Wild Growth knocked on the door of her sister's house and waited patiently for an answer. It took several seconds, but when the door opened she was shocked to see Tempest Shadow standing there.

"I remember you," Tempest said as she looked her over. "You're Rosetta Stone's sister with the powerful earth pony magic. I assume you're here to visit her."

"Um, yeah...why are you here though?" Wild asked in confusion.

"That's none of your concern," Tempest said flatly. "I'll probably be here for quite some time though. Your sister is upstairs and awake if you wish to speak with her."

"Um, alright. Thanks, Tempest," Wild said as she stepped inside.

The broken horned unicorn closed the door and walked back to the kitchen without saying anything else. Wild frowned slightly as she watched Tempest go. There wasn't any sign of Tom about either. This was just weird.

She shook her head then went up the stairs to go find her sister. When she reached the top of the stairs she heard the sound of retching coming from the bathroom and quickly went to go see who it was.

Wild walked into the bathroom and reached up and flipped the light on. Rosetta was there with her head hung over the toilet and the toilet was filled with a disgusting mass of green and milky white vomit. The night pony mare was doing some final spitting of gunk out into the toilet bowl and her sides were leaving with labored breathing.

Rosetta looked over very at her with a miserable expression. "Morning sickness really sucks, you know that? Nice mane cut by the way, it looks good."

"Thanks. It's nine at night, so you're not really having morning sickness," Wild pointed out with a small grin.

"Semantics," Rosetta said as she sat back up and seemed to try to relax her breathing. The night pony then reached up with a wing and flushed the toilet.

"Has Phobia started this yet?" Wild asked curiously.

Rosetta shook her head. "No, but she's about a month behind me, so her time is coming. Hopefully mine will ease up by then and we don't have to compete for who gets access to throwing up in the toilet."

"Time to invest in some buckets then."

Rosetta actually nodded then stopped and sniffed the air. She then gave Wild a disapproving look. "Big sister tip, you need to find some lemons or something like that to cover up the tobacco smell, or you'll be hearing lectures from Mama for the foreseeable future."

Wild frowned. "No lectures from you?"

Rosetta shrugged. "I agreed I wouldn't lecture you about these things. The more I've thought about it the more a hypocrite I feel for doing so since I was doing the same things when I was only a year or so older than you. The drinking bothers me more than the fact I smell smoke on you, but as long as you don't show signs of becoming an alcoholic I'll bite my tongue."

"Papa told me about you getting drunk sometimes in college," Wild said as she sat down .

Rosetta smirked. "And boy did he ever get on my case." She dropped her smirk into a concerned frown. "I promise I won't lecture you about things like this, but if I do see you doing something I think can seriously screw up your life can you please let me have my say? You're really inexperienced with a lot of things outside of book learning. I care about you, you're my only sister, and I don't want you getting hurt. Even if I wasn't a night pony I'd still be protective of my little sister."

"Is there something you want to have a say on right now?" Wild asked with a raised eyebrow.

Rosetta shook her had. "No, nothing that I've seen. I just want to make it clear that if I do notice something and speak up about it that I really am seriously worried about it. Is that fair?"

"That's fair, I guess," Wild said begrudgingly.

Rosetta stood up. "So, why the visit? Did you just come here to watch me throw up? I give a daily show between eight and nine every evening."

"I wanted to show you the plans for my new house that's getting built," Wild explained with a hint of excitement. "It's getting built not far from where Sunset is building that new church of hers, and it's going to be huge."

Rosetta smiled. "So, how many square feet is this thing going to be?"

Wild grinned and spread her forelegs wide. "It's going to be massive, thirty-six thousand square feet."

The was a feeling of satisfaction as Wild watched Rosetta's eyes bulge. Her sister looked at her for a moment before replying. "What in the world are you going to do with that much space? I was expecting on a high end you getting something a something a quarter of that size or less when I heard you were getting a mansion. Considering we're smaller than humans that's extremely excessive."

Wild shrugged. "I know a few things, but not completely sure about everything. Want to see the basic floor plan?"

Rosetta rolled her eyes. "Sure, why not. Let's see this thing. How are you even paying for it? Something that size seems beyond even your price range."

"A large part of it is being financed by SPEC. It's my house, but it will also be used for hosting SPEC meetings and guests from time to time."

Rosetta looked at her in confusion. "What's SPEC? I thought you were employed by Westvaco."

"Southern Pony Economic Council," Wild recited off. "It's going to be made up of southern pony business owners and political leaders to help guide pony economic interests and work with corporations and state governments to help bolster local economies in the south. I'm going to be a sitting board member."

