The sharp beeping of my alarm clock woke me up the next day, which was kinda weird, considering I didn’t have one.

Now, I’ve become somewhat of a light sleeper ever since Blackwash was plundered and razed in the middle of the night however the fuck long ago it’s been, but I was so tired from hiking through the rain yesterday and then fighting that monster that my eyelids felt practically caked together when I opened them. Like, full on nasty, crusty stuff trying to glue them shut. I could only imagine how bloodshot they were as I stared at the wooden beams over my head and tried to make sense of where I was.

It took a lot of effort to sit up and rub the sleep out of my eyes, and my magic bumbled around SCaR’s chassis as I tried to find a snooze button that wasn’t there. It wasn’t until I saw several sets of little, startled eyes staring back at me that my mind finally clicked into place what was actually happening.

“Mmrrrfff… Damn kids,” I growled at the children standing in front of me, and I snapped my travel bags closed before they could start digging into them. The foals squealed in delight and mischief as they scampered away from my things to the far end of the room, where they watched me from the doorway. That was fine; I didn’t care if they stared all they wanted. The last thing I needed, though, was them going through my bags, finding a gun, and accidentally shooting themselves or one of us. That would be a great start to the second day in Feati lands.

As much as I wanted to go back to sleep, I was already awake, so I rolled onto my side and looked around. We’d found a quiet area in the back of the longhouse to sleep in the night before, and the bedding was all fresh. Which was fucking amazing, by the way. I’d grown used to sleeping on a bedroll since we left the Dam, and though it’s better than sleeping on bare ground, it’s hardly the most comfortable thing. But here in the longhouse, where the Feati had carved little hollows into the earth and then filled them with moss and grass and thrown a blanket over it… oh by the stars I was tempted to just lie back down and go right back to sleep.

But I could see through the cracks in the ceiling and the walls that the sun was beginning to come up—as much as it did in the Spines—and that it was probably time to start finding ponies who would help me do the Grass Trial or whatever Sandy had called it. I looked at the other beds for my friends and saw Gauge and Nova sleeping comfortably in theirs, but Ace must’ve gotten up already. That was about as good a reason as any to get out of bed and actually do something. I noticed that my skull was quiet, too; Surge must’ve been conked out as well, which meant I had some time to myself before I was back to sharing my body with another mare. I was getting used to the lack of privacy that came with it, but that just made me all the more greedy for the moments I could have it.

I just had to remember not to think too loudly or anything. Now there’s a situation I’d never have imagined myself in a couple of months ago. Oh, how I yearned for the simpler days before all this code bullshit…

I think every one of my joints snapped and cracked as I rolled to my hooves and stretched them out. I must’ve slept so soundly that I didn’t even move an inch from when I’d closed my eyes until now. Even my tail felt sore, but at least the achiness that bathed my body was the good kind of ache, not the bad kind. The kind that you get when your muscles finally have a chance to loosen up after a long time of keeping them tense and exerting them. Definitely not the best kind of ache—the kind I’d experienced a few times after some wild nights with Zip—but definitely not horrible, either.

Some curled strands from my mane ended up in front of my eyes, and I tried to comb it all back into place with my magic. It really needed a washing and a trimming, now that I thought about it. Maybe I’d be able to find time to take care of that while I was here. But in any event, I could only roughly shake my head from side to side to try and get some life into my brain and look forward to the rest of the day. With that in mind, I looked at my bags, but decided against taking them for now. Even though the foals still watched me from the doorway, my stuff would be safe enough in here with SCaR to watch over them.

“If they try to get to our things, beep at them and maybe chase them around a little,” I said to the drone, moving our stuff closer to Nova and Gauge and checking it to see if I’d need anything for the day. After all, I was someplace safe, so I really didn’t need to carry all my crap around. At the very least, however, I unloaded all the guns just to be safe, and slung my rifle across my back. Shit would be bad if I needed it at all, but I felt a lot safer and a lot more secure just having it with me—not like thirty bullets and a grenade would really do all that much if the entire town went cannibal on me or something, but it never hurt to at least be a little bit prepared.

Is that a racist thought? I’m not sure if that’s racist. Maybe Surge was getting to me.

SCaR whistled his acknowledgment and flashed some of the lights on his chassis as he briefly puttered over to stop in front of our supplies. Once I was sure our shit was as safe as could be, I started moving toward the door, my hooves lightly crunching through the dry and dusty dirt floor. The foals cried out in excitement again as I approached, disappearing from the doorframe, and by the time I emerged a few seconds later, they’d already galloped to the far end of the longhouse and watched me with curious eyes, wondering if I’d play tag with them or something like that.

