Sora made her way to the launch pad via the elevator, and with haste. Her tail swished one minute, then tucked between her hinds the next as the elevator dragged her up. The moment the doors opened, she bolted out in a gallop, wings spread and beating with enough force to slightly jostle her own uniform. She took off before she reached the edge of the launch pad, and in seconds she was soaring above the city first by a few inches, then by several feet.

Her wings took her higher and higher, and as the air itself started tossing her mane and tail about, it traced its way through the gaps betwixt her primaries, humming a soft tune that was monotonous and flat. Her eyes fixed themselves on the distant mountain peaks, and her heart started to race in her chest as she slowly flew away from the city and and toward the Crested Plains. This was a trip that would be at least several hours, just to get to and back from her destination without the aid of an airship.

She trusted Yukito to keep Starbreaker safe, and that he now had Tsukumi helping him out meant that she did not have much need to be around unless an emergency were to happen. Besides, if he could deflect her blades with practised ease, then he'd very well take on whatever shit the rest of the army tried to give him, short of the Admiral himself. And yet, the farther she got away, the more an ache settled within her chest, tightening its grip with each and every mile she flew.

She made sure not to fly higher than the base's central tower, of course, nor to look directly down at the city. Her flaps were minimal; wings going rigid for as long as possible in between beats to maximize distance and energy conservation. She caught every gale of wind she came across, further traversing yet more stretches of land with ease. Before long, she reached the Crested Plains, and a faint chill rushed down her spine as she continued to fly. Though she crossed miles and miles of land easily, her method of doing so was a slow one.

Her gaze did not falter from the mountains, not even once. Her face hardened into a look of apathy, but she could not suppress even the faintest twitches that betrayed a hint of pain. Her ache remained in place, beating in tandem with her wings and her drumming heart to let her know it would not go away so easily. Still, her apathy made it easier to stave off, and on she flew without incident. The farther she went, the more the small device on her ear buzzed and buzzed with static, and she dared not raise a hoof to touch it and answer whoever may have been trying to contact her.

At approximately noon, with the sun at its pinnacle in the sky, she approached the mountains. She could see their collection of snow-caps clearly, and the ache strengthened when she did. Thick, dark clouds gathered beyond the mountains, crackling with thunder and lightning at the very base of their peaks. The air started to turn dismally cold, but this failed to steer her away. The lightning flashed, yet she did not falter. Sora flew right into the clouds, cleaving a small swath of them away from her with every flap of her wings, barely noticing the device on her ear having fallen silent as she did.

Her eyes gravitated down, wings slashing and clearing away the storm-bound smog to reveal a world of perfect white below her. She glanced about, flying for several minutes and several miles on end before finding a large set of cliffsides carved into the earth long ago, forming a ghastly chasm almost entirely snow-filled yet seemingly hungering for more. "Hard to believe you went by another name, and that you were much smaller than you are now…" Sora muttered, tucking in her wings tightly to bank to the ground. "And now you're full to the brim, ye old Ghastly… how ironic," she noted.

With her target acquired, she descended rapidly, if only to escape the thunderstorm before it could change its mind and smite her with lightning. Halfway down, her wings snapped out, and her fall slowed as she flapped to shed off excess momentum. After that, she corkscrewed the rest of the way rather lazily, and her heart continued to hammer madly about. Taking in deep breaths of the frigid air sent chills across her whole body, yet it failed to slow her heart or chip her resolve.

Continuing to descend, her eyes turned onto the chasm's thin, almost serpentine tail, and her body reacted by tightening the corkscrewing loops inch by inch. "It's almost like nopony was here at all…" Sora muttered as she came closer and closer to that seemingly-small gap in the snowy earth. And oh how she'd hit the nail on the head; here, there was simply no trace of civilization to be found, and the closest was past a mountain range, a forest sequestered to the west of some plains, and said plains, for the old gods' sake. She started to ponder if, perhaps, an apocalypse of some sort had besmirched this part of the world. Glancing about as she came closer to the chasm certainly gave it that sort of vibe; insofar as she knew and could see, nothing but snow and ice had ruled here.

She reached the end of the chasm which pointed back to the base, noting that one fragment of canyon was the most silent of a world which seemed to be frozen in time. The moors and cliffsides were absolutely still, and almost as pale as the snow, and she angled her wings to ride a meager draft of air to keep from kicking up the miles-high snow therein. She trailed from the very tail of this chasm, keeping a low profile and a slow pace to conserve her energy. Here, the silence held firmly, and the only thing which was permitted to break it had been the thunder… if the thunder hadn't gone silent with the rest of this desolate place.

