Chapter Six

"Alright," I said. "I have to ask. What was the whole business with the mirror world?"

Twilight winced. "It's properly a 'subdimensional pocket. Not a 'real' universe, but a reflection of ours. And I have no idea why the natives were human. Or... human-like. The mirror's construction pre-dates modern history."

"Proof of other connections like this rift of yours?" I asked.

Twilight shrugged, then nudged her game piece. I did my best to hide my disappointment- she had just all but killed my rook with that move, and with nothing to gain for the sacrifice. I didn't much like no-win scenarios.

The wind picked up a bit, and I tightened my coat rather than complain. Suggesting we move or put the game off until later would break the peaceful little mood we had going. The fading light in the sky was still enough to let us continue up here for another half hour.

"It's all a big mystery, to be honest." The mare stretched her neck, and resumed letting her eyes dart over the board. "It seems there are just too darned many of those, and not enough time in the day. I wouldn't want to break from what I have, but just having a little time to canter backwards and get a good look at things would be nice."

"The world's not nice enough to give anybody that kind of time to just think, Twilight," I said, grinning and nudging a pawn forwards. "Wishful thinking gets you nowhere. Or maybe it does get you somewhere, and I've just been doing it wrong this whole time."

Twilight snickered. "You're doing it wrong."

"Was that a meme?" I grinned. "Oh my gosh, my baby grew up and said her first meme! I need to take a picture." I stopped, there, and turned thoughtful. "Wait. Would that bypass whatever makes it so I see through your disguises? What does human Twilight look like?"

The unicorn shrugged. "You know? I actually have no idea. We should get a camera after our game. I guess no different, relatively speaking, than you would look as a pony."

"Probably completely ridiculous," I said. "All black and red, with glowing eyes. And half phoenix- like some sort of spontaneously-combusting hippogryph. My cutie mark would be an exploding planet."

Twilight promptly fell out of her chair.

An hour later, with the both of us crowded around a tiny camera viewer, I declared human Twilight to be adorkable. She began pelting me with couch cushions.

Thirty years since the scrying pool. The seaponies had moved on, and something less... wholesome had moved in, making another attempt not worth it.

I stared over one of the many parapets lining King Bullion's northernmost outpost. The royal family had tried to mandate an air of celebration, while at the same time spamming every courtyard with armored battle mages. I watched one pony try to manage a game stall while one of the posted sentries just stood there and stared at him. Stared and stared. I was pretty sure the showpony was about to experience some sort of psychotic break under the strain.

Miles away, along the grand promenade, my latest assistant was putting on a one-mare play. Tiny Tinder had delusions of thespianism. No doubts my cart had been nailed up as the backing to an improvised stage by now.

This, the presentation of Princess Platinum as heir apparent to the unicorn tribe, united, was probably the first party I'd ever received an engraved invitation to. Imagine my surprise when, while plot-deep in a swamp and digging for sunken dragon placards, a messenger found me and bowed, before presenting a wax-sealed envelope.

TIny Tinder had actually fainted at the news.

So here I was, with every excuse in the world to meet the latest rising star in magical circles:

Starswirl the Bearded.

Thirty-two years old and with hardly more than a scraggly goatee, the already-famous mage had been retained as a tutor to the new princess. Rumor had it he was looking after a student, too, the little upstart.

I smirked at the thought. 'Upstart'. By the way Twilight had gone on about the stallion, I had no doubts he could tear me apart, in a classic mage's duel. Maybe. I was tempted to find out.

The point was, though, that 'Platinum' and 'Starswirl' were names that I knew. They painted my place in history. Pre-Equestria, yes, but only barely. Here I'd spent so much time wondering at my own fate, bemoaning the crumbling nature of the world around me, and I hadn't had the perspective to see that I was trotting through the start of a new age!

Even though the end of this age was marked by death and ice, and by hate made incarnate in the feral Windigos.

I felt somber. Other names, too, had come up. Commander Hurricane had succeeded Squall, after the old mad bastard had led a final charge against the face of a sheer granite cliff. Nobody was certain if it had been suicide or if the senile fellow had seen the rock as a legitimate threat that needed punching. Creme Puddinghead had been voted in as the speaker for the earth ponies. I stretched my memory back as far as it could go, but no solid mention had been made of when the royal pony sisters had been born. Discord had appeared, 'at some point'. But the possible disparity in the timelines stretched for a good fifty years more.

