It was done. All of those things the fleet had wanted to do whilst in Cuba had been completed. The small colony was running smoothly and would soon start producing its exports. Its defenses were strong. It had a radio relay and the telecommunication facilities it needed. Salvaged gear filled up the holds. Tanks were full. Supplies were at a peak...

Soon they would leave Havana.

Dilip set down his teacup with a clatter before the Diamond Dog moved over to his office’s porthole. Down below, trucks could be seen packing up the field hospital they had been using to assist the locals, the heavy modular containers being carefully stowed in Amandine’s holds under Vadim and Artyom’s scrutiny. At about the same time, a host of vintage cars were rolled down to the lower decks. Some of his subordinates’ keepsakes from visiting the island.

A neat detail. That idea of giving each crewmember the room to stow loot… Schmitt had completed it. Thanks to the dragoness Chief Engineer, the lowest car deck now offered each of his sailors their own storeroom. Big enough to stow cars, mind. As Dilip looked on, Angelo brought his own trophy car. The big gray minotaur that was the Second Engineer had found himself one of the few cars whose measurements didn’t clash with his bulky frame. A big old Cadillac with shining chromes and tall tailfins, its body painted pastel yellow.

Dilip couldn’t recognize the model, nor did he care. It was just one of many vintages his ship would keep safely tucked deep inside her bowels.

Behind him he heard snippets of Alejandro’s conversation with Quiros. The two exchanged some words in Spanish, probably about how they would return on the way back to Europe to pick up the remaining tourists.

For a taxi driver, the burly parrot was surprisingly astute. Havana might actually turn out pretty nice under his rule.

There was a click, and the door shut, marking Quiros’ hasty exit.

“Everything in order?” Dilip inquired.

“Should be.” Alejandro nodded. “I told him to contact us if he discovers any logistical need in the future. Just so we know what to be on the lookout for. And to send us reports on their fuel consumption. We really need to know how regularly they’ll need their fuel shipments if we want to set up trade routes.”

“Excellent foresight. Is Roberto-”

“He’s the one who asked me. Quiros doesn’t speak English, so I’m acting as an intermediary between the two. We’ve set up several parameters to keep an eye on for colonial development, and we also need to look into chemicals. For the fertilizer they need. Apparently, natural gas can be used to make it, so I was hoping we could obtain some from that fuel refinery we’re going for in Mexico. Better than flaring it as an unnecessary byproduct, no?”

“Hmmph, if we get access to that kind of production then it won’t be long before the lab in Havana will need an extension. I can’t fathom other colonies not wanting access to fertilizer. The potential output when paired with growth-boosting species is nothing to scoff at.” Dilip mused. “Nevertheless, it’s good to know we’re leaving with everything in order.”

“We may have some surprises from them too.” Alejandro idly noted. “All that divinity stuff that’s happened at the party and the… conversion of some locals that ensued courtesy of our one cleric...”

“Your point?”

“There was a civilization living in Cuba before Columbus turned up. The Taino. All gone now, but Quiros seemed mildly interested in discovering if their divinities had reappeared like the Celtic gods.”

“Aye…” Dilip looked up from the papers he was sorting through. “I guess we’ll know if he actually finds something. The Taino…”

The hyacinth macaw that was his Chief Officer quickly raised his claws.

“Nothing I know about them personally I’m afraid, Captain. For all I know they’re as much into blood gods as their continental neighbors were. And let’s not forget the Celtic stuff we’re acquainted to… I’ll be fair with Aleksei and admit Epona is rather benevolent, but they did have some pretty ruthless stuff in their pantheon. Ever looked up Toutatis?”

“Can’t say I have.” The D-Dog shook his head negatively. “Got some personal concerns of my own when it comes to religion. That altar I keep in my cabin… I’m still on the fence whether Hindu divinities are a thing like the ancient pantheons we heard of or if they’re as inert as all the Abrahamic sites we’ve come across.” He said. “Either way, we got a departure to manage before we think about that.”

It wasn’t long before Dilip moved off to the bridge to take command and get them out of port. All charts had already been prepared, and Schmitt had spent the better part of the morning firing up the cathedral engine that propelled Amandine. The ship’s entire hull was rumbling in anticipation.

The time had come to set sail once more.

