Ultimately, Starswirl’s spell to keep Miles male lasted thirty-six hours of the seventy-two initially anticipated. A significant factor in shortening the duration of spells, but it wasn’t a matter of hexes being shrugged off in a matter of seconds or minutes anymore, and at least they could reliably estimate how long they would last.

In practice, this meant that Trecesson was free to start building sky carriages, and then it would be either down to Meadowbrook’s potions or Starswirl’s spells and enchantments to give the inhabitants temporary wings to circumvent the difficulty that was getting cargo around the forest. Once complete, the carriages should enable them to transport stones from the nearest quarry, lumber from wherever it was deemed wise to fell trees without angering Cernunnos and his forest guardians, any kind of salvage from nearby ruins…

Even trade with nearby Comper in fact. Given that said castle had supposedly built a mint, the introduction of post-apocalyptic coinage, if rudimentary, would provide them with an actual economy.

Miles though, wasn’t overly concerned about economic matters or how to build the temple they’d promised Cernunnos at the moment. She had witnessed Martin organize an offering ceremony (since the fawn had the favor of the Horned God for some reason she couldn’t fathom) to give back part of what the forest was giving them. He ought to be happy, and they had several months still to finish it.

No, what she had on her mind at the moment as she once more made her way inside Starswirl’s tower, was what the wizard had in mind to make her transformation into a male form permanent. He met her right at the door with Martin trailing a few steps behind him.

It had already been a day since the spell wore off and she’d turned back into a mare. She very much wanted that state of affairsto not last any longer.

“Lieutenant Miles!” Starswirl greeted. “How nice, I was just about to send Martin to get you. The ritual is ready, if you will...” He told her, waving his hoof towards the stairs. “I’d rather we do it now. Canterlot Courier is soon to depart for Carnac; and Martin and I shall accompany them to ensure everything goes smoothly.”

“Martin?” She blinked, looking at the young fawn trailing behind them in surprise. “Really? Rockhoof let you go along kiddo?”

“Yes Miss Miles!” He chirped. “Mister Merlin says it’s a very important place and that I should at least visit it once.”

“Sure uh… nevermind that.” She shook her head. “Just a bit surprised is all. You gonna need any guards, Starswirl?”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll drop a few waystones along the way so we can teleport back to Trecesson easily, and as a matter of fact Miss Glimmer has enough skill to use them as well and come back if necessary. As for Canterlot Courier, I fully expect the airship to remain in Carnac for however long it takes us to finish this. Now...” He said as they reached his lab. “Would you mind shedding your armor and stepping on the slab?”

She complied, and while she was taking off her armor (which had been enlarged for her stallion form in the meantime, Starswirl began explaining the reasoning and process behind making the change permanent. It was, in a way, a variant of what he’d done back when he had engraved his bones, the key difference being that it would only be a set of tattoos set with the previous spell, combined with another that would keep it powered by seeping off her own latent magic. Unlike a Cutie Mark though, it shouldn’t be visible through her fur.

“It won’t hurt as much as engraving my own bones did, but hurt it will.” He warned. “Need I prepare an anesthetic?”

“For a tattoo? I’ll be fine.” She waved off the concern, watching the wizard and his apprentice busy themselves gathering the requisite ingredients for the ink while the mechanical arms above the slab began preparing a ritual circle.

“Your call, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’ll put it at the base of your wings, best keep it close to your foci, even if it’s mostly passive.” He babbled on. “Martin dear, can you bring me the purple pigment? Not that one, a shade darker please. It’s best if it matches her fur color. His,apologies.”

It was actually the little fawn that drew the spells underneath her wings, telling her to keep them open while he stirred the thick, paste-ish ink as Merlin shaved a spot of fur on either side to make enough room. But Martin didn’t apply it with a needle.

That was the hard part. The magic ink would be seared into her skin when Starswirl activated his ritual, and she could see him having shifted to human form to adjust the artificial foci around the slab. Ten minutes of staying perfectly still to let Martin draw later, Starswirl came over and nodded approvingly. It was ready.Wizard and apprentice retreated behind his grimoire, and similar to what had happened earlier, the magic flared up and enacted the transformation, only this time, as she was turning into a he, Miles could feel the magic ink heat up to an agonizing degree so much that he choked back a scream, muscles going rigid. The flare of pain didn’t last however, and as the magic died down, it reduced down to a warm ache. But he was a stallion once more, looking at himself with satisfaction and…

Puzzlement.

“Starswirl, was that supposed to happen?”

He didn’t have wings anymore. And no, he hadn’t turned into an Earth Pony. His figure was still identical to what the spell had yielded on the previous attempt, making him more like a wingless pegasus than a stout Earth Pony.

