“It’s going to be fine, Tara. You can do this,” Becky said softly.

Tara shook her head vigorously, “I don’t know if I can. What if something goes wrong? What if make a mistake and upset them even more? What if their injuries are serious and one of them dies and they think we did it deliberately!?”

Becky had to hold back a sigh as her girlfriend got herself increasingly worked up. She had been like this ever since the Rainbooms had arrived with Doctor Turner, almost an hour ago.

The Doctor had barely set foot in the building before informing the team that the Rainbooms were in the back of his Vertibird, that they were injured and unconscious, and that Tara was now in charge of Project Exodus. The women had tried to find what exactly had happened, but all he would say was that Colonel Autumn had royally screwed the pooch. After that he’d requisitioned Squad Sigma and Sienna to help get the Rainbooms inside and check them for injuries, downed a mug of coffee, then left Tara and Becky alone in the main office.

Becky glanced back at Tara to see if she was done with her ‘process’ yet. Nope, still freaking out. Okay, she’s going to need a nudge.

“Tara, stop. Look at me,” Becky said firmly. Tara closed her mouth mid-sentence and just sat there, blinking dumbly at her. “Don’t get lost trying to think of everything at once, okay? Remember your process. Just take a deep breath, get a piece of paper, and wr-”

“Write a list of objectives, break the problem up into lots of smaller ones, then find a way to achieve each of them, one at a time,” Tara finished. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. They’re only young, it’s not as if they’re a group of mysterious beings from another dimension that possess extremely dangerous superpowers. Oh, wait!”

“Easy on the sarcasm, Sparkles, I never said it would be easy,” Becky huffed.

Tara sighed softly, “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just… this is a really big deal, what if I do something wrong? What if I fail?”

“Since when have you ever failed?” Becky smirked, “Besides, you’ve got me and the rest of the team here to cover your ass, just in case. Or to punish you if things go perfectly.”

Tara raised an eyebrow, “Why would I get punished if things go perfectly?”

Becky smiled and leaned in close to whisper in Tara’s ear, “Well, most people seem to think getting spanked is a punishment.” She gently nibbled at her earlobe, immensely enjoying watching the little nerd shiver with anticipation. Just as Tara started to squirm in her seat, Becky gave her a teasing bite then pulled away, throwing her a smouldering look.

Tara glared at her hungrily for a few moments longer, then pouted as she realised playtime wasn’t going any further than that, “You’re evil.”

“You like it that way,” Becky retorted. “Now come on, write out a plan of action and we’ll break out the toybox later.”

A faint blush graced Tara’s cheeks, “Fetch me a pen and some paper, then.”

Becky gave herself a mental pat on the back. So easy. Just press the right buttons, redirect her stress, then all of a sudden she’s that much happier. Not to mention how much more fun bedtime will be…

The sound of the door opening brought the two out of their rosy little haze. Turner and Sienna both stepped into the office, their expressions not exactly inspiring confidence in the others. “We need to talk,” Sienna said without preamble.

Tara instantly went back into panic mode, “Oh no, something’s wrong isn’t it? What’s happened? Are they badly injured? Are they going to be alright? Are the-”

“The Rainbooms are going to be fine, don’t worry,” Turner cut in, quickly heading her off.

Sienna nodded, “Most of them just have some nasty bruising. Sunset Shimmer has some stitches and a damaged kidney but those are too old to be anything to do with Colonel Autumn. The only one I’m a little worried about is Fluttershy, she sustained a heavy impact to the skull that rendered her unconscious for at least several minutes. The auto-doc hasn’t picked up any signs of brain trauma, but I’m keeping her hooked up to it just in case.”

“Well, I suppose that’s not too bad,” Becky replied. “Are any of them awake yet?”

Sienna shook her head and tugged off her glasses, cleaning them with her sleeve, “Autumn’s men heavily sedated them. They’ll probably be nauseous as hell when they wake up, so I decided it would be best to just let them sleep it off.”