The air grew colder still, yet no fresh snow had fallen. Lightning flashed, but it was unnaturally dim in this desert of unfiltered white. It never struck down, either, instead arching back up into the clouds as though it were warning her of something. For the longest time, there seemed to be no signs of life here. Yet Sora pressed on, eyes scanning to and fro between the halves of the canyon, watching intently for something rather expectantly.

She flew for several miles, wings perfectly still and catching a faint draft for an entire half-hour of grueling cold. She kicked her legs out intermittently, but only to keep them warm and moving, making sure to not touch the snow too soon. At one point, she had to shift her altitude to avoid a mound which would have otherwise smacked her in the face. She also took the time to glance around outside the canyon whilst she reoriented herself, watching for anything out of the ordinary.

Sora was the only soul present, in this world of white—a meager splash of lilac, green and gold in a place so devoid of color. She could hear naught but her own breathing, see naught except the snow, canyon and the clouds, and so spoke not on the absence of life. It was eerily quiet, almost as if the land had been holding its breath upon her arrival. She descended back down, and continued exploring the canyon with intent. More than once, one hoof strayed to her holster, as if expecting something to come at her.

Yet nothing, not even the weather itself, dared approach her. At this, she heaved a silent sigh of relief. She waited for several minutes each time her hoof went to the holster thereafter, but only a dead silence answered to her. It was like flying through a dream that itself was a void; bereft of anything which could alert her senses to its presence. The few things that were in this cold, forsaken part of the world seemed to actively avoid her, or were simply stationary. In a twisted way, it was almost surreal; surely, such a place could not have existed, and yet it did. Somehow, it thrived as well, despite not having a splash of greenery to it. This was a natural phenomenon that few would dare venture into, with only a bell and the clothes on their back.

At first, this canyon was narrow enough that, were Sora not careful, she could touch the walls with her primaries and a little shift to either the left or the right. When this canyon grew wider, almost like a yawning mouth, some hundred miles into her foray, she slowed down and kept fitfully scanning her surroundings. It grew so wide, in fact, that she could have stashed in three soldier barracks with plenty of room to spare in that widening earthen maw. She ascended above it to do another preliminary of the landscape around it.

She found little more than last time—just snow, clouds, and moors all around, although there was something in the distance that had caught her eye. She noticed a dark shape protruding from the moors somewhere on the right of the chasm, and tried to will her eyes to take a closer look. It was tall, distant, almost jutting rigidly up like a lance crossed with a halberd—something protruded from the side of this behemoth, near the top but not quite there all the same.

The entity, seemingly cloaked in a shadow which did not belong in this world of frost, towered mightily—a mountain, perhaps? It certainly looked as if she'd have to fly just to scale it. She blinked once, twice, then thrice to confirm that she was seeing it. She frowned, though, when this specter vanished before her very eyes. Her head shook, her hooves lifted to rub at her eyes, and the strange figure once more appeared. She turned to its left, and found another smaller figure, a mere twentieth the size of the maybe-mountain, faintly gleaming like crystal. One blink later, though, and both were gone.

She descended again, and resumed flying through the chasm, thinking the entities to have been a most bizarre mirage. It was another few minutes after her once-over of the land, in which the Gorge widened until it was less of a canyon and more of a miniature plain betwixt distant cliffsides before she sighed. How big was the Hollowed Gorge? Surely, it could not have been able to grow to a large-enough size that would put even the Corps' base to shame. But it did; such was simply the nature of a canyon filled close to bursting with snow, which ironically enough was slowly but surely eroding it away. Sora made a preliminary sweep of the Gorge's sides, going smoothly from left to right and back again, crossing yet more miles as she zig-zagged for something out of the ordinary.

Thirty minutes after the initial zig-zagging, she had found something out of the ordinary—a cavernous mouth, carved into the side of the chasm, with snow piling into it. If not for some stony protrusions that gave it the rough appearance of a screaming pony up close, and a meager dent in the snow around it, she might not have seen it at all. She angled and flapped to approach the bizarre structure, alighting tenderly on the snow and continually flapping to keep herself from sinking into what would have otherwise been a deathtrap for the unwary.