An eclectic ballet then took place within minutes of him reaching the bridge. As the VHF crackled to life with all kinds of radio chatter, Rhine’s tugs could be seen parting the anti-monster net that blocked the fairway whilst locals amassed along the piers to help untie the vessels. In the middle of the cove, where Rhine Forest remained at anchor, the barge carrier’s gantry crane rumbled to life and began disgorging the escort boats Captain Lorelei felt were necessary for the passage.

Each of the merchant vessels slowly lumbered away from their weeks-long moorings and then proceeded to form a single file consisting of the entire fleet. Leading the way, one of Rhine’s torpedo escorts stood as a guard dog protecting the heavily-laden cargoes behind, each shining in the rising sun from their fresh coats of paint. Plumes of smokes erupted from funnels wide and narrow alike as engines long dormant were readied for the wide ocean. Then, with a parting cannonade fired from the Spanish fort’s guns, the long line of vessels steamed onward, leaving Cuba behind at long last.

The parade-worthy display didn’t last long however. As soon as the Cuban capital was nothing but a pinprick on the horizon, they split up. Fugro was bound for different waters than the other two vessels. They would head east, a three day voyage that would lead them towards the Lesser Antilles and their next port of call in Dominica…

And that was before considering the affairs that awaited in Brazil. This would take more time still, time spent without the protection the rest of the fleet and Rhine’s auxiliaries could offer.

Fugro wouldn’t be defenseless however. Contingencies had been made to ensure the ship wouldn’t be defenseless, both by making sure she’d be able to detect the storms caused by Charybdis’ pirates and thus avoid them, and by providing the ship with her own torpedoes, the same Mk46 that Rhine’s torpedo escorts used, keyed in to the ship’s extensive sonar gear and fired through the moonpool.

A little contingency Rhine’s trawlers had recovered from a naval station whilst they were dropping off tourists in Florida.

Along with enough machine guns to warm John Moses Browning’s heart. Those were always useful.

Meanwhile, the other two ships, Rhine Forest and Amandine, needed to sail for Mexico. A shorter trip than Dominica, a mere two days away from Havana at a decent pace that would lead them past the Yucatan peninsula and into the oil-rich gulf of Mexico. Their destination, Coatzacoalcos, was at the very south of the Bay of Campeche, in the state of Vera Cruz.

It also used to house no less than four petrochemical complexes with an adjoining tanker terminal and more shore tanks than most people saw in a lifetime.

Hence: the likeliest place if they wanted to add a refinery to their trade routes, and therefore replace the serviceable yet filter-soiling recycled fuel they had been using so far.

Up on the bridge, in his chair, Dilip smiled. All their plans of reviving industries and giving civilization the CPR it needed not to slide back towards a primitive state… it was all coming together.

Meanwhile, down in the engine control room, work was finally more than the mind-numbing task of keeping one generator running. With the ship underway, the humongous piece of machinery that was the main engine had come to life, its thrumming bulk easily visible through the control room’s observation windows.

And with it active, the atmosphere was affected, as usual. Even with the A/C running full-blast, temperature had gone up to a blistering heat paired up with the constant noise of sixteen large-bore cylinders turning at 600rpm.

The one person in the whole room that didn’t seem to mind it overly much was Schmitt. Unsurprisingly so, since the dragoness would have felt comfortable sitting on an open fire. Indeed her concerns were more about ensuring the cathedral engine was running in the green, particularly given it had stayed still for so long.

“Coolant loop status, please.” The orange-dragoness-in-orange-coveralls barked, hunched over a console that displayed the bow thruster’s status.

“Pressure is doing alright with one pump on the seawater circuit, with the booster before the main engine active. Recirculation is… fine. It’s got us running a bit hotter than necessary, but the automation is getting us there smoothly. No thermal shock to the system. The sea is just a bit warmer than expected, is all.” Angelo spoke up, fingers dancing over his keyboard as he peered at the data all the sensors were feeding. “Oil and freshwater loops are in the green across the board, buffers good… the engine is stable so long they don’t start screwing around with the engine telegraph up on the bridge.”

“Very well. Let’s hope it stays that way for the whole passage.” Schmitt nodded curtly, checking out a bunch of paperwork she had in her lap. “That was good work with the departure folks. Shift to underway readiness status and start a watch cycle. Nothing much beyond that… I want someone to run an inspection on the oil filters when we cycle them next. Clean up if necessary. And… Anton?”

“It’s Tanya now ma’am.” The griffon straightened up.

“My bad then. Hard to keep track of. Try a name tag maybe?” She apologized before grabbing a sheet of paper from her notes. “Here. Could you verify the inventory on spare parts for the bow thruster?”