“We should probably give them some space. Having Enclave personnel looming over them the moment they wake up probably won’t help get them on our side. I’ve got one of our modified eyebots in the room that’ll alert us if and when they come around,” Turner added. “Four members of Squad Sigma are guarding the corridor outside, just in case. The other two are putting the Rainbooms’ necklaces in secure storage.”

“Why would you take their necklaces!?” Tara asked incredulously.

Turner gave her a serious look, “The eyebot picked up some very interesting radiation coming off them. I can’t be certain until we’ve done some proper tests, but I’d bet my left arm that it’s a match for the signal we detected from their portal.”

Becky frowned at him, “You mean their necklaces might have something to do with how they arrived on our world?”

Turner nodded, “It’s possible.”

Tara groaned and rubbed her temples, “How are we supposed to get them to cooperate with us if the first thing we do when they get here is steal their stuff!?”

“We aren’t stealing them!” Turner insisted. “We’re just… keeping them safe. They’re all secured in individual lockboxes anyway, so no one can tamper with them without us knowing.”

“Either way, that isn’t what we needed to talk about,” Sienna said quickly.

Tara eyed her warily, “What is it, then?”

“While I was checking the Rainbooms over I took some blood samples and ran them through the Reflectron, just so we have a record of their DNA on file. It turns out the DNA of two of them matches that of two personnel within the Enclave,” Sienna replied.

“What?!” Becky and Tara cried in unison.

Sienna nodded and folded her arms, staring curiously at Tara, “It gets weirder. I don’t know how, but… Twilight Sparkle is genetically identical to you, Tara.”

Stunned silence greeted that proclamation.

“That’s… that’s impossible,” Tara breathed.

“What about the other one?” Becky asked, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“Sunset Shimmer.” Sienna turned to look Becky in the eyes, “Her DNA matches yours.”

Lost in a timeless fugue, Sunset drifted softly from a drug-induced, semi-conscious haze into blissful sleep and back again, the line between the two blurring constantly. Her slumber was eventually disturbed by a gentle rocking, then a voice whispering in her ear finally brought her into a state of wakefulness.

“Sunset? Can you hear me? Wakey-wakey?”

Blinking blearily, Sunset cracked her eyes open and turned her head to see a shadowy figure standing over her. “Wha… Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie smiled apologetically, “Hey, Sunshim. Sorry to wake you up, how are you feeling?”

Sunset closed her eyes for a few seconds, using the time to try and actually figure out the answer. “A little ill,” she said finally.

“I thought so,” Pinkie said while nodding slightly, “I think the Enclave drugged us with something before they brought us here, wherever here is.”

“The Enclave?” Sunset frowned in confusion, then gasped as she remembered the events before she was knocked unconscious, “Project Purity! What happened? Is everyone okay?”

Pinkie winced, “I don’t know about Doctor Li or the others, the only people here so far are us girls. Some of us are a bit beat up, but… I think we’re all okay?”

Trying to will away the faint nausea she felt, Sunset pushed herself onto her elbows to take a look around.

They were in a large white room, longer than it was wide, with rows of beds lining the two longest walls and the rest of the girls spread out around them. Rainbow and Twilight were both awake and sitting up in bed, while Rarity was kneeling next to Applejack’s bed. Applejack herself was rubbing her belly tenderly and frowning at something in the corner of the room. Following her gaze, Sunset’s eyes widened as she realised why.

Fluttershy lay on a bed right in the corner, apparently sleeping peacefully. Next to her bed was a boxy little machine on wheels, with a computer terminal on one side and several articulated arms on the other, each ending in a different medical implement of some sort. Two of the arms, each sporting what appeared to be scanning devices, were passing around an over Fluttershy’s head constantly.

“What is that thing?” Sunset asked quietly.

“Some sort of hospital scanny thing, I think,” Pinkie replied.

“It’s an auto-doc,” Twilight cut in. “They’re highly advanced machines designed before the war that can perform medical procedures. There’s an old broken one in Rivet City, but this one looks much more advanced.” She climbed out of bed and went over to inspect it, “I’m no expert, but I think it says that Fluttershy is stable and sleeping.”