“Fascinating...” The wizard whispered, still in human form, stroking his beard.

“Starswirl!” Miles said, more forcefully, yanking him out of his sudden bout of intense reflection.

“Oh pardon me, I was just thinking. And no, it wasn’t.”

“Then how come it happened anyway? Did Martin miss something when he drew the patterns?”

Starswirl looked over to his apprentice seeing the fawn frenetically flipping through a notebook. Good reaction there. Immediately try to find what went wrong. But he shook his head. He couldn’t have drawn something better if he’d done it himself. The reason was something else…

“I think… Since this time around the spell doesn’t have extra magic to start with and it’s drawing sustenance from your own, transforming into a stallion puts such a draw on your magic it doesn’t leave you with enough to fly. Hence, magic being the intuitive and hard to predict force that it always was, decides to just ditch the wings. Just an hypothesis of course.”

“Of course.” Miles rolled his eyes. “And would there happen to be a hypothetical solution to that?”

Because truth be told, he still had the pegasus instincts and he was getting some serious phantom pain and feeling of oppression from finding himself without the means to fly off. He wanted his win-

He felt his guts sink and the floor suddenly lurched closer. Feelings came back to her wings. Her?

Miles looked herself over. She was back to mare state, with her wings. Beneath their base though, the spots of shaven fur remained, still with their magical tattoos.

“The fuck?” She gaped, inadvertently switching back to English.

Eh, at least Martin couldn’t understand the swearing. Probably.

“Fascinating...”

“You said that once already and it’s not gotten us any further with this.” She said, now satisfied with correcting the oppressing feeling of not having wings… but now she missed her dick and oh there it goes again.

Sinking feeling in the gut. She distances herself from the ground and… was that a tingle in the tattoo? And there he was, a wingless pegasus stallion again.

“Is it supposed to do that?”

“It really isn’t, but you got me at a loss there.” Starswirl shrugged. “Maybe you somehow found a way to impact the spell in the tattoo to toggle it, I’d need to run more tests I don’t have for.”

“Wait a sec-”

“I’m terribly sorry Lieutenant, but Canterlot Courier is already prepped for departure and I must journey along with them to Carnac. There just isn’t enough time for you.” He apologized.

“When then?!”

“A few days most likely.” He guessed. “Until then… seems like you’re left with both options open. I’ll think about a solution for your wings as a stallion, but you can still take to the sky. Worst case scenario, go ask Morgane, I’m sure she can conjure up something in the meantime.”

Somehow, Miles doubted the dark fay would. Not for free at least.

And without further ado he closed his grimoire, the mechanical arms above the slab automatically folding up as another with a broom came down for cleaning. As for the wizard and his apprentice, Miles saw the two quickly grab a few satchels and book, Martin using his training staff to lift them in his telekinesis before they dashed out of the tower.

Carnac’s megalithic alignments awaited.

As much as he wanted to leave and begin his journey towards Brittany to meet Concord, Rodrigo’s injuries kept the pony confined to a small shepherd’s hut in the Pyrenees for the next two week while he recovered. His leg took the longest, and he just couldn’t make his way down the north side of the mountains and into France if he was restricted to hopping around on three hooves.

It was… nauseatingly boring. The last thing he anticipated he’d need when he set off on his journey was a novel or something to pass the time, and he had tried to keep his load as light as possible, so the only relevant piece of information he spent his time studying was a road map, and there were only so many times one could reassess a plan from start to finish before memorizing every single road.

On the upside… he had Veillantif. His first few days after waking up were a bit awkward but the green stallion had a sort of naivete about him that quickly grew on Rodrigo and the unicorn had to admit he’d have died from his wounds were it not for his help.

Veillantif sort of deflected the praise saying it was his duty as Rodrigo’s destrier anyway. That was his duty.

And so every day Rodrigo spent recovering, the other stallion would spend scouring the mountainside around the hut for resources, bringing back food, water and herbs to speed up his master’s recovery while in the evening he would cook, work on repairing Rodrigo’s armor and talk.

The armor itself was a sorry affair. The extent of the damage it had suffered during the battle forced Veillantif to ditch many damaged kevlar plates and he had to spend countless hours sewing it back together, the amount of protection it would now provide far lesser than initially, at least until they’d find replacement plates for it. Rodrigo could have lived with that, but the loss paired itself with that of his CETME battle rifle and his two makeshift knives, meaning all he had now was Durandal. Which certainly wasn’t a bad weapon, but it meant he had no ranged weapon, and his knowledge of magic wasn’t such that he could reliably fire magic bolts.

