Everypony parted from their borrowed chairs and landed smoothly on their hooves for the most part; Starbreaker shook off the blankets that clung to her and made them vanish with a flick of her horn, and so did Mira and Tsih. Omega leaned forward, ended up slamming his chin on the table, and landed on the floor in a way that made his fronts go between his hinds with a distinct screech of steel on crystal. He flailed his forelegs for a bit, trying to gain some sort of footing, before Yukito trotted over and magically lifted him up. "You're gaining feeling in your new legs faster than I thought," he observed with a tired sigh. "But given the way you're basically kicking everywhere, I'm going to generously assume the ponies who put you under the needles had no clue what they were doing."

"As far as research blueprints go, especially for weaponized ponies, wouldn't your ex-employers keep that shit in digital copies or something?" Mira asked through clenched teeth, a brow arched as Yukito helped stabilize Omega. "Under, y'know, tightly-guarded vaults or something?"

Yukito shook his head. "No; they always kept such things on paper—makes sweeping it all under the rug and then denying it ever happened that much easier… or would, had I not pilfered a meager chunk of it," he retorted firmly. "Once digitized, always digitized—databases never do forget any details, not even any previous results of… researchers and scientists born before I was, were the results stored in that fashion."

Mira took a moment to process all of that, and his wings rattled against his sides when he did. "So you three fucking clowns were cooped up in a place with a bajillion eyeballs everywhere, that may already be denying its fair share of war crimes?" he asked.

Sora nodded grimly at that. "Had to have the cameras removed from his quarters when he started stashing the papers there, and it also had another bonus for us…" And here, she turned and mouthed to Mira in lieu of speaking, "and that was, we could consummate our bond under everypony's noses."

Mira rolled his eyes and mouthed back at Sora with all the sarcasm he could muster, "Of fucking course." Tsih, having turned around and caught his smack-talk, trotted over to one of his gaskins and turned her rear to him. Once aligned, she lashed out with a swift buck of her hind hooves that made him slip on the crystal, crash against the table, and wobble to one side. She used her magic to make him land on his face, before he could even start up a retort or force his legs to straighten out.

"It's not like our conditions of living were much better," Tsih spat, brow furrowing. Mira mutely nodded and got up with a wordless grunt once her magic let go, tail lashing and scowl reasserting itself on his face as he ruffled his wings. "You had to disable both of our self-destruct mechanisms so they could be removed, all before either of us could be deployed when the Clash was still happening!"

Yukito turned to the duo, brows drawing together at what he'd heard. Then he sighed with ears drooping, and shook his head in a manner that suggested something had just clicked for him. "Oh, right, your side had an entire kamikaze brigade…" he muttered ruefully. He turned to Sora and nodded to her, and she moved over to secure Omega with a front leg and a wing, letting Yukito release his magical hold. He trotted to the pair, pausing briefly as Tsih jumped on the table, and frowned at them both. "Would you mind letting me… see these mechanisms in question, if you still have them?"

Mira shrugged. Tsih shook her head. "Well, we did a little tinkering after we returned to our pens with our asses handed to us on a silver platter, but nothing too major post-mechanism-shifting," Mira muttered, rolling his eyes again. "Don't see why not." His horn flashed, and he conjured two tiny black cubes, oddly whole yet hooked to wires that had been severed, in his magic. He very tenderly set them on the table, and watched as Yukito moved to study them.

That was when he noticed two tiny pegs, one on each cube, sticking out an inch to end in odd circular disks. In addition, there was a slight indent around the base of the pegs, which alighted his curiosity. Though, he turned away to look at Mira and Tsih again, both of whom reached up with a hoof and a claw to their chest-gems.