Upon reaching the mouth, she started to push aside the snow with her hooves, as her wings were currently occupied. Small mounds formed at first, but steadily grew in size until she caught sight of a steep decline of snow, leading into a darkened corridor of stone. She widened the hole, just enough so that she could fit in, and shifted to slide down on her haunches with wings flared. Her blades skittered as they scraped against the stone ceiling on her way down, but otherwise she landed without incident.

Darkness greeted her, thick and impenetrable, though it also had a warmth about it that the outside moors desperately lacked. Something shifted in her eyes again, before her augments kicked in and gave off a soft light that enabled her to see just a little more of her surroundings. She looked down, seeing a trail of fresh-made hoofprints fading into the sable before her. "Did somepony else visit here?" she asked aloud.

The darkness itself did not answer Sora. She shrugged and opted to ignore it as her hooves went to autopilot, and she shifted to stand before trotting rather haltingly inside, leaving her own tracks behind. At first, the stone walls didn't change; all that was for several miles down a winding hallway had nothing but rocks and the occasional stalactite. How long she'd trotted was lost to her; time could not be kept track of here, and at some point—Sora wasn't sure exactly when it had started—her tail twitched in tandem with her hooves, and her wings shivered to help her body keep warm.

But, the hallway split into three paths eventually, forming a crude cross-intersection that was only visible thanks to her augments. Her heart slowed, and she took a breath of damp, slightly less cold air. "It's been one and a quarter years since this place had been discovered… and since I've last visited," she mused, and the ache in her chest grew as she did. "I didn't pay my respects last time. Better late to pay respects… than never at all, though." She hesitated for several minutes, before making up her mind and trotting to the one corridor directly ahead of her.

Here, a good two hundred and forty yards of corridor stretched before her. Her chest sent another cramp of pain through her nerves, and for some reason, she felt something piercing yet distant fall upon her. She took another shuddering breath as she cantered down this corridor, noting that it was lined with torches long since snuffed out. Some had fallen off of the walls, laying uselessly frozen upon the floor. At the corridor's end was a set of rotting wooden doors, barely holding together thanks to a bar affixed onto hooks which had been built into their frames, which took her several minutes to reach.

With shaking hooves, Sora reared up onto her hinds and tenderly moved the bar aside, then dropped down wincing as the doors creaked open fitfully once her wings nudged them apart. Here, a large room greeted her, high enough of ceiling for her to spread her wings at this altitude—but no more than that without her primaries touching it. At her hooves lay a flight of stairs, leading to the middle of the large room. A raised platform had been erected around the edge of the room, one large enough for two ponies to trot on side by side, provided that they were small enough. Sora trotted down the stairs, tail tucking itself between her legs and head lowering to her shoulders as she approached the reason for her visit.

The center of the room, almost crater-like given the presence of the platform, was circular with a flat floor, and sported stalagmites that joined with stalactites to form a natural, crude throne lined with ice and more dead torches. Surrounding that throne were a myriad of broken ovoid devices bearing small wings and cracked lens, framed very carefully and frozen into the shape of a perfect triangle. A device whose wings were equipped with three engines, two of which were turbine, sat in the middle of this triangle, with said wings fragmented and useless. These fragments bore deep scratches and cuts, with one having managed to pierce through the larger engine, which exposed its rusting circuitry. Etched onto that engine, framed by rust no less, was a simple scrawling that Sora could not see unless she were up close.

The tableau of this room sat slumped with hinds slack and fronts holding up much of the weight, frozen forevermore upon that throne. The entity in question was staring at Sora with wide and glassy eyes that had long since gone lifeless, but only as she finished the flight of stairs, for it could not move. It was a unicorn mare… but the carcass could only be barely called that now. Pieces of her body wasted away, or perhaps had been torn off, revealing fragments of a skeletal structure hewn of metallic bars and joints in place of natural bone. Though, whoever had placed her here had angled her body in such a way as to hide most of the damage, having taken care to keep the carcass on her seat in doing so.

What hadn't decayed was coated in a rime of frost thick as Sora's blades, preserving a pale green coat accentuated by a tousled brown mane and vacant eyes matching in hue, framed by a slanted brow. On that mare's chest was a series of very grueling stab wounds, each caked with blood that itself had turned to ice. What parts of her were intact were laden with darkened, brown scars, including a perfectly preserved cutie mark of a triangle formed of lightning bolts.

Yet, most disturbingly of all, a soft and serene smile remained on her face, affixed into a rictus that had flecks of blood surrounding it. Pain had evidently once filled her features, and even caused her to cry tears—tears that had frozen into perfect round droplets upon her cheeks, mere inches from her eyes. But she staved off the pain for just long enough to smile, yet it did not save her from her inevitable end.