The griffon took the list in her talons, eyes flicking over the items written down in there before she looked back towards the Chief Engineer with a hint of concern.

“Is there something wrong ma’am?” She inquired, and by the looks of it, the worries were shared by the rest of the department present in the room.

“Not anything urgent.” Schmitt reassured. “It’s only about weighing the pros and cons of working with machined parts. If you remember that’s what we’ve got fitted on the bow thruster right now. Thing is, we need to figure out whether it’s better to make the parts ourselves, have them commissioned from Belfast like we did when we repaired it after the collision, or if we’re better off buying spares from the HPI.”

“I could try and extrapolate the wear I see on these parts. Figure out how much runtime we get with HPI spares versus the machined stuff.” Angelo offered. “I’m no economics pro, but I can run you a basic comparison. Should tell us how long we’ll last on a full supply of parts too.”

The Chief Engineer stood up, stretching her leathery wings after several hours spent pouring over a console. She looked over her assembled subordinates.

“You do that. And for the watch cycle…” She looked at the clock. “I’m taking the eight-to-twelve. I want a roster in my cabin within the hour. One Engineer and one rating on duty per watch, two ratings ready to be called if necessary.” She paused, before turning to face Scarface. “As for you, you stick to the vehicle repair bay, but be ready to come over and help if we call, okay?”

“Crystal clear ma’am.” The scarred gargoyle nodded firmly.

After that, most folks filtered out of the room, no longer needed and eager to catch some rest before they had to take up their watch or attend to their daily maintenance duties. There was always plenty of stuff that needed fixing on a ship of Amandine’s size, more so given her tech level and the extensive automation.

This left Aleksei and Radiant the only ones present in engine control. She flicked a couple switches on her console, bringing up a view of the values she needed to keep an eye on to ensure everything was running in the green.

Then she hopped off her seat.

“Want a coffee, Radiant?” She offered.

“Uh? Yeah! Sure, thank you.” He jerked away from his notes.

She threw him a look as she went for the large thermos they kept in a corner of the room for watchstanders’ use. The cleric-engineer poured herself her usual: large mug with a generous helping of milk. And another black coffee for the pegasus.

“Studying?”

“Sort of.” The Pegasus waved a wing in a so-so gesture. “Angelo says I’m getting close to a proper level of training so I won’t have to be a cadet anymore… you know, converted from Equestrian to Human tech and all the fluff, but he wants me to prove it before he goes to Schmitt saying I’m ready.”

Aleksei went back to her seat and passed him his mug.

“To prove it?”

“Yeah. So he’s been making me draw up plans and schematics of nearly every system you could think of around the ship, writing down startup procedures, emergency checklists...” He sighed. “I get the reasoning, but he’s even got me listing off common focus points during maintenance and ‘mechanical quirks’.”

“Well...” Aleksei drawled. “The compressor can be a bit capricious if you don’t stroke it the right way.”

“And you guys didn’t think it was a good idea to correct the flaw?” Radiant deadpanned.

“It’s not really a flaw. It works just fine, alright? Only matter is the automation is a bit wonky and counterintuitive because of a wiring mistake nobody cares enough to fix but resulted in an accidental logic gate. You want to crack that box open and go in with a soldering iron?”

There was a brief pause.

“I’ll pass.” He finally said after he took a sip of his coffee. “Bound to replace the whole system sooner or later anyway when it breaks down. We got spares.”

“Doesn’t mean the installation will be pleasant though.” Aleksei warned. “It’s fine if it happens in port when everything is quiet… it’s definitely not if the compressor needs to be replaced when we’re underway.”

Rightly so. Most of the automation on ships ran on compressed air rather than electricity (a matter of reducing fire hazards), and large as Amandine’s air banks were, finding yourself without a compressor meant it was in limited supply, bound to run out eventually.

Moreso given that pneumatic tools were frequently used on board. Including to install new gear.

Hence: better hope the compressor breakdown occurs in port, otherwise it would turn into a race against the clock. It may not be as dangerous for a surface ship to run out of compressed air as it was to a submarine, but they still needed a lot of it on the daily.

“So has it ever happened to you?” Radiant asked.

“Only once.” She replied, casually stretching out her wings and cracking the joints. “Not on Amandine thankfully. Old ship. Took us the whole day to squeeze in the compressor, and a whole lot of swearing and fiddling with adapters to plug it into the system properly. Shouldn’t be that hard on this ship. The engine compartment has utility hatches to get parts inside, and we got sphinxes and Angelo’s muscles to help things along.”