Both pressed onto them, and the gems sank with a click before unfolding out with the aid of well-hidden hinges when the raised limbs parted from their surfaces. This revealed a network of more wires going every which-way, all burrowing into flesh and anchoring onto strange, glowing crystals. Tsih had one crystal that pulsed with teal power, and Mira had two that were interlinked with still more wires that burned with orange and indigo lights. The cavities, however riddled with wires they were, otherwise seemed strangely normal—fur hugged their bases snugly, there wasn't much in the way of scarring save along the outer rims of the overall attachment, and there wasn't any discoloration.

Stranger still, the crystals danced a centimeter away from the strands of hair, levitating of their own accord—were they still enclosed proper, they would not have touched the coverings of their enclosures either. They let Yukito peer at these particular arrays for a moment longer, and then to the backsides of the coverings to find what looked like tinted glass lining the inner curvature. He noticed an indent in both, circular and about the width of his hoof tip—or his pupil, were he being generous.

When they felt that their checkup was over, Mira and Tsih used claw and hoof to manually close up the hatches. "Those are… mana boosters…" Yukito mumbled, eyes widening in morbid fascination as he pulled back to look Mira in the face.

Mira nodded. He used a claw to gesture to the black cubes. "And those, the self-destruct mechanisms. We'd rather be amplified than in pieces," he said dryly. "And the cubes are probably inert, but we wouldn't push the buttons if we were you." He saw Starbreaker eyeing them out of the corner of his eye, and made them vanish as she started to trot around the table.

Yukito turned to where the self-destruct mechanisms had been resting. It didn't take him but a second to piece together what that indent in the backside of the coverings was for. He turned to Mira again, looking him straight in the eye. "Are you two able to wedge your mechanisms open with magic?" he asked.

Mira nodded, and with a flash of his horn he did just that to expose his twin boosters once again. Another spark, and the hatch closed with a click. "Only way to safely get rid of exploding devices," he said simply. "But not everypony we knew was lucky enough to have them implanted in an openable covering on the chest." He trotted around Yukito, steps clanging in his wake.

Then he sniffed the air as Starbreaker made a beeline for the door, noting a faint and bitter scent that wasn't there before. It took him a moment to place the smell, and his face heated up a little. So he turned to Sora and asked her a question to get his mind off the aroma, "So, how bad did things get on your side of the fence?"

Sora snorted and shook her head that time, angling her head to keep Mira from seeing her roll her eyes emphatically. "Oh, it was fun," she muttered sarcastically, lashing her tail irritably. She sighed and lifted a hoof to her bell, but did not press on it just then. She turned to Mira, brow furrowing. "Want a carriage, or no?"

Starbreaker turned and charged at Mira before anypony could answer. She moved with enough speed to crack the crystal floor in her wake, and reared up on her hinds to solidly deck him on the snout once she was in range. Mira was sent skidding back a few inches with a sharp crack and a yelp, scraping into the floor with his claws and fanning out his wings just to remain upright from the surprise assault. "And that was for trying to stab me!" she barked, grinning at him as she reverted to all fours.

Mira grunted again, lifting a claw to wipe at his now-bleeding snout. He winced at the touch, and prodded carefully to find a few cracks beneath his skin. Lovely, his nose was likely fractured—it seemed the universe decided to single him out today for its sick pranks. So he pulled up the tail-end of his muffler and wrapped it around his muzzle with his magic, not too tightly but not too loosely either. He made sure to leave his mouth uncovered, and his nostrils concealed; if that scent was what he thought it was, he couldn't let it tease him a moment longer.

It took a few seconds for the wrapping to finish. Then he nodded and turned to Sora as she disentangled from Omega to let Yukito magically support him again. "Yeah, a carriage sounds good," Mira said with a wince that ran from neck to tail and made his wings tense with its passing. He watched as Sora kept hoof to bell as, strangely, Yukito trotted around Omega and leaned to her ear to mutter something in it.

Once Yukito pulled away, Sora muttered a command with a click of a button, "Light, return…" Mira perked up as the bell rang, glowed with light, and spat out a carriage with a burst of what may well have been magic. She turned to Tsih first, and asked as her hoof dropped from her bell, "You two coming with us, or going alone?"