I was still a good fifteen centuries away from the present, and I was pushing seventy. A strange seventy, maybe, and with far more vitality than I could explain, but I might be pushing a century before I met the two ponies I knew might be able to pass on even a short message to the future.

I hadn't left my family on good terms, once upon a time. I'd like to at least forgive them for being contrary-minded bastards, even if they didn't appreciate it. And my old group deserved to know I made it alive and safe, more or less. They had been my anchors, after all. In a lot of ways they still were.

Frankly, I wondered that half my purpose in keeping assistants around was to keep me from talking to Linda, Jill, and Crazy Dan until I became convinced that they were talking back.

"Lady Tham'ra?"

I pulled away from the edge, and brought my attention to one of the many nameless attendants who ran around the keep. He gestured toward the trap door at the parapet's center. "We are about to begin the dinner, lady. If you would follow me." His eyes flickered toward to the space beneath my cloak. "By hoof, if you would."

I gave him my most creepy, enigmatic smile. I'd had a long time to practice it. When he recoiled, I said, "Of course. I can keep to my hooves as well as anybody else. I understand having to look up causes quite the strain."

I followed after him, keeping to a straight face even as, every time he glanced back to make sure I wasn't doing something particularly insane, he would trip over the stairs.

It had been more than a friendly reminder on his part- Bullion had declared every unicorn settlement to be a 'no-fly zone'. Any pegasus that approached by wing was automatically marked for death. The poor stallion was probably prone to high blood pressure, or something. Or would be, soon enough. I was all too aware that this tentative peace wouldn't last.

The functionary dropped me off at the entrance of the banquet hall, where I proceeded to ignore him and do my own thing. I had to see a beard about a thing.

Only, Starswirl was nowhere to be found. I resisted the urge to gain some height to search -again, marked for death if I flew, though that only made me want to fly more- and decided to wing it.

I almost groaned- I had lasted maybe an hour as a pegasus before succumbing to using pony puns. By my current guesstimate, I owed the old pun jar back on Earth about fifteen thousand dollars, plus interest.

My head was bare, but I decided to live up to my reputation by gathering a sizable pile of hors d'oeuvres and levitating them along behind me, like a row of ducklings. I got stares, and some of them seemed to be of recognition rather than straight confusion.

"Lady Tham'ra, a pleasure."

I found myself facing an unfamiliar mare, teal and white, hovering along a crystal decanter and glass. I bowed.

"Is it?" I asked. "It would seem so, but then who's to say?"

"I am," she said, laughing. "Countess Mallard. I've heard a great deal about you. But then, who hasn't?"

"I haven't the faintest," I replied, looking around. "But I imagine that would include anybody looking at me as if I were wearing a torch on my head." I grinned. "I could work up an illusion- it would give them a real excuse to stare!"

Mallard seemed viciously delighted at the notion. "I think the stares are just from those who don't quite get enough fresh air. A witch in her seventh decade, racing through the most dangerous corners of the Paradise Estate. How do you do it?"

"Walk upon alien worlds, die upon the base of a mountain, and be cast away in the presence of a mad god," I informed her.

The countess blinked. "Oh, dear. I was hoping it was just some brand of wrinkle cream."

At that, I laughed. "I only wish!" I gestured with some sort of rhubarb biscuit. "I assume you're waiting with bated breath for the princess to show?"

"Oh, but of course. We're seventh cousins, you know- I'm two hundred and thirty-seventh from the crown, myself."

I smile, and tried not to betray how absolutely creepy it sounded, that she knew that off the top of her head. Royalty were, just, just damn. I occupied my mouth with a biscuit and surveyed the room. No luck there, still.

"I admit I came with some ulterior motives," I said. "I heard that old... er, young Starswirl is in residence. I found some dragon writings, recently, that he might be interested in."

"The mage, yes," said Mallard, waving off the notion as beneath her notice. "But dragons, you say? Massive brutes, aren't they?"

"Oh yes," I said. "They write on tablets the size of a grown mare- hard to use quills, you see."

Already, I was looking desperately for an escape. I even found one, in a matter of speaking.

"Pardon me," I said, waving off the countess. "Witch's business, you understand."

I pushed through a thin crowd, snacks marching after me in line, and came up to an acquaintance. Of sorts.