“So why’s it only on her?” Rainbow asked.

Twilight winced, “She does have a very nasty bruise on her face, she must have hit the floor pretty hard when we were all knocked unconscious. Maybe they’re just being extra careful, what with it being a head injury and all.”

“I hope so,” Sunset muttered, turning her attention back to Pinkie. Her friends’ hair had lost some of the frizz it had regained recently, but at least it wasn’t back to being lank and straight again. Sunset frowned slightly as she realised that wasn’t the only thing that had changed, “Pinkie, what are you wearing?”

“Huh?” Pinkie glanced down at herself. She was clad in a grey jumpsuit, similar to the utility jumpsuits the maintenance crew in Vault 101 wore. “Oh, this? When I woke up I was already wearing it, we all are.”

Sunset lifted the thin blanket off herself and raised an eyebrow, “Uh, I’m not?”

Instead of a jumpsuit, Sunset was wearing a dark blue vest and a baggy pair of two-tone, tan and dark blue shorts.

“Well, that’s weird,” Pinkie said flatly.

“Yeah,” Sunset agreed, frowning at her clothes. She felt like something was off, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Glancing back at Pinkie, her hand leapt to her throat as realisation struck, “Our Geo-mph!”

Pinkie clamped a hand over Sunset’s mouth before she could more than a word out. She chuckled nervously, “Sorry, Sunshim, but we should probably be careful what we talk about.” She jerked her head towards the door at the far end of the room, “I think we’re being watched.”

Sunset looked over to see what she was talking about. There, floating next to the door, was another of the little ball-shaped robots they’d encountered just outside Megaton. This one seemed to be in much better condition however, it’s metal shell gleaming and it’s little motor running silently.

“It’s the same as the one we saw outside Megaton, isn’t it?” Pinkie asked, evidently having reached the same conclusion.

“I think so,” Sunset replied, clambering out of bed and stepping over to take a closer look. “It looks like it has more antennae than the other one, maybe it’s a different model?” She scowled at the little robot. It didn’t appear to have an obvious camera anywhere on it’s carapace, but Sunset had no doubt that it was keeping an eye on them somehow.

So the Enclave have been spying on us for a while then, they probably have these things all over the wasteland. Well, if that’s the case…

Bending over to peer into the strange grill-like front, Sunset tapped the side of it gently, “Hey, is anyone out there?”

“Good morning!”

“Wah!” Sunset skipped backwards in surprise as a chipper voice crackled out from a speaker on the robot.

“Sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!” the voice said quickly. Sunset stared incredulously at the robot as she waited for her heart rate to return to normal. Even with the slight distortion from the speaker, she would recognise that voice anywhere. “Twilight?”

“Um, no. Well, not exactly. I mean I don’t think so?” A couple of other voices held a quick and muffled conversation before the voice spoke again, “Let me start from the beginning. My name is Doctor Tara Strong. I’m a scientist working for the Enclave. I know your first real interaction with our organisation may have been a bit… terrible, but I’d like to take the opportunity to try and rectify that. Going by what you just called me, I think you’ll agree that we have at least one good reason to talk to each other.”

Sunset looked back at Twilight, who was staring at the robot, a thunderstruck expression on her face, “What do you think?”

Twilight just shook her head slowly.

“If you don’t want to speak to us, that’s completely understandable,” Doctor Strong said softly. “Your clothes and the rest of your belongings are all in footlockers underneath your beds, except for your necklaces. I’m afraid we had to put those into secure storage, they were giving off an unknown form of radiation and, since we don’t know how they operate, we didn’t want to take any chances with our own health.”

“They’re perfectly safe!” Sunset snapped, then regretted it instantly. “I mean, they’re safe as long as they’re with us, if anyone else starts messing around with them, things are going to get dangerous.”

