The dawn came, grey and mournful, and with it, a hard rain. This torrential rain that fell seemed like a continuation of the storm that Dim had endured during the night, weeping until exhaustion had overtaken him sometime a few hours ago. Blackbird had held him, trying to comfort him—for that he was grateful—but now, with the dawn, he did his best to pretend that nothing out of place had happened. Such weakness was not to be acknowledged, even though it felt as though more leakage of weakness was lurking.

A simple trick of unicorn magic allowed him to be outside and sitting at a table. No rain molested him, not one drop dared to disturb him. The entire table and the surrounding area was quite dry. Breakfast was nourishing cornmeal mush, which cooled on the table before him untouched. Rather than run off, Fancy Chancy had stayed at the table after serving breakfast, though she was silent and she kept looking at Swift with wide, curious eyes. Blackbird had already eaten her bowl of mush and was eyeing Dim’s. Gesundheit was still eating and Swift Swirl was too busy staring at Dim in a manner most adoring to even bother trying to eat.

“Gesundheit, the mirror…”

“Yes?” The pegasus looked up from his food and waited with an expectant stare.

“The princesses are aware of my accidental creation of a dark artifact. No doubt, agents of some sort will come along to collect it. It would be best to drop it into the lake. The compulsion magic it has is dangerous. The simple-minded and the weak-willed are vulnerable to it.” Dim slouched in his chair while he reached up and smoothed back his mane with the side of his foreleg. The cool air of morning was welcomed against his somewhat fevered skin and this morning the shakes were minimal, at least for now.

“As for you...”—Dim turned his attention upon the eager colt that stared at him—“Swift, you should go home. Tell the princesses what happened. Inform them of these doings.”

“No.” The colt shook his head from side to side, a vigourous motion of denial.

“No?” Dim controlled his lurking irk. “Go home to Equestria. Be with your parents. Get back to a civilised land. Seek shelter from this storm that is coming.”

“My parents left me to my brother’s tender mercies,” Swift Swirl replied and his gaze never wavered from Dim. “They don’t care about me. There are too many other sons with talent and skill and stronger magic.”

Dim almost said something, but didn’t.

“I’m going to stay here, with Gesundheit, and I am going to help these ponies. I don’t have much in the way of magic, but what little I have will be useful here, compared to elsewhere. In Canterlot, I’m a nopony. But here? Here I can be somepony. In Canterlot, I am but one little candle, unseen among the brilliant lights, but here, in this place, a single candle can hold back the darkness.”

Much to his own surprise, Dim understood, and he began to nod in agreement.

“Every druid needs a helper wizard,” Swift continued, “and I’m no wizard, I’ll confess, but I am a unicorn with a pressing need to be helpful. You’re right though, a storm is coming.” Some of Swift’s vim vanished and the colt’s ears drooped while fear flashed in his eyes. “Thank you again, Dim. I don’t want to be part of that storm.”

When Dim made a dismissive gesture with his hoof, hunger overcame Blackbird, destroying her better judgment. With a swipe of her talons, she stole the wooden bowl full of cornmeal mush in front of Dim, dragged it over the wooden table until it came to rest in front of her, and began gobbling it down. With one aristocratic eyebrow raised into a fine arch, Dim watched her while she destroyed his breakfast.

She too, had wept last night, overcome with emotion, no doubt about the life she had taken. What else could she be bothered about? Perhaps she missed her father, still grieving him, and longed to be with her mother once more. Too wrapped up in his own pain at the time, Dim hadn’t asked. He hadn’t inquired. Laying in the rocky bed of the stream, he had his own outpouring of grief to contend with, or would have, had he broken down, which he most certainly hadn’t.

“Swift and I had a long talk last night.” For a brief moment, it seemed that Gesundheit would explain more, but something changed in his expression and no more words seemed forthcoming. He glanced at Fancy Chancy, then over at Swift Swirl, and then his eyes moved back to Dim. His lower lip quivered and his left ear had an almost unnoticeable twitch to it.