Rosetta narrowed her eyes. "Let me guess, Sunset Blessing is going to be a board member too."

"She's the board chair."

"Of course she is," Rosetta said with a sigh. "Damn unicorn can't help herself but try to make a grab for political power."

Wild gave her sister a long look. "We're just an advisory board, we don't actually have any official government power. At best you might compare us to the NAACP, NRA, or something like those."

"Why just the south?" Rosetta asked.

Wild frowned. "There isn't a huge amount of ponies up north, and the west doesn't really seem interested in the economy. Sunset tried to get some of the western ponies involved, but got turned down flat. She says that most of the ponies out west seem ready to regress back to, as she put it, Paleolithic life."

Rosetta snorted. "I'm sure that's a gross exaggeration. It can't be that bad."

"I'm not so sure," Wild replied thoughtfully. "She's putting in a lot of time talking with different southern pony leaders trying to get them to encourage ponies to sort of stay involved with how things were before ETS started. They say some of them were just trying to make communities like in the vision. She thinks she's got most of the south on board with not doing that, but there's just too many ponies out west that have already just started up farming communities to try to convince, and there's too much open land they're claiming and spreading themselves out in."

"I suppose it makes sense," Rosetta said thoughtfully. "The geography and population density is much different out there. We don't have those wide open spaces in the south so we have to find a way to work with humans. Out west they can geographically just separate themselves from the humans and form their little communes."

"Yeah, so things are going to go bad out west," Wild said with a sigh. "That's why we have SPEC, so the humans know that all ponies aren't like that and we can contribute to the economy. If we don't they're going to get really hostile to us."

Rosetta looked at her. "This is a big change in focus for you. You've never really been interested in this kind of stuff before. If any member of the family had interest in this it was me, the social studies geek."

"It's just another thing that needs to be done. I have a responsibility to help any way I can."

Rosetta looked at her with sympathy. "Wild, you don't have to be responsible for everything. You're seventeen, you already have far too much being put in your shoulders. You're going to run yourself into an early grave. You're not even qualified for being on an economic advisory board."

Wild frowned. "I can learn. Number is teaching me everything she knows, and she is qualified to do this kind of thing."

Rosetta scowled. "You're picking up a lot of crap from Number Crunch." She paused before continuing without the scowl. "Sorry, still not thrilled with you spending so much time with her. I'm trying to get better with how I think about her. It's going to take some time though."

"Wait... you're actually giving Number a chance?" Wild asked.

Rosetta bit her lip. "In light of what I've learned about Phobia accidently using mind magic on her, and Tonya deliberately using mind magic on her, it's probably unfair for me to take such a hardline stance against her."

"So...you'll let her apologize then?" Wild asked hopefully.

Rosetta frowned. "We'll see, but definitely not yet. What got dredged up by the mind magic was still part of her. I'm not going to forget that."

Wild's ears sagged. At least this was some progress towards her sister getting off her case about who her friends were. Rosetta was actually being pretty reasonable all around, even giving advice. Wild wondered where she could find some lemons before her mama got a good whiff of her.

The talk about mind magic reminded her of something else though.

"I wanted to talk to Phobia about something," Wild said slowly. "Tonya is insisting that she mind controled Number, but Number is insisting she didn't. She claims what happened with Swift Strike was self defense, but she can't remember the actual details of what actually happened to back that up."

Rosetta frowned deeply. Wild never knew how to discuss her sister's ex with her. She'd decided that referring to him strictly by his pony name softened the blow of thinking of him, but it was really hard to know what Rosetta thought. The night pony definitely despised him, for good reason, but hearing about how a person she had at one time been engaged to was murdered couldn't be as easy to take as Rosetta let on. At least Wild hoped her sister wasn't that bloodthirsty.

"You'll have to discuss that with her," Rosetta said finally. "She really isn't up to talking right now though. Today has been very trying for her and tomorrow is likely going to be even worse."

"What happened?" Wild asked.

Rosetta shook her head. "It's night pony business. Phobia is officially a Dreamwarden now, and the job is stressful. She's trying not to show it to ponies while asleep, but this is really rough on her emotionally. She's still not better with her own fears, and now she brings out the fears of others in graphic ways. The only reason she can hide how much things get to her while asleep is she can control what others see when they see her."

"Maybe she should take a step back until she's doing better then?" Wild suggested.

Rosetta shook her head. "Maybe after tomorrow. I'm going to do everything I can tomorrow to make sure it doesn't turn out horribly. Me and her mother both."

Wild narrowed her eyes. "What happens tomorrow?"

