"Father doesn't do the torturing." Bejal threw her all into adding some levity to present some false bravery. "He leaves that to my mothers." Reaching a set of huge doors at the bottom of the tunnel, she lifted a hoof and rapped on them five times.

A return rap of one came on the door.

"What's this?" Courage looked to Bejal, her eyes narrowing as she suspected treachery.

"A code." Bejal thumped back six times on the doors, and they immediately swung inwards. "I could have given the wrong code, but you would have burned through the door regardless." Stepping forward, Bejal felt a measure of confidence return. "Are you coming? Father is waiting, and although one of my mothers will likely flay me for bringing you down here, I am interested to see how this will go."

Corignis stepped before Courage, and gave her sister a wink as she did. "If one of us has to fight her way into this place, it will be me." Of course, Corignis' eyes landed on the cambian's plot. She got a touch distracted by Bejal's movements, but tried to keep her eyes open to danger.

"I don't think it works like that, Cor. If we are attacked, I am going to defend myself. I would just rather not be the first pony to pull out their claws." Courage followed along, watching the big doors close behind them. "Besides, I don't think they will attack with their daughter among us."

Bejal gave an exasperated sigh. "I told you. I am not double-crossing you!"

"What about me?" The male voice came from an obliquely angled side passage. A large, neat beard trailed down from the stallion's muzzle. The unicorn turned his gaze from Bejal to Corignis, and then finally studied Courage. "Why have you brought two strangers here to die, Bejal?"

"Daddy!" Bejal started to rush towards Star Swirl the Bearded, her father, but a raised gesture by the stallion stopped her where she stood.

"Tell me your business quickly. I have much to do and for each moment I spend with you, my wives are going to spend an equal amount breaking you." Star Swirl was, honestly, bored by the situation. He thought that two demons had bullied his daughter into this.

Courage's enthusiasm stopped. She gave a sigh and started to turn around. "We were wrong, Cor. This old geezer hasn't got a fraction of his ponyhood still with him. I guess I can't be cured…"

A flick of Star Swirl's magic was all it took to put a barrier between Courage and freedom. "This old geezer has plenty of his heritage left in him. I am intrigued, though. Most who come here wish to steal my power. You apparently desire something else. What is so important that you would sign your own death warrants?"

Her heart pounding, Courage examined the pure, Equestrian pony magic that formed the barrier. "Princess Luna came to me in a dream. She told me the only way I could get out of here was to become a pony again. This," she gestured to her body, "is not who I was."

"Luna…" Star Swirl felt a lot of history bear down on him, and unreservedly he shed a tear. "Follow me. I will share a story about Luna, if you share yours." He retreated down the hallway, walking to the room that served as his living room in the underground complex.

"So do we follow him?" Corignis looked to Courage for the answer. "It's your play here. I assume he was the Councilman?" When Courage started walking before replying, Corignis fell in behind her.

"We do. Even if he isn't Star Swirl the Bearded, and I am fairly sure he is, he knows some amazing pony magic." She kept her pace just fast enough to keep Star Swirl in view, but wasn't pushing to actually catch up to him. Tagging along behind them, Bejal kept quiet in the presence of her father.

"If you say so." Corignis followed along, disliking the thinner corridor they had turned into. She recognized the reasoning for it, to limit attackers to single file, but it meant she couldn't face a possible enemy at Courage's side.

"I might even wait a while before ordering you killed." Ducking into his chosen room, Star Swirl reached out with his magic and poured himself a drink of strong apple brandy. Settling on his favorite seat, a partially read book already waiting, he took as sip and relaxed.

Courage stepped into the room, and immediately felt like she was back in Equestria. Soft wood lined the floor, "normal" furnishings were scattered about, and there was a stallion who looked just like a normal pony sitting in a chair beside a warm fireplace. A seat, empty, sat diagonally opposite the one Star Swirl was in.

