 'staephi sill', herd mother, I call her what?"

Oak flushed, and smiled. "Say, Hayli-swahilly."

"And I call you?" I asked.

The flush intensified, and she said, "Shofhi."

"Shofhi," I whispered with a grin, and licked her ear. The mare shivered, laughed, and batted me away.

"No! Grumble whine this night, dark, will hweff'etta you. Promise." She winked at me, and I disappeared out the door buoyed by more than air.

Outside, I flew straight up and drew a lazy spiral through the sky until I spied my target. I brought my wings back sharp against the lines of my own body and dove, feeling a thrill as I airbraked just a few feet away from the filly who had been following frogs in the nearby creek.

I did a four-point landing, flicked my ears playfully, and said, "Hayli-swahilly! More words for your herd mother?"

Hayli abandoned her frogs and gasped, running at me and burying herself into my forelegs.

"You, mutter and momma and me and-" And at that point, her words came too fast and excited for even my slowly-learning ears to follow even in the slightest. That didn't bother me in the least.

"Come on, herd mother! Up again!"

Another a long string of days, and I could hardly care to count them. The three of us, and I guess I was one of the 'tree ponies' now, had been busy. Winter was supposed to be coming, but explaining that to me had turned into some weird math problem that was the best Oak Branch could do with this planet's weird cycle. There were too many words for concepts I hadn't heard of outside of science fiction novels.

In my first week, I had buried a stick upright in the earth to try to get an idea of far I was from the equator. In four days, I had gotten three different shadow lengths. My inner scientist had then gone on vacation for a bit.

So Hayli and I were busy harvesting apples and pears and just about anything else we could, to fill the larder that Oak had happily begun digging. Two adults, it seemed, made for a much more productive dynamic, with a filly between them.

Even then, Hayli had insisted on helping. So I held the filly, flew up, the filly grabbed some apples, and we flew back down again. It was ridiculous, but she was having the time of her life. Hayli was absolutely fearless, and I just loved that about her. I even admired her for that, a bit, bundle of nerves that I usually was.

Oak had cheerfully outlined another trick that she'd heard pegasi could do- clearing clouds and magnifying the sunlight within. If I got that trick down, we could dry out baskets of food in no time flat and have a healthy, preserved stock set aside.

"You need wings, Hayli!" I told the filly.

She twisted her head back and giggled. "I got some!" she said, pointing at mine.

So adorable it hurt. I nuzzled her mane until it was a mess and she was almost squirming too much to be held airborne, and then let the matter go. Still, we were making good time. With any luck, she would soon be tuckered out enough that we could head back and she would fall straight into a nap. Then Oak, so grateful that we had gotten so much done, would fall into my hooves and we could...

"Herd mother, why are you laughing?" asked Hayli, confused.

"Um. Only thinking of Shofhi," I said, which was like 'loving lover', as opposed to 'Shwof', which was just 'lover'. It hadn't taken me long to figure that one out, and how Oak had taught me the first word first for a reason. It was sweet.

"Oh! Okay," said Hayli.

I coughed, and we went for the next apple circuit. My... season had ended after a couple of weeks, as had Oak's, but that just meant I no longer felt like a furnace. After biology had stopped shouting at me, metaphorically speaking, it was still quietly cheering me on to continue things with the curvy mare.

And Oak had reciprocated. Often. With... vigor. Geez, but I thought being a pegasus gave me stamina...

"We good for apples?" I asked. "Ready for berr... buh..."

"Berries, mama! Berries!" the filly corrected me. "Blueberries, now! Then straw-berries."

"Berries," I said, making sure I had the inflection down. We landed together at the big basket and I muscled it onto my back to head back to the house. Our house, now. I'd moved my own cloud cottage into branches, which was a little awkward-looking, but created a nice extra bit of shade.

"Birds don't have a happy smile, so they chirp a lot!" sang Hayli, slowly to make sure I got the words. "They say 'hello' and 'how d'you do!' above the green tree tops!"

"And every frog," I hummed, "bubbles with a great hop," I sang, stiltingly. "And they jump but can not touch the big tree top!"