“You want me to stay here,” Dim said to Gesundheit in a low voice that was almost unheard over the steady beat of rain against the canopy of the trees. “You wish to grow your collection of beaten, battered unicorns—”

“I wasn’t going to say that!” Gesundheit lifted his head away from his bowl while Fancy Chancy’s eyes dropped down into hers. “Look, this is a good place… a serene place… an idyllic place that is suitable for troubled minds. I think you would do well here—”

“I would grow bored and expire from ennui here,” Dim said, cutting Gesundheit off. A pang of guilt slithered up the back of his neck, and he didn’t know why, but he felt bad about what he had just said. There was no trace of pinkness in his mind at the moment, so he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. Taking a deep breath, he tried to make better his awful words.

“This is a good place for them”—he gestured at Fancy Chancy and Swift Swirl—“but it is not a good place for me.” Dim struggled to find the rest of the needed words, but they did not present themselves. He sighed, exasperated with himself, and realised that he didn’t know how to fix this mess. It was better to be silent and avoid making the mess worse. There were things he had to do, like return to Equestria at some point for spiritual healing, whatever that was. He was sick in body, mind, and spirit. A healer might be able to cure his body, he had no clue how to heal his mind, but it would take the magic of the princesses to fix his spirit.

Animancy. The word floated through his mind, a nebulous thought.

A pony was at least two parts, and Dim had seen the evidence of that. He had his body, and then there was the energy that projected from his body, the source of animation that was his life. The flesh in the physical realm could be healed by a skilled healer, but what of the black astral glow he projected? A sincere worry awoke within him, and he thought a most dreadful thought: this sickness could take him away from Blackbird before he truly had a chance to know her.

He shivered and hoped that anypony who noticed would think it was the chill in the air.

“Blackbird…” Gesundheit turned to look at the ravenous black creature that dwarfed them all. “I’ll see to it that you and Dim are well stocked and ready for your departure. I think I understand. Dim doesn’t want to put us in danger with those who are sure to come looking for him, but he is too much of an asshole to just come right out and say it. We wouldn’t want him revealing any sense of compassion now, would we?” The pegasus had a wry smile upon his face when he turned to look at Dim, who was pulling out a clove and cannabis cigarette.

“That’s Lord Asshole to you, and don’t you forget it.” With a flick of magic, Dim lit his cigarette and then glowered at the pegasus across the table. “Ungrateful disgusting primitives.”

For whatever reason, Dim felt better.

And just like that, it was time to go. Baumhaus was not on fire, nor were there a surplus of dead bodies left behind. For once, the town was noticeably better after Dim’s visit, rather than made worse. For Dim, this felt like an upswing, a return to how things had been for a time when he was Harsh Winter, wizard for hire. This felt like an accomplishment, even more so because he was not Harsh Winter, but Dim Dark.

He watched as Blackbird said goodbye, feeling regretful that he was not one for goodbyes himself. What point was there, really? What greater purpose did it serve? If there was one, he failed to see it. A sense of attachment was still a great mystery to him, and rather than try to puzzle it out, to endure it, Dim chose to flee from it. Turning about, he headed for the open door of the vardo.

“Not a word of goodbye, Dim?” Gesundheit said, and his troubling words caused the fleeing unicorn to halt. “Equinity is a great and splendid thing, Dim. Come back to it. Come back to us. You’ll always be welcome here in Baumhaus.”

Dim’s magic faltered and he could feel raindrops thudding against his hat. The harder impacts made the brim wobble and he stood there, frozen, unable to move or respond. A breeze that was warm blew from one direction, while a chilly breeze blew in from another, a sure sign of a coming storm. Yes, a storm was coming and this was only the beginning.

Without turning around, Dim said, “Gesundheit, I wish you well. As a druid, you are wise and under your guidance, this place will prosper.”

“Thank you, that means a lot coming from you, Vizard. Long will be your story in the telling, I think.” The pegasus took a few steps forward, then halted, giving the unicorn his space. “For whatever it is worth, you are wiser than you give yourself credit for. You saved a life, Dim, you freed another from a lifetime of slavery and oppression. There is no greater act of goodness.”