A thick fog hung over the Feati camp, limiting visibility beyond a hundred feet. Compared to the warm and dry interior of the longhouse, the morning fog felt cool and wet against my coat. I figured it was maybe two hours after sunrise, if that, if only judging by how long it felt like I’d slept for. It wasn’t like there were a lot of shadows on the forest floor to tell time by. But all around me, the ponies of the Feati Tribe were already well into their morning rituals. The adults all seemed lively and awake, and I could smell food being prepared across the settlement. That only got my stomach kicking and flipping. Sure, I’d eaten a lot last night, but damn if I wasn’t already hungry for more. I’d have to see if I could get the recipe from Sandy. If I could make something like this while traveling through the wilderness, I’d be in heaven.

The longhouse had been built on a hill in the settlement, and a deck jutted out from the side of it to provide some solid flat ground before a set of steps led down the earth path into town. The wood was slick with morning dew and the tables and chairs the Feati had left around it were too wet to sit on, so I instead walked over to the beige pegasus leaning against a railing overlooking the settlement. I tugged on her opposite shoulder with my magic as I approached, but Ace was definitely too good for that, because she didn’t even hesitate to look away from it and spot me before I even set my weight against the wooden post. “You’d have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull that one over on me,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes.

“I don’t even know what’s ‘early’ anymore,” I said, shrugging. “I haven’t had a normal sleep schedule in weeks.”

Ace scoffed. “Try years,” she said, shaking out her feathers. They must’ve been to her dissatisfaction, because she grumbled and held them in front of her face so she could study them. “If you’re going to live out there in that mess, you can’t afford to be sleeping when the sun’s out. Late to bed, early to rise. Ain’t had a good night’s sleep in… well, since Z left.” She sighed and vigorously shook her feathers again, knocking a few loose ones out and tucking her wings against her sides. “I could trust somepony to watch my back when I snoozed, then. Not so much no more.”

“Not now?” I asked her, cocking my head to the side. “I think by now I can trust you with my life, Ace. We’ve done a lot of shit together.”

Ace opened her mouth, froze, then looked away from me and hunched over. “It… It ain’t that, Ember,” she said. “I don’t mean nothing by it. Just that… well, I’ve been alone for years now. It’s hard to trust ponies again after all that, you know? Especially those who don’t understand it none.”

I lit my horn and surprised her by pulling a crooked feather out of her wing. She looked at me, blinked, and I lightly smiled in return. “I know I’m new to this whole ‘surviving in the wild, wild Auris wilderness’ thing,” I said, tossing the broken feather aside, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand you.”

I thought I saw a little bit of fluster in Ace’s face before she once again looked away to hide it. “Yes, well… maybe.”

In place of anything more to say, Ace immediately held her left wing to her face and started chewing through the feathers as she preened it back into top form. I shook my head as she worked and redirected my attention to the settlement below us. “So, uh, anyway… what do you think Lento’s gonna have us do on this Grass Trial thing?”

Ace frowned into her wing and pulled her muzzle back, a few feathers sticking out of her lips. Spitting them onto the ground, she shrugged and shifted her weight onto the railing. “Beats me. He ain’t gonna make it easy, assuming we even get two ponies to vouch for us.”

“Yeah. That’s gonna be a real pain in the ass.” Groaning, I watched a couple slowly walk down the street, as if I could just ask them to support us and validate our right to participate in this tribal rite. “Teka we can probably get to support us. We saved her life, and from what Sandy told us, if her brother doesn’t want us to do this, she’ll be more than happy to support us just because. But that’s one pony. How are we gonna convince strangers to support us when we don’t even speak the language?”

“I don’t know, but there ain’t nopony who don’t have a price,” Ace said with a shrug. “We only gotta get one other to support us, right? He didn’t say nothing whether they gotta be noble or not.”

“It’d really surprise me if just anypony could support us,” I said, frowning. “Even then, it’s not going to be that simple. I don’t know what the fuck we could do to get some stranger to support us. They love their holy fucking tree for whatever reason, and Sandy made it pretty clear that they’d consider the safety of their tree first before helping a bunch of random outsiders.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Fuck if I know.” The outlaw sighed and sagged against the railing. “I’m gonna try and catch a look at this holy tree of theirs,” she finally said. “Certainly won’t hurt none to know where it is and how well protected it’ll be. You know… just in case. Worst comes to worst, and all that.”