"Captain! Captain Letra Belle, how are you, old bean?"

The mane sticking out from under her helmet was streaked with grey, her coat was thinning, and I would give credit to any rumor that said she suckled the bone marrow from her fallen enemies. She snorted angrily at the sight of me, and a few thin sparks of magic danced off the tip of her horn.

"Witch. Witch. I pray you arrived sans invitation, that I might have an excuse to-"

"Nope!" I waved the gold-embossed leaflet. "Your darling king wanted me here, Hell Belle!" I noted one of her subordinates, lining the wall as she was, trying not to laugh at the nickname given to the captain by her own troops.

"Our, king, you insufferable wretch," growled Belle.

"It's pronounced 'witch'," I lectured. "With an 'ih' noise. Close though. As to the king," I rubbed, with an expression of absolute shock, my completely bare forehead. "King of all of us, you say? He so enjoys the title, though. Unicorn king? It's up there on his coat of arms..."

Letra Belle was about three snorts away from an aneurysm. I'd stake my nonexistent horn on it.

"An entire platoon disappeared, last year," the captain said, voice gone quiet. "Your... mobile shack was spotted in the area."

"I'm well-traveled," I admitted. "Did this all happen near that pegasus herd? The one mining copper on unconsolidated lands? The ones who weren't doing anybody any harm?"

"That territory was on the king's declared warpath..."

"It's a shame he never got that war," I said, shaking my head. "Hey, wouldn't you know it, I found a full complement of shiny new spears within days of that happening?"

I should have stopped myself. I really should have, but Miss Belle and I had history. The mare was half a minute away from taking me on a candle-lit hate date with all the autoerotic asphyxiation I never asked for.

'Oh, god, I'm recreating the old youtube comments section in my own head. I need a drink,' I thought.

"Enjoy the party, Hell Belle. I'm sure you'll be waiting to send me off the second I step away from the keep."

And bless me, but I could put a smile on anybody's face.

At the punch bowl, something deep enough to host a family of geese, I was assaulted by a long-suffering sigh.

"She really does hate you, you know," said the sigh's owner.

I nodded, and replaced the ladle. "That may be, but she's cute when she's angry."

"You... have a very odd taste in mares."

I lifted my drink, looked to see who my latest conversation partner was, and nearly painted his fancy beard with rose-pear punch. Gentlestallion that he was, Starswirl held my drink as I tried to deflate my lungs properly.

"S... sorry. I'm good, now." I took my drink back. "You know, I was looking for you," I told the mage.

"Oh, goody, I'm famous! And here Clover thought I was putting on airs," said the stallion with a smirk.

"Your fame will grow. Someday, little fillies will idealize you and your fine facial hair," I told him with a straight face.

"Dear lord, you really think so? I'll hold my breath," he added, but still seemed legitimately pleased at the thought. I wished I had been joking, just then, but...

"I propose a dialogue," I said, the greater point to my even having come here being just that. "I've found... a wide range of magical lore, and I hear you're quite the pioneer."

"Forty spells and counting," he said, buffing the front of his delightfully tacky, Dumbledore-esque robes. That, I knew, was less than a fifth of what he would one day accomplish, and that was just in individual spells. His theories, experiments and journals would occupy an entire wing of a future nation's capitol library.

"Have you done any study in the areas concerning... time?" I asked.

He beamed, which I took as a good sign. Then he had to go and say, "Just this autumn, that is, second autumn, peranua, I devised a pure-cast spell which will tell time to the nearest tenth of a second!"

"I meant something a bit more involved," I said, trying not to let my smile break like so much fine china. "Say a mare wanted to visit a point many years in the future. To see how the grandfoals are doing, for instance."

The unicorn's hat rose under the lifting power of his eyebrows. "I've... I've theorized that one might visit the past, as if scrying with a physical anchor. It would take more power than any dozen unicorns had on hand. The future, let alone visiting it..."

"Say one weren't to visit, but to emmigrate," I tried.

"That..." He shook his head. "You propose losing lengths of time that, after having traversed them, could never be gotten back. How detached would one have to be to leave behind so much?"

"Very," I admitted. Then the fellow went and surprised me.

"You are said to have walked a great many years, Lady Tham'ra. Have you been taking such steps forward?" he asked, scholastic excitement coloring his voice.