From then on, the two of them quickly devolved into menial engineering talks and chatting about the quirks Amandine had. However modern she was, no machinery of that size was exempt of little issues operators needed to keep an eye out for.

And when the machinery runs more than 19MW of power through a diesel-electric plant, you really want to know how to stroke it the right way. Aleksei knew Angelo was joking when he referred to ‘machine-spirits’, but at times it really felt that way.

She was just getting to telling Radiant about the desalination plant when there was a flash of light in front of her. A little ‘pop’ rang out around the room, and then a sealed scroll dropped on the console right in front of Aleksei.

“What the...” She blinked owlishly, picking up the scroll in her talons, finding the seal holding it rolled up to share the same symbol as…

Morv’s Cutie Mark. A blazing horseshoe. She felt the heat rise up to her beak and her ears fold against the sides of her head.

“Uh, I had heard of such spells but I never thought I’d see it happen one day. Much less on Earth.” Radiant quipped.

“Care to explain?”

“What, you don’t know?” It was his turn to be surprised. “Aren’t you a cleric? Like… you’d know about magic, no?”

“Not that kind. I do fertility stuff. Rituals. Wards. Even a bit of evil cleansing on the side.” She hefted up the scroll. “That though? Not in my spellbook.”

“Ain’t that the mark of that stallion that swept you off your hooves at the party?” He remarked in a careful undertone.

“Could you not?” She warned. “And I was drunk either way.”

“Sure you were...” Radiant rolled his eyes.

Sheesh. For a stallion who was in a relationship with their radio operator, he was still hung up on her rejecting him?

“The spell?”

“It’s somewhat rare, but not unheard of for communication between mages, though I’ve heard of dragons being the ones to come up with the ability. Basically it’s a way to send a letter directly to someone you’re acquainted with if you know their magical imprint.” He explained. “Some say it was Starswirl the Bearded who copied the spell matrix off a dragon sage, all I know is Princess Sparkle used it a lot to communicate with her former mentor – that’s what popularized the spell in Equestria-, and since then it’s spread to impatient mages in need of instant correspondence. At least that’s the story in Equestria. No idea how they do it with human magic.”

She eyed the scroll again.

“Just a letter then?”

“Sent in what’s probably the fanciest manner I can think of, but yeah… just a letter.” Radiant nodded.

Aleksei’s mind flashed back to the words Epona had said about her son, and the way the two of them had parted back in Havana. She could feel the weight of the charm Morv’ had gifted her, hanging off her wing. The scroll carried his scent, and judging by the feel of magic in the air, his magic wasn’t too dissimilar from his mother’s. At least that’s the way it felt.

Before she could even realize she’d done it, she’d cracked open the seal with her talons.

She threw Radiant a look.

“Do you mind if...”

The gray pegasus shrugged and went back to his notes.

Morv’s letter was… succinct actually. Judging by the way it was written (in Breton, Morv’s preferred language), the stallion still was fairly unfamiliar with writing. The handwriting was haphazard, looking as though the stallion had needed a couple tries before he actually sent the letter.

Not unsurprising given that it shouldn’t have been more than a few weeks since he had been resurrected as a demigod Earth Pony rather than a horse. Given that, it was a testament to his wits that he got ‘civilized’ so quickly to begin with.

She read it, finding mentions of how he missed her, how he had gone to Brittany to try and restore the sunken city of Ys, how he wished she would drop her geas et cetera…

To be fair, the prospect of restoring an ancient floating city to its former glory was pretty damn interesting, and his tales of the ancient magics recently reanimated in Brittany garnered her interest as any good story would, but…

Aleksei couldn’t get her mind off the way he was referring to her in his letter.

Alyx.

That was certainly new.

“Hello world, DJ Jensen here with WSU Radio for your daily broadcast. If you’re wondering how the world’s doing in this age, stick around then ‘cuz it’s the right frequency.” Sandra recited in a cheerful tone. “Sorry to say folks, I know she’s popular, but Lekan won’t be with us today. She’s assigned to another ship, and there isn’t much I can do about it while we’re underway.”

Sandra paused.

“Come to think of it… way I know you Lek’, I bet you’re listening. Try and keep your voice healthy, you’ve got a bunch of fans wanting to hear that sweet tone next time we’re ashore.” She laughed.