I wanted to say no, but only because I really, really wanted to hope it wasn’t going to come to that. But I didn’t; I only nodded slightly instead. “Just try not to get caught, okay?” I asked her, making sure she acknowledged my pleading look. “We really don’t need this to get fucked up for us.”

“Believe it or not, I can be quiet when I need to,” Ace said with a scoff. “You learn pretty quickly that you ain’t gonna get far if you try shooting at everything that crosses your path. Half the things that live on Auris are armored, and the other half tends to shoot back.”

I nodded to the rifle resting on her back between her wings. “That’s a hell of a gun to carry around if you don’t use it,” I teased her.

She chuckled and stroked the barrel with a wing. “That’s the beauty of range; I ain’t gotta get close to kill like you do.”

“You gotta let me try it sometime,” I said, smirking back at her. “It looks fun as shit.”

“Yeah, well, she probably got too much buck for you,” Ace said, winking at me. “She’s tuned for four limbs, not two, and definitely not a horn. She’d fly right out of your magic.”

“You saying I can’t handle a mare?” I asked her, and I’m willing to bet I had a stupid look on my face as I said that.

“You’ve handled neat and military,” Ace said, her wing snapping out to tap the BR14M on my back. “All the finest toys, lethal and complicated and tuned so anypony could wrangle them. You ain’t handled a real wild girl yet. She’d be too much for you.”

“Yeah? Well… maybe we’ll put it to the test soon,” I said. “I think I’ll surprise you.”

Ace snickered. “We’ll see about that, forgemare. We’ll see.” Then, spreading her wings, she lifted into the air with a few strokes and turned to face me. “I’ll try to find you later. If not, see you at nightfall.”

“I won’t be too hard to find,” I said, rolling my shoulders. “Just follow the cursing.”

“The cursing. Hmph. Yeah, I ain’t never met nopony who cusses like you do. Not even Z.” She winked at me and even tousled my mane with a hoof, much to my displeasure. “I’ll stay out of sight. I figure the best way to figure out where this tree is is to fly up onto the top of one of them Spines. If I can’t see it from there, I ain’t finding it anywhere.”

“Let me know what the view is like,” I told her as she backed away. “I bet it’s great.”

“I bet it’s wet,” Ace said. “Gotta fly up through the clouds to get to it.”

“You’ll be fine,” I told her. “You’re a big girl.”

“True enough.” Then, winking at me, she turned her attention skyward and the powerful muscles wrapped around her shoulders bulged as she rocketed straight up. “Take care!”

“You too,” I called after her, even as she quickly disappeared into the fog. I stared at the space she’d vanished through for a few seconds before I sighed and turned around. I heard a beeping and a squawk from inside the longhouse, along with the pitter-patter of little hooves, and I just knew that the foals must’ve tried getting into our things again. Nostrils flaring, I shook my head and trotted back inside.

“Hey, lovebirds, wake up!” I shouted as soon as I crossed the threshold. “It’s Election Day and we got votes to win!”

By the time Nova and Gauge finally woke up (with a little bit of poking and prodding help of my own), I was really starting to get hungry. Thankfully, just before I decided to leave them be and wander off in search of food on my own, my nose caught a whiff of something tasty. I trotted outside the longhouse in search of the source and practically ran into Sandy, who had set bowls of some piping hot porridge or something down on the tables and was using a rag to wipe the dew off the seats. He flinched in surprise when my orange magic immediately snagged one of the bowls, and he turned around just in time to see me practically pouring the contents down my throat.

“Bele funnen ata,” Sandy said in what I could only assume was ‘good morning’ or something to that effect. “I take it you slept well, Ember?”

“Better than I have in a long time,” I said, but only after I’d nearly drowned on an entire bowl of delicious porridge. I wiped my lips and dropped the empty bowl back on the table, then sat down on the bench across from Sandy. “Not worrying about wargs or tolans killing you in your sleep is really something.”

“Or slavers,” Sandy said, nodding to the obvious brand on one of my marks. “I take it you’ve been through a lot.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said with a shrug. I knew I was safe talking about it with Sandy, and the rest of the Feati wouldn’t even understand the brand, so for once it wasn’t too uncomfortable to mention. “I got the brand but I escaped before the Crimson could take me. It’s sorta the reason I ended up with the Sentinels in the first place, and why I’m out here now.”

Sandy slowly nodded. “And your friend? I saw her brand as well…”

I briefly flared my nostrils as I tried to push painful thoughts away. I hurt more for Nova than I did for myself; she was the one who actually suffered through enslavement with the Crimson, however brief it may have been. “She wasn’t as lucky. But we’re here now, and we’re free. That’s the important part.”

