Scootaloo shifted her collar slightly. Her new uniform was not unpleasant; in fact, it was of much greater quality than her standard-issue naval uniform. The fabric was a much higher grade of ballistic fiber, but its design hardly betrayed that fact. The normally brown-yellow or dark-dyed material was now perfect white, accented only by the threadwork around the ultra-light armored inserts. It even came with a small superfluous skirt.

According to Wintygust, Scootaloo looked amazing. Arguably, Scootaloo knew that she did too; after all, the Priestess garb and naval uniforms were both designed by Rarity herself, and they were not even that much dissimilar. Still, Scootaloo could not help but feel out of place in it. Clothing like this had never been meant for Pegasi; Scootaloo could even feel where the back had been modified to accommodate her disproportionally tiny wings.

Twilight’s couriers had been fast- -incredibly so. Scootaloo was not sure what she had expected, but it was almost frightening how much effort Twilight had put into supplying this mission. Not only had the delivery craft brought Scootaloo a new uniform, but they had brought mountains of provisions and technological modifications to compensate for the RENS Failure’s dying Core.

In all, though, Scootaloo had mixed feelings. Twilight’s unilateral decision irked her, but she had never really been terribly invested in her role in the Royal Navy- -and being a Priestess could only be an advantage. Still, the suddenness of it bothered her. That, and the uncertainty of how this would affect Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo paused at a door in one of the higher level cargo bays. The majority of them were empty- -but not this one. Scootaloo tapped on the door.

“Dr. Heart? Are you in there?”

There was no response.

“I’m coming in,” said Scootaloo. She activated the security panel on the side of the door, and it slid open. Scootaloo was immediately greeted by an unpleasant smell, something like a combination of decay and very old wood mixed with something sharp and chemical. It was the smell that often clung to Lemon Heart’s body and clothing as she moved throughout the ship.

As Scootaloo entered, the situation only got worse. She had never been in Lemon Heart’s lab before- -of the ponies on the ship, only Wintrygust had, and only once. Since Heart was an independent contractor, she was expected to be offered some level of privacy. Scootaloo shuddered to see how Heart had used it.

The doctor had clearly made herself at home, largely by displaying numerous taxidermy animals throughout the bay. There was a preserved bear in one corner, and the wall was lined with several moose heads, deer heads, and various skulls, all mounted with the most morbid of care. Various birds and small, fuzzy creatures lined the various shelves, forming a kind of perverse and silent forest scene as ducks and dogs conversed with badgers and quail, among other things.

Scootaloo shivered. “Wow,” she said to herself. “It’s a good thing Fluttershy isn’t here to see this.”

Despite the animals lining the walls, the bay was mostly filled with large, wooden shelves bolted to the ground. Their fronts were covered in glass to secure the samples, but as Scootaloo walked between them, she could still see the contents. Most of them she could not identify- -not did she want to- -but some she could not help but recognize. Among those were a number of half-preserved pony heads floating in gelatinous liquid, and several jars filled entirely with preserved Core horns.

The high ceiling was also decorated with a number of hooks. Suspended from many of them were Core spines and component architectures in various stages of disassembly, assembly, or decay. Scootaloo realized that with those and with much of the racks of surgical equipment and machinery that stood on the edges of the room, Lemon Heart probably had the capacity to do an entire Core conversion surgery if she had access to a filly or colt to perform it on.

While contemplating a set of dusty squirrels that had been arranged to appear to be debating the contents of a poster-sized schematic annotated in Old Tartaran, Scootaloo suddenly bumped into a tall pony.

“Oh, excuse me,” she said. She looked up, and her eyes widened. “Wait- -who are YOU?”

Almost as soon as she asked, she realized that the pinkish earth-pony stallion standing before her would never be able to answer. His glass eyes stared blankly ahead, unable to acknowledge Scootaloo’s presence. There was no sight, no life: he had been killed and stuffed.