In fact, she seemed to have embraced that end rather happily, if somewhat mournfully. Sora could see hints of pride still clinging to that smile, and in those dead eyes, but only because her corpse had been so well preserved. Yet, there was also a hint of a deep, bitter regret etched onto those features, but the mare before her no longer had any other way of expressing herself now.

She was long gone, this lonely unicorn. She was nothing more than a frozen statue now.

Sora had no power to sway the once-living soul before her; that fact was now etched upon her face, itself permanently twisted to an unnerving postmortem expression of bleak resignation. She was unbidden to everything around her; unresponsive to her own prison. She didn't seem to care either way.

Nothing could change that—not even something such as hope.

And here she rested, trapped in a tomb just as cold as her expired body. She was condemned forevermore to this frozen patch of waste; a trophy of sorts, and one who did not receive much respect beyond entombment. She seemed aware of it, too. The fact that she could not express herself in any other way elicited a pang of pity, one that came from deep within Sora's aching chest. Sora edged closer, hooves shaking as she stared deep into those brown eyes.

She stepped over the devices and around the broken pair of mechanical wings, the corpse seemingly regarding her despite being so empty of gaze and stiff of body. Her eyes caught the scrawling from their corners as she trotted round it. 'Here lies Staff Sergeant Sham, former instructor of the Umbralium Corps. A beloved mentor, a dear friend, and a comrade par excellence. May she rest knowing the Clash of the Sky met its end,' it read.

"I-I'm here… Sham…" Sora muttered, voice quivering as she got closer still, turning her full attention onto the corpse sitting upon the throne. "Y-you haven't… changed, huh?"

Sham didn't respond. She was unable to, even if some vestige of her was alive at this point. The ice started reflecting the light of the ocular augments, glistening almost as though it were a shred of life—life that wasn't her own, could never be her own again. Sora came closer, her chest aching as she stepped toward the frozen throne she sat upon, idly noting that the room warmed a little at her approach.

"O-of course you h-haven't, silly me," Sora chided herself, shaking her head as she got close enough to go nose to nose with Sham's body. She smiled softly, yet doing this made the ache in her chest strengthen and tighten its grip. At this, her smile quickly fell as fast as it had come. "I… wish it could've gone differently. B-but… you always told me to ma-make it back alive, d-didn't you?" she asked.

Sora closed her eyes, and her ears fell flat against her head as she precariously nuzzled Sham's frozen cheek. Cold and rigor greeted her, but so did an eerie sense of familiarity that made her stomach twist. She could tell the fur was once silky in texture, but now it was jagged and stiff, almost like sandpaper. "... you could have told the A-Admiral off, too…" she muttered bitterly, feeling tears prickling at her eyes. "C-could have… l-lived…"

She pulled back and opened her eyes, regarding the lifeless look which stared back—a look that had only a trace of who the pony before her once was. "Wh-what did they… do to you…?" Sora asked quietly, as if Sham could answer her now. "Y-you didn't w-want to go back… d-did you?" Silence, and nothing more, replied—for it was the only thing Sham could answer with. In a cruel way, it was almost deafening and surreal—some small part of her expected an answer, yet received no such closure.

A thought crept up, and Sora could not restrain it, trembling as she mentally pictured this face before her. Except, this face was not frozen and instead drenched by rain, illuminated by lightning as her weakening voice was deafened by thunder. The ground shook far below, as the storm roiled on without pause. Countless streaks of brilliant white were dancing all around—and illuminating blood, so much blood everywhere, clashing horribly with the vibrant green. But worst of all were of all were the blades protruding from this mare's backside, the mechanical wings affixed to it doing naught except keep them there. Both were suspended, trapped in a terrible moment stretching forever as the shadows darkened that day...

Yet still, even now, she could hear that frail voice articulating her final command in the back of her mind, hoarse with pain yet equally filled with pride. "Make it back alive," she had said, with a crystal clarity that even the storm could not drown out. With one last nod of reassurance, however futile the gesture seemed, Sham went limp as the lightning illuminated her final smile.

Never again would Sham move. Never again would she laugh. Only death's cold embrace waited for her, and it claimed her long ago.