“Yeah. You’re right about that.” Sandy closed his eyes and cracked his neck, and his gaze wandered across the settlement where the fog was beginning to lift. “I mentioned I was a mechanic for a caravan company, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, you said that yesterday. How did you go from caravan mechanic to tribal schoolteacher?”

“My caravan company used to be the only ones that would make the trip from Three Rivers to the Spines,” he said. “We had supplies and goods they wanted, and they could trade us little enchanted runestones and other trade goods, like blankets and rare crops that don’t grow outside of the Spines. But there were plenty of ponies who wanted something else the Feati could offer.”

“Slaves,” I said, filling in the obvious blank.

He nodded. “Slavery is still the only trade on Auris that will make you insanely rich. Exotic slaves are worth double that of poor farmers. And my company was the only one that really knew how to get into the Spines…”

It wasn’t too hard to piece together what he was getting at. “What exactly happened?”

He hung his head and his ears fell flat. “A lot of fighting. A lot of death. Slavers would try and tail us, figure out where exactly the Feati lands were. Usually, if we spotted them, we exchanged bullets instead of words. The company couldn’t afford to make the runs out into the Spines because of all the protection we needed. For all I know, they collapsed or tried searching for better prospects elsewhere. But the damage had already been done. The slavers knew roughly where the Feati lived. That’s why they’ve become so… reclusive and hostile ever since Lentowenye took charge.”

“But how did you get here?”

Sandy shrugged. “By nearly dying,” he said. “I was part of the last caravan to go to the Spines. Slavers ambushed us on the way back to try and get us to tell them where the settlement was. It was a bloodbath; everypony died but me. Just when I thought it was my time, the Feati drove away the rest.”

He scratched at a trio of puckered scars in his chest, obvious old bullet wounds. “They took me back and healed me with their magic. My company had been kind to them, after all. When they said I was free to go, however, I decided to stay on and help them.” He shook his head. “Guess that was my way of trying to repay them for all the misfortune we’d accidentally given them. Besides, there was nothing to go back to in Three Rivers. I didn’t have a family, and considering they never sent another caravan to the Spines after mine, I bet the company fell apart and went under. But the Feati gave me a new life and a new purpose. That’s why I’m proud to wear the tattoos and help the foals learn our language. If they can speak and understand us… well, maybe it will help them survive when the only outsiders they meet anymore will be slavers.”

“I’m glad you’re trying to protect them,” I said. “They’re going to need protection now more than ever. That thing we’re after in their tree? We’re not the only ones. There are going to be others who will come looking for it. If we can get it out of here, then nopony will bother braving the Spines for it. That’s why we need to do this Grass Trial thing and get out of here as soon as possible.” I leaned across the table. “Please tell me you’ve got a plan that can help us.”

“I’ve got a few things I can try,” Sandy said after a moment to think. “I’m going to try asking around later and maybe talk to Lento and the shaman. Right now, your best bet is to talk to Teka. I can help play interpreter for you two. Once the rest of your friends get up and have breakfast, we can go and talk to her.”

Almost as if on cue, Nova and Gauge emerged from the longhouse, sleepily bumbling about like wailers. “Took you guys long enough to get up,” I said, shifting my attention to the couple. “Your breakfast is getting cold!”

“I know,” Nova moaned, sitting down next to me and greedily snatching up breakfast between her hooves. “But it’s just… beds, Ember. Real, honest to the stars beds!”

“They’re not exactly real beds,” Gauge said, feeling a need to correct her, “but I will agree, it’s better than sleeping on a thin mat over the bare ground.”

“So? That doesn’t mean I’m ­not going to celebrate having something nice to sleep on!” Anything more she might have had to say was immediately put aside in favor of digging into her meal with a barely restrained frenzy. Sometimes it was easy to forget given how shitty our meals had been for the past two weeks, but Nova was still trying to recover after the starvation the Crimson inflicted on her. She needed to eat more than any of us here, and I felt guilty about immediately devouring my entire breakfast. I should have saved a little something for her for when she finished her own.

Thankfully, Gauge is a great coltfriend, because he only ate about half of his breakfast before putting the rest in front of Nova without even any prompting or hesitation. While she happily took what he offered her, he leaned forward on the table and nodded to Sandy. “So, you and Ember discuss what the plan is?”

“There isn’t much of a plan so much as there are a few options we can try,” Sandy said. He looked at me and cocked his eyebrow. “Everypony’s awake now, right? Where’s the other pegasus?”