That sword better turn out to be as powerful as a battle rifle. He’d spent countless waking hours inspecting it in detail and waving the naked blade around in his telekinesis, but he wouldn’t be able to truly train with it until his hind leg recovered.

On the other side of the room, Veillantif just kept whistling a quiet tune as he stirred a pot of vegetable stew.

“Don’t you find it odd? This whole thing I mean?” Rodrigo sheathed the blade and broke the silence.

“What?”

“Look, at this point I’m pretty sure you’re not lying...” The green stallion was far too candid for that. “… but I still can’t understand why now that you’re no longer a plain horse, you’d still stick with me.”

“It’s my purpose.” Veillantif simply shrugged, balancing his little wooden spoon on one hoof. Sitting on his haunches, he grabbed some herbs in his mouth which he chucked in the stew with a flick of his head.

Rodrigo ignored the hygiene in that. Not like he functioned with a human immune system either way, or he’d have died of sepsis a while ago.

“To serve?”

“There is comfort in having purpose, regardless of what it is. Mine has been tasked upon me not only by Sir Roland upon his death, but further confirmed by my Great-grandmother when she made me an Earth Pony. I’d consider that a good way to lead my life, and you have yet to prove me wrong.”

“We’ve known each other for two weeks at best.” Rodrigo pointed out. “Usually I’d say that hardly tells you much about a person.”

“Then it is as I said: you have yet to prove me wrong. Don’t sell yourself short. Many take an injury like yours with considerably less grace.” Veillantif smiled.

“Flattered. And how does it feel then? Better than limbo?”

“Quite.” His companion nodded. “Although… this new body feels odd.”

“Yeah you tell me. I used to be human.”

“Mentally too.”

“Details?”

Veillantif furrowed his brows, pensive.

“I mean… it’s hard to describe and I guess that’s the difference in being smarter, but it feels like a veil has been lifted. My thoughts have never been clearer, and then you have what Great-grandmother added to help me. By all means I shouldn’t be able to speak like that, yet I can form coherent sentences, I know how to properly use this body to sew and cook in a way I never learned myself, it...” He struggled for words for a second. “… it just comes to me out of the blue. I can try something for the first time ever and discover I’m a pro at it, find a plant I had never seen before and know all its intricacies. It’s plain weird, having perfect mastery of something despite never learning it yourself, but if it means I can fulfill my purpose in life, then I’ll take it. And for the rest, for what I don’t actually know, then I know I can trust you to tell me.” He concluded with a childlike smile.

Rodrigo just blinked. There it was, one of those moments that made it so hard for the Madrilenian to comprehend his ‘destrier’. The Earth Pony would show himself perfectly able to express himself and his own emotions, but then he’d either say something that betrayed his trustful (and maybe a bit childish) mentality, or that he actually had very little knowledge of the world.

Much less given that he’d spent more than a thousand years in magical limbo.

Veillantif knew little about human advancements, technology, culture… most he knew revolved around what he had been able to glean and comprehend whilst growing up and traveling with Sir Roland.

The rest, he blindly trusted Rodrigo to tell him. The unicorn didn’t know how to feel having a pony rely on him in that way. Really, there was this childish naivete to Veillantif’s whole persona… and it just didn’t feel right abusing it. Maybe Concord was right about the whole integrity part.

Either way, by the next day, his leg had recovered enough that they could leave, which wasn’t too soon. The Pass wasn’t too high up the mountains, but lingering there while winter set in would have been a bad idea and they relied on foraging for food. Veillantif helped him don his armor once more early in the morning after both shared the bed (human size was enough for two stallions with room to spare) overnight.

Chilly, late autumn winds billowed the moment they set hoof outside, further comforting that they needed to make for France before it became needlessly harder. They filled their bags with water and supplies, Veillantif’s looking comically big for his size, what with filling them with tools and cooking implements, but he was an Earth Pony. The load barely fazed him, despite being nearly four times as much weight as what Rodrigo carried in pouches all over his armor.

“I’ll be fine, I know my limits. I can keep going the whole day with so little on my back.”

Rodrigo raised an eyebrow at ‘little’ but decided to leave it at that, securing Durandal’s sheath over his back, the pommel just on the edge of his vision if he felt like pulling it out with his teeth.

And on that note, the two of them set off north, towards France.

Despite their losses after their defeat at the refinery, Los Lobos’ base was a hive of activity. Wolf-dogs and jaguar warriors could be seen scurrying through the warrens, a messy maze of tunnels and burrows that looked like a cross between a giant ant hill and a mine. Unlike the burrows under the hacienda that the refinery workers had taken great care to make homely and comfortable, this was closer to the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam. Beyond the main access that Micha had actually located, more camouflaged trap doors and tunnels spread out in a wide radius around the main knot of chambers, and closer to access points most tunnels would curve subtly with recessed ambush points, booby traps and firing positions.