“No-one is going to mess around with them in any way. They are currently secured in individual lock-boxes with a combination lock that only I know the combination for, you have my word,” Doctor Strong replied. “I know this won’t exactly help us gain your trust, but until we’re certain that the necklaces don’t pose any threat, I’m afraid we can’t give them back to you yet.”

Sunset seriously considered telling the doctor that she could get stuffed until the geodes had been returned, or even just refuse to cooperate outright. After all, it wasn’t as if the Enclave had given the girls any reason whatsoever to trust them. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that talking to the scientists might well be the only way the girls were getting out of there.

Before Sunset could think of a suitable reply, Doctor Strong spoke again, “If it helps in any way, there won’t be any soldiers present for our conversation. It’ll just be myself and two of my colleagues. One of them is medically trained, and the other is… well… you’ll probably be interested to meet her. So… how about it?”

Sunset glanced back at her friends again. When Twilight gave a subtle nod, she turned back to the robot, “Fine. But no soldiers.”

“Of course, we’ll be right down,” came the reply.

Sunset just nodded and turned away.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Applejack asked as Sunset returned to her bed and sat down.

“Not really,” Sunset admitted, “but what choice do we have? Besides, did you hear the doctor’s voice?”

The others all nodded. Twilight cast a wary glance at the robot, “Do you think she really is… y’know?”

Sunset shook her head, glancing at the robot, which was undoubtedly still monitoring them, “I don’t know. Honestly? This world is so different from home I never even considered that there might be other… y’know.” She sighed massaged her temples gently. “What time is it anyway?”

“Hold on, I’ll check,” Pinkie replied. She scampered back to her own bed and reached underneath, pulling out the footlocker that Doctor Strong had said would be there.

Well, at least that’s one thing they weren’t lying about.

Pinkie flipped the lid open and smiled as she spotted her Pip-Boy nestled on top of her folded-up clothes. “Let me see…” she muttered as she picked it up, “it’s nearly half seven in the morning the day after yesterday.”

Sunset shot her a curious look, “The day after yesterday?”

Pinkie nodded, “According to the date on here, Project Purity was yesterday, so this must be the day after.”

Applejack frowned as she tried to follow the logic, “So you’re saying we were attacked yesterday, and we’ve been out cold all night?”

“Yep.”

Rarity opened her mouth to say something, but everyone’s attention was grabbed by a sudden moan from Fluttershy. Rainbow got there first, leaping out of bed and sliding on her knees at Fluttershy’s side just as the nurse opened her eyes, “Hey, are you okay?”

Fluttershy blinked a few times, then looked up, “Nnn, Rainbow?”

“I’m here, we’re all here,” Rainbow said gently. “How are you feeling?”

“My face hurts,” Flutters replied.

“I’m not surprised, with a bruise like that,” Sunset said, trying not to wince as she approached and got a good look at her friend’s face. Her whole left cheek was black and blue.

Fluttershy frowned and raised a hand to her face, then let out a soft ‘ouch’ when her fingers brushed her cheek. “Can someone pass me my nursing kit?”

“Oh, uh…” Rainbow looked under the bed, “Sure.”

Fluttershy gently pushed the arms of the auto-doc away and sat up as Rainbow pulled her kit out from under the bed. The nurse rummaged around in the kit for a moment, before pulling out a bottle of water and some pain lozenges, which she swiftly took. Once she was done she wiped her mouth and glanced around the room, “Um, where are we?”

“Some sort of Enclave facility,” Sunset replied. “They must have brought us here after they attacked Project Purity.”

“What about the others? Are Adam and James alright?” Fluttershy asked quickly.

Rainbow and Sunset shared an uneasy look. “We have no idea, it’s just us here,” Rainbow said slowly.

“Oh.” Fluttershy’s shoulders slumped for a moment, but she pulled herself together quickly, “What about you, are you all okay? Is anyone injured?”

“Applejack’s in quite a bit of pain with her belly,” Rarity called out.

Applejack huffed and rolled her eyes, “Ah told you, Ah’m fine.”