“She went off to get her exercise,” I said, covering up for Ace with a half-lie. Flying up to the top of the Spines to find the Walsahn was exercise, right? “She’ll catch up to us later.” In the meanwhile, I gave my mind a little kick, and my limbs immediately twitched as I roused Surge back to the realm of the living. If we were going to get started on this shit, then I needed her to be awake and here for it, too.

I did clamp down on my mouth as she came to, though. I didn’t need her spouting gibberish and weirding Sandy out. We’re discussing the Grass Trial, I thought at her to catch her up. You didn’t miss much.

Well, that’s a relief, she replied, and I felt her begin to sift through my memories to see what exactly she had missed. I was afraid this place would be burnt to the ground by the time I came to.

You don’t give me enough credit.

Sometimes I think I give you too much.

I did get a strange look from Sandy, so I could only assume I was making strange faces while Surge and I had our little dialogue. Clearing my throat, I grinned at the stallion and tapped my hooves together. “Right, so… Grass Trial. Where do we begin?”

Sandy turned to the side and pointed a hoof out over the settlement, where a tall structure barely poked out through the fog. “We’re going to start at the grand lodge,” he said. “That’s where we’re most likely to find Teka. You were right about one thing, Ember,” he said, winking at me. “Teka’s going to be your best bet to get into the Grass Trial. Even if she didn’t have any reason to support you, she might still do it just to spite her brother. And she has sway in the tribe as the current next in line for the chiefdom, since Lento doesn’t have a kid yet.”

Gauge sighed and rolled his eyes. “Of course, it has to be politics. I hate politics.”

“And yet you still dated the daughter of Blackwash’s leader,” I teased him.

“He knows how to play the game better than he lets on,” Nova quipped. The two lovers proceeded to make silly faces at each other, and Sandy and me could only shake our heads and smile.

But it was back to business soon enough, and since we’d all finished our breakfast, I stood up to get things moving. “Well, we’ve only got another two days before we get booted out of here,” I said, stacking everypony’s plates up nicely. “The sooner we get on this, the better.”

“Agreed.” Sandy nodded and stood up, and my friends did the same. “Come, follow,” he said, moving past me and beginning to descend the stairs into the settlement itself.

“Should we do something with our stuff?” I asked him, looking back towards the longhouse. “Those foals are crafty…”

Sandy smiled and paused on a little landing between sets of stairs. “Hey! Momtom stum imma’un, U’a’hn wywe nokoko” he shouted back at the lodge in the Feati language. “Lifte’set Um’a mema’hn e leol m’immapohna’hn’un sotto’hn!”

A few moments later, five sets of hooves clopped toward the door, and five foals galloped out of the building, giggling and laughing. They spared us more curious looks as they skirted down the stairs, and Sandy gave one a tousle of his mane as he scampered past. Winking at me, he beckoned toward the stairs with a shake of his head. “They’ll leave it alone, so long as you leave that drone to watch your things.”

“That’s what I was planning on,” Gauge said, filing in after me with Nova at his side. “Not much need for another set of eyes and guns down here, I don’t think.”

“I certainly hope not,” I said.

“But you never know,” Surge added, ever the skeptic.

I fought back the urge to retort her; again, I really wouldn’t do us any favors if I started arguing with myself in front of Sandy. Thankfully, he took my unwilling comment in stride. “Lento may not like outsiders, but he is a staunch proponent of tribal law,” he said. “If he promised you safety for three days, he will not go back on that promise without good reason. For now, you are welcomed guests of the tribe.” He shot me a sly smile. “Try to stay that way.”

“If there’s one thing Ember’s good at, it’s shooting her mouth off when she really shouldn’t,” Gauge teased.

“I already did that yesterday,” I huffed. “I’m not dumb enough to do it twice.”

“One can only hope.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine!” Nova said, sticking up for me. “She’s not that dense!”

I chuckled and flicked my tail. “At least somepony believes in me,” I said, grinning at my best friend. “It’s a nice change of pace for once.”

Sandy only chuckled and kept walking when he reached the bottom of the stairs, leaving the rest of us to follow him. “I’m so used to dealing with foals that sometimes I forget what outsider Aurans your age are like,” he said.

“Uh…” I blinked. “Thank you? I think?”

“You’re welcome. Now come, come, and try not to get lost in the fog.”