"Mama, that's not the words!" exclaimed Hayli. I grinned at her.

"New words," I said. "For more long song. Need to make more song for my herd-daughter."

Hayli seemed delighted at the notion. "Eee! Um, and... 'never did the snake sing, it hisses and it got no wings!'

"And we don't have a dog to bark, so we, um, use ears to find a chirp lark!" I sang back.

We reached the tree, and Hayli was giggling as I tried to navigate my own tiny vocabulary and come up with new verses on the fly. We dropped off our load of fruit and I watched Hayli pace unhappily in front of the tree.

"I don't like it. The village is stupid," she told me. "They don't like mom, and they're dumb, and I can't go with."

I nodded, and gathered her close with a wing. "Mom has to go for things to buy, for winter. Goes for you, so you are warm and happy. Go for berries now? Blue-berries and straw-berries and Hayli-berries."

"There's no Hayli berries!" the filly insisted.

I smiled and leaned in. "Think so? No berries... here?" I started rooting through her mane, teasing apart locks of auburn hair. Hayli shrieked and began galloping away.

"No, come back little tree!" I shouted, and made to chase her.

"Good day?" I asked Oak, who kicked the dirt off her hooves and tiredly trotted into the low room.

The mare glanced at Hayli and mouthed, 'Later,' but said, "Oh yes, grumble quiet good. Was Hayli good for you?"

"Of course!" I said, hoof to my chest in mock insult. "Hayli is best daughter."

"Yup!" said the filly.

"Very nice," I said while nodding. "Never throws pine cone at her herd mother."

Hayli froze, and turned on me. "You threw first!"

"Yes," I said, grinning. Oak rolled her eyes and set her bundle of new, well, 'newish' blankets down in the corner. The pallet was crowded, but she had all but forbade me from sleeping up in my cottage, anymore. Both my herd members wanted me there as often as possible, and I found myself thinking not at all of the queen-sized bed from back home. It had been far too empty, anyway.

We poor, happy three got down to putting together a simple dinner. Strawberries strewn in sweetgrass, served in carved wooden bowls, and Oak or I having to wipe at the corners of Hayli's mouth every two minutes.

I got to listen to -and try to memorize- a lullaby, which set Hayli off to sleep in front of the still-warm oven. The warm, gooey feeling disappeared when I realized Oak was ready to talk the kind of serious, somber business not meant for the ears of foals. We settled at the tiny table, and I began stroking a wing along her shoulder as she got her thoughts in order.

"Whistle's flock wants whisper sigh fight, other name flock taking air-land space. Taking more food from exclamatory grumble elder village. Everypony shouting whinny preparing trail under sigh but what to do?" she asked, rhetorically, leaning her forehead against my wing. "Taking grumble talks are soon, fighting and no rain for some name grumble fields. I am worried."

"We will be okay," I told her. "You have pegasus, yes, stay at home, give you rain and... more," I added, trying to get her to smile. It worked, but barely.

"Sigh worried watching for future, whinny oldest mother elder grumble for string," Oak said. 'String', as I'd learned, meant a group of earth ponies. Same as flock for pegasi, and I'd yet to hear of more than the most casual -and insulting- reference for unicorns.

"Here," I said, guiding her off of her stool. "You need calm, calm from tired and walking. I... massage. Lie, lovely Oak," I told her.

"Too nice, too good, sigh," she said as I guided her over to the pallet. I didn't figure there would be anything more amorous happening that night, but I wanted to at least make sure she didn't go to bed tense. She hated having to leave Hayli behind to buy supplies, and it ate at her, even now that she had me to stay and mind the filly. And I certainly couldn't have accompanied her, no matter the circumstances. She would be ridiculed, as I understood it, for consorting with a pegasus...

'And lord help us if the words 'transformed alien' ever reached their ears,' I thought with a grumble.

...And any of the pegasi that received tribute from the village would, if they spotted me, see me as some sort of radical exile without a flock of my own.