Tsih wilted at both prospects, tail flagging for a moment before shifting between her hinds. "If we go alone, the Sableshrouds will get us…" she muttered.

Sora's wings sagged a little. "The who now?" she asked, one corner of her lip dipping further than the other, giving way to a lopsided frown. The query made Mira spread and fan his wings, and he lifted a claw to adjust the muffler around neck and snout.

"The… last few survivors of our side, after they grouped up and decided unanimously to go 'fuck it.' We're… not on good terms with them," Mira answered uneasily, sighing with a breath that made his whole posture sag a little. "And… we don't wanna run into them again."

Sora's mental gears ground for a moment, and she found herself unable to turn away from Mira as they whirred to life. Mira could've sworn he heard them being greased up for the job, and sagged a little further. "By chance… do you mean fully-clothed unicorns in all black?" Sora asked.

Mira winced, and slammed his wings shut with his eyes going round. His posture straightened immediately. "Y-you ran into them?" he countered.

Sora's mental gears screeched to a halt just to process what left Mira's mouth. Then they ground again, when things began to add up. She pointed a hoof at Starbreaker. "She did, actually. I simply saved her tail from them," she replied.

Mira lifted a claw and slammed it on the bridge of his snout, careful to avoid accidentally shucking the muffler off in the process of sliding it down his face. "For fuck's sake… they're getting bolder…" he grumbled in dismay, dropping his claw and letting it clang on the floor with enough force to add a new crater to it. Not caring that he exacerbated the castle's growing laundry list of damages, he lashed his tail and trotted to the carriage with as much disdain as he could muster. "Looks like you clowns need somepony who knows how to deal with the Sableshrouds… and if we don't miss our guess, one of you's gone into heat; that by itself is bad..."

"I kinda already dealt with the bunch that I found, but whatever," Sora snarked under her breath with another roll of her eyes.

"Am not in heat," Starbreaker grumbled, mouth barely moving and voice barely rising above a faint whisper of discontent.

Tsih stiffened, pupils shrinking and mouth going slack at what Mira was doing. "B-but Mira!" she stammered, tail puffing out in alarm. "We'd be putting them in danger too, and then there's…"

Mira turned to Tsih and alighted his horn. He magically lifted her off the table and dragged her to his side to look her in the eye with a hardening face even as she flailed her legs wildly. "We're already in hot water," he said firmly, spreading a wing to pry open the frontmost carriage door. "And it'd be just us two against them, if we parted here and now. We have no choice; we'll have to form a herd…" He winced as 'herd' rolled off his tongue and hopped in, and began levitating Tsih in when Yukito cleared his throat to garner their attention.

"Excuse my forwardness; does this castle, by chance, have a library?" Yukito asked.

Mira shrugged his shoulders. "Why?" he retorted.

Yukito's horn flickered for a moment. "I'd like to brush up on my magic, as it were; if this place had a final message from who I assume were its previous occupants, then it could have much more than that," he answered.

Mira shook his head again. "Nope. Didn't find one, much less with magic tomes. We can't stay here to check anyway; this place is too big for all six of us to scrounge through, and is now probably on the radars of the Sableshrouds and whatever sent that crashed airship that somehow landed nearby."

Sora wilted a little more, blades clanging upon the floor. "Y-you saw… that vessel?" she asked.

Mira gave another nod. "Had to look really damn hard to find it through the snowstorm, but yeah, we saw it," he said blithely. With that, he finished dragging Tsih in and parked her next to him, following that with shutting the door before she could complain any further or make an escape attempt.

Yukito rolled his eyes and opened the back carriage door before magically hauling Omega into the compartment to then lay him on the seat. Starbreaker jumped in after him, and moved to the other side of the cab to keep a fair amount of distance from him. "Tap the window if either of you need something," Yukito said. When he got two nods, he closed the door and trotted to Sora. They exchanged another nuzzle, both sighing in resignation.