"Since you are my uninvited guest, you may go first." Sipping from his drink, Star Swirl gestured to the other seat that faced the fire.

Courage walked over and sat in the indicated chair. She frowned at the realization that her radically changed body made even this simple pony pleasure uncomfortable. She settled on scooting to the edge of the chair.

"I messed up a spell." Courage thought back to the beginning while she stared at the dancing flames. After feeling balefire play across her fur harmlessly, regular flames just didn't hold any fear for her. "I was drunk, and I had just stored a lot of energy in a new weapon enchantment. The magic went berserk, I tried to get a wall of protection up but it was too late. I woke in the Ninth Circle…"

Star Swirl listened as the mare told her fantastic story, and by the time Courage had gotten to her fourth encounter with the alternate "dream" realities, he nodded. "Luna."

Something about how Star said the Princess' name twanged in Courage's head. She picked at the pronunciation and lack of a title, and came to a conclusion: Star Swirl had been a close friend of Luna's. Courage returned to her story, describing each and every excursion into a Circle, until finally she got to the latest "ending."

"It is such a shame you all must be dealt with, it sounds like you are having quite the adventure." Star Swirl lamented the loss of the contents of his glass, and floated it back to the drinks cabinet to refill. After a moment, his drink returned with a double measure of the strong alcohol in it. "So I guess you would like to hear my own story about Luna, Princess of the Night?"

Courage stayed quiet. Something told her that Star Swirl was playing his own, odd game, and that ruining it would cost her dearly. Focusing her attention on the stallion, she listened intently.

"It must be a bit over a thousand years ago now—certainly at least that—when I made the mistake that cost me my life, my afterlife, and almost destroyed Equestria." Star Swirl finished the fiery liquid in his glass. "I was a fool, I was in love. I had fixed my eyes on two mares, and both stirred me so much I had to have them." Magic took his glass, and he realized Bejal was getting him a refill.

"Lovely Celestia, I had to woo her first, as custom dictated. We dated, we spent nights together just holding each other for comfort, and we even made love." Star Swirl knew he saw the past through rosy glasses, but also his story was not one that would work out. "I informed Celestia that I would pursue her sister as well.

"Luna, Princess of the Night, Owner of Half My Heart." Another sip was required. "You have to forgive me, hearing her name on your lips had been a shock. When I approached her, she grew angry. Even throwing powerful, deadly magic at me, she was majestic. I let her tire herself blasting at my defenses, and when she had finally calmed enough to listen, I explained myself. I told her how much her night was a thing of wonder for me, and how much I loved just watching her move with such grace."

Her jaw almost hitting the floor, Courage tried her best not to interrupt Star Swirl. In the end, she had to state the obvious, and in a question. "You dated both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna?"

Star shook his head. "Now, now. I am getting to the crux of the problem. I threw myself into showing Luna how much she meant to me, how much I loved her. But there was a problem. In my enthusiasm to bring her together with Celestia, I may have neglected to actually tell her exactly what I was intending.

"She was practicing her dream magic, and came to me. Of course, I was younger then, more… excitable." Star Swirl took another sip, and felt the drink start to affect him. "I dreamt of Luna, Celestia, and myself. I was making love to Celestia while Luna watched, but when she stepped into my dream she stepped into that Luna."

A deep sigh left Star Swirl's throat. "I had no defenses against her fury there. She shredded my mind in her anger, she ripped me apart and sent me on. All the while she screamed about her hatred for Celestia.

"It was a valuable lesson I learned, and thanks to the fraud Luna thought I had committed, even though it was mostly because of my own stupidity, I was placed here." Star Swirl rubbed one hoof in a worn patch of the couch he was on. It was worn because he had rubbed it just like that thousands of times before. "I had nothing with me but my body and mind, and the demons of this Circle were happy to take even those. I fought them, I claimed I was working for the Councilman. All a lie, of course, but soon demons started to gather around me, to throw their lot in with my 'master' and join his cause."