Must be the combination of the exotic Liberian accent and the tone of voice she sometimes took. Ornithians may be good at mimicking voices and sounds to replicate popular singers (Greet for instance had become pretty good at imitating Phil Collins), but Lekan’s voice was her own.

An asset good enough to have Roberto fall for her too. The exotic Savannah cat looks, the nice voice… Amandine’s Intel Officer could be a cold, practical-minded cat when he wanted, but Lekan had him purring in her lap at a flick of her tail. She didn’t even seem to mind the genderswap anymore.

“Jokes aside… the news is coming in as usual. This week you’ll have a podcast on salvaging electronic components for your colony courtesy of Carlos on Wednesday… and for today I got something else.

First off: colonial news. We already had hints of the stuff, but I’m surprised to say they contacted us on their own this time. By this I mean a colony in Quebec. Saguenay to be precise. It’s… interesting. Not a big colony by any stretch of imagination, but interesting in its own right.

You see folks, there is always this problem with industrial pollution. While nuclear reactors have been dealt with so they won’t go into meltdown and destroy any hope of development, such is not the case with other industries. I can cite Gothenburg for chemical pollution to such an extent that the city is unlivable and probably will remain that way for a while, then there were cases of more localized damage such as Havana where the oil complex caught fire and rendered an entire sector of the city uninhabitable…

Saguenay is one such case, and bauxite pollution seems to be their problem. Most of the city center and Chicoutimi have been turned into some sort of wasteland from all the bauxite dust they got floating in the air and coating everything. Anytime they want to salvage stuff from town they need respirators and ventilated vehicles, otherwise they’ve been pushed back into the foothills making log cabins.”

Sandra paused to gulp down a bit of water and to check on her notes.

“Oh and if you were wondering… Quebec gets a mix of deer, reindeer and ponies apparently. Seems like ponies are really widespread in North America. Either way, these folks seem to stick to the woods around Saguenay and not the town itself. The logger’s life they called it or something. For folks living next to a huge cloud of red dust, they sounded pretty happy when I interviewed them.”

And chances were some of the tourists they dropped off in Florida might reach them eventually, if they didn’t stop for one reason or another during their journey.

Which hopefully didn’t mean ‘dead due to monster/bandit’. At least the pirates she knew wouldn’t cause them trouble. With those storms following them around, they were pretty easy to track down if you had access to satellite pictures.

Three of them, plus the big one in Tierra Del Fuego. The one that had attacked Sao Paulo had crossed over to West Africa, and the other two were another problem entirely because they kept to the Pacific.

Still… pirates and colonies were not the only topic she wanted to broach today. Two lights blinked on her computer’s screen, one red telling the batpony she was recording, and one blue telling she was on the line with one of her contacts.

“Now for something I’m sure won’t make me popular with younger audiences… school and education. Sorry kids.” Sandra started, using one membraned wing to flip through her notes. “And to help me with that topic, I’ve got one teacher here on the line for you. Can we get a presentation please?”

“Hello people...” A masculine voice rang out a bit hesitantly, its heavy French accent tinted with the slight crackle that always came with satellite telephony. “Happy to be on air here with you. My name is Pauline – and if you’re wondering: the answer is yes, like a third of the population-, I live in the colony of Trecesson in France and I’m the local schoolteacher. Before we all vanished, I used to teach CM 1 and 2 classes in Rennes-”

“Mister Pauline, sorry to interrupt but we’re talking about an audience from all around the world. Can you clarify what those classes were? CM 1 and 2 I mean?” Sandra politely halted him.

“Oh pardon.” There was a noise Sandra was reliably certain was Pauline putting a hoof on his muzzle in embarrassment. “In France we have those names for specific years in school. CM – cours moyen- corresponds to the last years of primary schooling.”

“Primary school teacher then. I take it you’re mostly doing the same now?”

“In a fashion.” Pauline confirmed. “You see, it’s difficult to assemble a proper class. There aren’t many people to begin with, plus... I’m sure many of you are aware of the youthening effect the transformation can have when you come back. Though it’s admittedly less drastic than gender and species, it does pose a problem. For one you have adults being put in the body of children in the most extreme form, but for most it’s just a few years shaved off.”

“I can see why that would be a problem with kids.”

“Yes! I’ll admit in many cases the kids can tell you how old they are, but when they can’t... It’s already hard to guess how old they are physically because we haven’t been those species for more than a year, but then you have to guess the youthening factor to tell how old the kid actually is. And we’ve had some clever ones try and pretend they were actually adults.” He sighed.