"It... might very well appear to be like that," I admitted. "But it isn't, or else I wouldn't be seeking such a method now. I'm an oddity." My grin came back in full force. "In case you couldn't tell."

"You know, it did occur to me," said the mage. "But back to the matter at hoof? What is your motivation, lady witch?"

"Imagine having heard a prophecy, the conclusion of which you'd like to see in person. Only, it was set to be fulfilled many, many years in the future. That's not entirely accurate, but it's the best way I have of explaining myself at the moment." I shrugged.

"Well." Starswirl stirred his own punch. "Should I find or write such lore, I shall keep you in mind."

"Then I'll just be sure to share tidbits here and there, to keep your interest," I told him. "For starters, I have some sketches of Himmelgart's third testament in my saddlebag and I think you might very well like a copy. Here..."

I was sandwiched between two nobles so stuck-up their nostrils had begun migrating toward their ears, I'd had to listen to an hour of terrible, dry speeches, and some inconsiderate fuck had planned the coming appetizer filled to the brim with radishes, but I was still feeling pretty good. Starswirl and I were practically nerdbuddy palhonchos, and the rest of the courses couldn't possibly be as bad.

Trumpets blared. My head, as well as every other present in the hall, zeroed in on the main table. Red carpets were strewn, rose petals were thrown, and a tiny unicorn in a trailing dress was led at the shoulder by King Bullion himself.

Princess Platinum was... she was...

My mouth went dry. I was staring at a teenage Rarity. Her mane was done differently, and she held herself differently than the mare who had once gone behind my back to layer my bedroom with mauve brocade, but it was unmistakable.

I had a terrible suspicion as to whom, exactly, Starswirl's apprentice resembled.

"Presenting, her royal highness, sixth of her line, heir to the unicorn throne, bearer of the rings forged in the heart of Dream Valley, and lady of the noble Majesterial line, Princess Platinum!"

I was jolted from my shocked little headspace, and so joined in on the rapid tapping of the tabletops. What else was there to do but applaud?

We ate, toasted repeatedly to the new princess, and I did my best all the while to distract myself by reciting spell script in my head. I'd figured out quite a number of them, by that point in my life.

It wasn't until the dessert course was served that anything went especially wrong. King Bullion excused himself early, sweating heavily. He lingered just long enough to kiss Platinum on the cheek, and left with a whole guard contingent. I wondered if that was normal, for the king, or if he'd been called away on some military matter. Unicorns were notoriously paranoid, after all.

But maybe with good reason.

"The king!"

A soldier, helmet hanging by its strap, barreled into the room at top speed, skidding straight into the main table. Diners were shunted to either side. He brought both forehooves down on the setting with a sharp crack, and shouted.

I watched Rar... Platinum's face as the panicking stallion screamed to the room that the king had fallen dead upon the stairway. The news was screeched at top volume not a foot from her ear, and at first the words hardly seemed to impact her. She didn't seem to know how to parse it.

She stumbled, like a puppet, as Starswirl took her by the withers and ushered her out of the room.

I saw the look on Letra Belle's face, and fled through the stampeding crowd.

"Damn all architects, damn everything!"

The guards were in as much a panic as the nobles. I backed into an alcove and watched three nearly come to blows as they tried to pass on contradictory orders to each other. The names of several outsiders, ambassadors and persons of interest were mentioned along with, 'warrants for arrest'. My name came up more than once.

And the keep was just too fucking maze-like for me to find the exit! Like hell would I take to the windows above a crowd of trigger-happy unicorns.

I'd already covered my cloak in illusion, changing the apparent style and cut until I was literally swathed in green.

"Psst!"

I readied a fire spell, holding the script-vapor tight against my plumage. I was in an alcove, and the noise had come from behind me.

"Psst, Miss Witch! Ma'am, lady? Please come this way!"

Twilight Sparkle stood behind me, robed like an ascetic monk and looking terrified.

I swallowed back bile. "You... would be Clover."

She looked shocked that I actually knew her name, but nodded eagerly. "Yes! My master sent me to find you, only I don't know all the hidden passages yet, and I can't imagine whatever strange magic you might have that would be contradictory to any expected-"

"Yes, thank you," I said, cutting off the same level of babble I used to spew like a fire hydrant as a teenager. Fitting, I guessed, since Clover looked to be about thirteen.