“Ah, Scootaloo,” said Dr. Heart, suddenly appearing from behind a shelf. Her sudden appearance made Scootaloo jump. Lemon Heart approached, holding something in her magic. She tried to obscure it, but Scootaloo had already seen that it was a narrow pony skull with a metallic horn surgically imbedded in its forehead. Heart plopped it in a jar of formaldehyde and gestured toward a portly preserved rodent.

“Do you like my beaver?” she said with a smile. Her smile suddenly faded. “I hear you’re a big fan of beavers…”

“What the hay is this?” said Scootaloo, pointing at the stuffed pony beside her.

“Oh, him?” said Heart. “That’s just Strawberry.”

“You have a preserved pony corpse on my ship, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Why would I have to tell you? He’s just an earth pony. Or used to be.” Nonchalantly, she started walking back through the shelves. Scootaloo followed. “He is quite a specimen, though. If I do say so myself.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little morbid? Just a little?”

Heart glared over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t have such a high opinion of them if you had been around for the Huntsmare Uprising.”

Scootaloo stopped walking. Heart approached a large oak desk and climbed into the chair, adjusting a large hawk that stood on the bookshelf behind her and pushing some of the various schematics and notebooks to the side.

“The Huntsmare Uprising was over three hundred years ago,” said Scootaloo, slowly.

“Indeed,” said Heart, almost wistfully. “I was just a filly when it happened. They tried to storm my family’s castle, and well, I think seeing all of those filthy peasants get torn up by an auto-turret might have- -” she giggled “- -affected me.” She sighed. “Of course, the regulations were…unfortunate.”

Scootaloo wracked her mind, trying to remember Equestrian history. It was not difficult to recall, though. The Huntsmare Uprising was a historically significant event for the earth pony race.

“The regulations?” said Scootaloo. She looked back at the earth pony behind her, wondering just how long taxidermy lasted. “You mean...how Celestia’s decree banning the sport hunting of earth ponies?”

“I know! Totally absurd! The sport was already a dying art at the time, but my family had practiced it for centuries. I can still remember my father taking me out on the hunt. The misty mornings, the sounds of their hooves as they scattered….ah, good times.” She frowned. “Of course, we tried to use breeders. They failed miserably. They don’t run. They don’t even try. They can watch you put a bullet in their friend’s head, and they’ll just stand there. Idiots.”

“And Strawberry?”

“Heavens no. He was a servant, relatively recently. Fifty, sixty years? You lesser races, you just don’t live very long.”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with anything you just said?”

Heart shrugged, leaning back in her chair. “Nope.” She pulled something out of her desk with her magic, as well as a screwdriver. She began to work on whatever it was, attaching pieces to it an occasionally glancing at her schematics. “Besides. It is not as though earth ponies are good for anything apart from being farmers.”

“One of my best friends is an earth pony. And my best helmsmare was too.”

Heart looked over her work. “And what did they do for a living?”

“Applebloom was…well…a farmer. And Rose was in the navy.”

“And where is this Rose now?”

“She retired. And started a florist shop in the Rose Nebula colony.”

“So, growing flowers. I can see why they demoted you. But no so much why they re-moted you.” Heart’s lavender magic pulled at Scootaloo’s high thread count collar. “Seriously…this uniform was not meant for you. A Pegasus Priestess…it’s absurd. It casts doubt on the entire Cult of Harmony.”

Scootaloo just looked over the top of the desk. “Are you finished yet?”

Heart just continued to twist her screwdriver, her violet eyes staring into Scootaloo’s. “You have a level head, don’t you?”

“I’ve been through a lot,” said Scootaloo, calmly.

“This is good. I knew that choosing your ship was a good choice to continue my work.” She gestured around her. “I tend to do things that, well…are best left without the Company’s oversight.”

“So I’m just your cover?”

“Mostly, yes. But my work is critical to the future of Equestria.”

“And what, exactly, is it?”

Lemon Heart smiled broadly, and Scootaloo knew that she had just asked the wrong question. Asking scientists what they were doing was never a good idea, but with Dr. Heart, it was no doubt going to be something grotesque.