This was all to protect the main chamber in which High Priestess Atzi resided, their leader, a cleric of the Aztec Dog God of the Underworld, Xolotl. Her fealty to the deity, more than just turning her into a wolf-dog – one slightly bigger than the rest of her lupine brethren- had bestowed her with access to dark magics. Pale white skeletal markings adorned her black fur, shining like moonlight as she surveyed the chamber through gleaming yellow eyes.

She was wearing golden ceremonial armor with intricate geometric decorations, along with a loincloth and a particularly prominent headdress that hugged the side of her triangular lupine head. Despite that, hints of modernity still peeked through. The clothing was held together with modern spandex tailored for her form, the armor had extra pouches with a MOLLE system, and attached to her thigh opposite an enchanted war club was an UZI with a couple mags, the weapon modified with a shrouded barrel extension and wood stock to better match her size.

Below, work carried on in the main chamber. A while ago, she’d been drawn to the buried ruins of this pyramid with Xolotl’s statue at the top, and now her underlings were in the process of reclaiming the area. Most of the pyramid had been cleared of the muddy soil already, leaving it standing in a vast chamber with a ceiling that was kept from collapsing by weaving roots and vines that hung down like stalactites. An underground river ran around the base of the pyramid with a little rickety stone bridge connecting the tunnels to the grand staircase where magical torches burning with ethereal flame cast their pale glow across the whole chamber. Next to the bridge lay some stores and a few huts for higher-ranking members of the cult’s hierarchy. Most now lay vacant, their previous occupants dead in the failed assault.

Replacing them would be a hard task. Atzi winced at the prospect. She loathed it, but chances were she would have to ask her Lord Xolotl for favors and grant her the powers to raise the dead. With a shake of her head that made her headdress sway, she turned away from the outer side of the chamber where two jaguar warriors were bringing in a freshly slaughtered cow and focused back on the pyramid she was sitting atop of.

Tiered in the typical Aztec style and with vines crawling all over the masonry, it towered over the rest of the chamber, its grand staircase imperiously rising up to the top, with niches and fire bowls set into the sides of the pyramid at every tier, only now in the process of being repainted to the colorful schemes they were built for. It had a flat top with a squarish structure in the middle, Atzi’s personal quarters. On its roof stood a giant statue of Xolotl, head bent down to look into a shallow pool filled with shimmering waters. Water trickled into it from a hole in the ceiling before it escaped the pool through a pair of gutters on either side of the staircase.

The statue’s eyes gleamed with the same yellow hues as Atzi’s. It was active, and she could feel the divinity’s cold presence on the edge of her consciousness. She knelt, head bent low in front of it.

“You failed.”The Dog-God stated, his voice an icy spear digging deep inside her mind.

Her tattoos flared and she felt the heat escape her. He was not pleased with her.

“I apologize for my failings, milord.” She uttered in a very canine whimper of submission. “My plans hadn’t accounted for the arrival of the foreigners. Were it not for their tank and their troops, we would have take-” Xolotl’s grip on her mind increased and she froze up, maw halfway open.

“I care not for those foes you so insist on facing. Nor do I care for the worthless baubles these sailors looted from the simulacrum pyramid… but you took it upon yourself to squander away the lives of precious warriors on your own folly. You sent them to their deaths. And now they rest in the rising sun with Huitzilopochtli.”

His grip relented. She fell down on all fours at the edge of the pool with a gasp. The magic waters were showing faces. Those she had sent to the refinery, their features twisted, rotten. She gulped.

“What shall be my punishment then?”

“True punishment shall wait until life seeps out of your body and you join my side in the Underworld where you’ll assist me in guiding the dead through their trials of the nine realms. Only then will you fully grasp the consequences of your failures. For now however...” She started hearing some whispers, like words carried over distances by the wind. “… I fate you with the burden of hearing your underlings’ judgement. Never shall you escape the words of those who died under your service, and you shall know that no matter how you die, never shall you enjoy the radiance of the rising sun or the warmth of the venerable setting. Forever shall you toil under my service. In the Underworld.”

The edges of her vision darkened. This was no fate to laugh at. How you died in Aztec belief determined your afterlife. The dead at the refinery would enjoy pleasant conditions in the realm of the rising sun. Females who died in childbirth would enjoy the setting sun. A violent death like being struck by lightning or drowning would have you enjoy eternal rest in the realm of the rain god, in Tlalocan.