Sora felt the first tear trail down her cheek as she remembered seeing the light leaving those eyes once those words had left her mouth and her head had dropped, falling into the glassy stare they were now unable to shift from. Sham's eyes caught the light of Sora's augments, and for a moment it seemed, some light of her own returned to her desiccated husk. "I… still miss you, y-you know," she muttered, shaking her head sadly. "Still… love you, like a m-mother… even though y-you're dead now…" A shuddering sigh left her mouth as the tear dropped from her cheek to land quietly upon the floor.

"I-I'm still… in the Corps… I want t-to find out… what made you…" Sora's voice weakened with each word, until she was barely whispering. "I-I won't quit… until I-I know f-for certain…" Her wings trembled as resolve filled her, and warm air stirred ever so slightly, brushing up against the side of Sham's dead face. Liquid condensed on the bottom of her left eye, forming a small droplet that trailed down the rime almost like a tear.

Sora lifted a hoof and gently wiped it away before it could fall. "H-hey… don't cry…" she pleaded, even as she felt another tear forming in her own augmented eyes. "I… I won't let you d-down again." The warm air stopped stirring, but not before another droplet of liquid condensed and fell from Sham's eye. She wiped that away, too.

"Y-Yukito's watching o-over me, so I-I don't get hurt. A-and we're g-getting along sp-splendidly. Y-you were r-right when you s-said we'd be c-cute together. The Corps still doesn't know... what you've done for us both, Sham..." she mused, with a slight hint of happiness in her voice that made her lips twitch in the faintest of smiles. Some small part of her hoped Sham would acknowledge it, at least, even if that was no longer possible now.

Sora leaned in to nuzzle Sham again, before holding her snout to the dead cheek for a moment. She could almost feel cold hooves wrap around her neck, despite knowing that Sham had no way of moving. She started to hear a gurgling, anguished, hollow laugh, but from where she didn't know, much less question how she'd even heard it. Had she produced it herself? Or was it her imagination running wild? As it was, no answers were forthcoming, and yet some part of her preferred it that way.

She pressed her neck against Sham's, and the illusory hold strengthened for but a moment, and that watery laugh grew a smidgen louder. "I-it's… gonna be okay," Sora promised, her voice distant to her own ears. She pulled back and looked in Sham's eyes, and the mirage hooves loosened their grip as the watery laugh gave way to silence. "I-I have to… s-see the others first… I… love you, Sham… and I hope y-you're happier, wherever y-you've flown to now…"

With that, she turned and trotted out of the room. Behind her, liquid condensed one last time, and fell from Sham's eyes in a pair of droplets. If she was still alive, then there would be nothing she could do to stop Sora from finding out what had spurned her on. She was helpless; only able to watch, and silently weep, if indeed some fragment of her soul held on for this long. Sora's form faded into the darkness, taking with her the warm light of her augments.

Sora moved to the chamber on her left, wings drooping as she came upon another large room sporting a throne of frost with holes in the ceiling that were large enough to let light shine through. Like Sham's chamber, this one had a hall of two hundred and forty yards lined with dead torches preceding it, ending in double doors and, subsequently, stairs leading to that throne. Before this one rested another torn pair of mechanical wings, in addition to an axe of crimson and steel with a rather slender shaft and a lance-shaped head. The head alone had a gap between its deadly blades, and was as large as a pony's body from croup to shoulder alone, whilst its shaft was three times as long.

This room, likewise, had a frozen and preserved body, albeit only a hornless head, chest, and front left leg which had been anchored to one of the throne's armrests to keep it upright. The hinds, if there was anything left of them, were coated in a thick blanket of snow, as if the corpse on the throne had been tucked to bed. The whole right leg was simply gone, with only a metallic shoulder blade peeking out of the cavity where it used to be.

The chest sported an unusual, tear-shaped, cracked gem the size of the corpse's muzzle, bright crimson and blackening in the center. Within were a series of small wires, burnt and connected to a small, square, and melted device that Sora didn't know the name of. Pieces of the chest had been torn out, revealing yet more wires hooked into the device, but thankfully there was little beyond that.

The corpse in question was scorched, with what little remaining a soft beige in color, sporting a pink mane and a face twisted in wide-eyed, screaming anguish—one who vied for control, to the bitter end, only for cry out as realization dawned the moment that control slipped. Pale teal eyes stared into the middle distance, and the only visible leg had a silver ring affixed to it. The expression of the corpse made it difficult to ascertain the gender, but the softer cheekbones and slender build of the foreleg and chest told Sora that this one was a mare—just barely.