I tried not to think about how adorable Twilight Sparkle's baby pictures must have been.

"Master Starswirl sent me to find you! Please come this way, Lady Tham'ra!"

For lack of a better option, and for lack of any desire to say no to that face, I nodded. She disappeared behind a tapestry, and I remembered how it had been almost six decades since I last read 'Harry Potter'.

The passage wound sharply, and at times I had to get creative just to keep the young mare in my sights, but eventually we stopped in a tall, dank chamber that looked uncomfortably like an oubliette. The only light came off of Clover's horn, so I brought up some illusory flames.

The purple mare stared, wide-eyed. "How are you managing... no." She rapped on her own skull. "Focus! Okay. My master is aware that you are in dire straits, and asked I show you one of the hidden passages out of the keep."

I smiled. My new nerdbuddy was already paying out in spades.

"But!" said the little unicorn. "Should he find you had anything to do with this he shall..." and here Clover grew uncomfortable. "He shall hunt you like an errant dragon's pigmeal, and slaughter you accordingly." She swallowed, and shrunk in on herself.

"Your teacher is awesome," I told her, which shocked her right out of her fear. "Tell him he has my thanks, and that I taste nothing like pig. He may find me when he will, and I'll be happy to speak magic to his heart's content. Stay safe, little Clover."

"Oh! Um, I'll let him know!" Clover seemed pleased at a job well done, and aimed her horn off to the left. "That shall take you to the base of Granite-hoof Pass. Stars shine on you, my lady!"

"And on you," I said, casting a lazy salute.

Ducking into the passage, I found myself quietly saying, "My, young people these days are so polite oh god I just said that I really just argh!"

I set off down the hall, and wondered if this passage, like another from so long ago, was similarly meant to funnel prostitutes in under the eye of the public. Then I wondered if I could make Clover's head explode by asking her that very question.

"Tinder!"

The skittish mare jumped, getting about two feet of air.

"Yes, lady Tham'ra?" she said, spinning in place and saluting. I landed on the cart and began kicking the shutters closed.

"We're leaving immediately," I told her. "Get us ready and... take off that wig, please. It is incredibly distracting."

"At once!" she said, shuffling out of her costume. I'd have felt bad, but there was a complete absence of any audience whatsoever to her one-mare show.

"Where to, my lady?" she asked, pulling on the harness and pulling us toward the road.

"West. Southwest," I corrected myself. "Events are coming to a head, and there's only one place for us to go."

"Oh. And that is?"

"The same place as everybody else is going," I said, pulling out the very same notes I'd shown Starswirl earlier that evening. On it, a positively ancient worm had described the migratory routes that the strongest of their flyers would take every ten years, beyond the western sea. It described a particularly wild land, fertile and full of new peoples found nowhere in the entire Paradise Estate.

"After we reach..." I rifled through a few pages, "the coast, and Amaranth Port, I'll be releasing you from my services, Tiny."

The entire cart jolted, and the mare looked back in shock. "May, ah, may I ask why? Tham'ra, have I done something wrong?" she asked.

"Not at all," I said, smiling more for her sake than for mine. "It seems I'll have to stay in one place for as many as a couple years. It's... important that you go back home. Your brothers are likely worried for you."

"Those lunkheads? Well, I mean, maybe. I guess," Tiny admitted. She was terrible at hiding the affection she held for her siblings- three brothers was a rarity in even large pony herds. "Will you be okay, though?"

"Fine. Probably even great," I said. "In fact, I think I'll be letting you go with a bonus. Do the Red Hill Brigands still operate on the Narcissan road? We haven't visited them in a while."

We traveled long into the night, and it took us some time to notice that the unicorns had delayed dawn by an entire hour, in mourning for their king.

The Amaranth Port was beautiful. Not picturesque, since mud slides and heavy waves hit it from either side regularly, but it had its own strange charm.

Most importantly, any large group of travelers would have to pass through if they were to travel anywhere up the western coast, with the mountains cutting off the mainland any further north. So if, hypothetically speaking, several tribes of ponies had to abandon the center of the subcontinent, they would have to travel down around the mountains and back up through my little crow's nest in order to do so.

I gave Tiny a hug, ushered her off, and began my search for somewhere to put a bed. On the trip there, I'd somehow begun picturing, nay, fantasizing about a real bed. My little cart cot had done me proud, but...