So we did as we were told, and the three of us plus Surge fell in behind Sandy as he led us to the big structure in the heart of the tribe. With the breakfast hour over and the day well underway, there weren’t as many ponies on the streets as there had been yesterday. Mares congregated inside huts where they stitched fabrics or prepared food, and stallions would occasionally bring them materials to work with. But for the most part, the camp was empty of its stallions; they had presumably all gone off after breakfast to begin hunting food and gathering resources for the tribe. Even the older foals seemed to mostly be gone, something I found curious.

“This place gets empty during the day, doesn’t it?” I asked Sandy.

He nodded. “The stallions go off to hunt, the mares to gather and scout, and they take their able children with them. They have to learn somehow, and the Feati don’t have textbooks or a written language. They learn by watching the adults and getting a hoof into the action as they can.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Nova said, her wings fidgeting at her sides. “They actually have to pull their own weight out there?”

“Everything is dangerous when you live in the Spines,” Sandy said. “Doubly so when you don’t have guns. But they keep their kids safe. Foals are the future of the tribe, so they can’t afford to lose them. But they can’t afford for them to be weak and coddled, either, otherwise the tribe will grow weak.” He shook his head and looked over his shoulder back at us. “I’m sure you lot understand that Auris punishes the weak.”

“Oh, you don’t even know the half of it,” I said. “We’ve had our fair share of shit to deal with between Blackwash and here.”

Sandy hummed his acknowledgement, and then he came to a stop in front of the chief’s hut. Or, well, I guess ‘hut’ is kind of a disservice to this thing. To put it simply, it was fucking huge, maybe even bigger than the longhouse we’d slept in. Entire trunks of smaller trees had been split from the ground and leaned against each other, creating a sharply angled roof that must have been fifty feet tall. While only half the height of the Brass Bank in Three Rivers, it seemed to have a resolve and sturdiness to it that the Bank’s delicate façade of painstakingly crafted wooden panels and glass lacked. There was no doubt about it: everything from the dozens of fire dishes lighting up the corners and walls of the structure, to the colorful paints splashed across the logs, to the game skulls hung above the entrance, cried that this building was the seat of Feati power, and the one who lived in it was the greatest of their tribe.

“Lento lives here?” Gauge asked. “That’s quite the house.”

“He doesn’t live here by himself,” Sandy clarified. “Teka lives here too, along with their mother. Lento’s blood brothers—his personal guard—also stay here so that they can always be close by their chief… just in case.” He pointed to a pair of stallions standing by an open set of doors leading into the structure. “Those two are some of his blood brothers. You can tell by the red feathers they wear, tucked behind each ear.”

I glanced at the two warriors, noting the spears resting on each shoulder and the bows draped across their backs. One was a unicorn and the other an earth pony, and they had all sorts of wild tattoos that faintly glowed in the dim light of the morning haze. They had armor made from some kind of wood or plant fiber, and while I had no doubt that they were fierce, I knew they still wouldn’t be able to stand up to modern weapons and armor. If Yeoman ever found the place and laid siege to it, Lento’s blood brothers wouldn’t do much to protect him against the kind of firepower he brought with him.

“So they’re all friends of Lento’s, then?” Nova asked.

“Yeah, all some of his closest friends or cousins growing up,” Sandy said. “They won’t help us, but they at least won’t stand in our way.” Then, swishing his tail, he led us up to the doors of the building, while the blood brothers watched us the entire time.

I felt the air change as we stepped inside, the humidity of the morning replaced by a smoky dryness due to the large fire burning in a pit in the center of the structure. More blood brothers milled about in here, along with what looked like servants for the royal family and a few other ponies. At the far end of the room, a large chair of carved wood stood, with crossed spears mounted on the wall behind it, and some huge skull with six sets of antlers as long as my body branching off of it. I’d never seen anything like it, but Surge apparently had.

“Is that a tree cutter’s skull?” she asked. “Looks like a mature male.”

“I’ve never heard anypony call it a tree cutter before, but the Feati call it a ‘Ho’hn Salhn’an Nokoko’, or ‘Forest Devil’.” Sandy gestured to its jaws, which in typical Auris fashion, had several rows of lethally sharp teeth. “They don’t usually come near the Feati’s settlement, but they do prowl the Spines. And they’ll eat anything they can fit their jaws around.”

“Stars!” Nova exclaimed, her whole frame leaning back on her hind legs as she shrank away from the colossal skull. “Is the rest of the thing as scary as that?”

“Shrikes seem like little chickens compared to it,” Gauge said.

“Good thing we’re not leaving the Feati settlement any time soon,” I said. I idly wondered how thick the skull of that thing was, and if my rifle could even pierce it. If it was anything like the tolan, I doubted it very much. “Unless we have to for this Grass Trial.”