“I have been a Core engineer for most of my life. I have worked on projects you can’t even dream of, and had access to knowledge that even the Fleet Commander doesn’t know.” She picked up a container. The front was transparent, revealing a partly disassembled but still-living bone inside, its marrow exposed. “What if I told you that the substance responsible for our magic is a discrete element, a material that can convert neurological signals into gravitonic waves- -arcanium, we call it- -was present in the bones of all ponies at some level?”

“I would say that is heresy,” said Scootaloo. “You of all ponies should realize that. Only unicorns are able to use magic.”

“Yes, we are, but only because of our innate anatomy.” Heart gestured toward her golden horn. “But what if it were possible to artificially raise the arcanium levels in lesser-value ponies and dissipate it WITHOUT a horn? Think of it, Scootaloo- -we wouldn’t need to waste unicorn lives on Cores anymore! We could build them out of earth ponies, breeders, criminals, the poor! The expendable! And the amount we could make...” she giggled uncontrollably. “So many ships…” She suddenly cleared her throat. “But I suppose I will have to move my work elsewhere. For now, at least.”

Scootaloo was not sure how to feel about what Heart had just described. Once again, she found herself at a moral crossroads. As a naval officer, she understood the necessity of Cores- -they were the technology that allowed faster-than-light spaceflight, and critical both to maintaining the Equestrian Empire and to its defense. At the same time, she had seen what it took to make a Core, and what they were. She had seen what it had done to Trixie, and knew what it had done to others. No pony deserved that.
Still, like always, Scootaloo ignored the ethical question and forced herself to continue on with her business. “That’s what I came here to talk to you about, actually.”

Heart sighed. “I know. Twilight gave you some sort of mission. And that means I, no doubt- -”

“You’re coming with us.”

Heart’s eyes widened. “Me? ME? You’re joking. You’re not joking. Why the hay would you want me?”

“I don’t know,” said Scootaloo. “Frankly, you weird me out. And I’ve worked with Fluttershy. But Twilight was insistent that we take you, specifically.”

“Hmm,” said Heart. “I see you are on a first-name basis with the immortal Goddess of Friendship now. I’m not going to argue with a Princess, of course. And I suppose it is better than trying to move all my furry friends back to the ancestral Heartmoor Castle. But I don’t like it.”

“Why?” asked Scootaloo.

“Because the Princess knows what I do. Better than a great many ponies. And the things I do, they are not good things, Scootaloo.”

“Like what?”

“Things you are better off not knowing.” Heart smiled broadly. “But thank you for visiting! I do enjoy being here. To some extent. Especially your breeder’s cooking. Say, if I made you an offer, do you think you would sell her to me?”

“No.”

“But I haven’t even made the offer yet.”

“Wintry is not for sale.”

Heart suddenly became serious. “You disgust me,” she said. Then, as quickly as she had shifted, she went back to being on the verge of laughter. “But it was so nice seeing you!”

“I’m doing the final preparations for departure,” said Scootaloo. “I will contact you when we leave.”

Heart did not respond, apart from nodding as Scootaloo started her trek back through the shelves in the opposite direction that she had come. Scootaloo had only turned around several shelves when she very nearly bumped into yet another taxidermy earth pony, this one set in the narrow corridor between one of the shelves and the wall.

Scootaloo looked up at the pony. This one was a mare. Her coat, like the stallion, was pink, but much brighter and more cheerful. Her hair and tail were both curly and unkempt, and her eyes looked almost alive.

“Wow,” said Scootaloo, calling back through the shelves. “It’s morbid as hay, but your stuffed mare actually looks really realistic!”

“Mare?” said Heart, poking her head around the shelves. “I don’t have a stuffed mare.”

Scootaloo looked back at Heart, and then back at the pink mare- -only to see the last puff of a pink tail retreating into a high vent grate and hear the distant sound of giggling.

Both Scootaloo and Heart spent at least a minute staring wide-eyed at that vent, not knowing what to do. Then, finally, Heart spoke.

“Hmm,” she said. “I guess Blossomforth was right.”