"Pegasus down. No, spun wool?"

And thus you had a witch, wandering down the main road of Amaranth, talking to herself out loud. I was pretty certain that at that point I'd long since just settled for 'raving eccentric'.

I marched into town hall, demanded loudly that somebody tell me where I could find a house, and was pointed toward a property broker by some nervous clerk. I thanked her, pretended to lay a curse upon all her enemies, and marched right back out.

"Hello?" I called, entering a dim, lantern-lit hall a few minutes later. "Hello, I need a house, please. I will take one house, to go. Preferably with a bed that... that I haven't quite decided on. Forget the bed for now, let's talk houses."

"Do you mind?"

I blinked, hard, and turned toward the desk placed furthest in the corner. A unicorn, ridiculously tall for his tribe and wearing a roughly-spun jacket was glaring at me. The place was otherwise empty.

"Should I? Mind, I mean. Can you get me a house?" I asked him.

He stared, looking out-of-sorts enough to completely forget his irritation. That passed quickly enough. "No, seriously. It's eighth day- why would you expect any sort of office, anywhere, to be open? Let alone expect to be able to buy a house?!"

"I don't often keep track of the days," I admitted. "That's my assistant's job and she... well, she's gone home. Permanently. Um. Can you give me house with a calendar, while we're at it?"

The stallion sighed. "I just explained this- no houses today. No anything today. Unless it's in the market square, and I doubt the farmers have houses at hoof, then you're out of luck. Find lodging and try again tomorrow, when ponies are actually working."

"You're working," I noted, trotting closer. I had to duck a pile of loose parchment, which had avalanched off of one of the empty desks at some point in the past.

"For lack of..." he cut himself off. "Yes, I suppose, I'm working." He looked at his own desk with an expression of absolute misery.

"You look down," I told him. "Would you like some candy? Ponies keep telling me I'm old, so I keep thinking I have to be filling some sort of stereotype, here."

He stared. "What? No. What?" He shook his head, sending his loose, heavy mane dangerously close to an open bottle of ink. Not, I think, that he'd notice. His mane was a deep, navy blue, and his coat was almost as dark. His jacket was large and loose enough to cover his flank, which I imagined held a cutie mark -sorry, 'talent mark' for stallions- depicting a rageaholic office temp.

"House?" I tried, once more.

"No," he said.

"Fine," I bit out. "But I'll have you know I'm an ancient and powerful witch. Demons fear to face me."

"You must have awful bedmane," he snapped back. "Come back tomorrow."

I slept in the cart, just outside the city limits. Some hours after moonrise, I clambered to the top of the vehicle and stretched my wings, calming myself by picking out microcurrents in the air. Far above me, in the hills that backed Amaranth, dark shapes whirled in tight spirals, dancing and chasing each other. They didn't seem to be dragons, so I tried not to let myself be bothered. Night flyers were rare, but there was always some pegasus, somewhere, willing to take the late watch.

"There once was a..." I trailed off, then tried again. "In the town of Amaranth, where the ocean tide slowly chewed at the hills of... no. Just no."

I couldn't remember the story I'd been working on, before jumping into magic pony land. I think it had had vampires, maybe. Or giant leeches. Something that stole blood, anyways. I must have recently gotten a blood test done when I'd come up with that one.

But I still couldn't recall. I wondered if I could still draw a human face from memory. It wouldn't have to be a good one- head width was five eye-widths, hair line was generally at one third of...

I gave it up as a bad job. It was late, and I was tired, and with any luck this town would have a more extensive library than 'what the mayor's got on her shelf'.

I waved a good night up at the wheeling shapes above, shut the cart door behind me, and slept.

For the second time in two days, I barged into the property broker's building. This time, it was actually busy with ponies at work. The place was like a realtor's office from back on Earth, only if somebody had fed it through Robin Hood's wood chipper, first.

"I would like one house, please," I announced, revving up my previous spiel. A greasy-looking mare slunk over to me with a grin too wide to indicate a healthy, sane mind.

"Yes, how can I help you?" she asked.

"I want a house. Square-ish, with a calendar in it if at all possible. Beds are negotiable. Where's that grumpy fellow I was talking to before?" I asked.

"Grumpy fellow?" The mare looked confused. "Were you speaking to one of my agents, perhaps?"