Xolotl however, was a warden of the Underworld, a Cerberus, as western mythos would perceive it, guarding Mictlan. Realm of the dead for those who died unremarkable deaths. A harsh, unforgiving realm where true rest lay at the end of nine trials for the dead to prove they were worthy.

Except now… she wouldn’t even get to prove it. Her role would be to guide unworthy souls through their challenges.

“May such a fate incite you not to squander yours or the lives under your service.”Xolotl barked inside her head. “Now, matters more serious need be tended. Raise your head. Punishment has been doled.”

“What are these matters oh my master?”

“The land is hurting, the jungle is rebelling. Foul creatures, servants of a demon have seized one of our necropolises and sealed the Blood God with their own dark rituals. They are bleeding him of his powers, the very powers bestowed by the faithful, to exploit and waste in their vices.”

“Then we shall not tolerate this. Where, my master? Where are these foes?”

“North, far to the north, where they captured the city of El Tajin. You must relocate. Abandon this place. Attacking the refinery stirred the ants’ nest and you won’t survive open confrontation with them. Cunning and deception will be what sees you through this and to victory.”

“Relocate? But Master! If we leave this place then they’ll be free to desecrate the pyramid and your statue!”She protested.

The canine statue overlooking the sacred pool shuddered, chips of stone falling into the glowing waters as the yellow glow in its eyes spread along thin lines carved into its sides. Then, with the sound of stone cracking, its head moved, jaws snapping a few times as it moved its joints and rose to full height, easily two stories of dark gray carved stone glowing with magic.

“I appreciate your concerns, my servant, but I never said this statue would be staying.” The statue rumbled, its voice the sound of stones grinding against each other as her master spoke, this time not mentally, although the icy feeling of death remained. “Assemble your troops. The road will be long. The pack must march today.”

And then the giant statue rose up on its hind legs and pawed at the ceiling, tearing roots apart and letting dirt fall in large clumps on the pyramid below, revealing a starry moonlit sky above. A pair of jaguar warriors that had been standing watch on the surface threw themselves to the side to dodge as Xolotl’s avatar leaped, finally feeling the touch of fresh air after centuries spent in damp darkness. It howled, a cold, spine-chilling sound that was soon echoed by all wolf-dogs in earshot. Far away, at the refinery and the hacienda, the guards stood on edge… but they weren’t the target.

Atzi was now standing up, an unreadable look on her muzzle. She stood still for a few seconds before running into her quarters to pack up.

El Tajin awaited. Her sister’s refinery was of no importance now.

Aleksei paced in front of the whole meeting room.

It was late in the evening when her patrol made it back to the refinery, but she still insisted all relevant Officers and locals come back to the refinery’s HQ so she could tell them the grim news. The Captains, the Chief Officers and Engineers, Carmelita, her forepup and the militia’s commander, all were sitting in front of her as she quickly threw together a briefing on the situation. In addition to a quick translation ward to help the locals understand. Try as she might, the cleric didn’t speak Spanish.

And so she regaled them with her findings, the projector behind her showing pictures taken at the ambush site, of the coach, the tracks, the ritual marks that had halted the tourists’ bus.

Radiant had even made a scale drawing of exactly how big Enigma, the slaver sphinx, was. A quadruped as tall as a minotaur was easily large enough to wrestle an elephant to the ground.

The slideshow and her briefing ended with a map of the state of Vera Cruz, highlights showing the refinery’s location, that of the ambush, and a single vector pointing to where the attackers might have come from. Next to that, a weather chart showed frequent storms in the general area, more than should be expected of a monsoon.

“And this points to the Four Horses having a presence in the region beyond their monsters.” She concluded at last.

In front of her, the room remained silent for a minute. Next to Carmelita, Dilip leaned back in his chair, one digit drumming against the armrest. On the opposite side, Samuel had taken a seat next to Lorelei, the feline discussing in hushed tones with the pink filly as the centaur that was her Chief Officer (Kilian Wetzel if she recalled right) sat with his legs folded under him, adding a piece of detail every so often.

“And what makes you so certain about it?” Carmelita crossed her arms. “That they’re in the region?”

“We scouted out the tracks found near the ambush site. The Four Horses are known to teleport around to travel. To use a cart, to travel several kilometers away from that site… It doesn’t make sense!” She flared up her wings for emphasis. “Unless, of course, they actually are in the region and have been capturing locals for a while. Think about it, the refinery gets a slow stream of returnees coming here, and maybe Los Lobos recruit some – if they don’t sacrifice them-, but has any come from the North as of late? From beyond Vera Cruz? From Mexico City?”