“Now there’s a scary thought,” Surge interjected, and I couldn’t help but agree with her.

Sandy looked around the interior of the structure, and his ears perked when he spotted a middle-aged mare sitting at a table, weaving grassy fronds together with her hooves to make little baskets. Smiling, he trotted over to her and bowed his head, leaving the rest of us to follow him in confusion. “Ah! Feati Mema Iklimna pohnaa’ae! Ful U’a?” he asked in a cheery tone.

The mare, her face speckled with tattoos that looked almost like tears permanently falling from her eyes, offered Sandy a delighted smile in return. “Santy pohnaa’al! Bele soe’set M’a m’tikwi’hn lenwen pohnaa’al. A bunto’set hewe’hn U’a gunt kepsep’set?”

Whatever she asked him, Sandy nodded his head in reply. “T’a’hn tu’set, Feati Mema. E U’a twee, A bunto’set.”

“To, T’a’hn tu’set.” Her eyes fell on us and she raised an eyebrow. “Hwim T’a’hn immapohna’hn’un, Santy pohnaa’al? Bwonm T’a’hn M’a tikwi kampno A?”

Sandy smiled and gestured to us. “To, Feati Mema.” Then, turning to me, he beckoned for me to come closer. “She wants to know if you were the one who brought Teka back to the tribe,” he said, switching back to Equiish. “She’s very grateful to you.”

“She is?” I asked, but I stepped forward nonetheless. “Who is she? Is she going to help us?”

“She’s Teka’s mother, Iklimna,” Sandy explained, and suddenly everything clicked into place. “And I imagine she’ll want to do everything in her power to repay you for bringing her daughter back safe and sound.”

I stopped and gave Iklimna another look over now that I understood who I was dealing with. Her coat was beginning to thin and patch, and she wore colorful robes over her body as if to hide it. Her hooves were cracked and split from use, and her teeth were browning and crooked. But beneath the shell of a decaying mare, I could feel genuine emotion. Her eyes were bright and attentive, and her ears were perked and held high. Her tattoos were beautiful and ornate, helping to mask some of the wrinkles digging into the flesh around her muzzle and forehead. But even they failed to mask the sadness that seemed to hide underneath it all. When she smiled, it seemed like the emotion was clouded by regret, and her brow had adopted an almost permanent droop, as if the weight of the world perched upon it and slowly beat it down over the years. She was a hurting mare, and given what Sandy had told me about her family, I didn’t really have to stretch to imagine why.

“Uh… Hey,” I lamely said, realizing that I had no way to speak directly to this mare even though I stepped forward. “Nice to… meet you and stuff. My name is Ember,” I said, tapping my own chest to try and get the point across, “and those are my friends.”

She only gave me a patient look in return, and after a second of awkward silence, I roughly cleared my throat and turned to Sandy. “A little help? Please?”

Sandy laughed into his hoof. “Tribe Mother, you’re making her uncomfortable,” he said—in Equiish. I blinked in surprise and turned back to Iklimna, who began to softly laugh her own sad laugh in return.

“Wait,” I said, frowning at the matron of the tribe, “you speak Equiish?”

She shook her head. “Speak… strong word,” she said in clipped and stunted words, and her Feati accent made her R’s seem more like W’s and her D’s sharpened to T’s. “Know enough… yes. Speak well?” Another laugh from the mare. “No. Understand? Yes.”

“She’s speaking on Ember’s level,” I heard Gauge quip to Nova, earning a tittering laugh from the pegasus. I flicked my tail in annoyance but didn’t bother giving a bigger response than that.

“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” I said, relaxing some. If I could just talk directly to Iklimna, that would make things so much easier. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Teka’s Mom. I hope she’s doing alright and all. She’s a really good pony, and she helped save our lives on the way back from a spooky invisible scorpion-like monster. That was—!”

Surge abruptly seized control of my lungs and made me roughly clear my throat to get me to stop talking. When she did, she pointed my eyes towards Iklimna’s face, which was screwed up in concentration and confusion. “Oh, um, sorry, Tribe Mother,” she said through me, forcing me to speak slowly and clearly. “I did not mean to confuse you with my fast talking.”

Iklimna held up a hoof and shook her head. “No need for sorry,” she said. “I do okay.”

Judging by the sympathetic look on Sandy’s face, that was a lie, but at least Surge had gotten her point across to me. “Ember and her friends want to speak to Teka,” Sandy said, again bowing his head out of respect to the tribe mother. “Is she around?”