So there, in the quiet shelter and isolation provided by our corner of the forest, I forgot about those ponies who would rather forget about us, and did my best to bring Oak's mind to somewhere which didn't have any room for conflict and stress. I pushed as best as I could to loosen her muscles and comb her fur into place, squeezing knots of tension and kneading out unpleasant memories. Her groans soon turned to quiet snores and I lay down next to her, pressing as much of my skin into hers as was possible, and joined her in slumber.

Hours later I woke with a gasp. I rolled, and stared into Oaks's heavy-lidded eyes. I was still addled by exhaustion and my thoughts mostly went as far as, 'When did things turn sexy?'

In the corner, I heard Hayli making soft sleep sounds. I tried to point out that any noise we made might wake her up, and Oak, in her own way, challenged me not to make any noise.

I bit my tongue at a sudden wet stirring and bucked my hips up, up into the mare's warm mouth.

"Tham'ra momma, are your legs okay?" asked Hayli as I stumbled into the table again. I'd elected to give her the chair and just stand, for... reasons.

"I am good, herd-daughter," I told her, trying to give as reassuring a smile as I could when the back half of my body was still mostly numb.

Oak snickered around a hot, clay mug full of tea, and I resolved to pay her back later with interest.

Until then, I was pretty certain I'd be useless for walking anywhere. Thank goodness I had wings, right?

Snow was falling. I quickly learned how to manipulate cold weather as easily as I did warm, but even then I could only do so much against an entire storm front. It was all I could do to keep the snow from falling too high around our tree burrow. Easier was to build a little cloud shelf above our spot and change it out every few hours, allowing the piles of snow to fall to the ground elsewhere, as whatever magic I pushed into the thickened vapor shelf disappeared and let it turn permeable again. Hayli thought the concept was awesome.

Like a fluffy force-field.

It was month two of... five, I thought. This was supposed to be a long winter, the third, winter, Oak called it. The seasons were predictable only in that they were capricious and challenging to the ponies that had to live through it. If anybody had actually designed this calendar, they ought to be taken out back and shot, in my opinion.

I had taken to practicing my flight in my free time. It was... there really weren't words for it. Flight fulfilled some deep need, and pressing myself to newer heights, in every sense of the word, was something I couldn't help but love with all my heart. It wasn't better than sex, I supposed, but it was definitely on par, only in a different way.

Even when Oak and I took to challenging that whenever we had the time to ourselves.

Wheeling out in a wide, lazy curve, I set my sights for home. It was getting dark out, and even my birdlike eyes were beginning to fail me. It wasn't until I was only a quarter mile away that I saw the commotion and the fires.

My heart almost stopped, and only relaxed by the barest fraction when I saw that the flames were contained by torches. A long string of ponies stretched through the forest, but some had broken off at the door of my tree.

I landed at a fair distance away, folded my wings, and moved cautiously forward. I only wished for a moment that my mane and tail blended with the snow as well as my coat did, before taking a moment to dust both with thick flakes of snow.

"Momma!"

Hayli barreled out of the thick snowfall and hit my legs, nearly sending the both of us over- she was getting bigger.

"Hayli? What is wrong? Who is here?" I asked.

"The village ponies," she said, breathlessly. "Mom's mom, an elder! They want to all go!"

My heart really did stop, then, for the space of a single beat.

"Come," I said. "We will talk and learn," I told her. She nodded, but didn't look very happy about it. To tell the truth, I wasn't too pleased myself.

We drew in close to the tree, and Oak spotted us with an odd mixture of relief and resignation. This, I knew, was going to be bad. In front of her was the oldest pony I had ever met, with a color scheme that was familiar but going grey with all due speed.

I walked straight up to the two of them, with Hayli in tow.

"Mother, this is my herdmate," said Oak. The old mare stared and seemed to be working herself into a fit, before shaking her head and focusing back on Oak.

"The flock is grumble, inaudible making demanding. No safety, no anything. Demand too much-" The mare rambled and paced in her thick, rough cloak, and not for the first time I cursed my own slow understanding of the earth pony speech. She continued, "to stay or die. And she," she pointed at yours truly, "will not come. There is no place! Should we be grumble, found with that, only worse."