"Sounds about right," I said, rearing up to spot the grumpy stallion at his desk. "Perfect! That's the one- he owes me a house."

"You want him?" the mare asked, looking upset.

"I doubt he comes with the house," I remarked. I tromped up in front of his desk and rapped my hoof on the edge. "Hey there. Can I have my house, now?"

He glanced up at me, sighed, and said, "Oh. You're back. How... nice." He was looking, just a bit frantically, toward the mare at the front of the office.

I tapped his desk again until he paid attention. "Yes. One house please. Show me some properties, or whatever it is you do. You're a broker. Broke them to me."

"Well, you'll have to provide proof of assets," he said, shuffling a small pile of papers uncomfortably. "That is to say, so I can match you to something within your means. Maybe you could describe your ideal housing situation..."

I ducked my head under my cloak, rummaged through one of the large pockets I'd had sewn into it for me, and came back up with a diamond in my teeth.

"Here," I said. "I can pay in dawnstones. It's real- hold it up to the sun and it hums." He stared, so I tried, "Is that worth a house? I have more."

"We... may have to see a jeweler first."

"Let's go!" I declared, dragging the stallion along. The office had gone dead silent when I pulled out the gem, so I took advantage of the shock to clear out of there.

We had gotten half a block around the corner before the stallion understood what was happening, and muscled us both to a stop.

"What are you- what is wrong with you?" He jerked away, jacket fluttering like he was standing in a high wind.

"I want a house, and you can show me houses," I told him. Really, we'd already covered this ground before.

"I'm just a clerk! They wouldn't put me out to do this sort of work even if I wasn't!" He shouted, then abruptly clamped his jaw shut and glanced around nervously. "Look, let's just go back, shall we? Land Share can get you set up and deal with..." he waved his hooves at me, as if he could possibly encompass all of my many, many virtues in one package. "Alright?"

"Nope!" I said. "Though I'm curious- why not you?" I leaned in more closely. "Is it that you were the only male in there? Is it your... wings?"

"Yes!" he hissed, before he froze and realized just what he'd gone and confirmed.

I'd met all sorts in my travels. I went to out-of-the-way places, and so met a lot of out-of-place people. Hermits, freaks, the metaphorical and, sometimes even literal, cursed. Decent people, hurting and distant, and only set apart because, in a land of paranoid, close-knit herds, differences were shunned in short order. One or two of the less closed-off ones had been assistants of mine, in time.

Even in magic pony land, not one of them... us, walked without flaws.

The pegacorn. The half-breed. My first time coming face to face with a bitter mare who had settled atop the Ramshorn Hills had nearly given me a heart attack, me thinking she was an actual alicorn. She had mistaken awe for disgust, and I had left her to herself out of shame. How could I explain? How could I tell her, 'I too have spent two lifetimes in bodies that I hadn't asked for, and I understand'?

I returned to that spot years later, and she had long since vanished. I had left feeling shame, and still felt it, at how I hadn't been quick enough to just... reach out. I might have failed had I tried, yeah, but I never took the chance to succeed, either.

"That's fine with me," I said, smile pasted to my face like a kindergartner who had been drinking Elmer's glue from the tap. "Can you show me a house anyway? This might be your break- not everybody can help a witch buy her first house, ever."

Really, it was stretching things to claim that the cart, which I'd more conquered than bought, counted.

"You-!" The stallion's covered feathers bristled. He was a tall one. He loomed very well, but then I'd been loomed over by the best. Spoilers- flutterponies loom best of all.

"So you're crazy and a witch," he growled. "Great. Going to tell my fortune are you? Here's a hint- it probably involves the loss of my job."

"I don't do fortunes," I admitted. "Not normally, and I'm cheating most the time when I do, anyway. But, yes. Witch." The Illusive Illusion was one of the most adaptable skills I had. It could mimic any of my other spells, and minus the final effect, was a low-cost way of winning a lot of situations where I wasn't facing another illusionist. Those who had seen me cast the real things once, forever after reacted to the illusions as if they were dodging real streaks of fire.

In this instance, it was flowers and bunny rabbits. A sickeningly cute garden seemed to crawl right out of the dirty, unevenly paved road. A bunny nuzzled my fetlock. Another tried to to the same to the shell-shocked pegacorn, but he danced out of the way before he could feel that there was, in fact, nothing there to feel.

"Call me Tham'ra. You might have heard of me."