“Ask them about taxes just to be sure?” Sandra joked.

“That’s the gist of it.” Pauline laughed briefly. “But as you can see, it’s already complicated enough. How kids develop has an effect on what you should be trying to teach them at a certain age, and if I’m honest it’s very likely kids of different species will not develop at the same speed or even in the same manner… yet lacking knowledge of how, I’m constrained to stick to human processes. You understand?”

“Sounds like it’s more of a matter for primary schooling. Teens are more...” She searched for words. “Flexible I’d say?”

“Probably not as much as you think they are.” Pauline warned. “Still, I’m a primary school teacher. That’s what I know more about. I’ve been trying my best with the small group of foals and fawns I’m teaching to examine how their mental development may be affected, but you won’t see results regarding that topic for a good while. The sample size is just too small.” He deplored.

“I believe you also had a proposal?”

“Oui c’est vrai.” Pauline replied in french. “I know most colonies don’t have teachers yet since there are so few of us, and most people don’t know what to teach to a kid at which stage. I do. I can’t give you specific curriculums since I only have them in french and kids should first focus on their own language, but what I can give you is the broad strokes. Call it a guide to homeschooling, but to anyone that’s willing to send me an e-mail, I’ll eagerly tell you how to check a kid’s developmental level and we’ll start from there OK? It’s crucial the next generation gets their education, otherwise all those efforts of rebuilding will peter out once we grow old.”

“Thank you mister Pauline. Peeps… you heard him. I have his address written down in my contacts… so it’s the usual contact method. You want in, I’ll get you in touch. And of course if there’s anyone out here with experience in the field of education, I’m sure Pauline wouldn’t mind the assistance, hmm?”

“Yes of course. Pediatricians and preschool teachers would help a lot. I know stuff, but I won’t claim to know it all. Merci et bonne journée.” He said before cutting the connection.

“Well, there you have it folks. It’s far from perfect I know, but at least it ought to point you in the right direction. Up next we’re getting into classics with Ring of fire from Johnny Cash.” Sandra concluded her podcast, flipping a switch with the tip of her hoof to follow up with the next track on the playlist.

The end of September and the arrival of autumn had come with the usual changes in Narvik. Slowly but surely the region was transiting away from the midnight sun that had been so prevalent back when Gunnar first reappeared and received a visit from those WSU guys. The days were getting shorter, and, with the ensuing lack of sunlight, chillier. Already the snow covering the mountaintops was starting its downhill trek towards the shoreline, however far it still was from reaching the harbor.

He had even caught Sven complaining about how cold it was flying near the summit with the wind chill at night.

Gunnar didn’t mind. As a reindeer he may be able to fly, but he never really flew up to such heights, unlike his ski station-dwelling friend. He hardly cared about the cold, what with the impressively warm coat of fur his species was graced with and that he was starting to grow into at the turn of the season.

In fact he was actually feeling better than he had back in July.

With a grunt he squashed the butt of his cigarette against the asphalt of the quays and took hold of the little supply cart he kept on his boat to transport supplies ashore. It was night, not a time he would ever have expected to come to town for trade but… things had changed.

He was referring to the dwarves, obviously.

Peculiar little creatures they were. Not only were they completely different from what Tolkien had popularized, they had this… uniqueness about them that never stopped surprising you.

Exhibit A: names. While they did have names just like those few dwarves Gunnar remembered from the Edda, they weren’t very inclined to share them with strangers. In fact, they were about as pruddish with name sharing as they were with hiding their bodies from sight underneath those intricate suits of armor they always wore.

Actual names like the ones written in the Edda? Those they shared with Kings, Gods, and intimate relationships. And Gunnar was fucking no dwarf.

On the other hoof, it wasn’t rude to refer to one by the symbols they decorated their armors with. Actually they were proud of it, since one’s armor was self-made and a display of craftsmanship among them.

Rule of thumb when trading with them: drop a compliment about their armor. That won’t get you a price cut, but they’ll be less likely to try and fleece you.

And don’t comment on their natural features. Don’t ever mention them. The average dwarf is more angsty about their natural appearance under the armor than most emo teens could ever hope to be.

The funny thing? Those little details were only the beginning of an underworld-dwelling race with a lifestyle so drastically different from surface beings you couldn’t begin explaining the topic in one afternoon, and every time Gunnar went back to the night market for a sale, he learned something new.