The air turned colder in this room, and Sora approached the body. She trotted delicately around the broken wings and the odd axe, pausing to read another scrawling on the engine's side paired with the elaborate carving of a small lance: 'Here lies Alte, beloved wife to an unknown stallion. May she rest in peace, knowing she fought for those she loved.' Sora only stopped when she found herself staring into long-dead eyes.

"H-hey Alte… Sh-Sham told me a lot about you, before… I was thrown into the Clash," she greeted, even though Alte could not respond. She wasn't able to, really; not with her face permanently frozen into her last pained, defeated expression. She shuddered as her mind procured a different image now; hooves grabbing her as light shined brilliantly, razing, scorching all over, followed by a deafening boom and one last scream of agony. That image faded fast, to darkness so thick it felt inescapable.

"I… I'm sorry about wh-what happened…" The air stirred, but the temperature didn't rise nor fall. "I… I want to tell your husband… what happened… but is that p-possible now?" The air stilled, as if pausing at Sora's question. Then it stirred again, and some of the snow around the throne kicked up ever so gently, warming up a little as the snow it tossed around flitted rather haphazardly about.

"I'll… take that as a n-no, then…" Sora guessed. The air once more ceased moving. "I... know... understand, entirely, why you were so frantic to get back... t-to him... I… I hope he finds you… up there, beyond the stars…" She offered a weak, faltering smile to Alte, and sighed. "Maybe… you'll raise a family together, in the sky, a-away from all th-the fighting…" The room warmed a little bit, though externally or if she were imagining it, Sora couldn't tell. "And… y-your foals will be safe… so y-you won't have t-to worry…"

Her smile widened a smidgen more, and she nuzzled Alte, catching sight of a horrible scar that spanned across the whole right side of her face. "P-please, Alte... I'm sure h-he misses you..." The air grew warmer still at the gesture, until Sora felt a cold hoof touch her right cheek, stopping another falling tear midway down its path upon lilac fur. It caressed her for a moment, freezing and wiping away that tear in one motion, and for a mere second Alte's wide grimace shifted to a closed, soft, relieved smile framed with frozen tears. Sora jumped at the sudden change, but stilled as she felt the cold hoof continue to caress her. Had Alte, perhaps, been trying to tell her something even beyond death's door? If so, then what was she trying to say?

She relaxed at the touch, as it carried with it a feeling of peace and reassurance. Whatever the case, she elected to not seek answers. The sad, soft smile on the carcass before her widened ever so slightly, and yet the sorrow in Alte's eyes became more pronounced as it did. The cracked, broken gem glowed fitfully, sparking with a dying glimmer that lasted for only an instant. Had they come to an understanding, perhaps? Sora still didn't know.

"I... I promise I won't make y-your mistake, i-if that's what you're t-trying to convey..." Sora muttered, still smiling as the cold hoof paused to cup her cheek. "I-I swear... on my blades..." Alte's eyes, though long dead, caught the light of Sora's ocular augments, but only faintly as she said that. Afterwards, her scowl came back and a small gust of air rushed past her, and out of the chamber as she pulled back. The air of the room fell still, as did the snow of the throne, and the ice on Alte's body stopped reflecting the light of Sora's eyes.

She turned and trotted into the last chamber, with a hall just as long as the previous two and likewise marked, this one aglow with a flickering light and much larger than the other two combined. Behind the throne of ice, and the corpse that sat within, stood a giant mech taller than even the Admiral, lined with many scorch marks and patches of rust. Its steel had dulled, and its insignia had worn away with time.

It was shaped oddly, and horrifically melted in places to the point Sora wondered how it was still intact. This behemoth was standing on flat-footed hinds with a bulky chest, an empty top and arms shaped like misshapen bulbs. One ended in a four-fingered hand, whilst the other boasted a rusted cannon. Metal bits had been removed, either by rust or that which melted it, revealing circuitry and wiring in such frayed condition that its lonely visitor could not tell what wire went where.

It had a protrusion jutting from the back, betwixt the hinds like a tail, but it was little more than fragmented scrap. She could tell this machine had a different shape, once, but whatever had melted it warped it or possibly ripped away entire chunks to mold an entirely new form that barely held itself together. From the thing's hole-riddled chest was a green lens which the flickering light cast its glow, affixed onto the corpse within the throne. How it was still on, Sora knew not, but its flickering told her that it wouldn't be long before the bulb went out altogether.