Rarity glared at her, “You are most certainly not fine, darling. You can barely move!”

“If you’re hurt; you should rest, Applejack,” Twilight cut in. “We don’t want a repeat of what happened with Sunset.”

Applejack’s response was interrupted by a knock at the door. Sunset moved to stand in the middle of the room, then looked around at the others, each of whom gave her a reassuring nod. Sunset folded her arms and took a calming breath as Twilight stepped up alongside her. “Come in.”

The door squeaked open slowly, revealing young women in lab coats. The first had long golden hair, tied back in a tight ponytail, while the second let her shoulder-length blonde hair hang loose. The jolt that ran through Sunset was nothing compared to the one she felt when she spotted the second woman. Colors aside, it was as if she was looking at herself, only older.

“Wow, you really do look like us,” the first woman said quietly. She shook her head and straightened up to speak more clearly, “Um, hello. I’m Doctor Strong, and this here is my colleague, Doctor Shoichet.” Doctor Shoichet just gave a half-hearted wave, a look of wary confusion on her face. “We’ve been looking forward to speaking with you, but, first of all, I believe we owe you an apology.”

Sunset blinked in surprise. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it certainly hadn’t been that.

“Hang on a second, you’re actually apologizing for attacking us?” Rainbow asked.

“Attacking you was never part of the plan,” Doctor Strong insisted. “We sent Doctor Turner to Rivet City to see if you would be interested in talking with us, peacefully. We had no idea you’d be anywhere near the Jefferson Memorial, or that the Taskforce had even been sent out already.”

“But, why would you even want to attack Project Purity in the first place?” Twilight asked.

Doctor Shoichet shrugged, “We don’t know the details, the higher-ups don’t share information about military operations with personnel who aren’t directly involved. Originally, we were going to be assigned to the Jefferson Taskforce, so we would have been told, but that changed after we received the radio broadcast about you girls.”

“After that, we were assigned to a different project. As part of that project I suggested that we open a dialogue with you, to see what we could learn from each other,” Doctor Strong continued. “Unfortunately, Doctor Turner got a little, er, distracted, when he first met with you. By the time he remembered what he was supposed to be doing, you had already left for the Jefferson Memorial. Doctor Turner deduced where you were heading and informed the President, who then contacted Colonel Autumn.”

Sunset frowned at her, “And Colonel Autumn is…?”

“He’s the head of the Department of the Army, and also the one who personally commanded the Jefferson Taskforce,” Doctor Strong replied.

“He’s also an asshole,” Doctor Shoichet added.

Doctor Strong giggled nervously, but her expression quickly turned sombre, “The Colonel misinterpreted the orders he was given, and instead of contacting you peacefully he… well, I think you know the rest.”

The room fell silent as the girls processed everything they’d been told. Sunset herself didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, Doctor Strong seemed to be genuine and, given who she was almost certainly this world’s counterpart of, Sunset was inclined to believe that the Enclave didn’t intend for the Rainbooms to get hurt. On the other hand, however, the fact that they had clearly been planning the attack on Project Purity for a while was undeniable, and the girls still hadn’t been given a reason as to why.

On top of that, James had been insistent that the Enclave not get their hands on any magic, and Doctor Strong herself admitted that they had taken custody of the Geodes already. To make matters worse, it wasn’t a subject that Sunset could easily press without raising suspicion. The harder she pushed to have the Geodes returned, the more likely it was that the Enclave would realise how important they were.

“You say you wanted to talk to us, before everything that happened at the Memorial,” Sunset said after a while. “What exactly did you want to talk to us about?”

Doctor Strong smiled brightly, “There’s actually quite a few things we wanted to discuss with you!” She pulled a rolled-up sheet of paper out of a pocket, “I’ve made a list of topics here.”

Rainbow snorted, “She’s definitely Twilight, alright.”

Sunset shot her a glare. She didn’t want to share too much of what they knew or suspected with these people, not until she knew exactly what they were after.