“And yet my soul remains as black as tar,” Dim muttered to himself.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Dim’s response was a weary sigh. Already this was far too complicated for him to deal with, and now more than ever, he loathed saying goodbye. It was time to flee before self pity ignited into a raging wildfire that consumed him. This was much, much harder than just leaving town under the cover of night, catching a train and vanishing. “I enjoyed my time here. I had a pleasant stroll by the lake.”

“Goodbye, Dim.”

“Fare thee well, Gesundheit.” Hoping to avoid further awkwardness, Dim fled into the confines of the vardo, seeking sanctuary and blessed silence.

It was not smooth sailing. Flying? Dim didn’t know. The storm was higher up, with high winds, and the flying vardo was not at all aerodynamic. Turbulence became a real problem and he found himself being tossed around in a manner most undignified. Blackbird’s real strength was evidenced by how she managed to pull this contraption, this flying brick. Her wings, the enormous things they were, sliced through the uncooperative air like massive black swords and dragged the vardo through the sodden grey mists.

No longer content to sit on the floor and be bounced around, Dim decided that he could be bounced around in bed. He unfolded the top bunk and was almost cracked upon his head. Snarling, he struggled and scrambled into his bunk, and then tried to get comfortable. When he was almost bounced out of his bunk, he began to wonder if, perhaps, this might have been a bad idea.

A particularly bad bit of turbulence tossed Dim from his bunk and made him smash snoot first into the ceiling above him. When he fell back down upon his mattress, he felt his face, panicking, fearful of discovering blood. Everything felt dry, yet he continued, reaching up to feel his nose while he rolled over onto his side.

With a spell, he made himself stick to his bunk, in very much the same way a wall-walking spell would make him cling to walls. He sniffled a bit, still fearing a bloody nose, and tried to settle in. Stuck into place, it didn’t take him long to get comfortable, and he began to tune out the world.

Names had power. He thought of the Sea Witch, not knowing her name, and it dawned upon him that she probably had her domain protected. She was probably the source of his shelter, the means that he had privacy on Tortoise-Tuga. Something inside of a nearby cupboard clunked, but he failed to register it. Living in close proximity to her, he had probably been invisible to those who held an interest in him.

She was powerful, but nameless, and this made him think of the pink voice within his mind. It occurred to him that he should know all the names of the alicorn princesses of Equestria. He was positive that he had known their names, that at some point during his upbringing, he had to have learned about it. He thought of his encounter with Princess Celestia that night at the standing stones when he had met with his sister.

No, my darling foal, your blood is still polluted with a poison most terrible, most vile…

Princess Celestia had warned him. It was difficult to remember, those memories were hazy, and some felt incomplete in a strange way. He thought of the pink alicorn that materialised beside Princess Celestia, and he did not know her. How could he not know her? She was inside of his mind, even now. How could his upbringing, his education, all of those things afforded to him as a prince of the Dark family somehow miss her?

A name has power, that’s how, something from the depths of his mind reminded him. This is a glammer, a trick, there is a reason Princess Celestia appeared first. This was planned. Dim considered this. Maybe it was. He was inclined to agree with his paranoia, if that was what was speaking to him. Princess Celestia had lept into him to help him fight.

Had she purged the information about the pink princess from his mind?

A name had power. If he knew the name of the pink alicorn, he might be able to purge her from his hind. Did he want to do that? He didn’t know. Maybe he did? Maybe he was better off with her? Perhaps she was protecting him from the wasting poison that Princess Celestia had mentioned. What vile poison lurked in his blood?

The pieces might fit together better if Dim only had more of them. As of right now, it seemed like a fruitless endeavour. A piece of vital information seemed missing, stolen, and logic dictated that it was common knowledge that he should know. All the evidence said he was poisoned somehow, and this he did not doubt. In the dream, his mother had finished casting some spell.

The final spell was cast and even now, your mother’s magic begins to transform you. The messenger that Blackbird had killed had said that, and so much more. Dim couldn’t recall everything and he flogged his brain for more details, needing to remember more. So much was at stake.

Such was the problem with picture puzzles that had far too many missing pieces.

Author's Notes:

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing.”
E.B. White