Corignis stared at Star Swirl, her world thrown upside down. "I... I thought you just took his office. The... the councilman was always just a pony? A lost soul?"

"He, and I, am and always was." Star Swirl smiled at his own silly wordplay. "And we are both caught here for the rest of eternity, juggling the lives of my fellows, along with the demons of Fraud. I live the biggest fraud of my life trying to keep them all safe." He exhaled and took in a deep breath again. "And you being here is a problem. You are both just as much cambion as Bejal."

"Cambion?" Courage looked to Corignis. Her memory brought back what she had done to her sister that had made her a "sister." She smiled. "Corignis has some of my soul, she needed it to survive."

"Interesting. Regardless, there is one surefire way to establish yourself as a pure pony again. You need to give up all this," Star Swirl gestured at Courage's wings, "you need to find out what you are in your heart. What was your destiny before you got drunk and threw a tantrum at a piece of metal?"

Courage blushed, but despite herself she had to admit that she had indeed thrown a drunken tantrum at a piece of metal. "I worked with magic. Enchantments mostly, I even worked for the Royal Guard when they needed special things." She couldn't help but smile.

"There is more, I wager." Star Swirl downed the last of his drink and sent the glass over to the cabinet to wait for him to clean it. "Something nopony should ever be without."

"Huh?" Courage stopped and thought about it. Then, like a hammer, it hit her. She turned and looked at Corignis, her smile returning and growing wider by the moment. "Hammered, Corignis, Alphias." She didn't even register that she had spoken her stallion's proper name. "Friends."

"Friends? You are kidding, right? All Courage needed to do was stick to her special talent and make friends?" Corignis flapped her wings a little until her sister's snout reached up and kissed her on the nose. The tiny, intimate moment broke all Corignis' anger. "What?"

"I think I am ready to go home." Courage turned to look at Star Swirl's chair, but the stallion was standing and pulling in great, powerful magic.

"This spell would have failed if you hadn't found yourself again, Courage." Star Swirl winked to Courage, proving that he held more over her than she knew. "I don't want to see you again. Make sure you go somewhere else next time." Magic rushed out, wrapping Courage up in its transmutative force.

The world seemed to buckle and twist around Courage, and she felt herself being twisted too. Her wings were the first to go, then her fur was returned to its normal, orange color from the fiery red/black it had become, and her mane ran back to the dirty orange it had been before the loss of part of her soul.

One look at Corignis, however, tore at Courage's heart. Her sister was a demon, sure, but she had part of Courage's own soul, and even as Star Swirl's spell started to wrap around her, she reached out with her magic and grabbed Corignis.

Where Courage's magic touched, Corignis felt a burning unlike any she had ever experienced. All over her body a blanket of flame spread. She felt it tear at something inside, and when it tore loose she felt lighter, almost lost. "C-C-Courage?"

The spell completed, and when Star Swirl was done with it he cursed. The two mares were gone, but nearly half the floor of his room was on fire, and all the furniture was either burned or had soot damage. "This is what a pony gets for doing a good deed. Come on Bej, this is more your fault than mine."

Bejal smiled at her father and set to work putting out what was still smoldering. "I don't get it, where did the demon one go?"

"She was a little too much like her pony friend, Bej." Star Swirl rushed to stop his liquor cabinet from toppling. "Forget the rug, save my jacked cider!"

Author's Notes:

Bejal: What are your dreams? What is your passion you cannot yet fulfill?

"I see what my father has done with Fraud and I can't help but want to do the same. I know that... that would be beyond me." Bejal gave a sigh. "So I will do what I can to help him make sure it stays the haven it is."

---

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and I they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, I they will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! I They will pick one question per chapter. (note, the commissioner will answer questions in the comments, since this is their OC)

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And special thanks to the following, for careful eyes and friendly words:
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And special thanks to the following, for careful eyes and friendly words:
Airy Words
Cross Lament
Vutava