None whatsoever. Most returnees at the refinery and the hacienda either came from the opposite direction, from the Yucatan peninsula, which certainly wasn’t the most populated state of Mexico.

“What do they do to...” Carmelita trailed off uneasily.

“We don’t know much about that. One incident in Gothenburg in Sweden tells us they do kill some of their victims, but capture appears to be part of their M/O.” She recited, though she hadn’t been present for that particular fuckup. “The fact they have a slaver in their ranks may imply they need servants in the same way those convicts we faced in Savannah did, but Scylla must also be taken into account. Demonic magic is...” She winced. “Foul would be putting it mildly. I will not waste your time with hypotheses I can’t confirm. The point of this briefing is so everyone is warned: the Four Horses are here, and they’re not far.”

“But we don’t know where exactly.” Samuel pointed out in Spanish, though the translation ward clarified it for those who didn’t speak the language.

“Then we’ll find them. We have a general direction, and they can’t be too far from the ambush point.” Dilip stood up. “Priorities are what they are however, and we should deal with Los Lobos first, if only because they’re the closest threat.But I have pilots under my service, and an airplane. Aerial reconnaissance can help us pinpoint their location so that we may actually know how to go about it.”

“And Los Lobos?”

“Leave that for tomorrow. It's 23.30.”

“Very well then. I’ll reassess plans for tomorrow. Have a good night.” Samuel stood up and gave the whole room a curt nod before leaving.

That was it really, no need to stretch it out too far into the night. In fact sleeping on it might even let them come up with plans that were actually coherent, and so most filtered out of the room, leaving it up to Aleksei’s team to tidy up, tired as they were from their own recce.

She only noticed Captain Prateek hadn’t left the meeting room when she unplugged her laptop.

“Sir? Is there a problem?” She turned towards him and straightened up.

“Problem? You could see it that way I guess.” The D-dog opined slowly. “Benign however. I care about my crew, Miss Klavins. And one I recall you call a friend, Second Officer Przemo that is… may be in need of your services as a fertility cleric, if you haven’t been told already.”

Aleksei blinked owlishly. Micha? Fertility problem? Wha-

“Sir-” She tried, but he raised his paw.

“Though I am aware of the situation, it is not my role to tell you the details. I only suggest that you see her in short order. Her watch should begin in a few minutes, if you happen to look for her. That is all, good night.” He concluded before leaving the room.

And turning for the lift to Carmelita’s penthouse, she noted, instead of back out and towards the ship. She had a feeling ‘fertility cleric issues’ might catch up to the Captain too at some point.

Interesting as she was sure it was, the back and forth in translating only made the exchange between Skinner and Pedro tiresome to follow, so she conjured up a random excuse to slip back into the fort’s courtyard for a breath of fresh air… which wasn’t a complete lie. The fort’s headquarters felt a bit stuffy and she proceeded to climb to the top of the rampart to catch a little breeze after finding a spot to sit underneath a rusty cannon. The concrete beneath its support was showing weeds between the cracks, but much like the rest of the fort, it was kept under control. By the looks of it, someone had even replaced some of the tiles that topped the fort’s crenelations.

A bit decrepit, but in comparison to the overgrowth she could see in the city past the walls, it was pretty nice.

Praveen settled herself down cross-legged under the cannon with her rifle between her legs. She unlatched the front of her combat vest and let the weight of the ammo pouches tug it open on its own, giving her access to the front of her coveralls which she opened too. It was a bit indecent if someone saw her because it revealed her sports bra, but she was an Abyssinian. Not the most well-endowed of species, albeit enough for her breasts to still be annoying and chafe and jiggle. Tiresome things.

Least it was only two like humans. The three vestigial pairs of nipples beneath the top ones would have been annoying as hell if they weren’t that: vestigial.

In any case, the feeling of the river breeze washing across her gray fur and rustling her ears was something she didn’t know she needed so dearly. Even the lukewarm water in her canteen helped alleviate the heavy humidity that permeated Belem’s air.

Didn’t help the smell. Belem smelled like mud and stagnant water sprinkled over rotten fruit. Pungent. Muggy. She could swear if she breathed too hard she would start to dry-heave as though she was spitting a hairball.

Times like that she wished they’d have gone for that colony in Quebec instead of tackling South America. Still… you couldn’t complain Belem didn’t make for an entertaining view. There she had it in front of her eyes, the eerie overgrown city with all its foreign noises and dangerous wildlife, and on the other side the vast amazonian delta with the depths of the jungle lurking just beyond the horizon.