The corpse of the room was of a unicorn mare sitting on her hinds, her front legs entirely gone. In place of shoulder blades, where her forelegs would have started, were odd mechanical bits that were melted and warped beyond all possible recognition. Jutting from her back were another pair of broken wings, albeit gold and blue and more feather-like in shape that had been stabbed into the throne to keep her upright. Her body was frightfully pale, so blue it seemed grey, with a short silver-blue mane framing dead navy eyes and odd mechanical horns that jutted from the sides of her head.

Half of this mare's body was burnt black, including one side of her face, which made a horrific scar on her neck stand out that much more starkly. Her muzzle was affixed into a tight, pained frown, and her pupils were forever shrunken in what Sora could only assume was mortification. It was as if she tried to maintain a shred of apathy, but it crumpled away as the last breath had left her body.

She was staring at a broken mare, one without hope nor resolve, devoid of joy and anger, unable to express sorrow and confusion. Only despair was etched onto her face, and she seemed to despise every second of it. One last image formed in her mind's eye as she stared into those vacant eyes; fire and smoke everywhere, some flames blue and others yellowish-orange, ponies screaming out in anguish before blades sliced into their necks to end their suffering.

The blades alone failed to drown out their cries as pieces of a building fell all around, for something else was too eager to do that in their stead. The pandemonium was beset by the horrific cacophony of another pony laughing madly—a sound she had heard on the airship, mere days ago, and it was a sound she thought she'd never hear again outside of her wildest nightmares.

The laughing mad pony was almost squealing in delight as ponies dropped left and right by the dozens, stomping their hooves madly about in a frantic prance that held no rhythm, yet the sound only added to the terrible orchestra. This mare, before her, amongst those caught in the blaze, staring well into the middle distance as she was now when blades slid from her neck and brought about her very swift end.

Sora trotted to the corpse, and eyed a scrawling that had been etched above her head into the rime: 'Here lies Nath, whose fate was taken from her hooves. May she rest knowing she did not spill innocent blood after unwillingly paying the price for power and becoming another ultimate weapon.' Sora lifted a hoof to cup the corpse's cold chin with a frog, and turned to stare into those navy eyes of the broken soul before her.

Warm air brushed up against the corpse's face, causing liquid to condense and trail from her eyes. "I wonder… if y-you can still h-hear me, Nath…" she pondered, her voice taking on a note of pity. She looked, briefly, at Nath's haunches, but they were so scorched she couldn't tell whether or not she had her cutie mark.

Nath failed to reply. Even if she were able to, she'd have been silent since her throat was sliced. The light shining behind her dimmed, briefly. "I… get why you're s-sad," Sora went on, taking note of the condensing liquid, but opting to not do anything about it. She lowered her hoof, which only made the air stir more, in turn causing more liquid to condense and fall from Nath's eyes. "You didn't… want to be augmented, did y-you?"

The light shut off for a whole minute. "I… I found S-Starbreaker…" Sora said, quietly. At this, the light flickered back on and blinked for a few seconds. "And… I-I won't let the a-army do t-to her… wh-what they d-did to you…" The light held steady, and Sora moved to soothingly nuzzle Nath's cheek, as if that could make a difference now. "If… I-I'd have known… what they w-would do to you… when I t-told them off…" She continued to nuzzle Nath as she spoke, voice growing shakier with each word, "th-then maybe I'd… not h-have done th-that. I-I guess it's too l-late now, th-though…"

"At… least you w-won't suffer anymore, a-and s-since I am th-the cause for y-your pain, I-I'll carry that responsibility o-on my withers. I hope… you'll be freer in d-death… than y-you were in life..." With that, she pulled back and tenderly wiped away the liquid droplets that formed on Nath's face with a hoof. For a second, she could've sworn the corpse gave a tiny smile of elation, and she felt a cold muzzle rest on her neck for a mere instant, as Nath's eyes glittered as Alte's and Sham's had. The cold muzzle held against Sora's neck, seemingly intent to return the favor, and it mouthed something against her fur. When it did, she felt the lips and tongue and gums move, forming clear words she could not misconstrue.

"It's not your fault," the illusory muzzle muttered silently, before Nath's smile shifted back to that firm frown and the possibly-imaginary sensation faded in the blink of an eye. Then, the ice on the carcass ceased reflecting light entirely, once again accentuating a vacant look that stared into the middle distance.