I froze. So did Oak. And at that moment, I heard the thunder.

The wind must have been carrying the sound away from us before, but the maelstrom was definitely centered over the village in the distance. By my best guess, the pegasi had found their earth pony serfs gone, and weren't too happy about it. No doubt about it- everything that the string of travelers weren't then carrying was being destroyed in the most violent way possible.

It hurt. It hurt like nothing had since I found myself alone in an alien forest. My body hardly felt the cold, but the sensation of tears freezing on my muzzle was unmistakable. I pushed Hayli toward Oak.

"Oak?" I said, pressing in close, to the elder's obvious discomfort. "Go, okay? Go be safe. They will not like you, if they find you. Go, and I can stop their follow tries. Okay?" My language skills were worse than usual, under the mounting stress, but Oak had always been good about picking up my meaning.

"Tham'ra, no! No, no. Hayli and I need you! Stay, mutter, we do not need-"

I shushed her, wing against her lips.

"Go and be safe, beloved lover."

I ducked down and picked up Hayli, depositing her on her mother's back, and then whirled on the elder, wings flared out as wide and as threatening as I could make them. Steam poured from my nostrils. If what I understood about the situation was correct, then...

"You!" I growled, hoof pressed tightly against the fur on the elder's chest. She tried to recoil, so I pressed in harder. "You are mother to Oak, yes? Mother of mother of Hayli, yes?" She nodded, suddenly frantic. I guess she was ready to give up on pretending that my presence didn't intimidate her. I didn't want to be scary for being part of another tribe, but I did want her to be scared. "You be mother to Oak, to Hayli, or I will find you. You understand me." It wasn't a question. I tried, in that moment, to abandon the soft pretense I'd carried since coming here. I willed her to understand that I was very alien in every damned sense of the word, that she had never met anybody like me and, heaven willing, never would have to again.

Something of that must have shown through, because she all but flinched into the snow. "Yes! Yes, I understand!"

I shuddered, the anger making my blood run hot and itchy under my own fur. I wanted to flex fists that I didn't even have, but I stifled the urge, for the moment, and turned back to Hayli.

"Good bye, daughter. Love you dearly."

She shook her head. "Mama Tham'ra? No, stay! Herd mother, stay!"

Her speech became faster, and Oak had to struggle to keep her aloft. It hurt, and always would, that I never caught every single word she'd ever said to me. I was relieved, too, that I couldn't catch every word as she begged for me to stay.

I brought my wings down with a snap, and was in the low-hanging snow front within seconds. I waited there, watching as the last of the string of earth ponies disappeared into the forest. I had to fight the urge to punch the cloud, since that would just give away my position from the lightning burst.

It only took minutes -I didn't have to wait long at all, really- for them to appear. Two scouts, in thin wooden plate armor, strafed through the upper reaches of the trees. They immediately rounded on the biggest oddity in the area- the cloud cottage that I had stuck in the tree. They rounded on it, speaking in the short, clipped pegasus dialect that held maybe one word out of ten that I might have understood, had I been closer.

One, a steely-maned mare with golden eyes, circled the cloud structure and began poking at seemingly random spots. My eyes narrowed, and I tried to figure out just what she was trying to accomplish-

With a blur and a crack, she barreled hooves-first into the roof, and the entire thing discharged lighting, a magnificent bolt of it, straight into the heart of the tree.

The upper reaches of the plant were already frozen through, and the trunk didn't so much split as it did shatter. I gaped. The two pegasi laughed and clapped each others' hooves, after having destroyed my house, they blew up my fucking house!

There had been nothing worth stealing, hardly even worth having, and even that had been abandoned to flee these fucking, these...

I would, I decided, take a page out of their book. I shut my eyes, took to the air, and did a sharp u-bend straight back down, to the protective cloud 'umbrella' I'd set far above the tree to keep us from the snow's mercy.

I saw the flash through my eyelids, and heard the cries of dismay below. Then I heard the sound of twenty hours of accumulated snowfall burying the two of them, as the force of my kick dispersed the shelf of vapor entirely. I hardly moved from my spot, then, content to hover and wait.