Now the one thousand rubles question: if the trees in Belem were that big, then how big were the ones she could see in the actual jungle just over the horizon?

Praveen’s whiskers twitched in amusement at imagining the sheer size of those. Those were probably big enough to make a fantasy author blush.

“Want some tea, dear?”

She startled, a brief yowl escaping her lips as she accidentally spilled some of her canteen’s contents.

“Oh I’m sorry, do you want help cleaning that?” The Ornithian who had startled her asked.

“It’s fine. ‘s just water, it will dry out.” She rumbled, eyeing the avian that had somehow managed to sneak up on her despite feline hearing and prescience.

Nah, scratch that. She realized she still had her ear plugs in from the attack on the pukwudgies, and the only time prescience warned her of something if she wasn’t actively focusing on it was imminent danger.

An Ornithian hen with an apron and a tea tray wasn’t an imminent danger, obviously. This was just Pedro’s wife, looking at her innocently.

“It’s a nice view don’t you think?”

“Yeah I guess it is.” Praveen turned her eyes back to the outer city. “A bit worrying to be this close to the city, don’t you think?”

“I’m not worried.” Pedro’s wife sat down next to her, her dress demurely tucked under her legs. “I know my husband will keep the monsters away, and we have sentinels on duty for bandits. And they’re as afraid of Pedro as the monsters are.” She smiled brightly, likely proud of her husband.

“Traditional aren’t you? You look like a genderswap that’s overdoing it.” Praveen commented before realizing her words, eyes widening. “I’m sorry, that came out ruder than I intended. Are you...”

“I always was female if that’s what you’re asking.” Her smile didn’t fade.

“Okay then… uh...” Praveen’s mouth hung partly open, inelegantly. “I don’t understand. Pedro is a bit… eccentric, but you? Why the frilly apron, why the hanging behind him demurely, why the...” She waved a paw at the Ornithian. “Why this old clothing? I know you parrots like the kitsch and it sure is, but aren’t there more practical alternatives?”

“Why, never tried a frilly dress yourself? Former male pride holding you back?” Pedro’s wife joked, tugging at her dress for emphasis.

Praveen blushed deeply and shifted stance, hugging her legs to her chest, tail coiled around them.

“Oh you have~” The parrot sang. “Would you tell me?”

“It’s embarrassing.” Praveen sulked.

“Lost a bet?”

“In a way? Uh… so we’re a tight crew on Fugro – our ship- and I’m the plumber.” She watched the parrot’s eyes show a hint of surprise. “Yeah I know, hard to tell but that's the way things are nowadays. So I was always good friends with the electrician. Oscar.”

“Aww, found yourself a boyfriend now?”

Praveen blushed, but she shook her head. There had been a few cases where she had entertained the thought out of curiosity, but Oscar?

“That’s a different case. He and I, we’re similar cases. She, rather. With one little detail that differs.”

“Oh, in what way?”

That Cara (a.k.a. Oscar) was considerably worse off than she was. Not only had the electrician turned into a female Abyssinian like Praveen, not only had she gotten a hefty dose of rejuvenation the likes of which reduced her to the Abyssinian equivalent of an 8-year-old girl, but she was also an empath. A damn powerful one at that.

“I don’t see what it’s got to do with a frilly dress but now I’m interested.”

“Getting to it, getting to it.” Praveen raised a finger.

So by powerful empath, she meant Cara could do more than just get a feel of the emotions of those surrounding her. Actual thoughts, even what people were visualizing, she could read as though they were her own. An extremely rare trait in her species.

According to the books that is. In Abyssinia that would have earned her a swift promotion and access to royal tutelage.

“Lemme guess, she can’t shut people out so she had a crisis.”

“The first day we returned was pure chaos. We immediately had a collision with another ship and it was a complete mess. Nobody saw her. It’s only a few hours after that I found her crying, all curled up in a ball sucking her own tail.”

She felt a pang in her heart at the memory. Oscar had been a good friend, a very good friend ever since they took up working for the same company. He had always been the older, wiser member of the duo, by more than a decade actually, yet always cheerful and ready to invite Praveen on some shore errand whenever the opportunity came up.

To see him reduced to a little white kitten half her size with ginger streaks across her fur, swimming in an oversized set of coveralls crying curled up under his bed. Praveen wasn’t sure whether to call it motherly or sisterly, but that was the first spark of a protective streak towards her best friend. Maybe that was something she saw when those big blue eyes looked up at her and called for help.

And so on that first day when Fugro popped back into existence off the coast of Scotland, she’d spent the night hugging a trembling Oscar as the poor kitten did her best to reel in her empath skills while she herself wasn’t even sure of what had happened.