"I'll follow the rest of the Gorge's trail, after… we make a stop to…" Sora trailed off, closing her eyes as she pulled back.

"Alright." Yukito nodded as her eyes opened again. "I'll let you know if anything strange has happened, once we make a camp." Receiving another nuzzle that he returned, he gave a small smile in spite of the situation. "Just don't overexert, alright?"

"Alright," Sora replied with a smile of her own. With that, Yukito teleported into the central cab without bothering with opening its door, leaving Sora to harness herself in for another trip in the surrounding frozen wastes.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

On her way out of the doors of the foyer, Sora found an anomaly on the snow-shrouded steps. Where before they were left alone, now they had a few new accessories to dot the flight that were not there when she had arrived—badly damaged drones, and a large crimson axe that had more frost on its surface. For a moment, she stared at the discarded weapons, wondering where in the seven hells they came from. She turned with a brow raised when Yukito teleported out of the carriage to look at them himself, with a wince as the cold stung him upon emerging from the burst of light.

"Whose… are these?" Yukito asked, turning to study the axe first.

Sora turned to the drones and jostled her mind before an image of that blinding light surfaced. She smothered the thought—the memory quickly, right as she started to hear that blood curdling shriek. Hesitantly, she lifted a hoof to the axe, and let the tip barely graze the elongated handle. Yet, despite being coated with frost, a chill did not race up her leg—instead, the expected cold was paradoxically warm. She pulled back, donning a slanted frown as she contemplated this strange sensation that she couldn't place a name to.

Yukito, unsure of what the deal was, decided to touch the axe's shaft himself. That same, inexplicable warmth ran up his leg on contact. He glanced at the drones, and noticed they were arrayed in a circle; three on the left and three on the right, with ice formed between them. The snowflakes slid off the ice, and it pulsed with a soft white light that curved and looped into a message.

"Take my weapons, for I have no need of them any longer. They'd do so much more in your hooves now."

Sora looked at the axe, eyes slanting with a glimmer of confusion. Almost breathlessly, with her voice drowned by the winds that whipped at her cropped mane and tail, she asked, "Are… you sure?"

A peal of thunder shook the skies, briefly. The winds slowed down, the lightning waned as strikes from sky to ground lessened in number, and silence reigned. Sora's eyes began to moisten as she stared at the axe for a moment longer; here, the weather itself was enough of an answer. Her face hardened to keep the tears at bay as she quietly muttered, "Alright." She lifted a hoof to her bell, only for it to be stopped halfway up when Yukito barred it with one of his own.

She looked at him, and he returned the glance in kind. "Sora, what's going on?" he asked.

Sora lowered her hoof, confusion flashing in her eyes for a moment. "... windigos…" she muttered.

Yukito's ears twitched, and started to fold. "Do you know what's…" A mute headshake from her was enough to silence his question before he could finish it. With a nod, he turned to the weapons and flashed his horn, grasping them in his magic before making them vanish. Then he teleported back in the carriage, and Sora trotted down the stairs to gallop away from the castle and fly off in the Gorge's direction. She had barely noticed the ice cracking with a final pulse of power at her passing, and decided to not let her mind linger on it any longer.

Inside the cabs, Mira and Tsih both looked at him from their window. Yukito stared back, frowning slightly. "She gave you…" Tsih mouthed, her lips quivering as the words parted from her tongue. Mira gently wrapped one of his wings around her as Yukito gave a single nod in response. "Why?" Tsih asked, ears flattening against her head.

"Whoever 'she' is, she… thought that they'd get more done in my hooves," Yukito answered.

"She didn't want them anymore," Mira translated, his muzzle lowering as the words left his mouth. His eyes gleamed with a bitterness he couldn't hide, and his wing tightened around Tsih as she moved to wrap her front legs around one of his own.

"But why didn't she want them…?" Tsih asked, turning to Mira.

Mira shook his head, and looked at her as his own expression tightened. "We… I don't know," he answered.

