Power earned is not the same as power given or power taken. For reasons unknown, these words bounced around Dim’s thoughts and gave him pause. Puffing away on his pipe, trailing clouds of clove-infused, sweet smoke, he went looking for Blackbird. What was power? For that matter, what was good? These were distractions, but good, welcome distractions. Chromium had given him much to think about, much to reflect upon.

Up to this point in his life, Dim wanted power for the sake of power; this felt like a perfectly natural, perfectly reasonable thing. But now, he desired power for other reasons. Power to keep his friends safe. The power to make things happen, things he felt were the right things. He wanted power to defend those who had no power for themselves.

Blackbird’s decency had thoroughly infested him in the worst of ways.

Martinet’s words haunted Dim, more than he would ever admit. He wondered what Martinet thought of Chromium, but lacked the motivation to go and ask. As he puffed on his pipe, he thought about how complicated his life had become, and all of the things he thought about now that he never gave much consideration before.

Such as the fact that he believed that he could trod the middle path and still do right.

The problem with a moral compass, as Dim saw it, was that it only ever gave one direction. If one went in another direction, any direction, one was moving away from the only direction that mattered, that was acceptable. For Dim, detours were perfectly acceptable. Prefered, even. One had to stop and see the sights that the moral countryside had to offer.

Hearing the sound of Blackbird’s voice, his hatless ears pricked.

When the door opened, Blackbird’s head swiveled around in an almost boneless, unnatural way, and she watched as Dim entered. Without his hat, a whole lot more of him was visible—all of the right parts of him. His glossy black mane glistened with bluish highlights and his curiously curved, pointy ears held the attention of her eyes. Dim wasn’t handsome in the traditional sense, as he was confusingly feminine. Blackbird suffered for her interest, which often left her puzzled and more than a bit confused.

Ambiguous attraction had its ups and downs.

“Look, Dim,” Bombay said to him as he entered the room. “Look outside. Watch!”

Whilst Dim approached, sauntering in the way that only he could, Blackbird regretfully tore her gaze away so she could look out the window. Chromium was outside performing impossible feats of magic, and it was a treat to watch, even if she was quite infuriated with the silver dragon who had said such infuriating things.

Now looking like a proper dragon, the immense silver wyrm waved his claws around like a conductor, and with each movement, each wave, each gesture, buildings assembled themselves. Bridges reconstructed themselves. Water mains ceased leaking water and severed ends reconnected. In mere moments Chromium made repairs that would otherwise take months, or even years. Even the cobblestones raced along the broken boulevards and pieced themselves together like a puzzle.

“Are those ponies—”

“Yes, Dim. They’re worshipping the dragon,” Bombay said before Dim could finish his question.

“Hmm,” Dim hmmed, and then went “Hmm” again.

He now stood by the window and Blackbird could see him from out of the corner of her eye. When she breathed, she could smell him, the scent of cloves, of cannabis, of Dim. She could easily wrap her talons around his boney neck, and almost around his body. At the moment, he was clean, well-groomed. When he was at his aristocratic best, she found him most appealing, but there was something to be said about him when he was disheveled.

But, his mismatched eyes were his most intriguing feature, and out of all of him that could be seen, she liked those most of all. She allowed herself a moment of heady infatuation, a girlish moment of secretive immaturity that almost made her giggle. Dim was not a giggler, nor did he laugh much. He was not given to frivolity, and there were times when Blackbird wished that he was a bit more playful. Dim had his faults—but she could accept those.

“I have no idea how old he even is,” said Dim, his words somewhat obscured by the pipe held in the corner of his mouth. “It is strange to me that I have some of his essence. No matter how I try, I cannot wrap my head around that fact. We are different creatures, he and I.”

“What did he mean when he mentioned the Nightmare Curse?” Bombay asked. “When the two of you talked, was that brought up? Are you going to become a Nightmare like Princess Luna did?”

“I am not a mare.” Dim’s snark had a perfect deadpan delivery. “Chromium told me that Luna’s descendants attract madness and malevolent forces that tempt them. He called it, ‘inherited weakness,’ and said that it affects all of us in some way, every single one of us who have a drop of Luna’s blood. The worst aspects of it ignores most of us, but those of us who show signs of strength, those of us who are exceptional, this shadow haunts us.”

Blackbird found herself more than a little intrigued by this conversation, for all kinds of reasons. She wanted Dim—in fact, she had plans for Dim, and this looming threat cast a shadow over her plans. This did not discourage her, far from it, but it did make her cautious. Wary. It made her thoughtful of what might be.

“And you’ve made it your strength?” Bombay asked.

At this, Dim shrugged and his thin body rippled with movement. “I’m not sure how. Chromium didn’t say much on that subject, so I am left in the dark on this issue. Perhaps Luna might have more insight.”

“Maybe it’s because Princess Luna strives to be good, and struggles to do so, and you... you just struggle to be you. If you walked in the light, as Chromium suggested, then this malevolent darkness might come along to suffocate you, Dim.”

“Perhaps.” Dim shrugged again and Blackbird felt tingles in her feminine places.

“I wonder how this affects Eerie.” Reaching up with her paw, Bombay rubbed her fuzzy chin and her whiskers quivered. “She has extraordinary fits of melancholy. It’s hard to tell if it is her past, her nature, or this malevolent shadow that causes those. I don’t know, everything feels so ambiguous.” Reflecting her thoughtful mood, her tail curled into a question mark and stayed that way whilst she rubbed her chin.

The three of them watched as the dragon performed miracles down below. Blackbird was distracted, Dim was introspective, thoughtful even, and Bombay seemed to enjoy rubbing her chin. When it seemed as though the conversation might give way to quiet, Blackbird wished that her companions would keep talking. She longed to hear the sound of Dim’s voice, as something about it was comforting, reassuring.