Doctor Strong glanced curiously from Sunset to Rainbow, “You know something about this, don’t you?”

“You say you didn’t mean to attack us,” Sunset interjected, ignoring the doctor’s question, “does that mean you’re going to let us go, or are we prisoners here?”

Doctor Strong shook her head, “You’re not prisoners, but it won’t be easy to leave. The area this facility is located in is extremely dangerous.”

“In what way?” Sunset asked.

“It’s crawling with super mutants,” Doctor Shoichet replied. “You were brought in on a Vertibird, but it had to return to base to refuel. We have another one, but we-”

The doctor was interrupted by another woman stepping through the door, carrying a small first aid kit. This woman was also wearing a lab-coat, along with a pair of pretty pink-framed glasses, her jet-black hair was pulled back into bunches. “Sorry I’m late,” she said flatly, not sounding at all sorry.

Doctor Shoichet rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by Twilight’s surprised cry, “Sugarcoat?!”

The woman stopped in her tracks and turned to stare at Twilight, arching an eyebrow as she did so, “Did you just… call me ‘Sugarcoat’?”

Twilight threw an apologetic look at Sunset, “I didn’t, I mean I was just, uh, thinking about-”

“You do know something,” Doctor Shoichet said, eyeing the girls suspiciously. “Who are you really? How did you get your powers? And why the hell are we so alike?”

Sunset drew herself up and glared at the doctors, “You attack us, you attack our friends, you steal our necklaces, and now you expect us to just give you the answers you want?” She snorted angrily, “Give me one good reason we should even consider trusting you!”

“She makes a good point,” the new doctor said.

Doctor Strong nodded, rubbing her arm nervously, “Doctor Bohn is right, you have every reason not to trust us, but please, just give us a chance.”

“Why in the heck should we?” Applejack called out from her bed.

“If we can’t come to a working arrangement, I’ll let you leave, you have my word,” Doctor Strong replied. “With your necklaces,” she added, pre-empting the question.

Sunset studied the doctor’s face carefully. She didn’t seem to be lying. If anything, she looked painfully sincere. “Why are you so desperate for us to work with you?” Sunset asked. “If you’re after our powers, then I’m afraid we can’t help you.”

“I’d be lying if we said we didn’t have any interest in your abilities, but that’s not the main reason we sought you out,” Doctor Strong replied.

“Then what is the main reason?” Twilight asked.

Doctor Strong smiled faintly, “We want to send you home.”

The Rainbooms stared at her incredulously. “Explain,” Sunset said bluntly.

Doctor Strong nodded, “I will, but first I was hoping that we could get to know each other a little better first. You’ve had a rough night and I really don’t want to push too much on you in one go.” She hesitated for a moment, then gestured at the door, “Would you care for a tour of the facility? We can talk a little more as we go.”

Sunset didn’t know what to say. She glanced back at the others, hoping for some input, but they all looked as confused and surprised as she felt. “What do you think?”

Rainbow shrugged, “Beats being cooped up in here.”

“I want breakfast,” Pinkie added. Her stomach punctuated the statement with a loud growl.

Doctor Strong chuckled, “We can go and get some food if you’d like.”

“While this all sounds very lovely, I’m afraid dear Applejack is just not up to moving right now,” Rarity said firmly.

“Oh for crying out loud, Ah said Ah’m fine!” Applejack shot back.

“I can help with that,” Doctor Bohn put in. “I wanted to give Miss Fluttershy a quick check over anyway, to make sure she doesn’t have a concussion. If that’s alright with you, that is?”

Fluttershy flinched at being addressed directly, “Oh, um, okay.”

Sunset’s mind whirled as she stepped out of the way to let the doctor through. Do these people really think they can send us home? And if they can, why? What do they want out of it? She shook her head and sighed. She could worry about that later. Glancing up at Doctor Shoichet, Sunset wasn’t surprised to see the doctor looking appraisingly back at her.

So, these are this world's’ versions of me and Twilight. Huh, I wonder if the rest of us are around somewhere, too?