It didn't take the first one long to dig her way out. Wet snow clung to her fur and feathers, and she shook herself fiercely to dislodge it from her armor. Her eyes had been closed in reflex- she never saw me plow into her, forehooves first.

The mare, the one with the golden eyes, was instantly half-buried again. My hooves skimmed the top of the snow drift -and the whole surface was still steaming where the ruins of the tree boiled it on contact- and gripped her one free wing, and twisted it at exactly the wrong angle. The mare shrieked, still blinded and disoriented, as I made sure the break was too severe to let her airborne again.

Of course, the second pegasus had meanwhile broken free of the freezing, steaming snow soup and taken that moment to slam into my side.

I rolled, through frost and splintered branches, and had a hoofful scooped and ready to sling into this one's eyes even as she charged in for a second strike. She shrieked, and I made a similar noise, only louder. I bucked her chin, snapping her head back and arresting her momentum. We wrestled down the incline, but my vision was clear enough to time my fall and end up on top.

I ended up shredding half her primary feathers in the effort of snapping one of her wings, too.

"Run, run you fuckers!" I bellowed in English. The two of them, pained and disoriented, slid and collapsed their ways down the hill and back toward the game trail they had first followed in.

I shuddered. This new body of mine had been in perfect health when I had first woken up, not ten feet from where I now stood. After that, I'd done almost nothing but fly and push myself, if only to fill the empty hours.

I was angry. I was so very, very angry. Angry at the pegasi who had bled the village dry, at the villagers for casting out Oak who'd only done exactly as her herd had wanted, then to only drag her away because of their choices.

Angry at myself, too, for not understanding enough to fix it without fighting. I'd never fought in my life before that moment, but there I was with aching hooves and heaving sides.

Those scouts would reach the main body of the flock soon enough. My best bet was, what, to hide? To bury myself in the snowstorm above and pray I picked a direction they wouldn't be able to follow me? They might bypass me entirely, true, but them going after Oak and Hayli wasn't a better option. And if they did make to chase me, then they were infinitely more experienced than I was. Hell, I'd never gone beyond this narrow strip of forest in all my months here.

So there I was, unarmed and unarmored, and with a superior force coming for me. I had nothing but anger and... that was it. Even the excuse of not being in my original body wouldn't hold, since being human-shaped wouldn't have offered me any advantages, except to maybe weird them out enough to make them hesitate.

I had nothing going for me. I wished I had Tom. At least then any spell I tried might backfire spectacularly enough to take some of the flock out... with... me...

I blinked, and wavered a bit, sinking into the snow cover as my vision crossed. I had absolutely nothing but myself, true.

But even that was more than what I'd had, all those months ago at the base of the mountain.

I wasn't oblivious to my situation. I just wasn't sure what else to do. The thing to keep in mind when you're cast alone into an alien world and, obviously enough, in an alien time is that you're alone.

It was simple nature, human or otherwise, to invest myself into the safest, friendliest circumstance possible. That had been in a space under a tree with two other outcasts.

I was angry at the approaching troops for so many reasons. It would be a lie to claim that at least one of those reasons wasn't, plainly enough, that they had shaken my tenuous little comfort zone. I knew it couldn't have lasted. But they stole the chance from me to do it on my own terms. This would be the second time I had been cast out of my home.

A burning, resentful part of me decided it would be the last. That I would be on the offensive from then on out. When you're alone, you sacrifice things.

Things like mercy.

They approached in complete silence. The two scouts went first, limping and shivering along the ground. The remainder of the flock were in the trees, gliding soundlessly from branch to branch and hardly disturbing a single snowflake below. Others, more skilled at stealth or with colors more suitable for winter, circled around and ahead the small, smoldering clearing.

The scouts stopped at the hill of snow and splintered wood, and began describing just what had gone on. Trying to spin a believable tale as to how they'd been so brutally and quickly thrown off of their routine, no doubt.

I didn't plan on making it any easier for them this time, either.