It stuck that way since then. Most of her free time, she spent with ‘Cara’, freely volunteering to let her train her mind reading skills as the two of them discovered together the implications of becoming Abyssinian females, albeit with about twelve years of difference in physical age.

“Aww, that’s so cute.” Pedro’s wife beamed.

“I guess. You don’t get a lot of choice with who you’re coming back in this situation, but if you already have someone you’re close to, even a friend, it feels good to stick together. Now the frilly dress part...”

It was just so damn silly. She and Cara had decided to move to a pair of cabins sharing a bathroom between the two. An easy agreement. I help brush your fur, you brush mine. Then one evening Cara caught Praveen as she was dressing up with a newly acquired bra and panties (since chafing and jiggling are a thing), a bit of mockery was thrown around and well…

“So she goes ‘eh you’re girly’ and here I am ‘no you’re girly’ and this goes back and forth throwing ridicule and before we know it well...” She trailed off and scratched her neck awkwardly. “...we were in Cuba, there was a seamstress and there was going to be a little party. We got ourselves matching dresses. The girliest, frilliest thing you could imagine.” She finished in a whisper, ears flattened against her skull.

“Oh my god!” Pedro’s wife brought her talons to her beak, beaming. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve heard all week!”

And a grand embarrassment that still earned both of them comments to this day.

“So yeah… we pulled the frilly part, but otherwise we’re pretty much tomboys you could say.” Praveen shrugged. “Cara, I still don’t know why I feel so protective of her but most of the time when we’re off the ship together she just sticks by me. I read somewhere powerful empaths like her feel reassured with a familiar mind present. She doesn’t have as hard a time shutting out others’ thoughts now, but the change has made her shy and she avoids crowds. It’s fine really. We both work in the bowels of the ship making sure the piping and wiring keeps together.”

“It’s great to hear that. You two really sound like a cute duo, I’d be happy to meet your friend if you stay longer.”

“Maybe. Now that you heard my story, can I hear yours then? ‘cause I still don’t understand why you’re so...”

“The dress is there for a reason. I can fight, and I’ve got higher education – that’s how I learned English- so I’m no dumb house-hen for Pedro to pamper, but I believe in his ideals. He has a point. This country, Brazil… we need tradition to be proud of. We need decorum. We need stable, solid values to base a new society on, one that won’t suffer like what this country became before the Event. People… they stopped caring at a point. There was no sense of sacrifice for the country, no pride, just grab your piece of the cake before it all falls over. Pedro believes we can rebuild something to be proud of, a society where we’ll leave portraits and statues we can look at with pride.”

“And you believe him?”

“You saw the incubator in the headquarters? I wouldn’t have laid his eggs if I didn’t believe in him. I want a bright future for my chicks.”

Praveen looked at the overgrown city around them.

“That’s going to take a lot of hard work.”

“But I know we’ll make it. Not this year. Probably not ten years from now. But we’ll make it, and we’ll build something to be proud of for people to return to and for our kids to grow in.”

“It’s nice to see how much faith you put in him.”

“And you know what’s funny?”

“Do tell.”

“You thought I was a genderswap. But Pedro?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“He told me the night I laid my eggs. He was no warrior before. Just a petite woman. Look where he is now. Backed by the spirits of the jungle. Feared by monsters and bandits alike. Oh and he’s such a good fuck!” She ended in a happy trill. “Takes a lady to know how to treat one, don’t you think?”

Praveen made round eyes at that remark, but she shook her head and decided to ignore it.

“Anyway, what’s your name then? I’m sorry I forgot to ask.”

“Benedita.”

“Well you’re nice to talk to, Benedita.”

Author's Notes:

You know... with all the worldbuilding talks I've seen on this site and others about magic and magitech...

I'm one to think magic shouldn't work like science. I know Equestrian magic (from Equus that is, not ponies' specifically) has been shown as rather science-y...

But in my own (arguably not worth much) opinion, magic isn't something that should be predicted and studied carefully. Combine Equus' "friendship is magic" and Earth "beliefs become reality" and generally, you should get something that mostly works in the broad lines, but otherwise remains subject to change, emotional influences, and overall is vastly more inconsistent and harder to predict than anything involving pure technology.

Just my pinch of salt in the debate really.

And a counter to 'magitech' stuff superceding everything. Because if magic is reliably unreliable except for certain domains where it can outperform science (medicine for instance), then both tech and magic can be allowed to exist in their own niches in the same world...

Which I guess is a trope I use a lot... 'Big world allowing for completely different stuff to coexist at the same time.' Kinda the whole point behind my design of human magic in this fic.