Her sister looked at her for a long minute then hung her head. "You'll figure it out really fast if things go badly tomorrow, and you know plenty already, so I suppose there's no harm in telling you. Let's go verify with Phobia first, all the same. There are rules, and only the Dreamwardens can make exceptions to them."

"Why if these rules are so important do they not apply to the Dreamwardens?" Wild asked, feeling frustrated at the constant night pony secrecy.

"They've got a separate set of rules for them. There's some overlap in their rules and ours, but they have a lot more freedom to do as they wish. We can talk about how unfair it is, and we'd be correct in saying so, but that is just the way it is and isn't changing," Rosetta explained. "So let's go see if Phobia will make an exception for you."

The two entered into the dark bedroom. There was no light switch or lamp in this room, but at least they had the blinds open to let some moonlight come in. Wild could see Phobia hunkered over a textbook of some sort reading in the dimness.

"My old college psychology books helping at all?" Rosetta asked as she went over and nuzzled Phobia.

"I'm just reading over basics so far. I'm not really deep into anything yet," Phobia replied.

"We need to brush up on your math too," Rosetta said as she cuddled close to Phobia. "You'll need to take a few statistics classes eventually."

"If they accept me into the college," Phobia reminded.

"Your dad's going to track down your high school transcripts and they should be good enough to get you in if Wild actually does pay for it," Rosetta said as she draped a wing over her lover.

"Um, yeah, I said I'd do that if you really are doing that," Wild assured them. "I've already got a got extra income on top of my Westvaco check coming in, so it should be no problem."

"Is that money related to that SPEC thing?" Rosetta asked suspiciously.

Wild rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. "Not really. Though it's part of why I'm on the SPEC board. There's a company that's going to be paying me a lot of money to star in some commercials endorsing their products. They're also giving me partial ownership in the company. Number is going to try to set me up with other companies like that and she's helping me develop an investment portfolio. She says if I play my cards right I could get majority ownership in possible upcoming multi-billion dollar companies."

Rosetta chuckled. "My little sister, the botany nerd, planning corporate takeovers. Not on the top hundred things I would ever have expected out of you."

Wild frowned. "I have to do what I have to do. I want to make a positive impact, and I want to fund medical research to help Mama out. I've got the power and can develop the resources to make a difference. It's my responsibility to do everything I can."

"Having the power to alter ponies lives is not what it's cracked up to be," Phobia said grimly. "I have already seen where I can hurt others through my power. Be careful you don't destroy ponies lives while trying to help them."

"I'll keep that in mind," Wild said. She didn't see any way she could go hurting anypony with what she was doing in terms of business. She was far more concerned with accidentally hurting others with her powers. The business stuff didn't have the same appeal to her as growing things, but it wouldn't end with her accidently killing somepony because she lost her temper and violently changed the topography of the region around her.

"Wild wanted to know what's going to happen today," Rosetta said to Phobia in a low voice. "That's something I have to go to you for permission on."

Phobia closed the book she had been reading and frowned. "I'm not sure I want to discuss it. There's no reason you need to know anything."

"She knows about what Tonya did," Rosetta explained. "She also had been talking to Number Crunch about it and getting a contradictory story."

Phobia looked at Wild silently for a moment then hung her head. "Tonya is going to be tried today because of what happened with Number Crunch. I'm aware Number Crunch has a mental block up over her memories from that night. We'll be taking that block down and looking at her memories by her permission. What we see will determine Tonya's fate. There's some other details in play, but Tonya's fate will be determined largely by Number's testimony."

"Am I allowed to attend?" Wild asked. "Number is my friend. I want to see the truth about what happened that night."

Phobia gave her a hard look. "That's private information. She's agreed to show the court, but night ponies are sworn to secrecy on details they learn about others in dreams. She was assured this would not impact her in the waking world."

"What if Number gave me permission to see? Could I be there then?" Wild asked.

Phobia looked uncomfortable. "Yes, I'll grant it if she gives permission. I'd also want a compulsion from you to keep quiet afterwards about what you saw in the trial. If you don't agree to that it's a no-go. You're far to loose a tongue for my liking."

Wild fidgeted in place. She really didn't like the idea of anypony doing anything to her mind. She wanted to once and for all verify to herself that Number was a good pony. She believed it for the most part, but there was a small sliver of doubt.

"I'll agree, and I'll talk to Number first thing tomorrow about getting permission to see what she's showing you."

Author's Notes:

Exhausted as of late. Waiting to hear back from job interviews. Hoping that I can get some work soon because sitting around all day is killing my energy (not to mention finances).