Iklimna’s ears drooped, and she gestured to a room branching off of the main hall. “Tekawenye pohnaa’ae,” she called, albeit without hardly raising her voice. “Key U’a imma’un momtom le’hn unta’hn, M’a awwm?”

I waited with bated breath for what felt like forever, but finally, I heard some movement. Hoofsteps dully echoed across the wooden floorboards, and soon the young mare in question appeared—with her head hung low. I was surprised to see such a lively and energetic young mare walking around as if the fight had been throttled out of her, but perhaps even more so to see some of the welts around her face. She’d been beaten and scarred when we rescued her, but these were fresh and still healing.

Teka shuffled out and came to a stop in front of us. Her eyes dared to wander up to mine, but when she saw me, she grimaced and looked away, almost as if in shame, or regret. When Iklimna reached out to touch her shoulder, she shrank away and mumbled some sort of question beneath her breath.

“Immapohnaa’ae’hn takka’sot U’a,” Iklimna said to her daughter. By the way she angled her gaze to me, I could assume she was letting Teka know we wanted to talk to her. Then, clearing her throat, she nodded to Sandy. “You will… speak her, yes?”

Sandy nodded and turned to me. “Whenever you’re ready, Ember.”

With a deep breath, I tried to make eye contact with Teka, which was very hard considering how small she was trying to make herself. “Hey, Teka, I uh… I hope you’re doing alright,” I said, and Sandy began to translate my words to her, even as he shot me a look that I shouldn’t waste time just having him translate pleasantries with her. “Anyway, uh…” My nostrils flared, and I decided to get right down to it. “Look. Teka, I want to get to your holy tree, because I need to see something there. Your brother won’t let me, but Sandy here told me of a way to do it. I need you to support us in entering the Grass Trial so we can go inside.”

I waited for Sandy to translate all of that into the Feati language… and then for Teka to respond. I could see from her mother at least that what I had asked was plenty surprising. I doubted that very many outsiders had ever requested to participate in the rite to get inside their huge fucking tree.

Teka began to speak, and Sandy translated it for me. “‘You want me to support you and defy my brother?’” he said, exchanging the musical words of the Feati language for Equiish.

“Your brother’s a jackass,” I said, frowning at her. “He doesn’t want us to go see the tree. From what I’ve heard, I was thinking you’d like to help us ruin those plans.”

Once again, Sandy translated my words to Teka, and when she replied, he spoke them back. “‘I can’t help you with that,’” she said through Sandy. “‘Lentowenye is my brother and the chief of the tribe. I must stand by his decisions.’”

I blinked. “Seriously?” I took a step closer to Teka, who retreated half a step in response. “What is with you, girl? Me and my friends busted our flanks to get you back home, and sure, I get it, it’s not exactly been the best for you since you got back, but come on! Don’t you just want to stick it to your brother, just once?”

Sandy rushed to translate what I said for Teka, but he didn’t have to go the other way. Teka seemed to lock up and angle her head away, gritting her teeth and growling. When she didn’t respond, and just as I was about to let out an exasperated sigh, Surge stepped in and stopped me. “Why did he hit you?” she asked, narrowing my eyes at the bruises on her face. When Sandy didn’t translate, she whipped my head towards him and raised my eyebrow. “Well? Ask her!”

Our impromptu translator swallowed hard but nevertheless began to speak. I know that he said exactly what Surge had asked because Iklimna and Teka both acted like they’d been slapped. Mother shot daughter a worried look, and daughter rubbed one of the welts on her cheek. She drew in a breath that seemed to prop up her crumbling frame, and she fixed me with a glare. “‘You don’t know anything about this!’” she exclaimed through Sandy, and the silvery tattoos across her face flickered and flashed red. “‘This doesn’t concern you!’”

“You can keep telling yourself that,” Surge said, and she frowned at the young mare and her flickering tattoos. “When you’re done pretending that’s okay, find us.”

Then, to my shock, she abruptly turned around and walked past Sandy, past Nova and Gauge, and toward the door—of course, taking me with her. “Ember?” Nova asked, blinking as we passed. “What are you…?”

Surge didn’t stop us to answer. Instead, she continued to the door while Sandy fumbled over the last words Surge had spat before we left. By the time I regained control of my limbs, we were already outside the lodge, waiting for my friends to catch up.

What was that?! I shouted at her inside my skull.

Our ticket in, was all she had to say in reply. You’ll see.

I didn’t quite believe her, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Instead, growling in frustration, I lit one of my few remaining cigarettes and angrily stomped off into the settlement, trying to get as far away from that disaster as I could.