Around him, several masts and hulls shared the marina despite the late hour. The dwarven market only took place once a week when the little craftsmen made their way down the mountainside at night, and few of the locals would miss the opportunity. Much less Gunnar. He knew he had stuff the little beings actually desired.

With a smirk, the Norwegian reindeer pulled his supply-laden cart into the converted warehouse they used as a trading hall. Dim, red light greeted his eyes as his ears reflexively folded against the back of his head from the noise inside the building. The red light was there as the middle ground between the darkness the dwarves preferred and what locals needed. Trading could only really take place there in the hall, mostly due to language differences and the fact Agmund needed to set up translation wards to make commerce possible in the first place. Dwarves didn’t speak modern Norwegian.

Many of the short armor-clad figures were there. Some were haggling behind their stalls, others were inspecting what wares the folks from above the surface were trying to sell them, eager to discover some new material the underworld couldn’t provide, or modern technology they could pick apart and try to figure out.

Gunnar didn’t bother with that.

He had his deals already. Over the few weeks since the encounter in the mine with Sven and Agmund, the farmer had carefully ensured the dwarves developed a taste for surface food, a drastic improvement over the bland produce they made and what little they imported from Svartalfheim.

Although… food was only the biggest part of his trading as far as bulk went. In terms of value...

That merit went to those little mana stones he collected off the convergence point near his farm. The little glowing blue crystals, as it turned out, were a very precious resource to dwarves. Those little gleaming sigils and runes you sometimes spotted on their tools and suits of armor?

Enchantments.

Their kind didn’t seem to have the fancy divinity-granted powers a cleric would have, nor the generally useful telekinesis and flight of reindeer, but what they lacked in obvious magical talent, they made up for (like most things) with their craft by imbuing their creation with raw magic.

And to achieve that, they either needed to make or modify whatever object they made in a place of high magic, or to include the magic-made-material that were mana stones in the crafting process. At least that was how Gunnar understood it in the broad lines.

Pushing past the small crowds gathered haggling over goods around stalls, he went for the dwarf he had a contract with in a corner of the market hall, a broad member of his kind with an anvil emblazoned over his breastplate and a raven-shaped face mask hiding the part of his face his thick mossy beard couldn’t. Their deal? A simple affair: produce from the farm delivered on a weekly basis in exchange for small sets of rune stones designed to keep his fields warm and fertile during winter. Sometimes he even asked for coins. The dwarf miners had a mint, and it had actually grown to become the go-to money around Narvik. A better alternative to common bartering… though some grumbled because it made them dependent on dwarven economy.

More than the cart filled with produce, he also carried a little pouch with nail-sized mana stones collected over the past week. Far more valuable than vegetables – and the few animals he’d sold the dwarves-, they were what he used to trade with them for enchanted tools.

Or just to send off some parts to have them enchanted. Such as the sets of rototiller blades he got back from the smith, each now rendered both impervious to rust, and with a surface that wouldn’t let dirt stick to it. Simple, but with little stuff like that applied to all his tools (he’d have to spare a bit more stones to have his actual tractor-pulled plow enchanted), the rune stones to protect his fields from the bitter touch of winter and help keep the soil fertile, Gunnar was looking at some neat ways to keep up his production and cut down maintenance costs.

That night, the reindeer left the market hall with a satisfied smirk. Magic, dwarves, those were actually rather good for business. He might actually wind up as the one farmer that kept putting out produce throughout the year without even resorting to greenhouses. Or even fertilizer.

Morgane watched the two ponies leave from her tower’s window, their visit done after a little experiment that made her attention linger over that pegasus mare that was trotting after Lord Rockhoof. Miles was it?

She was one example of why Merlin wanted to make spells stick in the first place. It was… actually hard to believe. The fay lady clutched her staff in thought. She had used a couple spells to swap gender in the past, if only to mess with unfaithful knights in need of a lesson.

Here there was a difference though. The knights? Most cases she set a time limit to her spells and the transformation would last exactly however long she wanted it to. One week as a peasant girl was all knights needed to get off their high horses in most cases.

Miles though? She had briefly turned her into a stallion, much to the pegasus’ satisfaction… until she shrank back into a feminine form not five minutes after Morgane had cast her spell. Progress still: that was a whole minute longer than Merlin’s latest attempt.

“Your thoughts?” Merlin’s ghost asked behind her in Latin.