"B-but those are hers! She should…" Tsih began, her hold on Mira's leg loosening as words started to fail her.

"She left them for us to find," Mira pointed out. "... which means she's going to…"

"She can't!" Tsih barked, lifting a hoof to punch Mira in the gaskin. The throw was weak; he barely flinched. "Alte can't! She… she…"

"Everypony she loved has already moved to the stars without her," Mira said firmly, yet bitterly. He closed his eyes and let his other wing wrap around his companion. "We can't stop her from going to them… just like I couldn't..." And that was enough to make tears fall from Tsih's eyes. She gave a scream of dismay, muzzle and eyes scrunching tight as she threw herself to Mira's barrel.

Yukito watched, mouth tightening into a thin line. A twinge of dismay started to tug at the corners of his mind, amplifying as Tsih started to weep. Questions he had long ago learned to stop asking sprung forth in his head, tumbling onto themselves and each other until they gained coherency. How badly had the Clash screwed these two ponies over—former enemies pitted against his ex-employers? How badly had the Clash screwed over other ponies? A child, a mere child and a walking, talking mishmash of body parts who many would likely attempt to kill on sight just because of events beyond his control?

How badly had the ultimate weapons' projects damaged those subjected to them? To their families? Yukito looked past Mira and Tsih, and found Sora flying dutifully towards the Gorge—and he wilted when the answer to that last question came unbidden. "Outcast. That's the best a pony like her could ask for," some part of his mind hissed in displeasure. "At worst… they tumble over the edge…" The twinge of dismay strengthened further as his mind continued to go on. "I have kept one from going over that edge… at the cost of several more…"

His withers sagged a little. "And yet… I've failed those others who were drafted into the program…" he muttered, chest tightening a little. "Perhaps they are right when they call me a murderer…" He turned to look at the floor of the cab, ears finally turning flat against his head. "Failing to save them is just the same as murder, isn't it…"

The words of the castle's last occupants echoed in his head. "Do not let Harmony die, even in the midst..." That drew a bitter, mirthless chuckle from him, one that tightened his chest further with its passing.

"I do not know what Harmony is…" Yukito admitted, turning to look at Mira and Tsih as they continued to embrace one another. "How can I keep that which I know nothing about alive, if it even is alive at this rate?"

It was then the castle's last occupants echoed in his head again, "Don't falter like we have." For a long moment, he contemplated that bit of wisdom. There was blood on his hooves and cutie mark. He was tangled in a relationship that probably raised some eyebrows and left a few heads scratching against hooves back at the base. He was, now, directly involved with Starbreaker. And now also involved with her attackers, all sitting with Omega in the same stolen vehicle awaiting for Sora to take them to their destination.

Yukito's face hardened as he took all of this in, and his ears swiveled up. "Don't really have much of a choice, since I have come this far already… I won't falter," he said in finality. That did little to ease the dismay still gnawing at him, though, much less for the tightness in his chest.

The castle's occupants chimed in his head again, "Unless you're willing to atone for what you have done…"

"I suppose I have to start somewhere…" Yukito ruefully agreed. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath to clear out the dismay. He exhaled slowly, and opened his eyes to find a massive tear in the earth and snow, growing closer and closer as Sora neared it. He donned a small smile and nodded to himself. He knew where to start atoning, and with whom. But that could wait; he couldn't fly, she was currently doing just that, and to even take that step was going to be a long process for them both—how long, he knew not. Recovery processes were finicky things to deal with; one of life's many little wars, and a little war that could not be delayed any longer than necessary.

The carriage rattled as Sora turned to start flying alongside the Gorge while her husband reflected on his musings, her flight smooth and her wings still beating strong. Yukito turned to Mira and Tsih again once the carriage stopped rattling, still clutching each other tightly. Without warning he teleported over to them, garnering twin looks when they found him suddenly sitting next to them. Gently, Yukito brushed aside one of Mira's wings and put a hoof on Tsih's back before he rubbed consolingly. Her tear-stained expression faltered, and her eyes widened at the touch. "You're not alone; you still have somepony you trust," he said, softly.