The path stretched unendingly through the forest, leading the old woman through the endless greenery. She had walked this path for many a year now, watching the many plants grow, blossom, and wither. Each tree, every blossom, vine, and blade of grass was the essence of another being, living their own life outside this realm of dreams and prophecy. The life of each and every living person could be mapped out here, by those who had the gift of Sight.

Occasionally, the old woman would sight a will o’ the wisp floating through the forest, the mark of one who would change the fate of the entire wasteland. But while the plants and the people would differ, both the forest and the path were constant, never ending, never changing.

Until now.

Somewhere, out in the wider world, mighty powers were stirring. The old woman could see them even now, seven great wisps, all of different colours, that had exploded into life fully-formed only a short time ago, drifting erratically through the trees and altering everything they passed.

Slowly, but surely, the entire forest was beginning to shift around them. Dense thickets, mighty boughs, even the path itself were all creaking and moving into different alignments. Huge pines that should have stood for decades more were withering into nothing, while some of the tiniest seeds were sprouting saplings that would soon become towering oaks.

Worse was the pattering of liquid on the canopy above. At first the old woman thought it to be rain, or maybe even sap, but as more and more of it dripped down through the leaves she felt a dawning horror as she saw it for what it was.

Blood.

Puddles formed at first, little pools of glistening red. Soon, the puddles linked together, the forest floor quickly becoming covered in a shallow layer of gore that reached almost to the old woman’s ankles.

Tearing her gaze away from the terrible sight, the woman was surprised to see seven more wisps, following in the wake of the first ones. Two had already caught up, a pair of scientists eager to learn. A third was close behind, a young woman, both she and her sister safe for the moment, but soon to seek out the others.

The old woman nearly slipped then, the rising tide of gore rapidly climbing up to her knees. Pushing forward, she spotted the fourth follower, skimming along the surface of the blood, satisfied with a recent sale and looking forward to the next.

A sudden break in the canopy overhead drew the old woman’s attention. The sky was black, with sparkling rubies for stars gleaming in the firmament. Two crescent moons hung low in the sky, one surrounded by inky clouds, the other almost enclosing a single, shining star. Even as the woman watched, a great winged beast passed over the two, moving back for another pass just as she plunged back into the thick of the forest.

The blood was above her thighs now, her fear mounting as the threat of drowning became a very real possibility. Just as the realisation struck, the fifth wisp sped into view, a terrified woman desperately fleeing for her life.

Pushing forward, the woman hoped, needed, to see find the final two before the blood rose too far. Despite her extra effort, it wasn’t until the crimson tide had risen to her chest that the sixth wisp appeared, the spirit of a young woman locked in deadly combat, fighting for her family despite her terrible wounds.

The old woman was starting to panic as she struggled to move forward. Out of sheer desperation she tried to paddle, but roots and vines clawed at her legs and feet, forcing her to lumber forward as best she could.

Finally, just as the blood was reaching her chin, the woman cried out as she spotted the final wisp. She fought to keep her head above the gore, for she felt a spark of recognition with this one, but she couldn’t get close enough to see. Just as the woman was about to give up hope, the wisp seemed to pause. The wisp turned, and the face of a woman she knew well was the last thing the woman saw as the blood washed over her face.

The old woman woke with a start. She was shivering uncontrollably, cold sweat drenching every inch of her body. She flinched as a gentle hand touched her shoulder, “Are you alright, Bloomseer?”

Bloomseer Poplar looked up to see her attendant kneeling over her, an expression of deep concern on her pretty little face. The Bloomseer couldn’t repress a shudder as she saw the ghostly image of butterflies flitting around the girl, invisible save for those with the Sight. The young woman winced as Poplar grabbed her wrist, “Flutter, go and fetch the Tree Father and the Leaf Mother immediately. I have urgent news for the Great One.”

A lovely little bit of foreshadowing going on here to kick off the next major story arc, make of it what you will...

Comments and Criticisms are appreciated and, as always, thanks for reading!