Scratching in the snow hadn't worked. Smearing the hot mud over myself hadn't worked. It hadn't been hard to figure out that I'd need a more... personal medium. Before, I'd had Tom to pull magic from.

-where target(not-self) set other...

So I did the same thing I'd done the last time I'd really needed a pen and hadn't had one- I'd written out the magic script in my own blood. There'd been enough splinters lying around from my old home, after all, to make a small cut on one of my legs. The rest had just been a memory exercise, though admittedly one I had just barely managed.

...describe element(luminescence) and-not-and process...

I stepped out from under the heavy bush. The thing's drooping branches had made for a small, natural cave, and let me stay out of sight long enough for the flock to get nice and close. Instantly, every eye in the space was on yours truly.

...provide element(convection) not-self(self)-

With a flick of my hoof, I completed the rune on my chest.

-Execute spell-

Upwards of thirty pegasi, warily watching or angrily waiting to attack, beheld a lone, ragged-looking pegasus light herself on fire.

"Run, you bastards!" I bellowed. I prayed English would sound sufficiently mysterious and threatening, since I didn't think I could remember my Korean well enough. I stepped forward, and shivered at the sensation of snow flash-boiling under my hoof.

"Leave, leave the villagers!" I commanded, now in the earth pony speech. I knew at least some of the pegasi would understand it. You had to speak the lingo in order to give orders in it, after all.

"Leave them, or else burn!" I shouted, and flared my wings. The now-visible runes shrieked tunelessly, and to be honest, completely harmlessly.

Heat and noise roiled off of me, filling the air with the scent of burning paper. It threw my mane in a non-existent, fiery wind.

"Run!" I shrieked, and ran myself for the most decorated-looking pegasus among them. She wore real metal, and not just the molded wooden planks of most of her ponies. I ran for her, and fire trailed off my body like a comet's tail in the wake of every step.

It could have gone so wrong then. It wouldn't have taken much.

The moment that mare reared back and, instead of charging, turned tail and ran? I knew it had worked, then, and just had to hold on for a little while longer.

She called for some kind of retreat, and was leading by example the entire way. They hadn't come here for this- they'd expected to round up frightened villagers. They were a brute squad, scrounged from everybody who hadn't been needed to fight the experienced pegasi of the opposing flock.

I waited until they were gone. I waited another minute longer than that.

Then I collapsed.

I woke up and couldn't stop shaking. I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but I was wet and cold and felt hollow in a new and terrible way. Moving was painful- the fight against the scouts had left my muscles overextended. Still, I was beginning to feel the chill almost as badly as I had before becoming a pegasus, which was probably a very dangerous sign.

When I opened my wings, I did my best to ignore the dried blood on the inside of them. Cleaning them was a priority for later. At that moment, my only goal was to go straight up and the come back down. Long enough to snag a cloud, long enough to...

I blinked, and found myself fifty feet closer to the ground than I should have been.

"No, no, eyes up, up at that grey, featureless sky and you just stay awake, Tamara. Stay awake." My pep speech to myself didn't help much, but accidentally biting my tongue did wonders for my focus.

I focused on the task at hand. I didn't let myself consider how quickly everything had fallen apart. Or on how willingly I'd fallen into this simple little life in this strange place, all in denial of the enormity of just how badly I'd fucked myself over, trying to follow my friends across an impossible divide.

I grabbed hold of as much cloudstuff as I could, and brought it straight back down with as much the help of gravity as anything else. Back on the ground, I brute-forced it into thick, clumpy walls in a dome shape over my head. A tiny hole at the top, and a tiny hole along the base for circulation...

I built the thing over a thicket of brittle, dead bushes to save on having to gather wood. After that, it was a matter of gathering a hoof full of the vapor and agitating it, compressing it, until a got a thin, hot stream of electricity. The brush quickly caught fire, the cloud walls were too dense to let the heat escape and I...

I...

I slept, again.

Author's Notes:

Here's where we start skipping forward entire years, and more. Think of it as a highlight reel.

Mostly, it's a case study of what happens when you take away nerd's Wikipedia and give her the ability to set things on fire with her mind.