Sora made to turn, but the mech slowly moved its cannon with a groan of exertion that gave her pause. Up and down, it waved once, twice, then thrice as the light in its lens violently popped and died, shrouding the room in a gentle darkness. She shed another tear as the air stirred, rushing past her and out of the chamber once the machine stilled. "I guess the battle robot had some juice after all... " Sora noted, looking at the robot. "I-I wonder if i-it had a soul, t-too…" She trotted out of the room, but not before casting one last mournful glance at Nath's body. Nath continued to stare back, unable to do much else, and yet her despairing, ailing expression now had an air of tranquility about it.

She trotted down to the intersection, and down the long hallway again, letting the tears fall freely now, all the while pondering those four little words uttered mutely against her neck. 'It's not your fault' rang in her head, despite being spoken in dead silence, and continued to chime as each step she took wracked her body, and the ache in her chest tightened to the point that pain shot through every fiber of her being. It was her fault; she admitted that much to Nath. How was it anything but, with that confession of guilt?

She bit her lip to keep herself quiet, but the effort crumpled as she felt cold hooves hold her neck again. Even then, her sobs were little more than whispers, with bouts of incomprehensible rambling in between each shuddering hiccup. Her trot slowed to a shambling gait, one that threatened to give out with each step she took, but some part of her held on firmly. She kept walking, making sure to never lean against the walls for support, head bowed low and tears repeatedly streaking her fur and bits of her mane.

She couldn't let anypony know she was crying. She had to keep this secret tucked away in the depths of her soul. The only ponies who'd seen her tears were already dead, and she doubted anypony would come here to interrogate them. At the base, this would be a sign of weakness, one that her superiors had expected to see, yet were denied. Here? Signal via the small device was sporadic, enough to have been effectively locked in radio silence, so she doubted Yukito would be eavesdropping. Here, in this tomb, she could let what she hadn't already vented out of her system. Her apathy had crumpled to shreds, and so could not stop the tears.

She didn't know how long she had cried in that cavern, nor how long the illusionary hooves held her as she shed tears aplenty. Seconds, minutes, hours—she wasn't sure, for all that bottled-up pain clouded her sense of time. But when she left, making sure to wipe her tears and roll up her sleeves to hide the evidence of her crying, she felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted off of her withers. Why the illusionary hooves held her, caressed her, or why that muzzle nuzzled her, she had nary an idea; but it was all a small comfort nonetheless. Perhaps Sham, Alte, and Nath sensed Sora's despair, and tried to help abate it, but could not linger for long. If the old gods permitted them to see her, then they could not be kept waiting.

It wasn't but a few minutes before Sora caught sight of the entrance of the cavern after the cold hooves yielded their grip, and she started to dig another tunnel in the snow. The frozen trio needed to rest now, and in peace within the embrace of the old gods, away from sorrow and strife. Sora idly hoped she had set them more at ease now that she had visited and spoke to them, and took a moment to imagine them sleeping blissfully in an endless plain of viridian. She could at least be respectful and give them that much, now that she'd paid respects, and she did not wish to disturb them any longer than needed. It took her mere minutes to get back to the surface, and when she did she paused to turn to the cavern leading to the tomb to give a final salute to the three slumbering within.

After leaving the chasm that housed the cavern, she once again adhered rigidly to the moors' sacred silence. Soaring high up, she sighed as she turned to fly back the way she came. As her wings beat, the ache that spread throughout her body settled into a dull ache—one as dull as the moors around her. Her wings stiffened as she caught another draft of air and lazily sailed her way back to the ongoing storm that still held itself in a tense, serene silence. Only now, instead of maintaining a steady altitude, she hastily ascended to cross a few hundred miles at least with ease.

She passed by the vague shapes on her way back, and chanced a glance down. She couldn't discern what it was, but the smaller of the two gleamed ever so faintly, like a beacon of ice that had no light to call its own. What was that object? Why was it there? What was its larger companion? Sora ignored these musings; she had a job to get back to, and time was of the essence. In doing so, she missed two tiny dots moving towards that smaller object, and the distinct rattling of carriages being towed along, themselves being followed by a small herd of more tiny dots that started to encircle the two.

A bestial, ethereal, yet mournful howling only spurred Sora to fly away faster. She could've sworn it had called out something in a haunting wail which sent chills down her spine. Something oddly coherent, feminine-sounding… and eerily familiar—familiar enough to make fresh tears form in her eyes, which she hastily wiped away after rolling down one of her sleeves.

"Sooraaa… please make it back… aliiiiiive..." the voice pleaded to no avail, for by that point Sora was but a mere speck of color in the colorless, darkening sky.