"I-I don't…" Tsih grumbled, eyes narrowing a little. "I don't have anypony to trust…"

Yukito nodded. "You do; you're clinging to his leg as we speak," he retorted. "You haven't lost everything." Tsih could not make a retort for that; she winced again and wilted before returning to nestle on Mira's barrel with a weak whimper.

"I don't trust you…" Tsih muttered. Mira sighed and looked at Yukito with a souring frown.

Mira lifted a claw and, carefully, brushed Yukito's hoof from Tsih's withers without scratching either. "We don't know what you're trying to pull… or if you're being honest with us," he hissed, though the uncertain gleam in his eyes told the sudden visitor that there were other things on his mind at present. "But…" Mira hesitated, mouth pressing into a thin and tight line. "We have to ask… why? Why did you abandon your employers for one weapon, and a crazy bitch?"

Yukito lowered his hoof, eyes widening at the bluntness of the question. He sighed and straightened his posture, his response firm but flat, "Because there was nothing left for me under my ex-employers' horseshoes anymore. Had they found out about my marriage sooner, they'd have taken me to the firing squads."

Mira nodded once in understanding. "But you were still useful to them," he muttered. "In some capacity."

"Not much anymore," Yukito replied, shaking his head ruefully. "I think they'd have killed me by the year's end anyway had I stayed, even if they hadn't found out my marital status. Along with Starbreaker, if she didn't prove useful to them in some way, just to make a statement."

Mira took a moment to observe Yukito's rather ramrod posture. Something about his calm but very off mannerisms clicked in his partially-mangled head, especially once he took into account the stolen research papers he considered repurposing for kindling. "You've been bitter for a while," he guessed.

That garnered a slight nod. "Can't say I don't have any reservations of my own," Yukito said simply. He turned to the frontmost window, and watched as Sora angled her wings to catch a gust of snow-bundled wind. "I've never really agreed with augmenting ponies against their will, especially for a war as long and dragged out and nonsensical as the Clash was. It just… it was needlessly cruel and absurdly silly; just killed more soldiers for some grand and impossible cause of making 'the best, most obedient and deadliest soldier.' The end results… speak for themselves, really."

Mira sighed. "Makes sense," he agreed with some resignation in his voice. He too turned to the window and watched as Sora started to descend. "We're making camp out here?"

Yukito shook his head. "No," he said as the carriage began to rattle at the shift in altitude. "Just a stop… to visit a dear friend of mine."

Mira's muzzle scrunched a little. "... buried here?" he asked.

"More entombed, but yes," Yukito replied simply. "Once we stop, I won't be but a few minutes."

Mira closed his eyes again. "... can you pay a visit to Alte?" he asked.

Yukito turned to him, brows raised. "Excuse me?"

"We found an… an old friend of ours during our first foray here… frozen, and…" Mira paused as Tsih sniffled and squirmed against his barrel. He rubbed her gently with a claw. "We… we gave her something. Sitting at the base of the… the thing she now rests on. Can you make sure it's still there?"

Yukito pursed his lips for a moment. "I suppose it couldn't hurt," he answered. "What am I looking for?"

"A small urn with a silver ring. You can't miss it," Mira answered, keeping his eyes closed.

"Alright. I can do that much," Yukito answered with another nod. He just had to wait for the carriage to land first, and then do what he needed to do. As he turned away to watch for the moment when the wheels would hit the ground, he noticed a peculiar patch of stone jutting out from the side of the chasm, only visible because the carriage had been turned to it and the chasm by extension. The snow had since receded enough that he could well see the foot of the anomaly, enough to become a suitable landing point.

He did have a dear friend to visit, after all. And reflecting on everything now, this would probably be the last time he could wrangle in such a drop-in on such short notice, for a long time to come.