She looked down into the palm of her hand, the wrinkled one marked with dark ogham script which she used for darker magics, so as not to mess with the many enchantments that kept her a youthful fay maiden.

“It’s garnered my curiosity, that much I can tell you. The spells do work exactly as they’re supposed to, but it seems like the problem is how both their magics cooperate to reject the intrusive witchery.” She finally said after a minute. She stroked her chin pensively with her good hand. “I am genuinely amazed it works out that way on its own.”

“As I am, although it doesn’t help our cause any.” Starswirl shook his head. “Magic and its mysteries you know? For all that the other half of my soul could research on Equus, there is nothing I could obtain that would yield some insight into the matter so unique it is.”

Morgane threw him a look. She knew him enough to believe there was something he wasn’t saying there. Maybe the wizard had more of a… hoof in humans being turned into ponies than he really let on.

Not that Merlin ever was someone you could easily extract answers from.

“Convenient excuse if I’ve ever heard any.” She said acidly.

“Oh come off it Morgane, we both know how much you’d gain from having hexes stick. You always had a knack for messing with people.” The ghost laughed lightly. “If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have had to fix up so many of Arthur’s knights once you were through with them.”

“That wouldn’t have been necessary if they actually practiced the humility they preached and left me alone.”

Merlin paused for a brief second before he tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment. That… wasn’t completely untrue, though they certainly weren’t the worst bunch to roam the lands in their time, far from it. Meatheads or not, they meant well, even if their status meant they sometimes hadn’t fully grasped the concept of ‘no’.

For a few minutes, the two of them remained in silence as Morgane kept staring out the window, her attention now focused on the underground lake that surrounded her dwelling. Absently, she was drumming her nails on the windowsill, each little tap on her wrinkled hand punctuated by the rise of thin inky vapors.

“I was meaning to ask...” Merlin finally broke the silence.

“No you can’t have your tibia back.” She snapped before the ghost could finish his sentence.

“Rude. One would believe anyone would be entitled to the possession of their own bones.”

“Not when I’m studying it.”

“And why, pray tell, dost thy need to study mine tibia so fervently?”

Without saying a word, she raised her hand – the youthful one- and flicked her fingers. There was the click of a lock being opened behind them, and out of a little chest flew Merlin’s wayward bone. From the outside, it looked fairly normal for a bone that had spent more than a millennium buried underneath a menhir, albeit most likely fragile.

“I find this little kernel of your history to be really fascinating, Merlin. It tells you a whole lot about a person, what they’re willing to inflict to themselves for the sake of power.”

“I don’t get what you’re talking about...” Merlin chuckled awkwardly, one ethereal hand reaching to stroke his beard.

Morgane snapped her fingers, and with a crack his tibia shattered in a dozen pieces, fully revealing its insides in all their rune-engraved, mana stone-filled glory. The bone may be old and brittle, but the enchantments were still potent, and the mana stones aglow with magic.

Merlin’s hand halted its stroking motion. He cringed.

“There’s a reason I took your bone and not your staff.” She finally turned away from the window and looked him in the eye. “Always too curious to stop your research, no? Was it worth it?”

“Well… it was rather painful to engrave it...”

“Figures.” She pointed a hand back towards the table. “Take a seat. Explanations are overdue and you’ll be here a while longer yet.”

Author's Notes:

So here we go with the last part of the Havana arc. That one was mostly for worldbuiling and character development (as seen with Aleksei, chiefly), a manner of creating a safe-ish 'hub' that side of the Atlantic.

Up next? Me-hi-co, and that one's gonna pack a lot more action.

On a more intellectual level, I've been thinkin' about schooling in a world where most settlements have a mix of at minimum two different species. I mean... not only is that a challenge long term for unity, but it would be a stretch to think young ponies develop the same way humans do, no? The same goes for griffons, dragons, gargoyles... you know, the whole menagerie. Not only do they not have the same lifespan *cough* dragons *cough* so they might not even age at the same speed, but say... carnivore and herbivore younglings might not be able to grasp the same concepts (say... empathy) at the same stage of their developmental cycle.

I'm rambling ain't I? Sorry. Lots of things a better author would be able to broach more thoroughly. Feels like I'm only pointing at the subject saying 'yeah it's there' rather than mentioning it meaningfully.

[shrugs] Win some lose some...

Anyway, I hope the read was good. Tune in next week to know what it was Merlin's done to his bones.