And also pleasurable.

Lost in her thoughts, Blackbird reached out with one talon extended, slipped it beneath Dim’s forelock, and with a flick, she flipped it up and away from his face. It would only fall down again, but that was fine. That was good, expected even, as it gave her a reason to touch him again. He wickered—a sound that made every muscle in her body tighten, especially those in her secret places—but he did not shy away from her. Things were getting better, easier perhaps.

Without warning, Dim plucked his pipe from the corner of his mouth and Blackbird was downright startled when it was jammed between her parted lips. It was only when it lightly clicked against her teeth that she recovered herself. Sheepishly, she puffed on the pipe and allowed the lightheaded feeling of bliss to overcome her. Then, with just as much unexpected suddenness, the pipe was pulled away and Dim resumed smoking.

“I’m going to leave you two be,” Bombay said, almost whispering. “Don’t do anything rash.” Her tail now bushy and slashing the air behind her, she backed away from Blackbird as she exhaled, and once she was a few steps away, Bombay turned for the door.

At long last, they were alone, with no pressures or obligations. Just the two of them, or perhaps the three of them, it was difficult to say. Dim sat on what could be charitably called a couch; it had thin cushions that only offered a minimum of comfort, and an imperious wooden frame, with naked, uncushioned arms. It was the sort of thing one sat on out of necessity, but not for very long.

As for Blackbird, she sat on the floor, just in front of the couch, which allowed a somewhat rare eye-to-eye encounter with Dim. She had seen him at his best, at his worst; she had seen him from every conceivable angle during their travels. But she prefered seeing him eye to eye. He wore no goggles, no hat, nothing that obscured his face, his perfect, wonderful face.

There was a dangerous sense of romance here, and she knew it. A young hippogriff, not well versed in the ways of the world, a creature fresh off the farm. The rural community that she called home never offered her much other than a stark, black and white view of the world, with grey reserved for stormy days or ashes in the fireplace. Good was good, bad was bad, and the only evidence she had of variance was the love story of her parents. Seeing the world and all it had to offer was overwhelming, to say the very least.

Then came that day in Tortoise-Tuga.

Dim had come into her life and caused the death of sense.

Blackbird was thoroughly consumed by her infatuation, dangerous though it was. She had deviated from what she knew was important; the search for her mother. The whirlwind of events that surrounded Dim had swallowed her, devoured her, and there would be no climbing out of this gullet. There would be no leaving, as she had invested too much of her sense of self into his recovery, his well-being.

But she was not without reward; she understood her father now.

“We need to talk about the third pony in our relationship, Dim.”

She could see that her words had caught him off guard. For the briefest moment, he was naked, vulnerable, and she could see his panic. It was a rare sight, seeing him exposed in such a way. Reaching out, reaching up, she placed her left talons on his right foreleg and caressed him. This was undiscovered country, a new horizon, and Blackbird only had her gut instincts to guide her way. A vague star that offered no direction, but the only star she had.

“What was she like, Dim?”

“Like myself, she barely met the Dark Ideal,” he replied in little more than a whisper. “But I suppose that didn’t matter. We weren’t meant to be Darks, from what little I’ve gathered, but vessels for Thrennog’s heritage. Whatever that is. I suppose family pride forced us to superimpose our own image upon Thrennog’s masterwork.”

The bitterness in Dim’s voice caused Blackbird to wince, but she did not turn away.

“She was not a good student. Darling lacked focus, she lacked drive, ambition, imagination, and she was content to be meek. Punishment came often for her. In hindsight, she had to suffer, as they wanted her submissive, but to be too meek, too weak, ran against the Dark Ideals and invited torment. I suppose there was a fine, fine line. We are to be subservient to one another’s whims, but also—”

His words trailed off abruptly as his face contorted and his breathing quickened.

What he said next surprised Blackbird. “I like how things are between you and I. Take right now for instance. We could have had a moment to ourselves. Just us. The two of us. But you brought up Darling. Your sense of altruism compels you to help me, even at the cost of your own happiness and comfort. I don’t understand what motivates you, but… I appreciate what you do. What you do makes me want to be a better pony, though perhaps not in the way Chromium would recognise.”

A hot flush blossomed in Blackbird’s nethers, and then washed over her body, causing her skin to prickle. It grew unbearably hot beneath her wings, and she could feel the humidity rising back in her fuzzy hindquarters. Dim appreciated her. The words, his words, buoyed her spirits and the dark shadows cast by all of the horrid things that had happened now seemed a little less intense. A little less consuming.

Her own reaction terrified her, but also thrilled and titillated her. As her backside continued to moisten, her mouth grew dry. Overcome with emotion, she leaned in until she could feel Dim’s hot breath on her muzzle, and it was then that she felt the cold, icy prickle of terror. Things were complicated. Everything was muddled, mixed up, and confusing. Crazy.

Reaching out, she wrapped a curl of Dim’s mane around her extended talon-finger. The silkiness of it, the softness; it was like the finest spun silk. Her mane had thick strands that were smooth only just following a wash, but grew coarse with sweat and toil. His eyes were moving, she could see them as they jumped around, no doubt going from feature to feature on her face.

With her free talons, she plucked Dim’s pipe from his mouth.

Her mouth and lips were far too dry for kissing Dim, but she did it anyway. Leaning in, she tilted her head off to one side, pressed her muzzle against his, and invited him inside by parting her lips slightly. Both of them hesitated, but she treasured these awkward moments, she relished them for what they were. When the kiss finally sorted itself out, it was everything her heart hoped it would be.

Author's Notes: