“Dim… Dim! A word with you if I may… please… please, hold up and hear me out!”

Though he didn’t want to do so, Dim paused for a moment, holding up a wedge of cheese beside his head, waited, and listened to Modesto, who thundered down the hallway to catch up. More than anything, the pale minotaur appeared to be confused, shaken, and could even be described as out of sorts.

Modesto came to a lurching halt, his fingers curling and uncurling while little wisps of steam rose from the vents in his arms, and in a surprising move, hunkered down so he wouldn’t tower over Dim. It was quite a bit of effort to be polite, and Dim appreciated the gesture. Still, Dim wasn’t too happy to see the pale minotaur who thought so little of him.

“I watched you,” Modesto said, sounding foalish—calfish?—sounding younger than his usual self. “I watched you during the trials. At first, I couldn’t get a good reading on you, but at the end, you surprised me. I want to say that I was in error about you.”

In response, Dim’s upper lip curled back into a fine, aristocratic sneer.

“I don’t know what to make of you,” Modesto confessed while he recoiled from Dim’s reaction. “Hours ago, you killed a pony with the bends. I cannot even begin to fathom why you did what you did. But with that griffon… you… you actually made sure that justice was served without taking his future away from him. He will not grow to be a hated convict or a mistrusted felon… I do believe that in time, he will be freed from the dark shadow hanging over his head and will have a better, prosperous future because of what you have done. You are more like Eerie than I thought.”

“And I suppose this is supposed to make up for how you spoke of me earlier?” Dim asked and he saw remorse flash in Modesto’s eyes, followed by something else that Dim did not recognise.

“I am young and I am allowed to make foolish mistakes, on occasion.” There was a clink from Modesto’s mechanical fingers and his eyes fell down to the floor. “I am a creature who strives for harmony and order. It is the foundation of everything I believe in. There are times when my faith is shaken, because Eerie is a powerful force for order, but not necessarily for harmonious morality. As for you, you adhere to neither… there is no harmony to be found in you, and you court disorder as your ally.”

Dim waited while Modesto drew in a deep breath.

“But I cannot deny that what you did today was unequivocally moral. Denying it would be betraying my own ideals. But I am having trouble accepting that one such as you is capable of moral behaviour—”

At this, Dim snorted and Modesto became apologetic.

“Morality comes from virtue… from harmony. Order is the rigidity that gives morality its strength and conformity makes harmoniousness possible. Consider a song… the singers must sing together for harmony to be achieved. But you, Dim, you sing your own song—”

“So far, for all of your efforts, all you’ve managed to do is be vaguely insulting and say that I baffle you, but with a plethora of fancy words.” Dim began to chortle with glee when he saw Modesto’s face grow a choleric red. “You are little more than a boy that is desperate to differentiate himself from his mother, while still valiantly trying to please her by exclaiming how grown up he is.”

Modesto began to sputter, but could not make words to respond. Dim laughed, a shrill, mocking, aristocratic laugh that was frightfully nasal, and he turned tail to walk away. His laughter became muffled when he nipped off a dainty bite of his cheese, but still, he laughed and Modesto was left stammering.

What else could it be but the horrid beginning of a most dreadful friendship?

Perhaps there was something to be said about Modesto’s ramblings about morality and harmony. Dim, stricken with a strange, clinging melancholy, a malaise that sapped his will to do much of anything, watched while Blackbird helped to look after the many slaves. Some had been injured in the conflict, while others had been injured prior. All of them were pitiful, many showed signs of abuse, some had lash marks, others had broken, crooked wings, and a few had been hobbled.

Now, almost all of them were terrified of kindness, just as Dim himself was paranoid and suspicious, always worried about the ulteriour motives of others when they did something nice. There were a few that showed no signs of emotion at all, just a blank thousand-yard stare at nothing in particular, and something about the plight of these poor souls filled the empty spaces within Dim with a maudlin, stifling rage that made it difficult to draw breath.

Eerie moved about the miserable, huddled masses, a matronly force of order that stood defiant in the face of so much heartache. Bombay was by her side, assisting, comforting, no doubt using her silver tongue for some good, to win trust and offer reassurance. What good was reassurance when one had nothing? Dim shook his head, was thoughtful for a time, and corrected himself; they had something. The kindness of strangers did exist.

Even the Bard had made himself useful, acting as a translator, but Dim could tell that the poor Bard would not be on his hooves for much longer. Dim’s misery was compounded by his own sheer exhaustion, having performed not one, but two exceptionally powerful spells this day, on top of a few winks from here to there. Now he was having trouble with his telekinesis, which sparked, fizzled, and didn’t want to work.

“What is to be done with them?” Dim asked of no one in particular and there were many who turned to look at him where he sat atop a wooden crate that had once been filled with apples.

Bombay paused, stood up straight, turned her head to look at Dim, and then replied, “They shall become citizens, if they so desire.”

“But what of home?” When Dim asked his question, he saw many faces sag with dismay, which made him feel worse.

“The former colonies where these creatures come from is now overrun with war and strife.” Bombay’s powerful voice carried through the area and there was something uplifting about it, even though she spoke of a dreadful subject. “What home is there to go back to? For most of these creatures, going back would only mean being captured again. These are not soldiers, nor rogues, nor wizards, but common creatures brought to us through extraordinary circumstance.”

The most cynical, most jaded part of Dim manifested and his mind’s eye saw with perfect clarity the exploitation that was going on. He blinked, winced, and his body grew tense. No, he didn’t want to believe that. Nein! His left eyelid quivered behind the smoked glass of his goggles and he tried to shove these unwanted thoughts out of his head. But the thoughts persisted, the unsettling notion that these slaves had progressed from one obvious form of slavery to a less obvious, kinder, gentler form of slavery, that of being indebted, beholden to their liberators.

While Dim wrestled with his unwanted thoughts, the mental pain became a physical one just behind his left eye, and it was as though a spike had been driven into his temple. A peculiar metallic flavour lingered on the sides of Dim’s tongue and every muscle in his frail body bunched up tight while he exerted all of his will towards making his thoughts cooperate.

“Dim?”

Blackbird’s voice cut through the fog of his mental fatigue and something about her dulcet, husky tones cleared his head. She was close now, her talons upon him, and without realising it he leaned into her touch. Rubbing his cheek against her knuckles, Dim’s mind quieted and his taut muscles began to unbunch.

“Dim… you’ve grown… brighter.” Blackbird sounded mystified, but Dim failed to notice. “You faded out after that tooth restoring potion and you looked a little duller. I guess it finally wore off, because now, you look like you did when I first met you. Sleek and shiny, not washed out and faded.”

So far gone was Dim that he didn’t care about whatever it was that Blackbird was talking about.

“I just saw it happen… like, right now. Eerie, tell me I’m not going crazy.” Blackbird rubbed her knuckles against Dim’s cheek, trying to soothe him.

“I sensed strange magic, but I have no idea what happened.” Eerie’s voice sounded far too neutral, as if she was hiding something by controlling her voice, and Dim, even in his subdued state, picked up on this fact. “Dim, go rest. It has been a long day for you. Blackbird, look after him. I will come to check on him when I am done here.”

Clucking her tongue, Blackbird shook her head from side to side. “Okay, I’m gonna get you into a bath for a good long soak, and maybe that will sort you out. I have no idea what happened, but you’re acting funny, Dim. Well, funnier than usual. Not your usual funny. Come on, come with me.”

When Dim was lifted, he found that he didn’t mind, and he was slung over Blackbird’s broad back like a sack of potatoes. Oh, Blackbird had a very nice back, it rippled with muscles, was warm, and nice to cling to. With vigourous abandon, he began to rub himself against it; soon, his troubles were forgotten and all thoughts of morality perished.

Dim was acting… peculiar. Almost as if he was stoned, but not in his usual way. In some weird way, he was almost… affectionate? He was clingy and touchy-feely, but his actions didn’t seem overtly sexual to Blackbird. Today had been a long day for Dim; he had conjured up an explosive butterfly that had glassed the shooting range, caused a horrific death to a unicorn that might have deserved it, and then had presided over a trial—yes, Dim had endured a long day.

Now, he sat in a deep basin of hot, steaming water with a dull, vacant expression upon his face. What Dim needed (and Blackbird too) was a good smoke. With her tongue sticking out, Blackbird’s whole arm was lost deep inside of Dim’s hat, where she knew that he kept his smokes, but she couldn’t seem to find them. She found all manner of other things though, which she pulled out, examined, then stuffed back in, things unwanted; a half-eaten wedge of cheese, now slightly stinky; one teaspoon, maybe stolen, and she might have been the one who had purloined it; one derringer, loaded; one black feather, maybe one of hers; a glass phial of some unknown liquid; another phial, this one marked with a skull and crossbones; the skull of what might have been an owl; a small gold bar intended as currency, marked with the Grittish standard; a bomb whose fuse was far too short; and then by accident, Blackbird pulled out an all too familiar spear.

With an ominous crackle of aetherfire, Chantico manifested, rising from the spear-tip, and she rose like a sleeper arising from slumber. She stretched, moaning and groaning, yawning, and did nothing to hide her embarrassing, rigid, ramrod-straight morning tail-boner that stuck out behind her like an over-excited exclamation point.

Finally! I am free from my cheese-reeking confines! I sense terrified mortals in need of hope and sustenance.

Blackbird, whose ears buzzed from Chantico’s strange, almost incomprehensible voice, raised her talons in polite inquiry. “Before you go, have you seen Dim’s smokes?”

Hang on, I have. Blaze up a burnt offering for me, will you?

Chantico snapped her claws together and Dim’s silver cigarette case poofed into existence, along with his silver cigarette holder. The sleepy ancient entity yawned again, reached down, tousled Dim’s mane, gave his ear one affectionate tug, and then strode away. Blackbird realised with some great sense of shock that Chantico was real—that is to say that her body had a terrific solidity to it.

My time is short and I can only hold my new body together for so long. I must go and make the most of it. Look after my devoted servant, in whom I am most pleased.

And just like that, Chantico was gone, leaving Blackbird alone with Dim.

Author's Notes:

And now I probably have to explain what happened so many chapters ago and how this continues a major thread...